The House Beneath the Cliffs

by Sharon Gosling

  ‘You’re not on your own. You’ve got the hot Kiwi, at least for another few weeks. And I thought you were beginning to love the Fishergirl’s Luck?’

  ‘I am. I do! But this isn’t where I thought I’d be, especially not at this point in my life.’

  ‘Yeah, I know. Sorry.’

  ‘Anyway, it’s fun right now, but that can’t last.’ Anna bit her lip, trying not to ask but needing to. ‘Have you… heard anything? About Geoff, I mean? Whether he’s…’ she trailed off.

  ‘Anna,’ Cathy said. ‘You don’t really want to know, do you?’

  Anna rubbed a hand over her face with a sigh. ‘No. Except… I don’t know. I still find myself thinking about him.’

  ‘That’s not surprising. You were together a long time. And he always made sure you thought of him before anything or anyone else, even yourself.’

  She dropped her hand and looked at the poster again. ‘He’d probably laugh at me for the lunch club,’ she said. ‘He always used to hate the idea of supper clubs. Said they were only for second-rate chefs who couldn’t get a real gig.’

  ‘Yeah, well,’ Cathy said, darkly. ‘You know the truth about Geoff Rowcliffe?’

  ‘What?’

  ‘He really is a dick.’

  Anna laughed.

  Fifteen

  The day of the first lunch club rolled around quickly. Anna had pinned the poster to her door on Friday morning, hoping that some of the tourists that made it as far as the Fishergirl’s Luck would be intrigued enough to make a return visit.

  ‘I’m sorry I can’t be here,’ Liam told her again, as they stood at the harbour early on Saturday morning after he’d dropped off the fish she’d asked for.

  ‘It’s fine,’ she said. ‘I wouldn’t have expected you to be. I hope you have a good time. Be careful up there.’

  He kissed her. ‘Text me,’ he said. ‘Let me know how it went.’

  ‘I will. Now go,’ she said. ‘You’ve got places to be and I need to prepare this fish. Have a great time, be safe, and I’ll see you sometime next week.’

  Anna listened to the growl of the skiff’s engine as she hefted the crate up, ready to walk it back to the Fishergirl’s Luck. As she turned she saw an efficient-looking woman in a dark blue suit and low heels with a clipboard under one arm walking cautiously down the road into the village. She saw Anna and smiled.

  ‘Good morning, I wonder if you can help me. I’m looking for a place called the Fishergirl’s Luck.’

  ‘Oh,’ Anna said, in surprise. ‘That’s me. I mean, that’s my house. Is it me you’re looking for?’

  The woman looked her up and down, her gaze landing on the crate Anna carried. ‘My name is Belinda Turner,’ she said. ‘I’m the health and safety examiner responsible for eateries in this area. We’ve had a report of an illegal restaurant operating in Crovie. At the Fishergirl’s Luck.’

  Anna’s stomach turned over and then sank into her toes. ‘Oh, God. That isn’t – it’s not a restaurant.’

  ‘But you are selling food?’

  ‘No – not really. People aren’t obligated to pay if they don’t want to.’

  The woman gave her a steady look. ‘But you do invite donations?’

  Anna’s mouth ran dry. ‘I – well, I was planning to, to help to cover costs. Look, I know what I’m doing. I’m a trained chef, I have all my personal health and safety documentation up to date.’

  ‘That’s good,’ Belinda Turner said. ‘I’d like to see that, if I may. And the areas in which you’ll be serving and preparing food. I’m sure you understand – we’ve had a complaint, I can’t ignore it.’

  ‘Of course.’ Anna began to walk along the sea wall, feeling as if she were heading towards the gallows.

  ‘My goodness,’ the woman said, when she saw the Fishergirl’s Luck. ‘Is it this place? I’ve seen it on visits to Crovie before and always wondered what it was like inside!’

  Anna backed in through the doors, holding them open so that her visitor could follow. She put the crate Liam had given her onto the nearest work surface.

  ‘Feel free to look around,’ Anna said, as she opened a cupboard and took out one of the tubs she had bought specifically to store seafood. ‘I’m just going to get this fish sorted and into the fridge. My papers are in there.’ She pointed to a plastic ring binder on the bench beneath the stairs.

  ‘You’re planning to make the meals you want to sell from this kitchen?’ Belinda Turner asked, looking around before she reached for the binder.

  ‘My idea was to serve lunch on the bench outside a couple of times a week to whomever happens to be passing,’ Anna explained.

  ‘How many covers?’

  ‘No more than six. I couldn’t do more than that comfortably in a kitchen this size.’

  Turner nodded as she turned the pages of the records Anna had already begun to keep. A lifetime in professional kitchens meant that checking daily fridge temperatures and logging her cleaning routines came as a natural reflex, and Anna had been doing it since she’d first considered the idea of the lunch club.

  ‘Can I look at the fridge?’ Turner asked.

  ‘Of course.’ Anna stood aside as the woman sifted through the impeccably clean and perfectly organized shelves.

  Belinda Turner took her time. Anna watched as she shifted things here and there, opened drawers and cupboards, examined worktops and the oven. The woman’s demeanour was calm, her face entirely neutral, and yet the more time she spent looking at her kitchen in miniature, the more Anna’s anxiety grew.

  ‘What about bathroom facilities?’ the inspector asked.

  ‘I thought it would be better to ask my neighbours, who own the bed and breakfast opposite, to let guests use theirs instead of mine,’ Anna said, intensely glad now that she’d had this idea. ‘It’s inside the door directly on the other side of the path.’

  ‘That’s a sensible solution. What about the serving area?’

  Anna took her outside and showed her the picnic bench. ‘I haven’t dressed it yet,’ she said. ‘But I can show you a photograph of the last time I had friends over for dinner, if you like – I’ll be setting up the same.’

  ‘I don’t think that’s necessary,’ said Belinda Turner. ‘Look, it’s clear that you know what you’re doing, and honestly, I’ve been asked to rate kitchens that aren’t a patch on yours for cleanliness and organization. You’re clearly conscientious enough to keep your own rigorous checks. But here’s the thing. That sink really needs replacing. It’s badly cracked and even though I can see you’re fastidious about keeping it bleached clean, that’s still something that prevents me, in all conscience, from giving you the highest rating. You know as well as I do that you should have two washing areas – one for food, one for utensils.’

  ‘Yes,’ Anna said, ‘that’s why I’ve got the washing-up bowl, so that I can keep them separate.’

  ‘I understand that, Ms Campbell, and ordinarily I would accept that as a solution. But with the sink beneath as it is…’

  ‘That’s not a total strike out for a rating though, surely?’ Anna asked.

  ‘No, it’s not,’ Turner agreed. ‘It’d take you down to a four instead of the full rating of five. But I do think you should consider replacing the sink before you start this lunch club. With that, I’d be happy to give you the highest rating. You could operate with a four, you know that. However, I’d strongly advise you not to give whoever is out to meddle any further opportunity to make trouble.’

  Anna’s heart sank. ‘Right.’

  ‘I want to help you, I really do. And frankly, I don’t like people who are out to stir up trouble.’ She dug into her bag and pulled out a card. ‘Think about it. If you decide to make the changes I’ve recommended, call me. I’ll be out the same day if I can. But for now…’

  Anna nodded. ‘I understand.’

  Belinda Turner shrugged. ‘As for today – you could ask your friends at the Weaver’s Nook if you can serve from their kitchen. I did the rating
for their B&B myself, I know it’s up to scratch.’

  ‘That’s a good thought. Thanks.’

  The two women said their goodbyes. As the inspector walked away, the front door of the Weaver’s Nook opened and Pat and Frank appeared on the doorstep of the tradesman’s entrance.

  ‘We know her!’ Pat said in a stage whisper. ‘She’s the health and safety woman! What was she doing here?’

  Anna turned to look at the door of the Fishergirl’s Luck, on which was pinned Cathy’s beautiful poster for the lunch club. She reached out and took it down. ‘Telling me I can’t serve today.’

  ‘What?’ Frank said. ‘But why—’

  ‘Someone reported me for running an illegal restaurant.’

  ‘No,’ Pat said, appalled. ‘Who would do that?’

  ‘Do you really need to ask?’

  ‘Dougie, you mean? I doubt it,’ said Frank. ‘He’s spiteful enough, for sure, but I can’t see him working out who to call at the council and then going through with it.’

  Anna sighed. ‘Well, whoever it was, they’ve got what they want.’ She rolled up Cathy’s poster. ‘There’ll be no lunch club here.’

  ‘Oh love,’ Pat said. ‘I’m so sorry. What can we do?’

  Anna briefly considered telling them what Belinda Turner had suggested, about her serving from their kitchen, but dismissed the idea. It was supposed to be ‘Lunch at the Fishergirl’s Luck’, not ‘lunch made somewhere else and carried to a bench that happens to be beside the Fishergirl’s Luck’. Anna had been looking forward to serving out of the tiny puzzle box that was her own kitchen, not suddenly having to adjust to use someone else’s. Besides, if someone around her besides Douglas McKean was upset enough about her plans to stoop to such sabotage, did she really want to provoke them further?

  ‘Yes,’ she said, forcing a brightness she did not feel. ‘You can help me round up the Usual Suspects for dinner at the bench later. I don’t want all the ingredients to go to waste and I can’t eat everything myself. We’ll have our own dinner party instead.’

  * * *

  That evening, Anna served the meal she had been intending to give her first guests to Pat, Frank, Rhona, Robert and herself.

  ‘I’m so sorry, Anna,’ Robert said, his forehead furrowing into a deep frown once she’d filled in him and Rhona. ‘Maybe I should go and have a word with Dougie?’

  ‘We don’t know for sure it was him,’ Anna told him. ‘Frank seems convinced that it couldn’t have been.’

  ‘It doesn’t seem his sort of thing, complaining to the council,’ Frank said, with a brief shrug. ‘It’s not as if he’s a fan of bureaucracy in any form, is it?’

  ‘True,’ Robert agreed, ‘but he wouldn’t be above stirring up trouble. You know what he’s like once he’s got a bee in his bonnet, and he really seems to have one about Anna moving into the Fishergirl’s Luck.’

  Anna paused in the motion of refilling his glass. ‘What do you mean?’

  Robert grimaced slightly. ‘I didn’t want to tell you about it if I could avoid it. He’s been griping about the ownership of the place again. Firstly to me, and when I told him to knock it off, to anyone else he thinks might listen. Barbara said he’d called her the other day.’

  ‘Oh, for Pete’s sake,’ Rhona said. ‘Daft old coot. So any one of the people he’s been bellyaching at could have taken up the cause and used the lunch club as a way to put the boot in?’

  ‘I suppose so,’ Robert admitted. He glanced up at Anna again. ‘Did you get the solicitor to dig up the deeds?’

  ‘Not yet,’ Anna said. ‘I didn’t really see what good they would do. I mean, what am I going to do, tack them up in the window? But it sounds as though I’d better before I put this place up as a holiday rental. Otherwise I can see the same person – or people – making trouble online. You know how word of mouth and rumour works in the hospitality business. A couple of malicious reviews and I’ll be scuppered before I’ve even had a chance to establish the place. Besides, I’d hate to think that anyone staying here would be harassed for it.’

  ‘What about the lunch club?’ Pat asked. ‘You are going to try again, aren’t you?’

  ‘Yes,’ Frank said. ‘What you’ve served us today was absolutely delicious, Anna. And I can fit a new sink for you, no problem. It sounded as if this Turner woman would be willing to do a quick turnaround once it’s in. If we get the measurements written down and head up to Inverness first thing on Monday, I could have it in for you by Monday evening.’

  ‘Yes!’ Rhona said, with full enthusiasm. ‘Today wasn’t a cancellation, it was a postponement. Lunch club can start next weekend, instead, can’t it?’

  Anna sipped her wine and shook her head. ‘Oh, I don’t think so. It was a daft notion in the first place. No,’ she said, holding up one hand to fend off the instant protests from her friends. ‘I’d rather just cook for you lot. Really. Rhona, I’m sorry you went to the trouble of making me all this beautiful flatware, but believe me – I’ll make it a feature on the rental listing and I’ll take some of it with me wherever I end up.’

  Rhona shook her head. ‘The lunch club wasn’t a daft idea,’ she said. ‘It was a great one, and I’m sorry someone made you feel otherwise.’

  Anna reached out and covered her friend’s hand with hers. ‘Thank you,’ she said, as Rhona squeezed her fingers. ‘To all of you. It means a lot that I’ve made such supportive friends here. But I don’t want to go to war. Not over something that was only ever going to be for a few weeks. It really isn’t worth it.’

  Sixteen

  Liam surprised her by arriving at her door on Monday morning. She answered a knock to find him standing on the step of the Fishergirl’s Luck with a curiously pensive look on his face.

  ‘Hello,’ she smiled, as she held the door open to usher him past her. ‘I didn’t expect to see you so soon. Surely you only got back last night?’

  ‘Yeah,’ he said, bending down to touch his lips to hers in a brief kiss as he squeezed past her. ‘But you didn’t text.’

  ‘Ahh,’ Anna shut the door and followed him into the living room. ‘Well, that’s because I didn’t have anything to tell you.’

  ‘What do you mean? What about the lunch club?’

  ‘Didn’t happen,’ she said. ‘Do you want a coffee? I was about to make some.’

  ‘Hang on,’ Liam said, catching her by the wrist and turning her towards him. ‘What do you mean, it didn’t happen?’

  Anna explained the events that had led to the cancellation of lunch club, watching the look on Liam’s face grow darker by the second.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ he said, brow knitted together in a frown. ‘That was low.’

  She shrugged. ‘Who knows? Maybe they genuinely thought they were doing the right thing. Anyway, it’s done and I need to move on. Tell me about your trip,’ Anna said, as she headed for the kitchen. ‘Did you have a good time?’

  There was a slight pause before he said, ‘Yeah. It was good.’

  Anna looked over at him as she filled the kettle. ‘You don’t sound too sure about that. What’s wrong?’

  He smiled, but she could tell it was strained. ‘Nothing. Everything’s fine.’ He stuffed his hands in his pockets, hunching his shoulders. For a moment he looked very young. ‘Can we sit outside with the coffee? It’s such a lovely day.’

  ‘Sure,’ Anna said, a sudden weight inexplicably attaching itself to her heart. ‘I’ll bring it out in a minute – why don’t you go and sit in the sunshine?’

  By the time she followed him out he was sitting at the bench, staring out to sea, his fingers restlessly picking at the wood’s grain.

  ‘Okay,’ he said quietly, as she sat down beside him. ‘To be honest I did come here to talk to you about something. But it can wait, especially after the weekend you’ve had.’

  Anna began to pour the coffee. ‘Liam. Whatever it is – you can say it. I’m a big girl. Okay?’ She pushed his coffee mug towards him and he wrapped both hands around it.


  ‘All right. Well, you remember, when we started… this,’ he said, waving a finger between them, awkwardly. ‘We said it would be… you know, a relaxed thing. No strings. No permanent attachment.’

  Anna sipped the strong coffee and watched his restless fingers, thick and calloused by his work, skin tanned darker still by the sun. ‘Yes,’ she said, ‘I do.’

  ‘And it always had an end date, what with me going home at the end of summer, and you not planning to stay here either…’

  She looked at the anxious frown on his face. A look of worried concentration creased crow’s feet around his eyes.

  ‘You want to end this – us – now,’ she realized.

  ‘No.’ Liam looked her in the eye. ‘But the thing is, I kind of… met someone.’

  She watched him. ‘On the dive?’

  He nodded, shifting uncomfortably. His gaze flicked away from hers again, endlessly seeking the ocean. Perhaps it represented escape, to him: a passage away from whatever dogged him on land and that could not follow him to sea.

  ‘Look,’ Liam said quietly. ‘I’d like to… see her. You and I always said that we’d be casual, didn’t we? And we never agreed to be exclusive. I really like you, Anna, we have a lot of fun and I don’t want to stop seeing you. But I know the guy you were with before was a cheater, and I don’t want you to feel that’s what I’m doing to you by seeing this girl as well. So… I thought honesty would be the best policy. Before… well. You know.’

  Anna laughed at that. ‘Yeah. I know.’

  Liam sighed. ‘I don’t want to be a rat. You deserve better than that. And maybe if we were both going to stay here permanently… things might be different? But the rest of our lives are somewhere else, so…’ He shrugged, cutting himself off.

  ‘We have had fun,’ Anna agreed. ‘And we both knew it was going to end sooner or later.’

  ‘It doesn’t have to end,’ Liam pointed out. ‘Not yet. We can carry on exactly as we have been until I go home, or until you leave yourself, whichever comes first. I just – didn’t want you to find out from someone else and be upset by it, that’s all. People around here—’ He rolled his eyes. ‘Well. You already know what they can be like.’