by Jenny Colgan
‘I can’t do that,’ said Gillian regally. ‘I have to open up the bakery.’
There was a silence.
‘Well I can tell you THAT won’t be happening in a hurry,’ said the cheery paramedic.
‘I have to. It’s what I do.’
‘And getting you better is what WE do, so I would just relax if I were you.’
‘But they need the bakery.’
‘And you should thank this young lady for having the presence of mind to get you out of the water and look after you without panicking. You shouldn’t be dancing along slippy harbour walls at your age and in your condition,’ said the paramedic. ‘This could have been a lot worse.’
Gillian Manse looked at Polly. Now she didn’t really look angry, just defeated and confused.
‘Aye,’ she said. But she didn’t sound very grateful at all.
There was no point in going back to bed. Polly and Huckle drank black coffee and sat on the harbour watching the sun coming up, talking about what had happened. The chill gradually left the air and the stars blinked out, as fingers of pink started to appear across the eastern horizon. They chatted companionably in the lightening gloom. By 5.30 the sky was yellow, pink and blue, a beautiful day coming in, the sea fresh in their nostrils, the strange events of the night already falling behind them. As they watched, a little dark blob appeared on the horizon, followed by other dark blobs, and up to the harbour’s edge came the gutters and the market men in their vans. The seagulls started to get more excited.
‘I’ll wait and tell Tarnie,’ said Polly. ‘He’s lived here for ever. If anyone knows what was going through her mind, it’s him.’
‘Sure,’ said Huckle, kicking his legs gently. ‘Plus we need to think about breakfast.’
‘Everyone will need to think about breakfast,’ said Polly. ‘I don’t have enough bread for the entire town! What are people going to toast?’
‘They’ll put it in the papers,’ said Huckle. ‘The town with no bread. The no-carb state.’
They looked at one another.
‘No,’ said Polly. ‘Plus, she’d do her nut. She’d never let me.’
‘I thought she was only interested in saving her business,’ said Huckle, swinging his long legs over the wall.
‘And having me killed,’ said Polly. ‘Don’t forget that.’
‘I don’t think it was personal,’ said Huckle, stretching and yawning. Suddenly Polly felt a ridiculous urge to run her fingers through his thick hair. Must be lack of sleep, she thought. But there was just something so masculine about him: his size, the long muscles, the warmth of his bulk close by. She glanced down.
‘I know. Just, on top of everything else that’s happened to me… it felt personal,’ she said.
‘Maybe you’ve lived a sheltered life,’ murmured Huckle, looking at her. Her strawberry-blonde hair was tangled and blown out by the wind; it looked dramatic. Her skin was pale, but it emphasised the cute freckles on her nose.
‘Not sheltered enough,’ said Polly moodily. ‘Anyway, I couldn’t run a bakery. I bake for fun, not for a job.’
‘What do you do for a job?’ asked Huckle seriously.
Polly glanced at him, then jumped up to greet the boats coming in.
Tarnie’s face was grave when he heard the news, which was already the topic of gossip and chit-chat amongst the fish traders.
‘That’s a bad business,’ he said, his blue eyes looking downcast.
‘But what… what was she doing?’ asked Polly.
‘You have to get up early in a bakery,’ said Jayden cheerfully. They had had a good catch, and the silvery fish caught the rays of the morning sun in their still-shining scales. They would be on the plates of Rock and St Ives and Truro by lunchtime.
‘Mmm,’ said Tarnie. ‘I wonder… Someone had better go to the bakery, get her bits and pieces together.’
‘Has she got friends who can do that?’ asked Polly.
Tarnie looked slightly awkward.
‘Ah yes, well, she’s always had a bit of a fiery personality, Gillian Manse.’
At this, Polly felt instantly terrible. How awful she had been, to be so angry with an old woman with no family and no friends. How spiteful to think she could come in and mess about with this woman’s livelihood. She felt absolutely dreadful suddenly, guilty and desperate to make amends. It wasn’t personal – Huckle had been absolutely right – and she had let herself channel her own bitterness and disappointment towards somebody else.
‘Er, can I help?’ she said, desperate to be useful. ‘I just feel so awful about it.’
Tarnie looked at her.
‘Actually, reckon you could,’ he said. ‘You’ll know… what a lady in a hospital bed would like, probably. I wouldn’t know that.’
Polly smiled. Obviously Tarnie didn’t have a girl of his own. She hadn’t thought it would be hard for fishermen to find girlfriends – hadn’t really thought about it at all – but she supposed the remoteness of their location, the unsociable hours…
‘Why don’t you smell of fish?’ she asked suddenly.
Tarnie looked bemused by the non sequitur.
‘What?’
‘Er, sorry, just wondered. Um, fine, of course I can do that.’
‘Yes. It would be a big help,’ he said. ‘I could meet you at the bakery at ten, then I’ll head up to the hospital.’
‘When are you going to sleep?’ said Polly.
Tarnie shrugged. ‘Ah, I don’t need much of that. Neither do you, by the sound of things.’
Polly smiled. ‘Hmm.’
Tarnie started back to the boat, then turned round.
‘Almond soap,’ he shouted, and waved. Polly waved back.
The bakery looked dusty, unkempt, even though its owner had only been away for a few hours. It needed scrubbing down; there was a stale smell in the air. Polly sensed that goods were being left out longer than they ought to be.
‘We should probably dispose of everything,’ she said.
‘Ha,’ said Tarnie. ‘I wouldn’t do that. If she gets discharged tonight and comes back here, you’ll know about it.’
The little flat upstairs was immaculate, much tidier and better kept than the shop. It was full of knick-knacks: little pottery statuettes and crystal horses. The carpet had a loud swirling pattern and the heavy embroidered pelmets were well dusted. A big old-fashioned television sat in one corner of the room, next to a carefully marked Radio Times. Polly felt claustrophobic and extremely intrusive.
‘I don’t like doing this,’ she said.
‘Mmm,’ said Tarnie. ‘Well, you go into her bedroom and pick up… stuff a lady needs.’
Polly gave him a look, but he was serious.
The bedroom was small, the bed still imprinted with Gillian’s shape. She must have had problems sleeping too, thought Polly. An old-fashioned alarm clock sat on the bedside table, along with various bottles of pills. Well, that was a start. Polly scooped them all up and glanced around for a bag. She opened the built-in wardrobe and found an old suitcase. Not ideal, but better than nothing. She dug out fresh pyjamas, then, with a gulp, put out her hand to open the underwear drawer.
It was sitting quite casually on top of the piles of large flesh-coloured pants and enormous bras; why it was hidden away Polly couldn’t work out for ages – it was hardly likely to be a target for thieves. Then, with a start, she realised that of course it was there for a reason: that Mrs Manse didn’t like to see it all the time. Unthinkingly she picked it up. It was a framed colour photograph, with that bleached-out yellow wash that dated it to the late seventies or early eighties. It showed a dark-haired man, his face in shadow from the sun, standing next to a boy in a striped T-shirt and shorts that were slightly too small for him, with a snake belt, socks and sandals. He was beaming toothily at the camera. Both of them were holding up fish on their fishing lines. Polly stared at it. She didn’t hear Tarnie enter the room until he let out a sigh.
She started and turned around.
/> ‘I wasn’t prying,’ she said instantly. ‘It was just here, I couldn’t help it.’
He nodded his head. ‘That’s all right, I know.’ He looked around the room. ‘It’s already weird just being up here.’
‘It is,’ said Polly. She looked back at the photograph.
Tarnie’s face fell.
‘Who are they?’ she asked gently.
Tarnie’s arm went up behind his neck and he rubbed it, obviously uncomfortable.
‘Well, that’s Alf Manse,’ he said, pointing at the man. ‘Gillian’s husband. Good man he was. Really good man.’
They both looked at the boy. Tarnie made a little noise.
‘Jimmy,’ he said. ‘Me and him… well, we were good friends. Same class at school – there used to be a school here. Closed now, of course. Did everything together. Wound each other up really. Pair of rascals we were. Didn’t really see the point of school. We always knew we’d end up on the sea.’
Polly looked into his grave, handsome face. His dark blue eyes were focused somewhere very far away.
‘Aye. We were pretty inseparable. And she was all right, Mrs Manse… in those days.’
He fell silent. After a long moment Polly spoke.
‘So what happened?’
Tarnie lowered his head.
‘People don’t understand… No offence,’ he said.
‘Er, none taken,’ said Polly.
‘People don’t understand how dangerous the sea is. You hear it all the time on the news – oh, the storm’s passed over, it’s fine,’ when what they mean is, the storm’s gone out to sea, but who cares.’
He rubbed his neck again.
‘And it’s all, oh, they’re overfishing, oh, the poor fish, oh, those evil fishermen. When we’re just doing what we always did, a job that is hard, pays badly and is… It’s dangerous. It’s really dangerous, Polly.’
Polly bit her lip.
‘I hadn’t realised.’
‘Aye, people don’t think. They just complain about the price of their fish and chips… We were all out that day. Jimmy was on Calina with his dad… My dad was out of the game by then. And it blew up out of nowhere. Not on the forecast or anything; we got fifteen minutes’ warning on the fax. Waves as high as a three-storey building, crashing down on the boats like a mountain falling on you. And no time… there was no time. Every time you got righted and went to move, there was another one on you… nothing but water. Your lungs get full of water just standing up; it pushes you wherever it wants you to go.’
Polly watched him. It was as if the memories were passing in front of his eyes.
‘We limped back – we all lost masts, our nets were gone. Just torn away from the starboard side as if a hand had grabbed them and tugged them under.’
He turned to Polly, his expression anguished.
‘It’s not like we didn’t look out for each other. But you’ve got to realise what it’s like out there when the waves are thirty feet high and it’s pitch black. You can’t see your hand in front of your face. You can’t see anything at all. You can drown without even entering the water, you understand?’ His voice was fierce.
‘When we got home, we could barely count up our own damage. We were all traumatised.’
‘Of course you were,’ said Polly.
‘We didn’t… I didn’t even realise the Calina wasn’t with us. Not at first.’ He swallowed.
‘Oh God,’ said Polly. ‘Oh God, that’s awful.’
Tarnie rubbed his neck furiously.
‘It was a long time ago,’ he said, looking at the photo again.
‘Did they… did they find…’
‘Nothing,’ said Tarnie. ‘Not a stick washed up. That’s unusual, you know. Normally… normally the sea brings them home. But not this time.’
‘How old were you?’ asked Polly.
‘Nineteen,’ said Tarnie shortly.
‘Oh my God,’ said Polly. ‘Oh my God, that’s awful.’
A thought struck her.
‘Oh my God,’ she said again. ‘She’s Jayden’s ghost. That’s what she was doing down there.’
The horror struck Polly and she sat down.
‘I saw her, you know. I saw her before. She wasn’t taking a random walk along the harbour. Jayden says other people have seen her too.’
‘What are you talking about?’
‘She’s… she’s the ghost, Tarn. She goes down to the harbour and stares out to sea… I didn’t know what she was doing.’
Tarnie looked at her, confused. Polly clutched the picture in her hands.
‘I think she’s looking out for them,’ she said. ‘I think she’s still waiting for them to come home.’
Tarnie’s face turned glum and he nodded thoughtfully.
‘For a long time she wouldn’t accept it,’ he said slowly. ‘Sent the coastguard out so often they had to stop her doing it. She just said, over and over again, “They’re out there.” And people felt so sorry for her. It was always hard to make ends meet, and it suddenly got a lot harder. She got a little money from the union, used it to buy the bakeries back in the days when Mount Polbearne could support two; the old bakers had seen the writing on the wall, moved to the mainland like everybody else. It’s never been very good, but it’s all she has, all she’s ever had.’
‘I feel awful,’ said Polly, remembering the mean thoughts she’d had and words she’d said to someone who’d experienced worse than she could ever imagine.
‘I thought… you would think she’d have accepted it by now,’ said Tarnie, shaking his head. ‘It’s been nearly twenty years.’
‘Did she only have the one child?’ asked Polly.
‘Yes,’ said Tarnie. ‘Just Jim. He was the apple of her eye.’
‘She hasn’t given up,’ said Polly. ‘She’s still waiting for them.’
Tarnie looked round the small, confined space, at the picture she couldn’t even bear to have on the wall.
‘Now that is dreadful,’ he said in a quiet voice.
In silence they packed up the rest of the things Polly thought Gillian might need, then Tarnie took them to the hospital along with a large box of chocolates they found in Muriel’s shop. Polly waved him off feeling guiltier than ever, and vowing to make allowances from now on.
Chapter Eleven
That day, for the first time since she’d arrived, Polly started to bake with a completely clear conscience. To try to assuage her guilt over Gillian Manse, she set about making a little basket of goodies for her: sugar bread rings and brioches and pains au chocolat. It was busy, intricate work and she enjoyed it. Halfway through the afternoon, she took Neil over to the window.
‘Okay, come on then,’ she said sadly. Sunshine was glinting off the water, lighting up the port, and it looked beautiful outside. ‘Practise flying?’
Neil eeped crossly. She put him on the rim of the window and he hopped down to the floor again, looking for crumbs.
‘No more crumbs!’ she said, guiltily conscious of the brioche she’d given him. ‘You really are getting fat.’
She put him up on the window rim once more.
‘Now I don’t want to push you out,’ she said. ‘I’ve had enough of people falling off things for one day. But you really have to… you are really going to have to go. I have to take you back to this… Well, let’s not talk about it. But you do have to go. And you have to be ready.’
Amazingly, Neil eyed her suspiciously, then flapped his wings a little. His injured wing was good as new; you’d never have been able to tell anything had ever been the matter.
‘Yes!’ said Polly. ‘That’s it! Why don’t you fly out and catch a fish?’
Neil appeared to be looking at the sea quite intently. His little head tilted as the seagulls made loud throaty noises, involving themselves in some tussle or another. He moved his claws from side to side. Polly stopped flouring her surfaces and came over to watch properly. Down on the harbourside she saw the fishermen hanging out – no Tarnie – having a smo
ke and a chat. Jayden waved, and when he saw what she was doing, he cupped his hands out to the little bird.
‘Ne-il! Ne-il!’ they all chanted, to encourage him to come forward. Jayden was waving a fish head at him. Polly smiled.
‘See?’ she said. ‘It’s okay. On you go. On you go!’
She nudged him forward, very gently. Slowly at first, Neil lifted his wings, then, as gracefully as a slightly plump baby puffin can, launched himself sturdily into the air.
Polly clapped her hands together.
‘Go, Neil!’ she shouted. ‘Go, my boy! Go!’
He got a little nervous at that and fluttered his wings slightly too fast and bent over to the right, but the fishermen urging him on made him concentrate and he glided, rather jerkily and inexpertly, straight into Jayden’s hands, where a tasty piece of fish was waiting for him.
‘YAY!’ they all cheered.
‘Yay!’ echoed Polly inside the flat, grinning. ‘Hang on, let me get my camera.’
She grabbed her phone, and as Jayden directed Neil back up to her window and let him go again, she took a photo of him in mid flight, the boys laughing behind him.
After that, he wanted to fly up and down for pieces of brioche and fish all afternoon. Polly reflected that this probably wasn’t very good training for being released back into the wild, but consoled herself with the thought that it was good flying practice.
The brioches and pains au chocolat and sugar rings came out perfectly. Polly crept down with two baskets and left them for Tarnie, with strict instructions to share one of them with the boys and take the other to Mrs Manse in hospital. She had heard from him that they were keeping her in for a few days for observation, partly for her head and partly to check on her mental state. She was happy about this, but worried about Gillian’s shop. If it wasn’t cleaned up, they’d get mice, for sure. She spoke to Muriel in the grocery shop.
‘I’d help,’ said Muriel. ‘But I work a twelve-hour shift here. I’m just not sure I’m up to it.’
