The Cornish Affair (31 page)

“Well,
I was figuring on a pitcher of lemonade, a good book and a place in the shade… unless I can help you with anything?” Bea said, swinging herself off the table.

“No,
I’m going to be making fish stock… I might need you as a taster though,” I warned her.

“You
can count on me for that, just go easy on the butter and cream, OK?” Bea said, sauntering off.

The
tray of fish in the fridge looked like a still life. All the fish were gleaming with freshness, bright eyes and silver scaled. Blue black mussels, clams and a scarlet and brown Cornish crab completed the picture, it really was a picture, too, as Kev had framed the lot in dark green seaweed.

I
washed my hands, tied an apron, sharpened my knife and got to work. Very soon I had a pot of stock simmering away from the filleted bones.

I
poked around in the box that Jace had brought up and chose with care some shallots and a large feathery head of fennel. I went to open the small parcel that Doris had sent up, and saw with a spark of emotion that she had spared me some of her precious saffron. That would have to go in. A Cornish fish soup without that would be unthinkable.

Fish
stock only needs to cook for about three quarters of an hour, any longer and it will become bitter. I drew the pot off the heat, and set it to one side.

I
gathered my forces together and concentrated all my being on making a soup that would be good enough to represent the good people of Port Charles.

Food
cooked with concentration, skill and love can taste completely different to a recipe that’s exactly the same but made without any of those qualities. I just tell you this because it’s worth knowing.

The
people I was cooking for deserved the best I could put forward for them. I thought of Doris and Isaac working through the long hot summer days and the cruel cold dark winter nights, Sam with his precarious business that he was only too willing to risk in order to help other people, Richard and his new found love, Olga. Pritti, Jace and the rest of the Rampersaud family who had ended up in Port Charles partly due to the recklessness of my mother and her passions, Silent Will and the care he took of his animals, Kev Pharaoh who risked his life every day to feed us, and his wife, the solitary misunderstood Judith, Miranda with her two, admittedly vile children and all the other inhabitants of this small village in Cornwall that we call home.

So
I offered up a quick but heartfelt prayer to the god of taste, and went to work.

Chapter Thirty-One

By late summer Port Charles was getting back to normal, although the spiralling cost of repairs was daunting. We all were sick to death of the demands made on us by various officials and the ever present buff envelopes from the insurance companies.

On
the bright side, the soup, now called The Original Port Charles Spicy Fish Soup, was a success. It was due to go into production next month, and although a lot can, and does, go wrong between the first car
ton off the conveyor belt, I was very hopeful about it, and so was Oliver.

He
was still frantically busy, but to my delight he came down here every weekend. And every weekend Baxter and Nelson moved out to their temporary holiday homes. This state of affairs couldn’t go on much longer as Pritti, true to her word, had put her cottage on the market and was making plans for going to stay permanently with some of her family that were based in Pakistan, much to the general dismay of her daughters. I wasn’t so sure about Jace, he seemed to be looking forward to it, although, to be honest, I didn’t see so much of him now.

Bea
had been with us for a month, and she too was planning to go back to Canada and sort her life out. Her sons were due back home from their summer camp, and she wanted to meet them. She was persuading Nancy to go back with her, but Nancy had other fish to fry. She was setting out for London tomorrow, where Harry was taking her to lunch to meet a publisher who was going to publish Angelique Flavell. We were all wildly excited, and predicted a huge overnight literary success for her. Sam, I think was more pleased than anyone, and demanded that we go to The Ram for a celebratory drink.

The
morning before she was due to go, I woke up, feeling absolutely dreadful. For a couple of days now, I’d felt ill, but this morning, I was sick.

I
came out of the bathroom, and lay down again on the bed. Swirls of nausea caused beads of sweat to stand out on my forehead, and I lay there feeling incapable of moving.

As
always, my first thought was I hoped to god I hadn’t poisoned everyone with anything I’d cooked. I’d served mussels last night, and assumed that I’d had a dodgy one. I lay in bed groaning, and hoping that Nancy and Bea weren’t ill too.

There
was a knock, and Nancy put her head round the door. “Are you OK Fin? I can’t believe you’re not up!”

I
turned my head to look at her, testing whether the movement was going to make me sick again, but all seemed well. I gingerly sat up, and said, “I think I had a bad mussel or something, are you OK?”

Nancy
nodded, “And Bea is fine as well, she’s making some coffee, would you like me to bring you a cup?”

The
very thought of coffee had me running across the room to the bathroom. I made it just in time.

By
mid morning I was OK, and wandered downstairs to join the others. Bea was making some healthy looking concoction out of kiwi fruits and oranges. Nancy was arranging a huge bunch of grasses and leaves in a jug on the table.

It
was a glorious day. The sun was blazing out of a cloudless blue sky. A light breeze fluttered the leaves in the garden, and I saw that the birds were using the rolled wire at the top of the cliff as a sort of gossip post, the gulls were all lined up on it, looking like people in a long post office queue, slightly bored, but happy to pass the time of the day.

“How
you doing?” Bea asked.

“So
so,” I replied, picking up a thick brown envelope addressed to me with little enthusiasm. Probably yet more insurance stuff. Really, the people were astonishingly dull, with endless paperwork that they demanded. Luckily Bea was now in charge of this, so I listlessly opened it, ready to pass it over to her.

It
was Mr Harris’s long awaited report.

I
started to read it, and baffled by the terminology in it, appealed to Bea to read it.

Wiping
her hands she took it from me and she and Nancy read it together. Then they read it again.

I
looked at them in silence.

“I’m
sorry,” I said, “I still don’t understand, I know that it’s probably me being stupid, but tell me in English what it means, will you?”

Nancy
came to sit next to me, and took my hand, which worried me greatly. “It can’t be
that
bad!” I said, taking my hand away from her.

Bea
sat opposite me and I saw Nancy and her exchange glances.

“Fin…
he says that, well, that it is not financially viable to underpin the cliff. He advises you that Penmorah will have to vacated within the year,” Bea said gently. She was talking slowly, as if to a foreigner.

“Well…
at least we have the insurance, right?” I said brightly, my heart thudding in my chest. I clenched my hands under the table, to stop them shaking.

Bea
and Nancy did their look again.

“This
would be termed as an act of god,” Bea said, “I’m afraid you, we, are not insured against this.”

Another
wave of sickness swilled over me, and I had to swallow bitter tasting bile to stop throwing up there and then at the kitchen table. I heard Nancy get up and pour me a glass of water, she placed it in front of me, and I sipped at it.

I
gathered my strength and stood up, leaning against the table. “I’m sorry, I have to go back to bed…” I waved offers of help away, and clutching the report, I slowly walked back upstairs to my bedroom. The wallpaper in the hallway swum in front of my eyes - I remembered my mother choosing it, and the laughter there had been when I’d been found, at about the age of six, carefully colouring in some of the flowers on it. My childish efforts at home improvement were still preserved along the skirting boards, a permanent reminder and testimony to the staying power of crayons.

I
walked into my bedroom and sat down heavily on the bed. I forced myself to read the report right through, and then I lay down. I tried a series of deep breathing exercises that I’d seen and heard Nancy do during her yoga to try and calm myself down.

After
a few tries, I gave up. It wasn’t working, and was making me feel sick again.

How
to harness this appalling rush of wild energy and panic that was making me freeze with terror?

Penmorah
vacated within a year? Impossible. I would not allow this to happen.

There
must be a way round this. There must be.

For
a start I’d get a second opinion, then I’d appeal to someone – who? I don’t know. I know! I’d get the land declared an area of natural beauty, or get someone to discover a rare orchid in the woods and then
make
the council buy it… Then they’d have to repair it… but then it wouldn’t be mine any more. And the house? Well… it was just a large tatty house to anyone who didn’t love it as I did, the National Trust
certainly
weren’t going to be interested in it. Not unless I could discover a priest hole, or a mural by some famous eighteenth century painter… perhaps I could fake one? Or I could take all the money from the sales of the supermarket soup and divert them to the underpinning of the cliff, I could get a loan, I could – could what, exactly?

Losing
Penmorah, moving away – to where? This wasn’t happening… I rolled on my side, uncomfortably aware that I was feeling very sick again. I staggered to the bathroom and retched. I wiped a cold flannel over my face and lay down again on the bed. I tried to close my eyes and breathe slowly and calmly, but the panic kept returning.

I
covered my face with my hands and sobbed, inwardly imploring Dorothea and Michael to do something,
anything
, to stop this.

I
think I must have fallen asleep, because when I opened my eyes I could tell, without looking at the bedside clock, that it was late afternoon by the light from my window.

Someone,
Nancy or Bea had put a cup of tea beside me, but it was now stone cold. I shakily got up, and went to the window, leaning outwards taking in deep gulps of the soft clean air.

I
heard a knock on the door and Bea came in, holding a white paper bag from a chemists.

“Fin,
how are you?” Bea said, looking anxiously at me.

I
glanced at her dully. How did she
think
I was feeling?

“OK,
stupid question, forget it. Look, this is not a good time, but I got you something in Truro.” She held out the paper bag to me and I opened it.

A
home pregnancy testing kit.

“Are
you completely fucking
mad
?” I screeched at her, sounding just like Nelson in a very bad mood indeed. I threw the bag and its contents across the room. “I’ve got food poisoning or something, and more importantly Penmorah is going to fall into the sea and you buy me a fucking pregnancy testing kit! Do you have any idea how-”

“Stop.
Fin, listen to me. I
know
how you’re feeling about Penmorah, really I do, but do me a favour, just go into the bathroom and do the test will you? I’ve had two children, and I was just the same when I was pregnant as you are now. Please. Just do it… we’ll tackle Penmorah together, you’re
not
alone now, OK?” Bea said imploringly, her face strained with emotion.

I
glared at her for a moment, and then retrieving the bag I marched into the bathroom and slammed the door.

I
frantically tried to calculate when my last period had been. I wasn’t sure… before the beach party, I remembered that. But that was, Jesus… that was two months ago.

A
few moments later, I came out. Bea was slumped on my bed and she looked up at me trying to gauge if I was going to shout again or not, I suppose.

“Fifteen
minutes it takes.” I said shortly.

She
looked away from me, and my heart gave a lurch. I ran forward to her and put my arms around her, “I’m sorry Bea, I’m just-”

“Ssh,”
she said, “I know, I know… Come on, it’ll be alright…”

I
started to cry again, and she held on to me, letting me soak her hair with my tears. She rocked me in her arms, and I allowed myself to be soothed. We sat in silence for a while, and I found myself thinking - so this is what it’s like having a sister, is it?

After
fifteen minutes, I nudged her. “Go on, you go… I can’t. really, I can’t.”

I
watched her cross the room towards the bathroom, and even before she went in there, I knew.

I
watched my hands twist themselves together in my lap, and I felt sick.

Is
this how Dorothea felt all those years ago, when she found out she was pregnant with Rasheed’s child? Because I knew as well, that the baby I was undoubtedly carrying was not Oliver’s. It was a Rampersaud.

Bea
came from the bathroom smiling softly, “Oh Fin! This is great news! Oliver’s going to be so thrilled – you’ll both make fantastic parents, and please,
please
don’t worry, we’ll sort something out about Penmorah, I promise-”

She
looked shocked as I pushed past her and ran out of the room. I had to get away. I ran past Nancy who was on the phone in the kitchen, she called after me, “Fin, wait, it’s Oliver, he, Fin! Stop…” I wrenched open the kitchen door, and feeling Baxter running beside me, I headed towards the woods.

I
ran past the fallen trees, their limbs lopped off by the chainsaws and headed to the heart of the place. The foresters had done their job here, but the smell of the newly sawn wood was still strong. I was out of breath now, and panting. I could feel my tee shirt sticking to my back as I tripped and stumbled through the undergrowth. Baxter thought we were playing a game, as he good naturedly tried to keep up with me.

Eventually
I flopped down on the soft earth, leaning against the moss covered trunk of a beech tree.

I
filled my lungs with air and screamed aloud in the dark woods a single word – “No!” I repeated this again and again till I was hoarse. Then I stopped.

Pregnant
and homeless at my age! It was a joke, a cruel horrible joke by that monster god that I’d been aware of at the beach picnic. Well, it wasn’t funny. OK? I glanced around me, quite expecting to see his hairy, pointy face peeping slyly round a tree trunk. You
bastard
.

I
hoped my mother was pleased, after all, I was carrying on the family tradition, wasn’t I? I thought bitterly. History really does repeat itself.

I
hit the earth with my fist, and ground it into the mulch of dead leaves and stones till it hurt.

Surely
, this couldn’t be happening to me? I remembered Oliver’s words when we had been on the cliff top, as I had told him about Bea’s father. How he had said that he quite understood how difficult it would be for a man to take on another man’s child.