The Cornish Affair (19 page)

“Fin,
I never knew you had it in you! Talk about spitting feathers! You were fearfully scary on telly, wonderful! Although, I must say, your hair-”

“I
know, I know,” I said, “But honestly Harry, I’ve been so busy here-”

“Yes
darling I can imagine, anyway Oliver’s got a wonderful idea about all of that, I’ll pass you over to him. Oh before you go, what’s the weather like?”

“Well,
it’s stopped raining for the moment and-”

“No,
you fool. I said, what’s the weather like?” Harry sounded exasperated with me.

“Oh,
I see… well, umm,” I had to think, hard. What
was
it like? Nothing came to mind, which to be honest with you was a bit of a worry. I mean, it’s what I
do
, gauging what the weather was like in terms of soup.

“Let
me talk to Oliver,” I said firmly.

“Fin!
This has never happened before, I am extremely worried about you,” Harry said with mock severity.

“Well,
Penmorah has never been in danger before, and Port Charles has never been flooded before and-”

“Alright,
alright, I get the picture. Here’s Oliver.”

I
was so glad to hear his voice. I remained silent for a moment or two.

“Fin,
are you there?”

“Yes…
Oh Oliver it’s awful here,” I said, my voice dangerously close to wobbling with self pity.

“I’ve
seen. Don’t worry, I’ve got a great plan, but that can wait. Hang on, Nancy wants to know what about the dolphin party, are you cancelling it?”

“It
depends what the surveyor says, I suppose… But Port Charles needs a bit of a party at the moment. I dunno, I’ll have to think about it…”

“Fin?”

I heard Oliver’s voice drop to a whisper and felt a thud of excitement in my stomach.

“Umm?”
I said, twisting the twirly phone cord round my fingers like a teenager.

“No
more romping with the veg boy, OK?”

I
was silenced for more than just a moment or two. I could hear the sounds of the bar very clearly, wafting towards me, and I could also feel my cheeks begin to burn. So he’d known all along, had he? Or was it just a clever guess. I remembered my first meeting with him and the dishevelled state that I had been in. Oh shit. But then… how dare he tell me what to do?

“Did
you hear me?” he said gently.

I
put the phone down and walked away.

Back
in the bar, Doris and Isaac were waving at me, but I decided that I should go to bed. I waved back and mimed putting my head on a pillow, and pointed upstairs.

“Sam,
I’m going to get some sleep, if that’s OK,” I said.

He
looked worried.

“The
thing is Fin, well, Pritti an’ her two daughters still wanna sleep ‘ere, and I don’t likes you kipping on the floor, it ain’t right…”

“I
can assure you Sam, I’ll fall asleep anywhere, don’t worry about it honestly, I’m fine. Good night,” I said, pecking him on the cheek.

I
called Baxter to me, and we went up the stairs. I was so tired that every step made me groan.

I
made up a nest again on the function room, and throwing off my jeans, slumped down, bunching a pillow under my head. Baxter turned round three times and then fell heavily on my feet. The sounds of the bar were muffled up here, but I could still distinguish certain noises. The sound of a laugh, the closing of the door, the chink of glasses or bottles being collected. It was quite comforting, but unusual for me. At Penmorah all you could hear was the faint sound of the sea as you drifted asleep, these human noises were strange to my ear.

I
wondered what I was going to say to Oliver. It had been rude of me to slam the phone down. Well, I hadn’t actually slammed it, in fact, I’d replaced it quite gently, but you know what I mean.

I
resolved not to think about it tonight.

Just
sleep and deal with it in the morning, I thought, easing Baxter off my feet in a feeble attempt to get comfortable.

Chapter
Nineteen

I took Baxter for a walk the following morning, before anyone else was up. I crept out of the function room, which now resembled some sort of awful co-educational dorm for wayward boys and girls, and pulled the large bolt on the door of The Ram as quietly as I could. Pubs are very strange dwellings, they aren’t really meant to be seen in the cold light of dawn. Every beer stain, every scratch on polished wood almost glows in its brightness. Far better seen under the influence of a pint or two of cherrywood in the kind light of dusk.

I
stepped outside, and stretched my aching arms and back. I don’t care what any osteopath tells you, sleeping on the floor does not help bad backs.

I
was trying not to brood on Oliver, but of course, my mind kept going back to his last words to me with irritating regularity. Why is it that the harder we try not to think about something, the dentists needle slipping into our gums, the unpaid tax bill, it soon becomes the only thing we can think about. Perhaps the aim of blank thought in meditation does have a purpose after all.

Port
Charles looked a mess.

The
mud residue was starting to pong, and for a small fishing port in South Cornwall it had started to smell more like Rue Du Bac in Paris. Why is that smell is the most evocative of the senses? Open drains with a hint of garlic and gauloise will forever be Paris to me, even if they have cleaned up their sewage system by now. Boiling cabbage is the one foray I had in a school, leather and tobacco is my father, caramel and the scent of violet soap is Nancy, Madame Rochas, my mother.

Baxter
pulled at me, eager to be off. He started to head towards the woods, but I pulled him back. I didn’t want to clamber amongst the devastation there yet.

I
thought I’d look in on Judith, and headed off through the village and up the hill, cutting through the narrow streets, where luckily the cottages, so piled in on one another had offered some sort of protection from the storm. Most of them had suffered in one way or another.

A
few lights were snapping on as I passed by windows. Port Charlesers were early risers on the whole. I caught wafts of bacon as I passed by the window of a few dwellings and it made my mouth water. I knew that I could
never
be a vegetarian, try as I might, with that tantalising aroma. Oh god, back to smells again.

I
climbed a steep set of worn stone steps to reach the narrow lane where Judith and Kev Pharaoh lived. Her windows were dark, and I hesitated before banging on the door. I didn’t want her to think that it was the police bringing her bad news, but I did want to check on her. I noticed that her doorstep (an unfailing sign of the house proud here) was un-scrubbed. That would be yet another black mark against her.

Bending
down, I called her name through the letterbox. But I could almost sense that the house was empty. The gloom was too great for me to see anything as I peered through the slot in the front door, and I wracked my brains to think where she could be. Surely not back down on the harbour wall?

I
sighed, and turned around, setting off down the hill again. It was worth a look, I suppose. The blister on my heel was rubbing, and I reminded myself to get hold of a plaster for it, as soon as I could.

By
the time I had walked back down again, I saw that the lights were on in the bakers shop. I waved to Isaac as I passed, and he motioned me inside.

“Morinin’
Fin, wait two seconds an’ you can ‘ave a hot roll,” he said proudly.

Doris
appeared from the back room, and said to me, “Been up all night, cleanin’ the ovens and the floor, we ‘ave. Business as usual today!”

The
heavenly smell of warm bread was too much for my greed, and I willingly loitered in the doorway till the rolls were out of the oven. The rolls all had a swirl of black poppy seeds on the top, and were warm and yielding to the touch. Doris popped two of them in a brown paper bag for me, handing them over with a flourish.

I
felt around in my back pocket for some change, but Isaac looked so horrified at the idea, I just thanked them both and moved on.

I
skirted the harbour scanning both sides of the curving wall for Judith. I spotted her at once. She was sitting on the wall, at the very far end, where the swelling sea met the water from the harbour.

Damn.

My foot was hurting and I really didn’t want the long trudge. Baxter pulled me along though and I limped towards her, clutching the paper bag of hot rolls.

As
I got closer to her, I could see that she had changed her clothes from yesterday. That had to be a good sign, right? I mean, at least she’d been home, maybe slept and eaten. I went to sit beside her and opened the paper bag. I handed her one of the rolls, which she took absentmindedly, looking at it as if she’d never seen one before.

I
pulled apart the soft cooked dough and started to eat, urging her to do the same. She pulled a piece off and threw it into the sea.

“What
is it about casting bread on the water?” she asked.

I
thought it was something more like pearls before swine, but I kept quiet.

I
studied her as she kept her head firmly towards the open sea. She had a strong profile, with a hawk like nose, jutting proudly from her deeply tanned face. She was very still, sitting there. All her energies were focussed on staring out at the green rolling sea.

The
sky was full of scudding grey clouds, and the breeze was strong. I glanced up at the sky again and said, “Any chance of more rain, do you think, Judith?”

She
shrugged.

Half
of me felt like shaking her, and the other half wanted to give her a hug.

“Tell
me about The Queen Mab,” I suggested as gently as I could, watching her fingers blindly crumble the poppy roll into useless crumbs.

“You
should know about it,” she said, her eyes never leaving the sea, “Your mam and pa lent Kev the money.”

“Did
they?” I asked in surprise. This was the first time I’d ever heard about it.

“Yes.
Over twenty years ago now… paid them back, every penny, he did. Right proper people your parents were, in spite of all the carryin’ on up at Penmorah,” she added with a wry tone in her voice.

I
was too intrigued to pick up on that one. I let it pass. I imagined that most of Port Charles thought that way about some of the parties at Penmorah. Although, it must be said that no-one had ever actually used the words ‘carrying on’ to my face.

“Your
father, he were a kindly man… bit of a fool where it come to your mum and her sister, but still, men are born fools aren’t they?” Judith said, not expecting an answer from me.

Indeed,
I didn’t have one to give at the moment.

I
stared out to sea with her. It was hard. I knew that at any minute she was hoping to see The Queen Mab hover into view, you know what it’s like, the more you will something to appear, the more your eyes start playing tricks on you.

On
the horizon was a band of misty green, that then stretched into the grey sky. All was movement and progress around us, from the screeching swooping gulls to the restless ocean. The only things that were still was us. Even Baxter had picked up on our lethargy and had settled silently at my feet, his nose and tail completing a circle.

We
stayed like that for a while, then Judith broke the silence.

“I
heard about you on the telly last night,” she said flatly. “Won’t make no difference round ‘ere. I shoulda made Kev stay with me in Bozcastle, should never have come ‘ere. They understand us lot down there, not like Port Charles, too snooty for their own good, I reckons.”

I
sighed, I didn’t feel up to defending us. I reminded myself that Judith was unpopular for many reasons, not least that she was unfriendly herself, not to mention bloody depressing at the best of times.

The
sound of a helicopter made me glance upwards. If it was a sodding news crew, I was determined that I was going to make a very rude gesture with a couple of fingers, but it wasn’t. The yellow underbelly of the machine told us it was the coastguard.

“Look,
Judith! That’s good news, isn’t it?” I cried. I knew that they would not be out looking still if there was no hope.

The
helicopter flew south west in a straight line, and soon was out of earshot, the grey misty sky had swallowed up the bright yellow bird in a matter of seconds.

“Are
you going to stay here all day Judith?” I asked.

She
shrugged again, and this time I really did want to slap her.

“I
might do, why?”

“Because
I shall bring you out some lunch, if you are,” I said as evenly as I could, standing up, ready to go back to The Ram.

As
I was walking away, I heard my name being called, so I turned back.

Judith
was standing on her feet and pointing, “Fin, Fin! Look, over there, do you see it?”

I
followed her finger, squinting. A boat was a speck on the horizon; it seemed to be listing to one side. As to what boat it was, it was impossible to say.

“It
might not be her, Judith,” I warned, not wanting her to hope too much.

“It’s
The Queen Mab, I tell you! It is, it is…” Judith was clutching my arm and straining every fibre of her body towards the sea.

The
boat was such a long way out, it would take at least an hour to reach port.

“Let’s
go and call the coastguard,” I said.

Judith
turned to face me, her eyes burning with triumph. “No need, I’ll be waiting here for Kev as I always does. You go, you go back now and see to your own. You’re a kind girl Finisterre Spencer. Be off now, and leave me in peace.”

She
turned resolutely away from me, and watched the injured boat lamely make its way towards safety.

I
didn’t need telling twice. I called Baxter, who seemed very glad to leave the exposed harbour. We walked back towards the pub. I stopped at the post office to buy plasters and to see what news there was.

Not
too much, it seemed, other than the rail line was still not operational and the main road would open some time that day. The air was full of the noise of chain saws. Teams of men in hard hats were chopping up the fallen mighty oaks and beeches to clear the roads.

I
saw the ominous signs of men carrying signs that read, ‘DANGER. KEEP OUT’ on them and saw that they were banging them up on poles near the fallen cliff.

I
bought a bar of chocolate and went back to The Ram to tackle the insurance paperwork. Somehow it had bred in the night to a fat folder of incomprehensible jargon. Pritti came and sat beside me, her hands full of paperwork too. We had a good moan together about the impossibility of understanding the gibberish of the forms, after bitching for a good twenty minutes, we settled with a great deal of sighing and pen chewing to filling them in.

We
had a tea break, and the Pritti dropped her bombshell.

“Well,
you know of course that I shall be selling my home once all this is cleared up,” she said, looking at me anxiously.

“What?
No, no I didn’t,” I said, wondering if the whole Rampersaud family was moving back to Pakistan.

It
seems that they were.

“But
Pritti, I thought you and Nancy had spoken about it, and that you didn’t really want to go?”

Pritti
gave a little laugh, covering her mouth with a gold bangled hand.

“It
was Mrs Nancy that said that, really, if you recall… Aiyee, I am too old for this wet cold country. I need some sun on these old bones,” she said, still regarding me nervously.

Maybe
she did know about Jace and me, and was waiting to see my reaction?

I
smiled reassuringly at her, and said, “Whatever you think is best, of course. We’re all going to miss you desperately-”

“But
you will perhaps come to visit?” she said.

Unlikely,
I thought to myself, knowing my aversion to hot sweaty climates. Besides, you have to have jabs, don’t you? That alone would have deterred me. I can quite understand how the empire crumbled. It became full of wussy creatures like myself.

I
nodded and made appropriate sounds, but I knew in my heart I’d never get there.

We
tackled the paperwork again, and all you could hear was a great deal of sighing. These forms were
unbearable
. ‘Calculate the amount of lost revenue on an hourly basis from the first day of the last month of the first claim…’ I began to lose the will to live and was delighted to be interrupted by Sam.