There was a knock on the door. Nicholas went to answer it, but she stopped him in his tracks with a glare.
‘This is my house and I shall answer my own door, thank you very much.’
Nicholas fell back, admonished. Evelyn stepped to the door and opened it wide, without even using the chain. She could feel Nicholas’s irritation at her flagrant breaches of his security protocol, but she didn’t care.
Pip was on the doorstep dressed in her ubiquitous jeans and some sort of baggy top. Evelyn despaired of young people. Where was their sense of style? No one ever seemed to make any effort with their appearance these days, opting instead for comfort, which was all very well but not in the least attractive.
‘Morning,’ said Pip brightly.
Was it Evelyn’s imagination or did she look a little better today? The dark rings around her eyes were still there, but her cheeks looked to have more of a bloom to them.
‘Good morning, Pip,’ replied Evelyn. ‘Have you met my nephew, Nicholas? He seems to think that you wish me ill will.’
Pip looked confused and then horrified as she shook her head vehemently. ‘Mr Mountcastle,’ she began, ‘I can assure you that you have no reason to . . .’
Evelyn put up a hand to stop her. ‘I’ve told him all that,’ she said. ‘So, shall we go? If I don’t return, Nicholas, you may assume that Philippa Rose here has buried me in a sand dune.’
‘I’m just looking out for you,’ said Nicholas in a tone that might have been taken for petulance.
‘And I’m grateful,’ Evelyn called back over her shoulder.
The sky outside was blue, but there was a bracing wind whipping up across the sea and Evelyn stood for a moment to breathe it in. It had been a while since she had had the salty air in her nostrils and her lungs, and it felt good but also a little overwhelming to be out in so much space. Was that how agoraphobia began, she wondered? Would that have been her fate? Well, she wasn’t having any of it. Now that she was finally back outside, she felt neither panic nor dread. It merely reminded her of how amazing the place where she lived was, and made her feel slightly ashamed that she had forgotten. In fact, standing outside her house looking out across the wide ocean to the horizon beyond, it felt good to be alive, which was something she hadn’t managed to feel for a long time.
Pip seemed in no hurry to get going and was waiting patiently at her side until she was ready to move on. Evelyn nodded at her. It seemed there was more at stake here than just a walk, but she couldn’t quite grasp what it was. Tiny green shoots of something new, maybe, and not just for her. She hoped Pip was feeling this embryonic connection between the pair of them as well.
They crossed the road so they could wander along the wide promenade that ran alongside the beach.
‘Shall we walk along to the pier?’ asked Pip. ‘Is that too far?’
Evelyn was horrified that anyone should have to ask her if she could manage the couple of hundred yards from her front door to the pier but then, when she thought about it, it wasn’t such a ridiculous question. She had no idea how far her legs would carry her any more, it being so long since she had last put them to the test. That said, she was feeling confident.
‘I think that’ll be fine,’ she said to Pip with a reassuring smile. ‘And when we get there, we can have a restorative cup of tea and a sticky bun before we set out on the return journey.’
‘Do you need anything else?’ Pip asked tentatively. ‘Would you like to take my arm?’
Bless her for offering, thought Evelyn. From what she knew of Pip so far, she didn’t think arm-linking with old ladies was something that came naturally to her.
‘Thank you,’ she said, ‘but I think I’ll be all right. Isn’t that breeze wonderful? I remember when Scarlet was a baby. The first time I took her outside in the wind she didn’t know what to make of it at all. I don’t suppose there’s much weather in the womb, so it must have been a bit of a shock. The look on her face when the wind blew into her. Priceless. She couldn’t work out how to breathe for a moment. It was worrying, and then extremely sweet.’ Evelyn smiled at the memory, so old and yet so very fresh. It felt good to be talking about her daughter after all this time, and she resolved to do it more often.
They strolled, side by side, along the promenade towards the pier. As they walked, the sun peeped out from between the clouds and white light danced on the waves, making the sea sparkle. Optimistic holidaymakers sat in deckchairs and on towels whilst their small children, dressed in little swimming outfits that covered every inch of their bodies, scampered backwards and forwards to the water. When she had brought Scarlet to the beach she had worn her little red polka-dot costume, or sometimes just her knickers, if it was an impromptu visit. It had been, Evelyn felt now, a simpler time.