CHAPTER 36
Nicholas
Cornwall
As they strolled along the dunes – almost purple in the dusk of the November afternoon – the sea dark and heavy below them, at last Nicholas began to relax.
He had been delighted to hear that Celie was coming for the weekend and had spent all morning since her hurried phone call dusting and vacuuming the cottage until it glowed with the unexpected attention.
He wanted everything to be perfect for Celie, wanted to give her every reason he could to visit – often.
And to know how much he valued these visits. And her.
He’d even whizzed down to the flower shop to buy sweetly perfumed cream stocks for the guest bedroom and had laid out fresh towels on the bed and soap in the little white washbasin. Rachel would be amazed. Nicholas was amazed at himself.
He tucked Celie’s hand into the crook of his arm.
The grass was sparse and spiky at this time of year.
They were walking past the wetlands and towards the lighthouse, out in the distance, on Godrevy Island.
They’d walked here many a time in Celie’s childhood.
Usually in spring, when the purple thrift grew dense on the cliff, or in summer when the seals could be spotted basking in the bay.
Though for Nicholas, Godrevy was special at any time of year.
They paused for a moment. The sun was setting over the sea – a golden-red orb, the sky around it blushed pink and pale blue. Nicholas chuckled.
‘What?’ She smiled at him.
‘Do you remember? That photo we took here?’ Rachel and Celie, arms encircled, as though they were cradling the setting sun.
‘Yeah.’ She laughed. Shot him a bit of a look, though. A sort of stop living in the past look. He wasn’t. But as you grew older you got a lot of pleasure out of memories.
They walked on, looking down at the black rocks and pale gold sand below.
The sharp wind was whipping the tide, sending the spume flying.
‘So, how’s it going in London?’ Nicholas asked her.
She’d recently started a new PA job and seemed brighter and happier.
In fact, she was positively flushed with it.
It couldn’t be just the job. It must be love.
Yes, and he remembered that feeling too . . .
She squeezed his arm. ‘Work’s fine, although one of the project managers is a bit of a pain. He took me out for breakfast last week and . . .’
He let her talk, loving to hear about her new life, enjoying the sound of her voice, her enthusiasm as they climbed up the dunes and along the boardwalk past the clumps of spiny gorse.
There weren’t many people around today and Nicholas preferred it like that.
Cornwall was always more satisfying when the visitors went home, when the weather defeated all but the most hardy, when the place was as bleak as it should be.
Celie paused, as if waiting for him to say something.
‘And how’s Tom?’ he asked. He hadn’t quite decided yet, about Tom.
‘He’s good,’ Celie said, and her voice softened, her gaze moving out past the heaving sea into the winter distance of clouds and approaching darkness.
Celie, he realised, had decided about Tom. Celie, for the first time in her life, was serious about a boyfriend. Very serious. He felt a faint sense of loss, of something slipping away. She was still so young.
Up on this cliff the grass was greener and the lighthouse closer, a white beacon on the black rocks of the island.
The path was narrower here and they moved into single file.
But it was getting chilly. Nicholas began to walk more briskly and felt Celie’s steps quicken to match his own.
They probably wouldn’t walk as far as the lighthouse, he reckoned.
As it was, they’d be retracing their steps in the dark, and although he had his torch with him, it would be cold, maybe too cold for Celie, in her thin coat, which was more fashion statement than protection from the elements.
He stuck his hands in the pockets of his warm quilted jacket, tried to make his voice more jolly.
Who wanted to visit a grumpy old misery?
No way would he become that man. ‘I’ll come and see you,’ he said.
‘Take you out to dinner. My treat.’ After all, he had a place in London, he just didn’t stay there very often.
And when he did, he was usually headed for Gatwick or Heathrow the following day.
‘That would be nice.’ He heard her guarded tone, half lost in the wind.
And realised he hadn’t encouraged the relationship between Celie and Tom, hadn’t welcomed him, hadn’t taken much trouble to include him or get to know what made him tick.
Perhaps all fathers were the same, he thought. Anxious, possessive, overprotective.
‘And you, Dad?’ Her voice changed. ‘How are you doing?’
‘Oh, fine, fine.’
She sighed. ‘I mean, really.’
They were higher up now, the cliff steeper, the grass slippy with moisture, the lighthouse seeming to beckon them on.
Sometimes he wondered if Celie really wanted him to be fine. Or if she wanted to despair of him, to say to Tom, Oh, Dad’s lovely, but he’s so hopeless. And he’ll never get over losing Mum. But to be fair to Celie, maybe all she wanted was an honest answer.
Nicholas laughed. ‘I’m really fine,’ he said. And it was almost true. He certainly felt more at peace with himself than he had for a while. ‘I’m off to Portugal next week. Giuseppe wants to find a new outlet in Lisbon.’
‘Right. That sounds great, Dad.’
‘Yeah.’ Nicholas was really looking forward to it.
Because he had a purpose. Not only was he going there to check out the possible traders who might be interested in Insight Jewellery, but he was planning to go on Joanna Shepherd’s Lisbon bridge walk.
God knows what he was expecting. He would have written back to her by now if it hadn’t been for Celie’s visit.
But he’d do so very soon. He knew what he wanted to say to her – her words about distance had struck a chord.
He wanted, for some reason, to tell her about Celie too.
And he was eagerly anticipating walk number two.
The path was wider now, the grass grazed short, the lighthouse closer still, the white waves clustering around the rocks at its base.
But the afternoon was dimming. ‘Shall we head back?’ he suggested to Celie.
He had a chicken casserole in the oven; he’d light an open fire and some candles.
He and Celie would settle down, and things .
. . No, of course they wouldn’t be as they’d been before.
But they would be good, he told himself.
‘OK.’ She prodded him affectionately. ‘But don’t change the subject. Are you doing all right on your own? Are you lonely? Have you joined any clubs or anything?’
Nicholas laughed. What did she want him to do – enrol in a ramblers’ society or a bridge four? Take up bowling or Pilates? ‘You worry too much, my girl.’
‘Dad . . .’
‘Look.’ He took a deep breath. The air was cold on his face. ‘You know how devastated I was when your mother left . . .’ But sometime after she left, sometime after those tacky one-night stands, that overwhelming sense of loss . . . he had realised that what he missed was not Rachel at all.
Nicholas shook his head and took Celie’s arm again as they turned around. ‘But that was then,’ he said.
No. He missed himself – just like he’d told Joanna Shepherd.
But what he also missed was family. It was the sense of belonging to a unit – a damaged unit possibly, but still a unit.
He, Rachel and Celie were the Tresillion family.
They might argue, or one of them go away without the others, but each of them always returned to the family home.
It was a stronghold. When Celie and then Rachel left, Nicholas’s sense of family had left with them.
He became isolated somehow. That was what had been the hardest, he supposed. Losing his security. His base.
He had tried to explain this in his email to Joanna when he’d told her about losing his role, sensing that she would understand. And now, he tried to explain it to Celie too.
She listened in silence as they trudged back along the cliff, buffeted by the wind, the growing darkness giving his words some surreal quality.
‘I know what you mean,’ she said at last, not denying it, as he had almost hoped she would. ‘The members of the family are all still there. And I know you and Mum both love me. But it’s not the same.’
He nodded, not trusting himself to speak. They were back on the purple-brown sand dunes now, the sun had gone down and the sky was edging into night-time.
He listened to the waves as they broke and then drew back from the shore.
A long, low crassshhh . . . He loved the combination of sea and darkness.
It was magical. He put his arm around Celie’s shoulders.
In that moment he felt as close to her as he ever had.
And what really mattered, he knew, was that he hadn’t lost her.
They walked down the dunes onto the path, Nicholas shining his torch ahead of them. The light flickered over the grass. He could feel the hesitation.
‘I expect you’re wondering, why the visit out of the blue?’ Celie asked after a few moments.
‘Well . . .’ He’d kind of assumed she just wanted to see him.
‘I wasn’t sure how you’d react.’ She looked embarrassed, studying first her fingernails, then looking across at him – intently – as they walked towards the cottage. ‘And I didn’t want to tell you on the phone.’
‘How I’d react to what?’ His stomach curled. What was the worst thing? She was emigrating to Australia or Thailand? She’d been diagnosed with some dreadful disease? Jesus . . .
‘I’m pregnant,’ she said. She touched her stomach, lightly, with her free hand.
Nicholas stopped walking. ‘Pregnant?’
‘Yeah.’
What was he supposed to say? Ask her how long? If it was planned? If she was glad?
But he knew she was glad. It was written all over her. She was waiting and it was one of those important moments that he mustn’t mess up. He opened his arms and pulled her into a hug.
Celie was glad. So how could he not feel the same?