‘It was kind of awkward,’ I say, even though it was less awkward than I’d spent the train journey imagining it might be. ‘I was nervous and he was nervous and I ended up feeding him an ice cream.’
By the squeal on the other end of the line, I know the words were a mistake as soon as they leave my mouth.
‘You fed him an ice cream! Bloody hell, I’ve been with Gavin for years and I’ve never fed him anything! That’s so sexy!’
‘Our readers are going to love this!’
‘No, no, no,’ I say, realising I can’t pull this back now. ‘His hands were mucky. There was absolutely nothing sexual about—’
‘Put that in part three of the article, won’t you?’ Zinnia says. ‘That’ll give our readers a real sense of the awkwardness. They’ll be right there in it with you!’
‘Actually it was surprisingly unawkward,’ I say, hoping my boss doesn’t realise that isn’t a word. Using non-words is not exactly a great start for my writing career, is it?
‘Oooooooh,’ they both chorus.
‘Not in that way,’ I try to protest again, knowing this conversation isn’t going to go my way no matter how many different ways I try to get the point across. ‘He’s someone I could be friends with, but it’s not going any further. He’s not looking for a relationship and neither am I.’
‘Everyone says that until they meet “The One”,’ Daphne says.
‘I said that until I met my husband,’ Zinnia says.
‘And of all people, you know how much I’d sworn off men until I met Gavin,’ Daphne adds. ‘No matter what he says, he invited you to the pub last night, and he obviously fell for the Wi-Fi excuse, and he wanted to have breakfast with you this morning, and—’
She’s cut off by the ringtone of Nathan’s phone, which I’ve left on the coffee table in front of me. I peer over my laptop at it and make a noise of surprise. ‘That’s him.’
I realise I should’ve been a bit more restrained when Daphne squeals. ‘I can’t remember the last time I heard a noise like that come out of your mouth. Reminds me of a toad’s mating call.’
‘And on that compliment, I’m going to see what he wants. Bye, ladies.’
‘Wait, is that his phone? Why have you still got his phone, Ness?’ Daphne shouts as I hang up on her.
I’m almost out of breath by the time I pick his phone up. ‘Hi, this is Nathaniel’s phone,’ I say in a throwback to our first conversation.
His familiar laugh echoes down the line. ‘Hi, this is Nathaniel, but please don’t call me that. I might start thinking you don’t like me.’
I’m pretty sure that’s unlikely to happen. ‘All right, Nath,’ I say instead, channelling Bunion Frank from the pub last night.
I can hear the smile in his voice when he speaks. ‘I don’t mind Nath. Anything but my full three syllables is fine.’
It makes me wonder again what that’s all about. I don’t particularly like being called Vanessa but I don’t think people who use it dislike me. Except for Zinnia, it’s safe to say that she doesn’t like me, no matter what name she calls me by. ‘What’s up? Phoning to check I haven’t raided the place and given all your valuables to a passing seagull?’
He laughs again. ‘Actually, I’ve just been reliably informed that the tide is almost at its lowest point and is about to turn. I was wondering if you wanted to walk down to the shore and see if we can spot the house that Camilla mentioned?’
‘Where the ghost lives?’
‘I don’t think “ghost” and “lives” really go together, but yeah, why not?’
I get the feeling I could see him if I went outside, so I get up with the phone still pressed to my ear as I open the bright yellow door and step down the two stone steps.
Nathan’s standing on the wooden staging next to the carousel tent, looking up at the cottage, and even from this distance, I can see the smile spread across his face as I come outside. He waves and I wave back, my smile matching his.
‘And someone just happened to inform you of that?’
‘The bloke who works in the beach shop across the promenade. He said he overheard our conversation in the pub last night, but I suspect that Camilla went around ordering everyone to tell us after we left. I knew it was a mistake to leave her unsupervised.’
I laugh, keeping my eyes on him down on the sand. Nothing sounds better than a walk along the beach. ‘I’d love to.’
I give him another wave and go back inside. I close my laptop down, and remember to grab the binoculars Camilla mentioned from the kitchen. There’s an empty flask on the draining board that I guess Nathan didn’t have time to make up this morning, so I make a flask of tea and put it and the two cinnamon swirls we didn’t have for breakfast in a bag. If nothing else, it’ll give me an excuse to avoid work for a bit longer. The conversation with Zinnia has done nothing to boost my confidence in my ability to write this article, and now I’ve mentioned anecdotes that she’s going to expect to see in it, and I haven’t even told Nathan what I’m supposed to be doing yet.
I should probably leave his phone here – at least I’d have given it back to him then – but I like him phoning me on it. I like always having an excuse to see him and I love that we’re both using it as an excuse. I slip it into my jeans pocket alongside mine. It’s not right to just leave it here. Someone could break in and steal it, or there could be an earthquake and the cottage could collapse on it, or a fire, an alien landing perhaps, and we are right near the beach so there could definitely be a tidal wave, or a crowd of light-fingered giant squid could rear up from the depths. Better safe than sorry. I slip it into my jeans pocket alongside mine and lock up behind me.
Chapter 9
It’s a beautiful day, endless golden sand and blue sky filled with banks of white cloud, and the beach is almost empty apart from a couple having a picnic, and a couple building sandcastles with their toddler.
The sand is smooth under our shoes, warm and dry at the top of the beach but getting wetter as we head towards the water. Our feet are sinking and seawater instantly refills every deep footprint, and I’ve rolled my jeans up to my knees but I’m regretting not taking my ballet flats off further up the beach. The wind from the sea is not just the gentle breeze it is near the promenade, but a full sea gale that is flapping my hair around and making me wonder why I didn’t bring a band to tie it up with.
The bracing wind and the salty air has filled my lungs, and the tide is so far out that everything looks small, even the tent covering the carousel and blue metal railing between the beach and the rainbow of huts on the promenade. It doesn’t feel like we’ve walked that far, but from down here, the cottages dotting the cliff side look like pretty doll’s houses and the sheep on the hillsides above them look like white ants.
‘Is that it?’ Nathan points at a speck of stone on the peak of a hill at the top of a cliff, past Pearlholme and probably past the next beach over as well.
I squint in the direction he points. ‘Well, she did say it was a ruin …’
‘It looks old enough,’ he says. ‘And there’s nowt else around that fits the description.’
‘It doesn’t look very spectacular,’ I say. ‘Given the size of the carousel, I was expecting a castle or something.’
‘I don’t know, Camilla seemed to think the guy who built it didn’t have much money. Maybe he built his own house too.’
He fishes the binoculars out of his dungaree pocket where he stashed them and offers them to me, and I hold them up to my eyes and fiddle with them until the random piles of stone come into focus and I can tell they’re vaguely house-shaped piles of stone. Unless you knew the story, you probably wouldn’t even realise it had once been a house.
‘Let’s have a— Argh!’ Nathan shouts and I squeal as a wave breaks against my legs, soaking me up to the calves and making me jump so much with the sudden coldness that I nearly fall over.
He stumbles too and his strong arms slide around my waist, pulling me to him and somehow manag
ing to keep us both on our feet. He’s laughing as he finds his footing in the wet sand.
Neither of us have been paying attention to the tide and it’s obviously turned while we’ve been looking at the cliffs and is now swiftly on its way back up the beach. More cold water pools around my ankles as I cling on to Nathan’s sun-warmed arms, which has very little to do with overbalancing and quite a lot to do with having a sexy bloke’s arms around my waist.
It’s not funny but his proximity is making me all giggly, that combination of shower gel and dark coconut aftershave, fresh salty air, and the underlying grease he’s been removing this morning is too near, filling my senses.
‘You okay?’ he murmurs when it becomes obvious that neither of us are likely to fall over now, and I’m just sort of swaying in his arms.
‘Mmm hmm.’ I force myself to stand upright and push away from him. ‘Just the shock.’
‘Yes, I’m always surprised when I walk on the edge of the sea and get wet.’
‘You screamed just as loud as me.’
‘I did not!’ He’s unable to keep a straight face as he says it. ‘I’m so glad I didn’t take my only work boots off further up the beach when I thought they might get wet and then thought, “nah, that’ll never happen” though.’
I look down at our feet as we stand facing each other. We’re both up to our shins in seawater, our shoes disappearing into the sand as more waves lap against our legs one after the other. After the initial shock, the water isn’t too cold and it’s actually quite pleasant on such a warm day, it just would’ve been nice if the sea had given us a choice.
‘Too late now,’ Nathan says with a shrug, looking positively joyful at this turn of events. He stomps about a bit, splashing further up my jeans and I shriek and pull one of my feet up with a sucking squelchy noise as the sand releases its grip. I go to kick water at him, but my other foot comes loose and I nearly overbalance, squealing again, glad the beach is still empty so there aren’t many people to scare off. All I can think about are the two phones in my pocket. They will not be happy with an unexpected dip in the sea and one of them isn’t even mine.
His arms are around my waist again, holding me upright while I find my own footing and water washes around my knees. It’s still only reached his calves, the tall bugger.
‘Well, that was fun,’ he says as I hold on to his arms for a moment longer. Dodgy Wi-Fi may not have been an excuse, but overbalancing in the surf definitely is.
‘Your definition of fun is …’ I go to tell him that the fumes of old carousel paint must’ve been addling his brain, but I realise I haven’t stopped grinning since the first splash of water and I’m feeling positively giddy ‘… fun,’ I finish eventually. I can’t remember the last time I laughed like that.
He grins as he drops his arms from around me and takes a step back, looking down at his wet legs. ‘May as well enjoy it now. See how much wetter we can get.’
We wander along in the surf, both having given up on trying to rescue our shoes or trouser legs, gradually veering sideways as the tide comes further in, keeping the water level below our knees.
‘Might get a better view of the ruins from further along the beach.’ There’s something about his smile that’s so easy and unguarded. His eyes are dancing with mischief in the sunlight, and it only ends when another wave crashes against our legs, soaking me to the thighs this time.
I look away and we carry on walking, close enough that our hands brush deliciously together. It would be so easy to reach out and curl my fingers around his but I stop myself, enjoying the little thrill each time my hand touches his for the briefest of moments. I keep expecting him to move away but he doesn’t, so I don’t either.
I force myself to keep my eyes on the horizon, focusing on two little fishing boats out at sea instead of the smile in his eyes or the way they look lighter brown today, reflecting the brightness of the sky.
‘So, how’s work?’
I can’t hide the groan. ‘Very, er, fact-checky. Lots of colleagues surprisingly annoyed that I’m not in the office. And you can tell I couldn’t get a signal yesterday, I heard my inbox audibly groan when I opened it.’
He shakes his head. ‘I couldn’t do an office job. Not many things have gone right in my life but my job is one thing I’m so lucky with. Whatever luck we get, I think my job inhaled my full share and left everything else to fall apart.’
It makes me want to ask him endless questions about his life and what exactly has fallen apart in it, but I feel like I’m underhandedly trying to glean information that Zinnia will like.
I know I should talk to him about the article, but it sounds so stupid. My boss thinks that you being friendly and polite every time we catch each other’s eye on the train and then dropping your phone means something, and now I’ve got the chance to make a career for myself by running a campaign in which we pretend to find you, share private details of your life, fall in love, and live happily ever after. He’s not looking for a relationship, he doesn’t believe in romance or ghosts, he’s not going to take Daphne’s Sliding Doors-esque view that we’re souls destined to find each other and the universe regularly puts us on the same train for that very purpose, is he?
He suddenly stops and leans down, bending gracefully to retrieve a shell that was half-buried in the sodden sand. He holds it in the waves to wash it off and then lifts it up to the light for me to see as well, seawater running in droplets down his bare arm.
‘That’s so pretty.’ I look at the conch shell his long fingers are holding. It’s white with pink lines on it, a perfectly formed swirl that fits in his huge palm.
‘Isn’t nature amazing?’ he murmurs.
I look at him looking at the shell and get the feeling he’s miles away. We’ve stopped walking so his hand has stopped moving, the side of it pressing against mine, and I stay stock still, because I don’t want to break that connection, and I wish had the courage to reach over and slide my other hand onto his shoulder.
And then I wonder why I’m not just doing it. Why am I looking for excuses not to do something as simple as touching him?
I slip my hand onto his left shoulder and give it a gentle squeeze. If he thinks about it, it’ll just seem like I’m trying to get a better look at the shell, but really I just want to acknowledge what he told me last night about his injury.
His breath hitches and I suddenly want to know everything there is to know about him. There’s something that runs deep under his smile and self-deprecating humour, from the running away to join the circus thing to the certainty that he’s boring me with carousel talk. Someone has really done a number on him in the past and I probably shouldn’t be this determined to find out who.
Another wave crashes around our legs and seems to jolt him back to reality. ‘Here you go, for you.’ His finger hooks into mine where our hands are touching and he lifts my hand and presses the shell into it, using his elegant fingers to close mine around it. ‘A reminder of your time in Pearlholme.’
‘Thank you.’ I rub my thumb over the shell as his hand drops from mine, and he grins, his smile looking lighter than it did just now.
I hold the shell to my ear, which is probably what every other person in the world does when holding a conch shell. ‘I can hear the sea!’
‘You can hear the sea because you’re standing in it!’ He laughs, and I blush because I genuinely hadn’t thought of that, and usually I’d be embarrassed about making such an idiot of myself, but his smile is kind and his laugh is one of solidarity rather than making fun of me.
‘Don’t worry, I once asked someone what Snakes on a Plane was about.’ He pauses. ‘Wait, why did I tell you that? I meant that I’m completely sophisticated at all times, obviously. I never say anything daft.’
We’re both giggling again and he holds his hand out for the binoculars. ‘Gimme those before I say something I can’t recover from.’
I hand them over and can’t resist looking at him while he’s distracted. The se
a has made the dark denim of his dungarees even darker and the wet material is clinging to his legs at the thighs and flaring out below the knee with the flow of the water we’re still standing in. One of his T-shirt sleeves has ridden slightly up his bicep and I can see the tan line where he’s been in the sun, and it’s ridiculous how much I want to touch that smooth skin and run my hands over the muscle that flexes as he holds the binoculars up and twists the focus knob.
‘Do you think we could get there?’
Okay, I take it all back. He’s a lunatic. It’s a pile of stone halfway up a cliff and he wants to get there? That’s something extreme sports fanatics do, not normal, fun, sensible people like I thought Nathan was. ‘Get there?’ I say, going for breezy, coming across as gale-force. No way did he hear the gulp of apprehension.
‘Yeah, look, there’s a path.’ He hands the binoculars over and I hold them up to my eyes.
He’s insane. ‘No, there’s not.’
‘Yeah, look. Between all those brambles and gorse.’
Oh, joy. That sounds fun. I squint through the binoculars again but all I can make out is indistinct greenery.
He’s suddenly behind me, his arm around me, his hand on top of mine where I’m holding the binoculars. He bends and lowers his head until his chin is resting on my shoulder and his head is level with mine. His other arm comes out and his finger traces a line where I should be looking.
‘That is not a path,’ I murmur, too distracted by how close he is to think straight. I have no idea if there’s a path or not.
‘Yeah, it is.’ His hand touches my shoulder to turn me slightly to the left and points again. ‘Look, there are dunes underneath and you can see a sandy path winding up to the ruin.’
‘They’re not sand dunes, that’s where the cliff has collapsed with subsidence.’
He chuckles, the movement making his chin press against my shoulder. ‘I reckon if we go up past the cottages in Pearlholme and along to the next beach, we’re going to come across a load of dunes, and somewhere there’ll be an opening to that path …’
The Little Vintage Carousel by the Sea Page 13
