Hitherto, of course, Chloë had not expected to come across a rather attractive man in Cornwall. Certainly not one who could cause an almost forgotten flutter deep within her. But there again, she had not foreseen Cornwall providing her with a friend in the making, in Jane. Nor presenting her with a lifestyle that evidently suited her, and a landscape which provided such a decorous backdrop to it all.
While William dragged his heels to the bank, Chloë reorganized her shifts.
‘A-gain!’ Jane exclaimed, feigning shock and unable to conceal excitement. A local boy for Chloë? Good; perhaps she’d stay. ‘Still on a par with the brownies?’
‘Over par,’ Chloë illumined.
‘But how does he rank with the banoffee pie?’ Jane asked suspiciously.
‘Say, one and a half times as nice,’ Chloë decided after much carefully contrived deliberation, ‘that is, at this point in the proceedings.’
Jane nodded and said ‘Proceedings, hey!’ with a mouth full of biscuit mixture. ‘So what does he look like? Come on, come on!’
Chloë twisted her face as if she had to think hard. ‘Not bad,’ she reasoned slowly, wondering whether William’s hair was tawny, as in owl, or wicker, as in basket.
‘Not bad?’ Jane mulled, pleasantly exasperated. She offered the bowl of biscuit mixture to Chloë who tunnelled her finger in.
‘More chocolate chips,’ she suggested. Jane agreed and then sent Chloë on her way with a wink and ‘Be careful! Enjoy!’
‘He’s just a nice bloke,’ Chloë reasoned at Jane’s raised eyebrow, ‘and he likes walking.’
Chloë tried the key tentatively, as if it could not possibly fit. She was surprised, almost a little disappointed, when it turned easily. William stood discreetly on the other side of the street, busying himself by half-heartedly reconciling his cheque-book; but as Chloë pressed persuasively against the door, she looked over her shoulder and beckoned him with her eyes. Inside, they stood in silence, in darkness and in dust. It was not long before they cleared their throats and declared ‘Heavens, let’s get some air in here!’
Accustomed to the gloom, they made out a narrow door at the back of the room and found that the key worked this lock too. As they creaked the door open, a glance of light swung into the room; a long, gossamer triangle in which dust particles danced with relief. They saw chipboard on the inside of the back wall and, with a short plank which lay at his feet, William levered it away. An arched window, whose fanlight was a garland of stained glass, was revealed. They took stock of the room. It was utterly bare. But its proportions were pleasing and Chloë felt her smile broaden. Without speaking and without being asked, William went back outside the building and prised away the chipboard from the front. Another window was uncovered, no stained glass but a fine double sash all the same. Only one pane was cracked.
‘Nice, space!’ encouraged William, catching Chloë’s eye for a little too long before swiftly returning his attention to the room.
‘Isn’t it just!’ agreed Chloë, turning away to examine a wall and hide her blush.
William pointed to a corner. Chloë followed his direction and alighted on a long white envelope that, on closer inspection, had yellowed all around the edges and curled at the corners most forlornly.
‘I’ll be outside,’ said William tactfully.
‘Don’t!’ pleaded Chloë reaching out for his arm, but taking her hand back self-consciously before it made contact. ‘Please?’
He stood by her. Her hair smelt of lemons and he inched his face just a little closer to the back of her head. She drew the contents from the envelope. They were the deeds to Number Three Penbeagle Street. Chloë’s name had been typed by a land agent’s secretary and Jocelyn’s signature, though bold and familiar, had undoubtedly faded. Neither the paper, nor the envelope, smelled of Mitsuko.
‘It’s yours!’ William congratulated, flicking the paper between thumb and forefinger.
‘It is, isn’t it!’ Chloë marvelled, kissing the deeds quickly and clutching them to her breast.
They spent the morning examining the building. The back door and arched window looked out over a walled, small sunken garden that was currently obscured by rubble and chickweed, beer cans and a dead gull. Inside, apart from the useful plank and a dusty but unused polystyrene cup, the room was totally bare. And large. William paced it out and declared it to be a good thirty-five feet by almost the same. He pointed out the original coving and crouched on his knees to inspect the skirting-boards which he declared a find. As Chloë sat on her heels beside him to inspect it, she rested her hand on his shoulder. Naturally, lightly; both to steady herself and because she just wanted to.
‘I’ve never thought much about skirting-boards before,’ she confided, hoping he would not judge her because of it.
They grinned at each other and touched foreheads gently, just for a moment.
‘You smell lemony.’
The bareness of Number Three Penbeagle Street gave Chloë a headache. The building was empty and yet stuffed full of possibility. The building, after all, was hers. Hitherto, the most valuable item she had owned was the mountain bike she had bought the previous month; the most precious, Jocelyn’s brooch. Now Jocelyn had bequeathed her an empty building to do with as she liked, and for which she had so many glimpsed ideas that they ricocheted around her mind in an indecipherable and unfathomable tangle. Chloë’s head was thrumming. William said that he knew a cure. Chloë remarked to herself, as casually as she could, that he very well might be the cure.
They drove up the coast to Portreath where they ate baked potatoes oozing with dark yellow butter. Then they atoned for the cholesterol with a bracing walk along the cliff, on a stretch of coastal path as spectacular and unique as anywhere else on the north coast. The cliffs, soaring up from the sea and plummeting down deep into it, were buffed brown and beige, streaked through with pink and grey, striated with ivory. William gave a theatrical discourse about granite intruding into the surface rock, about metalliferous veins. He explained that the resultant natural beauty that Chloë so admired had solicited the mining industry which had so scarred the landscape with man’s greedy mark.
‘Mines,’ he propounded, ‘are but the hallmarks of cupidity for which the devastation of the cliffs was justified.’
His carefully measured grandiloquence caused much hilarity.
‘But I like the impact of the derelict mines on the landscape,’ Chloë protested through her laughter while William decided her eyes were more conker than mahogany, ‘the characteristic chimney stacks, the ghostly shafts – in their ruinous state they’re actually picturesque.’
William snorted softly and smiled generously.
‘Well,’ Chloë continued aboard her soapbox, ‘I’d say that they’re an established and integral feature of the landscape, and quintessentially Cornish.’
‘Yes, Chloë,’ conceded William, cocking his head and looking up at her, ‘I agree with you. I was just playing the devil’s avocado!’
Feeling no need to check her actions, Chloë pinched him smartly on the back of his neck, which was warm. She could well have lingered, but she chased him to the cliff edge instead. It was like being with Fraser. No it wasn’t. It was different. New. Even better.
They flopped down on to the downy grass; out of breath, cheeks rosy, ear lobes cold, noses noisy. The stunning rocks of Ralph’s Cupboard hushed them into reverential silence. But it was temporary. Soon they were spinning elaborate yarns about who Ralph was. And just what it was he kept in his cupboard.