The Café at Seashell Cove_A heart-warming laugh-out-loud romantic comedy

by Karen Clarke

  ‘Well, I’m sorry, but I’ve got better things to do with my time, Miss Maitland.’

  ‘It’s Ms, actually.’

  ‘Of course it is.’

  I stuck two fingers up at the screen. ‘I take it that’s a no, then?’

  ‘Look, I sell most of my work through my website, and as I’m currently working on a new collection for an exhibition in Plymouth next month, I’ll be declining your little offer.’ He spoke with such venom that something inside me snapped.

  ‘Well, I’m sorry to have bothered you,’ I said, coolly. ‘Good luck with your collection.’

  I ended the call, then said grumpily, ‘Actually, Mr Daly, you sound like a total knob and your paintings are shit. A five-year-old could do better. And you’ve got a face like a scrotum.’ I leant over to rid my screen of his glowering mugshot. ‘I hope you don’t sell a single crappy painting ever again.’

  ‘I’m still here,’ said a growly voice, and I dropped my phone in fright. Instead of ending the call, I’d accidentally put it on speaker.

  ‘I know you are,’ I lied. ‘I’m trying to teach you a lesson. To be… nicer.’

  He gave a nasty laugh. ‘Good try,’ he said. ‘Don’t ever get a job in public relations.’ He rang off, leaving me scrabbling for a response.

  Shit. He knew my name, my number, and the name of the café. What was to stop him putting a horrible review on TripAdvisor? Then I remembered – he had ‘better things to do’.

  Shaken that my first attempt had gone so badly, I drank my coffee and wondered whether it was worth calling back to apologise (‘The customer is always right,’ Carlotta had drummed into me from Day One), but decided not to waste my energy. It wasn’t as if there was a shortage of artists to choose from.

  I clicked on the website of a big-eyed, smiley woman, who painted delicate watercolours with simple titles like Shoreline, but she didn’t answer her phone.

  ‘Third time lucky,’ I murmured, scrolling through the Devon Artists’ web page and landing on a selection of vivid oil paintings by a youngish woman, with a cloud of black hair, called Vicky Burton. Her paintings mostly depicted the sky in varying states, and I particularly liked one with the sun’s rays beaming down to the sea from behind a storm cloud.

  ‘Ooh, I’d love you to display my work,’ she said, with a slight lisp.

  ‘That’s brilliant.’ I tried not to sound too grateful as I victory-pumped my arm. ‘How soon could you get some paintings here?’

  We arranged for her to be at the café the following afternoon, and after a few pleasantries – she was juggling her painting with a job as a nanny, while waiting for her ‘big break’ – and a brief discussion about commission, I rang off (double-checking I really had ended the call).

  I added ‘Source some artwork for the café’ to the list I’d started that morning, just so I could tick it off. It was still a very small list. I tapped my teeth with my pencil, then sketched a man playing the saxophone. I realised he looked like Danny Fleetwood, and added dark glasses and a wide-brimmed hat to disguise his face.

  Music. I liked the idea of something light, maybe jazzy, to accompany the tea-and coffee-tasting session. We could always pipe it through from an MP3 player, but live music would add a touch of atmosphere. The trouble was, it would be short notice to secure a band or musician, providing I could find either, and I didn’t fancy trying my luck online again. Maybe Rob would be interested in reviving his career for a couple of hours.

  ‘No, dear Sandra, I most definitely would not,’ he said, replying to my text with a call. ‘I’ve told you, I’m not doing that any more.’

  ‘But it’s only for a night, not even that, just an hour,’ I wheedled. ‘Pleeeease, Robbie Robot.’

  But he wouldn’t be swayed, even by his childhood nickname.

  ‘You’re the expert at this eventing lark,’ he said. ‘I’m sure you’ll come up with the goods.’

  ‘Eventing’s to do with horses,’ I replied sulkily. ‘Where are you, anyway?’

  ‘Having a late lunch,’ he said. ‘A meatball Subway, to be precise.’

  ‘Not exactly brain food.’

  ‘I’m brainy enough already,’ he said. ‘Plus, I’m having a break from healthy eating. I had to be fit for all that touring, and I’ve had my fill of protein bars and kale.’

  ‘What about the alcohol?’

  ‘I’m talking before all that kicked in.’

  ‘You’ll go back to it though, won’t you? The touring, I mean, not the drinking.’ I cleared my throat to get rid of the stern note that had crept into my voice. ‘If Boss… if Emma loves you, she’ll understand about you being away a lot, and that girls tend to throw themselves at boys in bands, and it doesn’t mean that you’re going to sleep with them all.’

  There was a pause so long at the other end, I’d have thought Rob had hung up if I hadn’t heard a car horn hooting in the background. ‘I won’t be going back,’ he said, finally. ‘Sorry, sis, but you’re going to have to get used to being the shining star in the Maitland family.’

  Yuck. Shiny I wasn’t, and unlikely ever to be a star. ‘So, you’re not going to help me?’ I said, to break another awkward little silence.

  He huffed out a sigh. ‘Look, I’ll ask around, if you’re sure there isn’t anyone on your contacts list you could ask.’

  ‘Not at such short notice,’ I said, laughing internally at the thought of me having my own ‘contacts list’. ‘Thanks, Rob, I owe you one.’

  He paused. ‘Is everything’s OK, Sand?’ Tears fizzed up my nose at the unexpected tenderness in his voice. ‘You can talk to me, you know.’

  ‘’Course I’m OK,’ I said, glad he couldn’t see the way my mouth had wobbled around the words. ‘At least, I will be when you’ve found me a musician for Tuesday night.’

  Chapter Eleven

  ‘Wake up, Cassie, you’ve got a visitor.’

  I came to with a violent start. In the green, subterranean light of my bedroom, Mum’s face looked slightly alien and, for a second, I thought I must still be dreaming.

  ‘Cassie!’ She pressed my shoulder. ‘It’s Danny Fleetwood.’

  ‘What?’ I pinged upright, almost head-butting Mum. ‘What’s he doing here this early?’

  ‘It’s not actually that early.’ Mum crossed to the window and yanked the curtains open, revealing a swatch of bright sky that made me blink. ‘Your dad opens up on a Monday morning so I can have a lie-in, remember?’

  ‘Oh, yeah.’ He’d done it for years, while Mum opened the café on Wednesdays, so Dad could snatch a couple of hours extra sleep. Peering blearily at the digital alarm clock, I saw it was gone nine. ‘You should have woken me earlier.’ I flung off the duvet and leapt out of bed, wishing I hadn’t when stars danced in front of my eyes.

  ‘I thought you might need to rest, after waiting up for Rob.’ A small frown marred Mum’s face when she turned from the window. ‘I told you he’d stay over at Nick’s, hoping to see Emma.’

  ‘I don’t know why,’ I said, tugging my crumpled nightshirt over my thighs. ‘It’s not like she lives with him.’

  ‘No, but sometimes she pops in, apparently.’

  ‘If she’s asked for some space, Rob should accept that.’ I was still annoyed that he hadn’t let me know whether he’d managed to procure a music act for the café.

  I’m interpreting your silence as a no, my last message had read, as my eyelids drooped in front of a rerun of Blackadder on UK Gold. Mum and Dad had already retired to bed with mugs of hot chocolate and a novel each, creeping out of the room with exaggerated care as I tapped away at my phone, presumably thinking it was work-related – which, in a way, it was – but I could see by the lack of blue ticks that Rob hadn’t read any of my WhatsApp messages.

  ‘I think your brother’s just keen to prove to Emma that he’s serious about his new future,’ Mum said with a reflexive smile, and the part of me that wasn’t panicking about what to wear, marvelled afresh at how easily she and Dad had acc
epted Rob’s news, when they used to imply that living in the area where we’d grown up – never mind the same house – would be akin to an admission of failure.

  ‘Could you ask my visitor to pop back later?’ I said, as Mum shook out my duvet, sending the sketch pad I’d looked through the day before flying to the floor.

  ‘I got the impression he wants to see you now,’ she said. ‘I made him some coffee.’ She picked up the sketch pad and stared at a picture of a bus crammed with passengers as if it was a naked man. ‘What’s this?’

  ‘What does it look like, Mum?’ I prised the pad off her, before she could flip through it, and stuffed it back in my open rucksack. ‘Did he say what he wanted?’

  ‘I thought you gave up art a long time ago.’ I couldn’t work out whether her tone was anxious or disapproving, or somewhere between the two.

  ‘I like drawing,’ I said, wondering whether it would be polite to have a shower and wash my hair before venturing downstairs. ‘Is that OK?’

  ‘Of course it is.’ Mum’s smile seemed less natural than it had moments ago. ‘I didn’t realise you still did it, that’s all.’

  I paused in the act of pulling on my dressing gown, having decided that Danny Fleetwood would have to take me as he found me.

  ‘Don’t worry, Mum,’ I said, squeezing the words past an unexpected ache in my throat. ‘I’m not planning to do a reverse-Rob and throw in my amazing career to take up painting again.’

  ‘There’s nothing wrong with painting,’ she said, lurching forward to tie the belt of my dressing gown a bit too tightly. ‘As a hobby, I mean.’ Her eyes grazed mine. ‘Although, you probably don’t have much time for hobbies, with your lifestyle.’

  Gritting my teeth, I shook my head and moved to the dressing table so that she couldn’t see my face. ‘Not really,’ I said, just about managing to match her jolly tone. ‘Could you tell Danny I’ll be down in a second? I just need to comb my hair.’

  ‘He’s very good-looking, isn’t he?’ she said, as she backed towards the door. ‘Not London good-looking, but for around here.’

  As she left, an urge to giggle rose as I imagined saying, ‘I suppose he’s what you’d call Devon handsome. Fit for outside the city. Buff, for a country lad.’ Not London good-looking. It was possibly the most ridiculous thing my mother had ever said.

  I did my best with my hair, which was refusing to lie flat on one side, and swiped the sleep from my eyes with a cleansing wipe before dotting on some concealer and blending it in. After nipping to the bathroom for a wee and brushing my teeth, I decided my lips looked too pale so I chewed them until they went red, trying not to think about Danny Fleetwood downstairs in my parents’ kitchen.

  Deciding I’d be at a disadvantage in my nightwear, I ransacked my suitcase for my newest jeans, before remembering I’d lent them to Nina and she hadn’t given them back. My other good pair needed washing, as did my baggy-kneed joggers, while the jeans I’d arrived in and the trousers I’d worn the day before were in a heap on the floor.

  ‘Oh, for god’s sake.’ Danny was probably wondering what I was doing. I jabbed my feet into my slippers and went downstairs, to see Mum zipping her jacket up.

  ‘I’m off to the café,’ she said. ‘I’ll leave you to it.’

  ‘Do you have to go now?’ I went hot at the thought of being left on my own with Danny. ‘I could give you a lift in Sir Lancelot.’

  ‘I always walk on a Monday, if the weather’s nice.’ Mum opened the front door, letting in a blast of fresh air. ‘Look at that sunshine.’

  Typical. Where was the rain when you needed it? ‘I’ll see you this afternoon then,’ I said, trying to delay her a bit longer. ‘Someone’s popping round with some paintings.’

  ‘Look forward to it.’ Mum hoisted her bag onto her shoulder and blew me a kiss. ‘’Bye, love.’

  ‘’Bye, Mrs Maitland,’ came a voice from the kitchen.

  ‘How many times have I told you to call me Lydia?’ Mum lowered her voice. ‘He’s such a gentleman,’ she said. ‘He’ll make someone a lovely husband one day.’

  ‘I can hear you, you know.’ Danny sounded amused.

  ‘I’m not looking for a relationship right now,’ I loud-whispered, bundling her outside.

  ‘Oh, I didn’t mean for you.’ She paused on the doorstep and squeezed my arm. ‘He’s obviously not your type.’

  She was probably thinking about Adam, assuming I’d eventually end up with someone similar, and while I had no intention of hooking up with Danny, it hurt that she thought I’d rule him out just because he wasn’t ‘London good-looking’.

  I closed the door with a nagging feeling of dissatisfaction and, adjusting the belt of my dressing gown, went into the kitchen.

  My insides jumped at the sight of Danny leaning against the stove, cradling Dad’s ‘Rise and Grind’ coffee mug. I wished I’d got dressed. And that I wasn’t wearing slippers with bunny ears.

  His eyes kindled at the sight of me, in a way that might have been flattering if I’d been in the mood. ‘Good morning, Miss Maitland.’

  ‘Hi.’ Inventive. ‘Please don’t call me Miss Maitland.’

  He grinned. ‘Sorry, I’ll start again. Good morning, Cassie.’ It sounded way too intimate. He had one of those husky voices that made even the most innocent sentence sound oddly seductive.

  ‘’Morning,’ I said grudgingly, failing to stop my eyes from roving over him. He was wearing black jeans and a deep blue T-shirt that somehow made the details of him – skin tone, eye colour – leap out. His arms looked muscly, but not in that body-builder way I disliked, and his thighs… I quickly pulled my eyes back to his face to see him taking a similar inventory of me. Aware that my outfit hinted at a night spent twisting and turning in bed, I grew hotter and redder and folded my arms across my chest. ‘What do you want?’

  There was a beat where, if we’d been starring in a romantic film, he might have said, ‘You.’ But we weren’t, and he said, ‘I’ve got something you might like,’ instead, which was almost as cheesy.

  ‘Is it a puppy?’ I glanced automatically at the corner of the kitchen where Rosie’s basket used to be, feeling a pang for the dopey spaniel that had been part of my life growing up.

  ‘I’m afraid not.’ Danny put down his mug with a clownish grimace. ‘Sorry, if I’d known…’ He lifted his hands.

  ‘I was joking.’

  ‘So was I, although I do know someone whose bitch has just had puppies, so—’

  ‘I don’t want a dog,’ I lied. I’d actually love a dog, to walk on the beach and to snuggle up in bed with. There’d been a ‘no dogs or cats’ rule at my flat in London and, before I met Adam, I’d been considering getting a house-rabbit for cuddles. ‘I won’t be staying here long enough, apart from anything else,’ I said, to give the impression I could be anywhere in the world at any given moment. I shuffled across to the counter and picked up the lukewarm coffee jug. ‘And my parents wouldn’t want one. They swore they’d never have another pet after Rosie died. It was too heartbreaking. We didn’t stop crying for about a fortnight…’ Aware I was talking too much, I stopped.

  ‘They become part of the family,’ said Danny. He must have moved closer, because I suddenly smelt something zingy that made my stomach leap. I concentrated hard on taking a mug from the cupboard and pouring out some coffee. ‘We had a lurcher called Ziggy, as soft as anything, he was. I still miss the old boy.’

  A moment’s silence stretched, during which everything felt heightened; the hum of the fridge, the sound of my breathing (too fast) and the contrasting colours of deep brown coffee against the bone-white mug.

  I spun round, fingers gripping the edge of the counter behind me, and the rapid movement pulled the edges of my dressing gown apart.

  ‘Do not disturb,’ Danny said, reading the slogan on my nightshirt, and I was surprised to see he was still standing by the stove. ‘I’m sorry if I did,’ he added. ‘Disturb you, I mean. I probably should have phoned.’

&nbs
p; ‘I’m assuming it’s part of your plan.’ I tried to sound relaxed as I pulled my dressing gown closed. ‘To “win me over”. Only, you’re not doing a very good job.’

  ‘Ah.’ He smirked. ‘That’s because you haven’t seen what I’ve brought.’

  My stomach dipped. ‘You’d better go and get it then.’ I affected a casual tone. ‘I haven’t got all day, and you must have work to do.’

  ‘I’ve been working already,’ he said. ‘Moving Sylvia’s things into storage. That’s when I came across this box of stuff I thought you should have.’

  Curiosity piqued, I urged, ‘Well, go on then.’

  He crossed one foot over the other and folded his arms. ‘So, what is it you’re up to today that’s so important?’

  ‘Danny, please.’

  ‘OK, OK.’ He held up his hands in surrender, a smile on his infuriatingly perfect lips. ‘I’ll go and get it.’

  As he opened the back door and stepped outside, a welcome whoosh of air hit my overheated skin, but I’d no sooner slurped some coffee and cursed myself for pleading than he was back, tilting under the weight of the box he was carrying.

  ‘Here we are,’ he said, waiting while I cleared a space on the table so he could plonk it down.

  ‘What’s in it?’ I pulled at the curling tape holding the top edges of the box together. As they sprang apart I peered inside to see it was crammed with pictures.

  ‘Recognise them?’

  I glanced up to see Danny smiling a private smile, clearly anticipating my reaction, and realised my heart was beating too fast as I dug a hand inside and pulled out one of the pictures.

  ‘I did this.’ I stared at a painting of Seashell Cove on a summer’s day, the sea a great wash of aquamarine against the fudge-coloured sand. In fact, that’s what I’d called it. Seashell Cove on a Summer’s Day. Hardly imaginative, but it fully captured the essence. The painting positively oozed summer magic. I could almost feel my toes scrunching into the sand, and the golden sunshine bathing my neck in warmth. Not that I’d been there that day. I’d painted it from memory, in class, for an exam. I got top marks for it, too.