The Cornish Affair

by Lockington, Laura

  “Don’t worry. I get it. I should have guessed really, I’m not old enough, and I’m not posh enough,” Jace said slowly.

  Shit, shit, shit.

  “Not like Oliver,” he said slyly, looking at me form under his eyelashes. (Which is a great trick if you are a girl or the late Princess Di, but if not, forget it.)

  “Don’t be so bloody silly,” I snapped.

  Jace pouted. Quite becomingly, I may as well tell you. But it didn’t work. He was nice to look at, no, he was gorgeous to look at. But that was it.

  Honest.

  Suddenly, he smiled.

  “Well, it were worth tryin’, weren’t it?” He grinned at me.

  “You cheeky little sod!” I exclaimed, picking up a tee shirt and flicking him with it.

  He moved back to the window and lit his joint. He took a deep drag and said, “Only a bit of fun, Fin. It was nice though, the other week, weren’t it?”

  I nodded.

  “Anyway me mum wouldn’t like it, not really. She wants me to go to Pakistan with her and meet this girl. Might as well, I reckon,” He said between mouthfuls of smoke.

  I scrambled quickly into my clothes, there seemed no point in false modesty with Jace there, although I did wish I had swanky, sexy underwear instead of white cotton.

  “You going to marry her, Jace?” I asked, thinking of Nelsons chatter.

  He regarded me in silence for a while.

  “Might do… No hard feelings then?”

  “None at all,” I said, trying not to laugh.

  “Oh, and Fin…”

  “Yes?”

  “Any time you need a seeing to, you know where I am.” He gave a wicked grin at me.

  I burst out laughing and walked out of the room, leaving him to his joint and dreams of the girl in Lahore.

  I was still smiling as I made my way downstairs. I hoped the unknown girl in Pakistan appreciated him. The TV crew had gone, thank goodness, and Sam was helping Pritti with some plates. He was also making a great fuss about bringing a TV in to the bar from his sitting room, so that we could all watch the news. I was unworried, as I knew that I wouldn’t be on it. It had been live, and they certainly wouldn’t show my outburst of temper, anyway.

  I joined Doris and Isaac at a table, and we chatted about the latest news.

  “Breadpuddin’s been causin’ a right old fuss,” Doris said gleefully. “I heard from my sister who’s got a friend who works at the royal that she tried it on with the doctor! Mind you, I feel right sorry for ‘er. Broken legs is proper nasty.”

  I laughed. The gossip was flowing again, then.

  “Poor doctor, thass what I say,” Isaac said morosely.

  He was sitting with a sheaf of papers in front of him looking worried. Doris nudged him, and he cleared his throat.

  “The thing is, Fin, we was wonderin’ if you could take a look at all o’ this, I can’t make head nor tail of it,” he said, pushing the papers towards me.

  I inwardly sighed. I wasn’t equipped to deal with insurance forms either, but somehow everyone thought I was. I looked up at Isaac’s worried face and smiled.

  “Yes, of course I will. Leave them here, OK?”

  The pub door was opening with regularity now; I went to Sam and whispered that everyone should have a drink on me again.

  “Nah, I reckon you’m done enough, girl. They’m can buy you one for a change,” Sam said.

  “OK… but Sam, will you do me a favour?” I said, leaning on the bar with my elbows.

  He looked enquiringly at me.

  “That surveyor chap is coming here tomorrow, will you come up to Penmorah with me before he gets here? I want to see what’s what up there.” I was desperate to get home, but didn’t want to go by myself.

  Sam nodded.

  I bent down, called Baxter to me and went back to the table. Friends and villagers piled into the pub. Considering the burdens of tiredness and worry we were all carrying, we had a remarkably jolly evening.

  The drinks flowed, and Pritti’s delicious food was gobbled up very quickly and gratefully. I knew that I should make some phone calls and look at insurance papers. Quite a few more had been dumped on me by villagers who now thought that could barely read or write, and that I would do a better deal for them than themselves. If only they knew, I thought, thinking of the terrible mess I had got in when my parents had died, and how Nancy had sorted everything.

  I knew I should tackle all of this, but I was just so tired.

  There was a general commotion at ten o’clock when Sam switched the news on. The newscaster ran off the headlines, trouble in the Middle East, interest rates soaring. Then came the bit we all shut up for.

  ‘… and South Cornwall is still counting the costs of the freak storm, a tornado, that tore through there yesterday, causing great damage to property, roads, and rail links. Over to our West coast correspondent, Sarah Bailey in Port Charles.”

  There she was, in The Ram, and there was me beside her. I looked like something from a charity shop.

  They played my interview. In full.

  I had time to notice that I also looked quite demented on camera, with wild eyes, and a horrible snarling mouth.

  I cringed, waiting for the backlash.

  There was a silence for a while, and then the cheers started.

  “You tell ‘em Fin!”

  “Well done girl!”

  “Bloody emmets, mermaid eggs, I asks you…”

  “What you drinkin’ girl?”

  “Your mum and dad be right proud of you if they was ‘ere.”

  I stared around, bewildered. I’d virtually accused them all of being heartless bastards who had deserted Judith, and here they all were cheering me, slapping me on my back and buying me drinks.

  I heard Sam calling my name, and holding the phone out towards me.

  I went behind the bar, and pressed it into my ear.

  “Hello?”

  “Fin, darling! Well done… I didn’t realise things were so bad there, I’ll try and get back as quickly as I can.”

  Nancy’s comforting voice was a joy to hear.

  “Oh Nancy! I have missed you! I don’t understand, they all think I’m a hero, when all I did was lose my temper about how they all treated Judith…” I trailed off, still mystified at the reaction of them all in the bar.

  Nancy laughed, “Oh Fin, they know that they’ve behaved badly darling, but you know, you’re one of them, and you’ve just been on TV! They love you! I must say, you were frightfully passionate. We were all terribly impressed.”

  “Who’s there with you?” I asked.

  “Harry and Oliver. Harry says that you look completely barking mad, and the sooner you get to a hairdressers the better. Oliver thinks you were simply marvellous, hang on, they both want to talk to you…”

  There was a sound of scuffling in the background and the clinking of glasses, as the phone changed hands.

  Harry came on first.

  “Fin, I never knew you had it in you! Talk about spitting feathers! You were fearfully scary on telly, wonderful! Although, I must say, your hair-”

  “I know, I know,” I said, “But honestly Harry, I’ve been so busy here-”

  “Yes darling I can imagine, anyway Oliver’s got a wonderful idea about all of that, I’ll pass you over to him. Oh before you go, what’s the weather like?”

  “Well, it’s stopped raining for the moment and-”

  “No, you fool. I said, what’s the weather like?” Harry sounded exasperated with me.

  “Oh, I see… well, umm,” I had to think, hard. What was it like? Nothing came to mind, which to be honest with you was a bit of a worry. I mean, it’s what I do, gauging what the weather was like in terms of soup.

  “Let me talk to Oliver,” I said firmly.

  “Fin! This has never happened before, I am extremely worried about you,” Harry said with mock severity.

  “Well, Penmorah has never been in danger before, and Port Charles has never been
flooded before and-”

  “Alright, alright, I get the picture. Here’s Oliver.”

  I was so glad to hear his voice. I remained silent for a moment or two.

  “Fin, are you there?”

  “Yes… Oh Oliver it’s awful here,” I said, my voice dangerously close to wobbling with self pity.

  “I’ve seen. Don’t worry, I’ve got a great plan, but that can wait. Hang on, Nancy wants to know what about the dolphin party, are you cancelling it?”

  “It depends what the surveyor says, I suppose… But Port Charles needs a bit of a party at the moment. I dunno, I’ll have to think about it…”

  “Fin?”

  I heard Oliver’s voice drop to a whisper and felt a thud of excitement in my stomach.

  “Umm?” I said, twisting the twirly phone cord round my fingers like a teenager.

  “No more romping with the veg boy, OK?”

  I was silenced for more than just a moment or two. I could hear the sounds of the bar very clearly, wafting towards me, and I could also feel my cheeks begin to burn. So he’d known all along, had he? Or was it just a clever guess. I remembered my first meeting with him and the dishevelled state that I had been in. Oh shit. But then… how dare he tell me what to do?

  “Did you hear me?” he said gently.

  I put the phone down and walked away.

  Back in the bar, Doris and Isaac were waving at me, but I decided that I should go to bed. I waved back and mimed putting my head on a pillow, and pointed upstairs.

  “Sam, I’m going to get some sleep, if that’s OK,” I said.

  He looked worried.

  “The thing is Fin, well, Pritti an’ her two daughters still wanna sleep ‘ere, and I don’t likes you kipping on the floor, it ain’t right…”

  “I can assure you Sam, I’ll fall asleep anywhere, don’t worry about it honestly, I’m fine. Good night,” I said, pecking him on the cheek.

  I called Baxter to me, and we went up the stairs. I was so tired that every step made me groan.

  I made up a nest again on the function room, and throwing off my jeans, slumped down, bunching a pillow under my head. Baxter turned round three times and then fell heavily on my feet. The sounds of the bar were muffled up here, but I could still distinguish certain noises. The sound of a laugh, the closing of the door, the chink of glasses or bottles being collected. It was quite comforting, but unusual for me. At Penmorah all you could hear was the faint sound of the sea as you drifted asleep, these human noises were strange to my ear.

  I wondered what I was going to say to Oliver. It had been rude of me to slam the phone down. Well, I hadn’t actually slammed it, in fact, I’d replaced it quite gently, but you know what I mean.

  I resolved not to think about it tonight.

  Just sleep and deal with it in the morning, I thought, easing Baxter off my feet in a feeble attempt to get comfortable.

  Chapter Nineteen

  I took Baxter for a walk the following morning, before anyone else was up. I crept out of the function room, which now resembled some sort of awful co-educational dorm for wayward boys and girls, and pulled the large bolt on the door of The Ram as quietly as I could. Pubs are very strange dwellings, they aren’t really meant to be seen in the cold light of dawn. Every beer stain, every scratch on polished wood almost glows in its brightness. Far better seen under the influence of a pint or two of cherrywood in the kind light of dusk.

  I stepped outside, and stretched my aching arms and back. I don’t care what any osteopath tells you, sleeping on the floor does not help bad backs.

  I was trying not to brood on Oliver, but of course, my mind kept going back to his last words to me with irritating regularity. Why is it that the harder we try not to think about something, the dentists needle slipping into our gums, the unpaid tax bill, it soon becomes the only thing we can think about. Perhaps the aim of blank thought in meditation does have a purpose after all.

  Port Charles looked a mess.

  The mud residue was starting to pong, and for a small fishing port in South Cornwall it had started to smell more like Rue Du Bac in Paris. Why is that smell is the most evocative of the senses? Open drains with a hint of garlic and gauloise will forever be Paris to me, even if they have cleaned up their sewage system by now. Boiling cabbage is the one foray I had in a school, leather and tobacco is my father, caramel and the scent of violet soap is Nancy, Madame Rochas, my mother.

  Baxter pulled at me, eager to be off. He started to head towards the woods, but I pulled him back. I didn’t want to clamber amongst the devastation there yet.

  I thought I’d look in on Judith, and headed off through the village and up the hill, cutting through the narrow streets, where luckily the cottages, so piled in on one another had offered some sort of protection from the storm. Most of them had suffered in one way or another.

  A few lights were snapping on as I passed by windows. Port Charlesers were early risers on the whole. I caught wafts of bacon as I passed by the window of a few dwellings and it made my mouth water. I knew that I could never be a vegetarian, try as I might, with that tantalising aroma. Oh god, back to smells again.

  I climbed a steep set of worn stone steps to reach the narrow lane where Judith and Kev Pharaoh lived. Her windows were dark, and I hesitated before banging on the door. I didn’t want her to think that it was the police bringing her bad news, but I did want to check on her. I noticed that her doorstep (an unfailing sign of the house proud here) was un-scrubbed. That would be yet another black mark against her.

  Bending down, I called her name through the letterbox. But I could almost sense that the house was empty. The gloom was too great for me to see anything as I peered through the slot in the front door, and I wracked my brains to think where she could be. Surely not back down on the harbour wall?

  I sighed, and turned around, setting off down the hill again. It was worth a look, I suppose. The blister on my heel was rubbing, and I reminded myself to get hold of a plaster for it, as soon as I could.

  By the time I had walked back down again, I saw that the lights were on in the bakers shop. I waved to Isaac as I passed, and he motioned me inside.

  “Morinin’ Fin, wait two seconds an’ you can ‘ave a hot roll,” he said proudly.

  Doris appeared from the back room, and said to me, “Been up all night, cleanin’ the ovens and the floor, we ‘ave. Business as usual today!”

  The heavenly smell of warm bread was too much for my greed, and I willingly loitered in the doorway till the rolls were out of the oven. The rolls all had a swirl of black poppy seeds on the top, and were warm and yielding to the touch. Doris popped two of them in a brown paper bag for me, handing them over with a flourish.

  I felt around in my back pocket for some change, but Isaac looked so horrified at the idea, I just thanked them both and moved on.

  I skirted the harbour scanning both sides of the curving wall for Judith. I spotted her at once. She was sitting on the wall, at the very far end, where the swelling sea met the water from the harbour.

  Damn.

  My foot was hurting and I really didn’t want the long trudge. Baxter pulled me along though and I limped towards her, clutching the paper bag of hot rolls.

  As I got closer to her, I could see that she had changed her clothes from yesterday. That had to be a good sign, right? I mean, at least she’d been home, maybe slept and eaten. I went to sit beside her and opened the paper bag. I handed her one of the rolls, which she took absentmindedly, looking at it as if she’d never seen one before.

  I pulled apart the soft cooked dough and started to eat, urging her to do the same. She pulled a piece off and threw it into the sea.

  “What is it about casting bread on the water?” she asked.

  I thought it was something more like pearls before swine, but I kept quiet.

  I studied her as she kept her head firmly towards the open sea. She had a strong profile, with a hawk like nose, jutting proudly from her deeply tanned face.
She was very still, sitting there. All her energies were focussed on staring out at the green rolling sea.

  The sky was full of scudding grey clouds, and the breeze was strong. I glanced up at the sky again and said, “Any chance of more rain, do you think, Judith?”

  She shrugged.

  Half of me felt like shaking her, and the other half wanted to give her a hug.

  “Tell me about The Queen Mab,” I suggested as gently as I could, watching her fingers blindly crumble the poppy roll into useless crumbs.

  “You should know about it,” she said, her eyes never leaving the sea, “Your mam and pa lent Kev the money.”

  “Did they?” I asked in surprise. This was the first time I’d ever heard about it.

  “Yes. Over twenty years ago now… paid them back, every penny, he did. Right proper people your parents were, in spite of all the carryin’ on up at Penmorah,” she added with a wry tone in her voice.

  I was too intrigued to pick up on that one. I let it pass. I imagined that most of Port Charles thought that way about some of the parties at Penmorah. Although, it must be said that no-one had ever actually used the words ‘carrying on’ to my face.

  “Your father, he were a kindly man… bit of a fool where it come to your mum and her sister, but still, men are born fools aren’t they?” Judith said, not expecting an answer from me.

  Indeed, I didn’t have one to give at the moment.

  I stared out to sea with her. It was hard. I knew that at any minute she was hoping to see The Queen Mab hover into view, you know what it’s like, the more you will something to appear, the more your eyes start playing tricks on you.

  On the horizon was a band of misty green, that then stretched into the grey sky. All was movement and progress around us, from the screeching swooping gulls to the restless ocean. The only things that were still was us. Even Baxter had picked up on our lethargy and had settled silently at my feet, his nose and tail completing a circle.

  We stayed like that for a while, then Judith broke the silence.

  “I heard about you on the telly last night,” she said flatly. “Won’t make no difference round ‘ere. I shoulda made Kev stay with me in Bozcastle, should never have come ‘ere. They understand us lot down there, not like Port Charles, too snooty for their own good, I reckons.”