Page 5 of Will You Stay Another Day?
Eyes crinkling in the sun, Lili strode at a fast pace past Portmellon, shortening the walk that usually took an hour. Eventually she reached her special place, Gorran Haven beach. A curve of grey, pebbly sand with rocks either side, it looked out onto choppy steel-blue waters. Her jumper on now, she sat on a large rock, took the paper bag out of her small rucksack and tore off bites of croissant. It wasn’t long before a speckled baby seagull strutted up to her, an adult one hovering nearby. Lili tossed over flakes of pastry, then sat sipping her coffee, lukewarm now but still comforting. She reached into her jeans pocket and pulled out the list of possible explanations for the texts. Reading the words, she sighed, screwed the list up again and threw it to one side, like she had last night. The wind caught the paper and it rolled across the sand. Not one to drop litter, Lili balanced her coffee on a rock and charged after the list as it headed towards the sea. She just caught it before a wave would have sucked it into the ocean, and carried it away forever. Jaw set, she stomped back to her drink and stuffed the notebook page back into her pocket.
The horizon attracted her gaze – the fishing boat in the distance, the sun reflecting off waves that shimmied against the wind. The invigorating salty scent of the bay, the ripple of air against her skin, the splash of water sounding in her ears all helped her forget the stressful things that seemed to matter so much, back in the village, back in the cottage, like the tumble dryer playing up or Netflix buffering. Lili’s eyes narrowed and she focused harder on the horizon. There it was! Fifty metres out, in the sea, a large grey head popped up. She liked to think it was the same seal every time that dropped by to say hello as it always appeared in the same patch of water near a sea stack. Neptune, she called her – or him. Cornwall excelled when it came to phone detoxes, due to the lack of signal in so many appealing places; Lili couldn’t receive texts, couldn’t go on Google. Instead she stared at the sea. She followed Neptune.
Breathe in, breathe out. She pulled out the list again.
As if it were a computer program that could sort rambling, excited thoughts into a rational order, the bay’s atmosphere gave her clarity.
She stared at the sea again. She followed Neptune.
Two clear choices presented themselves: Lili could forget those phone messages, consider them a quirk of fate, and leave her past with Em well behind now. Or she could embrace the jaw-dropping, unexpected possibility of holding a hand out to the past and Em slipping her fingers into it.
One hour later she stood up and stretched. She smoothed out the list, folded it up carefully and slipped it into her purse. Lili never had been one to turn down a challenge, and she knew what she had to do: she’d set herself a deadline; put on a detective hat. One way or another, by Halloween, Lili would go through the list and find out if Em really was back.
It was still early but Colin and Shirl would be getting ready for that hundredth birthday party, so Lili would speak to them tomorrow, after work. That gave her time to plan how to tell them that their dearly loved daughter might not be dead after all.
4
Lili sat down in Colin and Shirl’s lounge.
‘Thanks for letting me call around again, at such short notice.’
Shirl still had her work tunic on. Colin brought in a tray of coffees.
‘Everything okay, lass?’ he asked and offered her a slice of marble cake. Too nervous to eat, Lili declined.
‘Yes… I mean, it could be brilliant… and if not, nothing lost. When I say nothing lost, I mean, obviously…’ She exhaled. Staring at the ceiling until the early hours last night hadn’t helped her put together the right sentence.
‘Start at the beginning,’ said Shirl softly. She and Colin sat on the sofa. Lili was in an armchair opposite.
‘I was wondering…’ Lili took another sip of coffee, even though she wasn’t thirsty. ‘Can you remember what happened to Em’s phone? I was scrolling through my contacts the other day and realised her number is still in there.’
‘Got lost,’ said Shirl in a flat tone. ‘I obsessed about it in the beginning.’
‘It would have been great to flick through her photos.’ Colin exhaled. ‘But at least we’ve got the WhatsApp messages going years back that we shared with her.’
‘We found a spreadsheet of her passwords on the laptop, for her social platforms… but it didn’t seem right going through her private life so we only used them to close the accounts.’
‘There’s a possibility it could have exploded in the fire.’ Colin bit into his slice of cake.
‘You should have mentioned it,’ said Lili. ‘I’ll send you some of my photos if you want.’
‘Thanks, petal,’ said Shirl, her face brightening. ‘Only if it doesn’t stir up memories you don’t want.’ She picked up a crumb from her empty plate and put it in her mouth.
Colin caught her and tutted. The two of them smiled. ‘Em used to do that,’ he said.
‘I remember,’ said Lili. ‘It used to drive you mad, Colin.’ It would never not feel weird to call her childhood bestie’s parents by their first names instead of Mr and Mrs Evans.
‘We grounded her once – well, a few times, as a teenager, for worse things, like getting home later than promised, you may recall,’ he said. ‘She got her own back by chewing with her mouth wide open at every meal until the curfew ended, eyes like daggers, knowing how important table manners were to me. She always wore her feelings on her face.’
‘That was one of the worst things at the end… when we identified her body,’ said Shirl.
Oh thank God, Lili wasn’t going to have to push for answers about the identification. She held her breath.
Colin nodded. ‘She died of drowning, as you know, Lili – but parts of her body were swollen and… and the buildup of gasses… Are you sure you want to hear this?’
Lili nodded. She needed to.
‘The gasses distorted her face.’
