Canal Boat Cafe (4) - Land Ahoy

by Cressida McLaughlin

  ‘She is. Dennis and Jenny know how many dog walkers use the towpath and how much custom they’d lose if they were dog free.’

  ‘Let’s go in then. I was never the stoic British type.’

  ‘I know that,’ Summer said, laughing. ‘You’re as fond of a cushion and a fire as Latte is.’

  ‘Or used to be,’ Harry said, picking up her plate and the bottle of wine, while Summer grabbed the chips. ‘Hasn’t she found her adventurous side?’

  ‘Yes,’ Summer said, feeling another twinge at Archie’s absence. Not only had she messed up her relationship with Mason, but she’d managed to deny her dog a lasting friendship as well. ‘But when the fun’s over she’ll always seek out the comfiest spot. I’m sure she thinks the woodburner on the boat is solely for her enjoyment. I’ll have to come back for the glasses.’

  ‘Let me help.’

  Summer turned to see Dennis standing next to the table, a tea towel flung around his shoulders. He looked like he’d been out in the sun, and his white shirt gleamed against his darker skin. ‘Dennis,’ she said, smiling, ‘how are you?’

  ‘Very well, Summer. How about you two? We’ll get you inside in a jiffy.’

  Harry picked a booth against the window, so they could still enjoy the sunshine, and Summer slid in opposite her. ‘Thanks so much, Dennis,’ she said, as he put their glasses in front of them. ‘Has the pub been busy? How’s Jenny?’

  Dennis’s face showed a moment of surprise, but he smoothed it back over with a smile. ‘There’s been no let up so far this summer, and it feels like we’re only just getting started, what with the summer holidays to come. It could be our best year for a while. Nice to see you too, Harry.’

  Harry smiled. ‘Summer’s stolen me away for a night aboard her boat. I just hope the rocking doesn’t make me seasick in the night.’

  ‘You can barely feel it,’ Summer said, laughing. ‘It’s not like being on the high seas in a tiny rowing boat. It’s perfectly safe and stable.’

  Harry screwed her nose up. ‘We’ll see.’

  ‘Brilliant pistachio cake, by the way,’ Dennis said, patting his stomach.

  ‘You had some?’ Harry flicked a glance in Summer’s direction.

  ‘I was a latecomer to the party, but didn’t want to miss Mason’s birthday completely. I was lucky that there was a slice of your cake left.’

  ‘He brought prosecco,’ Summer told Harry. ‘You’d better not tell Jenny how much you enjoyed Harry’s cake, especially as she’s going to be doing more baking for the café from now on.’

  ‘You are?’ Dennis asked.

  Harry nodded.

  ‘That’s not going to make things easier between me and Jenny, is it?’ Summer said.

  Dennis sighed and gave her a rueful smile. ‘I don’t think things are ever going to be easy between you. You have to go about your business, Summer, and so does she. You can’t worry about it – none of this is your doing. It’s mine. Maddy’s too, but … well, she’s not here any more. I’m responsible, and I have to make it up to Jenny. Don’t think badly of her, Summer. Think badly of me if you have to.’

  ‘I want us all to get along,’ Summer said, ‘but I don’t always make that easy.’ Mason’s face, anguished and defeated, flashed back into her mind, and she pushed her finger along the knots in the wood table. ‘And I could never think badly of you,’ she added. ‘You rescued me. You and Mason.’

  Dennis glanced towards the bar to check that everything was under control. ‘I couldn’t say no when Mason turned up,’ he said. ‘He was insistent. Apologetic, but determined. I’d never seen him like that, right on the edge of panic, but he … It must have brought back memories for him. He clearly cares a lot about you, Summer, and I think he was scared of history repeating itself. Of course, then, I didn’t realize it, but when he told me, it all made sense.’ Dennis shook his head, his gaze drawn to the view outside the window.

  Summer gripped the stem of her wine glass, her knuckles going white. ‘Memories?’ she asked. Her voice sounded high and strangled, and she glanced at Harry, expecting a reprimand, but could see that her friend was equally intrigued. ‘What memories?’

  Dennis brought his gaze back to meet Summer’s. ‘Sorry?’

  ‘My break-in,’ she said. ‘You said it brought back memories for Mason. What memories?’

  Dennis frowned and rearranged the tea towel around his neck. ‘You don’t know? I thought you and he were—’

  Summer shook her head quickly. ‘We were friends. Are friends. I had hoped that …’ She let her words trail away.

  ‘What’s happened, Summer? Is everything OK?’

  She stared up at him. He was soft and warm and kind, and so straightforward. Her mind still couldn’t wrap itself around him having an affair with anyone, let alone her mother. She could see instantly why someone would be attracted to him – she just couldn’t imagine that he could ever be dishonest and underhand enough to go through with it.

  ‘What did Mason tell you?’ she asked.

  ‘I’m not sure it’s really my place,’ he said, shaking his head. ‘I mean, I don’t know if he told me in confidence – it was on the way to seeing you at Tivesham and I think he felt like he needed to explain himself – why he was so desperate to get to you when he heard what had happened. It was almost like a confession and … it’s very personal, Summer.’ He worried at a scratch on his arm.

  Summer’s heart was thumping. This was the key – the key to everything that had happened. Was it right to hear it from someone other than Mason? She wasn’t sure, but he’d gone, and she didn’t know how she could get him back. Maybe Dennis had the answer.

  ‘Please, Dennis,’ she said, but it came out as a whisper.

  ‘Mason’s gone,’ Harry said, her voice much louder.

  ‘What?’ Dennis looked out of the window again, in the direction of the river and the moorings, as if to confirm that The Sandpiper was no longer there. ‘Why?’

  ‘I had an argument with him,’ Summer started, but Harry was taking charge.

  ‘Summer cares about him,’ she said, ‘and he clearly cares about her. But they had a fight, and now he’s gone and his phone’s been permanently off, and anything you can tell us Dennis, anything that would help us find him, or find out why he’s gone, would make things so much easier. At the very least, we’re worried about him, and it would help put Summer’s – and my – mind at rest.’

  Dennis sighed. ‘I don’t know … Why did you fight? Can you tell me that?’

  ‘Dennis?’ the voice cut through the general chatter of the pub. ‘It’s getting busy over here, can you come and help?’

  Summer glanced up to see Jenny behind the bar. She looked ruffled, her hair falling around her shoulders, her eyes bright. Summer was struck by how pretty she was when she wasn’t completely in control.

  ‘Coming,’ Dennis called, then turned back to the table. ‘I can talk later, when it’s quieter.’

  ‘Mason had Mum’s compass,’ Summer rushed, not wanting him to walk away, desperate for him to tell them what he knew.

  Dennis stared at Summer for a moment and then closed his eyes. ‘Oh no,’ he said. ‘That’s what you argued about?’

  ‘What? What is it?’ Summer was sitting up, almost ready to propel herself out of her chair and grab him if he tried to escape.

  ‘Dennis?’ Jenny called. ‘Please, love.’

  ‘Coming!’

  ‘What do you know?’ Summer pleaded. ‘Please, Dennis.’

  ‘Don’t go anywhere,’ Dennis said. ‘I’ll get someone to bring you another glass of wine, puddings, whatever you want. I promise I’ll come back when it’s quieter.’

  ‘Why did Mason have Mum’s compass?’ Summer tried again.

  Dennis glanced behind him, then back at the table. ‘I gave it to him,’ he said quietly. ‘I gave Mason Maddy’s compass. Now please, I have to go. Stay here, and I’ll come and talk to you when things have eased off.’

  He walked back to the bar a
nd Summer watched him go, her mind racing, buzzing with questions, trying and failing to slot everything into place. She watched Dennis speak to a customer, start to pour a pint, his easy, relaxed demeanour ever so slightly strained. He kept glancing at their table, and Summer forced herself to drag her eyes back to Harry. Her best friend looked as shocked and intrigued as she was.

  ‘What can we do?’ Harry asked. ‘Is there a fire alarm we can push? Something that will empty the pub and make him come over here more quickly?’

  Summer managed a laugh. ‘I don’t think so,’ she said. ‘I think we just have to wait.’

  Harry looked as pained at the thought as Summer felt. Summer got her mum’s compass out of her pocket and put it on the table. It sat between them like an unexploded bomb.

  ‘We’ll just have to wait,’ Summer said again.

  Chapter 2

  It was after closing time, and the wind was unpleasantly chilly, but Summer was sitting at a picnic table with Harry and Dennis. The fresh glass of wine that Dennis had brought them, on top of the others, and the intense orange glow of the outdoor heaters were making the edges of everything seem hazy, softer and less urgent. Summer stared at her boat, a portion of its blue and red paintwork standing out from the darkness under the towpath light, the rest in shadow, the river nothing but slivers of shimmer beyond it.

  Latte was sitting next to Dennis on the bench, Harry was next to her, and the compass was on the table between them. She wasn’t sure why she had got it out again, except that it was a symbol of everything, of how she’d argued with her mum, and then Mason. It was accusing, but it also reminded her that she could find things, she could resolve them. She had the power to fix her own mistakes.

  ‘I’m sorry it’s so late,’ Dennis said, ‘I didn’t think it would stay busy this long on a Monday.’ He still had the tea towel around his neck and was in just his shirtsleeves. ‘Are you sure you don’t want to go back inside? I checked with Jenny and she was OK with you being in the pub after closing.’

  Summer smiled and shook her head. Harry had managed to distract Summer while they’d waited for Dennis. They’d shared an ice-cream sundae with butterscotch sauce and extra nuts, and talked about Summer’s plans for the café and Harry’s role in it. Summer wanted to do taster evenings and special events. She wanted to open the café up to group bookings, private parties where she could cruise down the river away from Willowbeck to celebrate a birthday or an anniversary, all with Harry’s cooking at the heart. She had lots of plans and Harry had discussed them all with her, taking her mind off things for a couple of hours. Except that the compass had sat on the table in front of them, reminding her.

  When Dennis had finally been ready to talk, Summer had felt so hot, so claustrophobic, that she’d asked if they could sit outside in the fresh air. Now she felt slightly tipsy and slightly cold, but those things didn’t seem to matter against the weight of what Dennis was about to tell them.

  ‘Why did you give Mason my mum’s compass?’ Summer asked, realizing that she couldn’t cope with any small talk.

  Dennis sighed. ‘Because Maddy gave it to me – and it was the thing that gave us away, in the end.’ He ran his hand over his short hair, from his neck to his brow. ‘Jenny had already figured it out, I’m sure, but it was finding Maddy’s compass in my jacket pocket that confirmed it. Why else would I have a rose quartz compass? Who else could it have come from? At the time, there was so much anger and hurt, so much going on, and after … Well, after Maddy died, I didn’t know what to do. It reminded me of her and I didn’t want to get rid of it, so I hid it away. Jenny and I were just getting back on track, then close to Christmas last year she found it again, among my things. She was looking for something else, and she found it. It dragged everything up again, and I knew I couldn’t keep it.’

  ‘Why Mason?’ Summer whispered, thinking how hard it must have been for Dennis, realizing that, in her own grief, he was another person she’d completely disregarded. She knew he’d loved her mum, and he’d had to cope with losing her, as well as with the accusations and anger, the slow process of trying to rebuild his marriage.

  ‘I didn’t know if you were ever coming back to Willowbeck,’ he said. ‘Nobody had seen you since Maddy died, and Valerie was struggling with her own grief. I also knew that the fact your mum had given the compass to me, might not sit well with either you or Valerie. Mason pitched up here in November, I think it was, and, as you know, he’s instantly likeable. We’d got to chatting before and once Jenny had discovered the compass again I … I gave it to him. I asked him to take some photos of the pub that I could send to a local magazine for a promotional piece. I offered to pay him, but he wouldn’t hear of it, and so I gave him the compass as payment. No story about where it came from, I just said that I had to give him something, and that the compass belonged on a narrowboat. He was taken aback, and probably accepted it out of duty because he wouldn’t take any money, but I knew the compass would be in good hands, that it would be close by. It was probably the wrong thing to do.’

  Summer shook her head. ‘You were hurting. It must have been so hard, not being able to hold onto memories of Maddy, having to struggle with losing her and with Jenny and …’ She swallowed. ‘I’m glad you gave it to him. Shit!’ She rested her head in her hands. ‘I accused him of taking it. I’d been looking for it for so long.’

  ‘I’m so sorry, Summer. If I’d thought about it for even a moment …’

  ‘It’s not your fault. I should have given Mason time to explain. I shouldn’t have jumped to conclusions.’ She wondered if she’d be repeating that mantra for the rest of her life. She glanced at her phone. The screen was blank. Her calls to Mason throughout the day had remained unanswered, his voicemail kicking in immediately. But she didn’t want to talk into empty air, and so she hadn’t left him a message.

  ‘It’s good to know though, isn’t it, that he had it for a completely innocent reason?’ Harry put her hand over Summer’s. ‘Confirming what you’ve believed about him all along.’

  ‘That Mason is one of the nicest people I’ve met, and that he’s worth taking a chance on.’

  Harry nodded. ‘Exactly.’

  Summer looked to Dennis for confirmation, knowing that this bit wouldn’t be so straightforward, and that he might not even be prepared to tell her. ‘What about his memories?’ Summer asked. ‘Why was he worried history was repeating itself?’

  Dennis shook his head. ‘Summer, I—’

  ‘Please tell me,’ she whispered. ‘Please tell me something. I’m worried I …’ She thought back to how defeated he’d looked after she’d asked him about Tania. ‘I’m worried I’ve really hurt him. He’s always been there before. Not always open, but always there to talk to, to spend time with, and now he’s just … gone.’

  Dennis appraised Summer, and then Harry, and took a sip of the whisky he’d brought outside with him. ‘Mason lost his wife,’ he said.

  Summer stared at him, wondering if she’d misheard. ‘What?’

  ‘In a fire,’ Dennis added. ‘Their house caught fire when they were both inside. Mason got them out of an upstairs window, but Lisa was asthmatic. The smoke had done too much damage and it was too late. She died on the way to hospital.’

  The world seemed to expand and then contract around Summer. As if there was only her in the world, and then the sky was opening up around her, black and swirling and endless. She pressed her hand against the table, steadying herself.

  ‘Oh my God,’ she heard Harry say, and felt a hand against her shoulder.

  ‘Mason,’ Summer whispered. ‘Oh, Mason. Shit.’ She put her arms on the table and rested her head on them.

  ‘He told me on the drive to Tivesham,’ Dennis said. ‘He was so worried about you, and I think it brought everything back to him: the fear, the devastation. It was five or six years ago, and once Lisa … Well, she was gone, and the house was destroyed, so he bought the boat. He was completely lost, understandably. And of course it’s somethi
ng you never fully get over, but … Well,’ Dennis sighed, ‘you’d hardly know it, would you? He seems so well adjusted. So thoughtful and kind, easy-going, as if he doesn’t have a care in the world.’

  ‘Mason,’ Summer said again. She looked up at Dennis. ‘He had to bury his wife? He wasn’t even thirty. She was …’ Summer swallowed, her eyes filling with tears.

  She thought back to his shock at the sight of her boat after the break-in and wondered if he’d had to go inside his own ruined house, once the fire was out, once he had nothing left. She thought of his stillness when she’d asked about the photos he’d taken before he was a liveaboard. They must all have been destroyed. She remembered him telling her he’d had to work through things, and the way he’d appeared, suddenly, on her boat the second morning she’d been back in Willowbeck, responding to the fire alarm when she’d burnt the bacon and she’d thought he was just eager for a sandwich. ‘Fuck,’ she said, and closed her eyes.

  ‘That’s horrific,’ Harry murmured, and Summer could hear the emotion in her friend’s voice.

  ‘It sounds like he doesn’t really talk much about it,’ Dennis said. ‘I mean, if he’s not even told you. I thought you were close.’

  ‘We are – we were getting to be, but …’ Summer shook her head. ‘I can’t believe it. I can’t believe he’s had to go through so much.’ The anxiety she’d seen in him was nothing compared to the warmth, the care he’d shown her, helping when her boat leaked, cruising up to Foxburn to take her into the countryside, supporting her after the break-in despite, what she now knew, must have been unbearable memories. He’d been through the most traumatic event possible and, despite never having told her, he’d still given so much of himself to her.

  ‘I need to get in touch with him,’ she said. She felt it as an ache in her chest, an urgent, panicky feeling that made her sit on the very edge of the bench. She fumbled with her phone again, and Dennis put his hand over hers.

  ‘If he’s headed off, it’s probably because he needs time. You said you fought? You brought up some personal things?’