4. Thomas
4
THOMAS
T homas trembled from head to toe as he charged away from the café gardens. He couldn’t believe he’d been accosted by a journalist in the place where he’d felt safe. Would that be it now then? Would he be harassed constantly until he upped and moved away again? Where would he go this time? To the highlands of Scotland? To Norway? To the Moon?
He marched along, barely using his cane, feeling the stress of his movement impacting upon his joints, making his muscles burn. Damn! He used to be so fit he could run for miles. He’d play a game of football without tiring, and he’d been young, strong, and invincible. That was the problem with feeling invincible though, one day you’d find out you weren’t. No one was. Humans were animals, and all animals would face their demise at some point. Nothing lived forever. Everything could suffer hurt and die.
As he reached the village, he veered around the harbour and headed towards his sister’s cottage. Marnie would know what to do and what to say to help him. She’d always been so calm and wise and without her, Thomas didn’t know how he’d have managed. The funny thing was that they’d always been close as children and then, when he’d become professional, he’d been so busy that he’d rarely had much time for his sister or her family. They hadn’t argued, but they had drifted apart. But then it had all gone wrong for Thomas and Marnie had been there to pick up the pieces. She’d been his port in the storm. His lifeboat. Without her, he might not have made it and that was a terrifying thought. He owed her his life and he hoped she knew how much he loved her and appreciated her.
When he reached Marnie’s front door, he took a few moments to slow his breathing and calm down. The last thing he wanted to do was to worry her by charging into her home all breathless and sweaty, trembling like a rabbit caught in a trap and struggling to catch his breath enough to explain what was wrong. If he had been tracked down to the village then they would discuss what he needed to do to salvage something of his privacy. There was, of course, the chance that he’d overreacted, and the woman had not been there to find him. She’d said a few things that he couldn’t really recall because fear had made his adrenaline surge and so he’d been unable to listen to her properly. It had been like when the crowds had roared at matches, and he’d been unable to hear anything other than the white noise that drove him forwards. Perhaps the woman had been saying something perfectly reasonable, and Thomas had been in the wrong to treat her the way he had.
Rubbing his hands over his face, he inhaled slowly, exhaled for longer. He felt the tension seeping from his shoulders and his chest relaxing. As his body cooled down like a car engine after a long drive, he could feel the dull throb in his left leg that would grow as the day wore on, and the soreness in his soles where his trainers had rubbed as he’d pushed himself to go faster. This damned body was so changed since it had all gone wrong, and he hated the changes. Day to day, he told himself he had much to be grateful for but now and then, when he felt his anxiety rising, the fact that he was changed and would never be the same again infuriated and frustrated him beyond measure. He was still young, and trying to accept that his career was over, and he was not the man he used to be was very hard to swallow. It left a bitter taste in his mouth and resentment that churned in his gut.
He needed his sister to help him make sense of it all again and so he knocked on her front door then unlocked it with the key she’d given him and went inside. Marnie would know what to say and soon he would feel better again.
T homas found Marnie in the large open-plan kitchen. She was sitting at the island with a bowl of ripe red strawberries in front of her and a glass of sparkling water. He pulled out a stool and sat next to her then poured himself a glass of water from the bottle.
‘What’s up?’ Marnie asked as she swivelled on her stool to get a better look at him.
Thomas took a long drink then set his glass on the island.
‘What makes you think something’s up?’ he asked, cocking an eyebrow.
‘Oh come on, Thomas, I know you.’ She reached for a strawberry and bit into it then chewed slowly while Thomas tried to find the words to explain what had happened.
‘I’m worried I might have been found.’ He picked a strawberry from the bowl and turned it over in his hands, admiring the shiny red surface that nature had made so perfect.
‘And how could that have happened?’ Marnie shifted on the stool, her big belly straining against her white maternity T-shirt. Her dark curly hair was up in a messy bun, and she was wearing dangling silver earrings with blue-green sea glass hearts while silver studs ran all the way up her ears. The dangling earrings matched the necklace she wore. Her fingers splayed over her belly were adorned with silver rings, some embedded with sea glass and others with precious stones. Her naked arms were decorated with tattoos — on the right arm seahorses swam with mermaids and on the left arm an octopus was surrounded by colourful shells.
‘It was bound to happen at some point. I mean, we’re in Cornwall not the Outer Hebrides. Sooner or later, a journalist was bound to hear I was hiding out here and come to look for me.’
Marnie took a sip of her water before replying. ‘But they wouldn’t know to look for you here.’
Thomas swallowed hard. ‘They could find out. They have their ways.’
‘But we’ve kept your name quiet, and we have different surnames because I’m married, so they wouldn’t have found you via me, would they?’
‘Not via you, no, but they could have found me easily enough. I’ve been stupid and na?ve to walk around without a disguise. These people dig into your lives and uproot everything like moles. They don’t care how much mess they make or what carnage they leave behind. They’re scumbags. Filthy rotten scumbags.’ He picked up his glass again, dismayed to see his hand trembling.
‘Hey… Thomas,’ Marnie said, sliding off her stool and coming to stand in front of him. She placed her hands on his shoulders, her big belly between them like a large beachball. ‘Breathe. Slowly in and slowly out. Do your counting. I guarantee this seems worse than it is right now. Everything will be OK, I promise you. I’m here and I’ve got you.’ She tried to lean closer to hug him but her belly was in the way, so she made do with holding his hands while he focused on his breathing. ‘There you go. Nice and calm.’
Thomas nodded as his heart rate slowed again. ‘Thanks. And sorry. I just got a bit stressed and worried that I was going to be harassed and worse, that they might come after you, Bligh and the girls.’
‘We’ll be fine, and they wouldn’t dare come after us, not with Bligh being the way he is.’ Marnie chuckled as she manoeuvred herself back onto her stool. ‘He terrifies people.’
‘That’s true.’ Thomas laughed too. Bligh was a gentle giant but his appearance led people to make assumptions about him. As a result, it was rare that anyone messed with him or his family.
‘So are you going to tell me what happened to unsettle you today?’ Marnie asked.
Thomas told her about meeting the woman at the café and his sister listened without interrupting.
‘The only thing that makes you think you might have been found is that she was, or is, a journalist?’
‘Yes. I… I got a bit anxious, and I didn’t really listen to her properly so I could have muddled things up.’
‘You could have. And it does sound like you were a bit rude, so perhaps you need to apologise to this woman if you see her again.’
Thomas sighed at the thought, but he knew his sister was right. ‘I guess so.’
‘What was she like?’ Marnie asked.
He frowned. ‘In what sense?’
‘What did she look like and sound like?’
‘She had a clear accent like she’d gone to a good university, and she was… I don’t know…’ Heat climbed his neck and flooded into his cheeks and his scar stung. He rubbed it absently.
‘So she didn’t sound like us with our Cornish accents then?’ Marnie bit into another strawberry. ‘Was she pretty?’
‘I guess so.’
‘Very pretty?’
‘She had dark red hair and pale skin and freckles. She had grey eyes… grey as pigeon feathers.’
Marnie laughed. ‘Nice comparison.’
‘I don’t know. I’m not good at this stuff. They were very grey, and I was trying to think of how to describe them.’ He hung his head. ‘Don’t make fun of me.’
‘Oh baby brother…’ Marnie reached for another strawberry then handed it to him. ‘Were her lips as red as strawberries?’
‘Cut it out!’ He smiled. ‘But, yes they were.’
They both giggled then like when they were children and Thomas felt the tension fading away. His sister was a good witch, he was sure of it, because she was always able to work magic on him.
‘Did you find her attractive?’ Marnie asked.
‘She was very pretty but it was the last thing on my mind. You know I’m not interested in anything like that now.’ He stared down at the cane that he’d propped against the island and touched the scar on his face again, thought of the ones beneath his clothes and how ugly they were.
‘You are a wonderful man, and you deserve to be loved,’ Marnie said gently.
‘I’m not interested, Marnie. You know that and you know why.’
His sister sighed then took a drink of her water. ‘It’s time to forgive yourself, Thomas. It’s time to let go. You get one life, and you need to live it. We’re all scarred in some way or other and we must live with those scars, but we can still enjoy the time we have.’
Thomas let her words wash over him like the rolling waves of the sea. She was right about that but none of it was easy, especially not forgiving himself or letting go.