JEMIMA HOLDS TIGHTLY to Maisie’s hand as they wait for the Park and Ride bus to take them back up through the town to the car park. Maisie chatters to her about the dogs they’ve just seen but she hardly hears her though she answers, ‘Yes, the Labrador looked just like Otto. He was my favourite,’ and, ‘I liked the little fluffy one, too,’ whilst her thoughts leap and flash like fish in a waterfall. She simply can’t concentrate her mind.
‘I wish we could’ve stayed longer,’ Maisie says.
‘But we must get back for Otto,’ says Jemima. She is surprised that her voice sounds quite normal. ‘Poor old Otto. He’ll be wondering where we are.’
Inside her head other voices speak: Are you mad? He’s married. I want to see him again.
‘Shall I see you again?’ Charlie asked when she said that they must go.
‘I don’t see how,’ she answered. ‘I mean … well, how can we?’
‘But you want to?’
She stared at him and then burst out laughing because that’s how he made her feel: joyful, light, happy.
‘You know I do. Go away, Charlie,’ and she turned and walked away from him, not quite seeing where she was going but clinging to Maisie’s hand. Once, she glanced back. He was still standing there, watching them leave, and he raised his hand. Still laughing, feeling quite mad, she took her scarf from around her neck and waved it wildly so that he should see it above the heads of the visitors.
Now, as the bus carries them up the hill, she can’t quite repress the bubble of excitement that still fizzes inside her. It’s impossible, wrong, unthinkable – yet she is so happy. How strange that he should look so like Ben and yet be so different. But what exactly is the difference? How to describe it? She is drawn to Ben; he is intuitive, laid-back, unthreatening. Charlie shares those qualities but there’s an extra element: some indefinable alchemy that worked like strong magic.
Jemima unlocks the car, helps Maisie on to her child seat and clips on her seat belt. She has won a toy – a small dolly – at the fair and she takes it out of the little rucksack she wears to examine it, showing it again to Jemima, who nods and smiles at the child’s earnest expression. She’s glad Maisie was with her. It made it all so much easier though she can’t exactly think why; perhaps Maisie’s presence protected her from behaving foolishly. The prospect of seeing Charlie alone is both exhilarating and terrifying.
The car is hot and stuffy and Jemima puts down the windows before she drives away. Never has the familiar coastal drive been more beautiful: she notices everything as if she hasn’t really seen it before. Smooth yellow beaches tucked in neatly at the feet of steep granite cliffs; a roadside edging of wild flowers – papery red poppies, shiny yellow buttercups, elegant pink campion; the distant dazzle of the sea curving in a sweep along Torcross Line and on towards Start Point. The whole landscape is brighter, more defined, infinitely precious to her.
‘What’s for lunch?’ asks Maisie prosaically, and Jemima begins to laugh again, relishing this injection of normality.
‘Fish and chips,’ she says. ‘We’ll give Otto a walk and then we’ll go to the Torcross Boathouse for a special treat. How about that?’
Maisie cheers and holds the dolly to the car window so that it can share in the glory of the day. She feels happy; it’s good being with Jemima today and she liked Charlie. She thinks that she remembers him from the farm shop and how she watched him, wondering if he could be her father come back to them. It’s a bit sad that he isn’t, but somehow she doesn’t mind. She liked the way he and Jemima talked about the dogs and that Jemima wasn’t silly with him like Mummy was with Dave. They didn’t make her feel that prickly feeling she gets when she thinks grown-ups are showing off.
‘I don’t know what to call her,’ she says, holding the dolly up so that Jemima can glance at her.
‘Agrappina,’ Jemima says. ‘Hermione. Winifred.’
And Maisie laughs because the names sound so funny.
‘Those aren’t real names,’ she says.
‘They certainly are,’ Jemima says indignantly. ‘I’ve got a nice little box at home that will make a lovely bed for her. You’ll have to take her on the plane to Australia to meet your cousins at Christmas. Wait till Otto sees her.’
‘But he mustn’t carry her about like he does his teddy,’ Maisie says anxiously.
‘Of course he won’t,’ Jemima says. ‘Anyway, she wouldn’t taste very nice in that net dress. He’d spit her out at once.’
They both laugh, and Maisie is so happy that she wants to shout and run and sing.
Leaving Ange to deal with the shopping, Charlie seeks out Ben in his studio on the top floor. He’s sitting at his computer, concentrating on digitally enhancing a photograph of the guardship. He doesn’t take his eyes from the screen and Charlie pushes aside the muddle of cameras and photographic equipment and perches on the end of the table.
‘I’ve just met a friend of yours,’ he says. ‘Jemima Spencer.’
It’s a kind of madness but he can’t resist: he wants to talk about her, speak her name, and gauge Ben’s reaction – which is one of surprise.
‘Really?’ He saves his work and turns to look at Charlie. ‘How did you manage that? I’ve only met her once myself – well, twice I suppose, though you couldn’t really count the first time – so I’m not sure I could call her a friend.’
‘She thought I was you.’ Charlie laughs. ‘And by the time she realized I wasn’t we’d got talking. She had a little girl with her. Maisie.’
‘Ah, yes. Maisie.’
‘Jemima was looking after her while her mum was at work. We had a cup of coffee together at one of the stalls.’
‘Really?’ Ben’s eyebrows shoot up; he looks amused. ‘That was quick work.’
Charlie grins back at him, relieved that Ben is remaining very calm. There is no hint of jealousy.
‘She said that’s how you met. At Alf’s.’
Ben nods. ‘We’d sort of seen each other at Stokeley Farm Shop. She had her dog with her, as well as Maisie and Maisie’s mum. So when I went into Alf’s and she was sitting there with Otto, I joined her.’
‘And?’
Ben shrugs. ‘And nothing. We talked about houses. She works for a holiday letting company and they have a house in Southtown. I invited her to come and see the Merchant’s House and gave her my mobile number but nothing yet.’ He gives Charlie a puzzled, questioning look. ‘So what’s all this about?’
Charlie wanders over to the open window through which the distant noise of regatta is filtering: the drumming of music, the thumping of machinery, the shrieking of children. He stands staring down and when he speaks it’s very quietly, as if he’s talking to himself.
‘I think I’ve just fallen in love, Benj.’
‘Christ, Charlie.’ Ben pushes back his chair and gets up.
Charlie looks at him. ‘I know. It’s utterly weird. Do you mind?’
‘If you mean do I have an interest, well, not in that way, no. I like her. She’s beautiful and unusual and I hoped we’d be friends, but nothing more than that.’
Charlie lets out his breath with relief. ‘That’s something.’
‘Why?’ asks Ben, almost crossly. ‘You’re not thinking of pursuing this, Charlie, for God’s sake? I mean, come on. How would it work? What about Ange, for a start?’
Charlie shakes his head. ‘I don’t know, Benj. I feel I’ve been poleaxed.’
‘So how did you leave it? Have you arranged to see her again?’
Charlie begins to laugh. ‘She told me to go away.’
‘Well, then …’
‘But then she looked back and waved her scarf. She was laughing.’
He looks at his cousin as if he expects him to understand, and then Ange begins to call from the landing below and his expression changes.
‘Claude knows, too. He saw us.’
‘Claude? How on earth …?’
‘He said he met them on Torcross Line having ice cream. Jemima lives at Torcross.’
‘Yes, I know that.’
Ange shouts again that lunch is ready and Charlie calls back, ‘OK. We’re on our way.’ Then, ‘Come on,’ he says to Ben. ‘We’ll talk later,’ and they go downstairs together.
Much later, as they sit on the beach whilst Maisie constructs odd shapes with the pebbles, Jemima roots about in her bag and finds the card Ben gave her. She looks at his name, at his telephone number, and then she carefully enters it into her mobile.
‘I’m building a castle,’ says Maisie. ‘No, it’s not. It’s a palace for Princess Poppy.’
This is the name of the new dolly, decided upon at lunch where the princess sat on the table presiding over the fish and chips. Now she sits on Maisie’s rucksack so that she might observe the construction of her new home.
‘Only,’ says Maisie, flinging herself down in despair, ‘I can’t do windows.’
‘It’s difficult with these pebbles,’ agrees Jemima, getting on to her knees. ‘You need a few very big flat stones. Have a look around and see if you can find some.’
She tries to remodel Maisie’s construction, which looks more like a roofless igloo than a palace. Behind her Otto stretches out in the shade of the seawall: he is deep in sleep but his paws twitch from time to time as if he is dreaming about his earlier walk by the ley. It is hot; no breeze disturbs the tranquil surface of the sea. Families seek the shade of their windbreaks, or little pop-up tents, cramming sunhats on to the heads of small children, slathering sunblock on to bare arms and legs. Maisie returns with some larger stones and Jemima attempts to help create the palace for Princess Poppy but all the time she is thinking about Charlie, wondering if he will tell Ben he met her and what he might say about her. She remembers how Maisie asked Charlie if he were her father and his straightforward answer. There was no opportunity to explain; Maisie continued to hold his hand as if she’d known him all her life and he was completely at ease with her.
‘I’m tired,’ she says now, collapsing suddenly on to her side and putting her thumb into her mouth. ‘What shall we do, Jemima?’
Jemima slightly dreads these moments when Maisie is seized with boredom, needing entertaining, and inclined to whine. It is too hot to go for a walk along the beach and she prefers to take Maisie swimming unaccompanied by Otto, who is always uncharacteristically overexcitable at the prospect of a paddle. She falls back on her usual distraction: refreshment. To go back home for tea is rather dull, and she hasn’t bothered to bring a picnic, but a little treat at the Seabreeze Café just a few yards away generally revives Maisie’s good temper. They can sit outside with Otto and plan what to do during the hours before bedtime. Otto’s walk beside the ley will be a must, then perhaps a DVD, or Lego.
Maisie is already running ahead with Princess Poppy whilst Jemima strolls behind with Otto. She wonders idly what she would do if Charlie were to appear. She envisages several little scenarios in which they meet again unexpectedly. She still feels foolishly excited, unbearably happy: it seems inconceivable that nothing will come of it.
‘I often come to Dartmouth on my own,’ he said. ‘I can come and stay with Benj. We’ve arranged to go down to Polzeath tomorrow but I’ll be back.’
She loved the way he called his cousin ‘Benj’ because his mother had; loved the concentration of his gaze and the way they’d connected. He was exciting, different, yet oddly familiar and comfortable to be with: how weird was that?
Maisie is already scrambling on to a chair at an outside table, putting Princess Poppy down, beaming with anticipation. It’s time for tea.