2. Iris
Iris
I slept better than I had any right to, given I was in a strange bed in a strange place with strange noises, or lack of noises.
My apartment in London’s Soho district was central, in the midst of the hustle of theatre-goers and people socialising as well as all the tourists. I had triple glazed windows which eradicated most of the noise but given I liked to sleep with a window open, I’d grown use to a lullaby of sounds.
Last night the only sound had been that of the sea and the wind and the rain, with the occasional interruption from a seagull. There were no shouted words or the sound of traffic or the dulcet noises of someone throwing up the bad choice of a late-night kebab after too many jaeger-bombs. Just a soundscape of nature.
I woke when it grew light, having not bothered to close the blinds because there was no one to look inside given my only neighbours wore feathers. The bed was comfy and soft, the cotton bedding silky and luxurious without feeling like it came from a packet that shouted about how much the thread count was.
I was in Gully’s house in Puffin Bay, a fact that took me a few seconds to bring to mind. I was here to stay with my closest friend in a place my sister had loved and spent her final days.
I was here to decide whether to go ahead with trying to get pregnant through unconventional means, something nature had decided when I was too young to really understand what that would mean.
I hadn’t grieved about my infertility until my school friends started on their own families. It was when I saw their photos on social media, hands cupping bumps, faces glowing, captions about being grateful, when it hit that for me to have that would be a complicated process. By this time, I knew what Ivy had done. She’d had her eggs harvested when I was twenty-one, letting me know in a text which was followed up with some legal documents that enabled me to use her eggs in order to have a baby of my own.
It was the greatest gift she could’ve given me. I knew that at the time, but didn’t acknowledge it, because I didn’t know how to. I could carry a baby and give birth, or there was no reason that we knew why I couldn’t, but my eggs weren’t there. The beauty of early menopause, and I meant that as sarcastically as possible.
I looked at the sea from the window, floor to ceiling glass like they all were on this side of the house, with a view for days over the Menai Strait. The mist from yesterday had lifted, and while the sky and the sea were still the shade of winter grey, I could see the mountains of Eryri and the shape of the landscape. A few boats bobbed up and down on the tide and gulls dipped and dived on the wind.
It was perfect.
Bed stopped feeling as appealing, the urge to grab my camera the biggest driver right now. Morning light, however pale at this time of year, glimmered down, cascading through the grey. This needed to be captured.
Light could change within seconds, which was why I pulled on sweatpants and a hoodie over my pyjamas and didn’t bother checking the mirror. I was well aware that my hair would be shooting out in whichever direction and my skin was probably creased from sleep, but all that mattered was registering this moment forever.
My camera was always good to go. I picked up the case and almost fell over my own feet in a rush to get outside and head towards the water.
Gully was nowhere to be seen, which didn’t really register. I stuck my feet into a pair of trainers and headed out through the bifold doors into the garden and down it to the decking which formed the house’s private jetty.
If anyone noticed what I was doing, they’d question my sanity right now, because I ended up flat on my belly, aiming for a shot that was from a lower perspective, capturing the sky and the sea and that beautiful light before it disappeared.
How much time passed, I didn’t know or care. This was one of my happy places, taking photos that later I could view and mull over. Some would be edited and filtered, turned into something that resembled a painting rather than a photo. Some photos would stay raw.
The light moved, shifting into something else, creating shadows that could’ve been eerie, but here they were just dancing silhouettes.
I had no idea how long Gully had been standing there when I noticed him, awareness settling in that I was no longer alone.
“Hey.” I came out of my daze, considering putting my camera away, but clutching onto it instead. “How long have you been there for?”
His grin was amused, his hands cupping round a mug of what I guessed was coffee. “About ten minutes, but I’ve been watching you for about three quarters of an hour.”
“Stalker tendencies much?” I pressed my hair down self-consciously.
He laughed and shook his head, his eyes dancing.
I readied my camera.
“I was in my study and saw you. Get some good shots?”
I nodded, holding up my camera. “I can get more if you let me.”
He shook his head but didn’t protest.
Gully was photogenic. The camera loved him no matter what angle it was coming from. His face had angles and plains that the light adored, and his eyes had all the emotion of an Oscar-winning movie.
I loved taking photos full stop. This morning would be a forever memory, of the boats and the light and the sea, but my passion was taking photos of people and helping them to tell their story in just one shot.
I was gifted, I knew, at getting people to work with the camera. I put them at ease, managed to get them to relax and then to feel. It was those feelings I wanted on film – and sometimes I did still work with film.
Gully loved the camera as much as it was his biggest fan. It was a mutual appreciation society which made him easy and a pleasure to shoot.
There was something more in his eyes this morning, standing on the jetty. I shifted round so the sea was the backdrop, a weeping willow casting its branches at the water’s edge and started to click the button to take photos of him smiling, then faux frowning, posing like he was a model, which he could possibly have been.
I didn’t instruct him, letting him move how he wanted, sometimes being silly, sometimes serious.
He gave me one last pose, one that would make a good headshot for his author stuff and then looked sadly at his coffee mug.
“What’s left is cold. I think we need to warm up.”
I nodded, putting my camera back in the case, desperate to see the photos I’d taken but knowing that I’d see them better if I left them for a few hours. “Hot chocolate. I really fancy a hot chocolate. Do you have any in?”
He looked smug. “Of course. I stocked up before you got here. Let’s get inside.”
I didn’t realise how cold I was until I was indoors, the scent of coffee filling the air, music piping through speakers I hadn’t noticed yet.
“How long have you been up?” I opened the fridge, finding it full of all sorts of nice things. He was right, he had stocked up.
“Since about seven. I’m writing early at the moment. We weren’t in bed late either.” He started to mess around with the coffee machine.
The talk of bed made me stiffen. We’d never really spoken about the night we’d shared in New Orleans, although the memories of it were still clearer than any other. I’d tried not to replay it too often, knowing that it had probably wrecked me for any other man – in fact, you could take the probably out of that.
It had wrecked me.
But he’d never given any indication that it’d wrecked him in the same way, so we’d both carried on dating and living and making way in our parallel lives.
Which was fine and good and a friendship I valued because it felt like forever.
“How’s the writing going?”
“Good.” He nodded as if underlining the word with the gesture. “It’s flowing, so I’m making hay while the sun shines. I might be able to get a couple of books done in the time it’d take for one usually, so if I need to take a break, I can.”
“Would you actually be able to stop writing?”
He laughed. “No. If someone tells me I can have a break, I want to write even more. It makes no sense, I know.”
“Enjoy it then. Where’s this hot chocolate?” I brought us back to easier subjects.
“Sit down, I’ll make it for you.”
I wasn’t one to be waited on. I was capable of looking after myself, thank you very much, but for some reason, I let Gully make the drinks and then a breakfast of pancakes with fruit and syrup, watching him busy about the kitchen in a way that I hadn’t expected.
We hadn’t spent much, if any, time together inside someone’s home. Our time with each other had been when we were away, staying in hotels or briefly at mine for a night in London. This stay, however long it lasted, was going to show me a different side to him and I was looking forward to it.
We had breakfast looking out over the garden to the jetty, watching the boats and the mist that dropped down. A sea-fret, it was called, and when it cleared the sunshine would return.
“How long can you stay for?” he asked, while he was loading the dishwasher. “I’m hoping it’s a while.”
“I have a few bookings that I don’t want to cancel. They’re big ones and between them bring in as much income as I made with everything last year, but I’m flexible. I guess a lot of it depends on what we decide.” This was the first either of us had mentioned what I was here for, or what the main reason was.
“There’s a lot to talk about. Logistics. Where we both live. How things work.” He spoke to the mug he’d picked up rather than me.
“I’d move here.”
Gully laughed. “You haven’t seen the place properly yet.”
“I don’t need to. I can literally be based anywhere. My job means I have to be away sometimes, and so does yours, but we can coordinate that. If we have a baby, they’d grow up here with family and cousins and Mavis’ stories. I don’t see any reason why that wouldn’t be the right thing to do.” My heart sang as I said the words. It felt like the pieces were clicking together in the right places.
“Oh.” Gully looked puzzled. “That would make sense.”
“It would. Why are you surprised?”
He shrugged and mussed his hair. “Because I thought it would be more complicated than that. You’d still want to be in London or somewhere, but I guess there’s no reason for that.”
“There isn’t. I can buy somewhere in Puffin Bay, if somewhere comes up. I might do that anyway. Ivy loved it here and just seeing the views this morning and everything you’ve said about the place – it feels right. I love travelling but it isn’t the places you see; it’s what you do with your memories when you return home and right now, I don’t have a home.”
I expected him to say something, but instead he studied me, not giving anything away.
“Your thoughts?” I needed something, a response, an acknowledgement. Something.
“I think we should take a walk and have a look around. If you’re thinking about living here permanently, you need to see more of this place.”
We headed out, my camera fixed to me as usual, my clothing practical rather than fashionable. The forecast was cold but fine, no rain forecast for the next couple of days, which was ideal so I could explore this town my sister had fallen in love with.
We didn’t head straight for the town itself, taking a long road from Gully’s house to the coastal path that was built onto one of the cliffs.
I’d been here before, almost four years ago.
The birds were singing. They darted from shrub to shrub in front of us, a cheeky robin eyeing us up, seeing whether we were carrying food.
The spot where Ivy had come off her bike and flipped over the cliff bore no scars. The trees and shrubs that had tried to break her fall had grown back, the path no longer marked from the skid of the wheels.
I’d seen the photographs of the aftermath during the coroner’s inquiry. I’d walked up here before the funeral, trying to understand why she was no longer here.
Time does not heal. I’d long since accepted that, but old and new memories provide a cushion from which we can rebound, and I did rebound, each time I felt myself shatter over the loss of her, there was something that reminded me that I lived, and it was still a good life.
“Here it is.” I stopped still.
Gully stood a few feet away from me, looking out to the sea. “I think she was coming down here to watch the storm. It was a low tide.”
“Maybe you’re right. Is the arch down there?” I’d seen photos of the archway, made with driftwood, surrounding an old gate carved with mystical symbols that were that mystical no one knew what they actually meant.
“It’s a steep walk down and worse up.” He looked at me, appraising almost. “How fit are you?”
“Pretty fit. You won’t have to carry me.” I liked the idea of him carrying me.
He raised an eyebrow and looked questioningly at me. “We’ll see. You okay?”
He wasn’t asking about the walk. “I’m fine. This place is part of my life, just like it’s yours.”
There was just a nod, an acknowledgement, then we started the drop down. The steps were uneven, haphazardly put in as they were needed rather than with a plan, which meant I spent more time concentrating on how not to slip rather than the view, which was mainly hidden with bracken and evergreens.
The descent smoothed out as we reached the bottom, the path widening and becoming a slope down to the beach, the view opening up.
The tide was out, stretches of empty sand lay out in front of us, a cove surrounded with high cliff faces, another jetty of rock jutting out into the sea.
But before that there was a fence, roughly made to separate the path from the beach, partially patched up with bushes and trees, and in the middle of that was the arch way and the gate.
Ivy had climbed all over it, weaving its way over the wood, the green of its leaves one of the only colours other than the pale greys and sand.
“This is it. This is Ivy’s Arch?” Tears weren’t going to be stopped.
“It is. I thought I should bring you here first so you didn’t have to keep anticipating what it’d be like when you see it.” He leaned against the wood, running his fingers over the gate where it was carved. “The gate isn’t the original. The original hasn’t been here for decades, I suppose. When the gate starts looking a bit knackered, someone makes a new one and replaces it so the original design’s never lost.”
“It’s pretty. It’s more than pretty.” I saw the clumps of rocks that I recognised from a photo Gully sent a couple of years ago of him and his brothers sitting on them, playing guitars and laughing. There’d been other pictures, ones that included his sisters-in-law and then his niece and nephew. A family.
“I know why you like it here.”
Gully nodded, smiling, but the smile was pale.
“I know why Ivy liked it here. I think you might be right. She would’ve come here to watch the storm. I can imagine it being spectacular.”
“It is. You’re further away from it rolling across the Strait than the lighthouse, so you get a different view.” He stepped closer to me. “It took me awhile to not hate this place after she died. But I chose to find peace with it.”
“I understand that. This place will be here long after us – any of us.” I unpacked my camera. “Time to make a record of how it looked today. Smile.”
I knew I still had tears on my cheeks but I chose to ignore them and started to take photos, mainly of Gully as he tried (badly) to cartwheel across the sand, then flipping forwards towards the lapping tide. He looked like a boy trying to impress a girl but who knew he couldn’t quite do it right, so was relying on cute more than anything.
For the next half an hour we laughed and walked in the sand, losing our shoes and socks and heading for the cold water of the sea, waving at a fishing boat that sailed past and ignored us.
I felt like a child for the first time in years, in a place that was now safe, where there was a history of laughter and tears and everything in between. The suitcase packed full of stars and wishes and dreams seemed to start unpacking itself and the heaviness left my shoulders.
I even tried to cartwheel on the sand too.
We grabbed lunch back at Gully’s, taking an hour or so for him to write a few more words and for me to look through this morning’s photographs. Some of them I’d use on my social media, some would end up being for sale on my website. The light in all of them was what made the picture, that as well as the man who was in several.
Gully’s smile or the way the camera caught his features when he was focused on something else made the photos, even though I knew I wasn’t unbiassed. Even at Ivy’s Arch, which felt like a moment for both of us, there was something electric in the photos.
Maybe those photos elicit memories of day that would somehow be important. Maybe I already knew it would be. The twee signs in homes or on classroom walls – today is the first day of the rest of your life – felt like they had a bolder meaning today.
I showered and changed before we set off into Puffin Bay, now early afternoon so the light was beginning to fade. We walked from the house to the centre of the town, small stone or cladded houses becoming closer together the nearer we walked to the centre. We passed the lifeboat station and the museum next door, and the monument to Romy’s husband who’d lost his life on a rescue a few years before nearby. The coastal path was easier to walk along, the view across a tide that was high, lapping against the rocks that descended into the sea. Tomorrow I’d see more, when the tide was back out and the sand exposed.
Thane’s lighthouse was already bright as it flashed across the Strait, warning sailors of the rocks that lay close to the surface of the water, hidden saboteurs.
“I’m nervous about meeting your family.” The words came from nowhere. “I’m worried they’re going to find it strange me being here.”
He didn’t say anything for a few seconds, tucking his hands deeper into his coat pockets.
“Why? They’re looking forward to meeting you.” He looked at me, confusion on his face.
“Do they know what I’ve asked you to do?” I figured it was that which was bothering me more.
“I haven’t told them. I will do when we’ve decided for sure that’s what’s happening. They’ll be worried for me, but not because of you. I think if you are going to move here, they’ll be less worried. They’ll understand it too. They’re not going to think it’s a stupid thing for me to do.” He sounded absolutely certain about that which settled me somewhat.
“I want them to like me. And Ruby and Freya. And Amelie and all the rest.” I felt like a thirteen year old again who was starting a new school.
“What makes you think they won’t? They’ve heard a lot about you over the last few years – the only thing they’ll say will be why you haven’t come here sooner. They’ll want to talk about Ivy too but they’ll be nervous about that at first because they won’t want to upset you. But they’re going to like you.” He stretched out an arm and pulled me into him in a side hug which felt good. He was warm and smelled of the scent he always wore.
“Do they know we slept together?”
“No. They might assume we have, but they’re not going to judge you for that. I didn’t tell anyone what happened in New Orleans.” He didn’t look at me as he spoke. “Did you?”
“No.” I kept those details for myself. “We both seemed to pretend it didn’t happen.”
He said nothing again, still looking out over the sea.
“Who’ll be in the Puffin Inn now?” We needed to change the subject.
“Some of the older residents go in for lunch. It’s Friday, so the walking club will be in there by now – every week they do a walk for three or four miles which ends with a meal in the pub and a few pints. It’s mainly the retired folk, but some of the working from home people do it now too. Amelie will be there, and I guess Roman will be around, and maybe Caleb.”
We were getting closer now, veering off the coastal path onto a road lined with stone houses. Some were shops, others homes.
“Caleb’s Roman’s son – have I got that right?”
“He is. He’s twenty-two now and studying for his doctorate in marine biology, which involves him doing various research tasks across the world. I think he’s back for a few weeks now before he heads to the Galapagos or somewhere. Do you want to go straight to the Inn?” He paused, stopping for a second. “My brothers will probably end up there in another hour or two, and if we’re there, they’ll see if Ruby and Freya want to come and bring the kids, so we can eat with them.”
“That sounds good. Is your mum around too?” I knew Gully’s mother had moved to Puffin Bay recently.
“She’s in Oxfordshire at the moment with her sister, but she knows you’re here. It’s probably best you get to meet everyone else first as everyone together can be a lot.” He actually looked nervous.
I stood a little stiller. “Do you want me to meet them? I get it if it’s too much? We can rethink - ”
“I want you to meet them. They’re a lot, but my family is actually okay, just don’t tell Roe and Finn that. I hope you like them, which is why I don’t know, I just want to get it over with.” He shrugged. “How about we walk to the lighthouse first and I show you that, then we get to the Inn in an hour or so?”
“Sounds good.”
We carried on through the town, Gully pointing out where different people lived, including Clover and her husband, the town’s doctor, and Mavis, who was watching us through the window. It turned out she was expecting my arrival as Gully had talked about me before.
“Should you introduce me?” I glanced over at the twitching curtain.
Gully grinned, a little more like he usually did. “She’ll be in the Inn in about an hour anyway, having her medicinal sherry, so you can meet her then. Don’t let her scare you. She’s just very protective of her town and her people.”
“By people, you mean you, correct?” That was obvious. I’d heard more about Mavis than anyone else recently when we’d spoke on the phone.
“Pretty much. Although she’s got other favourites. This way.”
We rejoined the coastal path, turning towards the lighthouse which dominated the horizon with its thick black and white stripes. A line of cottages stood aside from a path that became wide enough for a car to get down, two children’s bicycles in the garden.
“That’s where Thane and Fleur live. The girls will be at nursery now, and Thane and Fleur will either be in work or having a quickie at home, so we won’t knock on and say hi. We’ll probably see them later.” His hand landed lightly on the small of my back, guiding me closer to the lighthouse.
“Does everyone go to the Inn on a Friday?”
He laughed. “Kind of. There’s not much else to do unless you drive out or get a cab. A lot of my friends pick the kids up from school and go there for dinner so the kids can play games and the adults can relax and chill. I generally see my brothers there most Fridays, then Ruby and Fleur and the rest of the women go out on a Saturday together or do something where no men are allowed. You’re there tonight, so there’ll be a crowd.”
“Do newcomers usually have such a fanfare?”
“Not like you’re going to get. I apologise for that.” He was smiling too much to actually mean that.
“Why am I special?”
“Because you’re with me and you’re a friend. And you’re Ivy’s sister. She wasn’t here long but everyone loved her. They’ll want to meet you for that reason alone.” He stood still at the tide’s edge, the path to the lighthouse completely underwater at this point.
“Hopefully they’ll like me just as much as her.” I’d never felt compared with Ivy. She was older than me, enough so that we only crossed over at school for a year and we didn’t share friends. We were our own separate people, which made me think how hard it must’ve been in some ways for Gully being a twin.
“They will. You don’t need to worry about that.”
“How did you get into the lighthouse at high tide?” I pointed where I assumed the path would be.
“Waders. It’s actually not that deep at all, barely above my knees. There are a couple of points each year when it does go too deep, and you’ve got to decide at that point whether you hunker down at the lighthouse for a few hours or stay on the mainland. There’s never a tide here, so it’s safe enough to cross over. Want to go inside? I’ve got keys?” He pulled them out of his pocket and jangled them at me.
“Absolutely – but I don’t have any waders.”
“Come with me.”