‘It is, and we all celebrate together. We have a party down at Rapparee Cove called the Gunn Fire and everyone’s invited, and it’s become a kind of thing, far bigger than our birthdays! But it’s lovely – we just sit around, eat, drink, chat, dance, and there’s a bonfire of course.’
‘That’s amazing. September the fourteenth, you say? I’ll put it in my diary. If I’m invited?’ He batted his eyelashes at her. It made her laugh. Not only his antics, but the thought that he’d be there. It was a plan, a future plan and her stomach folded with happiness at the prospect of it.
‘No one’s really invited, not properly, it’s much more organic. Everyone discusses it and everyone looks forward to it and everyone turns up!’ She shrugged. ‘That’s it.’
‘I can’t wait!’ He rubbed his hands together and his enthusiasm for this tradition filled her with joy. ‘Okay, two more things.’
‘Hmmm.’ She tried to think. ‘I can whistle loudly, like really, really loudly.’
‘How loud?’
‘You know when you’re in public and someone whistles so loudly that everyone turns to stare and dogs howl and kids cover their ears?’
‘Yep.’
‘It’s that loud.’
‘Impressive. How did you learn to do it?’ He tilted his head.
‘I didn’t, I could just do it! I think it’s like being ambidextrous or colour blind, you’re just born with it. It’s a skill.’
‘It sure is. And far more useful than being colour blind. Can you do it now?’ He braced himself.
‘Nope. It’d probably break all the bulbs in the street lights along The Esplanade, if not the windows in the houses, your ears would bleed. It wouldn’t be pleasant.’
‘Wow! It’s like a superpower!’ His eyes were wide.
‘It really is.’
‘Right, final thing.’ He scooched closer on the sand and she liked the proximity of him. It helped her say out loud the hardest of things. She took a long, slow breath, wanting to share with him the thing she had never shared with anyone before, another secret that bound them close.
‘I talk to my dad.’ Pausing, she glanced at him, checking out whether his reaction was one of support or scorn. It was, unsurprisingly, the former.
‘Of course you do. I think that’s quite standard.’ He placed his hand on her leg and she felt the heat from his palm radiate through her whole body.
‘Yeah, but not just the odd “I miss you” or anything like that. I mean I ... I give him an update every morning when I get in the sea. I tell him my news, what I’ve been up to, all kinds of things.’
‘So, you’ve only been talking to him like that since you became a Peacock?’
Despite the intense nature of their discussion, she wanted to laugh as he called her a Peacock. She shook her head.
‘No, I used to talk to him before, but it’d be while I sat on the bench having a break from the café, staring at the sea, or if I went for a walk around Capstone Parade and looked out over the water.’
‘So always with the sea as your focus?’ His expression was intense, suggesting he wanted to understand and found nothing amusing in it. It gave her the confidence to continue.
‘Yes. Because ...’ The next words shrank back from her tongue and she swallowed.
‘Because what, Taw?’ She felt the increased pressure from his hand, gently squeezing her leg.
‘Because I ... I think he’sinthe water.’ There, she had said it.
‘You think his spirit lives on in the water or it reminds you strongly of him?’
She could see he was trying to better understand.
‘No, Ed. I know it’s not true, not really, but it makes it easier for me to picture him living under the sea. Like, in a specially adapted cave or able to breathe under the water. I imagine that he might have sunk to the bottom of the sea and was saved by kelpies and now lives in a cave on Lundy with a special breathing apparatus that he can’t leave because he’d drown. Married to a mermaid, with new merchildren, my replacements; half-kid, half-fish.’ She could see he didn’t know whether to laugh or commiserate andshe understood. ‘Or ...’ She took her time. ‘I also think he might actually live on Lundy. More to the point, I think he might be hiding on Lundy.’
‘Lundy?’
