‘Molly! How great to bump into you, even on such a lousy day.’ It was Josie, muffled up in a poncho identical to mine, except hers was bright green, matching her eyes.
‘God, can you believe this weather? Now, what have you got there?’ she asked with a grin, snatching the little book out of my hand. ‘Cornish fairy tales, ghoulies and ghosties from the local tourist trap?’ She peered at the title. ‘Oh no. This one’s quite respectable. Are you interested in Looe Island?’
Before I had a chance to think what to say, she waved the book around, and said, ‘If you are, you must meet my husband, Tony. He knows everything there is to know about St George’s Island. That’s what everyone used to call it.’
‘And before that,’ I asked faintly, ‘St Michael of Lammana?’
‘That’s right. Such a fascinating place, steeped in legend–holy as well. Jesus is supposed to have visited Lammana with his uncle, Joseph of Arimathea, trading spices for tin. Joseph was a merchant seaman, and the legend goes that when Jesus was just a boy, he came along as his uncle’s ship’s carpenter. That’s why the island has always been so special to religious orders. The monks attached to the monastery at Glastonbury kept a mission there for centuries, right from the early Middle Ages. It’s a mystery what actually happened on Lammana, but there are all sorts of stories about ghosts, smugglers and wreckers–and worse.’ Josie winked and gave a dramatic fake shiver, an enormous grin on her face. ‘Anyway, let’s not stand here getting wet through in this nasty old fret. Come back with me: Tony’s home, and Hope. You can meet them both over a coffee, and let Tony bore the pants off you with his terrible tales of the monks of Lammana.’
I wasn’t sure if Tony’s tales would help, but Josie was so full of fun and laughter that the idea of coffee with her and her family was very tempting. And I’d get to meet Hope; I was dying to hear why she had designed her cottage like a tiny Disney Ride. I suddenly felt quite sociable; a couple of hours with Josie seemed infinitely preferable than sitting alone in my little holiday home, sheltering from the sea mist and watching daytime TV.
So the two of us walked off, looking like overgrown elves in our brightly coloured ponchos with matching pointy hoods and wellies; one of us poppy red, the other emerald green. And that was appropriate actually, because as we cut through the dead grey shroud of mist, our rain gear glowing as if we were a pair of neon plastic toys, Josie told me the name of her home, the upmarket gourmet B & B: Emerald Point. I thought it was a beautiful name, but didn’t sound like an old farm. Josie chuckled. ‘Oh that’s because Tony’s great, great, great something-or-other grandmother, Bridget she was called, had delusions of grandeur when they first built the farm in the early nineteenth century. She wanted a gentlewoman’s house with a fancy name, not a common old farmhouse. So Emerald Point it was. Actually it works well, because from the house the sea looks a really vivid green. It only happens at that vantage point, something to do with the ocean currents, but just at that particular spot the colour’s really intense, varying from emerald through to deep sage. It’s gorgeous; and the guests love it. They think the name’s dead romantic.’
And, chattering on in a way that soothed my soul, Josie led me home to Emerald Point, just a short walk from Hope Cottage, but higher up the cliff. When we got to the front door, I looked back to see if from here the sea really was a deep green, but in the mist I could see nothing but a vast grey wipe-out of the horizon. But all the lamps were on, and when we closed the door behind us the big house was golden, warm and filled with lazy chatter; children shrieked as they played board games, grown-ups talked and laughed good-humouredly, and the delicious smell of coffee wafting through the house made my mouth water. This was clearly a happy place.
Josie took me into the kitchen, whispering that because of the weather most of their guests had stayed put that day, although a couple of adventurous souls had retrieved their vehicles from the big car park at the top of the village and set off away from the coast in search of blue sky and sunshine. ‘They’ll probably find it too,’ said Josie. ‘We’ve got a real micro-climate here. If they drive a few miles inland they should get better weather.’ I immediately felt homesick for Coombe. My family was probably in the garden playing with Edie.
Josie’s kitchen was huge, and as befitted a room where she churned out gourmet meals, it boasted every modern professional appliance. But it didn’t look off-puttingly sophisticated; there was more warm wood than stainless steel and chrome, and one end of the kitchen was furnished as a cosy family sitting room, with a comfortable sofa and armchairs, a big flat-screen TV and an old-fashioned farmhouse range in which glowed a polished wood-burning stove. It was lit, and I sank down gratefully into a big old leather easy chair while Josie hung our dripping ponchos up to dry.
I was suddenly aware of a small movement on my left, and when I glanced round I saw a flash of bright red hair, a pair of eyes as green as her mother’s, and a wide grin. ‘Hello,’ said Hope. ‘Are you the lady who’s in my house? And why were you wearing my red poncho?’
Chapter Thirty
The colour of Hope’s hair was explained as soon as her father walked in. Tony was tall and rangy, his strongly muscled arms revealed in a white T-shirt emblazoned in green with the legend EMERALD POINT. His eyes were a bright pale blue, and his hair was almost as red as the poncho I’d been wearing, but darker and richer.
‘Tony, this is Molly, who’s renting Hope’s cottage,’ said Josie as she brought a tray of coffee and homemade biscuits from the kitchen, and settled down next to Hope on the sofa. Tony shook my hand and sat in the opposite armchair. ‘Ah yes, Josie told me about you.’
Not too much, I hoped. But he didn’t look pitying, just cheerful and friendly.
‘And how do you like our Hope’s little place?’ he asked, his voice a soft Cornish burr.
‘I love it. Thank you so much, Hope, for letting me stay in it,’ I said.
Hope looked proud. ‘You’re welcome,’ she said politely. ‘I don’t normally let anyone stay there, but Mummy told me you were really nice, so I said it was OK. And I can’t stay there at the moment because I’ve been in hospital.’
‘Yes,’ I replied. ‘Your mum told me. Are you all better now?’
‘Oh, yes. I won’t have to go back for a while, will I, Mummy?’ she said, turning to Josie.
‘That’s right, sweetie. The doctor said you’re doing very well.’
‘So will you go back to your house soon?’ I asked. I saw Josie shake her head briefly. Tony watched her and said cheerfully, ‘Well, we’ll give it a couple of weeks, shall we, Hope?’
Hope nodded gravely. ‘Yes. I have to wait ’til my cough’s gone first, though it nearly has.’
Josie added, ‘Yes, it has. But we have to wait until Mummy or Daddy can get a weekend away from Emerald Point as well. You know we’re very busy at the moment, honey.’
‘All full up,’ nodded Hope. ‘Because they all love it here. And I love playing with the children,’ she beamed.
‘Yes, you’re such a big help with the little ones, Hopie. I don’t know what their mummies would do without you,’ smiled Josie.
‘I want to be a mummy, too. Can I, Daddy?’
‘I don’t see why not, but not for a long time yet, eh? We can’t lose you here to go off and look after a baby, Hopie. There’s too much work for us to do here, and we need you.’
‘I won’t go off, Daddy. I’ll stay here with the baby,’ Hope beamed.
Tony turned to me. ‘Hope can’t stay in the cottage on her own, you see. So she goes there when one of us or the staff here can be spared to stay with her.’
‘Well,’ I said to Hope, ‘if you want to come and see me while I’m staying there, just ask your mum to give me a ring to make sure I’m in and then you can tell me all about your house and why you chose everything in it.’
‘Yes,’ she said, pleased. ‘I will come and show you round my house.’
Josie smiled at me, and then turned as a little girl in shorts an
d sweatshirt coughed apologetically from behind the sofa. ‘Please can Hope come and play with me and show me the animals?’ she said shyly. Josie looked doubtful. ‘I’m not sure that’s a good idea, Victoria. It’s so misty out there I don’t think you’ll be able to find your way.’
But Tony had stood up and crossed to the window. ‘No, I think it’ll be OK, Josie. It’s clearing up. Look.’
And it was true. The fret was lifting. I could see their garden now, and a hazy blue patch had appeared in the sky. Hope jumped up from the sofa and grabbed the little girl’s hand. ‘Come on, Victoria. I’ll show you the piglets.’ And giggling, they both rushed off.
‘She’s gorgeous,’ I said. ‘She looks like a little doll.’
‘Yes,’ smiled Tony. ‘We keep saying we should make her a pair of wings and put her at the top of the Christmas tree.’
‘How did the cottage come about?’ I asked.
‘It was while we were taking this place apart, converting it into a guest house. Hope got it into her head that she wanted a house too,’ said Tony.
‘And Tony’s really good at doing places up,’ continued Josie, ‘so he and his mate Alan, who’s a terrific carpenter, built the little house themselves.’
‘Yeah. Alan did the walls, I did the plumbing and the electrics, and we did the roof together.’
‘And I did the painting and decorating, and made all the curtains,’ finished Josie.
‘Wow,’ I said, impressed. ‘It’s beautiful. Congratulations.’
Tony shrugged. ‘It’s really just a big Wendy House. But it makes her happy.’
‘What about the Cape Cod design, with the porch and everything?’ I asked.
‘Oh, Hope just loves America. We took her to Disney World in Florida, and then the next year we went to New York and spent a week in the Hamptons,’ said Josie. ‘She went on and on about the houses there, so when we asked her what sort of cottage she’d like, she looked at some travel brochures and drew the ones she loved. We just copied the one that looked least complicated.’
Josie took a breath. She poured more coffee into all our cups. There was something deliberate and slow about her. She obviously wanted to change the subject.
‘Anyway, Molly,’ she said in a controlled voice. She didn’t want to talk about Hope any more. I wondered why. ‘Let’s have some more coffee and Tony can tell you about Looe Island. I told her you were an expert, love.’
‘I don’t know about that, but I’ve done quite a lot of research on it.’ Tony sounded serious but humble. I wasn’t deceived. I could tell this man was quite confident that he knew what he was talking about.
‘The island’s history has fascinated me since I was a boy,’ he continued. ‘What do you want to know?’
Two hours later I was back at Hope’s little house. I had left Josie and Tony beginning to serve up an emergency lunch for their weather-bound guests. ‘Homemade soup, pâté and cold meats, cheese and fruit,’ hissed Josie as I left. ‘Not very gourmet, but all I can rustle up at such short notice. And we’re open for dinner tonight. I haven’t even started prepping.’
I suppose I did at least have a sort of lunch to hand; instant chicken noodle soup from a packet, cheese and salad, and a glass of red wine. I sat on my sofa, holding the booklet I’d bought about the island. After what Tony had told me, I was steeped in the mystery and other-worldliness of the place, but none the wiser as to how all the legends and scary ancient rumours could help Joey or me. The island was clearly a place of deep significance to mystics and believers; it had represented a sort of holy shrine to them since the thirteenth century. But I couldn’t see where my dreams fitted in. I believed Len when he told me I used to walk the path to stare at that little rocky shore every day right after Joey disappeared. Why did I become so obsessed with the place? I didn’t remember. At least, I thought, if I knew enough about its history I would be a match for Len. I was sure knowledge was important; I couldn’t just believe everything I was told. My own insight would be crucial; of that I was certain.
I settled down, wrapped myself up in a warm blue and yellow checked throw, and began to read the story of St Michael of Lammana.
Chapter Thirty-One
Ben
Ben lit a cigarette, sat down on the steps at the foot of the War Memorial on the cliff path above Talland Bay, and stared out to sea. Yesterday’s mist had completely cleared; the waves played gently, liltingly soft, and small fishing boats were plying their trade again, bobbing cheerfully on the silvery surface. He tried to make himself think of nothing, as the book he’d borrowed from the mobile library had advised. It was about ‘mindfulness’, the current craze in psychiatric circles, and the subject of a recent avalanche of self-help books. The idea was not to think but simply sense being in the present, to be aware of one’s breathing, one’s surroundings. By concentrating on his physical sensations alone (the stir of the breeze in his hair, the warmth of the sun on his skin, the movement of his diaphragm as the air was sucked into his lungs, then slowly expelled) the thoughts poisoning his mind would somehow melt away. After twenty minutes or so of Buddha-like meditation, he would be revived and reborn into a state of calm relaxation. All the horror, the sense of guilt that churned so endlessly in his head, would have been banished by breathing.
If only it were that easy. Every night he woke in the early hours drenched with sweat, trying to swat away the dreams that tortured him and filled his mind with a fear so deep that he could find no rest. Desperate to escape his memories, he would stumble into the kitchen, make tea, gulp it down fast, pull on his trainers and run away from the house, still wearing the sweat suit he’d slept in. He would jog down the main street, carefully avoiding the harbour and the Blue Peter, past the village shops still wrapped, these short summer nights, in the stillness of dawn, then through the Warren, where already there were signs of wakefulness. As the sky began to lighten, doors opened; gnarled old fishermen stood on their front steps smoking, passing the time of day with other early risers; eager DIY types emerged to take advantage of the fine weather, getting an early start to their day’s work, brandishing ladders and paint pots; white-haired women of unfathomable age let their cats in or out; and the dog-walkers, brisk, tanned and fit, began their twice-daily walk along the cliff path down to Talland Bay and back.
Talland was also Ben’s destination. The old men dragging on their cigarettes would call out to greet him. ‘Early start again, Ben? Youngster like you needs your sleep.’
‘Training for the London Marathon, are you? Don’t overdo it now. Pint at the Blue Peter later?’
Ben would nod and smile but never break his stride, and after he’d passed, the old women would look meaningfully at each other and shake their heads. ‘Not seen him restless as this for a couple of years now.’
‘No, poor lad. Something must have rattled him–brought back bad memories. Did you hear…?’
And they would go into a huddle, watching Ben’s retreating back with a mixture of pity and speculation.
Sometimes Ben would make it down the path as far as Talland; sometimes he would carry on, skirting the Bay and jogging along the flatter path to Looe. But when he went that far, he never stopped to look at the island. He pelted past it like an agitated pony in blinkers. This run was supposed to calm him down; allowing himself even to look at the quiet, brooding presence a couple of miles offshore would destroy any peace of mind he’d gained. Exercise, said the self-help books, that’s the key. That’s what you did to lift your mood when your mind was troubled. Running created endorphins, the body’s natural high. What with his mindfulness breathing techniques and the exercise-induced serotonin flooding his brain with happy, optimistic feelings, he should have been feeling on top of the world by the time he got back to his little house at the top end of Polperro.
Except he never was. Oh, the run did calm him down a bit. He felt exhausted when he got home, too shattered to think. But then he would collapse onto his bed, and even before he stepped into the shower, th
e endorphin high was beginning to wear off. The temporary euphoria was quickly deserting him, as if pleasant emotions knew they didn’t belong in his mind and were slinking away, ashamed of the brief, jolly party they’d just started to throw in his head. The memory of those few days in April 2009, the horror, grief and self-hatred he’d lived with ever since, would never leave him. He could try to live the quietest, most serene life possible in this little Cornish village, he could try his damnedest, every day, to make amends for what he had done, for his part in that terrible tragedy. But it was no use. Who was he kidding? Certainly not himself.
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