‘I don’t think I’ve ever been that cold,’ I say, curled up in the corner of the sofa with a hot chocolate.
‘Not even when you fell in the ocean?’ Mack is in the armchair beside me, his laptop on his knees. He lit a fire while I took a long hot bath and I’m finally feeling as if my inner temperature is somewhere close to normal again.
‘That was more shock than cold,’ I say. ‘Today took it to a whole new level.’
He’s been quiet, looking through the images from the cavern. I haven’t seen them yet. I don’t know if the feelings inside me translated on to film or if I just look like a crazy woman drowning in a gloomy pond. And then he turns his screen towards me.
‘This one is my favourite,’ he says.
I don’t speak for a while. It’s probably the best photograph anyone will ever take of me. I’m suspended on my back in the water, my hair floating around me on the surface, eyes closed, arms flung wide. I’m smiling, lost in the moment. I’m a cavewoman, I’m a sea queen, I’m a force of nature.
‘Thank you,’ I say. ‘I’m glad you were there.’
He closes his laptop and moves to sit on the sofa with me. ‘Me too,’ he says. ‘I’ve never seen anything like you today.’
I put my empty mug on the floor and we lie down together, warmed by the flames in the hearth. Whenever I look back on the final day of my twenties, I’ll remember the fire and the ice, Julia’s galleon on the cave wall, and the woman I became as I swam in that pool.
Cleo
24 October
Salvation Island
DEARLY BELOVED ME
The weather gods have decided to blow away the rain clouds in honour of my thirtieth birthday. I’ve been awake for about ten minutes, lingering in the comfort of the warm bed, in the buffer zone between sleep and my nervous anxiety about the day ahead. Mack wasn’t here when I opened my eyes, but I can smell coffee on the stove and there’s a fresh fire in the hearth. ‘Happy Birthday, Cleo,’ I say into the quietness of the lodge. ‘Love you.’ It feels weird. It sounds weird. But today is about self-acceptance, and that means it’s about love, so I’m starting the day as I mean to go on.
My dress hangs ready, a froth of off-white vintage cotton. As I lie here in my pyjamas, I feel the slow roll of pleasurable anticipation in my gut. What would it be like to wake up on your actual wedding day, I wonder? How would it feel to know that in a few short hours you were going to vow to spend for ever with someone? Would I be a bag of nerves or serene and full of joyful certainty? At least I know one thing for sure – I’m not going to stand myself up at the altar. I went to a wedding once where the bride stood the groom up, it was a proper circus. Not someone I knew all that well, thankfully, but toe-curling all the same. It seemed unnecessarily cruel to allow things to get to that stage before bailing – the poor guy was in bits. But then even the best marriages sometimes end sooner than you expect. My mum must have woken full of wonder on her wedding day, unaware she was only going to have a few precious years with the man she adored. And Mack – he obviously expected his love story to last longer. Would they still have gone through with it if they’d known what lay down the road for them? Or would they have chosen to be alone, avoid the heartache? Maybe I’m doing the right thing after all … I can just about trust myself not to break my own heart.
I wonder where Mack has got to as I cross to the kitchen to grab coffee. We fell asleep on the sofa last night and he woke me just after midnight, murmured birthday wishes as he carried me to bed. As ways go to start a new decade, it was up there. Grabbing a blanket to wrap around my shoulders, I push my feet into some wellies and head out on to the porch to fill my lungs with fresh Salvation air. Leaning on the railings with my mug between my hands to warm them, I see that someone – Mack, of course – has written the number thirty with shells on the beach, two huge numbers that will stay there until the sea plucks them from the sand later. It touches me. In London, my birthday would be a flurry of texts, calls, streamers on my desk, cocktails in a noisy bar later. I’m freshly glad of my decision not to check my phone any more while I’m here, I don’t want that kind of normal life intrusion today. I’m keeping Ali up to date via email and I’ve chatted with Mum on FaceTime from the café a few times. I have her card and birthday gift with me already, she mailed it to me before I left. Here, I’m greeted by dolphins, as if they know it’s my birthday and have come to offer their best wishes. I watch them for a while, the wind chilling my cheeks, and it’s profoundly peaceful. This is my thirty.