Letters from Lighthouse Cottage by McNamara Ali

Author:McNamara, Ali
Language: eng
Format: epub, azw3
ISBN: 978-0-7515-5864-7
Publisher: Little, Brown Book Group
Published: 2016-07-14T04:00:00+00:00

Part Three

2001

Twenty

‘Where on earth is this place, Grace? The back of beyond?’

I look over at the man driving me through Norfolk today. He’s wearing a navy suit – tailor-made; a pristine white shirt – designer-label; and a purple silk tie with matching socks – also designer; and he suits all of them. He turns to me and winks.

‘It might seem like that to you, my urban, city-dweller friend,’ I reply, trying to put on a stern voice, ‘but Sandybridge is my home, and I’ll thank you to talk kindly of it!’

I turn away from him to take in the view as we travel the last few miles through Norfolk towards the coast. Surrounding us is the greenness I always notice when I make this journey home; the never-ending trees that form tunnels for us to drive through, the farmers’ fields that house crops, cattle, horses and pigs, and scattered amongst this greenness the small towns and villages filled with warm terracotta-brick houses, churches, and large open village greens. And today we are spoilt as this vista of rural Norfolk unfolds before us, because we have the added bonus of the sun shining down on it all, to make it look extra special for our visit.

‘Not sulking with me are you, Grace?’ Simon asks as we join the A148 and follow the signs for Fakenham. ‘I was only having a joke.’

I turn to face him; Simon is unlike any other man I’ve dated – not that there have been an awful lot in my thirty years. For a start, he’s a fair bit older than me – he’ll be forty later this year – and he’s a lot more sensible. But I like that; I’d needed a steadying influence in my life, a life that had been pretty wild since I left university.

I’d met Simon on an archaeological dig I was taking part in in southern France, not long after I finished my studies, and we’d quickly bonded over our despair that we weren’t discovering much in what was suspected to be an early Norman settlement. We were the only ones on the dig who ever seemed to question that we might be wasting our time camping in the middle of nowhere night after night, spending our days digging and sifting minuscule areas of soil and finding very little for all our troubles. But if nothing else we gained a relationship from that miserable experience – eventually. It was years later when we bumped into each other again in New York and found out we were both working in the city. We’d agreed we must ‘hang out’ together sometime, and we’ve been hanging out in each other’s company ever since.

‘Of course not!’ I smile. ‘I’m just enjoying being back here again, it’s been some time since I came home for a visit.’

Fourteen months to be precise, since the awful day that had been Charlie’s father’s funeral.

Peter had a stroke, a bad one, and he’d been hospitalised immediately down in Norwich. But sadly there was nothing they could do, and he never left hospital again.

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