I’ve started taking photos that have light in them. I’m heading up to Alaska from Cape Cod for a piece of work around light in the endless night, so I’ll be in a place where there is no daylight for half the year. I’ll be there just at the point where the light starts to get in, which feels symbolic.
It was good to hear about your brothers and I have so many questions. Is Ruby pregnant? Have you found out for sure yet? Why were you in their house when they didn’t know you were there? Do you have a habit of breaking and entering into other people houses? Has Rowan realised that he’s in love with his housemate yet and what’s she called? You didn’t tell me her name. I also want to know more about Amelie and her bar. And Puffin Bay. Ivy sent me photos but they were never the best. She could take photos about as well as I could write a book.
My friends here have been great. They’ve made sure I’ve been busy when I’ve needed to be busy. I kind of got back (briefly) with an ex-boyfriend too for a few nights. It was good and I don’t regret it, but it hasn’t turned into anything more than drinks and a few nights together. How about you? Are you seeing anyone? Ivy told me you were a Romeo with the ladies, or that was your reputation at least.
You know that lighthouses have often been identified as being phallic symbols. You living in one doesn’t really divert from this reputation.
I’m actually looking forward to going to Cape Cod. I’ve been before as my mother’s cousin had a house by the water, a big affair with a wraparound porch and the sort of thing you imaginein novels written about rich Americans who summer there because they don’t have anything better to do. Which describes my mother’s cousin. She’s called Betty and was brought up in England, mainly in the Cotswolds. Her husband was American and went to Cambridge University. They met when she served him in a coffee shop and it was love at first sight. He was from money and was destined to follow his father as a banker in New York. When he finished his degree, Betty went back to America with him and became a Stepford wife, although she was nice with it. She and my mother kept in touch and me and Ivy had a few summer holidays out there when we were kids.
It became my mother’s escape. I think she held the drinking together more when we were kids. Our father wouldn’t always be around and there had been an occasion where I needed to go to hospital and there wasn’t anyone around to drive us there and Mum couldn’t because she’d been drinking. But when Ivy and I left home, I know it got worse. Dad ignored it. He was fifteen years older than our mother and I don’t think he knew what to do with her. They’d been distant since I was about thirteen – I don’t remember going on holiday as a family after I was twelve and Ivy was sixteen.
I guess it’s sad. To not have that love or relationship anymore and to be in a situation where you’ve accepted that you won’t have it.
That’s why I want to know more about your brothers and their love lives, considering neither you nor I have one at present – unless you do. I think you do.
So, Gulliver Holland, tell me more.
Love,
Iris
Ten months later
Dear Iris,
I hope the flight over to Cape Cod went okay. At least it wasn’t a boat that you were manning yourself with only a lifejacket and a few cans of baked beans. I tracked your flight, which might seem a bit sad – thank you for the postcard with your details on and the flight number – but I’ve had a bit of a thing about planes since being a kid. I wanted to be a pilot at one point and I think I had these wild fantasies of flying off course and taking all my passengers to some desert island with tropical milkshakes and huts on the beach. Then I wanted to be a fighter pilot, mainly so I could do tricks, which was interesting as I couldn’t go on a rollercoaster without throwing my guts up afterwards, so how eleven year old me thought he was going to fly a loop the loop without vomiting all over the cabin was another work of my imagination.
Roe and Freya are now together. It was obvious to anyone who knew him and had half a brain. He’s now living in this mansion house he’s had converted just outside Puffin Bay, which, if he wasn’t with Freya, would have me convinced he was going to be some strange recluse who never socialises. It’s like something from the eighteen hundreds from outside, all grey stone and castle like, then inside he’s had a pretty decent job done. The gardens are massive, which will all be Freya’s as she likes to make things from herbs and plants, which drove Roe mad at first but now he’s at peace with it. He wants her to move in with him, but she’s digging her heels in.
No baby announcement yet although I could’ve got my suspicions wrong. I have a feeling I walked in just after they’d first found out, so it’s something I’ll have to keep quiet on. They’re due to go on holiday to south-east Asia later in the year; a couple of months ago it was all they could talk about, but I haven’t heard either of them mention anything since and Rubyisn’t drinking, I’m pretty sure that I’ll be an uncle next year, all being well.
I have a key to Finn’s house as I used to live there with Roe when we first moved to Puffin Bay. We were meant to hand them back into him, but of course, we didn’t, so when I head round if no one answers I’ll just make myself at home. His fridge is always better stocked than mine too and he always has beer in from his brewery. One of the outhouses has been converted into a gym, so Roe and I go there every other day or something like that. It drives Finn mad when we just turn up, but Ruby doesn’t seem to mind so we’ll both carry on doing that.
I’ve tried to get a key for Roe’s new place, but he’s not having that.
What are you doing for Christmas/your birthday? We’re all going to the Puffin Inn again, which has become the tradition. Amelie only opens to locals on Christmas Day. She cooks up a huge Christmas dinner and those who can contribute bring a dish or something, so she’s not paying for everything. Last year we had over a hundred people there, which was nuts but amazing. There are quite a few elderly people in the town who would otherwise be on their own, and cooking for one isn’t always fun, so when she first moved to town she set up the community Christmas dinner. It was at one of those where Roman proposed to her a year ago and she said yes – there was always a chance that she wouldn’t.
I don’t think we’ll never not go to the Puffin Inn for Christmas dinner. It’s become a tradition now. Will you be with your mum for Christmas in Cape Cod or in Alaska – you haven’t given me any detail of your trip.
You asked about my love life. It’s a bit like the shelf where this year’s top selling toys are right now – empty. I haven’t had a semi-serious girlfriend in a couple of years – that doesn’t mean I’ve been celibate, just that there’s not been anyone serious.
I haven’t wanted anything serious before. I like having the freedom to go where I want, when I want. A bit like Ivy, I could retreat off to the middle of nowhere to get a book done and then spend three months promoting a new book round the country. It’s hard to do that if you’re seeing someone who might get upset that you’re not there when you need them to be, and you can’t prioritise them.
Don’t get me wrong, the idea of retreating to a shepherd’s hut, a la Ivy, isn’t a necessity. I haven’t gone somewhere else to write since I moved to Anglesey, I haven’t needed to. The promotional stuff is partly determined by me, and because the books have sold well, I can do fewer readings and signings, and take my pick, which is a nice place to be.
Next year I have two books released, one in March and another in September. My big thing is being at the crime writing festival in Harrogate where I’m on a few panels. It’s a really good weekend with a lot of socialising, so I’ll enjoy that. I’m doing three signings for each of the books on top of that, and there’ll be some TV and radio stuff, but there’s no tour of the country in bookshops in towns and cities.
Maybe I’m at a point now where I could manage a relationship where I could prioritise someone. I’m going to have a niece or nephew to help look after and protect from the seriousness of my big brother in a few months, so some ways will be changed, if they haven’t been already.
I need some pictures of where you are and your itinerary. I’m following you on social media – under my non-public profile of Jonnie Swift (spot the link) – so I can see what you’re posting but I want the outtakes. DM me some.
You can slip into my DM’s.
Love,
Gulliver’s Travels
Dear Gully,
