Chapter 25

She jumped on, and the fare wasn’t very much, so it couldn’t be far. They travelled out of Penzance, over open countryside, and finally down a rather exciting road with lots of signs indicating that the magical St Ives was just around the corner. Jess saw the sea glinting in a great curve of light, out on her right, and then the bus plunged down a steep street, and finally stopped. Everyone got off, so Jess thought she had better follow.

‘Is this St Ives?’ she asked the driver, feeling like a bit of a fool.

‘Sure is, my dear!’ he replied, with a curious mixture of country and western and Cornish pirate in his voice.

Jess jumped off and looked around. She had no idea where Dad’s house was. People were queuing to get on the bus. She selected a middle-aged woman with glasses. Her mum had always insisted, ‘If you have to speak to a stranger for some reason, make sure it’s a woman.’

In fact, Jess had always made it a rule to ask directions from someone who looked as much like her mum as possible. Which was stupid really, as Mum’s sense of direction was appalling.

OK, this woman in the queue might be a secret mass murderer. She might try to lure Jess back to her house and make pies out of her. But Jess was ready to grab her glasses and stamp on them if there were any signs of an approaching kidnapping. Anyway, Jess was pretty sure you couldn’t kidnap anybody by bus.

‘Excuse me,’ she said. ‘Could you tell me where the Old Pilchard Loft is?’

The woman frowned, and shook her head. ‘I dunno, dear,’ she said. ‘Over by Downalong, I reckon.’

‘Where’s Downalong?’ asked Jess.

‘Over the other side of the harbour,’ said the woman.

‘Where – er, sorry, but where’s the harbour?’ asked Jess.

‘Just go down there to the end of the road, turn left, and then right, keep going, go down on the left-hand side of the church, and you’ll come out by the lifeboat station,’ said the woman. ‘Then you just walk around the quayside and round the other side and then up again. That’s Downalong.’

Jess ran down the road to the corner, followed the instructions and within seconds was standing by the lifeboat station. The harbour stretched away in a curve, with higgledy-piggledy old buildings lining the quayside, mostly shops and pubs, all glittering in the sunlight. The tide was out: there were lots of little boats lying on the sand of the harbour. Children and dogs were running around the quayside. Old people were sitting basking in the sun, their eyes closed. Young people were eating pasties.

A Cornish pasty! Jess’s stomach rumbled. She went into a pasty shop. She didn’t want to arrive ravenously hungry at Dad’s house. It wouldn’t be very polite to turn up out of the blue, a day early, and demand food immediately.

Jess’s mum had given her ten pounds that morning, so she had enough money for a pasty, and selected a cheese and onion one. She bought a Coke to go with it, and went out and sat on the harbour wall. Seagulls screamed overhead, and several dive-bombed her, looking jealously at her pasty with their greedy little light-coloured eyes.

Jess had seen a notice imploring people not to feed the gulls, so she sort of hid her pasty inside her jacket and told them to peck off. She sat in the sun, enjoying her solitary picnic. Music drifted from an open window. People laughed nearby. It seemed a happy place.

She finished her snack and decided it was time to find Dad’s house.

‘Excuse me,’ said Jess, selecting at random an old couple sitting on a bench. ‘Do you know where the Old Pilchard Loft is?’

The aged pair squinted at her, their faces looking like ancient maps.

‘Sorry, love,’ said the woman. ‘We’re only on holiday.’

‘Is it a restaurant?’ asked the man.

‘No,’ said Jess. ‘It’s where my dad lives. It’s his house.’

The old people looked a bit mystified. They clearly thought it a bit odd that Jess didn’t know where her own father lived.

‘Mum and Dad are divorced,’ said Jess, embarrassed. ‘I’m paying him a surprise visit and this is the first time I’ve been down here.’ This was getting a bit silly. She had only wanted to ask for directions but she had ended up telling them half her life story.

‘Ah,’ said the old woman. ‘Never mind, dear. We’re divorced, too.’

Now it was Jess’s turn to look puzzled.

‘You’re divorced?’ They didn’t look very divorced, sitting on a bench in the sun and sort of cuddling up close like a couple of old cats sunbathing.

‘We’re divorced from other people,’ the woman went on. ‘Jim’s divorced from Joan and I’m divorced from Harry.’

This conversation, though more and more bizarre, was somehow reassuring.

‘Lots of people are divorced nowadays,’ said Jess. ‘In fact, when I grow up I’m just going to get divorced straightaway without bothering to get married first.’

She had thought this was quite a good joke, but the old couple just looked confused. This stand-up comedy business was harder than she had thought.

‘Why not try the tourist office?’ suggested the man. ‘They usually know where everything is.’

‘Good idea!’ said Jess. ‘Where’s the tourist office?’

Eventually, after a lot of confusion, Jess found the tourist office and a kind woman helped her by giving her a street map and colouring Dad’s street in green. It was a cobbled street, very narrow and old, with glimpses of dazzling sea between the houses. All the doorsteps were spilling over with flowers and here and there a palm tree flicked its glittering fronds in the breeze.

‘The Old Pilchard Loft.’ Suddenly she saw the hand-painted sign. Her heart started to beat very fast. She hadn’t seen her dad for months – not since Easter, when he’d come up to see her in town. The house looked a bit like a small warehouse or a barn. Beside the front door was a ship’s bell. You had to pull a rope to make it ring. Jess hesitated, embarrassed about the noise it would make.

There was also a vast brass knocker shaped like a pineapple. Jess didn’t want to use this either. It would so obviously be deafening. She knocked on the front door with her knuckles instead. She waited. No reply. She knocked again, so hard it hurt. No reply. What if he was out? Jess’s heart began to sink. It was all going horribly wrong.

OK, it was time to ring the bell. Maybe he hadn’t heard her knocking. Jess reached up, and tugged the rope. A deafening peal rang out, up and down the street. Jess cringed and blushed. But there was the sound of movement somewhere, far away in the house, and a few moments later, above her head, a window opened and her dad’s head looked out.