Make or Break at the Lighthouse B & B

by Portia MacIntosh

  ‘Thank you,’ I reply. ‘I promise you, it isn’t going to be as bad as you think it is.’

  ‘I’ll be the judge of that,’ he says. ‘So, what do we do first?’

  ‘I worked with this guy once – he was the frontman of a popular rock band. He’d spent years partying, drinking too much, having loads of casual sex.’

  ‘Oh, OK, maybe this isn’t going to be as bad as I thought,’ he says with a wink.

  I roll my eyes, amused.

  ‘Anyway, when he finally met someone that he liked, he’d forgotten what it was like to have a girlfriend. He didn’t know how to compromise or do things with someone else. So, why don’t we try and practise a little compromise? Is there something you like that you might not think a woman would enjoy?’

  I watch the cogs turning in Dean’s head as that little glimmer appears in his eyes. He pinches his tongue between his pursed lips as he formulates a plan.

  ‘Actually, there is,’ he eventually says.

  ‘OK, so why don’t you find something for us to do that you think I won’t like, and I’ll find something for you to do after that I’ll probably be more into than you?’

  ‘OK,’ he says. ‘Tomorrow. I am going to text you an address in the morning; you’re going to meet me there.’

  ‘Erm, OK,’ I say. ‘And what happens there?’

  ‘We compromise.’

  Dean has the look on his face of a man who has something very specific in mind. Is it weird that I’m looking forward to it?

  Chapter 22

  ‘Oh … my … God …’ I moan. ‘Oh my God!’

  ‘Do you like that?’

  ‘I love it,’ I practically squeal. ‘It’s so good.’

  ‘Not too hard?’

  ‘Not at all!’ I insist.

  ‘Everything OK in here?’ my dad asks as he enters the kitchen.

  ‘Everything is great,’ I enthuse. ‘Robbie has just made me some brunch and … oh my God! Seriously, he’s the best thing that has ever happened to this place.’

  Since Vince flounced out of the kitchen and Robbie took over as head chef, he has really come into his own. He’s trying new recipes left, right and centre, and they are all absolute winners.

  Today, for brunch, he has made me … well, I don’t know what to call it, but what it is, is a soft-boiled egg stuffed inside an avocado, which is covered in crispy breadcrumbs. It’s a millennial’s dream – if it doesn’t have a name, he should absolutely call it that.

  ‘Please, try one,’ Robbie says to my dad.

  My dad examines it suspiciously before taking a bite. As the perfectly cooked yolk runs out, I feel like I’m in an M&S advert.

  ‘Bloody good, that is,’ my dad tells him. ‘Good work, lad.’

  Robbie looks so pleased with his work. I’m so happy for him. He probably would’ve been here for years, working under Vince, being underappreciated.

  We make small talk as we eat before my dad finally asks me if I’m ready to go. He’s giving me a lift, to meet Dean, somewhere.

  My mum got me up and dressed before I ate, so I’m all ready to go. As she helped me into my clothes and pulled my long blonde hair into French plaits for me, just like she used to do when I was a kid, she told me to keep an eye on my dad for her, to sound him out in the car, to try and work out if something is wrong. So far though, he just seems like my usual, quiet, straight-talking dad.

  ‘So, this lad I’m taking you to see,’ my dad starts as soon as we’ve set off.

  I laugh. ‘He’s not really a lad, he’s a man – a police detective, in fact. A proper grown-up.’

  ‘Is this not a date then?’

  ‘No, no, no,’ I insist. ‘It’s work. I’m trying to help him find love. His sister asked me to help him. He’s divorced. She just wants him to find someone.’

  ‘Divorced?’ my dad says, looking away from the road to glance at me for a second. ‘How old is he?’

  ‘Oh, he’s not old,’ I say. ‘Maybe forty, tops.’

  ‘How old do you think I look?’ my dad asks, seemingly out of nowhere.

  ‘Erm, I don’t know,’ I say.

  ‘Come on,’ he prompts. ‘I don’t look my age, do I?’

  ‘Well, no,’ I reply. ‘You look great.’

  My dad nods, more than satisfied with my answer. He’s quiet for a few seconds before the latest Dua Lipa track comes on the radio.

  ‘Ah, I love this one,’ he says, turning it up. ‘The girls play it at the hut all the time.’

  I suppose the girls at the hut are the younger volunteers at the tourist information centre. Weirder than my dad seemingly hanging out with them, listening to Dua Lipa, is just how odd he seems right now. My mum is right: he does seem different. My dad doesn’t care about pop music or if he looks young for his age!

  I feel immediately uncomfortable and turn the music down.

  ‘Get any good scores on Pointless last night?’ I ask him. If there is one thing my dad loves, it’s quiz shows.

  ‘I didn’t watch it.’

  ‘What?’ I gasp. ‘I don’t think you’ve missed an episode since the show started …’

  ‘I just didn’t fancy it, and, well, it’s not very cool, is it?’

  My jaw drops at the idea of my dad living his life based on what is and isn’t cool. He’s in his fifties. Aren’t you supposed to be happy enough in your own skin to live your life how you want to by that age?

  ‘Well, here we are,’ my dad says as we pull up on a residential street. ‘I’m going out tonight, so let me know if you need a lift home later.’

  ‘But you never go out,’ I point out.

  ‘Lola, what is wrong with you today? Why do you care so much about what I’m doing? We don’t see you for months at a time and now you’re back and you’re bloody interfering,’ my dad rants, instantly shutting me up.

  ‘Sorry,’ I say weakly.

  My dad helps me out of the car and into my chair. He asks me if I want him to wait with me until Dean appears but I tell him no thank you. I feel awkward around him. He’s definitely up to something, I’m just not sure what. I still don’t believe he’d ever cheat on my mum, but something isn’t right …

  I’m snapped from my thoughts by my phone ringing. It’s Dean.

  ‘Hey, you close yet?’ he asks.

  ‘Erm, I’m here,’ I tell him. ‘I’m outside a random house?’

  ‘Great, I’ll be there in two seconds,’ he says. ‘Are you excited to spend a couple of hours doing what I want to do?’

  ‘I am,’ I tell him. ‘Are you looking forward to what I have planned for us after?’

  ‘I am indeed,’ he replies. ‘Oh, I see you.’

  Dean hangs up and hurries over to me.

  ‘So, just so you know, one of my friends is here with me, and I haven’t told him that my sister hired you to find me a bird because, you know, that’s so embarrassing. So as far as he knows, we’re friends. OK?’

  ‘Yeah, sure,’ I reply. ‘But where are we? Are we at your friend’s house?’

  ‘Nope,’ he replies. ‘I said I’d meet you here to throw you off. Where we’re actually going is around the corner.’

  ‘Oh, OK …’

  Dean wheels me along the street and around the corner where, tucked away, surrounded by houses, is a stadium. It’s not the biggest stadium I’ve ever seen, not a patch on Wembley, but it’s big enough.

  Dean wheels me over to a tall man in a rugby shirt who is waiting excitedly to greet us.

  ‘Lola, this is my buddy Alfie, Alfie this is Lola,’ Dean introduces us.

  Alfie leans forward and hugs me in my chair. ‘Nice to meet you,’ he says.

  ‘Nice to meet you too,’ I reply. ‘Big fan of your booze.’

  ‘Oh yeah?’

  ‘Yeah,’ I reply. ‘How do you think I ended up in this chair?’

  I’m not sure whether or not Alfie knows I’m kidding, but as Dean laughs, he laughs too.

  ‘So, Lola, Alfie’s lad has gone to Blackpool wit
h his friend for the weekend, so we have a spare ticket,’ Dean tells me.

  I smile to myself, at the thought of Marram Bay locals going to Blackpool for a weekend. From one tourist town to another. I suppose the tone is totally different though.

  ‘Oh wow,’ I blurt out. ‘I’ve never even watched rugby before.’

  ‘Well, just think of it this way, if you had a boyfriend, and he liked rugby, you’d have to get used to going all the time – I think they call it compromise.’

  Alfie is oblivious but I know just what Dean is getting at.

  ‘OK,’ I say, as a huge smile pulls across my face. I guess I am excited. ‘Let’s do it.’

  Alfie gives me my ticket – well, his son Frankie’s season ticket – and we head towards the gates that are currently welcoming a big crowd of fans.

  ‘Where and how am I going to sit?’ I ask.

  ‘Well, there is a bit for wheelchairs,’ Dean says. ‘But, I’ve had a word, and there’s somewhere we can store your wheelchair, if you want carrying to your seat?’

  ‘Erm …’

  ‘I’ll carry you,’ he offers. ‘I’ve done it before, I know what I’m getting myself into.’

  ‘OK, yes, let’s do it,’ I say excitedly. ‘Pick me up. Let’s score some goals … Are they goals?’

  Dean laughs. ‘We’ll get to that soon enough,’ he tells me.

  ‘How old is your son?’ I ask Alfie.

  ‘He’s ten going on fifteen,’ he replies. ‘He’s my stepson. Only been in his life a couple of years but last year he decided he loved rugby so I find myself here every time there’s a game on. I’ve never really been that into sport, but even I love it now. I think you’ll enjoy it.’

  Once my wheelchair is stored, Dean carefully lifts me up and carries me to my seat.

  ‘Is that OK?’ he asks.

  ‘Great,’ I reply.

  I think he was referring to his grip but, I don’t know, it just feels good being in his strong arms.

  We have to hover for a few seconds, at the bottom of the steps that lead into the stands, so Dean readjusts his grip. As he does so, he accidentally grabs my bum.

  ‘Eee,’ is the awkward, involuntary sound that comes out of my mouth.

  ‘Are you OK?’ he asks me. I don’t think he’s realised what he’s done.

  ‘Yeah, all good,’ I reply.

  ‘Don’t be so nervous,’ he tells me. ‘You’re gonna love it, I promise.’

  Chapter 23

  The Pingley Pirates are playing the Cholton Cobras. The Pirates are our team – I say our, because that’s how you have to talk. They’re not the Pirates, we’re all the Pirates, and what you might not know is that, as fans, it is apparently super important for you to bellow instructions at the players. Everything from shrieks of ‘what the hell are you doing?’ to technical instructions such as ‘get it out wide’ to impossibly violent and hopefully not literal demands like ‘break his neck’.

  ‘What do you think so far?’ Dean asks me.

  ‘It’s good …’ I say hesitantly. ‘It seems like there’s a lot going on. I just … have no idea what it is.’

  ‘Basically, if you’ve got the ball, all you have to do is put it down over the other team’s try line. While you’re doing that, the other team are going to throw themselves at you, to try and stop you. You can pass the ball to your teammates, but you’re only allowed to throw it backwards, see.’

  I watch as one of the Pirates throws the ball to a teammate, before no less than four Cobras launch their gigantic frames at him, all piling up together on the ground.

  ‘Oosh,’ I wince. ‘That was violent.’

  ‘It’s pretty much always like that,’ Alfie tells me. ‘Apart from when it’s even more brutal. Took me a while to get used to it.’

  I like Alfie. He seems like a sweetheart. He’s not your typical farmer-looking kind of guy. He has soft features and kind eyes. Sure, he looks strong enough, but he seems like a modern man – I mean, come on, he fell into rugby league because his stepson was into it.

  The crowd of rugby goers aren’t quite what I expected. I’ve only been to a few football games in my life (which I didn’t really enjoy, to be honest) and it wasn’t like this at all. Things here seem so laid-back. The last time I went to watch football, I felt like I was surrounded by young laddish men but here, I’m surrounded by families, excited little kids wearing pirate hats and eye patches, and old people who look like they’ve been coming here their entire lives. Everyone is so full of passion, chilling out, drinking, eating pies and hotdogs.

  There’s a band, somewhere – I haven’t been able to spot them yet – with wind instruments and a big drum, belting out chants and popular songs with lyric changes to apply to the players, which everyone but me seems to know the words to. The last one I heard was about a Pirates player called Billy John, sung to the tune of Michael Jackson’s ‘Billie Jean’. I don’t feel like I know enough about the players to understand the in jokes, but it’s amusing nonetheless.

  Dean isn’t singing along. Nor is he chanting along with the ‘you don’t know what you’re doing’s’ and ‘the referee’s a wanker’s’. I don’t know if that’s because I’m here, or because he’s a bit too cool, but you can tell that he loves it. Surrounded by all this family-friendly positive energy, I don’t blame him. It’s hard not to feel happy and excited here, like you’re part of a big family.

  By halftime the score is 16–10 to the Pirates.

  ‘Do the teams ever draw?’ I ask.

  ‘With so many ways to score points, and different things being worth different points, it’s really rare that teams draw. This is a pretty important final, for the Yorkshire derby, so you can’t end on a draw. Are you enjoying it?’

  ‘I am,’ I admit. I can hardly believe it myself, but I am.

  Halftime is a party all of its own, with impossibly small children from local primary schools coming onto the pitch to play mini games in little squares of the pitch set out with colourful cones. There’s a kicking competition, where a couple of people from the audience kick the ball from three different places on the pitch to win a variety of prizes and there’s even a dance troupe, fronted by the Pirates mascot himself, Pauley the Pirate, who can bust some incredible moves for a man in a massive pirate costume.

  As we get back into the second half, and the Cobras start closing in on us, the crowd somehow comes alive even more. Their cheers and chants roar around the stadium, the band is in full swing and Pauley the Pirate is excitedly dabbing on the sidelines. I might not know about rugby league, but even I can tell that this game must be important.

  As one of the Cobra players kicks a goal to equalise, 22–22, Dean hangs his head in his hands.

  ‘I swear, draws hardly ever happen,’ he insists with a bemused chuckle.

  ‘What happens now?’ I ask.

  ‘We just need to hope we do something in the final …’ Dean looks at the clock ‘… two minutes.’

  If I could move an inch, I’d be on the edge of my seat. Can they do it in this amount of time? I don’t even know but, for some bizarre reason, I believe in them and in an even more surprising turn of events, I actually really, really want them to win.

  From where we are sitting, behind the try line, we can see the Pirates trying their best to make it in our direction. Two minutes left to battle past the Cobras soon turns into one, which quickly turns into thirty seconds.

  A big, buff player called Gamble gets the ball. You can see him thinking, it must only be for a split second, about what to do. With a wall of Cobras in front of him, he kicks the ball. Time stands still. The stadium falls silent. The ball flies through the posts and comes hurtling towards us. I lift my hands to my face to stop it from smashing into me. Dean also reaches out to protect me, which sort of ends up in us both catching it.

  Everyone goes crazy.

  ‘Oh my God, we won,’ Dean says excitedly.

  ‘We did?’

  ‘Yeah, that drop goal gave us one point.�
��

  Everyone is screaming, chanting, celebrating – myself included. I’m so happy and I don’t even know why. I guess it’s just hard not to get caught up in it.

  A few people around us start chanting ‘put it up your jumper’ at us.

  ‘They’re telling us to keep the ball,’ Dean tells me. ‘The winning ball, no less.’

  ‘You can put it up your jumper,’ I laugh. ‘It looks pretty dirty.’

  ‘I can’t believe we won in the last few seconds – now that’s rare. Maybe you’re a lucky charm.’

  ‘Maybe I am,’ I reply, smiling back at him. He looks so happy.

  ‘Why don’t you guys come over for dinner this evening?’ Alfie suggests. ‘I’ll cook, Lola can meet Lily, we can hang out – celebrate the win.’

  There’s a hint of optimism in his invitation. I do wonder to myself, why he’s so keen to continue hanging out, until it suddenly becomes blaringly obvious: he thinks Dean and I are on a date, and he thinks it’s going well.

  ‘Well, we’re going somewhere after this,’ Dean says tactfully. ‘Somewhere that I don’t know about because it’s a surprise.’

  ‘You’ll find out soon enough,’ I tease.

  I suppose this is my chance, to say that whatever we’re doing will end late and we can’t make it, but … it might be helpful, to see Dean around his friends? This might be a good lesson for him?

  ‘I’d love to come over after, if Dean is free,’ I say.

  ‘Yeah?’ Dean says to me. He sounds surprised. ‘Yeah, me too. Count us in.’

  ‘That’s great,’ Alfie says. ‘I’ll tell Lily. Just give us a bell when you know what time you’ll be done.’

  ‘Well, you’ve survived your first rugby match,’ Dean says as he helps me to his car. ‘And you enjoyed it.’

  ‘I did,’ I reply. ‘I’m more surprised than you.’

  Dean helps me into the passenger’s seat and fastens my seatbelt before putting my wheelchair in the boot and joining me.

  I eyeball the police radio in his car. It’s weird, to think of him as a policeman. Obviously I know that he is one, I just can’t imagine it, and I don’t know how wide his jurisdiction is but I find it even harder to imagine any real crime happening here in Marram Bay.