Canal Boat Cafe (4) - Land Ahoy

by Cressida McLaughlin

  Harper

  An imprint of HarperCollinsPublishers Ltd

  The News Building

  1 London Bridge Street

  London SE1 9GF

  www.harpercollins.co.uk

  First published in Great Britain by Harper 2016

  Copyright © Cressida McLaughlin 2016

  Cover layout design © HarperCollinsPublishers Ltd 2016

  Cover illustration by Alice Stevenson

  Cressida McLaughlin asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work.

  A catalogue copy of this book is available from the British Library.

  This novel is entirely a work of fiction. The names, characters and incidents portrayed in it are the work of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or localities is entirely coincidental.

  All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, down-loaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins.

  Ebook Edition © May 2016 ISBN: 9780008164287

  Version 2016-05-09

  Table of Contents

  Cover

  Title Page

  Copyright

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  If you can’t bear to leave Summer and the gang behind just yet, you can read the full adventure, with bonus material, in the complete Canal Boat Café novel!

  And why not try Cressy’s Primrose Terrace series? A four part e-serialisation featuring Westies, Spaniels, Retrievers and Terriers, every dog will have its day!

  About the Author

  Also by Cressida McLaughlin

  About the Publisher

  Chapter 1

  Summer Freeman’s eyes went to the watch on her wrist on an increasingly frequent basis, as if the passing of time was against her. It was a sunny June day, the longest day of the year, and The Canal Boat Café entertained an almost continuous stream of customers. Some arrived on boats, pausing in Willowbeck’s visitor moorings for a few hours, taking in the idyllic country feel of the riverside village, coming to Summer for coffee, bacon sandwiches and slices of cake, or The Black Swan for a pint and a bowl of steaming, salty chips. Some stopped on their way along the towpath, popping their noses in at the hatch, seeking Summer out and asking for a cappuccino or a bottle of lemonade, or one of the choc-chip cookies she’d put within tantalizing reach.

  When a man who looked to be in his late thirties, wearing a three-piece suit and silky blue tie despite the weather, asked for an espresso and a bacon sandwich, Summer found herself narrowing her eyes defensively. It was ridiculous – it wasn’t an uncommon order, but it was Mason’s, and Mason wasn’t here. The customer had fair hair, spiked with too much gel, and green eyes. Maybe he saw her firing irrational anger in his direction, because all of a sudden he seemed to lose his swagger.

  ‘Nice day for it,’ he said, glancing at the blackboard behind her.

  ‘It is, isn’t it?’ Summer replied. And then, because she felt bad, added, ‘Are you on your way to work?’

  He glanced down, as if wondering whether he’d accidentally dressed in civvies and her question wasn’t stupidly obvious. ‘Yes,’ he said, and the small talk dried up. But as she handed over his takeaway cup and the bacon roll, already leaking ketchup onto the paper bag, he looked her straight in the eye. ‘I hope Mason comes back,’ he said, and gave her a quick nod.

  ’T-thank you,’ Summer said to his retreating back, and looked at the message she’d written on the blackboard early that morning, when she’d woken and discovered Mason’s boat, The Sandpiper, had gone.

  She read it again: Come back, Mason. I’m sorry, and I believe there’s hope for us, too. She wondered how many other customers had read it, whether they thought she was mad or if, in the spirit of the people who travelled and lived on the waterways, word would reach him that she wanted him back. Maybe, if he wasn’t prepared to answer his phone, the old-fashioned route of word of mouth would work instead. A few months ago she couldn’t have imagined putting her feelings out there for everyone to see, the words bold on her blackboard. But now she wasn’t afraid of what people thought, or what they would say. She was more afraid that Mason wouldn’t return to Willowbeck and the words made her feel like she was doing something to bring him back. She hoped they would have power.

  As she served, cleaned tables, stacked the dishwasher and got fresh batches of orange and chocolate muffins out of the oven, flashes of the previous evening came back to her. Mason leaning close to her at his computer; the photo of the windmill on the Norfolk broads; her mum’s precious compass nestling on his kitchen counter below an old photo of him with the wreck of his boat, before he’d turned it into a masterpiece; Mason reaching out to her, his eyes hooded with sadness, walking through the broken glass on his floor to try and stop her from leaving. She wondered if he’d cut his foot, whether he still looked defeated, as he had done when she’d accused him and then refused to listen to his explanation. She squeezed her eyes closed, hating that she had hurt him, knowing that she had to find him and apologize, then try and make up for what she’d said.

  Summer wrapped her hand around her mum’s compass, her skin caressing the cool, smooth surface, and when she opened her eyes again her best friend Harry was standing in front of her holding a cake tin.

  ‘Harry!’ Summer squeaked. She took the compass out of her pocket. ‘You’re like a genie. I rubbed this, and you appeared!’

  Harry laughed, a flash of confusion in her big brown eyes. ‘You weren’t expecting me?’

  Summer stared. ‘Oh God, you’re staying, aren’t you?’

  ‘Yes, I thought – well, we arranged it at Mason’s party, that we’d go through your business plan, and I’ve brought a few samples.’ She held out the tin, but she was no longer looking at her best friend, but at the compass that Summer was cupping in her palm. ‘You found it! Where was it?’

  Summer stared at her, wondering where to start.

  ‘What?’ Harry asked. ‘What is it?’

  ‘Harry,’ Summer said. ‘I am so glad that you’re here.’

  They sat on the seating on the bow deck of The Canal Boat Café, with Harry’s cake tin and a bottle of white wine in between them, Harry’s short, caramel-coloured dress finding the evening breeze, its hem lifting gently. Summer’s folder, with her business plan inside, lay on the bench next to Harry. She’d already read it at home, Summer having given her a copy at Mason’s party, and Summer wanted to know what she thought, whether her best friend was keen to play an important part in The Canal Boat Café.

  ‘Tell me about the compass,’ Harry said.

  ‘What do you think of my plan?’ Summer stole a piece of cranberry slice out of the tin and bit into it, her eyes closing as the rich, tart fruit exploded on her tongue, merging with the butter of the crumbly pastry, crystals of sugar falling onto her shorts.

  ‘I think it makes all kinds of sense and that you’ve thought of everything.’ Harry sighed and looked at the floor, and Summer realized she was holding her breath. Her best friend, usually so self-assured, and more talented than anyone she knew, had, over the last few months, been struggling with the knowledge that her husba
nd’s job was at risk, and that her little family wasn’t being held together as perfectly as it had been. Harry had been working as a waitress in a local café, but Summer knew she could do more, that she wasn’t satisfied, and had been trying to convince her to supply cakes for The Canal Boat Café.

  ‘What’s the sigh for?’ Summer asked. ‘Isn’t Greg keen? Don’t you think you’ll have time when Tommy’s at school? You’re so close – and I’m not going anywhere. Willowbeck is my home now.’

  Harry stared at Summer. ‘It’s a happy sigh,’ she said. ‘It’s a relief.’

  ‘What is? My business plan?’

  ‘I’m going to do it,’ Harry said. ‘I always wanted to, from the moment it was a spark of an idea. And now, more than ever, it will give me purpose. Don’t get me wrong, the money will be welcome too – Greg’s not heard anything more about redundancy, but the work is patchy at best – but that’s not the worst of it.’ Summer thought she saw her friend’s lip tremble, but she stayed quiet, letting her speak. ‘It’s feeling helpless. Looking after Tommy and doing the dinner and making our home nice? Somehow it seems like it’s not enough. I know …’ She held her hand up. ‘I know that of course they’re the most crucial things, but I need to support Greg more, and this is how I can.’

  Summer felt a tidal wave of relief that she could help her friend, that Harry wasn’t turning down her offer. She felt the tension in her neck ease, felt happiness take up some of the space that was consumed by worries about Mason. ‘You’ll be brilliant,’ Summer said. ‘And it’s going to be a feature of the café – I’m not going to put your creations next to mine, I’m going to sell you along with the cakes, so you get the recognition. Harry Poole’s perfect bakes. I need to work on that.’

  Harry laughed. ‘You don’t have to.’

  ‘I do,’ Summer said. ‘People will have one taste, and your brilliance will spread like ripples, all along the fenland waterways. People will travel for days to eat your cakes. This,’ she said, holding up her glass and waiting for Harry to do the same, ‘is going to kick ass. What have you left the boys doing?’

  Harry laughed, her long hair shimmering. ‘Tommy is giving Greg an introduction to Minecraft. I’m worried I’ll return to two pairs of square-eyes and monosyllabic answers.’

  ‘You don’t have to worry about that until later tomorrow,’ Summer said. ‘Harry, I’m so sorry I forgot you were coming.’

  ‘You did,’ Harry said, ‘and that’s not like you. And you have your mum’s compass. So …’ She crossed one leg over the other and turned fully towards Summer. ‘What’s going on?’

  Summer bit her lip. It was a Monday evening, so the pub was noticeably quieter than it had been the day before, when she’d sat outside with Ross. The few couples sitting at the picnic tables were outnumbered by geese, and the breeze had an edge to it, as if it was annoyed by the sun’s dominance. Summer thought it would get cold more quickly when dusk fell and wondered if there was a hint of thunderstorm in the air. The willow trees were plush and green, a parade of mallards weaving in and out of the obstacle course their trailing branches had made in the water.

  ‘Summer?’

  ‘Mason’s gone,’ she blurted. ‘I found Mum’s compass on board his boat, and I confronted him, and now he’s gone.’

  ‘What?’ Harry leaned towards her, pressing her hand on Summer’s bare knee. ‘I think you need to back up a bit. That can’t be the whole story.’

  Summer told Harry everything, fuelling herself with delicious titbits from Harry’s cake tin, infuriating her friend by asking what each one was, so she could write them down and start building them into her grand café plan.

  ‘What’s this? Has it got lavender in it?’

  ‘It’s a honey and lavender sponge. Summer! Stop changing the subject! How did Mason react when you mentioned Tania?’

  Harry wouldn’t let her leave out any details, and Summer had always been honest with her – about Ross, about Jenny, and about what had happened the day her mum had died. Nobody but Harry knew the whole story. ‘It’s happening again, isn’t it?’ Summer said, when she’d got to the end, to waking up to find The Sandpiper gone, and the carved wooden sun on the deck of her boat.

  ‘What is?’ Harry had lifted Latte onto her lap, and the dog was doing a bad impression of being asleep, while trying to edge closer to the cake tin. Summer moved it further away, and Latte’s ear twitched.

  ‘Me, messing up,’ she said. ‘Confronting people, creating pointless arguments and never being able to make up for them.’

  Harry fixed Summer with her stare. ‘This is not the same. Firstly, Mason had your mum’s compass, so you had to ask him about it. Maybe you could have waited to listen to the answer, but even so. Secondly, you are not responsible for your mum’s death, I don’t know how many times I have to tell you.’

  ‘Yes, but I argued with her that afternoon,’ Summer said, forcing the words out past the lump in her throat. ‘I shouted at her for not coming clean about her and Dennis, for letting Jenny find out by herself rather than from them, for not ending the affair. I told her she was heartless, and selfish, and then I stormed off her boat.’

  ‘Summer,’ Harry said softly, ‘I know all that, and I know you’ve been crucifying yourself with guilt ever since, but what happened wasn’t your fault. And …’ Harry paused, glancing beyond Summer to the quiet blue river before looking back, ‘you were angry, your mum had told you she was going to break it off with Dennis. She’d told you she was going to do it and it hadn’t happened, and then Jenny found out. Your anger was justified, and we all say things in the heat of the moment. You have been a victim of horrible, heartbreaking timing, but your mum knew that you loved her, despite what you said.’

  ‘Strokes can be caused by stress – I read it. I caused her stroke.’

  ‘No.’ Harry shook her head. ‘That is not true. You loved your mum; you were with her, on this boat, for years. She had your love and your company, and one argument isn’t ever going to change that. You need to look past that last day.’

  Summer tried to catch Harry’s words and hold on to them. But they’d been here before and Summer hadn’t ever been able to let Harry’s reassurances sink below skin-deep. The guilt was always there, though recently Summer had thought she’d been getting past it, letting her own time running The Canal Boat Café, and the new life she was making for herself, override those feelings. Now, though, she had let her anger cause another huge rift with someone she cared about, and despite Harry being here, despite the fact they were going to work together, Summer felt like there was a hole that she wouldn’t ever be able to fill. She tested it with her friend.

  ‘But what about Mason?’ she asked. ‘I did it again; I flung accusations at him and then stormed off his boat. I didn’t give him a chance to explain, even though he said he wanted to, and now it’s too late.’

  ‘Mason’s not dead,’ Harry said gently. ‘And he’ll turn his phone on eventually.’

  ‘He’s gone.’ Summer shook her head. ‘He realized I was too complicated a conquest and he’s sailed off down the river like Claire said he would.’

  ‘Hey!’ Harry slapped Summer lightly on the arm and Latte squeaked and stood up, pretending to be affronted before sticking her nose into the cake tin.

  ‘Oi, Latte. You’re getting as bad as Archie.’ Summer smiled as she lifted Latte’s nose out of the tin, and then remembered that Archie, like Mason, was gone.

  ‘You’re not doing either of you justice there,’ Harry said. ‘You’re lovely, you’re not too complicated, and Mason does not want to sleep with you and move on. I’ve met him too, remember, and he’s not like that, despite what happened with Tania.’

  ‘I should have let him explain,’ Summer said, cradling her wine glass. She looked into the liquid, reflecting the golden haze of the late sun, and then downed it. ‘I should have let him tell me about Tania and about the compass.’

  ‘Yes,’ Harry said, ‘you should.’

  ‘He�
�s been so reluctant to open up to me. He was about to, and I flung it back in his face.’

  ‘You were upset. It must have been a shock to find the compass on his boat.’

  ‘I was irrational and hasty. You’d think I would have learnt my lesson by now.’

  ‘Every situation is different. Don’t beat yourself up because you don’t have the perfect, measured reaction every time.’

  Summer sighed and closed her eyes. The wind whispered around them, and Summer shuddered. ‘What if he never turns his phone on again? What if I never find him?’

  Harry shook her head, her mouth open, and for a horrifying moment Summer thought her best friend wouldn’t have an answer. Then, ‘Someone will spot him,’ she said. ‘Don’t you have a network of spies on the water now anyway? Why don’t you phone Claire?’

  Summer didn’t phone Claire immediately, but the realization that she could made her feel better. So many people had told her that the waterways were a tightknit community, and a beautiful boat like The Sandpiper would be hard to ignore, not to mention its equally striking owner or a badly behaved Border terrier. Summer shook her head and pinched another chip from the little metal bucket on the table.

  They’d graduated to the pub when Summer had admitted that, due to forgetting about Harry’s visit, she had nothing in for dinner. Now they had fat, juicy burgers and were sharing a bucket of chips. Latte lay peacefully at Summer’s feet, and Summer wondered if she was quieter than usual, if she was missing Archie, or if that was just Summer projecting her own feelings on to her pet.

  The wind was growing, whipping leaves and the feathers on ducks’ backs into a frenzy, and Summer could see the surface of the water rippling with it, tiny waves chasing each other. She’d put a hoody on over her top, and Harry had her jacket on.

  ‘Should we go inside?’ Summer asked her friend. ‘I’m not sure how long we’ve got before the sun gets blown away.’

  ‘Is Latte allowed?’ Harry asked.

 
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