He took his phone from his jeans pocket and texted her. Got sculptor’s block. Want to be with you.
No reply. No doubt she had a queue of customers. He texted a heart and a kiss and looked afresh at the tree.
Come on then, it said. You know what to do. What are you waiting for?
By late afternoon, when the shadows of the window frame were lengthening across his workbench and the heat through the glass had him perspiring from the day’s exertions, he knew the transformation had begun. Minute changes to direction and form were altering the whole sense of the piece, its menace only a whisper now, its implicit life a force for potential good. Or, he reminded himself, it was a skilfully honed bit of wood with some nice turns and appropriate texturing. No point getting pretentious about it. He was, though, slightly more satisfied, slightly less disappointed in himself. He had done some worthwhile work and it was, happily, time to stroll down to the pier and into Jem’s arms.
He walked along the beach, enjoying the sun, the sands still filled with parents draped into deckchairs and lounging behind windbreaks, teenage girls decorously arranged on strips of towel, toddlers running full pelt towards the water, a father assiduously helping his son to dig what was clearly going to be The Biggest Sandcastle In The World. One day, Gil thought, that will be me, digging that hole, shaping those turrets. But from being the person he was now to father of a small child required a leap of faith so great he could hardly encompass it. He would have to become someone else, someone less selfish, less hedonistic. Someone more patient and reliable. Someone, God forbid, like Henry.
He couldn’t distinguish, from this distance, Jem’s stall on the pier. He climbed the steps back up onto the prom, turned past Patrick’s and onto the boardwalk. Pavao, immersed in his miniature rock painting, was oblivious to the small crowd gathering to watch him; McDowell whistled as he hung belts and bag straps from the rail above his trays of purses and wristbands. Gil greeted them as he passed. There was no sign of her. He walked the length of the pier and back again, but there was no blue-handled stall glittering with jewellery. No Jem. He frowned, took out his phone and touched her number. She didn’t pick up. He texted – Am on pier, where are you? and a few unresponsive minutes later – are you ok? Where else would she be? He realised he had no idea. Shit. She turns off her phone and she disappears. Neither Pavao nor McDowell could enlighten him and he tried to remember whether she had said that today she would work at home (wherever that was), which seemed the most likely answer and, deciding to try her again in a little while and resisting the siren call of Patrick’s, he turned to walk back into town.
“Gilman Hunt!”
He recognised the voice before he recalled her name, scanned the tourist-crowded pavements for the Lady from the Press. And there she was, Eve Callaghan, just as she had been weeks ago when she had interviewed him. Possibly even wearing the same clothes. He folded his arms, caught as he had been that day between curiosity and instinctive distrust. “Hey,” he smiled. “How’re you?”
“Oh, not so bad. Yourself?”
“Great. How’s the campaign going?”
She looked at him. “Can I buy you a quick coffee?”
He let her distract him, for now, from the mystery of Jem’s whereabouts and take him to a vegetarian place further down the street, all smoothies and bran muffins and décor the colour of hangover vomit. He ordered strong black coffee as an instinctive reaction and hitched up onto a bar stool at the counter in the window. Eve Callaghan tore open a sachet of sugar and tipped the contents into her drink. “I widened my base,” she told him. “Your story was in every paper in Cornwall.”
His eyebrows went up. “It was?”
“No use pretending it isn’t a county-wide issue. A national issue, this time of year.”
“Sure. It’s been pretty quiet lately though, maybe that’s a good sign.”
She shook her head. “It’s still early. The madness of August is only just hitting us. People think they can take risks when they’re on holiday that they wouldn’t dream of taking at home, and August is the silly season. A couple of my colleagues have taken up the baton too, we’re all raising consciousness. Running your story in every newspaper was just the beginning.”
“That’s great. But you know, it really isn’t my story.”
She frowned at him over her coffee. “You said something like that last time. You can’t commit an act of heroism and not expect it to be commented upon, or remembered.”
Or exploited. “I just don’t think of it, of myself, in those terms.” Jesus, this was going to haunt him the rest of the summer.
She put down her cup. “You should be proud of yourself.”
“It wasn’t – ”
“Listen. You don’t get to do the job I do in the place I do it and not see things. Not make connections. There’s a discrepancy between who you think you are and how other people see you and I think you might need to be careful.”
He laughed in disbelief.
“Seriously,” she said.
He didn’t know whether he was annoyed or amused. “I haven’t a clue what you’re talking about.”
“Well neither do I really. And I probably shouldn’t have said it. But what the hell.” She paused. “I haven’t undertaken this campaign lightly, you know. I have my reasons.” He waited, his interest piqued, but she closed the door. “Sometimes when there’s nothing you can do you just have to do what you can.”
She was a bit loopy, he realised. Trying to carve a career for herself in this peninsula community of frenzied hot summers and desolate winters had driven her round the twist. He said helpfully, “And sometimes what you can do makes enough of a difference.”
“Let’s hope so.”
He stayed long enough to finish his coffee and feign an interest in the details of just how she and her colleagues were raising consciousness, then beat a retreat back to the square. A swarm of customers was leaving Cecily’s café and he saw her standing there amid the chaos of crumbs and crockery, wearing her faded shorts and vest, her hair pinned in its messy knot. His heart warmed and he smiled. “Need a hand?”
She smiled back, gratefully.
“I talked to Henry,” she told him when they were alone in the kitchen and Justine was out front mopping spills and wiping menus. “He’s okay.”
Gil, looking up from checking his phone (still nothing), barely managed to refrain from saying that Henry had no business not being okay.
She said, “You should talk to him too.”
“And say what, exactly?” He knew what he wanted to say. He wanted to lecture him about bullying someone into telling you their secrets, to point out that it wasn’t about Henry, or himself and Cecily, but about truths being too painful to tell, the need for sensitivity. He knew there was a danger he might be provoked into blabbing that he didn’t understand why Cecily was shagging him or why she thought there was any sort of future at all for the pair of them. That it was beyond him and he had no right to any sort of opinion about it and he could put Henry’s face through the wall for making her cry. None of this was going to help. He said, “I saw him down on the prom the other day. He didn’t seem very keen on talking to me about anything.”
Cecily glanced over the orders on the workbench. “Gil, the pair of you have been friends for years. Don’t let this change things.”
He thought that while they were both behaving as if it were not the first time he had helped out in the café for weeks, things had already changed, possibly irrevocably. He couldn’t find a way to say this which didn’t make him sound like a complete shit.
She added, “You’re lucky, you know. You can talk about feelings. You almost always say the right thing. Henry can’t, he struggles with that.”
“Jesus, he is a grown-up.” He looked at her. “Sorry. Not the right thing.”
She smiled. “You’ve always been able to be the better man. It’s one of the things I love about you.”
He looked at her, wanted to say – an
d do you love him? Really? But he already knew the answer. She was fond of Henry. Maybe he was even what she needed just now, kind and loyal and possessive and dull. And what am I? he thought. Do I really have anything better to offer? He said suddenly, “Do you know Eve Callaghan?”
“The reporter who came here to talk to you? I know who she is. I’ve never had a conversation with her. Never made the headlines, myself.” She smiled. “Why?”
He told her. “It was weird. I mean, she doesn’t know me. Why would she say that?”
“Well. Because she’s Eve Callaghan. And you know, maybe she has a point. Looking like you do, being as charming as you are, people think one thing about you, and then it turns out you’re actually perceptive and trustworthy, and then you go and spoil it all by thinking with your dick. You’re a conundrum, Gil Hunt.”
“Shit. You know me too well.”
She laughed. “Oh, let’s not fall out again. I’ve missed you so much.”
He smiled, said with sincerity, “Missed you too.”
Jem sat at the kitchen table with her head in her hands. Her mobile rang. She ignored it.
It buzzed twice. She glanced across.
Am on pier, where are you?
are you ok?
She slowly transferred her gaze to the dresser in front of her, its shelves holding books and crockery in a civilised manner but also spilling over with junk: a clay dish she had made in primary school full of old batteries; an aerosol room spray she couldn’t imagine they’d ever used; stacks of unopened mail; a ceramic pen holder of paintbrushes stiff with disuse. What were we thinking? There was a fine line between comforting and claustrophobic and she was aware she was inching towards it day by day. But the thought of the effort required to do anything about it left her numb.
She picked up her phone, scrolled back to the heart and the kiss he had texted her earlier. Got sculptor’s block. Want to be with you. The tears which had been falling for hours now brimmed afresh. You won’t, she thought. You won’t want to be with me.
Of course it was ridiculous to be worried. She was twenty-six years old, this was her home town, and she’d - what? Lost her phone, track of time? Missed a bus? Besides, he wasn’t the worrying kind. Gil reminded himself of all this several times as late afternoon expanded into evening and she might as well have fallen off the planet. It didn’t help.
And gnawing away at his unease was the knowledge that he had no idea how to find her. She had never taken him home, even alluded to where home might be, or described her family, much less introduced him to any of them. She could just be found at more or less the same time, more or less every day on the pier, or she materialised wherever and whenever they agreed to meet. It was odd. He had known it was odd, he had just been too enchanted by her to care. But here he was, fretting over her absence and helpless in the realisation that the only thing he knew for sure about her was her name.
For fuck’s sake Gil. She’s just lost her bloody phone.
Impatient with so much impotent waiting, he walked fast down the precipitously narrow streets into town. Somebody – if not, gallingly, her lover – must know something more about her. The other stallholders, shopkeepers, someone.
Someone, perhaps, like Eve Callaghan.
Her card was creased in his pocket.
He stopped. Tried to think about this properly, about the possible consequences of calling Eve Callaghan for information on Jem. As he took out his phone it rang.
“Jesus,” he said, relief pouring through him. “Where are you?”
“I’m … ” Jem’s voice faltered. She was crying.
“Are you okay?”
“Not really.”
“Are you hurt?”
“I’m at the gallery on The Wharf. Will you come?”
Gil said, “I’m almost there.”
He sprinted the remaining hundred yards of the way past bollards, the prom, the sea, holiday-makers, seagulls, to the boarded-up gallery he’d mentioned to Cecily before she’d told him he messed with people’s lives, Alex Gregory inked in large black italics on the sign above the door.
Alex Gregory.
Alex Gregory, whose work he’d admired, whose company he’d shared over a pint or two up at the inn, long conversations down here in his gallery. Gil could picture him now, greying dark hair, olive green eyes, something about the bone structure, their humour, the way they both spoke. His heart was hammering and not because of the run. The door to the gallery was open an inch. He gave it a push. “Jem!” Went inside. “Jem?”
She was sitting on the floor of the abandoned workshop, the shadows of paintings visible on the walls even in the dim light which filtered around the edges of the boarded windows, her back against the whitewashed stone. She struggled upright as he came towards her only to be almost knocked her off her feet again in the strength of his embrace. “Are you all right? Jesus. What’s wrong?”
“I’m sorry. I’m sorry, Gil. I just needed to hide away. I couldn’t talk to you before because … Oh God. I have to tell you something.” She took a breath, her eyelids pink and swollen. “I should have told you weeks ago … and now you’ll think … ” She stopped.
He said, “Is it to do with this being your dad’s place?”
She stared at him. “How did you know?”
“Finally made the connection. Not too quick on the uptake, I’m afraid.”
She nodded, swallowed.
“What happened?” He gestured into the echoing space of the room. “Has he had to sell up?”
She shook her head. “He died.”
Of course. Of course this was the answer. Horror and understanding and compassion swept through him. “Oh God.” He enfolded again her in his arms and she cried against him. “Oh Jem. I’m so sorry.”
After a long while she drew back from him, wiping her face with her hands, tears dripping from her chin. She opened a drawer of the paint-stained chest beside them, took out an old box of tissues. Gil stayed where he was, giving her space. “When did it happen?” he asked gently.
“April.” She wiped her cheeks. “It was so stupid. Such a pointless end to … If he’d been ill … I don’t know … there would have been time to say everything we needed to say, to get used to the idea of him not being here, but … He’d had an idea for some paintings of Tintagel castle. He wanted to take photos, do a few sketches, you know. So he went up there and it was wet and misty and the sea was wild and … he fell. Somehow he fell. They didn’t find him until the next day, and I didn’t know. I was at home, when he died, watching some stupid TV programme, and I didn’t know.”
She was crying again. Gil reached for her hand.
“It was just me and him. For more than half my life, just me and him. And I can’t – I can’t begin to … He’s still with me, all the time. It’s like I’m still talking to him. All the conversations we had, or I imagine we’d have. I even imagined him meeting you.” She took a long moment, battling to recover. “I’m sorry. I’m sorry.”
“Don’t – ”
“I would’ve loved you to have met. You’d have really liked him.”
“I did like him.”
She looked at him. “What?”
“I knew him,” Gil said. “I liked his work. I used to come in here and have long chats with him. I have one of his paintings back at home.”
“Oh my God. You knew him.”
“Yeah.” He smiled. “Not well, but enough.” He paused. Said, with feeling, “I can’t believe he’s dead.”
“I can’t either. Sometimes I can go almost a whole day and then something new reminds me of him and I just start crying again. I can’t bear to be in here without him. Being at home is driving me mad.”
He nodded. “I’m sorry,” she said. “I should’ve told you before. But I can’t – couldn’t - talk about him. And I wanted to be my best for you. I didn’t want you to know what you might be getting into, that I was so needy and pathetic – ”
“Shush, come here.” He drew her again
st him again, held her for a minute. “It’s okay.” He kissed her forehead, smoothed a strand of her hair from clinging damply to her cheek. “You can tell me anything, you know. You don’t have to pretend with me. What you said, about not wanting me to know what I was getting in to? It’s too late. I’m already in way too deep.”
Henry arrived in Patrick’s with an hour to spare before meeting Cecily for dinner and a longing for a beer, solitude and the Telegraph crossword. The guys mocked him endlessly for being the only surf dude on the planet with a penchant for crosswords but Cecily had said once that it was unexpected and therefore made him more interesting and less predictable, and he had loved her for it. He knew well enough that his admiration of Cecily had been a long time coming. He had always thought her smart and cool and sexy. It was just that until now Gil had always been standing in his way.
The more he thought about it now, the more elements of the whole situation with Cecily and Gil troubled him. This summer’s tension between them was unprecedented. But had their shared and secret tragedy resulted in little more than a bit of virulent public squabbling? That aside, they had been as casually affectionate with each other as ever. And almost simultaneously they had both turned to someone else, were now dabbling in real relationships with someone else. He couldn’t square it with the death of their child. Unless Gil had spent time with her when it had happened, and in their grief they had come to this conclusion. Henry knew that he had no experience of his own on which to draw, that he had so far lived a tranquil and sheltered life, that he knew none of the details, couldn’t bring himself to ask Cecily and certainly wasn’t going near the subject with Gil. But even so, it bothered him.