Amber's parents pull up outside the cottage and Carrie climbs into the back of the car. They drive West, almost to Lands' End, and pull into the car park near the Minack Theatre, perched high over the sea, and next to the most extraordinary beach. Carrie gets out and looks down towards the water at Porthcurno to see the deepest, cleanest, turquoise green sea, that she has never seen anywhere else. The atmosphere has a crystalline quality that is almost tangible; it is exciting and soothing at once, and the sand isn't sand at all, but zillions of crushed shells which reflect the light, all made up of the subtlest colours; shades of blue, pink, and white.
She sighs. "I like it here." She looks out over the sea. "My gran's favourite place is Kynance Cove. She wants her ashes scattered there, hers and Grandad's."
Amber nods. "That's a pretty cool idea."
"She wants them both to be blown about by the sea breeze."
"I like that idea," says Amber, "of returning to the land you love." She raises her eyebrows. "It might be a bit undignified though, don't you think?"
Death is so remote a possibility to them that they laugh in its face.
Carrie's eyes are sparkling. "It'd better not be windy - you'd inhale it. But, if there's no wind at all, it would just blob all over your shoes." She shakes her head. "Hilarious. Gran would think it was funny; I know she would."
The girls link arms and follow Amber's parents down the path to the theatre.
***
Amber's parents have packed up a picnic, with wine, and two flasks of hot chocolate for later. Amber's father, with a look of deep satisfaction, pops the cork on the wine and pours out a noisy, generous glassful for everyone. Amber hands round tortilla chips and dips, and her mother lays out a rug, high up above the tiered seating, where they sit on flat pieces of granite with their backs against the warm, upright rock. The air is clean and dry and smells faintly of herbs. Carrie and Amber wriggle up together on the rug and look round at the rest of the audience.
Way down below them, a steep and queasy look down, is the stage set, and way down beyond that, lies the aquamarine sea. Friends call to each other across the curved theatre seating, gulls fly low, searching for scraps and unattended food, and children run about before the performance starts. People are happily chatting and getting comfortable.
Away, in the distance, the horizon is blurred; it merges into the sky, in subtle shades of misty blue. There are small boats, too far off to see clearly, each one bearing its unseen sailors to sunny Cornish harbours. Tonight, the sea is still.
Somewhere offstage, out of sight, a bugle sounds. The audience falls silent and looks down to the small stage. They hear screams of distress above a recording of a violent sea and a screeching gale. It seems to tear its way around the contented watchers placidly sipping their wine as the warm evening sun slips imperceptibly downwards, beyond the calm sea where the sunlight sparkles on the water.
Carrie hears a plaintive call from one side and an agonized cry from the other. She freezes. The anguish of the shipwrecked sailors makes her heart thump.
The stage is strewn with pieces of broken timber and shreds of torn sail. Two figures move at stage right. She did not see them walk on, so lost is she in the sounds of the storm ripping round her ears. It is a man and a girl, Prospero and Miranda.
Her eyes lock onto the two figures. She is motionless, her concentration ferocious. She sees nothing beyond or behind them. As they speak her every sense thrills to the music of their speech, to the words, to the urgency of their meaning. It is as if she inhabits Miranda, almost mouthing the words with her as she persuades her father to still the storm he has created. She chews her nails without feeling what she is doing, while her eyes, her mind, her whole body, devour every gesture, every expression, and every word. Amber pokes her in the side and she swings round in confusion at the interruption.
She whispers to Carrie, "If you lean forward any farther, you'll fall on the stage."
They discuss the play all the way home, dissecting the plot, picking apart the direction and performances, admiring the form. Carrie feels electrified as she listens to Amber and reads her expressions, and she leans through between the front seats, chattering to Amber's parents.
Amber's father laughs and teases her, "So you enjoyed yourself, then? I reckon that should've been you down there, showing them how it's done."
Mina looks round at her. "You've always been like this," and Carrie can feel the warmth in her smile. "You've always been transfixed."
Carrie laughs. "It's true." Her face burns with pleasure, and her words tumble out. "I get so excited; I always wanted to be up there, on the stage, living the story, playing out the drama."
Amber snorts with laughter and makes a face at her. "Remember those art films Mum dragged us to? We hated them, didn't we?"
Carrie thinks Amber is being unfair. She turns to Mina, "You used to say to us, 'Didn't you notice the camerawork, the colours, the lighting, the fabric of the woman's dress ..?' You made me think about that stuff."
Amber is having none of it. She makes a face at her mother. "Mum, you know it was shit."
Carrie thought so too, but what troubled her was the way the camera only revealed what it wanted the audience to see. She wanted to see wider, farther, to turn the lens back on itself, out again and take in absolutely everything there was.
She falls silent in the car and her mind takes off, on a flight of its own. She is determining another way of life; not as a translator or a language teacher, but as a teller of tales, a weaver of magic, a spell caster who can hold an audience in the palm of her hand.
She is dropped off at the gate of her cottage but she doesn't go inside. She stays for a minute in the cool dark, listening to the silence. She steps inside and closes the door softly, creeps upstairs to bed, and falls into a dreamy, contented sleep.