Back

We climbed up the path into dunes, slipping in the soft sand, and then zig-zagged down onto the beach. Somewhere along the way, Lucy reached out and took my hand.

The beach was small, mostly sandy, and totally empty of people. The sea was breaking over some black rocks, and there was a line of stranded seaweed halfway up the beach, and three of four lines of pebbles, larger sizes further from the sea. There was the usual tide-blown detritus, broken crates, pieces of fishing nets, and your traditional driftwood.

We walked along by the side of the sea, carrying our shoes, and dodging in and out of the water as the waves came in.

"Home tomorrow?" I asked, watching clouds beginning to form out on the horizon.
"I suppose. But. I don't want to sound like Dave, but... we should formulate some plans. I want to make some plans."
"Weren't there some things you wanted to follow up? You know, St Guthlac Sur Mer kind of things?"

"It almost seems like a dream now, but yeah. A couple of days ago it was almost all I was thinking about, but now... Something about this place, and being here with you, and being away from all those reunion people. Seems less important now."

"Still interesting though. Not everything interesting has to be important too."

"That's a very you thing to say. But you know? I've seen him a couple of times, that bloke that nobody knows, and I'm beginning to think he was nothing to do with the reunion, but that he was following us."

"You kidding?"

"No. He seems... for a start, I think he's the wrong age to have anything to do with us lot. He's too young. And he looks all wrong. I can't explain. But he didn't fit the picture."

After a quietly beautiful afternoon on the beach, looking for mica and poking dead jellyfish with sticks, it was appropriate that the weather had turned for the drive home.
Because we'd missed our original ferry crossing, we just drove straight up to Calais Coquelles and dived onto Le Shuttle. It was an easy drive, punctuated by a couple of rest stops and the odd toll booth. At Le Pont de Normandie, Lucy wanted to stop and take some photos, so we did that.

The sky was moody and it was windy and cold, though it had temporarily stopped raining. She took some shots, and then we headed off again, watching the rain sluice off the windscreen, but not really wanting the journey to end.

Back in Blighty, the roads seemed impossibly frantic and other drivers stupidly aggressive and selfish, the usual story. We drove up the M20 and then round the M25, and back down the M3 again. After starting fairly early in the morning, we'd now been on the road 12 hours, and I was punch drunk, seeing the road roll by every time I blinked my eyes.

"Stay the night," she said, so I did.

And then the next day, she said, "Stay a few days," so I did.

After a couple of days, she left me to look through her record collection and her bookshelves while she went to work. I spent an hour or two talking Jill, her lodger, but didn't really have much in common with her. Jill asked me if I was going to be a permanent fixture.

"Not yet," I said.
"Maybe someday," I said.
"I hope," I said.

Eventually I had to go home. One night when she came home from work and we were eating, I said I ought. She nodded, finishing her mouthful.

"At work, I've told them I've got to go on a field trip to Lincolnshire, do some research. And that after that I want to go back to the Vendée, do some more research. You're not too far from Lincolnshire are you? One over?"
"Yeah... you mean?"
"I could use your place as a base. For a while. I mean, if you don't...?"

I didn't.

So it turned out that I stayed a couple more days, and after Lucy had left a few instructions with Jill, we headed north.