by Chris Ward
Grace gave a little shake of her head. ‘Uh, dolphins?’
‘You want the café’s logo to have a dolphin on it? Since when have dolphins ever been seen off Blue Sands Cove?’
‘I imagine if you went out far enough—’
‘Far enough that you’d no longer be able to see the café. Too far. What else?’
‘Crabs….’
‘Dear, you’re advertising a café, not a clinic.’
‘I saw a grey seal the other night. It was watching me from the water. What about that?’
Mrs. Oldfield didn’t look convinced, but she shrugged anyway. ‘Better, but I’m not sure. I’ll draft you some designs so you can take a look.’
‘That would be great.’
It was Grace’s day off, so after thanking Mrs. Oldfield for her help, she left the tidy house on the corner of Upper Blue Sands’ little housing estate, and walked down to the small high street for some retail therapy. With the exception of one small supermarket, there wasn’t a lot on offer in the way of essentials, so she bought herself a couple of gossip magazines, a block of fudge and a coffee, and sat on a bench in the little village green to eat them. Not far up the street, the tiny primary school she had once attended was just finishing for the day. She watched parents gather by the gates to collect their children, who bounced around with the excitement of those knowing the school holidays were a few short days away.
The collection took less time than Grace’s nostalgia-tinted memory remembered, the number of local kids barely a fraction of what there had been twenty years ago. She had noticed too how barely half of the houses on the estate looked lived in, the majority now given over to holiday homes. It had been heading that way back when she had lived here, but now the wealth gap between the cities and the country was taking over. The likes of Hedges and Daniel with their successful local business were becoming fewer and fewer. She was the norm: the locals leaving the village in order to find their fortune. Most, however, stayed gone. It was unusual to come back.
A young mother was steering two children towards the swings in the village green’s centre. As she passed Grace, her eyes widened, and she made a fish-like gesture with her mouth, as though too surprised even to utter words.
‘Grace?’ she said at last. ‘Grace Clelland? No. It isn’t you. It surely isn’t. I mean, I saw you sitting here, and I thought, no it’s not her. But it is, isn’t it? It really is you. Isn’t it?’
Grace smiled. Becky Rendle. Unkindly known behind her back as Motormouth. The awkward, garrulous girl who had always been the class monitor or prefect or librarian, or just about any duty that was going, and had always had an awful lot to say about it. The first to raise her hand in class, to last to leave when the bell rang. Irritatingly studious and attentive, she wasn’t a girl who had ever been bullied because no one could be bothered to pick apart her complex personality. She had been everyone’s and no one’s friend at the same time, a pervasive, overbearing presence.
‘Becky Rendle?’ she said, before remembering Joan’s revelation. ‘Wow, it’s lovely to see you.’
Becky puffed out her chest with pride. ‘It’s Becky Hedge now. I’m surprised you haven’t heard. We had quite the celebrity wedding.’
Grace couldn’t for the life of her imagine why, but perhaps Hedges had used some of his lottery money to hire acrobats or even a magician. While her personality appeared intact, Becky had blossomed, the braces gone to reveal pearl-white teeth, her skin so flawless it could have been put through an Instagram filter, makeup done so expertly Grace wondered if Hedges had provided a budget for exactly that. Certainly, whatever fairy dust Blue Sands had to blow about, a fair bit of it had billowed Becky Hedge (nee-Rendle)’s way.
‘Uh … congratulations.’
Becky patted her stomach. ‘And we’re trying for one more.’
Too much information. Grace just smiled. ‘That’s fantastic. Hedges must be quite the—’
‘Stallion.’ Becky let out a long breath as she smiled. ‘Oh yeah. It’s like the more successful his business becomes, the more of a demon he is in bed. Like the two are connected.’
I’ll request Joan cancel the pasty order. ‘I’m pleased for you,’ Grace said. ‘And Hedges. I mean, Steve.’
Becky lifted her fingers and pushed her eyelids apart. ‘Can you see the bags under my eyes? I’m getting hardly any sleep.’
Please stop. ‘It must be a nightmare.’
Becky chuckled. ‘Yes, and no.’
‘So, what are your children’s names?’ Grace blurted, almost jumping up off the bench in an attempt to change the subject.
‘Riva and Dearin,’ Becky said, giving a general nod in the direction of the children and little indication as to which was which. Grace remembered both Hedges and Becky had been regularly seen lugging doorstop-sized fantasy novels around. ‘They’re boisterous, just like their father.’
‘Are you living here in the village?’ Grace asked.
‘Yes, just up the street there. Number 19. We’ve renamed it Red Rock Lodge.’
Suitably awkward yet somehow reflective of their combined personalities, their conversation made Grace reluctantly envious. The former Number 19 was on an outer corner of the estate, with a windswept view of farmland and rolling hills, a third floor and the biggest garden on the estate, one which encompassed the entire neighbouring plot. With Suncrust Pasties, Hedges was clearly doing very well indeed.
‘That’s a lovely house,’ Grace said, with real sincerity. ‘Are you planning to paint it red?’
‘Ha, the council said no.’
Small mercies. ‘That’s a shame.’
‘We’re thinking to have a stone wall built outside, though. Maybe we’ll paint that.’
‘I, ah, look forward to seeing it.’
‘Are you staying down here long? You should come over for dinner one time.’
‘Only if pasties are off the menu.’
‘Ha, they’re not allowed in the house. Steve gets his fill for lunch, but I don’t like all the butter.’
Grace couldn’t help but grin. Becky had been known at school for her butter sandwiches, cut as thick as cheese. Many had said they were the cause of the pimples that had often blighted her. Now, though, her skin was flawless fashion-magazine perfection. Cutting butter out of her diet had clearly done her some good.
‘I’d love to come round,’ she said. ‘I’m here for the summer. I’m helping Joan out in the café.’
Becky’s smile dropped. ‘Poor Joan. Such a terrible thing. I’ve helped her out a couple of times myself, but Steve likes me working behind the scenes, doing the accounts. I hope she’s handling it all right.’
‘She’s making the best of it.’
‘She always was that type. Better her than me. I would have fallen apart, even with Steve’s powerful arms to hold me.’
Grace wondered how she could refer to Steve in such a way without a hint of irony, sarcasm, or even jest. She considered asking Becky how much Steve could press, but was too scared of the answer.
‘Right, I’d better go chase those two terrors down,’ Becky said, glancing over at the swings, where one of the children had managed to scale the frame and was now hanging off the top bar. ‘Lovely to see you, Grace. I do hope we meet again soon. Nothing like bumping into an old friend.’
As she hurried off, Grace felt a warming sensation spread through her, the way it did with the first bite into the crisp crust of a freshly baked pasty. Becky was right. And despite the underlying melancholy she still felt like the cold bottom layer of a pond, she was slowly beginning to warm up to this place and its eccentricities. Everything had changed, yet at the same time, nothing had.
Stuffing another piece of delicious local fudge into her mouth, she stood up and headed for the road.
20
Training
The sun was just touching the horizon as Grace wheeled Joan across the road and up a little concrete ramp onto the promenade.
‘Do you want to go on
to the beach?’
Joan shook her head. ‘No, here’s fine. We have a good view and it’s warmer up here.’
Grace activated Joan’s wheel lock and then sat down on the edge of the promenade wall. She unwrapped a bag of fish’n’chips and handed it to Joan, then took another for herself out of the bag. Joan lifted a chip to her mouth, but Grace shook her head.
‘Wait a minute,’ she said. ‘We need to have a toast.’
‘What for?’
Grace pulled a box of wine out of the bag and set it on the wall. She unwrapped a pack of paper cups, took two and filled them with wine.
‘What’s this?’
‘Pinot Noir. It’s good.’
‘I meant this cup,’ Joan said, lifting it up and turning it around to reveal a logo. A swirling line wrote The Blue Sands Café, while above it was a grey circle with eyes and whiskers. ‘Why’s it got a picture of an old man on it?’
‘It’s not an old man. It’s a seal.’
‘It looks like an old man.’
‘Well, it’s getting dark. If you see it in the light you’ll be able to tell it’s a seal.’
Joan frowned. ‘Where did it come from?’
‘I got it made for the café. It’s your new logo. I was talking to some people about how we needed a proper identity if we were going to increase business. We can put it on mugs and t-shirts, maybe even over the door—’
Joan shook her head. ‘Ah ha, no chance. At best we’ll look like a wildlife sanctuary, at worst like a nursing home.’
‘But I thought—’
‘Nope. Not happening. I appreciate the effort, I really do, but please tell me you haven’t gone and ordered anything with this printed on them.’
Grace gave a forlorn shake of the head. ‘No. Only these cups. They’re a prototype model. I wanted to surprise you.’
‘Well, you did.’
‘So you don’t like it then?’
‘I’m afraid not.’
Grace fell silent. While she would admit that in the gloom the logo did appear a little more like a black blob than she would have liked, in the sunshine she had thought it okay. But if Joan didn’t like it, Mrs. Oldfield would surely be happy to tweak it.
Joan patted her on the arm. ‘I appreciate the effort,’ she said again. ‘Thanks for trying. Mum’s got her mind made up, though.’ Joan popped a chip into her mouth. ‘Quick, these are getting cold. What were we going to toast?’
‘Tomorrow is the first day of the school holidays,’ Grace said. ‘We should see a wave of tourists like never before.’
Joan lifted her cup. ‘Not if we’re wearing t-shirts with this logo on them, we won’t. Cheers.’
Grace had forgotten just how much she liked the mornings in Blue Sands. Up around seven as dawn was breaking on a clear, cloudless day with a tickly breeze in the air, it was still too early for most except a few dog walkers and delivery vans. Grace, wearing jogging gear, did a couple of laps of the foreshore, the soft sand building up a gradual power in her legs that road running couldn’t do. Then, so exhausted she wasn’t sure she could have ridden on the flat, she took the bike from where she had left it against the hedge at the bottom of Melrose Hill, climbed on and made a sudden surge for the start of the slope.
As expected, she barely made it to the first corner before her strength gave out, but it was better than nothing. If she was going to win the Melrose Hill Bicycle Race, she needed to be in better shape than ever.
Instead of giving up or heading back down for another try, she climbed off the bike and pushed it up the rest of the hill until it flattened out half a mile up. Grace propped her bike against one of the picnic tables in the viewing area and sat down, still breathing hard. She took a bottle of water out of a holder strapped to her waist and downed most of it in a single swallow.
The cove looked immaculate at this time in the morning. The tide was low, the stretch of golden sand out to the waterline glistening in the morning sun. The breeze was typically British, not quite warm enough to be pleasant, but the weather forecast was predicting temperatures touching thirty for the next couple of weeks. It was set to be a glorious beginning to the summer holiday. Grace had already seen a number of camper vans and cars with loaded roof racks heading for the campsites around the village. Many of the campers were yearly regulars, and over the years had become as familiar as old friends, showing up at the beginning of August then hanging around for the rest of the month before sadly departing shortly before the school holidays ended. Teenage holiday romances had abounded, in retrospect the heartbreak over the last few days of August worth the joy of the preceding weeks. Joan in particular had regularly fallen head over heels with some lad or other from the campsites, only to then break the poor boy’s heart when he showed up the following year, hoping to rekindle their summer love.
‘What goes on in 2008 stays in 2008,’ a sage fifteen-year-old Joan had once told Grace while sitting in the shadow of the promenade with a bottle of White Lightning open beside her. ‘2009 is a new hunting season.’
Grace was still sitting on the bench, fondly reminiscing when a familiar figure cycled into view. Jason, his face soaked with sweat, pedaled the last couple of metres then collapsed sideways onto the grass.
‘Are you all right?’ she said, as he groaned like a dying man, before disentangling himself from the bike and rolling over. He stared at her for long seconds, his chest heaving. Then, composing himself, he wheezed, ‘Nine minutes fourteen seconds. Best yet.’
Outwardly Grace tried to look impressed as she nodded, but inwardly she was pleased. It took the average person around eight minutes just to walk Melrose Hill, so Jason was still some way off the record. He was, however, a lot closer than she was.
When he had recovered enough to stand, he got to his feet and sat down at the adjacent picnic table. With a grin, he nodded at Grace’s bike.
‘I see we’re in competition.’
‘Two minutes, fifty-nine seconds,’ she said.
‘For real?’
Grace shook her head. ‘No. I had to push. But I’ll be there. You’ll be watching the soles of my shoes on race day.’
‘A challenge, is it? I love a challenge.’
Suddenly remembering Jason’s request at their last meeting, Grace forced a loud belch. Jason just watched her with amused interest.
‘You should get some Gaviscon for that,’ he said. ‘Sounds like you have a bit of acid reflux.’
‘Um, thanks.’ She stood up. ‘Listen, I—’
‘You don’t have a quick minute?’ he asked, suddenly jumping up.
This was going to get awkward. ‘Oh, is that the time?’ Grace said, glancing down at her watchless wrist. ‘I have to hurry.’
‘Wait, I just wanted to ask—’
‘Sorry, no time. Joan’s a slave master, and I have to um, floss before I go. I haven’t brushed my teeth for days!’
‘I know a good dentist if you need one. You remember Eddie Byrne from school—’
‘I’m good!’
Grace grabbed her bike and pulled it up, jumping on in the same movement. She was pedaling for the top of Melrose Hill before Jason could say another word.
The hill dropped sharply, and in moments Grace knew she was going too fast. The pink BMX’s gears were in decent order, but the brakes less so. Grace pulled on the rear brake and felt the wire give under the pressure. With a sudden burst of acceleration, she plummeted down Melrose Hill like an out of control rollercoaster car.
Trying not to panic, she gently worked the front brake, but felt it slipping as it tried to grip the wheel. It was slowing her just enough to make the turn around the Singing Rock, but she would need the long promenade to slow her. And if something was coming the other way—
The protruding field entrance came up quicker than she could have believed. She hacked sideways, narrowly avoiding plowing into the gate, using her feet to try to slow her down. She came around the corner, thankful that there was little traffic this early in the morning, a
nd even fewer people. The road was clear, the road was clear, the road was clear—
The woman appeared out of nowhere, jogging quickly into the incline of Melrose Hill, hair tied back under a baseball cap, tight lycra revealing an impressive figure. She looked up for one second, squealed with horror and dived into the hedge. Grace, fearing a collision, tried to swerve out into the middle of the road. The bike was going too fast. It jerked, throwing her forward into the hedge.
She might have gone right through to the field on the other side if a hawthorn bush hadn’t decided to enmesh her. Grace tried to struggle free, but everywhere was pain. Behind her, someone was asking if she was all right, and all she could do was groan because speaking caused a thick, thorny branch to scrape at her stomach.
‘Hang on, I’ll go and get some clippers,’ came Jason’s voice. She heard the other, asking again if she was okay. It took her a second to place it, but when she did, she wanted to close her eyes with embarrassment and wish the bike had thrown her all the way over the hedge, into the field beyond, or even better, into an entirely different reality.
‘Are you okay up there?’ Isabella said again.
21
Surprises
‘Mum’s got another bottle of Dettol up at the house,’ Joan said. ‘Let me know if you think you’ll need it.’
‘I feel like a pin cushion.’
‘You look like one. What on earth were you thinking? You grew up here too. That hill is lethal. Jason said you did a total dive-bomb.’
‘I lost the rear brake and the front was a bit spongy.’
‘Come on, Grace, spill. That’s a load of rubbish.’
Grace sighed. ‘It’s actually true, but I was trying to get away from Jason. I went too hard down off the top.’
