Page 24 of And Then There Was You

Eighteen Zach

Everything aches.

I walked much further than I’d intended, taking the road past Leach Pottery up into the windswept countryside above St Ives.

It was beautiful and quiet, which made me want to keep walking, a blessing after the crowds and noise down in the town.

It was only when my stomach protested its emptiness that I thought to turn back – realising how far I’d walked.

By the time I return to Kieran’s studio – hungry, thirsty and bone-tired – it’s well past six p.m.

And Kieran is waiting for me.

‘Where have you been?’ he demands, blocking the entrance.

‘I went out,’ I reply.

‘Where?’

‘For a walk.’ I’m taken aback by his attitude. What business is it of his what I do when I’m out of the building? Wasn’t he the one who told me to make myself scarce during the day?

‘I’ve been calling you for hours ,’ he growls, still not relinquishing his position to let me inside. ‘And then, when I get here, your phone is on the table.’

‘I didn’t need it.’

What is his problem? Nobody was going to call me today – or so I thought.

‘Well I needed you .’

‘I’m here now. Can I come in?’

He deigns to grant me entry, eyeballing me as I pass. ‘We had a break-in.’

The air is instantly sucked from my lungs. ‘When?’

‘Sometime this morning. Presumably while you were off on your walk .’ He says the word like it’s a lame excuse I’ve given him, thrown back at me as an accusation of something else.

‘What did they take?’

‘Nothing that I can see. But they messed up the workstation and left that on the wall.’

I see it a heartbeat before Kieran says it. An ugly mess of spray paint tags on the wall beside the workstation, one discarded can lying in a lime green paint puddle staining the laminate floor beneath.

‘I can get that off,’ I rush, my heart thudding to my Havaianas.

‘You wouldn’t have to,’ Kieran growls, ‘if you’d been here . . .’

I’m not having that. It sucks that kids got in but what does he expect me to do? Become a hermit here?

‘Mate, look, I could have been at work. I could have had a meeting with someone. How was I to know somebody was going to break in? In daylight?’

His eyes don’t leave me. ‘I said you could stay to keep an eye on the place.’

‘You told me to make myself scarce during the day!’ I don’t need to antagonise my temporary landlord, but I won’t be accused of something I haven’t done.

If this is how it ends, so be it. I don’t know where else I’d go, but that’s immaterial.

I refuse to let Kieran Macklin use me for his own private punchbag whenever Aggie isn’t there to keep him in check.

He relents a little, knowing I’m right. But I don’t dare hope it’s enough to pacify him. ‘If you’re security for this place you have to be here.’

‘I work three days a week, more when Pengelly’s opens next weekend. I can’t stay in here twenty-four-seven. And maybe you need a better lock on the door, or CCTV or something.’

He hefts a sigh and shakes his head. ‘That’s what I don’t understand: there was no damage to the door. Or the window in the back. No scratches where they used a screwdriver or something to prise the door open.’

‘That’s odd.’

‘And they didn’t take anything. Just made a mess and left.’

‘Maybe that’s what they were after. Chance to break in and leave a mess, rather than steal anything.’

‘I have to hope so. Unless they went to get their mates to come back.’

It’s a scary thought, but I sense a lessening of the taut atmosphere between us. ‘I’m sorry they got in. Truly, Kieran. But I can’t be here all the time. I’ve got to work.’

He raises a hand. ‘Yeah, I know. I just need you to be contactable, at least. You should keep your phone with you.’

My gaze shifts to my phone on the low table. I left it behind because I didn’t want to be chained to it. I’ve wasted far too many hours of my life endlessly scrolling social media whenever I’ve felt lonely, or on edge. I didn’t need its constant pull of nothingness today. I just needed to walk.

But Kieran has a point about me staying contactable. He might need me, or my sis might break the habit of a lifetime and call me instead of text. Or Matt or Luke might need me to work at short notice, neither of whom I should turn down, given my still-precarious personal finances.

‘I will do,’ I relent. ‘But I think you should get some stronger locks for this place.’

‘Already on it. Locksmith will be in tomorrow morning – I know you’ll be at work, so I’ll deal with that. Just keep your phone on, yeah?’

‘No problem.’

I watch as he stands, stuffing his anger away in overflowing pockets. I don’t ever think we’ll be best buddies, but him not yelling at me is a start.

I fall on the food supplies the tiny fridge holds as soon as Kieran leaves.

As first meals of the day at almost seven o’clock in the evening go, it isn’t the prettiest, but the cheap frozen pizza and microwave mash with cheese I heap onto my plate feels like the biggest, most desirable feast. When I’m finished, I wash up my plate and the cooking stuff and collapse on the sofa. I’m so tired I can’t keep my eyes open.

When I bump awake, not even realising I’d fallen asleep, the room is in darkness. I snap on a light and squint at my watch, shocked to find it’s almost midnight. Groaning, I coax my weary body away from the cushions and reluctantly rise to my feet.

I move through to the small bedroom and throw back the duvet. But a sudden, metallic thud close by stops me climbing in.

What was that?

I look down to scan the floor for whatever fell – and can’t believe what I see.

My keys.

They must have been on the bed, disturbed when I pulled the duvet back. But this is the first time I’ve been in here since I returned from my walk.

Which means . . .

My head swims.

Which means I didn’t take them with me. And I couldn’t have locked the door without them.

Shit.

I left Kieran’s studio without locking the door, meaning that whoever ‘broke in’ to the studio didn’t have to break anything to enter. I practically invited them in.

How did I let this happen?

I wasn’t thinking straight this morning, the mortification from last night dominating my mind.

I walked out of the studio without locking the door, without even checking it as I’ve always done.

My keys were in here – available to anyone who came looking.

They didn’t take anything, but it could have been so much worse . . .

Why didn’t I check I had my keys before I left? Why did it never cross my mind?

Kieran didn’t want me to stay here in the first place, and I’ll take a wild guess that he spent most of today wishing he’d never acquiesced.

I’ve just spectacularly proved his point, haven’t I?

Despite the bullet I know I’ve dodged, I feel awful.

The peace and calm my walk brought me is gone, the gnawing ache returned to replace it. Am I ever going to find myself in this new life? Vulnerability scares me – and where most of my life I’ve chased my own fears, here I’m powerless to fight them.

So little from my former life remains. Even the clothes I’m wearing now I bought after leaving my flat. There’s nothing to show the Zach Trevelyan from before ever existed.

I should get back in the water. I haven’t tried for months, since my last attempt ended in agony.

My knee just can’t flex like it used to, so all of the moves that came naturally to me don’t work anymore.

To have a hope of surfing again, I’ll have to relearn from scratch, working with what I have now instead of the ability I enjoyed before.

That seems like an insurmountable wave, towering high above me.

And why would I even attempt it? When I started surfing I was chasing a dream, every setback and issue another challenge on the road to where I wanted to be.

My reason for getting back on the board was what I could see, way ahead, just out of my reach.

Even when I turned pro, the dream remained just ahead of me, like chasing a rainbow across the sea.

There were always new titles, higher scores and bigger prizes to aim for.

What would relearning my sport offer me now?

Jakey Lowen said he could get me back on my board when I met him on the beach.

I could ask for his help, but how much of a comedown would that be?

I coached him for six months after an injury and I remember him saying he had to bite his own pride to let me do it.

Of all my former surfing mates, he’d be the one who’d understand.

But I don’t know if I can bring myself to be taught by someone who once looked up to me.

Especially not surrounded by kids learning in the surf school.

I catch my train of thought before it thunders wildly off-track. No good will come of wrestling with this now. I should just go to bed and sleep it all off.

Except I’m too awake.

Hurting and alone, with nobody to call.

Suddenly, the four walls I’ve been so grateful to claim a place within become stifling. Worse than this morning. They crowd me in, stealing my air.

I need to get out again.

This time I shrug on a hoodie and ensure I have my phone and keys, as if being prepared will undo the damage of the day. I check the front door three times to ensure it’s locked, and duck out into the night.

I tell myself I don’t have a destination, that I’m just wandering the deserted streets in an aimless manner to distract my mind. But I know where my feet are taking me. I’m laying the ghosts of yesterday to rest, in the one place I’ve promised myself I’ll never revisit.

Even though the café will be closed and the people inside it will long since have gone to their beds. Even though the three buildings in Star Court will be in darkness. If I can return there, my fears can be allayed and I might just have a chance of sleep tonight.

Nearing the narrow alleyway that leads to my destination, I finally admit to myself what I’m here to do.

I’ll just stand by the café, my feet completing a loop from when they ran from it yesterday.

The act of returning will prove to myself that yesterday was one day in ten thousand; that the mistake I made here doesn’t define me or bar me from ever coming back.

It wouldn’t make sense to anyone else, but the rush of adrenaline I feel as I enter the street confirms my actions. I just want to feel like me again. The old me would have returned immediately this morning. The old me would never have run last night.

Mum called it ‘inexplicable necessity’. Sometimes you have to do something inexplicably odd to meet your needs. It doesn’t have to make sense: it’s symbolic only to you. But it’s necessary for whatever your strange, unique, unconventional mind needs to deal with.

She lived that theory, often dragging Elowen and me out to random places to do things like laying a pile of pebbles, or splashing her hands in a stream, or eating ice creams on the blusteriest beaches in the dead of winter. Tiny, incomprehensible acts that changed her outlook for the better.

Why have I forgotten this until now?

I reach the darkened building and stand outside.

It’s still, its windows blank shadows. The glass pane in the door reveals the CLOSED sign.

There’s no movement anywhere, not in the café, the surf shop or the empty deli.

Checking nobody is approaching from either end of the street, I take a step forward, flattening my palm against the cool wood of the door.

‘I’m sorry,’ I whisper, because it makes sense in this inexplicable necessity of mine. ‘I just wanted to play.’

Maybe the building will absorb my apology, pacifying the restless ghosts of last night with my words. Or maybe, when Merryn arrives to open up tomorrow morning, she’ll think kindly of me. Not that I know what she thinks of me. I didn’t stop to check her expression before I fled.

But it’s said. And oddly, I feel calmer.

Wherever Mum is, I hope she’s laughing her head off at me.

I step back – and something catches my eye. A glint of gold to my left, along the café wall. Whatever’s making it is catching the white light from the streetlight opposite. Intrigued, I move closer.

It’s a heart. A small, hand-drawn heart in sparkly gold paint, drawn on the blackboard sign I saw Merryn fixing in place a week ago. It’s surrounded by pink and green music notes forming a border to a message.

The words stop me in my tracks.

Welcome to Sweet Reverie.

Our piano is waiting in the courtyard, if you want to play.

Did she write this for everyone, or is it meant for me?

My heartbeat thunders in my ears, the shock of the message so soon after the building witnessed my apology too intriguing to ignore.

The invitation swims in my vision. I rub the saltwater away. I’m tired and at the end of myself. But this . . .

My gaze passes to the left of the sign, to the wrought-iron gate across the entrance to the side passage leading to the courtyard. Last night it was unlocked, my hands fumbling with the latch in my desperation to get out.

What if . . . ?

I glance back at the windows of Sweet Reverie. There’s no light visible in the ground floor or the storey above. There are no drawn curtains, or signs of life. If the gate is locked, I’ll go home, the message enough to soothe my battered head.

But if it’s open . . .

I can’t resist the invitation.

I approach the gate, searching its edge for any sign of a lock beyond the latch.

Nothing. Just the gently curving filigrees of iron curling around the arch.

Honeysuckle trails over the top, its scent strong in the still night air.

It’s magical in the white glow of the streetlight.

Like a partially hidden entrance to a secret world.

If the gate opens, I’ll accept Merryn’s invitation. The piano is in the courtyard and there’s no gate or barrier to it beyond this one. I can slip in, play a little, then leave.

My fingers find the latch, cold in the still-warm night.

So close to a discovery, I hesitate. Should I be doing this? What if the invitation only applies during trading hours?

But I don’t know if I can return when the café is open yet. Coming here tonight was enough of a risk. And to play a piano now would bring me the one thing I crave: a connection with who I was.

It only needs to be for a few minutes. I’ll go as soon as I’ve played.

In that moment, it’s all I want.

I try the latch, willing it to move . . . and it does.