Sometimes heightened expectations will end with an overwhelming anticlimax. For instance, picture Christmas, which I would say from repeated experience, is never quite as good as I hope it’s going to be. However, sometimes these heightened expectations are themselves the disappointment. When the anticipated event actually arrives, I get this feeling that it would have been all the more pleasurable if I’d looked forward to it even more.
It’s like this with Wendy. Her very presence in the passenger seat as we drive back to Lemon Quay lifts my mood and puts some distance between myself and Helen and Ellie and Quince and Moon and, by association, Moonbeams. We don’t do anything as vague as discuss her journey, or what’s going on with her work. We talk instead about our memories of Mr Smith, his dribble and his drool, the time we lost him for an hour on Hampstead Heath, and the red ball he liked to chew. These are not in themselves sad memories, but they have become poignant since his death, and it is perhaps a little odd that I am able to take pleasure from them. However, I should also point out that Wendy is not crying and indeed she has the occasional flicker of a smile too. We laugh twice, once at the story of the stolen cheese, then again when we recall his fleas.
And because of our shared good humour, I decide not to take Wendy straight to my caravan. I’m not entirely sure how she’ll view the place I now call home. As an alternative then, I settle on The Lost Sailor, where I plot that we can share some drinks, and build on our stories without recrimination. Maybe we’ll move on somewhere, get a bite to eat, and afterwards… afterwards….afterwards…., well who knows precisely where the evening might go.
The rain has thinned to a dusting of wet. I park in a side street not so far from the office where most likely it will be safe to leave the car until the morning. We walk through a quiet Lemon Quay, taking a small detour, so I can show her the harbour from above. The sea is not as rough as it gets and two crab boats are in the bay, lanterns swinging as they lift their pots.
“It’s good to see you Dan, it means a lot. Thanks for inviting me. Genuinely. I’ve been down… really down… not just about Mr Smith… about lots of things… about us ending like we did. I mean I wish you hadn’t moved so far away but I can see why you wanted to come here,” says Wendy, eyes fixed upon the boats. I’m about to tell her that it’s not all postcard stuff, but then bite my tongue because this can wait. We’re getting on fine and, if only for a moment, I want her to respect the choices I have made. She’s dressed for the city not the late November seaside and though she doesn’t ask to go, she begins to shiver, so I link my arm in hers and guide her to the pub.
There was a point earlier in the day when I was sure I’d never drink again, but now that I’m with Wendy my earlier pledges have disintegrated and my body, like my mind, has regained a semblance of normality. I am not aware of any headaches. The faux log fire is on, but I’m neither hot nor cold. I haven’t itched or scratched for half an hour and when we’re settled with our pint and a half, coats hung on the back of our chairs, I take the chance to look at her for the first time in the full light. I have not seen her for three or more months, but she hasn’t changed. She looks like I thought she would when I was texting her. Her black hair has a shine and is bobbed round her face, her chin has a soft curve and, as ever, she is totally in control of her eyes. She keeps them on me, which at various points in our past has had the effect of making me a little nervous, but for now at least, just makes me think she’s interested in what I’ve got to say.
“So no regrets about uprooting?” she asks. I am considered in my reply.
“Some, of course,” I say returning her gaze, “but on the whole, no… no regrets,” I add.
“I didn’t think you’d do it,” she says.
“Why?”
“I don’t know. It just seems… seemed… like such a crazy idea. You know. Moving to some random small town in Cornwall to become a detective just doesn’t sound real. It’s like I thought you were trying to make a point… you know. I said it often enough. Almost as if you’d spent too long watching T.V. and had some bizarre notion that this was how people actually lived their lives. I mean how many people do we know who have been to a private detective?” she says.
“None,” I admit, though it was rhetorical in that she knows the answer because we’ve had this conversation, or one very much like it, before.
“Exactly, none. People like us don’t have these sorts of problems. Which as far as I was concerned meant you were setting yourself up for a fall. I seriously didn’t believe there was a market for this sort of thing. Not here. Not anywhere. Not for someone like you, with precious little experience and, let’s be frank, no clear business plan,” she says.
“That’s not fair,” I say, but not in a truly argumentative way.
“I know it’s not. That’s what I’m trying to say. I honestly thought you wouldn’t get any customers at all. Do you call them customers?” she says. She pauses.
“Sometimes,” I say, before she picks up pretty much where she left off, with another question that may or may not want answering.
“I said it to you didn’t I?” she says. “I thought that you’d be broke within in a year. I thought you’d spend all the money you made from your flat on this… and then… I don’t know… I was worried. I thought you’d be dead or something,” she says. I nod to acknowledge her reasoning. “But you’ve proved me wrong. Despite all my concerns you’ve made a start. You’ve found some work already and that’s important. Not just from the money side, but who knows where it will lead. Word of mouth and all that,” she says.
“Yes…but…,” I begin but it seems I’m interrupting her, when really I shouldn’t be. One of her more frequent criticisms of me was, or is, that I do not let her finish what she’s trying to say.
“Dan, I’m trying to say I shouldn’t have doubted you.” she says.
“Thanks,” I say.
“And I’m proud of you,” she says.
“Thanks,” I say.
“I think I’m trying to say I’m sorry,” she says.
