by Karen Swan
‘You really don’t,’ Cassie said with a mouth full of food. ‘Archie is almost fully back to normal as far as I can see, and I’ve already proved my utter uselessness with Gem – not only, as you pointed out, did I sabotage my own wedding instead of hers, but now I’m providing the bloody catering for hers too! I’m doing way more harm than good.’
‘Exactly. You’re doing the catering. You can’t disappear now,’ Suzy said, pivoting the conversation around again. ‘Gem needs you. I am not discussing soufflés with her. She’ll want them wheat-free, gluten-free and sprinkled with flipping unicorn’s tears or something. I don’t have the patience, I really don’t.’
Cassie rolled her eyes. ‘I’ll come back in time for the wedding next weekend. I need to get all the kit from home anyway.’
‘You really don’t. Because that wedding is not happening,’ Suzy said firmly, slapping her palm against the table and completely contradicting herself. ‘This isn’t a game, Cass. I’ve only just put the phone down again to Mum stressing about it. She’s not sleeping – she’s on the phone to your mum almost every night because she’s up at Hong Kong hours. Can you imagine her reaction when I had to tell her Gem’s gone and set the date for less than a fortnight’s time? Go on, just try. No, don’t bother. I’ll tell you – she nearly had a stroke, that’s what, and you know Mum – she’s as stoic as a battleship.’
‘They seem happy, Suze,’ Cassie sighed, shutting the fridge and slumping down at the table too. ‘Laird’s a good bloke.’
‘I’m not saying he isn’t.’ She leaned in and dropped her voice to a whisper. ‘But I’d be a good bloke too if my fiancée was about to inherit her parents’ estate on her next birthday at the end of summer.’
Suzy waited for Cassie’s eyes to meet hers. ‘That’s right. Half of this place and two mill in the bank. She’s going to be minted, Cass. Don’t you think it’s just a little bit suspicious that her boyfriend’s so keen to get married? I mean, what male did you ever know who wanted to settle down in his early twenties?’
‘I wouldn’t judge anyone by your taste in boyfriends before Arch,’ Cassie said pithily, although she couldn’t deny the revelation about Gem’s inheritance did throw a new complexion on things.
Suzy threw herself back in her chair, disappointed by Cassie’s lack of suspicion. She drummed her fingers on the table. ‘I won’t let you go back to London. How are you going to get to the station? Hmm?’
‘Arch can drive me.’
‘He’s not allowed to drive.’
‘I’ll call a cab, then.’
‘With the mobile reception here? Ha! Good luck.’
‘Fine, so I’ll hitchhike.’
‘Cass, you can’t leave me here!’
‘You’re being overdramatic, Suze. I have to get back for work anyway. You know this.’
‘Not for another week you don’t! You know I’ve got it all sorted with Zara. You’ll only mess up our plans if you go back now.’
‘Talking of which, have you nicked my diary?’
‘No. Why?’
‘I can’t find it anywhere.’
Suzy shrugged, but Cassie wasn’t convinced. She wouldn’t be in the least bit surprised if Suzy had pinched it to stop her from going back to work and to force her to stay down here.
The phone rang and Suzy slipped lower in her chair, dropping her head into her hands. ‘Oh God, if it’s my mother again . . .’ she groaned.
‘I’ll get it,’ Cassie said, standing up and crossing the kitchen. ‘Hello?’
‘Is that Cass?’ a female voice asked.
‘Yes,’ Cassie said warily. The woman sounded familiar. Certainly her tone of voice suggested they knew each other.
‘It’s Betsy. We got that place you was after.’
Cassie straightened up, straining to hear. There was a lot of background noise coming through from the other end of the line. ‘I’m sorry, who? What place?’
‘In the gig. Sarah can’t make it. She needs to do a double shift, and Emma’s still got her arm in plaster, so she’s no good. It’s as well you called when you did or we’d have been up the ruddy creek. See you eight o’clock, yeah?’
‘But I didn’t c—’
‘Oh, and ignore the forecast. We’s always baking by the time we get to Newlands, so keep it light and easy to strip. Catch ya later!’
Cassie stared at the handset in shock as the caller rang off.
‘What just happened?’ Suzy asked, watching her.
‘I don’t know.’
‘Well, who was it?’
Cassie pulled a face, trying to remember. ‘Betty? Betsy?’
‘Oh, Bets!’ Suzy replied cheerfully. ‘Good news?’
‘No! I think she was telling me there’s a space in the gig tonight.’
‘Amazing!’ Suzy laughed, smacking her hands down on the table. ‘Talk about saved by the bell! That’s a stroke of luck. Now you’ve got to stay.’
‘No I don’t. I’m going, Suze. I’ve had enough.’
‘Of course you have. Henry’s thrown a wobbly, and you can’t even get your ex to flirt with you. It’s shitty, but it’s time to move on now,’ she said, patting Cassie on the shoulder and going back to her chopping.
‘Yes, straight back to London, thanks, away from you.’
Suzy shrugged, an infuriating smile on her face. ‘Not tonight, babe. There’s a gig out there with your name on it.’
‘But I’ve never even seen a gig before,’ Cassie protested, getting crosser and crosser.
‘Google it. And eat pasta for supper. And wear your bikini.’
‘You seem to know an awful lot about this,’ Cassie said, her eyes slitted. ‘Who made the call to Betsy in the first place?’ As if she needed to ask . . .
‘Henry and I belonged to the Gig Club when we were teenagers. Betsy and I go way back.’
‘Oh really? Uh-huh. I see,’ she said defiantly, planting her hands on her hips. ‘Well, you can jolly well row with her tonight, then.’
‘No can do,’ Suzy said, sauntering from the room as they heard Velvet begin to yell upstairs. ‘I’d love to help you out, really I would, but it’s not my list.’
Chapter Nineteen
Rock was rammed. Bunting had been strung up all the way from the Sailing Club to the railings of the car park – which was the furthest point in the village – and people were milling everywhere. The tide was in, slapping noisily against the harbour walls, and more boats than she could count were bobbing about in the estuary. The winds had picked up since this morning’s dead calm, and a gauze-thin mist was beginning to roll in, dampening skin and making hair frizz.
‘Oh, Suzy, come on,’ Cassie said in a nervous voice as Suzy scanned the crowds on her behalf for Betsy. ‘This isn’t reasonable. I thought it was just a little thing, but there are hundreds of people here. I can’t possibly be expected to—’
‘Oh, I see her!’ Suzy cried, waving her arm in the air and taking off at a sprint towards a group of women on the slipway.
‘Arch, talk to her,’ Cassie pleaded, turning round to Archie, who was holding Velvet in his arms and looking longingly as people walked past with pints in plastic beer glasses.
‘You know what Henry’s like with his lists,’ he shrugged sympathetically, giving her a quick squeeze.
‘Yes, and it’s thanks to you he got the list to me in the first place,’ she tutted. ‘You’re his lackey. I don’t know why I thought you’d do anything to help.’
‘Listen, it won’t be all that bad. There’s five others in the boat with you; I reckon so long as you just keep rhythm with them, no one will notice whether you’ve got a clue about technique or not.’ He winked at her. ‘Come on. It’s just one race. Suzy’s going to give herself a hernia if she keeps waving at us like that.’
They trotted down the quay, beside the lifeboat station, to where Suzy was standing with a heavy-set girl with beautiful bright orange hair that from a distance looked like a mass of flames. She was wearing it pulled up in
a messy top-knot, with a hot-pink vest and black sports shorts on, seemingly oblivious to the cold and gusty wind.
Cassie’s eyes fell again to the white horses rippling down the estuary, the water a dark air-force blue, and she heard the flap and rattle of the ratchets on the Sailing Club’s toppers and picos, all safely stowed on the quay for the night. Out on the water, sails were being lowered on the clinkers and skiffs as people tried to neutralize their positions and not drift with the winds. It was hard to believe they had been enjoying millpond conditions for their surfing lesson just this morning, and she could only guess at the size of the waves that must now be thundering into the wide beach at Polzeath. Laird would be in seventh heaven, no doubt. Luke too, maybe.
‘Cass!’ Bets greeted her, holding out an oar in place of a hand. ‘It’s good to meet you. And oh boy, do we need you! You couldn’t have volunteered at a better time. I’ll tell you, I’m going to kill that Emma when I see her next. She did it slipping on a spilt beer in the Mariner’s, you know.’
But Cassie didn’t reply. She was too busy looking at the enormous oar. It was at least 2.5 metres high, and so thick her fingers didn’t close round it. How was she supposed to row with this thing? It could prop up a house.
‘How much gigging have you done, did you say?’ Betsy asked.
‘I didn’t,’ Cassie replied, just as Suzy’s arm shot forward and pushed her out of the way of a crew who were jogging down the slipway, holding their yellow gig between them.
‘Polperro,’ Betsy said, her eyes narrowed as she watched them stop by the water’s edge and lower the boat down. She turned slightly to Suzy. ‘Remember their cox in ’95?’
‘As if I could forget,’ Suzy replied in a dark voice, her arms folded menacingly across her bosom.
Archie and Cassie swapped arched eyebrows but said nothing. People had begun to move forwards towards the waterline now, and someone called Betsy’s name.
‘Come on, Bets!’
Betsy turned with a wave, and Cassie saw a group of women in the same hot-pink vests as her, manoeuvring a blue boat – ‘Speedwell’ written in large white letters along the side – towards the water.
‘Time to go,’ Betsy grinned, tossing Cassie one of the pink tops. ‘Our crew colour. Put it on. Dress like a team, row like a team, we say.’
Betsy grinned and jogged down to the others. Cassie – realizing she was out of time to try to argue her way out of this – hurriedly pulled off her grey marl hoody and mint Sweaty Betty T-shirt and put it on. She went to put the hoody back on, but Suzy stopped her.
‘Trust me. You won’t need it.’
‘I will. It’ll be a lot colder on the water.’
‘Not with the amount of work you’re going to be doing. It’ll be a miracle if you keep your bikini top on.’
Cassie frowned, but reluctantly let Suzy keep hold of the hoody.
‘Go get ’em, tiger,’ Arch smiled, giving a small punch in the air to rally her fighting spirit. It didn’t work.
‘I bloody well hate both of you,’ she muttered. ‘But I love you, darling,’ she whispered to Velvet, giving her a quick kiss before jogging dejectedly down the slipway to where the others were now sitting in the boat. A tiny woman in a yellow sailing jacket and navy baseball cap was holding the prow to keep it steady against the quay.
Betsy, who was doing some energetic shoulder rolls, stopped and turned in her seat at the front. ‘Everyone, this is Cass. Cass, this is Lorna, Stevie, Sall and Jacqs. And Debs here’ – the woman in the yellow jacket nodded – ‘is our cox.’
‘Hi,’ Cassie smiled, raising a feeble hand and seeing a space in the fifth seat back. Hers, she presumed. The seats were positioned left and right alternately down the boat. Cassie saw her seat was on the left, meaning her oar would go into the water from the right.
‘Hop in,’ Betsy said, resuming her shoulder rolls. ‘You’re at five. We need to get into position. The other crews are at the start already.’
‘You jump in – I’ll pass the oar over to you when you’re sitting,’ Suzy said brightly.
‘Where’s the start?’ Cassie asked her in a quiet voice, stepping down tentatively into the boat and trying not to shriek as it rocked.
‘See the blue tug out there?’ Suzy said.
Cassie, sitting with relief – although not comfort – in a blue plastic bucket seat fixed to a bench, turned to see the small boat Suzy had pointed to. It was at least 500 metres away, in choppy waters, and as the girl who tended to have second thoughts about getting into Jacuzzis, she didn’t fancy her chances of going anywhere in these conditions. A wind wrestled with her briefly and she shivered, her eyes meeting Suzy’s apprehensively as she reached for the oar.
Sympathy was what she was hoping for. Surely even Suzy could see this wasn’t simply unreasonable, it was downright unsafe? But Suzy just winked, helping her slot the oar into the bracket and holding the boat secure as Debs hopped in and everyone gripped their oars. Cassie took a deep breath and looked at how the other girls were holding theirs. They seemed to hold their outer hand – the one that was on the tip of the oar – facing them around the oar, the inner hand cupped over the top.
‘Ready?’ Suzy asked, and at everyone’s nod (except Cassie’s), she let go of the boat, pushing it away from the harbour wall. Away from safety.
Cassie scrunched her eyes shut and automatically launched into the Lord’s Prayer – the first time she’d recited it since school.
‘Right, girls, let’s keep this tight,’ Betsy said calmly as the boat floated freely on the water, lurching from side to side so that the dark water splashed threateningly over into their laps. Cassie winced at the shock of the cold and gripped the oar tighter, willing herself not to scream, before realizing the crew was already moving in a unified rhythm that righted their direction; within five strokes they had faced the boat into the waves, rather than side-on to them, so that the chop cut around them and the boat bobbed gently on the surface as they rowed.
Cassie forced herself to calm down. They weren’t sinking; they weren’t sinking . . .
She watched the team’s steady rise-and-fall rhythm, knowing she couldn’t just sit there like a lemon while they did all the work. She counted as they leaned back in unison, pulling the oars into them, before sitting up on the forwards push on the count of three.
‘Cassie, pick it up!’ Debs said through her little tannoy, her eyes hidden beneath her cap but clearly seeing how Cassie struggled to fall into line. The principle of it was fine – down two, up two – but the weight of the water on the oars meant she found it hard to push them through and get back up in time, so that she was perpetually leaning behind as the others sat back up again.
Another gig – red – glided past, the crew a symphony in motion, backs straight, arms strong. Cassie could see Debs watching her and knew she must be able to tell that Cassie had never set foot on a gig before. ‘Oh God, oh God,’ she muttered.
‘Twist your wrist on the forward push,’ Jacqs murmured, from behind her.
What? Cassie stiffened in surprise – she hadn’t been aware she’d expressed her panic out loud, but she did as instructed and the oar sliced cleanly through the water, like a blade through butter.
Oh!
‘Thank you,’ she whispered back as she did it again and again, beginning to catch up with Sally’s rhythm and maintain it. Their speed seemed to increase a little – or was that just her imagination? – and she felt a bolt of relief as she integrated into the team’s coherent motion. This wasn’t so bad after all, she thought, as she rose and fell with the others. She hadn’t fallen in. She hadn’t dropped her oar or hit anyone else’s – although there was still time.
She clenched with tension again, concentrating so hard on not messing up that she was surprised when Debs gave the cue for them to stop rowing and drift.
She turned and saw the blue tug just ahead. Really? Already?
Jacqs reached over and patted her on the back. ‘Good going,’ she said enc
ouragingly.
Cassie beamed as relief and pride surged through her. Phase One was complete – she’d made it to the start line at least, now just the finish line to go – and as she stretched out her back and arms, she allowed herself the luxury of looking around at last.
She was amazed by what she saw: yellow water taxis chugging away at a distance, filled to capacity with spectators yelling out the names of their favoured teams – ‘Swift!’, ‘Shearwater!’, ‘Bonnet!’, ‘Hope!’ – as those on the smaller crafts did the same. There were so many boats on the stretches either side of them that from the shore it had looked more like a Normandy landing, but here, sitting amid them, it felt like a festival on the water.
It took a while for them to get the boat into position. No sooner were they in line with the tug’s prow than they drifted forwards again as they waited for the last gigs to line up. Cassie sat on the boat, her hands gripping the oar tightly, nerves beginning to kick in again as she looked left and right. Padstow sat to their right (the place of pilgrimage for seafood lovers the world over) and Rock to the left (the postcode with some of the highest retail values in the country), but the sea mist had stripped them of clarity and all that she could really see was the vast channel that surrounded her on all sides and had seemed so menacing from the shore. Beneath them, she could just make out the pale shimmer of the drifting sandbank, called the Doom Bar and historically the undoing of so many vessels.
But not this one – this gig was buoyant and beautifully hand-crafted in the ancient tradition, these girls strong, and as they bobbed about, just like plastic water bottles on the sea, waiting for the off, Cassie suddenly understood exactly why Henry had put this on her list. Being on the water was what this place was all about – not buying olives from the deli or eating at Rick Stein’s, or even paddling in the tame shallows of Daymer Bay or wave-jumping at Polzeath, but rowing out to the deepest, darkest depths when the wind was up, the sun was setting, the air was like cobwebs and the sea had a snarl to it . . . This place had a wild, savage beauty that either touched you or frightened you, and it was here that Henry’s love of adventure had been moulded and nurtured. This – right here in the middle of the sea – was where he had become the man she loved.
