Grey-blue clouds hung low in a peach and coral sky. The undulating outline of Petroc Island was silhouetted against the winter sun. Round the headland and just out of sight of the pub, Maisie gathered some driftwood and bone-dry seaweed and after a few false starts Patrick managed to set it alight. He kissed Maisie then put his arm around her. They sat in silence, watching the flames flickered and burned orange like the setting sun.
‘Strange to think that it’s Boxing Day already at home,’ Patrick said.
The word ‘home’ wasn’t lost on Maisie. ‘Have you heard how Judy is without Greg? Today – yesterday – must have been tough.’
‘She put a brave face on it for me. They wanted to open as usual as Greg would have wanted and her kids took a couple of weeks off to run the bar with her. They work in Sydney … apparently the bar was rammed all day with people turning up to raise a toast to Greg. I like to think he was looking down and raising his own glass too.’
Maisie squeezed his hand. ‘She sounds like an amazingly strong woman.’
‘She is.’
‘Doesn’t she miss you being there this year?’
‘Maybe. I phoned her late last night. I could hardly hear above the noise in the Fingle. I think she’s OK but you’re right. I do miss her and worry about her.’
Maisie thought more than ever that it was a miracle that Patrick had stayed. Could he really be here because – she dared not think it – of her?
‘Oh. I have another present for you,’ she said, remembering the parcel in her jacket pocket. ‘Here you are.’
She’d wrapped the small gift in pale-blue tissue paper tied with a raffia bow, hoping it wasn’t too twee for him, but she’d wanted to make the gift special. Now her stomach fluttered in case he hated it or thought it was naff.
Patrick turned over the packet in his large hand, laying it flat on his palm. ‘It’s not very big.’
Maisie rubbed her hands together in frustration. He was prolonging her agony, the devil.
With a sigh, he pulled at the raffia string and the tissue opened. ‘Whoops.’
The gift fell onto the beach. Maisie looked down. It didn’t look much, lying on the sand among the shells and pebbles, but Patrick reached down and scooped it up. It was a pendant. A shiny tiny starfish on a leather cord. When she’d seen it, she’d loved it immediately but agonised over whether to get it and had gone back twice before asking Archie to bring it over to the bar on Christmas Eve.
‘It’s from Archie’s gallery,’ she explained. ‘The Starfish Studio, on St Piran’s. He sells stuff from other makers and artists as well as his own paintings.’
Patrick held the leather cord between his fingers and the starfish glinted in the rays of the dying sun.
‘It’s not silver,’ she continued. ‘It’s tin from the last working tin streamers in Cornwall. I didn’t know what to get you but I wanted to give you something … personal to remember me by, something local – or almost local.’
Patrick didn’t reply, causing Maisie more moments of exquisite tension. Then he lifted it over his head and put it round his neck and smiled. ‘It’s grand,’ he said, echoing her dad. ‘In fact, it’s perfect.’
Her shoulders slumped in relief. His quiet reaction seemed to say a lot more than any gushing, not that Patrick ever gushed. ‘Oh, I’m so glad you like it, but you can’t possibly wear it today. Mum and Dad will notice. Wait until tomorrow.’
‘Why?’
‘Then you can say it was from someone else. Judy maybe. Or Will.’
‘Will? They really will be worried if I say he gave me a necklace.’
‘Probably not as worried as if you say I did.’
Patrick leaned in and kissed her. A long, slow kiss that made the tension ebb away and a dreamy languor fill her veins like rich red wine.
‘I think it’s time you had your “secret” present.’ He pulled a small square cardboard box from his pocket.
‘I’d wondered what the bulge in your jeans was.’
‘I’d have thought the shape and position of it might have worried you.’
Maisie laughed, fizzing with anticipation. So far, Christmas Day had been a weird and wonderful mix of childlike excitement and very grown-up thrills.
‘Great minds think alike,’ said Patrick as she eased the lid off the blue box and saw what was inside. She pulled it out and rested it on her palm, hardly daring to breathe let alone speak. She didn’t know what she’d expected – a jokey present, maybe – and she’d feared and hoped for a token of affection. This was definitely not a joke. It was a small round silver disc enclosing an iridescent gemstone, the colours of which shifted constantly as Maisie turned it this way and that, flashing with an inner fire almost like the setting sun. Turquoise, mint, sky blue … hues that were impossible to pin down, they kept changing all the time.
‘It’s an opal,’ Patrick said. ‘From Australia, of course.’
‘It’s amazing. Beautiful. Thanks, but …’
‘For God’s sake, don’t say “you shouldn’t have”.’
She stroked the opal, which was smooth and cool under her fingers.
‘I was going to say that I’ll have to say it was from Jess …’
‘I don’t mind who you say it’s from. As long as it’s not Hugo.’
‘We don’t need Hugo,’ said Maisie, feeling as if she could take on the whole world. ‘We’ve shown him that Gull Islanders can pull together without the likes of him. We don’t need his bribes. We can take care of our own.’
‘I hope so. It’s not only Judy who’s an amazing woman,’ said Patrick.
She put her finger on his lips. ‘No. I’m not amazing at all. Just a woman. Patrick. I need to say something. These gifts cost a lot of money on top of the building stuff. I appreciate you helping us – I’m really grateful – but this isn’t your battle to fight. Lending a hand at the site is one thing but using your own money, that’s different. You must have used up most of your earnings here plus savings and you hardly know us …’
‘Don’t I?’
‘You’ve only been here a couple of months and I know what’s happened between us changes things. I know you – we know each other – in some ways, but in others we hardly know a thing about one another.’
She felt the heat rise to her cheeks. Why was it that she was never shy or ashamed when she was in bed with him but couldn’t talk about their relationship when she was in his normal company? It was like waking up with a sex hangover. She’d indulge her every passion while they were in bed but afterwards she felt awkward.
‘We know the things that matter,’ he said.
She’d had too much Prosecco, shiraz and Bailey’s and Patrick, damn him, was still sober. But she couldn’t stop herself and she didn’t really think the alcohol had loosened her tongue. She had this urge to tell him, God knows where it had come from. She wanted him to know everything about her.
‘I don’t know … I just … think … I lied about last Christmas. I wasn’t working.’
He held her hands and looked into her face. ‘Tell me, Maisie. Don’t hold back. I guessed that things haven’t been easy for you.’
‘Hasn’t Mum already told you what happened to me?’
‘No, but I can see you’re hiding some deep pain. Your mother’s spoken to me but only to warn me not to hurt you.’
‘Jesus. When? Today?’
‘No. The day you gave me the job.’
Maisie moaned. ‘Bloody hell, Mum. How could she? I’d only known you two days and she decided to assume you were after me. I’m sorry,’ she said in exasperation. ‘I’m not seventeen.’
‘But she loves you and she was right. I am after you.’
And you will hurt me. It will hurt when you go. I can’t deny that any longer. It will hurt like hell, at least as much as Keegan leaving and probably – definitely – more. Even after a few months. Why, oh, why have I done this to myself again?
Patrick broke into her thoughts. ‘You said you lied about last Christmas …’
Maisie tugged the blanket round her shoulders. It was too late to stop now, even if this was the moment where Patrick, like most other blokes, started to turn pale and run a mile at the double whammy of women’s problems and emotional catastrophe. Not that he could run anywhere.
‘I wasn’t at work. I was at hospital. I lost my baby. My baby and Keegan’s baby.’