The Little Vintage Carousel by the Sea

by Jaimie Admans

  ‘I’m sorry,’ I murmur. I think I’ve short-circuited at the sudden closeness. The roughness of his fingers is still against mine, his thumb brushing my hand as my fingers rub his skin gently.

  ‘I didn’t think I’d be able to work for months, but my boss was brilliant, gave me all the time I needed, let me go for physio appointments every few days and hospital appointments whenever they came up. We’d just had a carousel in for repair, and I discovered that one thing I could do was sit and repaint carousel horses with one hand. I’d worked on carousels before, and was always enchanted by them, and it felt like exactly the thing I needed at exactly the right moment. It’s a long and fiddly job, and by the time it was done, I’d recovered enough to start easing back into my regular work, and the next time a carousel repair came up, my boss sent me, and I’ve done every one since.’

  His words have faded into the background because all I can think about is how good his warm shoulder feels and the way I can feel the edges of my nails dragging against his skin.

  He suddenly seems to realise we’re sitting in a pub and my hand’s under his shirt because he sits back so fast that my hand falls away and I need lightning-fast reflexes to stop it clonking on the table. Which I don’t have.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ Nathan says. ‘I don’t usually pick up complete strangers’ hands and shove them down my top. I shouldn’t have done that. I didn’t mean to overstep the mark.’

  ‘No mark.’ I shake my head because he seems so apologetic and it really isn’t like he did anything wrong. In fact, if we could spend the rest of the evening with my hand under his shirt, that would be fine with me.

  We look at each other in silence across the table for a moment before he looks down and starts fiddling with a beer mat. ‘I’ve never told anyone that before,’ he says without looking up. ‘I mean, people ask and I tell them about the circus and the apprenticeship, but I’ve never mentioned the injury.’

  ‘Does it still hurt?’

  He shakes his head. ‘It aches sometimes, if it’s cold or if the weather’s been wet for too long. It did for a long time, but it’s old now, it doesn’t bother me. I don’t know why I told you.’

  ‘You sure it’s not your way of gaining sympathy when you chat up all the girls?’

  His eyes flash with amusement. ‘You think I need sympathy when I’ve got “hold it and I’ll lick it like a dog”?’

  The laugh eases the awkwardness and he relaxes again. ‘What about you? What painful accident got you into fact-checking? Or are you going to tell me that most people don’t start their careers based on life-changing injuries?’ He sounds light-hearted but I get the feeling there’s more to it.

  ‘No injuries, just a break-up and sympathy from my best friend. I was living with someone and struggling by on temp work, spending more hours commuting around London to various jobs than actually doing the jobs. We broke up and my friend persuaded me to move further into the city, nearer to her. She’s a features writer for Maîtresse magazine and she somehow managed to persuade her firm to take me on as a fact-checker. I would’ve been stupid to turn down a permanent job, so I slept on her sofa while I found the crappiest flat in the whole UK.’

  ‘I take your crappiest flat and raise you a crap flat with a door that didn’t lock properly, and when I bought and installed my own locks, my landlord fined me for damaging the property and took my deposit.’

  My eyes widen. ‘You’re kidding?’

  ‘I wish. Living in London’s great, innit?’ His voice is deadpan and I smile at his sarcasm.

  ‘Have you got an unidentified leak too?’

  ‘Oh, always. I think they come as standard on tenant agreements.’

  I take another chip and try to hide my smile behind it. It’s not normal to smile this much at someone.

  ‘Is fact-checking as interesting as it sounds? It sounds fun but from what you’ve said, I get the impression that it’s not?’

  He is attentive, just like Bunion Frank said. ‘Honestly, it’s just dull. I painstakingly go through every article that’s going to be published and make sure that every single sentence doesn’t mention something that’s incorrect. I spend most of my day phoning around to confirm quotes that people have given the journalists and getting permission to cite sources and use pictures, and the rest of my day on Google. I find answers to things you didn’t even know were questions. My internet search history could get me arrested.’

  ‘Mine would get Weight Watchers on the phone to find out how one person can eat so much crap,’ he says with a laugh. ‘Do you write?’

  ‘I’d like to. I think I could, but …’ This is a perfect opportunity to broach the subject of the article and tell him about the first part going viral and what Zinnia’s got planned, but I don’t know how to say it. It’s ludicrous to have sent me here to find the real Train Man and see if we’re going to fall in love. How can I say it to him? It’ll change things between us, and I’m enjoying his company. I don’t want it to end yet. I’ll leave it for tonight. There’ll be plenty of time to talk about it tomorrow. Definitely tomorrow.

  ‘Daphne is so good at what she does. She has the ability to see a story in anything and get people to tell it to her. Even if they’re reluctant, she can tease it out of them like an old friend. I don’t know if I could do that. I’m hoping my boss will give me the chance to find out.’ I feel awkward talking about work with him. I should be telling him. I should have told him the moment I arrived on the beach. There’s an article online that thousands of people have read, and it’s about him, and he doesn’t know. ‘What’s the dream in carousel repair?’

  ‘Honestly? This is it.’

  I cock my head to one side as he continues.

  ‘A Victorian carousel that has never been discovered before, and having enough trust to be the only person restoring it … However that carousel turns out will be because of me and me alone. I dreamt of this kind of responsibility when I started out.’ He ducks his head and then looks up and gives me a wink. ‘Unless it turns out to be an abject failure, of course. That won’t be because of me, that’ll be because of someone else.’

  He’s trying to be funny but I’m taken aback by the genuine emotion in his voice. ‘This is something really special?’

  ‘Yeah,’ he says slowly, nodding. ‘I think it is—’

  ‘Mr Musgrove, you didn’t tell me you had a friend staying in town!’

  He’s cut off by an elderly lady doddering towards our table, a glass of fizzy water trembling in her hand.

  Nathan jumps up from his seat and goes to help her, relieving her of the glass and offering his arm to help her across the pub, while I wonder if it’s normal to even like someone’s surname. That’s the first time I’ve heard it and it’s just as sexy as the rest of him. ‘Train Man’ did not do him justice. Surely Zinnia won’t expect me to reveal his real name in the final part of the article? Surely we can make something up? In the few hours I’ve spent with him so far, he seems quiet and shy, and not like he’d appreciate having his name splashed all over a national magazine.

  ‘Oh, thank you, dear, you are a nice young man. My husband’s not far behind. He’s just had to run to the little boys’ room. Well, running is probably not the right description at our age. More a sort of limping hobble on a good day.’

  She leans on the table as Nathan sets her glass down for her. ‘You don’t mind if a couple of old fogies join you young folks for a minute, do you?’ She looks between me and him with a smile. ‘I’ve been looking for an excuse to get to know this lovely chap a bit better.’

  Nathan’s eyes widen. He was clearly not expecting this, but we can’t exactly say no, can we?

  ‘It would be a pleasure,’ he says, smoothly hiding his surprise. He gestures towards the bench he was just sitting on. ‘Go on, you slide in.’

  ‘Oh no, you go in first, dear. I wouldn’t like to break up you and your girlfriend.’

  ‘Oh, we’re not …’ we both say in unison.

 
‘I like to be on the end in case of little girls’ room emergencies. You’re both too young to understand but when you get to our age, you always need to be near a bathroom. My bladder isn’t what it used to be.’

  And on that note, my date with a gorgeous sexy man takes a turn towards the urinary tract. Which is probably not the best choice for seducing gorgeous men.

  Chapter 7

  Nathan slides onto the bench and glides nearer to me, making room for her on the end, and lets her grip his hand as she lowers herself into the seat.

  ‘Here comes my husband,’ she says, and I look up to see the man from the hotel hobbling across the pub, leaning on a walking stick and holding a glass in his other hand.

  ‘Ey up,’ he says. ‘You wouldn’t believe I went two minutes before we left the house, would you? My bladder must have shrunk to the size of a pea.’

  I’ve known them two minutes and I already know their favourite topic of conversation.

  ‘Hello, love,’ he says when he sees me, recognising me from the hotel. ‘You found your way to the best pub in the village, I see.’

  No one mentions that it is, of course, the only pub in the village.

  ‘Budge up.’ He plonks himself down on my edge of the bench without looking at how much space he’s got and I have to shift closer to Nathan to avoid being sat on.

  ‘This is my landlady, Camilla.’ Nathan introduces her to me.

  ‘And this is my landlord from the hotel,’ I say. ‘Sorry, I didn’t catch your name this afternoon?’

  ‘Charles,’ the old gent says.

  ‘Charles and Camilla?’ I say.

  Nathan looks at me with a raised eyebrow and I have to hold back a snort of laughter.

  ‘Pearlholme’s own royal couple,’ Camilla says. ‘It’s brilliant, isn’t it? We were so thrilled when they finally got married as we’ve been Charles and Camilla for sixty years now. I wouldn’t mind getting some of the red carpet treatment they get though. Charles barely opens a door for me these days as he’s too busy running through them to get to the loo.’

  ‘Sometimes I can’t wait for the amount of time it takes you to shuffle across a room. I’d have wet myself by then, and that would give you something else to moan about.’

  They smile at each other across the table, big toothy grins that probably once had a few more teeth than they currently have, and I get the feeling that this good-natured teasing is commonplace.

  Charles makes himself more comfortable, hiking his trousers up and spreading his legs before pulling his walking stick inside the bench and standing it between me and him so it doesn’t trip anyone up. It forces me to shift closer to Nathan again, and Camilla puts her handbag on the seat between her and Nathan, forcing him to squash closer to me too. I wonder if they realise this is a table for two?

  I glance up at him beside me, now so close that our arms are pressed together from shoulder to elbow and our thighs are touching on the bench. Other than the hint of lavender from Camilla and cough sweets from Charles, all I can smell is the fresh scent of Nathan’s hair putty and his aftershave, and his neck is now only a few inches away, reminding me of my desire to bury my face in it earlier. I am really not complaining that this is supposedly a table for two.

  ‘Can I get either of you anything?’ Nathan asks, making me think how sweet he is. And that if they say yes, he’s got no hope of getting out of his seat short of vaulting across the table.

  ‘Oh, you are a lovely young man.’ Camilla taps her glass, making fizzy water spill over and splosh onto the table. ‘No, we’re all set here, thank you, dear.’

  ‘Only sparkling water?’ He nods towards their glasses. ‘You’re being good, aren’t you?’

  ‘I’m far too doddery for anything else these days. People wouldn’t know if I was losing my marbles or pissed as a fart. I’d wake up with a hangover the morning after a bender and find this one had stuck me in a nursing home.’ She gestures towards Charles.

  ‘Anything for a bit of peace,’ he says, grinning at her as he helps himself to a chip and pops it in his mouth.

  The idea of this sweet old woman on a bender is too much and I can feel Nathan’s muscular upper arm shaking against my shoulder as we both try not to laugh.

  ‘How are you finding Pearlholme?’ Charles asks us both. ‘You’re both from the big smoke, aren’t you? I bet it’s quite a change.’

  ‘I think I’ve died and gone to heaven,’ Nathan says, and I’m almost positive I can feel tension drain from him as he says it.

  ‘It’s so beautiful. And everyone is so friendly. The Wi-Fi leaves a bit to be desired, mind.’ I turn to Charles. When I phoned the hotel to book and asked if they had internet, he replied, ‘Yes, and it’s only forty-five minutes away by bus but you’ll have to change before Scarborough.’ I thought he’d misheard me, but since trying to check my work emails earlier and not finding a signal, I’ve started to wonder.

  ‘We have Wi-Fi.’ He helps himself to another chip. ‘Sometimes.’

  ‘It conveniently didn’t mention that part online,’ I say, wondering quite what I expected from a hotel that didn’t even accept online bookings, and had no hint of a computer on the reception desk.

  ‘That’s probably why all your reviews are so bad.’ Camilla pokes her tongue out at him.

  ‘I wouldn’t know, I haven’t got a computer to read them on and that’s just the way I like it.’ He takes another chip and points it at her. ‘She gets her mate’s granddaughter to read them just so she can rub it in my face how much better her cottage is doing. I don’t care about all that newfandangled nonsense from The Online.’

  Nathan meets my eyes and I know he’s dying not to laugh at ‘The Online’.

  ‘People still come. We fill up in the summer because it’s such a beautiful beach and there are no other options to stay nearby once the cottages are full—’

  ‘And they fill up super quickly,’ Camilla interjects. ‘Mine is booked for months in advance.’

  ‘But we’re generally pretty quiet in the off-season, which is why you were able to have a room on such short notice, Ness,’ Charles carries on oblivious to Camilla’s teasing. ‘We rely on people who haven’t read the reviews, or people like you who are desperate to find somewhere to stay here.’

  ‘I wouldn’t say I was desperate,’ I say quickly before he has a chance to elaborate.

  ‘When I spoke to you on the phone yesterday you said, and I quote, “I urgently need a room because I have to get to Pearlholme as quickly as possible. Please tell me you have something available tomorrow.”’

  I’m sitting so close to Nathan that he must be able to feel the heat emanating from my burning cheeks. I daren’t glance at him. He wasn’t supposed to know quite how relieved I was when Charles said there was an empty room at The Shell Hotel. Although ‘room’ might be pushing it a bit with that description.

  ‘I had to order bits for the carousel online earlier. I’ve got a strong Wi-Fi signal at the cottage,’ Nathan says, like he can sense how awkward I’m feeling and is purposely steering the conversation away from my level of desperateness.

  ‘The access point is up there somewhere.’ Camilla waves a hand in the general direction of the cottages. ‘We had a nice engineer explain it to us but I didn’t understand a word. I just made him a cup of tea and ogled his thighs. It covers the whole village, but the signal is weak as you get further away. Personally I think all of Charles’s overgrown trees block it from the hotel.’

  Great. I hope the weather stays nice because I’m supposed to be working while I’m here and I’m clearly going to have to scramble up some cliffs or something to get an internet signal.

  ‘Come up to the cottage,’ Nathan says like he can hear my thoughts. ‘You can’t fault the signal there. You said you had work to do, and you’ll have peace and quiet while I’m down at the carousel, and the sofa’s really comfortable. Fetch your laptop up and stay as long as you want.’

  I go to protest but he sounds so sincere, his h
ead pulled back so he can catch my eyes, and it’s not a bad idea really. I’m not here on holiday. Apart from the article I’m supposed to be writing, I have my real job to do as well. Zinnia’s making sure all articles are emailed to me to check, and that’s not going to work without the internet.

  ‘Oh, yes, love, do that!’ Camilla exclaims. ‘My cottage is much better than his crummy hotel. You spend as much time as you need there with your strong internet signal. And look at him.’ She points at Nathan. ‘Look at how much he wants you there.’

  ‘I don’t think …’ I trail off as I do look at Nathan. His cheeks have gone adorably red, but he doesn’t deny it, and any excuse to spend a bit more time with him is not an unwelcome one. ‘I suppose I could pop in while you’re working. I wouldn’t want to get in your way.’

  ‘You wouldn’t be in his way at all,’ Camilla answers for him. ‘My cottage is lovely and spacious – there’s plenty of room for you both. You go there whenever you like, love.’

  ‘I think that might be up to Nathan,’ I say, even though she’s turned around to wave at a friend across the room and is clearly not listening.

  ‘You come up whenever you like, love,’ he murmurs in my ear, taking off her accent perfectly.

  I look up at him, his eyes dark and smiley, and I can’t stop myself tilting my head closer to whisper a thank you.

  We hold each other’s gaze for too long, pushed so close by our table guests that it wouldn’t take much of a movement to kiss him. His stubble is so close that I could press my nose against his jaw, his neck, his Adam’s apple bobbing as he swallows, making me swallow too. I can’t remember the last time I wanted to kiss someone this much.

  And then Charles chokes on a chip, and we jump apart like our grandparents have walked in on a sex session, except we haven’t got the space to move away from each other so we just turn our heads very deliberately in the opposite direction.