by Annie Dyer
“It depends. And once you’re an islander you can leave and come back whenever. Like Anya.” Her eyes glittered.
“She said the interview went well.” I’d had a text yesterday, when she’d gotten into her taxi to head back to the train station. She’d solely travelled for the interview, and then had to get straight back to London as there was a function she’d had to attend, an awards ceremony. I’d been at the council putting forward a proposal for the building that I’d probably worked three days straight to get in on time, after only hearing about the commission at short notice.
It had felt like a return to old days as I’d swapped ideas and banter with my partners. And we’d talked about Ryan, what he would’ve said, what ridiculous ideas he would’ve suggested that when we broke them down, would’ve worked.
I could talk about him without being tugged under a tidal wave of guilt. For months, more, I’d avoided work conversations or trying to remember him with other people. Now I could. I was allowed to miss him. We all were.
“It did. She hasn’t said whether or not she’s been offered the job yet. I found the letters Marcy and Donald wrote to each other. Shall I pass them to you to tell Anya about?” Nan stood up, now looking a lot less tired.
“Sure.” I’d read all of Marcy’s letters, most of them before Anya had gone to London, some of it through screen shots she’d taken of the remaining pages. It ended before Julia’s death, so we never found out what actually happened that day. I’d sent off for the death certificate and managed to dig up the police reports. All the other people on board the boat verified that Donald had not been anywhere near Julia when she’d gone overboard. He’d been with Marcy and three others, sitting on the deck, playing cards.
“Follow me.”
Nan led me into the guesthouse. I felt like I knew every inch of it now, with Janie spending the summer here and Anya. The kitchen was still busy, the rooms mainly full. I’d moved into one for a couple of weeks while the older part of my house was completed, the barn having a renovation at the same time into a gallery.
A couple of guests were in the lounge, a bottle of something on the table between them, both reading. One of the guesthouse’s cats, Marley, had slipped in and was basking in the sunlight that cascaded through the window. I’d been drawing her occasionally, then using the image in a picture.
Nan went into a bureau that needed a key and pulled out a large envelope, not overly thick, and handed it to me.
“I think there will be more somewhere. There are still a few more boxes to look through that are in the attic. But these might answer some of your questions. Give Anya a call and tell her, will you? I’d do it myself but I think she’d rather hear from you. But if she tells you about the job, make sure you don’t keep it a secret.”
“I’m not promising anything.” I took the envelope and headed to a seat near the window, my knee invaded by Marley.
Inside the envelope were several thick pieces of paper, almost like parchment, some covered with the fluent cursive script I was familiar with. Others were written in a heavier hand, the style less natural.
I took one of Donald’s letters, seeing that the date was roughly six months after Julia’s death. One of Nan’s afternoon staff dropped a coffee next to me and a plate of sandwiches. It made me smile. I’d arrived here with just a bag and the wish to be carried off into the sea and yet somehow this island had become my saviour.
The island wasn’t Donald’s saviour.
Dearest Marcy,
I hope you are well and the gossip is not taking too much of a toll on you. I’m staying in Betws-yCoed for the next few weeks while the inquest is heard. At present, what I feel is confusing and I don’t know how to make sense of it. Julia was my wife, but she wasn’t the person I thought she’d be, but I never thought she was unhappy enough to take herself off a boat and into the ocean.
I keep wondering if she’d worked out how I felt about you and that was why. But I’m not sure she had noticed it. She was so wrapped up in her own maladies.
I’m sorry. All I want right now is to be with you, but then I feel guilt for wanting that. Maybe we can meet in Llandudno next weekend, if you can escape the guesthouse. I can book a hotel for us.
If you’d like that.
Kindest, warmest regards,
Yours forever,
Don
Anya
October
I checked my phone and saw a text from Gabe.
Have fun this evening x
Simple, straightforward, non-committal. We’d message each other several times a day. Mornings; break times at work; lunch times when I got five minutes away from my pupils - usually in the bathroom; before after school meetings started and then, in the evenings, we’d speak to each other. Just about our day, or the letters, or the projects he was working on and his paintings. Me moving home.
I stood in line on the escalators, dropping down steeply to the Tube. London during rush hour was now my least favourite experience: outside was cold, the underground hot. There was an inevitable rush as the tide of people caught every passenger as if they were driftwood and I ended up with an uncomfortable sweat.
No one spoke on the Tube or made eye contact. If someone stumbled when the tube took off like it had been rubbed in Vaseline, no one acknowledged it, pretending that it hadn’t happened.
I was on my way to meet up with my colleagues and I was the reason for the meet up. We were heading to a swanky restaurant called The Mount Street Social and I’d been told I wasn’t paying for even a slice of bread. It was my leaving celebration. I had one more week left to work at my school and I’d be back to the island, back home. I should’ve finished at Christmas, but I’d come to an agreement with the head teacher to leave early. A previous teacher at the school was looking to return to work and could easily step into my role, which meant the dreaded half term of counting down the days wasn’t going to happen.
The Tube was littered with adverts on the walls, one after the other, equally spaced. I got bored of looking and instead glanced at the people travelling in the opposite direction. A man with long hair caught my eye. He was checking his phone, a huge backpack on his back. Blood was fed through my veins faster than it needed to be.
Gabe.
Gabe was in London.
As soon as the escalators ended I took out my phone from my bag. No signal as there never was on the underground.
The journey took forever, the dully quiet sea of people making me long for the Welsh lilt and chatter that was constantly there. And I wanted to phone Gabe, find out if it really was him I’d seen or if my imagination had conjured it up in a fit of hope.
He hadn’t said he was planning a visit. But I’d gotten the impression that he was trying to step out of his comfort zone quietly, not announcing it beforehand in case he had a false start. I got that. I’d told very few people about my interview at the school in Bangor until I found out I had got the job. There was no point in letting people plan for a future that might not be able to exist.
I walked quickly up the escalators and scanned out of the Tube station, heading for the first quiet place where I could use my phone. I hit his name in my favourites’ list and waited for him to pick up, half expecting to hear the sounds of the bar behind him, familiar voices putting the world to rights.
Instead I heard the sounds of a train.
“Hey.” His voice was quiet, as if he didn’t want to be overheard.
“I think I just saw you. Coming up the escalators from the Tube at Euston.” I didn’t know whether to be excited or upset that he hadn’t told me.
“I think you did. I’ve been to a gallery. They wanted to speak to me in person about showing some of my work, but they couldn’t travel up to the island. The owner is in a wheelchair.”
I felt my chest stretch, my heart the size of Australia.
“You had no problem getting there? How did you get to the station?” There was no train station on the Island. He’d have had to have gotten
a lift to Bangor.
“Taxi. Well, Joe’s Taxi. He’s picking me up too.”
“It will be dark.” The crash had been in the dark.
“I know. But I have to work through this. I’ve been out with Michael once at the weekend.”
I laughed loudly, causing a few people to look my way. “You went out with my brother driving? That’s hilarious.”
“It was funny. He drove like he was a pensioner out on a Sunday.” There was a pause. “I’m sorry I didn’t tell you. I wasn’t sure if I’d manage to do it and I didn’t want to spoil your leaving party.”
“It’s fine. I kind of wish you were here. To meet my friends.”
“Really?” He sounded so surprised.
“They’d love to meet you. Nothing sinister, just they’ve heard me talk about you.” A lot. More and more each week. When I’d returned to work, I’d said very little about Gabe, not knowing if it was going to be a just a summer fling. But as the weeks had gone on, we’d talked more. Talked without the sex, without needing a physical release, although I was ready to re-explore that territory soon. Preferably in precisely eight sleeps time.
He laughed but there were no nerves wrinkling the sound. “Maybe I’ll come with you when you visit. Where are you going?”
We chatted for a few minutes about the plans for the evening. “How did it go then at the gallery?”
“They like my work. They’re planning on a show in January. There was one painting they especially liked – the one of you on the beach, the first one of you I painted.”
Words caught in my throat. At first, I’d struggled with that painting. Although I recognised me in it, it didn’t look the way I perceived myself. But as summer snuck by, the picture grew on me. The thought of it being on a stranger’s wall made me feel uptight and nervous.
“My Nan might like it. Could you give her first refusal?” My words came out in a rush, peppered with desperation.
Gabe laughed. He sounded knowing, as if he had achieved something.
“I’m not selling that painting, Anya. The gallery owner offered to buy it but I turned him down.”
I felt my chest feel a little less like it was about to explode. “How much for?”
“It doesn’t matter.”
“It does.”
“Five figures.”
I inhaled deeply. No matter where in the five figures that was a lot of money. “You should sell it.”
He chuckled. “An, I don’t need to. And that picture is going up in my house when it’s finished. He’s bought another one for his personal collection, the one of the lighthouse at South Stack. Two dozen more are going on show in January.”
“That’s amazing.” It was. But I also knew he was talented and god, did he deserve this. “What about the tender for the other building – the manor?”
“Secured this morning by the company. It’s been a good couple of days.”
“I’m home next weekend.”
“Which will put this weekend to shame. I’m going to lose you.” I knew he meant the signal as his voice was already becoming hard to decipher. “Have a good night. Text me later.”
It was the first time he’d asked for me to make contact and it filled me with warmth.
Lorna was standing outside the restaurant, smoking a cigarette as if her life depended on it. She was in full pin-up girl mode, enhancing every curve and inch as if her life depended on in.
“You’re late.” She pointed at me with her free hand.
“It’s my party and I can be late if I want to.”
“Honey, you’re never late.”
She was right.
“I was speaking to Gabe.”
Her eyes rolled far back enough to be lost in her head forever.
“He should be here.”
“I didn’t ask him. Else he would’ve been. We’re not a couple couple.”
“Barefoot and pregnant within a year would be my bet.” Miraculously, her eyes were back in place.
“Not happening.” And it wasn’t. I had a huge career opportunity ahead of me, one that was far too good to pass up on with a few months out at the moment. Lorna knew that. “Come on, let’s get this party started.”
We ate. A lot. And drank a lot too, because it was Friday and tomorrow we weren’t in charge of thirty-plus children who needed our full attention and more. This time next week I’d be driving over the Menai Bridge onto the island and a different phase of my life would begin.
“I envy you.” Lorna sat down next to me, a half-full cocktail in her hand, probably some potent strength thing that had enough alcohol content to knock out a horse.
“Because I’m moving back to Sleepy Town in Sleepyville?”
She shook her head. “You’re moving back home to a place where people choose to go on holiday, not just visit for a weekend. You have the excitement of a man who adores you…”
“I don’t know if he does. We had an amazing summer – it might just be that. Now we’re just meant to be friends.” I toyed with the stem of my wine glass. It was the first drink I’d had since August and it was hitting me hard. No more after this one, leaving party or not.
Lorna shook her head. “I have a feeling that your summer romance will continue. He sounds like he has the potential to be the real deal.”
“Like your chef?”
“Maybe. But that chef is hotter than the kitchen he’s cooking in too.”
It was my turn to roll my eyes. Lorna and her chef had been glued together since I’d left the island, or before. He looked at her in a way that suggested he’d rather give her the last piece of cake than eat it himself every single time. And she looked at him as if he was the frosting on her Black Forest gateaux.
Probably the same way I’d look at Gabe.
“I saw him before. He had eyes for the restaurant’s owner. Besides, you have your own hot bit of cooking god.”
“I do. And I suspect you wouldn’t be interested in what you were looking at anyway. Not with what you’ve got already.” Helen eyed the waiter as he came round to ask if we’d like more drinks.
It had been civilised. The mix of ages blending well as it always had done at school. There were women younger than us who had just started teaching, some around my age who had babies or toddlers, some who were approaching the end of their careers.
I felt a sense of loss. My time with them was nearing an end and as much as we had been friends while we worked together, I doubted I’d be hearing much from some of them in more than a year’s time, other than a few likes and comments on each other’s social media posts.
I ordered a coffee and sipped it while listening to the year six teacher talk about the practice at one of our secondary schools, but my mind flitted to Gabe. One week and we’d be living in the same village again. Would I be spending every night with him? I didn’t know and I wanted to.
So very much.
For the first time, I took a walk out to the cemetery where Calen, his sister and mother were buried. It had been on my list to do since I’d returned. Now I was leaving – permanently – I needed to say a final physical goodbye.
Autumn had sunk in with its anchor. The trees were almost bare of their leaves, the red and yellow deposits from them crunching underfoot as I made my way across the graveyard.
It was a long way since summer and even longer since February. I’d wanted to both come here and avoid the place at the same time. I’d never forget Calen. The nightmares would never completely leave, although they were now rare. And there would be times when I would remember Calen and feel sadness drench me at what he would never experience.
His grave was next to his mother’s, his sister on the other side of her.
Playful and innocent, you were gone too soon. Forever loved. Forever missed.
The inscription was simple, the grave neat and tidy. A fresh toy sat beside it, a cuddly giraffe. His sister’s grave had the same.
I sat down on the grass next to Calen’s, not caring about the damp fr
om the ground.
For minutes, longer maybe, I thought about the little boy who had graced my classroom, steering my mind away from his ending. Instead, I focused on his goodness; his laugh; his carefree nature and curiosity.
We lose a lot when we step into adulthood. We gain a lot too, but it would serve us better if we could recall what it was like to enjoy a life that was free from complications.
The breath of the breeze on our faces, the rush of learning something new, the beauty in someone else’s smile.
They didn’t have that. But I did, and I didn’t want to miss enjoying those things we could often forget.
It was raining when I stood up, my hair wet, coat absorbing too much moisture. I headed across the graveyard, seeing a burial taking place in the distance.
I longed for the sea. That rhythm, that endless current, reminding me that it all still carried on.
And I longed for Gabe.
Dearest Marcy,
I took a trip to a lake in the mountains today and stood by the water. It made me think of you and how you loved to be by the sea, watching the waves. The waves on the lake weren’t quite so dramatic. Instead, they were slighter, stiller, but hiding depths. And they were beautiful.
They reminded me of you.
I’m planning to set up base on the coast not far from Llandudno. I’ve found a house there that I can use as my office and my father has agreed that it’s suitable in terms of the business. He’s agreed that I should avoid the island until speculation has moved on to something else.
But I can’t move on from you.
Surprisingly, my father understands. He was sad about the accident, like we all were, but he has commented on how I seem more relaxed, especially now we are coming up to a year since her death.
I feel like grief does not have to be inextricably linked with love: you are allowed to have and experience both.
