Annie's Lovely Choir By The Sea

by Liz Eeles

  ‘What can I get you, me ‘andsome?’ The barrel-shaped man behind the bar puts down the pint glass he’s polishing and squints at me over the top of his heavy-framed glasses. This must be Roger. He nods towards a row of gleaming optics festooned with fairy lights.

  ‘There’s plenty to choose from.’

  ‘I’ll have an orange and lemonade, please.’

  ‘Make that a gin and tonic, Roger,’ says a familiar Aussie voice. Kayla has appeared from a door behind the bar in a rust-red dress that matches her hair. ‘You do like gin, don’t you? It’s good local Cornish stuff,’ she says, tipping a pile of pound coins into the till drawer. ‘My treat.’

  ‘I love gin but I’d better not roll in drunk tonight.’

  ‘Woah, I’m only buying you one,’ snorts Kayla. ‘You’ll be fine with that unless you’re a real lightweight or an alcoholic.’

  ‘I’m neither,’ I laugh, gratefully accepting the drink and taking a sip. I think Roger’s gone light on the tonic. The alcohol burns all the way down.

  ‘I was hoping you’d come in,’ whispers Kayla as Roger lumbers from behind the bar and starts collecting glasses from tables. ‘Some nights the average age in here is about seventy, though that’s better than summer Saturdays when we’re besieged by teenaged tourists and have to work out who’s under age. Nightmare!’ She smiles at a plump woman in tight black leggings who’s come up to the bar. ‘Same again, Laura?’

  ‘Yeah, fill it up please.’ She looks at me and then at Kayla and raises her eyebrows.

  ‘Annie, this is Laura, who lives near Celine,’ says Kayla, giving me a wink so I realise that Laura is the woman who’s having it away with the fisherman from Perrigan Bay. ‘And Laura, this is Annie, who’s staying with Alice.’

  Laura’s heavily made-up eyes fill with concern. ‘How is Alice? Poor woman, it’s such a shame.’

  ‘What’s a shame?’ I ask but, before Laura can answer, the door is flung open and a group of men bundle into the pub. They head for the bar and my heart sinks because one of them – with his wallet in his hand and about to order a round – is tall, dark and glowering. My luck really is rubbish these days. Grabbing my drink, I nab the only free table in the pub which happens to be the ‘sauna table’ near the fireplace, but sweating buckets is worth it if it means I avoid another awkward run-in with Josh Pasco. He's a knob and I don’t feel much better myself. Throwing that stone at his car was a ridiculous thing to do. What was I thinking?

  Sitting huddled over the table, I notice a small sign tacked above the bar, next to the cheesy Wotsits. Hallelujah! The Whistling Wave has free Wi-Fi; my gateway back to civilisation. I find my phone in my bag, put in the password – ‘Whistling Wave’, who’d have thought it – and suddenly I’m connected once more to the outside world.

  Feverishly scrolling through social media, it’s obvious that I haven’t missed much over the last couple of days. Facebook is full of friends telling me what amazing thing they had for lunch/what their amazing child has just done/what an amazing person their partner is/what amazing place they’ve booked for their holiday, interspersed with a few political rants and wacky ‘cures’ for cancer. I deliberate over updating my status to say I’m in Cornwall, but no one would be interested so I don’t bother.

  My inbox has twenty-three new emails but most are marketing and can be deleted straight away. There’s a brief message from Maura, checking how I am following my split from Stuart and informing me that Harry has a new tooth, and one from an agency saying there are no available temporary contracts that match my skills. I fire off a quick reply to Maura and delete the email in ungrammatical English promising me £50,000 in return for my bank details.

  There’s loud laughter at the bar and, when I glance across, Josh Pasco is staring straight at me. The moment he catches my eye, he looks away and turns round to talk to a friend so his back’s facing me. His black jeans are just the right side of tight and he’s wearing a short-sleeved green polo shirt which shows off his muscular arms.

  ‘Told you, nice pecs!’ says Kayla, suddenly popping up with a cloth and making a show of wiping my table. She glances up at him. ‘Mmm, and a bonzer backside. He’s quite a hit with the ladies, apparently, and I can see why.’

  ‘Kayla, you are terrible! You’re not interested in him, are you?’

  ‘Nah.’ She rubs at a beer stain on the wood. ‘He’s too dark and brooding for me. I go for totally oblivious blondes.’

  I follow her gaze to a man among Josh Pasco’s group of friends who’s built like a rugby player and has hair the colour of straw.

  ‘Him?’

  Kayla flushes slightly and shoves the cloth into her dress pocket. ‘That’s Ollie Simpson, who lives in the next valley. Looks like a Greek god but doesn’t know I exist. Oh, the things I could teach that man!’ she sighs and winks at me. ‘I’d better get back to the bar, Roger’s struggling. Crikey.’ She wipes beads of sweat from her upper lip. ‘It’s bloody hot here by the fire. Reminds me of summer in Sydney.’

  When Kayla’s gone, I take advantage of the Internet and try to find out more about the tragedy that’s still affecting this small community. There’s scattered information on various websites but the most comprehensive account is from the local paper, the Cornish Coast Gazette.

  The story starts:

  ‘Seven men from the Salt Bay area have died after their fishing boats capsized in the severe storm that hit Cornwall on Monday night.

  The lifeboat from Newlyn rescued six men from the huge waves but the bodies of seven fishermen, ranging in age from twenty-four to seventy, were later found washed up on local beaches. The storm – one of the worst in Cornwall for a decade – took weather forecasters and fishermen by surprise.’

  How appalling! There’s a list of the poor men who drowned, including Samuel Trebarwith, and the story includes a head-and-shoulders photo of him. For the first time I’m face-to-face with my grandfather, who looks stern like Alice, with grey hair and wire-rimmed glasses perched above a long nose. The piece says he shouldn’t have been at sea that night at all; he was retired but doing a favour for a friend who was too unwell to work. Samuel is described as a married father of one daughter, though it doesn’t mention that he’d chosen not to see his daughter for almost fifteen years.

  Whatever my feelings towards Samuel, I’m terribly sad for all those men – ordinary men like these in the pub – who set out from Salt Bay and never returned to their families. Swallowed by the sea and their bodies spat out onto the sand. I wonder if any of the men were found on the beautiful beach at Salt Bay. I wonder if that’s where Samuel ended up. He might have been a bastard but he didn’t deserve that.

  ‘Oops, sorry.’ Kayla, stumbling past with two plates of spaghetti bolognese, trips on the worn rug covering the flagstones and almost throws them into my lap. ‘That was close.’ She rebalances the steaming plates and grins. ‘Let me know if you want anything to eat and I promise not to throw it at you. There’s a menu on the bar and the food’s not totally shite, though I’d avoid the pasta.’ She plonks the plates down in front of the couple at the next table who eye their spaghetti nervously.

  ‘Could you bring the menu over?’ I call after Kayla, but she’s already talking to other customers and doesn’t hear me. Bugger! I’m going to have to brave the bar myself but at least Josh Pasco still has his back to me.

  ‘The fish is good round here,’ says a voice in my ear while I’m scanning the menu. Greek god Ollie has broken away from the group and is standing beside me, trying to attract the attention of Roger, who’s ringing up at the till. He gives me a smile that lights up his grey eyes, which have almost invisible pale lashes. ‘You’re new around here, aren’t you?’

  ‘Yes, I’m Annie.’

  ‘She’s from London,’ says Josh Pasco drily, sidling up to us. He runs his fingers through his unruly hair, pushing it back from his forehead.

  ‘London! Very cosmopolitan!’ Ollie waves a tenner at Kayla, who almost leapfrogs Roger so sh
e can serve him. ‘Can I have a pint of Betty’s and a pint of Scilly Stout, please.’

  ‘Coming right up,’ simpers Kayla.

  Ollie grins and puts the ten-pound note on the bar. ‘Thanks, Carrie.’ Kayla shakes her head sadly and starts pulling pints with more force than is necessary. ‘So what brings you to Salt Bay, Annie?’

  ‘I’m here visiting Alice, Alice Gowan who lives at Tregavara House.’

  ‘She’s Alice’s great-niece,’ interjects Josh. ‘She’s a PA.’

  ‘Interesting. I didn’t realise that Alice had family outside Cornwall. How long are you here for?’

  ‘Just until the day after tomorrow.’ It’s annoying how easily that trips off the tongue right now but how nervous I feel about saying it to Alice in the morning.

  Ollie nods and folds his arms. ‘I bet Alice is enjoying having you to stay, even for a few days.’

  ‘Here’s your beer, Wally,’ says Kayla, slapping the drinks down on the bar.

  ‘It’s Ollie.’

  ‘Yeah, whatever.’ Kayla grabs the ten-pound note, flounces to the till and hits the keys with a thwack that makes the till drawer fly open.

  Ollie shrugs his shoulders and uses a beer mat to soak up the spilled liquid before picking up the brimming glasses and walking carefully towards his friends. Now’s my chance to make amends.

  ‘Look, Josh.’ I take a deep breath. ‘About throwing a stone at your car – I’m not the sort of person who usually does that kind of thing. I don’t know what came over me and I apologise.’

  ‘Yeah, well, I didn’t mean to almost run you over.’ Josh gives a wide, white smile and rests his half-drunk pint against his chest. He looks much nicer when he smiles, much more… bonzer. No wonder the girls like him. ‘I don’t usually drive that fast when it’s raining but I was late and had to get home to Mum.‘

  Oh no, he surely doesn’t live with his mother. He must be about thirty.

  ‘Do you still live with your mum, then?’

  Josh’s face clouds over. ‘Yeah, we can’t all have fancy-schmancy places in London to go back to.’

  ‘Fancy-schmancy? You’ve obviously never been to Stratford.’

  ‘I’ve hardly ever been to London because I can’t stand the place. Too noisy, too much dirt and too many idiots.’

  ‘That’s funny. I can’t stand Cornwall – too boring, too much rain and too many bad drivers.’ Oh dear, my mouth appears to be running away with me, thanks to Josh Stupid Pasco who’s scowling at me over his pint.

  ‘Children, children!’ Ollie has come back to collect his change that Kayla has dumped on the bar. ‘What are you two like?’ He swigs a huge gulp of his beer and wipes his mouth with the back of his hand.

  Josh flushes and glances at his friends, who are peering at a mobile phone and laughing loudly.

  ‘I’d better get back to my friends. Goodbye, Annie. Have a safe journey back to lovely Stratford. Come on, Ollie.’ He grabs Ollie’s arm and pulls him away, as Ollie shouts, ‘Bye Annie’ and tries unsuccessfully to stop beer slopping over his jeans.

  For the first time since arriving in Salt Bay, I’m not hungry. But I order fish and chips anyway and sit gently perspiring at my table until it’s ready. I don’t even glance at Josh and his friends, preferring to keep my head buried in my mobile phone instead. Who knew there were so many videos of cats doing somersaults on YouTube?

  ‘Here you go. Enjoy!’ Kayla bangs down a plate piled high with fried cod and chunky golden chips.

  ‘Thanks, that looks great. And, um, Ollie seems nice.’

  ‘Huh, Ollie who? Months I’ve worked here and he still doesn’t know my name. That man is dead to me,’ she says darkly, drawing her finger across her throat. ‘There are plenty more fish in the sea. More handsome fish. Fish who might actually get my name right.’

  She wanders off, still grumbling, while I bite into a chip and then try the cod. Ollie is right. The fish is very good here. In fact it tastes incredible; fantastically fresh and nothing like the plastic-wrapped cod I buy from the supermarket. And the chips are crisp on the outside but fluffy on the inside. It seems a shame to smother them in vinegar and ketchup but I reach for the bottles that Kayla left with me. Mum and I always went heavy on the condiments when we visited the chippie and old habits die hard.

  I manage to polish off the lot and, though it’s only just gone nine o’clock, decide to call it a night. Kayla is busy at the bar and everyone else in the pub is either part of a couple or a group. People seem friendly enough and have been smiling at me but no one has made conversation. Josh is as far away as he can possibly be without sitting in the pub garden.

  At the door, I wave at Kayla who lifts a hand and mouths ‘Bye’ from behind the bar. It’s a shame that she lives here, surrounded by fish and seagulls, when she could be living it up in London. Especially as I think we could be good friends if we weren’t three hundred miles apart. I’ll have to nab her tomorrow and convince her that the big city has more to offer.

  Outside, it’s quiet after the buzz of the pub and the cliffs are dark shadows looming over the houses. The whole place seems sombre and sad and it strikes me that there’s no music. There was no music in Maureen’s tea shop, no jukebox or piped music in the pub, and I haven’t noticed a CD player or even a radio at Alice’s. It’s as though the whole place is still in mourning.

  Feeling like a rebel, I plug my earphones into my phone and whack the B-52s on loudly all the way back to Alice’s. There’s nothing like ‘Love Shack’ to shake off the blues. It was music that kept me going over the years while we were moving from flat to flat and Mum was ill. I’d stick the radio on loud or plug in my iPod and listen to disco, jazz, classical, hip-hop – anything to block out the difficult stuff. And music still almost always manages to lift my mood. I’d have gone crazy with grief after Mum died if it wasn’t for Jackson Browne and Elvis Costello. Will Young’s ‘Leave Right Now’ still turns me into a blubbering mess.

  Alice has left the porch light on at Tregavara House and its beams reach the edge of the dark harbour where boats are resting on wet sand. The tide is so far out it’s invisible in the blackness but, when I switch off my music, there’s a faint, repetitive whoosh as the waves are sucked back out into deep water.

  I stand and listen to it for a while before letting myself into the house as quietly as possible, trying not to disturb Alice, who’s far too trusting. For all she knows, I could be ransacking the place while she snoozes, shoving cat ornaments up my jumper like the emmet who stole from the church. The stairs creak with every step but Alice doesn’t stir then or while I’m brushing my teeth and getting ready for bed.

  Lying under the covers, I decide I’m glad that I came to Cornwall because I’d have always wondered ‘what if’ had I given Alice the brush-off. But tomorrow I’ll tell her I’m leaving because I don’t need family and Salt Bay is boring. Though maybe I won’t say it in quite those words.

  There’s something soothing about the rhythmic whoosh of the waves carried by a breeze through my open bedroom window. But it’s only as I’m sinking into sleep that I realise why – it sounds a lot like music.

  Chapter 9

  I’m in the middle of a lovely dream about Bradley Cooper when I wake with a sickening jolt. A strip of pale light has sneaked under the thick brocade curtains and across the floorboards but the rest of the room is still gloomy. It must be too early to get up. Stretching out across the bed, I remember when I worked in Putney and had to get up really early and catch three different Tube trains to get there. Sixty minutes of urban, rush-hour hell before my working day even began, with the prospect of doing it all over again a few hours later. That’s one thing I certainly don’t miss.

  I turn over and snuggle gratefully under the blankets, keen to slip back into sleep and Bradley’s manly arms. He was only wearing a towel and I’m sure he was about to snog me. My thoughts are becoming nicely jumbled when I hear a small sound, like a kitten mewling. There it is again. I’m suddenly wide awake
and holding my breath. It seems to be coming from inside the house but Alice doesn’t have a cat. If she did, I’d be sneezing my head off by now and shovelling down antihistamines like Smarties.

  Groping across the bottom of the bed, I find last night’s jumper and put it on over my pyjamas before creeping onto the landing. I’m feeling spooked after being jolted awake and the stained-glass window on the landing doesn’t help. Dawn light is streaming through the thick glass and throwing red streaks like blood stains across my bare feet. Damn my overactive imagination, and Stuart’s love of horror films!

  There’s that sound again, coming from downstairs. There’s nothing to see when I look over the banisters so I creep down the carpeted steps. The elegant staircase folds at its middle into a perfect right angle and I gasp when I reach the bend. Alice is lying on the floor in the hallway with her dressing gown tangled around her.

  ‘Oh my God, Alice.’ I fly down the rest of the stairs and kneel by her. She’s huddled in a foetal position and her eyes look huge in her pale, faded face.

  ‘Thank goodness you heard me calling at last,’ she croaks, trying to lift her head. ‘I’m all right. I just felt a little dizzy.’

  ‘Did you fall down the stairs?’ I ask, feeling for her thready pulse under the thin skin on her wrist. She seems so fragile.

  ‘No, I went down like a sack of potatoes in the hall, like a stupid old woman.’ She starts shifting about until I put my hand on her shoulder.

  ‘Just stay there and don’t move. I’ll call for an ambulance.’

  ‘Don’t you dare!’ Alice is almost shouting. ‘No ambulances and no hospitals!’