by Paige Toon
‘Thank you,’ he murmured, stepping onto the middle rung and planting a big kiss on his daughter’s cheek. ‘This means a lot to me. I really appreciate it. You did the right thing.’
Yes, Nell had.
And it honestly had had very little to do with the fact that she didn’t want Vian to wee on her head.
Nell’s father, Geoffrey Forrester, had lived in the same two-bedroom cottage on the Helford River his entire life. It had been passed down to him by his mother after her untimely death, and Geoff reckoned that he, too, would be carried out of it in a coffin.
Set at the top of a steep hill, with far-reaching views right down the river, Geoff liked nothing more than to sit on the bench seat in his garden, in front of the large purple hydrangea bush, peacefully watching the tide roll up and down the river from the nearby sea.
Today, however, he had company, and peaceful was not a word that could be used to describe the experience.
‘Ready, steady, go!’ Ruth called.
Nell concentrated on making her body as pin-like as possible before setting it in motion. She squealed as she rolled down the steep incline, hoping Ruth would indeed catch her, as promised, before she tumbled over the edge onto the riverbank. The tide was out, but the mud oozed, Nell remembered, having lost a welly boot to it the year before.
Ruth caught the giddy girl and swung her back onto her feet, but the sound of her laughter was drowned out by Vian’s war cry as he took his turn.
‘You rascal!’ Ruth exclaimed, catching her son at the bottom. ‘I wasn’t ready!’
Vian clambered to his feet, yelling, ‘Again! Again!’
He caught Nell’s eye and she knew that the competition was on, so she ran, ran, ran, up the hill as fast as she could, before launching herself, panting, to the ground.
Ruth squealed. ‘Oh, Jesus, Geoff! HELP!’
Ruth reached Nell just in time, while Geoff caught Vian, but he spilt hot tea on his hand in his haste to get to him.
Nell and Vian did feel bad when Geoff cursed out loud, but then Ruth threw her head back and laughed and everyone else joined in.
‘You’ve got grass in your hair,’ Ruth said later, picking recently mown lawn out of the children’s hair as they ate cheese sandwiches, made with crusty bread from the village shop. They were sitting at the kitchen table, which had a picture-window view of the wide river stretching out before them. The steep banks on either side were wooded with mature oak trees and the green tops looked soft, like cotton wool.
‘Yes, your mother told me I need to do a better job of brushing it this year or she’ll lop it all off,’ Geoff said wryly, patting Nell on her shoulder.
Nell was nonplussed. She knew the threat was an empty one. She’d already asked if she could have hair like Isabel’s from school, but Mummy had replied that Isabel looked like a boy and, from her tone, Nell had gathered that this wasn’t a good thing.
‘I’ll brush it for you,’ Ruth said kindly. ‘It’s such a beautiful colour. It’s like the wheat growing in the fields across the river.’
‘Do you want to go over there again this evening and paint?’ Geoff asked casually, and Nell remembered Mummy saying that Ruth was a painter. ‘I can look after the children,’ he offered.
‘No, I want to go, too!’ Vian said with excitement. ‘Can I?’
Ruth smiled at her son. ‘Of course you can.’
‘Yay!’ He shot a look at Nell. ‘I’m building a den,’ he confided.
‘Can I go?’ Nell asked her father hopefully.
‘Well, I suppose we could all go and take a picnic. I could help with your den while Mummy works.’
Everyone agreed that this was an excellent idea.
‘Where’s LouLou?’ she asked later of the rowing boat that had been named after her mother.
Her mother’s actual name was Louise. Nell had never heard anyone called her LouLou, but apparently her daddy had, once upon a time.
‘She was a bit too small for all of us so I bought a new one,’ her father replied.
Nell looked down at the bright-orange rowing boat rocking gently on the murky green, slightly pongy water.
‘What do you think about Platypus as a name?’ her father asked. ‘It’s Ruth’s suggestion.’
‘Platypuses are from Australia,’ Vian chipped in seriously. ‘My daddy is Australian.’
Nell knew the first part already – her teacher was Australian and often brought in books about native animals to read at storytime – but the second part was new information.
Nell took in the expectant expressions of the people around her, her gaze finally resting on Vian. ‘I like it,’ she decided.
Vian’s whole face lit up when he smiled and the sight filled Nell with warmth.
The tide came in and went out twice a day, but the tidal times differed daily. Today, and for the next couple of days, it was possible to traverse the river in the late afternoon and return home shortly after sunset, without the fear of getting banked.
Ruth took to the front of the boat, while the children sat at the rear, their bodies double their usual width due to the thick yellow life jackets they were wearing. Nell’s father was in the driving seat, but halfway into their journey, Nell asked to have a turn, prompting Vian to demand one, too. The boat wobbled precariously as Geoff exchanged places with the children, but after ten minutes of going around in circles, they swapped back so Ruth could get on with her work.
Once the boat was safely tied to the low-hanging branches of a tree, the new family of four made their way beneath the oak trees growing by the bank to the grassy slopes at the edge of the farmer’s field.
Nell watched as Ruth trudged on up the hill alone, a folded wooden easel tucked under her arm and a bag slung over her shoulder. Her curly red hair glinted in the afternoon sun.
Later, when the den-building lost her interest, Nell climbed up after Ruth, curious to see what she was up to.
‘Hello there,’ Ruth said with a kind smile. She stood amongst the biscuit-coloured wheat fronds, holding an orange-tipped brush in her left hand. ‘Does your daddy know you’re here?’
‘Yes, he said I could come,’ Nell replied, breathless from climbing the hill. ‘What are you painting?’
‘That,’ Ruth said, nodding at the view.
Nell looked over her shoulder. The clear blue sky arced above her head, caressing the tops of the fluffy-looking treetops on the other side. The river below was so still that it created a mirror image and, off to her right, their cottage and the annexe stood at the top of a green hill, shining brilliant white in the sun.
‘Do you want to have a look?’ Ruth asked, indicating for Nell to come around to her side of the easel.
Nell did.
She was surprised by what she saw. The canvas burst with colour: vibrant blues and greens, vivid yellows and oranges, and shimmering reds and purples. It was pretty, but it didn’t look at all realistic.
‘Do you like it?’ Ruth asked.
‘Yes,’ Nell replied honestly.
‘I don’t always paint what I see,’ Ruth explained. ‘Sometimes I paint what I feel.’
Nell thought about this. She glanced at Vian’s mummy. ‘Are you happy?’
Ruth laughed, her freckled nose creasing and her blue eyes dancing. ‘Yes, sweetie. Yes, I am.’ She smiled at Nell. ‘Do you like art?’
Nell nodded seriously. ‘I do it at school.’ But her pictures never looked as bright or as beautiful as this.
‘Well, sometime you can have a turn with my watercolours. Would you like that?’
Nell wasn’t sure what watercolours were, but she grinned from ear to ear.
‘You are so sweet,’ Ruth mused, her lips pursed. ‘One day, maybe I can paint you?’
She said it like a question, so Nell nodded.
‘Look,’ Ruth said, snapping off a golden ear of wheat and holding it against Nell’s hair. ‘I wasn’t far off. See?’ She gathered a lock of Nell’s hair and twisted it around to the front of Nell’s fac
e so she could compare the colour. ‘But your eyes,’ Ruth said, with a frown of concentration. ‘Your eyes are more difficult… They’re like… Like the colour of runny honey. In sunshine,’ she added, thinking aloud as she scrutinised the small girl. ‘Very, very beautiful.’
Nell liked this description a lot.
At that moment, her father called out to her from the riverbank below, his brown hair lifting from his forehead in the breeze as he beckoned for her to return. Nell saw that he had laid out a red-and-black chequered rug, upon which Vian was sprawled, already tucking into the picnic. Nell smiled at Ruth one last time and then set off at a run, her blonde hair streaming behind her as her feet carried her downhill.
‘What’s your favourite colour?’ Vian asked Nell later as they lay in their bunk beds.
‘Green,’ Nell replied without a moment’s hesitation. It had always been green, ever since she could remember. ‘What’s yours?’
‘Red,’ he replied. ‘But it used to be blue.’
‘Why does your daddy live in Australia?’ Nell asked, jumping miles ahead in small-talk terms.
No reply came from the bottom bunk. ‘I don’t know,’ Vian said eventually.
Nell heard a rustling sound and, a moment later, Vian’s face appeared at the top of the ladder. ‘He sends me postcards,’ he mumbled, passing her a cardboard rectangle.
Nell sat up and looked at the picture in the fading light, the yellow fabric of the curtains being too thin to snuff it out, even at this hour of the evening.
The scene was of a boat on a vast blue ocean.
‘He’s a fisherman,’ Vian said, hooking his skinny arm around the bunk’s wooden safety railing.
‘Do you miss him?’ Nell asked, because she missed her daddy a lot when she was in London. Cornwall was too far away to come for weekends and in the last year she had only been able to see him during the school holidays.
Vian shrugged. ‘I don’t know.’
Nell thought this reply seemed strange. ‘Do you like him?’ she asked.
‘I don’t know,’ Vian said again, startling Nell further. ‘Mummy says she’ll take me to Australia one day to meet him.’
‘You haven’t met him?’ She wasn’t sure she had understood that correctly.
Vian shook his head and took back the postcard, ducking underneath Nell’s mattress to his own.
‘Are you sad?’ Nell asked.
‘No,’ Vian replied.
But Nell wasn’t so sure.
After that first week of Nell’s month-long stay in Cornwall, Geoff had to return to his day job. He was a gardener at Glendurgan, a National Trust property across the river from Helford, and Nell often accompanied him to work. She preferred it to staying with the moody teenage girl up in the village who had babysat her in the past, but even though Geoff kept her busy with small tasks like deadheading flowers and weeding, the days felt long to a girl of her age.
So when Ruth said that Nell could stay at home with her and Vian, Nell seriously considered the offer. In the end, she chose to stick with what she knew, but as she meandered alone through the maze, while her father trimmed the hedges, she found herself missing her new playmate.
In the last week, they had built dens on riverbanks and sandcastles on the beach. They had flown kites on blowy hilltops and run head first down steep dunes. When Vian had dropped his ice cream on the sand, Nell had shared hers. And when Nell had admitted to missing the stars that her father hadn’t got around to replacing, Vian had peeled off half of her old ones and attached them to Nell’s ceiling with Pritt Stick.
Reaching the tiny thatched hut in the middle of the maze, Nell sat down on the wooden seat and allowed her mind to wander back to last night. She and Vian had once again kept each other awake with their whisperings, telling stories and talking about their mutual longing for a puppy. Nell had remembered that she’d left her cuddly dog, Barky, outside in the garden, but as she’d left her room to retrieve it, she’d overheard Ruth talking to her father in the living room. At the mention of her own name, Nell had paused.
‘The look on Nell’s face today was priceless,’ Ruth had said, and Nell had guessed that she’d been smiling, even though she hadn’t been able to see Ruth’s face. ‘That little laugh of hers when she ran down the sand dune after Vian… She’s adorable, Geoff. Already I love her to bits.’
Nell’s heart had warmed and her daddy had responded with a gentle, ‘Aah.’
Hearing a noise, Nell had shot her head around to see Vian creeping out of their bedroom. She’d pressed her finger to her lips and pointed to the top stair, then they’d settled down, preparing to eavesdrop.
‘When I found out I was having Vian, I thought my life was over,’ Ruth had said, and Vian’s grin had frozen on his face, causing Nell to tense up at the sudden, strange turn in the conversation. She had hooked Vian’s little finger with hers.
‘I had to go back and live with Mum and I was so scared. But if I had known then where I’d be in five years’ time,’ Ruth had continued, ‘I never would have worried. I love you, Geoff. Vian does, too, and we are so very happy here with you and Nell. Thank you for everything you have done for us.’
‘No, thank you, my darling,’ Nell had heard her daddy reply and she’d noted that his voice sounded gruffer than normal. ‘You’ve brought light back into my life. I feel incredibly lucky to have you all here with me.’
Nell had breathed a sigh of relief before meeting Vian’s eyes. He’d sweetly returned her smile and then they’d both crept back to bed, Nell deciding that Barky could survive outside for one night.
Now, as she sat in the middle of the maze, a thought came to her. She jumped to her feet and went to find her father.
‘Daddy,’ she said, tugging on his green shirt and gazing up at him hopefully.
‘Almost time for a tea break and a biscuit,’ he promised, figuring that was his daughter’s reason for seeking him out.
She shook her head. ‘Vian and I have been talking.’
‘Oh?’
‘Can we have a puppy, Daddy?’ she asked, watching as her father’s bushy eyebrows pulled together. Before he could say a word against the idea, she pressed on. ‘Please, Daddy? We would really, really love a puppy! We’d take it for walks and feed it and we’d play with it all the time. Vian and I both really want a dog and we promise you that we’ll look after it!’
Nell had begged her father for a dog before, but he had always said no – he worked too much and Nell was hardly ever in Cornwall. But now, for the first time ever, he actually seemed to be considering it.
By the weekend, Geoff had crumbled under the pressure and, with the cottage puppy-proofed in anticipation, he drove Ruth and two extremely excited children to a village a few miles away where the owners of the local pub had a litter of mongrels ready for rehoming. They named the black-and-white fur ball they chose Scampi, as a nod to the establishment from whence he came.
It was the greatest summer of Nell’s life, and as August rolled to a close, she didn’t want to go home. She cried when Vian tried on his new uniform, all set to begin Year One at the small school up in the village, and Nell begged and pleaded to be able to stay in Cornwall so she could attend with him, rather than return to her strict private school in London.
But alas, it was not to be. At least, not for another two years, when it suited Louise to up sticks and move to the French Riviera in pursuit of a man. Then Nell got her wish, and when she next made the long journey to Cornwall, she was finally going to stay.
Ten
‘Nell!’ Vian shouted, bursting through the front door. ‘Where are you?’
‘Here.’ She was at the kitchen table, making a start on her half-term homework. She’d only arrived home from school half an hour ago.
Vian, typically, had declined to join her.
Energy radiated from him as he beckoned at her wildly. ‘There’s a duckling! It’s lost its mother! Quick!’
Nell immediately jumped up and tore after him.
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br /> They had often talked about how much fun it would be to raise a duckling, but, so far, no duckling had been unlucky enough to make itself available.
Scampi was caught up in the children’s excitement as they ran down to the water’s edge, but even over the noise of his barking, Nell could hear cheeping. She caught a glimpse of fuzzy brown and yellow in amongst the weeping willow branches.
‘Put Scampi back inside and grab the life jackets,’ Vian commanded. ‘I’ll get the boat ready.’
‘But your mum said not to disturb her,’ Nell argued.
Nell’s dad was still at work and Ruth was in the studio – the small, separate annexe building set five metres away from the main body of the cottage. It used to house an entire family centuries before, but had been renovated and turned into a playroom for her father when he was a boy.
‘We’re not going to disturb her,’ Vian replied with a cheeky grin. ‘Now hurry, before we lose sight of it.’
From the ripples on the water, Nell guessed that the tide was on its way out, and she knew that when the water drained, it happened remarkably quickly. She had never yet been banked, but there was always a first time, so she had the good sense to bring wellington boots for the journey, as well as the fishing net that they used when they went crabbing.
Although anxious about getting told off for taking the boat out on their own, Nell was buoyed by her sense of righteousness. She had seen ducklings being plucked out of the water by huge herons, so she knew there wasn’t a moment to lose. She sat at the stern, her body twisted to face the water and her net at the ready. Listening intently, she soon heard the tiny bird’s cries.
‘There!’ She pointed. The duckling was darting in and out of the tree branches that were caressing the water. It was headed in the direction of the bridge and after that it would reach the creek where no boat could follow.
Vian rowed with increased determination. Nell stretched out with her net, hoping to scoop up her prize like hook-a-duck at the funfair, but the duckling scooted away with agile speed. Once more, Vian set off after it, but again Nell’s net came back empty. A car motored by over the bridge and Nell looked up in time to see the pale face of a brown-haired boy peering down at them. When she returned her gaze to the river, the duckling was nowhere to be seen.