It was a glorious day when Liv and I set off on the long drive to Cornwall. The sun was beating down, we had some of our favourite music for the car, and I felt my spirits lift – just a bit. Liv had been right. Getting away was the best thing to do. A summer down in Cornwall would reset me ready for coming back to work in the autumn.
‘So tell me about the pub,’ I said, as we left London behind and headed out on to the motorway. ‘I’m imagining bleached wooden floorboards, and signs on the door saying “no beach wear”. Am I right?’
Liv shrugged. ‘No idea,’ she said. ‘Honestly, it’s been so last-minute I’ve basically got the address and nothing else. Apparently the family who were there before had to leave in a hurry.’
‘Why?’
‘I don’t know,’ she said, indicating to overtake a lorry. She flashed me a dazzling smile. ‘I do know the name though.’
‘Of the family?’
She tutted. ‘Of the pub.’ She let out a little giggle, like she knew an amazing secret. ‘It’s brilliant. It’s a sign that you coming with me was the right decision.’
I was intrigued. ‘What is it?’
‘You’re not going to believe it.’
‘Tell me,’ I groaned in frustration.
‘It’s called The Moon Girl.’
I stared at the side of her head in astonishment. ‘It never bloody is?’
‘No lie,’ she said, triumphant. ‘Isn’t it perfect?’
‘Completely perfect.’
I put my hand up to the necklace I always wore, with a little silver crescent moon dangling from the chain. Liv had bought me it for my twenty-first birthday. I’d bought her a bracelet with a dove on it for her twenty-first – just ten days after mine – and we wore them all the time, even more than a decade on. It all went back to our last year in primary school, when we’d been set the task of finding out what our names meant. We’d discovered that Olivia meant peace, and Phoebe meant moon. Since then I’d called Liv, Peace Girl, and she’d called me Moon Girl – hence our jewellery. And why we were so delighted to be heading to a pub named after me. Well, not after me exactly, but it felt like I already had a connection.
‘Do you know where the name comes from?’ I asked, curious to know why it had such an unusual moniker. ‘It’s a bit different from the normal Red Lions or Queen’s Heads.’
‘No idea,’ Liv said. ‘But we can find out, I reckon.’
I nodded. ‘I’ll google when we get there. What sort of pub do you want it to be?’
Liv thought for a second, looking at the road ahead. ‘I’m hoping for a beachfront gastro pub,’ she said. ‘Lots of fancy fish and chips on the menu, jugs of Pimm’s and big balloon glasses of gin. All the posh holidaymakers flooding in, making the profits boom and giving me a big fat bonus. It’s going to be great.’
I settled back in my seat, gazing up at the bright blue sky through the sunroof of the car. ‘It really is,’ I said. ‘Thanks, Liv. This is just what I needed.’
‘It wasn’t your fault you know, what happened,’ she said.
‘I do know.’ I nodded. ‘But that doesn’t stop me feeling guilty.’
‘Three months in sunny Cornwall will put that right, Moon Girl,’ Liv said. She gave me a sudden grin. ‘Trust me.’
It was a long drive to the south west. We stopped a couple of times to swap over the driving, and to get coffees and stretch our legs, and we listened to a lot of Steps and S Club 7 – the music of our schooldays. And we tried not to be disappointed when, as we got nearer to Cornwall, the sky clouded over and the first splatters of rain hit the windscreen.
‘There’s a little seaside town but the pub’s actually just outside it,’ Liv said, peering at her phone screen where she had the map, its glow illuminating her face in the gloomy evening dim light. ‘The town should be off there, to the right …’ She flung her arm out across my face as I drove and I shrieked at her to move.
‘Liv,’ I said. ‘You’re the worst sat nav ever.’
A sign gleamed in the headlights showing a turn-off marked Kirrinporth and Liv said a triumphant “ha”. ‘That’s the town! I’m actually the best sat nav.’
I chuckled. ‘So the pub should be coming up then?’
‘I hope so,’ Liv said, because otherwise we’re going to end up in the sea.
She was right: the ocean spread out in front of us, flat and grey. But thankfully the road bent round and …
‘Slow down,’ Liv cried. ‘There should be a turning any second … here.’
Just in time, I saw the entrance and pulled the car into it. It was a steeply sloping track that led to a large car park. I pulled into one of the many, many empty spaces and stopped the engine, and Liv and I clambered out, taking our jackets from the back seat because the rain was still falling lightly. We blinked as our eyes adjusted to the twilight.
The pub wasn’t obvious at first, because we were right on the edge of a cliff and the only light came from a streetlamp in the far corner of the car park behind us.
‘There,’ Liv said, nudging me and pointing. The pub was lower down than we were. We could only see the roof and the first-floor windows, which were level with the tarmacked area where we stood. Beyond the pub the ground fell away sharply so it looked as though The Moon Girl was balanced on the edge of the world. A flight of concrete steps led down from the car park to the pub’s door. Liv scanned the area for another way down, then rolled her eyes. ‘Disability access nightmare,’ she said. ‘I can’t believe they don’t have a ramp.’
I thought that there would probably be a ramp by the end of next week, now Liv was in charge. She was a doer, my friend. She tugged my sleeve. ‘Let’s get the bags out of the car and go in.’
The rain was getting heavier, so we did everything twice as fast as we would normally, dragging our bags from the boot and dashing across the car park, down the steps, and into the pub. The heavy door slammed behind us, and as though we were in one of the horror films my oldest brother liked, the few people who were inside all stopped talking and looked up at us.
There was a group of three men sitting at a table by the window on the far side of the pub, looking out over the darkening sea, and a young woman behind the bar.
‘Fuck,’ Liv breathed, looking uncharacteristically rattled. ‘We’re not in Lewisham now, Toto.’
‘Hello,’ said the young woman. She was drying an old-fashioned pint glass with dimples. I’d not seen one of those for years. She did at least sound fairly cheerful. ‘Can I help you?’
I waited for Liv to speak, but she was still gazing round in, I thought, despair. So I took charge – or at least I tried to.
‘Hello. This is Olivia Palmer. She’s the new stand-in manager.’
The barmaid grinned so broadly, it looked like her face might split. ‘Brilliant,’ she said. ‘That’s brilliant.’
Boosted by the warm welcome from one person – the pub’s three customers were all still looking at us curiously – Liv recovered herself. ‘Liv,’ she said, hurrying forwards and shaking the barmaid’s hand vigorously. ‘And this is Phoebe. She’s helping me out for the summer.’
‘Kayla,’ said the barmaid. ‘I don’t work here.’
Liv blinked. ‘You don’t?’
‘Nope,’ Kayla said. She put down the glass and turned round, taking a raincoat from the peg behind her. ‘I was just helping out. But now you’re here, I’ll go.’
‘Already?’ Liv sounded alarmed and Kayla shrugged.
‘You’re here,’ she said again.
One of the men who’d been sitting by the window appeared at my elbow.
‘I’ll give you a lift, Kayla,’ he said. He had a strong Cornish accent and was quite handsome in a rugged, weather-beaten way. Like how George Clooney would look if he spent his days outdoors.
Kayla grinned at him. ‘Thanks, Ewan,’ she said.
He nodded to me and Liv and we both nodded back. Kayla came out from behind the bar and threw a bunch of keys in Liv’s direction. Liv didn’t move; she just watched as they landed on the floor in front of her.
‘You’ll want to lock up when we’re gone,’ Kayla said. She looked serious, but the man – Ewan – laughed.
‘Welcome to The Moon Girl,’ he said.
He pushed open the door and a gust of wind blew in, making Liv and me shiver. Kayla and the other two men followed him out into the night and the door banged shut again.
‘What on earth was that?’ I said. Liv looked at me, her eyes wide, and then she burst out laughing. I did the same.
‘I don’t work here,’ I said, in a very bad approximation of Kayla’s west country drawl. ‘I just chuck the keys about.’
‘Welcome to The Moon Girl,’ Liv said, deepening her voice so much that she sounded like a Cornish Batman. She bent down and scooped up the keys.
‘Are you going to lock the door?’ I asked, feeling weirdly nervous. This was a strange place, with the rain beating against the windows and no customers even though it was only seven o’clock in the evening. If the weather was better, it would still be light. That picture I’d had in my mind of the beachside bar with brightly coloured umbrellas on the terrace and bleached wooden floors was fading fast.
Liv didn’t answer; she just walked to the door, checked it was properly closed, and then locked it.
‘No one else will come this evening,’ she said. ‘The rain’s obviously making everyone stay away.’
‘Shall we have a look round?’ I tried to sound enthusiastic but it wasn’t easy.
Liv gave me a bright, very fake, smile. ‘Let’s go.’
We both picked up our bags.
‘Not much to see here,’ Liv said. She was right. The pub was small. I imagined that in winter, with a fire in the empty fireplace and fairy lights round the bar, it could be cosy, but now it just seemed a bit bleak. It had dark wooden floorboards with flaking varnish, and equally dark tables with red velour stools and chairs. It smelled faintly of old smoke – even though no one had smoked inside a pub for more than a decade – and stale beer. The building was fairly wide and as you came through the door, the bar was in front of you and slightly to the left. A door at the back to that side had a gold sticker, half peeling off, reading “ladies” and another underneath showing it as a fire exit. To the right of the bar, there were more tables and chairs, a large television, a dartboard, and a door with no sign. Instead, someone had scrawled “men” on the wood in black marker pen.
The one saving grace of the whole place was the view from the dirty windows at the back. It was stunning. We could see for miles across the bay, from where the pub perched on top of the cliff. Way out to sea we could see bobbing lights – presumably from fishing boats or buoys – and off to the left was a lighthouse. It wasn’t lit yet, though with the gloom drawing in, I thought it wouldn’t be long.
‘Ohhh, Liv,’ I said. ‘This is beautiful.’
‘It feels like we’re on a ship.’ She knelt on one of the stools next to the window and gazed out. ‘There’s virtually nothing between us and the water.’
I joined her on the stool and she shoved me off. ‘Get your own,’ she said.
‘Selfish.’ I tutted as I pulled another chair closer and knelt on that instead. ‘Is there a beach?’
Liv tried to see but she banged her head on the glass. ‘Ouch. Can’t tell.’
‘We can look tomorrow when it’s lighter,’ I said. ‘I bet there’s a little path down the cliff. I might go for a swim every morning. It’s an amazing location.’
Bored with the view, Liv slid off the stool and picked up the three empty pint glasses the men had left on the table – once a barmaid, always a barmaid, I thought. She put them on the bar and wandered round to the fire exit door. ‘Come on, let’s look upstairs,’ she said.
I followed her, reluctant to drag myself away from watching the swell of the sea but not wanting to be left alone. Through the door was a corridor, leading to the ladies’ loo, a fire exit straight ahead, and a flight of stairs with balding carpet.
Liv set off, taking two stairs at a time.
‘So, all I know is there was some sort of family emergency or something,’ she called over her shoulder. ‘And the people who had been managing this place had to leave in a hurry.’
‘Are they coming back?’
‘Not as far as I know,’ she said. ‘The company’s recruiting for someone to take over permanently. Shit.’
She’d gone into the first room at the top and stopped dead, and I bumped into her as I followed.
‘What?’
‘Look.’
Liv stood to one side to let me see. We were in the living room of the flat. It was a nice room with a big squishy sofa and the same amazing view out across the sea. What had stopped Liv short, though, were the pictures on the walls, the television in the corner, and a book face down on the coffee table.
‘What. The. Fuck?’ I gazed round. There was a sideboard at one end of the room, with school photos on it. A small boy with sticking-up hair grinned out at us. ‘They really did leave in a hurry.’
‘This is creepy as,’ Liv said. I nodded, taking in all the personal belongings that had been left behind.
Liv looked upset. She picked up the book, folded down the corner of the page and put it back down again, closed. ‘What on earth could have happened to make a whole family leave their home so fast?’
‘No idea. Must have been a pretty bad emergency.’
‘I can’t believe they’ve left all this stuff here.’ Liv stood in the middle of the room glancing from side to side, taking it all in. ‘I suppose we can box it up and send it on. I’ll call head office tomorrow and get a forwarding address.’
Feeling just as unsettled as Liv clearly was, I wandered into the bedrooms. The master bedroom was much the same, though the wardrobes were open and empty. The bed had linen on it and the television on the wall was on standby. A clean patch in the dust on one bedside table, though, told me the family had taken some belongings. Maybe a precious photograph or a jewellery box?
Silently, Liv and I checked out the rest of the living quarters. There were two more bedrooms. One, which had obviously been the boy’s room, had toys on the floor and pictures of footballers on the walls. Again, though, the wardrobe was empty.
I shivered. This was so strange. It was like the Marie Celeste or an episode of Doctor Who. I half expected David Tennant to leap out at us and make everything normal again. Or was that just wishful thinking?
The third bedroom was clearly a guest room. The linen on its twin beds was fresh and pristine, it had an en-suite bathroom, and there were no creepy abandoned personal belongings.
‘Dibs this room,’ Liv and I said in unison. We both looked at each other and then Liv laughed. ‘Share?’
I nodded in relief. ‘Share.’
We each dropped our bags on to a bed. I chose the one by the window so I could look out across the sea. Then Liv threw her arm round my shoulder. ‘Welcome to The Moon Girl,’ she said, using her Batman voice again. ‘Fancy a drink?’