Evie held the dog by its collar. She was about to knock. The door marked ‘Privé’ was ajar and she paused and listened.
‘I hate it here. You’ve ruined everything.’
‘Kat, that’s not true. We decided—’
‘You decided—’
‘We agreed—’
‘You wanted to live here; it’s always about what you want …’
‘We were going to make it our home.’
‘Yes, me and you, Maddie. Now you’ve invited that bloody woman to stay with us.’
‘You don’t mind, do you, Kat?’
‘You didn’t even ask me. She was in the back of the van, saying, “Isn’t the beach lovely, do you have any idea where can I stay for a few days?” and you were like, “We have a room here with us.” And she was all simpering, “Oh that would be grand,” and you didn’t ask me what I thought.’
Evie pulled a face at Kat’s awful attempt at an Irish accent. Iggy looked up in sympathy, his eyes round. Maddie’s voice was placatory. ‘She’s sweet. And she can help. She said she’d do a few jobs for us around the place.’
‘Look at her, Maddie. She’s an old woman. That’s typical of you, picking up any old waif and stray, doing just what you want. She’ll have to pay rent.’
Old woman? Evie wrinkled her nose, raised a hand to knock and then changed her mind.
‘Kat—’
‘You didn’t even ask me if she could stay. You made the decision. Because I don’t bring anything to the table any more, do I?’
‘I didn’t mean—’
Evie pushed the door and stepped inside. Both women looked horrified. The dog broke away from Evie’s grasp and ran over to Maddie, sniffing her outstretched fingers. Evie held up the lead. ‘Thought I’d help everyone out by taking Iggy for a little walk on the beach.’
‘Thanks, Evie,’ said Maddie, her expression uncomfortable, and Kat rushed out of the door, brushing against her. Evie thought she heard a sob.
She had never been sure about dogs. There was something a bit unpredictable about the way they lurched and leaped and barked. The one she was holding on a lead now was tugging her along the beach, pulling forward with relentless enthusiasm. Evie muttered grimly, ‘It’s a shame the fecking case couldn’t do this.’
Evie’s brow furrowed as she thought about Kat and Maddie. She would offer to help them to renovate the other two buildings, which had once been a piggery and, to be honest, still looked more like pig sties than gîtes. She might enjoy a short working break. She could cook and clean and chop wood for a week or two, but she wouldn’t stay long. A couple of weeks would give her time to think. She would be able to arrange something back in Dublin, perhaps.
A damp blanket of warmth hung in the air. She passed the campervans, parked up for the night by the sea wall. The rich smell of cooking onions came from inside a grey camper with a German number plate; a bearded man was on the steps and he greeted Evie by raising his glass as she passed. Iggy tugged at the lead and she hurtled forwards at a fast pace. Her sore arm ached and was still mottled with dark blotches, which were spreading to pale yellow. The sea breeze whipped at her newly blonde hair. It was late now and the wind scattered a few smudges of people to the edges of the beach. The horizon spat out scraps of sunset, red scars across the darkening skies, and the wide stretch of sand merged into the blue of the sea.
‘What do you think of Pentrez beach, then, Iggy?’ The dog had put its nose into something it found in the sand and was snuffling. The beach was like life should be: open, uncomplicated. There were just a few people with dogs who smiled and said, ‘Bonsoir’, and moved on, and Evie had a clear view of where it would eventually end, suddenly and in a flurry of soft mounds. She turned the dog and headed back towards the farmhouse, the little gîtes and the bare stones of the renovation project. She was ready to sleep; the day had been a box sprung full with surprises. Above her, a moon was rising, an ancient bronze disc, hard and thin. Iggy strained at his lead and Evie tugged him back, surprised at the strength of her resolve. She looked at the sky. ‘I wonder if you ever look back at me, Jim.’
Her voice sounded quiet against the hushing of the waves.
‘I wonder about the babbies, the should-have-beens. I gave them special names in my head. I dreamed them, each one of them, after every time, a little girl with no face, who knocked on our front door and looked at me with no eyes and said, “Don’t cry Mammy because I will come back to you again.”’
Evie swallowed a lump of unresolved emotion. Brendan had been number four, the lucky one, the one who had stuck. Iggy pulled her forwards, his mouth gaping and eager. Her sob turned into a laugh, brittle and short. Jim was not up in the sky; Evie was not even sure there was a God there, or anywhere. She was not sure about anything at all.
‘Is this what it is now for me, Iggy? Am I lurching onwards at a lick, so fast I don’t know where I am going? Is that what it’ll be until I find it, the meaning or whatever it is?’
Iggy barked and Evie decided she liked the dog. The sea breathed in and out like a sleeping child and Evie wondered how long this peaceful beach could hold her there. As the sun sank low, she thought about time as a smudge of light dimming in the sky. You couldn’t hold onto it for long.
Both of the postcards’ glossy pictures were the same, divided into three images, all summer yellows, sands and sunshine and bleached prickly gorse. The words ‘Pentrez Plage’ were blazed red inside a sea-blue ribbon. Evie wrote on the back of the first card: Thank you all at Sheldon Lodge. I have decided not to come back though. Please can you give my things to my son. I will be in touch soon. With best wishes for the future, Evie Gallagher. On the other, she wrote Brendan’s address and the words, I’m having a holiday. I am living two minutes from this beach. It is wonderful. Sending love, Mammy.
She asked the proprietor for two stamps. He frowned at her and she waved the cards. She tried again. ‘Deux … stamps.’
‘Anglaise?’ he asked.
‘Irish.’
‘Irlandaise,’ he corrected, and handed her two small stamps.
Evie went back into the sunlight and pushed her cards into the box marked ‘étranger’ with a swelling sense of having shed all her worries.
The last day of June was intense in the heat and Evie hid in the shade with Wuthering Heights. Iggy was at her feet, his tongue dipping in and out of a bowl of water. She could hear the buzzing of a drill and a hammer hitting brick. Kat was in the piggery working on plumbing in the sink and Maddie was plastering walls.
Heathcliff had just plucked Cathy from her grave and Evie marvelled at the power of passion, how it could bind people together and how it could break a man’s resolve. Voices shrilled between the vibrations of machinery in the piggery; Kat’s dominating, a hard edge to her words. There was a silence and then a single yell. Evie sat up and Iggy pointed his ears. Kat came running from the building, brown and lean in shorts, plaster clinging to clumps of dark hair, a dusting of white on her cheek.
‘Come on, Iggy.’ Her words were staccato with each breath as she jogged by and the Labrador followed her, down the driveway towards the road.
Evie went back to the chapter and read on; a few minutes later, she was conscious of a shadow over the page, and she looked up. Maddie’s hair was over her face; behind the fallen strands her eyes were swollen with tears.
‘Evie?’
Evie put her book down and stood, wrapping her arms around the younger woman.
‘We just had a massive row.’
Evie waited.
‘It’s all going wrong … Kat’s really angry with me. I think – I think she’s going to leave.’
Evie blinked. The sunlight was in her eyes. Maddie dropped down beside her and Evie reached over and patted her hand. ‘I’m sure it’ll be all right.’
Maddie bent forward and snivelled, wiped her hand across her face. ‘No, Evie, it won’t. It was great when we first came here. We’ve been working flat out for a year. Then we went back to England last week to see my parents, to buy some things for the gîtes. It was our dream, to set up home here together, to run it as a business, but it’s all going wrong.’
Evie waited, watching the young woman’s shoulders shake, and she put a gentle hand on her back. When Maddie turned to Evie, her face was blotchy and her voice strained. ‘My granny left me the money. We both so desperately wanted to make a go of the gîtes. I mean, we’ve been together since the second year at university – nine years, and things have always been good. I did business management, Kat studied foreign languages – it seemed like a no-brainer for us to come out here. There’s always been this problem, though, with my parents’ interference. We kept it under wraps, hoped it would go away. Then last week, my mother made a stupid comment in front of Kat. Since then, she’s been really moody.’
‘What did she say?’
Maddie sniffed. ‘Something about me providing all the money for the gîtes and doing all the brain work and Kat not bringing anything to the table. It really hurt her feelings. She thinks my parents are privileged and I’m spoiled and I think she’s lost respect for me. She’s very independent; that’s one reason why I love her.’
‘Shall we take your van and go up to the headland?’ Evie said. ‘We can have a little walk and you can tell me about it. When we come back, we’ll make some supper and open a lovely bottle of wine.’
Maddie felt in her pocket for the keys. She draped her other arm around Evie’s shoulders and took a deep breath.
The early evening was still warm and bright. The little kitchen smelled of the warm aroma of herbs and frying potatoes. Kat stood in the doorway, a silent shadow, and Iggy moved towards his water bowl, lapping loudly. Maddie looked up hopefully from the table, which had been covered with a pretty blue-checked cloth and laden with plates full of green salad, sliced tomatoes, olives, cheese, piles of crusty bread. She patted the chair next to her, and Kat slumped down, sullen and tired, running a hand through her hair. Evie placed the Spanish omelette in the centre. It was huge, fluffy and golden, filled with peas and potatoes, peppers and onions.
The chair squeaked as Evie sat down. She poured red wine into glasses. Kat pulled an unimpressed face. ‘What’s all this for?’
Evie offered her most beatific smile. ‘For you, Kat. And for Maddie. To say thanks for putting me up here. For being welcoming. And because you’re both so lovely.’
Kat turned away, wrinkled her nose and surveyed the newly whitewashed brick walls. Maddie took a slice of omelette and Evie indicated the rest of the food, then lifted her glass. ‘Sláinte.’
Maddie raised her glass. ‘Santé.’
Kat gulped at her wine, and mumbled to Evie, ‘That’s “cheers” in French.’
For a moment, there was no sound except for the clank of knives and forks against plates. Then Evie looked up at both girls. ‘I’ve a confession to make.’
Two pairs of eyes darted towards her face, so she winked. ‘I’m on the run.’
Kat leaned forward. ‘From prison?’ Her knife and fork were in the air.
Evie took a mouthful of wine and her laughter bubbled. ‘No. From a bloody care home.’
Maddie’s brow creased. ‘I don’t understand.’
Evie chewed thoughtfully. ‘My husband died and I just gave up. Felt lonely, so I went into Sheldon Lodge. I was surrounded with lots of lovely old people there and, do you know, it was the coldest, loneliest winter of my life.’
Maddie’s fork was in the air. ‘I had no idea, Evie.’
‘So I ran away. I believe in the power of luck, you know. I’ve a lucky four-leaf clover in my handbag. Had it since I was four years old. Four’s my lucky number.’ Kat swallowed the last of her wine, so Evie refilled her glass. ‘I took a huge gamble and won some money, and it brought me to Liverpool where I met some grand people, but I was attacked by some poor little lad who was a chancer, and I thought about giving up, but then I came here and met you two.’
Maddie and Kat exchanged looks. Evie passed the bread around the table and took a breath. ‘You two, you have it all. This place, youth, a future – each other. Make the most of it all. Before you know it, time’s like a whirlwind that has just rushed past and suddenly you’re seventy-five and on your own. There’s no time to waste on petty squabbles.’
The young women stared at Evie and she beamed. ‘So come on, the pair of you. Let’s sort out priorities.’ She raised her glass. ‘Happiness. Someone you love, who loves you back. A good meal shared together. And the biggest priority of all. The present. It’s not called the present for nothing. It’s a gift.’
Kat looked across at Evie and nodded slowly. ‘You’re right, Evie.’ She turned to Maddie and held out her hand. ‘I’m sorry, Maddie. I’ve been stupid, haven’t I?’
Maddie leaned forward, mumbled, ‘Not your fault … nobody’s fault. Come here,’ and the two women clasped each other in a hug.
Evie stood up, a grin on her face. ‘Will I open up a bottle? Another red one, perhaps?’