Come on, Becks, you wanted an adventure!
Do I, though? Life has not been very encouraging lately, and it is so dark. Anxiety bites but I am curious to find out where this tunnel ends. On I go. At last, the ground levels out and I reach an obstacle. Flattening my hands against it, I find a substance warmer than the surrounding rock. Wood? A door? I pass my hands carefully from top to bottom, feeling indentations, regular and sharp, but no handle. This is frustrating. I will have to come back with a torch.
I retreat slowly, hands braced against the cold, rough rock walls: better not slip and knock myself out here where no one will find me. No one knows I am here, except the old man – Jem – who will probably just think I’ve abandoned my ruined clothes and gone home.
Suddenly, dark thoughts threaten. Might it not be for the best? they whisper. Remember the phone call. Just think what’s awaiting you in London. Maybe the best way out would be simply to let the sea take you. Then it will be your choice and you won’t have to go through it all again: the tests, the hospital, the tubes and the poison; and Eddie’s disappointed face: ‘Not again, Becks, not again…’
My legs start to tremble and for an instant I feel as weak as I was after surgery, when I hobbled up the high street for the first time, overtaken constantly by octogenarians, convinced I was going to black out at any moment.
Stop it, darling. My mother’s voice is so strong it almost echoes. Concentrate on this moment, right now. It’s all we ever truly have.
Forcing the dark thoughts away, I retrace my path back along the tunnel to the pinch point – where I hear lapping water. The tide has crept in!
Abruptly I feel oppressed by the weight of rock above and around me. It feels like the grave. Splashing through the water, not caring that I am soaking my jeans and my trainers, I blast out of the cave and at last stand with the sea swirling around my knees, sucking in the cold, salty air, feeling the sun’s welcome warmth on my face. It is shockingly, beautifully bright.
That’s my girl. One battle at a time.
From the earth steps that lead up to the sea gate and then the house, I look back at the cove. It seemed so serene, a gift offered only to me, but maybe it is a place of guile and secrets, of gifts extended with one hand, then taken away with another.
*
Closing the front door of the house behind me, I hear noises. And a smell too – unmistakable. I make my way down the light-dappled corridor to the kitchen, where I find a figure prodding a pan on the stove: a dumpy woman in an outdoor coat and a hat jammed down over her hair, like an elderly Paddington Bear. I clear my throat, and she turns, her front view hardly dispelling the image. ‘Brought a bit of breakfast for you.’
Bacon sizzles in the pan and my mouth runs with saliva. ‘Thank you so much. You must be Jem’s wife?’
‘Yes. Call me Rosie.’
She tucks her frizzy ginger hair behind her ears. Her face is pale and nondescript: it’s hard to judge her age. When she smiles I am shocked by the brilliant evenness of her teeth. These are not the stained and gappy teeth of an elderly woman, but of a Hollywood starlet. Veneers? But that would have cost a fortune. I think of Jem and his scuffed brogues and broken umbrella: must be dentures, then.
I get two teacups down and place them beside the teapot that is warming. Rosie picks one of them up – printed with fading forget-me-nots – and puts it to one side. ‘Don’t use that one. That’s Miss Olivia’s!’ she tells me sharply. She fiddles around in the cupboard and extracts another, decorated with buttercups.
We sit at the table under the disapproving eyes of the portrait, eating bacon and eggs. ‘I shouldn’t really,’ says Rosie, patting her stomach. ‘I already ate with Jem.’
‘I couldn’t eat all this on my own.’
‘You’re no more than a stick.’ She gets up to clear away the plates, says over her shoulder, ‘Jem said you come down to see Miss Olivia about a letter?’
‘Yes, she wrote to ask for my mother’s help.’
‘Oh? What were that about, then?’
‘I’m not sure. I was hoping to go and see her at the hospital to get a better idea of what she had in mind.’
‘Don’t know what help she needs, old besom. Jem and I do everything for her, always have,’ she grumbles.
‘I’m sure you do, and I’m sure she’s grateful.’
Rosie barks out a laugh. ‘Grateful? Not that one. Well, if you want to see her I’ll drive you in. Got to go visit Jem’s dad anyway.’
‘Oh, is he in the same hospital?’
She gives a noncommittal grunt. ‘Them poor nurses… I said to Jem if I ever get that way you just put a pillow over my face.’
‘Oh dear. Is he a bit of a monster then?’
‘I meant Miss Olivia.’ Rosie puts the plates in the sink and pours hot water from the kettle on top of them. ‘Dementia, poor old soul. Better pack your things and bring them with you – once you seen her you’ll be wanting dropping at the station so you can get the train back home.’
*
The hospital is an hour’s drive away, a rambling sprawl of low-rise utilitarian glass and concrete fronted by a crammed car park. Rosie drives her enormous boat of a Mercedes round and round, making me wince as she misses wing mirrors and bumpers by millimetres. There has already been a bit of a misunderstanding at the Chiverton roundabout which provoked a symphony of horns, and now there is a standoff with a disgruntled driver whose space Rosie just shot into, grazing the passenger side door. ‘Ah, bugger it!’ she groans. ‘They make these spaces too darn narrow.’ She opens her own door wide and grumps her way out, oblivious to the furious gesticulations of the other driver.
I crawl over the gearstick and follow Rosie out of the driver’s side, dragging a carrier bag of grapes, chocolate and magazines with me.
‘She won’t thank you for any of that nonsense.’ Rosie reaches into a bag behind the driver’s seat and takes out a small Thermos. ‘But she’ll thank me for this.’
‘What is it?’
‘Her special tea, just the way she likes it. She complains something awful about the weak stuff they give you in this place.’
‘That’s kind of you.’
Rosie stands there for a moment as if remembering something, then tucks her necklace inside her blouse. ‘Hands,’ she says, cryptically. ‘Come along, then.’
*
‘Wake up, Miss Olivia. You got a visitor.’ Rosie plonks herself on the bed at the end of the geriatric ward. I look down at the woman in the chair beside the bed, shoulders rounded, head hanging down, pink scalp showing beneath the strands of white hair. Slack skin falls in a slump of folds and wrinkles that so engulf her features that she resembles a half-melted waxwork. She looks so frail, nothing like the owner of the blustering voice that bellowed out of the letters, and my heart sinks. Surely Jem was right: she won’t be strong enough to go home.
‘Cousin Olivia?’ I say timidly.
The old lady does not stir.
This is the moment I could just walk away. I am shocked by the thought, but before I can act upon it her head comes up, the black eyes open and she fixes me with a merciless stare and I am pinned, like a trapped butterfly, to my fate.