Cornwall feels like half a world away, and we are all grumpy and tired by the time we complete a mammoth journey of ferries and packed motorways and terrible food at fume-ridden service stations.
It also, when we arrive, feels like it’s full—every single family with school-age children has come here on holiday.
I’ve never been to this part of the world before, and I can see why it’s full. It’s picture-perfect, apart from the hordes of people.
Joe’s cards and notes lead us to conclude that he was in this area for around two years. We have two birthday cards for Gracie, two packs of gum for me, and a smattering of postcards. Although one is from St. Ives and one is from Tintagel, the other postmarks all seem to be in the Bude area, on the north coast.
We’ve headed here, to a place called Widemouth Bay, staying in the only B & B we could find that had vacancies. The vacancies are understandable, as we are all sharing a room, there’s no en suite, and the landlady looks like she eats babies for breakfast.
We initially tried the library, after Michael had the bright idea of going through electoral rolls, but we were told by a pitying librarian there that the rolls are organized by street, so unless we could be more specific we’d be there for weeks. There are a lot of streets in Bude.
We followed up with a daylong traipse around bars and pubs and cafés in the town, on the basis that Geraldine might have continued in her old line of business—but we end up with nothing but sore feet and a lifelong hatred of cream teas.
Now, as the sun slides into the ocean and the last few surfers make the most of the quieter beaches, we are sitting on a small stone wall by a shack that sells waffles and crêpes, dejectedly pondering our next moves.
There is a completely different feel to the place at night, when the families have packed up. You can hear the waves foaming onto the sand, and see dog walkers and couples, and imagine it back in the days that Daphne du Maurier described.
The hovering sunlight reflecting off the water gives it a ghostly feel, the incoherent outlines of soaring seabirds misting in and out of sight like spirits surfing the air currents. It smells tangy with salt, and I gaze at the beach, picturing Joe here. It’s not hard, and if I squint I can see him, walking the ridged lines of wet sand, waves foaming onto his feet.
We’re reluctant to go back to the B & B just yet, particularly Michael, who has been reduced to actual tears by its lack of Wi-Fi. As Belinda and I sit silently, lost in the view and our own thoughts, he is busily working social media and internet searches with the zeal of the true believer, thanks to the online gods of the waffle hut.
“You’d have thought,” he says, as his fingers fly over his phone, “that there would be a lot less Geraldine Doyles here, wouldn’t you? And you’d be right. I can’t find a single one. Maybe we’re wrong . . . maybe we’re in the wrong part of Cornwall?”
“That could be the case,” I reply, resigned to it. I’ve been thinking this through, and we don’t really know that this was where Joe lived. Or that he was even with Geraldine. He could have lived elsewhere and worked in Bude, or posted the cards when he visited, or have moved to the moon to raise wild boar on the Sea of Tranquility. We just don’t know.
Michael pauses, distracted by the passing of two especially well-shaped surfer dudes in form-fitting wetsuits, then cocks his head to one side as though he’s come up with something. He looks a bit like a spaniel.
“What was the name of their kid?” he asks eventually. “Geraldine and Adrian’s son. I know Bernie mentioned it, but I can’t quite recall.”
“That’s because you were seven mojitos in,” replies Belinda, also following the surfer dudes with her gaze. I wouldn’t have thought they were her type, but what do I really know? When she got pregnant with Mal, none of us even knew the father—it was someone she’d met on holiday in Crete. I don’t even know if she’s stayed in touch with him, or if he’s been part of Malachi’s life all these years.
“Jamie,” I say quietly. “It was Jamie. Are you still in touch with Mal’s dad, the one you met in Crete?”
I don’t know why I add that last bit. I’m pretty sure Mal only has the one dad, and it is indeed the one she met in Crete. She probably remembers that.
She looks at me with a fierce side-eye, and Michael pipes up: “Oh! I haven’t heard this story. Who is he? Mal’s dad? Or was it a one-night thing? Or is he a film star? Or a multimillionaire Greek yacht owner? It would be super cool to have one of those as your baby daddy!”
“Baby daddy?” she growls, frowning. “Baby daddy? Don’t you think that’s a racially stereotypical term? Are you assuming that some black stud impregnated me, because that’s what people like me do?”
Michael’s mouth falls open, and he looks both ashamed and terrified. He stares at her, and replies: “Are you messing with me again? You’re just messing with me, aren’t you?”
“No! I’m genuinely insulted!”
“Oh, well, gosh, I’m so sorry, I really didn’t think . . . I didn’t mean to insult you, I . . . I . . .”
“’S’OK,” she finally says, grinning at him like a tigress playing with her food. “I actually was just messing with you. You make it too easy. And yeah, Jess, I am. I never expected anything from him—it was just a holiday fling—but it’s actually been OK. He’s stayed in touch, helped out where he can, listened to me moan, had Mal to stay. He’s a doctor now. Lives in London.”
Michael, still unsettled by the emotional roller coaster that is Belinda’s company, throws the last piece of his waffle onto the sand, where it is immediately attacked by a white flurry of seagulls.
He continues to scroll through screens on his phone, and after a few moments, declares that he might be onto something. In fact, what he says, in a mock Sherlock Holmes voice, is: “Aha! The game is afoot!”
“What is it?” asks Belinda, shuffling closer to him on the wall. “What have you got?”
“Jamie Doyle. He’s eighteen now, and I’ve found him on his college’s website. He won an art prize, clever boy. The college is local, so we have to assume he is. Hang on . . . let me do a bit more digging . . . I’ll do it better without you breathing down my neck like a hungry bear, Belinda! I can almost feel your Adam’s apple from here!”
I can tell she wants to slap him, but restrains herself as Michael continues his odyssey. I see the pages of Facebook flicker by, the little blue bird of Twitter tweeting past, a page from what looks like a local newspaper website, and the Tripadvisor owl. A world of logos. We’d have managed all of that in the end, I’m sure, but Michael really is so much better at it than us. It makes me feel ancient.
“Right,” he says, smiling smugly. “Well, obviously I’m a genius. I’ve found them. Jamie’s artistic talents have extended to painting a mural on the walled garden of the family business—a restaurant up in them there hills. Looks nice, one of those organic farm-to-table type places. Bit out of the way, but gets good reviews. And Geraldine was proving elusive because she’s no longer a Doyle.”
“What is she?” asks Belinda, obviously wondering—as am I—if she’s swapped Doyle for Ryan.
“She’s a Bennett. Must have remarried. Not to Joe. Unless he changed his name as well, which would be really weird, and—”
“We could go there now,” I interrupt, glancing at my watch and seeing that it’s just past nine p.m. “It’s not that late, especially in the restaurant business. Plus it’d mean we didn’t have to go back to the wicked stepmother’s B & B for a while longer. I’m sure she’s got a load of poisoned apples lined up for us.”
This final point sells them on the plan, and it takes us about twenty minutes to drive to the restaurant—the Celtic Kitchen.
It’s tucked away amid curvaceously rolling fields, moonlit now but undoubtedly lush green in the daytime. The countryside around here is just as pretty as the coast, and the isolation gives it an air of absolute silence and serenity. We passed only one car on the way here, and the car park is now empty.
The building isn’t old, like I expected—it has a modern, Nordic feel to it, with floor-to-ceiling windows, a terrace that opens up onto a breathtaking sea view even at night, fairy lights festooned around the doorway and eaves in a way that makes it all seem magical.
As we approach the entrance, passing Jamie’s landscape mural of the sea on the way, a heavily pregnant woman greets us. Her smile is genuine, but she explains that they are closed for the night, and would we like to book for tomorrow?
She is older now, maybe a decade older than me, with silver streaks in her dark hair and well-lived laughter lines around her green eyes—but she is very clearly the Geraldine we’re looking for.
“Thank you, but we’re not here to eat,” I reply, smiling to try to take away any kind of threat. “My name is Jess, and these are my friends. I was wondering if we could talk to you—about Joe Ryan?”
She blinks rapidly, stares at me hard for a while as though trying to make everything fit, and I see her eyes swim with sudden tears. She reaches out and clasps hold of my arm, and we dance awkwardly for a moment before she ushers us all inside.
A tall youth appears—Jamie, I presume—and casts a wary glance at us, seeing his mum’s reaction and obviously feeling a bit protective.
“Everything OK?” he asks, laying a hand on her shoulder.
“I’m grand, love,” she says, patting his fingers. “Could you go and get us some tea and coffee and . . . heck, maybe a bottle of that Bushmills?”
“You can’t drink whiskey, Mum!”
“I know that, sweetie—but I think I might need to sniff it . . . These are friends of Joe’s.”
He looks at us with more interest, mouth slightly open. This boy can only have been about five or six when Joe lived here, but he clearly remembers him. And, I remind myself, I am making assumptions—just because Joe didn’t send postcards from here after 2008, and just because he seemed to relocate elsewhere, that doesn’t mean they haven’t been in touch. They could be best friends. Joe could be upstairs, watching Netflix for all I know.
“Our Joe?” Jamie says, confused.
“Yes, Jamie. Our Joe. And their Joe. So be a good lad now, and get us some beverages . . . Have you eaten?” she adds, turning back to us.
“Oh yes,” replies Michael, holding his stomach and grimacing. “Waffles and ice creams and approximately seven thousand cream teas.”
Geraldine pulls a face, disgusted by our food choices, and guides us through to a small side room that is built beneath the glass of a conservatory. It’s a pretty place, the floor covered in black and white tile diamonds, the sofas plush and comfortable.
She stares at me for a while longer, and I let her, pretending that I’m looking out at the terrace or admiring the potted plants.
“Obviously, you look older now,” she says eventually, “but I still recognize you. He carried a picture of you and Gracie with him wherever he went. He built this, by the way—the conservatory.”
I reach out and stroke the windowpane without even telling myself to. It’s an automatic response—to try to connect, to lay my fingertips on something that he also touched. He’d have enjoyed this—working hard, using his hands, building something both beautiful and functional.
“What happened to you, Jess? Joe told me about it, but I always thought there was more to come.”
She holds her hands across the stretched fabric of her dress, and looks like a kindly female Buddha, waiting for my response.
“A lot happened. I was sick, for a long time, after Gracie. And I lost him. Now I’m trying to find him and I’m hoping you can help.”
She shakes her head sadly, and replies: “I don’t know where he is, I’m sorry. He was here, for a couple of years, with me and Jamie. Jamie still talks about him—he was so good with him, good with kids in general . . . but you know that already. He’s talked about looking for him as well, so I wish you luck and would ask you to let us know.”
I feel the disappointment sink in my stomach like a heavy stone, and remind myself that we are getting closer. That everything I learn, everyone I meet, helps me do what Joe thought was impossible—understand the man he became.
“I will. But . . . can you tell us about him? About that time in his life? I know it was a long time ago, and you’ve clearly moved on, but . . .”
She laughs, and gestures to her belly.
“You mean this little thing? This was a surprise, I can tell you—I’m forty-seven and thought I was past that stage of life! But here I am—blessed. And yes, it was a long time ago, but I remember it all very clearly. Joe was the only good thing in a year of hell. You know, one of those times in your life when literally everything that can go wrong does go wrong?”
I nod. I do understand.
She pauses, gazes off into the darkness of the wild night around us, and continues: “But if you want the story—if you think it will help—then I can do that for you.”