Chapter 27
Chapter Twenty-Seven
ISLA
Kit’s cottage later that evening is chaos.
Well, Kit’s version of chaos, which means quiet devastation. He’s standing in the middle of Maisie’s room, holding a school jumper in one hand and staring at it like he’s forgotten what it’s for.
‘Kit?’
He looks up, eyes still hollow. ‘She needs clean clothes for tomorrow. I can’t – I don’t know where—’
‘It’s okay.’ I step into the room, gently take the jumper from him. ‘Go sit down. I’ve got this.’
‘You don’t have to—’
‘I know. But I’m here.’
He nods once, then leaves like a ghost.
Maisie appears in the doorway moments later, watching me sort through her drawers. ‘Dad forgot it’s library day tomorrow but I don’t want to remind him.’ Her lips twist into a grimace and I offer a small smile.
‘What do you need for library day?’
‘My book bag. And I need to return The Secret Garden and Dad usually signs my reading record.’
I find the book on her nightstand, dog-eared and well-loved. ‘Did you like it? The story?’
‘It was sad at the beginning. I didn’t like it when everyone died. But then it got better. Mary learned to be less mean.’
‘I don’t think she meant to be mean, she’d just never had to share before,’ I say, picking up a basket of washing that I’ve noticed in the corner of Maisie’s room the last couple of days, and beginning to fold a clean shirt. ‘People can change, when they need to.’
‘Have you changed?’
The question stops me cold. I look at her – this small, serious girl who’s been through too much.
‘I’m trying to,’ I say honestly. ‘I’m folding washing, which if I were being honest with you, Maisie, hasn’t been the top of my to-do list in recent years.’
She nods thoughtfully, tugging on one of her bunches of wild curled hair. ‘But that’s because you are a film star; you don’t have time for housework.’
I snort a laugh which is almost alien in the silence of the house. ‘I’m not sure being a film star is an excuse for laziness. Maybe I’m a bit like Mary and a brat.’
Another careful consideration. ‘No, you’re too pretty to be a brat.’
I lob some rolled-up socks at her gently. ‘Well, saying things like that will make the brattiness worse.’
‘I might become a film star,’ she adds, turning and walking to her chest of drawers and popping the socks into the top drawer. ‘Then I wouldn’t have to do chores either.’
My laughter dies on my lips, though, because there is nothing I would hate more for this beautiful girl’s future than to have it tarnished by the dirt of Hollywood. You can’t say that to a kid, though, so I paint a smile on. ‘Maybe. The pay isn’t all that.’
‘But you are suuuper famous, so you must be suuuper rich.’
This does make me laugh. ‘Women don’t get paid the same as men. And I have people I have to pay too.’
‘Like Piper?’
‘Yep, just like Piper.’
‘When you go back to being a film star will you let me and Dad come and see you?’
I blink fast because my eyes are stinging. ‘I’d love that, but I’m here for now.’
Her smile makes my heart double the size. ‘I know. And I love it.’
‘Me too, Maisie. I’m so glad I came to meet you.’
‘I’m so glad Dad stopped being embarrassing.’
I bite down on my grin. ‘Come on, let’s get this put away and then we can get everything ready for tomorrow morning.’
‘Are you going to autograph my reading record?’
‘Will you sell it on eBay?’
Maisie’s nose scrunches. ‘What’s eBay?’
I laugh and give a gentle tug on her hair. ‘Don’t worry. Probably for old people now.’
She nods, like this is a satisfactory answer. ‘Can you do my hair for school? Dad tries but he’s not very good at plaits.’
‘I can try. Though I should warn you, I’ve never done anyone’s hair but my own.’
‘That’s okay. I can show you.’
‘Let’s get you ready for bed and then I can do it. Hopefully they will stay in overnight.’
Maisie sings in the shower and it reminds me of Kit doing the same many, many years ago.
While she’s in there, I potter around her room, giving it a little tidy.
Wondering, if my life had been different and I’d had a little girl of my own, if her room would have been like this.
I think it would have been. I’d have given her anything she wanted that wasn’t a dorm at a boarding school and an impersonal room in a too-big house that never felt like home.
When she’s clean and smelling of strawberry shampoo, I sit on the edge of her bed and Maisie sits cross-legged in front of me, patiently instructing me on how to make a proper French plait.
My fingers are clumsy at first, but she doesn’t complain, just corrects me gently: ‘Not so tight. You have to keep it loose or it hurts.’
When I finish, she checks it in her little mirror and beams. ‘You did it!’ The pride I feel is disproportionate to the accomplishment. But as she bounces off to show Kit, I realise something: I’m good at this. At caring. At being here.
I never knew I could be.
And the truth is, I never want it to end.
I make pasta for dinner. Successfully, which feels like a small miracle given my track record with domestic tasks. Maisie sets the table without being asked, placing forks and knives with careful precision. Kit sits at the head of the table, present but not really here, his eyes distant.
We eat in near silence. I try to keep up light chatter with Maisie – what book she’s reading next, whether she thinks it will rain tomorrow – while Kit moves food around his plate more than he eats it.
Then his hand reaches across the table, fingers curling around mine. He doesn’t say anything. Doesn’t look at me. Just holds on.
And I hold back.
After dinner, I hesitate by the door. Should I go back to Salt Cottage? Give them space?
Kit’s hand finds mine again, pulling me towards the stairs.
‘Stay’ is all he says.
So I do.
Jude stops in to see Kit early the next morning, which, from what I can tell, doesn’t involve any talking at all.
‘Was he like this after Jess died?’ I ask Jude as I pass him a cup of tea. I think my tea-making skills are improving.
‘Yep. Silent.’
‘What did you do?’ I shove my hands into the pockets of my jeans.
‘Waited.’ Jude shrugs. ‘He gets there eventually.’
‘I hate seeing him so sad.’
Jude reaches for me and envelops me in a strong-armed hug. When he shifts back his eyes are brighter than normal, a little salt water swimming along his lashes. ‘Kit always blames himself.’
‘What do you mean?’
His shoulders rise and fall in a half-hearted shrug. ‘When people go, Kit thinks it’s him.’
‘He can’t help it when people die. And Peter wouldn’t want him thinking that, I’m sure.’
‘And neither would Jess. Don’t stop it happening, though.’
A steady ache hollows my limbs. ‘That’s so sad.’
‘He’s a tragic bastard.’ He grins, but I think he’s only half joking.
‘Can you stay with him for a while? I could do with popping back to Maggie’s and getting changed.’
‘When you going to stop calling it Maggie’s and call it home?’
His question blindsides me. I don’t have an answer, so I turn and head upstairs to find Kit and tell him I’ll be back.
Then I head … home…
I tidy the kitchen.
Not frantically, not like I’m trying to pack up or purge anything.
Just … clearing space. Making room. I fold Maggie’s old pinny and tuck it into a drawer, line up the chipped mugs along the windowsill, wipe away the dust that still lingers behind the spice rack.
Maggie would want this place to be pristine, not me treating it like I’m just passing through.
Inexplicably a deep craving for Maggie comes over me.
I wish I could see her just one more time so I could say I’m sorry.
I’m sorry for letting her down. Sorry for never telling her the truth.
Sorry for not coming to her funeral and not showing everyone just how much I loved the only woman who ever showed me any maternal care.
My tears fall as I clean. Tears of shame, embarrassment and regret.
Did she always know I’d end up back here? That no matter what happened to me, where I went or what I did, my path would always lead me here?
Is that why she left me this place, her way of still saying, I’ve got you, girl, even when I let her down?
When I pull open the side cupboard, to put away some table linen that I don’t think I’ll ever need, I find her old recipe binder – green faux leather with peeling corners, its pages warped with age and sticky fingerprints.
Halfway through, I find it.
Blackcurrant jam.
The same one that used to stain my fingers as a child, that turned toast into memory. We used to make it together the week before I returned to boarding school. Our tradition. Just the two of us in this kitchen, Maggie patient and steady while I inevitably made a mess.
‘You’ll get the hang of it eventually, girl,’ she’d say, wiping purple from my cheek. ‘And when you’re feeling lost, you make something. Put love into it. Give it away. That’s how you find yourself again.’
God, I miss that jam. But not as much as I miss the woman who made it.
I don’t cry. Not this time. I just smile, run my thumb over the faded ink, and know what I need to do.
Nina needs love she can hold in her hands. Something sweet in the bitter.
I can do that. I can make Maggie’s jam.
The cottage still smells faintly of damp and old lavender, grief and hope. I glance out the window at the sea-blown garden.
I grab Maggie’s old wellies from beside the door. Still too big. I’ll need to get my own.
As I step outside, the wind lifts the edges of my coat and threads through my hair, but I don’t pull the hood up. I let it tangle me, remind me I’m here, real and solid against the Sea Salt Bay air.
I walk down the hill to the village shop – past the harbour wall, the butcher with its sign of the pig, and Frankie and Bill’s shack, which is closed. Past the pub with its faded chalkboard sign still promising karaoke Wednesdays.
No one stops me. No one whispers. A couple of heads nod. A smile or two. I hold my head up high.
Dot is behind the counter at the shop, newspaper open, glasses perched on the end of her nose. She glances up as the bell jingles.
‘Oh, Isla, how’s Kit?’ she says, folding the paper. ‘How are you?’
‘Kit’s, well … I don’t know.’ I sigh deeply. One of those sighs that aches in the marrow of your bones.
Then, just like that, she gives me a simple nod and gets down to business, because this is Cornwall, Sea Salt Bay, and what we do best is to keep calm and carry the fuck on.
And I love it.
‘What can I do for you?’
‘Blackcurrants,’ I say. ‘Fresh if you have them. Frozen if you don’t. And sugar. Lots of sugar.’
Dot’s eyebrows rise slightly. ‘Maggie’s jam?’
‘I’m going to try, at least.’
She directs me to the freezer at the back. ‘Best I can do this time of year. The fresh season’s short.’
I gather what I need – sugar, fruit, a new jar of pectin, some fresh lemons. It doesn’t feel like much, this small act of making jam for Nina, but it’s something. Something real I can do with my hands that isn’t about me, that isn’t about Marcus or the industry or any of it.
When I place my items on the counter, Dot adds a small wire basket with the finest mesh I’ve ever seen.
‘For straining the fruit,’ she explains when I look confused. ‘Maggie always said cheesecloth let too much pulp through.’
‘Did you see Nina yet today?’ I ask as she rings me up.
Dot’s mouth turns down. ‘No, love. I think Tom was heading in there, and her mum has come from Truro.’
‘I thought she moved here with her parents when they retired.’
‘Aye, she did. But then it was too quiet for them, so they went into Truro, got one of those retirement apartments. Nina stayed.’
My chest aches.
‘I don’t know what to say to her.’
She shrugs. ‘No one ever does when something like this happens. You just be there.’
I nod.
Back at Salt Cottage, Maisie and I turn the kitchen into a laboratory of sticky experiments. I’d knocked for her after leaving the shop. It’s been a long time since I made jam.
It’s messier than I remember. Hotter. More physical somehow.
I stir until my arm aches, adjust the heat, test for setting point.
The first batch is too runny, slipping off the spoon in watery red rivulets, which make Maisie giggle.
The second catches at the bottom of the pan, the burnt overtaking the sweet and making us pull faces as we try to wash away the flavour with glasses of lemon squash.
The third, though – the third feels right. Thick but not stiff, deep purple-red, tasting of sunshine and tartness and memory.
I ladle it carefully into the jars I sterilised in the oven (after a frantic internet search on proper techniques), seal them while they’re hot, watch the lids pop as they cool. Eight jars, not perfect, but made with my hands. My offering.
On a small card, I write:
This isn’t enough. Nothing would be. But every day, a jar of sweetness until the pain eases a little. You’re not alone, Nina. – Isla
I leave the basket on Nina’s doorstep that evening, six jars nestled in a tea towel, the note tucked between them. I don’t knock. Don’t wait to be seen.
Some gifts are best given quietly, without expectation.
The lane back to Salt Cottage is washed in golden evening light, the kind that turns everything it touches into honey.
Sea Salt Bay spreads out below me, the sea beyond, the lighthouse standing sentinel.
From here, I can make out the harbour with its fishing boats, the café with its striped awning, the pub.
I breathe in deep until my lungs are close to bursting. It’s salt. Brine.
It’s my home.