Claire Kendal - I Spy

‘Sounds like a load of superstitious …’ Zac paused to find a more polite term than whatever he’d been about to say. ‘It’s as likely as mermaids.’

Peggy’s eyes narrowed. Her nostrils flared. To Peggy, an accusation of superstition was as bad as one of devil worship.

‘You know that mermaids are real.’ I was trying to tease the tension away. ‘I told you. You can’t live in St Ives and not believe in mermaids.’

‘True.’ He pulled my head against his chest. We were both thinking of the rough-hewn and time-scarred Mermaid Bench, the two of us holding hands as we knelt by the Mermaid in a kind of pledge to each other and to her.

‘Holly’s our little Ariel,’ Peggy said.

Zac gave me some serious side-eye at this Disneyfication. I squeezed his hand, trying to communicate silent understanding as well as a plea for him not to start on a critique of the ‘sugary sentimentalism’ that he detested.

I smiled at Peggy. I knew that she was picturing me and Milly, still tiny girls in pink nightdresses, snuggled against her during one of our countless sleepovers, the three of us eating popcorn and watching the Disney video.

There was room in the world for all kinds of mermaids.

Milly was gesturing for me to join her near the open church door, where she was standing by Gaston, whose hair was slicked into a ponytail. He broke up with her a few months ago, but Milly couldn’t get over it. She continued to sleep with him, and whenever they had sex it gave her false hope that he’d changed his mind.

As I looked at Gaston, I was again struck by how strongly he resembled the character from the Disney version of Beauty and the Beast , which was another of the films that Milly and I watched with Peggy when we were children. That one was our favourite, because Belle was a passionate reader, like me and Milly.

Again Milly was beckoning me, this time even more frantically, but I shook my head no, not wanting to leave Zac when he was so palpably uncomfortable.

‘Milly needs you, sweetheart.’ Peggy was tugging at my arm. I looked helplessly at Zac as Peggy prised my hand out of his, deliberately ignoring the don’t-you-dare-leave-me-with-them look he was shooting at me. She gave me a push towards Milly that practically sent me flying.

Milly was in tight jeans and sheepskin boots, a cream beanie hat covering her bright hair, seeming to know everyone, kissing old and young alike but making sure all the time that she kept within a metre of Gaston.

I took a lock of her hair between my fingers, to peel off the purple acrylic gloop that had dried on it. ‘You’ve found some time to paint this morning?’

She was glowing when she nodded yes. ‘At last. I got up early.’ She was so beautiful and cleverly funny that almost every man I ever met would want to go out with her. But she didn’t seem to know this.

‘I’m glad.’ I noticed Zac, pushing through the crowd to get to me.

‘Hi, Holly Dolly.’ Gaston’s voice was so booming that Zac sent a look his way that would vaporise other mortal beings.

‘Hello, Gaston.’ At least nobody could say I only used the name behind his back. Milly had given up on trying to stop me. I’d known since we were four that he would hurt her. Now that he actually had, I wanted to punch him in his rock-hard gut.

‘You know I consider that name a compliment, don’t you?’ He insisted on kissing me on the cheek, nearly choking me with his aftershave. ‘Don’t pretend you don’t love me.’

‘I really don’t.’

Zac had reached me at last, and curled an arm tightly around my waist, pulling me close to his side. The gulls were wheeling above our heads.

‘The parade’s about to start, Holly.’ He aimed us in the direction of the War Memorial, but the crowd had grown so thick we couldn’t get close to Peggy and James. ‘I came here to support you, and you repay me by sneaking off to Milly and her boyfriend.’

‘Ex-boyfriend, now.’

‘I don’t care who he is.’

‘I’m sorry. I didn’t sneak, I don’t need to pay you, I didn’t mean to upset you, and I can promise you that talking to Gaston is not fun.’

‘Gaston? I hate those Disney names. You’re too intelligent for that.’

The increasing decibel level as the marching band approached saved me from the need to say more, because the outdoor part of the ceremony was finally underway, and the buglers were sounding.

They shall grow not old, as we that are left grow old …

My voice joined with the others, and I could feel Zac’s irritation melting away. He encased both of my hands inside his, and kept them that way through the two-minute silence.

As we walked from the outdoor memorial to the church that towered over it, he whispered, ‘I’m sorry, Holly. I feel left out, sometimes, of your life here. You’re such a part of things.’

‘You are too.’

‘Am I?’

‘Of course. It matters to me that you want to live here. I know you’re doing it for me. I’m moved by that.’

We processed into the packed church together, and slipped into a pew at the rear. The pillars were garlanded in ribbons that had been strung with poppies. Zac did not bow his head for prayers or recite the Act of Penitence or sing any of the hymns, and certainly not ‘God Save the Queen’.

After the service, he held my hand as we joined the parade, following the band and swinging our arms back and forth to ‘The British Grenadiers’. Zac sang along, and I loved that he knew every word. We were at the tail end, and when I finally glimpsed Milly and Peggy and James again, they were getting further and further ahead as we processed through the town.

I tugged at Zac’s arm, smiling. ‘Shall we catch them up?’

It was as if I had flicked a switch, turning him from happy to sad. ‘Don’t you want to be with me?’

‘Forever.’

‘The three of them are a family. It’s the two of us now.’ He smiled. ‘Or three. Yes?’ He put a hand on my tummy. ‘We’re making our own family. Aren’t we?’

‘Yes.’ I smiled up at him. When I broke his gaze, I realised that I had lost sight of my best friend and my surrogate parents. As far long as I could remember, I had walked with them, and until the last few years, with my grandmother too, claiming James’s arm during the Remembrance Sunday commemorations that St Ives did so beautifully.

‘Doesn’t that make you happy?’

‘Yes.’ I nodded to confirm it. ‘That’s a lovely thing. Yes.’ It was what I had always wanted. And I could see he was right about my not being a part of the family of three that was Peggy and James and Milly. But to be without them in that place, on that day, was like having a piece of myself cut away.

The country lane that Maxine’s driver is speeding along is lined with golden daffodils. They flutter and dance and twinkle on their green banks in exactly the way Wordsworth said.