‘Absolutely!’ mimics Guy, grinning. ‘Get you! Sounds like I’ve got the bloody Queen on board.’ And he jumps lithely down on to the deck and vanishes into the wheelhouse. Seconds later the engine is cut and all is blissfully quiet, except for the slap of the waves against the boat and the screech of the gulls which appear from thin air and circle above us.
‘Right,’ Guy says. ‘Chuck it in then and we can go back.’
I look out to sea. Tregowan is little more than a cluster of dots amongst a smudge of green. All else is acres and acres of deep blue water. I feel like the Ancient Mariner, only in funkier shoes.
‘What are all those little flags?’ I ask.
‘Markers for lobster pots, that’s what,’ Maddy says. ‘Nice try, Guy.’
Grumbling about quotas and federal Europe and struggling to survive, Guy manoeuvres the boat another hundred yards or so.
‘And that’s it,’ he says, fixing me and Mads with a steely gaze. ‘I’m not wasting any more fuel on a fucking lobster. Throw it in, for Christ’s sake.’
I look at Pinchy and Pinchy looks at me, and I know it’s ridiculous but I feel quite emotional.
‘Hurry up.’ Guy crosses his arms. ‘You don’t need to kiss it.’
‘Bye, Pinchy,’ I whisper, lifting his box on to the side of the boat. ‘Thanks for seeing off James. Guess I owe you one.’
Pinchy looks alarmed, probably wondering where his jacuzzi bath and expensive koi carp food have gone. He doesn’t seem overly keen to be liberated from captivity. It must be like returning to shopping in Asda when you’re more used to the Harrods Food Hall.
‘Watch out for lobster pots,’ advises Mads.
‘Unless they’re mine,’ Guy grins.
I close my eyes, tip the box and splosh! Pinchy has gone.
‘Thank Christ for that,’ says Guy, returning to the wheelhouse and starting the engine. Moments later we’re steaming back towards the harbour, with only a few ripples marking the spot where Pinchy dived down to his freedom.
Mads puts her arm around me. ‘Don’t be sad. We can always get you a hamster or something.’
I press my fingers into the corners of my eyes. I’m not going to cry over Pinchy. It’s just that in some ridiculous way that lobster was the only link to my old life, the life where even if I wasn’t always happy, at least we all knew where we stood. I was engaged, James was an arse and Ollie was my friend. Now it’s all changed and I don’t know how to make it right. I don’t belong anywhere and I don’t know where my life is going. It feels like I haven’t just dropped Pinchy into the sea but also everything I used to know and hope for.
So much for embracing change and being grateful for my second chance. I seem to lurch from excited to terrified on an hourly basis.
Jewell would be ashamed. I really must try harder.
As the trawler rolls her way back to harbour, I stare out to the horizon and try to feel optimistic about new beginnings.
‘Look!’ exclaims Mads. ‘What’s happening on the quay?’
Dancing Girl has rounded the headland and Guy slows her down for the final approach through the narrow harbour entrance. The high stone wall of the quay looms above and a large crowd has gathered to watch our approach.
‘They’re waving!’ Mads waves back excitedly. ‘Hello! Hello!’ She turns back to me, her cheeks pink with excitement. ‘Isn’t this romantic? Coming into an ancient fishing village by boat? The tourists love it. Look at them all waving.’
I shield my eyes against the bright sunshine. Sure enough there’s a throng of bodies crowded on the harbour, jostling for pole position, cameras flashing and camcorders held out to capture the trawler’s arrival. Even above the throb of the engine I can hear the rise and fall of excited voices.
You know, crazy as this is, I would swear they’re calling my name, but that’s impossible, surely?
‘Katy! Katy! Is it true you’re seeing Gabriel Winters? Has he really dumped Stacey Dean for you?’
I have a hideous sinking feeling, comparable to the time I taught my GCSE group the wrong book and only realised when they trooped into the exam hall, that something is very, very wrong. This bunch doesn’t look anything like tourists. There’s not a pasty or ice cream in sight, which in my limited experience tends to give it away. In fact the crowd, who now all but dangle from the quay, cameras extended at arm’s length, look horribly like journalists.
‘Maddy!’ I gasp. ‘I think the press have found me.’
There’s an explosion of light as umpteen cameras flash. I throw my hands over my face.
‘I haven’t got any make-up on!’
‘Never mind the make-up!’ Mads drags me across the deck and shoves me into the wheelhouse. ‘How are we going to get away from them?’
‘Sod that! They’re in my way.’ Guy sounds the boat horn loudly. ‘Fuck off! Out the way!’
‘They’re not going to listen,’ I say as a camera is lowered towards the window, ingeniously strapped to a plank.
‘Oh really? You think?’ Guy shakes his head. ‘Jesus! I should have just gone netting.’ He storms on to the deck and starts hurling slimy ropes up at the journalists. ‘I can’t moor with you twats there!’
‘How can I get off?’ I’m starting to panic. Not only does it look as if I’ll have to scale a ladder to reach the quay, but I’m also going to have to fight my way through the paparazzi. They look like they’re ready to rip my limbs off and squabble over the soggy bits.
I glance at the water in the harbour and wonder if my swimming is up to me making a break for the other side. Surely all Ollie’s training must pay off sometime? But the turgid water is oily and a fish head bobs past, fixing me with a disapproving glare. I don’t really fancy a dip. I’ll probably catch typhoid.
Guy rams a sou’wester on to my head and hands me an oilskin jacket. ‘Put that on. They’ll never see you underneath it.’
I screw up my nose and shove my arms into the cold plastic. To say that the jacket reeks of fish is an understatement. It’s probably capable of walking by itself. Still, it’s a disguise of some sort, I suppose.
‘How did they know you were out at sea?’ wonders Mads. ‘I thought at least we’d be safe out there. I swore Guy to secrecy.’
Guy looks sheepish. ‘I may have forgotten about that when I was talking to the old lady in the pub.’
‘You total moron,’ says Mads, giving him a look that in a fair world should have laid him out on the floor. ‘I said to tell no one you were meeting us, and anyway, what old lady?’
‘Just an old dear I met in the Mermaid who said she was looking for Katy. She had some poof with her too,’ says Guy. ‘Barking mad she was. Drank gin like it was water and played cards like a pro. Fucking round cleaned me out. There she is now!’ He points to the end of the quay, where a small figure dressed in green and sporting what looks like a turban with a feather in it is elbowing her way through the crowd and jabbing at anyone who gets too close with a purple parasol.
‘Yoo-hoo!’ she warbles. ‘Katy darling! Is that you? Take off that ghastly hat. Yellow is so not your colour. Terrible with red hair. Come and say hello. Look! I’ve found all these darling people who can’t wait to meet you. Everyone is so friendly here. Nothing like beastly London.’
I bury my face in my hands. I think we can safely say that the mystery of how the press has managed to find me has been solved.
‘That’s my godmother,’ I say.
Jewell teeters on the edge of the quay. ‘What are you doing hiding away, darling? Come up at once! There’re lots of people simply dying to talk to you. It’s too thrilling for words.’
Jewell couldn’t have attracted more attention if she’d painted her body purple and danced naked on the fish-market roof. Being slightly deaf, she also assumes that the rest of the world is hard of hearing too and her speech volume is on a par with Concorde taking off. Consequently the few journalists who are still enjoying the real ale in the pub now stagger out, clutching cameras and notepads
in their sticky paws.
‘Come on.’ The feathers on her hat bob furiously. ‘There’s a lovely man here from the Sun who can’t wait to speak to you about that divine Gabriel. Although,’ she leans dangerously far forward and sways a little before being snatched back from the brink by one of the hacks, ‘I’m very hurt that you didn’t tell me first.’
‘There’s nothing to tell,’ I say, or at least I try to, but the minute I stick my head out of the wheelhouse door, cameras flash and my name is called by about twenty different people. I duck back inside quickly.
‘Fuck,’ breathes Maddy.
‘Fuck indeed.’ My heart feels like it’s having a go on a pogo stick. Why would anyone want to be famous? This is hideous. I will never, ever apply to go on The X Factor. No matter how crappy teaching can be, at least I can normally make the little sods do what I tell them.
‘I can’t hear you, darling!’ hollers Jewell. ‘Come up here! We’ve travelled all this way to see you, don’t hide.’
We? The pogo stick accelerates. Has she got Ollie with her? If Ollie’s in Tregowan then somehow everything will be sorted. Ol practically has a PhD in sorting out my mess. What a relief.
‘I’m coming!’ I say, clambering over the piled fish boxes and coiled ropes. I trip a bit, OK a lot, in my flip-flops, and no doubt somebody somewhere gets a cellulite shot that will grace the pages of Heat, but I don’t care. If Ollie is here to sort it all out, everything will be fine.
‘Careful, darling,’ calls Jewell, watching me struggle up the ladder, dazzled by migraine-inducing flashes. ‘Mind your nails.’
My nails are the least of my concerns; in fact, as I slither and slip on the rungs I begin to fear for my life. The deck of Dancing Girl is suddenly a very long way below and not looking like a soft landing. God, I hate heights! Even sitting on the top of the 207 bus makes my legs go all wobbly. I start to feel sick and actually very hard done by. All I want to do is have a quiet break and write my novel in peace. And now I’ll end up as a splat on the manky deck of a boat belonging to a man with all the social graces of a bout of diarrhoea.
Maybe in a parallel universe another Katy Carter has been rescued by a multimillionaire in a yacht rather than sewer-mouthed Guy in his stinky trawler.
My right hand slips on some fresh seagull shit and the crowd gasp as I wobble and slide. I scream and plunge several rungs before managing to scrabble a hold. One lovely flip-flop plops into the harbour and I feel stupidly close to tears.
Just my luck I inhabit the crappy parallel universe.
‘For fuck’s sake,’ Guy says despairingly. Moments later he’s climbed up behind me and placed his strong arms either side of the ladder. ‘Look up and climb, you silly cow. I won’t let you fall.’
Charming! He is so not going to be the inspiration for my romantic hero. Jake would never call Millandra a silly cow! Maddy has a serious taste-in-men problem if Richard Lomax and Guy Tregarten are her idea of heroes.
Still, I’m not going to argue with Guy. I look upwards and try to ignore the fact that an enormous lens is pointed at my chest. Several rungs later I sprawl across the quay, hands raw from gripping the ladder and legs jellified from the effort.
I’m alive!
It’s all I can do not to kiss the ground like the Pope.
I am never setting foot on Guy’s boat again.
Jewell pokes me with the parasol. ‘Get up, Katy! We can see your underwear.’
Cameras flash. As apparently so do I. I leap up hastily and pull my skirt down.
‘Where’s Ollie?’ I look round hopefully, but there are only strange faces and lenses. That curly mop of bright hair and familiar crinkled grin can’t be far away.
Jewell’s brow wrinkles so deeply that she looks like Yoda dressed in Chanel. ‘Isn’t he the lovely boy with the pants who came to my birthday party?’
Togas and Romans was Jewell’s last theme, and Ol and I had a great time ripping up bed sheets, unlike James, who insisted upon hiring a fancy Caesar outfit and trying to discuss high finance with a very plastered Jewell. Ollie was a major hit, especially when his toga fell off to reveal Batman underpants.
‘Yes, yes!’ I say impatiently. ‘Where is he?’ I crane my neck just in case Ollie is hiding behind a length of orange trawl or is sitting in a net bin.
‘Whatever makes you think he’s here?’ Jewell puts her arm around me and beams for the cameras. ‘The other side’s my better side, angel!’
My poor heart’s had more ups and downs than a ride at Alton Towers today. It’s now plummeting like a crazy bungee jumper. No Ollie? I’m ridiculously devastated.
‘I came with that lovely Frankie,’ Auntie Jewell tells me, adjusting her turban and baring her dentures for the photographers. ‘He called me when he saw the papers. He was adamant that you’d need our support. Bless him! What a sweetheart! He couldn’t drive down quick enough.’
I bet he bloody couldn’t. I make a mental note to murder Frankie horribly when I next see him.
‘Didn’t Ollie want to come?’
‘Ollie?’ Again the powdery old face furrows. ‘I don’t think he was even there, darling. Out with his girlfriend, Frankie thought. Why?’ She fixes me with one of her piercing looks. ‘Did you expect him to come?’
‘Of course not,’ I say quickly. ‘I just wondered.’ Then another thought occurs. ‘Where is Frankie?’
Jewell laughs. ‘I have simply no idea. We had a drink, or maybe two, and then he vanished. I expect he’s gone for a walk, the dear boy.’
I groan. This is all I need.
Jewell links her arm through mine. ‘We want to know exactly what’s been going on. Don’t we?’ The reporters nod and shout their agreement. As they press closer, I start to panic, because there’s nowhere to escape to. On one side of the wall is murky harbour water and on the other are crashing waves, neither of which holds much appeal. Backing away as the reporters surge forward, I find that I’m trapped against a net bin. Bits of rotting fish and tangles of gut press against my cheek.
‘Darlings, move back! Let us through!’ Jewell demands.
‘Not until we have a comment.’ A thin-faced girl in a silver bomber jacket shoves a microphone under my nose. ‘Angela Andrews, Daily Dagger. Did you steal Gabriel from Stacey Dean?’
‘Is he good in bed?’ demands another.
‘Is he?’ asks Jewell, agog.
‘I don’t know!’ I snap. ‘I hardly know the man!’
‘Is it true that he’s bought a house here?’
‘Are you an actress? What are you in?’
‘A mess, that’s what I’m in,’ I groan.
Jewell and I are pushed back again as more reporters press forward. Any further back and we’ll be in the net bin. Jewell brandishes her parasol at them but the reporters are made of sterner stuff.
‘Hit me with that and I’ll do you for assault,’ jeers Angela Andrews.
‘Who says I’m going to hit you with it?’ Jewell retorts, poking the reporter’s bony rear. Angela backs off nervously. I can’t say I blame her. Jewell looks like she means business.
‘Out of the way, Grandma!’ A burly photographer shoves through towards us. ‘All we need’s a quote from Katy.’
‘That’s enough!’ A spray of water rises from the boat below, showering the journalists, who scatter shrieking and trying to shield their cameras. ‘She said no fucking comment!’
Guy is wielding the boat’s deck wash like Arnie wields an Uzi. All he needs to do is shout ‘Hasta la vista, baby!’ and the image will be complete. Icy-cold sea water drenches the reporters as he swings the hosepipe from left to right.
‘How jolly!’ trills Jewell, watching the reporters scurrying for shelter like disturbed ants. ‘Will we be on the news?’
‘Get back on to the boat,’ yells Guy. ‘Down the ladder!’
I’m just about to point out that I’m with an octogenarian who can’t possibly be expected to shimmy down ladders when Jewell pushes past and starts the descent, calling, ‘
Hurry up, Katy! Don’t be afraid!’
‘Thank you, darling,’ she coos when Guy lifts her on to the deck. ‘Bless you for helping a frail old lady.’
Frail old lady? I’ve met frailer Sherman tanks.
Jewell, swooning in Guy’s arms, winks up at me. ‘This lovely young man will help you. He’s ever so strong.’
‘I’d rather die than let him help me,’ I say as I inch my way back down towards the deck.
‘Get your arse down here now!’ Guy roars. ‘Or we’re going without you.’
I don’t need asking twice, because Angela Andrews, sopping wet now, and shrieking blue bloody murder about her Prada bomber jacket being ruined, is back on the quay. I’m down that ladder and on to the boat quicker than I’m out of school when the bell sounds.
And that’s pretty bloody quick.
The boat engine roars into life, plumes of blue smoke cough out of the exhaust pipe and Guy tears about pulling in ropes and old tyres.
‘Cast off!’ he yells to Mads and me. ‘As I go astern, push away from the wall.’
We do as he says, even though the wall is rough and slimy and we haven’t the foggiest what astern means. Mind you, I’ll do pretty much anything, to be honest, if it means getting away from Prada Bomber Jacket. She’s almost on the boat now, one narrow foot stretching out towards Dancing Girl and the other anchored on the ladder. She’s looking seriously pissed off, and I can’t say that I fancy my chances if she gets her hands on me. Being a teacher, I’m more likely to go to the moon than I am to go to Prada, but I can imagine how much that jacket cost.
Luckily for me, while she’s straddling the air between boat and ladder, Guy engages the engine and Dancing Girl shoots backwards with a jolt. Several alarmed seagulls caw in annoyance and rise into the air, crapping cheerfully on the reconvening journalists.
Jewell claps her hands. ‘Marvellous!’
And what’s even more marvellous is the loud splash Angela Andrews makes as she falls into the harbour.
‘Whoops!’ says Guy from the wheelhouse. ‘Did someone fall in?’
Angela Andrews floats in the harbour, her face a picture of rage. The silver coat puffs around her like a trendy brand of life jacket and a gloopy mass of seaweed sits jauntily on the top of her head. High on the quay her colleagues cackle delightedly and take pictures.
Katy Carter Wants a Hero Page 22