Don’t think for one moment I don’t know I’m a bad person. I do. I’m a bad person who’s done bad things. Lying to Vicky is the least of it, but even so, as the words tumbled out of my mouth, it felt like the worst thing I’d ever done.
I think she always suspected I was going to bail. I’d called her from my log in the copse after chain-smoking three cigarettes for Dutch courage.
‘Jesus. I knew it. I bloody knew it.’
I wasn’t able to reply. What could I say?
‘He’s such a fucking arsehole.’
‘It’s a client who’s flown in from Dubai. He was supposed to see him for a meeting one evening last week, but it got cancelled last minute. He has to go to London to meet with him now.’
‘Can’t Alex stay with a friend?’
‘There’s the dog…’ It sounded so weak out loud. I lit another cigarette and inhaled, pretending the tobacco was arsenic and soon I’d be dead.
‘Shall I speak to Nathan? Or get Phil to? Maybe they could have the meeting next week.’
I’d panicked. ‘No!’ Then I’d taken a deep breath. Forced myself to calm. ‘I don’t think it works like that. Please don’t phone him. He won’t budge and it’ll make things worse for me…’ I left the sentence unfinished, added a hint of worry to my tone, left her to insinuate I was a little bit fearful. I was sick with shame.
‘Can Phil go with you?’
There was a heavy pause.
I crossed my fingers and took a drag on the cigarette before treading it, half finished, into the ground.
‘Yes. I made Mum keep the evening free to look after the girls. I had my suspicions he’d stop you somehow.’
I let out a sigh of relief. ‘Thank God. I’m so pleased you can still go.’
‘I’d prefer to be with you.’
‘I’m sorry.’
‘And I hate your husband.’
‘I know.’
And now here I am. Standing at the top of the station stairs looking down at Cam. I walk down and we face each other. The awkwardness between us is suffocating. What the hell am I doing? We don’t talk as I follow him to his battered red car in the car park. He feels like a stranger, a taxi driver, perhaps, or hotel staff, as he solemnly takes my bag and puts it on the back seat. When the car doors close, my chest tightens even further as the air becomes so dense I can’t draw it in. I should get out of the car. Walk away. This is madness. I breathe as calmly as I can and concentrate on slowing my pulse.
‘Where do you want to go?’ His soft voice cleaves the silence in two.
I shouldn’t be here. I should be with Vicky, sitting in the pub with two huge gin and tonics, giggling over antics from our misspent youths.
‘The beach,’ he says, answering his own question. ‘I’ve not seen the sea since I left.’
I manage a single nod as I fight back the tears. Not seen the sea? This man who lived and breathed it, who tasted of salt.
He turns the engine on and drives in the direction of Helston. I thought he might take the road to Godrevy, but perhaps his memories of that day, and those electric pink squares of cheap ham between white over-processed bread, are less vivid than mine. Instead, he indicates right at the incongruous Chinese restaurant which has been here forever, and follows the lane down to Perranuthnoe. We park the car and as we walk down towards the sea, though we are still quiet, the tension begins to ease. I haven’t been to this beach since Cam left. When I was younger, it was one of my favourites. Top three. His too. It was something we had in common, something we talked about in the pub on our first night out, exaggerated joy when we discovered a shared love for this small and perfectly formed bay, enclosed by low headlands of rock, its golden sand, exposed, like now, when the tide is low, but disappearing completely when the sea comes in.
‘Beach or cliffs?’
I smile. ‘Cliffs first? The tide is still on the way out. There’ll be sand until late this evening.’
He nods and asks me to wait a moment and he jogs over to the small café, a wooden cabin with a well-tended garden, set above the beach, overlooking the sea. It’s a beautiful day. Blue skies with wisps of cloud. Warm but not hot. The seagulls so high on the thermals they are no more than dots and a mirror-flat sea of polished platinum in the sun.
Cam returns a few minutes later and we set off along the dusty road towards the coastal path. We join the footpath and walk in single file. Me behind him. Butterflies gather in the pit of my stomach as I go over the words I need to say to him. That I am grateful for what he did and I’m sorry I drove him away and that, back then, before everything was ruined, I loved him very deeply.
‘How about walking down to the cove below the castle?’ he calls over his shoulder.
‘I don’t think I know it.’ A gentle breeze carries my hair across my face and I tuck it back behind my ear.
‘Really? We’re definitely going then. It’s where we used to go and drink sometimes when we bunked off school. Hope I can find the path. It was always pretty overgrown.’
We round the bend and an ostentatious house with Disney-style turrets looms into sight. A little way on and Cam stops to search the shrub and gorse. He walks on, stops again, and then turns and walks off the path, pushing his way through overgrown vegetation, arms raised clear of the spiky gorse.
‘Wait here,’ he calls back. ‘I’ll check we can get through.’
There’s a ladybird on one of the bright yellow explosions of gorse flowers near to me. I extend my hand and block her path so she’s forced to crawl onto my finger. I hold my finger upright and watch as she climbs to the tip. When she gets there she seems to hesitate for a moment or two before taking flight and lifting into the sky. I watch her until she’s no more than a speck in the blue.
‘It’s not great at the top but gets better,’ calls Cam from somewhere further down the path.
I copy Cam and hold my arms above my head and ease myself carefully though the gorse and brambles which snag my clothes and catch my hair. The smell is strong: warm sea air, heavy with salt and drying seaweed. As I breathe it in I feel something close to homesickness.
Cam clambers down the rocks at the base of the path and jumps on to the beach below. He turns back and shouts, ‘Be careful, it’s slippery.’
The cove is large and empty, mostly made up of flat slices of rock sparsely patched with sand and pebbles. The surrounding cliffs protect it from any breeze, which intensifies the heat of the sun. The rock is dark, almost black, and lies in horizontal slabs, severe and otherworldly, more lunar landscape than cosy beach. The cliffs are formed of layers of clay and rock in sloping stripes. Two birds peck at the soft clay in search of insects, sending stone and earth crumbling to the ground below.
Cam has walked to the water’s edge. I watch him as he bends to select a pebble. He draws his arm back and throws it as far out to sea as he can. He watches for the splash, then bends to select another, and repeats. I recall him doing the same when we were younger. Bending, selecting, throwing, watching. His movements are unchanged with time, and the flashbacks, hearing the echo of my laugh, are piercing.
I walk down to join him and we stand side-by-side facing the sea. It feels isolated and remote, as if we’ve arrived at the furthest edge of the world, with nothing in front of us but never-ending water.
It’s breathtaking.
‘It hurts how much I miss it.’
It was me who infected him with this stark pain. I want to lance the abscess and drain the poison from him. But I can’t and knowing this makes me want to scream. He straightens his shoulders and casts me a glance. His expression has altered, a small smile escapes him. He gestures out to sea with his head. ‘Fancy it?’
It takes me a moment to realise what he means. ‘A swim?’ I start to shake my head – it’s far too cold and I don’t have a swimming costume or towel with me – but then I follow his gaze over the water, which glints in the sun as if someone has spilt a bag of diamonds across its surface. There are no waves and the water laps at the shore with gentle kisses. I imagine it cool and fresh on my skin, washing away the sweat and dust and melancholy, and smile. ‘Yeah. OK. Why not?’
He grins, then points to the right. ‘Be careful, though,’ he says. ‘There’s a rip current.’
I look out to where he’s indicating and see the telltale ripples on the surface of the sea, as if an unseen stream is flowing out into the ocean. I wonder for a moment what it might feel like to swim into the riptide and be dragged away, powerless to fight it, my only option to give in and let it pull me under.
‘If we stay this side we’ll be fine,’ he says. I glance up at him and he smiles.
I smile back, then kick off my shoes. The sand is cool and damp beneath my feet. I take off my shirt then unbutton my jeans and step out of them. Standing in my underwear, I’m aware of how my body has aged, the silvery stretch marks around my stomach and thighs, the looseness of the skin on my tummy and upper arms, and feel suddenly self-conscious. I hurry down to the water and take three steps before diving in. My lungs constrict with the cold but – Jesus – it’s incredible. As I duck beneath the surface, and push through the water, familiar icy fingers caress and calm me.
There’s a splash to the side of me. I break the surface and see bubbles where Cam has disappeared beneath the water.
‘How fucking good is that?’ he cries when he emerges, hair slicked back from his head, water dripping off his nose and eyelashes. He slams his hands down then raises them, pulling up an arc of water. A flash of rainbow forms in the spray.
I dive under again and take two firm strokes, then turn and drift beneath the surface, staring up at the shimmering sun through the water. The silence is perfect. I am like a china doll wrapped in cotton wool, safe and protected, but it’s short-lived. As I turn and head back to the shore, pulling myself underwater, my skin numbed and my blood pumping, I see him. He lunges at me. There is a macabre grin on his face. His hands reach out to grab me, skin sliding off them in rotten strands. I tell myself it’s not real, but I can’t get rid of him, he’s right there and refuses to fade. My lungs burn. I need oxygen. I need to swim for the surface, but the sight of him has paralysed me. Still he hangs suspended in front of me. His eyes are black hollows. The flesh which clings to his face is pale and tinged green, and his mouth is stretched wide in a noiseless scream.
My pulse hammers and my vision wavers, and in my frantic clamber to escape the sea I stumble and trip on the pebbles and rocks. I fight the image of him but he won’t leave me. He’s still there, somewhere behind me, reaching out to pull me down with him.
When I reach my clothes, I snatch up my shirt, but struggle to push my wet arms through the sleeves. I discard it in frustration. This will never go away. It doesn’t matter whether I’m walking in the woods or smoking in the copse or swimming in the sea between Perranuthnoe and Prussia Cove, he’ll always be there, lurking, waiting for his moment to ambush me.
Cam draws up beside me. ‘Are you OK?’ The sun has lit his skin and turned it golden. Tiny grains of salt stick to the hairs on his arms where the water’s evaporated. Concern has folded itself into his face. ‘Hannah? What’s wrong? What happened out there?’
I ruined his life. I need to say sorry. I need to thank him for what he did then I need to move on. I stand on tiptoes and put my hands on his cheeks, guiding him towards me so I can press my lips to his. They are cold and salty from the sea. He protests, leans back from me, but I slip my hand around his neck and hold firm. Then his resistance falters. I open my mouth and touch his tongue with mine. He flinches and pulls away, harder, fumbling behind his head to unclasp my fingers.
‘What are you doing?’ he rasps. ‘This doesn’t feel right.’
I reach for his hand and bring it to my breast. At first he resists and his brow furrows with confusion, but then I see it, the glazing of his eyes in that telltale way men’s eyes do when their minds are hijacked by sex. I lead him to the base of the cliff which encloses the cove where a series of small caves gape like open mouths. I lift his hand to my face and lean my cheek against it. My heart pounds as I turn and kiss his palm. I trace my tongue along the base of his thumb. Finally, he gives in and the tips of his fingers graze my cheek and he kisses me with a desperation which was absent from the chaste, sad moment we shared in the woods. Desire has overridden his damage and the man I remember is revealed, his quiet intensity, the strength which made me feel so safe, the passion which lit a fire inside me back when that was still a possibility. I move the flat of my hand to his crotch and begin to rub.
But then, without warning, he freezes. He pushes me backwards and spins away, crouching down, hands going to either side of his head.
‘Cam?’
He searches my face. ‘I don’t understand. Have you left him?’
The question derails me. ‘No. No, I haven’t left him. I’m sorry. That’s all. About what happened. About everything. I want to do this for you. I want to show you how grateful…’
‘What?’
My words are crass and vile, but it’s too late now, all I can do is press on. I desperately grab at his hand. ‘Let me do this for you. Let me thank you—’
‘Thank me? What the fuck?’ His face is riven with horror. ‘You want to thank me?’
Panic billows like an electric surge. He is staring at me as if doesn’t know me. His face is contorted, appalled, sickened, even. No. No, cries the voice in my head. This is supposed to help. It’s supposed to bring us some sort of closure. I want to ease your pain, not make you hate me. My breath catches. I want him to stop looking at me like this. I want him to fuck me. Drive himself into me. I want him to thrust hard. Again and again and again. I want to hear him shout, feel his teeth sink into me, scratch me so hard it draws blood and scars my skin.
‘Let me get this straight? You want to have sex to pay off some sort of twisted debt? What? So you don’t feel guilty? Is that it? So we’re even? Jesus,’ he whispers. He rakes his fingers against his scalp. ‘Fuck.’ He stands and faces me. ‘You planned this? You messaged me and said you had to see me so you could have sex with me and then – what? – your conscience is cleared?’
‘No… it’s not like… that. It’s…’ My words fade because he’s right: I did plan it.
He walks away from me, back to his clothes which lie in a pile by the water’s edge. I watch him bend to put on his jeans, balancing on one foot then the other as he pulls them on. He takes hold of his T-shirt. His muscles flex as he puts it over his head.
All I want is to stand beneath a hot shower and scrub myself until I’m pink and raw. I collapse in the mouth of the cave, legs and feet warm in the sunshine, the rest of me cold where the shade from the cliff drapes over me. I draw my knees up and bring my legs into the shadow and enjoy the spreading chill as I bow my head. I’m aware of him then. He has moved near to me. Crouched. His hand rests against my lower back and rubs lightly.
‘Hey, it’s OK.’ His tone is soft and silky like honey. ‘Hannah, it’s OK.’
He sits beside me and attempts to unfold me. My clothes are clutched in his hand. He places them beside him and picks out my shirt. He turns me a little and gently eases the shirt over my head, pulling my arms through each sleeve. The fabric is warm from where it’s been lying in the sun.
‘Listen,’ he says, taking my hand in his. ‘You don’t need to thank me. Or say sorry. It’s not your responsibility to put me back together. You don’t have to repair me. And – Jesus – even if you did, you definitely don’t need to do it with sex.’ He pushes the wet tendrils of hair away from my face, then leans in and kisses my forehead. When he leans back I notice the scar in his hairline, a remnant of an injury he sustained on The Annamae’s fateful trip from which the crew were lucky to return, battered, shaken, their emotions spiralling wildly.
‘How fucked up do you think we really are?’ I whisper.
He laughs and entwines his fingers with mine. ‘On the scale of fucked up? Pretty fucking fucked up.’
I laugh through my tears and he reaches up with his free hand to gently wipe beneath my eyes.
We sit like this for some time, our bodies warm where they touch, watching the incoming tide. The rhythm of the lapping waves and the imperceptible way they inch closer is calming. After a while, and without speaking, he leans to the side and takes hold of his jacket from which he produces two cans of Coke and a flapjack he must have bought at the café on Perranuthnoe. He unwraps the clingfilm and breaks off a piece which he passes me. It’s delicious, soft and buttery, the syrupy sweetness exquisite after the seawater and the crying. I lie back, turn on my side to face away from him, and tuck my hands under my cheek. He lies down too and drapes his arm over me. He is close enough for me to feel the heat of his breath on the nape of my neck. It radiates outwards and warms me like a hot water bottle.
A round white pebble catches my eye and I reach for it. My fingers close around it and I run my thumb back and forth over its surface.
‘After you left,’ I say then, as I study the pebble from each angle, searching for an imperfection which I cannot find. ‘I’d walk down your street and pretend we were meeting up to go out.’ His body tenses a fraction, but he doesn’t say anything. ‘I’d walk all the way up to the Garnetts’ door and lift my hand as if I was going to knock for you.’ I discard the pebble with a flick of my wrist and it bounces a few times until it comes to rest and shines like an egg in a nest amid the greys and blacks of the other stones. ‘One day Sheila was standing at the window, staring at me. She didn’t move. Just stood there. Staring. But I don’t think she even saw me.’
I recall how sad and lost she appeared, her pain mirroring mine. I never went back.
We lie like this until it’s nearly dark and the water is at the highest tide, only a metre or so from our feet, and for the first time in years, my mind is still.
‘I think we should find somewhere warmer for the night.’ His voice is hard against the quiet.
I push myself up to sitting. The moon is full and round and trails a corridor of light over the black water in front of us like a torchlit pathway.
He sits up too. I turn to look at him, and then, well, I’m not sure how it happens, which of us it is who makes that first tentative move, but we kiss. It’s slow and soft and silent. We take our time. Stroke and smile and touch. The waves break and the shingle sings softly as the water runs up and down it. Everything feels right. My body tingles as he kisses my breasts. I kiss and lick his skin, the salt sharp on my tongue, his smell so distant and familiar. When he attempts to enter me, I tense, my body instinctively bracing. I try and relax, but I can feel everything, body and mind, tightening. Fifteen years I’ve fantasised about making love to him but now it’s happening, now it’s real, I’m frozen up.
The concern on his face is lit by the moon. ‘I’m sorry,’ he whispers.
‘You didn’t do anything wrong. Please. Don’t stop. I want to.’ Do I though? My stomach clenches and I bite down on my lip.
‘Another time.’ He smiles and strokes my face.
Another time.
No. This is the only time we have. I suspect Cam knows it too. This brief snapshot of how things might have been is our time. Everything I said to him in the woods still stands. I rest my head on his chest and thread my fingers through his.
‘Hannah?’
‘Yes?’
I tilt my head and see him staring up at the sky, the moon and stars, a billion miles away. ‘He deserved it.’
My blood chills.
‘He fucking deserved it and the guilt I live with isn’t because he’s dead or because I dumped him at sea or because we kept the truth to ourselves, but because I’m pleased. I’m pleased the bastard’s dead.’