Meet Me at Beachcomber Bay

by Jill Mansell

  ‘It was a shock for me too,’ said Clemency, ‘finding out you’re her boyfriend. And she’s—’

  This time her phone was the one to burst into life. She pulled it out of her jeans pocket. ‘It’s Cissy Lambert.’

  ‘Her solicitors have had the search carried out, right? There’s nothing else I need to know about this place?’

  Clemency nodded. ‘Yes, no, it’s all legit.’

  Was the pulse quickening in her throat? Was his? For a second their eyes met and he felt the connection again, the buzz of making a lightning-fast decision combining with an adrenalin rush of quite a different kind.

  ‘You can tell her I’m interested,’ he said. They’d already discussed the price he was prepared to pay. ‘Make the offer, see what she says.’

  Another infinitesimal nod from Clemency. She pressed answer on her phone and said happily, ‘Cissy? Fantastic news …’

  Chapter 7

  ‘Oh I say, look at you.’

  The potential vendors were a married couple in their forties, a long-suffering husband and his flirtatious wife. Well it didn’t take a psychologist to work that out.

  ‘Hi.’ Ronan shook her hand, then his, and said, ‘I’m Ronan Byrne from Barton and Byrne. I’m here to carry out the valuation.’

  The husband muttered, ‘Marcia, try not to make a show of yourself.’

  ‘Oh give it a rest, Barry. It’s called being friendly.’ Marcia’s eyes flickered over Ronan from top to toe. ‘It’s a hard concept for my husband to understand, which explains why he doesn’t have any friends. Has anyone ever told you you look like a young Barack Obama?’

  ‘Oh Marcia.’ Barry shook his head sorrowfully at Ronan. ‘I do apologise.’

  ‘But he does. It’s a compliment, for crying out loud. The boy’s gorgeous!’

  Ronan grinned, because he was used to it. ‘It’s fine. Actually, a few people have mentioned the Barack Obama thing before. You aren’t the first.’

  ‘It’s the eyes. And that smile.’ Marcia batted her lashes playfully at him. ‘Ooh, that smile and those teeth!’

  ‘Just ignore her,’ said Barry.

  ‘Shut up, Barry, you wouldn’t recognise a bit of fun if it came up and bit you on the backside.’

  ‘Right,’ said Ronan. ‘Shall we get on and take a look around? I can already see it’s a beautiful house.’

  And it was a nice house. It would have been nicer still if the bathroom tiles weren’t leopard-print, the kitchen walls hadn’t been hand-stencilled with zebra stripes and the livingroom ceiling wasn’t painted black. At a guess, it meant the property would go for five thousand less than it might otherwise have fetched, but when he discreetly suggested they might want to tone it down with a couple of coats of paint, Marcia wouldn’t hear of it. ‘But that’s what’s going to sell the place,’ she exclaimed. ‘They’re the best bits.’

  And when he’d finished measuring up the rooms, an asking price had been agreed upon and Ronan was about to leave, she said with a nudge, ‘I reckon you should have a quiet word with your mum the next time you see her. It’d be a laugh, wouldn’t it, if Barack Obama turned out to be your dad!’

  Growing up in Newquay, a lack of self-confidence wasn’t something that had ever affected Ronan Byrne. As a mixed-race child in an overwhelmingly white population, he might have found himself picked on or bullied, but it had never happened. As an adopted child, furthermore, he could have been marked out as different and subjected to teasing, but that hadn’t materialised either. He’d been lucky; things that had the potential to cause him problems had made him seem excitingly exotic instead.

  Essentially, Ronan hadn’t encountered any difficulties; if anything, his differentness only made him all the more desirable to know. Everyone longed to be his friend. And as the years went by, during which time he grew from a cheeky, cute little boy into a tall, handsome teenager, all the girls decided they wanted to be his girlfriend.

  In this matter Ronan didn’t disappoint, but he also took care to keep his social circle wide. He excelled at athletics, was always up for impromptu get-togethers on the beach and loved any kind of party, during which he would dance and chat and flirt with friends old and new. But his adoptive parents, Josephine and Donald, had also instilled in him ambition, enthusiasm and a fierce work ethic, and he worked as hard as he played, always seemingly able to cram thirty hours into each day. Between studying for A levels, working in a local supermarket and doing an early morning paper round, he never stopped. University beckoned, and he’d already received an unconditional offer to study business and management at Manchester. Life was great, and about to get better.

  Until, quite out of the blue, it got worse.

  OK, no time to think about that now. Work to do, property to sell. Returning to the office at midday on Friday, Ronan pushed open the door and immediately wished he hadn’t. Damn, should have stopped off at the café instead of coming straight back.

  ‘Ah, here he is,’ Gavin exclaimed. ‘Perfect timing! Ronan can take you right now.’

  Which, under the circumstances, wasn’t the best phrase he could have chosen to use.

  But Gavin was blissfully unaware of that, thank goodness. He was also clearly anxious to leave, wearing his golfing outfit and with his bag of clubs propped up beside the desk.

  ‘Look, it’s OK, I can come back another time …’

  ‘Don’t be daft, you’re here now. Off you go, you two!’ Taking a key down from the board, Gavin chucked it over to Ronan, who caught it in his left hand. ‘Forty-three Wallis Road. I’ve got a good feeling about this one.’ He winked at Kate Trevelyan as he slung the padded strap of the golf bag over his shoulder. ‘Reckon it could be just right for you. Lovely little place.’

  Then he waved goodbye to Paula, their secretary, and ushered Ronan and Kate out ahead of him. Ronan, who had blocked Gavin’s car in, was left with no choice other than to open the passenger door for Kate.

  ‘Thanks,’ she murmured as she climbed in.

  ‘No problem.’ It came out far too cheerfully.

  Awkward.

  When they were both ensconced in the car, Kate said, ‘Look, I’m sorry. You weren’t there, I checked beforehand, so I thought it was safe to come in.’

  ‘It’s fine, it’s fine.’ It wasn’t remotely fine. It wasn’t often, either, that Ronan’s skin prickled with mortification. But he’d been a complete idiot and now he had to endure the uncomfortable consequences.

  Like this silence …

  Thankfully the owner of the property was at home with her two young children and a box full of Lego, so Ronan was able to behave like a normal estate agent showing the property off to a normal client.

  ‘And this is the living room.’ Having escorted Kate around the rest of the house, he finally opened the door to where the owner and her boys were kneeling on the carpet surrounded by multicoloured Lego bricks.

  ‘It’s lovely,’ said Kate.

  ‘Mummy, Mummy, Darren put Lego in my pants!’

  ‘I didn’t! It wasn’t me! I only did it because you put that carrot stick up my nose. It hurt.’

  ‘Sshh,’ said their mother. ‘Play nicely.’

  ‘Mummy, who’s that lady? Is she our postman?’

  The mother took a second look at Kate and said in surprise, ‘Oh yes, of course it is. Hello, how funny, I didn’t recognise you in your normal clothes!’

  This was fair enough; when she was working, Kate wore a pale blue cotton shirt and dark blue shorts, with her blond hair tied back in a tight plait. Today her hair was loose and ripply, and she was wearing a red cotton dress scattered with purple stars.

  ‘I know.’ She smiled. ‘I look a bit different out of uniform.’

  ‘You know who it is, Mummy,’ said the older boy. ‘It’s the slug lady. You know … WAAAAHHH.’

  Both children collapsed in fits of giggles, clutching their faces in mock-horror and going WAAAAHHH like Kevin in Home Alone.

  Their mother, mortified, said, ‘Boys,
stop it.’

  ‘Oh I get it now.’ Kate’s cheeks were flushed. ‘I know what this is about.’

  The older boy, still creased up with laughter, pointed at her. ‘You were outside our house with the letters and you stepped on a big slug and you screamed and jumped in the air and dropped all the letters on the ground and we were watching you from the window and now we call you the slug lady, HA HA HA HA HA HA.’

  ‘It was a very big slug,’ said Kate, pinker than ever.

  ‘You squashed him dead.’ The younger one beamed with ghoulish delight.

  ‘It was an accident,’ Kate protested.

  ‘We buried him in the garden after you killed him,’ said the older brother. ‘We can go outside and say some prayers if you like.’

  ‘Boys,’ said their mother, ‘she’s not going to want to buy our house if you keep this up.’

  ‘Ooh.’ The older one’s face lit up. ‘If you live here, you can put flowers on his grave. And every time you put the flowers down, you can say sorry and cry!’

  Kate hadn’t told Ronan the full story about her mother and the legacy straight away. Well, there’d been no reason why she should. Ronan only remembered the first time she’d come into the office because she was such a contrast to the previous person who’d delivered their post. Gerald had been six foot five, built like a rugby player and originally from Glasgow. He’d had a huge beard, and a raucous laugh and a great love for those World’s Strongest Man competitions that involved contestants dragging lorries along the road with a chain gripped between their teeth.

  Kate, who resembled Gerald in no way whatsoever, had taken over his round back in early October when he’d moved to Birmingham. She’d been quiet and efficient, completing her deliveries faster than Gerald simply because she didn’t stop to chat to everyone she met along the way. It wasn’t until several weeks later, when Ronan had taken the post from her one morning, that he’d seen her pause to study the photos of one of their properties currently for sale.

  Joining her at the wall where the photos were displayed, he said, ‘Take one of these if you want,’ and handed her the details. ‘Are you looking for a place to buy?’

  Kate nodded quickly. ‘I am. But I’ve never bought anywhere before, so I don’t really know what to do or how to choose …’

  ‘Well that’s why we’re here, to help you through it. It’s our job to find you the right place. And don’t worry,’ Ronan added with a reassuring smile. ‘When you see it, you’ll know. I promise.’

  She turned to look up at him. ‘Will I really?’

  ‘Oh yes. It’s like falling in love.’

  The next day, at 5.30, Kate had cycled over to the office and Ronan had driven her to the property that had caught her eye. The cottage, a few miles outside St Carys, was being sold by a lonely old man who’d insisted on sitting them down for cups of stale coffee, slices of cake and a long, rambling story about his years in the army. When they’d finally been able to make their escape, Ronan opened the passenger door to let Kate back into the car.

  ‘I should have warned you about that,’ he said as they drove away from the cottage. ‘Sometimes people get a bit carried away.’

  Kate nodded. ‘I get it when I’m delivering letters.’

  ‘Of course you do. So, how about the cottage? It helps to imagine it empty,’ he added. ‘Take out all the clutter and redecorate it in your mind.’

  ‘I didn’t love it,’ said Kate.

  ‘No? Well that’s OK.’ He’d already guessed as much.

  ‘Sorry.’

  ‘Not a problem.’ He could see her hands clasped together in her lap. ‘Really, it’s fine.’

  Several seconds later he heard a stifled sob and turned to see tears sliding down Kate’s cheeks. ‘Hey, what’s this about?’

  ‘I can’t … I just can’t …’ She shook her head, now visibly trembling with the effort of not breaking down completely.

  Baffled, Ronan carried on driving, because the lane was twisting and narrow, and there was nowhere to stop. As they approached St Carys, he glanced sideways once more. ‘I don’t know what to do.’

  ‘You d-don’t have to do anything. I’ll b-be fine.’

  ‘Of course you’re fine. Never better.’ Making a decision, he signalled right. ‘Look, I can’t just drop you back at the office. You’re not cycling anywhere like this.’

  Ronan’s flat was just around the corner. He let Kate out of the car and ushered her inside, privately wondering what he might be getting himself into.

  In the flat, he handed her a roll of kitchen paper. ‘There you go, nothing but the best for my visitors. I’m going to make us both a cup of tea. The people in the upstairs flat are out at work, so you can cry as much as you want.’

  Ten minutes of intensive sobbing later, Kate wiped her reddened eyes with kitchen towel and said, ‘I think it’s over now. I’m so sorry.’

  ‘Will you stop apologising? Drink your tea,’ said Ronan.

  ‘You must think I’m some kind of madwoman.’

  ‘Not at all.’ He watched her gulp down the tea and knew by the way she grimaced slightly that he shouldn’t have put sugar in. But, being polite, she didn’t say so.

  ‘My mum died.’ Kate took a deep, shuddery breath. ‘Two months ago.’

  ‘Ah, right. I’m sorry.’ Now it was his turn to say the words.

  ‘This is the first time I’ve cried. I kept waiting for it to happen but it just didn’t. Everyone said it would come out eventually, but after a while I gave up waiting. I thought maybe I was just immune to crying, that I was one of those people who never … does it.’

  ‘But it turns out you do.’

  ‘Seems that way.’

  ‘I lost my dad when I was eighteen,’ said Ronan. ‘I was the same as you. Everyone else in the family was weeping and wailing, and the more they did it, the more I told myself I needed to be the one who stayed in control. Then a few weeks later, boom.’ He spread his arms wide. ‘It was like a pressure cooker exploding. You should have seen me. What a mess.’

  ‘And did you feel better afterwards?’

  ‘God, yes.’

  ‘Well that’s good.’ A glimmer of a smile counterbalanced a fresh lone tear trickling down her cheek. ‘Something to look forward to, at least.’

  Sensing her need to talk, Ronan sent Kate into the bathroom to wash her face and rinse the gritty salt deposits from her eyes. Then he opened a bottle of wine and poured two glasses. When she returned, he patted the seat next to him on the old suede sofa. ‘Come on, tell me everything.’

  ‘You’ll be bored rigid.’ Kate hesitated, clearly not wanting to outstay her welcome.

  ‘If you bore me, I’ll just point to the door,’ said Ronan. ‘But you won’t.’

  Chapter 8

  ‘We lived in Redland in Bristol,’ Kate explained. ‘Just me and Mum, in our little terraced house. When Mum got ill, she sold the house in case we needed money to pay for her nursing care and we moved in with my grandparents in Bude. But Mum died six weeks later, much more quickly than any of us had expected. She left everything to me, told me to buy a place of my own and make a good life for myself.’

  ‘So that’s what you’re doing. Close enough to Bude to stay in touch with your grandparents, far enough away to be independent.’

  ‘Exactly. I’m twenty-six.’ She shrugged. ‘It makes sense. So yes, that’s the plan. The will was straightforward, so it didn’t take long to get everything sorted out. The money arrived in my account last week. Except I mentioned at work that I was looking for somewhere to buy, and now word’s got around.’ Kate shook her head ruefully. ‘The thing is, everyone’s being really nice and they mean well, but they keep telling me how lucky I am. And I know what they mean, of course I do … How many people my age have the chance to buy a property without needing a mortgage? But my mum isn’t here and she’s the person I love more than anyone else in the world … so if it was a choice between her and all the money in the world, I’d rather have my mum b
ack.’

  Tears were welling up once more, spilling down her cheeks. Ronan put his arm around her and drew her towards him, touched by her words. ‘Hey, of course you’d rather have her back,’ he murmured. ‘It’s hardly been any time at all.’

  ‘I miss her so much. So much.’ Fat teardrops dripped off her chin and landed on the front of his shirt. ‘I keep telling myself I have to act like a grown-up, but I don’t feel like a grown-up. When something difficult happens, I keep wanting to ask my mum how I should do it. She told me to buy a place that was right for me … but how will I know if it’s right? What if I make a terrible mistake? This is the money my mum spent her whole life working for. I can’t just mess around with it. And I know I’ve got my grandparents, but I feel so … so on my own.’

  Ronan nodded without speaking, and continued stroking the back of her neck.

  ‘Thank you,’ said Kate, twenty seconds later.

  ‘For what?’

  ‘For not saying you know how I feel. It’s what everyone says, and it drives me insane. Yesterday someone said, “Are you still missing your mum?” and when I nodded, they said, “Ooh, I know exactly what you’re going through. I lost my cat last year and it was awful – I was in bits for weeks!”’

  ‘There’s a special dispensation for those occasions,’ Ronan told her. ‘You are actually allowed to murder people who say things like that. Instead of arresting you, the police award you a gold medal.’

  Kate did an unexpected spluttery laugh. ‘Wouldn’t that be great?’

  ‘When I’m king of the world, it’s the first law I’m going to pass.’

  ‘You could have said it, though. You lost your dad. You’ve been through it.’

  ‘I only know how I felt,’ said Ronan. ‘We’re all different. And when it happened to me, I still had my mum. I wasn’t left on my own like you.’