The Trouble With Choices Page 21

  Sophie took off across the beach, jogging through the soft sand back to their camp so she was breathless by the time she arrived. ‘What is it?’ But she looked at the empty chair and already knew. ‘Where’s Nan?’ she said.

  ‘I was hoping you might know that.’

  ‘She was right there,’ Dan said at her shoulder, ‘fast asleep a minute or two ago.’

  Beth had her hands on her forehead. ‘Well, she’s not there now.’

  ‘Maybe she woke up and wondered where everyone was.’ Sophie looked up and down the beach, hoping to catch a glimpse of Nan’s navy-and-white spotted dress among the few scattered groups along the shoreline, but there was no sign of it or her. She wanted to rule out the possibility that Nan might have wandered the way she’d gone with Dan, but she couldn’t. They’d been so intent on their conversation, the sky could have fallen and they wouldn’t have realised. ‘Where the hell could she be?’ Sophie hadn’t been gone that long, surely Nan couldn’t be too far away. One by one the others came back from the water and gathered around dripping wet.

  ‘What’s that Joanie gone and done this time?’ grumbled Pop, the bottoms of his shorts soaked through from paddling and getting caught out by the unpredictable waves.

  ‘It’s okay,’ Sophie said, because there was no reason to panic, even if the thought of her eighty-one-year-old Nan wandering off by herself didn’t exactly thrill her. ‘She’s gone for a walk, that’s all. She can’t have gone too far.’

  ‘Silly woman,’ said Pop, adding a grunt for good measure as he dropped into a chair and swiped sand from his shorts. ‘She might have left a note. She never leaves a bloody note.’

  They all looked at Pop. ‘What?’ Dan said. ‘When doesn’t she leave a note?’

  ‘When she goes off on one of her walks. Never tells me she’s going and I never know when she’s coming back, and most times she can’t even remember where she went.’

  ‘Why didn’t you tell us this?’ said Beth.

  ‘I did, that day you came around and she wasn’t there and I said she’d gone for a walk. Why does nobody ever listen to me?’

  Beth’s face turned white. ‘I thought it was just a walk. I didn’t know …’

  Sophie felt a cold ooze of fear dribble down her spine, and by the look in her siblings’ eyes, they all felt it, too. ‘How long’s this been going on?’

  ‘I don’t know. She does it all the time. She was in the middle of making lunch the other day and I heard the screen door slam, and I ended up having to make my own bloody sandwich.’

  ‘Oh my God,’ said Beth, her eyes wide as she exchanged looks with Sophie. ‘It’s worse than we thought.’

  ‘I’ll go this way,’ Sophie said, pointing down the beach towards the rocky point. ‘There’re a few people around today, someone must have seen her if she’s gone by.’

  Beth nodded. ‘Then I’ll go the other way. Siena, come on, we’ll check up the stairs first, in case she’s headed back to the car,’ and the young girl dumped her new body board on the sand and sprinted off across the beach towards the stairs.

  ‘What’s all the bloody fuss?’ said Pop, opening a Tupperware container and helping himself to another piece of shortbread. ‘She always wanders back when she’s good and ready.’

  ‘You,’ Sophie said, ‘you stay right here, promise me, Pop?’

  ‘I’m not going anywhere. Not while there’s any of your shortbread left, girlie.’

  ‘I’ll stay with Pop,’ said Lucy and Sophie smiled her thanks, setting off down the beach towards the rocks and so busy beating herself up for leaving her nan that for a minute she didn’t realise Dan was right there, at her shoulder.

  ‘I wanted to talk to you, about before.’

  ‘God, Dan, enough already. I get that you think Nick should be involved.’

  ‘No, I wanted to apologise for taking you away from Nan. She looked sound asleep to me.’

  ‘Gawd,’ she said, her eyes scanning the undulating golden sands of the beach for some hint of Nan. ‘Sorry for jumping down your throat. And for the record, I thought she was dead to the world, too.’ She shuddered, replaying her words. ‘Shouldn’t have said that, sorry.’

  She peeled her eyes away from the beach and the waves crashing on sand and stone and looked at him. ‘Did you have any idea Nan had been going off on these walks?’

  ‘None at all.’

  ‘You don’t think …’ she started.

  ‘I don’t think what?’

  ‘You don’t think Han’s right? She’s been worried Nan was starting to lose it and wanted her to get checked out, but she couldn’t get her in to see anyone before Christmas.’

  ‘You mean Alzheimer’s or something?’ He shrugged. ‘I hope not, but they’re both getting on. And Nan seems kind of forgetful sometimes.’

  ‘I’m forgetful. Everyone I know is forgetful.’ Seagulls standing on the shore scattered before them. ‘But wandering. I don’t like that.’

  ‘No,’ Dan said, sounding grim, ‘neither do I.’

  A bunch of teenagers sat on the sand at the top of the beach sharing a bag of hot chips, and Dan went to ask if they’d seen a woman walk by.

  Sophie surveyed what was left of the beach, more rocky outcrops than sand from here on, ending with the granite boulders of the jutting headland and the tide was coming in. Surely there was no way Nan could have come this far. Beth had probably found her up in the car park waiting by the car, thinking she’d been deserted, poor love.

  She turned her head towards the group when Dan hadn’t returned, and saw one of the boys pointing, and didn’t know whether to feel relief or fear when Dan came sprinting back across the ankle-deep sand.

  ‘One of them saw an old lady in a spotted dress walk by a few minutes ago, although he thought she was walking a dog. She went round those rocks that way.’

  Sophie looked at the waves that crashed on a stone platform and whooshed in towards the jutting rocks above in a seething, foaming rage before being sucked out again and swallowed back into the sea. The tide was coming in, but if you timed it right, you could make it around the rocky outcrop to the narrow stretch of beach beyond, but if you got it wrong, you’d end up knocked off your feet. ‘Are they sure they came this way?’ she said, the sand patches between the rocks wiped clean of any trace of footprints.

  ‘Wait here, I’ll take a look,’ Dan said, watching for a break in the waves.

  It was worth a try, she supposed, the chances it was Nan were pretty slim, even if she could have made it this far.

  She pulled out her phone, frustrated by its ongoing silence, toying with the idea of calling triple zero if she didn’t hear from someone soon that they’d found her. Then above the crash of waves and the cries of seagulls she heard Dan shout. And she dodged a path between waves and rock and ran.

  She found them under a curve of rock, a semi-cave dug out by the relentless tide with a high sand shelf at the back, where Nan was perched. Dan was helping her up, and Sophie could see her legs and the bottom of her dress were already soaked from the incoming tide. ‘Nan,’ she said, relief at war with fear, because this was so not like her nan. ‘What are you doing here?’

  She looked a little perplexed as she blinked up at Dan and Sophie. ‘I needed a sit-down,’ she said, ‘and it was nice and shady, but then I got splashed.’

  ‘Oh, Nan, where were you going? Everyone was frantic.’

  ‘Were they? I was just looking for the whales. There were whales, weren’t there. We saw whales here, didn’t we, Clarry?’ She searched for Pop, looking bewildered and confused and utterly fragile. Sophie bundled Nan in the crook of her arm and looked at Dan. Even though she half suspected the answer, she asked, ‘What’s going on?’

  ‘I don’t want to think about it,’ Dan said, his jaw set, as the next foaming wash of wave wrapped around their ankles, ‘but let’s get her out of here.’

  Between them they negotiated Nan out of the cave and around the rocky outcrop, and found a higher spot with a
flattened rock where she could safely sit and rest. ‘It’s too far to get her back. You wait with Nan, and I’ll bring a car closer.’

  ‘Bring back a nice cup of tea while you’re at it,’ said Nan, suddenly sounding more like her old self by the minute. ‘I’m dying of thirst.’

  And in spite of the cannonball of fear weighing heavily in her gut, Sophie felt a spark of hope as she pulled out her phone to let the others know they’d found her. Maybe she’d just had some kind of turn, because if Nan was still barking out the orders, they hadn’t completely lost her yet.

  42

  Hannah

  ‘Merry Christmas,’ Declan said with his dimpled smile as he came to greet Hannah at the car. Her heart gave a little leap, and any thought of guilt at her secret tryst evaporated right there. He really was the most gorgeous man and she wasn’t ready to share him with anyone.

  ‘Happy Christmas yourself,’ she said, reaching for her bag. ‘I hope you don’t mind, but I came straight from the beach.’

  He wrapped his arms around her and pulled her into his kiss. ‘Mmm,’ he said, releasing her a good half-minute later. ‘Salty, like a mermaid. Just the way I like them,’ before he kissed her again.

  Hannah’s knees were weak from his kisses by the time he hoisted her bag over his shoulder and took her hand to lead her inside. They were weaker still after he peeled off her beach cover and her sandy swimsuit and stepped naked into the shower with her. His mouth kissed its way down her body until he was on his knees before her and his head between her thighs, his clever tongue turning Christmas into fireworks day.

  ‘I thought you said you liked your mermaids salty,’ she said, clinging onto his head, gasping from the sensations his hot mouth inspired that threatened to consume her.

  ‘And sweet,’ he said, lifting his head the tiniest of fractions, ‘salty and sweet, so long as they taste like you.’

  The water rained down on them as his words and his hot mouth tipped her over the edge, and she would have fallen, but he was there to save her, urging her useless legs around his waist as he surged into her.

  ‘You’re beautiful,’ she heard him say, as she burst apart around him. ‘So beautiful.’

  And Hannah knew Siena had been one hundred per cent right.

  It was the best Christmas ever.

  Propped up between two pillows as they exchanged presents, sat Ella, watching on as she nibbled on a long blade of native grass. She’d grown a lot in the last few weeks, progressing to short stints outside the pouch, where she hopped after Declan as he worked on the vines, scratching on his leg and hopping back into the pouch when she’d had enough. She sat wide-eyed and content as Hannah opened her present from Declan.

  She found lingerie inside, no more than scraps of silk and lace in a midnight blue that were exquisitely sheer and no doubt extravagantly expensive. ‘You have something against my Cottontails?’ she joked, while secretly thrilled.

  ‘Nothing at all,’ he assured her, ‘so long as you’re taking them off. But still, a man doesn’t mind a little fantasy.’ He wouldn’t open her present until she’d put them on, and so she did, never before feeling so utterly decadent sitting there in glamorous underwear and nothing else.

  ‘My present is nowhere near as personal,’ she said, wondering if she should have made more of an effort as he tore away the paper. The chunky pipes inside sounded out a clue as he unwrapped, and she waited with bated breath. She’d thought she’d struck on the perfect present for everyone, the spoons for the girls tinkling light and pretty, and Declan’s the warmest and deepest tones, but should she have found something more intimate for him?

  He held up the wind chime and the pipes bounced off each other, the mellow notes making music together. Ella stopped nibbling for a moment, suddenly on alert, her long ears up and swivelling at this new sound, before she relaxed, going back to chewing on her grass.

  ‘Do you like them?’ she asked, because it was suddenly important that he approve. ‘I thought you could hang them outside to catch a breeze.’

  ‘It’s the most perfect present ever,’ he said, pulling her close. ‘And every time I hear them, it will remind me of you.’

  As he swept her up into his kiss, Hannah for once wasn’t blaming herself for the mistakes of the past and wishing that things could be different. Because right now, the repercussions of a choice she’d made back when she was twenty didn’t seem so important. She had Declan, a man settled and happy in his own skin, just willing to be and not asking her for things she couldn’t give.

  Declan put his hands to her shoulder and eased her away. ‘Your phone,’ he said, ‘did you want to answer that?’

  Hannah blinked. She hadn’t even heard it. She turned and snatched it up, frowning when she saw who it was from. She got out of bed and walked to the wall of windows overlooking the bush, the warm air like a whisper over her skin. ‘Beth, hi.’

  ‘How was the emergency? All okay?’

  Oh, yeah, that. She turned and looked at Declan, looking sex-rumpled and gorgeous, his sandy hair askew, and sent him a smile. ‘Um, all good. Is everything okay?’

  ‘It’s Nan,’ her sister said. ‘We thought you should know. There is something wrong.’ And Hannah listened while Beth recounted what had happened at the beach.

  Hannah’s hand flew to her head. ‘God, I’m sorry. I knew something was up, but by the time I booked, I couldn’t get her in before January.’

  ‘Forget it,’ Beth said. ‘I’m supposed to be the one with medical expertise here, and I didn’t pick it. To be honest, I don’t think I had the headspace to deal with it. I’m just sorry I didn’t listen to you earlier.’

  Hannah went back to bed after the call, perching on the side, one leg folded beneath her. ‘It’s Nan. She went missing at the beach, and now they’re worried it’s Alzheimer’s. And I knew something was wrong but I didn’t do anything.’

  Declan pulled her against him. ‘And you think having it diagnosed earlier would have made any difference?’

  ‘We would have known. We wouldn’t have done something crazy like go to the beach for Christmas.’

  ‘No? And what do you think your nan would have preferred? Being out in the fresh air with the sand and the surf, or stuck inside somewhere where it was safe but dull?’

  ‘You don’t know anything about my nan.’

  ‘No, that’s true enough. But then, you haven’t exactly invited me in to your world, Hannah Faraday. You seem to be content to let me live on the fringe.’

  She lifted her head from his shoulder, suddenly thrown off balance. They’d been sleeping together since October, more than two months, and yet still this affair with Declan felt new and fragile. She didn’t feel ready to share it with anyone yet, let alone her family. It wasn’t as if she was the only one with secrets, after all. Beth hadn’t exactly volunteered that she was seeing this Harry fellow. ‘Are you criticising me?’

  ‘No. Just stating a fact and expressing a wish at the same time. I’d like to meet your family, Hannah. I’d like to think I was that special in your life that you’d want me to meet with them.’

  ‘You are special, you know that. Do I make chocolate cake for anyone else?’

  He laughed, and pressed his lips to her hair. ‘You’d better not. But I’d still like to meet your family. Unless you’re ashamed of me, of course.’

  ‘Of course I’m not ashamed of you!’ She knew he was kidding, but there was no harm in kissing him to convince him.

  Her family would be stunned, of course, that the Faraday least likely to actually had a love interest. It would be worth telling them just for the shock interest.

  ‘All right,’ she conceded on a sigh, her lips tingling from the brush of his whiskered jaw. ‘But give us time to work through what’s happening with Nan first, before I inflict my family on you, okay?’

  He put his fingers under her jaw and lifted her mouth to his smiling lips. ‘It’s a deal.’

  43

  Beth

  Lucy
had taken Nan and Siena out for coffee and cake at a local cafe when the GP uttered the words no family wanted to hear. ‘I’m sorry,’ he said. ‘There’s no cure for dementia. What we can do, now that the test results are back and we have a clearer picture, is work out a way to manage the progress of the illness as best we can.’

  Pop slapped his palm against his leg and looked away. ‘Well, that’s that, then.’

  Beth could see he was blinking back the tears and she rubbed his bony shoulder, willing him to be strong, before she turned to the doctor. ‘Does this mean Nan will have to go into a home?’

  ‘God, not that,’ said Hannah.

  ‘It would kill her to have to move into a nursing home,’ Dan added.

  ‘It would bloody well kill me,’ said Pop. ‘Might as well shoot us both and be done with it.’

  ‘Not at all,’ the doctor said, holding up his hand. ‘There’s no need for that kind of talk, Clarence. In Joanie’s case, where she’s still managing at home, there’s no need to rush a move into a nursing home. And with assistance with meals and cleaning, hopefully that won’t be necessary for some time.’

  ‘How much time?’ asked Beth, still beating herself up for not being the one to notice Nan’s decline and brushing off her sister’s concerns. ‘What are we talking—months or years?’

  ‘That’s a harder question to answer. Every case is different. For some patients the disease can move quite rapidly, while in others the change over time might be quite imperceptible to the casual observer. But in either case, it can’t be stopped or the symptoms reversed.’

  ‘It’s awful,’ said Sophie.

  ‘It’s the pits,’ said Beth. ‘Half my day is transporting oldies between nursing homes and hospitals. Some of the old dears don’t even know their own names, or they think they’re back in the nineteen forties.’ She sniffed back a tear. ‘I’m sorry, everyone, you’d think that I, more than anyone, might have noticed something was wrong.’