Letters from Lighthouse Cottage

by McNamara, Ali

  This isn’t a visit I’ve been looking forward to. In fact, I’ve been dreading it. The last time I was here was for my father’s funeral, a day that will be etched in my memory for ever.

  The service was held at the same church where I’d been christened, the one where I’d watched Charlie get married and then, a year later, bury his father. And it’s the church where Simon and I had exchanged vows ten years ago.

  Ten years – where had that time gone?

  Ours had been a happy marriage to begin with; Simon and I were living a life many people dreamed of – both in well-paid jobs we enjoyed, a large lavish house in a prosperous part of London, and a social life that kept us busy, mixing with the sort of people who could further our careers. We holidayed in exotic destinations, and dreamed about when we would retire to live in those same locations.

  I was happy, we both were, but then came the pressure of producing a new member of our family. It was fun at first; the mere thought I might soon be carrying a baby inside me was enough to propel me into spending hours wandering around Mothercare looking at cute, bunny-covered babygrows, and snuggly soft cot blankets. But after the first few months passed and I still wasn’t pregnant, I started to get a bit worried.

  When that few months turned into twelve and still nothing had happened, we decided to get some help. Luckily for us, we had money saved and could afford to go privately. After countless rather expensive tests, it was concluded by a very knowledgeable Harley Street consultant that I had an ‘inhospitable environment’, and Simon had a low sperm count. Our only option was IVF treatment, which we went through several times, with each unsuccessful attempt putting even more stress on our already strained relationship.

  ‘I’m coming back for a visit,’ I told Charlie over the phone one day in late 2006 when the stress was getting too much to bear, and Simon and I were rowing constantly over the tiniest thing.

  ‘Great – when?’ Charlie had replied, apparently not noticing anything was wrong.

  ‘Tomorrow. I’m coming alone.’

  I waited for the inevitable questions, but they didn’t come.

  ‘What time is your train?’ is all Charlie had asked. And I loved him all the more for it.

  *

  I stay with Charlie at Lighthouse Cottage for a week, not doing much at all, just anything I find comforting, normal and not too taxing.

  I take walks with Winston over the beach; pleased I’ve chosen December for my visit and not the height of summer when Sandybridge would have been packed out with holidaymakers. I spend time with Mum and Dad, both at home and in their shop, but their questions about my visit are rather more probing than Charlie’s. Most importantly, though, I spend time with Charlie, who I haven’t seen for some time, and who I’ve missed terribly.

  ‘So,’ Charlie asks one day when I return to the cottage from a walk with Winston, ‘when are you going to tell me?’

  ‘Tell you what?’

  ‘Tell me why you’re here.’

  I say nothing for a few moments. I prepare Winston some food, then I watch while he gulps it hungrily down.

  ‘I can’t have a baby,’ I blurt out at last. It comes out more bluntly than I intended.

  ‘Ah,’ Charlie replies. ‘I guessed it might be something like that.’

  ‘Did you?’ I ask in a pleading voice. ‘Did you really?’

  ‘Of course. I’m not stupid, you know. You’ve been married to Simon for what – four years? You’re getting to that age, and you spend all your time watching children and babies when we’re out together.’

  ‘Do I?’

  Charlie nods, and I go over and sit next to him at the kitchen table.

  ‘Do you want to talk about it?’ he asks.

  ‘Not really; there’s not much to say. We’ve tried everything. We’ve done it naturally, unnaturally, with herbal remedies, with old wives’ tales, and we’ve been trying IVF.’

  ‘And how’s that going?’

  I shrug. ‘It’s putting so much stress on our relationship, I’m not sure I even want to be with Simon any more, let alone have a baby with him!’

  ‘It’s early days,’ Charlie says. ‘You’ve got to give it time.’

  ‘That’s the thing – it’s not early days, it’s late days. Next month is our last shot at it and I’m scared. Very scared.’

  ‘Of…?’

  I look at Charlie. ‘Of it not working, of it not working and us splitting up.’

  ‘Gracie,’ Charlie says, putting his hand over mine on the table, ‘I can only talk about my own experience, but it might help you. When Louisa and I lost our baby I thought it was the end of the world, I thought nothing would ever be the same again. And do you know something, it wasn’t. It wasn’t the same; it was different. Life became different, but eventually it’s in a good way. Louisa and I were never meant to be together, and it took the loss of our baby for us to realise that.’

  ‘Are you saying that this is being sent to test Simon and me, to see if our relationship is strong enough to survive this problem?’

  ‘Possibly.’

  I think about this for a moment.

  ‘But how will I know, how can I tell if we’re strong enough? If it’s worth going through that final IVF?’

  ‘You don’t,’ Charlie says. ‘No one can tell you what to do for the best, only you can figure it out.’

  I’m nodding, but my mind is thinking new thoughts, thoughts of a little black typewriter. Remy would know what to do for the best. He always did.

  ‘Mum!’ I call as I use my old key to open up their house. ‘Are you home?’

  There’s no answer, so I take a quick look around the house to make sure no one is in, then I head quickly upstairs to my old bedroom.

  As I open the door, I realise the task of gaining advice from Remy about my latest problem isn’t going to be such an easy one. Mum and Dad appear to be in the process of redecorating, and my old room is empty, bar a few cans of pale yellow emulsion sitting in the middle of the floor, with some unused brushes on top of them.

  Damn, where have they put all the stuff from in here?

  I’m about to go in search when I hear the front door open and my parents’ voices wafting along the hall and up the stairs. I look at my watch: 6 p.m., they must have just come in from the shop.

  I go to the top of the stairs.

  ‘Grace! You nearly gave me a heart attack!’ Mum calls as she sees me. ‘What are you doing up there?’

  ‘Where’s all the stuff from my old room?’ I ask quickly. ‘All the junk you keep in there.’

  ‘That’s not junk, that’s all my craft stuff, my knitting things, my sewing kit and —’

  ‘What about the typewriter?’ I interrupt. ‘The little black one that was mine?’

  ‘Oh, I think your dad took that to the shop yesterday,’ Mum says to my horror. ‘Bob!’ she calls. ‘Do we still have that old Remington typewriter we found in the new nurse— I mean, spare room?’ Mum flashes a quick look in my direction and her cheeks flush.

  Oh Lord, they were decorating the room as a possible future nursery! I close my eyes for a moment. This was getting worse by the minute.

  ‘Yes!’ Dad calls back. ‘Why?’

  I thunder down the stairs past them, grabbing the shop keys from the table in the hall as I pass. ‘I’ll be back in a bit!’ I call to my bemused parents.

  I run all the way to Lobster Pot Alley. Unnecessarily, as Remy isn’t going anywhere now the shop’s closed. When I get there I fumble with the keys in my rush to unlock the door, then I burst through flicking the lights on. I frantically search through the shop, but I can’t see him anywhere.

  Was Dad wrong about them still having Remy? Had he been sold?

  But as I glance through the door to the office, I notice a little black typewriter sitting high up on a shelf – Remy!

  I lift him down, and I’m about to speak to him when I see there’s already a sheet of typed paper in his spool. So I pull it out and read:

>   Dear Grace,

  I’m so sorry you are having such a hard time right now. But please be aware everything you are going through is for a reason, and as time goes by that reason will become clear.

  Keep trying; your prize for persistence will bring you much joy.

  Love, Me x

  *

  That visit was almost six years ago. I look down at the small head fast asleep on my lap as the bus trundles along the winding road towards Sandybridge, and I gently stroke her long hair. Regardless of what followed that visit, I could never regret having my little Ava. She’s my life – what’s left of it now.

  Twenty-Nine

  Finally I see the sign for Sandybridge and I gently wake Ava.

  ‘Ava, time to wake up and go see Granny,’ I whisper in her ear.

  The little girl stirs on my lap, and smiles sleepily up at me. ‘We here?’ she asks.

  I nod. ‘We need to collect all our stuff up so we can get off the bus at our stop.’

  We don’t have a lot of stuff, I’m not intending on staying that long, but Mum needs me. She’s been struggling since Dad passed away, finding it hard to run the shop, and hard to survive in general without her partner of so many years.

  Ava and I alight at the stop on the promenade, and stand with our bags at our feet, watching as the bus drives away.

  I sigh as I look around at Sandybridge. The shops along the promenade are much the same as they’ve always been – a mixture of tea rooms, amusement arcades, food outlets and gift shops. Most of them have changed hands over the years, but some, like the Lighthouse Bakery, still remain with the original owners. The only new additions I can see are the Olympic banners and flags that line the seafront, from when the Olympic torch passed through the town on its relay across the country a few weeks ago. Charlie, as a prominent local businessman, was one of the torchbearers, and I’d been gutted when I couldn’t get home to see his moment of glory.

  As my eyes rest on the tea rooms that once belonged to his parents, I wonder if Charlie will be here while we are. It would be good to see him again; it’s been a while.

  While my life has taken a bit of a nosedive in recent years (except for Ava, of course), Charlie’s has taken off big time. The Lighthouse Bakery chain has gone global – and Charlie is now conquering the States as well as the UK. Mum mentioned that she barely sees him in Sandybridge these days.

  ‘That Charlie is always off around the world somewhere, selling his cakes.’ Mum makes him sound like a nursery-rhyme baker, carrying his wares around in a wooden tray. But I know how big Charlie’s company has grown; he still keeps the lighthouse at Sandybridge as a showpiece to commemorate where the bakery began, but his main offices are now in London and New York, and he divides his time between the two. Even though Ava and I still live on the outskirts of London, he’s so busy that I rarely see him. On the rare occasions when we’re able to meet up, I savour the small amount of time we have together.

  ‘Come on, you,’ I say, taking Ava’s tiny hand in mine. ‘Let’s go find Granny.’

  *

  Mum has laid on an enormous spread for us on our arrival, and Ava’s eyes light up when she sees all the cakes, crisps and sandwiches.

  ‘Help yourself, sweetie,’ Mum says, her face as happy as Ava’s. ‘We don’t want it going to waste.’

  Ava looks at me for my approval.

  ‘It’s fine; you go ahead and enjoy yourself. But don’t eat too much or you’ll be ill.’

  I turn to Mum. ‘You didn’t have to do all this – honestly, a sandwich would have been fine.’

  ‘Nothing wrong in wanting to spoil your family, is there?’ Mum says, watching Ava pile her plate up. ‘What little I have left…’ she adds sadly.

  ‘How are you doing?’ I ask her as we leave Ava munching on a jam sandwich and head into the kitchen to make tea.

  Mum shrugs as she fills the kettle with water. ‘Ah, well there are some good days, but then there are many more bad ones.’

  She plugs the kettle in, and I put my hand on her shoulder as she moves back across the kitchen to get the tea things out of the cupboard.

  ‘I know, Mum. I do understand. I may not be here all the time like you are, but I still feel it. Especially when I come home and he’s not here any more.’

  ‘I still get two cups out,’ Mum says, stroking a mug fondly with her thumb, ‘when I go to make a cup of tea. It’s little things like that that hit you the hardest.’

  Mum puts down the mug – Dad’s favourite – and pulls out another two from the cupboard. ‘But at least I have you to make tea for today. I’ve missed you, Grace,’ she says, suddenly turning around to face me. ‘You need to come home more often, love.’

  ‘I will,’ I tell her, and for the first time I see Mum the way she is now: an elderly woman of advancing years – she’ll be seventy next birthday. She’s no longer the Mum I remember from my childhood, rushing around between this house and the shop, bursting with enthusiasm and energy, wearing her denim dungarees with her hair tied up in a brightly coloured scarf. ‘I promise.’

  Mum nods. ‘My offer is still open,’ she says hopefully. ‘For you and Ava to come and live here with me. It can’t be good for the child, bringing her up in London in the area you live in, Grace. She’d do much better here by the sea with her family.’

  Oh not this again, I think, but I don’t say anything. Mum has been perpetually offering us a home back in Sandybridge since Simon and I split up. But I’ve always refused.

  The joy Simon and I had shared at finally having our longed-for child soon turned to sorrow when the stress of the IVF, and then the strain of a new baby to look after, took its toll on our marriage. We split up permanently not long after Ava’s first birthday. The cost of the IVF had severely dented our bank accounts, so we sold our house in Chelsea and both rented flats in new, but much less salubrious areas of London, so we could continue with our jobs and Ava could continue to have both parents as a constant presence in her life.

  Now I had Ava, I could only work part-time, and the cost of childcare ate most of my salary from the small art gallery in central London. Simon was good, he gave us more than he needed to in child support, and I never had to ask him for it. But if it wasn’t for the extra money I got in tax credits, we’d have had trouble surviving.

  ‘I’ll think about it,’ is my reply. I haven’t the heart to tell her I’ve no intention of returning to Sandybridge permanently. It took me too long to get away in the first place.

  Mum nods gratefully. ‘That’s all I ask, Grace. That’s all I ask.’

  Tea made, we return to the table to feed ourselves and find Ava still tucking into the spread.

  ‘So, what’s the gossip in Sandybridge these days?’ I ask after we’ve managed to polish off most of the sandwiches and we’ve moved on to the cakes. ‘Who’s been up to what?’

  Mum thinks. ‘You heard about Danny Lucas, did you?’

  I shake my head, but even after all these years the mere mention of his name makes my stomach twitch.

  ‘Divorced,’ Mum states categorically. ‘Last month. Real shame; him and his wife seemed like a lovely couple.’

  ‘I didn’t know they’d split up!’ I say, shocked to hear this news. ‘What happened?’

  Mum leans in towards me and whispers so that Ava can’t hear. ‘Another woman, so I heard…’

  ‘Really?’ I think about this. ‘It doesn’t surprise me, actually. Danny was always a bit of a ladies’ man.’

  ‘Oh no, not Danny – his wife, apparently.’ Mum raises her eyebrows.

  ‘Rebecca! But she isn’t gay.’

  ‘Wasn’t,’ Mum corrects. ‘Is now though. How does that work, Grace? Do you know?’

  I wasn’t going to try explaining to Mum how people changed their sexual preference, because I didn’t understand it myself. At forty-one, I can’t help feeling the sexual exploits of the younger generation these days are a bit beyond me. So I simply shake my head.

  ‘I heard it was o
ne of the women that worked with Danny at his charity,’ Mum says knowingly. ‘Poor Danny, one day he’s happily married, the next his wife runs off with a lesbian wife-snatcher.’

  I have to smile at Mum’s description.

  ‘Is Danny in Sandybridge much these days?’ I ask casually.

  ‘Oh yes, he’s moved back here permanently now. Lives and works from a nice bungalow up on the coast road that leads out of town. You should pop in and see him sometime, Grace. I’m sure he’d love to see you again.’

  ‘Maybe I will,’ I reply, thinking about Danny. ‘It would be good to catch up…’

  ‘I hear he’s rolling in it these days,’ Mum continues. ‘Apparently he had a bit of a win on the lottery – EuroMillions. He deserves it, though, after all he’s been through, and everything he does with that charity of his. You wouldn’t know he had money though; he’s just the same. I don’t think he has anything to spend it on now his wife’s left him; only his daughter, and he doesn’t see her that often.’

  How Mum always knows so much about everyone else’s lives is a constant source of wonder to me.

  ‘Poor Danny,’ I say. ‘Such a shame for him. He doted on Emily too. I’ll make sure I go and see him while I’m here.’

  Mum nods approvingly. ‘Oh, I almost forgot!’ she says clapping her hands together. ‘The really big news! We have another new owner of Sandybridge Hall.’

  ‘Another one – what happened to the last lot?’

  ‘That crunchy credit thing,’ Mum says, her face screwed up. ‘The company ran out of money – and customers, by the sound of it.’

  ‘You mean the credit crunch?’ I say, smiling.

  ‘Yes, that. It’s been empty a while now, but apparently it has been bought by some multimillionaire recluse.’

  ‘A recluse? So he won’t be gracing us with his presence in Sandybridge any time soon then?’

  ‘Word on the grapevine says no, he’s only bought it as an investment and he won’t actually be living there.’ Mum clearly doesn’t approve.

  ‘Sandybridge Hall, an investment?’ I ask in disbelief. ‘What’s he going to do with it then, if he’s not going to live there – turn it into one of those health spas for the rich and famous?’