The night before Ben and Hanna arrived in Cornwall the evening was glorious. Silvery and mild and the surf clean. Finn took his board out and surfed for a couple of hours with local boys he saw each summer.
The shabby and much loved beach house was ready for everyone. It lay at the end of a long sandy track, the last chalet on the curve of a long surfing beach.
Finn had helped Delphi sweep the sandy floorboards, tidied his small bedroom with the two built-in bunk beds and chucked out a load of his old books so there was enough room to accommodate Izzy’s toys.
Delphi stuffed the fridge with food and Ian set up a new barbecue as the old one had rusted away. He was so keen to try out his new toy that they decided to get the sleeping bags out of the car and stay the night. They picnicked on sausages, burgers and rolls and Delphi, watching Finn’s face glowing from the sea, saw him begin to relax. All that was needed now was a united Ben and Hanna, good weather, lovely friends, and two weeks of fun for the four of them.
Delphi was glad the Applebys had been able to change their holiday plans to still join Ben and Hanna. They always brought fun and laughter. Fergus and Ben had been at Sandhurst together, joined the same regiment and served together in Iraq. Mary and Hanna had become unlikely but good friends.
Looking out into the dark where the water swelled and rippled, Delphi thought she should be used to Ben heading for war zones by now, but she wasn’t. In fact, it got worse with age, and grandchildren.
She made some hot chocolate and took it in to Finn. He was sitting up in his sleeping bag on the bottom bunk bed turning the pages of the journal she had given him.
‘When did you get this journal, Delphi?’ he asked. ‘Why did you never write in it?’
Delphi placed his mug on the old stool beside him and sat awkwardly on the edge of the bunk. ‘I bought it on a long weekend in Rome, a hundred years ago. Ian booked the trip as a surprise. You can see the pages are slightly yellow, even though I’ve had it wrapped in tissue paper in a box …’
Finn looked at her. It must have been special if Delphi had kept it so carefully all these years. Why had she suddenly decided to take it out and give it to him?
‘But you always write in your diaries. Every year. You must have bought it so you could write in it,’ he persisted.
‘I did,’ Delphi said. ‘But somehow, I could not commit any of my feelings to paper at the time. I would often get the journal out to look at the photos, to remind myself of that time and the places I travelled though. Then, when I had no need to be reminded, I tucked it away for the right person to fill its pages. And that’s you!’ Delphi laughed but Finn caught the edge of regret in her voice.
He examined his grandmother’s face. ‘Perhaps you were afraid to write things down in case they really happened?’
Delphi thought, I bought a beautiful journal I was unable to deface with my treacherous feelings at the time. Yet, this treasured little book has stood, all these years, for hope and the power of love.
‘You know, darling,’ she said brightly, ‘writing your fears down doesn’t make them come true, it just makes you face them. Putting them on paper somehow makes them seem smaller and more manageable. Those empty pages need filling with little episodes of your life, all your happy, funny, and anxious thoughts. We don’t want the journal to crumble away sad and unused …’
Finn smiled and nodded. ‘Okay. I’m going to start tomorrow …’
‘Good. Go to sleep now. You’ll need your energy for that little sister of yours.’
Finn groaned. ‘Izzy will have had thirteen hours in a car, Delphi!’
‘Don’t!’ Delphi laughed as she went out of the door. Finn’s little sister may not have been planned, but what a wonderful difference she and boarding school had made to the solemn little boy Finn had become with Ben away so often. Hanna had been initially distraught at finding herself pregnant again, in a way inexplicable to Delphi.
Izzy, Delphi thought, has brought much-needed laughter and noise into that little family.