Miranda hadn’t heard anything from Steve and was a bit stunned by how much she minded this. She was more than a tad out of practice at this fancying someone lark, and also it seemed mad when less than two weeks ago she’d given him just those occasional summertime thoughts over all the years. But there it was. She’d got a big fat crush on him all over again. It was probably to do with the lobster thing. Who couldn’t love (OK, deeply fancy) a man who’d not only believed that stuff but actually let it make a difference to how he worked? She now found she was picking up her phone and putting it down again like an obsessed teenager and minded that too – she should be more grown up than this. She’d sent a text and thanked him for the St Ives lunch and he’d replied saying it had been a pleasure but had said nothing about meeting up again. Not even a hint. But then why would he? She couldn’t expect to waltz back into the village and be the centre of his world all over again. Maybe that one meeting was all there would be to it: curiosity on both sides satisfied, and in not much more than another week she’d be on her way back to London and he’d continue his life with (she presumed) Cheryl and forget about her for another twenty years. Or for ever, even. The thought that she might not see him again, possibly ever, made her feel more unhappy than she’d have thought possible, but as it had fallen on her to be family cheerleader she kept her thoughts hidden and her face brightly smiling. Having Harriet beaming like a cream-filled cat over breakfast didn’t exactly help and when everyone else was out of the kitchen in the morning she intended to tackle her about Duncan. The two of them hadn’t turned up for supper the night before after all. Harriet had called at the last minute and said there’d been a change of plan, adding vaguely that she’d be ‘late’ and not to wait for her.
‘I suppose we should be amazed she phoned at all,’ Clare pointed out when Miranda was looking crossly at easily twice the amount of cooked spaghetti as their diminished party was likely to eat. ‘She’s never been known for her consideration, that one. She’s not reliable like you.’
Oh, that reliability thing again. Every mention of it made Miranda want to fly out of the house and run away to be reckless. Just let the chance come up, she thought, just let it.
‘So, Harrie, did you stay at the Pengarret for dinner?’ Miranda asked after breakfast the minute the children had gone off to the beach. She so hoped that wherever she’d been, it was with Duncan and not the awful Pablo. The worst case would have been him running into the pair of them and charming Harriet away from Duncan, back into his Ferrari, his bed and his life. Please not.
Harriet smiled sleepily. ‘No. Much better than that. Duncan hired a water taxi and we went way up the river to the most cute little restaurant. So gorgeous, Mands, you’d love it. We had supper out on a high-up terrace overlooking the water. They give you a blanket to snuggle into when it gets cold. Total bliss.’ She gazed out of the open doors and looked dreamy. ‘And they have rooms. It would be a fabulous place to spend a couple of romantic nights.’
Miranda gave her a sharp look. ‘With …?’
‘Not with Pablo,’ she said. ‘Definitely not. Duncan is so not like him. He knows how to treat a woman, you know, like holding chairs and stuff. It made me realize what a slob Pablo was. When we went out I used to make excuses for him in my head and think, well, maybe it was cos he was still a bit young that he held his knife and fork as if they were daggers. Duncan doesn’t. But he’s just a friend, you know, and he drove me back here without even, you know … suggesting anything. Unusual, that.’ She looked surprised and Miranda felt defensive for her. Why shouldn’t she have someone who didn’t immediately expect to sleep with her? Someone who would relish the chance to get to know her properly first?
‘Maybe he didn’t fancy me,’ Harriet said, looking thoughtful.
‘Of course he did!’ Miranda reassured her. ‘Any fool could see that. Any fool like me, yesterday. He couldn’t take his eyes off you. Maybe he’s just not the type to rush into stuff.’
‘Really?’ Harriet looked puzzled, ‘I’ve never had one of those before. It’s kind of … prehistoric? Nice though. And like I said, he’s just a friend.’
A bit of reticence was a change, Miranda had to agree, and yet. She was gradually realizing she’d give a lot for Steve to want to rush her into bed. Here was the usually impulsive Harriet contemplating something on a slow burn that might turn out to be long-term while Miranda was aching for the excitement and heat of quick-fire desire. One lucky sister out of two wouldn’t be bad, so good luck to Harriet.
‘But hey, you haven’t said much about your lunch with Steve. Tell me all.’ Harriet pointed her perfect blue-grey fingernail at Miranda. ‘I might not be having a sex life but I can hear about yours.’
Miranda got up and went to open the doors wider. Sun was streaming in and she sniffed at the warm morning air. There was a change to it and it felt slightly charged, as if soon the heat was going to turn menacing rather than simply comfortably hot. ‘There’s nothing to tell. We went to St Ives, had lunch, talked about what we’d been doing since we last met and that was it, really.’
Harriet wasn’t having that. ‘Oh, come on, Manda, you came back grinning like a goofy puppy. Did he snog you? He did, didn’t he?’
‘No, he didn’t.’ Miranda started putting mugs in the dishwasher, not wanting Harriet to see her face. She was sure everything she was thinking would be clearly evident on it.
‘But did you want him to?’ Harriet’s voice was so softly sympathetic that Miranda almost felt like crying. Again. This had to stop – she just wasn’t a cryer. Which reminded her, she still had to deal with the ash-mopped tissues which were hidden in the underwear drawer in her room. She’d got an idea about that, for later.
She turned to Harriet. ‘Yes, OK, I did. I do. But there’s no point thinking about it. He’s with someone else, I’m pretty sure.’
‘If he didn’t actually say he was, in like actual words when you were out with him, then you don’t know. Fuck’s sake, just text him, invite him for a drink. We haven’t got long down here, Mands, so get on with it if you want to. And don’t go saying this is three hundred miles too many from home for a relationship. Everything’s doable if you want it to be. Go for it, babes.’
Miranda envied her younger sister’s simple optimism, and tried the idea on for size in her head. Some of it worked. After all, why not ask him? He’d taken her all that way and bought her that gorgeous lunch – it was only good manners at least to offer a return match, even if it was only a drink at the village pub.
‘Y’know, you’re right, Harrie. I’ll do that. Just as soon as I’ve been down to the shop for the paper and some supplies. Do you want me to pick up the rubbish press for you or are you past all that?’
Harriet laughed. ‘Hell, no thanks! I’m not interested in Pablo’s exploits any more. Time to get on with my life. Anyway, I haven’t got time to read the papers. I’m meeting Duncan at eleven. We’re going to do a bit of the tourist thing and have a look at St Michael’s Mount.’ She gave Miranda a cheeky smirk. ‘Just as friends, obviously.’
Miranda walked down to the harbour with Clare, who was going across to the gallery in St Piran, and had a look at the boats moored up around the sailing club as they walked down the pontoon to the ferry. Steve had said in St Ives that one of them was his, but not which. It could be anything from the biggest gin palace out there to the smallest rowing boat.
‘Your old friend Steve has a boat here, doesn’t he?’ Clare said, breaking into Miranda’s thoughts in quite an alarming way. Were mothers supposed to be able to tell what you were thinking? She didn’t have much idea what went on in Silva’s head and wondered if she’d failed there. Was Silva’s lack of communication on all things personal a matter of privacy, secrecy or simply having not a lot to say at this particular teenage moment?
‘He does, but I don’t know which,’ Miranda said. She had the screwed-up ball of ashy tissues in her handbag. Could Clare also see through the leather to the sad little trace of Jack? God, she hoped not.
‘If it’s a boat that’s big enough,’ Clare started hesitantly, ‘do you think … would it be too much to ask him if he’d take us out on the water to, you know … do the ceremony? I mean, I know I didn’t want strangers driving us but he’s not one really, is he? And I don’t know who else we’d get. Eliot and Andrew, they’re more sailing boat sorts.’
‘Andrew could do it – he’s done the relevant tests – but he’d have to find something to borrow. He really just sails dinghies – he keeps one down here full time. But he did know Jack, so he might be better.’
The ferry was approaching from St Piran. Miranda had a bit of a flashback from when she and Jess used to go across the estuary with Steve at the helm. He always stood to drive the boat, holding the tiller and balancing in a rather cocky way, showing off. They’d sit at the back close to him, their faces at his crotch-level, trying not to giggle. Such silly, smutty little girls they’d been, she thought; if seeing her again had jogged those kinds of memories in Steve, it was no surprise he’d be reluctant to see her again.
‘No. Andrew’s very welcome to come along, and Jessica too, but I’d rather it was Steve. He must know the water out there like the back of his hand. He’d know exactly the right place.’
She’d have to see him again now to ask him, Miranda thought. How could she not? You could hardly send a quick text saying, ‘Hi Steve, would you like to come out with me to bury my stepdad?’ Tempting? Not really.
‘I’ll see you later, darling,’ Clare said as the waiting ferry started to load passengers. ‘Have a lovely morning. What are you planning? Anything nice?’
‘I’m going to call in on Jessica. Other than that, I might do some drawing back at the house. All those agapanthus in the garden have given me an idea for a design. Good luck at the gallery.’
‘Thanks. I’m going to make that woman take a dozen of Jack’s Cornish paintings, whether she likes it or not,’ Clare said, looking steely and determined. ‘Though there is a bit of an issue about how to get them here from Richmond. We’ll have to sort something out with transport. I expect you’ll come up with an idea.’
Ah – another problem to work on. Miranda already had her rail tickets for London in a few days’ time but maybe she should have thought it through and taken the car so as to bring the paintings for Clare. But she’d wanted to leave the Passat for the others to use. Wrong again, then, in spite of good intentions. Damn.
She waited a while on the pontoon till the ferry raced away with its full load of trippers. They were a mixed bunch: sporty sorts with bikes and Lycra, others in full-scale hiking gear, families with dogs and small children and the usual British collection of complicated beach kit, and surfboard-toting teenagers including the good-looking streak-haired boy with the earring whom she sometimes caught Silva looking at. Maybe she could read Silva’s thoughts a bit after all, she thought as she turned back towards the centre of the village to go to the shop.
The shop was busy – customers were whizzing in and out like wasps from a nest and Miranda sat for a while on the wall outside thinking she’d wait till it was a bit quieter and take the opportunity to send Steve a text. Amazingly – for the service was patchy in the village – there was a mobile signal and she sat looking at the phone screen wondering what to say that didn’t look cravenly needy. Eventually she simply asked if he fancied a drink at a pub of his choice that evening. They could sort the where and what time details when (if) he replied.
A family of six emerged from the shop, squabbling over who had ordered what kind of pasty, so she reckoned there’d now be room to move inside.
‘Hello! How are you? Having a lovely holiday?’ Miranda was almost knocked over by the unexpected warmth of Cheryl’s greeting. The girl was absolutely glowing with well-being. Someone’s had a good night, she thought, feeling more than a bit envious.
‘Hi. Yes, great, thanks. You look happy,’ Miranda said, smiling. Cheryl was thoroughly radiant and looked a hundred times prettier than when she was scowling and cross. Miranda took a Guardian from the rack and put a loaf of sourdough bread in one of the fancy wire baskets.
‘That’s because I am happy!’ Cheryl told her as she put on her gloves to prepare a sandwich for a customer whom Miranda recognized as the dour northern lady from her first day, the one who’d been so outraged by the shop’s prices. Now here she was buying fancy focaccia and handmade hummus and not quibbling. ‘Absolutely bloody ecstatic,’ Cheryl went on.
The other customer sighed and turned to Miranda. ‘I think we’re supposed to ask why,’ she said. She didn’t fool Miranda – that was sheer nosiness and Miranda smiled and sympathized and took her cue because, frankly, she wanted to know too.
‘OK, why?’ she asked. ‘Has the lottery fairy called?’
‘No, nothing like that. I’ve got a well hot date tonight, is all.’ Cheryl was blushing prettily as she scooped garlic-stuffed olives into a polystyrene tub.
‘Lucky you. I expect they’re few and far between in these remote parts,’ the other customer said, but even that rather caustic remark didn’t shift the happy grin from Cheryl’s face. The text alert on Miranda’s phone pinged in her bag but she didn’t look. She had a horrible feeling she didn’t need to. The northern lady paid for her goods and left the shop and Miranda added half a dozen pasties and some organic local rocket and courgettes to her basket and took them to Cheryl at the check-out.
‘Isn’t life great sometimes?’ Cheryl gushed as she rang up the total. ‘You know what it’s like, you hope something’s going to work out your way for once and suddenly, when you least expect it, it just does.’
Miranda had a feeling she actually didn’t know what it was like. Cheryl was that close to dancing on the spot and squealing ‘eeeeek’ with excitement. Oh, the envy, Miranda thought, wondering if she’d ever feel like that again.
‘And maybe it’ll happen for you some time,’ Cheryl said to Miranda by way of a parting shot, her eyes glittering in a not entirely friendly way as if she’d just remembered she wasn’t supposed to like her. Miranda thanked her and told her she hoped so and did her best to look as if she was taking this at face value, but once she got outside and looked at her phone it was no surprise to find a reply from Steve to say thanks but no, he was going out somewhere else tonight but he’d be in touch.
Yeah right, Miranda thought, fighting back a tear that even she thought ridiculous in the circumstances; perhaps they’d meet again in another twenty years.
Silva looked at Willow’s Facebook page and groaned out loud. How did she do this? How come she was so freakin’ cool? It was a classic shot, a pyramid in a swimming pool with three totes fit boys at the bottom, two girls standing on their shoulders and, of course, star of the show Willow balancing right at the top, her long yellow hair blowing about in the breeze. There were champagne bottles and glasses on a table beside the pool. The other girls looked a bit older than Willow, all post-braces perfect American teeth and tiny bikinis full of well-grown breasts. Perhaps they saw slender Willow as the baby of the group, the no-threat cute English girl who could be allowed at the top of the pyramid like some kind of harmless mascot. How wrong they were, Silva thought, looking closely at the photo and seeing the eyes of one of the boys staring upwards between Willow’s tanned and parted thighs. He didn’t look as if he was just checking she was safely balanced. Silva clicked ‘Like’ under the photo but didn’t leave a comment. What was there to say? ‘I’m well jel’ would about cover it but she wasn’t going to give Willow the satisfaction.
She closed down the computer and went outside to the terrace, sat on the steps and looked down at the pool shimmering turquoise below. Actually, thinking about it, she felt OK about the Florida photos. She was actually happy right where she was, and who wouldn’t be? How spoiled would you be to complain? She might have felt out of her depth on Willow’s holiday. Willow could cope with those older, muscle-bound sporty boys – the sort arty Bo would dismiss as ‘jocks’ – but Silva would probably feel uncomfortable and that near-year between her and Willow would be really showing. Here in this Cornish village she was now feeling quite contented. She didn’t mind the odd dig from Lola. Lola was just born spiky. It didn’t mean anything. And she had a sweet side to her as well. And also there was that Jules boy. He kept turning up everywhere. Freddie had a theory that he was really identical triplets but Silva didn’t care – she just liked the way he always smiled at her, asked her how her surf lessons were going, treated her like a girl he was almost (only almost, she didn’t have that much confidence) interested in.
A City Link van pulled up outside the gate. You didn’t see many of those round here, she thought idly, picturing home streets full of red buses, ambulances with sirens blaring and the general dusty kerfuffle of town life. A man walked into the garden clutching a parcel. ‘Anderson?’ he asked, holding out the package. ‘Can you sign here, my lover?’ Silva giggled and signed and took the parcel into the house. It was addressed to her. She ripped it open and out fell a crumpled, folded lump of plastic. ‘Whee – another crocodile!’ she squealed, looking at the picture on the packaging. ‘And purple!’ Lola’s lovely mum – huge thanks to her for knowing she would be the one who’d actually want this! She set to work immediately, puffing herself out inflating the pool toy. She went and got the crocodile from the utility room and laid the two of them out on the floor side by side. Almost the same size and not so rounded that their project wouldn’t work. All they had to do was work out how to attach some wood (and Freddie had found an old pallet in his dad’s shed that they could take apart) and the raft would be sorted.
Poor Willow, Silva thought as she lined up her two childish toys against the utility room wall; when it came down to the deep down old-school fun of being like a little kid again, she might actually be missing out.
‘I’m so glad you’re here,’ Jess said to Miranda as they sat on the wall dangling their legs over the creek as they used to when they were teenagers. ‘I’ll miss you when you go back. You’ll come again, won’t you?’
‘I hope so – I don’t see why not,’ Miranda said. ‘Now we’ve rediscovered the place I can’t imagine never coming here again. Though maybe I wouldn’t stay in Steve’s house next time.’
‘You can always stay here,’ Jessica offered. ‘There’re only two of us here so there’re two spare bedrooms since I had the attic done. Come any time.’
‘Where’s Lola’s dad?’ Miranda came straight out with the question she’d been wanting to ask.
‘Australia,’ Jess said. ‘I met him in France. He thought we were a holiday thing and I thought it was more than that and when I got pregnant he flew off back to the homeland so fast I don’t think Qantas were even involved.’ She laughed. ‘There’ve been a few others since but nothing that lasted very long. With all of them I ended up thinking I just preferred it as me and Lola, on our own. I wouldn’t mind hooking up with someone, though; I want Lola to be able to go off to university or travelling or whatever she wants and not feel she’s got to be kind of responsible for me for the rest of my life, especially since the cancer. But I’m not sure there are many men who’d be too keen on this.’ She patted her front.
‘Would you want one who couldn’t cope with it, though?’ Miranda asked. ‘I mean, look at most men – the older they get the more worn round the edges they are. They should be so lucky as to get you, frankly.’
Jess hugged her. ‘Thank you! But honestly, I’m fine. Though …’ she glanced across towards the house next door, ‘it’s funny having Andrew around again. I kind … of …’ she looked down at the river and Miranda could see her face going pink, ‘I sort of like him, you know? I didn’t think about it seriously but last night, really late, I was out watering the pots and there was Geraldine having a cigarette in the garden.’ Jess looked across towards Andrew’s cottage. ‘I can’t believe she smokes so much when she’s always going on about healthy stuff. Is she totally mad?’
‘She likes to fuss over Freddie, I suppose. A case of do as I say, not as I do. But go on – tell me about last night.’
‘Ah yes, well, Andrew leaned out of the window and asked her to move because the smoke was going into his room. It was his old room, that one with the single bed in it. And I thought, oh good, he really definitely isn’t sleeping with her. I sort of surprised myself with the thought.’
‘Andrew, though?’ The words were out before Miranda could stop herself. ‘Sorry – I didn’t mean it to sound like that. He’s sweet, it’s true. And he looks far better now than you’d have thought he would back then.’
‘I know. He’s kind of grown into his geeky look. I like that. And I like it that he’s still quite an innocent-seeming sort and you don’t get many like that. I don’t think there’s a bad bone in him. But anyway, you said you had something you wanted to do here. Tell me – I’m intrigued.’
Miranda reached down into the bag behind the wall and pulled out the wodge of tissues she’d been carrying around.
‘We have to bury this. In this garden,’ she said.
Jess looked at the scrumpled paper in Miranda’s hand. ‘Twenty years I don’t see you, back when we did the funeral on the beach, and you tell me we’re doing another one?’ She was almost exploding with pent-up laughter. ‘Sorry! It’s not funny, but I can’t help it. And the other one wasn’t even remotely funny. Sorry.’ The laughter escaped and pealed so loud across the creek that it echoed back at them. ‘But what is this?’ The hilarity vanished as suddenly as it had come, ‘Oh, God, you haven’t lost …?’
‘No, no! Nothing like before.’ She told Jess about the spilt ashes and about mopping up the last of them. ‘So I just couldn’t bin him, could I?’
‘No. I guess not.’ Jess started laughing again. ‘Sorry, but I’m picturing you on all fours wiping up the ash and apologizing to it at the same time. It’s really not funny. Not even a bit.’ She was shaking with laughter and by now so was Miranda, but eventually Jess managed to speak. ‘And you want to bury him here?’
‘Well, he loved this house. Loads of the plants in this garden were put in by him and Mum. I thought, maybe under that white camellia? If that’s OK? It’s one he bought for her. It was at the flower and produce show in Helston. I remember trailing around the exhibits in the tent, bored witless and probably moaning about it, the way Silva would now. At thirteen you’re too old to make gardens on a plate but too young to appreciate giant marrows.’
‘I’ll get a spade from the shed.’ Jessica climbed off the wall and gave Miranda another hug. ‘And we’ll make it pretty deep. When Lola was small and we were in London, we buried her dead guinea pig, wrapped in a bit of pink blanket. The next morning when I got back from taking her to school I could see the foxes had been. There was the blanket, trailed across the lawn, and no sign of poor Gilbert the piggy.’
‘Oh, awful. But didn’t you worry he hadn’t been dead in the first place? I would have.’
‘No, he was dead all right.’ Jess mimed feet in the air and eyes shut tight, which made Miranda giggle. ‘Still, I suppose it’s a form of recycling, isn’t it?’
The ground was tougher than they’d thought it would be. ‘All these roots plus no rain,’ Miranda said, leaning on the spade.
‘Also doing it in flip-flops. Come on, give me a go.’ Jess reached out for the spade.
‘No, I’m stronger than you.’ Miranda held on. ‘Plus you’re feebled from chemo. I don’t want you to strain something.’
‘Hello. Are you two doing gardening?’ And there was Andrew, climbing nimbly over the fence from next door. Miranda glanced at Jessica, who was smiling at him, all sparkly-eyed.
‘Just digging a hole,’ she told him. ‘But the earth’s like concrete.’
‘Give me the spade,’ he said. ‘How deep do you want it? And is it OK if I make it big enough to put Geraldine in?’
‘That bad?’ Jessica said. ‘Is she staying all summer?’
‘That wasn’t the plan. She said a few days. She’s terrifying. And I very much mind being lectured about the dangers of soft cheese through a haze of poisonous smoke,’ he told her. Jessica was beaming. Miranda felt like creeping away and vanishing, just as she had when Harriet had joined her and Duncan at the hotel. Always the gooseberry, she thought, but this time she thought it in a happy way. Quickly, she explained about the ashes, and Andrew, appreciating the situation and not even thinking of suggesting the kitchen bin, bless him, easily got the hole to a good eighteen inches deep. Miranda, feeling slightly awkward, put the tissues in and covered them over with earth.
‘We’ve done this before,’ Andrew said, looking puzzled, as if his own memory had quite startled him.
‘We have. But at sea that time. Thanks for the digging, Andrew,’ Miranda said, giving him a quick hug. He didn’t flinch, which was something, but he did look surprised.
‘Yes, thanks,’ Jess added, also hugging him. Miranda noticed that with her he actually put an arm round her and squeezed her to him. Good, she thought. Time to make her excuses and leave them to it. Who knew? Maybe they would make a lovely and happy couple. Another one.