be. He breathed out heavily, his arm reaching to the wall for support. He forced himself to be calm for there was nothing he could change now.
He went to the window and opened it. A fresh breeze ruffled the curtains and blew across the room, a spirit chasing death from the air. To Paul it felt as if Gwen had never existed. Everything of her was gone apart from the pictures and the memories.
Paul went back downstairs and out of the house into the fresh Cornish morning, walking through the maze of narrow cobbled streets that ran like shadowy corridors between the fishermen’s houses of Penwryn. As he descended the hill he caught glimpses of the long lazy sweep of Penwryn bay between the houses and, beyond the bay, the distant headlands that jutted out from the land. Already they were disappearing into a heat haze.
Paul turned right, cutting across the hill to avoid the harbor and town square. The road came out into the open above Penwryn’s second bay, a small sheltered cove that nestled behind a long, densely wooded headland that stuck out into the sea.
Paul stopped and leaned against a wall by the roadside where he could look down at the bay with its small promenade. Children were already swimming or running around the beach, dodging through the sailing and fishing boats lined up on one side. Paul stared at the headland that ran along behind the bay, framing it with green. He saw and heard the seagulls wheeling around the sky above him, their guttural calls filling the air.
A faint breeze carried the sound and smell of the sea up to him and he inhaled deeply, letting the noise of waves breaking up the beach wash over him as it washed over the sand below. He gazed at the scene before him, thought of the times when he had stood here when he was younger, full of the excitement of imagination, summer and holidays. Within the scene were his memories, entwined within it like a tapestry that only he could see, and each time he came the tapestry became thicker and stronger. Now her shadow lay across everything, a physical presence that would lie across the sea whenever he left and wait for his return.
Bottling up the emotion Paul pushed away from the wall and turned. A few meters away a boy was standing in the street but Paul did not look at him as he passed.
“She’s dead isn’t she?”
Paul jumped, stopping in his tracks. After a second he turned, eyes flashing with anger. The boy was facing him. He was thin and wiry, bright eyes staring back at him from a face streaked with grime. He held Paul’s stare, a strange defiance in his eyes.
“Do I know you?”
“My uncle,” said the boy. “He’s been waiting. He says things about you.”
“What do you mean?” asked Paul. “Who’s your uncle?”
Suddenly the boy looked scared and began to back away.
“I shouldn’t be saying this. I shouldn’t be talking to you.”
He was several paces away now, standing next to a gap between two houses. Paul stepped forward to follow him but the boy held his hand up as if to stop him.
“Don’t stay mister. Please, don’t stay,” he cried out before he turned and was gone.
Paul stood there for a few seconds, the image of the boy, with his clothes scruffy and worn, still before him. The question remained in his mind. What the hell had he meant?
“Dad.”
“Paul, is that you?”
“Yes.”
Paul slipped more coins into the telephone, emotion catching his stomach as he heard his father’s voice. It was early evening and as Paul had walked down the hill he had watched the sun begin its final descent from the sky.
“It’s Gwen, isn’t it?”
“Yes. Peacefully. Early this morning.”
“I’m sorry,” said his dad, his voice almost a whisper. “I just wish your mum was…”
“Don’t say it Dad,” interrupted Paul.
There was an uncomfortable pause.
“Is Alex there?”
“She’s got a big thing on at work. I don’t think she will be back till late,” replied his dad.
Paul’s stomach tightened. His sister was only two years older than him but it felt like a bigger gulf between them. She knew the state Aunt Gwen was in yet she still put her job first. It made him angry.
“My phone’s dead. I lost my charger,” he said in a flat voice.
“I will tell her, Paul,” said his dad.
“It’s not enough,” he replied.
“There are a lot of things going on in your sister’s life right now,” said