Christmas on the Little Cornish Isles

by Phillipa Ashley

  ‘Her eyes they shone like diamonds. I thought her the queen of the land. And her hair it hung over her shoulder tied up with a black velvet band . . .’

  Maisie pulled a face at him and mimed fingers in her ears at his awful singing, so Patrick sang even louder. She couldn’t actually hear him, he knew, above the drunken carousing of the rest of the revellers. Archie was in full voice, even at his age his deep baritone was strong, not to mention Will with his beer-fuelled tenor and the rugby guys giving it all they’d got. Even Hugo Scorrier was singing along, smiling and waving his glass in time to the music. Patrick suspected he was pissed before he’d even arrived at the pub and wondered how he was going to pilot his boat home in the dark. At least it was a calm night.

  The band reached the finale of the song. Patrick gave it all he had.

  ‘They’ll feed you with strong drink, me lads, ’Til you are unable to stand, And the very first thing that you’ll know is you’ve landed in Van Diemens Land . . .’

  The chorus raised the rafters and the band stopped with a flourish. The room erupted with applause and whistles. Plonking glasses on the bar, Maisie joined Patrick. ‘Better call last orders,’ she said. ‘We’ve pushed it enough and, to be honest, I’m dying to get you to myself.’

  ‘Me too,’ said Patrick. ‘You have no idea how much.’

  Twenty minutes later, Maisie rang the bell. Otherwise the party would have gone all night and she wanted to be with Patrick. ‘Time, gentlemen, ladies and pets, please. Finish your drinks. I’m sorry but the party’s over …’

  ‘Spoilsport!’

  Groans from the bar, but there were also a few bleary-eyed resigned nods. People got to their feet while a few ignored Maisie’s pleas.

  ‘Come on, people,’ said Patrick. ‘It’s been a great night but some of us want to get to bed.’

  ‘Whose? Yours or Maisie’s?’ a bloke piped up.

  Patrick shot him a friendly glare. ‘Yours if you don’t behave.’

  Patrick saw Hugo put down his pint on the table. Basil had hidden under the table during the singing but stirred. Hugo stood up.

  ‘I have an announcement to make. Or should I say,’ he said, stepping into the space that had now cleared in the middle of the bar. ‘Patrick has an announcement to make.’

  Patrick’s hackles rose. What the hell was this? It couldn’t be about him and Maisie getting together, could it? Was the guy that crass? Shit, it had to be, well no matter. They knew they’d have to put up with a bit of banter.

  Hoping to stall Hugo, Patrick laughed. ‘What’s this now, Hugo?’

  Maisie frowned and glanced at Patrick. She shrugged, smiling, but he felt her underlying anxiety. No matter how many folk knew about them, Hugo was seriously out of order.

  ‘What announcement’s this, then, Patrick?’ Will piped up. He might be a friend but for once, Patrick wished he’d stay quiet.

  ‘I’ve no idea. Hugo’s winding us up,’ Patrick said.

  ‘Winding you up?’ He laughed in a nasty way that made Patrick’s skin crawl.

  Maisie approached Hugo’s table. ‘I think you’ve had enough, Hugo.’

  Hugo stopped her with a sneer. ‘I haven’t had anything. Patrick’s had plenty though, judging from the way you two were down each other’s throats during the fireworks.’

  A ripple of disapproval went through the drinkers.

  Hot anger flared in Patrick. ‘Right. That’s it. You’ve crossed the line. You’re leaving, mate.’ He made a grab for Hugo’s arm but Hugo backed away into the corner, rocking the table. Beer sloshed onto the tiles.

  With a whimper, Basil darted from under the table. Archie grabbed his collar and patted him. ‘It’s all right, boy. Just a bit of argy bargy.’

  ‘Calm down, boys,’ Hazel called but Patrick’s touch paper had been lit and his anger blazed.

  Maisie stepped between them like a referee. ‘I’ll deal with this,’ she said. ‘Hugo, I don’t like seeing you in this state and you’ll regret it in the morning. Would you please let someone take you home?’

  Hugo glared at her but didn’t move. Patrick braced himself, ready to haul the bastard off her if he made the slightest attempt to touch her. ‘I will go home but I won’t be the one regretting tonight. And seeing as my cousin is clearly too shy to make his important announcement himself, I’ll tell you.’

  ‘Cousin?’

  Patrick wasn’t sure who repeated the word amid the cat-calls and snorts of disbelief. ‘What the hell are you on about, Scorrier?’ Will asked.

  ‘You’ve had too much of the Rat and Ferret, Hugo. Go home.’

  ‘What did he say?’ Fen demanded in a loud voice.

  Hugo steadied himself on the table. ‘Well, Cousin Patrick?’

  Patrick darted a look at Maisie. She was staring, open-mouthed, not at Hugo, but at him. His stomach turned over and over.

  ‘Hugo …’ he began.

  ‘Hadn’t he mentioned it? No, I didn’t think so,’ said Hugo, swaying slightly.

  Maisie turned back to Hugo. ‘You’re tired and emotional, Hugo,’ she said. ‘I’ll get someone to take you home.’

  Panic, sheer molten panic flowed through Patrick’s veins.

  ‘Don’t you want to hear the full story?’ Hugo asked.

  He lurched towards Maisie.

  Maisie reached for Hugo’s arm to steady him but Hugo flung her arm off him. She flinched and made to grab him before he fell over. Jess gasped and stared at Hugo in horror. She seemed about to jump into the fray herself but Patrick thrust himself between them.

  ‘You’re out of order, mate,’ he said.

  ‘I’ll take the silly bugger home,’ said one of the boatmen from Petroc.

  ‘No. No one will take me anywhere until I’ve said what I have to say.’

  Hugo’s voice rose as he backed into the corner, his eyes darting about as if the people in the bar were a pack of hounds waiting to pounce on him.

  ‘Or should you tell them, Patrick? Should I call you by your real name – Henry Patrick Aldous Scorrier McKinnon, my cousin, the heir to Petroc Island and the real owner of Scorrier Holdings.’

  Chapter 35

  Maisie could hear the old clock ticking in the few seconds following Hugo’s announcement.

  Then uproar. Chaos. The thumping of her own heart. The cries of derision. The howls of laughter.

  But Maisie had eyes only for Patrick. Only for his ashen face and his hands hanging loosely by his sides.

  ‘Is it true? Do you own Petroc?’ she asked.

  Patrick’s words, loaded with quiet misery, cut through the mayhem. ‘Yes, I do.’

  She held on to the table for support. Murmurs started around her. Jess’s hand was over her mouth. Her father was breathing heavily and her mother let out a gasp.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ Patrick said, looking at her.

  Hugo sneered. ‘Oh dear.’

  ‘Get out,’ said Maisie quietly, standing between them.

  Patrick rounded on him. ‘You heard,’ he said.

  Maisie turned to him. ‘Not him. You.’

  Patrick’s face. She’d never forget it. The colour drained from it within seconds. Then, without a word, he nodded, turned away and walked through the open-mouthed throng of revellers, past her parents and through the back door.

  ‘What a shame. I was looking forward to an emotional family reunion,’ said Hugo as the door closed with a clink.

  Maisie stared at him in disbelief. She felt light-headed. ‘And you can fuck off too.’

  ‘Now come on, I’m not the one at fault here. I haven’t lied to you.’

  ‘Get out,’ Maisie shouted, not caring who heard her or if she caused a scene.

  ‘Come on, love.’ Amid the chorus of mutters and hubbub, an arm snaked around Maisie’s back. It was her father’s.

  ‘I knew this would happen. I knew he was trouble,’ Hazel said softly.

  Maisie was in no state to argue. She felt physically sick.

  Patrick owned Petroc. Patri
ck was part of Scorrier Holdings … all this time, he’d been deceiving her and lying to her? But it didn’t make sense. Why had Patrick been so shocked and angry with Hugo if he was working for him? Patrick looked like he’d seen a ghost when Hugo outed him. And Hugo had said Patrick was his cousin? How could that be? And why had he lied to her and come all this way to Gull and taken the job and slept with her and made her believe he cared about her?

  ‘We’ll sort this out, hun,’ said Jess, touching Maisie’s other arm. Something warm and wet rasped against her fingers. She glanced down. Basil gazed up at her out of his big brown eyes.

  Will took Hugo’s elbow. ‘You’d better come with me, pal, you’ve caused enough damage for one night.’

  Maisie forced herself to snap out of her catatonic state and flash a weary smile at her customers.

  ‘OK, folks. The show’s over and so is the party. I think we can agree we’ve had enough entertainment for one night so I’d be grateful if you’d go back to your beds now.’

  ‘You’ll thank me for this in the morning, Maisie!’ Hugo shouted while Will pulled his arm. Basil lingered next to him in the doorway and lifted up one paw and let out a whimper.

  ‘Oh, go and boil yer ’ead, Hugo,’ Archie shouted.

  ‘The truth hurts!’ Hugo shrieked as Will tried to bundle him out of the door.

  Doesn’t it just, thought Maisie as Hugo scuffled with Will and Javid. It cut you to the bone and brought your whole life tumbling down around your ears. And even worse, she didn’t even know what the truth was any more.

  Basil’s barks filled the room and there was a crash of breaking glass as Hugo flailed around. He swung a punch at Will who ducked just in time. Expletives filled the air and people pressed against the walls while Hugo ranted about ‘all he’d done for this effing community’ and ‘how beeping stupid they all were’ and that they ‘ought to be thankful to him and Graydon’ and that Patrick was out ‘to ruin them all’.

  To Maisie’s horror, Ray Samson joined the group trying to remove Hugo but he clung on to the doorframe for grim death. Any moment now Hugo was going to be dragged out by the hair and what if her dad had a heart attack? Maisie realised she was actually shaking. Hazel’s arm snaked around Maisie’s back. ‘Come on, love. Let’s get you out of here.’

  ‘Wait!’ Hugo screamed as a terrified Basil filled the bar with deafening barks. ‘It’s not just that bastard Patrick who’s lied to you. Your parents have agreed to sell the Driftwood to me. I bet you didn’t know that either!’

  Chapter 36

  In the first light of a gloomy New Year’s Day, Maisie stood in the doorway to the bar and saw hell. The place looked like a drunken hurricane had blown through it. Streamers hung limply from the ceiling and the floor was littered with party poppers, silly string and bottles. The tables were still covered with dirty glassware and paper plates holding half-eaten sausage rolls and sandwiches. Cards and unopened presents were piled on a table in the corner. A balloon with ‘Fabulous at 40’ on it bobbed up and down in the draught from the front door.

  And the place reeked. Of booze, sweat, stale food and sheer overwhelming misery.

  Fighting back tears, Maisie picked her way over the sticky floorboards, stopping to gather up the pieces of a broken bottle. She carried it gingerly to the bin behind the bar and dropped it inside. The drip mats were soaked and the bar was coated in a residue of sticky alcohol. The whole place was a health and fire hazard and she had never hated anywhere more in her entire life.

  Pushing half-empty glasses aside, Maisie put the black coffee she’d just made on a table opposite the window and sank down onto one of the cleaner chairs. She felt like an empty shell on the beach: a nothing, tossed about at the mercy of the sea. She had no idea if Patrick had gone back to the Piggery. Her main focus had shifted yet again: to the news that her parents were planning to sell the pub.

  They were still upstairs in bed, and probably too ashamed and upset to come down yet, after the mother of all rows that had taken place last night. Maisie had asked Jess to leave so she wouldn’t have to witness it.

  ‘Why?’ she’d asked them. ‘Why have you done this?’

  ‘We only decided a few days ago. We were going to tell you after your party but we didn’t want to spoil it,’ her mother had said.

  Her dad had wrung his hands in guilt. ‘We knew you’d be upset, love, but we’re too old for this. Hugo offered us a great price, more than we could hope for, and everyone else is selling up.’

  ‘They’re not. Not everyone, Una and Phyllis have changed their minds.’

  ‘Have they? For how long? You’re flogging a dead horse.’

  ‘We’re profitable. I can make the pub profitable.’

  ‘Maybe, but it’s such hard work. We’re worn out with it. We want to move to the mainland. We’ve seen a nice bungalow in St Just. You can almost see Scilly …’ her dad said. ‘You own a third of the Driftwood. You could buy us out if you really want to with the money from your flat in St Austell. It would go some of the way at least.’ Ray Samson had tears in his eyes. ‘Look, love, if selling upsets you this much, we’ll stay.’

  Hazel stayed tight-lipped.

  ‘You have to do what you think is best,’ Maisie had said finally, and left them to go to her room to sob her heart out.

  Now she heard signs of life from the flat but she couldn’t face them yet, and the fallout from the other bombshell of the night was beginning to hit her afresh. Abandoning the coffee, she hurried into the kitchen and grabbed an old coat from by the back door. She needed time and space to think of what to do next, though God knew what that would be.

  Her phone beeped in her pocket.

  Hun, r u OK? Stupid question. Phone me.

  Jess’s text was very early. She and Will wouldn’t have got back to St Saviour’s until well after two. Maisie ignored it: she didn’t know how she’d hold it together if she did speak to Jess, or anyone who’d seen and heard what happened last night. She’d thought the Driftwood was the centre of the community and it was the centre of her world, yet it had crumbled.

  Maisie sneaked around the side of the house. She couldn’t resist a quick glance at the Piggery. The curtains were open but that didn’t tell her whether Patrick was in there or not. She definitely didn’t want to see him or anyone yet so she headed straight for the beach. It was a grey morning, with thick skies and no sign or sound of a human. The tide was out about as far as it ever could go and an oystercatcher pecked the shoreline with its long orange bill. A mottled grey seal bobbed up and down in the channel, watching her. Gulls wheeled around in the sky, crying. She zipped up her jacket and walked towards ‘her’ rock.

  She’d gone over Hugo’s revelation and Patrick’s response time after time. She half wished she hadn’t chucked Patrick out, although she’d been so shocked last night, throwing him out had probably been self-protection.

  Now she wanted to know everything. No matter how angry she was with Patrick, she had to see him, if he was even still on the island. The future of the Driftwood and Gull was at stake, and that was bigger than her own shattered ego and heart.

  Maisie began walking around the headland in the direction of Hell Cove, trying to clear her mind. The spring tide had uncovered expanses of sand and rocks that rarely saw daylight, which meant she could walk all the way to the cove on the beach. Head down against the wind, she shoved her hands in her pockets and forced herself to put one foot in front of the other.

  She’d almost reached Hell Cove House when she saw Patrick on the beach in front of it, throwing a stick for a small dog she didn’t recognise. He was wearing the same clothes as when she chucked him out of the pub the previous evening. So he hadn’t slept in the Piggery then? He’d taken her order to get out of the pub as an order to leave the premises full stop. She felt a momentary pang of guilt. Had he been wandering the island all night?

  Then she reminded herself that the little dog wasn’t the only creature she didn’t recognise. Patrick wasn’t even P
atrick any more. He was Henry Scorrier, and far more importantly, he was a serial liar.

  He spotted her and stopped walking. The dog raced around him, a young Jack Russell. Maisie quickened her step, her heart in her mouth. She wanted to run to him, hold him and kiss him as she would have before but knew she never could or would again.

  He stuck his hands in his pockets and waited for her.

  ‘Where have you been?’ she asked, almost before he was within earshot.

  ‘Staying at Hell Cove House. The Bartons spotted me outside the community hall when they walked home last night. They let me sleep in one of the cottages. Not in the main house, they have a friend from St Mary’s staying. That’s her dog.’ The Jack Russell dropped a stick at Patrick’s feet and he flung it towards the sea. The dog skittered over the sand in pursuit of it.

  ‘So they know the whole story?’

  ‘They know nothing more than they saw in the pub. They didn’t ask and I certainly wasn’t going to tell them.’

  ‘Tell them what exactly?’ Maisie’s voice rose. She’d meant to be calm and cold when she finally confronted him but it was impossible.

  ‘I owe you an explanation.’

  ‘We owe each other nothing,’ she said quietly. ‘I’ve been a fool.’

  ‘No. I’m the fool. I’m sorry. So sorry that this got so out of hand.’

  ‘Who are you, Patrick? Who are you really?’

  ‘Hugo’s right. I am his cousin. His father and mine were brothers, though they never really got on. When my grandfather, Julian, died, he left Petroc to my dad, Hector, but Dad was only twenty-two and he’d just met my mum, Chloe.’

  ‘I knew your parents’ names,’ Maisie said when she realised she’d heard her parents talk about them, ‘and that they’d died in an accident in Australia. A car accident near Sydney, not a plane crash in the Outback as you claimed.’

  ‘I tried to stick close to the truth. Not in the details, because that would have given the game away …’