Page 127 of Take Me Away

I don’t sing at first. Can’t. Just stand there, Isla on one side, Maisie on the other, letting the voices wash over me.

Then Isla starts singing. She doesn’t know all the words, but she’s trying, and something in that – in her effort, her presence, her willingness to be here in the hardest moment – breaks me open.

I join in. Voice cracked and rough, but there.

The songs go on. ‘Cornish Lads are Fishermen’. ‘Blow the Man Down’. ‘Leave Her Johnny’. Each one a farewell, a sending off, a promise to remember.

When they start ‘The Parting Glass’, Nina stands. Her mum tries to stop her, but she shakes her head, walks to the centre of the room.

‘Peter loved this one,’ she says, voice barely carrying over the shuffling quiet. ‘Said it reminded him why he did this job. Why any of us do.’ She takes a shaking breath. ‘So let’s sing it for him. All of us. Loud enough for him to hear it, wherever he is.’

The first notes are wavering. Uncertain. But by the second verse, the whole room’s joined in, and it’s not just a song anymore. It’s a prayer. A goodbye. A promise that Peter mattered, that his life meant something, that he won’t be forgotten.

Oh, all the comrades e’er I had,

They’re sorry for my going away.

I’m crying by the chorus. Can’t help it. Great, gasping sobs that I haven’t let out since they pulled me from the water. Isla’s arms come around me, and I bury my face in her hair, and I let it out. All of it. Peter. Jess. Mum. Every loss that’s carved me hollow.

When the song ends, the silence is heavy but not empty. Presence, not absence.

Tom raises his pint. ‘To Peter. One of the best blokes to have walked the Cornish sands.’

‘To Peter,’ the room echoes.

We drink. We remember. We stay.

It’s past ten when people start drifting home. Maisie fell asleep an hour ago, curled in one of the window seats with Dad’s jacket as a blanket. Dad’s carrying her now, her head on his shoulder, mouth open in that completely unselfconscious way kids sleep.

‘Shall I take her to mine tonight?’ he asks.

‘No, no, it’s fine. I can manage the school run tomorrow.’ This isn’t the total truth. Might be a push, but I know I’ve got to start.

‘I wasn’t thinking about the school run, Kit.’ Dad side-eyes Isla, who is talking to Cal’s mum.

‘Oh.’ I blink. ‘Oh.’

‘Well, that’s sorted then. Mais can stay with her grandad and you can have some space.’

Do I want that though? Aren’t there layers of guilt involved in continuing with your life when your friend dies? You can’t just carry on and go home and fuck your almost girlfriend. It doesn’t work that way. But I’m distracted by Isla, the curve of her neck, the fair strand of shiny hair that’s fallen across her forehead, the way she tucks it back behind her hair, those moss-green eyes of hers, earnest and intense as she listens to Mrs Anders.

Yeah, guilt. I’ve earned every fucking ounce.

I get to keep that, keep her, while Peter has nothing. Is nothing.

Cal steps up and claps a hand on my shoulder. ‘How you feeling, Kit?’ I turn and look into my RNLI captain’s weathered face – the man who’s been leading this crew for twenty years, who pulled me onto that lifeboat, who made the call to stop searching when we all knew Peter was gone. Decades of sun and sea have stamped their marks across his smile. ‘I was going to stop in, but I know what it’s like when everyone is fussing and fluffing pillows when all you want to do is stare at a wall and forget how to exist.’

‘Yeah, I know you do.’

‘It wasn’t the same when I lost my mate Brad on our research trip, but believe me when I say, I still think about it every day.’

‘I know. I’m fine, Cap.’

‘Liar. But you will be.’ Cal clears his throat as Isla slips alongside me, her fingers linking with mine.

I kiss her cheek, breathing in the scent of her hair, vanilla and salt. How does this woman even smell so perfect for me?

Cal and I shake hands and he gives Isla’s arm a gentle squeeze before heading off to round up his mum and Dot, trying to shepherd them to the door.