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A
‘What’s Kate’s favourite colour?’ A
‘Red,’ he replied without hesitation. ‘I’ll see you later, Mother – about six.’
A
She walked inside and looked at herself in the mirror.
‘All your life, A
She’d vowed never to go out again, yet now she found herself putting on her hat, taking some money from the bakery box, and wrapping her hand around Levi’s walking stick. What would she do if the panic started? She couldn’t be bothered with it. All she could see was the excitement of coming home with a basket of red wool, and a pattern for a cardigan.
A
On a blazing hot Saturday in July, it seemed to Freddie that the whole day was encapsulated in one moment of time. It was like the centre of a sparkle, where all the rays of light converged, focusing the essence of his dreams into one intense minute of pure light.
All day he’d waited for the moment to come. He could think of little else as he and Kate travelled down to Weymouth. They got off the train, walked hand in hand down the street towards the clock tower, and arrived at the promenade railings. Seeing the sea for the first time stu
For once, Kate was quiet as she watched his reaction, and waited for him to speak, but he didn’t. He was far away, under the waves, following exotic fish into caves, watching shoals of them catching the light as they twisted and turned.
‘Well, say something!’ Kate prompted him after ten minutes of contemplative gazing.
‘Ah – well – words might spoil it,’ he said. ‘I didn’t expect it to be so blue, well blue-green like a kingfisher. And I didn’t know it would be so vast.’ He pointed at the horizon. ‘That sharp line, ’tis like the blade of a knife. What would I see if I went out there?’
‘France,’ said Kate.
Freddie digested that information as he followed her down some steps to the sand. France had been pink in his geography book at school, and that was all he knew about it.
As usual, Kate kicked off her shoes, looked at him bewitchingly, and went ru
‘Taste it. It’s SALTY.’ Kate offered him some sea water in the palm of her hand. He dipped a finger, tasted the salt, then looked into her amber eyes. Is this the moment? he thought. No wait. Wait and be sure.
Someone was guiding him that day, Freddie knew. The same feeling of being in a bubble of light with Kate lingered all day as if they were cupped in the womb of a shining angel whose wings covered the sea. He fancied there were golden ribbons in the air around them, winding, binding them together. He wanted to tell Kate, but it was hard to find an opportunity. She was so busy introducing him to the wonders of the seaside, collecting shells, popping seaweed, and building sand-castles. Then came the picnic, leaning against the hot sea wall, the taste of butter and cucumber, the burn of the sun on his white feet.
The moment came just one hour before the train home. They were sitting on the end of a wooden jetty, dangling their feet in the water, and Kate was playfully trying to link her toes with his. Her sunburned arm kept brushing against his, and the sea-breeze was blowing through her hair. The sunlight was sparkling on the water.
‘Kate.’
There was something compelling in the way he lowered his voice an octave, and the way his eyes looked at her, unwavering and deep. Kate stopped giggling and paid attention.
‘Now I’m going to tell you something,’ he began, and he reached out and took her hands in his. ‘In all of my life, I’ve never done anything major without thinking about it first, and I’ve thought and thought about this, Kate. I’ve loved you ever since I saw you riding down the lane on Daisy. I’ve kept an eye on you, in secret, all those years, and when I got the chance to meet you that day at the station, I saw something in you that is very rare and beautiful. No, don’t say anything – hear me out.’ Freddie’s voice deepened with the passion he was feeling, and Kate listened, spellbound by his intensity. ‘I don’t just mean beautiful to look at, Kate, because you are, but it’s something beyond that, some magic in your eyes. You’re a beautiful person. You’re kind and full of life and – and hope. I think you are pure goodness. And when you went I was – devastated. I put my heart and soul into carving the stone angel, and her face is your face because I carried you in my heart all those years, Kate.’ Freddie paused and squeezed her hands. He looked at the sunlight in her eyes and knew from the way she was listening that he could say everything in his heart. ‘No one else knows this, but I can pick up feelings from touching stone, as if it’s a storehouse of everything that has happened close to it. So when I’d finished the stone angel, I stood out there in the twilight, with the planet Venus bright in the west, and I put my two hands on the stone angel and recited a poem, one that says everything I feel about you, Kate, and I could feel the stone absorbing my words like a prayer.’
‘What was it? The prayer?’ Kate asked, her eyes never leaving his face.
‘It’s W. B. Yeats again.’ Freddie took out his wallet and extracted a dog-eared square of cardboard, cut from a cigarette packet covered in tiny neat handwriting.
‘My gra
‘No – you read it to me, please,’ implored Kate. ‘I love to hear your voice.’
‘Oh all right.’ Freddie studied the poem for a moment, then slowly read it in a voice so quiet and deep that it blended with the whispering of the sea.
‘Had I the heavens’ embroidered cloths
Enwrought with gold and silver light,
The blue and the dim and the dark cloths
Of night and light and the half light,
I would spread the cloths under your feet: