Chapter 1 #2
His face is set and cold. “What makes you a top-notch researcher makes you a shitty person.”
I sit up straight, a small spark of anger heating my chest. “I beg your pardon?”
“At work, the fact that you’re cool and analytical is a good thing, but it’s weird in a person. Just saying.”
“You’re always just saying. I could write a book of your just sayings. It would include gems such as, ‘You do know clothing doesn’t fold itself’ and ‘No one in life ever needs that extra mojito.’ News flash, they actually do.”
He rolls his eyes. “Nothing matters to you. You sleep with anyone and then move on to the next one without looking back.”
“Reader, Adrian had reached the slut-shaming element of the morning.”
“I’m going home. I’m not wasting my time with a sharp-tongued ice cube like you.”
“Oh, why won’t time stand still while I mend my broken heart?”
He marches to the door. “And flippancy never solved anything.”
“It’s certainly helped in dealing with your personality,” I shoot back.
The door slams behind him, and I hear his footsteps go rapidly down the corridor.
“Shit,” I say and fall back against the pillows. I stare at the ceiling. In a corner, a little spider is busily building its web and ignoring the domestic dramas going on beneath it.
“I suppose I’m looking for a new job, then,” I say out loud. I shake my head. “Fuck.”
I should have known better. Adrian was as nice as pie when he was just my boss.
The difference in him since we started seeing each other has got to be down to me.
It happens every time. I meet a nice man, and within hours, he’s a raving lunatic.
It’s like a particularly malevolent fairy godmother visited me at birth and bestowed the ability to drive men into a mantrum.
I wish that fairy were here, and I could give her a piece of my mind.
I can’t believe I was so stupid to forget this relationship track rate when I started seeing my boss.
I pick at a loose thread on the sheet. The thing is, maybe Adrian isn’t wrong.
I adore sex—the push and pull of two men, the feel of a man shoving inside me, stretching me open, the sweat and the sounds—but once I’ve come, it’s like something in me turns off, and any interest in that man is as dead as cold ashes.
I’m therefore unsure why I allowed Adrian to make a potential hookup into a pre-Christmas mini break.
Maybe I just wanted to see if I could be different, but I’m definitely going to pay the piper for that particular whimsy.
It’s a sad fact that all my relationships—friendships or hookups—don’t seem, as Adrian suggested, to ever get past the surface level.
I’m not really close to anyone, apart from my family.
I have cordial friends, but no one to whom I’d turn in the middle of the night.
No one who I would yearn to talk to. Maybe they all sense the same coldness in me that Adrian did.
I’m like a well-contained island drifting along in a big sea, and I have no idea how to change that state of being.
I’ve never met anyone who stopped me in my tracks—someone from whom I couldn’t move on easily. And secretly, I yearn for that closeness I see in other people’s relationships.
I think of the glowing mist in my dream and the lovely voice that spoke to me, and then push my thoughts away. I should get dressed and cancel our room. We were planning to spend Christmas in Cornwall, but now it looks like I’m going home.
I consider carrying on with the holiday, but there doesn’t seem to be much point now. I might as well feel like an unemployed emotional failure at home where I won’t have to bear the cost of a hotel room.
Half an hour later, showered and packed, I make my way into the dining room.
It’s full of the scent of food and the low hum of conversation.
Christmas decorations stir in the warm air, and Chris Rea’s “Driving Home for Christmas” is playing softly, proof of the universe’s sense of humour.
Taking my seat, I reach for a copy of the local paper that the hotel leaves on the tables for their guests.
I’ve always loved local papers. They seem removed from the doom and gloom of the national press, focusing instead on the little things.
It’s like being given a deeper glimpse into small worlds that I travel through.
I flick through the pages, reading news of a curtain accidentally coming down in the middle of a village pantomime, a freak wave at low tide that soaked visitors to Mousehole, and an accident with a postal van that resulted in holiday mail blowing out to sea.
“Good morning.”
I smile up at the waitress. “Hello.”
“Just you today?” she asks, getting out her pad and pen and looking vainly for Adrian. She should try the M5.
“Ah, yes, and for the foreseeable future. He’s gone home,” I say absently as I reach for the menu and quickly scan it.
“At Christmas?”
Her dismay is somewhat jarring, and I look up. “It’s fine. I’ve been dumped on all the major holidays.”
“But it’s Christmas.”
I shake my head. “Don’t worry about it. I will be going home today, too, so I’ll let reception know after I’ve had my breakfast. I’ll have eggs Benedict, orange juice, and a pot of tea, please.”
She writes the order down. “You’re not tempted to see Cornwall by yourself, then?”
“There’s no point now.”
She gives me a tragic smile that might be more suited to someone in a Shakespeare play and heads off to the kitchen.
I tidy my cutlery and look around the room absently.
Everyone is either part of a couple or a family unit, their faces happy as befitting the season.
I must stick out like a sore thumb. I catch my reflection in a big gilt mirror opposite the table.
I look the same as ever—blond curly hair that’s already rebelled against my earlier combing, thin face, and blue eyes.
I look insubstantial, like a ghost in the busy room.
The Grey Man. Hardly a catch this morning. Or any time, if you ask Adrian.
“You should see the Minack Theatre before you go.”
I jump, startled, and see the waitress has come back to my table. How the hell did she get there without her reflection showing in the mirror? “Sorry?”
“The Minack. It’s an outdoor theatre on the edge of the sea. You should visit it.”
Her insistence is rather puzzling, but I nod politely and say, “I might just do that.”
“Don’t forget. It’s an important place for you.”
Her eyes are fierce and sparkling and seem almost too big for her face.
For a second, I have the sense of falling from a great height, and then she blinks and I feel myself steady.
The fierceness is gone from her expression, as if it had never been there.
She looks down at me as if suddenly realising I’m here.
I clear my throat. “Thanks for the tip.”
Her brow furrows. “Pardon?”
“The Minack. You said to go there before I leave.”
“Did I? Oh yes, of course.”
I have the strangest feeling she doesn’t remember the recommendation, but why would that be? I stare at her.
She visibly collects herself. “Well, it’s a nice place,” she says rather vaguely. “Everyone visits the Minack.”
After giving me a polite smile, she wanders over to an old couple who are signalling her.
I watch her go, oddly confused, and then shrug it away.
The sun has a cold winter gleam, and the wind is stiff as I manoeuvre down the winding Cornish roads that the satnav informs me will definitely lead to the Minack Theatre.
I retain my scepticism, because it’ll probably take me there via a track that even sheep would hesitate to use.
I’ve become wise to this hired car’s navigation system, which the devil apparently programmed.
As if on cue, it intones, “Turn left.”
I look dubiously at the field in question and decide to keep going. “Not today, Satan,” I say grimly.
The car is another thing I should have recognised as an omen.
I’d signed on to rent a luxury SUV, but when we arrived at the hire car place, this small Fiat Panda in an unfortunate shade of vomit-green was what was waiting.
Adrian had fussed loudly at the assistant, and eventually I’d taken pity on her and said it would be fine.
I’m sensing that decision will soon bite me on the arse, because the car is making very funny noises this morning.
I change gears to go up a hill, and there’s a loud clanking, and the vehicle groans as if contemplating death.
I can’t say I blame it. The hills in Cornwall are steep.
I’d need a defibrillator if I were walking.
I downshift again and somehow make it to the top, where I’m greeted with a brown tourist sign advertising the Minack in six miles.
I obediently take the turn, ignoring the satnav that’s now imploring me to take a path that looks like it would land me in a watery grave under the sea.
I pass big houses and a scattering of hotels, their tennis courts empty and the nets flapping forlornly in the wind. Everywhere looks cold and empty, the doors and windows closed. I feel like the last man on earth—Odysseus wandering with no home at the end of the journey.
I should have gone straight back to London.
I’ve lost the heart to see Cornwall, which is a shame because the decision to come here for the holiday had been mine.
Adrian wanted to go to Tenerife, but I’d talked him out of it.
I’d seen a programme about Cornwall on TV, and something had come to life in me.
I’d remembered the stories of Cornish myths and legends that my dad had told me when I was little, and a longing to see the place had sprung up in me that I still can’t explain.
I’m not given to fancifulness, but I must have succumbed briefly because I’d spoken beguilingly to Adrian of long walks on pretty beaches and cuddling up by the fire in old pubs.