She’d once had to walk along the narrow tread of a balance beam in a PE class. She’d wobbled, but it hadn’t been so hard once she’d adjusted her balance. By the end of the class she was doing it with her eyes closed. That had been her life until Thomas had crashed into it with the spilt Coke. Like a balance beam she could walk on with her eyes closed. What will happen if she lets Thomas push her off balance? Where will she land?
Thomas reaches through the darkness and takes her hand. ‘It’s best we leave, maid. I don’t trust myself.’
He leads her out onto the riverside path to a bench under the twisted branches of a silver birch. They sit down and he rests his arm across Ellie’s shoulders. She leans her head against the rough wool of his uniform jacket and watches the multiplying stars glint in the river’s mirror-like reflection.
‘No moon tonight.’
‘No.’
‘Do you think they’ll be over?’
‘Might be.’
‘They haven’t been over for six weeks. We’ve been quiet at the fire station. Fire Officer Williams is teaching me Honeymoon Bridge.’
‘They’ve probably gots their hands full in Russia.’
‘Do you suppose the world will ever return to normal, Thomas?’
‘Maybe a different kind of normal. I doubts it’ll ever be the same.’
They sit together for several minutes in silence, with just the ripple of the Wensum River and the occasional clatter of a vehicle over a nearby bridge filtering through the stillness.
Ellie feels Thomas’s chest rise under her cheek as he sighs. ‘I never in all my life imagined myself over here in England, Ellie Mae. When you’re bobbin’ along the sea in a fishin’ boat halfway to Greenland, you feels like the rest of the world is on another planet.’
‘Tell me more about Newfoundland.’
‘Oh, it’s a magical place, Ellie Mae. They calls the eastern part Avalon, did you know that?’
‘Avalon? The place they took King Arthur?’
‘The very same.’
‘That’s very romantic.’
‘Newfoundlanders are hard cases with soft hearts. We’ve gots places called Heart’s Content and Conception Bay and Happy Adventure. And then there’s the fairies.’
Ellie giggles. ‘The fairies?’
‘Are you laughin’ at me, maid?’ Thomas bumps her shoulder with his. ‘Well, I don’t believes in them myself, but plenty does. They says the fairies are the angels that fell from Heaven but were shut out of Hell. When they fell on The Rock – that’s what we calls Newfoundland – they liked the look of it. So, you’ve gots to watch out for the fairies when you’re out pickin’ berries or walkin’ in the woods. You’ve gots to wear a piece of clothin’ inside out. That confuses them. And never anythin’ green. That’s just askin’ for trouble.’
‘You’re not serious.’
‘Oh, yes, I am. You’ll see some of the older folks about with their hat or their jacket inside out. That’s the reason. And they never goes out without a bun or a piece of bread in their pocket. That’s to appease the fairies if they comes upon them.’
‘A superstitious lot.’
‘Well, we gots our reasons. I don’t imagine there’s another place on earth like it. There’s a fog rolls in off the sea sometimes that sits on the land like a cloud. We calls it a mauzy day when that happens. Everythin’ goes quiet. Not quiet like this. Quiet like you’re in the middle of a bag of cotton wool. It’s soft and it’s quiet and the damp sits on your skin. Then you might hear somethin’ out on the sea beyond the fog. Like a fountain bursting out of the water. And you wonders what kind of creature could’a made that sound.’
‘What is it?’
‘Well, some says mermaids.’
Ellie rolls her eyes. ‘Mermaids?’
‘That’s what some says. But they’re really whales.’
‘They’re that close to shore?’
‘Oh, yes. They loves to dance off the shore. I once saw about fifty of them when I was out in the boat with my dad. I tells you, you feels small when fifty humpbacks are spoutin’ and breachin’ all around you. It’s a sight to behold.’
‘That sounds terribly frightening.’
‘Oh, no, Ellie Mae. They’re just dancin’.’
Ellie rubs her chin against the wool serge of Thomas’s uniform. ‘What are we going to do, Thomas?’
Thomas leans his chin on Ellie’s AFS cap. ‘That depends on you, maid.’
Ellie shifts away and he drops his arm. She looks at him in the dim night light. ‘What do you mean by that?
‘I never thought I’d meet you, Ellie Mae. I don’t mean someone like you. I mean you. I dreams about you at night. I wants to wake up with you beside me.’
Ellie’s heart jumps, battering against her ribs. ‘We can’t, Thomas. It would be a sin.’
‘I wants to marry you, Ellie Mae.’
‘You w-what?’
‘Wait, I’m an idiot. Hold on a minute.’
Thomas kneels on the grass in front of Ellie. ‘Will you be the face I wakes up to in the mornin’, and the face I falls asleep to at night? Will you marry me, Ellie Mae Burgess? I might not have a ring, so don’t hold that against me. I’ll get you the finest ring in England, maid, and that’s a promise.’ He draws an X across his chest and kisses the side of his thumb. ‘Cross my heart and hopes to die.’
Her heart drums so quickly she can barely breathe. She looks at Thomas, his face outlined by the soft light of the starry sky. Every cell in her body screams at her: Say yes, Ellie! Say yes! But, what about her father? Her sister? She’d found a map of North America in the library and looked up Newfoundland. It wasn’t even a part of Canada. An island the size of Ireland on the other side of the Atlantic. Miles away. Another world. How could she leave her family behind? Never see Poppy again? Never get cross at Dottie again for stealing her lipsticks? She wouldn’t know a soul there but Thomas. What had she been thinking?
She drops her head into her heads. ‘I can’t marry you, Thomas. I’m so sorry. I just can’t.’
Chapter 21
Tippy’s Tickle – 14 September 2001
The gate of St Stephen’s Cemetery, once black but now seemingly held together by rust, screeches as Sophie tugs it open. It jerks to a stop, refusing to budge any further.
Handing the patchwork bag she’s filled with drawing materials to Sophie, Ellie squeezes through the opening. Sophie follows, wrenching the protesting gate closed behind her. Tufts of yellowing grass splay against the weather-beaten headstones and crosses on the gentle slope below. Beyond the hill, on its spit of land the other side of the tickle, the aluminium steeple of St Stephen’s Church points its glinting finger up into the blue sky. They stand for a moment on the hill, looking out to the sea below, which shines like new-polished silver in the morning sun, its stillness broken only by the occasional whale spout blasting through the surface and the tickle-ace gulls ducking and diving along the shore.
‘It’s lovely here, Aunt Ellie,’ Sophie says as she snaps several photos.