Chapter 28
Chapter Twenty-Eight
KIT
The knock comes just as Maisie’s showing Isla how to draw a proper starfish – five points, she insists, not six, that’s just wrong.
I’m watching them from the sofa. Have been for the past hour, just watching.
Isla’s got purple jam stains on her fingers still, hair pulled back in a messy knot, and she’s laughing at something Maisie said.
Really laughing, not a careful, forced sound that is designed to please or appease. This is real. Raw. Her.
Maisie’s sprawled on her stomach, tongue poking out in concentration as she colours. Every few minutes she looks up at Isla like she’s checking she’s still there.
I know the feeling.
The knock shatters the moment.
I know before I open the door. Know from the heaviness in my limbs as I stand. Know from the way Dad’s shoulders are set when I swing it open. Know from his eyes.
‘They found him, son.’
The world tilts. I grip the doorframe.
‘Where?’
‘Mousehole. Washed up on the rocks near the harbour.’ His voice is steady, but his eyes aren’t. They’re red-rimmed, older than they were three days ago. ‘Coastguard called Nina an hour ago.’
Peter. A body now. Not missing. Not hoped for. Not maybe-he-made-it-to-shore. Gone. Final. Dead because I couldn’t check a fucking fuel line properly.
‘Right.’ The word comes out hollow.
‘Village is gathering at the Ship tonight. Seven o’clock. To sing for him.’ Dad’s hand lands on my shoulder, heavy and sure. The same hand that steadied me when Mum left. When Isla left. When Jess died. Always there. Always solid. ‘You should come.’
I want to say no. Want to hide here with Isla and Maisie and pretend the world outside doesn’t exist. Want to stay in this cottage where I can almost believe everything’s okay.
But I owe Peter more than my cowardice.
‘We’ll be there.’
Dad nods once, squeezes my shoulder, and leaves.
When I turn back, Isla’s standing in the doorway between the kitchen and living room. She’s wiping her hands on a tea towel, but her eyes are on my face.
She knows.
‘They found him,’ I say.
‘Oh, Kit.’ She crosses to me, arms sliding around my waist, face pressing into my chest. I hold onto her like she’s the only thing keeping me upright. Maybe she is.
‘Dad says the village is gathering. Tonight. At the pub.’
‘Then we’ll go.’ Simple. No hesitation. My chest aches.
‘I don’t know if I can face them, Isla.’
She leans back, looks up at me. ‘Yes, you can. Because Nina needs you there. And the village needs you there. And whether you believe it or not, you need it too. You’re the deputy on that crew and they look up to you.’
‘I was the deputy on that crew.’
‘Kit, don’t. You can’t rush into decisions and choices at the moment.’ Isla’s hand finds my face, thumb brushing the scrape that’s finally starting to heal.
Maisie appears beside us, starfish drawing clutched in her hand. ‘Are we going to sing for Mr Peter?’
My throat closes. I crouch down to her level. ‘Yes, love. We’re going to sing him home.’
‘Like the songs Grandad taught me? About the boats and the sea?’
‘Just like those.’
She nods, solemn as a judge. ‘Good. Mr Peter would like that.’
She would know. Peter spent a lot of his time at this cottage, especially after Jess died, teaching Maisie knots and showing her how to spot different gulls. Patient as the tide.
And now he’s gone because of me.
‘Go get your warm jumper,’ I tell Maisie. ‘The blue one with the stars.’
She scampers off, and I straighten. Isla’s still there, steady. Always there lately.
‘I should shower,’ I say. ‘Change.’
‘I’ll make tea,’ she says. ‘And toast. You need to eat something.’
‘I’m not hungry.’
‘I know. Eat anyway.’
I almost smile. ‘Bossy.’
‘Someone has to be.’
This time I do smile, just barely. Then I head upstairs to wash the last three days off my skin and try to feel human again.
By the time we’re ready to leave, the sun’s sinking low over the harbour.
October light, thin and gold, stretching shadows long across the cobbles.
These last days of October before the clocks change are always special.
From the last weekend of the month everything changes.
The mornings are brisker, the nights longer.
Just now though, the sun still kisses the calm sea with a lingering touch, reminding us that no matter how long winter is, summer will come again.
Jude’s waiting outside when we emerge. He doesn’t say anything, just falls into step beside me. Dad’s already halfway down the lane, hands shoved in his pockets, shoulders hunched against the wind.
Maisie’s hand is tucked in mine, small and trusting. Isla walks on my other side, close enough that our arms brush with every step.
The walk to the Ship feels like a funeral march.
The village is gathering in the dusk – shadowy figures converging on the pub like moths to light. I recognise them all: Dot, dabbing at her eyes with a handkerchief. The Penrose brothers, still in their overalls. The Harpers who run the B&B on the clifftop.
They’re here for Peter.
They’re here for Nina.
Some of them are here for me.
I don’t deserve it.
‘You okay?’ Isla’s voice, quiet beside me.
‘No.’
‘Good. You shouldn’t be.’
Her honesty steadies me. No platitudes. No false comfort. No ‘it wasn’t your fault’ or ‘you did everything you could’. Just truth.
I love her for it.
The thought catches me off guard, but it’s there, solid and undeniable. Not just want. Not just need. Love. The kind that roots deep and doesn’t let go.
I loved her when I was eighteen and stupid and thought the world belonged to me. I loved her when she left and I pretended I didn’t care. I loved her when she smacked into me out on that run when she’d just come back.
I love her now, walking beside me towards a gathering for a man I got killed, fitting into my life like she never left.
And terrifyingly, I think she might actually stay this time.
The Ship’s door is propped open, warm light spilling onto the street. Inside, it’s packed – every table full, people standing shoulder to shoulder, voices low and respectful. The air smells like beer and woodsmoke and grief.
Nina’s in the corner by the fire. Her mum’s on one side, Tom on the other, both holding her up like she might collapse without them. She’s staring at nothing, face blank, eyes hollow.
I did that. Put that look on her face.
My feet stop moving.
‘Kit.’ Isla’s hand on my back. ‘Come on.’
‘I can’t—’
‘You can.’
Jude’s on my other side now. ‘One foot in front of the other, brother. That’s all you’ve got to do.’
So I do. One step. Then another. Until I’m standing in front of Nina.
She looks up. Her eyes focus on me slowly, like she’s surfacing from deep water.
‘Kit.’ Her voice is scraped raw.
‘Nina. I’m so—’
‘Don’t.’ She shakes her head. ‘Don’t apologise. Don’t you dare.’
‘But—’
‘Peter made a choice.’ Her mum squeezes her shoulder, but Nina keeps talking. ‘He saw you in the water and he jumped. That’s who he was. That’s who he’s always been. You don’t get to take that from him by making it about your guilt.’
The words land like blows.
‘I should have checked the engine. Should have stayed in port. Should have—’
‘Should have what? Seen the future?’ Tom cuts in, voice rough. ‘Peter wouldn’t want you destroying yourself over this, Kit. None of us do.’
I don’t know what to say to that. Don’t know how to carry this weight they’re trying to take from me.
Isla’s hand slides into mine, fingers lacing tight.
‘Thank you for the jam,’ Nina says to Isla. ‘Peter loved your gran’s jam. He’d eat it straight from the jar when he thought I wasn’t looking, said I should ask for the recipe and start selling it.’
‘Then he’ll be happy,’ Maisie says simply. Eight years old and wiser than all of us. ‘That’s good, right?’
Nina pulls Maisie into a hug so fierce it makes my chest ache. ‘That’s very good, sweetheart. Very good indeed.’
Over Maisie’s head, Nina’s eyes meet mine. ‘Thank you. For coming. For bringing them.’
I nod, throat too tight for words.
Someone starts singing then. Old Jack Penrose, voice rough as gravel, leading into ‘The Cornish Nightingale’. The room joins in – slow at first, then stronger, voices layering and building until the whole pub’s shaking with it.
These are the songs Peter learned when he moved from Plymouth and adopted Sea Salt Bay and Cornwall as his home.
The rest of us grew up with these songs.
Passed down through generations of fishermen who knew the sea took more than it gave, but went out anyway.
Because it’s what we do. What we’ve always done.
I don’t sing at first. Can’t. Just stand there, Isla on one side, Maisie on the other, letting the voices wash over me.
Then Isla starts singing. She doesn’t know all the words, but she’s trying, and something in that – in her effort, her presence, her willingness to be here in the hardest moment – breaks me open.
I join in. Voice cracked and rough, but there.
The songs go on. ‘Cornish Lads are Fishermen’. ‘Blow the Man Down’. ‘Leave Her Johnny’. Each one a farewell, a sending off, a promise to remember.
When they start ‘The Parting Glass’, Nina stands. Her mum tries to stop her, but she shakes her head, walks to the centre of the room.
‘Peter loved this one,’ she says, voice barely carrying over the shuffling quiet. ‘Said it reminded him why he did this job. Why any of us do.’ She takes a shaking breath. ‘So let’s sing it for him. All of us. Loud enough for him to hear it, wherever he is.’
The first notes are wavering. Uncertain. But by the second verse, the whole room’s joined in, and it’s not just a song anymore. It’s a prayer. A goodbye. A promise that Peter mattered, that his life meant something, that he won’t be forgotten.
Oh, all the comrades e’er I had,
They’re sorry for my going away.
I’m crying by the chorus. Can’t help it. Great, gasping sobs that I haven’t let out since they pulled me from the water. Isla’s arms come around me, and I bury my face in her hair, and I let it out. All of it. Peter. Jess. Mum. Every loss that’s carved me hollow.