‘This is so beautiful.’ She spoke aloud, tipping her head back to feel the warmth on her face. ‘I brought breakfast. Open up the backpack.’
Ed did just that and produced a large punnet of glossy red cherries.
‘I figured we should make new traditions,’ she began.
‘I like that thought very much.’ He paused, clearly moved. ‘One of the things I missed most when my parents divorced was all the little things, the in-jokes, the habits and peculiarities that we as a foursome shared, and it’s not about them being exclusive, but that they made me feel like I was part of a gang, part of something that if and when the need arose, might provide a safety net.’
She understood. This fruit was a link to her beloved dad, and now something she’d share with Ed. New traditions; she liked the idea very much.
‘But your mum and dad have always been there for you?’
‘Yes, yes they have in their own way – they’re great, but it’s more than that. It’s about all the small things that made us special. Playing Uno on Christmas Day after lunch, Dilly mis-saying “car park”, so they were “par carks”. Until Wendy moved in and insisted on correcting us every time we said it. And that small thing, that little line that connected the tiny dots of our existence was broken. It wasn’t Wendy’s fault, it must have irritated her, but either way it was broken. These building blocks that constructed all things that we would look back on and recognise as our history. I want that. I want to build a history with you. I want to share moments like this with you and with ...’
She knew he was going to say ‘our kids’, and her heart squeezed in anticipation.
‘With whatever might come next,’ he finished. ‘And so I can’t tell you how utterly joyful I feel to sit here at Battery Point on Lundy Island eating cherries on the day after your birthday. We’ll come again next year, if you like?’
‘I do like.’ Greedily she took a handful of the shiny fruit and popped one into her mouth. It was sweet and if she closed her eyes she could recall her dad handing her the fruit and how they’d laughed as they gobbed the pips into the flower bed.
‘You know I’ve been here before,’ he began.
‘Was it with a girl who brought you cherries?’
‘No,’ he laughed. ‘It was with my dad. We had a packed lunch of pasty and crisps and it was the second-best day of my life.’
‘Oh yeah?’ She smiled. ‘And what was the first?’
‘Well, I haven’t had it yet, but I reckon it’ll be when I get to watch Mr Sebastian Threader-Smith and his beloved Constance walk up the aisle!’
She laughed out loud. Then it was quiet, the air suddenly still and she felt clarity and hope in that moment of singular serenity.
‘That day, here with my dad ...’ He swallowed the emotion on which his words coasted. ‘It was the last day I remember things being perfect. I didn’t have to worry about my mum or feel sick about Christmas or where I was going to live, or whether they would they row again. Or even that feeling of being almost split in half and pulled in two different directions. It was as if I knew that things were falling apart and it was paralysing, knowing there was nothing I could do to stop it. Like living beneath a boulder that’s teetering and threatening to tumble. And no matter what I was doing, I had one eye on it, waiting for it to come crashing down.’
Tawrie reached out and took his hand; she knew what it felt like to live this way. One eye on Annalee, waiting to catch her when she fell.
‘I understand. And I promise never to make you feel that way through my actions – never intentionally.’
‘And I you.’ He leaned over and kissed her gently.
They were silent for a beat, letting the magic of Lundy wash over them.
‘Thank you, Ed, for coming with me, for getting it!’ She lifted the cherries in her palm. ‘I never wanted to come over here; I thought it was better to look at it from afar.’
‘But it’s so beautiful!’
‘It is, but I guess I figured that if I never came here then it might be true.’ She wiped the tears that pooled in her eyes. ‘It meant my dad might be living here, happy, missing me, but here, alive. I knew that if I came and saw it for myself, it would confirm that he’s gone. Really gone, never coming home, and what then, Ed?’
Reaching out he wiped her tears and pulled her into him. ‘Then you properly grieve for him, you finally say goodbye and you let me love you, all of you.’
Tawrie submitted to the deluge of tears that clogged her nose and throat, her body heaving.
Ed held her tightly and it was only when she lifted her head to take a breath that she saw that the sun, now high in the sky, had sent a shaft of light to illuminate the water. It sparkled in an almost straight line, with hues of silver and purple, and if she looked very closely hints of glitter ... A straight line that led all the way from Lundy to Ilfracombe, an intangible, unbreakable thread that she would, for the rest of her days, wrap around her heart.
Tawrie knew that she had found peace. And on this, the day she found the courage to say goodbye to her father, Daniel Gunn, she felt safe in the knowledge that her parents had adored each other and that she was made in love because what they had shared was truly golden.
‘Goodbye, my daddy.’
She whispered into the stillness as the scent of warm cherries filled the air, knowing that she might wander far, but her heart would always live in Ilfracombe, a place that would call to her. Home.
