Joe smiled wistfully. “It is now the tourists are starting to fuck off. Crantock is my spiritual home. I love it here.”
We drove through the village and out the other side. The air became salty and clean, and even my city boy senses could tell we were by the sea.
Joe guided me to a deserted car park. “Go right to the top by the railing. I’ll tell you when to stop so we don’t go over.”
The newfound madman in me trusted him entirely. I pulled the van to a stop at the end of the world and parked at the angle Joe instructed.
“We can look out the back too,” he said.
“Come again?”
“I’ll show you.”
I’d never seen the back of Joe’s van. Far from the workman’s van it appeared from the outside, in the back, it was, apparently, a home from home. “Wow. You could live in here.”
Joe tugged at the double seat, laying it flat to reveal a bed. “I did, once upon a time.”
“What happened?”
“The tragic obvious. My dad was fucking up the farm, so I had to go home and live with Grandpa. After that, I lost the time and the passion to do anything else.”
I’d heard fragments of this story before, but not enough to picture Joe living out of his converted campervan. The heartbreak in his eyes when he’d mentioned selling the van if the farm’s finances got worse, now made sense.
We spread an old duvet over the bed, and Joe brewed instant coffee on his tiny gas stove, while I looked on, fascinated.
“Got no milk,” he said. “But there’s sugar in one of these boxes.”
“I’m good with it black.”
“Sound.” Joe passed me a metal mug of coffee and we lounged on the bed with the van’s tailgate open, watching the sun rise over Crantock Beach.
It was breathtaking. The sky was a cloudless blue, the sand pristinely white. Without the chilly breeze, it could’ve been the Bahamas. I sighed and carded my fingers absently through Joe’s messy hair. The night had been surreal, but this? It was as near perfection as I’d ever known. I stared at the waves and imagined Joe riding them on a surfboard, his eyes wild, his golden skin contrasting so beautifully against the moody sea. “When did you last go in the water?”
“To surf?”
“Yeah.”
Joe put his chin on my chest, his legs were already tangled with mine. “The day Grandpa died. I came out here late in the evening and surfed until it got dark. He was dead in his bed when I got home.”
It wasn’t as shocking as it might’ve been a few months ago. I’d always known that I was sleeping in a dead man’s bed, but it had oddly never bothered me until Joe had started sleeping with me. As he’d recovered from his injury, he’d become restless some nights, talking in his sleep, tossing and turning, until I took hold of him and held him against me. “Do you think it might’ve been different if you’d stayed home?”
“I used to, but I’ve come to realise if I’d been home, I’d have been out in the yard with the horses, so it wouldn’t have changed anything. Besides, he was watching the sun go down over the fields, enjoying the peace and quiet with one of those stupid fucking cats on his lap. It wasn’t a bad way to go.”
“Some people get the death they deserve.”
I hadn’t meant it as sinisterly as it came out. Joe raised his head and stared at me, his gaze complex and searching. He touched my face, his fingertips like ghosts on my cheeks. “Tell me?”
“Tell you what?”
“About your dad. You said you hated him... Why?”
“Because he didn’t love me.” It wasn’t the answer that I’d parroted over and over as the years had rolled by or even the answer that had played out in my head for my ears alone. But it was the truth. “I thought it was my fault. It took me a long time to realise that it wasn’t.”
Joe nodded slowly, understanding, like he always had, even when I’d said nothing at all. “He really hurt you, didn’t he?”
“He hurt all of us.” I sat up and crawled towards the open tailgate, chasing the light... the sun, and its warmth.
Joe followed me—of course he did. “Did he hit your mum?”
