Trenouth

by Bea Green

  ‘No, I hadn’t expected any of that. Cornwall’s such an amazing place. The strangest things have happened to me since I’ve moved here. And I haven’t even told you about the tunnel Leo’s found in Wine Cove or the helicopter we found outside our house one morning.’

  ‘Well, you can save that for later,’ said Tony firmly, standing up as Elinor finished her last morsel of bread and taking the dirty dishes to the sink.

  Elinor drank the remnants of her glass of water and then stood up as well. Tony walked her to the kitchen door.

  ‘Right, let’s get you some rest. See the door that’s open at the end of the corridor? That’s the spare bedroom. Make yourself at home.’

  Elinor nodded her thanks but before she walked out of the kitchen she couldn’t help turning back and wrapping her arms around Tony’s back in a quick, appreciative hug as he stood washing the dishes at the sink.

  She walked gratefully down the corridor and into the spare bedroom. Within five minutes of folding the duvet around herself and lying back on the soft pillows, she felt herself drifting off.

  For the first time since Leo had left for London she was feeling safe and secure.

  45

  Elinor felt a pat on her back and ignored it, snuggling down deeper into the warm nest of her duvet. The patting gradually increased in vigorousness until at last she opened her eyes and turned to stare up at Tony fiercely.

  ‘What?’ she demanded angrily. She could still feel the mists of sleep clouding up her brain and stubbornly refusing to dissipate.

  Tony put his hands up in mock surrender.

  ‘God, Elinor, don’t ever let me catch you when you’ve just woken up. You’re an absolute tiger! It’s six o’clock in the evening now and I was just wondering if you wanted some dinner? And what’s the plan for tonight? Are you wanting to head over to Trenouth?’

  Elinor sat up and rubbed her eyes.

  ‘I don’t know... I’m so, so tired,’ she added unnecessarily, yawning loudly.

  ‘I gathered that,’ said Tony, looking like he was trying not to laugh. He sat down on the bed and waited patiently for Elinor to elaborate.

  She looked at him disconsolately.

  ‘Right now, all I want to do is sleep.’

  ‘OK, fine,’ said Tony, giving up. ‘Look, come and have some of the pasta I’ve cooked up and then you can head straight back to bed if that’s what you want.’

  ‘But I don’t have a toothbrush or any of the stuff I use at bedtime. Or my pyjamas for that matter.’

  ‘I’ve got spare toothbrushes in the bathroom cabinet and you can borrow my pyjamas tonight.’

  Elinor made a face. Tony was so much taller and broader than her. Any pyjamas he gave her would be falling off her, surely?

  After trying unsuccessfully to come up with a better suggestion, she eventually shrugged and reluctantly got herself out of bed.

  She docilely followed Tony to the kitchen, ate a bowl of pasta and then disappeared again shortly afterwards to get her face washed with soap, her teeth brushed and to change at breakneck speed into a pair of Tony’s pyjamas. She always carried her medication in her handbag so she swallowed her two Sertraline tablets. Thankfully her handbag had been retrieved from the boot of Leo’s old Volvo before they left Constantine Bay, because a few hours’ delay in taking her medication could make her feel very sick indeed. In a record thirty minutes she was tucked back up in bed again.

  Some houseguest I am, she thought to herself ruefully. But within a few minutes the warmth of the bed dragged her down to the land of nod again...

  When Elinor woke up again her room was in complete darkness except for a narrow sliver of light coming from the corridor. For a brief moment she wondered where she was until she suddenly remembered the events of the last twelve hours.

  She turned her head to look at the window. She reckoned it must be late at night, given how dark it was outside the window, and she was grateful that Tony had helpfully left the hall light on.

  Her wrist was starting to ache painfully again; the ibuprofen she’d taken earlier in the evening had worn off, leaving an uncomfortable throb.

  Elinor reached across and switched on the bedside table light, blinking in the sudden glare of it and feeling the brightness momentarily hurt her head. Her watch told her it was one in the morning.

  She picked up the packet of paracetamol that Tony had left with her and popped another tablet in her mouth, swallowing it down with some water. Then she leant back on her pillows and for want of anything better to do stared at the wall opposite her bed, waiting patiently for the painkiller to kick in.

  She found the quiet stillness of the night slightly unnerving, accustomed as she was now to Leo’s old bungalow. There was rarely a time during the wintertime when you didn’t hear the wind gusting or howling against the solid walls of his house. And rarely was there a time during the night when you didn’t hear the house expanding and shifting on its ancient timbers.

  Forty minutes later Elinor was still lying in bed, wide awake and thoroughly fed up. Because of her anxiety, there’d been many nights over the last year when she’d been left unable to sleep, lying awake until the early hours of the morning. As she was already on strong medication for her anxiety, she’d been averse to crawling back to the doctor and begging for some sleeping tablets. So for a long time she’d managed her erratic sleep with over-the-counter sleeping tablets, both herbal and artificial.

  Elinor hated the night. For some reason its emptiness made everything worse for her.

  She couldn’t understand why, but in the dead of the night negative emotions and thoughts became magnified and distorted. The smallest of her fears and worries grew to an unsustainable size during those sombre hours. Like the genie in Aladdin’s lamp or the evils of Pandora’s box, it often felt at night as though supernatural powers beyond her control had been unleashed and were taking hold of her emotions and mental health.

  Tonight, as she lay there in her bed, Elinor relived the mortification of her behaviour towards Jennifer the day before, as well as all the inconvenience she had thrust upon Tony since her accident. She tortured herself with recriminations and self-loathing.

  It was Friday night, and she was sure if it hadn’t been for her Tony would’ve been at the pub with his friends. And what was Jennifer going to think when she found out about this?

  She felt a complete and utter fool.

  She started to cry forlornly, letting the tears slide down her face as she reached out for a tissue to wipe her nose.

  In the end, she decided she couldn’t stand the emotional pain any more. Physical pain she could deal with but the emotional pain was far, far worse. She could only describe it as a knife twisting in her chest.

  She got up and went out into the corridor, looking for Tony’s room. She saw his bedroom door was slightly ajar and she quietly pushed it open, tiptoeing into the room. When she peered at the bed she could see Tony was sleeping on his side, with his back to the door.

  Without even considering the fright she could be giving him, she lifted one side of the duvet and slid herself into the bed, huddling up to his back and reaching up to rest her left hand carefully over his waist.

  ‘Elinor, what the hell are you doing?’ mumbled Tony irritably, not moving an inch but his muscles tensing under her arm.

  Elinor buried her face into his back and didn’t reply.

  Tony turned around slowly until he was staring into Elinor’s face, his brown eyes glinting in the light from the hallway.

  ‘What’s wrong?’ he asked in a gentler tone of voice.

  Elinor just looked at him pathetically, tears running down her face. He lifted his hand and gently wiped the tears away with his fingers.

  ‘Don’t cry. Tell me, what’s wrong?’

  ‘I think I’m just feeling overwhelmed with guilt at how I behaved towards Jennifer and
I’m feeling awful at putting you to all this inconvenience too. All because of my stupid pride and arrogance. I should’ve never gone out into the ocean with the conditions as bad as that. I don’t know what in the world I was thinking.’

  She sobbed.

  ‘And I’m really wishing Leo was here. He calms me down so much.’

  Tony reached an arm around her and pulled her close, so her head was now resting on his chest. He stroked her back softly and she felt the warmth of his body slowly loosen the tension in hers. She buried her nose in him, breathing in his musky scent.

  It wasn’t long before she started to giggle.

  ‘Tony, honestly, it doesn’t take much to get you excited,’ she said, feeling a hard bulge against her hip.

  Tony looked down at her and grinned widely.

  ‘What do you expect, Elinor? You know perfectly well what you do to me.’

  Elinor squirmed a little further up the bed and then reached across to kiss Tony tenderly on the lips. He responded eagerly, kissing and tasting her lips as though starting a long and slow voyage of discovery.

  He took his time, as though testing her resolve and commitment, but in the end it was she that moved them on, by pulling off her clothes and impatiently reaching out to take his off too. Almost as soon as Tony reached for her naked breast, she was moaning impatiently for him to fill her.

  After that, time sped quickly by and before long the pair of them were coiled up around each other and drifting off to sleep once more.

  46

  ‘For goodness’ sake, Elinor! I’m away for four days and look what happens to you.’

  ‘I know, Leo, but at least you’re back now. I’ve missed you. Cornwall’s not the same without you.’

  Leo leaned back contentedly on the dining chair and took a bite out of one of Elinor’s freshly made scones.

  ‘I missed you and your cooking,’ said Leo humorously, through a mouthful of scone crumbs. ‘I missed my home very much too. And of course, the coast hereabouts. The great thing about going up to London is that it reminds me of how special it is here.’

  Elinor nodded and took a swig of coffee.

  She couldn’t regret anything that had happened while Leo had been away because it had brought her and Tony together. But it had taken fairly extreme measures for that to happen and she wasn’t eager for any more drama in her life. She’d learnt her lesson in caution.

  Leo’s reassuring bulk emerging from Barbara’s car had been a truly welcome sight. Leo’s solid and familiar presence always emitted an aura that suggested everything was going to be OK and that things were going to return to normality once more.

  With Leo back it looked like life at Trenouth was going to resume its steady rhythm again, only now Elinor had the added bonus of a relationship with Tony to brighten up her days with...

  ‘Well, any exciting news while I’ve been away?’ asked Leo, swirling the dregs of his coffee around at the bottom of his mug.

  Elinor glanced suspiciously at him but he was busy concentrating on his coffee.

  ‘Did Barbara tell you about Tony and me, Leo?’

  Leo burst out laughing.

  ‘Yeah, she did! Of course she did. You didn’t think you two could keep something like that from her, did you? In another life she would’ve worked as an undercover spy.’ Leo smiled across the table at her. ‘Couldn’t be more delighted for the pair of you. Your mother’s certainly not going to get you returning back to Scotland in a hurry, is she?’

  ‘No, she certainly won’t but that’s already been decided. Speaking of my mother, how did you get on with valuing the book?’

  Leo patted his jacket as if trying to remind himself where he’d put something. Then he reached into his inside pocket and pulled out a folded envelope, tossing it on to the table in front of Elinor.

  ‘There you go. That’s the receipt for the book and a cheque for fifteen thousand pounds.’

  ‘Wow,’ said Elinor, greedily opening the envelope and pulling out the cheque. ‘That’s amazing! So they established the book belonged to William Blake, did they?’

  ‘It took them a couple of days to get back to me but yes, in the end they had the experts look at the handwriting and the fore-edged painting. I think it was fairly conclusive. William Blake has apparently quite a distinctive way of painting and drawing. “Unique” is what they said. Which made the whole process simpler, thankfully.’

  ‘I really feel we should be giving some of this to Stephen Ashcroft, who discovered the fore-edged painting in the first place.’

  Leo scratched his five o’clock shadow meditatively.

  ‘You know, Elinor, you could have a point there. I’ve given Stephen a lot of good custom over the years but it’s also true that if it hadn’t been for him we wouldn’t have discovered how special that book really was. The only thing is I doubt he’ll accept anything for it.’

  ‘What should we offer him?’

  ‘Leave it with me. I’ll have a chat with him when I’m next in Wadebridge.’

  Elinor restrained herself from telling him that she herself would realistically be spending some time at Tony’s flat in Wadebridge too. The relationship was so deliciously new and she had no idea as yet how things would change on a daily basis for them both.

  She now had the added problem that she couldn’t drive anywhere either.

  She’d sent Tony a couple of soppy text messages that morning but he was at work and she had no idea when he’d have time to reply to them.

  In the meantime she planned to request a lift from Leo to Barbara’s studio or else make her own way there. She was desperately pining for some studio time. Barbara had kindly given her a spare key so she could let herself in whenever she wanted.

  ‘Leo, I wanted to ask you if you were planning on going to St Merryn sometime?’

  ‘Yes, I’m heading there this morning. I need some lubricating oil for the garage door. Are you wanting to go to Barbara’s studio?’

  ‘Yep.’

  ‘No problem. Eleven o’clock OK for you?’

  ‘Perfect. And by the way, Leo, don’t forget José and Elena have their opening night this Friday.’

  ‘Ah, yes, that’s right. Will Richard Glynn be there?’

  Elinor regarded Leo worriedly. One of these days he was going to end up in trouble. Curiosity killed the cat and all that. But it was pointless trying to tell Leo this because, quite simply, the man had no fear.

  ‘I guess he might be. He’s a regular customer of theirs,’ she answered reluctantly.

  ‘Good. It’s about time I spoke to him about that tunnel. Before I report it to the authorities, that is.’

  ‘I’d be careful, Leo. He might not like you prying into his business.’

  Leo shrugged nonchalantly.

  ‘If what we saw that night is part of his business, then he’s definitely up to something dodgy,’ he said serenely, wiping the scone crumbs from his jumper.

  ‘But what exactly was going on that night? That’s what I can’t compute. We don’t even know if it was dodgy or illegal.’

  ‘I think those men came out of a tunnel leading from the cave in Wine Cove to the wheat field. And there’s a cleat in that cave for a boat to be tied to. Personally, I think somebody’s bringing in men clandestinely into the country. And, yes, I told Barbara that was far-fetched so I’m not sure anyone will believe me either.’

  ‘You have absolutely no proof,’ said Elinor.

  ‘No. I don’t. But to be honest with you, if with a friendly warning Richard Glynn stops whatever he’s involved in, that’s good enough for me. And that tunnel needs to be closed up. It’s only asking for trouble keeping it open. I’m sure the local council will agree with me on that at least.’

  Elinor didn’t want to be cynical but she couldn’t help thinking that if Richard Glynn was making money out of these me
n, why would he stop with a word of warning from Leo?

  47

  Elinor pushed the hair out of her face wearily. She’d been working in the studio for the last seven hours with barely a break. Adele was blasting out of the radio in the corner but other than that the studio was empty. The only background noise was the wind puffing gently against the windows and the trees outside.

  She was lost in her painting, unable to let it go. Every time she looked at it, there was something else she wanted to add to it or amend. This was the negative side of her work. It absorbed her totally, sucking every last ounce of mental energy from her.

  She’d had to learn, to her cost, when to stop. If she carried on painting after her brain was burnt out with too much effort, she ended up making bad mistakes as a result of poor judgement. The trick was to stop before she ruined a perfectly good painting with over-thinking.

  She reckoned that she was just about at the point when she should stop. She was painting the clifftop at Warren Cove for Leo. Trenouth was in the painting, too, perched at the top of the steep cliff. The only thing that was annoying her at that precise moment was the positioning of the spring flowers. She’d scattered the bright flowers amongst the grass but it didn’t look quite right. However, she was so tired she knew if she carried on she risked making things worse. The flowers could be amended in the morning...

  She reached across to smudge the slate roof tiles on Trenouth a little more.

  As she did so she heard the click of the door opening behind her and automatically assumed it was Barbara. Until, that is, two muscular arms wrapped themselves around her and Tony rested his head on her shoulder. She leant back contentedly, enjoying the embrace. If she’d been a cat she would have purred.

  ‘What are you working on now?’ asked Tony interestedly.

  ‘I’m painting this for Leo. He’s always said he’d like a picture of Warren Cove. It’s where his wife’s ashes have been laid to rest. But I’m stopping now. I’ve been working at it for the last seven hours and I’m shattered.’