‘Unfortunately not. My mum’s not very well. She sends her apologies.’
Margaret’s smile isn’t quite as sympathetic as I’d hoped.
It’s bad news as soon as the account books are open across the bank manager’s desk. There’s a strong smell of furniture polish and new carpet that seems to swell as I watch them nodding silently. The pleasantries only last a minute, and then it’s straight to business. I feel like I’m being judged and I’m scared I’ll be found wanting. I know it’s bad. I’ve tried for weeks to make our situation look better, but deep down I know we’re in trouble. I think Dad knew it long before he died, and I wonder how much it contributed to the heart attack that killed him.
A flash of memory passes unheralded across my mind. Jack Dixon’s smile – and that odd laugh he did before he left. Why am I thinking of that now? Surely he was a portent of the doom awaiting me inside the bank this morning, not a friend meeting a friend in the sunny High Street. If I believed in signs, of course. Which I don’t.
But the thing is, he felt almost like a friend . . .
‘It’s deeply concerning,’ Margaret Lowrie says, and I almost agree with her until I remember she’s pointing at the accounts as she’s speaking. Any hope her friendly smile might have given me before has been well and truly stubbed out within five minutes of entering the meeting room. By comparison, John Trevelyan is practically a sweetheart. They stare at me, and I notice that both of them have rather beaklike noses. Maybe they’re related. Or perhaps all bank managers resemble birds of prey.
‘We’re doing everything we can,’ I reply. ‘And the online shop is starting to see real business . . .’
‘. . . Where your physical shop is struggling,’ John Trevelyan says.
‘Yes, it has been quiet in the shop. But it’s early in the season, and . . .’
‘If I had a pound for every time I heard that line from small business owners in this town,’ Margaret singsongs, and I dig my fingernails into my palm instead of letting her attitude get to me. ‘Having the sea on your doorstop doesn’t make you immune to insolvency.’
I keep my chin high, even more determined not to let them see their words are wounding me. ‘It’s hard, running a business here. We have to work with the custom as it comes in. But we’re doing everything we can. And when the season starts properly, I’m confident the shop will start to turn around.’
‘Miss MacArthur, I feel it would be wrong of me to give you false hope. We are very close to foreclosing on your loans.’ There isn’t even a hint of compassion in John Trevelyan’s statement.
‘But it’s early in the season,’ I say again, as if repeating it will elicit a different reaction. But my financial judges are like the stone gargoyles guarding St Ia’s doors.
‘And yet your business will fail,’ he says, tapping the books on the desk. ‘It will fail, Miss MacArthur. My best advice to you is to strongly consider selling the property. With prices in the town what they are at the moment, it’s your best hope of repaying the debt. It might even leave you and your mother with a nest egg, if the right buyer is found. MacArthur’s is in an enviable location. I’m confident a buyer could be found quickly.’
‘And if we choose to carry on?’ My question is out almost before I realise I’ve said it. Maybe it’s their gleeful dismissal of everything we’ve been trying to do, or the smug expressions on their beaky faces, but I’m not ready to admit defeat yet. Mum doesn’t want us to sell yet. I promised her I would make enough to clear some of our debts before we even considered selling. I think of Dad’s hard work to keep MacArthur’s going, before any of us knew the trouble he was in, and I suddenly want to make one final push before we think of selling. I have nothing to lose by asking – and maybe it will prove to the bank how committed we are to turning MacArthur’s around. I imagine Dad sitting beside me in the chair they’d put out for Mum today, and I take a deep breath. ‘Give me six months and if the business still hasn’t improved, I’ll sell.’
‘Two months.’
‘Four. Please.’
‘Miss MacArthur, this isn’t an exercise in bargaining. We are giving you two months from today to make your business profitable again. Margaret and I will meet you at the end of this time and make the final decision. That’s the best I can do. I’m sorry.’
Chapter Forty
Jack
‘Do you think they liked the house, Dad?’ Nessie is midway through selecting seaglass for our new star when she pauses to ask me the question.
‘I’m sure they did. They finished a lovely star for us yesterday.’
‘Hmm.’ The thought-wrinkle plays above her nose. ‘If it was me, I’d have said thank you.’
I must admit, I’ve wondered this myself. But in a way the driftwood house was a thank you for the seaglass bracelet, so perhaps they consider we’re even. Since we left it on the beach I’ve realised how important it was to me to get it right. That house represents the kind of buildings I would love to make. And I don’t know why it matters to me to win the approval of a complete stranger, but it does. Maybe if they like it, others will too.
I’ve started sketching again. It’s at least three years since I last picked up a pencil, but making the house reignited a spark and now buildings fill my mind, like they used to when I first decided what I wanted to do for a living. After I bumped into Seren yesterday I went to the Post Office and while waiting in the queue to buy stamps and envelopes, I saw the sketchpads. Before I could think better of it I’d bought one, along with a pack of pencils. I’ve got them in my car, under the seat, so I can sketch whenever I get a moment. It feels like an indulgence, especially when Nessie has a pot full of coloured pencils and lots of sketching paper in the house; but these ones are just for me.
I was fifteen when I decided I wanted to build. I’d seen Dad do bits of building work around our house and sometimes he’d let me help. Then my uncle Paul gave me a week of work experience on his building site. But what sealed it was a trip from school to see a field centre that had been built near Plymouth. An award-winning architect had designed it using only materials sourced within a fifty-mile radius. It seemed to have risen from the ground fully formed, both brand new and ancient. I fell in love with it and decided that was what I wanted to do. My initial plans to study architecture were scuppered by less than impressive GCSE results, but I soon realised that it was the building of those structures that fascinated me. I didn’t want to sit in an office, miles away from a site, planning projects I would never get my hands on. I wanted to be the one raising walls from the earth and putting my own stamp on the landscape. So every college notebook was covered with doodles of fanciful glass, stone and wood constructions, working ancient architectural details into futuristic designs. I built small-scale models at home and submitted them for college projects and filled my childhood bedroom with ever more intricate building plans, Blu-tacked to the wall.
Even when I started working on sites where my own designs never came into play, I loved learning my trade – and I discovered I had a real flair for building. But my designs were always my hobby. I have a box of notebooks at the chalet full of them, a decade or more of plans and dreams sealed in dusty cardboard.
Tash thought them an indulgence, of course. The box of notebooks was gradually shunted out of the house to the darkest recesses of the garage. If we’d owned a garden big enough for a shed, they would most likely have been relegated there instead, but our lack of square footage proved their salvation. When Ness was born I didn’t have time to design anything, much preferring to spend time with the most amazing thing I’ve ever made. But one of her first toys was a set of building blocks. And as she grew, our primary-coloured constructions grew ever more ambitious. I thought I’d left my sketches in the parcel of time known as ‘my life before dadhood’. But making the driftwood house has inspired me to start dreaming again.
I know Brotherson has the final say. I fully expect my suggestions to be slowly amalgamated into a much more conventional b
uilding. But I’m daring to believe this job might open doors to one day making the buildings that live in my sketchbooks. If I can gain his trust – and prove that my ideas will work – who knows what might be possible?
‘What do you think?’ Nessie is standing beside me, her knees two ovals of damp sand from where she’s been kneeling. The star is lovely – completely her own design this time. Using the rainbow trays, she has laid lines of alternating blue, white and green glass to form the star, its fifth point left unfinished as usual.
‘It’s gorgeous.’
‘I made it up myself,’ she says, proudly. ‘I drew it in my book, just like you’ve been doing.’
At that moment I am the proudest dad in the world. And anything is possible . . .
Chapter Forty-One
Seren
Driving out to St Piran’s Primary School, I don’t feel the slightest qualms about closing the shop for the day. It’s freeing, actually – a brief respite from everything tied to Dad’s business. I feel like I’ve been granted a stay of execution after yesterday’s meeting with the bank. We can’t make any money to ease the debt today, but at least we can’t fall any further behind.
Besides, I’ve been looking forward to meeting Cerrie’s class. Kieran gave me the finished pictures from our night photographing the sky. They are stunning. Arcs of pure white and gold in concentric half-circles emblazoned across the night sky, with the light-studded silhouette of St Ives below. It’s magic captured on photo paper. Added to this, he made me a composite video, slowly merging all the shots together until they produce the final image. When I watched it on my laptop last night I burst into tears. I think about the effect it will have on Cerrie’s class, how it could spark a passion that lasts for life – like it did in me when I first went stargazing with Dad. Whatever happens with the town vote, what I do today could create a legacy that outlives me.
That’s worth leaving the shop for.
St Piran’s Primary reception has the unmistakable scent of school that takes me right back to childhood in St Ives. Cleaning products, paper, the faint scent of already-cooking lunch, and dust, although there isn’t a speck to be seen around me. There are some places where the smell is always the same, no matter how old you are or how much time has passed since you first experienced it. The green headiness of a florist’s shop; a seaweed-and-salt beach after a storm; the warm wood and dust of the Shedservatory; newsprint and sugar in a newsagent’s shop; the scent of your childhood home. And school, with its too-warm entrances and floor-polish corridors. I breathe it in, excited and nervous in equal measure. Speaking in public isn’t something I find easy, even with all my recent experience in the Save the Parsonage campaign. But today I’m sharing my passion, and that makes it feel easier. I can talk about stars and Elinor Carne forever and my audience are, reportedly, very excited to hear me talk to them.
‘Seren, hi!’ Cerrie is hurrying through the squeaky door to the main school building, red-faced and a little out of breath after the sprint from her classroom. Her hazel eyes twinkle under a fringe of shaggy blonde mane and she swoops down to give me a huge hug. ‘Sorry I’m late. We had a bit of drama in registration this morning.’
‘Is everything okay?’
‘Oh, fine. Seven-year-olds are purveyors of the finest dramas. It’ll all be forgotten when they meet you.’ She grins. ‘So, how are you feeling?’
‘Good. Excited.’
‘They are so chuffed about having a visitor.’
‘The receptionist told me.’
‘Parents and teachers are excited too, actually. There’s a lot of support for the campaign here.’ She pats my shoulder as we start to walk to her classroom. ‘So you’re among friends.’
The classroom is large and open-plan with small blue tables arranged in the centre, each one surrounded by six red plastic chairs. All over the walls various displays have been made: rainbows of colourful paintings and jolly-looking bubble letters. One of the wall display boards is empty, but has been covered in indigo paper.
‘That’s going to be our Elinor Carne wall,’ Cerrie grins. ‘We’re painting constellations after your talk.’ She casts her gaze around the room and frowns. ‘Ah. The drama continues.’
In the corner a dark-haired girl is sniffling in the arms of a classroom assistant, who is wiping her nose with a tissue. The poor little thing looks distraught and I notice several of her classmates are staring at the spectacle, half in solidarity, half in amusement. School can be vicious when you’re a child – I still remember the push-pull of classroom politics.
‘Is she okay?’
Cerrie rolls her eyes. ‘She will be. She’s upset because I confiscated something she brought in this morning. Honestly, you wouldn’t believe some of the things these kids bring to school. Listen, take a seat and I’ll get them all ready. Right, Class 4, I need you all sitting in the story corner please, quick as you can. And remember – walk nicely . . .’
I sit at a small desk and watch the children file from their seats, eyes wide as they walk past me. Some of them take ‘walking nicely’ very seriously, all puffed-out chests and swinging straight arms. The girl who has been crying passes me, hand in hand with the classroom assistant, and offers a shy, red-rimmed-eyed smile. A little boy with a shock of curly black hair pauses to show me a sticker on his chest.
‘It says WELL DONE on it,’ he proudly informs me. ‘Because I did good reading.’
‘That’s great,’ I reply.
‘Joshua Levens, hurry up, please,’ Cerrie calls, her tone suggesting this isn’t the first time she’s said those words. Joshua beams a front-tooth-missing grin and hurries to join his classmates.
Surrounded by a sea of seated little heads, Cerrie raises a hand, wriggling her fingers in the air. One by one the children follow suit, until all the chatter and fidgeting has ceased.
‘Brilliant, put your hands down. Now, you might have noticed that we have a visitor this morning. She’s going to talk to us about stars.’ There is a flutter of excitement from the class. ‘Before we start, what do we do when we listen to someone?’
‘Ears on! Lips shut!’ the children chorus.
‘Exactly.’ She looks over at me and beckons. ‘So let’s give Miss MacArthur a big Class 4 welcome, shall we?’
To the patter of small hands, I walk to Cerrie’s side. Thirty expectant faces beam up at me. ‘Thank you for having me today, Class 4. And thanks to Miss Austin for inviting me. I’m going to tell you about stars today, and a very special lady who helped us to understand them a long time ago . . .’
While I talk, Cerrie is setting up the projector with my laptop. When the time arrives to show the kids Kieran’s video, I take a breath before giving her a nod.
‘All the stars move across the sky, but they do it very slowly, so we can only see where they end up each night. But if we take lots of photographs all through the night and then speed them up, we can see where they move to. I think it’s a bit magical. Would you like to see it, too?’
Thirty vehement nods follow, and the classroom assistant turns the lights off. The screen behind me lights up, and I kneel down on the floor beside the children as the star trail composite plays. I can’t resist sneaking a look at my audience as they watch. Across the room I see that same wonder I felt as a child, played out across sixty widening eyes. I see little mouths fall open, little chests quickening their breath. And I am right back in the Shedservatory next to Dad, the same age as the kids in Cerrie’s class, feeling my own chin drop as the shapes of the constellations began to appear above us.
‘Elinor Carne never saw what you’re seeing now,’ I say, as the composite starts to loop again. ‘But she fell in love with watching the stars. She made her own little observatory in the back garden of her home, high on the hills above St Ives. And she watched every night, when everyone else had gone to bed. She kept a diary of everything she saw – and one night when she was looking through her telescope, she saw a star nobody had ever seen before. When she told so
me other astronomers about it, they didn’t believe her. Then a few years later, a man called William in Plymouth saw the same star and everyone listened to him. So for many years, everyone thought William discovered the star. But a few years ago, Elinor’s diaries were found and the truth came out. She had written about the star on the night she first saw it – the date was much earlier than William’s discovery.’
The video ends and the lights are switched back on. I stand and smile at the class. ‘So the story has a happy ending, in a way. But Elinor never realised that people would one day believe her. In her time people didn’t think women and girls were very important, and they didn’t think they could be good at science.’
‘Girls can do science stuff,’ a girl with blonde plaits retorts. ‘Everyone knows that.’
Several children around her nod their agreement.
‘Of course they can. But when Elinor was alive, a long time ago, people didn’t know that.’
‘That’s sad.’ The girl who was upset earlier has her hand in the air but is talking anyway. ‘Nobody should be able to say you can’t do something, if you really want to do it.’ I wonder if this might be slyly aimed at Cerrie for confiscating her property, but her young face is full of earnest concern. ‘We need to tell everyone about Ellie.’
The children around her join in with loud suggestions and for a moment I can’t keep up with all of their voices.
‘What Miss MacArthur wants to do is to save Elinor’s old house, so that lots more people can find out about her,’ Cerrie says, causing all heads to turn to the back of the room. ‘Do you think that would be good?’
There’s an immediate chorus of yeses and I have to bite my lip to stop myself crying. It’s impossible not to be moved by their unbridled enthusiasm. Cerrie asks for questions, and all the faces turn back to me. For the next ten minutes I’m bombarded by excited enquiries and as I answer I see Cerrie giving me a thumbs-up. Finally, she moves to stand beside me.
Somewhere Beyond the Sea Page 18