heart raced a little, a sense of excitement tingling in her fingertips.
The moment of silence before his answer was excruciating. “Well, then I’d love to,” he said eventually, much to her relief. “Maybe you can show me your paintings later, let me see what your dreams look like.”
As they arrived outside his cottage Elizabeth could hear Tom’s family inside, and other voices just up ahead. “I’d better go,” she said.
“Before somebody sees you,” he replied with a smile. For a second he leaned in, and she thought he was going to kiss her. Her breath caught in her throat, but then he just brushed her shoulder. Following his movement, she saw dust from the old walls of the lookout scatter to the ground. “Shall we meet at seven tonight, or is that too late?”
“It’s perfect,” she whispered as he pulled away.
Her stomach turned over on itself as she walked toward home, as if nerves had gotten the better of her. What was that sense of disappointment she felt? Was it because she was leaving, or because when he’d leaned in, she’d thought he was going to kiss her and yet he hadn’t? Maybe it wasn’t disappointment at all; maybe it was nerves after all. The urge to glance back just one last time took control over her movements. And as she gazed over her shoulder, there was Tom, still watching her. He waved, and her stomach turned again. No, she thought, it wasn’t nerves. It wasn’t disappointment either. It was excitement, the anticipation that for the first time in her life she didn’t know what was going to happen next.
Now
The train was not an easy option, but it was the only option. Driving there was out of the question. Although Elizabeth knew that she was sailing into unknown waters, she also knew that she had no other choice. Her stomach was in knots, somersaulting with every twist and turn as the train rocketed through the countryside. The words on the pages of the book she had brought to pass the time seemed to dance around, and she was unable to get through more than a few lines before she was right back where she started. Eventually she closed her eyes and listened to the rhythmic pulse of the tracks, thinking about the boy she’d met when she was seventeen. The picture she had in her mind was as clear as it was then, standing on the stairs dressed in her father’s clothes, completely out of his depth. Her thoughts wandered to the moment when he emerged from the water with her mother at his side, and how his voice on that night had calmed her more than anything else. His presence in her life had brought such freedom, allowed her to consider what she wanted, and who she was. Before Tom she had never contemplated how the dreams that burned inside her might come true.
After two changes the train pulled into Paddington Station and she stood up with her suitcase, her palms sweaty and her grip on the handle poor. Her stop at Plymouth was nothing compared to this, the cacophony of announcements combined with the rumble of feet and stink of engines. Many years ago, she had walked through this same station with such certainty and excitement, but now as she stood on the platform with the bustle of bodies moving all around her and no idea where to go or where to start, she felt as if she had been transported into a different world. Her little village was so quiet, a place where the hours felt endless, where you could hear the waves breaking against the shore even when it was busy with tourists. Here people moved as if the hours offered little more than minutes, their heads down, angled into the screen of their phone. Overwhelmed by it all, and with no clue where to go from there, she took a seat on one of the benches to give the crowds a chance to disperse, herself a moment to collect her thoughts.
By the time she got moving she realized that almost everything seemed different from before. It had been over forty years since she had been to London, and even after ten minutes of trying she couldn’t work out the map. The machine in the wall from which, if her observations were right, she was supposed to acquire tickets was an even bigger mystery. People punching in numbers and inserting cards, rushing off at speed. Where