Trevay, 1992
Adela and Bill had taken the children to the beach. Adela loved her grandchildren dearly but she was exhausted looking after two little ones. They were growing up so quickly, she wished with all her heart that Sennen could see them. As the sun beat down on Shellsand Bay, Adela rested her eyes, just for a moment, listening to Henry’s squeals of laughter above the crashing of the waves.
‘Mama!’ shouted Henry stamping his little feet in the shallow ripples of the sea. ‘Mama!’
Sennen crouched as well as she could with her burgeoning pregnancy, and said, ‘Smile, Henry. Smile for Mummy.’ She pressed the shutter on her Kodak disposable camera just as her one-year-old son scrunched his eyes and gave her the broadest of grins. ‘That’ll be a good one,’ she said, winding the film on.
Adela and Bill were sitting a little way up the beach, using the cliff face as a windbreak. Bill was asleep, Adela was watching her daughter and grandson.
‘Darling?’ She shook Bill gently. ‘Darling?’
Bill woke up. ‘Was I dozing?’ He stretched, then put a hand to his eyes to check on Sennen and Henry. ‘Are they okay?’
‘I think so,’ said Adela. ‘She’s being rather good with him today.’
‘I think you’re being very good with both of them.’ He looked at her affectionately over the top of his Raybans.
‘I do worry. She’s only just coping with Henry and now another baby on the way.’
‘It’s not quite what we were thinking of, is it?’
‘No.’ Adela steepled her fingers under her chin. ‘Every child brings joy, we know that, but …’ She shook her head. ‘I do worry.’
‘What are you worried about, Granny?’
Adela knew she’d been dreaming, but it was so real, so tangible, as she opened her eyes to see a smiling Henry standing in front of her with a crab net.
‘Did I fall asleep?’ She smiled at him.
‘Grandad wants to take me and Ella swimming but you have to come too, to help Ella because she’s not big like me.’
She reached out and stroked her grandson’s soft cheeks. ‘No, she’s not as big as you, yet. Your swimming is coming on nicely. But you will teach Ella when she’s big.’
Henry grabbed her arm and pulled her out of the nest of towels she’d created for herself against the cliffs where she and Bill always made camp.
‘Quick, Granny, or Ella and Poppa will be finished before we get there.’
Henry pulled Adela down the damp and rippled sand to the water’s edge where Bill was bouncing Ella’s toes in and out of the shallow ripples.
‘Hello, old thing.’ He smiled at her. ‘The water’s not too bad.’
‘Granny was asleep.’ Henry told Bill.
‘Was she snoring?’ asked Bill conspiratorially.
‘She was more sort of blowing air through her lips. Like Bert when he purrs.’
‘Ah yes,’ said Bill nodding his head as if Henry had given him the most important piece of information. ‘She does that.’
Adela wasn’t embarrassed. ‘Well, Poppa farts when he’s asleep.’
Henry burst into laughter. ‘Poppa Farts! Poppa Farts!’
Ella, catching the fun and laughter, stuck her bottom out and began blowing raspberries through her teeth.
‘That’s quite enough, thank you,’ said Bill, lifting Ella on to his shoulders. ‘Who wants to find the seahorses?’
‘Meeee!’ shrilled Ella holding tight to her Poppa’s ears.
‘And meeeee!’ shouted Henry running through the waves.
‘And meeeee,’ sang Adela as she skipped after them all, putting aside her post-dream sadness.
That night, after Adela had bathed Henry and Ella and dressed them in sweet-smelling pyjamas, Bill came upstairs to read the nightly story. Adela kissed the children and sat on the floor between their beds as Bill settled down with Enid Blyton’s The Magic Faraway Tree. He read one chapter and then, after much pleading, read another.
‘One more?’ asked Henry sleepily.
‘Ella is asleep. She’ll be cross if we read on without her,’ whispered Bill.
Adela stood up and gently tucked Ella and her teddy a little more cosily. Then she dropped a kiss on Ella’s sleeping forehead. ‘Night-night darling.’
Bill was settling Henry down. ‘Did you read Mummy that story,’ Henry asked, his bright blue eyes sharp with a need to know.
‘Yes,’ said Bill. ‘I did.’
‘Did she like Moon-Face best?’ Henry settled himself more deeply into his duvet.
‘Of course.’
‘Good.’
‘Sleep tight now. See you in the morning.’ Bill ran his hands through Henry’s soft hair.
‘I will.’
‘Night-night, Hen,’ said Adela kissing his head. ‘Love you.’
‘Love you too.’ Henry managed, before accepting sleep’s kidnap.
Downstairs Adela watched as Bill mixed two gin and tonics. ‘I dreamt about Sennen today. On the beach. She was being so good with Henry … so good.’
Bill clinked two cubes of ice into each glass and handed her one. ‘But she couldn’t keep it up.’
‘She tried so hard, we expected too much of her.’
Bill sat in his favourite armchair and sipped his drink. ‘Are you hungry?’
Adela swallowed the threatening tears no. ‘No.’
‘Oh, for God’s sake,’ he said impatiently.
A tear slipped down Adela’s cheek. She raised her hand to wipe it away.
Bill shifted in his chair and after a while said, ‘Cheese and biscuits? I’ve got some nice Yarg.’
‘Okay.’
‘I’ll bring it in on a tray.’
‘Thank you.’
He left for the kitchen.
Adela looked out onto the small courtyard beyond. On the washing line hung their swimsuits and trunks and beach towels. They’d be dry by morning if it didn’t rain tonight, and another day would take her further away from her daughter.
Where was Sennen?
What was she doing?
Was she well?
Was she thinking of them?
Did she miss her children?
Adela put her hand in one of the deep pockets of her cotton, sun-bleached trousers and pulled out a handkerchief. She rubbed away the drying, salty track of her tear and wiped her nose.
It was more than five years since Sennen had gone, leaving Henry and Ella in her and Bill’s care. Her heart had begun to grow a thicker tissue around the damage that had been caused, but now and again the pain caught her unawares.
Bill suffered too, although he couldn’t admit it. Or perhaps, she wondered, he didn’t have the words. There were no words big enough.
Friends had tried to empathise, well-meaning and kind.
Some of them had said harsh things about Sennen. Selfish. Cruel. Better off gone.
But the gravitational pull of the hole that was left drew Adela and Bill deeper until their fingers were clinging by the tips.
Bill arrived with two plates.
‘Here you are.’ He handed her one. Cheese, two digestive biscuits, a few slices of apple and celery. ‘Enough?’
She nodded.
‘So,’ he said, easing himself back into his chair, ‘what’s the plan for tomorrow?’
‘I thought I’d paint the courtyard walls with Ella. She wants a mermaid. She wants to glue some shells to it.’
‘Good.’ Bill carefully cut into his cheese and balanced it on his biscuit. ‘Henry and I are going to work in the studio. He’s getting very good on the wheel. We might try a jug tomorrow. Good practice.’
At bedtime that night, as Adela waited for the milk to boil for their Horlicks, she saw a spattering of rain on the window. She called out to Bill who was at the top of the stairs. ‘I’m just going to bring Sennen’s bathing costume in. It’s started to rain. I’ll bring the Horlicks up in a minute.’
Bill hesitated a moment on the stairs. Should he correct her? Remind her that the costume was Ella’s not Sennen’s? He closed his eyes and shook his head. No. He would say nothing. Remembering one of his mother’s old sayings, he murmured to himself, ‘Least said soonest mended, Bill. Least said.’ And walked slowly to the bathroom.