Page 16 of Together Again at the Cornish Country Hospital

‘Don’t be daft, if I could have got away from Port Kara, I’d have gone in a heartbeat. I kept seeing people out and about who looked like Maria from behind, because they had the same hair, or they walked the way she did. I’d convince myself it was her and that it had all been some horrible mistake, I even called out her name once or twice, and I honestly thought I might be going mad.’

The two of them had done everything together, and it used to be a running joke that you never saw one without the other. As teenagers, they’d been convinced they were going to be a singing duo, taking the eighties music scene by storm. The closest they’d ever got was belting out eighties hits at the regular Thursday karaoke night at the Lord Nelson in Port Tremellien, the same pub where he’d performed some of his earliest gigs.

Lijah knew that both his mother and aunt were incredibly proud of him for living the dream they’d once had, but they’d never treated him any differently. It had grounded him, making him feel normal. It was the same trick Nick had managed and he was so grateful to have people in his life who loved and valued him for who he really was. That circle had diminished when his mum had died, and he’d reduced contact with his aunt to text exchanges, so he wouldn’t feel the absence of his mother quite so keenly.

‘I’m so sorry.’ He repeated his apology and she shook her head again. ‘I ran away, and I knew I was leaving you to deal with all of this alone, but I just wanted to pretend it hadn’t happened. When I’m on tour it feels like another world, and that’s where I wanted to be, in a world where I hadn’t lost Mum.’

‘Of course you did. So did I, and I really do understand.’ She wrapped her arms around him from a standing position, as he sat in the chair, squeezing so tightly that he had to turn his head to the side to stop it feeling as though he was suffocating. That was when he spotted what looked like holiday brochures spread out across the table. He’d seen the word Tenerife and a photograph of whitewashed villas below an azure sky. If his aunt wanted a holiday, he was determined to pay for the best hotel, wherever she wanted to go, and however long for. It was the least he could do and, if she even tried to decline his offer, which he knew she would, he’d tell her she had to accept. It was the only way to alleviate some of the guilt she was insisting he didn’t need to feel.

‘Thank you for not being angry with me, you’re the best.’ Gesturing towards the brochures as she finally released him, he fully expected her to dismiss the idea of a holiday, before he even had the chance to offer to pay for it. His aunt and his mother had always been careful not to hint at wanting anything, to ensure he didn’t offer to pay for it for them. But he needed this chance to make things up to her, at least in some tiny way. ‘Are you planning a holiday?’

‘A holiday?’ Claire looked towards the brochures and colour seemed to flood her face. ‘Oh, they’re not holiday brochures. They’re details of properties.’

‘Properties?’ Lijah reached over and pulled one of the glossy brochures towards him, reading the text printed at the top of the cover page.

Vista Paraiso, Los Cristianos, Tenerife.

Just below the photograph of the whitewashed villas was another line of text.

Exclusive development of three and four-bedroomed luxury villas.

‘Are you buying a holiday home?’ Lijah looked at his aunt again and tried to remember if she’d ever mentioned wanting to visit Tenerife, let alone live there. But maybe she had visions of spending the winters somewhere warm. She was due to retire soon, after forty years working as a teacher at the local primary school. She’d always joked that her job was why she’d never wanted children – that and having a nephew like Lijah, as she’d often teased him – but it had been obvious she adored kids, and she’d been the best aunt he could ever have asked for. He suspected her decision not to have a family had more to do with the difficult divorce she’d been through before Lijah was even born, and the pact that she and his mother had made not to get involved with anyone after the breakdown of his parents’ relationship. The sisters had each other and Lijah, so why would they want the hassle of anything else?

‘Not a holiday home. Just a home. I’m moving out there Lij, to Tenerife.’ If his aunt had said she was moving to a colony on Mars, he wasn’t sure he’d have been any more surprised.

‘What do you mean you’re moving out there? Have you even been before?’

‘Twice in the last six months.’ Claire made it sound so normal, as if she’d just popped down to the Co-op in the village. ‘In fact, if you’d come to visit last week, I wouldn’t have been here, I’d have been out there.’

Lijah couldn’t respond for a moment. The idea of his aunt moving away was a lot to process. He knew he should have come back sooner, but he’d never dreamed she’d come up with a plan to change her life this drastically, let alone so soon after his mother’s death. It didn’t seem right and he had to make sure this wasn’t just a reaction to everything that had happened. He hated the thought of Claire living with regret, as well as the grief she was already feeling. ‘Visiting a place twice doesn’t seem like enough of a basis to move countries. What about all your friends here? And your job?’

‘I’m retiring at the end of term and I’m studying to be a counsellor, so hopefully I’ll be able to start a little practice once I’m settled. I’m after a four-bed villa and that way, even if I set aside a room for counselling appointments, I’ll still have a couple of lovely spare rooms for friends to come and stay, and hopefully my nephew too.’ She shot him a smile. ‘I’m sure I’ll see plenty of everyone, especially in January and February when the weather here is about as appealing as a week-old dishcloth.’

‘What are you going to do without Thursday night karaoke, and your art classes, or yoga on the beach, or…’ He was clutching at straws now, trying to list all the things that should tie Claire to Port Kara and he wasn’t even sure why. He hadn’t been home since the funeral, and before that his visits hadn’t been anywhere near as frequent as he wished they’d been. She was right, too, he was in a position to be able to visit her wherever she was living. So why did he hate the thought of her not being at Mor Brys quite so much? He might have no idea, but his aunt was one step ahead of him again.

‘Thursday night karaoke isn’t the same without your mum. I tried it a couple of times, but it just hurt so much that she wasn’t by my side, and when I sobbed my way through “Girls Just Wanna Have Fun”, the landlord said he was thinking about barring me for making his customers so depressed they wanted to leave. I’m not even sure he was joking.’ Claire’s smile wobbled, her eyes shining with unshed tears. ‘As for the art classes, they have those in Tenerife, and I can do yoga on the beach all year round there if I want to. I know it will feel strange, not living here, but I think it’s time. I can’t bear being on my own, and it isn’t a home for either of us without your mum here, is it? Much as I love you Lij, and by God I do, I know coming back to see me isn’t the same. I can’t even begin to fill the gap your mum left behind, and the truth is I don’t want to try. I want to be somewhere new, where every little thing doesn’t remind me of her.’

‘I get that.’ Lijah nodded, because everything his aunt had said was true, but he was still worried she might be rushing into things and choosing to move thousands of miles away, to a place she barely knew, on a whim. He might not have been around much lately, but that hadn’t stopped him worrying about his aunt and checking in on her by text. She’d never once mentioned a plan to move abroad, and she hadn’t even told him about her trips to Tenerife. It all just seemed so sudden, and so random, almost as if she’d stuck a pin in a map and chosen to go on holiday there, to see if it was somewhere she could live. ‘But why Tenerife? Do you know anyone there?’

‘I’ve got a good friend who lives there, her name’s Dee.’ As Claire said the other woman’s name, her eyes seemed to change, and the haunted expression turned into something completely different. ‘We used to work together at the school, but then, about ten years ago, she went out to Tenerife and started working as a singer. We kept in touch via email, and she invited me and your mum out there to visit, but we never made it. When Dee heard about Maria, we started to email more often, and she invited me to stay again. I went over and ended up staying for three weeks. Then Dee said she’d come over here to visit me and, for the first time since we lost your mum, I remembered what it felt like to look forward to something.’

Claire’s gaze met his and he didn’t need to ask the question that had been forming in his mind. The way his aunt was talking about Dee wasn’t the way anyone spoke about a casual friendship. She was talking like someone who’d fallen in love. He wanted to be thrilled for her, but the idea of her being in a relationship was so unexpected. The last few years had made him jaded too, realising just how many people who’d come into his life had done so with an ulterior motive. The thought that Dee might not be all she seemed, and that she might be taking advantage of his aunt in some way, made the hairs on the back of his neck stand on end. ‘Are you and Dee going to live together out there?’

‘I hope so, eventually, but she’s got her own place, and I don’t want to rush things. I’ve had an offer on my house in Port Tremellien, and I’m going to buy a place in Tenerife, so I can spend more time with Dee first. If it works out the way we’re hoping it will, I’ll probably rent out my place in Tenerife as an Airbnb, like I did with the house in Port Tremellien. It gives me the security of knowing I’ve got my own place to go back to if I ever need to.’ Claire reached out and squeezed his hand. When he’d bought Mor Brys, she’d insisted on holding on to the little terraced house she’d bought when she split up with her ex-husband. It was her bit of security and the money she’d got from renting it out had been used to fund the trips she and Maria had gone on, giving them a reason to turn down Lijah’s offer to pay for their holidays, no matter how hard he’d tried. Mor Brys had been bought in his mother’s name, even though as far as Maria and Lijah were concerned it had belonged to both of them equally, and Claire wouldn’t hear of it when Lijah had told her he was signing it over to her after Maria’s death. She outright refused to sign the paperwork because, in her words, she already had her own house in the neighbouring village. It had always been important to Claire to hold on to something that was hers and hers alone, right from the start ‘just in case Maria gets fed up and kicks me out one day!’ It had been a joke, of course, but Claire had been sensible then and, deep down, Lijah knew he could trust her to be sensible now. He was still reeling from the news, all the same.

‘Why don’t you keep the house in Port Tremellien and let me give you the money for the villa? You might miss the cold, grey winters after all and want to come home.’

‘Oh love, you know I’m never going to accept an offer like that, don’t you?’ She took hold of his face in her hands again. ‘And anyway, I can’t give myself an easy route back here. I’ve got to give making a new life for myself without Maria my best shot, somewhere completely different. And I can’t do that if it’s too easy for me to come back.’

‘Do I get to meet this Dee and decide if she’s good enough for my aunt?’

‘She’s more than good enough and your mum liked her; they met a few times back when Dee and I worked together. I just never dreamed things would develop like this, I didn’t even know…’ Claire trailed off for a moment. ‘I’ve never felt this way about anyone before, let alone another woman. I thought I loved Richard, before he cheated on me, but it was never like this. It sounds ridiculous, but I feel as if I’m glowing from the inside out when I’m with her. You know, like those old Ready Brek porridge adverts on telly.’

‘You’ve lost me there, Auntie C, but then you are bloody ancient.’ They both laughed, as she pretended to try and slap him, but then her expression changed to something far more serious. ‘You don’t mind then, the fact that it’s a woman?’

‘Oh my God, of course I don’t. Why the hell would I?’ He shook his head, incredulous that she could even think that. It was a huge shock to hear that his aunt was leaving Cornwall and he had no idea how to feel about that, but he did know what he wanted for her. ‘I’ve got to admit that you leaving Port Kara is the last thing I expected, but you deserve to be happy more than anyone I know and I’m so glad you’ve found someone who’s brought that back into your life. I’ve been dreading coming here and feeling the loss of mum all the harder. But this is what she would have wanted, to know that you’re finding things to look forward to again, and that’s what I want too, more than anything.’

‘For me, or for you?’ She was one step ahead of him yet again, and he nodded slowly.

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