“It’s not in use anymore. They used to haul oyster boats up here,” Brandon explains. “Watch your step.”
I tread carefully along the stone-and-granite curbs, avoiding the slippery tracks glistening with sea mist. Something about the abandoned structure gives the beach an eerie kind of charm.
“Is it ancient?” I ask.
“Not quite. Late 1800s, if memory serves.”
“So, no Roman soldiers dragging boats up here?”
“I’m afraid not.”
“Shame. Well, maybe it’s haunted?” I ask, half-hopeful.
A smile ghosts across his mouth. “If you like.”
“Or used by pirates.”
“Quite possibly.”
We face the dark sea. A breeze rolls in, seeping through my jacket and playing with my hair. I breathe in deeply, eyes drifting shut for a moment.
With the gentle rasp of water over stones and the wind on my face, I feel my senses awakening. The repressive numbness I’ve been dragging myself through ever since my breakup with Toby loosens its grip a little.
“I can’t get over how beautiful it is here,” I murmur.
“A little quieter than Manly Beach,” Brandon notes.
“True.” Even when the waves weren’t crashing against the shore, Manly was always buzzing, day and night, full of voices, music, and a vibrant energy that never really stopped. Out here on the beach, I can barely hear the hum of cars and distant voices. “It feels like another world. Like it has its own kind of magic.”
“I’m pleased you think so.”
“It must’ve been nice, growing up here.”
He puts his hands in his pockets. “It was. We visited London often, so it was a good place to return to. You learn to love the quiet.”
“Especially after a big career in music?” I venture.
“Yes. As you can imagine, there was a lot of travel involved. Plenty of late nights in hotels and days spent on the road with bands.”
“Lots of parties?”
He snorts softly. “Naturally. But mostly endless meetings to coordinate events—the noisy kind that overload the senses. There’s always someone shouting at you when you’re near a stage. And there was paperwork, of course. I was good at it, but in the end, that life wasn’t for me. Never a moment’s peace. I only kept it up for the artists.”
He says it quietly, eyes faraway.
My stomach tightens. Back at the cottage, he spoke of the woman he lost. I know I should leave it alone, but something about the way he opened up won’t let me. Perhaps he needs to talk about it.
“Earlier, you spoke about Natalie,” I begin, hesitating when he tenses. “Was she in music too?”
He doesn’t answer straight away. He bends to pick up a small, flat stone and skips it. It glides across the water, once, twice…five times.
“Nice,” I murmur.
“Thank you.” A pause, grief flickering briefly in his eyes. “She was a musician, but we kept our relationship a secret.”
A musician? Someone famous, perhaps, or why else would they keepit a secret? My mind flicks to my father’s old emails, the artists whose names kept surfacing, most of them British. No Natalie comes to mind.
“What was she like?” I ask gently. “If you don’t mind me asking.”
