Dad’s partner has been the making of him, transforming the last four years of his life. He jokes about her, but she really is the love of his life. But she’s yet to convert him to the delights of her book group, so midweek they have a night apart. ‘Give her our love, eh?’
‘I will. Listen, do you still want a hand with that roof tomorrow? I’ve a free lunchtime if you need me.’
‘That would be great, thanks.’
‘Good one. Night-night, Jackboy.’ He clamps a hand to my shoulder and kisses my forehead, the way he always has.
I stand on the veranda to wave him off, the feeling of unease returning as the red rear lights of his old Land Rover slip away from view. Despite the debacle of the question-and-answer session, I think I was well received. I wasn’t pelted from the stage with rotten fruit, which Bill Brotherson had joked might happen, but I could have done so much better. I will do better next time. I have to, if I have a hope of winning this contract for Brotherson and the construction manager job that comes with it for me. All of this is fixable, except one thing: the discovery of my opponent in the debate. It shouldn’t matter who is leading the other campaign when there is so much at stake for me financially. But it does.
She thinks I’m the enemy. She couldn’t even look at me.
In the dark, with the rumble of the sea in the distance, I realise what I’m up against. It isn’t the town I most have to convince, although that’s a considerably tall order. It’s Seren MacArthur.
Chapter Nineteen
Seren
My head is a mess when I get home, unable to process what happened tonight. I need to think, to put out the pieces of the evening’s events one by one, like I do the seaglass pieces for my jewellery, to try to make sense of it all.
There’s only one place I can do that.
Mum’s at her drama group and won’t be home for a while yet. I take a thermal mug of tea and a blanket and head out to the dark garden, followed by the skittering sound of Molly’s paws on the stepping stones in the damp lawn behind me. At the end of the path, looking out down the hill to the harbour far below, the small wooden building stands, as rickety and reassuring as ever. I have made this journey countless times since Dad built his project at the bottom of the garden but it never stops feeling special, even with its architect gone.
I unlock the door with the huge key that usually hangs on a hook by the back door of the house, and instantly the smell hits me. Warm wood, old carpet, brass polish and the faintest hint of lavender from the ancient bunch hung high in the rafters. At the centre, a ladder to a small mezzanine that as a child I’d imagine was Heidi’s bedroom; above that, a double window; and, shrouded under a cover made by Mum years ago from an old pink Dralon sofa cover, Dad’s pride and joy: Clarabell, his telescope.
Dad did many wonderful things in his life, but the Shedservatory is perhaps his finest achievement. His own observatory looking up to the night skies above St Ives, but so much more than a place to gaze at the heavens. This was our place. When the world below got too much, or too confusing, this is where I would come, to hang out with constellations, planets and my dad. We’d slide open the double hatch window in its roof and huddle on deckchairs beneath the stars, wrapped up in blankets and old duvets, drinking hot chocolate from Dad’s old thermos flask, putting the world to rights.
Dad was out here most nights, but he never minded company. I think he enjoyed it as much as me. Mum would stay indoors, ‘like a sensible person’, laughing as she watched us from the warmth and light of the living room. All of the most important decisions and discussions about my life have happened here, on the creaky mezzanine floor of the Shedservatory. It was here I told Dad I’d been accepted to Plymouth University – and that even though it was the closest university to home, I wanted to move into halls and live there while I studied. After I graduated, I snuggled up beside him under the old blue wool blanket and told him I wanted to travel for a year; the stars were my witness when I returned with news that I was moving to Falmouth to work at a graphic design agency; and then last year I admitted I’d been made redundant, and he invited me to move back home.
There was another conversation here two weeks before he died, when I told him a former colleague had offered me another job and a fresh start, and Dad urged me to accept. But I don’t like to think about that conversation. Or about why I decided not to take the job. Because that was the beginning of the end – and I never knew how close I was to losing him.
Leaving Molly in the old crate filled with blankets on the ground floor, I climb the ladder and push back the hatch windows. They’re stiff after the rain today, so it takes both hands to do it, but the scent of pine fills my nostrils as the windows finally creak open. Clouds in the inky black sky are starting to part in places, the twinkle of brave stars pushing through. I sit on the bench Dad made to finally retire the threadbare deckchairs last year and breathe in the view. Pinned to the ledge below the hatch is Dad’s old star wheel. Carefully, I rotate the inner disc to the correct date and find the constellations above me tonight. There are swanky apps for this now and I do have one on my phone, but using the battered old cardboard discs is infinitely more magical. It’s the difference between using a GPRS tracker and tracing your route on a real paper map. Dad showed me how to do this when the star wheel was new and my hands much smaller as I turned its disc.
Orion is directly overhead tonight, although I can only make out two of the stars of his belt through the moonlit clouds. Ursa Minor is somewhere to the right; beyond that the Plough, the Pole Star and Cassiopeia. Orion was always my favourite – the stars marking his bow and arrow always looked more like outstretched arms to me. But I love all of the constellations. They are faithful, ancient friends, ever-present and forever beautiful. They have been there for millions of years before I existed and will be there for millions more after I’ve gone, the length of my life not even a flash of light to them. Everything is put into context when you consider that. It helps, when problems seem insurmountable. To my friends in the sky, they don’t even exist.
Molly’s snores are drifting up through the space and I smile, remembering Dad’s comedy disdain for her canine sleep noises. ‘That dog’s snoring makes a Force Ten gale sound quiet,’ he would say, the loving gaze he sent Molly’s way betraying his true feelings. Molly was meant to be my dog, but she was really always his. She’d come to the shop with him every day, as she does most days now with me, curling up in her basket beneath the driftwood counter. She loves being there with me, but every so often I get the feeling she’s a little disappointed when Dad doesn’t appear. I know how she feels. I still expect him to arrive any moment, blowing on his fingers and telling me how cold the walk over the garden was. Sitting in the open hatch, with the old wool blanket that still smells a little of him wrapped around my shoulders, I can almost feel Dad by my side. ‘Bustle up, young ’un,’ he’d say in his comical half-Welsh, half-Cornish accent, squeezing onto the small bench seat next to me. And everything would be okay.
I wish he were here now. He would know what to do.
This was meant to be a simple fight, good versus bad; the people who love St Ives’ heritage against the developer who wants to destroy it. A fight we could win.
It wasn’t supposed to include Jack Dixon.
The crowd seemed to warm to him, too, their heckles during the question-and-answer session relatively good-natured compared with what they’d thrown at Brotherson last time. At the end I saw several groups of people shaking his hand. Maybe they were being kind, but what happens if they respected what he said? His presentation before the Q&A seemed professional and well rehearsed and he came across as affable, despite the monster that sent him. The crowd might have found his bumbling amusing; but what happens if they listened to him and liked what they heard? And what if next time he makes no mistakes?
Worst of all, I can’t believe I liked him before I realised who he was . . .
We have a fight on our hands. It began the moment Ja
ck Dixon walked onto that stage. And suddenly, victory isn’t the foregone conclusion I thought it was any more.
I look up at Orion, but he has hidden behind a thick bank of cloud.
What do I do now?
Chapter Twenty
Jack
Following a restless night and a desperate morning dash to St Piran’s Primary after Nessie and I both oversleep, I am feeling far from my best. Seren MacArthur aside, was my first round in the St Ives debate convincing? Before I stuffed up the Q&A I think I did quite well. People listened. I said everything I’d intended to and nobody shot me down in flames. I told them how much the development will respect the memory of the astronomer. I said we were committed to using locally sourced materials and local manpower, where possible. I told them that the people the development will bring into the area would be good financially for St Ives. I reiterated how committed Brotherson Developments are to making a development that both honours the past and looks to the future.
But was it enough?
I’m still mulling this over at lunchtime while I foot a ladder and question my bright idea to ask Dad to help me. Since he retired he’s been like a dog with an unreachable itch. It’s best to keep him busy to keep him out of trouble.
I’m still thinking about how I could have presented myself better last night at the meeting. I should have prepared more. But how was I to know what awaited me? Brotherson had made it sound no scarier than a couple of busybodies who might ask a few awkward questions. He said it was a done deal. But then he would have said that, wouldn’t he? He wanted me to take the job because he didn’t want to face the town. What worries me is that he doesn’t come across as someone easily scared – so how bad must the previous meeting have been to make him avoid going back?
Dad’s now heard the whole sorry tale, and is on a rant about my hopefully soon-to-be client.
‘What’s Bill Brotherson mucking about over, eh? He’s promised you the job – why isn’t he letting you get on with it?’
‘Because I have to convince the town first. Or at least, try to.’
‘Wish you’d done better last night, then?’
I grimace at the memory of Seren MacArthur’s stare. ‘Yes.’
On the top of his ladder, my dad tuts. To be precise, it’s a cross between a clicked tongue and a mechanic’s intake of breath before he delivers bad news about your car, but for Dad it’s shorthand for everything from mild irritation to abject insult. ‘Bleddy rich do-gooders. It’s all very well getting put out about someone else’s building when you’re cosy in your million-pound house. Where are the poor, hardworking, normal folks supposed to live, huh? That lot don’t give a monkey’s!’
I could reply that the people living in the finished Rectory Fields development are highly unlikely to be poor. But I don’t. For now it’s quite endearing to have him fired up on my behalf. ‘They care about their town. And their questions were good. They mean well, Dad.’
Dad’s universal sound of disapproval floats down again. ‘Meaning well won’t get you back on your feet. Meaning well won’t pay your bills. Your problem is you’re too sentimental, son. What has that ever got you, hmm?’ He jabs the hammer towards me. ‘That’s why you’re doing odd jobs in this craphole instead of building the houses you want to.’
Not true, technically. I’m doing odd jobs here in return for free accommodation for Nessie and me. Because we couldn’t keep up mortgage payments to stay in our house on just my wage after Tash died. She didn’t have life insurance – of course she didn’t. Who thinks they’re likely to die from a cerebral aneurysm at thirty-three? Tash thought she was invincible and had most of the southwest believing it, too. Just shows how wrong you can be.
‘We’re lucky to be here,’ I say, squinting at the sun. ‘Jeb’s been good to us.’
That’s an understatement. I’m thoroughly indebted to Jeb for rescuing us. It’s still a mystery why he offered, but then there’s a lot mysterious about Jeb. His real name is Tony, for example. Nobody knows why they call him Jeb. They just do.
‘Dunno what Jeb was thinking, bringing you and Ness here. Damp, wind-battered. T’aint no place for a kiddie.’
‘Ness loves it here,’ I say, resisting the urge to add, and you didn’t want us living with you. There wouldn’t have been sufficient room with him and Pru, of course, not in Dad’s small Victorian terraced house with its already cramped space. And although he’d made it clear he’d support us in any way he could, I knew his house was off-limits. They’ve been great in other ways, which is really all that matters. I just think Dad having to cope with me and Ness under his roof would have brought back memories of life looking after Owen and me post-Mum, and I don’t think his heart could have taken it. So it was an unspoken agreement from the outset when we knew we had to give up our house. Dad would be there for us, as long as we weren’t there with him.
It doesn’t stop him having an opinion on our living accommodation, though.
‘Yeah, well, kids are happy anywhere there’s a beach, aren’t they? It’s just when they’re almost forty you’d hope they’d change their expectations.’
Almost forty? Cheek. I’m thirty-six. Hardly on the precipice of forty yet. But I don’t rise to the bait. I need Dad on side this morning. Besides, the beach has suddenly become magical for me again. I half-consider mentioning the mysterious seaglass stars to Dad, but quickly think better of it. Dad’s idea of magic is when he wins on the fruit machine in the Harbour Arcade. Anyway, it feels good to have a secret that’s just for Nessie and me. So much of our lives have become public property since Tash died. It’s nice to know something everyone else doesn’t. And I have to admit, looking for the stars on the beach each evening has given my days a bit of a spark. Heaven knows I need that right now.
‘You know me, Dad. Always a big kid.’
That tut floats out from the chalet roof again. ‘Just like your old man then, eh? Right pair we are.’
I smile.
Chapter Twenty-one
Seren
It’s so deserted at the shop this morning that by eleven a.m., I’ve had enough. I scribble a ‘Back in 20 minutes’ sign and stick it to the door. The spring air billows fresh around me as I walk onto the harbour front and up through the higgledy-piggledy backstreets of Downalong. Skirting the Island car park, I head down to Porthgwidden Beach. I need to be in good company and if there happens to be excellent coffee too, so much the better.
Pots of fresh Cornish daffodils adorn the small wooden tables and line the bar of Aggie’s coffee hut this morning. The salt-heavy breeze from the beach is making their sunny petals dance in their small glass milk-bottle vases. People buzz in and out, a group of regulars relaxing near the counter. And in the middle of them, my best friend holds court.
Aggie is full of the meeting last night. The whole town is talking about it, apparently – or at least, the percentage that have already visited her to buy coffee this morning.
‘It was such a one-horse race, you wouldn’t believe it,’ she is telling the gathered regulars. ‘Seren, hi! I was just sayin’ how good the meeting was. And you were magnificent, as ever.’ She reaches over the weathered oak counter to pat my cheek like I’m a small child. ‘Wasn’t she, Jude?’
The guy who runs the surf school grins at me from a nearby table. ‘Totally nailed it, Ser. All the lads said so. You should be on telly.’
‘No fear. I was so nervous.’
‘You didn’t show it. Put that minion of Brotherson’s right in his place.’
I’ve been worried that Jack was liked by the crowd at the meeting and that we might have lost ground, so it’s reassuring to know other people saw it differently. Despite the unease I still feel about fighting Jack Dixon instead of Brotherson, I must admit that watching him struggle to answer questions last night made me feel like our side had scored a point. Even if a part of me felt sorry for him. He obviously had no idea of the storm he was sailing into. Poor bloke.
But actually, maybe he shoul
d have been better prepared. This issue is too important and there’s too much at stake to wander into a debate without all the necessary facts. I’ve planned for this for weeks: I was hoping my opponent might do the same. And if Bill Brotherson chose to send Jack into that situation without preparing him for it, well, that isn’t my problem. Maybe it just confirms what half the town already knows about the developer. He’s a rat, and he doesn’t care about anyone or anything but making money.
‘Tenner says there’ll be a different Brotherson rep next week,’ Aggie grins. ‘He’ll just keep sendin’ them in and Seren will smack them all down like a gladiator! Destroy! Destroy!’ She whips the counter with a tea towel, making everyone laugh. A large part of the joy of visiting the coffee hut is the floorshow when Aggie’s on form.
I love her confidence in me, but the mental image isn’t all that appealing. I’m a little taken aback by how it makes me feel. I don’t want to destroy anyone: I just don’t want Brotherson to get his way.
‘We have right on our side,’ I say, inadvertently sounding like I should be wearing a cape and Lycra tights. ‘Brotherson can say what he likes, but we have a right to protect our heritage. Elinor’s legacy is too important to let go.’
‘You said that last night. When you were being magnificent. Keep on like that and we’ll send Bill Brotherson and his cronies packin’ for good!’
I give a bow, slightly embarrassed. ‘Let’s hope, eh?’
‘I’ll say one thing for Brotherson’s minions, though. The one last night was a lot easier on the eye than his master. We should encourage more of that.’
I laugh with Aggie, then wonder if her comment might have been aimed at me. Until I knew who he was I might have agreed with her. But if Jack Dixon chooses to work with Brotherson, his smiles mean nothing.
Somewhere Beyond the Sea Page 10
