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There is a giant pumpkin on the doorstep, with an elaborate scary face carved into it for Halloween; Nana does always like to decorate the house at this time of year. Before I can reach the large weathered wooden door, it bursts open with the usual welcoming party.
Poppins, an elderly Old English sheepdog, is my nana’s most trusted companion and best friend. The dog bounds in my direction, a giant bouncing ball of gray and white fur, panting as if sheis smiling, and wagging her tail. I say hello, make a fuss of her, and admire the two little plaits and pink bows keeping her long hair out of her big brown eyes. I follow the dog’s stare as she turns back to look at the house. In the doorway stands Nana, five foot nothing and radiating glee. Her halo of wild white curls frame her pretty, petite face, which has been weathered by age and wine. She’s dressed from head to toe in pink and purple—her favorite colors—including pink shoes with purple laces. Some people might see an eccentric old lady, or the famous children’s author: Beatrice Darker. But I just see my nana.
She smiles. “Come on inside, before it starts to rain.”
I’m about to correct her about the weather—Irememberfeeling the sun on my face only a moment ago—but when I look up, I see that the picture-perfect blue sky above Seaglass has now darkened to a palette of muddy gray. I shiver and realize that it’s much colder than I’d noticed before too. It does seem as though a storm is on the way. Nana has a habit of knowing what is coming before everybody else. So I do as she says—like always—and follow her and Poppins inside.
“Why don’t you just relax for a while, before the rest of the family joins us?” Nana says, disappearing into the kitchen, leaving me—and the dog—in the hallway. Something smells delicious. “Are you hungry?” she calls. “Do you want a snack while we wait?” I can hear the clattering of ancient pots and pans, but I know Nana hates people bothering her when she’s cooking.
“I’m fine, thanks,” I reply. Poppins gives me a disapproving look—she is never one to turn down food—and trots out to the kitchen, no doubt hoping to find a snack of her own.
I confess that a hug might have been nice, but Nana and I are both a little out of practice when it comes to affection. I expect she is feeling just as anxious as I am about this family reunion, and we all deal with anxiety in different ways. You can see fear on the surface of some people, while others learn to hide their worries inside themselves, out of sight but not out of mind.
The first thing I notice—as always—are the clocks. It’s impossible not to. The hallway is full of eighty of them, all different colors, shapes, and sizes, and all ticking. A wall full of time. There is one for every year of Nana’s life, and each one was carefully chosen by her, as a reminder to herself and the world that her time is her own. The clocks scared me as a child. I could hear them from my bedroom—tick tock, tick tock, tick tock—as though relentlessly whispering that my own time was running out.
The bad feeling I have about this weekend returns, but I don’t know why.
I follow my unanswered questions further into Seaglass, hoping to find answers inside, and I’m instantly filled with a curious collection of memories and regrets. Transported back in time by the familiar sights and smells of the place, a delicious mix of nostalgia and salty air. The diffused scent of the ocean loiters in every corner of the old house, as though each brick and beam has been saturated by the sea.
Nothing has changed in the years I have known this place. The whitewashed walls and wooden floors look just as they did when my sisters and I were children—a little worn out maybe by the leftover love and loss they have housed. As I breathe it all in, I can still picture us as the people we used to be, before life changed us into the people we are now, just like the sea effortlessly reshapes the sand. I can understand why Nana never wanted to live anywhere else. If this place were mine, I’d never leave it behind either.
I wonder again why she has really invited the whole family here for her birthday when I know she doesn’t love or even like them all. Tying up loose ends, perhaps? Sometimes love and hate get tangled, and there is no way to unpick the knot of feelings we feel. Askingquestions of others often makes me ask questions of myself. If I had the chance to iron out the creases in my life before it ended, which ones would I choose to smooth over? Which points and pleats would I most want to unfold so they could no longer dent the picture of the person I wished to be remembered as? Personally, I think that some wrinkles and stains on the fabric of our lives are there for a reason. A blank canvas might sound appealing, but it isn’t very interesting to look at.
I head up the creaky stairs, leaving the ticking clocks behind me. Each room I pass contains the ghosts of memories from all the days and weeks and years I have walked along this hallway. Voices from my past trespass in my present, whispering through the cracks in the windows and floorboards, disguised as the sound of the sea. I can picture us running through here as children, giddy on ocean air, playing, hiding, hurting one another. That’s what my sisters and I were best at. We learned young. Childhood is a race to find out who you really are, before you become the person you are going to be. Not everybody wins.
I step inside the bedroom that was always mine—the smallest in the house. It is still decorated the way it was when I was a girl, with white bedroom furniture—more shabby than chic—and old peeling wallpaper covered in a fading pattern of daisies. Nana is a woman who only says and does things once, and she never replaces something unless it is broken. She always used to put flowers in our bedrooms when we came to stay as children, but I notice that the vase in my room is empty. There is a silver dish filled with potpourri instead, a pretty mix of pine cones, dried petals, and tiny seashells. I spot a copy ofDaisy Darker’s Little Secreton the bookshelf. Seeing it reminds me of my own secret. The one I never wanted to share. I lock it away again for now, back inside the box in my head where I have been keeping it.
The ocean continues to serenade my unsettled thoughts, as though trying to silence them with the relentlessshhof the sea. I find the sound soothing. I can hear the waves crashing on the rocks below, and my bedroom window is stained with the resulting spray, droplets running down the glass like tears as if the house itself were crying. I peer out and the sea stares back: cold, infinite, and unforgiving. Darker than before.
Part of me still worries that I was wrong to come, but it didn’t feel right to stay away.
The rest of my family will be here soon. I’ll be able to watch them walk across the sandy causeway one by one as they arrive. It’s been such a long time since we’ve all been together. I wonder whether all families have as many secrets as we do. When the tide comes in, we’ll be cut off from the rest of the world for eight hours. When the tide goes back out, I doubt we’ll ever all be together again.
3
October 30, 2004, 5 p.m.
My father is the first to arrive.
Being punctual is his only way of saying,I love you.For as long as I can remember he has expressed emotions through timekeeping, unable to demonstrate affection in the ways most other fathers do. But when I think about him growing up here as an only child, in a house full of clocks, on a tiny tidal island, I suppose time was always going to be on his mind. As a boy, I suspect he was often counting down the minutes until he could leave. I watch him from my bedroom window as he trudges across the damp sand. The sun is still setting, melting the sky into a palette of pinks and purples that do not look real. Dad glances up in my direction, but if he sees me, he doesn’t smile or wave.
Frank Darker is a frustrated composer who mostly conducts. He still travels the world with his orchestra, but while that mightsoundglamorous, it isn’t. He works harder than anyone I know, but doesn’t earn as much as you might think. Once he has paid the salaries, hotel bills, and expenses of an entire ensemble, he doesn’t havea lot of spare change. But he loves his job and the people he works with. Perhaps a little too much: his orchestra is more like family to him than we ever were.
My father looks in pretty good shape for his fifty-something years. He still has a full head of black hair, and carries his suitcase with ease, despite it looking rather large for an overnight stay. I notice he chose not to use the wheelbarrow left on the other side of the causeway to help with luggage. I suspect it’s a different kind of handout he’s after from Nana. Dad’s back is a bit hunched from years of sitting at a piano, and his suit seems to be hanging off him a little, as though life has made him shrink. I notice that he’s dressed as if he were attending a funeral, not a family birthday, and I watch as he stops before reaching the front door, trying to compose himself like a piece of music that doesn’t wish to be written.
He knows—just as we all do—that Nana intends to leave this house to a female relative. She inherited it from her mother, whose dying wish was that Seaglass would always belong to women in the Darker family. The decision to skip a generation caused my father great upset from the moment he knew about it. Dad neverwantedSeaglass; he justneededmoney to keep his orchestra together. He would have sold this place years ago were it up to him. Nana has been bankrolling my father’s ambitions since he was a child, but no matter how much she gives him, it is never enough. I head downstairs to see him, even though I know he’d rather not see me. I never leave me alone with myself for too long; I can’t be trusted.
Poppins is already at the door, and Nana opens it before my dad has the opportunity to knock. Nana’s face lights up when she sees who it is, a genuine smile revealing neat white teeth, still sharp enough to bite.
“Hello, Frank.”
“Mother,” he says, with an odd little nod. “It’s good to see you.”
“Is it? Perhaps you should try visiting more often?” There is a twinkle in her eye, but we all know that she means it. Being alone never used to make Nana feel lonely, but the things and people we miss can change with age.
Dad doesn’t reply. Subjects that sting are best avoided when you’ve already been stung too often. Instead he glances at the wall of clocks, puts down his case, and hangs his coat on the stand. He’s worn the same thick black woolen coat for years, not because he can’t afford a new one, but because my father has always been a creature of habit.
“Don’t forget to punch in,” Nana says, blocking his path as he attempts to head into the lounge. This house used to be his home, and childhood homes are haunted by all variety of ghosts for people like my dad. The big man soon behaves like a small boy.
