by Jenny Colgan
‘Thanks for everything you’ve done,’ she said.
‘No worries.’
‘Here, this is my mobile number and this is my email address…’
The girl looked at the piece of paper uncomprehendingly.
‘If he doesn’t thrive or… if anything happens to him…’ Polly’s voice choked up.
‘Er, yeah, all right.’ said the girl, unconvinced.
‘Come on,’ said Huckle. ‘Let’s go.’
The girl gave him a look. ‘Nice to meet you, yeah?’ she said in a tone that even Polly in her sad state recognised as flirtatious.
Huckle gave her his broad American farm boy smile and guided Polly back to the motorbike.
Polly decided to wait to have a cry until she was safely in the sidecar and nobody could see or hear her, apart from some visiting children, who couldn’t believe that anyone who got to ride in a sidecar could possibly be so sad they would cry.
She knew she was being ridiculous and overdramatic, and she couldn’t imagine what Huckle must think of her, but even so. Neil was only a little baby bird, but he had made her feel less alone at the loneliest point in her life. She was allowed to miss him. She wondered if this was what having children was like. Then she remembered her mother telling her that God made teenagers horrible so that you were happy when they left home, which explained a lot.
Eventually she got over her crying jag and realised, looking out through her goggles, that she didn’t have a clue where she was. They weren’t retracing the obvious route home; instead, they seemed to be driving down the north coast, the sea bobbing in and out of view every time they traversed a hill. She looked enquiringly at Huckle, but he was checking the road signs with a confused look on his face and didn’t notice. Then her foot touched Neil’s empty cardboard box and she had to concentrate hard on not crying again.
With a screeching howl from the brakes and a manoeuvre that nearly jolted Polly out of her seat, the bike made a sudden right turn down a sandy track.
‘Sorry,’ mouthed Huckle beneath the noise of the engine. Polly could see why he’d nearly missed the turning; it wasn’t signposted at all. She wondered where it led.
The bike bumped down the unpaved track. She’d expected it to lead to a farm, but instead it ducked down alongside a flat field and then up over some sand dunes, where a number of jeeps were parked up. Huckle pulled up alongside them, and stopped the bike. The sudden silence after the noise of the engine felt almost overwhelming.
Polly climbed out of the sidecar and stretched.
‘Where are we?’ She looked around. Huckle glanced at her, amused.
‘Have you stopped crying?’ he said.
‘Er, yeah,’ said Polly. ‘I think so.’
‘It’s okay to cry, you know.’
‘I do know,’ said Polly, rubbing at her face to get rid of mascara traces.
They stood at the top of the dunes and looked down. Polly gasped. They were at the very top of a long golden sandy beach. It was immense; it seemed to stretch on for ever. Huge blue waves pounded it, a rolling surf that went on for miles.
The beach was almost completely deserted except for one wooden shack and the bobbing heads and wetsuited bodies of about half a dozen surfers out in the water. Polly could only get a measure of the scale of the waves by how tiny the figures looked dancing on top of them.
‘What IS this place?’ she said. Even this early in the season the surfing beaches were all absolutely mobbed, surfers pushing and shoving each other out of the way, often having fights. But here…
‘It belongs to Reuben Finkle,’ said Huckle. ‘He’s like some Silicon Valley whizz-kid, yeah? Made an absolute mint selling top-secret defence gizmos. Retired at twenty-eight to surf all day.’
‘Impressive,’ said Polly. ‘Oh my God – what, this is his beach?’
‘This is his beach. His house is up there. It’s completely secret. But he lets a few friends use it from time to time.’
‘No way.’
‘I knew him back at Wharton… Anyway…’
Polly looked around. It was exquisite. The sun had come out and was making the fine sand glow. It felt like the first really warm day of the year.
‘Come on,’ said Huckle. ‘Are you hungry or still too sad?’
‘I am sad,’ said Polly. ‘But also a little bit hungry.’
Huckle took off his boots and socks and left them by the bike, and Polly did likewise with her Converses, then they both rolled up their jeans and slid down a dune. Polly fell on her bum and Huckle laughed at her and she stuck her tongue out at him, feeling almost normal.
The wet sand when they got down to the water’s edge was delicious; the water itself was still bracing, but lovely to splash through, so Polly did.
‘It’s amazing some people have so much,’ she said. Reuben Finkle’s house had come into view, an amazing modern glass circle that looked like something Tony Stark might live in.
‘Yeah,’ said Huckle carefully. ‘But isn’t it wonderful that he preserves something as beautiful as this? And he does a lot for ocean conservation.’
‘He sounds like a great guy.’
‘He’s a yutz,’ said Huckle. ‘But he does a lot for ocean conservation.’
After waving to some of Huckle’s buddies on the surf, they arrived at the little wooden shack Polly had seen from the dunes. It was painted white and, she saw as she got there, was actually a little café; there were tables and chairs sprinkled roughly about, a full bar and an open-plan enviably equipped kitchen.
‘Wow,’ said Polly. ‘Impressive. Why don’t people just come down and vandalise this place? The local kids must know. The road’s like right there.’
‘They do know,’ said Huckle. ‘They dream that one day he’ll let them come here too. Plus there are lots of rumours about CCTV and guards with machine guns.’
Polly glanced at him. ‘Seriously?’
‘Oh, they’re just rumours,’ said Huckle. ‘Probably.’
They sat down at one of the tables. It was comfortably warm, not too windy, the sun a gentle healing presence on Polly’s neck. She sighed with relief.
‘It’s beautiful.’
A short, wide man with an army haircut and a boyish, petulant face full of freckles came out from the kitchen wearing a white apron over his shorts.
‘HUCK! MY MAN!’
Huck raised his hand and did some kind of complicated high-five manoeuvre, which failed at the last moment. The cook punched him quite hard on the shoulder.
‘He has a chef?’ said Polly before she could help herself.
‘Who has a chef?’ said the short man.
‘Sorry,’ said Polly. ‘I was just asking about the man who owns all this. Hi. I’m Polly.’
‘And I’m the man who owns all this,’ said the man, sticking out his hand. ‘And I like to cook. But I also have a chef. Actually I have three chefs. Yeah. Cool. Reuben Finkle. Good to make your acquaintance. You a friend of Huckle’s, huh? Huh? Yeah? Am I right? A special friend? A special sexy friend?’
He winked widely at Huckle and made a small movement with his hips. Polly could see what Huckle meant about Reuben being a yutz, even if she didn’t know the meaning of the word.
‘Polly here is going through a bit of a tough time,’ said Huckle in his slow, deliberate way. ‘So I thought I’d bring her down to the best food in Cornwall, cheer her up.’
‘That’s the way, that’s the way. Do you want a martini?’ Reuben looked at her and snapped his fingers. ‘No. No, I know what you need. You need a margarita. Am I right or am I right? Margaritas make all the bad stuff go away. Until you wake up in the garbage. HA.’ He let out a slightly surprising barking laugh.
‘Um…’
Polly was having a very confusing day. Huckle gave a slight nod in her direction.
‘Er, that would be lovely,’ she said.
‘Light beer, my man? Light beer for the light-haired farm boy in the corner?’
‘Sure,’ said Huckle. ‘
Hit me.’
Reuben came back with their drinks and sat down. He was actually quite relaxing to be with, because he talked non-stop about how much surfing he’d done, how many ladies he’d had down partying with him (Polly had thought partying meant having a nice party, but it seemed to mean drinking until you were technically unconscious), what an amazing summer they were all going to have and how much money he’d turned down for his estate from a Russian oligarch who’d threatened to have him sent to Siberia, but it was all right because Reuben was kung fu trained and had apparently frightened him out of it, and did she like Star Wars?
Polly replied that she did like Star Wars, or at least she liked Harrison Ford in Star Wars, whereupon Reuben got a slightly cross look and said that the new films were vastly underrated and people had to re-evaluate them, which he then proceeded to do at some length.
Not having to talk meant Polly could basically tune out and just enjoy the sound of the surf and the blueness of the sky and, she found, the comforting casual presence of Huckle, his large frame draped over the battered wooden chair, his long feet with neat short nails buried in the sand. His eyes were the same colour as the sea. She knew it was the (excellent) margarita, but she suddenly felt an urge to put her own feet in his lap. She banished the thought immediately. She was getting a very strong vibe from Huckle, and that vibe was: I will be absolutely very nice as long as you don’t ask me a single thing about my personal life or get too close.
And that was fine. It wasn’t like her own life was free of complications. She thought back to the girl at the puffin park. It seemed highly unlikely that Huck was a man short of offers. And that being the case, he was almost certainly choosing to be alone for a reason.
At one point, without interrupting his flow of consciousness, and whilst asking Huckle what colour he should paint his new helicopter, Reuben jumped up and started cooking. The smell and sizzle of wild garlic and onions in a pan made Polly realise how hungry she was, and the margarita had gone straight to her head. She could see Reuben eyeing up a wine fridge. He thought for a moment, then selected a very cold Chablis.
To clear her head and to stop herself watching Huckle, whose heavy-lidded blue eyes appeared to be fluttering a little – it was hard with someone so laid-back to work out whether he was actually asleep or not – she got up and followed Reuben into the kitchen.
‘You cook?’ she said.
‘I love to cook,’ he said. ‘I’m brilliant at it. If I hadn’t been a computer genius I’d have had like nine Michelin stars. That’s two more than the most anyone has ever had.’
She smiled. ‘What are you cooking today?’
‘I cook whatever we catch,’ he said. ‘We have a couple of fresh langoustines I got this morning. It’s coming to the end of the season but they’re still pretty good, water’s still cold.’
‘She cooks,’ said Huckle sleepily from out the front.
Reuben eyed her beadily. ‘Oh yeah?’ he said. ‘Probably not better than me.’
‘No, I’m sure I don’t,’ said Polly. ‘And I’m not really a cook. I’m more of a baker.’
She flushed as she realised this was the first time she’d said the words out loud. It must be a combination of the alcohol and Reuben’s exceptional self-confidence.
‘But I love your kitchen.’
He smiled at her with satisfaction.
‘Yeah. It’s top of the line. Cost a quarter of a million sterling. Flew it in from Germany.’
Polly nodded politely.
‘Want to make us something to go with lunch?’
‘Um,’ said Polly. ‘I’m not sure now. I’d probably break something in your very expensive kitchen.’
‘Don’t be dumb,’ said Reuben. ‘I’d just like totally buy a new one.’
Suddenly Polly spied something out the back.
‘Oh my God, is that a brick oven?’
‘Sure is,’ said Reuben. ‘It’s been on an hour, too; it’s good to go. You can’t have an outdoor kitchen without a brick oven. What would you do for pizza? I’d rather die than eat bad pizza. I make great pizza.’
‘I see,’ said Polly, smiling. She was warming to Reuben. ‘Well, if you like, I could dish us up some socca.’
He opened the iron front of the oven. The heat pulsed out, scorching. Then he straightened up.
‘Some what?’ His brow was furrowed. Polly guessed that there was little Reuben disliked more than hearing things he did not already know.
She smiled. ‘Well, have you got any chickpea flour?’
‘Of course,’ said Reuben sullenly. He picked up a walkie-talkie that was clipped to his belt.
‘Chickpea flour. Stat.’
‘It’s kind of a pancake,’ explained Polly. ‘But it’s good, you’ll like it.’
Reuben eyed her up.
‘Okay,’ he said. ‘Fish with pancakes on the side. That’ll do us.’
The flour was brought by a housemaid, who smiled politely but didn’t say anything as Polly thanked her. Polly wondered if she didn’t speak English.
‘So,’ said Reuben, watching her as she laid out the ingredients. ‘You boning Huckle, then?’
Polly nearly dropped the eggs.
‘Why?’ she said. ‘Would you like to?’
Reuben burst into his barking laugh again.
‘Hey, Huck,’ he yelled. ‘You got a firecracker here.’
Polly mixed the dough expertly, adding more chickpeas and water and throwing it until it was as thin as she could make it. Then she carefully oiled the oven hot plate and poured on the mixture, expertly flipping the dough after a couple of minutes. The underside had satisfying black popped blisters on it. After a minute on the other side, she pulled it out with the long stick left by the oven for this purpose, popped it on a plate with plenty of salt and pepper, quartered it and gave it to Reuben to try. He was so greedy he barely blew on it and burnt his mouth.
‘Ow. Goddammit,’ he said. ‘Stupid goddam super-hot oven.’
‘It’s a great oven,’ said Polly. ‘I’m jealous.’
After a second he tried a second bite. Then he polished off the lot.
‘Oh man,’ he said with his mouth full. ‘That’s amazing.’
‘I know,’ said Polly. ‘They’re good, aren’t they?’
She made another one for Huckle, which Reuben insisted on eating, then finally got one to him. Then the surfers came in and were so appreciative she got through three batches before Reuben even remembered to put the fish on.
The surfers were big, friendly guys, mostly Brits. The last person to emerge from the water, though – unpeeling her wetsuit to reveal a gorgeous red spotted bikini, and pushing back long blonde curly hair – turned out to be one of the most beautiful girls Polly had ever seen. She looked like a bikini model from an American sportswear magazine. Her golden skin was lightly tanned and completely free of make-up; she had feline green eyes and a wide, full mouth. Even Huckle opened his eyes in appreciation as she walked up the beach, a beautifully embroidered kaftan thrown over her long, lithe body. Polly wondered what it would be like to be able to do that – did she even notice that eyes followed her wherever she went? Was she just completely used to it? Would she wake up at fifty and wonder when the world had changed?
The girl casually grabbed a bottled beer from the fridge, took a long draught as though she was in a commercial and then pressed herself up against Reuben like a cat. She was nearly a head taller than him.
‘Hey, babes,’ she said. Reuben grunted at her. ‘That smells amazing,’ she said. ‘You should have come out this morning, it’s nuts out there. Fabulous.’
‘Yeah, whatever,’ said Reuben sulkily. He didn’t offer her a piece of the socca.
The goddess turned her attention briefly to Polly, who had the uncomfortable sensation of being scanned by a machine and instantly categorised as non-threatening. She felt like offering her hand to be stamped.
‘Hi,’ said the girl, with a wide smile that showed her perfect white teeth. �
�I’m Jaz.’
‘Er, hi, Jaz,’ said Polly. ‘Polly.’
Jaz looked at Polly, who was making more socca, and frowned.
‘He’s letting you use his kitchen?’
‘Jaz, wanna sit down?’ said Reuben. ‘We’re kind of busy here.’
Jaz gave a ravishing pout but retreated back to the other surfers, who surrounded her like a queen.
‘Cor, your girlfriend is GORGEOUS,’ blurted out Polly without thinking. Unusually for Reuben, he didn’t reply.
Lunch was fried langoustines in garlic and lemon on a bed of fresh peppery rocket salad. They all tucked in heartily, the Chablis a perfect accompaniment to the meal along with the hot sun and the daft banter between the surfers as they talked about hanging tens and sex wax and other surfing terms Polly didn’t understand.
She was, she realised, enjoying herself.
After the meal, and coffee, and a large box of American candy that Reuben passed around, the boys headed out into the water again.
‘Can you surf?’ said Huckle.
‘Yes,’ said Polly. ‘I have the perfect surfer’s physique, hadn’t you noticed?’
Huckle shrugged. ‘Seems strange to grow up in Cornwall and not surf.’
‘Well I grew up in Devon.’
The maid was back, Polly noticed, unobtrusively cleaning up around them. Imagine someone doing that for you and not even noticing.
‘Thank you,’ she said. The girl glanced up quickly, then returned to her work.
‘The thing is,’ said Reuben. ‘You gotta… you gotta surf, man.’
‘It looks hard,’ said Polly.
‘No, I don’t mean SURF,’ he snorted. ‘Obviously it’s like totally a metaphor.’
‘I didn’t realise that,’ said Polly.
‘You gotta follow your bliss. You heard that term?’
‘Is it American by any chance?’ From the opposite side of the table she could feel Huckle smirking at her response.
‘Like all the best things, baby,’ said Reuben, winking. ‘Yeah! You gotta follow your bliss. Only way in life. You gotta do what you love. When you figure out what you love to do, do it as hard as you can and everything will be awesome and you can surf. And that will make you happy. What makes you happy?’
