The Path to the Sea Read online

  LIZ FENWICK was born in Massachusetts and after ten international moves she’s back in the United Kingdom with her husband and two mad cats. She made her first trip to Cornwall in 1989 and bought her home there seven years later. She’s a bit of a global nomad but her heart forever remains in Cornwall. For more information visit lizfenwick.com. Or find her procrastinating on Twitter @liz_fenwick

  Also by Liz Fenwick

  The Cornish House

  A Cornish Affair

  A Cornish Stranger

  Under a Cornish Sky

  A Cornish Christmas Carol

  The Returning Tide

  One Cornish Summer

  Copyright

  An imprint of HarperCollins Publishers Ltd

  1 London Bridge Street

  London SE1 9GF

  First published in Great Britain by HQ in 2019

  Copyright © Liz Fenwick 2019

  Liz Fenwick asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work.

  A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.

  This novel is entirely a work of fiction. The names, characters and incidents portrayed in it are the work of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or localities is entirely coincidental.

  All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, downloaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins.

  Ebook Edition © June 2019 ISBN: 9780008290511

  PRAISE FOR LIZ FENWICK

  ‘The queen of the contemporary Cornish novel’

  The Guardian

  ‘Full of warmth, wisdom and compassion . . . Liz Fenwick’s writing is vivid, satisfying and descriptive’

  Daily Express

  ‘Engrossing and romantic – a perfect holiday read’

  Rachel Hore

  ‘Wonderfully intriguing and compelling . . . Together with Liz’s usual beautiful evocation of the Cornish scenery this was a brilliant read’

  Barbara Erskine

  ‘Authentic and compelling . . . I loved it’

  Rosanna Ley

  ‘As heartbreaking as it is absorbing . . . I read it in one day’

  Kate Riordan

  ‘Intriguing, deeply felt and poignant’

  Elizabeth Buchan

  For the friend who has travelled the journey of my life, filling it with laughter, sharing the tears and the secrets, saving the memories and being an anchor when the waves of grief threatened to set me adrift.

  Although we have chosen different paths, you remind me of the starting point and how far we have travelled. Great friendship doesn’t require proximity, just great love.

  Thank you Christine.

  Two roads diverge in a wood, and I—

  I took the one less traveled by,

  And that has made all the difference.

  Robert Frost, ‘The Road Not Taken’

  Contents

  Cover

  About the Author

  Booklist

  Title Page

  Copyright

  PRAISE

  Dedication

  THE WAYMARKER

  1. Lottie

  SEA ROADS

  2. Diana

  3. Joan

  4. Lottie

  5. Lottie

  6. Joan

  7. Lottie

  8. Diana

  9. Lottie

  10. Diana

  11. Joan

  12. Diana

  13. Lottie

  14. Joan

  15. Lottie

  16. Diana

  17. Lottie

  18. Diana

  19. Lottie

  20. Joan

  21. Lottie

  22. Diana

  MILESTONE

  23. Joan

  24. Lottie

  25. Diana

  26. Diana

  27. Lottie

  28. Diana

  29. Lottie

  30. Joan

  31. Lottie

  32. Diana

  33. Joan

  34. Lottie

  35. Diana

  36. Diana

  37. Joan

  38. Diana

  39. Lottie

  40. Joan

  41. Diana

  42. Lottie

  CROSSROADS

  43. Lottie

  44. Joan

  45. Diana

  46. Lottie

  47. Diana

  48. Lottie

  49. Joan

  50. Diana

  51. Lottie

  52. Joan

  53. Diana

  54. Lottie

  55. Lottie

  56. Joan

  57. Lottie

  58. Lottie

  59. Diana

  60. Lottie

  61. Joan

  62. Diana

  63. Joan

  64. Joan

  65. Diana

  THE CAUSEWAY

  66. Lottie

  67. Lottie

  68. Joan

  69. Joan

  70. Lottie

  71. Joan

  72. Lottie

  73. Joan

  74. Diana

  75. Lottie

  76. Joan

  77. Lottie

  78. Joan

  79. Lottie

  80. Diana

  81. Joan

  82. Lottie

  83. Diana

  84. Lottie

  85. Joan

  DESIRE LINES

  86. Joan

  87. Lottie

  88. Joan

  89. Lottie

  90. Diana

  91. Diana

  Acknowledgements

  About the Publisher

  THE WAYMARKER

  1

  Lottie

  3 August 2008, 11.30 p.m.

  All was silent except for the sound of the waves reaching the beach. ‘Happy anniversary,’ he said.

  Lottie frowned. ‘Anniversary?’ Turning, she tried to see his expression. ‘Are you taking the piss?’

  He traced her mouth with his finger. ‘Would I do that?’

  ‘Yes.’

  She felt rather than heard his laugh as his body was stretched out next to hers, thigh to thigh, hip to hip.

  ‘We’ve been together for a month and a half.’

  ‘So, we’re celebrating half months as well as months?’

  He kissed her long and slow and she wasn’t sure what they had been talking about as his hand ran across the skin of her back, just above her jeans.

  ‘I celebrate every day, every minute, every second that you are mine.’

  Her breath caught and held, and she looked up to the sky. The milky way stretched above, vast and mystical. She was captivated. The universe and all its glory filled her. Here on this beach, wrapped in his arms, was where she wanted to be always. It could happen if they wanted it enough and she believed they did.

  ‘Alex?’

  ‘Yes?’ His arm tightened around her.

  ‘Will . . .’ Just then a shooting star sped across the sky and seemed to fall into the sea. She wished with all her heart that she could be in Alex’s arms for the rest of her life. She rolled onto him. ‘Did you see it too?’

  ‘The shooting star?’

  ‘Yes.’ He kissed her.

  ‘Did you make a wish?’

  He nodded and pu
shed her hair back, tucking it behind her ears. ‘I did.’

  ‘I wonder if it was the same thing?’

  ‘I hope so,’ he whispered against her ear.

  She brought her mouth to his, praying that he would be hers forever. ‘Tell me.’

  ‘No, because if I do it won’t come true.’ He pulled her even closer to him.

  ‘You are all my dreams come true,’ she said, wrapping her arms around him.

  He hummed Gramps’ favourite song, ‘A Kiss to Build a Dream On’, and she knew then they would make it happen . . . Alex and her and Cornwall forever.

  SEA ROADS

  2

  Diana

  3 August 2018, 12.00 p.m.

  St Austell Bay gleamed in the distance as Diana Trewin turned left towards Porthpean and Boskenna. Once she had longed for Boskenna with everything that was in her. Every night she would clutch her pillow to her chest and pretend she could hear the sea, then she would dream. In those dreams she wandered sunlit rooms, seeing glamour and hearing the echoes of music and laughter. She would discover new rooms and new treasures then she would wake and the world around wasn’t as bright or as beautiful. Those dreams still came to her, mostly at times of stress. She escaped to those visions of blue sea and sky, big lawns and a library filled with every book she could want. No real house could live up to what her mind had created.

  Last night she’d had that dream again. She’d walked Boskenna’s halls, seen the views and discovered new rooms. It was achingly familiar and yet entirely new. Something was forever just out of reach. She had always assumed that it was her father. If Diana found one more room, or the right book on the correct shelf then a secret door would open and her lost childhood with her father would appear. He would tell her that he’d just been playing hide and seek. She was his fierce huntress and she had found him. But no book, or panel or secret door would reveal her father, Allan Trewin. The morning light always showed the truth. Boskenna wasn’t a palace of delights but a big draughty dwelling, housing two old people.

  Now she was just moments away and the lane narrowed, funnelling her towards the beach. A sharp turn and she was through the gates. Yesterday the call that every adult child expects and dreads when their parents reach a certain age had come. ‘Your mother’s dying,’ George Russell, her mother’s second husband, had said. She wasn’t sure how she felt about returning to Boskenna or about her mother. But that didn’t matter. Some things have to be done.

  She parked next to George’s old Jag and grabbed her overnight bag. A shiver of recognition and homecoming covered her skin as she walked across the gravelled drive towards the house. She’d only been back to Boskenna a few times since she’d left it as an eight-year-old. Her heart had broken then – and a few more times since – and now it was whole, if patched. It performed its job a bit like the roof on the caretaker’s cottage to her left where a bit of blue tarpaulin covered an eave.

  Outside the front door she stopped and turned to the bay. The heat of the sun beat down on her and the happy cries rose up from the beach. The world went on, while somewhere inside her mother was dying. She paused, feeling that sharp contrast between life and death, between the holiday world on the beach below and the everyday life in Boskenna. Even back in 1962 when she had spent her last summer holiday here, Boskenna existed on a different plain. She had tripped lightly among the intelligent and interesting, the suntanned and the salt-encrusted. That was all she remembered because tears had erased the important bits.

  A seagull landed on the lawn and peered at her. The tilt of his head asked her why she was here. Duty she guessed. She pushed a piece of gravel with her toe. Diana and her mother, Joan Trewin Russell, had nothing to say to each other. They hadn’t for years. If Diana were honest this was a sadness she had sought to lose in her work. Travelling the world as a war correspondent had filled the void for years, but now she was slowing down and that left gaps. Unwanted thoughts and questions had begun to seep into the spaces.

  Looking at the lawn, a memory of playing tag with her mother flashed in Diana’s mind. She was laughing and so was her mother. Once they must have been close but since her father died over fifty years ago, that had evaporated. Her mother loved Diana in her way. Diana had wanted for nothing . . . except her. Everything changed and she knew it was because of that long weekend fifty-six years ago.

  The front door was open, and she couldn’t stand on the threshold forever, as tempting as the view was. George would be around somewhere. Striding in, she put the past aside to focus on what was happening now.

  In the hallway the temperature dropped, and she shivered. The newspaper on the large round table in the centre of the hall flapped. Due to her early start she hadn’t read the papers cover to cover as she normally would, but she’d listened to today’s stories on the radio. They were eerily similar to those in her last summer here. She flattened the pages and placed an empty vase on top of it. In 1962 the world had been on the brink of nuclear war with the Soviet Union and currently the great bear was roaring again. The world moved forward and thought things would be better, but people never learned.

  She peered into the drawing room then the snug, but George wasn’t in sight and she was reluctant to call out. All was quiet aside from a lawnmower and the distant beach sounds. The small kitchen was empty too. There was nothing for it but to head up to her mother’s room. She dropped her bag on an empty chair and took the stairs slowly, trying to prepare. She had seen the dead and the dying, but she knew this was different despite her ambivalent feelings.

  On the landing she hesitated. A cough echoed down the hallway. Her mother was still alive. Diana was not too late to say goodbye. The floorboards complained as she walked the corridor. A closet popped open as she passed, and she glanced away. It would be full and what on earth would Diana do with it all? Maybe she would be lucky, and it would be empty. The house had been let for nearly thirty years. It wasn’t until George retired in 1990 that Boskenna had become her mother’s home again. Diana stopped. She’d seen her mother’s will years ago. Boskenna would come to her but George had the right to live in it until his death. Her mother, of course, had expected to outlive George. That was the normal order of things but that hadn’t worked for her grandmother either. Caroline Penquite, née Carew, had died of cirrhosis of the liver long before her husband Edward had passed away. Boskenna had bypassed him and gone straight to Diana’s mother.

  There were seven steps up to the landing in front of her mother’s room. An odd detail to recall but she used to hop up and down them. Now the door was wide open, and the smell of illness hung in the air. Every few seconds as she stood there, she heard a raspy breath. Yet she remained motionless, staring not at her mother propped up in a chair but out of the windows. This room commanded an all-encompassing view, or it would have done if the trees hadn’t been allowed to grow untended.

  Boskenna had been added to over the years as the wealth of the family had increased. This room sat in the extension made in the 1840s. The ceilings were higher, and the sea-facing wall curved out towards the bay. Twenty years later the north end of the house was extended in the same way. As with all the windows at the front of the house, these framed a view. Gribben Head baked in the August sun while boats with white sails dotted the bay. It was postcard perfect, but what pithy lines would she pen on the back? Mother unwell but perfect holiday weather . . .

  She could make out Carrickowel Point, the little headland to the left, which seemed to spring from the end of Boskenna’s garden. Black Head to the right was just visible through the trees. Beauty could stop her in her tracks, but that wasn’t what was holding her here on the threshold. Fear was. It was foolish because in the course of her work she had walked straight up to men holding guns pointed at her heart, but here she was rooted to the spot afraid of facing her dying mother. What could she say? She’d thought about this the whole drive and she’d rehearsed words and phrases. ‘I love you,’ being one of them. But then the questions that had gnawed at
her for years popped up. They would not sink down into the recesses of her mind. Like children’s toy ducks pushed to the bottom of the bath, they kept bobbing back up bringing unwanted emotions with them.

  Clenching her hands, she took one step after the other, keeping her gaze focused out of the windows. A gull swooped down from the roof and she jumped. She was hardened and had seen death in its worst forms, but her head refused to turn to look at her mother.

  George had been right to call her, but it would have been easier to come for the funeral. Being here now still gave her time, and time demanded action in some way. She exhaled. Standing here she couldn’t avoid thinking of her father, missing what she could barely remember. She’d been eight when he died, and she only had one photo of the two of them. Years ago, when she’d asked for others her mother had shrugged and said she didn’t know what had happened to them. Diana had found that hard to believe. Why wouldn’t she know? But her mother had never changed her answer.

  Around this one photo she had structured all her memories. The housekeeper at the time, Mrs Hoskine, had sent it to Diana at boarding school. Closing her eyes, she could envision the washed-out colours of the snapshot. Diana was on her father’s shoulders and they were looking out to the bay. Both of them were smiling and pointing. On that day she had been a pirate about to sail the seven seas but always to return home to Boskenna. Now, home and Boskenna were two words she wouldn’t put in the same sentence. Diana’s last visit, ten years ago, had been because of her daughter, Lottie . . . artistic, flighty, and too trusting.

  Her mother wheezed, and Diana turned to look at her. She had known what Lottie needed right from the start. Diana had been wrong. Not just then but in so much of her life. Yet she was sixty-four and still at the peak of her profession, about ready to slow down and allow others to move into her shoes. Her career, she was proud of but not much else and certainly not her mothering skills. Those she had learned from the woman in the chair. How she had longed for the closeness that Lottie had with her grandmother. Jealousy left a bitter taste and even now it lingered about the sides of her tongue.

  Her mother’s eyes were closed, and Diana watched the laboured rise and fall of her chest. Her brain told her to speak, to make her presence known. In the mirror on the wardrobe door she caught sight of her reflection but also glimpsed something else. She blinked. It was a dark-haired child, but there was no child in the room. She was imagining it. She was alone with her mother. The only figure in the mirror was Diana. Noticing the slight stoop, she straightened her shoulders.