Page 76 of Eden's Comfort Kitchen
‘Yes, but I could spare some time. Mum would understand. In fact, we discussed closing for the day because she’s cut up too and it didn’t feel right to open, but quite honestly, we need the money and, like Mum said, Bilbo wouldn’t have wanted that. He wouldn’t have wanted a fuss at all.’
‘I’m fine; it’s not me anyone needs to worry about. Should we go and see his family later? Just to pay our respects? And what about Mavis? We ought to go and check on her.’
‘I’d say in a couple of days, not today. It’s all still very new, and I expect they’ll have enough people knocking on the door today.’
‘You’re right. You’re always right – I don’t know what I’d do without you.’
‘Mum’s here – she says come for tea later if you feel like you need some company. I’m on shift at the Dolphin tonight, but it might be nice for you to come up there too. I would imagine lotsof people will go up there to raise a glass to him if you wanted to join in.’
‘It’s sounds…actually, it sounds nice. Sort of cathartic. It’d be good to hear about him. I will, thank you.’
‘There’s no better place at times like these than with others who can share the loss.’
Eden thought back to her mother’s death. Had she sought anyone out to share her loss with? Now that she considered the question, she realised she’d done the opposite. Would she have coped better if she’d spent time with her loved ones instead of pushing them away, bearing her grief in a self-imposed solitude, feeling as if she’d no right to share it when she’d done so much to cause it in the first place? On reflection, she could see how right Livia was – yet again. Livia was the friend Eden had never known she’d needed – she only wished she could have found her long before this.
Eden had spent the morning moping. She’d felt it might help to cry, but she simply couldn’t find her tears, the shock of Bilbo’s departure and her struggle to process it too big for her to get past. It was strange considering how much crying she’d done for other things over the past few months that she couldn’t do it now, arguably when she really ought to have done.
In the end, unable to settle down to anything, she decided the best idea might be to do something that involved nothing of note, and so she grabbed her keys, left her phone behind and set out over the clifftops.
The day was grey and the clouds low, even though it was warm, the sea like a sheet of steel in the bay and the rocks tumbling down to it black and slick, and she felt it quite suited her mood. She marched for an hour along the path that traced the line of the coast until it took her away from the view, whereshe then retraced her steps, somehow needing the comforting presence of the grey ocean and the crashing waves, however foreboding it seemed today. She emptied her mind and thought only of her footsteps and the wind on her skin, eyes turned to the horizon where the breeze tried to chase away stubborn clouds, hoping that simply being in the moment might help her process thoughts that seemed too complicated to face head on.
She might have been out for an hour, or she might have been out for three – without her phone to tell her the time, she had no way of being certain. But when Four Winds came into view once more, a squat, stone square in the distance, she did feel lighter and calmer than when she’d left it. She was surprisingly hungry too, running through a mental list of food she thought might still be in her fridge from the last time she’d ordered shopping – which was quite a while ago. Eating so often at the community kitchen with everyone else, sometimes at the pub and on occasion with Livia, Julia and the kids, there hadn’t been much call for a huge amount of grocery shopping, so she couldn’t be sure what she had available. Whatever it was, she’d find a meal from it somehow. She could have gone into town to buy something there but wasn’t sure she was ready to face anyone who might want to talk about Bilbo just yet.
But as she drew closer, she could see a figure making its way up the path that ran perpendicular to the one she was currently on, from the town up to the cottage. He stopped for a moment, as if he’d seen her, and then began to walk again, and there was no mistaking his intended destination. But at the crossroads, he changed direction and began to make his way towards the clifftop where she was.
She frowned as she recognised him. ‘Cam?’
‘I tried phoning you, but I couldn’t get an answer. I was…never mind.’
‘Sorry, left my phone in the cottage.’
‘Doesn’t matter. I heard about Bilbo.’
‘Ah…’ Eden stopped on the path. ‘How?’
‘Livia was at the ice-cream place. She took a minute out to tell me, said I ought to know because she thought we got on well.’
‘Bilbo liked you. I think you probably reminded him of his younger days in the navy too, because of your great-uncle and everything.’
‘It’s weird, isn’t it? I can’t get my head around how sudden. I mean, he was there last night, working like normal and then…gone.’
‘Life’s like that, isn’t it? Are you all right?’
‘Me? Why shouldn’t I be? I hardly knew him.’
Eden didn’t think Cam looked all right despite his reassurances, but she decided not to say so. He looked how she felt – numb and disbelieving. Nobody had seen this coming, and it seemed everyone was struggling. Bilbo was such a force, such a character that it was hardly surprising even people who barely knew him would be affected by his death, especially as it was so sudden.
‘I’m heading home,’ she said. ‘Do you maybe want to come in for a minute?’
He paused, uncertain, but then he nodded. ‘Actually, I think I’d like that.’
She began to walk again, and he fell in step beside her. They were quiet as they made their way back, but it was an easy enough silence. Eden wondered why he’d come. Perhaps he was wondering the same thing too. He’d been friendly with Bilbo, but he’d only known him a couple of weeks, yet the way he seemed to have been affected was bigger than that.
At the house, she invited him to sit at the kitchen table while she made drinks with an odd feeling of déjà vu. It wasn’t so long ago that they’d been in this same kitchen doing the same thing, only the circumstances had been very different.
‘I was so awful to him yesterday,’ Cam said into the silence.
Eden turned from stirring the coffees. ‘Do you think so?’
