After her party, Chloe had woken with a dry mouth and made a vow never to consume alcohol again, which she knew would pass far more quickly than she deserved. The burden of her ‘secret’ had been lifted, but now she had a new load to deal with. Whether to act on Drew’s suggestion of making an unscheduled visit to Hannah. One moment she would decide to call Drew and go; the next she’d realise it was the worst idea in the world.
She had no time to dwell on her hangover or anything else over the following week, which flew by as the preparations continued. Bunting had appeared all over town, strung between the buildings and lampposts, adding a party atmosphere overnight. Shopkeepers had put festival-themed displays in their windows and banners had gone up outside the pubs and cafés advertising their special festival menus and events. A hundred emails had gone out to all the stallholders, allocating their pitches and detailing all the hygiene and health and safety regulations they had to comply with. Those forms would come back and all had to be checked, a job which fell to Evie and a friend from her bingo club.
In a flash, the week leading up to the event itself was upon them. It was Chloe’s first festival as a ‘local’ and it amazed her to see how its tentacles spread from the main venue on the harbour through the side streets and up to the marquee field. Overnight, yellow signs warning people about road closures and directing them to festival car parks had gone up. Shouts and clangs drifted across the harbour from the Smuggler’s as the staff erected a party tent over the beer garden, while the Tinners’ was advertising an all-day hog roast.
On the Thursday before the big event Chloe was up early and on her way to a morning meeting in the harbour office with Troy. Two large vans passed her, one of which pulled up on the grassy area next to the inner harbour while the other ground up the hill towards the marquee field. Chloe realised they were the chef’s tent and the festival marquee. It felt as if the Festival Beast was now unstoppable and it made Chloe tingle with excitement and nervous energy.
At the harbour office, steaming mugs of sailor’s tea were handed round while the harbourmaster delivered the weather forecast, saying that things were looking a bit ‘lively’ for the couple of days running up to the festival. No one had told the weather it was meant to be flaming June, then, Chloe thought. Over the weekend itself, it was supposed to be mostly fine, but with some showers – ‘that could land anywhere across the South West’ the Met Office had said helpfully. Troy didn’t seem concerned, pointing out that as long as the rain wasn’t too heavy, people would turn out. In fact, if it wasn’t blazing hot, that was a good thing because they were more likely to choose the festival than the beach.
Chloe took notes on the meeting while they discussed the provisions for emergencies, evacuations in the event of fire, rogue waves or, heaven forbid, a terrorist attack. Troy rolled his eyes but Chloe, having been involved in organising events in central London, knew that however remote, this was a threat they needed to be prepared for, just in case.
They ran through a host of dull but essential safety items before a heated discussion about obscure aspects of harbour operation between Troy, the harbourmaster and a woman from the council.
Chloe tried to follow it, but soon zoned out. She’d had half an eye on her phone for messages about the festival and she was still holding out hope Hannah would wish her a happy birthday. When she slid a discreet look at the screen, there were two missed calls. Not from Hannah but from Fraser.
Chloe frowned, but decided to pick up the call. The meeting had almost finished anyway. She made her apologies and went outside, finding a spot by a pile of lobster pots.
‘Hi. Chloe. I’ve been trying to get you for hours. I’m in Austria and supposed to be in a conference seminar,’ Fraser said. He sounded terse but that wasn’t unusual. Chloe struggled to hear him above the sound of chatter and tannoy announcements on his end of the phone and gulls squabbling over the scraps from a recent catch.
‘I’ve had the phone on silent while I tried to get on with some work for Porthmellow Festival.’
‘The Mellow what?’ he shouted,
‘Porthmellow Festival. I’m one of the volunteers who organises it.’
‘You, a volunteer? You mean you’re working for nothing?’
Chloe wanted to scream. ‘Yes, Fraser. What’s the matter?’ She turned cold. ‘It’s not Hannah, is it?’
‘Yes and no. Don’t worry. I’ve no bad news. Could be very good news actually. I bumped into Antonia Craddock at a breakfast meeting. She works for one of our competitors now but more importantly, she’s an old friend of bloody Jordan’s parents.’
Chloe gripped her mobile, willing Fraser to get to the point.
‘Antonia told me that Jordan had gone home.’
‘What? As in home to his parents in London? With Hannah and Ruby?’
‘No, on his own.’
Chloe tried to process this news. ‘So has he left them? For good?’
‘Possibly. Antonia didn’t have any more details apart from that Jordan had moved into the granny annexe and was driving his mother mad expecting to be waited on hand and foot. The little toe rag won’t say too much more, but apparently Jacob is furious with him.’
‘What about Hannah and Ruby?’
‘Still in Bristol as far as I know.’ Fraser swore. ‘I feel like going round to the Reeses’ as soon as I’m back in England from this conference and teaching that bastard a bloody lesson.’
‘Don’t even think about it, Fraser! This isn’t about you or Jordan. It’s about Hannah. If he has left her on her own with the baby, imagine how she must be feeling. Unless she kicked him out. I do hope so!’ Chloe was ready to rush out herself, but not to thump Jordan.
‘I know how I’m feeling,’ Fraser continued. ‘Relieved and bloody furious. If I …’
She listened to Fraser ranting for a while, itching to get him off the phone so she could decide what to do next. Eventually, she managed to convince him to let her deal with things and promised to phone him the moment she knew any more.
It took all her composure to walk back into the harbour office to say she had to leave, but the meeting had finished so she practically ran back to the Crow’s Nest. She needed space and time to work out her next move – if any.
She went out to the balcony where the Marisco was motoring back into the harbour under a warm morning sun. Drew had taken a group to Brixham and while in port he’d said he would visit Katya and Connor. Hannah wondered how he must feel, with the possibility of his son moving so far away.
An idea lodged in her mind, as unstoppable as the festival itself … Drew was back home now … If she was going to see Hannah, now or tomorrow were the only times she could get away, especially if she wanted to take Drew with her, as he’d offered.
Immediately, she thought of Fraser. He’d go mad and probably rightly so if Chloe went off to Hannah behind his back with a stranger. Then again, the very fact that Drew was neutral might be the best thing. Fraser would be bound to kick off, and Hannah might feel ganged up on with both parents there. Drew didn’t even need to enter the house, he’d just be in the background for moral support, and perhaps, Chloe admitted, to offer an impartial perspective. He said he’d share the driving with her to Bristol. They could be there and back in a day and if her plan worked, she might be reunited with her daughter and granddaughter within a few hours.
The prospect was so wonderful, so enticing, that her stomach clenched in excitement, followed by dread at the alternative outcome: Hannah vowing to break off contact forever because of Chloe’s interference. She would have to tread very carefully.
Moments later, Fraser sent a WhatsApp saying that he’d heard more from Antonia and that Jordan had let slip that Hannah was still in the Bristol flat ‘as far as he knew’. Fraser added a few choice expletives and that he’d a mind to fly back to Bristol and bring Hannah home whether she liked it or not.
Chloe could have screamed in frustration. Hannah was twenty-two not thirteen; she made her own decisions. She messaged him back, warning him she’d never speak to him again if he did anything like that and, eventually, he agreed to leave things with her for a couple of days.
She threw the phone down
She had to do something now, before Fraser rushed in like a bull in a china shop or Jordan decided to go back to Hannah. She couldn’t bear the thought of Hannah being on her own, dumped by that little sod, not knowing where to turn or wanting to come home and not knowing how.
Drew was right. She needed to meet Hannah face to face and have one last try at getting through to her. But how could she possibly leave the festival with only two days to go?