The Little B & B at Cove End

by Linda Mitchelmore

  ‘Help!’ she yelled into the darkness, just in case it was someone up on the headland and the predicament they were in had been spotted.

  ‘You’re wasting time yelling, Mae. Who’s going to hear us anyway? Just get the sails up,’ Josh said, his voice cracking now.

  The light had almost gone by the time Mae had the sails up.

  ‘Are you okay to hold the tiller?’ she asked, worried now because Josh seemed to be swaying, and not with the rhythm of the boat on what was beginning to turn into a much more turbulent sea than it had been when they’d set out.

  ‘Yeah,’ Josh said. He manoeuvred himself into position while Mae shouted instructions.

  A blast of wind came from out of nowhere and while Mae knew this happened sometimes when you were sailing, and her dad had taught her how to cope with it, her orientation had gone now in the darkness. Fear crept over her, cold and all-enveloping.

  And then it happened – what Mae had feared might happen: they caught the keel on something … something hard that gave a sickening crunch, so loud it hurt her ears.

  And then, almost in slow motion, the boat tipped and Mae knew she had no hope of righting it, and they were both in the water.

  ‘Mae! Help!’ Josh yelled. ‘I can’t swim!’

  Chapter Fifteen

  Cara took the phone into the bathroom. Fear had made her clothes stick uncomfortably to her, her skin oily and slick with sweat. She could shower in two minutes flat she knew that, and she knew two minutes wouldn’t make a lot of difference if David Maynard rang to say Mae and Josh were safely back in the harbour, or if Mae herself were to ring and say they hadn’t gone sailing after all and were holed up in the Boathouse at a music gig with friends. A shower – the cold side of warm – would sharpen her mind, stop the woolly thinking that was pervading it right now. It was something to do and Cara had to do something to escape her thoughts if only for a moment.

  She stripped faster than she ever had in her life and turned on the shower. She counted the seconds out loud, not allowing herself longer than two minutes.

  And then she heard it – the boom of the lifeboat siren going off. And within seconds the phone rang. She yanked it from the bathroom windowsill.

  ‘Yes?’ she said, her voice a jelly-wobble of fear.

  ‘Mrs Howard? It’s David Maynard. They’ve been sighted.’

  ‘Thank God! I’ll get down to the harbour,’ Cara said. She grabbed a towel from the pile on the bathroom chair and began flacking it on her damp body.

  ‘Um, not yet. You heard the boom I take it?’

  ‘What’s happened? Tell me what’s happened!’ Cara could barely get the words out as fear was making sandpaper of her throat.

  ‘A man walking his dog along the clifftop heard a bang and then a splash. Fortunately he had a torch so was able to spot them in the water. He rang the emergency services. The inshore lifeboat is on the way. Couldn’t you just murder them for putting us to all this trouble?’

  Well, actually …no. And David Maynard had only said the inshore lifeboat was on its way, not that it had reached them and got them aboard wrapped in warm blankets and drinking cocoa. All she wanted to do was hold Mae to her, get her warm and dry and tucked up in bed.

  ‘Where are you calling from?’

  ‘The lifeboat station. I’ll ring you again as soon as I have them in my sights.’

  ‘No. I want to be there when …’ Cara felt her voice cracking. She’d never been a drama queen, but she knew she was getting dangerously close to being one now. ‘I want …’

  ‘Ssh, a moment. Please,’ David Maynard said. ‘I’m listening to the shortwave …’

  Cara could hear muffled sounds in the background – voices not clear enough for her to hear properly, a bang or two, something hissing like a tap being turned on and then off again. Pressing her lips so tightly together that they began to hurt, Cara curbed her urge to get into the first clothes she could find and race down to the harbour – she could make it in fifteen minutes if she ran.

  ‘Right, Mrs Howard,’ David Maynard said, his voice – after minutes of silence and only her rapidly beating heart for company – startling Cara. ‘They’ve got a firm sighting. Both in the water, both moving. ETA at the harbour is now fifteen minutes. I’ll keep you posted.’

  ‘I’ll stay here, then,’ Cara said. She wriggled the towel around her shoulders and instantly felt a little warmer, calmer.

  ‘Good idea,’ David Maynard said.

  ‘They might need to go to hospital for a check-up. I don’t have a …’

  Cara stopped. The line had gone dead. But what would she do if Mae was taken to hospital? The nearest A&E was over twenty miles away. It was night time, no buses, and she didn’t have a car any more. And then she remembered she’d rung Rosie and left a message. If Rosie had picked up, she’d be here soon and then at least the transport problem would be over.

  Cara slid her feet into an old pair of mule-type sandals, not smart enough for wearing out, but fine for the house. She finished towelling herself dry, walked through to her bedroom and grabbed her old but much-loved trench-coat and slipped it on – it would be warmer than her dressing gown. The emotion of the last half hour had drained her, made her feel almost too weak to struggle into clothes, but there would be time for that in a minute, when she’d grounded herself better, and her thoughts had stopped flying about like butterflies caught in a storm. Holding the banister rail for support, Cara went downstairs. She opened the front door and stood on the terrace. She could just make out lights on a moored naval ship far out on the horizon. And something closer, moving rapidly, which she guessed was the inshore lifeboat. The scent of the roses that grew untidily over the arch by the front gate wafted its musky perfume around her. A car was turning at the end of the cul-de-sac and the driver suddenly stepped on the throttle and sped, far too fast, towards the junction, not stopping before it careered off down the hill towards the harbour. A boy racer, Cara decided, because lads often raced up the hill at speed as though they were in some sort of speed trial hill-climb, before racing back down again. Harbour to Cove End in four minutes or something like that was the benchmark, she’d heard someone say in Meg Smythson’s shop. Suddenly music filled the air – ‘Maria’ from West Side Story being sung in a deep voice, the orchestra reaching a crescendo now – from a neighbour’s open window somewhere further along the road.

  How normal it all was for everyone else, and how very abnormal this moment was for her. How sounds and smells were exaggerated in the night air. How almost overpowering, overwhelming, they seemed to Cara as she stood alone on the terrace staring out to sea. Her damp hair was drying in wispy tendrils around the edges of her face, as water slid down her neck and formed a rivulet between her breasts. She loosened the tie belt of her coat a little because it was making her feel stifled, suffocated, claustrophobic.

  She would have to get dressed soon, but she was loath to move in case she missed the lights of the lifeboat coming back into harbour with Mae and Josh on board, although she knew she didn’t have a whisper of a hope of seeing them. Not yet. But they were on the way back and her breathing had returned to something like normal now.

  She stayed listening, her hearing sharpened by the stillness of the night – the click of a gate somewhere, the scent of lavender and night stocks. A dog barked close by, and an aeroplane droned high overhead in the blackness.

  And then a voice saying, ‘Don’t move. Just don’t move.’ A man’s voice followed by the flash of a camera.

  ‘I can’t hold out much longer, Josh,’ Mae said, struggling for breath. Her fingers were almost numb with cold as she clung to the hull of the upturned dinghy, with nothing much to cling onto anyway. She’d threaded her free arm behind Josh’s back and under his armpit and was just about keeping him afloat too. She hadn’t been able to believe it when he’d said he couldn’t swim. She’d never have gone out sailing with him if she’d known that. And he still didn’t have his buoyancy aid done up, and there wa
s no way now that he was going to. She just had to keep them both afloat somehow. She’d heard the boom at the lifeboat station go up and she knew help was on its way. ‘Josh?’ she said again.

  Still no answer. The moon disappeared behind a cloud and Mae felt real fear, real loneliness, in that moment, even more lonely than she’d felt when she’d realised her dad was never coming back. If only her mum had protested more about her going out with Josh, this wouldn’t be happening. If she’d put her foot down and said, ‘No, Mae, I don’t think it’s a good idea to go sailing with Josh. Lasers are faster than what you were used to with your dad.’ But Mae knew in her heart that she would have gone anyway.

  ‘Dear God,’ she whispered, fearful that Josh would hear her and pour scorn on her words, call her a convenient Christian or something. ‘I’ll work hard at school, get a good job, not be any trouble to my mum ever again if you’ll let me live. I’ll even be nice to Rosie.’ Then she added, ‘And let Josh live, too.’

  She could see a torchlight flashing on and off on the clifftop. And a dog barked from time to time.

  ‘Help!’ she yelled, but her voice echoed back at her in the curve of the cove.

  ‘Mae?’ Josh’s voice. It sounded far away and even more frightened, if that were possible, than Mae felt.

  ‘I’m here,’ she said. They were drifting slightly, but not much. Clinging on.

  ‘I feel sick. And faint.’

  ‘Breathe in slowly, hold it, then breathe out even more slowly. Help’s on the way. I heard the lifeboat boom. Did you?’

  ‘No. Must have passed out or something. Mae …’

  ‘Sssh. Save your strength.’

  ‘Mae …’ Josh said again, his voice weaker this time.

  ‘I said sssh. I can hear something. A motor. The inshore lifeboat, I hope. Can you hear it?’

  Mae stopped speaking and just for the briefest of seconds there was silence, save for the drone of the boat engine. Then a frantic splashing as Josh, caught in a beam of sudden moonlight, began thrashing wildly in the water.

  ‘Stop it!’ Mae yelled. ‘I can’t hang onto you if you do that!’

  ‘I’m sinking!’

  ‘No, you’re not. I’m hanging onto you.’

  ‘I can’t feel you. I can’t feel anything. I …’

  ‘Shut up!’ Mae yelled at him. ‘You’re wasting energy. If you could reach up and hang onto the hull that would help.’

  ‘Can’t,’ Josh said. ‘My arms …’

  And then Josh stopped thrashing and lapsed into silence again.

  The sea was getting choppy now, the water splashing into Mae’s face and she knew she had to do all she could to stop swallowing salt water. Josh too. With a strength she didn’t know she had, Mae pulled Josh higher. If he was unconscious, he wouldn’t be able to stop himself swallowing water. And then, the lights of the inshore lifeboat pierced the darkness, shining in their direction.

  ‘Over here!’ she yelled with the last ounce of her strength. A beam from the inshore lifeboat scanned an arc of light across the top of the upturned dinghy, before its glare blinded Mae. She felt Josh’s inert body twist and turn on the current. ‘Help! I’m losing him!’

  Chapter Sixteen

  ‘Just who the hell are you?’ Cara said with a bravado she didn’t feel, knowing how vulnerable she was naked underneath her raincoat, and with her nerves shot to pieces because of her worry over Mae. The flash of the camera was still making little circles of light float before her eyes. She tried to turn and run back to the safety of the house, slam the door, but her feet, still wet, slipped on the leather insoles of her mules and she felt herself falling.

  ‘Tom Gasson-Smith. You’re expecting me. Although I wasn’t expecting the welcome you’re giving me.’ There was humour in his voice, unthreatening, although Cara still felt unnerved and conscious of the fact her raincoat was slipping over her shoulders, exposing more and more flesh.

  She felt herself grabbed by strong hands. Tom Gasson-Smith – the artist. Of course she was expecting him.

  ‘Yes, of course. Look, I’m sorry but there’s been a problem. My daughter. She’s out there in a boat somewhere and although I know the lifeboat’s been launched and the crew know her exact location and …’

  And all Cara’s cool melted and she began to sob noisily and very copiously before pulling herself – now that she was no longer at risk from falling – from Tom’s restraining hands, and heading for the front door. ‘You’d better come in. If you still want to, that is.’

  ‘I do. But is there anything I can do to help? Nip down to the harbour to see if the lifeboat is back yet with your daughter? Although I imagine someone will ring you when it is. But if …’

  His words were stopped as the phone rang. Cara grabbed it, and before she could say her name Josh’s father was telling her the inshore lifeboat had just arrived on the quay and that Mae was okay, but that Josh had been taken to hospital – mild hypothermia and shock, but he was in no real danger. A police car would be bringing Mae home very soon.

  ‘Thank you. Thank you for ringing,’ Cara said but David Maynard had already killed the call.

  Tom raised his eyebrows questioningly.

  ‘Mae’s being brought back soon and Josh – that’s her boyfriend – has mild hypothermia and shock. He’s going to be okay, though.’

  ‘Kids, eh,’ Tom said. ‘Don’t they give you grief?’

  ‘Experience speaking?’ Cara asked, relieved that this man whom she hardly knew understood. Tom was tallish with loosely curled medium-length dark hair, greying slightly at the side – looking older in the flesh than in the pictures of him that Cara had googled – more Aidan Turner’s father than his twin brother, perhaps. Not that she thought for a moment he’d been trying to deceive anyone. Eyes that were almost coal black in this light. Rosie would love him!

  ‘No.’

  Rosie was going to love him even more – a man roughly her own age and with no baggage. Then Cara realised how ridiculous the situation was with her standing there in the hall with nothing on underneath her old raincoat, her hair all over the place, with a man dressed in expensive-looking chinos and shirt with a tiny YSL logo on the pocket.

  ‘Tea?’ Cara asked. ‘Coffee? I’m being a lousy landlady.’

  ‘Not at all,’ Tom said. ‘You’re the best I’ve met so far. And sorry about the flash from my camera. I use it all the time to take photos of settings for my paintings. I was taking shots of the lovely proportions of your house with the terrace lit by moonlight when you opened the door, and there you were with the light behind you, framing you – it was just too good an opportunity to miss.’

  ‘Oh,’ Cara said, part of her listening to Tom, another part straining to hear a police car’s engine pulling up the hill, turning into the cul-de-sac. ‘So, was that tea or coffee? Or something stronger?’

  She noticed her hands were shaking and her legs weren’t feeling too strong either. She ought to go upstairs right this minute and get dressed, but she had a sudden urge to sit down before she fell down and made a run for the sitting room and the couch, but her legs buckled under her and suddenly she was being lifted by strong arms as Tom carried her to the sofa, placing her as gently as if she’d been the finest of bone china, and plumping up the cushions around her. She leaned back into them.

  ‘I need a good shake.’ Cara laughed nervously. She was embarrassed now at how she’d coped – or maybe that should be not coped – with events over Mae.

  ‘Happy to oblige,’ Tom said, leaning forward to place his hands either side of Cara’s shoulders. He gave them a little squeeze and then a mock shake.

  ‘Well, what was I supposed to think?’ Rosie cradled a mug of tea in her hands, forehead furrowed with disapproval. ‘There you were on the sofa with the most delicious man, wearing nothing at all underneath that wreck of a raincoat you love so much, revealing lots of flesh. He was shaking you, so I hit him.’

  Cara shuddered, remembering the sound of her bud vase, complete with w
ater and rose, hitting the side of Tom’s face.

  ‘You might have asked what was going on first. I’d almost fainted – he was just trying to rouse me.’

  ‘Oh, yes? And give him chance to wangle out of the fact he was assaulting you and leg it? The message you left on my answerphone was full of fear, you know. And I broke every single speed limit between my place and here. I believe I even went through the lights when they were on red. Twice.’

  ‘I know. I know. You’re a brilliant friend. Thank you. And thanks for running a bath for Mae, seeing to her. Shock, mixed with relief that Mae is okay, overwhelmed me. Is she asleep yet? No, no, don’t answer that. My legs are losing the jelly feeling, I’ll go up to see her in a minute. Oh God, I hope Tom doesn’t get a shiner from when you hit him.’

  ‘Of course he will,’ Rosie giggled. ‘I connected fair and square with his rather beautiful cheekbone.’

  Cara eased herself up from the sofa. While Mae was being supervised by Rosie, and after Cara had shown Tom to his room – of which he thoroughly approved – she’d hastily thrown on some leggings and a pink shirt that had once been Mark’s. She hardly looked her best and she wondered why she’d chosen that particular shirt – to connect them in the ether perhaps, after the safe arrival of their daughter after her ordeal? Who knows why what we do what we do sometimes? She’d come back down to find Rosie in charge, having drawn all the curtains to shut out the night, lit the gas faux wood-burner – to create a feeling of well-being, so she’d told Cara – and made tea and dug out the biscuit tin.

  ‘Feeling better?’ Rosie asked.

  ‘Lots. Thanks. The relief, you know, of having Mae back safely. I knew Tom would be arriving tonight, but I lost all track of time. I can’t believe, in the middle of it all waiting to know if Mae was alive or … well, you know but I’m not saying it, that I took time out to have a shower.’