by Jenny Colgan
‘I can’t believe you went out in the taxi boat,’ he said furiously. ‘You’re not trained! You could have been killed!’
‘I’ll get trained,’ said Polly. ‘But Archie. There were three. There were three. You have to go out again.’
Archie’s face – his rugged, weary face that had spent the entire year anxious, worried about his new command – his face stiffened and he looked at Polly.
‘Are you sure?’
Polly’s mind was foggy, but she was sure of one thing: if the mother hadn’t gone to sea, she’d have been raising merry hell.
‘Yes, I’m sure,’ she said.
Archie nodded, just once, and turned round.
‘Come on, boys,’ he said to the tired-looking men behind him. ‘We’re back out.’
There was not a murmur of dissent; not a complaint. Kendall, Jayden, Sten and the rest fell into line without delay; obeyed their captain without question; and they were gone, back into the wild night.
Then Polly threw up all over the harbour wall.
Another figure came up to the group, gesticulating and pointing. Wearily Polly turned her head in his direction. Oh lord, it was Malcolm. What on earth could he possibly want now?
To her amazement – she hadn’t been able to hear what he was saying, the roar of the wind in her ears was still so strong; in fact, she had begun to think it would never leave her – the group began to follow him, even Patrick, who had been working on the limp forms of the little boy and the man. Two strong arms, one either side, grabbed Polly and dragged her along with them, but she was barely there.
‘I have to go,’ she muttered. ‘I have to go back. I have to light the lamps. I have to show the light in the lighthouse…’
She looked down and was surprised to find her fingers were still holding tight to the lantern. It no longer worked – it had either been bashed or saturated, or the batteries had run out – but it was still there.
‘It’s okay,’ said Muriel’s soothing voice. ‘The ladies are taking storm lanterns down there. Don’t worry. Don’t worry.’
And indeed, although the wind was still high and furious, and the rain still squalled, the thunder wasn’t quite so frequent and the lightning was more and more of an afterthought as what felt like the entire village traipsed along the harbourside.
The Little Beach Street Bakery was lit up by candles and all the torches that could be found. It was also incredibly warm. Malcolm had opened up the unused kitchen at the back and turned on every oven. Polly realised just how freezing she’d been.
Someone scrambled off to make great big vats of tea. It was the single best cup of tea Polly had ever tasted, the single best anything, as she sat in an armchair that someone had brought in, dimly watching as people got busy. Nobody spoke to her; if they went past, they just patted her gently on the head or the arm, making sure she was all right. She was quite happy about this. There would be talking, and police, and recriminations, and explanations, and her mother to calm down, and oh lord, Huckle. But for now she had her tea, plus she was watching, anxiously, for signs of life in the rescued pair.
Nobody knew how long they’d been in the water; Polly, when asked, described how she had seen the figures on the wrecked boat from the lighthouse, and that couldn’t have been more than forty minutes, maybe half an hour, earlier, which seemed astonishing to her: surely it had taken hours? Apparently not.
On the other hand, in water this wild and cold, it really didn’t take long, particularly in children. Patrick looked worried, and was sweating in the all-encompassing warmth of the bakery.
The little boy suddenly coughed and moved his head, then, just as Polly had done, threw up a vast amount of sea water all over the floor.
One of the women shuffled between the little boy and his dad, who was still unconscious, to stop him seeing him.
Patrick sat down at the boy’s head.
‘Hello,’ he said. ‘What’s your name?’
‘Josephus,’ said Polly, suddenly remembering. ‘His name is Josephus.’
‘Josephus?’ said someone doubtfully.
‘Yes,’ said Polly. ‘That’s why I remembered it.’
‘Josephus?’ said Patrick softly.
The little boy opened his eyes dully. He couldn’t seem to focus.
‘Hello there,’ said Patrick. The boy blinked.
‘Cold,’ he said.
‘I know,’ said Patrick. ‘That’s why we’re getting you nice and warm.’
‘Where’s my mum?’
‘Um,’ said Patrick. ‘Let’s just get you nice and cosy.’
‘I want my mum.’
‘Sssh,’ said Patrick, not knowing what else to say. ‘We’re looking for your mummy.’
The boy tried to sit up and was sick again.
‘Is this because I was bad?’ he said. ‘Daddy said not to go near the side of the boat. Is it because I went near the side of the boat?’
‘Absolutely not,’ said Patrick, ‘Absolutely not. Come here.’
And he lifted the child, wrapped in his blanket, his limbs still blue with cold, towards the open oven.
‘Ow,’ said Josephus as the blood started to flow back into his nerve endings and bring them back to life. ‘Ow, that hurts.’
‘We’re going to get you something good to drink,’ promised Patrick.
‘Fanta?’ said Josephus.
‘No,’ said Patrick calmly. ‘Not Fanta.’
Muriel brought some very milky tea and handed it over. From the floor there came a groan. The man was stirring too.
‘DADDY!’ said the boy, seeing him. He tried to get up, but his limbs wouldn’t hold him. ‘DADDY!’
Patrick carried the boy over to his dad. The man moved his head from side to side.
‘Wake up, Daddy!’ said the boy, his fingers going to the man’s eyes.
‘No, don’t do that,’ said Patrick, leaning forward, but not before the man had indeed opened his eyes.
‘Josephus?’ he said. ‘Is that you, Josephus?’
‘DADDY!’
The little boy flung his arms round his father’s neck as the man closed his eyes; not, thankfully, lapsing into unconsciousness again, but simply with howling gratitude. He tried to lift his arms to put them round the boy, but couldn’t manage.
‘Right, you two,’ said Muriel practically. ‘Closer to the ovens, please. You’re not the only reprobates who need to be brought back to life tonight.’
Someone brought in a bottle of whisky.
‘None of that,’ ordered Patrick. ‘It’s not good for blood flow, cuts it down.’
‘Um,’ said Muriel. ‘Actually it’s for Polly, Selina and everybody else.’
Polly took the bottle. Selina had gone upstairs to change and had come down looking thin and very young in a jumper that was far too big for her. She glanced at Polly anxiously. The two of them were both shaking. Polly got up on wobbly legs and held Selina, then they both sat back down in the big armchair as other people fussed around Josephus and his father. Polly took a huge slug of the whisky. Whilst she actually preferred the taste of sea water – and both made her splutter about the same amount – she enjoyed the sudden heat that spread through her to her toes, and the way her fingers started to gradually uncurl. She leaned against Selina, and they both stared into the flames of the wood-burning stove.
‘I can’t believe I haven’t seen the bugger in a year,’ said Selina. ‘It must be a year, right?’
She turned to look at Polly.
‘Was it… I mean, was it serious?’
Polly shook her head.
‘Not at all,’ she said quietly. ‘It was just a few times. I was so lonely. I didn’t know anyone, Mrs Manse was really horrible to me, and I was just so alone… single for the first time in seven years, in a strange new town and a new place. He was kind to me.’
Selina winced a bit at this.
‘I think I wasn’t being very kind to him at the time,’ she said. ‘I can see why he went for you. Nice smile
y Polly, “everyone have a lovely bun”. I bet you never pestered him about moving out of Polbearne, or getting a better job.’
‘I hardly knew him,’ said Polly. ‘Obviously I didn’t know him at all.’
Selina’s face crinkled.
‘But why did you make friends with me? I don’t understand. Are you sick in the head?’
‘No,’ said Polly. ‘I wanted to tell you, to apologise. But I didn’t know how and it didn’t come up and then I was worried about Neil and got a bit distracted. I was a coward. I kind of hoped it wouldn’t come up. Which was a stupid thing to think.’
‘Well, yes,’ said Selina. ‘There’s about fourteen people on this godforsaken rock.’
‘And one of them’s Jayden,’ said Polly. ‘It was Jayden who told me Tarnie was married. I didn’t know before that.’
‘You said,’ said Selina drily.
‘Anyway, as soon as I found out, I stopped seeing him straight away. So Jayden did me a favour.’
‘Why did you even look at Tarnie, with a gorgeous hunk like Huckle kicking about? That’s what I don’t understand,’ said Selina after a while.
‘Well, Huckle wasn’t at all interested to begin with,’ said Polly. ‘But it wasn’t just that. Tarnie was… he was lovely, Selina. He was handsome and kind and had the loveliest eyes and he was funny and he looked after his crew and…’
Selina didn’t make any noise. None at all. Polly supposed later it was like when people laughed or sneezed: some let it all out, some just couldn’t.
When Selina cried, she made no sound at all. But it was the first time, the only time, Polly had known her to cry at all.
She cried and cried for what felt like hours while Polly sat there stroking her hair, letting her tears soak her jeans, and they stared into the fire, waiting, waiting for the boys to come back in: hoping against hope.
‘Oh God, this woman has to come back,’ said Selina much later. ‘Because they leave… they leave SUCH a mess behind.’
‘Sssh,’ said Polly, looking around. ‘Sssh.’
‘He was a good guy, wasn’t he?’ Selina went on. ‘I feel like I’ve been hating him and blaming him all year.’
‘Did that make it easier?’
‘It did yesterday,’ said Selina. ‘If I could think of him as some awful prick, well then maybe I might miss him less.’
‘It makes perfect sense,’ said Polly. ‘But I miss him and I barely knew him. The boys on the boat still miss him so much they can’t even see straight. Look at Archie. I don’t think he’s slept a night through yet. Even Jayden… It’s like the solid ground beneath their feet melted away when we lost him.’
‘I just… I wanted him cut out, do you understand?’ said Selina. ‘I wanted him cut out of my brain, or my body, like an appendix. I’ve tried to drink him out, move him out, screw him out. And he won’t bloody go.’ She managed a half-smile.
‘That’s because you loved him,’ said Polly.
‘You know, when Lucas went for your bird,’ said Selina, ‘I was so scared. So scared that I’d lose a friend, that no one would talk to me again, that I’d be hounded out of town. Because I really have nowhere left to go.’
‘Don’t be daft,’ said Polly. ‘We need you here; everyone else that’s moved in has been a right cock.’
They both smiled a bit at this.
‘But I didn’t realise that I would have to share Tarnie with the whole town.’
‘You do,’ said Polly.
‘I have to learn to live with his ghost.’
They passed the bottle between them again.
‘You were living with his ghost anyway,’ said Polly. ‘Now you’re here, you just have to figure out how to cohabit in a friendly way.’
‘I’m sorry about your van,’ said Selina again.
‘Oh, yeah,’ said Polly. She looked around for Malcolm, but when the door opened, it was Archie who stepped into the Little Beach Street Bakery.
Chapter Twenty-Seven
The man, whose name was Paul, and the little boy were curled up in front of the fire, piled with blankets. The man wasn’t talking, just staring into the fire. The little boy had, thankfully, fallen asleep, wrapped up and cosy, only the blue tip of his nose any indication of his ordeal.
The room fell silent. Archie stepped forward towards the man.
‘Excuse me, sir, but is your wife’s name Kristen?’
There was a long pause and everyone in the room fell quiet.
‘Um, yes.’ His voice was a rasping whisper.
The entire room held its breath. Archie nodded.
‘We found her.’
‘Oh my God. Oh my God. Oh my God.’ Paul leapt to his feet, seizing Archie’s hand and pumping it up and down.
‘Coastguard picked her up by helicopter. She had the rescue kit?’
Paul nodded, tears streaming down his face.
‘Yes – we were trying to open it, to stay together: I got a flare out, then I was trying to light it and…’ His voice choked up and he could barely talk. ‘Then she just… she got caught by a rip, she got pulled out further and further away, and she had her lifejacket on, and was clinging to the box, and…’
‘It’s got a beacon in it,’ said Archie. ‘She must have figured out a way to set it off. Which I have to say is pretty good thinking when you’re being pulled out to sea by a rip tide. She was amazing, in fact.’
Paul leant forward, put his head in his hands and started sobbing.
‘It was such a beautiful day.’
‘Did you not look at the shipping forecast?’ said Archie.
Paul shook his head.
‘No, I thought… I mean, I’m an experienced sailor, but I’ve never seen anything like this.’
‘It blew up fast,’ said someone, and there was general muttered agreement.
‘You weren’t the only ones caught tonight,’ said Archie. ‘But you were the damn luckiest, that’s for sure.’
Paul nodded, tears squeezing out from under his closed lids, as he hugged the little boy close to him. Selina handed him the whisky bottle.
‘They don’t know when they can get to us,’ said Archie.
Just as he said that, there was the flip-flip-flip of a helicopter overhead, its powerful beams illuminating the window of the Little Beach Street Bakery, lighting up its dusty, empty windows.
The medics bustled and made busy with Paul and the little boy. Muriel patted Polly’s shoulder, understanding how difficult it was for her, even now, to be back in her old bakery. The faces of the Polbearnites were smiling and happy, making way for the professionals, chatting to each other about the miraculous recovery of the woman who’d gone into the water.
‘Do you know what?’ said Muriel gently to Polly. ‘Tonight, everyone was saved. Thanks to you, everyone came home safely. I think Mount Polbearne is finally healing.’
Polly swallowed hard. Her ribs suddenly felt sore, and a massive bone-weariness swept over her.
‘Do you really think so?’
Muriel nodded. ‘And I think you should go and get some sleep. There’ll be a lot of questions tomorrow. You should get your head down now, whilst you can.’
Jayden stormed into the bakery, head held high, chest puffed out proudly.
‘Jayden, I need a word with you,’ said Polly weakly, but Jayden waved her off. He marched, pink-faced and damp, straight up to Flora, who was standing by the back wall.
‘Flora,’ he said. ‘I know you’re too beautiful to look at. But I don’t care. I am a fantastic rescuer and a good baker too, and I want to talk about baking with you and do baking with you and make amazing things with you. And do other stuff too but we can get to that. I like you absolutely just for you. So. Um.’
He slightly ran out of steam. ‘Would you like to go to the pub?’
‘All right,’ said Flora shyly.
Polly thought Muriel’s advice was the best she’d ever heard. Storm or no storm, she’d sleep through this. She got up carefully. Suddenly a medic was standin
g in front of her.
‘You were in the boat?’
‘I’m fine,’ said Polly. ‘Just tired.’
‘Well I’m going to check you over in any case. And you’ll need to see your own doctor in a few days. Make sure you’re not traumatised.’