by Con Riley
Rob made a carry on gesture. “Goodness, getting anything out of you is like pulling teeth.” Rob’s pursed lips were very kissable. He spoke again before Jude could lean in. “That’s the last time I get up early to make you conserves.”
“You made the jam as well as the croissants?”
“What else was I meant to do with such a piddly bag of blackberries?” Rob blustered. “Frankly, they were getting a bit of freezer burn. The bag was dated two years ago, at least.”
Jesus. Two years ago, he’d gone back to London with fingers that had been stained purple after a fleeting weekend visit. Were they the last ones he picked with his mum?
Jude turned his face into the wind—gave his eyes a reason for stinging so bad at each new, painful reminder. The only way through this was to mirror Rob’s bluster. “You made me jam with wizened, old fruit? Classy. You’ll have to try much harder to impress me on our next date.”
Rob squinted as the sun came out. “Next date?” His smile spread very slowly, face painted golden again as the cloud cleared. “Jude, our first date isn’t over.”
14
Their next stop still didn’t take them far from Porthperrin. Rob pulled into a used car lot that had been at the top of the hill ever since Jude could remember. “Why are we stopping here?”
“Just need some petrol and then we’ll be off.”
“Petrol? You won’t get any here,” he said as Rob pulled up to the sole pump on the forecourt. “Not if the same guy still owns it. He’s even tighter than Carl—only stocks enough for the cars he sells.” He peered through the windscreen at the few cars for sale. “Not that he can sell many of them, especially if there are fewer tourists. Everything here is so ancient. I’m kinda surprised he’s still in business, to be honest. I never understood how he made a living.”
“They’re vintage cars, Jude, not old bangers.” Rob patted the steering wheel of his car as though she might’ve been listening. “Just like Betsy. And I’ll think you’ll find there’s just as much money in selling vintage cars as there is in letting out boutique hotel rooms. Even if there are fewer people around, the ones with money will pay a lot for something rare.”
Jude pondered that as Rob got out and the car lot owner emerged from his showroom. He greeted Rob with far more warmth than Jude expected, nodding when Rob pointed between his car and the pump like sparing petrol for him would be no problem. Jude got out too rather than sit as they chatted, checking out some of the cars he’d written off as ancient. One was as big as a boat, tyres so fat they looked buoyant.
“That’s a Humber,” Rob said from behind him. “They don’t make them like that anymore, do they?” He reached past Jude and opened the door, letting out the scent of leather. “Look at all that walnut.” He opened the back door as well. “And look at the size of those seat-back trays.” He unclipped one and lowered it. “That’s the way to have a picnic in style.”
“I liked where we had ours better.”
“Yeah?”
Jude nodded, so distracted for a moment by Rob’s closeness that he forgot where they were until the sound of a car horn tooting had him sharply stepping backwards. At least Rob seemed as flustered as he reached for his wallet. “Let me get this over with and then we’ll be on our way.”
“Get what over with?”
“Him trying to buy Betsy from me while I pay for the petrol. He ups his offer each time I come here.”
“But not enough to make you sell it?”
“Her, not it,” Rob insisted. “And there isn’t enough money in the world to part me from Betsy.” He flicked open the wallet to pull out a creased Polaroid. Jude studied it after Rob left to pay. A young woman with Rob’s smile sat in a car that was Betsy’s double. Jude climbed back in, waiting until Rob got back in before he asked, “Was this your mum’s car?”
Rob nodded, raising a hand in farewell to the car lot owner as they left.
“And how much did he offer this time?”
“Not enough,” Rob said. “Like I said. There isn’t enough money on the planet.”
They drove away from Porthperrin, Jude pictured a simple set of door keys and a kiss-the-cook apron, understanding what Rob meant completely.
A half-hour later, the conversation returned to vehicles as they dawdled behind a line of camper vans and trailers, some of which at least would usually have headed for the beach at Porthperrin. Now they all drove farther south. Rob pulled out to overtake some, saying, “That’s the same Range Rover model that Dad has. He offered to swap it with me for her.”
“For Betsy? Why did he give her to you in the first place?”
“He didn’t give her to me. I found her on a vintage sports car website. Cost me pretty much everything Mum left me to buy her. He couldn’t believe that I spent most of Mum’s money on her. Wasted it.”
Jude had a better idea now than ever before about why finding the car might have mattered so much. “If he thought it was a waste of money, why’d he try to swap it with you?”
“Control freak, remember?” Rob said, like that was a complete answer. “But can we not talk about him?” he asked. “And no overthinking about your sister either. What?” Rob glanced his way. “I can tell you are by the look on your face.” His tone softened, his gaze darting from the rearview mirror to Jude again as he passed a slow-moving camper van. “Louise asked for some space, that’s all, Jude. We both know that she loves you. She’s just having to wrap her head around rewriting her past. Your past. Your whole family’s, to be honest.” He took a moment as they paused at a junction to meet Jude’s gaze head-on, humour hovering at his mouth’s corners. “But she won’t need much longer, I reckon.”
“How do you know?”
“Because she’s nowhere as slow on the uptake as you.”
“I’m not slow.”
“Oh, I beg to differ.” Rob drove while counting instances on his fingers. “You know that I asked you out during the first heat of the contest, don’t you?”
“No, you didn’t.” Jude studied Rob’s face, taking the opportunity to catalogue a profile he’d wished he’d taken a photo of before leaving last year. From the dimple when Rob smiled to the way his eyes twinkled, even the tilted tip of his nose looked perfect to him. “Pretty sure I would have remembered if you’d asked me out,” Jude insisted. And then he would have panicked that one of the reporters covering the contest might’ve noticed. “You were an actual tosser to me on the first day. You switched my salt pot for sugar.”
“Yes,” Rob said happily. “An old tactic, but a good one.”
“And then you kept turning down the temperature of my oven.”
Rob shrugged. “What did you expect?” He fanned himself. “You were far too hot already.” He slowed before a right turn, his glance merry. “And this is exactly what I meant about you being slow on the uptake.” He reached over the gearstick to pat Jude’s knee as if in consolation. “I’d already guessed you weren’t the sharpest knife in the drawer, but you had to have known what all of that meant.”
“No.”
“For goodness sake.” Rob’s huff was exasperated. “Jude, if you’d had pigtails, I would have pulled them.”
“All of that bollocks was you asking me out?”
“Obviously.”
“And acting that way was meant to attract me?”
“What way?” Rob asked as if he hadn’t been near impossible to share a kitchen bench with.
“Like a brat used to getting his way. That was meant to make me want you?”
“Of course.”
Jude got a side view of Rob waggling his eyebrows, Rob’s easy humour almost undoing him after so many days of high stress. Jude’s voice roughened. “I thought you were trying to get me out of the contest.”
“The only thing I wanted to get you out of were your pants.”
It was hard not to smile in the face of so much teasing. “And yet you sent me to bed by myself last night.”
“Patience is a virtue,” Rob said
lightly. His next glance was more serious. “You get why I did that, don’t you?”
Jude had lain awake wishing Rob had come to bed with him to take his mind off everything that had happened. Then he’d woken up grateful that he hadn’t. “Yeah.” Outside of the car window, patches of gorse were dark green with only a few remaining dots of vivid yellow, another reminder that it was the start of the summer season—their one chance to make enough money to keep the wolf from the Anchor’s front door, too important to mess up. “I do.” The next turn in the road took them seaward, the decline from the coast road much less dramatic than the cliffside hairpin bends down to Porthperrin.
Jude scrutinised the next road sign. “You know there’s nothing special to see if you keep going in this direction, don’t you?”
“Nothing special? What makes you say that?”
“Because the only village on this road is nothing like home. I mean, there used to be a fishing fleet, I suppose, but that’s been dying for years.”
“Luckily,” Rob said as he entered the village Jude had just described as washed-up, “it turns out that beauty is in the eye of the beholder. Which is handy,” he added as he drove into a car park, “otherwise an ugly mug like yours would stay on the shelf forever, fish-face.”
“Just going to remind you that you’re the one who wanted into this ugly mug’s pants.” The car park was almost full, he noticed. Much more crowded than the virtually empty one at home that they’d retrieved Rob’s car from. Once parked, Jude twisted in his seat to face Rob. “I didn’t expect this place to be so busy.”
“Why?” Rob shifted in his seat too, angled towards Jude. “Because, according to you, this place doesn’t have a purpose?” He echoed Jude’s words. “What was it you said? Places like this have been dying for years?”
“Well, yeah.” From memory, it was hardly a sought-after destination. He’d had no reason to come here for ages. “It’s not exactly a vacation hotspot. It’s a bit of a trek from the main road, and it doesn’t even have a beach.” And neither did Porthperrin now, which was still a kick in the ribs each time he remembered. His grip tightened on his seatbelt until Rob said his name softly. Jude looked up as Rob unfastened his own to lean even closer. His thumb brushed Jude’s brow. “You’ve got to stop frowning like that.” Even while shadowed in the car, his smile dazzled. “It’s like you’re not even trying to attract the ex-heir to the Martin restaurant empire.” He affected disappointment. “Honestly, Jude. I’m a catch. You should bring your A-game if you want to snare me.”
“Snare you?” Jude did just that, dragging him a few inches closer. “You don’t know what playing hard to get means.”
Rob didn’t pull away. He darted in for a kiss, only diverting at the last moment to say, “Are you calling me easy?” right into Jude’s ear. His warm breath was distracting, as was his hand, high on Jude’s thigh for balance. All of Jude’s questions about why they’d driven to this backwater were forgotten by the time Rob leaned back, his gaze locked on Jude’s lips. “Because I’ll be easy for you when you’re ready,” Rob breathed. “So easy.” His next move had their lips almost touching, gone before he could react. He clicked Jude’s seatbelt release open. “Now hurry up and get out so I can show you all the ways that you’re wrong.”
Jude blinked as Rob opened his car door and was haloed by bright sunshine, dazzling him for the second time in minutes. “Get ready to take back every negative thing you ever thought about this place,” Rob ordered once Jude was out of the car too. He grabbed his hand once more, and led the way out of the car park, only letting go once Jude kept pace.
The streets were cobbled here, like at home, Jude noticed, but the buildings weren’t so scenic. Some householders had gone to quite some effort though—bunting fluttered in the breeze, more triangles of fabric strung overhead as they approached the harbour. He stopped dead as they rounded a corner.
Here was the reason for the crammed car park.
Ahead, a market bustled with more people shopping than he’d ever have imagined. “What’s going on?”
“Remember what I said about you being slow on the uptake? This,” Rob prompted helpfully, “is another example.” He was far too pleased with himself as he gestured between market stalls covered with fresh produce. “I’m going to take a wild guess that, as it’s Monday and this is a market full of farmers…” he drew out the rest of his sentence. “…this might be a farmers’ market.”
“Very funny. I can see that.” Jude paused whenever Rob did, stopping to inspect some baskets filled with eggs so fresh that straw and feathers still adhered to some shells. “But what do you mean ‘as it’s Monday’?”
Rob picked up a brown hen’s egg before swapping it for a larger duck egg with a blue shell. “This time of year, there’s a farmers’ market three times a week.” He cradled the egg in his palm before passing it to Jude while listing other attractions. “The other days of the week, antique fairs alternate with local arts and crafts sellers.”
Jude was jostled closer by other shoppers. He cupped both of his palms as Rob filled them with more eggs. “Making hay while the sun shines, I suppose.”
“Aren’t we all?” Rob’s small smile was fleeting. “But actually, the markets don’t only run during the summer season. They continue year-round.” He pored over the array on the table, choosing a final duck egg. “Hey, you want some breakfast?”
“We already ate, remember? Croissants and blackberry jam.”
“Was there bacon and eggs?”
Jude’s laugh came with a huff. “No.”
“Then that wasn’t breakfast,”
“Seriously? If I started every morning with a three-course meal, I’d never get anything accomplished.”
Rob said, “Accomplishing stuff is overrated,” as if Jude hadn’t witnessed how hard he’d worked at the Anchor. He’d put in months of effort.
Rob moved past Jude, saying, “Come on. Quick. Before they finish serving.” The pub he led Jude to appeared much smaller than the Anchor, mismatched tables and chairs spilling from the inside to line the end of the harbour, filling the spot where the fishing fleet used to land their catches. Now a throng of people enjoyed the sunshine while eating plates of breakfasts that smelled delicious. “Go grab that table, will you, before someone nabs it?”
Jude took the egg box Rob thrust his way, and sat down, watching as Rob entered the pub, his attention soon diverted by the view from where he was seated. The village was far from the deadly dull place he remembered. With colourful bunting hanging between market stalls, fluttering like the bright leaflets secured to his table by a pebble, it was alive and vibrant. He slid out one of the leaflets and read it, then took a look at the menu. The price for breakfast here was close to the new price at the Anchor, more than three times what his mum used to charge summer tourists. He twisted in his seat to conduct a mental headcount only to see Rob heading back, the faint downward cast to his lips a reminder of the shift in his expression before he’d changed the subject from his father.
“Listen,” he said, the moment Rob sat down. “You can talk about your dad if you want.” Lord knows he’d bent Rob’s ear enough about his parents. “Families are…” How to end that sentence?
“Impossible?” Rob suggested, that downward cast starting to lift. “Maddening? A complete pain in my arse?”
“Well I wouldn’t go that far, but…” And this was the hard part. “…I know that it’s different—what people see compared to what it’s like from the inside.”
Rob’s gaze held his and just like that, the noise of the crowded quayside faded, cawing seagulls and laughing children silenced, because Rob said, “Thank you.”
The moment broke, a waitress arriving with a tray. The plate she gave Rob heaved with a full English fry-up while Jude’s plate was much smaller. A child’s breakfast stared up from the white china, two fried eggs for eyes and a smile made out of bacon. “What?” Rob mock-protested when Jude raised his eyebrows. “You just acted like seco
nd breakfasts were for gluttons. Of course, some of us don’t need to watch our figures.”
“Very funny—”
Rob silenced him by stabbing a fried mushroom with his fork and holding it close to Jude’s mouth. “Goodness.” Rob spoke over Jude. “It’s so rude to speak with your mouth full.” He asked, “Whatever would your mother say?” and then winced. “Sorry,” he said quietly.
They both ate instead of speaking for a few minutes, Jude lost in thought while people around them enjoyed the sunshine and sea breeze. “We should do this,” he said, stealing another mushroom from Rob’s plate once his small portion was finished. “Serve breakfasts outside all summer, at home.”
“Why do you think the boatshed is full of tables and chairs?” Rob glanced around, perhaps counting heads and calculating profit like Jude just had. “I picked them up right after Christmas, at another auction. Even if they only get used for the busiest couple of months of the year, I figured it was worth the investment.” He gestured around him with his knife, using the same bad manners he’d accused Jude of having. “Can you see why I wanted to bring you here now?” Jude nodded, and he grinned. “Porthperrin must look as dead now as this place used to, but it doesn’t have to stay that way.” He wiped up the last of his egg yolk with a toast crust. “Look around. All it needs is a bit of vision and a business plan that goes beyond the front doors of the Anchor.” He tapped the side of his head with one finger. “I’ve got it all up here, so just ask if you’ve any questions. I’ll tell you everything I’ve got planned,” he promised, “if you’re finally ready to listen. And—” His wink was far from subtle. “—I’ll make sure to keep my answers simple.”
Jude looked around again at the bustling harbour, so many people here ready to spend their money, and for the first time, he felt real hope for their business.
15
Rob did more shopping after they finished their second breakfasts, his arms laden by the time they got back to the car park. He fumbled his keys out of his pocket. “Here. Can you open the boot?”