Page 60 of Sunrise By the Sea

They didn’t need it now: the twins were perfectly capable and galloped up and down the stairs like mountain goats – were surer in their footing than Polly and Huckle, having never known anything else, and also being rather less likely to split a bottle of wine on a Friday night – but Polly liked overhearing their little dreamy conversations, their arguments about whether it would be good to fly and how it was good to have Neil but also they really wanted a dog and would it be a big dog or a little dog and what would they call the dog, which usually ended in a fight of some kind as Avery wanted to call it Iron Man and Daisy wanted to call it Buttercup.

She marvelled, as she always did, at their astonishing ability to be endlessly curious about the real world while also cheerfully inhabiting the childhood world of their own, where superheroes and names for dogs and marshmallows in your hot chocolate were every bit as important as the storm outside. Because they were lucky, she knew. They all were.

She was surprised it had been Avery at the window ardently pointing out bolts of lightning and shouting ‘peow peow’. It was odd, since the normally redoubtable Daisy wasn’t usually the timid one. Avery was generally far more sensitive. But tonight it was Daisy’s turn, and she huddled in her Totoro duvet cover, with her Totoro toy under her arm. Normally the large fluffy thing was incredibly calming, but tonight he wasn’t doing the trick at all.

She clung tightly to her mother, her head in Polly’s chest, and Polly found herself wishing she could still nurse her, which used to remedy all ills.

‘Sssh,’ she said. ‘You know it’s going to be okay. And everything will be fine and we will go and see Lowin.’

‘Lowin is getting five hundred snakes for his birthday,’ came the muffled voice. ‘I don’t think I want to go.’

‘No, he isn’t,’ said Polly, hoping she was telling the truth. ‘And even if he is, they won’t be real ones.’

‘He says they’re going to be the biggest snakes in the world.’

‘Well. We’ll go and play in the non-snake sections.’

But Daisy was tearing up in a way that could only get worse and soon she was simply crying for her daddy.

‘He’s helping to fix things,’ said Polly, holding her tight.

‘But Daddy’s terrible at fixing things!’

Polly wished she hadn’t made so many jokes about Huckle’s DIY prowess.

‘He’s in the storm!’

‘Yes. Because he is a very good and brave daddy.’

‘I. WANT. HIM. TO. COME. HOME.’

‘I will shoot the storm!’ said Avery. ‘Peow! Peow! Peow!’

He took aim into the room with his Nerf gun. This was always a disaster: Neil loved the Nerf gun and would swoop acrobatically to try and catch the bullets and everything would end quite badly.

‘Put that down,’ said Polly automatically even though Avery could see his advantage in that she couldn’t get up and leave his sister.

‘Shan’t,’ he said craftily, and Polly shut her eyes as another burst of thunder cracked overhead and Daisy let out a tiny scream.

Chapter Thirty-eight

Just do something, Marisa told herself. Just get to it. You don’t have to go anywhere, you don’t have to do anything. Just do it.

And by the light of the candles – and the lightning strikes, which turned the sky into a fireworks display – she pulled and kneaded the dough, turned up the oven, used up the very good olive oil and the bright crystals of sea salt.

She baked cakes, little yoghurt cakes, and she made focaccia, as well as she could in the hottest part of the oven, sprinkled with rosemary and salt and smelling like heaven; and she wrapped everything up in tea towels and wished she had a flask, but took a full teapot and some cups anyway. Then she stood at the front door. And she knew she couldn’t open it, and at the same time she knew that she could.

What did she have for lunch two days ago? she asked herself desperately. Could she get herself out of her own way?

She held her basket closer and put on her raincoat, all the while saying to herself, ‘Lunch two days ago. Lunch two days ago.’

It had been halloumi, she thought. Grilled with sun-dried tomatoes and rocket leaves. It had been delicious; she had added a tiny amount of balsamic vinegar, not too much, because it had a tendency to drown everything out. Nonna had sniffed as she disapproved of ‘foreign’ cheese no matter how much Marisa inveigled on her to try it. Halloumi. Yes. Get out of your own way.

She pulled open the door. There was a maelstrom beyond; a vision, in fact, as close to the idea of hell, of the sandworm vista that her brain could have conjured up for her.

And the day before that, what had she had? Leftovers, probably; she’d roasted a chicken and normally she would have saved it for Alexei. That was probably what she was planning when she had bought it but of course now he wasn’t talking to her because of his stupid pages, so she had ended up . . .

She had one foot on the top step. This wasn’t like charging out in a fit of fury, or going to the top of the road. She was going somewhere. She was going somewhere to talk to people.

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