A Summer at Sea

by Katie Fforde

  ‘Sorry,’ said Alasdair.

  ‘Will you be sad to leave Scotland when you go back home?’ Kate went on.

  Emily realised there must have been some conversation about her departure before she got up. Probably a good thing.

  ‘Of course I will. I’ve loved being here. But I’m not going just yet, Kate. I’ve got to stay until the end of the puffer’s holiday season and then I’ll probably hang around until Rebecca has had her baby.’

  ‘So you’re not going for a bit yet, then?’ asked Kate.

  ‘No. It’ll be ages! I really hope we can have another day out together. I enjoyed myself so much.’

  ‘And I did,’ said Kate.

  ‘Cool,’ said Emily.

  ‘Then we must make sure it happens again,’ said Alasdair. ‘Although I’m afraid we can’t guarantee otters and certainly not the Merry Dancers.’

  ‘Well, I’ve seen them,’ said Emily. ‘If I saw them again, it would take something away from this time.’

  No one spoke for a few seconds.

  ‘I loved us all seeing them together,’ said Kate. ‘You, me and Dad.’

  ‘Don’t forget Rupert,’ said Alasdair, possibly trying to distract her from the familial image she had created.

  ‘Daddy,’ said Kate firmly. ‘You know perfectly well Rupert was asleep!’

  Chapter Nine

  KATE AND EMILY continued to chat all the way back to the puffer. When she saw her aunt on deck, Kate ran towards her. ‘Auntie Becca, we saw the Northern Lights! The Merry Dancers! Did you?’

  ‘No!’ Rebecca wailed. ‘I was asleep. I am so disappointed.’

  ‘I always sleep very deeply when I have time at home,’ said James ruefully. ‘So we only saw them on the internet.’

  ‘Me and Emily aren’t going to look at them on the internet,’ said Kate proudly. ‘Because we saw them in actual real life.’

  ‘We did,’ said Emily. ‘You are allowed to hate us.’

  ‘I don’t hate you, honey,’ said Rebecca, who, having hugged her niece, turned her attention to her friend. ‘You didn’t happen to look at your phone, did you?’

  ‘Only once. Battery was flat as a pancake. Did you want me?’

  ‘Um, I don’t want you but I rather think you need to go home for a week. Nothing ghastly, no need to look so worried, but it’s your house.’

  ‘What’s happened to my house?’ Emily demanded.

  ‘Your tenants had a barbeque and burned down next-door’s fence.’

  Emily exhaled hard. ‘Honestly! Of all the things to happen!’

  ‘I’ve had next-door and your tenants on the line. You need to sort it out but it shouldn’t be hard. I’ve booked a stand-in chef, Jess – I have a few people happy to do it for a week or so but not for the whole season. And I’ve booked your flight.’

  ‘Becca!’

  ‘It’s fine! I’ll drive you to the airport when you’ve sorted yourself out a bit. That needs to be in an hour …’

  ‘I’ve packed for you,’ said Billie. ‘No need to thank me. It wasn’t hard. I just put all your clean clothes in your rucksack.’

  ‘Oh, well, that gives me time to have a cup of tea, I suppose,’ said Emily.

  She had emerged from her cabin, having made sure that Billie had indeed packed for her and made some adjustments, when she saw Kate and Alasdair on deck, obviously wanting to leave.

  Kate ran up to her. ‘You will come back, won’t you?’ she said earnestly, looking on the verge of tears.

  Emily knelt and put her arms round her. ‘Of course, sweetie! I’m only going for a week and then I’m coming back until the end of the season and then until after Auntie Becca has had her baby.’

  Kate hugged her very hard. ‘That’s OK then.’

  Emily straightened up and saw Alasdair. ‘I suppose I’d better give you a hug, too.’ And she did. For a second they just hugged and then there was an awkward kiss, both aiming for the cheek and somehow ending up half kissing each other on the lips.

  ‘Now, you look after each other, you two, and you lot!’ Emily’s look took in everyone who happened to be on deck: Billie, Drew, James and Bob. ‘I’ll be back!’

  She found herself unexpectedly tearful and stepped ashore quickly before anyone noticed.

  ‘So, what was that between you and Alasdair?’ Rebecca asked before the car was properly out of the car park near the jetty.

  Emily sighed and decided she might as well tell Rebecca now; she’d only get it out of her eventually and she was obviously dying of curiosity. ‘We shared a bit of a kiss after we’d seen the Northern Lights, but that was all.’

  ‘You don’t fancy him?’

  ‘He doesn’t fancy me. Or rather, I suppose he does, but doesn’t see a future in it and so was sensible.’

  ‘You’d have gone on?’

  ‘I would have actually, I have to confess. But he said Kate might have found out about it and as I’m only here for the summer that wasn’t fair on her.’

  ‘That sounds like Alasdair. He’s very careful about introducing women to Kate. She does take agin them so.’

  ‘She didn’t take agin me! We got on brilliantly. I haven’t had so much fun since you and I used to get up to mischief all those years ago.’

  ‘Then I see his point. If Kate likes you – and she obviously does—’

  ‘And I like her! Really.’

  ‘And you are only here for the summer, it would be cruel for her to even think you and Alasdair might be an item—’

  ‘I’m not sure she’d put it quite like that, she’s only nine.’

  ‘—if you’re going to leave her and her daddy, just like her mother did.’

  For a second Emily wondered if Rebecca did know about Alasdair’s wife being on her way to meet her lover and then decided not. It was difficult, knowing more about someone you didn’t know well, really, than members of their family did.

  ‘I do agree. We were probably just carried away with the moment, having seen the Merry Dancers and things.’

  ‘So how did the day go before that?’

  ‘Amazing! They took me to an island we had to row out to and we saw otters. And it was so beautiful. Really lovely. Thank you so much for arranging it all for me.’

  ‘Actually, it was all Alasdair’s idea. I thought it was a brilliant notion and knew that you’d promised Kate to spend time with her, but it was his idea to spend all day together and stay the night.’ She paused. ‘Perhaps he does fancy you.’

  ‘I don’t think so or he wouldn’t have stopped while we were on the sofa together. It was all about Kate.’

  ‘No,’ said Rebecca. ‘He fancied you – fancies you – and thought it would be nice to spend a day with you – for Kate too, obviously – but didn’t want it to go too far.’

  ‘Very sensible of him.’

  Rebecca glanced across to her. ‘Do you mean that in a good or a bad way?’

  Emily shrugged. ‘Good, probably. I think I just feel a bit rejected.’

  Rebecca laughed, heartlessly in Emily’s opinion. ‘Get over it!’

  Sally, Emily’s midwife colleague, was holding a ridiculously over-decorated sign with ‘Emily! Welcome Home’ and hearts and flowers all over it. It was somewhat embarrassing. Still, Emily was pleased to see her friend and swung her bag over her shoulder and joined her. ‘I’m only back for a week. No need for all this.’

  ‘Yeah, but I told Cally you were staying at ours and she got over-excited. You know what little girls are like. And then I thought it would be fun to embarrass you.’

  ‘Thanks, mate!’

  ‘But really, I have so much news. All of it good! You will never believe it.’

  ‘So tell me then.’

  ‘Wait till we’re home. I’ve got fizz to open.’

  ‘The news is that good?’

  ‘Definitely!’

  A little bit later, her thinking power not exactly enhanced by two glasses of Prosecco, Emily said, ‘Can you repeat all that slowly?’


  ‘OK, pay attention this time. Since you’ve been away which is what – a month?’

  ‘About that.’

  ‘These things have changed. Number one, the powers-that-be are a whole lot keener on home and midwife-led maternity units. There have been statistics – everyone seems to love a statistic – saying what we already knew – that they’re better and safer.’

  ‘That’s good.’

  ‘Two, all the local doctors seem to have jumped on the bandwagon.’

  ‘What? Blimey, that was fast. Even Derek Gardner? I’ll believe that when I see it!’

  ‘Well, you will see it. I bumped into him yesterday and mentioned you were coming back for a week and he made me promise to tell you that you’ve got to go out to dinner with him tomorrow.’

  The bubbles that had been so much fun a second ago seemed suddenly to go flat. ‘Sally! Why?’

  ‘He wants to apologise for being so awful at that home delivery where the husband came home unexpectedly.’

  ‘I don’t have to go out to dinner with him for that! He can just say sorry – or not. I really don’t care.’

  ‘Well, he wants to take you out – but that’s not the really good news.’

  ‘Really? You surprise me. I thought you were opening bottles of fizz to celebrate me getting a date.’

  ‘Don’t be daft. No, the really good news is the Mat. Unit is safe forever!’

  ‘Really?’ This was a surprise. ‘You mean we’re not going to be closed the moment the government want more cuts?’

  ‘No! One of the trustees died. She was mega rich.’

  ‘Oh, I knew about that. Imogen Strickland. She was a midwife. But that was a couple of years ago, surely.’

  ‘Yes, but she left all her money – and there was lots and lots of it – to charity but the bulk of it is going to the unit! To keep us safe! And we can refurb, have all the equipment we need, properly support mothers who want a home birth – all the bells and whistles.’

  ‘I know I’ve been away from midwifery for a bit but we didn’t use bells and whistles in my day.’

  Sally gave her a look and handed her a board, a knife and an onion. ‘I was going to give you a complete break from cooking as I know you’ve been doing a lot of it, but for that, you can sit there and chop.’ She looked stern. ‘Besides, I’m a bit behind with dinner. I need the help.’

  Emily smiled and accepted her task. ‘Sorry. And this is really good news! In fact, it’s amazing. I can’t believe it.’

  ‘At last!’ said Sally, her hands held up in relief that finally her colleague was reacting appropriately. ‘Now you understand the fizz!’

  The following morning, with a very slight headache, partly caused by the Prosecco and partly by the prospect of visiting her neighbours, who were not known for taking anything calmly, Emily set off towards her house, via the WI cake stall. She hoped they would recognise this as a goodwill gesture and not an attempt to swindle them out their rights.

  ‘Can you just tell me again what happened?’

  Emily was the personification of appeasement, sitting in her neighbours’ sitting room drinking tea. The cake she had brought was sitting on a doily, as yet uncut.

  ‘Well, we were sitting in the garden …’ began Mrs Mitchell, whom she’d never quite managed to call Elsie although they’d been neighbours for three years now.

  ‘I wasn’t,’ said Mr Mitchell, whom she did sometimes call Reg. ‘I was in the greenhouse, watering the tomatoes.’

  ‘And all of a sudden we were aware of smoke!’ Mrs Mitchell had a sense of drama, Emily had to concede. ‘We thought it was just the barbeque at first. They had friends over, there was drinking …’ Her opinion of people who drank was made clear by her expression.

  ‘Of course it was just the barbeque at first, dear, the smoke,’ said her husband.

  ‘But then it got worse! The smell! I can’t be doing with those hot spicy sauces. If you want a barbeque, what’s wrong with a sausage?’

  ‘The fence caught fire,’ said Mr Mitchell, keeping to the facts. ‘And it’s our fence.’

  ‘I called the fire brigade,’ said Mrs Mitchell. ‘Reg said there was no need, but you can’t take chances, can you? And they came straightaway. Lovely, they were, and do you know? Two of them were women?’

  ‘Goodness, they’ll be having male midwives next,’ said Emily under her breath.

  ‘As I said,’ Mrs Mitchell went on. ‘They were lovely but really, I don’t think women should be firemen, do you, Reg? They should be doing something more feminine. No man wants to marry a woman who wears yellow rubber dungarees, surely.’

  Emily considered. Put like that, it did sound a bit niche.

  ‘So, what have you done about getting your fence replaced?’

  ‘Your tenants,’ said Reg, making Emily feel the responsibility of their misdoings sharply, ‘your tenants said we should claim on our insurance, but why should we? We’d lose our no-claims bonus.’

  ‘I quite understand. It’s not your responsibility at all. I’ll claim on my insurance,’ said Emily, wishing they’d break out the cake. Only a sugar fix would get her through the rest of the conversation without her wanting to say a rude word.

  ‘But it won’t affect our insurance, will it?’ asked Mrs Mitchell. ‘If it does, it’s not fair and we’ll go through the small claims court!’

  ‘It won’t, really it won’t. There’s no reason why it should.’ Emily realised she was using her special calming voice. Any minute she’d suggest Mrs Mitchell breathed through the contraction, as if Elsie was having a baby and not just making a big fuss. Then she realised it must have been frightening at the time and tried harder to feel conciliatory.

  She cleared her throat. ‘I am really sorry you’ve had this horrid incident. It must have been terrifying, but I’m here to assure you that your fence will be replaced by the insurance, and if any plants have been damaged and are for some reason not covered by the insurance, I will pay for them personally.’ She got to her feet and walked to the door, abandoning the cake with good grace. ‘I’ll be in touch very shortly. Goodbye!’

  Then she went round to see her tenants.

  It was odd seeing her little house and knowing she wasn’t currently living in it. Still, the front garden looked nice and tidy and there were a few more pots by the door. She knocked.

  ‘Hello!’ said Isobel, the female half of the couple renting. ‘I am so sorry about this!’

  As Isobel had taken the day off work so she could see Emily and was already apologising, Emily’s annoyance over the incident started to diminish.

  ‘Do come in!’ Isobel went on. ‘I’ve made a cake.’

  Emily went into her home, so familiar and yet different. She looked around the sitting room. The paintings were not hers but looked lovely. The fire surround was dotted about with more plants and candles than she had had. There was a different rug and pretty cushions.

  ‘You’ve made it look lovely!’ she said.

  ‘I really hope you don’t mind,’ said Isobel, still sounding flustered and guilt-ridden, ‘but we gave the walls a coat of paint. We made sure it was the same paint.’

  ‘No, that’s fine,’ said Emily, glad that the tenants she had been so sure were good really were. Setting fire to next-door’s fence was obviously a blip.

  ‘Do you want to come through to the kitchen? Would you like tea or coffee?’

  Emily followed her hostess and saw a cake that looked far nicer than the one she had left with the Mitchells on the table.

  ‘Tea will be lovely. As long as we can have cake. I was just next door and I brought one with me – from the WI stall – but they didn’t cut it.’

  ‘This is a Mary Berry recipe,’ said Isobel, lowering a large wedge of chocolate heaven on to a plate and putting it in front of Emily. ‘What sort of tea do you like?’

  ‘Whatever you’re making would be lovely,’ said Emily. ‘Do you mind if I start?’ A moment or two later she decided whatever her tenants had done she
forgave them. ‘This is so lovely! You might have to write down the recipe for me. My passengers on the puffer would love it.’

  When she got up to leave a little later, everything resolved, she felt confident that her house was in good hands. It had transpired that no one had suggested that Reg and Elsie Mitchell should claim on their insurance, it had been a misunderstanding caused by one of them – or maybe both – not wearing their hearing aids. Once she’d sorted out the insurance she’d be done.

  Emily had gone into town to see her insurance brokers and, having got through all the form-filling, was wondering if she should walk back to Sally’s house or do some window shopping when she heard herself being hailed from across the street.

  ‘Emily!’ said a young female voice. ‘How are you? Where’ve you been?’

  She looked up and after a few moments recognised Susanna, the mother whose peaceful home birth had been interrupted by a grumpy husband. Then she had been red-faced and tired, with no make-up and her hair in a stringy ponytail. Now she was the picture of a Yummy Mummy and bouncing with health. As Susanna was accompanied by a pushchair, Emily hurried across the road so they could speak.

  ‘No need to ask you how you’re getting on!’ she said when she reached Susanna. ‘You look amazing! Not the wrung-out wreck lots of new mothers look like.’

  ‘I’m very lucky. Clorinda only wakes a couple of times in the night and always goes straight back to sleep. So – what about you? I’ve been trying to get in touch with you and they said you were off for a while.’

  ‘I’m on a sabbatical,’ Emily told her, although as she said it she was aware that the word usually applied to something more peaceful and academic than cooking for passengers on a small steam ship. ‘And here’s the small person I never got to meet!’

  Susanna smiled. ‘She’s called Clorinda. I’m really hoping that when she goes to school there won’t be three other Clorindas in her class but there probably will be.’