I Let You Go (7 page)

In the summer there will be tourists, I suppose. Not at this hour, and perhaps not as far inland as my cottage, but on the beach, certainly. But for now it is mine, and the solitude is comforting. A dull winter sun pushes its way over the clifftop, and there is an icy glint on the puddles punctuating the coastal path that runs around the bay. I begin to run, my breath leaving bursts of mist in my wake. I never jogged in Bristol, but here I make myself go on for miles.

I settle into a rhythm that echoes my heart, and run steadily towards the sea. My shoes make a noise as they hit the stony floor, but my daily runs have made me sure-footed. The path leading down on to the beach is so familiar now I could walk it blindfold, and I jump the last few feet on to the damp sand. Hugging the cliff, I jog slowly around the bay, until the line of rocks pushes me towards the sea.

The tide is as far out as it can go, a line of driftwood and tattered rubbish left on the sand like a dirty ring around a bathtub. Turning away from the cliff, I up my pace and sprint through the shallows, wet sand sucking at my feet. My head bent low against the biting wind, I fight the tide and run full-pelt along the shore until my lungs burn and I can hear the blood whistling in my ears. As I draw near to the end of the sands, the opposing cliff looms up above me, but instead of checking my pace, I speed up. The wind whips my hair across my face and I shake my head to clear it. I run faster, and the split-second before I smash into the waiting cliff, I stretch my arms in front of me and slam my hands against the cold rock. Alive. Awake. Safe from nightmares.

As the adrenalin leaves me I start to shake, and I walk back the way I came. The wet sand has swallowed my footprints, leaving no trace of my sprint between the cliffs. There is a piece of driftwood by my feet and I pick it up and idly drag a channel around me, but the beach closes around the wood before I have even lifted it from the ground. Frustrated, I walk a few paces inland, where the sand is drying, and trace another circle with the stick. It’s better. I have a sudden urge to write my name in the sand, like a toddler on holiday, and I smile at my childishness. The driftwood is unwieldy and slippery but I finish the letters and stand back to admire my handiwork. It seems strange to see my name so bold and unashamed. I’ve been invisible for so long, and what am I now? A sculptor who doesn’t sculpt. A mother without a child. The letters are not invisible. They are shouting: large enough to be seen from the clifftops. I feel a shiver of fear and excitement. I’m taking a risk, but it feels good.

At the top of the cliff an ineffective fence reminds walkers not to stray too close to the crumbling rock edge. I ignore the sign and step over the wire to stand inches away from the drop. The expanse of sand is slowly turning from grey to gold as the sun climbs higher, and my name dances across the middle of the beach, daring me to catch it before it disappears.

I’ll take a picture of it before the tide comes in and swallows it up, I decide, so I can capture the moment I felt brave. I run back to the cottage for my camera. My steps feel lighter now and I realise it’s because I’m running towards something, and not away from it.

That first photograph is nothing special. The framing is all wrong, the letters too far from the shore. I run back down to the beach, covering the smooth stretch of sand with names from my past, before letting them sink back into the wet sand. Others I write further up the beach; characters from books I read as a child, or names I love simply for the sweep of the letters they contain. Then I bring out my camera, crouching low to the sand as I play with the angles, layering my words first with the surf, then with rocks, then with a rich slash of blue sky. Finally, I climb the steep path to the top of the cliff to take my final shots, balancing precariously on the edge, turning my back on the clutch of fear it gives me. The beach is covered with writing of all sizes, like the scribbled ramblings of a madman, but I can already see the incoming tide licking at the letters, swirling the sand as it inches up the beach. By this evening, when the tide retreats once more, the beach will be clean, and I can start again.

I have no sense of what time it is now, but the sun is high, and I must have a hundred photos on my camera. Wet sand clings to my clothes and when I touch my hair it’s stiff with salt. I don’t have any gloves, and my fingers are painfully cold. I will go home and have a hot bath, then load the photos on to my laptop and see if I’ve taken anything passable. I feel a surge of energy; it’s the first time since the accident that my day has had purpose.

I head towards the cottage, but when I reach the fork in the path I hesitate. I picture Bethan at the caravan park shop, and the way she reminded me of my sister. I feel an ache of homesickness and before I can change my mind I take the path leading to the caravan park. What reason can I give for visiting the shop? I don’t have any money with me, so I can’t pretend I’ve come for milk or bread. I might ask a question, I suppose, but I struggle to think of something plausible. Whatever I come up with, Bethan will know it is an excuse. She’ll think I’m pathetic.

My resolve fades before I’ve walked a hundred yards, and when I reach the car park I stop. I look across to the shop and see a shape in the window – I can’t tell if it’s Bethan and I don’t wait to find out. I turn and run back to the cottage.

I reach Blaen Cedi and pull the key from my pocket, but when I put my hand on the door it moves a little, and I realise it isn’t locked. The door is old and the mechanism unreliable: Iestyn showed me how to pull the door just so, and turn the key at such an angle it clicks home, but at times I’ve spent ten minutes or more trying. He left me his number, but he doesn’t know I threw away my mobile phone. There’s a phone line to the cottage, but no telephone installed, so I will have to walk to Penfach and find a telephone box to see if he’ll come and fix it.

I have only been inside for a few minutes, when there is a knock at the door.

‘Jenna? It’s Bethan.’

I contemplate staying where I am, but my curiosity gets the better of me, and I feel a leap of excitement as I open the door. For all that I sought an escape, I’m lonely here in Penfach.

‘I brought you a pie.’ Bethan holds up a tea-towel-covered dish and comes in without waiting for an invitation. She puts it down in the kitchen next to the range.

‘Thank you.’ I search for small talk, but Bethan just smiles. She takes off her heavy woollen coat and the action galvanises me. ‘Would you like tea?’

‘If you’re making,’ she says. ‘I thought I’d come by and see how you’re doing. I did wonder if you might have popped in to see me before now, but I know what it’s like when you’re settling into a new place.’ She looks around the cottage and stops talking, taking in the sparse sitting room, no different from when Iestyn first brought me here.

‘I don’t have much,’ I say, embarrassed.

‘None of us does, round here,’ Bethan says cheerfully. ‘As long as you’re warm and comfortable, that’s the main thing.’

I move around the kitchen as she talks, making the tea, grateful for something to do with my hands, and we sit at the pine table with our mugs.

‘How are you finding Blaen Cedi?’

‘It’s perfect,’ I say. ‘Exactly what I needed.’

‘Tiny and cold, you mean?’ Bethan says, with a ripple of laughter that slops tea over the rim of her mug. She gives an ineffective rub at her trousers and the liquid sinks into a dark patch on her thigh.

‘I don’t need much room, and the fire keeps me warm enough.’ I smile. ‘Really, I like it.’

‘So what’s your story, Jenna? How did you come to be in Penfach?’

‘It’s beautiful here,’ I say simply, wrapping my hands around my mug and looking down into it, to avoid meeting Bethan’s sharp eyes. She doesn’t push me.

‘That’s true enough. There are worse places to live, although it’s bleak at this time of year.’

‘When do you start letting the caravans?’

‘We open at Easter,’ Bethan says, ‘then it’s all systems go for the summer months – you won’t recognise the place – and we finally wind down after the October half-term. Let me know if you’ve got family visiting and need a ’van – you’ll never squeeze guests in here.’

‘That’s kind of you, but I’m not expecting anyone to visit.’

‘You don’t have any family?’ Bethan looks directly at me, and I find myself unable to drop my gaze.

‘I have a sister,’ I admit, ‘but we don’t speak any more.’

‘What happened?’

‘Oh, the usual sibling tensions,’ I say lightly. Even now, I can see Eve’s angry face as she implored me to listen to her. I was too proud, I can see that now; too blinded by love. Perhaps if I had listened to Eve, things would have been different.

‘Thank you for the pie,’ I say. ‘It’s very kind of you.’

‘Nonsense,’ Bethan says, unperturbed by the change in subject. She puts on her coat and wraps a scarf several times round her neck. ‘What are neighbours for? Now, you’ll be dropping in for tea at the caravan park before too long.’

It’s not a question, but I nod. She fixes me with rich brown eyes and I suddenly feel like a child again.

‘I will,’ I say. ‘I promise.’ And I mean it.

When Bethan has gone I take the memory stick from my camera and load the photos on to my laptop. Most are no use, but there are a few that capture perfectly the writing in the sand, against a backdrop of fierce winter sea. I put the kettle on the range to make more tea, but I lose track of time, and it’s half an hour later when I realise it still hasn’t boiled. I put out a hand only to discover the range is stone cold. It’s gone out again. I was so engrossed in editing photos that I didn’t notice the temperature falling, but now my teeth start to chatter and I can’t make them stop. I look at Bethan’s chicken pie and feel my stomach growl with hunger. The last time this happened it took me two days to relight it, and my heart sinks at the thought of a repeat performance.

I shake myself. When did I become so pathetic? When did I lose the ability to make decisions; to solve problems? I’m better than this.

‘Right,’ I say out loud, my voice sounding strange in the empty kitchen. ‘Let’s sort this out.’

The sun is rising over Penfach before I am warm again. My knees are stiff after hours spent crouching on the kitchen floor, and I have smears of grease in my hair. But I have a sense of achievement I haven’t felt in a long time, as I place Bethan’s pie in the range to warm through. I don’t care that it’s closer to breakfast than supper, or that my hunger pangs have been and gone. I set the table for dinner, and I relish every single bite.

‘Come on!’ Ray bellowed up the stairs to Tom and Lucy, looking at his watch for the fifth time in as many minutes. ‘We’re going to be late!’

As if Monday mornings weren’t stressful enough, Mags had spent the night at her sister’s and wasn’t due back until lunchtime, so Ray had been flying solo for twenty-four hours. He had – rather unwisely, he now saw – allowed the children to stay up late to watch a film the previous night, and had had to prise even the ever-chirpy Lucy out of bed at seven-thirty. Now it was eight-thirty-five and they were going to have to get a shift on. Ray had been summoned to the chief constable’s office at nine-thirty, and at this rate he was still going to be standing at the foot of the stairs shouting at his children.

‘Get a move on!’ Ray marched out to the car and started the engine, leaving the front door swinging open. Lucy came racing through it, unbrushed hair flying about her face, and slid into the front seat beside her dad. Her navy school skirt was crumpled, and one knee-length sock was already round her ankle. A full minute later Tom sauntered out to the car, his shirt untucked and flapping in the breeze. He had his tie in his hand and showed no sign of putting it on. He was going through a growth spurt and carried his new-found height awkwardly, his head permanently bowed and his shoulders stooped.

Ray opened his window. ‘Door, Tom!’

‘Huh?’ Tom looked at Ray.

‘The front door?’ Ray clenched his fists. How Mags did this every day without losing her temper, he would never know. The list of things he had to do loomed large in his mind, and he could have done without the school run today of all days.

‘Oh.’ Tom meandered back to the house and pulled the front door closed with a bang. He got into the back seat. ‘How come Lucy’s in the front?’

‘It’s my turn.’

‘It isn’t.’

‘It is.’

‘Enough!’ Ray roared.

Nobody spoke, and by the time they had driven the five minutes to Lucy’s primary school, Ray’s blood pressure had subsided. He parked his Mondeo on yellow zig-zags and marched Lucy round to her classroom, kissing her on the forehead and legging it back just in time to find a woman noting down his registration number.

‘Oh, it’s you!’ she said, when he skidded to a halt by the car. She wagged her finger. ‘I would have thought you would have known better, Inspector.’

‘Sorry,’ Ray said. ‘Urgent job. You know how it is.’

He left her tapping her pencil on her notepad. Bloody PTA mafia, he thought. Too much time on their hands, that was the trouble.

‘So,’ Ray started, glancing over to the passenger seat. Tom had slid into the front as soon as Lucy had got out, but he was staring resolutely out of the window. ‘How’s school?’

‘Fine.’

Tom’s teacher said that while things hadn’t got worse, they certainly hadn’t got better. He and Mags had gone to the school and heard a report of a boy who had no friends, didn’t do more than the bare minimum in lessons, and never put himself forward.

‘Mrs Hickson said there’s a football club starting after school on Wednesdays. Do you fancy it?’

‘Not really.’

‘I used to be quite the player in my day – maybe some of it has rubbed off on you, eh?’ Even without looking at Tom, Ray knew the boy was rolling his eyes, and he winced at how much like his own father he was sounding.

Tom pushed his headphones into his ears.

Ray sighed. Puberty had turned his son into a grunting, uncommunicative teenager, and he was dreading the day the same thing happened to his daughter. You weren’t supposed to have favourites, but he had a soft spot for Lucy, who at nine would still seek him out for a cuddle and insist on a bedtime story. Even before adolescent angst had hit, Tom and Ray had locked horns. Too similar, Mags said, although Ray couldn’t see it.