‘Sounds perfect,’ I say, hurrying to find plates and mugs, our ageing kettle creaking and clicking as the water starts to boil.
‘Now, I wanted to see you about the shop,’ Liz says when cake and tea are served. My heart drops. It’s been such an unusually good day that I don’t want any bad news to spoil it. I think back to my spiky conversation with Faye Jesson-Lee, and the four similar conversations I’ve endured with artists over the phone since. Please don’t let this be another.
‘Things are tough at the moment,’ I begin, but she holds up her hand to silence me.
‘I know. That’s why I wanted to come to see you.’
‘We can’t make anyone stay if they don’t want to . . .’
‘More fool them for leaving. We don’t quit just because the sea gets a bit choppy, do we?’ She smiles at my surprise. ‘I have no intention of going anywhere, Seren. Your dad championed my art long before anyone else. I just wanted to reassure you that my work stays here, for as long as you want it.’
I am so stunned that I don’t know what to say. Tears well and all I can do is stare back.
Liz takes my hand across the counter. ‘My poor love, this must be so hard on you. How are you doing?’
‘I’m getting through it,’ I manage, wiping a tear that falls when I blink. ‘But thank you for staying. Dad would have been so pleased.’
‘I hope so. But I’m not doing it for him. I think your hard work should be rewarded. I’ve seen what you’ve done to keep this place running, and I think it’s marvellous. And those in the art community who are saying it can’t be done are idiots. I’ve told several of them this.’
I have to smile. Liz is the loveliest lady, but she would be formidable as an opponent. ‘Thank you. That means so much.’
‘You just keep going, Seren. My grandma used to say that we are all like seeds: born with everything necessary to succeed already inside us. You can make this happen if you believe you can do it.’
When I leave the shop later on, I feel lighter than I have for a long time. Maybe Liz is right: regardless of how out of my control my situation has been, I have the potential to make it work.
As I walk back home, I remember the marshmallows from Gwithian Beach this morning. The box is still in my jacket pocket, one marshmallow of each colour remaining inside. I’m not sure I believe in fate, but finding this gift seems to have unlocked something positive today. Maybe I can do this. If enough people put their faith in the shop, like Liz has done, we might just survive. And the swell of support for the Save the Parsonage campaign after the first meeting suggests the town is behind Dad’s cause, too.
Perhaps I just need to start believing it’s all possible.
Chapter Twelve
Jack
There’s a lot to be said for a hot mug of tea by a warm fire after a hard day’s work. I relax in the old armchair next to the roaring fire in my brother Owen’s farmhouse and inhale the wonderful smell of baking. I love the buzz of aching muscles after a day of work, and it’s become a physical badge of honour since we had to move to Jeb’s chalet. Every day I work is one day less to worry about.
Today a builder friend called me at short notice to cover him on a roofing job. He’d come down with a sickness bug but his customer was demanding the work be done, so he thought of me. It was good money, even if my back is now disgusted with me. Nessie had an inset day from school, so I’d been looking at a day not working, but thankfully Owen and my sister-in-law Sarah were able to have her so I could accept the job. She was overjoyed to be granted an unexpected visit to her beloved cousins Ellis, Arthur and Seth, and an extra home-cooked tea from Auntie Sarah.
I can hear Ness and the boys dashing about upstairs, their laughter and thudding footsteps sounding through the floorboards in the two-hundred-year-old farmhouse. It’s the kind of happy noise I remember from my childhood. I’m so glad Nessie gets to experience it.
My brother and his wife have been rocks to me since we lost Tash. I know Owen wishes he could do more, but to be honest, them occasionally having Nessie for tea after school and cooking us Sunday lunch every now and again is all we need. Their farmhouse between Helston and Liskeard is the kind of homely place I’d always imagined us living in eventually. The dream was to find an old building, renovate it with locally sourced materials and move in. Well, that was my dream. Tash saw things differently. She was aiming for the faceless, shapeless new-build mansion, all glass balconies, polished steel and sweeping stone floors, devoid of personality. It wouldn’t have mattered to her if the materials had spent weeks at sea being shipped from China, rather than being hewn from the foundations of Cornwall. But it matters to me.
I think that’s when I knew the damage between us was irreparable; when we had the biggest argument of our marriage over a dream home she’d seen on a television show. That was us in a nutshell. We never argued about the things that actually mattered, but all of the angst and frustration went into stupid, overblown arguments about proposed train lines, or soap opera stories, or decisions our friends were taking in their lives. Everything became about passing the blame on to other things. Before she died, I half-expected her to file for divorce on the grounds of ‘irreconcilable tastes in wallpaper’.
The arguments had become bigger than we were, the cracks too wide to repair. And that’s the worst thing, because while people assume I’m the devastated widower who tragically lost the love of his life, I know the truth.
The day she died, I was going to leave her.
I’d talked it through with Owen over beer late into the night, and he’d agreed to help me move out. I planned to take Nessie with me. The sad thing is, I don’t think Tash would have fought me over that decision. I don’t believe in making people saints when they die, and it helps to admit the truth to myself about Tash. She could be wonderful, kind, caring, but she also saw me – and by extension, Ness – as unnecessary limits placed upon her life. I wish it had been different – and I won’t ever tell Nessie how she should remember her mum – but I have to remember how bad it was before.
I don’t know whether or not to feel guilty that all this was going on. I do feel guilty for not challenging Tash about it more when she was alive. I sat it out, waiting for her maternal instinct to kick in. I don’t know what I was expecting to happen, exactly. I think I just hoped things would change. But they didn’t – and even with Ness as young as she was, I could see she was waiting for something her mum never gave her, too.
‘Is Nessie okay?’ Sarah, my sister-in-law, pulls yet another perfect pie from the Aga and frowns at me.
‘She’s great. She’s doing really well.’ I never know if this type of question is aimed more at me for not doing something I should be, rather than a genuine enquiry after Nessie’s wellbeing. I sound defensive, but I hope Sarah just assumes I’m tired.
‘Good. You know, if you ever need time out, Jack, Nessie can always stay with us for a bit.’
‘That’s very kind. But we’re okay.’
She returns to her baking as Owen strides in. He’s much more like my dad than I am, in build and attitude and character. Being a farmer suits him, even if for years all he ever wanted to do was work in finance and live in a swanky flat in London. I don’t know what happened to him five years ago, but it was enough to bring him home to Cornwall and completely overhaul his life. Meeting Sarah was a large part of that, I think. She fits the lifestyle perfectly and I can’t imagine her as the corporate lawyer she once was. And neither of them is scared of the tough demands of running a farm while bringing up three kids. They are two of the hardest-working people I know.
‘Hey, Stink,’ my brother says, the mountain of a man becoming a five-year-old again.
I grin back. ‘Hey, Reekie.’
Mr Reekie and Mr Stink were unlikely superheroes, but the characters we created for ourselves as kids were the biggest, baddest, coolest crime-fighting duo our primary-school playground had ever seen. All through our childhood, Reekie and Stink’s exploits e
ntertained us for hours. Mum despaired, but Dad always encouraged us. We didn’t have much compared with our friends, but our imagination gave us secret riches.
‘I was just saying to Jack we could take Nessie for a bit, if he needed us to,’ Sarah says.
I catch the flicker of frustration in my brother’s expression and suddenly realise my sister-in-law wasn’t just making an off-the-cuff offer. ‘Leave it, girl.’
‘Should my ears have been burning?’ I ask, my defences clicking into action.
‘It’s nothing like that . . .’ Owen says.
‘Okay, now I’m worried.’
‘Don’t be.’
‘It’s just that maybe Nessie would benefit from a bit more stability . . .’ Sarah folds her arms.
‘Stability? So you think I’m not giving her that?’
‘Bruv, it isn’t like that. But she could stay here for a bit. The boys would love it. We could move Seth out of the box-room into his brothers’ bedroom and Nessie could have his bed. Sarah could get Ness over to school every day. You could carry on living at Jeb’s chalet – good place for work and everything – and come and see Nessie whenever you could.’
‘Wait – so you’re not offering me bed and board, too? I’m supposed to live away from my daughter?’
‘Stink, we don’t have the room for both of you. But we could help ease the burden while you sort things. Easier to do that alone than with a kid in tow. We just thought it might give you a bit of breathing space . . .’
I eyeball him, my blood starting to singe my veins. ‘How much breathing space are we talking about, exactly?’
Sarah has moved to Owen’s side and I’m suddenly facing an unexpected battalion. ‘Just a few weeks – maybe a couple of months – just until you’re back on your feet.’
‘No.’
‘Jack . . .’
‘I said no!’
‘We’re concerned.’ Sarah says. And there it is. That look.
‘We’re fine.’
By the fire, Owen’s sheepdog Floss growls in her sleep.
‘But you aren’t really, are you?’ My sister-in-law has dropped any pretence of niceness now.
It’s an ambush. My fingers whiten at the knuckles around my mug of tea. ‘In what way?’
‘Don’t take it like that. Sarah and me . . .’
‘And you, too?’ I would’ve expected it of Sarah, who has spent most of her adult life fire-fighting for other people, spotting potential risks before they happen. But not my big brother. I want to get up and leave, but Nessie is upstairs playing with her cousins, and she’s been looking forward to it all week. I lower my voice, the effort making every syllable shake. ‘We are fine. We are coping. Better than that, actually. I’m pitching for jobs every day. It’s only a matter of time before something comes up. The chalet is perfectly okay for us for now and Ness adores the beach.’
‘But what security can you offer her at the moment?’ Sarah holds up an oven-gloved hand to dismiss my brother’s protest. ‘No, come on, Jack, I want to know. It all sounds very noble, but what happens if the work doesn’t arrive? Or if your mate at the caravan park suddenly wants his house back? Have you even thought about that?’
Okay, that’s it. ‘I don’t have to listen to this. Nessie!’
Owen and Sarah rush to stop me, but I’m already on my way to the hall.
‘Jack, sit down. Let’s drop this, have dinner and . . .’
‘I don’t think you can drop it.’ If I don’t leave now I’ll say something I can’t take back. And I need my family, in the long run. Nessie needs them. I snatch our coats from the bottom of the stair banister. ‘Nessie, come on!’
‘But Daa-aad . . .’
‘Jack, don’t go.’
‘I said we’re going, Ness. Come downstairs, please.’
‘Oka-a-a-ay . . .’ I can’t blame her for being annoyed with me. I am being unreasonable. But I’m damned if I’m going to stay here and take this.
I stop as my brother’s huge hand clamps onto my shoulder. ‘No, wait. We need to forget this conversation ever happened. You’re doing great, Jack. Really. Everyone thinks so.’
I stare at him, then at Sarah, who is red-faced and staring at the ceiling. ‘Obviously not everyone. And for your information, Sarah, I think about that stuff all the time. Night and day. And it scares me so much I can hardly breathe. So the next time you think I’m being selfish, or not putting Ness first, just you remember that, okay?’
‘Why are we going?’ Nessie is standing forlornly at the top of the stairs. I really hope she didn’t hear everything I just said.
‘We’re just – I think it’s better if we go home now.’
‘But Auntie Sarah’s making pie.’
My fight is gone, but I don’t want Owen and Sarah to know that. ‘We’ll have some next time.’
‘Sunday,’ Sarah says – and that’s the closest to an apology she’ll ever offer.
I force a smile. ‘Sunday.’
‘Take a pie with you,’ she says, hurrying into the kitchen without waiting for an answer.
My daughter immediately brightens. ‘Can we, Dad?’
I nod, wishing I didn’t feel like a wretch as I hold her coat out for her to wriggle into.
I’m still shaking an hour later. From the kitchen I can see Nessie cross-legged on the floor watching television, her head on one side, blue light from the screen dancing across the soft waves of her dark hair. I shouldn’t have taken her away. It wasn’t Nessie’s fault. Am I ever going to be able to shake off other people’s well-meant comments? I feel like I’m constantly ready to fight these days. What others thought of me never used to matter. But now . . . Well, now I feel like a soldier on a never-ending patrol.
I can’t believe they were discussing me. Or making plans about my life. Sarah, maybe – she hasn’t been my biggest fan over the years, although I thought we’d turned a corner lately. But it’s Owen’s involvement that stings the most. He should know better than to plan to take someone’s child away. Especially his own brother’s. And while I’d like to think Sarah was the instigator, the look I saw in his eyes suggested otherwise. Have they mentioned it to Dad, too?
I know people talk. I get it. And it probably comes from a good place. But it doesn’t feel like that when you’re the one under scrutiny. I know things aren’t great, but Nessie is my life and everything I’m doing is for her. How dare they suggest I’m not coping?
The money situation is the big issue here. I’m going to have to redouble my efforts and start leaning on anyone who might give me work. And I’ll do it, whatever it takes.
‘Dad, are you not so mad now?’ Ness has arrived in the kitchen and is staring up at me with wide, ocean-blue eyes.
‘Yeah. Sorry, ladybird.’
She shrugs. ‘It’s okay. Grown-ups get mad sometimes.’
I love her matter-of-factness. But a seven-year-old shouldn’t have to know that, let alone see it in action.
‘Hey,’ I say, wanting to shelve the subject, ‘why don’t we take Auntie Sarah’s pie and eat it on the beach?’
Delight illuminates my daughter’s face. ‘Can we? And eat it from the tin?’
I pull two teaspoons from the cutlery drawer and brandish them like broadswords. ‘Let’s do it!’
The beach is still this afternoon, the tide far out and the late afternoon sun making the tall tower of Godrevy Lighthouse glow like polished quartz. We find a couple of rocks with bum-shaped dents in them and commence our two-spooned attack on the pie. The childish part of me doesn’t want to enjoy it as much as I do, still smarting about the comments from its maker. But my sister-in-law makes a mean apple pie and this one is every bit as warm, sweet and spicy with cinnamon as usual.
‘In the summer we’ll do this with ice cream from the park shop,’ I say, instantly regretting even promising Nessie a summer here. Is it fair, when I don’t know where we’ll be yet?
Stuff it – even if we aren’t here, we’ll steal one of Sarah’s pies and
buy ice cream from Jeb’s shop and come to Gwithian Beach. Ness needs security and I’ll give it to her, one way or another.
‘Honeycomb? Or Confetti Cake?’
‘Anything you like.’ I can’t promise the world, but I can damn well promise ice cream.
‘I like it here, Dad.’
‘Me too, Ness.’
‘I like it with you. And the glass stars. And the mermaids.’
I think my heart might just give out right here on the beach. ‘Good.’
Nessie licks her spoon and giggles as she picks pie-crust crumbs from her hair. Then she fixes me with a look. ‘Why are you scared?’
Crap. She heard. At this point I could lie and pretend everything is all right. But she heard me. ‘Because I need to find more work,’ I say, loathing the necessity of sharing this problem with her. All she should be worried about is eating stolen pie on a beach and dreaming of summer ice cream. ‘It’s okay, though. I’ll find some.’
‘Are we poor now?’
Oh, great. ‘No, we’re not poor.’ Heading that way, but not quite destitute yet.
The thinking-wrinkle appears above her nose. ‘But we’re not very rich.’
‘That’s true. But we have pie.’
She brightens a little. ‘And you’re not scared of pie.’
‘Absolutely not.’ I growl at the half-eaten pie and stab it with my spoon. ‘Take that, pie!’
As she gleefully joins the game, I start to make a mental list of people I should call later. Someone must have work they need doing, or know people who do. This is a hole I can get us out of. I just have to try harder.
Chapter Thirteen
Seren
The town is very quiet as I walk to work the next day. St Ives is such a different place in the winter and early spring, before the crowds descend. When it’s busy it’s fun and buzzing, but summers in St Ives can be a bit like spending days with a tantrum-throwing toddler. I love them, but they are constantly demanding. Some people leave the town during the six-week school holidays, when tourists can be especially testing. But not me. I love it in every light and shade, every sunburst and thundering storm.
Somewhere Beyond the Sea Page 6
