THE WINDMILL CAFE_PART ONE_Summer Breeze

by Poppy Blake

  ‘If you want my honest opinion, I don’t think Felix is the culprit. He’s got too much to lose, not just Suki, but he’s genuinely focussed on his own acting career and I don’t think he would jeopardize that for anything. Matt, you’re not Poirot. Now that the Windmill Café is off the hook and the police are getting involved, I think you should leave the sleuthing up to the authorities. Anyway, didn’t you promise me a trip to the beach?’

  Chapter 18

  Matt parked his SUV in the car park overlooking the beach. The day still held some of its warmth and a mild summer breeze toyed with the grasses on the dunes. A wide crescent of golden sand swept northwards, but it was the expanse of sparkling blue sea that whipped Rosie’s breath away. Most families had returned home for the day, leaving only the water sports enthusiasts and the occasional dog walker to claim the sands as their own. Having lived in London for two years, the scene spread out before her looked like paradise.

  ‘You are so lucky to have spent your childhood here, Matt,’ sighed Rosie, drinking it all in.

  ‘I know. We used to come down to the beach every day after school. My brother Tom and I even had a small boat until the idiot managed to sink it during some charade when he was celebrating the end of his exams! Come on!’ Matt grabbed her hand and together they jogged towards the sea, kicking up sand in their wake.

  ‘Hang on!’

  Rosie paused in her sprint to remove her shoes, laughing as her hair flew into the air like a wild Medusa on steroids before slapping her in the face. With the smell of the sea in her nostrils and the sand between her toes, she felt as if all her woes had melted into oblivion and the only thing that mattered was enjoying the moment. A surge of contentment invaded her body and the person she had to thank for that was standing right by her side with a mischievous glint in his eyes. Her heart performed a swift flip-flop and she parted her lips to say something, to thank him for his friendship, but she was reluctant to break the spell that Matt seemed to have cast over them on the idyllic Norfolk beach. Then she saw his dimples deepen, his dark blue eyes widen and she knew immediately what he had in mind.

  ‘No!’

  ‘Yes!’

  Matt grasped her hand firmly in his and dragged her towards the waves.

  ‘Matt!’

  ‘Having fun?’

  Despite her reluctance to be splashed with freezing cold water, she had to admit that she couldn’t remember the last time she’d had so much fun. Matt seemed to possess a talent for squeezing every ounce of enjoyment out of any occasion.

  ‘Argh!’

  Rosie entered the sea at full pelt and droplets of cold water splashed up her naked legs and onto her forearms. She let go of Matt’s hand and reached down into the waves, scooped up a handful of water and tossed it in Matt’s direction, scoring a direct hit. The shock on his face at her antics made her giggle.

  ‘Okay, Miss Barnes, if that’s how you want to play it, you’d better watch out!’

  Within seconds she too was soaked. She tried to run away from the onslaught of freezing water, but she was no match for Matt who had probably played more water games than she had baked cupcakes. Her T-shirt clung to her chest and her hair was a straggly mess, yet she didn’t care. Sartorial elegance didn’t matter one iota to Matt – another reason to love him!

  What? Rosie paused in her escape towards the beach. What had she just said to herself?

  The brief hesitation cost her dearly because before she knew what was happening, Matt lunged at her from behind and she tumbled with him onto the shell-covered beach, landing on her bottom with an ungainly bump, her legs flying in the air. Matt fell on top of her, his hands either side of her head, staring down into her eyes, his mouth inches from hers, his breath coming in spurts from the exertion of catching up with her.

  Rosie felt as though that moment stretched on forever as each waited for the other to react. The surrounding world receded from view and all that she wanted was for Matt to kiss her. She didn’t have to wait a second longer to feel his lips on hers, soft and gentle at first, holding a question. She lifted her head from the sand and kissed him back.

  Matt needed no more convincing. He snaked his palm around her neck, kissing her properly, and her heart soared with exhilaration as an avalanche of emotion tumbled through her. Matt broke away, his lips moving towards her cheek. The warmth of his breath as he whispered in her ear sent a multitude of exquisite sensations rippling down her spine and exploding somewhere in her lower abdomen.

  ‘You’re shivering. Come on. I’ve got a couple of beach towels in the SUV.’

  The last thing Rosie wanted to do was break out of their personal beachside bubble, but Matt was right, she had started to shake and whilst she would have liked to say it was from desire, she was acutely aware of goose bumps tingling all over her skin. Matt pushed himself up and offered her his hand. She took it with a smile and they dashed back to the car park, laughing as she tried to put on her shoes whilst she ran – not an easy task.

  Back at the car, Matt wrapped her in a huge bright purple towel and settled her in the passenger seat, turning the heater on full blast. Within minutes she felt better, but her hair had other ideas and morphed into its habitual imitation of copper-coloured candyfloss. She ran her fingers through its bulk which only made it worse so she gave up. To her surprise, she suddenly felt awkward. She knew Matt was watching her, waiting for her to say something but for some reason her mind had gone completely blank. Matt was the first person she had kissed since finding Harry rolling amongst the shrubbery at the flower shop. Was she ready to hand her heart over to someone again?

  But Matt wasn’t Harry. She remembered that his relationship history was probably even more distressing than her own. He had been ready to marry his soulmate when Victoria had ditched him in the worst possible, and most public, of ways. She had no way of knowing what was going through his own head as he stared out of the windscreen at the view beyond.

  And what a view it was! The sky had turned a glorious shade of pink, tinged with ripples of salmon where the sea met the land. The undulating sand dunes took on a bleached white colour with sprigs of coarse grasses poking out like a giant’s ear hairs. Rosie glanced across at Matt but his eyes remained fixed on the horizon, his arms draped over the steering wheel, his expression tense. His lips had tightened and his Adam’s apple trembled at his throat as he struggled to reign in his emotions.

  ‘My dad loved it here. He used to bring Mum to this precise spot when they were dating. He used to say “how can anyone not fall in love when they look at that view”. He passed away ten years ago and I still miss him every single day, but I know he’d hate it if I allowed my grief to prevent me from grabbing the chance to enjoy every single minute of what life has to offer. How do you know what you can achieve unless you take a leap into the unknown? We might fall flat on our faces – and heaven knows I’ve done that lots of times – but we might just get to soar.’

  ‘Your father sounds like an amazingly perceptive man, Matt.’

  ‘He was the most fantastic guy you could ever wish to meet. I reckon he managed to squeeze two lifetimes into his forty-eight years. He completed the Three Peaks challenge five times, he cycled the Coast-to-Coast three times and hiked the Pennine Way, but the thing he loved the most was rock climbing. You name it – Snowdonia, the Lake District, the Scottish Highlands, the Pyrenees, the Alps – he just had to climb the highest peak. It was more than a weekend hobby, it was a kind of obsession; as though the mountain was a vengeful monster standing in his way and he couldn’t rest until he’d tamed it.’

  Matt paused, preparing himself to deliver the most difficult of words.

  ‘But there was one monster he couldn’t tame – the Eiger. He knew the dangers, but insisted on tackling it anyway. There’s a reason it’s called The Murder Wall - everyone in his climbing party perished after a heavy rockfall wiped them from its surface. I was twenty-one when the accident happened, waiting for my degree results before taking up my place a
t Hendon. Mum couldn’t be expected to run the outward-bound centre on her own, could she? So, along with Freddie – who’d just failed all his A levels because of his parents’ divorce – I stepped into my dad’s very large boots with trepidation and took on the responsibility of managing Ultimate Adventures. I hope I’ve done enough over the last decade to make him proud.’

  Rosie gulped down on her emotions, reaching over to squeeze Matt’s hand as she too was bombarded by painful memories. She was surprised that their stories had so many similarities.

  ‘You know, I felt so guilty when he died. It wasn’t my fault, of course, I know that, but with the benefit of hindsight I realized how hurt he must have been when I told him I wanted to pursue a career in the police force instead of joining him at Ultimate Adventures. After all, he’d built the business up single-handedly so that he could hand it over to his sons. And I do love it! I love that every day is different, that I can spend most of my time in the great outdoors, close to nature, and that I get to work with a great bunch of people. Dad was right – I would have hated to be cooped up in an office, filling in paperwork, battling with bureaucracy and struggling with the networking that’s required to climb the career ladder. I really wish I could tell him.’

  ‘Matt, you can’t blame yourself for what happened. I know that.’

  Matt had no reason to suspect, but she knew exactly how he was feeling. She wanted to confide in him about her own teenage dreams, that unlike him she had wanted to follow in her father’s footsteps by training as a criminal defence lawyer. She wanted to tell him about her own obsession with detective novels, too, but that meant talking about her father and she wasn’t sure if she was ready to embark on that journey.

  ‘Dad set up Ultimate Adventures so he could share his enthusiasm for outdoor pursuits with other people and he liked nothing more than convincing the most reluctant of clients that they could do anything if they were only prepared to put in a little bit of effort. But he always said that his proudest achievement was raising his family.’

  Tears gathered along Rosie’s lower lashes as she saw the sadness in Matt’s eyes, but her breath was coming in shortened spurts as she contemplated opening up her own heart. She might have been able to paper over the cracks the loss of her father had caused, but she had not yet been able to decorate them with her choice of pastel-coloured paint. Yet Matt had talked about his father tackling monsters; maybe it was time she started to tackle some of her own and sitting there next to Matt she felt so calm, so comfortable in his presence, that she knew she could say anything and he would completely understand.

  She clenched her fists and inhaled a deep, fortifying breath. When she eventually spoke, her voice sounded alien to her ears, as though someone else was speaking the words, recounting a story somehow. But then that was exactly what it was, her own story.

  ‘My dad died when I was fourteen. It was a huge shock, so unexpected that it sent our world into turmoil. Mum was so devastated she couldn’t function for weeks and my sister and I were cared for by our aunt. The doctors told us it was a heart attack, brought on by the stress caused by his job as a commercial litigation solicitor. He had always worked long hours, sometimes even all night; we just thought that was normal. Whenever he did have some spare time, though, he would spend it devouring detective novels, hunting out new authors to share with me so we could have a reading race to guess whodunnit. Dad’s other hobby was his garden which he used to get away from the pressures of work. I inherited my love of plants and flowers from him. It’s… it’s where he died. I… I… found him collapsed in the greenhouse where he’d been tending his tomato plants. I’ll never be able to erase that image from my memory.’

  Rosie exhaled and allowed her tears to flow down her cheeks and the memories of that painful time to bombard her. She had thought her life had ended that day when she had watched the paramedics take her father away in the ambulance. She had begged to be allowed to go with him and her mother, but she and Georgina had been ushered into a neighbour’s house until their aunt arrived to collect them. It had been the worst two hours of her life.

  ‘Rosie, I’m so, so sorry.’

  Matt slipped his palm into hers and squeezed. The gesture gave her the courage to continue. Now that she had started, she wanted to finish the story, to excavate every last morsel of pain from her soul and propel it out into the open where it could start to live, and hopefully grow old and less vibrant.

  ‘Mum struggled to come to terms with her grief, but no one knew how bad things had become until the house was repossessed and we had to move to a tiny flat above a bakery in another part of Hampshire. Georgie and I had to change schools so we lost all our friends and our support network. I was fifteen, still mourning my dad and trying to bolster my mum’s spirits and make sure Georgie was fed.’

  Rosie wasn’t surprised to find that her recollections of that agonizing time were still as sharp as if they had occurred yesterday. She remembered with absolute clarity the heavy physical ache that had lodged in her chest like a block of concrete, refusing to budge no matter how hard she tried.

  ‘I didn’t fail my exams, but I didn’t get the grades I needed to continue with my dream of becoming a lawyer. I was fortunate that one of the teachers at my new school took pity on me and guided me towards my second love – baking. The owner of the bakery downstairs from our flat gave me a Saturday job and I learned everything there was to know about creating stunning cakes from her. I think my obsession with hygiene was born around this time. It was my way of putting some order into my otherwise chaotic life. If we couldn’t do anything else, at least we could have a clean and tidy home, and there was plenty of food on the table, even if it was leftovers from the bakery.’

  ‘Rosie, I can’t begin to imagine how difficult this was for you.’

  ‘I didn’t think about it at the time. I just knew I had to get on with things. I went to the local catering college – which I loved – and life took on a different kind of normality. Mum started to emerge from her melancholy and joined a support group for bereaved spouses who introduced her to a swimming club which she loves. They even went on a “club trip” to Austria in July so they could swim in one of the lakes. Georgie made new friends at school and our little family chugged along like any other – trying its best to make sure everything worked out. I met Harry when I was working as a pastry chef in a hotel in Winchester. He had the contract to provide the flower arrangements but he’d always dreamed of having his own business, which he achieved a year later in Pimlico. So I grabbed onto the coattails of his dreams and joined him, learning how to be a florist as I went along. That didn’t work out either, as you know.’

  Rosie hadn’t realized it but whilst she had been baring her soul, the sun had exhaled its last breath and dipped behind the horizon. Dusk washed the scene in a shadowy filter, but it was still beautiful. She felt exhausted, as though every scrap of energy had seeped from her veins and left her totally depleted. However, she also felt a huge sense of relief - that by recounting her history to a sympathetic listener she had halved her burden. The fact that she had left nothing out, had even admitted that her problem with cleanliness had stemmed from the loss of her father and not from her relationship breakdown, had answered her own questions.

  She swivelled in her seat to face Matt, his hand still firmly clamped in hers. She smiled and a huge swathe of gratitude washed over her. Whilst she wouldn’t say she was euphoric, she felt buoyant, as though an ancient curse had been lifted, and she knew that from now on the only way she’d look was forward.

  ‘Thank you, Matt.’

  ‘What for?’

  ‘For this. For listening to me. For holding my hand and letting me talk. For not judging me. Well, for being Matt.’

  ‘Rosie, it’s absolutely my pleasure. But please don’t forget that you’ve done the same for me. Relationships are a two-way street. We give and we take without the need of gratitude.’

  Matt held her eyes and slowly leaned forward
until his lips met hers and they kissed until there was no light left in the car – but the light of life shone brightly in Rosie’s mind.

  Chapter 19

  St Andrew’s Church was the focal point of village life in Willerby. The whole community revolved around its church hall and the door to the vicarage was always open to anyone who required the sage advice of its occupants. A row of old stone cottages, with honeysuckle and clematis weaving their way around their doors, framed the village green that was still bedecked with strings of pastel-coloured bunting flapped in the breeze. Streetlamps cast their amber light over the bucolic scene, enhancing the golden aura that seemed to encircle the buildings.

  The carpark at the Drunken Duck was crammed with a jumble of assorted vehicles and the cycle rack overflowed as testament to the quality of the beer on offer. Rosie jumped from Matt’s SUV and smiled when she caught sight of the silver bowl on the pub’s stone doorstep offering a drink of water to any passing thirsty hound. Together they crossed the road to the quaint kissing gate which led into the churchyard.

  ‘Are you sure about this?’ Rosie asked, scrutinizing Matt’s expression carefully. ‘We could ask Suki and Jess to meet us at the pub?’

  ‘How can I expect bravery from others if I’m not prepared to stand up and fight my own monsters?’

  Matt smiled at her and reached out to unfasten the wooden gate. Rosie slipped her hand into his and together they navigated the winding pathway towards the vicarage. Weeds and grass sprouted like wiry whiskers from between the cracks and the overhanging beech trees provided an arboreal tunnel to the front door, its cheery facade welcoming them with a burst of fragrance from the pale pink roses draped across the lintel.

  It was the perfect sanctuary for Suki and Jess, away from the turmoil of the last few days. Rosie also knew that, just like Suki and Jess, Carole and Roger Coulson were no strangers to heartache. She had heard from Mia that they had lost their youngest daughter, Harriet, to meningitis when she was only seven and they bore their grief with dignity, coupled with a staunch belief in hope and the healing power of love. Knowing their story had made Rosie realize that she wasn’t the only person on whom fate had unceremoniously dumped its load of anguish and pain – that particular party was peopled by even the most undeserving of gate-crashers.