Tonight, Conor’s white cotton shirt is clinging to his chest, and a small puddle of water has already formed around his feet where he stands in the kitchen doorway. He looks like he might have swum from the mainland, but that’s not possible – we all learned a long time ago that the riptides between here and there can be deadly.
My dad – seemingly sober all of a sudden – asks the question we all want to know the answer to.
‘How the devil did you get here?’
‘By boat,’ Conor says.
‘By boat?’
‘Yes, they’re a fantastic invention that you can use to sail across the sea,’ Nana says. ‘I get my post and groceries delivered by boat once a week now too. So I don’t have to cycle into town, or worry about the tide—’
‘I expect they don’t deliver after ten p.m. in a storm though, do they?’ interrupts Dad, narrowing his eyes at Conor, like a comedy villain with a sense of humour bypass. ‘What kind of boat?’
‘A boat with oars, Mr Darker.’
‘You came here in a rowing boat, in a storm, in the dark?’
‘Yes. I’m sorry to arrive so late. I got held up at work; there was a murder.’ This would sound strange coming from most people, but Conor is a crime correspondent for the BBC. His press pass is still dangling from the lanyard around his neck. ‘I managed to borrow a small boat from an old friend – Harry from the fish shop. The storm isn’t as bad as it sounds, and it isn’t as though I haven’t rowed a boat across Blacksand Bay before. I feel as though I might be interrupting, and I don’t want to be a party pooper, but I wonder if I might head upstairs and change into some dry clothes?’
‘Of course,’ says Nana. ‘It isn’t my birthday until tomorrow, I’m just glad you’re here in time for that. Before you disappear . . . I found something belonging to you.’ She shuffles over to the sideboard, opens a cupboard door and takes out an old Polaroid camera. It looks like a vintage item from a museum, but I remember when it was brand new. ‘Would you mind just taking a quick snap of the family? Who knows when we’ll all be together again?’
Conor takes the camera from her, we all – reluctantly – lean in, and he takes a photo, before passing the white square to Nana. She attaches it to her retro fridge with a strawberry-shaped magnet before the picture has even developed.
‘Thank you, Conor. I suppose Daisy’s room would be best for you to sleep in. It’s the only one with a spare bed. Unless . . . that would be too—’
‘I don’t mind,’ I say, a little too quickly. The thought of sleeping in the same room with Conor starts a little fantasy inside my head, one which I’ve had several times before. Lily pulls a face but I ignore her.
‘That’s fine with me. We’re all grown-ups. It’s just somewhere to sleep,’ Conor says, and my fantasy deflates. You can’t make someone fall in love with you. I don’t know much, but I do know that. The rest of my family exchange glances which I choose to ignore.
‘Do you remember where it is?’ Nana asks.
‘I’m sure Conor remembers everything about Daisy,’ says Rose.
It’s one of the few times she has spoken tonight, and her words feel like a slap.
I excuse myself and leave the kitchen. Conor does the same and follows. I don’t mind sharing a room if he doesn’t; he used to be like a brother to me. I don’t say a word as we walk through the hallway and past the cupboard under the stairs. I was locked in there once as a child and I give it a wide berth.
The staircase itself is a rather grand affair, and unique in that the entire wall next to it is covered with a hand-painted family tree. Time-warped branches stretch across cracked plaster from the floor to the ceiling. Nana did it – of course – illustrating our lives as though they were the same as her books; another story to be told. We’re all on there, dangling on fragile-looking twigs. She has painted us in the same style that she illustrates her children’s books, using a pot of black ink and various sized dip pens and brushes. Sometimes – if she is in ‘the mood’ – she will draw the outline of her characters with a reed from the garden. Then, when the ink is dry, she colours them in with palettes of watercolour paints. She likes to portray people, places and things the way she sees them, which rarely matches the view of those being drawn. Her characters are all as flawed as the world they live in, but children love them, maybe because of the honesty that shines through what they get to see and read. Other children’s authors seem to sugar-coat their books in an attempt to make the world less scary. But Nana always told it like it was, and her readers loved her for it.