The Gift of Cockleberry Bay

by Nicola May

  Rosa smiled at her mother and raised her eyes. She still found it hard to believe that Sara was older than her mother. Having lived in the Bay for so many years, Mary was an old-fashioned soul who was happy to dress from charity shops, wore no make-up and hadn’t had her extremely long black hair cut in all the time that Rosa had known her. It was quite refreshing that looks weren’t the be-all-and-end-all to her. Mary was her own person, that was for sure. Saying that, she had got down to a healthy weight for Rosa’s wedding, so she had made some concessions.

  There was no denying that Mary’s heavy smoking and drinking had taken their toll, but she was doing the right thing by abstaining now, and the mischievous sparkle in her sea-green eyes made her round face pretty, and so similar to Rosa’s it was almost like looking in a mirror. Rosa had tried to put make-up on her once, knowing that she would look completely stunning, but Mary had always stopped her. ‘Beauty is in the eye of the beholder’, she would quote. And follow it up with: ‘Not that there is anyone I care to behold, presently.’

  ‘Of course it’s all right. Mary it is then. OK, mister,’ Rosa bent down to stroke Hot’s ears and clip on the lead, ‘it’s time to go. We’ve got to relieve Titch and refresh the Christmas gifts this afternoon. I’m looking forward to being in the shop today. It’s funny how I’m also looking forward to Christmas so much this year too.’

  ‘You’re happy, duck, that’s why. Christmas isn’t for the faint-hearted or lonely – we all know that.’

  ‘You could be right.’ She picked up the shortbread and ginger package that Mary had wrapped for her and said, ‘Thanks, that’s lovely. I’m glad that DC Clarke won’t get his greedy mitts on these. They’re much too good for him.’

  Mary followed her to the door, then put a hand on her shoulder. Unexpectedly she said, ‘A thief is a man or a woman in need; a liar is a man in fear.’

  ‘Kahlil?’

  ‘Kahlil.’

  ‘Goodbye.’ Rosa kissed Mary on the cheek and gulped. Her mother might not get everything right, but when she did, it was more than spooky.

  CHAPTER 46

  Rosa yawned. She was very much looking forward to a nice long bath and an early night. Humming along to the sound of ‘Santa Baby’ sung by the sultry Eartha Kitt, she pulled down the shop blind and started to cash up the till. If the South Cliffs Today presenter said it was OK to play Christmas songs in November then it was all right with her too. She really must download a Christmas album and play it in the shop; set the mood for the festive season. She was also going to get a big tin of Quality Street for the counter, as adults and children alike could pick their favourites then. This made her thoughts shift to the envelopes sitting in the safe; one of them had been labelled Quality Street, she was certain.

  If only she had given Danny the code to the safe, Rosa thought, then all that money wouldn’t have been stolen. But as with all life’s valuable lessons, that wouldn’t have given her the knowledge she had now. Thank heavens for the CCTV that Alec had so brilliantly reminded her about, and for the hole in one of Danny’s socks!

  The goings-on that the camera had picked up in her back kitchen that day had certainly been an eye-opener, even for somebody as broad-minded as herself. But despite what she had seen through the big hole in Danny’s sock, which someone had put over the camera, she had made the monumental decision to keep quiet and not share this with anyone, not even Josh – not yet, anyway. Rosa knew that she had to handle this in the right way at the right time, and ideally without any police involvement. She’d had enough of that lately and she was trying to simplify her life, not create more dramas. She would be guided by that old saying: ‘Revenge is a dish best served cold.’

  She closed her eyes and suddenly felt the familiar tingle of Queenie by her side. Once again, she heard her say the words: Sometimes in life, if you don’t know what to do, do nothing, say nothing and the answer will come to you.

  ‘I hope so, Queenie. I really do,’ Rosa replied aloud.

  At that moment, there was a loud knock on the back door which almost made her jump out of her skin. Hot tore across the shop floor, barking loudly. Thinking it could be Luke, she opened the door to a bloody-faced and shivering figure.

  ‘Nate? Is that you? What’s happened?’ Seeing the lad’s blackened eye and split lip made her grimace slightly but the memory of where she’d come from herself, and her less than perfect past, meant she couldn’t send him packing. ‘Get in here, quick. Come on.’

  A bedraggled Nate followed suit as Rosa led the way upstairs, carrying Hot. It was warm and cosy up there. As she pulled an old dressing gown from the airing cupboard, she felt nothing but sympathy for the troubled figure in front of her.

  ‘It might be a bit big but it’s warm,’ she told Nate. ‘Have a shower and you’ll feel better. We can talk properly then. Have you got any clean clothes?’ Nate shook his head. ‘In here?’ She pointed to his bag as he nodded. ‘OK. I’ll get them washed and dried in no time.’

  ‘Thanks so much. It isn’t–’

  ‘It never is,’ Rosa interrupted. ‘Just get in the shower, Nate.’ She passed him a big, warm bath towel. ‘There’s shampoo in there, spare wrapped toothbrushes and shaving stuff as well.’

  Rosa checked the freezer then turned the oven on to heat up. Pizza and salad would be quick and easy, as she guessed he was probably starving too. Despite her now being comfortable and, in her words, ‘safe’, her past life was always circling, and more than anyone she understood the currency of the fist when intelligent conversation and resolution had not been ingrained as a child.

  Twenty minutes later, Nate reappeared in the lounge. His injuries looked less severe now that he was clean from blood and dirt. His mop of tangled greasy curls, Rosa noted, was no more.

  ‘You’ve cut your hair.’ She gulped. Then, without thinking, ‘You look even more like me now.’

  Nate laughed nervously. ‘Did it myself, couldn’t bear not being able to wash it properly.’

  ‘Sit down.’ Rosa pointed to the sofa. Hot had accepted the presence of Nate and was perfectly happy chewing away noisily at a bedraggled, headless rabbit dog-toy.

  Rosa went to the kitchen and returned with a mini-feast of pizza and coleslaw and Diet Coke. She put the tray down on the coffee table and said, ‘Help yourself.’ She waited till they’d both eaten before asking, ‘So, do you want to tell me what happened?’

  ‘Not before I say I’m so sorry for letting you down at the café after Halloween.’ Nate put his empty plate back on the tray.

  ‘Yes, that was really wrong of you. Even a short text would have helped. But I guess you had no credit.’

  ‘I panicked. Look, Rosa, I’ve done something really bad.’

  ‘Is this connected to your face being smashed up?’

  ‘Oh that? No, I fell.’

  ‘And I’m Mother bloody Teresa. Give me some credit, Nate.’

  Nate started to talk quickly. ‘OK. I didn’t steal your money, Rosa. I know what it looks like – I heard you got your takings nicked the other day. And who the hell was that bloke in the shop with the scar? He thought it was me! I reckon he was just pinning it on me; he looked like someone straight out of The Godfather. He punched me so hard, it knocked me over. Told me to hand back the money, but how could I, when I didn’t have it. He told me that if I ever troubled you in any way again, he’d make sure it’d be more than a punch I was getting.’

  Hearing this, Rosa put her hand to her tummy.

  ‘Shit, I forgot about you being pregnant,’ Nate said. ‘I’m sorry if I’m stressing you out.’

  Rosa grimaced slightly. ‘I did just get a little pain, but I’ve had something similar before. Probably trapped wind, the speed I shoved that food in. I was hungry.’ She burped. Rosa found it so easy to be herself around this man.

  ‘Do you want a cup of tea – would that help?’ Nate asked. ‘Here, put your legs up.’ He threw her the blanket that was on the sofa.

  ‘Nate, calm down. Like I said, it�
��s probably wind.’ Then Rosa added softly, ‘And I trust you didn’t take the money. But will you stop saying sorry and tell me what you’ve done that’s so bad.’ She braced herself for the worst. Despite nothing really fazing her, if he had pushed Sheila down the cellar steps, she wasn’t quite sure how she would deal with that kind of revelation.

  As if he’d read her mind, Nate mumbled, ‘I didn’t push that woman, if that’s what you think.’

  Rosa tried to get comfortable. She twisted her legs around so she was lying on the sofa and resting her head on her favourite dachshund cushion.

  ‘So, you were at the pub that night, then? I knew it.’

  ‘You know everything.’ Nate sighed. ‘After I lost my wages at the betting shop, and upset Mad Donna too – well, I had nowhere to go, as I told you. I still had the key for the pub, I knew that the cleaning lady had a day off and that poor old Sheila was so ill she would never venture to the back of the pub where the boxroom was. And as she was moving so slowly, I could hear her in advance and keep out of her way easily by coming in and out of the back door.’

  Nate drained his glass of Diet Coke. ‘However, that night when I sneaked in, I found her sitting behind the bar in a terrible state. She said that she’d taken loads of tablets and wanted to end it all. I sat with her, Rosa – I did, I swear. We talked about her whole life, her sons. It was so moving. It was so sad. I said that I should call an ambulance. She insisted I didn’t.’ Nate looked at Rosa, his face twisted with distress. ‘I honoured her wishes. When an hour had passed, she became a bit delirious and went to the top of the cellar steps. She asked if I could push her down them – hard. Finish her off properly. I obviously refused. She then said she was going to do it herself. I don’t know where she got the strength from, but when I tried to stop her she shoved me away so hard I lost my grip on her, and in doing so she overbalanced and crashed backwards. She landed with such a thump…and the rest you know.’

  He swallowed back tears. ‘I know I should have stayed with her, that I should have rung an ambulance and tried to save her, but instead I focused on trying to save my own skin. I was so horrified and scared that I might be implicated that I ran upstairs to get my phone, and in scrabbling to pack things away I knocked my wireless speaker which started booming out my music. At that moment you, thankfully, arrived, and I rushed out through the back door of the bar without you seeing me. I knew then you’d ring the ambulance and do what needed doing.’

  ‘Oh Nate. I knew someone was in there. Bless you for talking to her for so long. I bet that meant a lot.’

  ‘She said I reminded her of her younger son. Said he was a little terror at times too.’

  ‘He is that.’ Rosa smiled.

  Nate was anguished. ‘What I really need to know is, would she have lived if I had called the ambulance sooner? Am I responsible for her death?’

  ‘No,’ Rosa soothed, and not knowing the answer herself, for his sake she lied. ‘She was terminally ill, and it was a bad fall.’

  Nate hardly seemed to hear. ‘I literally felt sick,’ he went on feverishly, ‘mainly because when I heard the rumours that she might have been pushed, I knew the police would pin her death on me if they got to know I’d been there. I then felt so terrible because you were involved. The last thing I’d want to do is hurt you, Rosa. I was a coward, as I’ve said, and ran away – but then realised that I had nowhere to run to, and no money. So I came to see you, to find out what was going on – and that was when matey boy tried to kick the living shit out of me.’ He gave a reluctant grin. ‘You’ve got plenty of knights in shining armour, I can tell you that.’

  He got off the sofa, knelt beside her and held her hand. ‘I need to tell you something else too, and I’m not proud of this either.’

  ‘Bloody hell, Nate, I don’t know if I can cope with any more.’ Rosa struggled to her feet. ‘I’ll make us a cup of tea and you can carry on.’

  ‘No, let me do that, it’s the least I can do.’

  ‘Check on the tumble drier while you’re out there too – see how your clothes are doing. One sugar, please.’

  Nate came back with two mugs of tea and sat down again. With Josh being so broad and tall and he being short and slender, he looked comical in Josh’s grey-striped oversized dressing-gown. His hair was drying now into tight dark curls, his grey eyes bloodshot from fatigue and from being punched.

  ‘Before you start, I saw your dad,’ Rosa remembered suddenly. ‘He came to look for you at the fireworks.’

  ‘Shit, really?’ Nate went pale. ‘You saw him?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘I borrowed someone’s phone, said I was in trouble, then realised him coming to fetch me wasn’t “standing on my own two feet”, as he always professes I should, so I dumped the call.’

  ‘How did he know you were here?’

  ‘I dunno. Maybe he called the number back and asked them – who knows?’

  ‘So, do you have a mum too?’

  ‘Too many questions, Rosa.’

  ‘It’s quite a simple one.’

  ‘They got divorced when I was little. She went off with some right numpty and I never forgave her. I lived with Dad, but I was such a handful, he sent me to boarding school. We lived in London then, but when I was done with school, he decided to move his funeral business to North Devon. People die everywhere, so it’s an easy one to set up.’ Nate managed a smile. ‘I didn’t lie about everything, Rosa.’

  Rosa shook her head. ‘Don’t lie to me, ever again.’

  ‘I’m sorry,’ Nate replied quietly.

  Rosa was still puzzled. ‘So you did live in London… Are you absolutely sure we haven’t met before?’

  ‘It’s a big place, that London.’

  Rosa then laughed. ‘I got around.’ She reached for her bag that was at the end of the sofa and rummaged inside. ‘He said to call him – here’s his card.’

  ‘It’s funny,’ Nate told her. ‘I may not have seen him for a while, but I know that mobile number off by heart.’

  ‘You get on with him then?’ Rosa decided to wean the inevitable out of him little by little.

  ‘He’s a good man. Slightly eccentric but his values are all there.’

  Hearing that, she said very gently, ‘Why don’t you go home, then?’

  ‘I will now. It’s the other thing, you see – that’s why I’m really here.’ Nate’s face dropped.

  ‘Let me go to the loo and then you tell me more.’ Rosa stood up. ‘You wouldn’t even get this sort of drama on the television all in one evening.’ She smiled at the now anxious lad. On her return, her face told a different story too.

  ‘What’s the matter?’ Nate asked. ‘Something’s wrong, isn’t it?’

  ‘It’s going to be all right, but I need to call my mum. God, I wish I’d learned to drive.’ Rosa’s voice was deliberately controlled and calm.

  ‘What is it?’

  ‘Just a bit of blood. I’m sure it’s nothing.’ But remembering back to the awful night when she’d had the miscarriage not long after her wedding, a lone tear fell down her cheek.

  ‘That’s it: you are not losing this baby. And this time, I am ringing for an ambulance straightaway.’ Nate’s panic was evident.

  ‘It will be quicker to drive. I know – I’ll ring Jacob. He can take me. You look after Hot, OK? Here are some spare keys and a fiver. Go and top up your phone so I can reach you, then stay here. I’ll be back soon, I’m sure.’

  ‘Oh my God, Rosa, you can’t lose this baby,’ Nate repeated.

  ‘I won’t. It’s all going to be OK.’ Rosa grabbed her phone and keys and threw them into her handbag. Her visitor was now practically hyperventilating. ‘Nate, what is wrong with you? Calm down. You’re stressing me out now.’

  The young man put both hands through his short, curly brown hair and began to cry, saying over and over again, ‘You can’t lose this baby!’

  ‘Nate, stop this.’ Rosa took hold of his wrists. ‘You really must get a grip because I have
to go.’

  ‘I’m trying to explain.’ Nate’s battered face looked tortured. ‘But it’s all coming out wrong. You can’t lose this baby, Rosa, because…’ Then, in one short sentence he confirmed the enormous truth that Rosa already suspected. ‘Because I’m going to be his or her uncle.’

  CHAPTER 47

  Sara whistled as she opened up the café. The recent dreary November weather had been replaced by a wonderful sunny and crisp morning. Everyone seemed to smile a bit more when the sun was out, she thought. Even the bread delivery man, whose face often resembled that of a basset hound, managed a hearty hello.

  Vegan Vera strutted in and plonked her designer handbag onto a table overlooking the beach, her matching designer purse in her hand.

  ‘Oh hi, Bergamot,’ Sara said politely. ‘How are you?’ The response wasn’t quite what she’d expected.

  ‘God, I could kill for some fucking bacon,’ the moody redhead grumbled. ‘You know how people say “I need a drink” when they are stressed? Well, I need meat. My husband or soon-to-be ex-husband – he just doesn’t get it. How am I supposed to survive on the pissing pittance of an allowance he’s offering me? How, tell me that, you!’

  Sara still winced at her foul language, but was now so used to her boring, consistent rhetoric, she just let it all go over her head.

  The angry one was mithering on: ‘He’s still shagging that fat bitch of a housekeeper too. I hope she’s got bloody syphilis.’ She blew out a noisy breath. ‘Never sign a pre-nup, however they sugar-coat it, darling.’

  ‘Your usual?’ Sara went to get the soya milk out of the fridge.

  ‘No. Sod that for a game of soldiers. A double espresso, please – and pronto. I need a caffeine hit.’ The posh voice was getting more strident and obstreperous.

  ‘And a bacon sandwich?’ Sara questioned tentatively.

  ‘What? Don’t be bloody ridiculous!’

  Sara bit her tongue, wishing at times like this she could channel Rosa’s acerbic and quick wit. Rosa would never have put up with this rudeness, since to her, the customer was always right – but only up to a certain limit. Sara, however, had always just meekly sucked it up and let it go.