Page 59 of Carry Me Home

Cara snickers. ‘Liar. I look like I’ve been slow-cooked on a train for four hours.’ She pulls me into a hug – longer than I expect, her arms pulling me in properly, holding on in a way that isn’t quite hello. The scent of her perfume, something woody and warm. When she finally steps back, her hands don’t quite leave – they slide to my elbows and stay there a beat, and she looks at me with an expression that isn’t the easy grin. Something quieter underneath it. Then the grin returns, full wattage. ‘God, it’s good to see you.’

‘You too.’ And I mean it. That’s the complicated part.

‘You’re supposed to say that with more enthusiasm.’

‘I do mean it.’

‘Better.’ She picks up her bag, loops it over her shoulder. ‘Right. Sea Salt Bay. Eight years of hearing about this place. I have expectations.’

The car is staggeringly hot inside. Cara slides in and immediately starts fanning herself with the road atlas.

‘Inhumane,’ she says. ‘This is a violation of the Geneva Convention. How do people survive here?’

‘They complain. Constantly.’

She kicks off her sandals, and puts her feet on the dashboard as we pull out of the car park and onto the Truro ring road. For a few minutes we drive in silence.

Until she says, ‘So.’

‘So.’

‘We’re not going to be weird.’ She turns her head on the headrest to look at me. ‘About what happened. At the wedding.’

I keep my eyes on the road. ‘No.’

‘Okay.’ A pause. ‘You took four days to reply to my first text.’

‘I was busy.’

‘Tom.’ Her voice is gentle, careful. Not accusatory. ‘I’m not naive. I know what it was. I just need to know you’re not going to spend my entire visit treating me like a problem you regret.’

‘You’re not a problem.’ I exhale. ‘And I don’t regret it. It’s⁠—’

‘Complicated?’ She says it without any particular edge. ‘I know. I’ve known since about forty minutes into it, if I’m honest.’ She picks up the road atlas, weighing it in her hands. ‘I’m not here to make claims, Tom. I’m not going to be the woman who arrives with an agenda and an ultimatum. That’s not me.’ She glances across. ‘But I’m also not going to pretend I don’t know my own mind. I came here knowing what I was probably walking into. I came anyway. That says something, doesn’t it?’

‘It does,’ I say. I mean it, and I feel guilty for meaning it, and the road stretches ahead in the heat.

She nods, satisfied, or at least prepared to be satisfied, and turns to the window. Her hand reaches across and rests briefly on my arm, just a few seconds, before she pulls it back.

‘Right,’ she says. ‘Tell me about the village. Tell me everything. Starting with Dot and the ice-cream van, because that email was unhinged and I need the full story.’

I tell her. The road narrows. The hedgerows press in. She fills the rest of the drive with questions and laughter and the particular warmth of someone who is genuinely interested in the texture of your life, and when she laughs she tips towards me slightly – her shoulder briefly against mine – and it’s easy, and real, and I’m able to hold both things at once: that I’m glad she’s here and that I have no right to be.

The village appears around the headland – the harbour, the boats, the cottages climbing the hill. The Lavender Café with its faded purple shutters, lavender-filled window boxes, and the hanging baskets full of fuchsias. The Ship with its terrace full of tourists. The surgery on the corner, and above it, the flat.

‘Oh,’ Cara says softly. ‘It’s beautiful.’

‘It’s home.’

‘I can see why you never left.’ She’s quiet a moment, and I can feel her watching where my eyes go as we come round the headland. ‘It’s the kind of place that gets into your bones, isn’t it?’

‘Something like that.’

‘Lucky,’ she says. ‘Not everyone finds that.’

There’s no envy in it. Just honesty. I park by the harbour.

Bill spots us from The Ship’s terrace before we’ve taken ten steps.