Page 34 of The Next Chapter

‘Not people I know!’ he protests.

‘Especially people you know. We can cheer you on. I’ll buy a copy for everyone I know for Christmas.’

He laughs. ‘Okay, well, in that case, thank you, Lily.’

I hum. ‘You’re welcome. Actually, it’s a little bit like history really.

Not having anything left to discover. We know so much about modern history, it doesn’t hold the same mystery as, like, the Middle Ages.

But then, I think that we can never know history fully, because we can’t ever go back there.

And anyway, people who were there experienced it differently.

So maybe it’s like that. Even if there’s nowhere left to discover, it’ll still be a discovery for new people who go there, because they’ll see it different to other people. ’

He stops walking to look at me.

‘That’s actually… really profound.’

I grow a couple of inches taller and smile at Noah’s praise, I’m sure. And also, I did sound quite profound. Possibly it’s the leftover adrenaline from the bike ride. Everything is heightened when you’ve just narrowly escaped death.

‘Have you always liked history?’ Noah asks.

‘Yep, I studied history at Manchester. Dad got me into it.’ Thankfully, I don’t recount the same Oppenheimer tale I’d told Lola in the kayak.

‘That’s cool. I was more of a geography man myself.’

‘Well, that’s just blasphemy.’

Noah laughs. There’s a moment of silence as we set off walking again, which I of course aim to fill by just continuing to talk.

‘I think I’ve always been interested in, like, where we come from.

Do you ever think that a hundred, or even a thousand years ago there might have been someone walking across this very field?

And somehow, we’re connected to them, even though they don’t know us, and we don’t know them? Because I think about that a lot.’

Noah looks around as if he’s expecting to see neolithic man stomping across the field, maybe with a spear.

‘I never thought about it like that before, but I will from now on. What do you think our hypothetical historical counterparts were doing here, then?’ he asks.

I look around. The ocean is perfectly still. ‘Maybe fishing,’ I wonder aloud, ‘or coming to relax in the fields and enjoy the view. Maybe they were going wherever we’re going. Someone must have discovered it first. Ooh, I know, are we going to a burial site? I love them.’

My history chat is desperately unsexy. Which is fine, since this is a business outing.

But Noah smiles and makes some agreeable sounds.

We’re at the cliff edge, looking out over the ocean.

There is a path. Hallelujah. However, it’s a steep path with a big ‘danger when wet’ sign in red at the top.

Not ideal. It isn’t wet but it is steep.

I’m on my bum. Essentially sliding down the cliff top.

The crash of the waves on the shore gets louder as we descend, until finally, Noah announces that we’re here.

It’s not a burial site.

It’s a cave.

It’s a… gold cave.

‘Is this cave made out of gold?’ I ask. The rocks around the entrance jut out of the ground, glinting at us.

‘That’s exactly what it is,’ Noah answers. ‘The cave of gold.’

‘It really does feel like we’re discovering it for the first time,’ I tell Noah, stroking a finger down one of the rocks. It’s smooth and cold under my hand.

‘Come on, let’s go take a look. We can’t go inside, but we can explore around the cliff face.’

The entrance to the cave is almost like a door cut into the cliff, the jagged gold rocks around the edges.

‘Oh my god,’ I say, peering inside. It echoes and dances off the walls. ‘I can see why they call it the cave of gold.’

‘It’s the lichen growing on the rocks. In the sun, it looks gold,’ Noah tells me.

I almost can’t believe that this place is real.

Just outside the cave a band of sunlight pokes straight down, like the light that might come through a church window.

A strip of sunlight so bright it’s hard to look away from.

It lands on a particularly gold piece of rock, making it glint and glimmer where it ripples in the light.

I’m weirdly emotional. It’s so beautiful, so unlike anything I’ve seen before.

I don’t want Noah to see how overcome I am, so I look around some more, running my hands over the jagged rocks, tracing what looks just like gold in them.

Noah, I notice out of the corner of my eye, takes his notebook out of his rucksack and leans back against the wall by the entrance to make some notes.

It’s like someone conjured up everything that I might possibly find sexy in a person and rolled them into one Noah-shaped package. I really do have a thing for notebooks.

‘It’s beautiful,’ I tell him once I’ve made my way all around the edge. I’m standing just next to a shallow pool of sea water, directly in the beam of light, letting the sun warm me up again. ‘It feels, like, weirdly holy.’

‘Are you religious?’ he asks.

I shake my head. ‘No, but it’s like the history thing. I can imagine other people here. I imagine that they would know that it’s a special place.’

Noah moves towards where I’m standing by the entrance.

‘I like hearing you talk about history.’

Possibly it’s the vaguely ethereal nature of the cave, but it’s like Noah and I could be at any point, any moment in time and it wouldn’t matter. I try to remind myself why I can’t have this thing with Noah. I think that there was a list. Possibly. I can’t remember any of its points.

‘How about you, religious?’ I ask as he looks up, right into the sun. I look at him, so also like looking at the sun.

‘Nah. For a long time, I didn’t even believe in the good of people .’

‘That’s sad,’ I tell him. Even with all the awful stuff that has happened in the past, is still happening all over the world, I’ve never stopped believing in the good of people. If we don’t believe in that, what’s the point in it all?

‘Do you believe in the good of people now?’ I ask.

Noah steps back and unzips his rucksack again, pulling out a picnic blanket. It screams DATE! He spreads it just by the entrance. We look out at the ocean again.

‘I think so. But then I don’t spend a lot of time with people, so I’ll reserve judgement.’

‘How can you travel all the time and not talk to people?’

He shrugs. ‘It’s easy. I just watch.’

I think as I kneel down to help him that I don’t like that thought.

The thought that Noah might just be a little bit lonely.

But admitting as much is so far away from one-night only territory, it’s not even funny.

Maybe when I’ve left, I could set up a WhatsApp group with him and Lola.

I don’t think I’d find that one quite so draining.

‘Shall we eat?’ he asks. ‘I brought things you like.’

He means vegetables. Or salad. Or possibly vegetables with salad.

‘Sounds good.’ I kneel next to him on the blanket, right there on the floor, looking out on the ocean. It’s possibly the greatest ever setting for a business lunch.

Noah has brought little boxes of salad and chicken in a cool bag (cool bags, another thing I find ridiculously sexy). He unpacks it alongside drinks and some cutlery and we tuck in, sharing the boxes of food between us.

I’m cross-legged on the blanket. My shoes, while delightful to walk in, seem to make sitting a bit of a challenge. My feet feel huge.

‘You said you don’t do relationships. Is it because you don’t think that people are good?

’ I ask Noah, feeling my heart pound. Why on earth I’ve ventured down this line of questioning, I don’t know.

My aversion to silence will be the end of me.

‘Or am I not meant to ask about that? You know, because we just had a one-night thing. Feel free not to answer, there’s no pressure from me.

’ Why? Why am I asking these things when we’d moved so seamlessly from fling to friend?

Well, Noah has made that move seamlessly.

I’m reading his books in the dead of night and pining after him.

Noah chews for a moment and looks like he’s thinking.

‘You’re fine, Lily,’ he answers finally. ‘Mum and Dad just… encouraged the worst in each other, so I never saw relationships as a positive thing, you know? Plus, I’m always leaving. It’s hard to make friends that last, let alone anything more.’

I nod along, trying to look unmoved but really eating up all this intel and setting it aside to analyse later. ‘Well, for what it’s worth, you’re really good at the friend thing, Noah.’

I mean because of the salad, and the lean protein, and the gorgeous cave picnic. Noah looks at me for a moment and I think look away, you crazy woman! But after breaking my gaze he starts to gather up the Tupperware. ‘Yeah, maybe.’

‘Are you done? Or do you need more time to make notes?’ I’m talking really fast and also gathering Tupperware, slamming the boxes into the cool bag with intent, annoyed that I made it weird.

‘I’m almost done, I just need to take some pictures.’

He isn’t looking at me properly and his voice sounds flat.

Urgh. It is awkward and weird. I’ve ruined our trip to the gold cave.

I need to get us back to where we’re meant to be. What we’re good at. Sort of friends and allies with a three-pronged plan.

He stands up and holds his hand out for me. My rise is much less graceful. Stupid huge shoes.

Noah takes a couple more photos on the perimeter of the cave and we head away. He’s not frowning anymore. He’s not smiling. It’s more a thinking crease that’s between his eyebrows.

We look back and Noah speaks into the cave as much as he’s talking to me.

‘I like you, Lily.’

And oh dear, I’m totally and completely fucked.