Chapter 25
I barely slept last night. April stirred when I got into bed, so I gently placed my hand on her chest for a while, stilling her until her breathing became steady again. But I couldn’t relax after that. I was so worried about rolling over and crushing her. As the night wore on, she started to turn in the bed so that her legs were pressing straight into my side, her chubby little feet pummelling me. I tried to curl around her, but there wasn’t a whole lot of room. It brought to mind memories of my childhood cat, Murphy, who would make me feel so honoured when he chose my bed to sleep on rather than Dad’s that I’d do anything to keep him there. Even if it meant folding up into a kinked jellybean shape just so Murphy could have the comfort he so desired.
April is stirring. I lie on my side, facing her, watching as her eyelids flicker open and then close back up again. I wonder what time it is – it feels early.
At least I don’t have a hangover – I stopped at three ciders last night, and they were pretty low-alcohol. I wonder how Charlie is faring.
I peek out through the curtains at the tent, but it’s still zipped up.
I’ve been wondering if Elliot would have minded me hugging Charlie last night. He and I have always been tactile with our friends – he’d pull Bronte into his arms without a second’s thought, and it was the same with her boyfriend and me. We were like that as a foursome: full of open affection for each other.
I feel a pang of longing for my friends on the other side of the world. I decide I’ll mention it to Elliot the next time we speak, just to be on the safe side. In fact, I’ll call him this morning. It’s crazy that we haven’t spoken in almost a week. That’s the longest we’ve gone since we became a couple.
April’s eyes have opened up again and she’s staring at Hermie’s ceiling, blinking slowly. I hold my breath, watching her.
The sound of a zip startles me back to the window. I glance out again through the darkened glass to see Charlie climb out of the tent, but, before I can knock, he heads off in the direction of the toilet block.
April murmurs.
‘Good morning,’ I say sweetly as she turns her head to look at me.
She murmurs something else, not seeming at all bothered to discover she’s in bed with me, rather than in her cot.
‘Do you want a cuddle?’ I ask.
‘Da,’ she replies.
‘Daddy’s just gone to the toilet. He’ll be back soon,’ I say, not sure if she even understands me.
She seems worried.
‘Come here.’ I try not to panic as I slide my hand behind her shoulders and pull her little body towards me. She drapes her arm across my chest and settles there, her head tucked under my arm.
‘You’re such a clever girl, April,’ I say to her. ‘You took three steps yesterday! Such a clever girl.’
She stays quiet, listening to me.
‘Ooh, you’re so warm and cuddly. Do you want me to sing you a song?’
Her head moves. I think she’s nodding.
I snuggle her closer and sing ‘Somewhere Over the Rainbow’, the Israel Kamakawiwo‘ole version.
After a while, there’s a quiet knock on the campervan door.
‘We’re awake!’ I call.
The door opens with a clunk and Charlie peers into the van.
‘Everything okay?’ he asks, smiling at us both. There’s no apparent awkwardness in his demeanour so I relax in turn. I was worried our embrace might’ve weirded him out.
‘Great. Come in.’
He climbs into the van with two takeaway coffee cups and a paper bag.
‘Oh, was the coffee van there?’ I ask excitedly, sitting up as he places the cups on the counter and closes the door again.
‘Yeah.’ He sits down on the end of the bed. April whinges, so I hold the covers back from her so she can crawl down to him.
‘Hello, baby,’ he says sweetly, cradling her small frame against him.
‘How did you sleep?’ I ask.
‘Bizarrely well, actually. I completely conked out. You?’
I shake my head and smile. ‘I was too worried about rolling onto her.’
He looks mortified. ‘Oh, I’m sorry.’
‘No, I didn’t mind!’ I quickly protest. ‘I liked it. I think her hugs are even better than yours,’ I joke.
He laughs. ‘They’re pretty special,’ he agrees fondly, looking down at the top of her curly blonde head.
‘She’s like a teddy bear.’
‘Do we need to buy you a teddy bear?’ he asks slowly.
‘No, you’re all right,’ I reply.
‘You ready for this?’ He picks up one of the paper cups.
‘Yes, please.’ I hold my hands out as he passes it over. ‘What is it?’
‘A latte. Hope that’s okay.’
‘Perfect. What a treat.’
He throws me the paper bag. ‘Pain au chocolat,’ he says.
‘Oh, my God, I think I love you. Can you stay over every night?’
He laughs again and kisses the top of April’s head. ‘So I was thinking. . .’ He takes a sip of his own coffee.
I wait for him to continue.
‘How about we do Heligan today? It’ll be really busy tomorrow, with it being a Saturday.’
‘I should write up my notes from yesterday,’ I reply, uncertainly.
‘Could you do them tomorrow instead? You could still work from mine if you wanted to.’
‘Would you want me at your house on the weekend?’ I sound dubious. ‘Don’t you need your own space?’
He frowns. ‘No. You know I like having you around. You make us laugh.’ He pulls a funny face at April and a flame flickers on inside me.
‘Okay,’ I say with a grin. ‘Let’s do it.’
‘Cool. I’ll nip home for a shower in a bit and get April’s things together. Shall I come back for you around nine?’
‘It’s a plan.’
After they’ve gone, I get ready as quickly as possible so I have time to call Elliot. I don’t want to waste even five minutes doing my hair, so I leave it to dry naturally, grabbing my phone and traipsing up the hill at eight thirty. That gives me half an hour to chat to him before Charlie returns.
‘I’ve just left work,’ Elliot tells me, smiling upon answering. He’s walking through the city streets and I can just make out his charcoal suit and silver-and-blue checked tie at the bottom of the frame. He always looks smart when he goes to work. He’s a civil engineer at a big consultancy firm and he’s quite senior. ‘Let me find somewhere to stop and talk to you.’ He looks around for a suitable place.
We try to have our longer conversations on weekends so we don’t have this problem, but sometimes, with the time difference, we have to make do.
He comes across a deserted doorway. ‘I’ll perch here for a bit.’
‘Hey,’ I say warmly, when I have his full attention. ‘Long time no speak.’
‘Yeah, you’ve been a bit busy this week, have you?’ He raises one dark eyebrow.
‘A bit, yeah,’ I reply. ‘What about you?’
‘Still pretty crazy.’ He sighs and scratches his chin – he has more of a beard than stubble at the moment. ‘Think I’m going to have to go in tomorrow. I’d had it up to my eyeballs with it tonight, though. Had to call it quits.’
‘Are you going out?’ I ask.
‘Yeah, meeting a few of the boys at a bar in the harbour.’
‘Nice. Have one for me.’
‘I’ll have several. Heard today that we’re on for finishing this job in early November. There’s actually talk about some of us getting a week off before the next project starts.’
‘Why don’t you come and meet me in Thailand?’ I sit up straighter.
‘Have you booked your ticket?’
‘Not yet, but I’m going to get Marty onto it.’
As a travel agent, Marty has been sorting out my flights for me for years. It might be a dying profession, but she has a lot of loyal clients.
‘What dates are you looking at?’ Elliot asks.
‘I can be flexible around you.’
He shakes his head. ‘I won’t know until much nearer the time if I can get away.’
‘That’s okay. I can book mine and, if you can join me, we can get you a last-minute deal.’
‘That might work.’ He smiles and I’m overcome with the most intense desire to climb onto his lap and hug the hell out of him.
‘I miss you,’ I say.
‘I miss you too,’ he replies, his blue eyes softening. ‘How’s it all going with the book?’
I tell him where I’m at.
‘That was nice of him,’ he says about Charlie taking me to Lansallos yesterday.
‘He’s a nice guy,’ I reply. ‘You’d like him.’ I suddenly feel nervous, but I force myself to continue. ‘It was funny last night. . . We were talking about how we both missed hugging – he misses his wife and I miss you. We ended up giving each other one.’
‘Oi, oi!’ he exclaims, playfully.
‘A hug, I mean.’
He smiles. ‘I should hope that’s all it was.’
I blush and he shakes his head good-naturedly at me.
‘You know I don’t mind you being touchy-feely, if that’s what you’re worried about.’ He knows me so well. ‘As long as there’s nothing more to it,’ he adds. ‘I doubt he’ll be looking for a replacement any time soon.’
I wince. ‘God, no. It hasn’t even been a year since Nicki died. Anyway, can you imagine how creepy it would be if he took a liking to her ghostwriter?’
‘Very creepy,’ he agrees with a shudder.
It’s the same word Charlie used last night.
‘How are you getting on with his rugrat?’ Elliot asks, pursing his lips.
I shrug. ‘She’s actually very sweet.’
‘You better not be getting all broody on me, Bridgie. . .’ He says it like a warning, but he’s only teasing.
I laugh. ‘No chance of that.’
‘Phew.’
This is one of the reasons Elliot and I are such a good fit. He wants children as much as I do.
Which is not at all.
I know it’s a taboo subject, which is why I hate people asking me about it. It’s one of the most divisive topics of conversation out there. Most parents don’t understand – they think people who choose not to have kids are just selfish, but this makes me quite angry. It’s nobody’s business but mine. I never take it for granted that Elliot and I are on the same page. So many couples break up over the decision about whether or not to have kids. I know, because I’ve been there, and it hasn’t always been a clean-cut ‘for’ or ‘against’.
It began with Freddie, continued through my time with Vince and came back to bite me squarely on the butt with Liam.
But Liam was the one that hurt the most. I still find it hard to think about him without my stomach twisting into a knot.
I’m so grateful Elliot and I have our ‘no kids’ policy in common. He’s a keeper, that’s for sure.
‘I read your Dillon account,’ he tells me.
‘What did you think?’
‘It was great. Loved the slowest-horse-in-the-world bit coupled with the chattiest cart driver.’
This comment puts me on edge. It’s a slightly unusual anecdote for him to pull out for special attention. ‘Did you think the Dillon bit was okay?’
‘Yeah.’ He nods. ‘It was really well written. It’ll make a good chapter.’
I frown at him. ‘Are you all right?’ He seems a bit reserved with his compliments.
‘I’m fine,’ he insists.
‘You are still happy about me doing this blog, aren’t you?’ Worry has begun to eat me up.
‘Of course I am,’ he insists. ‘I don’t dig the idea of him trying to shag you, and obviously I’d rather he wasn’t still in love with you—’
‘He’s not still in love with me,’ I scoff.
‘Sounded like it. But it’s cool, I’m not worried.’
‘Good, because you shouldn’t be.’
He grins at me, and I feel an intense stab of frustration because we can’t make eye contact.
‘Can you look straight into the camera lens for a moment?’ I ask him, desperate for his eyes to meet mine.
He does as I ask, but it doesn’t quite work, because he’s staring at a black dot, not a person, and there’s as much emotion in his expression as you’d expect.
‘Thanks,’ I murmur. He goes back to looking at my face on the screen.
Charlie is already waiting when I come back down the hill.
‘Am I late?’ I ask.
‘No, I’m early,’ he replies, nodding at my phone. ‘Elliot?’
‘Yeah, finally got a chance to catch up.’
‘Everything good?’
‘Great.’ I smile. ‘He was just on his way to Circular Quay to meet up with some mates.’
‘What’s Circular Quay?’ he asks.
‘It’s the harbour where all the ferries dock,’ I explain. ‘Right by the Sydney Opera House and the Sydney Harbour Bridge. There are loads of bars there. It’s where we first bumped into each other again, actually.’
He wants to know about it, so I fill him in on the drive to Heligan.
‘How did you and Nicki meet up again?’ I ask after a while.
‘I saw her in Padstow,’ he says. ‘She was in an art gallery, looking around, and I walked past the window. I stopped as soon as I saw her: it was the first time in years. I was so cold with her after we broke up – something I regretted – so it was my chance to make amends. She seemed happy to see me, so I asked her out for a coffee.’
‘She always felt bad about the way things ended between you two.’
He falls silent. ‘It is so freaky when you come out with stuff like that.’
‘Oh, God, sorry!’ I exclaim as he laughs, shaking his head.
‘It’s all right, it’s just surreal. It’s like you actually knew her.’
‘Why don’t you read her diaries?’ I ask.
‘They’re not meant for me,’ he says simply. ‘I’ll never read them.’
‘But you wanted to keep them. Was that just for me? For the sake of the book?’
‘No. There’s no way I could ever bring myself to throw them away. April might want to read them one day. It’s a bit odd, because she wouldn’t be reading about her mother: she’d be reading about the person who became her mother. It’s hard for me to know, or even recall, how similar those two people are.’
‘I don’t know, either,’ I reply. ‘But I like the younger Nicki a lot. She makes some bad decisions, sure, but she’s a good person at heart. She’s fun. Funny. I would’ve wanted to be her friend if I’d known her.’
‘I think you would have wanted to be her friend if you knew her in later years, too,’ he says. ‘She definitely would have liked you.’
His comment means a lot. It bothered me, his admission that Nicki would have hated someone else finishing her book. The knowledge that we could’ve been friends makes me feel more at peace with what I’m doing.
‘Thank you for telling me that,’ I say quietly.
The conversation gives us both pause for thought.
‘Here at last!’ I say when Charlie pulls into the car park. ‘This had better be worth it.’
Right by the entrance is a series of posters with photographs and the story of Heligan. I already know much of it from Wikipedia, but the pictures catch my eye.
The gardens were created between the mid-eighteenth century and the beginning of the twentieth century and are typical of the gardenesque style with areas of different character and in different design styles. There are aged rhododendrons and camellias, a series of lakes fed by a ram pump over a hundred years old, productive flower and vegetable gardens, an Italian garden, and a wild area that slopes steeply down into a series of valleys that ultimately drain away into the sea at the old fishing village of Mevagissey. The wilder area is filled with subtropical tree ferns and includes sections referred to as the Jungle and the Lost Valley.
Many of Heligan’s gardeners were killed in World War One, and, in the 1920s, the owner leased out the estate. The gardens fell into a serious state of neglect and were lost to sight until the 1990s, when a huge restoration project was undertaken.
One of the pictures shows a wooden door in a redbrick wall. Light spills through from the other side, and underneath is a quote from archaeologist and Eden Project creator, Tim Smit: ‘Wild horses could not have stopped us pushing that door open.’
I’m even more excited to get going after that.
Charlie brings April’s pram, and although it makes navigating some of the steeper paths virtually impossible, at least she can nap in peace. He keeps encouraging me to go and explore on my own – I do eventually, because I want to climb the rope bridge over the Jungle – but I meet up with him and April for lunch by the house. We get a couple of burgers from the barbecue hut and sit at one of many picnic tables in the shade of the trees.
‘Have you been here before?’ I ask Charlie.
‘Just once,’ he replies. ‘Years ago. It’s nice to come back.’
‘It’s unbelievable,’ I say. ‘I reckon I could stay all week.’
‘You’d probably need that long to see everything.’
I tuck my hair behind my ears so it doesn’t get in the way of my next mouthful.
‘What do you do to your hair to make it wavy?’ Charlie asks, studying me from across the table.
‘It always goes like this when I let it dry naturally,’ I reply. ‘The hairdryer blasts all of the curl out. I’m not even trying to straighten it – it does it without a brush.’
‘It suits you like that,’ he says, jigging April gently on his knee.
‘Um, thanks,’ I reply awkwardly.
‘It looks nice the other way, too, though,’ he obviously feels compelled to add and now he’s the one looking self-conscious.
I grin at him as he rakes his hand through his hair.
‘Mine needs a cut,’ he mumbles, trying to keep it back from his face.
‘I like it long.’
Er, excuse me? Now I’m the one giving him my opinion about his looks?
‘Do you?’ he asks inquisitively.
I shrug. ‘Yeah.’
‘I’ve been using Nicki’s old headbands to keep it out of my eyes.’
‘I know,’ I say. He gives me a questioning look. ‘The little photo of her above her computer log-in,’ I explain. ‘She’s wearing the yellow one.’
‘Oh, yeah,’ he remembers.
‘Very Harry Styles, circa 2013,’ I say.
He throws his burger down in disgust.
‘Sorry, was it 2014?’ I ask. ‘I might have my dates wrong.’
‘Right, that’s it, I’m getting a haircut.’
‘No, don’t,’ I beg, and then immediately wonder why I’m bothered either way. ‘Do you want me to take her for a bit?’ I nod at April. These burgers are delicious but a bit sloppy – it must be a struggle to eat one-handed.
‘Have you finished?’ he checks.
‘Pretty much.’ I take one more bite and go around to take her from him.
‘You sure?’ he asks hesitantly, noticing I still have a third of my burger left.
I can’t speak, so I nod and make assertive-sounding noises with my mouth full until he smiles and hands his daughter over.
I return to my side of the table and straddle the bench, so April can stand up in the space between my legs.
‘Not a baby person,’ Charlie mutters after a while, shaking his head at me.
‘What?’
‘You. Saying you’re not a baby person. What a load of rubbish.’
‘This one’s different,’ I reply, returning my gaze to April. She’s holding my hands, bending her knees and bouncing up and down while making gurgling noises as if earnestly trying to communicate with me.
‘Does Elliot want kids?’
I stiffen at his question. Only last night he asked if Elliot and I wanted children, but he meant us together as a couple and I managed to avoid answering. Now he’s getting down to the nitty-gritty and I don’t know what to say.
I decide honesty is the best policy.
‘No,’ I reply flatly.
Out of the corner of my eye, I see him freeze. ‘No?’ he checks.
‘No.’ And then I add, ‘He’s not a baby person, either.’
‘So you don’t want kids?’ he asks me, stunned.
‘Is that so awful?’ I cast him an imploring look.
Please don’t judge me. . .
‘No, it’s just surprising, that’s all.’ He seems thrown.
‘I don’t really like talking about it.’
‘Fair enough,’ he replies, but I know I’ve unimpressed him. Is that even a verb?
Maybe it’s my imagination, but there’s a tension between us after that. I’m gutted. I wish he’d kept his questions to himself.