‘Only a quick one for me.’ Aaron took a seat at the table. ‘I’m supposed to be terracing a garden in Titchwell.’
‘She’s better-looking than Evelyn,’ Ernie answered, evidently in a different conversation in his head.
Clancy caught an apologetic glance from Aaron and found herself grinning. ‘Have you lived here long, Ernie?’ she asked, in an effort to turn to safer topics before he enlarged on his opinion of hers or Evelyn’s looks.
The kettle boiled and Ernie poured the water into the mugs, stirring vigorously. ‘Since I lost my wife. Soon be ten years she’s been gone and still a pain in the arse.’ He stuck a sugar jar and a carton of milk on the table too.
Clancy might have been thrown by this if Dilys hadn’t already explained their novel living arrangements.
‘She said you’re Alice’s cousin,’ he added suddenly, peering at Clancy. ‘Where’s Alice got to? She was a gal, she was.’ Ernie snorted a laugh. ‘Always up to something. Always got some plan afoot. Pretty little dot. She and me got on like a house on fire.’
‘Good! I’ve always got on with her, too.’ Clancy was glad someone had something positive to say about Alice.
‘You look a bit like her. But she was a cow, pissing off like that,’ Ernie added, his fond tone belying the caustic nature of his words. He fell to drinking his coffee meditatively.
Oh dear, the positivity hadn’t lasted long. ‘Er, well, I’m looking forward to exploring the village soon. For one reason or another I’ve been stuck in the Roundhouse pretty much since I got here. Evelyn left maps she gave the guests—’
‘Maps?’ Ernie bellowed a laugh, his eyebrows beetling incredulously. ‘If you need a map to find your way round Nelson’s Bar you must be brainless.’
Aaron cleared his throat and, finding the elderly man’s bluntness uncomfortable judging by his pained expression, managed to keep him talking about Roundhouse Row until they’d finished their coffee and could leave.
‘Sorry about Ernie,’ Aaron apologised as soon as they were out of earshot in the lane. ‘He just turns his thoughts to words, no matter how inappropriate or blunt.’
Clancy shrugged. ‘I’m sure we’ll get used to each other.’ Then, as Aaron took out the keys to his truck, she recalled something that had bothered her last night. ‘By the way, I’m sorry if I somehow said the wrong thing to you and Genevieve yesterday. The atmosphere got a bit …’ She let the sentence tail away rather than say ‘weird’.
He scuffed a booted toe in the dust of the lane. ‘It was kind of you to share your knowledge. Gen’s been knocked off balance by what’s happening to her home.’
When he said no more, Clancy ventured, ‘She seems nice.’
‘She is,’ he acknowledged, but he sounded rueful. His brown eyes looked very dark in the sunshine; almost black.
Clancy backed away a step. ‘OK. Good. Well, thanks for clueing me in about my new job.’
He took a couple of steps in the other direction, towards his truck. ‘If you have any questions, just call me on my landline or mobile – I can normally get a signal if I’m out of the village. Or you can leave a message.’
‘Sure.’ With a final smile goodbye, Clancy slipped indoors through the porch, wondering whether she was just being ultra-sensitive … or whether she’d read something in Aaron’s awkward manner that did not bode well for Genevieve.
Chapter Five
Despite Ernie’s guffaws, Clancy did pick up a map of Nelson’s Bar out of the folder Evelyn had left. She would have liked Evelyn, she was sure, judging by the neat way she’d left everything.
The hand-drawn map showed that most of the village nestled between Long Lane and Marshview Road, curling together as they neared the tip of the headland and met Droody Road running through the middle. The shape they made looked a little like a heart with an arrow through it, she thought fancifully. Where the three roads met a building was marked ‘The Duke of Bronte B&B’ after which Evelyn had written, ‘(The Duke of Bronte being Lord Nelson’s secondary title)’. Side roads such as Frenchmen’s Way, Trader’s Place and The Green led off the main thoroughfares, and the hill leading to the village was prosaically named Long Climb.
As she’d already walked up Long Lane as far as Aaron’s place, Clancy decided to begin with Marshview Road, as it would lead her towards what was marked on the map as Zig-zag Path leading to Zig-zag Beach, which she remembered as the short stretch of sand where Alice had once taken her.
She stepped outside, the map tucked in her pocket. Once she’d left the shelter of the lane the wind pounced on her, whipping her hair about and making her zip up her fleece. Many of the cottages, sunbathing behind hedges as she passed along Marshview Road, were built of the red and white chalk she was fast getting used to. Between them she was able to catch glimpses of the sea, blue and enticing, each wave sporting a jaunty white frill.
After a few minutes, she reached a small but well-worn footpath to the right, between a hedge and a fence, with a sign saying To Zig-zag Path. Following it, Clancy soon arrived on the scrubby, undulating grassland of the clifftop. The footpath became a vague line where the soil showed through the grass, leading to where a white handrail was poised at the cliff edge and gulls wheeled and called mournfully above.
Exhilarated, hair thrashing more wildly than ever, Clancy strode to the handrail that marked the beginning of Zig-zag Path, pausing to drink in the full glory of the view. Sea, sea, sea, right to the curved horizon. Catching the sun’s rays and tossing them into a million dancing lights, the waves ran constantly, restlessly inshore. To catch sight of the swaying reed beds and winding creeks of the salt marsh between Nelson’s Bar and Brancaster she had to swivel to her right and look almost behind her. The Nelson’s Bar headland seemed to have erupted through the gentle, flat scenery all around it, right out into the sea.
At Clancy’s feet the handrail zigged and zagged steeply down, out of sight after the first few sharp bends. She gave in to its lure, her feet slapping the ground as she followed it down, the sea closer with every step, the hiss and crash of the waves louder.
At last she reached Zig-zag Beach, a triangle of pale sand gritty with countless broken seashells. For several minutes she watched as the waves chased each other up the beach almost to the high tide mark of tossed seaweed, then fell back with a disappointed tshhhhhh into the giant blue and white canvas of the sea. The gulls called to her like lost souls, riding the wind on their perfect wings, then they moved off as if realising she had no food to share.
It didn’t take her long to explore the beach, turning pungent heaps of kelp with her toe, shells crunching beneath the soles of her trainers, but as she breathed in the briny air she was filled with a oneness with the place, almost a feeling of belonging. Or just longing?
Finally, she began back up the path.
She’d toiled to the halfway point, the muscles of her calves pulling, when she was surprised by sounds from behind her and two panting teenaged lads in dripping board shorts jogged up to overtake her.
‘Hello. ’Scuse,’ said the lead boy, sprinkling chilly seawater as he passed. His dark curls were a bit like Aaron’s. The second boy’s hair was slicked back against his head. He grinned, and puffed past her too.
‘Hello,’ she said to their departing backs. Where the hell had they appeared from? Intrigued, she followed as their bare feet picked a way through grit and stones until, at the top of the path, they swung right. Clancy was just able to keep them in sight as they ran a hundred yards to where there was a dip in the clifftop, pausing to confer as they backed away from the edge.
Then, with Tarzan yells, they sprinted right off the top of the cliff, arms windmilling for balance as they plummeted from view.
Shocked into action, Clancy broke into a run, hardly feeling her feet touch ground until she reached the spot where the boys had vanished. Cautiously, she peered over the cliff edge, almost dizzy with relief – or at the way the sea swirled below – to see two heads bobbing in the waves.
/> ‘Are you OK?’ she yelled, only half-believing anyone could jump that far and not be crippled by the force of hitting the water. Faces turned up towards her and an arm waved. Reassured that they’d survived their mad leap, she waved back as they turned to swim through the frothing sea and out of sight around a fold in the cliff.
She hovered restlessly, assuming they’d be swimming to Zig-zag Beach but, unable to be certain, poised to get help if they never appeared.
It must have been a good ten minutes before she could smile and relax as they puffed into sight, doing their tiptoe jog over the inhospitable ground. ‘You scared the life out of me,’ she called, pulling what she hoped was a comical face. They were about eighteen, she judged, old enough to resent reproof.
The dark, curly-haired one wore a big grin. ‘We’re all right. We’re cliff jumping.’
Clancy glanced at their launching point. ‘Isn’t it dangerous?’
‘We’re all right,’ he repeated. ‘This is The Leap. The tide doesn’t go out far enough here to be a problem. Wanna try it?’ His grin widened.
‘Erm, I didn’t bring my swim things.’ Clancy pulled a petrified face, making both lads laugh. ‘I’m Clancy, by the way. I’ve moved into the Roundhouse.’
‘Oh, yeah? I’m Harry,’ said the dark one.
‘Rory,’ added the other, speaking for the first time.
Harry beckoned Clancy closer to the cliff edge. ‘The Leap’s quite easy. You need to avoid those rocks there. That’s why we take a run at it, so we jump over them.’
She stared at the sea breaking over the dark jagged rocks then sucking restlessly away. It seemed a long way down. ‘Doesn’t it hurt?’
Rory was beginning to shiver. ‘Depends. You don’t want to belly-flop.’
‘No, I don’t,’ Clancy admitted frankly. Then she stood back to spectate while they retreated twenty or thirty yards from the cliff edge before beginning a new charge to the accompaniment of blood-curdling yells. They hurtled confidently into thin air, their trajectory arcing well out past the rocks. They hit the water in explosions of spray, bobbing back to the surface a few seconds later. Then they struck out towards the fold in the cliffs, once again vanishing from view.
This time, Clancy whiled away their absence by studying her surroundings. She was at the furthest point of the headland now so the sea surrounded her on three sides and the salt marshes were out of view. Out to sea, a couple of white-sailed yachts leaned over in the wind and she watched them skipping atop the waves. Inland, the edge of the village was only a hundred yards away. A few tables stood outside a comparatively large building of brown stone, though the parasols stuck through the tables were furled against the wind. The B&B, she realised. It must have a fantastic sea view. She glanced back to check the progress of the two white yachts. It was a shame the Roundhouse was on the landward side of the village. She could look at a view like this all day.
Then some kind of inner alarm went off and she swung around sharply, her gaze flying to the top of Zig-zag Path. Where were Harry and Rory? They’d had more than enough time to climb back up. She cast around for any sign of them. What she presumed were their clothes were heaped beneath a nearby tree so they hadn’t got past her while she’d been daydreaming.
She hurried to the cliff edge. Nothing. Almost running now, she went back as far as Zig-zag Path and craned over the handrail, hoping to catch a glimpse of wet teenagers jogging back up.
Nothing.
Breath heaving in her chest, she ran back to The Leap, harbouring dubious thoughts about jumping in after them. She was a strong swimmer but throwing herself fully clothed into an unknown sea in the hope of rescuing two lads bigger than she was seemed foolhardy. Panic bubbled in her chest. Should she ring the coastguard? Instinct made her pat her pockets before she remembered abandoning her phone at home as it was so useless in the village. She could sprint to the B&B. They’d have a landline and it must be staffed by locals, people who’d know what to do.
Then, finally, faintly, she heard youthful laughter and turned to see them running up the clifftop towards her, grinning and nudging one another in, she imagined, glee. Relief coursed through her. The little ratbags had been trying to wind her up, probably hanging on to a rock somewhere, hoping she’d still be waiting around for their reappearance and laughing up their sleeves – if they’d been wearing any.
She determined not to give them the pleasure of detecting her erstwhile panic. They were teenagers. Winding up adults was what they did. So, ‘Going in again?’ was all she said, gaining a little satisfaction at their evident disappointment that she wasn’t going to shout at them.
They looked at each other and shrugged and nodded. They ran at the clifftop again, Clancy taking up her vantage point to watch their screaming, euphoric flight down to the dancing waves so far below. Once she’d seen them safely bob to the surface she waved goodbye and made her way across the scrubby grass towards the Duke of Bronte B&B. Evelyn’s notes had said the B&B and Roundhouse Row occasionally sent each other business.
As she approached the lawn in front of the building someone came out and sat down at one of the two tables, a hot drink in one hand and a plate in the other. Clancy paused as she recognised Genevieve’s flowing blonde hair.
A middle-aged woman followed, depositing condiments on the table then pausing to chat as Clancy started forward again. Both women looked up at her approach and she found herself slipping into her business persona, giving Genevieve a warm hello and then extending her hand to the other woman. ‘Hi, I’m Clancy. I’ve moved into the Roundhouse and I’ll be looking after the cottages.’
The woman beamed. She had a round face with a chin to spare and her small dark eyes almost disappeared when she smiled. ‘I’m Kaz. Me and my husband Oli run the B&B. Welcome to Nelson’s Bar.’ Her smile broadened. ‘We have a tiny bar indoors and that’s called Nelson’s Bar too. An old girlfriend of Horatio Nelson lived here, legend has it.’
It seemed there was no end to Nelson’s connections with the village. They chatted for several minutes and then Clancy became conscious of a rumbling tummy and indicated the salad before Genevieve. ‘That looks good. I didn’t realise you did lunches.’
Kaz beamed anew. ‘We do whatever people want if it means business for us. Gen’s got a ham salad there but I can also offer you cheese or tuna, or any of those things in a sandwich. If people give me a bit of notice I can usually offer jacket potatoes or omelettes too.’
After ordering a ham salad and a cup of tea, which sent Kaz bustling indoors, Clancy hovered beside Genevieve. ‘May I join you?’
Immediately, Genevieve nodded. ‘Sit down. It’ll be nice to chat.’
Relieved, Clancy took the seat opposite. ‘Sorry if I was a know-all about your insurance situation. I’m one of those annoying people who see a puzzle and try and solve it.’
Genevieve shrugged, pulling her hair back into a ponytail as she prepared to eat. Her blondeness looked natural, fitting well with her milky skin and blue eyes. ‘I rang the insurance company and you were exactly right. I was just making arrangements with Kaz to move in here for a couple of months. You’ve provided her with a guaranteed guest, which is good for business, and me with a summer of being looked after.’
Clancy didn’t think she sounded super-thrilled, but smiled and began a polite getting-to-know-you conversation. Genevieve, she discovered, was a nursery nurse in a kids’ club in Hunstanton where holidaymakers could leave children for a couple of hours’ play. ‘Monday and Tuesday are my days off this week so I’m using them to get organised for the builders to move into my poor little cottage.’ Tears shone in her eyes for a moment. Then, as Kaz appeared with Clancy’s lunch, ‘In fact, I think I deserve a glass of wine. Fancy joining me?’
As Kaz had paused hopefully Clancy immediately fell in with the suggestion. ‘Wonderful idea.’ They ordered large glasses, red for Clancy and rosé for Genevieve.
The salad proved to be a rainbow confection of leaves, tomatoes and peppers
with cheese and thick-cut ham.
‘So, what’s brought you to Nelson’s Bar?’ Genevieve asked, as Clancy began her meal. ‘Did you decide you needed to be more on the spot to look after your cousin’s interests when Evelyn left?’
‘Not at all,’ said Clancy hastily, not wanting that version of events to get back to Aaron. ‘I really, really needed a change. In fact,’ she added honestly, ‘I needed somewhere to live and a job.’
Kaz popped out with two glasses of wine, both glowing with colour in the afternoon sun. Clancy gave her time to bustle off before she carried on. ‘Up until about ten weeks ago I thought I was getting married. To Will. He’s the sort of man everyone describes as “lovely” so it was a big shock when I found out that he’d met someone else. We worked together too.’
Genevieve paused, her wine poised just short of her lips. ‘Was working together still tenable? After?’
Clancy sighed. ‘We tried. Will managed OK, but I … didn’t. It became obvious one of us had to leave and it seemed as if everyone wanted it to be me.’
‘But that’s not fair!’ Genevieve exclaimed.
The warmth of sisterly solidarity stole over Clancy. ‘Agreed. And I could question the legality, if I wanted to.’ It had crossed her mind often, sitting alone in the Roundhouse and feeling betrayed. ‘But, anyway. Roundhouse Row needed a new caretaker, and filling the position got me out of two unpleasant situations in one go. Now I’m in Nelson’s Bar, while Will moves his new girlfriend into our apartment.’ She chose not to admit that Will was mainly moving Renée in because of the financial knot Clancy had tied him up in, which had pretty much bound him to the apartment, at least for now.
Genevieve’s eyes had been getting bigger and bigger. ‘I can see you’re Alice’s cousin.’
‘Really?’ Clancy turned to look at the other woman. ‘So you knew her well?’
‘We were friendly enough to go out for a drink together, until she … Well, neither of you are frightened of making big changes to your lives, are you? Your relationship ends and you just move on.’
A Summer to Remember Page 5