‘I’ll miss him,’ said Clare, surprising herself by bursting into tears which had been stored up inside her for so long. She rested the cup on a table to ensure she didn’t
cover Albert in hot tea, then pushed her towel against her face. ‘I’m sorry. I don’t know what’s the matter with me.’
She felt Raine’s hand enclose her own, and the old chilled skin gave comfort and a sympathy that made those tears flow faster.
‘Yes, you do know,’ said Raine. ‘You know only too well what’s the matter with you. You’ve got a wishbone where your backbone should be.’
Clare nodded. She couldn’t have put it better herself. The old lady knew her too well.
‘I’m in such a mess, Raine,’ said Clare. ‘The only time my life makes any sense is when I’m underneath the waters of the lagoon and I can leave everything behind me
on the surface.’
‘Oh my dear Clare.’
‘I did the right thing saying goodbye to Lud. I was becoming less and less important to him and I’m fed up of being second best, so I had to let him go. But I miss him so much. I
don’t want to live my life without him. I won’t even have a life when I get back to London. I don’t know what I’m doing any more.’
‘Do your friends know you feel this way? Have you talked to them?’
‘I find it hard to talk. Feelings aren’t “done” in my family.’
‘And yet you feel very deeply. I know this,’ said Raine. ‘We have a connection, you and I .’ She stroked Clare’s wet hair.
‘I’m all over the place,’ said Clare, recalling her less than satisfying interlude with Val Hathersage.
‘Sometimes,’ said Raine, her croaky old voice smooth as she whispered, ‘you have to fight your corner for your own happiness.’
‘To be happy, I’d have to fight my parents, and you haven’t met them.’
‘You’re judging yourself through their eyes. You should only judge yourself through your very own special ones. Don’t you think your parents would want you to be
happy?’
Clare lifted her head and her eyes engaged with Raine’s. ‘If I turned around to my parents and said that I wasn’t taking the partnership I’ve been offered because it
would make me unhappy, they’d be furious. I’m thirty-three years old and I’m still seeking their approval. And if that isn’t pathetic enough, wait for what I’m going
to say next – I finally got it, for the first time I impressed them . . . And to keep impressing them I have to live a life I don’t want, or fall back into the shadows again. I’m
trapped.’
‘My darling girl.’ Raine enclosed Clare in her arms. ‘If I had a daughter, I would have wished her to be just like you, but above all I would want her to be content. My happy
days have carried me through the years. I have loved meeting you. Our paths have crossed for a reason. A bigger power than us has brought us together and only good can come of it.’
Clare dried her tears. She wished she could believe that some mighty force had been unleashed by her meeting with Raine and would whisk her away to Happy Land, but she was too much of a realist.
It had been bred in her. She was told at a very early age that Father Christmas did not exist but she was forbidden from spoiling it for more delusional children who might. Magic was not allowed to
exist in the Salter household, but she had wanted to believe in its existence so very very much.
‘I wish I had your backbone. Yours and Seymour’s,’ said Clare. ‘I don’t even have a wishbone where mine should be, just a floppy, useless piece of
string.’
‘And yet you were brave enough to say goodbye to a man you loved,’ said Raine. ‘I think you’re a very strong woman. But you’re using that strength
against
yourself, not
for
yourself. This is your life, Clare – no one else’s.’
‘And I know that – deep down, I do know that,’ said Clare, wiping her eyes with the towel.
‘Clare, release yourself from your own prison.’
That’s what it felt like. As if she were in a prison, and yet in her hand was the key to the door.
‘I only wish I could.’
‘You will.’ Raine lifted Clare’s chin with her finger. ‘You are too special to be unhappy.’
Raine took the edge of the towel and gently wiped the tears from Clare’s cheek.
‘There. That’s better.’ Raine’s heart creaked with pain for this beautiful girl with eyes like the jewelled waters of the sea. If only she could make her believe that
everything was going to be all right. Although for that to be so, they would never have to meet again.
‘I’d better get back to the others,’ Clare said. She lifted Albert from her knee and gave him a kiss on his whiskery cheek. ‘I’ll come and see you again before I go
on Friday. I want to leave you with better memories of me than sitting in a wet towel crying on your shoulder.’
Raine had thought long and hard about what she was going to say. She had sworn to herself that never again would she interfere in the affairs of Ren Dullem, but she was about to break that vow.
She leaned her head near Clare’s ear and whispered.
‘I have a secret for you. You’ll know what to do when the time is right.’
Clare listened, gasped and then couldn’t remember why she had drawn in such a breath. ‘I’d better get back to the others. I’ll come and see you before we leave,’
she said, wondering if she had said that before.
Raine opened her arms, wrapped them around Clare, and kissed her cheek. ‘My lovely Clare,’ she said. ‘Never forget how unique you are. And never let the people around you
forget it either.’ As they parted, she gripped Clare’s hands firmly in hers. As icy as they were, they were still many degrees warmer than her own parents’ hearts.
Raine closed the door and listened to Clare’s footsteps retreat into silence.
‘Goodbye, my dear Clare,’ she said. She wouldn’t see her again. The wind was bitter to the taste now. It was almost time.
Lara awoke to the smell of frying bacon and eggs and her stomach rumbled. She opened her bedroom door to find May, with a spatula in her hand, standing at the oven.
‘Ah, Mr Bond. You’ve arrived,’ said May in a Russian accent. ‘Fancy some?’
‘Fried bacon and eggs are very bad for you,’ replied Lara sternly.
‘Not to mention the mushrooms and fried bread . . . You didn’t answer the question.’
‘Of course I do.’
‘You take this one, I’ll make some more.’
‘No, I’ll—’
But May wouldn’t take no for an answer.
‘Oh, May, your poor face. And your poor arms and your poor leg,’ said Lara.
‘I’ll live,’ replied May, although she was very scratched indeed.
‘You look as if you’ve been attacked by Edward Scissorhands.’
‘I feel as if I have been as well.’
‘Clare swimming?’ asked Lara through a mouthful of egg.
‘The secret door in her room is open so I expect so.’
‘This is delicious, May. I don’t know how I’m going to go back to early mornings – and with nothing but an espresso before lunch.’
May sighed. There were a lot of things she wondered if she could do without after this holiday: long unhurried talks with gorgeous friends, taking time to sit and feel the sun on her face, being
in the orbit of Frank Hathersage.
Clare had obviously been crying when she emerged fully dressed but wet-haired from her bedroom. She’d put on some make-up but her eyes were decidedly bloodshot.
‘You all right?’ asked May, putting a mug of coffee in front of her.
‘Yeah, I’m okay,’ replied Clare, convincing no one, not even herself. ‘I’m going to miss Raine so much. I’m going to miss the lagoon, I’m going to miss
being in this cottage with you two.’
‘We’ve been having similar thoughts,’ said Lara, pushing the sugar bowl towards her funny-eyed friend.
‘Let’s not get holiday blues whilst we’re still on holiday. We’ve got two full days to go.’ May tried to jolly them along. ‘Get your drinks and let’s go
and sit on the terrace. It’s a gorgeous morning.’
They picked up their mugs and took them outside. The daft pudgy clouds did nothing to take away the heat of the day, thank goodness, even if they did get in the way of the sun’s
brightness.
‘Oh, your poor face,’ said Clare. ‘That looks so painful.’
May had told them, of course, about what had happened to Frank the previous day and why she came home looking as if she had just done four rounds with a combine harvester.
‘I only hope Frank is feeling better today,’ said May.
‘Well, it won’t be his last migraine unless he tells Daisy the wedding is off,’ said Clare, dunking a shortbread finger in her drink.
‘Oh. My. God. What a frigging mess,’ was Lara’s verdict. ‘Do you think he will?’
‘Probably not,’ said May. ‘He feels too bad about the accident.’
‘Imagine feeling that trapped and not letting yourself do anything about it.’ Lara blew her fringe up in a gesture of disbelief. Clare didn’t say anything.
‘There’s something else I haven’t told you about Frank,’ said May suddenly. ‘He said . . .’
‘What?’
‘He said that . . .’ May coughed. ‘He had feelings for me.’
Lara huffed. ‘Well, that’s no secret. And I expect that having that attraction to you made him realize that he didn’t have any attraction to Daisy. Am I right? Of course
I’m right.’
‘Well, I suppose I have my uses. Our brief interlude has at least woken him up to some home truths.’
‘Can’t you just move here and marry him?’ asked Lara.
‘Yeah, of course I can,’ replied May. ‘Because life is like that. Oh, I really hope Frank finds the courage to stand up to the Unwins. He’s such a gentle decent man.
Probably too decent. And they don’t come along very often.’
May knew that only too well. She’d never been good at relationships. Her first big love dumped her when she was in her first term at university. She was single for five years then met Trev
who stole and pawned most of her jewellery. Then came Barry who played very strange and cruel head-games. She was just healing from the nasty fall-out of their break-up when she met the
‘kind, sensitive’ Michael and thought all her best dreams had come true at once. He had left her feeling more unvalued and lonely than she ever had before.
Lara nodded. ‘I wish life were like a book sometimes. At least some people get their fairy-tale endings.’ She looked pointedly at Clare.
‘More coffee?’ said Clare, standing up with her mug. The others shook their heads. ‘I do. Back in a minute.’
‘What about you and Gene? Is there a spark there, Lars?’ asked May.
Lara gave a hoot of amused laughter. ‘Don’t be daft. He’s a Yeti with a foul temper.’
‘You went with him to see puppies, though. And he bought you breakfast.’
‘And there the story ends,’ said Lara. ‘Because he hates women.’
‘He liked you enough to tell you he hated them.’
‘Okay, then, I’m a bit too old for holiday romances,’ parried Lara.
‘And yet I’m two months older than you and you’re encouraging me to have one,’ May threw back at her. ‘Always harder to take your own advice than give it,
isn’t it, Lara Rickman?’
‘The difference is that Frank Hathersage and you have an obvious attraction to each other. Gene Hathersage, on the other hand, is about as far away from “my type” as it is
possible to get.’
‘Maybe that’s the point,’ said May. ‘The types you seem to pick have turned out to be rather crap, haven’t they? You even manage to make me look like a good judge
of character.’
‘The answer is still no,’ said Lara, decisively. As if.
They had a super-lazy day. May and Lara read their books and Clare cooked them all cheese and red onion toasties for lunch before going for yet another swim in the lagoon. How
could Raine bear it that this beautiful water was below her cottage and she could no longer get to it? Clare pictured Raine and Seymour, young and beautiful, kissing here, maybe even making love in
the sea. How lonely she must be without him.
She swam out of the lagoon into the cooler grey waters of the sea and looked up but Raine was not outside her cottage this time. In the hazy distance was a container ship on its way to a
far-flung shore. How weird it was that so much weight could float, she suddenly thought. The sea really was a thing of mystery. She had often wished she could see the bowls of every ocean, lake and
loch completely drained, yielding up their secrets: the treasures, the bodies, the shipwrecks. Even the creatures that had never yet been seen by human eye – new varieties were being
discovered all the time, so maybe sea serpents really did exist. And the Loch Ness monster. And mermaids. Maybe some of those sightings of manatees and dolphins were actually the real thing. Though
surely even Lara with her specs off could tell the difference between a woman with a tail and a rather plump sea-lion-type animal or a fish with a long nose squirting water out of the top of its
head?
You might have had sisters had it not been for me.
Raine’s voice slipped into her reverie. She had been talking to her friend Gladys when Clare was outside the tunnel door. A
picture of the young Raine flashed again in her head. A Raine with long golden hair, the face of an angel . . . and the tail of a fish. Wouldn’t that just be magic if it were true?
Lara had just finished the last words of her novel when Clare arrived on the terrace.
‘Good swim?’
‘Lovely,’ Clare replied. ‘I’m going to miss the lagoon so much. If I die, will you have my ashes sprinkled there?’
‘Shut up,’ said Lara. ‘That’s morbid.’
‘I’m serious. Ask Gene if he’ll let you.’
‘Nothing is going to happen to you, Clare Salter. You’re going to go home, conquer the world and die a very old lady in the Ritz.’
Yes, one of those old dears who are rich, alone and cared for by strangers, thought Clare, swallowing hard. Not dissimilar to Raine.
She hadn’t been able to get the picture of Raine out of her head since she thought of her as a half-woman.
You might have had sisters had it not been for me.
Then May’s
voice:
If there was a run of boy births it was because a mermaid was in nearby waters.
Then she heard her own voice:
Clare Salter, even with your over-imaginative delusions, please get a grip.