For a moment, my stomach lurched. I didn’t care what she thought of my rubbish caricature attempts. She’d have seen Emily. I hoped she hadn’t said anything about coming down tomorrow.
I didn’t have to wait too long to find out as almost as soon as I put down the phone to Roz, Emily called. She sounded strange.
‘So give me a call when you’re getting close,’ I said, ‘and I’ll arrange where to meet you.’
Silence at the other end.
‘What? Emily, what is it?’
‘Roz,’ she said.
‘What about Roz?’
‘She was at the meeting.’
‘I know. She just phoned. She . . . Did you tell her you were coming down?’
‘No. But she told Otis what was going on with you two.’
‘Going on with us? Nothing’s going on . . .’
‘Not what she said to Otis. She said you’d invited her down to Cornwall.’
‘Roz? No way. It was my sister who invited her down.’
‘She said that you two had something really special going and that although it wasn’t working for a while, now you’re on track. Oh Mac, why didn’t you tell me it was her.’
‘Her? No. What do you mean?’
‘That it was Roz that you broke up with. And now it seems you’ve got back together.’
‘What! No. Roz is not my girlfriend. My girlfriend is Becca. No. I mean, was. She isn’t any more. Becca, that is. And neither is Roz. I was just staying with her. I told you. Mr Williams’s daughter. The one who was calling me all the time when we were together. I told you then that she wasn’t my girlfriend. Remember? You said I didn’t have to explain myself to you. But honestly, there’s nothing going on between us.’
I could hear Emily sigh heavily at the other end of the phone. ‘Sounds to me like you have a lot to work out, Mac. I don’t think this would be a good time for me to come down. So that’s why I’m phoning, to tell you that I won’t be coming after all.’
‘No . . .’ I objected into the phone but it was too late. She’d hung up.
As always, Jade was hovering in a doorway listening in. She must have seen my face fall.
‘Bad news?’ she asked.
‘The worst.’
‘Why?’
‘Emily’s not coming. She thinks that Roz is my girlfriend.’
‘That’s the impression I got from talking to Roz. She’s really into you, you know.’
‘Well, it’s not mutual and now she’s messed everything up.’
I sat on the bottom of the stairs and put my head in my hands.
Jade sat down next to me and put her hand lightly on my back.
‘What was it you were telling me last night? Lesson one in life. Never give up. So sort it. Get back on the phone and tell Emily the truth.’ She gave me a gentle shove. ‘Go on. Do it. Nothing ever happens unless you make it.’
Jade being nice to me? What the hell was going on? But she was right. I got up, went back to the phone and dialled Emily’s number.
She picked up straight away and for a second I hoped that my call wasn’t going to be a disappointment and that she was still expecting Michael.
‘Emily,’ I said, ‘please listen. Please come. I really want you to. No . . . Before you say anything, let me put a few things straight for you. Becca – Becca was my girlfriend down here. She’s the one I told you about. We broke up before I came up to London. That’s over. Roz – Roz is Mr Williams’s daughter. I’ve known her since she was little. She always had a crush on me which, by the way, was never reciprocated. That must be what she meant by saying that we didn’t get off to a good start. I saw her for the first time in years last weekend and she . . . well . . . nothing is going on. Nothing. Really. It’s all in her head. Nothing has happened – will happen. I’m not into her at all but she doesn’t seem to have got the message. I’ve given her no reason to think that what she feels is mutual. Please don’t let her ruin things for us. Please come down. I’m being totally honest with you. It’s you I want to spend time with. Only you.’
There was a silence at the other end. ‘OK,’ she said. ‘See you Saturday.’
‘Well done,’ said Jade when I’d put the phone down. ‘I was dreading having to tell my friends that she didn’t come after all.’
Hmm, I thought. I might have known she’d have had some hidden agenda. But I didn’t mind. If it hadn’t been for her I wouldn’t have made the call. Good old Jade. Sometimes she could be all right.
‘OH MUM, does Jade have to come?’ I groaned.
‘You’ll have plenty of time on your own with Emily later,’ said Mum on Saturday afternoon as she went out to the car to go and meet Emily.
Mum had agreed to go and fetch her, as she was being dropped off at a pub up near the A38 so that her friend and her parents could carry on down the road to Penzance. Better than bringing her back on the bus, I thought, but Jade had insisted that she wanted to come with us. Not part of my plan, I thought. I mean, who wants your mum and your sister along when you’re going to meet the love of your life? I had the whole weekend worked out in my head. Bring her back to the house. Settle in. Go for long walks. Show her the area. Just the two of us, getting to know each other better.
In the end, it wasn’t a bad thing that Jade came along. When we met Emily, something strange happened to my vocal cords and all the witty and interesting things I had planned to say went straight out of the window. She was even lovelier than I remembered, dressed in white jeans and a white Indian top. Jade was straight in there as soon as we got back in the car, asking about her books and her writing and what was happening in London. I sat in the back listening and gazing at her profile in the front when I thought no one was looking. At one point Mum caught me and winked in the rear-view mirror. Relax, I told myself, I’d soon have her alone and then we could talk properly without an audience listening in. I’d take her for a walk down at Mount Edgecumbe as soon as we’d got home and she’d unpacked.
‘Would you like to see the area?’ asked Mum as we drove back towards the peninsula.
‘I’d love to,’ said Emily. ‘I’ve never been here before so I want to see as much as I can.’
Noooo, I thought. I want to be the tour guide. Introduce her to my special places, see her face when she looks out over some of the glorious views. I want her to remember it as being me who showed her all the beauty spots.
‘It’s OK, Mum. I can take her round. Let’s get home.’
‘Don’t be silly, Mac. You know that you can see more by car in the first instance. Let’s have a drive round so that Emily can get a feel for the place and then you can decide where you want to go and look at more closely after that.’
I felt like going into a ginormous sulk but knew that it wouldn’t look good. Petulant adolescent is not a great way to impress a girl, so I had to agree.
‘OK. But take the coast road so that she can get the view there. It’s always spectacular every time you see it.’
And so we spent the first hour crammed in the car being chauffeured and chaperoned – Mum acting as our tour guide and Jade jabbering on from the back – as we took the road along Whitsand Bay up to Rame and then down into the villages of Kingsand and Cawsand where we had a short walk so that she could see the beaches there.
Emily was well impressed and oohed and aahed in all the right places and it was fun showing someone new all the sights. It was like seeing it for the first time again myself.
‘I love this place,’ she said as we sat for a moment (with Jade between us) on the wall by the beach at Cawsand Bay. ‘It’s so unspoilt and so . . .’ She sniffed the air. ‘It smells so clean. Such a change from the traffic fumes in London.’
‘You must be tired after your journey,’ said Mum. ‘How about a cup of tea or something?’
‘That would be lovely,’ said Emily, turning to me. ‘Where’s that café you like, Mac? The one you told me about, where you go after school?’
‘Oh,’ I said as panic seized
me. She meant the View. I couldn’t take her there. What if Shazza was there and she asked if I was going to take her out as arranged? Hell no. That would ruin everything. ‘Café. Yes. Right. Down in Kingsand Bay. On the front. We just have to walk through the village. About ten minutes.’
Emily looked puzzled. ‘In the bay? No. I distinctly got the impression it was up high somewhere as you spoke about the view from there. Remember? Only sky and sea as far as the eye can see, you said.’
‘You mean the View,’ said Jade. ‘That’s up at Whitsand.’
‘The View. That was it,’ said Emily. ‘Is it far?’
‘Actually, we drove past it before,’ I lied. ‘It closes at four at the weekends.’
‘Does not,’ said Jade. ‘I’ve often been up there in the early evening.’
Remind me to kill you, I thought as my mind went into overdrive imagining embarrassing scenes with Shazza.
‘Would you like to go?’ asked Jade, digging my grave even deeper.
Noooooooooooooo, I prayed. Please God, no. Don’t ruin everything now. Please, please.
‘You’ve got all weekend,’ said Mum, getting up from the wall and getting her car keys out. ‘Why don’t we take you home, you can settle in and go up there tomorrow? We can have a cup of tea at home.’
Oh, thank you, God, I thought. Thank you, thank you. I wanted to hug Mum. I’d find something else to do tomorrow and make sure we went nowhere near the View.
‘And Mum does do the best cakes in the area,’ said Jade as we headed back for the car.
Saved by the bell, I thought as I settled in the back and planned the rest of the day. All I wanted to do was get her alone.
Gran opened the front door and came out to meet us as soon as the car drew up in front of the house. She looked really smart in a navy blue shirt, trousers and a blue bead necklace. Where was she going? I wondered. She rarely dressed up these days.
Sadly, she wasn’t going anywhere. She was waiting for Emily.
‘I’m so pleased to meet you,’ she gushed as soon as Emily was out of the car and had been introduced. ‘I thought you’d be back ages ago.’
‘Mum drove us round the area,’ I explained. ‘And now . . .’
‘I hope you don’t mind, dear,’ said Gran to Emily, ‘but I have a few people who are dying to meet you. You see, I work at the library and on a Thursday night, they hold a creative writing class. When the girls heard that we had a real author coming, well, they begged me to let them come and meet you. And we all know your book, we have it in the library. It’s very popular with the teens.’
I glanced over at the house and saw the ‘girls’ all standing expectantly at the window. White haired every one of them and not one under sixty. Mrs Marshall from the co-op gave us a wave.
‘Gosh,’ said Emily. ‘I’d hardly call myself a real author. I’ve only done one book so far, but that’s so sweet of you.’
‘And Emily’s only just arrived,’ I said. ‘She probably needs to rest.’
‘No. I don’t mind,’ said Emily. ‘I love meeting other writers and talking books.’
‘I’ll go and fix you some tea then and bring it through,’ said Mum.
‘And can I sit in?’ asked Jade. ‘I like talking books as well.’
Yeah right, I thought. The last book I’d seen Jade reading was Harry Potter when she was nine and she didn’t finish that. She only wanted to sit in so that she could show off to her friends about spending time with a London author.
So much for my great plans to be alone with Emily in some romantic location, I thought later as I sat taking tea with five old dears, Emily, my mum and Jade. Once again, my destiny seemed to have been taken over by women.
The ‘literary salon’ went on for hours as Gran’s ladies had a million and one questions to ask Emily. Where did she get her ideas? How long did it take to write a book? What did she like to read? How did she work out her plots? Create her characters? And it was interesting to sit in the corner of the room and hear Emily talk about what was clearly her passion. She didn’t seem to mind having been hijacked to talk to them at all.
When it got to early evening, there was no sign of the session wrapping up and Gran’s ladies were still hanging about as Mum began preparing supper. In the end, she asked if they’d like to stay. I felt myself inwardly groan. It seemed like I was never going to get Emily alone.
‘There’s always tomorrow,’ said Mum with a wink as I helped her set the table in the kitchen.
‘I hope so,’ I said. ‘She’s my guest. Not theirs.’
Mum laughed. ‘The course of true love never did run smooth.’
‘Tell me about it,’ I said, sighing.
Sunday morning and not a cloud in the sky. I was up bright and early, ready to take Emily out. Jade was still in bed, Gran had already set off on one of her walks and Mum was busy in the kitchen preparing some of her wares for Cat’s dad’s shop the next morning. At last, I was going to be able to spend time with Emily.
‘I’m so sorry about all the distractions yesterday,’ I said when she appeared at around nine.
‘No problem,’ she said. ‘I like to go with the flow sometimes, but I’m looking forward to today. I’d hoped you could show me around a bit.’
At last, we were back on course, I thought, as we had breakfast then set off for the gardens down at Mount Edgecumbe. As we took the back path through the fields to Cremyl, we soon fell back into chatting easily and enjoying each other’s company. I showed her the Italian gardens, we had coffee in the Orangery, walked along the sea wall and looked out over at Plymouth and all the boats moored there.
‘I could live here,’ said Emily. ‘Maybe when I’m rich, I’ll buy a house and come down here for the summers. It would be a great place to write. Did you know that Daphne Du Maurier lived down here some place? I love her books.’
‘She lived further down, in Fowey,’ I said, as images of us together in a picturesque cottage floated through my mind. We could have a summer place in Cornwall and a pad up in London for the winter. She could do her books, I’d do my cartoons and everyone would invite us to glamorous parties with loads of creative people. It would be brilliant.
After an hour or so of exploring the gardens, Emily turned to me. ‘I’m starving,’ she said. ‘Must be this sea air. How about we go to that café of yours now?’
‘Oh. Right. No. It’s miles away up there. And it might not be open.’
‘Oh, come on, let’s give it a shot. Isn’t there a bus or something? How do you get there?’
‘Bus on the way home from school.’
‘So it must go from Cremyl, yes? Where the foot ferry comes in?’
‘Yes, but er . . .’
She took my hand and pulled me back towards Cremyl. It was the first time we’d held hands and I felt a volt of electricity course through me when she put her hand in mine. I’d been thinking about doing it all morning but didn’t want to freak her out, in case she was still not over Michael but she did it so naturally and now there we were walking along hand in hand. I felt as if I was floating on air.
At the bus stop, I prayed that God would intervene again and prevent us getting up to the café. The bus would break down. The drivers would be on strike. I didn’t want anything to break the mood that we were in.
‘Are you sure you want to go up there?’ I tried again. ‘We can get a snack and a coffee in the pub here.’
‘But it was beautiful up there when we drove past yesterday. And it’s such a lovely day. Oh please, let’s go.’
‘OK, but I thought we could go there tomorrow and . . . I had a few places in mind to show you this afternoon.’ I knew that the café was definitely closed on a Monday so it wouldn’t be a problem.
‘Oh, let’s go now,’ she said and began to snuggle in to me, putting one arm round my waist and her other arm around my shoulder. I looked down at her and she looked up at me, an amazing moment when it felt like time stood still. I’d never felt so good as she turned her face up t
owards mine so that I could kiss her. Just as I was leaning in and about to touch her lips with mine, I heard a familiar voice.
‘Hey, Mac.’
Emily and I sprang apart. It was Becca, standing right in front of us with her hands on her hips and she didn’t look very happy.
‘Oh . . . Becca, this is . . .’
‘I think I know exactly who this is,’ said Becca. ‘And I’d like to know what she’s doing cuddling up to my boyfriend.’
Emily looked totally bewildered. ‘Becca. No, it’s all right. I . . .’
‘No. It’s not all right,’ she said, then she started sobbing. ‘I thought I could trust you, Mac. I thought you . . . we . . . How could you?’
Emily looked aghast. ‘I’m so sorry. Mac told me it was over with you.’
‘Over? Over? Not at all,’ sobbed Becca.
Emily gave me a withering look then turned back to Becca who was mid-sob. ‘Oh, Becca. I . . . I would never have . . . Oh, Mac!’
She turned and ran back down the path through the field towards our house.
‘What the hell do you think you’re playing at?’ I yelled at Becca.
Becca turned off the waterworks straight away and grinned. ‘Good, wasn’t I? Very convincing. Think it did the trick.’
‘I’ll say. But why would you do that? Are you mad?”
Becca’s face flushed red. ‘You asked me to,’ she said angrily. ‘I was doing what you asked. Helping you get rid of Roz.’
‘Only that’s NOT Roz. That’s Emily.’
‘Jesus,’ said Becca, looking confused. ‘Who’s Emily?’
‘Oh, never mind,’ I said as I took off down the path after Emily.
‘Never mind yourself,’ said Becca after me. ‘I was trying to help for God’s sake. I thought that’s what you wanted.’
And off she flounced in a huff.
I ran as fast as I could but Emily still got back before me.
‘What’s going on?’ asked Mum, as I sped past her up the stairs.
‘Nothing,’ I said and took the stairs two at a time.
Double Dare Page 8
