Starboard Home

by Cressida McLaughlin

  ‘They’re brilliant, Mason. The whole thing. I’m glad I came to find you.’

  ‘Why did you? Did you really want to see the harrier?’

  ‘I wanted to see you,’ she said quietly.

  ‘OK.’ Mason sounded perplexed. ‘I would never have been gone that long, and I was going to ask Brian if I could call you on his phone before I left.’

  ‘I’m not angry, Mason. But I – let’s wait until we’re off the bus.’ She felt a sudden rush of nerves. She should have told him as they were walking through the park, not waited and made him anxious, building it up into a big thing. Maybe it was, the fact that she’d been worried he’d gone to see Tania, but she didn’t want it to be. Would her admission spell the end for them, Mason seeing it as a sign that she didn’t trust him? Her palms prickled with sweat, despite the cold.

  The bus pulled up to their stop, and instead of heading to the tube station, they wended their way off the main road and down a side street, choosing a small patisserie that was busy and cheerful, but not packed to the rafters. Summer found a table at the back of the café, hidden away under a spiral staircase that led up to the first floor. She waited while Mason ordered coffee and Danishes, returning to the table with steaming mugs and a plate of flaky, appetizing pastry.

  ‘I think we’re due a sugar and caffeine fix,’ he said. She could see he was nervous, taking longer than usual to arrange everything on the table, pulling off his coat and shrugging it over the back of the chair before sitting down. He ran a hand through his hair, gave her a quick smile. The tips of his ears were red, she noticed.

  ‘Mason, I—’

  ‘What did you—’

  They spoke at the same time, both apologized, both waited for the other so that silence hung limply over the table.

  Summer closed her eyes and took a deep breath. ‘I was worried you’d gone to find Tania,’ she said. ‘When I woke up and you were gone. I found the note, and I—’

  ‘What?’ Mason asked softly. ‘Why?’

  ‘The note,’ she repeated. ‘I thought it said something about fighting, and then I spoke to the man who’d been gritting the towpath, he said he’d seen someone at five a.m., in a polar bear hat, and that they’d been excited about going after a woman. I tried to think of something that would make sense, but …’

  ‘I never said that.’

  ‘I know. You said bird, he interpreted it as woman. I got so confused. But it doesn’t make up for the fact that I thought you’d gone to see Tania, that you’d had some epiphany after spending time with her, that your feelings …’

  He grabbed her hand with both of his. They were freezing, despite the gloves he’d been wearing in the park. ‘I don’t have feelings for Tania any more.’ He said the words quietly, but firmly. ‘I’m not sure how much I ever really did, how much of it was me looking for comfort after Lisa’s death. It’s been good to clear the air with her – it was a shock seeing her at first, but now I’ve done it, I’m glad. But as for my feelings for her, they’re … they’re nothing, Summer. Someone I was close to once, someone I treated badly. That’s where it ends. I promise.’

  ‘I’m so sorry,’ she said, a lump wedging in her throat. ‘I’m sorry I couldn’t believe that, and put my worries aside. I’m sorry I thought, even for a second, that you might have gone to her. She was so confident, and some of the things she said made me feel like – like she still had feelings for you, and that she could take you from me if she wanted to.’ She focused on her coffee, afraid to look up, to see disappointment on his face, or anger, or worse – a look that signified they were over, that she’d gone too far. But she forced herself, and what she found was sadness, incomprehension, his brows lowered. He stroked her palm with his thumb.

  ‘I love you, Summer. Nobody else. I didn’t realize how much seeing her would affect you, and I’m sorry if I contributed to that. I know I spent too long with her that first evening, that I should have been more forceful when she wanted to speak to me last night.’ He raked a hand through his hair. ‘God. I’m sorry I’ve done this, Summer, and that I didn’t realize how you were feeling in the first place. I’ve left you to get on with the café, I—’

  ‘You didn’t leave me! You’ve helped me constantly, you took control when I was hungover. You’ve been brilliant, Mason. And I think that’s why I was worried. Tania got to see what you’re like now, she had the opportunity for her feelings to resurface, and she’s so glamorous, so confident and together.’

  ‘Summer,’ Mason chided gently. ‘Do you need me to list all the reasons I love you? To me, you’re everything – don’t compare yourself to anyone else. There isn’t another Summer Freeman, and she’s the only woman I care about. Please, please don’t ever think I would abandon you, go running off at the crack of dawn into the arms of another woman. Birds – yes. Women – no. And always assume, if I’m not in touch, that it’s because I’ve forgotten to charge my phone, or left it behind it altogether. Organization’s not exactly my strong point.’ He raised an eyebrow and Summer grinned, elation filling her up like a helium balloon, her fears suddenly ridiculous in the warm coffee shop with Mason sitting opposite her.

  ‘I love you so much, Mason. I couldn’t bear the thought that I might lose you, but I’m so sorry I didn’t—’

  ‘No more apologies,’ Mason interrupted. ‘They’re officially banned for the rest of the day. From you, anyway.’

  Summer nodded. ‘How did you know there was this rare bird of prey in London?’

  Mason sighed. ‘I couldn’t sleep last night. I was thinking about you and your mum, about …’ He shook his head. ‘My head was full of stuff, anyway. I ended up browsing Twitter, which on my feed is a load of wildlife geeks and charities, and a couple of people tweeted that they thought they’d seen a huge bird going into the trees yesterday evening. I saw there’d been sightings from the estuary down to Battersea during the afternoon, and on balance it looked like it was worth checking out. I got up at five, walked to Battersea—’

  ‘God, Mason. How have you not frozen to death by now?’

  ‘My fingers might take a couple of days to thaw out, but I had a good hat to keep me warm. Got a few funny looks from other early risers, though I’ve no idea why.’ He shook his head, feigning confusion, and Summer laughed. ‘Did you shut the café to come and find me?’

  ‘Nope. Claire and Jas are in charge. They’re looking after Archie and Latte, too.’

  ‘They are?’

  ‘That was the plan when I left, anyway. We should head back soon and rescue them.’

  ‘In a little while,’ Mason said, smiling in a way that made her insides flip in happiness. ‘But first, share this with me.’ He pulled the cinnamon whirl in half, pastry and icing sugar going everywhere, including into Mason’s coffee. As he swore under his breath, Summer wrapped her ankle around his under the table.

  She checked herself for any niggle of worry, any lingering thoughts about Tania and her designs on Mason, and found that he had completely wiped them all. As usual, he had taken hold of her concerns and smothered them with love and logic. She watched him try to rescue the flakes of pastry from his jeans, and knew that despite the occasional calamity, his failure to charge his phone or control his dog, she had found a good man, one of the best. Men like Mason, she reasoned, were probably as rare as a hen harrier in London.

  Chapter Seven

  Summer and Mason arrived back in Little Venice after lunch. The sky was still clear, the air still freezing. They stopped for a moment, looking down at the canal, all the boats exactly as they had been a couple of days ago, most now twinkling with Christmas lights and decorations. The river remained a frozen plateau, though Summer thought, if she looked carefully, she could see cracks starting to appear. The beautiful blue bridge looked serene, arching over everything, shimmering in its frosty jacket.

  ‘How long do you think it’s going to last?’ Summer asked.

  ‘I’m not sure,’ Mason said. ‘I’ve never experienced anythin
g like this, apart from the odd, brief frozen patch when I was cruising. But that never lasted more than twenty-four hours. It can’t go on for much longer, but even a day or so more, and we’ll be travelling on Christmas Day. Not to mention that the disruption here will put the whole canal network off kilter for a while.’ He sighed.

  ‘So we’re not going to make it back to Willowbeck for Christmas, whatever happens?’

  ‘Not unless we leave Madeleine here and get the train back, and I don’t think we want to do that, do we?’

  Summer shook her head. ‘I couldn’t leave her down here. It wouldn’t feel right, even if Claire and Jas were looking after her. In Willowbeck it’s different, we know The Sandpiper is safe there.’

  ‘Do you want to go and see how they’ve got on?’

  ‘Yes,’ she said, pushing away her trepidation. It had only been a few hours, what could have happened?

  The first thing she noticed as she opened the café door was that Latte and Archie were sitting on chairs at one of the tables, licking clean the plates that had been left there. Other than that, the café was empty. Empty, but only recently. Every table was a mass of dirty crockery, and there was a distinct smell of burning coming from the kitchen. The coffee machine was steaming angrily and part of the Christmas bunting had been pulled down from above the counter. Summer stared at Mason, and his wide-eyed expression reflected her shock back at her.

  ‘Hello?’ she called tentatively. ‘Claire, Jas?’

  ‘Oh my God,’ came the instant response. ‘You have to save us!’ Claire appeared in the doorway, her dark hair pushed back from her sweating, red-cheeked face, her apron – Summer’s apron – looking like she had massacred a whole tray of chocolate muffins. ‘What’s happened?’ Summer couldn’t be angry. Claire and Jas had been doing her a huge favour, while she went running all over London after Mason and his bird of prey.

  ‘What hasn’t happened?’ Claire said, huffing. ‘First, a whole team of rugby players came in, demanding cream teas. And then a busload of school children, and then, would you believe, these aliens came down in their spaceship …’ She shook her head, exasperated.

  ‘What Claire’s trying to say,’ Jas said from behind her, oven glove over one arm, wiping sweat off his forehead with the other, ‘is that neither of us have any idea how to run a café, and it’s been a bit full on.’

  Claire nodded, her expression forlorn. ‘Yes. Exactly that. And your dog, Mason,’ she jabbed him in the ribs as she spoke.

  ‘Ouch!’

  ‘Too right. He’s a bloody nightmare! Gets into everything. Doesn’t behave at all. What method are you using, the Inbetweeners dog handling manual?’

  ‘He’s mischievous,’ Mason said defensively.

  ‘Summer, it’s been crazy busy. I hope we’ve not ruined the reputation of your café permanently, I think we served most customers what they asked for, and were relatively cheery, at least at the beginning. Give me music nerds searching for the forty-fifth-anniversary gold vinyl of Ziggy Stardust any day.’

  Summer laughed, hugging her friend. She smelt of coffee and sugar, her perfume musky underneath. ‘Thank you for looking after it, and the dogs. I appreciate it, and there’s no lasting damage.’

  ‘I think there might be to this batch of scones,’ Jas said, pointing at the blackened hulks sitting on the tray he was holding.

  ‘You too, Jas,’ Summer said. ‘We can get this place shipshape in no time.’

  ‘You’re sure?’ Claire’s sigh was one of pure relief.

  ‘You go. I’ll sort it out.’

  ‘And me,’ Mason added.

  ‘Nope. You have an article to write about the great hen harrier of Battersea Park.’

  ‘All of this is my fault,’ he said, sweeping his arms wide. ‘I’m not leaving you to do it alone.’

  ‘You found it then,’ Jas said, grinning.

  ‘I did.’ He ran his hand through his curls, and they fell back haphazardly around his face. Summer thought he looked tired, but that was unsurprising considering how early he’d got up, and how many hours he’d spent sitting motionless in the cold. ‘Not sure I went about it the right way, though.’ He flicked a glance at Summer.

  ‘Everything’s good,’ Summer confirmed. ‘Really good.’

  Claire gave them a weary smile. ‘Excellent news. Sorted. Right, I’m going to go and have a small, sugar-infused breakdown, and I’ll see you later.’

  ‘Bye, guys.’ Jas waved a laconic hand and handed Summer the oven glove on the way out.

  ‘Thank you again, I owe you.’

  Once they were gone, Summer and Mason surveyed the café, and then burst out laughing.

  ‘No rest for the wicked,’ Mason said ruefully.

  The weather stayed at a consistent below-freezing for the next few days. Summer put all thoughts of getting back to Willowbeck aside, knowing they were entirely in the hands of the winter gods and that there wasn’t anything she could do about it. She focused on the café, put back together in a couple of hours by her and Mason after Claire and Jas’s very kind, but somewhat haphazard, intervention, and on her boyfriend and their pets. They took Archie and Latte to Regent’s Park and further afield, one of them taking the longer, daytime walks while the other worked in the café, and then both of them rugging up in the evenings, once darkness had fallen and London was a blur of noise and cheer, taxi lights and Christmas trees in windows, to walk them together.

  Summer felt so much happier since her mad dash to find Mason, her confession about her doubts around Tania, his heartfelt reassurance and apology. She had noticed small changes in him, too. How he couldn’t walk past her without kissing her, how she would find him looking at her when she was distracted, smiling when she caught his eye, his fingers pressed thoughtfully to his lips. He seemed more attentive but also slightly nervous somehow, as if he thought he’d had a close call, had almost lost her. That was so far from the truth, but the whole episode had brought about a subtle change in their relationship. She felt even closer to him, if that was possible.

  ‘The weather looks like it’s going to break in the next couple of days,’ he said, scrolling through his phone as she emerged from the shower on Tuesday evening, after a full-on day in the café. She was thankful that Mason had been thoughtful enough to keep his shower quick, and leave her enough hot water. Claire had invited them out, saying that Ryder had found them somewhere a little different for the evening’s entertainment. Of course it was going to be different – it was Ryder, after all – but Summer prayed that it wasn’t more karaoke.

  ‘That’s good.’ Summer watched as droplets of water fell from his damp hair onto the collar of his navy shirt. ‘But we’re too late to make it back to Willowbeck, aren’t we?’

  ‘I think so. It’s less than two weeks until Christmas, and I have no idea how easy it’s going to be to travel after days of the boats being displaced by the ice. I wonder if—’ he stopped.

  ‘If what?’

  ‘If we should stay here until after Christmas, start the journey to Willowbeck on Boxing Day? Otherwise, who knows where we’ll end up. We could be in a position where there are no moorings available close by, and we have to spend Christmas Day cruising. What do you think? I know it’s not ideal, but it’s probably best to make the decision now.’

  Summer sat beside him on the bed. ‘You’re probably right,’ she said. ‘But is that even possible? We’ve already well outstayed our seven-day mooring here.’

  ‘I spoke to Claire. Because this is so unprecedented, they’ve left our spots open for the time being.’

  ‘What about the people who were due to have them after us?’

  Mason shrugged. ‘The whole canal system is so up in the air, nothing can be guaranteed. The local river trust says that because of that, we can stay here until the river’s thawed and someone else arrives to take our place. I suggest we take that offer, and if nobody else needs the mooring, start back home after Christmas Day in Little Venice.’ He put his hand on her knee.
‘But what do you think? I know how much you want to see Valerie again, and Dennis and Jenny.’

  ‘There’s always Skype,’ Summer said. ‘But you can’t Skype The Sandpiper.’

  Mason laughed. ‘True. But Valerie’s keeping an eye on her for me. It’s not what we planned, but would you be happy with that?’

  Summer smiled. ‘There are worse places to be on Christmas Day than Little Venice, and as long as I’ve got you and Archie and Latte, and we’re not stuck in some temporary mooring next to a waste disposal—’

  ‘Which could very well happen.’

  ‘Then I think you’re right. Christmas in London it is!’

  ‘Sure?’

  ‘Sure.’ She hoped it wasn’t a sign, someone up high telling her that proposing to Mason was a bad idea. They wouldn’t be back in Willowbeck until after the New Year now, so it would have to be delayed yet again. Since the events of a few days ago, Summer was even more sure that she wanted to marry him. Maybe she’d still do it, wherever they were on New Year’s Eve, whichever part of the Grand Union Canal they had reached. It didn’t have to be a big, flashy occasion, and she had the ring now. What was stopping her?

  ‘Good.’ Mason’s voice was loud, bringing her back to the moment. ‘Christmas in Little Venice. It’s settled.’ He gave her a grin that could have melted the ice – why hadn’t she thought of that before? – then left her to get dressed while he went to give Archie and Latte their dinner.

  That evening, Summer found herself standing, along with the others, outside an old, abandoned-looking warehouse. It was tall and made of dirty red bricks, with small windows like hundreds of piggy little eyes. Ryder led them to the side of the building, down a dark alleyway. Summer could picture it in the opening scenes of a serial killer film, and wondered how close they were to the haunts of Jack the Ripper.

  ‘Where the fuck is he taking us?’ Mason whispered, his usual consternation at Ryder’s antics for once not making her laugh.

  ‘To be slowly tortured and killed?’

  ‘Quite possibly.’