The Girl Who Came Home to Cornwall

by Emma Burstall

  He could sulk for days if she cancelled a date or failed to respond to a message. And he was so jealous, he thought that every man she ever spoke to was a rival whether she met him at work or in a social situation, so she did her best not to mention any names.

  It was exhausting, but it was all she knew, and the husbands, brothers and fathers of her friends were equally demanding in their different ways. What’s more, as far as she was aware, not one of them knew how to iron a shirt or put on the washing machine, let alone cook themselves a meal or use a vacuum cleaner.

  As she headed over the brow of the cliff, retracing her steps along the narrow path that would lead, eventually, to the village, she found herself thinking that Simon and the Penhallow link might prove to be just the diversion that she’d been hoping for.

  An oddball he certainly was, but he also seemed gentle, genuine and kind. And right now, after all that she’d been through, these three qualities seemed to draw her instinctively, as a cooling lake draws the weary, footsore traveller.

  Chapter Six

  Light was only just starting to peep through Liz’s bedroom curtains when she was woken by a loud screeching overhead.

  She snapped open her eyes.

  TAP-TAP-A-TAP-A-TAP-A TAP-BANG-BANG! And again, TAP-TAP-A-TAP-A-TAP-A TAP-BANG-BANG!

  It sounded as if Michael Flatley and a troupe of Irish dancers had taken up residence on her slate roof.

  ‘Robert?’ She turned and touched her husband’s bare shoulder. He had his back to her and was breathing in and out slowly and heavily, his head creating a deep dent in the white pillow.

  How on earth could he slumber through this?

  ‘Robert?’ she repeated, more loudly now, and she shook him quite firmly.

  ‘Uh?’ He twisted around and sat bolt upright, his eyes wide and staring. His brown hair was sticking up at right angles, as if he’d stumbled into an electric fence.

  She nearly laughed out loud. Serious bedhead.

  TAP-TAP-A-TAP-A-TAP-A TAP-BANG-BANG! That noise again, repeated over and over in a series of rhythmic cracks and thuds.

  ‘What the hell is it?’ She sat up, too, hugging the duvet around her naked body and fixing on the closed door. At any moment she half expected to see it burst open and an army of… she didn’t know what… charge into the room, waving their bayonets high in the air and roaring.

  ‘Sounds like something on the roof.’ Robert swallowed and two pairs of eyes floated skywards in unison.

  ‘I’m scared,’ said Liz, putting on a silly girly voice, but she was only half joking. She snuggled into her husband’s side and he wrapped an arm around her shoulder and squeezed. She rather wished that he had a big chunky weapon in the other hand.

  Their attention was diverted by a loud squawk at the window. Through a chink in the curtains, they spotted the fat, feathery body of a very large white and grey seagull perched on their sill.

  ‘Shoo!’ Liz shouted instinctively, waving her arms in its general direction. The bird, however, seemed quite unperturbed. It paused to peer at them beadily through the gap before flapping lazily away, as if it hadn’t a care in the world.

  Meanwhile, the screeching and banging carried on above them; it was giving Liz a headache.

  ‘Will you go and have a look?’ She got up and padded across the wooden floor to fling open the curtains. There was clear blue sky above, and the pink geraniums in the neighbour’s window box opposite were in full bloom. It was going to be a glorious day.

  ‘Sorry, babes.’ She could hear Robert stretch and throw off the duvet while she scanned up and down Humble Hill, searching for clues. ‘I’m meeting Ryan at the shack in half an hour. I need to get in the shower.’

  Ryan worked at the village fishmonger’s in Market Square and supplied fresh fish for Robert’s successful restaurant, A Winkle in Time, as well as for his more recently acquired seaside café, the Secret Shack.

  Business there was slow in winter but now that the weather had picked up, more folk were strolling on the beach and some were even venturing into the water. Come the school holidays, the place would be heaving and he’d need to employ extra staff to cope with the rush.

  ‘I can’t see anything,’ Liz commented. The street was deserted and most of the blinds in the windows were still shut. However, she did notice some seagulls flying in the general direction of her beloved cottage, Bag End.

  Two left the flock and settled on a chimneypot just across the way while the rest flapped on. Soon the noise above ramped up several decibels. TAP-TAP-A-TAP-A-TAP-A TAP-BANG-BANG!

  ‘I think it might be herring gulls,’ she hissed, as the penny started to drop. ‘Why are they making so much noise?’

  There was no response and when she spun around, she caught sight of her husband’s naked bottom disappearing into the shower room. It was a very nice bottom – round and firm with cute little cheeks like sculpted apples.

  The rest of him was tall and thin and she liked the fact that she could grab onto his bum, that and his beefcake biceps, like tennis balls, formed through years of lugging heavy crates of wine, food and kitchen equipment.

  Water whooshed and steam soon started to waft through the open bathroom door. It was no use expecting him to investigate the disturbance now.

  What was the point of having a husband if he wasn’t available to shin up roofs when required?

  She felt a flush of irritation, then she remembered that unlike her, he was afraid of heights. It was one of his pet hates, along with grapes, rice, tomatoes and swimming.

  Mostly she found it endearing, except when she needed him to check the gutters, fix a light bulb in the ceiling – or investigate strange noises overhead. Back when she was single, she’d had to do all these jobs herself, of course. Now, she couldn’t help feeling that they were man’s work.

  As she viciously plumped the pillows and threw them back on the bed, she decided that Ryan was probably just an excuse to avoid getting out the ladder.

  She was tempted to be immature and only smooth her side of the sheet and duvet while leaving his rumpled, but then her mind flitted back to last night when Robert had returned late from the restaurant. She’d been asleep and had woken to find him doing something unusual and really rather delicious with his big toe.

  A little smile curled the corners of her lips while she pulled on her dressing gown, and there was a new-found spring in her step when she strolled along the landing to check on her daughters.

  Rosie, who had recently turned fifteen, was extremely difficult to rouse and it often took stern words to get her to school on time. It was a different story with Lowenna, however, who’d be three in August.

  She generally rose with the larks and Liz could hear her chattering further up the corridor. She was probably playing with her pretend plastic people, who lived in a large Lego house, complete with beds, tables, chairs, a grandfather clock and even some soft furnishings. They had tremendous adventures.

  ‘Bad girl! Go to your room! NOW!’

  Uh-oh. Lowenna’s voice had risen to a fierce, high pitch. It was funny how strict she could be with her toys given that Liz, to her knowledge, never spoke to her own daughters like that. But her youngest was a sweetheart – mostly, anyway. Rosie had been once, too, but she was more complicated now.

  Her bedroom door was closed and Liz opened it tentatively, rather fearing what she might find inside.

  ‘Morning, darling!’

  She paused for a moment while her eyes adjusted to the darkness. The air smelled stale and she wrinkled her nose as she stepped gingerly over a pile of clothes, an open school bag, several mugs and a half-eaten bowl of dried out cereal. Frustration tugged at her insides and she had to force herself not to bark.

  Fifteen was a difficult age, after all, plus Rosie had an awful lot more to cope with than most. She’d been born with mild cerebral palsy and everything was that bit harder for her.

  Liz was so used to her daughter’s quirks that she sometimes forgot about her slight limp
and tricky arm, which didn’t work as well as it should. On top of all that, she’d been diagnosed with a brain tumour at ten years old and had needed a major operation to remove it, followed by proton beam therapy.

  She was doing amazingly well, but her sight had suffered and she needed thick glasses to see properly, which, of course, she hated.

  The whole experience had been terrifying and Liz’s instinct, still, was to wrap her daughter in cotton wool and generally overcompensate. But sometimes, like now, Rosie would take the mickey and push her mother just that bit too far.

  ‘Time to get up!’ Liz said, opening the blind and blinking as light flooded into the gloomy interior.

  The place looked even worse when she could see properly. Clothes were strewn over every available surface, including a pile of school shirts that Liz had ironed only the previous day. Prickles of annoyance ran up and down her arms and back, into the base of her neck and right across her scalp.

  The wastepaper basket was overflowing and shoes were scattered about, along with the odd bra and pair of knickers. Whether these were clean or dirty, it was impossible to tell. How could Rosie bear to live like this?

  ‘Time to get up,’ Liz repeated, more loudly this time.

  ‘Noooo!’ The girl’s voice rose up from beneath the duvet, which she’d thrown over her head. She was awake, then.

  ‘You need to get dressed.’ There was an edge to Liz’s voice, which Rosie picked up on immediately.

  ‘Stop being a nag! I’ve got five more minutes. My alarm hasn’t gone off yet.’

  Liz took a deep breath. Rosie’s ‘five minutes’ usually turned into fifteen as she kept hitting the snooze button. Then she’d tear downstairs and stumble out of the door to catch the bus, without having had any breakfast and probably having forgotten several crucial textbooks and bits of equipment.

  Still, there was no point having a row; experience proved that it didn’t make Rosie any quicker and would only leave them both feeling miserable for the rest of the morning.

  ‘See you later!’ Robert hurried past, his footsteps heavy on the wooden floor, and after a few moments Liz heard him slam the door behind him. He could move like the wind when he wanted to.

  More clattering and banging overhead made her jump, but Rosie didn’t seem to notice. Vertigo or no vertigo, the seagulls, or whatever that noise was, would have to wait till Robert returned. Liz certainly wasn’t venturing up there on her own.

  Lowenna was crouched on a cream sheepskin rug in front of her toy house when Liz entered her room. She was clutching two little figures in her chubby hands and looked very intense as she leaned forwards and tried to prop them both on miniature chairs, which promptly fell over.

  ‘Bother!’ she said crossly, before trying again. Liz was rather relieved; she’d heard her daughter say far worse.

  The little girl had dark, straight, shoulder-length hair like her mother, and big round brown eyes that drew you in. She was in a short-sleeved, pink nightdress with Cinderella on the front, and a large chocolate milk stain down the side that Liz hadn’t noticed last night.

  ‘Shall I do it?’ She stepped forwards to help but on hearing her mother’s voice, Lowenna jumped up and promptly dropped the figures, which clattered to the ground. Then she rushed over to Liz, throwing her arms around her legs.

  She was irresistible. Liz bent down and scooped her daughter up, burying her nose in her soft hair. She smelled of flowery shampoo and fabric conditioner and sweet, dewy baby skin.

  Her bare legs were twisted around her mother’s waist, her arms tight around her neck, and like a limpet, she wasn’t letting go. She was quite heavy but Liz didn’t mind, and together they made their way downstairs in a messy jumble, with Liz laughing and hanging onto the rail to keep them upright.

  There was no playgroup that day and it was quite some time before they made it back upstairs after breakfast to get washed and dressed. Then Lowenna wanted a story, then Liz’s father rang from London for a chat and before they knew it, it was almost ten thirty and Esme was knocking on the door and calling through the letterbox: ‘Cooee!’ Liz would know that voice anywhere.

  ‘Goodness!’ she said, hurrying down the hallway with Lowenna hot on her heels. ‘She’s early, isn’t she? I haven’t even put on the kettle.’

  The women embraced on the step before heading into the kitchen. They went back a long way. Esme, a potter, lived in the upstairs flat at Dove Cottage, just along the road, and Liz and Rosie had once occupied the chilly ground floor.

  This was well before Liz and Robert had married, in the days when she had needed two jobs – cleaning and waitressing – just to make ends meet and was still sore after her break-up with Rosie’s father.

  Esme, who was single and in her early sixties, was a talented potter with a studio in the next village. Everyone now knew that she and her former school friend, Caroline, had been secretly in love for years, and that they had rekindled their passion on a recent Cornish walking trip.

  However, Caroline had reluctantly decided to return home to Paris to nurse her sick husband and be with her pregnant daughter, leaving Esme heartbroken.

  Since then, she had thrown herself into her work to try to take her mind off her unhappiness, and Liz and the other villagers had been doing their best to cheer their friend up.

  It seemed to be working – to a degree at least. Today, Esme looked really rather beautiful, in a long, navy fisherman’s smock, a flowing purple skirt, almost down to her ankles, and dozens of coloured crystal beads in her ears and around her neck and wrists.

  Her long, salt and pepper hair was tied up in a messy bun, and there was a smudge of clay on her cheek and a sparkle in her eye that Liz hadn’t seen for a long time.

  ‘You look well,’ she commented, and Esme smiled rather mysteriously.

  ‘I had an email from Caroline.’

  ‘Ah!’ From the look on the older woman’s face, it had to be good news. ‘What did she say?’

  ‘She’s missing me.’

  ‘Of course she is,’ Liz cried, with some exasperation. It had been so obvious to all who cared about Esme that she and Caroline were made for one another.

  The pity was that Caroline’s husband, Philip, had Parkinson’s disease and during her stay in Tremarnock, he’d taken a turn for the worse. Their daughter, Helen, had blamed it on Caroline’s absence and the pressure on her to go home from Helen, her brother Andrew and Philip himself, had eventually proved too much.

  Still, Liz held out hope that Caroline and Esme might one day be reunited, and Esme certainly looked pleased to have heard from her lover today.

  ‘How is she?’ Liz asked now, and Esme made a so-so gesture with her flattened hand.

  ‘Bearing up. The baby’s due any day and she’s very excited, but Philip’s being difficult. He can’t stand being so immobile. He takes his frustration out on Caroline, I’m afraid. She really doesn’t deserve it.’

  ‘Perhaps she can come here for a holiday after the baby’s born?’

  It seemed like a good idea; after all, Philip, Helen and Andrew already knew that Caroline and Esme were friends. They didn’t need to be told anything more. But Esme shook her head.

  ‘Philip can’t be left alone for a minute and he won’t have anyone other than family looking after him. Helen can’t help and Caroline wouldn’t dream of asking Andrew; she says he’s far too busy with his job. So that just leaves her.’

  ‘Oh dear.’ Liz filled the kettle and fetched two mugs and a cafetière from the cupboard. She could well imagine how powerless and desperate Esme must feel and what a struggle it must be to accept Caroline’s self-sacrifice. It wasn’t as if she still loved Philip, after all; according to Esme, he had been a bit of a beast and betrayed his wife spectacularly.

  ‘She’s going to ring me tomorrow while he’s with the doctor,’ Esme went on, brightening again. ‘We tend to use Facetime. It’s lovely being able to see her when we talk.’

  She was perched on a wooden chair at th
e battered old pine table, scored with chips and scratches through years of use. She hadn’t even noticed Lowenna, pulling on the corner of her skirt. Esme didn’t know much about the ways of children, not having had any herself.

  In desperation, the little girl yanked on Esme’s necklace, finally grabbing her attention.

  ‘Careful!’ she said quite sharply, ‘you might break it.’ Then, more softly, ‘Is there something you want to show me?’

  Relieved, Lowenna nodded and taking Esme by the hand, she led her purposefully into the sitting room at the front of the cottage, where there were more toys.

  Meanwhile, Liz made coffee and put some biscuits on a plate.

  ‘Alexa, play Norah Jones on Spotify,’ she commanded, and the voice-controlled device on the worktop sprang to life. It had been a birthday present from Robert, and Liz often used it to check the weather, play music or tell a silly joke.

  Robert and Rosie teased her for adopting a special, haughty voice when she barked her instructions at the speaker, but she ignored them. Now, she couldn’t imagine how she’d ever lived without it.

  When Esme and Lowenna returned with a truck of coloured bricks, Lowenna settled on the floor to play with them while the women resumed their talk.

  Esme enquired after Robert, and Liz said he was extremely busy with work, as ever, and had had no time to investigate the strange squawking and banging on the rooftop this morning.

  ‘I didn’t notice anything.’ Esme took a sip of coffee before arching an eyebrow. ‘Perhaps you have bats in the belfry?’

  ‘Surely not?’ Liz looked alarmed, which made her friend laugh.

  ‘I’m rather partial to bats myself.’ Esme had a funny, slightly old-fashioned way of speaking and sometimes used long, baffling words that most folk couldn’t understand.

  After helping herself to a biscuit, Liz nudged the plate across.

  ‘But you wouldn’t want them in your attic, would you? Bats, I mean.’

  ‘Perhaps not.’ Esme tipped her head to one side and wrinkled her long, thin nose. ‘But they’re insectivores, you know. They can be rather a useful form of pest control.’