* * *
James was still there two hours later when she went downstairs, unable to sleep. He looked shattered, bags under his eyes, the rims as red as Francine’s painted nails. She had arrived not long after Elizabeth climbed into the bath. Her swollen eyes betrayed the fact that she too had been crying, her face flushed in a way Elizabeth had never seen it before. When Elizabeth arrived in the kitchen, Francine approached, hesitating a little before reaching out to hug her.
“If there’s anything you need, just ask. Don’t worry about any of the filing, or anything like that,” she said. “I’ll cover it all.” Her embrace softened, but her hands lingered on Elizabeth’s arms. “I’m so sorry, Elizabeth. I’m so, so sorry.”
With the scent of her sweet jasmine and lavender perfume lingering long after her departure, Francine’s visit left Elizabeth confused about their newfound friendship. But it was the sight of her father returning a short while later that left her most bewildered. The face she had known since her first days on this earth was barely recognizable: drawn, eyes rimmed with shadow, his hair grayer than she recalled it that morning. He looked as though he had aged ten years in as many hours. Elizabeth took a seat in the chair alongside him, his gaze following her until she was still. His eyes were watery, his lip trembling.
“I’m so sorry I wasn’t here for you.” The melody of his voice was lost, little more than a single note left. The sweater he had been wearing since that morning smelled of ink and sweat. Hair was slicked to his forehead in ragged clumps.
“James was here,” she said, knowing her father would like that. “Daddy, what happened?” she asked.
He shook his head. “I don’t know, Elizabeth. They think she took a boat and got confused. Perhaps tried to swim. I can’t believe she’s gone. Oh, Elizabeth,” he exclaimed, his head falling to her shoulder. His body shook against her, so she wrapped her arms around him and held him tight, rocking as a mother would a child in the hope to make right his wrongs. She too had aged in the last ten hours. Losing a parent did that, made you question your existence for the first time in your life. Human mortality paraded before you, utterly unavoidable, the world changed.
“I don’t understand,” Elizabeth finally said. “Why would she take a boat?”
“All that time I thought she was upstairs,” he said, not answering her question. “All that time she was gone. If only I’d known sooner, I could have raised the alarm. I could have saved her.”
“Dr. Davenport, please,” she heard James saying behind her. “You mustn’t think that way. You could never have known.”
“I still don’t understand why she was on the boat,” said Elizabeth again. She needed an answer. With it might come understanding.
The touch of James’s hands on her shoulders grounded her. “A terrible, tragic accident, Lizzy,” he said softly. His fingers needled at her skin. “I’m so sorry, really I am, for both of you. And to think of what people have said. How somebody can strike a family at their worst moment, I just don’t know. It goes to show the nature of some families.”
“It’s the drinking that does it,” her father replied. He sat up, the tears gone, a determined look on his face that seemed out of place.
Elizabeth didn’t understand. “What are you talking about?”
Her father and James shared a look. He nodded, gave James the all-clear to proceed. “Elizabeth, I’m afraid somebody told the police that they saw your father at the harbor this morning, along with your mother. That they were taking a boat out together.”
Before he said anything more, she knew who was responsible.
“Pat Hale,” James said, unable to maintain eye contact. “Tom’s father.”
What was it that Mr. Hale had said that morning, something about the Davenports, and about her father being down at the harbor? And then there was that story Tom had told her about the misunderstanding over the stupid flask, the possibility of her father jilting his mother, leaving her heartbroken. Was that what this was, a moment of vengeance? How could Pat Hale lie like that, at a time like this?
“The police might want to talk to you at some point, darling,” her father said, seemingly bolstered by his mounting sense of injustice. “Perhaps ask you if you saw your mother when you woke up this morning.” Did she appear as guilty as she felt? “Of course, it won’t have helped much that you were up and out so early, but perhaps you heard or saw her? Here or close to the water?” There was such hope in his eyes, which made her guilt run ten times deeper. “Anything at all?”
It took all she had to find words enough for the lie. “No, Daddy. I’m afraid I didn’t.” It was impossible to be sure, but she thought she recognized some level of understanding on James’s face. What would she do when the police asked her about that? Was it possible to skirt around the issue as she had now, or would she have to tell the truth? Tell them where she was when she awoke?
In the house of the man who had lied about her father.
“I’m sure the police will get to the bottom of it. In fact, I’m afraid I must go back to the station quite early tomorrow to help them put together a proper timeline. Hopefully they won’t need to bother you at all.” It came as a surprise to her to realize that you could fail to recognize a person you knew so well, her father no more her father than a stranger in the street as she watched him, his head in his hands as he spoke again of his responsibilities with the police. “I’m afraid I’m not much support to you right now, Elizabeth.”
Years passed at speed; she felt older than she could ever remember feeling before. James’s words stayed with her, what he’d said about being naive, and she wondered if on some level he might have been right. In the last few hours she felt like a different person altogether.
“It’s okay,” she said. “James has been here.”
“And I can stay tonight if you like,” James added. “I’ll be fine on the settee, and I’ll be here in case you need anything.”
“We have a spare room,” her father suggested. “I would feel most comforted knowing that you were here. You will, after all, be family soon enough.”
“It’s not necessary,” Elizabeth said. Surely James understood this wasn’t a good idea after what she had told him earlier today.
“Allow me to help,” he said to Elizabeth. “Even if it’s just for company in the morning when your father goes to the station.” He lowered his voice, although it was pointless because her father was still within earshot. “Let me help you now, when you need it the most. Nobody else can be here for you like this under the circumstances, can they?”
She stole a glance at her father and was relieved to see him with a vacant look on his face, not really listening, lost in some horrible vision of what had transpired that day. The thought of prolonging the debate offered even less comfort than the thought of James being there when she woke up.
“I’ll show you to the spare room,” she told him. Then they stood up together and ascended the stairs, Elizabeth closing her eyes as they passed her parents’ empty bedroom.
* * *
“Why did you tell the police?” Tom shouted across the table. In all the years, after all the fights and late nights and broken promises, he had never been angrier with his father. Not even those accusations following Daniel’s death, the implication that he was to blame, had caused him to hate his father more than he did now. His father was still sitting at the table, nursing a cup of tea when Tom shouted, “Why couldn’t you have just kept your mouth shut?”
Pat Hale stood up quickly, knocking into the table. Tom flinched, a habit formed over years of experience. “Don’t you tell me when I should and shouldn’t keep my mouth shut, lad. Especially when I’m telling the truth.” Setting his overturned cup straight as he sat down, he picked up his knife and fork. “You should be thanking me. You’ve had your way with her, and now she’ll leave you be. You’re a free man again.”
A vision came to Tom of his father on the floor, of standing over him, like Muhammad Ali growling over
the deadweight of Sonny Liston. “It’s not like that,” he said, never more certain of anything in his life. “I love her.”
Pat Hale laughed, looked to his wife in the kitchen. “Sound familiar, Martha?” He turned back to Tom. “You’re as stupid as your mother to think one of the Davenports would be interested in you.”
Tom kicked back the chair and rushed toward his father, unable to contain his anger anymore, Martha stepping in the way at the last moment.
“You leave her out if it,” Tom shouted, pointing his finger over his mother’s shoulder. He felt his mother’s body shaking, close to tears. How many times had Tom stepped in, how many times his mother? They had lost count. He pulled away, took a breath to calm himself. “I can’t stay here,” he told his mother. “I’m sorry, but I can’t do this. Not anymore.”
“Don’t say that,” his mother begged as he grabbed his bag, already packed, before heading toward the door.
He swung the pack over his shoulder, light with just a few clothes and special books. All he needed for a new life with Elizabeth.
“Please don’t leave like this. We need you.”
Such words had stung before on the occasions when his father’s anger and drinking or womanizing had become too much. But now it was all he could do to leave. Somebody else needed him more, and he couldn’t let her down. He opened the front door, but pulled up sharply. Mr. Pommeroy was standing on the step.
“Can I come in?” he said, already stepping past Tom. He glanced at Pat Hale, his disapproval evident. “We need to have a little chat.”
* * *
Later that night, while she lay in bed unable to sleep, she heard the stones at her window again. It wasn’t a gentle scattering like before. This time they came loud and heavy, a promise of broken glass. Pushing the curtains aside, she saw Tom standing in the shadow of their neighbor’s house. He didn’t wave or motion to her, just stared, his face wrought with a mix of what looked like sympathy and anger. His eyes shone in the faint light of a cloudy sky, filled with crystalline tears. She hurried from the room, the wool of her coat scratching her bare arms, the soft mumble of a hushed conversation between her father and James slowing her pace as it continued behind the closed living room door. Cigar smoke diffused in the air, the night chill hitting her as she stepped outside.
As she rushed back into his arms, the pain of the day eased, his love softening the edge of her hurt. The scent of that morning comforted her, a mixture of warm skin and tobacco, and she buried her head into the worn leather of his jacket.
“I’m so sorry, Elizabeth,” he whispered. He pulled back, one of his hands still cupping the side of her head. His fingers touched the back of her ear, reminded her of the way her mother used to stroke her face as she fussed for sleep as a little girl. Even last year when Elizabeth was sick with flu, her mother had traced circles on her cheek until sleep took her. Who would be there to nurse her now? A void had appeared in her life, and there was nothing that could fill the space. Not even Tom, she realized.
“I couldn’t stay away any longer,” he said.
“I’m glad you came.” He held her again, listened to the sound of her breathing. His breath on her cheek felt like something of old, something she had never been without. “I can’t believe she’d do that,” she said. “Why would she take a boat?”
“It doesn’t make any sense,” Tom agreed. “Your poor father, out looking for her like that.”
“What?”
Tom pulled back a little, inhaling as he lit a cigarette. “This morning, when my father saw him, remember? He must have been searching for her even then.”
It was for only the briefest moment that her anger outweighed her grief, but it steered the conversation on an irrecoverable tangent.
“No, you’ve got it wrong,” she said, pulling back. “He had no idea she’d disappeared. Your father was just messing with us because I was in your house. What?” she asked when she noticed his confusion. “You don’t believe me?”
“But my father told the police, remember? I don’t think he’d take it that far if he was just trying to mess with us.”
Elizabeth took a step back, let Tom’s words sink in, plummeting like rocks in water. When she looked back, his face was cast as a silhouette, his dark hair at one with the night sky, the cherry of the cigarette bright against the indigo night.
“Are you trying to say that my father is lying?” Elizabeth said.
“Of course not.” His skin was cold as he reached for her hand. The shift in the connection between them was tangible as she pulled away, and she couldn’t ignore it any more than he could. “I worded that badly. I’m not trying to blame anybody, really I’m not.”
“It sounds as if you’re trying to claim that my father had something to do with what happened.”
“I’m not.”
“But you’re defending what your father told the police,” she said, hugging her arms across her chest. “He really dropped my father in it; you realize that?”
“Please, Elizabeth. Don’t do this. This is not us. I didn’t come here to defend my father.”
“Yet you’re doing it all the same.”
“I’m not trying to.” The cherry of the cigarette sizzled until it fizzled out when he tossed it to the wet ground. “I came here for you, not to talk about our fathers. I want to be with you. To ask you to come with me.”
“Come where?” she said, stunned by the shift in conversation.
“I don’t know yet. But I need to leave Porthsennen.”
Nothing he was saying made much sense. “What are you talking about? You want to leave now, after what’s happened?”
“I know, I know, but I can’t stay with my parents anymore, Elizabeth, not after this. And I can’t stay in Porthsennen without a job.”
“You’ve got a job, and there are plenty of holiday rentals you can stay in over the winter. They’re all empty, and Mr. Bolitho will give you a good price.”
“No, Elizabeth. I don’t have a job anymore. Old Man Cressa saw to that.” When she reeled at the revelation, he felt a need to justify it. Feeling as if he had somehow let her down considering his bad luck, he reached for her, was relieved when she didn’t protest. “Mr. Pommeroy told me that because I missed work this morning, I’m out.”
“But that’s stupid.”
“I know. It’s all nonsense; I’ve missed work before and nobody said anything. It’s only cash in hand. They’re getting rid of me because of what my father said, but I won’t find other work around here. Not after this.”
The image of life before Tom came to her, the engagement with James, the future that was planned. “But you can’t go.”
“But I can’t stay here on my own without money, and my mum needs me to work, Elizabeth. I have to help her. After my brother . . .” He paused, eyes filling with tears. “Dad would still be working if Daniel hadn’t died. And if I’d been watching him . . .”
“It wasn’t your fault,” she implored, before taking a breath and lowering her voice. “You can’t take on all the responsibility just because your father couldn’t cope. It’s not right. It’s not fair.” Images of the future they had planned together flickered like flashbacks from a dream, parts of her life that felt like memory, in the sense that it felt both inherently as if it belonged to her, but was now also confined to the past. “I need you too. You can’t just go.”
Her legs felt weak, her body too heavy. It was as if every bit of her was having to work to stay on her feet. And with that she gave up, let herself slump to the cold ground, still wet from the earlier rains. Her eyes drifted to the sky, the faintest of stars just visible through a break in the heavy gray cloud.
“This is so unfair,” she said. His touch was strong and yet still gentle as he sat on the cobbles beside her, reassuring to the point where she found the courage for a suggestion. “What about somewhere close, like Newlyn?” she asked. “A lot of the fishing went there. Or Mousehole.” Neither was that far, she reasoned, wiping her
eyes, the tears unavoidable. “We could still see each other if you were close.”
Disappointment hit when she saw him shrug his shoulders. That movement spoke of indifference, lack of possibility.
“You’re worth more than a cottage with no electricity and scraps on the table, Elizabeth.” Deep inside, he felt the stigma that he knew would follow them forever. What was a bloke like him doing with dreams of a life with a girl like Elizabeth, raised on expectations of a possible future as a doctor’s wife?
“All I want is you, Tom.” He felt her grip tighten against his hands. “I couldn’t bear it if you left me. You might never come back.”
“I will never leave you, I promise,” he continued. “But after what has happened between our families, I don’t think we can stay here either. We need a fresh start, away from here.”
“You mean after the lies your father told.” Her voice broke at the very idea. “What kind of person does that?”
“Elizabeth,” he said, his voice quiet. Every bone in his body told him to abandon this conversation, but he knew that one of the things she liked about him was his simple honesty, and if he kept his feelings inside, he was likely to lose her anyway. “I know my father is a lot of things. But he’s no liar. Your mother was found early this afternoon, remember?”
“What’s that got to do with anything?”
“Everything. My father told us about what he saw before breakfast. I was there when he told the police. He said he saw your father down by the water, taking a boat while it was still dark. Your mother was with him. He saw him staggering from the water later, alone.”
“What are you trying to say? That he killed her?”
Little Wishes Page 19
