Flying on the wings of Dragons - Book 3, The Porth Kerensa Series

Chapter Six

I've never liked January. It is the worst time of the year anyway, finished off by the fact that it's also the month Emily finally gave into the cancer that wracked her frail little body. January is cold, wet and dark. The Christmas lights come down and the decorations get put away for another long year, accentuating the bleak Winter. Leaving everything dark, miserable and dead looking. Even when I was a little girl I disliked January more than any other month in the year; now I hate it with the memories it brings. My sorrow seems reflected in every dark window and the empty streets stripped of their decorations. It is drab and depressing with the summer seeming so far away.

     Joe and I put the last vestiges of Christmas behind us the day before and now he is back at work, hurriedly preparing for the Padstow exhibition he has to be ready for next week. The New Year is here and I should probably start making some plans with what I want to do with my life. I have six months paid leave from work and my job waiting for me afterwards, but I don't know if I want to go back to that life or even back to London. I cannot stay hidden in Porth Kerensa with Joe forever. I know that and at some point I will have to support myself; not yet though.

     Chloe keeps me company while I clean the house and get some washing done. She has wormed her way into a heart I had shut down, and I cannot imagine a day without her here. Every day we walk along the meandering cliff paths and I talk to her while she runs and jumps and barks at the gulls circling overhead. Sometimes Joe comes with us but a lot of the time he doesn't. He has left me to bond with my dog and he knows without me saying that the times I walk alone with Chloe gives me some measure of peace.

     There are things I know I should say to Joe about me, and things I want to talk to him about in his life, though I don't know how to broach any of it. He does not ask me about Emi, he knows enough for now and he thinks I will give him that part of my life when I am ready. I want to ask him about his past, but he is as unforthcoming as I am. So we talk about things that have no bearing on the past or the future. At night he sits on my bed drinking hot chocolate and we talk about things we wanted to do when we were younger. We talk about dreams and aspirations we had. We never talk about Simon and Emi, or about Joe's childhood. Any questions I have for him he gently deflects and I back off in the same way he does for me.

     It is restful but there is something missing and we both know it.

     Eve rings me and invites me to come into town with her the morning before Joe's exhibition in Padstow. I mumble and stutter trying to think of excuses but she brushes them away like annoying cobwebs. She insists that I must have my haircut before the exhibition, I glance at my reflection in the mirror by the phone and frown. She chatters on and suggests we go dress, shoe and handbag shopping too while I stand and glare daggers at my reflection. She informs me she will be with me in twenty minutes and I hang up with a sigh.

     She's right about my hair though. It has no life to it, the curls have gone frizzy and the colour is dull. I have put on weight since I got here six weeks ago and I am taken aback by the changes in my face. For nearly three years my reflection has been a stranger to me, although I have grown used to it. Now it surprises me to look more like my old self. There is colour in my cheeks, put there by the walks with Chloe and the healthy food I eat. I no longer skip meals and the evidence is on my hips and my bottom which have filled out with some flesh; even my bosom looks plumper and I decide to buy a new bra when I am out with Eve.

     I study my nose and it pleases me that there is no visible bump there, the bruises are gone and I look different. I look more like Julia Reynolds did years ago. My eyes are still shadowed and haunted though, and if I can see it then I'll bet ya bottom dollar Joe can too. Carefully I arrange my lacklustre hair in all manor of ways to see what kind of hair style I should go for and decide that it has to be something short and snazzy but nothing that will make me look bullish. I want to be somebody different to the person I was before the accident. I want a different look and a new life. I pout at myself and Joe laughs behind me.