Summer at Coastguard Cottages

by Jennifer Bohnet

  Sitting at the table with her family around her Karen breathed deeply and happily. Cooking and looking after her family was definitely something she enjoyed. Then Derek stumbled into the kitchen and everyone fell silent.

  ‘So what’s for breakfast then?’

  Karen half rose out of her chair to start cooking again but Chris’s hand on her shoulder held her firmly in place.

  ‘There’s coffee in the pot, croissants in the basket,’ Chris said. ‘Help yourself.’

  Derek eyed the bacon-and-egg-stained plates. ‘Rather fancied a cooked breakfast. Set me up for the drive back.’

  ‘Service station on the M4 does a good breakfast,’ Chris said.

  Derek glared at him before saying, ‘Francesca, you’ll cook me some breakfast, won’t you?’

  ‘Afraid not, Dad. I’m off to have a shower and then I said I’d go paddleboarding with Tia.’ Pushing her chair back, she stood up. ‘I’ll see you later, Mum.’

  Francesca leaving seemed to be the signal for everyone else to depart – Wills down to the pool, while Chris and Sandra had to set off for a round-robin day trip on one of the tourist boats on the Dart. Suddenly Karen was left alone with Derek.

  Sitting opposite him she realised how old he’d become in the last few months. The seven-year age difference between them had never been so noticeable before. Derek had always been on the vain side and made the effort to keep in shape, wear the latest trends and had been horrified when his hair had started to turn grey. Today he looked all of his fifty-five years: a middle-aged man past his prime. Where had the fun, debonair man she’d married nearly twenty-five years ago gone?

  ‘I’ll make some more coffee,’ she said, getting up. ‘Bacon’s all gone, I’m afraid, but I can make you some scrambled eggs.’ She knew Chris would berate her for offering but old habits died hard. Besides, it was better for all their sakes if things could remain as civil as possible between them.

  Derek took a croissant and ate it, dunking bits of it in his coffee, French-style, as she made the eggs.

  ‘You could still save things for me – for us – you know,’ he said.

  Karen glanced up from stirring the eggs, knowing what was coming.

  ‘You don’t have to sell this place – just take out a mortgage on it, clear our debts and...’

  ‘Stop right there. They’re your debts, not mine.’ Carefully she tipped the eggs onto a plate and pushed it towards him. ‘I’ve told you before, this house isn’t available to sort out your financial problems.’

  ‘It could be if you weren’t such a hard bitch,’ Derek said.

  Karen took a deep breath. She would not respond verbally to that remark. She knew if she did it would just add fuel to Derek’s tirade against her. Instead she leant over the table, removed the plate of eggs and tipped them into the bin before turning to face him.

  ‘Hey, I hadn’t even started those.’

  ‘Too bad. I’ve had enough of you calling me names. Leave now. My solicitor will be in touch next week.’

  Karen flinched at the obscenities Derek threw at her as he got up and walked out of the kitchen. She stood leaning against the Aga rail, waiting and listening. It was five minutes before she heard the noise of the car exhaust and a squeal of tyres as he left. Taking a couple of deep in-out breaths, trying to release the tension in her body, she prayed he was driving himself out of her life. That she wouldn’t have to see him down here again. Of course there would be family occasions like weddings where they would meet up, but never again would she allow him into her life to bully her.

  ‘Everything all right in here this morning?’ Guy asked as he stood in the kitchen doorway. ‘I saw Derek drive away.’

  Karen nodded. ‘Everything is fine.’ She eyed him speculatively. ‘I don’t suppose you fancy a game of tennis d’you? I’ve got some pent-up energy that would benefit from hitting some balls around.’

  ‘I’ll fetch a racquet,’ Guy said. ‘See you down on the court.’

  Grabbing her own racquet and a bag of balls Karen made her way to the court. Tipping the balls out of the bag she realised she’d picked up the wrong ones. Derek had bought a batch of secondhand balls one year that, by the end of the summer, had no bounce left in them, and she’d put them aside recently to give to Bruce for Girly to play with.

  Karen threw a ball in the air and hit it as hard as she could over the net. Followed by another. And another. And another.

  Guy stood and watched her before collecting the balls from the other side of the court and walking back to her with them.

  ‘Hmm. Feel better for that? Look, you’ve split two of them.’

  Karen burst out laughing. Guy looked at her.

  ‘What’s so funny?’

  ‘They were Derek’s old balls. And you know what? Metaphorically speaking – I enjoyed splitting his balls!’

  *

  Carrie had spent the last few days becoming more and more frustrated waiting for Anthony to ring her and arrange a time. Okay, she knew he was busy, but why wouldn’t he simply give her the address and forget about adding taking her to meet her mother to his list of things to do. How long did he think she could wait? It was nearly a week now since she’d last spoken to him. If he’d just told her the address she could have driven to wherever it was, just to see where her m… the woman lived. If nothing else she could have written her a letter asking if she would meet her and pushed it through her letterbox.

  She’d lost count of the number of times she’d rung the pub only to be told, when she asked to speak to him, ‘Tony’s too busy right now to talk. Please call back later.’ She was beginning to toy with the idea of calling him after midnight when the pub would be closed and he’d probably be in bed, and sarcastically ask ‘Is this late enough?’ Besides, he wasn’t the only one who was busy. She had her own to-do list for the next couple of weeks.

  Sorting out the house and garden and deciding what to do with it was still at the top of her agenda. It would be September soon, when Max was expecting her home and back at work. At least, trying to keep her mind off Anthony and his insistence on taking her to meet her mother, she’d spent the days productively. Bags of rubbish had gone to the tip, several bags were full of stuff for any charity shop she could find the next time she ventured into town, and the garden was virtually a weed-free zone again.

  The garden had been a joy to work in. Robert had clearly given a lot of thought to the layout. There were delightful mossy nooks and crannies to hide away in, a jasmine-covered pergola, lots of wonderful roses – old variety roses that actually had a perfume. She’d discovered lots of bulbs too, when she’d dug up a huge patch of weeds in one of the flower borders. She’d resorted to pulling out the weeds rather than digging them up after that. Today, as she finished tidying up the area bordering the length of the stream, she thought about how spectacular it must look in spring with its beds of primroses, lilies of the valley and hundreds of daffodil bulbs. Immediately after that thought, another one sprang into her mind. Would she be in the garden next year to appreciate the colourful display?

  One of the things she hadn’t been able to do so far was make a decision about what to do with the place. Sell or keep? Driving down last month she’d expected it to just be a case of seeing the house, clearing it and preparing it for sale. It was too far away from home and her job and she couldn’t see herself keeping it simply as a holiday home. Her normal life was so busy, when would she get the time to visit? A house like this deserved to be lived in, to have children running around, animals. It was a family house. Carrie sighed. She had a couple more weeks before returning to her real life to solve the problem. And it was a problem. She liked the house and its location far more than she’d ever expected to.

  Today, though, she’d had enough of this hanging around. Today she was going to take action. First she planned to pick a bunch of roses and place them on Robert’s grave. And then she was going to the pub to stage a sit-in until Anthony flipping Trumble deigned to speak to her. Well
, not an actual sit-in; she would have lunch there and hope he’d have the decency to talk to her.

  After removing the faded roses and daisies she’d placed there the other week, and placing the fresh bunch of roses on the grave, Carrie walked through the village towards the pub. En route she stopped in the shop and bought a couple of postcards to send to her mum and Max. She could write them while she waited for her lunch. Two coaches had parked up while she was in the shop, with most of their passengers making for the Trumble Arms, she realised, as she pushed open the door into the crowded pub.

  Every table was occupied and there was a queue at the bar. The usually friendly waitress, on her own behind the bar, was looking harassed as she took lunch orders and explained to already grumpy customers that there would be a delay as they were unexpectedly short-staffed.

  A teenager came out of the kitchen carrying two meals and made for a table in the window. Noticing she’d left the door open, Carrie walked through. A man in chef whites was shouting orders, a woman was busy making up sandwiches, another girl was plating up meals – and Anthony himself was swearing at the ancient dishwasher that appeared to have broken down, judging from the amount of washing-up piled up alongside and in the sink.

  He glanced across at Carrie. ‘Whatever you’ve come to say, it’s not a good time.’

  ‘Hmm. I can see that. Need a hand?’

  ‘Unless you’re offering to help, that’s a stupid question.’

  ‘Want me to start with the washing-up? And that is an offer, not a question.’

  ‘Rubber gloves are there,’ Anthony said, pointing at a pair. ‘I’ll go give a hand in the bar.’

  Two hours later, when he walked back into the kitchen to say they were closed, the dishwasher was whirring away, the sink was virtually empty and Carrie was busy wiping down work surfaces.

  ‘We’re closed.’

  ‘Good, because we’re out of milk, butter, lettuce, tomatoes, pasties, and we’re down to the last tub of ice cream,’ Carrie said without looking up from the surface she was cleaning. ‘I’ve pinned the list on the board. You need to go shopping this afternoon. Are you normally this disorganised?’

  ‘No. Not usually this short-staffed or this busy either.’

  ‘Why today?’

  ‘Two on a day off and two ill.’

  ‘Couldn’t you have cancelled the days off?’

  ‘Didn’t get to hear about the sick people until too late – the others had already gone on a day trip to Plymouth.’

  ‘Bad timing.’

  Anthony nodded. ‘Thank you for coming to the rescue.’

  Carrie shrugged. ‘That’s OK. In a strange sort of way I enjoyed it. Reminded me of my student days when I worked in cafés. Oh, I nearly forgot – you need a new dishwasher. That one’s on its last legs. The bottom’s rusting out, among other things.’

  ‘Fancy the job for the rest of summer?’

  ‘No, thank you.’

  ‘What was the matter with it this morning anyway?’

  ‘Wires in the bottom basket had broken and were hanging down, stopping the spray bar from rotating. Fairly obvious really.’ Carrie smiled at him, keeping the information that she’d discovered the problem accidentally, when she’d torn her finger on one of the wires as she was taking a look, to herself.

  ‘As I didn’t get the lunch I came in for, I’m starving, so I think I’ll go home and have a cheese sandwich,’ Carrie said.

  ‘Surely we can do a ploughman’s?’ Anthony said, glancing across at the chef, who nodded. ‘Five minutes, my flat. This way,’ he said. And without waiting for Carrie to answer, he turned and left the kitchen.

  Following him up a steep flight of wooden stairs, Carrie crossed her fingers, hoping that, over this late lunch, she’d finally get the information she wanted from him. Or at the very least a definite day and time for driving to wherever it was her mother lived. Carrie laughed as Lola jumped into Anthony’s arms, whimpering with delight as they walked in. ‘She’s pleased to see you.’

  ‘I normally leave her at home with my mum but she had a hospital appointment this morning,’ Anthony said, giving the dog a final cuddle before placing her gently on the floor where she immediately ran over to Carrie for a stroke.

  ‘Nothing too serious, I hope?’ Carrie said.

  ‘She needs a hip replacement,’ Tony said briefly. He took a bottle out of the fridge. ‘White wine OK for you? Don’t have any red up here, I’m afraid.’

  ‘White is fine,’ Carrie said, looking around.

  On the first floor, at the back of the pub and overlooking the garden, the flat was small. Minimalistic was the word to describe it, Carrie decided. The wooden floor had just two scatter rugs placed on it haphazardly. There was a sofa with a coffee table in front of it, with a few catering magazines scattered across its surface. An old wing chair with a patchwork throw covered in dog’s hairs had clearly been claimed by Lola as her own. The galley kitchen was at one end. Through a partially opened door to the right, Carrie caught a glimpse of an old-fashioned bathroom. She’d guess that Anthony didn’t spend much time up here as it was decidedly lacking in home comforts. But why would he, if he still lived with his mum?

  Dominating everything was a desk standing in front of the window with a large iMac computer placed in the centre. A large pile of books were on the floor alongside it.

  ‘Is this where you wrote your book?’

  ‘Yes.’

  Anthony pushed the magazines on the coffee table to one side when their ploughmans’ arrived, and placed two glasses of wine next to them.

  ‘Let’s eat.’ He sat down on the sofa and, with nowhere else to sit, Carrie had no choice but to join him.

  Anthony picked up his glass and raised it in her direction. ‘Thank you for this morning. You saved the day.’

  ‘Glad to help. Anthony?’ Carrie hesitated.

  ‘I know – you want to talk to me – and for gawd’s sake call me Tony.’

  ‘We’re friends now, are we?’ Carrie said, remembering the first time they’d met.

  ‘Looks like it.’

  ‘This morning proved you do have a busy pub to run but you’ve also been using it as a convenient excuse for not taking me to meet my mother, haven’t you?’

  ‘Yes. I wanted to give you more time to really think about what you’re doing. Maybe even change your mind. People do say the past is best left in the past for good reason.’

  While Tony was speaking, Carrie carefully placed some cheese and pickle on her roll and took a bite, chewing it thoughtfully before she spoke.

  ‘Believe me, I do know that. I’ve given it a lot of thought. I don’t want to hurt my parents for a start, or to cause my birth mother problems, but I do want to meet her, if only the once. I’m not expecting to be welcomed with cries of delight and scooped up into the bosom of her family.’ She sighed as Tony looked at her and shook his head.

  ‘I promised Robert I’d look after you should there be a need. I’ll take you the day after tomorrow. Early evening.’

  ‘Tony, I’m not holding you to that promise. Honestly, you only need to give me the name and address – you don’t have to take me. I’m not your problem.’

  Tony shook his head again. ‘No. I’m taking you. End of. I’ll pick you up at seven o’clock.’

  *

  Midweek the temperatures soared with the sun putting in an appearance every day. Food shopping was no way to spend any part of the day but Karen knew the big supermarket in Kingsbridge couldn’t be avoided for ever. She’d see if Francesca or even Wills fancied accompanying her. Bribing them with lunch out or a cream tea usually worked.

  Today, though, both had plans and declined her offer. Resigned to going alone she scribbled a rough list and picked up her car keys. Guy was on the terrace as she went out.

  Without stopping to think she said, ‘Don’t suppose you fancy a trip to the supermarket?’ Expecting him to say no thank you, because no man ever wanted to go food shopping, she was surprised wh
en he said, ‘Good idea.’

  ‘Where are we going?’ he asked, fastening his seatbelt.

  ‘Kingsbridge.’

  The narrow country lanes were busy with traffic and Karen, knowing she needed to concentrate on driving rather than talking, pressed the CD button, letting Hits of the Millennium fill the car with noise. ‘Sorry – Wills’ choice.’

  It seemed to take for ever to reach the supermarket car park and she breathed a deep sigh of relief as she parked and pulled the handbrake on. Guy fetched a trolley and they made their way inside. Within a minute the two of them had worked out a system, Guy pushing the trolley as she filled it. There was an added bonus too: if she couldn’t reach something on a high shelf he was there to get it, so she didn’t have the embarrassment of having to ask somebody. On the few occasions Derek had come food shopping with her, they’d bickered constantly over her choices. Guy was much more relaxed – until she placed a packet of chocolate chip cookies in the trolley.

  Guy picked it out and replaced it on the shelf.

  ‘What are you doing? They’re my favourite.’

  ‘These are nicer.’ And he picked up a different brand in a larger box.

  ‘And more expensive.’ She took them out and replaced them on the shelf, putting her original choice back in the trolley.

  With a deep sigh Guy took the box he wanted off the shelf and placed it alongside them. ‘We’ll have them both. Then you’ll see I’m right.’

  Karen burst out laughing. ‘We’re bickering like an old married couple.’

  Guy looked at her and smiled before turning away, muttering something that to Karen’s ears sounded suspiciously like ‘Just getting some practice in’.

  ‘How d’you know they’re nicer anyway?’

  ‘Because they’re my favourite too,’ Guy said. ‘Finished your list? Let’s go stand in line.’

  Stowing the stuff in the car took some time but eventually it was all in and they set off for home. With less traffic on the roads they were making good time when Guy said, ‘Remember those goalposts I said Melissa had moved?’