The Faerie Tree (7 page)

As it happened the shop was busy so I slunk away to where the surfboards were lined up along the back wall. A boy of about nine or ten was trying to persuade his mother to buy a full size adult long board; it could be a costly mistake and I found myself asking the lad how much surfing he'd done.

“None – as yet,” his mother answered. “I've booked some lessons for the Easter holidays but he's adamant he wants his own board.”

I looked at the boy. “Wow – you sure, dude? Never surfed and you pick the toughest board going? You'll still be dragging it down the beach when the other guys are catching their first waves.”

His mouth set into a hard line. “I don't want a baby's board.”

“I'm not saying that, but a long board? Jeez – I'd think twice before handling one of those – they're just too much hard work to be fun.”

His mother pounced. “What board do you have?”

My eyes flicked over Megan's stock. “A real light one. Much more manoeuvrable. I mean, mine's a bit old now – but something like this?”

It was lucky I'd been a bit of a gear freak when I was a student surfer. We went through a few boards and the lad finally chose one and I also managed to persuade him into some neoprene gloves – his hands would have frozen otherwise. I felt a bit sheepish taking them to the till and offloading them to Megan to take the money, but she played along with the idea that I worked for her and I drifted off to tidy a pile of sweatshirts.

There was one more customer then the shop was empty. I turned to Megan. “Sorry if I interfered…”

“It's fine – I had half an eye on you and you seemed to know what you were doing. It's been manic this morning – any chance you can help me out for the rest of the day? I'll pay you a tenner.” I had nothing else to do so I agreed.

Which was how I ended up with a part time job in Megan's shop. She asked me while she drove us home if I'd work Fridays and Saturdays, just until I found something else, and then she
asked me to supper the next night. She was nice, I was lonely, and I ended up saying yes to both.

It never entered my head she was being anything other than kind. I spent some of my ten pound note on a bottle of wine and we drunk more than half of it before she got around to serving up the fish pie she'd cooked. She told me she'd not long inherited the house and was letting the rooms because it was too big for one person. We talked about Newquay in the summer. We talked about surfing and about the sea. We opened a second bottle of wine but didn't finish it because one thing led to another and we ended up in bed.

I'd got out of the habit of drinking so I don't remember much about our first night together, but I will never forget waking the next morning. The sound of a milk float and a car door slamming in the street. Opening my eyes and for a moment or two not knowing where I was. Looking across at Megan's hair spread across the pillow and wanting Izzie with a pain so intense that bile filled my throat.

I rolled over with my back to Megan and curled into a ball. What the hell had I done?

I didn't have too long to think about it before the room was filled with Madonna mingling with the seven o'clock pips. Megan reached over me to turn the volume down.

“Good morning, Robin.”

“I'm so sorry, I…”

Her eyes were above mine, deep lined and almost black. “Regrets, then?” Her voice was light, but underpinned by a slight shake.

“Not at all,” I lied. “Just a blinding hangover.”

And then she was smiling. “I have to say I've felt better myself. I'll make us some coffee.”

Thankfully she disappeared and a while later I heard the shower. I should have got up and dressed but I felt too leaden to move so I rolled over and closed my eyes. She put my coffee on the bedside table then rustled quietly around the room, getting ready for work. Finally she touched my shoulder.

“Stay here to sleep it off. Just pull the door behind you when you go.”

“Thanks, Megan,” I mumbled. But once I was sure she had driven away I grabbed my clothes and raced for my own room just as fast as I could. I pulled the duvet over my head. My own stupid, drunken, testosterone-fuelled nightmare had punched a hole so large in my defences that it was impossible to stem the raging tide of Izzie, engulfing me from all sides.

It was late afternoon before I was able to crawl out of bed. Even then my hands were shaking as I filled the kettle to make a cup of tea. No sugar, so I helped myself to a chocolate digestive instead. A crumb lodged in the back of my throat and I coughed so much it was all I could do to stop myself retching.

I took my mug back to bed and sat, propped on the pillows, gazing out over the grey-tiled roof of the terrace behind. Where was Izzie now? A Monday afternoon, early spring. I pictured her, clipping down the pavement in her kitten heels, navy mack billowing in the breeze, right shoulder dragged down by the weight of her briefcase. Going home later, to what? To Paul? I sincerely hoped she hadn't burnt her boats on my account.

For the very first time I thought about what had happened from her point of view. When she came back from her holiday, I would have simply disappeared, leaving no trace. And I'd promised her, promised her that I'd wait. She'd probably decided to stay with Paul anyway and I'd let her off the hook. The idea salved my conscience, but not the heartache. All through the hours of darkness an Izzie-less emptiness stretched before me. If this was how sex with another woman made me feel then I was determined to become a monk.

Of course daylight brought a sense of proportion and even with the dull ache behind my eyes and lodged into my chest, I knew I had to make the best of the bed I had made for myself. I went for a walk, out to Towan Head and the length of Fistral Beach. Meandering back along the edge of the golf course I found a bank covered in early primroses. On impulse I picked
some for Megan and left them in a milk bottle by the door to her flat with a note thanking her for dinner on Sunday.

And that's how we slid into a relationship. She came upstairs for a chat that evening and we sat in the little kitchen drinking tea. We woke up together the next morning and I went into the shop with her to tidy the stockroom. I started going into the shop most days, and she stopped taking rent from me and bunged me the odd tenner so I could buy a round when we went out with her friends. After a few weeks Ed, who ran the surf school, offered to rent both rooms for his summer staff so I moved downstairs.

It was when we were turning out a cupboard to make room for my stuff that I found out just exactly how old Megan was. It was a passport application and it had her date of birth on it – 7
^th
June 1945 – a year to the day younger than my mother and eighteen years older than me. I piled the papers together and shoved them into a box, ready to carry up to the attic.

Chapter Fifteen

I don't often remember Megan now, but when I do I see her on Towan Beach with the evening sun silhouetting her slim figure against the waves. And I hear laughter, and seagulls, and Wet Wet Wet on the radio. Megan was a superb surfer – a real natural. Her body was built for it and seeing her in a wetsuit it was easy to want her.

So it was fine – until her birthday. My mother's birthday. I never realised – never even thought – the pain an anniversary can bring. It suffocated every spark of life out of me and the closer we got to the day itself the feebler my attempts to conquer it became.

Even pretending became too much so I told Megan I was going down with something so I'd be better sleeping in the spare room. She wouldn't let me. That night I heard every car door slam in the street, every dog bark. In the smallest of hours Megan woke and tried to hold me; an ungrateful, rigid, lump in her arms. I wanted to say sorry, but no words came.

I watched the greyness of dawn creep around the curtains. Then the alarm and Megan speaking from a distance. I pointed to my throat and she nodded and kissed my forehead. I stared at the ceiling, tracing the crack from one end of the bay to the other. And after she'd gone to work I cried, like the baby I'd damned myself to be, for hours and hours.

Something, though, released, and when I felt strong enough I went to have a shower. Mum, Izzie, Megan all crowded in on me as the water thrummed onto my skull. I needed to push myself into the practicalities of the day.

Megan was serving a customer when I arrived at the shop and there was someone else waiting so I dived straight in, taking their money and popping their sweatshirt into a bag with the best smile I could manage. Megan was having a tough time of it with a lippy teenager who wanted to return something and when the shop was empty she turned on me.

“You look a right prick wearing those shades in here – take them off.”

“I look worse without them,” I muttered.

“I'll be the judge of that – take them off.”

I did as I was told.

There was a sharp intake of breath. “What the fuck have you been doing to your eyes?”

“Nothing. It must be an allergy of some sort – probably why I was feeling so rough.”

She swore again and pulled a fiver out of the till. “Well do what any sensible person would do and get yourself off to Boots and take something for it. Or were you waiting for me to give you the money?”

I put the note back on the counter. “There's no need for you to give me anything I haven't earned,” I said with as much pride as I could muster, and, putting my sunglasses back on, made for the door.

I didn't go to Boots; I went to Towan Beach. Ed was outside his surf shack hosing down wetsuits, the spray darkening his hair to almost the colour of his bronzed skin. He turned the water off when he saw me.

“Quiet in the shop?”

“So so.”

He raised his eyebrows.

“To be honest, Ed, it isn't that great me working for Megan as well as… You don't know anyone who needs part time help? I
mean, I can't leave her in the lurch and I wouldn't want to, but a bit of independence…”

He laughed. “I know what you're saying – not nice being a kept man, I'd guess.”

I sat down on the low wall. “I've only just realised that's what I am.”

“You're young yet, Rob – strikes me you've got a lot to learn about women. But that's by the by – have you got a driving licence?”

“Yes.”

He sat next to me, stretching his legs towards the sand. “Then how would you like to take the trailer over to Watergate for me when the season gets going? Two runs, morning and evening, then I've got the van back here in case I need it during the day – and you could still work in the shop between times.”

“It sounds too good to be true.”

“Yeah, well – you're making Meg happy and that's important to me. Couldn't do it myself – she's not an easy woman – but the spring's certainly back in her step since you've come on the scene.”

I'd never thought of Megan as difficult although I had to admit she was a bit mercurial. When she came home that night she was nice as pie, but on Sunday – her birthday itself – we had another almighty row.

It was my fault, I know, but I was so haunted by thoughts of my mother I couldn't betray her by staying on the beach, laughing and joking with everyone else. Claiming I was feeling rough again I walked home and curled up on the sofa and wept. I must have cried myself to sleep, because the next thing I knew Megan was shaking my shoulder and demanding to know why I hadn't told her I was going to work for Ed.

I struggled to sit up, my eyes too full of grit to focus. I started to apologise but she was ranting and raving about how I'd made her look a fool and that she didn't believe this allergy thing for one minute, that if I wanted to leave her I just had to say and that everyone was laughing at her anyway, because I was so young.

“That's not true,” I yelled. “Ed says he's pleased I'm making you happy, he…”

“Well you're not making me happy, are you?” she stormed.

“I thought I was, I…” and despite myself, I started to cry again.

She threw me a look of total disdain. “You fucking baby.”

I put my head in my hands and stayed that way until she slammed the living room door behind her.

I did sleep in the spare room that night and in the early hours I felt Megan slide in behind me. I turned to face her and held her in my arms. It was either that or walk away.

Chapter Sixteen

Week by week the days got longer and the sky became more blue. Newquay's beaches thronged from early morning to dusk, people spilled out of the pubs onto the pavements, families wandered along eating ice creams or fish and chips. For those of us who worked in the tourist industry there was no let up – at least Megan and I had Sundays when the shop couldn't open, but Ed's surf school was a seven days a week operation and I still had to get up to drive the trailer.

Megan would be grumpy for hours if I woke her, so I'd slide out of bed, pull on my shorts and a sweatshirt and walk down to the beach to unlock the shack, attach the trailer and load up the van with gear. Then I'd make myself a coffee and sit on the wall, watching the dog walkers and waiting for the instructors to turn up from whichever bed they'd found themselves in the night before.

That half hour every morning became the most precious part of my day; the part I let Izzie creep into. The memory of her was a warm secret held to the very centre of myself. A longing for the past, imagining what could have been, and even – when I was feeling particularly strong – fantasies of how I might find her again.

The secret pleasure and despair of these moments imbued
my relationship with Megan with guilt. I was using her, and that knowledge made me feel even worse when I did something that made her cross, like giving the wrong change in the shop, or buying the wrong sort of beer at the off licence on the way home.

The previous day had been crap in that respect and I was determined to make it up to her. As soon as I'd done the morning run I was going to make her a slap-up breakfast in bed then spoil her for the rest of the day. I knew how tired she was – the depth of the lines under her eyes gave her away.