the front door closed behind me every muscle in my body began to relax. I turned out of our road and headed down towards the Cape, smiling as the breeze took my hair and tossed it playfully about my face. That day the sea was the very same navy as Granfer’s favourite knitted Gansey sweater and sprinkled with diamonds of sunlight. High above my head, a handful of seagulls flew in sweeping circles, their distant cries jubilant. An almost perfect day.
As ever my thoughts drifted to Dad. It was impossible to walk down this stretch of road to the Cape without remembering the feel of his hand gripping mine. Or how I’d had to half-run to keep up with his stride. I could still picture the book folded into his back pocket, dog-eared, marked on the cover with a single perfect tea-ring. I recalled him reaching for it when he spotted a bird, leafing quickly through the pages before pulling me in close.
Do you see it?
My cheek rested against his stubbled face as he pointed. I didn’t care much about the bird. All that mattered was being in his arms.
A golden plover.
Then I’d listen quietly as he told me all about it. That its name came from the word for rain in Latin – or maybe it was Greek – because plovers flock when the weather draws in. After he died, any smidgen of interest I might have had in seabirds waned, but sometimes, when I missed him the most, I’d pretend I loved them and would watch them through the binoculars as they balanced on ledges or dive-bombed for fish, trying to recall their names, population numbers, and the colour of their eggs.
There were only four cars in the car park at Cape Cornwall. It was early though. Later in the day it would be full, vehicles jammed bumper to bumper, with National Trust stickers on their windscreens and woollen picnic rugs folded beneath raincoats in their boots. I joined the coastal path and walked up onto the clifftop where the wind was stronger and my skin spread with goosebumps. I wrapped my arms around my body and told myself off for not bringing a sweater.
The footpath was well worn by walkers who strode from Botallack to Cape Cornwall and on to Sennen Cove in their special boots with canvas sides and long laces double-knotted for safety. My body tingled with excitement as the fields of lush grazing on my left changed to unruly moorland. Pillows of heather and fern stretched away from me in a carpet of green and purple patched with spiky yellow gorse. If I stood still and closed my eyes, I’d be able to hear the rustling of voles and mice which hid from the sparrowhawk circling on the thermals above.
When the footpath bent sharply to the left my body fizzed with anticipation. Four steps until the heart-stone. I counted them. Eyes fixed on the ground in front of me.
One. Two. Three.
Four.
Then there was the stone. The shape of a perfect heart. Grey and polished, with grass kissing its edges like the sea surrounding an island. I placed both feet on top of it then looked up.
My breath caught.
The house gleamed white in the sunshine. A beacon on the cliffs. As always its beauty jolted me like a slap on the face. I saw my father ahead of me, his long legs pounding the path, arms swinging with purpose at his sides. He turned and smiled. Beckoned to me.
Hurry up!
The wind blew his hair and made his eyes glint with weather-tears.
Isn’t it beautiful?
‘Yes, Dad. It is.’
As he turned to walk onwards, I smiled, then broke into a run to catch up with him.
Tamsyn
July 1986
I scrambled up the grassy slope that led from the path to the lichen-coated rock on the point. I opened my bag and pulled out my father’s binoculars, looping the leather strap over my head and caressing the cool metal with the edge of my thumb.
This was our spot. It was where he took me to watch the sea and the birds. A protrusion of cliff with rocks to shelter us from the wind and weather, and views out to the horizon a thousand miles away, with Sennen Cove to the left and The Cliff House to our right.
It was here that my memories of him were the strongest. Sitting in this spot I could recall him in such Technicolor detail. The patches of sweat which darkened his T-shirt. The individual beads of moisture glistening on his forehead. I could hear his voice telling me to make the most of the sunshine. Warning me the weather wouldn’t last. That storms were coming. As I sat and watched the house I felt him beside me.
Isn’t it beautiful, Tam?
He jumped to his feet and grabbed my hand, pulling me down to the path and the iron railing which encircled the garden. When he reached over to open the latch on the gate I pulled back.
Are we allowed?
Nobody’s home.
Are you sure?
I raised the binoculars to my face and scanned the house and the driveway. There was no movement, no lights or opened windows, no car parked outside. I didn’t rush. I gave myself time to make certain nobody was home. When I was sure, I unhooked the strap from my neck and wrapped it around the binoculars and tucked them back in my bag, then stood and walked down to rejoin the footpath.
The white-painted railings were patched with rust, which bled down the uprights in autumnal orange smears. I walked along the edge of the boundary until I reached the gate, then pushed it open enough for me to squeeze through, but not past the point where the hinges creaked. The lawn was the colour of emeralds, soft and mown into stripes by a gardener who came on a Wednesday afternoon and peed in the bushes unaware I was watching. The grass ran from the gate up to the house and was bordered by lush flowerbeds which held plants of every colour and insects that flitted busily between flower heads. I’d looked some of them up in a book of Dad’s – The Comprehensive Guide to the Flora and Fauna of Cornwall and Devon – and learnt lots of their names by heart. Cordyline, sea pinks, red and lilac poppies, phormium, flowering sea kale, and others I couldn’t remember grew amongst copses of bamboo and blue hydrangea. There were ornamental ferns which should have been in the jungle and agapanthus and towering gunnera with giant leaves straight out of Alice in Wonderland.
When I reached the terrace I stopped and looked up at the house. It wrapped itself around me like a warm blanket. The air crackled with electricity and the cry of curlews rang in my ears as I drank in its salt-stained white and the soft slips of cloud moving like ghosts across ginormous windows. According to Dad it was something called ‘Art Deco’, built between the Wars by the heir to an enormous tobacco fortune as a gift for his American wife who’d taken a shine to Cornwall. It was hard to believe that an actual American once lived in St Just. I imagined her walking across this very same terrace, talking American, dressed in pressed white slacks with a silver cigarette case, the spit of Lauren Bacall.
Most of the terrace was taken up by the glorious swimming pool. Rectangular, with semi-circular steps at one end, it was lined with mosaic tiles as black as coal. I walked to the edge of it and trod on my plimsolls to take them off. I heard my mother’s voice lecturing me.
Don’t break the backs. Undo the laces. No money for more.
The paving stones were warm underfoot. I placed my bag beside my shoes and stared down at the pool. The surface was still. Not even a ripple. It shone like a sheet of black mirror, reflecting the sky like the windows that punctured the house. I bent to put my finger to it and heard the echo of his voice. Saw him smile at me. Saw the glint in his eye. Wavelets spread outwards from my touch and faded to nothing but a shift of light on the disturbed water.
One of her scarves was draped over the sun lounger nearest me. I reached for it. The silk was soft in my fingers. I brought it up to my face and breathed in. It smelt of her perfume, rich and thick, with a hint of coconut suntan oil beneath.