‘That’s what dementia does to you,’ Fiona had declared, clambering onto the sofa beside me to watch.
‘They’re brave,’ I countered, chin resting on forearms.
‘They’re like, a hundred. They’ll get pneumonia.’
Our mother, who’d been writing in the gold-edged notebook we’d bought her for Christmas, glanced up.
‘Cold water boosts our white blood cells because our bodies are forced to react to the changing conditions. It’s good for you.’ She’d always had a knack for casting a relevant, articulate fact into almost any stream of conversation.
Fiona turned to me, eyes glinting. ‘I dare you to join them.’
Four years older than me, her approval was hard to gain. I thought about the sharpness of the cold, the feel of the icy waves lifting and dropping me, the way my skin would pucker with goose bumps. I placed a bookmark into the spine of my novel.
‘Sure.’
I lasted a minute and a half, the cold squeezing the air from my lungs, but Fiona had clapped and cheered from the shoreline and I felt like a hero. Afterwards our mother warmed a pan of hot chocolate and I sat cross-legged in front of the electric fire watching the wiggling red lines of heat, the mug cupped in my hands, a surge of endorphins pumping in my body.
Now at the shoreline, I step from my dressing gown, the cold nicking my skin. I set the gown on the damp sand, then snap a picture of it, typing a quick post:
My drug of choice for getting the brain cells firing. #wildswim
Then the phone is away, and it is just me and the sea.
The trick, I’ve learned, is not to rush. To set a pace that doesn’t falter. I walk purposefully to the shore and straight into the sea. I don’t focus on the cold gripping my ankles: I concentrate on my breathing, keeping it level as the water climbs to my waist.
I push off, kicking away from shore. The bitter sea wraps around me, stealing every thought in my head. It is all I can do to remember to breathe.
I’m careful to remain near shore, not wanting to chance my luck against the stronger currents that pull and suck towards the horizon. I can taste the salt on my lips, feel the pleasing sting of it against my skin.
I look back towards my house. I realise that I’ve left the light on in the writing room and I can see straight inside, the empty desk eyeing me.
It looks, just for a moment, as if someone passes behind it.
I tread water, blinking saltwater from my eyes, looking again. It is a trick of the light, of course. A strange reflection, because now the shadow has gone.
*
The first time I saw the cliff-top house was with Flynn. We had come to Cornwall to be introduced to a ten-day-old Drake. Fiona seemed shell-shocked that this tiny pink creature with tightly curled fists and a fierce cry was hers. She moved around the house in a daze, a muslin flung over her shoulder, patches of her shirt stiff with leaked milk.
‘Take him,’ Fiona had begged, when I passed the nursery one evening and found her jigging him wearily.
Pressing him to my chest, I slowly circled my palm over the curve of his tiny back. I began to sing in a low, half-whispered voice, words that unravelled from some distant song that our mother had taught us. The rhythm seemed to soothe him, and I placed my lips against the soft down of his head and breathed in. Longing bloomed like blood rising to the surface of my skin.
When I turned, I saw Fiona still standing in the doorway of the nursery, watching. Her eyes shone with tears that didn’t fall.
‘I can’t even stop him crying.’
‘You’re doing brilliantly – but you’re exhausted. Get some sleep. I’ll wake you when he’s hungry.’
Fiona didn’t seem to hear. Her gaze was on the empty cot.
‘There are so many things I want to ask Mum. She did it on her own. The two of us.’ She shook her head. ‘Dad left when you were six weeks old. How the hell did she manage with two kids and no family nearby to help? I can’t even imagine. She was a hero, but I didn’t … I didn’t tell her how incredible she was … it’s only now …’ She pulled back her lips, as if baring her teeth. ‘I just, I miss her so much.’
‘I know you do,’ I whispered.
It was no surprise that the cruelness of our mother’s absence revisited us again with the birth of Drake, in the way that life and death circle each other. She would have loved rocking Drake to sleep in her arms, examining those tiny pink toes, carefully dressing and undressing him, bathing him, washing the blankets he used, the Babygros he soiled, the muslins he posseted on. She would have made meals, stocked freezers, emptied bins, folded washing. She would have praised Bill’s easy competency at changing nappies, or with manning the sterilizing station. She would have looked at Fiona and known that sleep deprivation was sinking her, that the baby blues were in danger of growing into something more serious.
She would have done all those things because she was a mother herself, and she knew.
I tried to fill that role as best I could, but each time I held Drake, my own longing sharpened. Flynn, sensing I needed a break, removed the pile of clean vests and white hats and delicate cardigans I’d been folding, took my fingers in his and told me, ‘Let’s walk.’
We weaved down a footpath in the direction of the coast, eventually coming to a steep path of switchbacks leading to a small bay hugged by cliffs.
I had a vague memory of visiting this beach years before. I could recall the red tassels of a picnic blanket, my mother sitting with a hand shading the sun from her eyes, marvelling at something. I could picture the black rocks that lay exposed and dripping at low tide.
As we walked, Flynn said, ‘It will happen for us.’
I’d slipped my hand into the back pocket of his jeans, leaning into him. ‘It’s been over a year.’
‘Maybe it’s time to see a doctor.’
I felt myself stiffen, retract. But I needed answers, too.
When we reached the far end of the bay, we looked up, noticing the squat fisherman’s cottage set on the cliff top. ‘What a view.’
‘It has a For Sale sign,’ he said, pointing to the red board at its shoulder.
The owner was home – a retired nurse who didn’t mind this young couple knocking on her door – and she invited us to look around. The cottage was hopelessly run-down, the roof sagging, the wallpaper curling at the edges, yet there was magic there.
‘Imagine living here,’ Flynn had said when we were alone, turning me to face the view, wrapping his arms around my waist, chin resting on my shoulder. ‘We could do it, couldn’t we?’
The money from my advance had just landed in our account, and Flynn had some savings from a family inheritance.
‘Yes, I think we could. But Cornwall? What about your job?’
‘I can be a tree surgeon anywhere,’ he’d said. ‘I think this is where you want to be, isn’t it? Near your sister, near Drake.’
I thought of Fiona cradling her new son; I thought of our mother’s dream to own a house overlooking the sea; I thought of the chances of stumbling across this cottage, finding the owner home. It seemed serendipitous.
‘Yes,’ I’d said to Flynn. ‘It is.’
Twelve weeks later, we had the keys. We moved in, sleeping on a mattress on the floor while we made plans. A lick of paint. A wood burning stove. New curtains. Fresh carpet. It was everything we’d need.
Now,