Summer at 23 the Strand

Trips around the bay it said on a blackboard propped up against a kiosk that had seen better days, with peeling paint and a plank broken at the bottom of the door. On another it offered ferry rides, Every hour on the half-hour. Both kiosks were closed. Cally and Jack had never taken the boys on a boat – they’d like that, or Cally hoped they would. She’d suggest to Jack they book tickets for another day – one when the sun was guaranteed to shine.

But first, coffee. Cally drew out a handful of coins from the pocket of her cagoule. They were rather wet, as she was. But no matter, she had enough to buy a cappuccino – how comforting one of those was when you needed it. And besides, while she drank it, it would give Jack more time with his boys. Cally’s smile widened, just thinking about that.

Jack stood in the open doorway waiting for her. The rain had stopped completely and there was a hazy sun trying to break through. It was warmer too.

‘Phew! You’re back,’ Jack said as Cally walked up the steps to 23 The Strand in her now-sodden trainers because she’d walked back along the beach, walking through the bits covered with a thin film of water where the tide had gone out.

‘Have I been long?’ she asked. In truth, she had no idea how long she’d been out but could see now that the sun – hazy as it was – was almost overhead. Nearly lunchtime.

‘Two hours, thirty-three minutes, and about fifteen seconds,’ Jack said.

‘Are you sure about that?’ Cally said. She couldn’t help smiling. Jack had been worried about her. He’d missed her. He loved her and she’d hazard a guess he didn’t want to be without her. It was a good feeling and yet a terrible one because what if he ended up missing her, like, for ever…

‘Give or take a second,’ Jack quipped. ‘The kettle’s on. Or shall we celebrate your return with a pre-lunch glass of wine? Seeing as we’re on holiday?’

‘Wine. Please,’ Cally said. On impulse she kissed Jack on the lips, just a swift kiss, the way she kissed the boys, but it conveyed how much she loved him, or she hoped it did. ‘I’ll just get out of these sodden things.’

The shower was warm rather than hot, and hardly a power shower, but it helped revive Cally. She roughly rinsed her hair too. Towelled herself dry as best she could in the cramped space.

‘Jack! Could you pass me my dressing gown?’ she yelled, opening the door of the bathroom a tad. ‘I’ll dress in our bedroom.’

Jack was back in seconds, just as the towel Cally had wrapped around her still slightly damp body slid to the floor.

‘Pity the boys are here,’ Jack said. ‘I could ravage you.’

He reached out a hand and the ends of his fingers caught Cally’s left breast. She flinched. Wrapped both arms around herself protectively.

‘Cally?’ Jack said, fear in his eyes. ‘What’s wrong? Is there someone else?’

‘Of course not.’

‘I’m not sure I believe that.’

‘You must.’

‘Must I? You’ve never recoiled from me before…’

‘I know. I’m sorry. It’s me. I’ve got something I need to tell you and I don’t know how to do it. Or when. But right now I’m freezing.’ She held out her hands for the fleecy dressing gown with roses on it that she’d got in a charity shop – it was rather less than fashionable but it was warm and strangely comforting. And she needed comforting now. ‘And I will tell you but I don’t want it to be in front of the boys. Soon, I’ll tell you soon. Jack, I love you. Perhaps more now than when I married you. There is no other man for me and there never will be. Can you hang on to that?’

‘Strange compliment,’ Jack said, but he gave Cally the lopsided grin she so loved, the one that gave her butterflies in her tummy – the one that told her Jack loved her just as much as she did him. ‘But I’ll take it.’

Cally and Jack took the boys on a boat trip that afternoon.

‘I can hardly believe it’s the same month, never mind the same day,’ Cally said. ‘It’s so warm now compared to this morning.’ Just a few short hours ago she’d been trying to settle her demons, getting herself soaking wet in the progress, and now here they were, almost back to how they’d been – her and Jack – before she’d found the lump.

‘We’re opportunists, that’s what we are,’ Jack said. He leaned towards Cally and kissed her cheek. ‘Got the boat almost to ourselves as well.’

‘Well, it is early in the season. Still May. There’ll be more people around next month, I expect.’

‘Are there whales?’ Noah asked. ‘The man said.’

‘He did, didn’t he?’ Cally said.

The man who’d sold them the tickets at the kiosk had said they were a bit late coming out to see the dolphins because they liked to feed in the mornings off Berry Head. Then he’d said a whale had been spotted in the bay the previous summer. A few lucky holidaymakers had seen it from his very own boat and had photos to prove it. Gosh, how exciting that would be, to see a whale. They’d come back.

Gosh, the first positive thought about the future since I’ve been here.

‘Can I see? Can I have a whale for a pet? I’ll help look after it. It could live in the bath.’ Noah was pink-cheeked with excitement at the thought.

‘I want to see a whale,’ Riley said. He slid from the seat and was at the rail in a nanosecond before Jack reacted and leapt up to grab him. ‘A big whale.’

‘Maybe a goldfish,’ Jack said, scooping his youngest son into his arms and carrying him back to the wooden bench where Cally and Noah sat.

‘Two goldfish,’ Noah said. ‘One for Riley and one for me.’

‘Two it is then,’ Jack said.

And there it was – Jack’s first sign of acceptance that, perhaps, his boys needed pets in their lives.

‘We’ll go to the pet shop as soon as we get home and buy a big tank and some weed for them to hide in,’ Cally said.

Goodness, the second positive thought in such a short space of time.

‘We’re going to look for whales!’ Noah announced. ‘Come on, Riley!’

He grabbed his little brother’s hand and they went over to scramble up onto a large, varnished, wooden box in the middle of the boat. They were safe there, sitting with their legs dangling, feet from the deck, but clinging on to one another.

‘Do you miss the computer?’ Jack asked suddenly.

‘Why?’ Cally asked, sharply, her little bubble of happiness deflating a little. How quickly moods, and thoughts, could change.

‘Well, you’re on it a lot at home and you haven’t got access here.’

‘I’m not on it a lot,’ Cally said, knowing just how defensive she was sounding. ‘Just half an hour or so while you read to the boys and settle them for the night. Facebook mostly, seeing what old school friends are up to.’

‘Not everyone is as they seem on chat sites or Facebook,’ Jack said, immediately planting a seed of doubt in Cally’s mind that maybe Tony, who had been diagnosed with breast cancer, might fit into that category, although Cally was fairly certain he didn’t. ‘And any information you might Google is only as accurate as however knowledgeable the person who put it there is.’

‘I didn’t know that,’ Cally said.

‘Well, you do now. I’ve looked up things about engineering when I’ve been at work and on more than a few occasions the info has been utter tosh.’

‘Oh,’ Cally said. How naïve of her to have accepted everything she might have looked at as being one hundred per cent the truth – if what Jack was saying was true.

‘And emails,’ Jack carried on. ‘I’ve noticed you get more of those than you used to.’

Cally and Jack used the same computer at home but it was a golden rule that neither tried to access the other’s emails. Cally knew Jack’s password in case there was ever an emergency and she needed to be able to contact his bosses, and he knew hers, but that’s all it was, a safety net. Wasn’t it?

‘Have you been spying on me?’ Part of her hoped he had and that he had seen her browsing history and would ask why she was looking at cancer sites, and then it would open the conversation she knew they must have.

‘I’ve not used your password to look, no. I’d never stoop that low. I like to think we’ve got a better, more trusting, relationship than that.’

‘And we have,’ Cally said. There’d never been a second in all the time she’d known Jack, and been married to him, when she’d questioned the truth – or not – of what he’d told her. But all the same, she couldn’t just blurt out here what was troubling her. She knew she’d probably burst into tears and there were other passengers, and the crew, to think about. They wouldn’t want her raw emotions spread in front of them. And Jack would be torn between comforting her and checking the boys were okay. ‘So, can we just get on and enjoy the trip?’

The boat’s engine slowed then. One of the passengers was pointing to some rocks near a cove that were exposed now the tide had gone out.

‘Oh, it’s a seal!’ Cally said.

She leapt up and went to the boys, lifting them down to take them to the side of the boat where they’d see the seal.

The captain came over the tannoy to tell them that this seal loved to swim up to boats and catch any fish thrown to it.

‘And I just happen to have some mackerel here!’ he laughed. ‘And I can see two little boys who would be very good at feeding seals, I should think.’

‘Me! Me!’ Noah and Riley yelled in unison.

Jack came up behind Cally and put his arms around all of them, and her awkward moment had passed.

Another memory was being made for her boys and she must relish the moment.

‘And to answer your question,’ Cally said, leaning in to him. ‘I’m not missing the internet. Not one bit.’ And she wasn’t, because she knew now that it had only been fuelling her fears – a little knowledge is a dangerous thing, as the old adage had it. She wriggled in closer to Jack, the slight frostiness that had been between them melting a little.

‘Good,’ Jack whispered in her ear. ‘That’s music to my ears.’

But still Cally couldn’t find it in her to tell Jack what was worrying her. She found that the best way not to have to tell him was to have the boys around all the time. When Noah wanted to paddle but Riley didn’t, Cally went with him. Even though she could have reached out and grabbed him from where she’d been sitting had he fallen.

‘The sea is sucking my feet,’ Noah giggled. ‘Look, they’re disappearing!’

Cally looked. As the tide pulled back out again, leaving the sand full of water, Noah’s small and perfect feet sank down, the tops covered with a sheen of water.

‘Do you like it?’ Cally asked.

‘I love it, Mummy,’ Noah said. ‘It tickles. I like tickles.’

‘In that case…’

Cally bent down and tickled Noah, making him squirm, making him laugh. And she found she was laughing too. A genuine laugh. Making memories for Noah.

‘Can we live here?’ Noah asked. ‘I like it here.’

‘We can come back,’ Cally said. ‘Maybe,’ she whispered under her breath. Then in a louder voice she said, ‘Yes. Yes, we will.’

‘The zoo today, boys,’ Jack said, lifting Riley onto his shoulders ready to board the bus. An open-top bus ran a round robin service. Cally and her family scrambled up to the top deck and sat in the two front seats – Cally with Noah, Jack with Riley.

‘Grandstand view,’ Jack said as the bus made its way past the pier.

‘Will there be whales?’ Noah asked.

‘Where?’ Jack said.

‘At the zoo.’

‘No, I shouldn’t think so. Although the man who took us out on the boat the other day when we saw the seal said they do get a whale come into the bay sometimes.’

‘See whales now!’ Riley shouted, and Cally and Jack shushed him in unison.

‘But there will be crocodiles,’ Cally said. ‘At the zoo.’

‘Crocodiles!’ Noah shouted, looking terrified and yet thrilled beyond belief in equal measure.

‘Crocodiles!’ Riley emulated his big brother.

‘Definitely,’ Cally said.

‘Sing the song!’ Riley yelled. ‘Sing the song!’

One of the songs Riley loved from the playgroup he went to two mornings a week was about a crocodile.

‘You must never smile at a crocodile, ’cos a crocodile has got an evil smile,’ Cally began to sing softly, almost a whisper.

But the boys had other ideas and began to sing the song, with wild facial gestures and much snapping of arms to indicate a crocodile’s jaws, very loudly.

Jack looked slightly embarrassed at the noise his sons were making.

‘Sorry,’ Cally mouthed at him.

‘Nah,’ Jack said. ‘It’s all right. We’ll let this one go. I expect there’ve been worse things on the top deck of a bus!’

And so the boys made more than a few repetitions of the crocodile song, and when they got to the zoo, Jack bought bags of special food for them to feed the animals and birds. Cally burst out laughing when Noah showed more interest in the locks and bolts on the gates of the pens than he did in the animals inside them.

‘He’s going to be an engineer,’ she said.

‘I should hope so,’ Jack said. ‘Or I’m a rotten role model.’

And could you take on the role of mother, if…?

Cally knew the answer to that – yes, he could.

Like all small children when they saw a big, empty space, Noah and Riley wanted to run into it. The paths in the zoo were wide and, at this time of year, not as crowded as they would be in the summer holidays with more children about.

‘When do we lose the ability to be so uninhibited?’ Jack asked. ‘Look at them!’

Noah and Riley were tearing around on their sturdy little legs, their blond curls blown every which way by the light breeze and their frantic activity. They were both squealing with delight, making car noises. Cally wished she could rush off in the sort of gay abandon Noah and Riley were achieving. Perhaps the lump would go if it knew she didn’t care about it, that she wasn’t going to let it get her.

‘Bang, bang,’ Riley said. He had found a stick from somewhere and was pointing it at Noah. ‘I deaded you.’

Dead.

Cally’s blood ran cold at Riley’s innocent choice of word in a game all children played, however much she might not like them playing it.

‘How happy they are,’ Jack said.

And they were. Cally took her phone from her bag and began taking photos. Lots of photos to go with those she’d already taken on this holiday. More memories. If…

‘It’s going to cost an arm and a leg getting that lot developed,’ Jack laughed.

Cally still loved to hold a photograph in her hand, rather than look at it on a screen, which was the norm these days. Already she had about six large albums full of photographs of the boys.

‘Some things are priceless,’ she said softly.

Jack linked his arm through Cally’s.

‘Like you. You’re priceless to me, sweetheart.’

Cally leaned in to him, full of sadness for what might yet turn out to be, yet full of love as well. It was all too much to bear, and the tears began to fall.

So, there in the zoo, with the boys running around, shouting their heads off, cheeks pink with exertion, Cally told Jack, their arms leaning on the wooden rail of the pen where strikingly beautiful zebra were nibbling grass.

‘I’ve found a lump.’

‘Where?’ Jack asked, putting an arm around Cally’s shoulder.

‘In my left breast.’

‘When? When did you find it?’

‘Two weeks ago? Three?’

‘Why didn’t you say?’ Jack sounded concerned rather than cross that she hadn’t mentioned such a serious worry.

‘I don’t know now. I should have. But I thought I might have been imagining it. That, maybe, I’d twisted a muscle or something and that it would unkink itself if I ignored it. At first I kept finding it with my fingers all the time. I couldn’t stop myself searching for info on the internet either.’

‘So, that’s what you were looking at?’

‘Yes, mostly. I found a chat site for cancer sufferers where they share their stories. Someone on there – a man called Tony – got in touch. I didn’t know men could get breast cancer.’

‘So, the email you were so keen for me not to see was from him?’

‘I wouldn’t have minded you seeing it, but I hadn’t told you and I didn’t want you jumping to conclusions.’

‘Oh, Cally. You’ve been shouldering this on your own. And I must confess I did begin to wonder if, you know, another man had come into your life. I hated myself for even thinking it, and I didn’t know how to handle it. So I thought it might be best if we got right away from our usual environment, and the computer, and just went back to being us.’

‘We’re always going to be “us”,’ Cally said. ‘And I’m really sorry now I told a chat site before telling you. Tony was one of many men on there – those who have, or have had, cancer, and those widowed by it. Tony said he wished he hadn’t told people when he did. He said he wished now he’d had all the correct information and a prognosis under his belt before he did, because people can have a lot of crackpot theories.’

‘This Tony is right there. A little knowledge is a dangerous thing, sweetheart,’ Jack said. He pulled Cally closer. ‘We’re both guilty of not telling one another what fears we had in our minds, I think. I ought not to have booked this holiday without giving you the chance to say whether you wanted to come or not.’

‘I’m glad you did now,’ Cally said. ‘Or I’d still be searching cancer sites, and reading other people’s often very sad and scary stories night after night, and instead it’s been lovely sitting on the deck while the boys sleep, watching the moon cast its avenue of light on the water, and hearing the soft shush of the waves. It didn’t make the lump go away but it didn’t make it worse either, and for that short while I was able to forget.’

‘Sometimes the simplest things are the best.’

‘But I’m frightened, Jack,’ Cally said.

‘And I’m frightened with you. I can’t pretend anything else at this moment. But we must hang on to the fact that no one’s told you the lump is cancer yet. But if it is you need more than one soldier to fight a battle. And I’ll be right beside you. So, my next question – do you want to go back home right now and get the ball rolling, as it were, or…?’

‘No! Really, no. There will be fewer chances as the boys get older to holiday in school time like this. We’ll stay.’

‘And holiday like we’ve never holidayed before.’ Jack drew Cally towards him and kissed her cheek.

‘We will. And the weather seems to be on our side at the moment. And when I get back I want to cut back on work. Maybe just two days a week. I know Mum loves having them but the time with them is so short, isn’t it? Can we afford for me to only work two days?’

‘Yes, and yes,’ Jack said. And there were tears in his eyes as he said it.

‘Show me, Cally,’ Jack said.

They were lying in bed, both fresh from the shower, both naked. Cally was on her back, and Jack was lying on his side looking at her.

Cally took Jack’s hand and guided his fingers to the lump.

‘It’s not very big,’ she said.

‘Does it hurt?’ Jack asked, his fingers gently probing.

‘No.’

With Jack’s fingers caressing her, Cally felt a shiver of something. Desire? Yes, that’s what it was, desire.

‘Oh, I think I’ve found it. About the size of half a pea?’

‘Yes.’

Jack slid his other arm underneath Cally’s neck, and then pulled her towards him. He rocked her gently, back and forth, back and forth, kissing her hair, kissing her forehead.

‘I can’t find words,’ he said.

‘How about “Let’s make love”, Cally said. ‘Get some good old endorphins running through me. They’re supposed to be healing.’

‘You sure? I mean…’

‘Sure,’ Cally said, silencing him with a kiss.

‘Windsurfing?’ Jack laughed. ‘In May? This is the UK, you know!’

‘I know. The windsurf school hires out wetsuits. Life jackets. I really, really want to have a go.’

Cally pointed to a windsurfer whipping along parallel to the beach. A small wave was breaking behind him, and a smaller one in front. The sail was a fabulous shade of magenta. No, amethyst. The same shade as the stone on the necklace Cally had found waiting for her at 23 The Strand. It seemed almost like an omen. A good omen.

So Cally walked to where the windsurfing school was set up at the far end of the beach.

‘Hi,’ she said. ‘I’m a total novice at this but I’d really love to have a go.’

‘Hi. Great. We can do that. I’m Elisabeth – with an s not a z,’ the girl laughed.

‘I’m Cally, with a y not an ie and not short for anything.’

Elisabeth helped Cally into a wetsuit and secured a life-support.

‘Be careful,’ Cally said as Elisabeth tugged on the straps. ‘I hurt a little bit.’

Which wasn’t true. Cally had no pain around the area she had found the lump.

‘Oh, you’ll forget all that when you’re out there,’ Elisabeth laughed. ‘You’ll have the sun on your face – along with a lot of water, I expect! – and you’ll be concentrating so hard on standing upright that anything that’s bothering you in life will just fade away into insignificance.’

I hope so, Cally thought but didn’t say.

But so it proved. Cally found standing on a moving board with the force of a constantly shifting sea beneath her easier than she ever imagined it would be. Whole minutes went by when she didn’t think about the lump. Elisabeth encouraged her to go further and further each time. Cally was zipping along now and she could see Jack and the children on the beach. Jack was kneeling down scooping buckets of sand to make a pit of some sort for the boys to play in.

‘Hey!’ she shouted, but the breeze and her own speed whipped the word away.

But Jack must have sensed her because he looked up. He waved. And then he blew her a kiss. And in that moment there were no other people in the world, and nothing else mattered except their love. She’d been stupid to keep such a massive worry to herself, and silly beyond belief to think she had to cope on her own. Life was for living, and that was just what she was going to do.

Dear new occupant,

I was left a gift by the previous occupant and this is my gift to you – Welsh cakes made by my sons and me. My husband was chief taster and he says they are ‘Ace!’ I hope you will enjoy them with a cup of tea, sitting on the deck perhaps. I arrived here a worried woman, but this place has smoothed out my worries and I’m going home with a more positive outlook. Whatever your reasons for coming here I wish you a happy time. If you feel like leaving something for the next occupant of 23 The Strand, please do – but it’s by no means obligatory.

Cally – and Jack, Noah and Riley too.

Конец ознакомительного фрагмента.

Текст предоставлен ООО «ЛитРес».

Прочитайте эту книгу целиком, купив полную легальную версию на ЛитРес.

Безопасно оплатить книгу можно банковской картой Visa, MasterCard, Maestro, со счета мобильного телефона, с платежного терминала, в салоне МТС или Связной, через PayPal, WebMoney, Яндекс.Деньги, QIWI Кошелек, бонусными картами или другим удобным Вам способом.