Authors: Judy Astley
‘Did you want to go there today?’ he asked. ‘I mean, I guess we could, later.’ He was now driving past the mudflats of the Hayle estuary where the tide was out and thousands of birds picked at the shore, watched by twitchers gathered along the shoreline with telescopes. Miranda had fleeting long-term memories of this scene from when she was a child, remembering wondering what they were looking at and Jack pulling in at the pub car park to point out curlews and pochards and oystercatchers.
‘Oh no, it’s OK. You’ve got a meeting or something, haven’t you? And I was sort of saving it for later in our
trip, somewhere to take the children and Mum if it rains.’
‘That’ll be next week– wet weather is due by then. You’ll get plenty of chance to do the indoor visits.’
‘Oh, the joy of Cornish rain – something to look forward to, then,’ she said, thinking ahead to the children draping themselves moodily over the sofas and arguing about the TV remote.
‘I feel really sorry for the holidaymakers in the rain. It can all get horribly expensive, entertaining the children. Or so I’m told, anyway. When I had the ferry I was forever being complained to if it rained, as if being a local I’d somehow switched the rain on on purpose to spite the visitors.’
‘You should have blamed us lot instead, for bringing nasty up-country clouds.’
‘Oh I did, believe me, I did. We locals blamed you for just about everything.’
They turned off the road close to the railway line, parked in the field behind the tiny Lelant station and bought tickets from a man in a garden shed-style hut. Steve wouldn’t let Miranda pay, although she offered. The platform was already crowded with people waiting for the St Ives train and Miranda had her usual mild feeling of panic seeing small children running free, too close to the platform edge. By some primeval instinct, her hand shot out and gripped Steve’s wrist as a little boy chased his sister between two
oblivious parents who were each texting furiously.
‘Sorry!’ she said, letting go abruptly and feeling madly embarrassed. ‘I just have this urge to grab small children and keep them away from the edge.’
‘So I’m a small child?’ He was laughing at her. Again.
‘No! So sorry. It’s just a ridiculous mother-type reflex. I still do it to Bo, even at road crossings, and it embarrasses him hugely because he’s a hulking great fourteen and embarrassment is his default setting. On streets he walks about five paces away from me so I can’t reach him.’
‘Control freak!’ he teased, but she could see him keeping an eye on the running children as the train pulled in. He got it, she realized, he got it, however much he mocked.
‘What did you bring that horrible thing for?’ Lola pointed to the pink inflatable crocodile that Silva had carried down to Creek Cottage.
Silva looked at her for a moment before she replied, searching out possible hostility signs: the tone of the voice, whether Lola had a sneer on her face and was likely to say something cutting; but she actually seemed genuinely curious and was smiling at her, which was either encouraging or a warning, the way you saw chimpanzees baring their teeth on wildlife programmes. She was wary of Lola. She could be snappy, a bit like a crocodile herself.
‘I thought it might come in useful, you know, for making the raft. I mean, it does, like, float,’ she told her, laying the croc down on the square of grass between herself and Lola, who was sitting astride the creek wall. It was only partly true. She’d become fond of the ridiculous toy, and found it weird yet slightly fascinating – in a slightly analytical way – that she still had that much of her child-self in her. It was, she’d thought last night, a bit of a shame the house didn’t have a selection of leftover My Little Ponies in the guests’ toy-box (which was full of worthy wooden baby puzzles and eco-friendly shape sorters). She’d probably have had to hide them away in her room to comb and plait their manes in secret, but at least down here none of her too-cool friends were around to catch her doing it. She could imagine Willow with that twisted-confusion face on saying, ‘Are you like,
playing
? With
toys
?’ Come to think of it, how many of her friends would also think constructing a raft was like
well
boring? Most of them, probably; all her classmates with their flicky hair and so much exaggerated attitude to the wrong clothes. Their loss, she decided, feeling quite excited about this communal project.
‘Yeah, it could be.’ Freddie nodded slowly. ‘Good thinking, that girl,’ he said, smiling at Silva. She liked Freddie, she decided. Though he was very shy.
‘Mmm … maybe,’ Lola conceded. ‘At least the thing floats.’ She prodded it with her foot.
‘We’d need another one, though, I was thinking. There wouldn’t be enough room on just this, not if all four of us are going to be on it,’ Silva said, feeling a surge of enthusiasm. At least they weren’t actually laughing at her. Bo had said no way he’d be pratting about on the water on anything pink so she’d ruled him out of the whole plan from the start, but he’d mooched down the lane after her and was now sitting on the grass, leaning against the wall close to Lola’s long brown leg and looking pretty alert, for him. The power of girls, she thought, wondering if she’d ever get that Jules boy to look at her the way Bo looked at Lola. Probably not. At least, not till she was a few years older. Perhaps a couple of summers on from now she’d come back here and have become madly gorgeous, ugly duckling to swan style, and he’d fall crazy in love with her. She’d seen him on the beach after her surf lesson that morning with a mate, collecting driftwood. He’d waved and shouted ‘Hello Kitty’ at her and blown her a kiss. She’d blown one back and flutteringly half hoped he’d come rushing over and give her a real one but that was the stuff of fantasy and a life far more like Willow’s perfect one than her own. Also, to be honest, it would have been a bit scary being grabbed without any lead-up. She wouldn’t know what to do and then he’d know for sure she hadn’t a clue when it came to boys. Would he be able to tell she was still a My Little Pony girl, deep down? Possibly.
‘Good plan. If we got another, and put some planks or something in between, lashed on with rope, it would look kind of, y’know, different.’ To Silva’s surprise it was Bo who said it, looking up at Lola for approval. Maybe she shouldn’t be surprised, she realized.
Jessica came out just then with cans of drinks. ‘You’ll need a theme, you know, not just a raft,’ she told them, as she handed out Cokes. ‘You’re supposed to dress up for this.’
Freddie groaned. ‘Do we
have
to?’ Silva looked at him. He seemed to be blushing at the very thought. She hadn’t really known boys got that shy. If Bo did too, she couldn’t really tell – he was just
Bo
. Or maybe that was what the thing with hunching into a hoodie with his whole hands up the sleeves was about. Just shy-hiding.
‘Course!’ Jess told him. ‘You don’t think they just judge on the actual raft, do you? It’s the whole package! You need to keep it simple because whatever you wear is going to get wet so you need to be able to swim in it. So nothing too drapy. Miranda and I went as mermaids one year and that got a bit dangerous. My brother had to jump in and haul us out because our legs were lashed together with green fabric and we couldn’t swim properly.’
‘Rules out a ballgown then,’ Lola said, ‘but I suppose we’d be OK with a jungle theme to go with the croc. Me and Silva in bikinis with fronds of greenery and stuff.
Pity the croc is such a naff colour. Can’t we paint it? Spray it, maybe? Why didn’t you get a green one, Silv? And where do we get another one that’s about the same size?’
‘It isn’t hers. It came with the house,’ Bo told her.
‘Trago Mills?’ Jessica suggested. ‘There’s not much you can’t get in there. Or look on the internet?’ She left them with the drinks and a pack of Jaffa cakes and headed back to the house, saying, ‘I’ll have a quick look now for you. About two metres long, isn’t it?’
‘Thanks, Mum!’ Lola called after her. Silva was surprised to see that her eyes looked wet.
‘That’s kind of her,’ she said. ‘Not sure ours would bother.’
‘She’s a freakin’ star, my mum,’ Lola said quietly, then rallied, giving her nose a quick wipe with the back of her hand. ‘OK – wood. What sort and where to get?’
‘I saw Jules collecting a load of driftwood on the beach this morning,’ Silva said, savouring saying his name.
‘
Jules?
You actually talk to him?’ Lola glared at her.
‘Who’s Jules?’ Bo asked, looking puzzled.
‘He surfs. Streaky yellow hair, earrings. Loud, cocky bastard,’ Lola said. ‘Not someone you’d want your sister to hang with, Bo. He’s a total arse.’ She glared at Silva, who felt thoroughly warned off and very pleased about it too. It meant she hadn’t imagined it at the barbecue –
Lola must think of her as rival material. Talking of which …
‘They might have been collecting it for a raft of their own.’
‘They could, that’s true. They won last year.’ Lola looked round at them all and raised her Coke can like a toast. ‘But they won’t this time.
This
is war.’
‘Wow, Steve, this is just stunning. It couldn’t be better.’ They’d just ordered and Miranda handed her menu to the waitress, leaned back in her chair and sniffed at the salt-laden shoreline air, feeling as content as Toby the cat in a patch of sunlight. They were alongside the broad stretch of perfect sand on the outside deck of the Porthminster Beach Café, beneath a sunshade. They had salted olives and oil and bread and a gorgeous lunch ordered. She sipped her wine, looking out across the beach to where children and families were digging in the sand, playing beach cricket and paddling in the shallows, jumping waves. ‘What a fabulous setting this is. I’m sure the English seaside never used to have restaurants as lush as this. It all used to be greasy little caffs or chippies.’
‘Up there with your fancy London gaffs, is it? I bet you go to them all: The Wolseley, Soho House, The Ivy, all those.’ He was mocking her again. This was becoming a pattern. She didn’t much mind, but he couldn’t have it all his own way.
‘Gosh, so you’ve actually heard of them, then, down here on the primitive tail end of the nation?’ she asked, leaning forward towards him, feigning raised-brow surprise. She could see the reflection of the sea in his eyes, glinting silvery-grey.
He shrugged, ‘Well, you know, sometimes we Cornish are given a day pass over the Tamar. Just now and then, so we can remind weselves which soide is the betterrr one,’ he said in a comedy Mummerset accent. ‘Not too often, though; they wouldn’t want us to get used to those evil up-country ways. But as it happens,’ he said, sounding like himself again, ‘I do spend quite a bit of time in London these days. I pay a mate a kind of retainer on a teeny room to crash in at his flat in Shepherd’s Bush. It’s not big enough for him to rent out for someone to live in properly but it’s doable for the odd night.’
Miranda took an olive from the dish and dunked it in the oil and balsamic vinegar mix. It was a bit big for putting straight into her mouth so she chewed round the edges of it, conscious that Steve was watching her intently. Shepherd’s Bush was only a couple of miles from her own home. Funny to think he must have been, at times, only down the road. Maybe they’d even crossed on the pavement at some point.
‘So what do you do in London? Is it a work thing?’ she asked, at last popping the gnawed-down olive into her mouth and sucking the tender flesh from the stone.
‘I do some of the stock deliveries, just to keep the contact going. My view is it’s like being an organic farm supplier – when it’s a specialized business, people expect the personal touch to go along with the goods.’
‘Sounds like a top enterprise you’ve got going on here. It bought you the best house in Chapel Creek.’
He smiled. ‘It’s done fine. Better than I ever expected, but I was in at the right time when the sushi thing took off. You won’t ever catch me eating the stuff, though.’
The waitress arrived with their food. Steve had ordered steak, Miranda the crab linguine. ‘You don’t eat your own products?’
‘No. When you handle it all day it’s the last thing you want. And I wouldn’t say it to my customers, but I also have a sneaky old-fashioned feeling that fish should be cooked, not raw.’
Miranda wound a careful forkful of the linguine and wished she’d chosen something with a lower potential for making a horrible mess of her white shirt. Too late now, and anyway, she realized as she started to eat it, it was completely delicious – it would be well worth a few splatters.
‘I completely get what you mean,’ she told him. ‘I work with colour and pattern, designing kitchenware – mugs and plates and fabric kind of stuff. And somehow, without me even being that conscious of the decisions when I bought them, every last plate and cup in our house is either plain white or blue. But that’s easy – this
is …’ she waved her fork over her plate, ‘this is
food
choices. Do you really never give the goods a road test?’
‘Not since I gave up the lobsters. There was a day when I found out something about them and I couldn’t take another from the sea ever again. But anyway, tell me about you. You have beautiful children. Do they come with a … y’know … a father?’
‘Um … well, yes. Obviously. It’s the usual … Oh, I see what you mean. No – well, they see Dan, of course, but we’re not together any more. We were too young.’ She could feel herself blushing and concentrated on her food for a few moments.
‘Not too young for children, though?’ he persisted. ‘Sorry – none of my business. I was just curious. The last time I saw you, you weren’t much older than your daughter. She looks a lot like you did then. It just seems … odd. Gives you a jolt about time passing. What did you do after you left school? How come you had children so young? If you don’t mind my asking. It’s unusual these days. Unless you live round here, that is, where loads of them are pushing prams by eighteen.’
‘I did a degree in design and ceramics at Goldsmiths,’ Miranda said, feeling the words coming out very fast, as if they were something to get over saying so they could move on. ‘And somehow suddenly I seemed to have had a mad tiny wedding and got pregnant. And then again only weeks after Bo was born – there’s less than a year between the two of them. I was exhausted and Dan was
useless. He had this idea that because they were small and didn’t take up a lot of space they wouldn’t take up any time either. Turned out he was wrong, and although we plodded on together for a while it was never the same.’ She gave a brittle laugh. ‘Dan didn’t exactly get the hang of feminism, although he thought he did. He’d been the one who most encouraged me to set up my design business and loved that it took off right from the start, but as for the domestic side of things … Sorry. You don’t want to know all that. You must be well bored.’