by Chris Ward
‘Ah.’
‘Becky’s going to look after the stall,’ Joan said. ‘Come on, lover boy. We need to get these two match fit for the bicycle race.’
They headed back to Grace’s chalet. Paul, Joan and Jason drank tea in the living room while Grace got changed out of her wetsuit and had a quick shower. Her arms were aching, and she felt sure she wouldn’t even be able to walk up Melrose Hill, let alone ride. When she came into the living room, Joan was sitting next to Jason on the sofa, one hand on his shoulder, while Paul watched with an amused twinkle in his eyes.
‘You keep Mike Anderson on the inside,’ Joan was saying to Jason. ‘If you have to, elbow him into the verge. No one complains about my café’s ice-creams and gets away with it.’
‘Isn’t that cheating?’ Grace asked.
‘Oh, there you are. Doing your nails, were you?’
‘I was washing away the scent of humiliation. You’re not really expecting Jason to cheat, are you?’
Joan narrowed her eyes. ‘It’s not just about Jason, but about Blue Sands and the café,’ she said. ‘Do you really want Mike Anderson to win the race while wearing a t-shirt supporting the Gourmet Garden? It’s not too late for Mum to change her mind.’
‘No, but—’
‘Then—’ She frowned. ‘What’s that noise?’
They all fell silent. From somewhere nearby came a muffled cry of anguish, followed by the sound of little fists banging on a wall. Someone was expressing a level of misery unheard of in Blue Sands.
‘Is that another lost kid?’ Joan said, frowning.
As a screeched name came rattling through the walls, Grace shook her head.
‘Nope. That’s her next door.’
36
To the finish
‘Gerald!’
‘I’m gathering that the dog’s dead,’ Joan said, as Jason pushed her out onto the front path, behind Grace and Paul. ‘Small mercies, I suppose—’
‘Gerald, where are you?’
‘Okay, maybe not.’
‘Unless she’s wondering what realm of heaven the dog’s gone to,’ Paul said.
‘I knew you were into Dungeons & Dragons,’ Joan said, making Paul laugh just as the door to Ethel’s chalet flew open and the old woman stepped out, hair wild, still—bizarrely for three o’clock in the afternoon—in a dressing gown.
She took one look at them standing on the grass in front of Grace’s chalet and bared her teeth.
‘You did this,’ she hissed. ‘You took my Gerald. What have you done with my darling? I lie down for a short nap, and he’s gone.’
‘We haven’t seen your dog,’ Grace said, putting up a hand to silence a far more vicious comment threatening to come from Joan. ‘We were relaxing before the bicycle race and we heard you crying.’
‘He’s gone,’ Ethel said, her anger dissolving. She threw her hands up into the air then fell forward like a skydiver exiting a plane. Paul, displaying far better reactions than the rest of them, jumped over the partition fence and caught her inches above the cobblestone path. He lifted her up as though she were made of straw and sat her down on a bench beside the door.
‘When did you last see him?’ he asked.
‘He went out into the garden for a little wander among the flowers, and I just lay down for a moment.’
‘Then he might be round the back.’
‘I just looked. He’s gone.’
‘Well, he can’t have gone far. What kind of a dog is he?’
‘A pug.’
Paul exchanged a glance with Grace. ‘Um, well, pugs can’t really do much more than waddle about, can they? How far can he possibly have gone? Don’t worry, we’ll find him.’
‘He’s a very active little thing. And when he sees a bird, he loses his mind a little bit.’
‘We’re going to miss the start of the race,’ Joan hissed at Grace behind Jason’s back. ‘We have to go. Can we leave Paul to sort this out?’
Grace stared at Ethel as the old woman sobbed into her hands while Paul sat beside her, one arm around her shoulders, trying to offer comfort. Spiky and offensive she might be, but Ethel Dottington was still just an elderly lady, one who had lost her only friend.
Ignoring Joan, Grace said, ‘We’ll find him. Don’t worry.’
She ran back through her chalet and out of the sliding doors into the garden. She peered over the low fence at Ethel’s garden, and quickly spotted a gap under the far side of the fence, big enough for a small dog to squeeze through. She ran back to the front and told the others.
‘Come on,’ she said. ‘He can’t have gone far.’
Joan, despite her protests, was left to sit with Ethel while Jason, Paul, and Grace checked the nearby streets. The little pug was nowhere to be seen. Grace was on the verge of giving up when a muted bark came from up ahead.
‘Gerald!’
Hearing her shout, Paul and Jason came running over. Together they walked down a narrow alleyway between two rows of houses, following the sound of further barks. They emerged by a small river gushing down a stone-walled drainage channel through the centre of the village. To their right, it emerged from a culvert cut into the hillside, cascading down a little waterfall.
Gerald stood on the grass bank right above the culvert. He had got caught up in brambles and was struggling to get free. As they watched, he staggered a couple of steps, and one leg slipped, hanging out over the rushing water below. One more step and, brambles or not, he would fall in.
‘The little mite’ll drown if he goes in there,’ Jason said.
Paul jumped into the river, the water splashing up to his knees and surging around him. He waded forward to the bottom of the culvert, but Gerald was just out of reach. Grace nodded at Jason, who crossed the river on a little footbridge and approached the grassy bank from the other side. Together, they climbed up, one step at a time, getting closer to Gerald while trying not to alarm him. The dog was whimpering nervously as he tried to tug himself free.
‘Can you grab him, Paul?’
‘Not yet. I can’t quite reach him.’
‘Jason, can you try poking him with a stick? See if you can knock him off into Paul’s arms.’
Gerald, still caught in the brambles, gave a low, frustrated growl. Grace dug her feet into the grass and stretched her arms, trying to get a hold of him, but he was just out of reach. In the water below, Paul was moving back and forth, ready to catch him, while Jason, on the side where the brambles were thickest, was poking a stick through the thorns, trying to get the little dog to take a leap of faith.
‘Come on, boy, don’t be scared,’ Grace said, trying to coax Gerald forward. The little dog grumbled again and started to turn, only for his back legs to slip over the edge. He gave a yelp as a bramble came loose, then he was scrabbling for safety.
‘Quick, Jason, knock him off!’
Jason prodded the pug with the stick. He caught the little dog’s feet, and Gerald dropped like a furry stone into Paul’s arms. As Paul caught him, he fell backwards, splashing into the water, but even as his head briefly went under, he held the little dog aloft like a trophy while Grace and Jason cheered. Then, passing the dog to Grace, he climbed out, shaking himself off.
‘God, it’s freezing,’ he said. ‘And I thought the sea was cold.’
‘Come on, quick, we can still make the race,’ Grace said. At that exact moment, however, a distant horn blared, followed by a cheer. Grace glanced at Jason, who just shrugged.
‘Mike Anderson had it in the bag anyway,’ he said with a sheepish grin. ‘Joan won’t be best pleased, but it was inevitable really. Let’s go get some ice-creams.’
With Grace carrying Gerald, they headed back to the chalets. Joan was sitting beside Ethel on the bench, the pair of them chatting amicably. At the sight of her dog, Ethel leapt up like a woman half her age, clapping her hands together with a soft thud.
‘Oh, my Gerry! You’re all right!’
Grace handed the dog over with relief. As Ethel show
ered the little pug with hugs, kisses, and promises of better future protection, Grace lifted an eyebrow at Joan.
‘You have a new best friend, now, do you?’
Joan shrugged. ‘Would you believe it, we bonded over cancer survival.’
‘That’s, um, nice.’
Joan’s smile dropped. ‘We missed the race.’
‘It’s all right. Neither me nor Jason really had a chance. I think we all knew that.’
‘Why don’t we take part anyway?’ Paul said. He squeezed river water out of his t-shirt and grinned. ‘It’ll give me a chance to dry out a little bit.’
‘My bike’s at the Shack,’ Jason said.
‘And I left mine by the surf club. We can’t join a bicycle race without wheels.’
‘We have wheels.’ Paul nodded at Joan’s chair.
Joan looked around. ‘And we have t-shirts. Come on. Let’s go steel the Gourmet Kitchen’s thunder.’
Ethel was still cooing over Gerald, but now she looked up. ‘Thank you so much for saving my little baby,’ she said. ‘If there’s anything I can do for you in return….’
Joan reached over and pulled a new t-shirt, still in its packet, out of the tray underneath her wheelchair. She held it up to Ethel.
‘You can put this on,’ she said. ‘And you can come for a walk with us up Melrose Hill.’
‘Oh, well, I don’t think Gerald is up to the exercise right now—’
‘He can sit on my lap,’ Joan said. ‘As long as he doesn’t moult too much.’
At first none of the milling spectators noticed them, then, as people glanced back to see the line of sky-blue t-shirts, the wheelchair, the little dog, and even the old lady holding on to Grace’s arm, people began to clap. By the time they were halfway up, the whole crowd was watching them, cheering as they passed. They overtook a couple of failed competitors sitting exhausted beside their bikes, each giving them a wave. Then, just a few metres from the top, they saw Mike Anderson, sitting beside the road, rubbing his left thigh while Sophie Baker stood over him.
‘I told you we should have had an early night!’ she snapped, wraithlike hair billowing around her as Mike Anderson flexed his leg and winced.
‘Who won if he didn’t?’ Grace whispered to Joan, as they came over the brow of the hill, just in time to see a familiar figure step up onto a podium set up in the picnic area.
‘And the winner of this year’s Melrose Hill Bicycle Race, is … local boy, Steve—’
‘Stallion!’ screamed Becky, jumping up and down nearby.
‘—Hedge!’
The crowd clapped and cheered as Hedges lifted a trophy over his head, then paused to wipe sweat out of one of his sideburns and blow Becky a kiss.
‘Well, that’s convenient,’ Joan said, nodding at the sky-blue t-shirt Hedges wore, now dark in places with sweat. ‘We’re never going to hear the end of it, though.’
‘Do you have anything to say?’ the announcer said, going over to Hedges and holding out a microphone.
Hedges cleared his throat. ‘This was a team effort,’ he said. ‘I’d like to thank my wife, Becky, my kids … and my fan club over there.’
As he pointed at Grace’s group, the few members of the crowd who hadn’t noticed them turned and began to clap. Jason waved and blew kisses to the crowd, Joan rolled her eyes, and Gerald gave a little grumble on Joan’s lap. Ethel uttered an embarrassed laugh, while behind her back, Paul gave Grace’s hand a little squeeze.
The promenade was abuzz with excitement. Grace and Joan had wondered who Becky had left in charge of their stall, but Becky had shrugged and simply said, ‘Oh, some old guy. Kind of cool. Said he liked honeycomb ice-cream.’
To their surprise they had found Frank Davis surrounded by a group of wide-eyed kids, the ice-creams in their hands forgotten and melting as the old drama teacher and part time professional surfer regaled them with tales of freakish waves and daring surf moves. Paul rolled his eyes, peered into the ice-cream tubs inside the portable freezer, and shrugged.
‘I think he was a little generous with his portions,’ he said.
Joan looked at Grace. ‘Barbeque at yours?’
Grace was about to reply when her phone, stuffed into a pocket of her shorts, began to buzz. She pulled it out, a couple of bars of the Low Anchor’s Wif-Fi allowing an unknown number to get a connection. She answered, listening for a couple of minutes to the voice on the other end, then ended the call and looked at Joan.
‘Huh. That was the police. Apparently I’m not going to prison. The charges against me got dropped.’
Joan clapped her hands together. ‘Then we’re breaking out the wine. The barbeque starts in half an hour.’
Grace looked at Ethel, who had accompanied them back down, partly because Gerald refused to leave Joan’s lap.
‘If Ethel doesn’t mind.’
The old woman shrugged. ‘It’s been a long time since I had a decent piece of meat,’ she said.
Grace grimaced. ‘Ah, okay.’
‘I have a new sea shanty,’ Jason said, clicking his fingers and then beginning to clap in rhythm. ‘Oh, he had a very good bike, all right, and he climbed Melrose Hill with all his might, but he was a sucker for a bit of fashion, and pulled his groin with a night of—’
‘Wait until we’re drunk,’ Joan said, putting a hand on Jason’s arm. She turned to Grace. ‘Six o’clock at yours? Just give me an hour to sort this place out before Mr. Davis turns it into a pirate club.’
‘And then the Kraken burst from the waves, knocking the old surfer to his knees!’ Frank roared, arms aloft, as the assembled children gasped.
As Jason pushed Joan back across the promenade and Ethel, now back in possession of Gerald, stumbled off towards the chalets, Grace found herself alone with Paul.
‘Are you glad you came back?’ Paul asked.
Grace looked up. His kind face was lit with a smile, and for a moment she lost herself in him, forgetting everything, knowing only the moment that they stood together on the promenade while the world sauntered by around them. She put her arms around his waist, and looked up at him. He looked a little nervous, but Grace pulled him forward and he took the hint, leaning down to give her a light kiss on the lips. The kiss lingered for a few seconds, then Paul drew away.
‘You didn’t answer my question.’ He watched her with an expectant look on his face, one eyebrow raised, a corner of his mouth turned up in a small smile.
The wind had got up, bringing with it the first hint of the evening’s chill. Around them, stalls were beginning to pack up, groups of tourists to head for the restaurants and the pubs. Above them, the sun still burned in a clear sky. Grace took a deep breath of fresh sea air and smiled, for the first time in forever feeling completely at peace.
‘I just did,’ she said.
Author’s note: Thank you for reading Summer at Blue Sands Cove. This is CP Ward’s first summer book. There will be more. For more information please join the mailing list or follow me on Bookbub.
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