Dearest Em
Thank you for your letter and the card – Snoopy rules!
Meeting you at summer school was one of the nicest things to happen to me. You are an amazing person. But I can’t have a relationship at the moment. I’ve got to focus on my music, and get ready for my auditions. The Royal College is my dream, but there’s no guarantee of getting in – as you know, being good isn’t enough! – so I can’t take any risks by being distracted. I’ve got to give myself the best chance. I hope you understand.
Have fun, amazing Em, and may all your dreams come true too.
Jonathan xxxxxxx
Nothing could have prepared her for the shock. She was devastated. The one person who had made her feel as if she mattered had turned his back on her. Yet again, her exchange with uptight Ruth flashed into her mind – her knowing expression, her arched eyebrow.
Did he have some special power that had made her imagine something between them? She replayed every moment they had spent together, every smile, every kiss, every touch, every word, analysing it and wondering how she could possibly have misjudged it.
He was the first person ever to make her feel as if it was OK to be herself. As if she was enough.
She wasn’t angry, like some girls would have been. She didn’t tear up the letter and scream. She just crumpled. She shut down. She didn’t speak. She didn’t eat. She didn’t want to get out of bed. She didn’t wash, or get dressed.
‘You’ve got to go to school tomorrow,’ said her mother, standing in her bedroom doorway the day before term started. She’d been desperately worried about her, trying to coax Emily out of her room, trying to get her to eat.
‘I’m ill,’ Emily told her. ‘I feel sick.’
She’d felt sick the moment she read the letter and it hadn’t gone away.
It would be some time before she realised the real reason why.
20
The following Wednesday, Mick slipped out into the yard with Mouse at his heels and headed to his four-wheel drive.
‘Hup,’ he said to Mouse, who jumped into his place on the back seat and settled down on his blanket. Mick climbed into the driver’s seat. He’d told Sheila he was going to pick up his eyedrop prescription, which was only half true. He’d pick it up afterwards so his alibi held water. But he was on an entirely different mission this morning. A fishing expedition.
Though he wasn’t going anywhere near the harbour.
He tapped nervously on his steering wheel as he headed west on the main road towards Tawcombe. It was the wedding announcement that had made up his mind and galvanised him into action after months of mulling it over. He was thrilled with the wedding news, of course. Jake was a good lad: a hard worker, not much of a drinker, a good laugh. Exactly what every father would want for his daughter.
He remembered the night they had brought Robyn home. Sheila had been very upset by the thought of the poor girl who had relinquished her baby, even though Robyn had been with a foster carer in the interim. Nevertheless, Sheila had sobbed all the way back in the car. Mick had felt pity for the girl, of course he had, but they weren’t responsible for her grief. He didn’t know how to console his wife, but he supposed the whole thing was a bit of an upheaval and maybe a good cry was what she needed.
They still couldn’t believe they’d got her, this little creature with the grave grey eyes who watched them intently when she wasn’t sleeping. He had carried her car chair into the kitchen and put her on the table, and her gaze had glided around the room, as if checking it over, and then up to him.
‘Hello,’ he said, holding up a thick finger for her to grab. ‘Hello, Robyn.’
At the sound of his voice, she’d given a big smile, a dimple appearing in her cheek, and the smile reached her eyes, making them crinkle up, and Mick and Sheila had visibly melted, leaning against each other for support.
‘You’re my little maid,’ he said to her, in a broad Devon accent, and Robyn’s smile had got even wider. ‘You’re my little maid.’
She was still his maid, thirty years later.
But the wedding announcement had brought home his predicament. He couldn’t hide from it any longer.
In Tawcombe, he managed to find a coveted parking spot on the high street. Then he walked with Mouse at his heels, past the greengrocers and the mini-market that housed the post office and the tiny cinema that was, by some miracle, still going, and into the estate agent by the pelican crossing.
‘I’d like to see Geoffrey, if that’s possible,’ he said to the receptionist. ‘It’s Mick Moss, tell him.’
She asked him to wait for a few moments. He wandered around the office, looking at all the houses for sale, marvelling at the prices of the prime properties. Little cottages you once couldn’t give away were going for over a quarter of a million. Penthouse apartments with a sea view were going for even more. In the last decade, the area had gone from a quiet coastal backwater to a playground. And it was going to get even more popular, with people cutting down their carbon footprint by not flying abroad for holidays.
People like him had been cashing in over the past few years. So far, he had managed to resist the temptation.
Geoffrey had once been the only independent estate agent in the area, but now there was stiff competition from chains and online agencies and Geoffrey had to fight to keep up. He kept his ear very close to the ground, and most of the people who were Everdene born-and-bred still went to him if they decided to sell up. Despite his flashy exterior he was old school, and his assistant did a very nice job of showing around prospective purchasers. And he still had the personal touch.
‘Mick,’ he said cheerily, coming out of his back office. ‘Come on in. What can I do for you? Coffee?’
‘Tea for me, please. Two sugars,’ said Mick, following him into his office and sitting down in front of his desk. After a few minutes of polite chat, while coffee and tea and chocolate digestives were brought in, Mick played his hand.
‘I’m thinking about selling Hawksworthy,’ he said. ‘Can you tell me what it might be worth?’
Geoffrey looked shocked. ‘I never thought I’d hear you say that, Mick.’
‘Nor me,’ said Mick. ‘And it’s not definite. I just want a ballpark figure. So I can think things over.’
He knew he could trust Geoffrey to keep quiet. Confidentiality was key in this business.
Geoffrey leaned back in his chair and considered his reply. Valuing was a game. You had to get the estimate right, both for the vendor and the buyer. He’d been out to Hawksworthy often enough over the years so he didn’t need to view it. He knew every farm along the coast and over the moors. Their acreage; the farmhouse; the outbuildings: his mind was a map.
‘Well, there’s quite a demand for a place like yours these days. People wanting to live the good life. I’ve got a film director looking for somewhere. His wife and kids are horse mad. And he’s a keen surfer, in his spare time. He wants a nice holiday home for them all. Hawksworthy would do him perfectly.’
‘Holiday home?’ Mick scoffed. ‘He’s kidding himself if he thinks it would be a holiday home. Hawksworthy is a full-time job, even when you’re not farming it. And a drain on the pocket.’
‘Money’s not a problem.’ Geoffrey took a chocolate digestive from the open packet on the table. ‘And he’ll be doing a complete re-vamp.’
‘Good for him.’ Mick tried not to sound bitter, but it had torn him apart, seeing Sheila so despondent in the wake of their financial troubles.
‘I know things are tough for you up there.’
‘We manage.’ Mick tried not to sound defensive, too. Somehow life was grinding him down. He wanted to feel joy again, and he suspected that meant freeing himself up and giving himself some room to breathe.
‘I know. You’ve done a great job. But I know you’ve found it hard since …’ Geoffrey bit into his bis
cuit. He didn’t much want to say the words. No one in the farming community ever liked mentioning it.
‘The truth is, Geoffrey, I’m never going to recover from that. Not unless I win the lottery.’
He didn’t just mean financially. There’d been compensation, after all. It was the emotional toll. He was still ashamed that it had affected him so badly. He hadn’t had the fight to start again and build up a new herd. He couldn’t live with the shame or the humiliation or the fear. He felt like a coward. Thank goodness for Sheila. But he didn’t want to talk about that.
‘So how much?’
Geoffrey puffed out his cheeks. ‘Well,’ he said. ‘It’s a unique spot. Ticks a lot of boxes, especially with that view. That’s what they all want. A coastal setting commands a premium.’
‘So what do you reckon’s a reasonable asking price?’
‘On a good day?’
Geoffrey named a sum. Mick gave a low whistle.
‘You think someone would pay that?’
‘If you get the right person. You can always come down on price, but you can’t go up,’ Geoffrey told him.
‘Handsome,’ said Mick.
‘I’ll come and stay on the yacht,’ joked Geoffrey. He wasn’t going to put pressure on Mick. That didn’t work with farmers like him. They had to work through the pros and cons, and there was a lot of emotion tied up in their land. Emotion they didn’t always show, but felt deeply.
Though if Mick had made the effort to come and see him and ask the question, he’d worked through a lot of that already.
‘I could put a feeler out to this film chap? Mention you’re thinking of selling?’
‘Can’t hurt to ask. Can it?’
‘It can’t hurt at all.’
‘Right,’ said Mick, standing up. ‘Thank you.’
‘I’d be happy to do business with you, Mick.’
Mick nodded. ‘Let me know what he says. And I’ll have a think in the meantime.’
The two men shook hands, knowing that if Mick was to sell, the deal was sealed.
When he got back to Hawksworthy, Mick let Mouse out and set off across the land.
He and Sheila could find endless ways to make the farm work. But he didn’t see the point of them slaving even harder. They should be winding down. They were both over sixty. Not retirement age, by today’s standards, but not a time of life to be embarking on new ventures.
Geoffrey’s valuation was circling around Mick’s head as he set off across the fields, Mouse leading the way, ears pricked in excitement, bouncing like a deer. The spring grass was coming through now, rich and lush. The hedges were greening up, teeming with wildlife: weasels and voles. Foxes. Shrews. Hedgehogs. There would be deer over the crest of the hill. In the summer, swifts and skylarks; red admirals and painted ladies; shimmering dragonflies and beetles. A hare if you were lucky; perhaps a buzzard.
And any minute now, swathes of bluebells would replace the last of the daffodils he was walking through, a purple carpet that would bring an ache to the throat of any painter.
Sheila had once suggested Bluebell Walks at the farm, followed by cream teas, but he hadn’t wanted any old person tramping over his flowers. And that was the crux of it. Even with the promise of big money, he couldn’t bear the thought of the bluebells belonging to someone else.
Not just the bluebells, of course. All of it. This was where he had been brought up. The only place he had ever lived. He had been born in the bedroom that was theirs now. His mum had popped him out and gone down to make breakfast for the farm workers, by all accounts. He could believe it. His mum had been capable, hard-working, tireless, and he had found those qualities in the woman he had married. They were women who gave of themselves and didn’t ask for much in return, because on a farm like this you were all in it together.
He spoiled Sheila when he could, and made sure she was appreciated. But it was several years since he’d been able to whisk her off to the Scillies for a week of pampering.
The sum of money Geoffrey had mentioned whirled around in his brain. OK, so he might not get that much, but even if it was a hundred grand less …
He began to work out what they could do with it.
He’d be able to help Clover out with her university fees and living expenses. She’d been working hard and he didn’t want her to have to worry about getting a bar job or going deep into debt. He could get Sheila a new car: the Corsa had only just got through its MOT last time and Lionel at the garage had warned about the crank shaft. He could pay for another polytunnel for The Moss Partnership, which would make their profit margins higher if they could supply plants themselves to their clients. There was plenty of room for another on the piece of ground that had gone with the Linhay.
And if he didn’t have the farm round his neck it would free him up to help them with the business. They were talking about taking on a couple of full-time labourers, but he could offer his services as and when – that way they wouldn’t have to pay over the odds.
And now Jake and Robyn had announced their plans, he could help out with that too. It would be lovely to slip them a bit of cash to give them the wedding they wanted. He was pretty sure Rocky would. He wouldn’t be crass enough to do it in front of Mick and Sheila – he’d be discreet – but no doubt he would take his son to one side at some point. That’s what good parents did, after all.
And the baby. Babies were expensive. He eyes went misty as he thought about his two girls. He’d have given them the moon if he could, but they’d done their best with what they had. It would be lovely, he thought, if he could give his grandchild things without a second thought.
He climbed up over the brow of the hill and looked down through the cleft that led down to the sea. It was a unique position, the vertical cliff with its grey face shearing down into the frothing sea – he had never seen it calm and flat, not even in the height of summer when the pressure was high and the sea just around the bay at Everdene was like a millpond. Here, it was always in a torment, raging at the shore for some imagined slight.
It took his breath away every time.
Could he really give it all up, just for the sake of never having to get up at five in the morning again? To take the pressure off him and Sheila? Hawksworthy looked idyllic – at its best, it was paradise – but it came at a price. It was needy, demanding, expensive. Perhaps, when it came down to it, it was a luxury he could no longer afford. No doubt the film director could pay for the hedges to be relaid, the drystone walls to be repaired, the cattle grids with missing bars to be replaced.
Mick still had a dream; a little fantasy he indulged in whenever he walked the land. He longed to buy a small herd of Jersey cows and let them loose on his pasture, using the traditional techniques once used by his grandfather before more intensive farming became necessary. He’d produce beautiful rich, creamy whole milk which he would bottle and hand-deliver to selected suppliers. Mick Moss Milk had a ring to it – or did that sound silly? Either way, he imagined it poured into porridge and creamy rice puddings and splashed onto cornflakes. Small plump hands wrapped around glasses of ice-cold milk; elderly fingers warmed by mugs of cocoa.
But he would never have enough spare cash to buy the beasts he needed. The farm was taking up every last penny. He had to let go of that dream. He would have to find another. It looked as if the answer had been handed to him. But did he have the courage to give up the thing that mattered the most to him, and turn his back on four generations of the Moss family?
21
Like any job that you blithely assumed would only take five minutes and a lick of paint, tarting up the Shedquarters in just less than a month was going to take up far more time than Rocky first thought.
A few days after Jake and Robyn had announced their plans, he came down with a notebook and pencil to make a list of what he needed to order. Half an hour later he had filled two pages. Tw
o different colours of paint, for a start, because Robyn had mentioned stripes and he wanted to give her what she wanted. New felt for the roof – it was torn in several places and they only needed a severe winter and it would peel off. Varnish for the steps. Two new lights for outside the door. He thought some of those industrial fisherman’s lamps would look the part. And then perhaps some LED lights for added twinkle. A new sign – he could paint that at home; there was just an old bit of plywood with The Shedquarters daubed on it, but he would do some proper lettering. New door-handle.
This was going to be a total refurb. He’d have to come off-site to get it done. He didn’t mind. He had a good gang working for him and they wouldn’t miss him for a week or two. He didn’t take on skivers or shirkers.
And it was important to him, even though Robyn and Jake had insisted the hut was fine as it was. It was a matter of pride to Rocky, who was a perfectionist. It was fine for the hut to be ragged round the edges while it was a glorified changing room, but if it was going to be the wedding venue for his oldest son, it needed to step up.
He was just pulling at the soffit boards and concluding they could do with replacing too when his phone beeped at him. He pulled it out of his pocket and squinted at it in the April sun.
A WhatsApp message. From Melissa.
They’d moved from the dating site to WhatsApp after they’d matched, because that seemed to be the protocol if you were interested in each other.
He’d taken himself off Seaside Singles straight away after his disastrous date. He wasn’t going to put himself through that kind of humiliation ever again. He didn’t think he was quite so sensitive, but it had really knocked his confidence. He’d gone over and over the evening in his head, wondering what he had said or done, despite both his sons telling him, ‘It’s not you, it’s her.’
A Wedding at the Beach Hut: The escapist and feel-good read of 2020 from the bestselling author of THE BEACH HUT Page 13
