‘Couldn’t we stay here another day or two?’ Isaac asks the others on the second morning, when the thought of packing up and moving on is almost too much to bear.
He’s already told Lu that he loves the campsite by the sea more with every passing hour. To be able to wander through the spiky grass of the dunes to the shoreline any time he likes, to feel the sand between his toes and swim in the calm sea. Most of all, to do these things with Polly and Reggie fills him with a contentment he’s never known before, at least not when he’s been away from his own room.
Peter smiles. ‘There are more places to see, far more. Don’t you want to explore Normandy? We could visit one of the landing beaches. I’d like to pay my respects to the brave men who didn’t make it home. My father was one of the lucky ones but many of his friends weren’t so fortunate.’
Isaac looks dubious, but Lu thinks this is a great plan. ‘We could see the Bayeux tapestry,’ she says, clapping her hands together. ‘I’ve always wanted to do that.’
‘Oh, deep joy. A big piece of sewing and a long queue,’ Isaac mutters, grinning at Polly. Lu thinks the younger woman probably agrees with him but she’s more tactful and keeps her own counsel.
In the end, they have a group meeting and decide to stay on the site for two more nights. Isaac is ridiculously grateful for this and makes a big effort with dinner later, having already bought the makings of a largely meat-free barbecue. Together with Polly, he marinades, slices and chops to his heart’s content, and they eat the resulting feast on the beach.
As the sun goes down and the lights from the nearby houses along the shore begin to twinkle in the dusk, Lucia gives in to the peace of the evening and lies down on the sand, making a pillow with her sweater. As she closes her eyes she sees Isaac slip an arm around Polly’s waist.
Tommy has wandered down to the water’s edge and Isaac and Polly are sitting a little apart from Peter, with Reggie dozing across their knees. Polly leans against Isaac, and as a gentle evening breeze picks up Lucia catches the scent of Polly’s fresh, spring-like cologne, faintly floral and spicy, like a herb garden in the sunshine.
Lu wishes she had thought to move further away from them but it’s too late to get up now because they’ve started talking and they seem totally absorbed in each other. She tries not to listen but the same breeze is carrying their words to her and it’s hard to resist eavesdropping even though the thought of it makes her cringe.
‘Will you be ready to move on to the next place?’ Isaac says. ‘Because I won’t. I wish I could stay here with you and Reg forever.’
Polly doesn’t answer for a moment and, but at last she says, ‘I feel just the same actually, but I reckon it’ll be good for us all to spread our wings and see some different places.’
‘Will it? Why?’
Polly lowers her voice and Lucia only just catches the next words. ‘I’ve been thinking about what your mum and Peter were talking about, Isaac. The three of us – I’m including myself with them in this – we’ve got what a shrink would probably call survivor’s guilt. I’ve read a bit about it before but it didn’t really help. I still felt just as crappy. None of us have been able to move on and start dealing with our sadness because to do that, we’d have to let at least some of the guilt go.’
‘Yes, I suppose Mum has always had an obsession with her brother.’
Lucia opens her eyes slightly, willing her gauche son to backtrack and take back the clumsy words. Polly has moved slightly away from Isaac to look at him better. Ouch. Cut him some slack, Pol, Lu thinks, he doesn’t mean any harm, he just doesn’t always get how to say things.
‘Obsession?’ Polly snaps. ‘It’s hardly that. She loved him so much and she feels as if she should have been there to protect him.’
‘Yes, but …’
‘Peter’s the same,’ Polly continues, ignoring Isaac’s attempt to speak. ‘He’s always seen himself as the one who caused his wife’s accident. And he wasn’t. It was just a bad set of circumstances, the same as Eddie’s death. He’s only just starting to heal.’
‘I know, but …’
‘And then there’s me.’ she carries on. ‘I keep going over and over in my mind how I could have stopped my sister going into the water that day. I’m glad your mum told you about it, it feels right that you know. Maybe I couldn’t have prevented what happened, whatever I did. Maybe that’s just what she had to do?’
Polly runs out of steam at last and leans into Isaac again. Lu breathes a sigh of relief and closes her eyes tightly again.
‘Er, yes, there’s a lot to think about for all of you, isn’t there?’ Isaac hazards.
‘There is, and this is only the beginning,’ she says. ‘Peter bringing all of his pain out into the open has started the ball rolling for us all. I’m nowhere near being in the right place to forgive myself yet, I know that, but I’m ready to work on it, which I definitely wasn’t before I met all of you.’
‘So … that’s good?’
Polly laughs, a warm, comfortable sound that even at a distance, Lu can tell means it’s okay. ‘Yes, my friend, that is very, very good,’ she says.
The next day is warm and sunny and they all spend it lazily, enjoying the beach, taking turns to have long naps in the shade and talking in short, desultory bursts. The hours seem to pass more slowly than usual, as if time is allowing them all to wind right down and enjoy being in the moment, as Polly puts it when they reconvene for dinner.
‘It’s all about mindfulness,’ she says. ‘We dash from place to place and we never stop to appreciate what’s going on under our noses. I’ve just spent half an hour looking at a patch of marram grass and watching a load of insects get on with their lives. Imagine doing that at home.’
Lucia is about to scoff at this. She was forced into a mindfulness session on a training day at school once, and found it tedious to say the least. A week’s course seemed to have been crammed into one day with a hard-core staff meeting tagged on the end, and she’d got home feeling even less relaxed than usual, full of dissatisfaction about how busy her life was. Now though, Polly’s words make more sense.
‘It’s true,’ says Tommy. ‘While Polly was going all David Attenborough in the dunes, I took Reg down to the sea and we sat down a little way from the shoreline seeing how long it took the waves to reach our toes. It made him properly chortle. I haven’t sat still that long for ages and I bet Reggie never has.’
Peter nods. ‘And the best part was knowing you’d all still be here when I’d finished walking along the sand listening to the sound of the waves. When I turned to come back to camp, I’ll be honest with you, I felt like singing.’
Isaac says nothing, but Lucia can see all these words have touched him. She smiles at her son and he grins back.
‘What did you do, love?’ she asks him.
‘I washed the dishes from breakfast and lunch,’ he says, ‘but I did it really, really mindfully.’
Polly throws the end of a baguette at his head. Isaac catches it neatly and lobs it back, still grinning, and Lucia hugs herself and rejoices in the way he’s gradually learning to interact with everyone. It’s been a long time coming. She hopes so much that can keep the easy communication between them all when they get home. Isaac needs this so badly.
The following day is cooler, and Polly takes Reg for a walk in his buggy while the rest of the group set off on foot to a small local shop to stock up with a few basics for the next stop. Isaac phones Rowan to check on the pets and Lucia is relieved to hear they’re eating well and behaving themselves. Petula’s even managed to catch a mouse, something she hasn’t bothered to do for years, and Nigel’s fallen in love with the Dachshund that’s just arrived at number eight.
Lucia examines her feelings after Isaac ends the call. Has all this talk of pets and the house made her homesick? She’s delighted to find it hasn’t, in fact it’s had quite the opposite effect. Knowing that all’s well has made her feel more adventurous, as if she’s ticked yet another box on the essential holiday itinerary check list. Animals – fine. House – safe. Time to move further on the journey.
After yet another planning meeting, which Lucia is enjoying almost as much as the trip itself for the warm atmosphere that’s building up between them all, they’ve decided to press on to Gold Beach and call in at Bayeux on the way to satisfy both Lucia’s longing to see the historic tapestry and Peter’s need to pay his respects.
‘Have you got the maps ready for the next leg, Peter? This is still your choice, you haven’t finished your turn just because you’ve got us across the channel, you know,’ Isaac says.
‘I think I’m organised now,’ Peter says. ‘I’m really looking forward to the war graves. In a sad sort of way, of course. It’s something I need to do. The rest of you don’t have to come to the cemetery with me, you know. It’s a personal thing.’
‘We’ll all see how it goes,’ says Lucia. Sudden terror at the thought of all that emotion in store makes her feel sick, but she sees Polly coming back with the buggy and tells herself that Polly must be feeling even more vulnerable, and Isaac has always had a mistrust of anything to do with graveyards. Lu’s job today is to protect them if necessary. Maybe Polly won’t want to see the graves. She’s probably had enough of thinking about death. Lu hopes so.
The departure from the campsite is a relaxed affair. It’s only a couple of hours drive to the next site and on the way they plan to have a picnic, see the tapestry and pull in one of the war cemeteries. Isaac sits in the back with Lucia and Reg, while Peter, in his element, navigates for Polly. Under cover of Reggie’s singing and Peter’s detailed instructions, Isaac leans towards his mum.
‘Are you feeling okay?’ he whispers.
She looks at him in astonishment, as if he’s grown an extra head. ‘Erm, yes, I think so,’ she says. ‘Why?’
‘Well, everybody’s been saying stuff about … grieving … I just wondered.’
Lucia laughs and ruffles his hair and she can tell he’s trying hard not to pull away. ‘Isaac, my heart’s been torn in two ever since we had the call to say my brother wasn’t ever coming home.’
‘But why didn’t I know how bad you felt? Still feel, by the sound of it?’ he asks, holding Reggie closer for comfort.
‘You’re not exactly the world’s most intuitive guy, are you? I’m not being horrible,’ she adds, seeing his face fall, ‘just honest – and anyway, it’s not your fault that you don’t … can’t pick up on people’s feelings.’
‘I think I’m getting a bit better at it though, Mum.’
‘Yes, I really think you are. And that’s totally amazing. I can tell how hard you’re working at understanding what makes the rest of us tick. Don’t worry too much though, my love. We appreciate you just the way you are.’
‘But is that enough?’
‘Enough for what?’ Lucia is playing pat-a-cake with Reg now, confused by all this unfamiliar sympathy from her son. Isaac lowers his voice even more.
‘Enough for Polly. Will she get tired of me being so … so …’
‘Emotionally complicated? Not if you love her as much as I think you do. Even someone with well-developed antennae can completely mess up sometimes with people they’re supposed to care about.’
The bitterness is strong in Lucia’s voice now and Isaac picks up on it and winces. ‘So you still haven’t heard from Dad since you sent his stuff?’
She shakes her head.
‘Maybe there’ll be a letter waiting when we get home.’
‘And maybe I’ll grow my hair long again and take up burlesque dancing. I’m joking, Isaac,’ she adds, seeing his expression.
‘And what are we going to do after Bayeux and the war graves, Mum? I can’t help feeling you’ve got another reason for coming this way. I’ve never known you to be mad keen on medieval art before.’
Lucia looks at him for a moment. ‘You really are getting better at seeing undercurrents, aren’t you?’
The sudden silence drags on for far too long. ‘It’s not far from here,’ Lucia says eventually, when Isaac seems to have almost given up hope of any more information.
‘Erm … what isn’t?’
‘The place where Eddie died. The cliffs.’
They gaze at each other, and Lucia can see a shadow of her own terror reflected in Isaac’s eyes.
‘You don’t mean … you can’t be saying you want to go there?’ Lucia nods.
‘But Mum … it’s going to be horrible for you. Why do you have to do a thing like that?’
She sighs. ‘I’ve been going over and over this in my head and I don’t think there’s any way around it. Unless I see where it happened, I’ll never really be able to say goodbye to Eddie properly.’
Isaac swallows hard but says nothing.
‘Will you tell the others for me, please Isaac?’ Lucia says. ‘It won’t be far out of our way if we drive to the Channel Tunnel instead of taking the ferry. We’ll get to see some different places on the way and we can camp for a night near Calais before we go back to England if you like?’
‘Okay. I suppose if you’ve made your mind up I haven’t got a choice. Mum, I don’t like you doing this but it’s a really brave thing to do. The rest of us will just have to support you, if you’re absolutely sure?’
‘I’m sure. I think it’s the only way I can move on,’ Lucia says, trying to quell the unwelcome thoughts. The words a brave thing to do echo around her head. Brave, or completely insane?