* * *
Less than half an hour later she found herself in the relative calm of Hampstead Tube station, and thanks to the young man’s help, only minutes from where she believed Tom’s house to be. Feet drummed the corridors, and the smell of oil and food hung thick in the station, but the assistance from the stranger had bolstered her. This was doable, she told herself as she stepped outside into the heat of the city. It struck her that there was no breeze, no saltiness to the air, yet life continued; mothers with strollers, men and women in suits. The little slip of white paper that she had kept for over forty years shook in her hand with the rhythm of her nerves as she tried to remember where to go.
“How have you spent your whole life here?” she said aloud, talking to Tom despite his absence, as she often did as a way of imagining him alongside her. “So far from home.” It seemed impossible to think Tom had lived in this place for close to fifty years, but she hoped for her sake he had. This was the only way she was going to be able to find him.
Only once had she made this trip before, the occasion when she first acquired Tom’s telephone number and address. The idea of a reunion hadn’t gone as planned that time, but her memory of that trip had left her with a certain sense that she knew where she was going. Still, years had passed since then, and life had changed. They had changed. Would he answer the door? Would his wife be there? She hoped not but felt guilty for even thinking it. Would they understand her arrival? With each step it became harder to breathe as she wound down the street, following the map of her memory. It was exhausting, and her fingers were sore from wheeling her case. And then, in the window of an expensive-looking bakery the sight of herself—hair all limp, her face red and shiny with sweat—held her back. Throughout the whole journey, her mind had been focused on how Tom might have changed. But what about how she had changed? What in the hell was he going to make of her in the state she was in?
In her mind he had remained forever beautiful, blessed by youth, but it was impossible to deny her own aging. What others would call womanly things—moisturizers, fancy clothes, or stylish haircuts—had always seemed like a bit of a bother to Elizabeth. They were things for women like Francine. What did she need with frivolities like that when she spent her life in front of an easel, painting? Even now there were traces of blue paint on her wrists. Her fingernails were never neatly shaped, just snipped practically so that she could work unhindered. If she was honest with herself, she had weathered much like the thatching on her cottage roof, which, considering the bucket catching drips in the bathroom, was to say not that well at all.
The thought of standing in front of him like that took her breath away, and she needed a moment for herself. Crossing the road, she rested on a seat in the bus shelter outside a Waterstones bookshop. Licking a tissue found in her pocket, she managed to remove some of the blue paint from her wrists. The zipper of her bag was a struggle for her gnarled fingers, but she got it open and located her toiletry bag, using the small attached mirror to look closely at her face. Crepey eyes stared back, red from tears shed on the train, born from fears over what she might find. The inside of the bag smelled of old cosmetics, and she found the remains of a lipstick that was no doubt as old as she was. It was probably something Kate used to play with as a girl, and Elizabeth was relieved to find that it was still moist enough for a dab of pink to rub into her cheeks. For so many years she had dreamed of this reunion, but now all she could think of was that she wasn’t ready. Not physically, and certainly not emotionally.
And she wondered then if she had ever really been ready for it. Because although she thought she knew why she had never opened the door, what about Tom? What had stopped him from knocking? Had he not wanted to see her? Perhaps they had both feared the consequence of reality. In their version of a shared life they couldn’t get it wrong, couldn’t hurt each other, at least no more than either of them already had. There was no disappointment, no mistakes. But the dream was finally over. Now she was here in London, and she couldn’t fail to knock on his door this time. Now she had to face reality, all the things they’d said and all the things they hadn’t.
After a while she composed herself, continued down the street filled with different styles of home—Victorian, Georgian, cottages she couldn’t date. London really was the melting pot people described it as. The streets all looked different to her, but eventually she found the house she thought she recognized. A man in his fifties opened the door.
“Yes?” he asked.
A portly face stared back at her, a soft body inadequately hidden by a stained white undershirt. It made her think of a poster Kate had in her bedroom as a teenager, that action hero with no hair who liked to swear a lot. “I was looking for Thomas Hale,” she said, unable to hide her mounting disappointment. “I’m sorry, he must have moved.”
“Think you might have the wrong house,” said the man, chewing on a half-eaten doughnut.
“Yes, my mistake,” she said, going to turn away. “It was a long time ago.”
“No, lady, you don’t get what I mean. I was born here, fifty-odd years ago.” Elizabeth stopped, took another look at the man, before standing back to review the house. “Before that it was me mum that lived here, so I don’t think you’ve got the right place.”
Was it possible? Even on a second glance the house looked the same to her. “What number is this?”
“Fifty-three.”
She sighed. “That’s what I was looking for.” She handed him the piece of paper.
“Got the wrong road, love. Just keep going that way,” he said, pointing down the road, “and you’ll come across it.”
And sure enough it didn’t take long before she found herself facing the house she recognized as his. Although the previous house had seemed familiar, this time she knew she was right, could feel that she’d been there before in the nerves that simmered through her. She could see the bench she had once sat on, waiting for the courage to knock on the door. This time she wasn’t going to let her fears get the better of her.
Her heart was pounding as she pushed open the gate, her mouth dry. The path was short, nowhere near long enough to give her the time she needed for last-minute preparations. What was she going to find? As she stood on the step, her knuckles braced to knock, she realized she was on the cusp of everything she had wished for throughout her life. He was just on the other side of the door, or at least she hoped he was. When she heard a woman’s voice, she hesitated a moment longer. His wife? Oh, good Lord, she thought as her nerves took over. What on earth was she doing? What was she going to say to her? Her hand fell, her feet shuffling backward, but before she could change her mind the door opened. And standing on the other side was a woman, a bit younger than Kate, who must be—undoubtedly, if the black hair was anything to go by—Tom’s daughter.
“Can I help you?” the woman asked.
Could she? Why hadn’t Elizabeth prepared anything to say? “I was looking for Mr. Hale, Tom. Thomas Hale,” she said, the tremor in her voice betraying her nerves.
The woman glanced down at the suitcase. “And you are?”
“An old friend from a long time ago.”
The woman thought for a moment, seemingly nonplussed by the idea, before looking down to check her watch. “I have to go now. He’s not really up to visitors.”
But then she heard his voice. “Who is it, Alice?” It was unmistakably Tom, and Elizabeth had to summon all her strength not to barge past and rush to him. “Tell them we’re not interested.”
That seemed to raise a smile on both Alice’s and Elizabeth’s faces. “He’s not at his best at the moment. Maybe you could come back later, or tomorrow?”
But Elizabeth hadn’t come all this way to leave so easily, not now that she knew he was right there. “If I could just say hello. I’ve come all the way from Cornwall.”
“From Cornwall?” Something, Elizabeth wasn’t sure what, registered on Alice’s face then. “Okay, maybe it wouldn’t hurt. Follow me.”
/> Closing the door gently behind her, Elizabeth couldn’t believe she was in his house. Nervous shakes took over her body, and for a moment she became that same awkward girl who first stepped foot inside his cottage. “What did you say your name was?” Alice asked as they headed down the hall, but she didn’t have time to answer.
“It’s Elizabeth,” Tom said, standing with a stick in the doorway, his hair gray, his frame small. Smaller than she remembered, at least. Tears welled in Elizabeth’s eyes; she felt unable to breathe, and despite all the things she had longed to say, all words failed her. He smiled then, and the thought that he was pleased to see her made her heart pound against her chest, her fingers tingle. A moment of absolute relief. “How did you know where to find me?”
Alice stepped closer to her, her mouth limp with shock, as if she’d just seen a ghost. “You’re Elizabeth?” She turned to her father. “The Elizabeth?”
“Yes,” said Tom to Alice, although his gaze never once left Elizabeth. “I was hoping you would come. I never thought you would, but I’m so glad you did.”
* * *
“Why don’t we go through to the living room?” Alice eventually said. Despite his appearance, which was that of an old man, Elizabeth could see the eighteen-year-old boy she had fallen for all those years before as she followed, feeling Alice’s eyes on her all the way. Her hands shook with wanting, desperate to reach out, hug him, kiss his lips. But she did none of those things.
“Elizabeth,” he said, stepping forward. His hands hovered close by; little white tufts of hair sprouted from his knuckles, his hands speckled with liver spots on the back. She wanted to touch him, but Alice’s presence held her back. “I’m so pleased to see you.”
“Me too,” she said after a moment, her voice shaking. He reached up and moved to touch her cheek, yet without warning she pulled away. Just for a second, the reality of what was happening was all too much. His hand dropped, and the moment was lost.
“Does one of you want to explain what’s going on?” Alice said as she followed them into the living room. “Did you call her, Dad?” Elizabeth felt like an alien just arrived on Earth, unwelcome in the shadow of the photographs on the wall, images of a life she knew nothing about. Where was his wife? What would Mrs. Hale say when she came home to find Elizabeth here? How could she explain what had brought her here today?
“No,” Tom said. “I didn’t have her number,” he added, as if that were an excuse. “I’m sorry I couldn’t make it this year.”
“Oh, that’s all right,” Elizabeth said, as if she hadn’t spent most of that morning in tears over his absence.
“Then how did you know how to find him?” Alice asked.
Only the truth served her in that moment, so she told it the only way she could. “I’ve always known,” Elizabeth said, feeling somehow ashamed that she both had the address and had never visited before. “But I didn’t know whether you were still living here.”
“It’s a long way to come on the off chance, isn’t it?”
Elizabeth wished it were just the two of them, and then felt guilty for the thought. What right did she have to such expectations?
“Alice, love,” Tom said, moving to his daughter, “you needed to get going, didn’t you? Weren’t you heading off when Elizabeth surprised us?”
“Well I was, but . . .” Elizabeth realized her visit had thrown the young woman, upset the foundations upon which her life was built. Her voice was soft, just for Tom. “I can stay if you want.”
Tom shook his head. “I think we’ll manage. And anyway, we’ve got a lot to talk about after all this time.”
With a degree of reluctance, Alice nodded. “Okay, well I’ll be back tomorrow.” Turning to Elizabeth, she said, “It was nice to meet you,” although Elizabeth doubted the sentiment was true.
* * *
After Alice left, Tom guided her to the settee, and took a seat in the chair by her side. “She’s quite protective of me. Especially now.”
“Daughters,” she said, and he smiled knowingly.
“Cup of tea?” Tom eventually asked.
Elizabeth nodded, and after he left for the kitchen, she took the chance to look around, glad for a moment to herself. The house was much grander than anything she had expected before coming inside. The ceilings were high and corniced, and a fireplace crackled with a golden log molten in the center. It was otherwise silent, but she couldn’t help but wonder about the presence of his wife. Where was she?
Drawn like a moth to light, she moved toward the pictures on the wall, each an image of a life well lived, his family throughout the decades they had spent apart. In some he was engaged in fatherly duties: teaching Alice to ride a bike, erecting a tent. In most of the pictures he was with his daughter at various stages of life. Elizabeth had always imagined him being a good father, and it seemed that she had been right. The photographs transported her back to 1975; she never could forget that year, or the wish he left her. I wish we could raise a family together. How she wished that one could have come true.
“Is she still standing today?” he asked as he returned from the kitchen with two cups on a tray. He nodded to a painting of Wolf Rock Lighthouse hanging in the center of one wall. Wolf Rock was the lighthouse that sat roughly seventeen nautical miles from Porthsennen shore, the final testament to man’s attempted reign over the oceans before the vast wastes of the Atlantic. Elizabeth’s great-grandfather had been one of the first keepers almost a century before.
“Yes,” Elizabeth said, turning away from the picture. She could never work out quite how she felt about Wolf Rock. It plagued her dreams, an obelisk to her greatest loss, yet throughout her life she must have painted it more than a hundred times. Thoughts of that isolated monolith roused fear and hatred, yet when she saw its light skipping across the water it still brought her closer to Tom, even after all those years. “Nobody lives on it nowadays. Everything is automated.”
“Probably for the best. Nothing good comes from living that far away from the people you love.”
“I don’t know,” she said with a shrug. “It’s not so far when you think about it. London is a lot farther away from Porthsennen than a lighthouse just off the coast.”
“Not as dangerous, though.”
“No,” she conceded with a smile. “I suppose that’s true.”
They were quiet for a moment then, fifty years apart a chasm too difficult to breach. So much needed to be said, although still she found it was impossible to say any of it.
“It’s changed a lot over the years, hasn’t it?” Tom ventured when the silence became too much.
“What has?”
“Porthsennen.” Easing into the settee, he handed her a mug of tea, and her heart skipped a beat when his fingers brushed hers. She sat down too, right on the edge, as if she didn’t really belong there. “I didn’t put any sugar in. Is that still how you drink it?”
“Yes.” The intimacy of his knowledge of her, there in his house, surrounded by images of his life and family, stirred a deep-rooted sense of her own mistakes. So much had happened to him during the time they had been apart. Her life remained small in a way his wasn’t, and she felt a sense of shame for the part she had played in their separation, and began to wonder what she was doing there.
“I saw what they did to the roundhouse,” he continued. “A gallery now, eh?”
“I sell my paintings in there,” she said.
“Oh, I know,” he said, smiling. As he pointed over her shoulder, her gaze followed, and there she saw a small watercolor of the beach that she had painted several years ago. “I’m always thinking about the place, and you too.”
The sight of her work, there on the wall alongside images of his life lived without her, suddenly shattered her cool. They were dancing around fifty years of estrangement as if they’d seen each other last week. All the things she wanted to say were stuck inside, making it difficult to breathe. “I shouldn’t have come here,” she said, setting her tea down, standing
from the settee. “When you didn’t come, I should have just left it at that.”
“What?” he said, his mouth wide with shock as he followed her toward the door. Before she could enter the hallway, he took hold of her arm. “Please don’t go now,” he begged.
To feel his hands touch her only made her want to go even more. “I don’t know what I was thinking.”
“I do,” he said, his grip firming up. “You were thinking of me.”
His cheeks were flushed from the hurry to stop her. “Well of course I was,” she said, raising her voice. “But why? Fifty years, Tom, and not once did you knock on the door.” This wasn’t how she had imagined their reunion, but now she found she had to say it. How could she forgive herself if she kept quiet? “Why keep coming if you never wanted to see me?”
“I had to,” he said, and she sensed he too felt ashamed.
“How did you even know where I lived after I moved?”
“Porthsennen’s a small place, Elizabeth. Wasn’t too hard to find you.” She knew that must have been true enough. “But in all fairness, you never opened the door either. You could have, but you didn’t.”
“I did once,” she said, unable to stem the flow of tears.
“Did you?”
“The first year. I saw you. I ran after you.”
He hung his head. When he slumped onto the settee, she sat down beside him. “I didn’t hear you,” he whispered. She could see that he was embarrassed. “Still, you were married then, had a little baby. And you also knew where I lived, it seems, and you never came either.”
“Actually, that’s not quite true,” she said, feeling as if it was a confession of sorts. The truth of the situation depleted her, the memory of that day a painful recollection that left her with a deep sense of resignation. “I sat on that bench across the road. I saw you with Alice, and then I suppose when it came to it, I couldn’t knock on the door any more than you could.”
“We had other lives, other responsibilities,” he said sadly. “But I always regretted it, Elizabeth. I always wished that it had been different.”
Little Wishes Page 5
