by Jenny Colgan
Chapter Two
‘Here are the things I have,’ said Polly, walking through the town, the chill spring wind catching her. She was desperately trying to gear herself up and count her blessings; she had a summit with her best friend and didn’t want to be in tears when she met her.
‘I am healthy. I am well, apart from the dodgy ankle that I twisted dancing in that bar, which served me right. I have my own faculties. I have lost my money in a business, but people lose more all the time. I haven’t been in any natural disasters. My family are all well. Annoying, but well. My relationship… people go through far worse. Far worse. It’s not like we have to divorce —’
‘What are you doing?’ said Kerensa, loudly. Even though she was tottering on really high heels, she still moved as fast as Polly did in her Converses and had caught up with her on her own way home from her management consulting job. ‘Your lips are moving. Are you actually going properly crazy? Because you know…’
‘What?’
‘Might be a strategy. Disability living allowance?’
‘KERENSA!’ said Polly. ‘You are awful. And no, I was counting my blessings, if you must know. I’d got to “don’t have to get divorced.”’
Kerensa pulled a face that would probably have expressed doubt if she hadn’t had so much Botox that it was often difficult to tell quite what she was feeling, although she would then immediately explain at high volume.
‘Good Lord, seriously? What else was there? Two arms, two legs?’
‘I thought we were meant to be meeting so you could cheer me up.’
Kerensa held up the clanking bag from the wine shop.
‘We most certainly are. So go on, how far did you get? Once you’d discounted homeless, jobless, all that.’
They had stopped outside Kerensa’s immaculate Plymouth town house, which had two little orange trees either side of the polished red door with the brass knocker.
‘Actually, I’m not so sure I do want to come over,’ said Polly, but she didn’t really mean it. This was Kerensa’s way; she always confronted life head-on. Something Polly should have done a little more of in the last year or so, she knew, as the business went down the tubes and Chris became ever more unreachable. She had asked Kerensa for professional advice only once, when they’d had a bit to drink at a Christmas party years ago, and Kerensa had told her that what they were doing was risky and then had begged her not to ask again. Polly had convinced herself that all businesses were risky and the subject had never been mentioned since.
‘Well, you’re here now, and I’m not eating all these Pringles by myself,’ said Kerensa cheerfully, taking out her key on its Tiffany fob.
‘You never eat Pringles,’ grumbled Polly. ‘You put them all out, then you go, “Oh, I had a gigantic lunch that I’m pretending about, please eat these Pringles, I can’t keep them, they’ll go off.” Which they don’t, by the way.’
‘Well, if you stay, you can eke them out in the manner of your choosing, rather than guzzle them down like a starving vole.’
Before Polly could say anything, Kerensa put up her hands.
‘Just stay for tonight.’
‘OK,’ said Polly.
Polly closed her eyes when she said it, but there it was, set out by Mr Gardner and Mr Bassi: the bank was going to take the flat. When she had told her mother, her mother had basically responded like she’d had a child then sold it. That was why she tried not to confide in her mother more often than was strictly necessary.
‘So. I am trying to look on the bright side of this.’
‘Of being homeless?’
‘Shut up. I am just going to need a place of my own.’
Kerensa tried to wrinkle her brow, then looked at the light dusting of Pringle crumbs Polly had left on the BoConcept sofa.
‘Just you?’
Polly bit her lip. ‘We’re not breaking up. It’s just… I’m not sure the two of us, kicking about in a tiny horrible rental…’
She took a deep breath and a large slug of wine.
‘He said he wants to go back to his mum’s for a bit. Just until… until we get ourselves a bit straight, do you know what I mean? Then we can see how the land lies.’
Polly was doing her best to pretend this was the result of a calm, logical decision-making process rather than tempestuous fights and sulking.
‘I mean, it’ll be good… a bit of a change.’
Kerensa nodded sympathetically.
‘Until the flat sells… I mean, I have nothing. If it fetches more than we’re expecting, that might clear the debts, but…’
‘But you’re not counting on it?’
‘The way my luck is at the moment,’ said Polly, ‘I probably will get a tiny bit of money back, and as I leave the bank after picking it up, a bolt of lightning will come out of the sky and set it on fire. Then a piano will fall on my head and knock me down a manhole.’
Kerensa patted her hand.
‘How’s Chris doing?’
Polly shrugged. ‘About the same. They were very nice, the receiver guys. You know, considering.’
‘What a horrible job.’
‘It’s a job,’ said Polly. ‘I’m quite impressed by that at the moment.’
‘Are you looking?’
‘Yes,’ said Polly. ‘I am overqualified and far too old for every single job on earth. Plus nobody seems to pay for entry-level jobs any more. Plus I really need an address.’
Kerensa said instantly, ‘You know you can live here.’
Polly looked round at the immaculate, pristine single woman’s lair. Kerensa had her pick of men – a result of an extremely fit body, expensive clothes and an incredibly snotty attitude – but had never been remotely interested in settling down with anyone. She was like a pedigree cat, thought Polly gloomily, whereas she, Polly, was more like a big, friendly, messy dog. Maybe a springer spaniel; she had long strawberry-blonde hair and small features.
‘I would rather sleep in a bin than risk our friendship sharing a place again.’
‘We had a great time living together!’ said Kerensa.
‘We did not!’ retorted Polly. ‘You went out every weekend with those braying bellends with boats and you never did the washing-up!’
‘Well, one, I asked you to come with us every weekend.’
‘And I didn’t go because they were bellends.’
Kerensa shrugged.
‘And two, I never washed up because I never ate anything. You were the one trailing flour and yeast everywhere.’
Polly’s baking hobby had never quite left her. Kerensa actually believed that carbs were poison and genuinely thought she was allergic to gluten. It was amazing they were as good friends as they were.
‘Still, not a chance,’ said Polly, looking sad. ‘But God, I don’t think I could move in with a bunch of twenty-somethings and pretend to get down with the kids.’
She had turned thirty-two earlier in the year. She wondered, briefly, if one of the tiny upsides of being a bankrupt would be having a good excuse to stop buying wedding and christening presents for absolutely everybody she knew.
Kerensa smiled. ‘You totally could. You could go clubbing.’
‘Oh God.’
‘Stay up all night talking about the meaning of life and smoking dope.’
‘Oh Christ.’
‘Go camping at musical festivals.’
‘Seriously,’ said Polly. ‘I’m in despair already and you’re rubbing salt. Rub rub rub. Mmm. Salt.’
Kerensa handed over the Pringles tube with a practised air of weariness.
‘Well, carry on staying with me, I’ve told you.’
‘On your zillion-dollar sofa in your one-bedroom apartment for an unspecified amount of time?’ said Polly. ‘Thank you, it’s kind of you to ask, but I’m going to look online. For me, by myself. It’ll be… cool.’
Kerensa and Polly pored over the laptop in silence. Polly was scrolling through the list of flats within the budget set by the bank. It was not an
edifying sight. In fact, rents seemed to have gone crazy. It was awful.
‘That’s a cupboard,’ said Kerensa periodically. ‘That one doesn’t have any windows. Why would they take a picture of the stained wall? What’s the other wall like? I know that street from when I dated that ambulanceman. It’s the local bottling blackspot. People get bottled.’
‘There’s nothing,’ said Polly, panicking. She’d had no idea, not really, that their mortgage was so low and rentals were so high. ‘There’s absolutely nothing.’
‘What about an “executive flatshare”?’
‘They’re incredibly expensive, and you have to pay for satellite television and probably share with some weirdo who keeps weights in his room.’
As she scrolled further down, Polly grew more and more worried. She didn’t know quite how low her standards could go, but the more she looked at it, the more she realised she had to be on her own. However much she was trying to keep up appearances with Kerensa and Chris and her mum, something truly awful had happened and it wasn’t going to go away, not for a long time. The thought of herself crying quietly in her bedroom surrounded by partying young things was desperate at best, utterly tragic at worst. She needed to retreat, get her bounce back. She was not instantly going to start dressing ten years younger and talking about boy bands. Or go back to her mum, who loved her and would do anything for her, but who would also undoubtedly sigh, and make sorrowful enquiries about Chris and talk about other people’s grandchildren and… No. Their relationship was all right, but she doubted it was quite up to this.
So then. What?
Chapter Three
The next morning, Kerensa was up and out the door shortly after six, off to do British Military Fitness in a nearby park, even though it was March and rain was bouncing off the windows. She invited Polly, of course, but Polly groaned and turned over. She had a mild hangover and the taste of Pringles in her mouth.
Once Kerensa had gone, Polly made coffee, then tidied up as much as she could in the tiny, immaculate space. It was no good, though: her overnight bag was still cluttering the place up, and she didn’t know how Kerensa got the cushions to sit upright, because she certainly couldn’t. She picked up her coffee and spilt a little on the very expensive rug, and cursed. No. This wouldn’t do.
She fired up the laptop again. The jobs page could wait for a moment; right now, she needed somewhere to live.
More slowly this time, she went through every single place to rent in Plymouth in her price range. They were all either hideous, or in areas she wouldn’t feel safe getting to without a car. Page after page scrolled by until she reached the end. That was it. Nothing else. There was not one place she would even consider going to see, never mind living in.
Many of her friends, not just Kerensa, had offered her a spare room or a sofa to kip on, but she couldn’t bear that either – the ‘Are you okays?’ and the concerned murmuring. And most of them were married now anyway; were hitting the baby stage. A couple of her girlfriends she suspected would quite like her there to help with childcare from time to time, but she absolutely couldn’t bear the thought of that: tiptoeing around trying not to outstay her welcome, like some kind of maiden aunt combined with unpaid help.
Once upon a time, in her twenties, way back, she had thought that she and Chris would be married by now, settled; Chris making lots of money, her with her baby… and here she was.
Ugh, she had to stop thinking like this. She could drown in self-pity, or she could keep pushing on. On a whim, she broadened her search to take in the entire country. Wow. If she could move to Wales, she could live in loads of places. Nice places, too. Or the highlands of Scotland. Or rural Northern Ireland. Or the Peak District. She didn’t strictly know where the Peak District was, but at least there were loads of places she could move with no money and no connections and no Pringle-offering friends and no jobs… Hmm, maybe not.
She narrowed her search back down, asked for all of the south-west, and that was when she saw it.
It was a name she hadn’t even thought of in years. They must have gone there on a school trip; everybody did. Mount Polbearne. She was amazed anyone still lived there.
She studied the little thumbnail. It wasn’t much; it differed from the hundreds of other pictures she had scrolled past in that it had been taken from the outside rather than the inside, and showed a little window in a gabled roof, the paint peeling from the frame, the roof tiles serrated and ancient-looking. ‘Unusual location’, said the blurb, which usually meant ‘unspeakable skip’. She clicked on it nevertheless, taking a big slug of cold coffee.
Mount Polbearne, well well. It was a tidal island, she remembered that. They’d gone by coach, and there was a cobbled causeway that connected the island to the mainland, bristling with terrifying signs warning you of the dangers of driving across it as the tide came in, or sailing over it when it had. They had squealed excitedly when the water had surged up across the cobbles, then thought they would all be drowned. There were the remains of old trees by the side of the causeway that used to be on land and weren’t any more, and a bit of a ruined castle at the top of the island, along with a gift shop where she and Kerensa had bought oversized strawberry-flavoured lollipops. But surely nobody lived there. Half the time you couldn’t even leave. You certainly couldn’t commute.
There was another picture on the website. The building looked practically derelict. It had a wonky roof, and two of the windows she’d seen in the first picture were dirty and opened outwards. Downstairs was the black maw of a deserted shop. Obviously being perched out at sea was hitting it hard. Also Polly wondered if a buried causeway was quite as exciting for tourists as it used to be. These days they all wanted surfing beaches and theme parks and expensive fish restaurants. Cornwall had changed a lot.
There was one thing that did catch her eye, though: the place had two rooms, plus a little bathroom. Not a bedsit, not a flat share: a flat. Within her budget. Not only that, but the first room, the front room, was rather large: twenty feet by twenty-five. The front room in their Plymouth flat certainly wasn’t that big; it was small and narrow, with built-in spotlit mirrors at each end to create an illusion of space. She wondered briefly how high up the flat was, under the eaves like that. And if downstairs was deserted, it meant there would be nobody else in the building – except for the rats. Hmm. Then the last picture caught her eye. It was the view out of the front windows, taken from inside.
Beyond the window was… nothing. Just a straight stretch into outer space, or, as it revealed itself to be on closer examination, the sea. The picture had been taken on a day when the sea and the sky were the same shade of grey and blended into one another. It was a great big expanse on which nothing was written. Polly stared at the picture for a long time, fascinated. It looked exactly how she felt: hollowed out, empty. But also strangely calming. Like it was all right that there was a lot of grey in the world; grey was how it was. When she looked out of the window of their executive apartment, what she saw was lots of other people, just like them, getting into their Audis and BMWs, and cooking things in woks, except their businesses hadn’t failed and they appeared to be still talking to one another. Looking out of the window was stressful in itself. But this… this was something else.
She Google-Earthed Mount Polbearne and was surprised to see that yes, there were a few streets of cobbled houses leading down from a ruined church on the top of the hill. The streets wound their way down to a little harbour, at right angles to the causeway, where a handful of fishing boats were visible. It obviously hadn’t been gentrified yet, unlike so much of Cornwall; in the unfashionable part of the county and far from the motorway, it had escaped attention. But it was only fifty miles from Plymouth, so she could still nip back for things…
With slightly wobbly fingers, she clicked on the ‘Contact estate agent’ button.
Chapter Four
‘I think the thing to do now,’ said Kerensa, who was wearing a ridiculous blazer with gold buttons
that nevertheless managed to look quite chic on her, ‘is marry someone with money. This is not going to happen in this hole, I can tell you that for nothing.’
‘Thanks as usual,’ said Polly. She was wearing black. Normally she never wore black; it didn’t suit her strawberry-blonde hair and pale skin and made her look short. It was as if she’d kind of forgotten how to go about her normal life, without a job, or her other half, or a set of car keys jangling.
‘You really need to stay near a big city,’ said Kerensa. ‘Dress with a bit of style. Hook someone.’
‘Is that what you’re trying to do?’
‘Please,’ said Kerensa, rolling her eyes, and Polly looked out of the window quickly, before Kerensa started singing Beyoncé songs.
It was a grey, overcast Saturday and they had limped out of Plymouth, confused by the satnav and all the narrow, windswept roads it wanted them to take. Finally they decided that if they kept the sea on their left they would get there eventually, and so it had proved.
There was a car park by the causeway, and a daily tide table, which they had both neglected to check before they set out, so they lingered round the car park and studied the island in the distance. Finally Kerensa said it.
‘Looks… windy.’
It was true: Mount Polbearne had a windblown, tumbledown look to it. The waves were worryingly high; it seemed unlikely that this place was, as the sign promised, going to be accessible in twenty minutes. It looked like something out of the past; as though they were staring at something forgotten, the ruined castle looming over the just visible streets.
‘It looks romantic,’ said Polly, hopefully.
‘I wonder if they still do wrecking,’ said Kerensa. ‘And marry their cousins.’
‘It’s not far out of town,’ said Polly.
