A Cornish Cottage by the Sea. Jane Linfoot

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СКАЧАТЬ disturb everyone by causing a big on-screen shadow as I go, so I drop down and crawl between the chairs, returning all the perturbed looks with smiles and little waves, trying to look like I planned this all along.

      On my hands and knees, trailing my jacket along the rough-hewn boards might not be the most dignified way to leave, and it makes a mockery of how long I spent getting my eyeliner perfect. But it’s better than staying and ending up like I did a couple of weeks after my stroke – coming round on my parents’ living room floor, looking up at my mum and dad’s terrified faces with my words extra blurry and wet pants. And all because the strobe lights on the Top of the Pops revisit to 1977 gave me a seizure.

      Afterwards my mum was furious with my dad for making us watch it, but those two love their nostalgia. That was the year of Queen’s Good Old Fashioned Lover Boy and they always go all moony when that comes on. My mum once confessed to Tash and I about having Freddy Mercury posters on her bedroom wall, but obviously Dad thinks it’s all about him. Usually Tash and I end up fake vomming over the chair arm, which they hate, so at least me sliding off the cushions and hitting the floor jerking saved them from that.

      Even though the fit only lasted seconds it was lucky Tash was there to take control. Luckier still that Dad hadn’t given in and let Mum take up the old laminate floor and put down carpet instead. She’d actually got as far as choosing one, but it’s a point of honour in their relationship that Dad resists every one of her forward pushes. Imagine if I’d made a massive wet patch in front of the sofa on her brand new Nordic loop. She’d have been beside herself.

      As it was, the puddle ran all the way under the coffee table and out the other side, where it hit Tiddlywink’s foot. Apparently Tiddlywink didn’t move a muscle, she just stood rigid and watched it soaking into the blue velvet of her Little Mermaid slipper. That child is one cool cookie, nothing fazes her. By the time I came round and got back downstairs in some dry clothes, it was all mopped up, and we got in before the Friday night rush at A&E. But, needless to say, I don’t want to relive that. Especially not in front of the happy gardeners.

      Plum is waiting for me by the door, her paint-spattered overalls looking a lot like her sea pictures. ‘Everything okay?’

      I nod. ‘I don’t do flashing lights, I’ll go for a walk instead.’ I’d rather they didn’t know the details.

      ‘Right.’ Her eyes are full of concern, but she skips the awkward questions and sticks with the practical stuff. ‘You’re welcome to come and wait upstairs, I promise to find you a paint-free corner.’

      ‘Thanks, but I’ll grab some alone time.’ I make my smile extra bright.

      Her whisper turns to a chortle. ‘Good luck with that – no one’s ever on their own for long in St Aidan.’

      I step outside, still doing up my coat. As I pull my scarf tighter against a flurry of wind, the cobbles are washed with pale light from the shop windows. I stop by Crusty Cobs to count the strawberry tarts – four – and custard slices – three – and only hurry on when I start to shiver. When I get to the harbour the water is shiny black, and the rigging is clinking against the dark lines of masts as they bob against the sky. As I stride past the rows of tiny pastel-painted cottages fronting onto the quayside Aunty Jo’s tunes are on slow-mo in my head.

      Whatever I’m doing, I always have a mental backing track playing. The day of the jump I had Titanium on repeat, when I was out on my building sites it was always something fast and bouncy. Blasting around the country with Marcus in his ever changing convertibles, Cold Play was where our musical tastes collided. For me that When I Ruled the World song was like Marcus’s signature tune and the backing track to our life together. Since I’ve been ill I can’t believe how much lippy I get though making damn sure my happy, super smiley outside shell hasn’t changed any. But, however hard I try on the inside, all I can get in my head are slow chords and heart-wrenching, minor keys. At times, even Aunty Jo’s ‘wring out your hanky’ songs feel too upbeat.

      That’s another strange thing. Just as reading and writing and speaking are all powered by different parts of the brain, singing stems from yet another area. I might struggle to put two words together, but entire lines of lyrics pop up in my mind without me wanting them to be there at all. It’s happening as I slip along the dune path down to the beach. There’s a crescent moon in the sky, and the music playing in my ears slows to a Johnny Cash plod … full of broken thoughts … I cannot repair … I will let you down … I will make you hurt … It’s as if the working part of my brain automatically knows those are exactly the right lines. However much I put on a happy face to the outside world, really, really mournful music is the true expression of who I am and where my life is right now.

      As I thread my way down to where the breakers are rushing up the beach in pale wavy lines my eyes are getting more used to the darkness. Around the bay the arc of pinprick lights follows the line of the coast, but their gentle twinkle against the mottled black of the sky isn’t a threat. When I slide my phone out of my pocket, it lights up and tells me what I already know – the little line of dots in the screen corner has gone. The signal and internet give out somewhere higher up the hill which means my phone genie, Siri, has gone all silent on me, not that she’s ever that cooperative. Not only that, but even if I needed to, I couldn’t ring Mum or Bella.

      The realisation slides into focus as slowly as the music – for the first time in months I’m totally on my own. Out of reach. Away from the protection of the people who love me and who have been keeping me safe by never letting me out of their sight. It’s like I’ve accidentally wandered into a no man’s land away from where I should be. There’s a sensible voice in my head telling me I should go back to where I’m safe, where there are people at least. But at the same time I don’t want to rush.

      As my foot catches on a stick of driftwood I stoop and pick it up. It’s straight and smooth like a bone and, without thinking, I head to where the beach is firmer and begin to scratch marks in the sand with the wooden point. It’s easier when there’s no one watching. When there’s no one there to see how badly I’m doing, my hand is somehow more free to move. I try one small line, then another crossing it. Then do the same again. And again. Then I try a row of those ‘s’s that always catch me out on paper because the pen won’t curl fast enough so, however hard I try, they end up twice the size of all the other letters.

      Scratching with the end of a stick with the wind snatching at my hair, knowing that soon the crash and fall of the tide will thunder over the marks and suck away the traces of where I’ve been, it’s easier. My lips twist into a smile as I look along my wandering line of ‘s’s and ‘x’s and see a whole empty beach stretching into the distance, all waiting to be written on.

      A cry in the darkness behind me makes me turn. There’s a big figure and a smaller one, their jackets flapping in the shadows, and another shout as the smaller one springs towards me.

      ‘Edie Browne! What are you writing?’ Only one person calls me that.

      ‘Nothing much.’ The wind snatches my words away.

      He lets out a wail. ‘That’s way more than when you were writing on paper.’

      ‘It’s easier here.’ Anyone else, I’d be fed up at them finding me. Cam I don’t mind, although I can’t say the same for Barney.

      ‘What? On the beach, in the dark?’ He’s very judgmental for six. ‘We’re going for ice cream.’

      ‘Brill.’ Shouldn’t he be asleep by now?

      ‘At the Surf Shack.’ He points to a wooden building with swinging lights on its deck, further along the sand. ‘You СКАЧАТЬ