Brief Encounter at the Picture House by the Sea

by Holly Hepburn

  After a few more seconds, she saw it: a gap that was more of a dirt track than a road, with a five-bar gate across it and a heavy chain holding it shut. She slowed the car to a halt. ‘I’m pretty sure this isn’t right.’

  With a huff of irritation, Sam wrenched the sat nav device from its holder on the windscreen. ‘For God’s sake, the postcode must be wrong,’ she snapped, stabbing at the screen. ‘Did you check it before you put it in?’

  Nessie knew she had; she’d read the solicitor’s papers over and over to make sure she had exactly the right address details, to reassure herself that she hadn’t in fact dreamed up the whole inheritance. But faced with Sam’s flash of anger, she felt her certainty drain away. She stared down at her hands, tight and jittery on the wheel. ‘I thought I did. Maybe I typed it wrong.’

  Sam let out a long slow breath. ‘No, I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to lose it, it’s just been a rough few weeks, you know . . .’ Her mouth twisted into a crooked smile and she held up the device. ‘There’s no signal out here anyway. We could be nearer Luxembourg than Little Monking for all this thing knows.’

  Nessie smiled back in spite of her anxiety. ‘It’s Monkham, not Monking. As featured in the Domesday Book, no less.’

  ‘It’s the arse end of nowhere, that’s what it is,’ Sam muttered, dropping the sat nav into her lap. ‘So, now what? Does anything look familiar?’

  Nessie gazed around, trying to picture the road in daylight. Think, she told herself. What came after the humpback bridge? A crossroads? A roundabout? ‘There might be a junction around the next bend,’ she said slowly, hoping her memory wasn’t playing tricks on her. ‘I think we went left.’

  Sam sat back in her seat. ‘Let’s find out.’

  Taking a deep breath, Nessie put the car in gear and set off once again. ‘So, what’s this place like?’ Sam asked. ‘Are we completely mental?’

  Nessie pictured the Star and Sixpence, sitting at the top of Little Monkham’s immaculate village green, its black and white timber frame bright in the winter sunlight. ‘Like I told you, it’s old, built around 1600, I think.’

  A pained look crossed Sam’s face. ‘Ugh, old. Tell me there’s a shower, at least, and central heating?’ She shuddered as she glanced at the sat nav again. ‘And Wi-Fi?’

  Nessie thought of the dripping showerhead over the chipped enamel bath in the flat upstairs and the vast stone fireplace that dominated the middle of the pub’s wood-beamed lounge. She nodded. ‘There’s a shower and heating, although they could both do with some TLC – the whole place could, to be honest. I’d be amazed if there’s Wi-Fi but that’s easily fixable if we want it.’ She hesitated for a fraction of a second, then plunged on. ‘I thought you might want a bit of a break from the internet, to be honest.’

  Sam was silent as they rounded the bend and, not for the first time Nessie wondered what would have happened if the father they hadn’t spoken to for over twenty years hadn’t left them this pub. For her, probably nothing – she’d still be with Patrick, caught up in the inertia of a marriage that had run its course. But Sam was different; she’d been in more pressing need of a way out and help had come from a source neither of them could have predicted.

  A signpost loomed into view at the side of the road. ‘Little Monkham, one mile,’ Sam said triumphantly. ‘Who needs technology?’

  Nessie didn’t know whether she meant the sat nav or the internet or both but it was another reminder that at least part of the reason they were going to Little Monkham was to hide away. Then again, where better to lick your wounds than a place nobody could find?

  ‘Exactly,’ Nessie replied, pointing the car along the road that led to the village. ‘Maybe there’s something to be said for being lost after all.’

  The village green was bathed in amber from the streetlamps as they drove into Little Monkham. A man was walking his dog past the war memorial and stopped to tip his hat as they drove by. Nessie raised a self-conscious hand to wave while Sam simply stared back.

  ‘We’ve gone back to the 1950s, haven’t we?’ Sam said. ‘There’s an old blue phone box over there or is it the Tardis?’

  ‘I expect it’s a phone box,’ Nessie replied mildly. ‘Not everyone has a mobile.’

  Sam raised her eyebrows. ‘But they do have landlines? They don’t all queue up to use the public phone?’

  Nessie laughed. ‘Maybe. Look, there’s the pub.’

  The Star and Sixpence stood at the head of the green and was lit by a lone old-fashioned streetlamp just outside its door. A sign hung from a wooden pole, a painted silver sixpence next to a bright star, swaying gently in the wind. The windows were inky holes in the white paintwork and the roof sagged above as though tired from its battle with gravity. Sam shivered. ‘It doesn’t look very welcoming.’

  Nessie pulled into the car park and hauled on the hand-brake. ‘It will once we get the lights on. Come on.’

  It wasn’t until they got inside and flicked the light switch that Nessie thought to wonder whether the electricity was still connected. ‘Oh,’ she said, feeling like an idiot. ‘I suppose it’s been cut off.’

  Sam tapped on the torch on her phone. ‘Maybe the power has tripped. That used to happen sometimes at the flat. Where’s the fuse box, do you think?’

  Nessie thought back to her whistle-stop tour at the hands of the thirteen-year-old assistant. ‘I don’t know. There’s a cellar. Down there, maybe?’

  Her sister’s nose wrinkled in distaste. ‘Marvellous. How do I get to this cellar?’

  The windows were small and let in little light from the solitary streetlamp. Sam’s phone illuminated her face and the floor when she pointed it downwards, but not much else. There were shadows and pools of darkness everywhere. ‘Um . . . behind the bar, I think,’ Nessie said, trying to ignore the prickling unease between her shoulder blades. ‘There’s a door and some stairs. Hang on, I’ll show you.’

  But Sam was already moving, the light from her phone bobbing in the dark. ‘Don’t worry, I’ll find it.’

  ‘Be careful!’ Nessie called. From what she remembered, the cellar steps were worn and narrow – easy to fall down in the blackness. Nessie waited, feeling in her pocket for her own phone, the pay-as-you-go one she’d bought when she’d left Patrick. It was cheap and plasticky and definitely didn’t have a light. It didn’t even go online. But it was okay for keeping in touch with Sam when she needed to. Who would she have called anyway? Her friends had turned out to be his friends, which she’d discovered made it easier to cut all ties and start again.

  The silence stretched. The darkness felt heavy and Nessie’s mind began to race. In an unfamiliar place, at night . . . wasn’t that the start of a million horror movies? There was no one else there but even so, she couldn’t stop her imagination. You’re thirty-five years old, she told herself, not five – too old to be afraid of the dark. It made absolutely no difference. She was about to go in search of Sam when there was a flash of light through the window at the entrance of the pub. The door clattered open, silhouetting a hulking figure that almost filled the frame.

  Nessie swallowed a scream. ‘Who’s there?’ she called, taking a step backwards and hating the vibration in her voice. Her legs bumped against something hard and she gripped it for support: a table, she decided, not exactly something she could throw.

  Torchlight swept over her face, temporarily blinding her, and then turned upwards to reveal a man’s face with a shock of black curls above it. ‘Hello,’ he said. ‘You must be the new owner.’

  Nessie’s fingers tightened their grip on the table. Stupid, stupid, he’s not a crazed psychopath. Her heart thudded and thundered in her chest all the same. ‘That’s right,’ she said, as evenly as she could. ‘I’m Nessie Blake. Who are you?’

  ‘Owen Rhys,’ he said and Nessie noticed his lilting accent. ‘From the forge next door. Pleased to meet you.’

  Her shoulders relaxed a fraction as she cast her mind back to her visit a few weeks earlier – there’d bee
n a solid-looking building next door, with a yard and a picture-postcard cottage off to one side. So that was a forge, was it?

  ‘I would have been here to meet you, only we thought you were arriving much earlier,’ Owen went on. Nessie was relieved to see that he hadn’t moved from the doorway and seemed to be waiting for some kind of invitation before he came any closer.

  ‘We . . . we were held up,’ she explained. ‘Sorry if you were waiting around.’

  ‘No problem,’ the man said easily. ‘I live in the cottage beside the forge. My boy, Luke, has been keeping an eye out for you since it got dark.’

  Nessie nodded, then realised he wouldn’t be able to see the movement. ‘Right.’

  Silence hung between them. ‘So, shall I come in and put the lights on? I expect the switch has tripped; the electrics are older than they should be and it doesn’t take much of a surge to knock them out.’

  ‘Actually—’ Nessie began but she was interrupted by a triumphant shout. Suddenly the room was filled with sickly yellow light. ‘My sister, Sam,’ Nessie said, squinting. ‘It looks like she found the fuse box.’

  She blinked as her eyes adjusted. Owen Rhys was around six feet tall, with jet-black curls that tumbled haphazardly across his forehead and dark eyes that were fixed on her. He looked like a blacksmith, she decided, although she wasn’t sure how she knew that, since he was the first she’d ever met. He stood in the doorway, slightly stooped under the thick wooden lintel, the torch in one hand and a basket covered with blue and white gingham in the other.

  ‘You look like your father,’ Owen said, clicking off his torch. ‘You have the same eyes. I’m sorry for your loss, by the way. He was a big part of village life, was Andrew.’

  Nessie swallowed an involuntary snort of derision and turned it into a cough. Green eyes were the only thing she and Sam had in common with their father and she knew Sam had gone through a phase of disguising hers with blue contact lenses, her way of distancing herself from him. It was difficult to imagine him being a valued member of any community. But then Nessie remembered where she was and felt the tiniest bit guilty. Whatever Andrew Chapman’s other failings, and there’d been plenty, he’d given his daughters somewhere to go when they’d needed it. ‘Thank you,’ Nessie said, unable to think of anything else to say.

  They stood for a moment, watching each other, and Nessie felt more of her tension drain away. For a big man, Owen was curiously unthreatening, perhaps because he’d kept his distance. She gave herself a mental shake, tried a smile. ‘Would you like to—’

  Owen started to speak at exactly the same moment. ‘Do you need me to—’

  They stopped and another small silence formed. ‘After you,’ Owen said politely.

  Nessie took a breath. ‘I was going to say, would you like to come in?’

  He nodded. ‘And I was going to ask if you need me to help you with anything, bring any bags or boxes in?’ His gaze flickered to the fireplace, which was cold and blackened. ‘I can get the fire going if you like? It warms the place up lovely once it’s burning.’

  Nessie dared to take her eyes off him then and looked around the pub, taking in the dusty, unmatched tables and the worn carpet. The brasses over the bar were dull, the wood in front of the beer pumps was stained and unpolished, the beamed ceiling was yellowed with age and old nicotine. More than half the bulbs in the hideous 1970s wall lamps were blown. Everywhere she looked, she saw the signs of neglect. It needed a lot of work. Then again, what else did she and Sam have to do?

  She dragged her gaze back to Owen. ‘I think we’ll be okay. Thanks, though.’

  ‘You wouldn’t believe how filthy it is down there,’ Sam said, bursting into the room from behind the bar. ‘There’s a spider the size of Shelob – oh!’

  She stopped when she saw Owen, her eyes widening.

  ‘This is Owen, from the forge next door,’ Nessie said. ‘He’s a blacksmith.’

  ‘I bet he is,’ Sam said as she looked him up and down. ‘A real life blacksmith. Good Lord, I feel like I’ve walked into a BBC period drama. I’m Sam, by the way.’

  Owen nodded a greeting and took a step forward. He lifted the basket and held it out. ‘This is for you, just a few things we thought you might need.’

  We, Nessie noted. He must mean his wife, of course. Hadn’t he mentioned a son too?

  Sam pushed past her, taking the basket. ‘Brilliant,’ she said, lowering it to a table and pulling off the gingham. ‘Is there a bottle of wine in here?’

  Owen’s eyes crinkled as he smiled. ‘No, just milk, cake, bread, that kind of thing. I didn’t think you’d need wine, this being a pub and all.’

  ‘Good point.’ Sam glanced around and seemed to take in her surroundings for the first time. She stared at a large oil painting, a rough seascape full of broiling waves and angry sky, hanging on one of the bare brick walls. ‘Bloody hell, that has got to go.’

  Wait until she discovers the ship inside the bottle, Nessie thought, recalling the minimalist calm of Sam’s London flat. She’ll want a skip to clear this lot out.

  ‘That’s Henry Fitzsimmons’ work. I dare say he’ll take it back if it’s not to your tastes,’ Owen said. His tone was mild but Nessie thought she detected an undercurrent of disapproval.

  ‘We’re not making any snap decisions about what stays and what goes,’ she said hurriedly, giving her sister a meaningful look. ‘Thanks for the supplies, though. It’s very thoughtful of you.’

  Owen’s gaze lingered on her for a moment but he took the dismissal with no obvious sign of offence. ‘A pleasure. Like I said, I’m just next door if you need anything. All you have to do is shout.’

  He nodded first at Sam, then at Nessie and ducked under the doorway, disappearing into the night as fast as he had arrived. ‘Well,’ Sam said, grinning at Nessie with undisguised approval. ‘You didn’t waste any time.’

  ‘Sam—’ Nessie began.

  ‘What?’ Sam replied with raised eyebrows. ‘You could have charged half the National Grid from the electricity I felt when I walked in on you, that’s all I’m saying.’

  Nessie felt her cheeks growing hot. ‘Really, you do talk rubbish sometimes. He’s married.’

  Her sister cocked her head. ‘Maybe not him, then, but I bet there’s someone else here who’ll help you get back on the horse.’

  ‘Sam!’ Nessie protested, blushing even more. ‘Stop.’

  ‘It’s okay, Ness. Getting divorced doesn’t have to mean game over, you know.’

  It must seem so straightforward to Sam, Nessie thought, feeling a surge of emotion and willing herself not to cry. She couldn’t know what it was like to walk away from fifteen years of marriage; although she hadn’t got as far as divorce – not yet. One step at a time, Nessie told herself.

  Sam’s voice broke into her thoughts again. ‘It’s time you moved on, that’s all I’m saying. Now, where do you suppose our father left the wine? Or do you think he drank it all before he died?’

  Acknowledgments

  The first scoop of ice-cream goes to Jo Williamson, of Antony Harwood Ltd – thanks for being the best agent a writer could hope for. Double scoops with sprinkles and chocolate sauce to Emma Capron, SJ Virtue and everyone at Simon & Schuster – you really are the perfect home for me and my stories. A round of Steaming Passion cocktails for Kate Harrison, Miranda Dickinson, Rowan Coleman, Julie Cohen and Cally Taylor – you’re my life support system. Unlimited ice-cream for life to T and E – thanks for being amazing every single day. And lastly, thanks to all you fabulous readers and reviewers – your continuing support and enthusiasm is so appreciated. Here’s looking at you, kid.

  Holly Hepburn has wanted to write books for as long as she can remember but she was too scared to try. One day she decided to be brave and dipped a toe into the bubble bath of romantic fiction with her first novella, Cupidity, and she’s never looked back. She often tries to be funny, except for when faced with traffic wardens and border control staff. Her favourite things are
making people smile and Aidan Turner.

  She’s tried many jobs over the years, from barmaid to market researcher and she even had a brief flirtation with modelling. These days she is mostly found writing.

  She lives near London with her grey tabby cat, Portia. They both have an unhealthy obsession with Marmite.

  Follow Holly on Twitter @HollyH_Author.

  First published in Great Britain by Simon & Schuster UK Ltd, 2017

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  Copyright © Tamsyn Murray, 2017

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  eBook ISBN: 978-1-4711-6167-4

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