Summer at Little Beach Street Bakery
Page 81

‘I can’t believe I haven’t seen the bugger in a year,’ said Selina. ‘It must be a year, right?’
She turned to look at Polly.
‘Was it… I mean, was it serious?’
Polly shook her head.
‘Not at all,’ she said quietly. ‘It was just a few times. I was so lonely. I didn’t know anyone, Mrs Manse was really horrible to me, and I was just so alone… single for the first time in seven years, in a strange new town and a new place. He was kind to me.’
Selina winced a bit at this.
‘I think I wasn’t being very kind to him at the time,’ she said. ‘I can see why he went for you. Nice smiley Polly, “everyone have a lovely bun”. I bet you never pestered him about moving out of Polbearne, or getting a better job.’
‘I hardly knew him,’ said Polly. ‘Obviously I didn’t know him at all.’
Selina’s face crinkled.
‘But why did you make friends with me? I don’t understand. Are you sick in the head?’
‘No,’ said Polly. ‘I wanted to tell you, to apologise. But I didn’t know how and it didn’t come up and then I was worried about Neil and got a bit distracted. I was a coward. I kind of hoped it wouldn’t come up. Which was a stupid thing to think.’
‘Well, yes,’ said Selina. ‘There’s about fourteen people on this godforsaken rock.’
‘And one of them’s Jayden,’ said Polly. ‘It was Jayden who told me Tarnie was married. I didn’t know before that.’
‘You said,’ said Selina drily.
‘Anyway, as soon as I found out, I stopped seeing him straight away. So Jayden did me a favour.’
‘Why did you even look at Tarnie, with a gorgeous hunk like Huckle kicking about? That’s what I don’t understand,’ said Selina after a while.
‘Well, Huckle wasn’t at all interested to begin with,’ said Polly. ‘But it wasn’t just that. Tarnie was… he was lovely, Selina. He was handsome and kind and had the loveliest eyes and he was funny and he looked after his crew and…’
Selina didn’t make any noise. None at all. Polly supposed later it was like when people laughed or sneezed: some let it all out, some just couldn’t.
When Selina cried, she made no sound at all. But it was the first time, the only time, Polly had known her to cry at all.
She cried and cried for what felt like hours while Polly sat there stroking her hair, letting her tears soak her jeans, and they stared into the fire, waiting, waiting for the boys to come back in: hoping against hope.
‘Oh God, this woman has to come back,’ said Selina much later. ‘Because they leave… they leave SUCH a mess behind.’
‘Sssh,’ said Polly, looking around. ‘Sssh.’
‘He was a good guy, wasn’t he?’ Selina went on. ‘I feel like I’ve been hating him and blaming him all year.’
‘Did that make it easier?’
‘It did yesterday,’ said Selina. ‘If I could think of him as some awful prick, well then maybe I might miss him less.’
‘It makes perfect sense,’ said Polly. ‘But I miss him and I barely knew him. The boys on the boat still miss him so much they can’t even see straight. Look at Archie. I don’t think he’s slept a night through yet. Even Jayden… It’s like the solid ground beneath their feet melted away when we lost him.’
‘I just… I wanted him cut out, do you understand?’ said Selina. ‘I wanted him cut out of my brain, or my body, like an appendix. I’ve tried to drink him out, move him out, screw him out. And he won’t bloody go.’ She managed a half-smile.
‘That’s because you loved him,’ said Polly.
‘You know, when Lucas went for your bird,’ said Selina, ‘I was so scared. So scared that I’d lose a friend, that no one would talk to me again, that I’d be hounded out of town. Because I really have nowhere left to go.’
‘Don’t be daft,’ said Polly. ‘We need you here; everyone else that’s moved in has been a right cock.’
They both smiled a bit at this.
‘But I didn’t realise that I would have to share Tarnie with the whole town.’
‘You do,’ said Polly.
‘I have to learn to live with his ghost.’
They passed the bottle between them again.
‘You were living with his ghost anyway,’ said Polly. ‘Now you’re here, you just have to figure out how to cohabit in a friendly way.’
‘I’m sorry about your van,’ said Selina again.
‘Oh, yeah,’ said Polly. She looked around for Malcolm, but when the door opened, it was Archie who stepped into the Little Beach Street Bakery.
Chapter Twenty-Seven
The man, whose name was Paul, and the little boy were curled up in front of the fire, piled with blankets. The man wasn’t talking, just staring into the fire. The little boy had, thankfully, fallen asleep, wrapped up and cosy, only the blue tip of his nose any indication of his ordeal.
The room fell silent. Archie stepped forward towards the man.
‘Excuse me, sir, but is your wife’s name Kristen?’
There was a long pause and everyone in the room fell quiet.
‘Um, yes.’ His voice was a rasping whisper.
The entire room held its breath. Archie nodded.
‘We found her.’
‘Oh my God. Oh my God. Oh my God.’ Paul leapt to his feet, seizing Archie’s hand and pumping it up and down.
‘Coastguard picked her up by helicopter. She had the rescue kit?’
Paul nodded, tears streaming down his face.
‘Yes – we were trying to open it, to stay together: I got a flare out, then I was trying to light it and…’ His voice choked up and he could barely talk. ‘Then she just… she got caught by a rip, she got pulled out further and further away, and she had her lifejacket on, and was clinging to the box, and…’
‘It’s got a beacon in it,’ said Archie. ‘She must have figured out a way to set it off. Which I have to say is pretty good thinking when you’re being pulled out to sea by a rip tide. She was amazing, in fact.’
Paul leant forward, put his head in his hands and started sobbing.
‘It was such a beautiful day.’