away day after day. From time to time someone like you comes up the tunnel from the sea and lightens our darkness. I shall be sad when you go.’
The old man was hunched over the fire rubbing his hands and holding them out over the heat.
‘Not often we have a fire,’ he said, his voice more spritely now. ‘Only on special occasions. Birthdays, of course, we always have a fire on birthdays back at the cottage. Martha’s next. You don’t know her; she’s my only daughter – she’ll be eight on September 10th. She’s been poorly, you know – her lungs, that’s what the doctor said.’ He sighed deeply. ‘’Tis dreadful damp in the cottage. ’Tis well nigh impossible to keep it out.’ There was a tremor in the old man’s voice that betrayed his emotion. He looked up at Cherry and she could see the tears in his eyes. ‘She looks a bit like you, my dear, raven-haired and as pretty as a picture; but not so tall, not so tall. Come closer, my dear, you’ll be warmer that way.’
Cherry sat with them by the fire till it died away to nothing. She longed to go, to get home amongst the living, but the old man talked on of his family and their little one-roomed cottage with a ladder to the bedroom where they all huddled together for warmth, of his friends that used to meet in the Tinners’ Arms every evening. There were tales of wrecking and smuggling, and all the while the young man sat silent, until there was a lull in the story.
‘Father,’ he said. ‘I think our little friend would like to go home now. Shall I take her up as I usually do?’ The old man nodded and waved his hand in dismissal.
‘Come back and see us sometime, if you’ve a mind to,’ he said, and then put his face in his hands.
‘Goodbye,’ said Cherry. ‘Thank you for the fire and for helping me. I won’t forget you.’ But the old man never replied.
The journey through the mine was long and difficult. She held fast to the young tinner’s waist as they walked silently through the dark tunnels, stopping every now and then to climb a ladder to the lode above until finally they could look up the shaft above them and see the daylight.
‘It’s dawn,’ said the young man, looking up.
‘I’ll be back in time for breakfast,’ said Cherry setting her foot on the ladder.
‘You’ll remember me?’ the young tinner asked, and Cherry nodded, unable to speak through her tears. She felt a strange affinity with him and his father. ‘And if you should ever need me, come back again. You may need me and I shall be here. I go nowhere else.’
‘Thank you,’ said Cherry. ‘I won’t forget. I doubt anyone is going to believe me when I tell them about you. No one believes in ghosts, not up there.’
‘I doubt it too. Be happy, little friend,’ he said. And he was gone, back into the tunnel. Cherry waited until the light from the candle in his hat had vanished and then turned eagerly to the ladder and began to climb up towards the light.
She found herself in a place she knew well, high on the moor by Zennor Quoit. She stood by the ruined mine workings and looked down at the sleeping village shrouded in mist, and the calm blue sea beyond. The storm had passed and there was scarcely a breath of wind even on the moor. It was only ten minutes’ walk down through the bracken, across the road by the Eagle’s Nest and down the farm track to the cottage where her family would be waiting. She began to run, but the clothes were still heavy and wet and she was soon reduced to a fast walk. All the while she was determining where she would begin her story, wondering how much they would believe. At the top of the lane she stopped to consider how best to make her entrance. Should she ring the bell and be found standing there, or should she just walk in and surprise them there at breakfast? She longed to see the joy on their faces, to feel the warmth of their arms round her and to bask once again in their affection.
She saw as she came round the corner by the cottage that there was a long blue Land Rover parked in the lane, bristling with aerials. ‘Coastguard’ she read on the side. As she came down the steps she noticed that the back door of the cottage was open and she could hear voices inside. She stole in on tiptoe. The kitchen was full of uniformed men drinking tea, and around the table sat her family, dejection and despair etched on every face. They hadn’t seen her yet. One of the uniformed men had put down his cup and was speaking. His voice was low and hushed.
‘You’re sure the towel is hers, no doubts about it?’
Cherry’s mother shook her head.
‘It’s her towel,’ she said quietly, ‘and they are her shells. She must have put them up there, must have been the last thing she did.’
Cherry saw her shells spread out on the open towel and stifled a shout of joy.
‘We have to say,’ he went on. ‘We have to say then, most regrettably, that the chances of finding your daughter alive now are very slim. It seems she must have tried to climb the cliff to escape the heavy seas and fallen in. We’ve scoured the cliff top for miles in both directions and covered the entire beach, and there’s no sign of her. She must have been washed out to sea. We must conclude that she is missing. We have to presume that she is drowned.’
Cherry could listen no longer but burst into the room shouting.
‘I’m home, I’m home. Look at me, I’m not drowned at all. I’m here! I’m home!’
The tears were running down her face.
But no one in the room even turned to look in her direction. Her brothers cried openly, one of them clutching the giant’s necklace.
‘But it’s me,’ she shouted again. ‘Me, can’t you see? It’s me and I’ve come back. I’m all right. Look at me.’
But no one did, and no one heard.
The giant’s necklace lay spread out on the table.
‘So she’ll never finish it after all,’ said her mother softly. ‘Poor Cherry. Poor dear Cherry.’
And in that one moment Cherry knew and understood that she was right, that she would never finish her necklace, that she belonged no longer with the living but had passed on beyond.
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