Chapter 43 Birdy
BIRDY
I wake up, look in the mirror, and barely recognize myself.
The first thing I think of every day now is how many days I have left.
Thanks to Thanatos, it’s like I have a death clock ticking inside my mind.
It’s impossible not to worry. All I can think about is what happens to who I love when I am not here to love them anymore.
Like my dog. I’ve written a will, made some plans, but that doesn’t make me worry less.
People rarely do what they should, they do what they want instead, because humans are a selfish species.
I know I should focus on the present, make the most of the time I have left, but like so many things in life that is harder to do than it is to say.
How can a person live in the now when, every single second, now becomes then?
The present is only ever the past in the making.
I heard Carter leave in the middle of the night, but I kept my eyes closed and pretended to be asleep.
Once I was sure he was gone and saw him walking down the lane outside the pub, I whistled for Sunday.
My most loyal friend—my only friend—came running up the stairs, leapt onto the bed, and made a very good replacement.
I am normally okay being alone but right now I don’t want to be.
The physical and emotional pain was too much yesterday; it’s getting harder to hide.
The thoughts that trespass in my head are too loud for me to sleep or dream, and even when I do, my dreams turn into nightmares.
I’m not scared of dying, I’m just scared of what it means.
Soon I’ll be nothing more than a memory.
Pretty soon after then I won’t even be that.
Everyone who remembered me will be gone too.
I didn’t intend to sleep with Carter again, and I know I shouldn’t have, but maybe I just wanted to trick myself into thinking that someone somewhere might miss me when I am gone.
That I didn’t completely waste my life. That it wasn’t all for nothing.
When the sun starts to rise I decide to stop wasting what little time I have left.
I get myself up, get myself dressed, and get myself ready. It’s going to be another long day.
I call Carter to tell him where to meet me but his phone goes straight to voicemail.
I don’t like leaving messages, and I don’t see the point, his phone will show him that I called and that should be enough for him to know to call me back as soon as possible.
It’s still too early for Maddy to have opened the pub, so Sunday and I head out in search of breakfast. I see that the Driftwood Café overlooking the harbor is already open.
“We’re closing soon,” the old woman behind the counter hollers in a thick Cornish accent when I step inside.
She’s busy with something and doesn’t even look up.
Her eyes are too big for her face, and she radiates a no-nonsense vibe.
Cath—if the name badge is to be believed—served me coffee yesterday, but has clearly forgotten me already.
Just like everyone will soon. “We only open early doors at this time of year, to cook breakfast for the local fishermen before they head out for the day,” she says, and now that she’s mentioned it I did notice there were fewer boats in the harbor.
“Oh, it’s you,” she says, finally looking up and seeing me.
A sliver of a smile spreads across her face.
“The woman with the bird tattoo on your hand.”
Perhaps I’m not as forgettable as I feared.
“Do you want two coffees again? I can manage that before I lock up,” she says.
“Just one would be great. I’m on my own today.”
I don’t know why I said that.
I’m on my own every sodding day.
I must look as shit as I feel because Cath seems to take pity on me.
“Had a falling-out with someone, have you? Don’t you worry, love. There’s plenty more fish in the sea, you might just need a better net.”
Plenty of trash in the sea too.
“I’ve got a bit of leftover bacon and eggs if you’d like some? Perhaps a sausage for the dog?” Cath offers.
“Thank you. I forgot to eat yesterday after what happened.”
She shrugs. “You mean the suicide?” I nod. “Can’t let a thing like that ruin your appetite, it happens all the time. There are a lot of sad people in the world.”
Her indifference shocks me. Maybe the world would be less sad if people cared a bit more. I think of Mum and blink away the tears that are threatening to fall. I don’t know what is wrong with me today.
Everything.
“You all right, pet?” Cath asks, as though she can see inside my head.
No.
“Yes, sorry. I didn’t sleep well.”
“Not eating and not sleeping are a recipe for not feeling like yourself. Everything seems worse than it is when you’re tired, and nothing good was achieved on an empty stomach.
” A woman after my own heart. “You sit yourself down and I’ll make us both a cup of coffee—the good stuff—and get you some breakfast. Just let me lock up and get the dishwasher on first or I won’t be home in time for This Morning,” she says, waddling past me to flip the OPEN sign to CLOSED.
“Did you know her? The missing woman?” I ask, taking a seat in the booth nearest to the kitchen, while Cath makes me a plate.
“No, and I’m not one for gossip,” she says, sounding like someone who lives for it. “But from what I’ve heard she was a wealthy woman who moved here from London, fancied herself as an artist.”
“Nobody seems to know very much about her.”
“Nobody knows anyone anymore, do they? Not really. People only care about the people they care about, and these days that’s often themselves.”
Cath sounds like an unexpected kindred spirit. She puts a plate of food down in front of me, and takes off her apron. “You eat what you can, pet. It’s on the house.”
“I’m happy to pay—”
She shakes her head. “Accept kindness when it’s offered, it’s in short supply.”
I think I like being someone’s good deed.
I thank her and eat, moving the bacon away from the eggs on my plate before I start so that they are not touching.
I am not used to people being nice to me, and Cath has been kind for reasons I don’t quite understand.
As though she sees me. The real me. I suspect she misses having a busy café filled with people to chat to.
“The missing artist had an exhibition the other night. Did you go?” I ask.
She shakes her head. “I get up early every day to open this place for the fishermen, so I never go out late. Never go out at all these days, truth be told. Enjoy life while you can because you’ll catch up with the likes of me sooner than you think.
Old age sneaks up on us all like an unwelcome thief. ”
It will never catch up with me.
I silence the thought, along with all the others I’m too scared to think out loud.
“But I saw her yesterday morning just before she jumped,” Cath says then.
“Eden Fox?”
“I watched her run up the hill. She had this lost look about her, like she didn’t want to be here anymore. I see it all the time.”
I wonder what this woman sees when she sees me.
“You’re sure it was her?”
“Who else would it have been?”
“Did you see anyone else?”
“Not that I remember, but I would have been busy in the kitchen.”
I thank Cath for breakfast and try to pay again but she refuses. She walks me to the door to unlock it, then points out a man on the cliff path. “Old Stu might have seen more than me. He was walking his dog, just like he always does in the morning.”
After I leave I call Carter but his phone goes to voicemail again.
No bother, Carter already sent me a transcript of his interview with “Old Stu” the dog walker yesterday.
I didn’t read it before, but I plan to now.
When Sunday and I return to The Smuggler’s Inn the doors are unlocked and Maddy is back behind the bar.
“You’re up and out early,” she says. “How was your breakfast at the café?”
Has she been spying on me?
“Lovely. It was the only place open when I woke up, I’ve always been an early bird,” I reply, but she misses the reference to my name. “Not like your brother. Can’t get hold of him at all so far today.”
She frowns, looks a little defensive on his behalf. “That’s not like him.”
It’s nice that she’s so protective of her little brother, they’re obviously very close.
I hope they aren’t so close that she knows about me sleeping with him.
I feel embarrassed asking his sister the next question, but I just want to be sure I haven’t made an even bigger mistake than the one I knew I was making.
I thought Carter was single but I now realize I never checked. I force my face to smile.
“Is there a girlfriend who keeps him up all night and makes him late for work?” I ask.
Maddy smiles too, shakes her head of red curls, and I feel a rush of relief.
“No jealous girlfriends to worry about. Just his wife.”