Page 8 of The Pearl Sister
‘Didn’t you?’
‘You’re a free spirit,chérie.You have wanderlust.’
‘Yes, I do.’ At that moment, I loved Ma just about as much as I’d ever loved her. She never judged or criticised, just supported her girls.
I heard the sound of a deep male cough in the background and my ears pricked up.
‘Who’s there with you?’ I asked suspiciously.
‘Just Claudia and Christian,’ said Ma.
In other words, the Atlantis staff.
‘Right. You know, Ma, it was really weird, but when I got to the airport in London three weeks ago, I’m sure I saw Pa. He was walking back the other way and I tried to run and catch him, but he’d gone. I know this sounds stupid, but, like, I was sure it was him.’
‘Ohchérie,’ I heard Ma sigh deeply down the line. ‘You are not the first of your sisters to say something like this to me. Both Ally and Star told me that they were convinced they had heard or seen him . . . and perhaps you all did. But not in reality. Or at least, not reality as we know it.’
‘You think we’re all seeing and hearing the ghost of Pa?’ I chuckled.
‘I think we wish tobelievewe are still seeing him, so perhaps our imaginations conjure him up. I see him all the time here,’ Ma said, suddenly sounding very sad. ‘And this is such a difficult time of year for us all. You are well, CeCe?’
‘You know me, Ma, never had a day’s illness in my life.’
‘And happy?’
‘I’m fine. You?’
‘I’m missing your father, of course, and all you girls. Claudia sends her love.’
‘Same to her. Okay, Ma, it’s late here, I’m getting my head down now.’
‘Keep in touch, won’t you, CeCe?’
‘Yeah, course I will. Night.’
‘Goodnight,chérie.Andjoyeux Noel.’’
I tucked my mobile back into my shorts, then put my arms around my knees and rested my head on them, thinking how hard this Christmas must be for her. Us girls could move on to a future – or at least, we couldtry.We had more life ahead of us than we’d already lived, but Ma had given hers to us girls and Pa. I wondered then if she’d actually loved my father in a ‘romantic’ way, and decided she must have done to stay on for all those years and make our familyherfamily. And now we had all left her.
I then wondered if my real mum had ever missed me or thought of me, and why she’d given me to Pa. Maybe she’d dumped me in an orphanage somewhere, and he’d collected me from there because he’d felt sorry for me. I was sure I’d been a very ugly baby.
All the answers lay in Australia, another twelve hours’ journey from here. It was beyond weird that it was one country in the world I’d refused point-blank to visit, even though Star had quite fancied going. Pathetic that my spider nightmare was the reason, but there it was.
Well,I thought as I settled myself down on the sand,Pa had called me ‘strong’ and an ‘adventurer’. I knew I’d need every ounce of those qualities to get me onto that plane in two weeks’ time.
* * *
Again, I was woken by tickling across my face. I brushed the sand away and sat up to see the Werewolf walking to the sea. Wondering briefly how many maidens he’d eaten in the past few hours, I watched his long legs make short work of the sand.
He sat down at the water’s edge in the same position as last time, with me directly behind him. We both looked up, waiting for the show to begin, like we were in a cinema.A cinema of the universe . . .I liked that phrase, and felt proud of myself for thinking of it. Maybe Star could use it in her novel one day.
The show was spectacular, made even more epic by the fact that there were a few clouds around today, softening the rising sun as it seeped like a golden yolk into the whipped egg whites around it.
‘Hi,’ the Werewolf said to me as he was walking back.
‘Hi.’
‘Good one this morning, wasn’t it?’ he offered.
