“No. We’re not. And I’m on borrowed time already.”
He’s right. It’s not normal, and I am leaving – sad as it’s made me when I’ve allowed myself to think that far ahead, I’ve never seriously considered staying. My whole life is in Liverpool. More to the point, he’s never asked me to stay – maybe, if he had, I would have considered it. Maybe I would have taken that gamble, that risk. Maybe I would have rolled the dice of life and hoped it all worked out – but it doesn’t seem to be something that has occurred to him, and I still have too much self-respect to suggest it. I also don’t want to put that kind of pressure on him.
Everything has happened too fast for that – we have lived in a delightful pressure cooker ever since I got here. It’s all felt magical but unreal – a holiday romance, like Sam said. And the last thing anyone wants at the end of the holiday is for the person they’ve just met to hang around, is it?
“So,” I say, trying to sound brighter than I feel, “we’re…just friends until I leave? And maybe I’ll just spend a little less time with the girls – nothing major, but maybe keep myself busy, not be around them as much? By the time I go they’ll have forgotten all about me!”
I stand up, because I simply need to move. I need to walk, possibly run. I need to escape the intensity of this conversation, and the strange ways it is affecting me. He gets up too, looms above me as usual. I risk a quick glance up, and see sadness in the green of his eyes. See the lips that I have kissed, the arms that have held me so many times.
“I doubt they’ll have forgotten all about you, Cally, and neither will I. But yes – I think that’s wise, before any of us gets in too deep. Just friends.”
I nod, not quite able to meet his eyes for a second longer. I tell him that is fine, that I completely understand. That I need to go for a walk.
I turn and stride away, not wanting him to see me cry. Not wanting to make this any harder than it already is. Part of me, of course, secretly hopes that he will follow – that he will run after me, wrap me in his arms, make everything all right again. But this is life, not a fairy tale, and I know that if I glance back I will see him standing there, solid and alone. I know that his own sadness will mix with my own, and it will all be too much for me.
So I keep going, and I don’t look back. I walk towards the caves, and it is only when I arrive there, when there is enough distance between us, that I allow myself the luxury of turning around. I see him slowly climbing the steps of the terrace, back up towards the café. Away from me.
It is a dull day, and the inside of the caves are bleak and dark. I clamber unsteadily over the small boulders that litter the entrance, and make my way through. There is enough scattered light for me to make out the uneven floor, to make my way to the place where I stood with Archie, a lifetime ago. The place I stood with my dad a lifetime before that.
I get out my phone, switch on the torch, and cast its beam towards the roof of the cave. Magically, it begins to sparkle and shimmer, the violets and blues and deep reds shining down upon me like stars. I spin, and spin some more, and spin again until I am dizzy, watching those stars blur and dazzle above me.
By the time I stop, I am out of breath, and disorientated, and crying. The tears spill down my face, gather in the hollow of my neck, damp reminders of a truth that I have only just acknowledged.
The truth is that it is too late to be wise. Too late to be safe. I am already in way too deep – I am in love with Archie, and there is no easy way to take it back. It is not something I can switch off, or hide from, or ignore. It is not something I can impose on him, or his girls. It is my own burden to carry. Maybe one day, the memory will fade – maybe one day it will be a distant outline, a shadow of an emotion I once felt, as unknowable as the stars that spin. The stars I can reach out and touch. Maybe one day, I will look back on all of this, and smile.
But that day, I know for sure, is not today. Today I am broken, and weak, and lost. I sit down in a collapsed heap on the floor of the cave, and turn off my phone. Today is not a day for glimmer and glitter. It is not a day for starshine.
TWENTY-FIVE
When I open the front door, my house feels alien – the clutter of junk mail as I push it open, the musty smell of an empty building, the cool air of a place that hasn’t been lived in for a while. And on top of all of that, the lingering scent of pine.
I walk through the hallway, turn the heating back on as I go, and force myself to face up to it. The world’s biggest Christmas tree is now a sad affair, its once lush boughs hanging heavy towards the floor, rich green now tinged with a dull, deadened brown, like someone has taken a blow-torch to its tips. The few decorations I’d put on are still there, but the tree itself is a wreck – and the whole floor of the room is carpeted with dropped needles. I have no idea how I am going to get it out of here, and for now I close the door and decide that it is very much a problem for another day.
I make my way into the kitchen, see the signs of my mother’s stop-over – a couple of washed plates on the rack, the kettle still half full. I gaze out of the window into the garden, my small patch of green, now looking waterlogged and neglected and about as happy with life as I feel.
I have been on the road for hours, driving through many different varieties of rain, and it is now late afternoon on a bleak and grey day. I am home, and I should feel good about that – but all I feel is empty and miserable.
I’d said my goodbyes to everyone the night before, at a typical Starshine Cove send-off at the inn. There had been music and dancing and food and drink and much merriment, and I had to fake my way through all of it.
After that day in the caves, after realising how strong my feelings for Archie were, I’d decided that I simply couldn’t stay. I couldn’t bear the thought of seeing him every day, but keeping my distance. Of avoiding the girls. Of pretending that I was fine with a situation that I knew would eat me alive.
So, I’d done the only logical thing – told a big fat lie. I said that Jo had called, that she wanted me to come back early to help with the new salon refit. That I had to leave. I’m sure that Archie knew I wasn’t telling the truth, but he accepted it – sadly, but without challenge.
Sam was a different matter entirely. He called me out on it straight away, and I didn’t have the heart to maintain the fib – so I told him the truth. I told him that I needed to escape, to get away from the intensity of it all. That I needed to leave, whether he came with me or not.
He was upset, but I suppose he understood. His own turmoil with Ollie is still fresh enough in his emotional memory for him to get it, I guess. I assured him that it was fine for him to stay behind for a while, to continue working for a bit longer, to carry on enjoying himself.
That resulted in a bit of a row, but I’m glad to say I won – there is no way I would ever have let him come home with me just for my sake, because he was worried about me. I am determined not to let the cycle of child-looking-after-parent continue any further than me and my mum. He’s living at Connie’s, and I know she’ll keep an eye on him.
It was the right decision, but now, as I stand alone in a cold house staring into an empty fridge, I am starting to realise how hard this is. I have never lived alone, not really – I have always had someone to look after, someone to care for. Someone to keep me busy. This is a whole new experience for me, and I can’t say that it’s one I am going to enjoy.
I open up my delivery app on my phone, almost smile when I see the usual vast array of pizza joints and burger bars and Chinese takeaways willing to bring tasty food to my doorstep. Then I realise something else – that I’m not hungry. That is a very novel feeling indeed, and I wonder if maybe all this heartbreak will at least help me drop a dress size.
I bring my bags in, and spend a while unpacking. Everything I pull out seems to remind me of what I’ve left behind – the dress I wore at Christmas, the boots I trudged through Starshine snow in, the rolled-up pouch that contains my scissors, the VHS copy ofHighlanderI watched in Kittiwake. There are farewell gifts – a notebook full of recipes from the Betties, a copy of Trevor the Druid’sHistory of Starshine Cove, a bottle of wine from Jake and Ella. A hand-made card from Lilly and Meg, filled with drawings of all their favourite things circled with big love hearts. Finally, the blue angel – Archie’s Christmas present to me. I lay it to one side on the bed, gently stroke its shining blue wings.
I know that I am being indulgent. I know that I am feeling sorry for myself, but I’m not quite at the stage where I can stop. I miss them all so much. It’s like a physical ache deep inside me, and I know I will spend the next few days consumed by it – wondering what they are all doing, imagining the bay and the caves, comparing my life here with my life there. My real life to the one I left behind.
I get out my phone again, and see if I can find a cheap VHS player online. When that fails, I resolve to go hunting around the local charity shops – it’ll give me something to do, at least. After that, I call Jo, tell her I’m back, and feel a little rush of hope when she seems delighted and says she’d be glad of the help. At least I won’t be sitting around the house on my own all day, every day, until I explode with boredom and sadness.
