Little Beach Street Bakery
Page 32

‘Er, sorry, just wondered. Um, fine, of course I can do that.’
‘Yes. It would be a big help,’ he said. ‘I could meet you at the bakery at ten, then I’ll head up to the hospital.’
‘When are you going to sleep?’ said Polly.
Tarnie shrugged. ‘Ah, I don’t need much of that. Neither do you, by the sound of things.’
Polly smiled. ‘Hmm.’
Tarnie started back to the boat, then turned round.
‘Almond soap,’ he shouted, and waved. Polly waved back.
The bakery looked dusty, unkempt, even though its owner had only been away for a few hours. It needed scrubbing down; there was a stale smell in the air. Polly sensed that goods were being left out longer than they ought to be.
‘We should probably dispose of everything,’ she said.
‘Ha,’ said Tarnie. ‘I wouldn’t do that. If she gets discharged tonight and comes back here, you’ll know about it.’
The little flat upstairs was immaculate, much tidier and better kept than the shop. It was full of knick-knacks: little pottery statuettes and crystal horses. The carpet had a loud swirling pattern and the heavy embroidered pelmets were well dusted. A big old-fashioned television sat in one corner of the room, next to a carefully marked Radio Times. Polly felt claustrophobic and extremely intrusive.
‘I don’t like doing this,’ she said.
‘Mmm,’ said Tarnie. ‘Well, you go into her bedroom and pick up… stuff a lady needs.’
Polly gave him a look, but he was serious.
The bedroom was small, the bed still imprinted with Gillian’s shape. She must have had problems sleeping too, thought Polly. An old-fashioned alarm clock sat on the bedside table, along with various bottles of pills. Well, that was a start. Polly scooped them all up and glanced around for a bag. She opened the built-in wardrobe and found an old suitcase. Not ideal, but better than nothing. She dug out fresh pyjamas, then, with a gulp, put out her hand to open the underwear drawer.
It was sitting quite casually on top of the piles of large flesh-coloured pants and enormous bras; why it was hidden away Polly couldn’t work out for ages – it was hardly likely to be a target for thieves. Then, with a start, she realised that of course it was there for a reason: that Mrs Manse didn’t like to see it all the time. Unthinkingly she picked it up. It was a framed colour photograph, with that bleached-out yellow wash that dated it to the late seventies or early eighties. It showed a dark-haired man, his face in shadow from the sun, standing next to a boy in a striped T-shirt and shorts that were slightly too small for him, with a snake belt, socks and sandals. He was beaming toothily at the camera. Both of them were holding up fish on their fishing lines. Polly stared at it. She didn’t hear Tarnie enter the room until he let out a sigh.
She started and turned around.
‘I wasn’t prying,’ she said instantly. ‘It was just here, I couldn’t help it.’
He nodded his head. ‘That’s all right, I know.’ He looked around the room. ‘It’s already weird just being up here.’
‘It is,’ said Polly. She looked back at the photograph.
Tarnie’s face fell.
‘Who are they?’ she asked gently.
Tarnie’s arm went up behind his neck and he rubbed it, obviously uncomfortable.
‘Well, that’s Alf Manse,’ he said, pointing at the man. ‘Gillian’s husband. Good man he was. Really good man.’
They both looked at the boy. Tarnie made a little noise.
‘Jimmy,’ he said. ‘Me and him… well, we were good friends. Same class at school – there used to be a school here. Closed now, of course. Did everything together. Wound each other up really. Pair of rascals we were. Didn’t really see the point of school. We always knew we’d end up on the sea.’
Polly looked into his grave, handsome face. His dark blue eyes were focused somewhere very far away.
‘Aye. We were pretty inseparable. And she was all right, Mrs Manse… in those days.’
He fell silent. After a long moment Polly spoke.
‘So what happened?’
Tarnie lowered his head.
‘People don’t understand… No offence,’ he said.
‘Er, none taken,’ said Polly.
‘People don’t understand how dangerous the sea is. You hear it all the time on the news – oh, the storm’s passed over, it’s fine,’ when what they mean is, the storm’s gone out to sea, but who cares.’
He rubbed his neck again.
‘And it’s all, oh, they’re overfishing, oh, the poor fish, oh, those evil fishermen. When we’re just doing what we always did, a job that is hard, pays badly and is… It’s dangerous. It’s really dangerous, Polly.’
Polly bit her lip.
‘I hadn’t realised.’
‘Aye, people don’t think. They just complain about the price of their fish and chips… We were all out that day. Jimmy was on Calina with his dad… My dad was out of the game by then. And it blew up out of nowhere. Not on the forecast or anything; we got fifteen minutes’ warning on the fax. Waves as high as a three-storey building, crashing down on the boats like a mountain falling on you. And no time… there was no time. Every time you got righted and went to move, there was another one on you… nothing but water. Your lungs get full of water just standing up; it pushes you wherever it wants you to go.’
Polly watched him. It was as if the memories were passing in front of his eyes.
‘We limped back – we all lost masts, our nets were gone. Just torn away from the starboard side as if a hand had grabbed them and tugged them under.’
He turned to Polly, his expression anguished.
‘It’s not like we didn’t look out for each other. But you’ve got to realise what it’s like out there when the waves are thirty feet high and it’s pitch black. You can’t see your hand in front of your face. You can’t see anything at all. You can drown without even entering the water, you understand?’ His voice was fierce.
‘When we got home, we could barely count up our own damage. We were all traumatised.’
‘Of course you were,’ said Polly.
‘We didn’t… I didn’t even realise the Calina wasn’t with us. Not at first.’ He swallowed.