The Cost of Cowries

Thin clouds – the kind that form in feathery wisps and disappear before you can be sure they were ever there at all – dance gracefully along the deep blue line of the horizon. That’s the way I start every story, have done since I was about eleven. I haven’t got an imagination, which is why it's fortunate that so many of my memories of our childhood happen to be beautiful.

Oscar was always the writer of the two of us. On Wednesday evenings when we were eight, he’d sit for hours at the kitchen table, filling black moleskin notebooks with elaborate tales of wizards and magicians. At our year nine parents evening, Mrs Ryan joked with dad that she was keeping Oscar’s literacy books so she could sell them on eBay when he became a famous author. Oscar giggled, and dad bought us Mars bars from the service station on the way home, as the late summer sun turned the treetops golden. I’m sure there’s another memory to which that line would apply: maybe from a Sunday evening in August 2014 – lying aimlessly on foamy surfboards – or maybe from when we were very little, playing hide and seek in the garden while mum and dad laughed in the kitchen.

I think it’s best that we start with the funeral though, so you know what’s coming.

I took my board down to the water that morning, but the sea was in mourning too: still and silent. I paddled out anyway, letting my cheek rest on the waxy surface: coconut and the echo of adrenaline. The sun rose slowly behind Burgh Island, igniting the ocean’s glassy surface. I was the only person in the water, and the clifftops were silent watercolours, hazy with morning mist. A woman and her grandson crouched on the cove beyond the lifeguard hut, collecting cowries.

By the time I got back to Seacrest Cottage – the decrepit holiday house we rent every summer – Grandpa was awake and ready to wrap me in his warmth. He’d assumed his position in the tiny stone-walled sitting room, and smiled at me from the red wooden chair. We could have stayed at Grandpa’s for the weekend of the funeral – the huge house in the woods where Grandma spent her childhood – but there’s something about the magic of Seacrest: tumbling, muddled, rich with memories.

“Morning little Laalaa, I’ve made your favourite,” Grandpa has never been a cook, but I could tell from the empathy in his eyes that he was desperate to make me happy, to do something to quell the hurt.

On the dark wood table, two bowls of Weetabix sat soggy and sad: soaking in warm milk and syrupy brown sugar. I hadn’t eaten this former favourite since I had turned five and discovered cereal that benefited from texture and flavour, but that gesture hit me more than anything might have in that moment: an acknowledgement of family familiarity and the desperate attempts we make to heal the people we love. I wrapped him in a salty hug and sat next to him at the table: legs folded on the wobbly chair, wetsuit peeled to my waist. Classic FM was murmuring in the tiny kitchen, and past the bunnies that hopped between the hedges, dad emerged from the toolshed at the bottom of the garden, the spark still missing from his gentle ocean eyes.

As lambs pretending to be sheep – fat from the summer – grazed lazily on the hilltop, the half-muffled toll of the church bell rang out into the valley, colourless and slow. Beyond the cliffs, the sea sent ripples rhythmically to shore, where young families on late summer holidays collected shells in sandy buckets. Thick stone spire cut against the cold September sky, the church filled steadily – half-friends sending smile-less greetings, hands in trembling hands.

I sat at the front with dad and Grandpa, and the ache of grief hollowed us from the inside out, intensified with each glance we shared – the streams of our individual pain curdled to poison. The projector showed a rotating reel of his glowing face: grinning on the doorstep on his first day of school, from behind a novelty beard on our eighteenth birthday.

The service itself was a blur: the vicar’s monotone words, Aunty Lilian’s strength.

Once the wicker coffin was lowered into the earth, we piled into the hearse which carried us back to Seacrest Cottage for the wake: tear stained and shaking.

It wasn’t until evening, once the weak September sun had vanished behind the woodland, that I found the notebook. Aunty Lilian was clearing the last plates of quiche from the shiny oak dining table as I disappeared through the arched doorway and up the wide, curving staircase. I went straight to the playroom, and sat weeping on the dark red rug, simmering in the shadow of our charmed childhood. I knew if he’d left me anything, he would have left it here. And I was right. In the second drawer of the cabinet, beneath cuddly toys and moth eaten fancy dress costumes, the little black book was waiting for me – its pages heavy with the weight of my future.

He’d left the first page blank, the way he always did. The rest of the notebook though – each faded, thinly lined page – was covered, every line hidden under reams of his cursive font.

I read until the end; thick, warm tears spilling over my cheeks and blurring the ink. Pools of blue formed over Oscar’s words, making marbled patterns on the pages.

"Dear Layla,

If you’re reading this, it means I’ve gone. So, first things first, I’m sorry.

I’m sorry for the time I stole your Halloween chocolate. I hid it in my toy chest and ate it before bed for weeks. I actually can’t believe you never looked there! I think I kind of hoped you would, because I felt sooo guilty but there was no way I was going to tell you where it was… pretty obvious spot though, you’ve never been good at finding things. Remember how rubbish you were at hide and seek! Whatever, I was eight, it was delicious, but I’m sorry.

I’m sorry for the time I read your diary, and told Harry about the crush you had on him. I get it! I had a crush on him too but… that was a less palatable truth to share at the time. I’m sorry though, it wasn’t my love to confess. I hope you find love though Lay – real, heart stopping, stomach flipping love. I’ve felt it, and it’s as good as all the songs pretend it is. I hope you get head spins and your mind falls into the clouds that carry lovers into that other, golden hued dimension.

I’m sorry for a lot of things – for laughing at you that time you sang a solo in the Christmas play, for always beating you at tennis.

Most of all, I’m sorry for leaving.

Life with you – life here – is magical. I don’t want this to happen, I don’t want to leave. But then… if it’s what I think it might be, I don’t want it to not happen either. I’m confusing you, I know I am. I’m confusing myself. I wish I could explain, but I can’t begin to explain until I’ve told you the whole story. So it’s here, in the rest of this book – the whole story, my story, our story.

It’s a lot to take in Lay, so if you need to sleep first, or cry or have a bath or make a cup of tea, do that. But in these first pages, I wanted to include the most important part.

The money in the bottom drawer of my dresser is for you. I didn’t steal it, nobody wants it back. I’ll explain why I’ve got it – why you’ve got it – later, but it’s important that you take it, and do something amazing.

I won’t write the full figure here, I’ll let you count, but if you wanted to buy Seacrest Cottage and live here forever – just you and dad, collecting cowries and eating croissants – you could. Or you could buy a van and travel the British Isles eating at Michelin Star restaurants every night. Or you could go to Australia! Buy a flat overlooking Bondi beach and live off Acai bowls and smoothies laced with gold or unicorn sweat or whatever they put in them that makes them so absurdly expensive. It’s up to you, Lay, but you’ve got to enjoy it. It’s important to me, and to mum, and I know that must be hard to read, but… I’ll explain, but I speak for both of us when I say this: the money is there for you to live the best possible life you can. And money can’t buy you happiness, and you know that, but I guess that’s the challenge.

And finally, most importantly (apart from the Halloween chocolate confession, god it feels good to get that one off my chest): don’t worry. I’ll explain more later, but… I’m not scared, so don’t worry about me, or Grandma, or mum. It’s safe, the world beyond this one, so just know that, and if you’re crying let the tears be tears of joy for the time we had here.

I love you Laalaa.

Forever,

O x"