by Jenny Colgan
Kerensa looked at her watch. ‘Well, that very much depends, doesn’t it? What if I have a terrible martini accident and you can’t get to my house because it’s all watery? And you don’t even have a car! Look around!’
It was a desolate spot, just narrow country lanes leading away from the little car park.
‘I don’t see a bus service, do you? How are you going to get to Plymouth? Horse and cart?’
Polly’s heart sank. But the previous day she had gone out, under Kerensa’s orders, to look at a couple of flat shares closer to home. Both of them had been unspeakably filthy, populated by twenty-somethings, with sinks full of washing-up and fridges with notes pinned to shelves and the smell of unwashed duvets and old bicycles in the communal hallways. She hadn’t cried till after Kerensa had gone to bed.
‘It would only be for a bit,’ she said hopefully. ‘Until the flat sells.’
‘The flat that’s exactly like the other fifteen thousand overpriced Plymouth executive waterside apartments built in the last ten years?’
Polly’s brow furrowed. Chris had always seen himself as a man with an eye for a good investment; she remembered his excitement. ‘It’s got a gym in the basement, Pol!’ (He’d used it once.) ‘It’s got fingerprint entry!’ (Always broken.) What it didn’t have – a garden, space for a nursery – was never commented on.
‘Let’s just take a quick look,’ she said.
The water slooshed back from the causeway incredibly quickly, like it was revealing a magic road. Very carefully they drove across, parking in the car park on the other side, which today was empty of vehicles – too early for holidaymakers, Polly surmised, and pretty chilly – except for a grey Vauxhall Astra, out of which emerged an overweight young man wearing an extremely cheap suit and a bright red tie. Even though he’d been sitting in a car, he seemed out of breath.
‘Oi oi!’ he said in a surprisingly jocular tone. ‘Are you our city girls?’
Kerensa sniffed. ‘Does he mean Plymouth?’ she said. Even though Kerensa had been born and raised in Plymouth, she liked to pretend that really she was more at home in London, Paris or New York.
‘Ssh,’ said Polly.
‘This must be a small town if you think Plymouth is Vegas,’ said Kerensa, stepping out of the car and immediately having to extract a stiletto from between two cobbles.
The portly man got closer. In fact, he was more of a boy. It struck Polly how young he was. That implied that she wasn’t young, but she totally was, she told herself. Totally. There was a huge grin plastered on his face. Polly thought that if he’d been born in a different era, now would have been the time for him to pull out a massive spotted hanky and dab his forehead with it.
‘Lance Hardington,’ he said, offering a ferociously strong handshake and staring deep into their eyes. He’d obviously been on some kind of training course. Kerensa was stifling a grin. Anyone less like a Lance it was hard to imagine.
‘Nice to meet you, Lance,’ she purred, making the boy’s red face even redder.
‘Don’t start,’ said Polly sotto voce as they set off behind him. For a chubby man, he moved at quite a clip.
‘Oh, I’m only having fun,’ said Kerensa.
‘You’ll terrify him.’
‘That’s fun for me.’
Lance turned round, waggling his eyebrows at them in a way that obviously meant hurry up, time is money and you clearly have far too much of one and hardly any of the other. He made a show of checking his iPhone, but Polly took her time and looked around her. It was actually rather pleasant to be here, in this little place, away from the noise and traffic of Plymouth. They were standing by a jetty next to the causeway, on the far side of the town, which curved around a bay to their left, facing out to sea. Overhead, the castle – more of a ruin, really, its crumbling walls full of holes and covered in moss – overlooked the higgledy-piggledy collection of weather-beaten houses, made of old Cornish slate and sandstone, often with peeling window frames. There were very few cars; Polly guessed, correctly, that the locals generally left them on the mainland and walked across the causeway.
The narrow lanes meandered all the way down to the little harbour on their left, where the masts of fishing boats rattled and tinkled in the wind and the waves lapped the stones of the old harbour wall. On the waterfront there was a chip shop, a slightly bedraggled-looking souvenir store and an old inn, which still had a water butt outside for horses, and what looked like a stable yard. It was resolutely shut. At the far end of the harbour Polly registered a tall lighthouse striped in black and white, its paint peeling off. It looked unloved.
‘Up and coming,’ sniffed Lance.
Kerensa looked around suspiciously. ‘Why hasn’t it upped and come already, then?’ she said. ‘Everywhere else has.’
‘It’s good to get in on the bottom rung,’ said Lance quickly.
‘But it’s rained constantly here for about five years,’ said Kerensa. ‘I think the bottom rung has gone.’
‘The real benefit of Mount Polbearne,’ said Lance, swiftly changing tack, ‘is how unspoiled it is. So quiet, no problems with traffic. Total peace and tranquillity.’
Kerensa sniffed. ‘Do you live here?’
Lance was completely unfazeable.
‘No, but I’d LOVE to.’
‘Total peace and tranquillity,’ murmured Polly, wondering if this might not be just what she needed.
Lance set off along the harbour front and they trotted obediently behind him. There was water pooled among the cobbles, which were littered with brightly coloured fishing flies, netting and something that might have been guts. Kerensa made a face.
‘Stay with me,’ she hissed. ‘For ever. Somewhere with coffee shops and Zara.’
‘I’ve really had to change my recent views on what constitutes “for ever”,’ said Polly.
Lance finally drew up in front of the last house on the shabby little parade. His fake smile grew even more fake as he stood back. The two women regarded the building in front of them. Polly fought her first inclination, which was to turn and run.
‘There must be a mistake,’ said Kerensa.
‘No,’ said Lance, looking suddenly like a guilty schoolboy. ‘This is it.’
‘This should be condemned, not up for rent.’
Suddenly the reason why the flat had larger-than-average floor space for the money had become very apparent. The building was small and narrow, made of dirty grey stone. The ground floor had one large arched window, cracked in several places and unutterably filthy. Through it could just about be made out the murky shapes of large machinery, untouched for years.
‘So what was it?’ said Kerensa. ‘A fire?’
‘Oh no!’ said Lance heartily. ‘Just general…’ His voice trailed off as he tried not to say ‘neglect’.
He darted down the side of the building, the roof of which tilted crazily. There was a little wooden door in the side that you had to bow your head to get through, and he took out a large brass key and unlocked it. The hinges squeaked painfully.
‘Had many people wanting to see it?’ asked Kerensa, her heels clicking on the flagstones. Lance ignored her.
Inside there was nothing but pitch black and a faintly musty smell. Lance used his iPhone as a torch until he found a swinging lead and pulled it. An old-fashioned low-wattage bulb, festooned with dust, buzzed noisily into life, revealing a set of rickety wooden stairs.
‘And this meets all health and safety requirements for renters, does it?’ continued Kerensa, as if they were swanning round a Sandbanks penthouse. Lance muttered something inaudible and led them up the stairs, Polly coming up next, a little too close to his well-fed bottom. Her heart sank. This was impossible; it was barely safe.
Another key, fumbled for, turned the Yale of a second door at the top of the stairs. Polly crossed her fingers for the very last chance of a ‘ta-dah!’ as she stepped into the room.
They were all silent.
Well. It was big. There was that,
Polly told herself. They were standing at the back of a large loft with a sloping roof through which she could see chinks of daylight. The floor was made of bare polished planks. At the very back, the roof was high, with exposed rafters. Set against the plain brick wall was a table with two mismatched chairs, looking incongruously small, next to a blackened wood-burning stove. On the far side, there was a little corridor leading left, evidently to the bedroom and bathroom, which were housed in a brick extension round the back. Down one wall of the main room was the bare minimum of horrible old melamine kitchen units, and one odd thing: a huge iron oven. Lance saw her eyeing it up.
‘They couldn’t shift it,’ he said. ‘Bugger knows how they got it up here. I mean, um, charming period feature.’
At the front of the room, where the roof sloped down towards the windows, there was a nasty ratty old sofa covered in cracks. Polly approached carefully; every floorboard creaked.
‘This place is falling into the sea,’ said Kerensa crossly. ‘Get many rats, do you?’
‘No,’ said Lance, looking crestfallen. It had obviously been the company challenge to offload this place. At that very moment there was an enormous shrieking noise. All three of them jumped. Polly jerked her head up. Through a missing tile, she could see an enormous seagull having a shout. The noise was absolutely deafening.
‘So, just rats with wings,’ said Kerensa.
Polly didn’t hear her; she was moving forward to the windows. Crouching down, she could see their flaking paint; take in the fact that they were single-glazed, with various cracks in the glass. She would freeze. It was colder inside than it was outside.
She peered out through the dirty, salt-encrusted glass. She was higher than the masts of the boats and could see past the harbour wall, with its bobbing buoys and line of chattering seagulls, right out to sea. There was a break in the low-hanging cloud, and the sun had broken through and was glancing off the distant tip of a white-topped wave, making it glisten and dance in the light. She found herself with a hint of a smile on her lips.
‘Polly! POLLY!’
Polly turned round, aware that she hadn’t heard what Kerensa had been saying.
‘Come on, I’ll take you home. We’ll stop somewhere on the way for a nice glass of white wine, not that I’m sure Polbearne isn’t festooned with chic little bars and restaurants. The chippy, for a start.’
Lance’s chubby cheeks started to sag.
‘Why doesn’t the owner do it up?’ Kerensa said. ‘No one is ever ever going to rent it like this.’
‘I told her,’ said Lance mournfully. ‘No one would buy it, either. It’s a total pain in the behind.’
‘Oh great, a crazy person’s house covered in holes, with rats in the basement,’ said Kerensa. ‘Thank you SO much for your time. Come on, Polly.’
Polly took one last, slightly wistful glance at the sea.
‘You know,’ she said. ‘Beggars can’t be choosers.’
‘You are kidding,’ said Kerensa. ‘Your family would sue me after you died here.’
‘I’ll tell them not to,’ said Polly. She turned round to face her friend.
Kerensa eyed her carefully. Polly might be soft on the outside, but inside, somewhere, she knew, there was a tough streak. The same streak that had made her fight for her business and her relationship even when it was completely obvious to the rest of the world that all was lost.
‘I have to live somewhere.’
‘Polly. Sweets. This is a hole at the end of the world.’
‘Maybe,’ said Polly, ‘that’s exactly where I want to be right now.’
‘Excellent,’ said Lance, pinkening up again as he added, ‘I mean, I am so sorry for… um, well, I think…’
Polly put him out of his misery.
‘I’d need a very short lease,’ she said.
Lance put his hands up, as if this could be arranged.
‘And the roof…’
‘Uh huh?’
‘No daylight through the roof. I think that seems reasonable.’
‘Hmm.’
‘And what if…’ she said carefully. ‘What about…’ And she named a figure half of what the property was advertised for.
Lance looked like a five-year-old who needed to go to the toilet. ‘Er, I’m sure that wouldn’t… I mean, I’d have to talk to head office… I mean, negotiation…’
Kerensa looked furiously at Polly. ‘You’re not serious?’
Polly related her dispiriting trawl through Plymouth’s less salubrious flat shares. ‘I can’t do anything else.’
‘You can’t do this! It’s a disaster!’
‘I’m renting, not sticking my life savings in it. Just for a little while… Summer’s coming.’
‘Summer’s coming,’ repeated Lance.
‘Summer will probably skip Britain this year,’ said Kerensa. ‘This place is a deathtrap.’
Polly had a set to her mouth Kerensa had seen before; it meant she was basically unbudgeable on the issue.
‘Let’s go and have lunch and discuss it,’ said Kerensa in desperation.
As the three of them stood there, the seagull dropped a substantial poo through the hole in the roof. Kerensa wrinkled her nose.
‘Where’s a good lunch place round here?’
Lance pulled his collar a little anxiously.
‘Er… Plymouth?’
Chapter Five
They had to wait thirty-five minutes for the tide to go out far enough for them to get back across the causeway. Polly spent the entire time humming to distract herself from Kerensa, who had come up with another ninety-five reasons why she couldn’t possibly move to Polbearne. Funnily enough, they only seemed to make her more determined.
‘Stop it!’ said Kerensa, scowling at her, after pointing out that there weren’t any taxis on the island.
‘Stop what?’ said Polly, looking innocent.
‘Stop deciding to do it! It’s crazy.’
‘I’m not deciding anything.’
‘You so are. I can see your lips twitching. You look happy for the first time in about a year, even though it is a TERRIBLE mistake.’
Polly half smiled as she thought about everything that had happened.
‘At least this time it’s my terrible mistake,’ she said.
Kerensa was working – all her friends were working – the day Polly moved. She knew that they would have helped, but, feeling a bit defiant, that was kind of how she liked it.
She didn’t want the ignominy, the feeling that she was having to give up her life: her central heating and her flat-screen TV; her interest-only mortgage, her successful progression up the career ladder, her handsome, fit boyfriend, etc., etc., blah, blah. She felt she had ‘FAILURE’ branded right across her forehead; that the boxes she was sending to storage should be stamped ‘ALL MY HOPES AND DREAMS, BOXED UP AND PUT AWAY FOR EVER’, and she didn’t want to sit in a van discussing it.
Most things were going to storage: good clothes (they’d get damp), books (would warp; nowhere to put them), jewellery (could fall through cracks in floor), photos and memorabilia (made her too miserable to look at anything cheerful). She was taking her most waterproof clothing, a bed, and, even though it was a horrible mark of her hubris, their very expensive, super-designed sofa.com sofa, in layers of the softest pale grey. It would get ruined where she was going, but she had chosen it – well, they had chosen it together, but it was mostly her – and she absolutely loved it; its comfort, its luxury. She couldn’t, she absolutely couldn’t sit on the ratty moist brown rattan one that was there already. She couldn’t think of a single way to get the old one out and the new one in, but she’d figure it out when she got there.
Chris had come by whilst she was packing up; nice Mr Bassi had also come to make sure she wasn’t taking anything the bank could possibly sell back, but even he let her get away with the sofa.
‘Getting rid of this should help,’ Chris said. ‘Make it look nice and minimalist for selling. And I feel good that yo
u’re taking the sofa, even though obviously we should have shared it.’
Polly had just carried on packing the two last, most valuable items: the coffee machine and her big mixer for making bread. She loved to bake, and had done so more and more often in the last year or so, whilst Chris was hiding away at weekends. Then he’d come home and complain about carbs, so she’d end up eating most of her experiments herself. Anyway, those things were hers, and Mr Bassi kindly let her take them. She wasn’t so bothered that she was leaving behind the huge framed Muhammad Ali posters, and the stupidly expensive surround-sound system that Chris had expected her to chip in for even though it was wildly overpriced, far too loud for the flat, and the subject of extremely long and boring lectures on its myriad qualities every time somebody new came to visit.
‘Do you need a hand to get it out to the van?’
She nodded, too sad and tired to even think of being sarcastic.
They got the sofa to the lift in silence, both of them thinking back to a couple of years ago, when the men from the delivery company had arrived to set it up, and Chris had teased her over how excited she was, given that it was only a bloody sofa, then asked the men if they would have bought such a boring colour, and one of them had said no, he had white leather at home, and Chris had said, see, that was funky.
Once it was safely in the van Polly had hired, they looked at each other, not knowing what to say. Polly’s commitment to trying to be as sunny and upbeat as possible suddenly deserted her. She was on her way, completely alone, to an utterly strange destination, against the advice of everyone she knew, leaving the only life she’d known for seven years. The enormity of it all weighed her down.
‘Thanks,’ she managed, trying to think of something less trivial, less useless to say about everything they’d been through together.
‘Pol…’ said Chris.
‘Mm?’
‘I’m really… Well, you know.’
‘I don’t know,’ she said, her heart racing. She didn’t know how much he felt the sadness of what had happened to them both, and all their hopes and dreams. Certainly he’d never once talked about it. He had withdrawn so thoroughly, she worried about him.
