Summer at Blue Sands Cove

by Chris Ward

  Grace took a swig of her wine and topped up the glass from the bottle. To her dismay, she only had a little left at the bottom.

  ‘I’ll think about it,’ she said, already thinking about it a lot.

  5

  Escape

  ‘You think you’re fit, you scum?’ Doreen said from the instructor’s bike. ‘You think you’re fit? Twenty minutes, that’s all. That’s how long any of you would last in the exercise yard. When a gang comes and asks you to press eighty and you max out at twenty-five, what do you think happens? You clean a lot of toilets, that’s what. With your hair. Are you hearing me? Now train. Train, train, train.’

  The end of the session couldn’t come soon enough. Just fifteen people had shown up tonight, with more than half the bikes empty. Not that Doreen seemed to care as she called out people to confess. Grace, keeping her head down, managed to escape into the changing rooms, where she sat in silence for a while, a towel covering her face.

  A policeman had shown up at her house that afternoon to take a statement. The man she had poured coffee over had accused her of aggravated assault.

  Grace hadn’t bothered to defend herself. In tears, she had explained to the police officer—who had actually been rather sympathetic—that she’d reached a point where she flipped. He suggested that while she waited to find out whether she would be charged, she take a rest and do some exercise. And drink plenty of water.

  Out in the lobby, she bought the most caffeinated drink she could find. As she sat drinking it at a table, a young man in a tracksuit approached.

  ‘Excuse me, are you Grace Clelland?’

  ‘Yes?’

  ‘I’m John Barnwell. Gavin Barnwell’s brother?’

  ‘Oh, right.’

  John Barnwell sighed and shook his head. ‘I just wanted to let you know that thanks to you, Gavin is in a bad way. He told me what you do to him, the nightly torment. He’s quit his job, and it looks like he’ll be moving into an assisted living facility to help him through his night terrors.’

  ‘Is this a joke?’

  A tear dribbled down John Barnwell’s cheek. ‘Do I look like I’m joking? You’ve destroyed my brother’s life. Are you proud of yourself? What kind of person are you, to victimize someone so fragile? You should be ashamed.’

  To Grace’s dismay, she realised John Barnwell was shouting. As a manager appeared, glared at Grace, then took John’s arm and led him away to a staff office, Grace caught Doreen watching her from the door to the spinning studio.

  ‘Ruining lives, are you, Clelland?’ she growled. ‘That’s called karma. I saw you slacking off in there. Couldn’t ride a tricycle, you. Karma.’

  As Doreen went back into the studio, Grace stared at the drink in her hand, wishing it was three-quarters vodka, or something stronger.

  ‘Well, it’s not the most desirable area, but I do have a couple of people looking,’ the letting agent said. ‘Summer rental only?’

  Grace nodded. ‘For now, but we’ll see what happens.’

  ‘Well, I don’t think I can get the rates you were asking for, not at such short notice.’ She slid a sheet of paper across the table. ‘I have each client estimate what they’d be willing to pay. Here’s what I have right now.’

  Grace looked at the figures and sighed. ‘I’ll barely cover the mortgage.’

  ‘If you were willing to wait six months or offer a longer leasing period….’

  Grace remembered the fabled Summer of Rain, 2009, when it had chucked it down throughout the entire month of August, with temperatures peaking at fifteen Celsius. Grace had been sixteen, and the summer a total washout. She and Joan and a few others had set up an awning at the top of the beach and sat under it to eat pasties and ice-cream, and have barbeques in the evening, even as the rain pelted down so hard that even at high tide they could barely see the shoreline.

  It had been the worst of summers but the best of times.

  ‘I’ll take whatever you’ve got,’ she said.

  Coming out of the letting agent, she felt like a weight had lifted off her shoulders.

  I’m coming, she messaged Joan from the steps outside. Hold a job for me.

  Graceful!!!! I can’t wait. Just like old times.

  Grace frowned. I just have to check with the police that it’s okay.

  The assault charge? Don’t worry. Just say you slipped.

  I already said it was intentional.

  Claim insanity. Fingers crossed they might let you off.

  Fingers crossed. And toes.

  A disinterested police officer jotted down her intended new address and told her to have a good time. In the crime-filled wasteland of inner-city Bristol, she suspected that a tray of coffees thrown in anger was low priority. Not that it made her feel any better, but at least she was free to leave.

  It took a couple of days to sort out the letting agent details. She had offered the flat as furnished, but she needed to pack up her personal things, which she boxed and stored in her parents’ garage in Frome, just outside of Bath.

  ‘I’m going home,’ she told her mother over coffee in their living room. ‘Back to Blue Sands. I felt like I needed a break and Joan offered me a job in the shop.’

  ‘Won’t that be strange?’ Lisa said. ‘You were a teenager when you worked in there before.’

  ‘I know. It’ll probably be a bit weird at first, but once I get used to it, it’ll be like the old days.’

  ‘Well, have a nice time. Say hello to the place. While your father and I have been happy here these last five years, we still miss it. It has a certain … magic.’

  Grace smiled. ‘I will,’ she said.

  It felt like a prison break when she got a taxi to Temple Meads Station and bought a train ticket to Penzance. June 1st, the first day of summer. It was pouring with rain, but Grace hadn’t been so excited in years. With her suitcase in the luggage storage overhead and an agreement on a chalet just back from the beach for a three-month rental, Grace felt like the world was beginning to knit itself back together. Ten years in Bristol hadn’t been all bad, but as the train pulled out of the station, she felt excited to be going, rather than sad to leave.

  On my way, she messaged Joan.

  I’ll be waiting at Penzance, came the reply.

  Just like old times. Drinks on the beach, coffee in the café … thanks Joanie. You’ve saved my life.

  I just helped you to save it yourself. It’s raining here, by the way.

  Ha! Nothing ever changes.

  The reply took a little longer to come than Grace might have expected. Perhaps Joan was in the toilet or busy with something.

  No, nothing.

  Joanie … are you okay?

  Of course. Why?

  I just thought … never mind.

  Can’t wait to see you, Graceful.

  You too.

  6

  Reunion

  Despite it being perhaps the first train Grace had ever caught from Temple Meads that was officially on time, the journey down to Penzance seemed to take an age. Once they were through Plymouth the journey became one of frequent stops at little Cornish towns, many of which Grace and Joan had painted red over wild weekends of drinking and clubbing, back in their carefree teens when the responsibilities of adulthood had felt like a million years away. There were star shapes they had gouged out of a hotel’s flowerbed, a weathervane stolen from a town centre monument … there was the boot of a police car Grace had woken up in—to the bemused looks of a pair of local bobbies—after Joan had managed to pop the lid with a penknife. And in between the wild times there had been warm summer days wandering desolate beaches, writing their names in pristine sand, beers and burgers around stone-walled barbeque pits on late summer evenings, and local sea shanties sung late into the night.

  And then Grace had gone to university in Bristol, and everything had changed. For a few years she had maintained a regular summer visit, but when she was twenty-three, her parents had moved up to Frome, partly to be nearer to
her, and partly because after thirty years living in Cornwall they wanted a change of scenery.

  Grace understood. But only after her own visits to Blue Sands declined to a couple of biennial weeks, did she realise how much she missed the pretty little cove and its crescent of welcoming sand. Even the Hill of Suffering had grown to be remembered with fondness, the dark nights of climbing up from the pub in the pouring rain, had become a quirk of country life rather than something to dread after a night of pleasurable drinking in the pub.

  I’m going to do it this time, she messaged Joan just after the train had pulled out of Redruth. I’m going to ride it, and you’re going to walk alongside me. Well, not quite alongside, just a little bit back.

  The reply took a while to come, making Grace wonder whether Joan was having second thoughts.

  Sounds like a plan.

  Are you all right?

  Yeah, great. Can’t wait to see you!

  It was just a little eager. Not like Joan at all. There was definitely something up.

  An hour later, just after seven p.m., the train pulled into Penzance station. Grace had been dozing, idly dreaming about a time she and Joan had gone out on the lash in Newquay and woken up in a field of cows. Joan had been using a cow pat as a pillow. Luckily it had been dry. They’d walked across fields until they found themselves in a quiet little village, where they’d got a massive fry-up and large mugs of coffee. They’d spent the rest of the day lounging about on the little strip of sand, eating ice-creams and talking about nothing. In a souvenir shop just back from the beach Grace had bought a little dream catcher decorated with shells, which she had hung over her bed right through university.

  She had a smile on her face as she sat up just in time to see the PENZANCE sign slide gently past her window as the train came to a stop.

  She peered out of the window, looking for Joan, but there was no sign of her friend. Grabbing her suitcase, she hauled it down the aisle and out onto the platform. A few commuters were heading swiftly for the exit stairs. A young student-type was trying to escape a smothering embrace from his parents. A mother pushed a pram with one hand while holding the hand of a little girl with the other.

  ‘Hi, Graceful. Told you I’d be waiting.’

  ‘Joanie? Joan—’ Grace spun around. Her jaw dropped. Joan had never been slim like Grace, but age had filled Joan out. Remembering how they had used to gorge on the ice-creams on a quiet day left Grace unsurprised, but the wheelchair from which Joan looked up was unexpected, to say the least.

  ‘What happened? Your tongue got caught under the train?’

  All Grace could do was stare. ‘I didn’t … I didn’t know.’

  Joan shrugged, then wheeled herself a couple of feet forward. She fixed Grace with a warm look, even as she gave a sad smile. ‘I know you didn’t. That’s because I didn’t tell you.’

  The joyful homecoming Grace had expected evaporated in front of her eyes like smoke puffing from the train’s exhaust. With tears in her eyes she reached forward and pulled Joan into a hug.

  ‘Damn it, why didn’t you tell me?’

  ‘You had cancer and you didn’t tell me?’

  Joan sighed. ‘I had a tumour in my lower spine,’ she said, stirring her coffee as they sat in a café across from the station. A drop splashed onto the floral tablecloth, which Joan swiped up with a finger before it could sink in. ‘It was hurting like hell to sit, for no particular reason. You know me, I was never one to be out swimming laps of the bay like you did, so there wasn’t any cause for it. The doctor ran some tests, then they did a scan which showed the tumour. The doctor said I’d caught it a month before it would have been inoperable. The surgery saved me, but I lost the use of my legs.’

  ‘I’m so pissed,’ Grace said, sobbing into a tissue. ‘I can’t believe you didn’t tell me. We’re best friends. All through it you were messaging me like everything was fine.’

  Joan grinned, then reached across and slapped Grace’s forearm. ‘Will you stop bloody crying? I’m fine. Well, more or less. I’m not climbing cliff paths anymore but I’m still getting around, still running the café so Mum can go off to her flower arranging classes and cream tea lunches. I can still read a book and drink a pint, and give my best friend advice on her pathetic love life.’

  ‘You should have said!’

  ‘Yeah, and then you would have come swanning back down to Blue Sands to look after me, when the last thing I wanted was sympathy.’ Joan slapped the top of her thigh. ‘You know what this feels like? A second chance. I stared death in the face, and I know what it felt like to be close to the end. I’ve never lived life better.’

  Grace scowled. ‘I’m still angry with you.’

  ‘Oh, shut up and eat your scone. You’ve got room for a lot more than I have. What would you have done if I’d told you?’

  ‘I’d have been by your side.’

  Joan shook her head. ‘I’ve missed you since the day you left Blue Sands, Graceful, and I dreamed of the day you came back. But, I didn’t want it to be because I needed you. I wanted it to be because you needed me.’

  ‘I need you.’

  Joan grinned, licked the tip of her finger, held it up and made a hissing sound. ‘Objective achieved. Can we stop talking about me now?’

  Grace shook her head. ‘No! You had cancer and you didn’t tell me. It’ll be days before I stop being angry with you.’

  ‘Are you going to throw a tray of coffee over me?’

  Grace grimaced. ‘Ouch. Low blow.’

  ‘Ha, that would be total discrimination. Do you think they’ll give you an ASBO? Are you even allowed to visit me? Aren’t you tagged or something?’ She twisted the chair so the footrest nudged Grace’s leg. ‘Go on, let me see your ankles.’

  ‘I’m not tagged. They didn’t seem to mind. In the great scheme of things, I don’t think I’m considered that desperate a criminal. As long as I gave the police a forwarding address and phone number, they said it was all good.’

  ‘Perhaps the PC had the hots for you.’

  Grace rolled her eyes. ‘I don’t think so. It was a woman.’

  Joan punched her armrest. ‘Will you stop discriminating? I’m offended by default. What if I told you I was a lesbian too?’

  ‘Are you? Is that something else you haven’t told me?’

  Joan laughed. ‘No. I’m fully active on Tinder. In the restricted access section. She gave the chair a shake. Quite a fetish, these things. You wouldn’t believe the weirdoes who contact me. One guy wanted to know the brand name and model number.’

  ‘What did you do?’

  ‘I swiped left.’

  ‘Is that good or bad?’

  Joan rolled her eyes. ‘God, you’re so nineties. We’ll have to sort you out. Come on, let’s get out of here and get back to Blue Sands. How long are you going to leave me standing here?’

  ‘You’re not—’

  ‘It was a joke, Graceful. Come on. I’ve got one of those nifty cars with the steering wheel controls. It’s a total trip.’

  Being disabled hadn’t impacted the violence of Joan’s driving. With her heart in her mouth, Grace hung on to the armrest for dear life as Joan hacked them through the worst of Cornwall’s country lanes at a harrowing speed, working the car from a system of buttons fitted to the steering wheel.

  ‘Wow, forgot about that pothole,’ Joan said, as they bumped through half a mine shaft dug out of the middle of the road with such violence that Grace bounced up out of the seat.

  ‘So, what’s changed?’ Grace gasped, hoping the distraction of conversation might encourage Joan to slow down. ‘How’s the Low Anchor? Still run by Dawn and Craig?’

  Joan shook her head as they came to a straight section where Grace was able to catch her breath. ‘Nope. Remember that stuck up Gomersall girl? Taylor?’

  ‘Tay Gomersall, her of the weird name. Ha, yeah, I remember. A few years below us at school.’

  ‘Well, Craig got caught shagging her out by the Mourning Lady a cou
ple of summers back. One of the Thompson boys was out there walking his dog.’ Joan grinned. ‘Man, the gossip was going off for a while. Anyway, long story short, Craig and Dawn got divorced, they sold the pub, and Craig shacked up with Taylor in one of those council flats up on Black Rock Drive. Got himself a job as a lifeguard, acting all young like.’

  ‘Wasn’t he like, old?’

  ‘Forties. Yeah. Proper made a tit of himself. Anyway, he got sacked because some tourist kid got in trouble in the undertow last September. Craig couldn’t get to him, and a couple of locals had to pull him out. Lost his job, Taylor dumped him, and they both ended up leaving. Last I heard she was at nursing college and he was running a bar in Plymouth.’

  ‘Wow, I’m totally out of the loop, it looks like. Who owns the pub now?’

  Joan grimaced. ‘Ah, um … Daniel. Um, Daniel Woakes.’

  Grace felt like someone had slapped her from the inside, making her cheeks smart from the inside out.

  ‘Dan? You’ve got to be having a laugh. As in my ex-boyfriend, Dan?’

  Joan took both hands off the wheel long enough to make quotation marks in the air. ‘Your teenage love, yeah.’

  ‘Please hold the wheel.’

  ‘Ha, sure.’ Joan grabbed the wheel just in time to hack them round a blind corner. As the hedgerow opened out, Grace half expected to find a tractor coming the other way, but luckily the road was clear.

  ‘For your information, he wasn’t my teenage love.’

  ‘You just shagged him a few times?’

  ‘It was more than that.’

  ‘But less than total infatuation?’

  ‘Somewhere in the middle. Is it going to be awkward me showing up? We didn’t part on the best of terms.’

  ‘You dumped him, didn’t you?’

  ‘We broke up. There’s a difference. I went to university, he stayed here. God, we were only teenagers.’