Escape for the Summer (12 page)

“Right, there’s nobody in here worth hanging about for,” she said dismissively. “Just lots of day trippers and holidaymakers. How about we shoot across to Padstow and see what’s going on at Rick Stein’s?”

Gemma, tired after her long drive, didn’t think she could face queuing for the ferry and then fighting her way through the hordes in Padstow. Besides, she’d promised to check in with the Tregartens, the owners of their caravan, before it got too late. She knew that as soon as Angel was in Padstow she’d be tweeting selfies outside the world-famous seafood restaurant and updating her social network site non-stop with pictures and micro blogs. Then she’d probably hit the shops for another few hours before settling herself down prettily at the harbour side in case a passing millionaire showed up to give her a lift back to Rock on his superyacht. Having a fat friend in tow was only going to cramp her style.

“I think I’ll go and check out the caravan,” she began – but was swiftly cut off.

“Ssh! Are you crazy! Don’t mention that here! Or anywhere, in fact.”

Gemma was confused. “Mention what?”

Angel lent forward. “The C word,” she whispered. “Caravan. We don’t want anyone knowing we’re living in a caravan.”

They didn’t? This was news to Gemma. “Why not?”

“Because we want to fit in. Look around you. Do you think anyone in here is staying in a
caravan?”

Gemma glanced around. The café crowd, groomed and glossy as corn-fed ponies, looked as though they had stepped out of the Fat Face catalogue, via Boden. Most of them would be staying in the stunning second homes strung out like charms on Pandora bracelets, along the coast from Rock to Daymer Bay. These people had probably never been in a caravan in their lives.

“The point is,” Angel continued, her eyes taking on the kind of glint more commonly associated with religious fanatics, “that we
look
as though we are
exactly
the same as them. If we make sure we’re eating in the right restaurants, even if it’s just a starter at Jamie Oliver’s or chips from Rick Stein’s takeaway, then we’re going to be mingling with the right crowd. If I wanted to hang out with people who go camping I’d have gone to bloody Glastonbury!”

Gemma wasn’t convinced. “I thought we were here to get on Callum South’s show?”

Angel flipped her new blonde extensions (the end result of yet another maxed-out credit card) back from her shoulders and scooped them up onto her head in an untidy updo that was instantly the pinnacle of messy chic. If she lived to be a hundred years old, Gemma knew she could never pull off that kind of skinny grunge glam. Feeling a familiar stab of despair she crammed another handful of crisps into her mouth and munched hard.

“Babes, that’s more your thing than mine, being an actress and everything,” Angel said kindly.

“You mean you’re already skinny and I’m a fat lump,” said Gemma thickly through her crisps.

Angel sighed. “No, I mean because you have your heart set on that show. I’m looking for something different, something for me. I’m not sure what that’s going to be yet but I do know I won’t find it sitting in a café eating carbs. I need to be seen in all the right places. The kind of guys I’m hoping to meet won’t be in here all day any more than they’ll be at Butlins. They’ll be out in their boats, eating at Stein’s and cruising around in supercars. I need to make sure that’s where I am too. Even if I’m just having a glass of fizzy water in the yacht club then at least I’ll be in the right place.”

Gemma stared at her. “So let me get this right. You’re only here to look for a rich man? Forty years of feminism and it’s come to this?”

Angel shrugged her slender shoulders. “It was good enough Kate Middleton.” Her smooth brow pleated. “Maybe I was too hasty dropping out of uni?”

“You were at UCL, not St Andrews,” pointed out Gemma.

“True. Anyway, I’m not saying that I’m not looking for love either.” Angel crossed her fingers under the table. The last thing she needed was love. That only complicated things, as far as she could see. Look how much her mother had adored Alex Evans – it hadn’t exactly done her any favours. And Andi was as bad, breaking her heart over that bloody Tom. No, as far as Angel was concerned it was Project Rich Guy all the way from now on in. If he happened to be a pop star or even a footballer that was fine by her. She wasn’t going to be totally fussy. “But it’s time I set my sights a little higher. Besides, I think if I try to break into any more private estate I’ll end up doing time!”

The girls laughed. In the corner of the café, just in the shade and sitting alone, a slender man with long floppy hair the colour of treacle looked up. Catching Gemma’s eye he smiled and raised his glass. A chunky watch sat snugly on his wrist and designer sunglasses were pushed back into his hair. Angel was seemingly oblivious, but Gemma felt herself start to do a beetroot impression. Oh God. She was simply hopeless at all this flirting and impressing stuff. In fact, Gemma decided, she actively hated it. She much preferred it once you were actually settled into a relationship, when all that insecurity had vanished and you both knew exactly where you stood. Then you could cosy up on the sofa watching DVDs and eating curry to your heart’s content, wear your pyjamas and not worry whether or not somebody liked you. In the morning you’d wake up all snuggled up together before wandering into town hand in hand to have a bacon sandwich or maybe a pastry.

Oh God. No wonder she was so fat. Even her romantic fantasies involved grub. Maybe she should just get off with the Little Chef and be done with it? It was just as well she was here to try and get herself featured on a weight-loss show.

“Anyway, probably best you do stay around,” Angel said, fishing change out of her Radley purse. “Andi won’t be far away and I don’t like to think of her being on her own at the moment. She’s having a tough time.”

Gemma nodded. She didn’t know Andi that well but she sympathised with her and had been trying really hard to cheer her up the best way she knew how – by cooking delicious cakes.

“She knows where we’re staying,” Angel added, “but if I know my sister she’ll probably be trying to get a signal on her BlackBerry and figure out what the FTSE’s doing or something. Let’s hope she can kick back a bit here or else we’re all in trouble.”

Having settled the bill, the girls parted: Angel headed down to the beach to hop on the water taxi while Gemma meandered back through the town. It had been several years since Gemma had last visited and she was surprised by how many new buildings had appeared. Several old timber-framed houses had vanished and vast glass and wood structures had sprung up in their place, their windows blinking in the late afternoon sunshine like bright eyes enjoying unrivalled views over the town. Outside them on immaculately raked gravel drives Aston Martins nestled next to Range Rover Sports and funky new Beetle convertibles, the Rock teenage driver’s weapon of choice. Warmed by the sun and charmed by the views that met her at every turn like a living tapestry, Gemma spent a happy couple of hours wandering through the town. Not once did she bump into Andi, which surprised her because the town wasn’t very big. Gemma had heard Andi crying quietly the night before and she really felt for her friend’s sister. She’d soaked a few pillows herself when Nick had dumped her. It wasn’t nice. Maybe Angel’s practical approach did make more sense?

Gemma was just about to retrace her steps to the car, via the beach again just in case Andi was there, when the smell of pasties stopped her in her tracks. For a second she was transported back to her mother’s kitchen, doing her homework at the old oak table while Demelza Pengelley fried up onions, swede, potato and beef in an ancient skillet. Just the thought of how the golden pastry rose in the Aga made her mouth water. Oh God. A real Cornish pasty! Not one of those limp and pallid imposters they tried to fob her off with in London! Gemma’s stomach rumbled. Maybe she should buy one just as a welcome-back-to-Kernow treat? One wouldn’t hurt, would it?

It was as though her feet had a life all of their own. Before she even knew what she was doing Gemma found herself following the meaty aroma through the main street and up a tiny side road, so small and narrow that she might have overlooked it if she hadn’t been so intent upon her quest. Up the street she walked, her strides gaining a pace that Davina, Josie and Jordan’s workouts
had never inspired. At last she saw it: a shop with a small steamed-up window and faded awning shimmering in the evening sun like a mirage.

Rock Cakes.

Cakes, buns and sausage rolls; Gemma didn’t care about those right now. All she knew was that she had to get to those pasties! She had to sink her teeth into the soft pastry, feel it crumbling and flaking against her lips, gasp when the hot air puffed against her tongue.

Who needed men when there were pasties in the world?

Like an Olympian only seconds from the finish line, Gemma picked up speed. Nothing mattered now except getting her hands on those pasties. She’d buy one each for Andi and Angel too. That wasn’t being greedy: it was finding dinner.

If Gemma could diet half as well as she could make excuses she knew she’d be a size zero by bedtime…

Three steps, two steps, one step and she was there! Almost giddy with relief, Gemma launched herself at the door, seconds away from her goal and fuelled by a ferocious hunger. In seconds she would be biting down into pastry…

But unfortunately Gemma’s pasty vision stopped her from actually looking where she was going. Just as she shoved the bakery door open a plump man was stepping out of the shop, his arms filled with fat sweating packages and boxes of cream cakes. The door slammed into his stomach with such force that the goodies he was holding flew into the air. Sausage rolls, saffron buns and éclairs rained a calorie shower; cream splattered the floor and pastry drifted like flaky autumn leaves.

It was carb carnage.

But it wasn’t the mess that made Gemma cry out in horror. If the only problem were the mess she would have been fine. No, it was worse than that. Much worse. The man she had crashed into and covered in food was none other than Callum South.

Chapter 12

“Here we go! Two bog standard coffees and a couple of slices of carrot cake.”

Jonty placed two white mugs, a packet of biscuits and some huge wodges of cake onto the weathered picnic table and motioned at Andi to take a seat. This was easier said than done because the splintering wood was smattered with seagull droppings, but eventually she managed to find a fairly safe patch. Once seated, she wrapped her hands around the chunky ceramic.

“Believe me, this is great,” she told him with a grateful smile. “Any coffee, bog standard or otherwise, is more than welcome. And the cake looks great too, so thanks.”

He smiled back. Although his eyes were hidden behind shades, Andi could already tell that they were crinkling and twinkly. Jonty,
FT
angel, seemed to smile a lot.

“My pleasure. But you’ve probably already gathered there’s nothing much on offer here that isn’t bog standard,” he said, swinging his tanned legs over the bench and then reaching for the sugar bowl. “There’s nothing posh like a latte, I’m afraid.”

He was right: Andi had already gathered this. The café was, as Jonty had warned her earlier on, basic. They had walked a little way out of Rock, leaving behind the more stylish establishments with their distressed tables and chairs and loops of shabby-chic bunting, and climbed the hill to an industrial estate. Jonty wound his way between the units, chatting easily about the small boatyard they passed and filling her in on which royals had been taught to waterski by the tousle-haired owner who waved cheerily at them. Angel would love to hear all this, Andi thought, but she wouldn’t have been quite so impressed with the ex shellfish-packing unit – still complete with eau de seafood – that now served as workman’s café to the marine engineers and ski instructors. A tea urn, a chiller cabinet with a few exhausted ham sandwiches, and some plastic tables completed the look. Outside, two ancient picnic tables had been abandoned on a patch of grass at such an acute angle that they listed drunkenly.

They did have a sign up advertising a vacancy for part-time staff though. Andi had made enough cups of coffee for her office colleagues in the past to feel confident that she could cope with the job. She’d make an enquiry before they left.
You never know
, she thought,
maybe I’ll be able to pick up some work?

In the meantime Andi was eternally grateful to Jonty for the coffee and cake. Several calls to Angel had gone unanswered and until she found her sister she was penniless. Any coffee, unsophisticated or otherwise, was very much appreciated. Lattes were out of her budget for the foreseeable future; that was for sure. As were food, rent and basic survival, unless she managed to get her act together somehow. This carrot cake would have to last her until Angel or Gemma went shopping. Since Angel existed on thin air and Gemma would guzzle all the food before it even reached the fridge, Andi was very happy to see that cake.

“Honestly, this is great,” she assured him.

Jonty had helped himself to several packets of sugar. Ripping each packet open with strong white teeth, he tipped the lot into his mug and swirled the liquid around with enthusiasm. “I really like it here. It’s honest, you know? Real. And you don’t need to remortgage just to buy a couple of coffees. I’m working on my boat at the minute too, so I’m up here a lot. To be honest, I probably don’t have blood anymore – I just have Nescafé flowing through my veins!”

Andi laughed. She’d felt similar when she’d been wrapping up the Safe T Net accounts. At one point she’d almost contemplated bypassing the water altogether and just spooning the coffee granules straight into her mouth. What a waste of all her efforts that project had turned out to be.

“What sort of boat is it?” she asked, determined not to spoil the sunny afternoon by dwelling on Alan and his lies.

The boatyard they’d passed had been crammed full of all types of watercraft, from graceful yachts with glowing wooden decks and sweet little portholes to huge gleaming powerboats with fuel-guzzling engines and propellers that were bigger than she was. All status symbols of course; after all, this was Rock and what did any wealthy holidaying exec need to broadcast his success more in this town than a flashy boat?