Page 97 of One Summer

‘The sea is awful. I hope nobody’s down on the beach,’ I say.

‘Why would anyone go onto the beach in this?’ he asks, as we follow Ted into the living room.

‘I don’t know. Probably to get photos.’

People love a good photo of a stormy sea; who cares if there are freak waves that could crash in at any moment and kill you? Even watching for a few moments by the light of the moon, I’ve seen absolute monsters swallow the entire beach, and it’s not even high tide.

‘People aren’t idiots, Lindy. I can barely stand up out there, the wind is so strong.’

‘Was this forecast?’

I’m subscribed to the BBC weather updates on YouTube, but it’s been a while since I looked at that app – my mouth is still full of broken glass from Max and Greta’s engagement video.

‘It was supposed to go north and hit Scotland, but the jet stream pushed it down. Loor and the whole of Cornwall are going to bear the brunt of it.’

‘When will it pass?’ I say.

‘There’s a red weather warning for all of tonight and most of tomorrow.’

‘Red?’

Yellow would be bad enough.

‘Red, yes,’ he says. ‘Something about a sting jet. They’re even talking about tornados.’

I walk to the circle window. It’s hard to see outside because salt has coated the windowpane and given the view a frosted, blurry aspect, but if I stand on tiptoes, the top part of the window is a little clearer. I can see that there’s foaming whitewater in the entire bay. Waves are breaking so far out, past the lighthouse rock, where all the rare seabirds breed in their hundreds of thousands – one and all sheltering now. No birds are in the sky at all, the seals have hauled out and I can see their dark bodies haphazardly piled on the farthest edge of the beach, at the foot of the sand dunes. I’ve never seen them there before. Even at night, there are usually at least a few people around, either walking unfriendly dogs, stargazing, or taking a stumbling meander back from the pub, but nobody is out in this weather. Everyone has thought better of it. Except Caleb, it seems, who brought Ted back to me.

‘What did it look like from your house?’ I ask.

‘Insane. The noise of the wind is like nothing I’ve ever heard before and my ears are frozen, even though I was wearing my beanie and had my hood up. This is not the summer weather I was hoping for. It’s going to hit hurricane speeds.’

‘Great,’ I say. ‘I did read that Loor has had some of the most extreme weather ever recorded in the UK.’

He nods his head. ‘The tourism people like to go on about the clear skies stuff, about how it’s the best place in the country for stargazing, but funnily enough, there’s nothing on the webpage about hurricanes.’

I pace to the kitchen window, but the salt-coating is worse there and I can see even less.

‘Are we safe on this cliff, do you think?’ I ask.

At that moment, we both hear a low rumble of thunder, and the lights flicker.

‘Oh, fantastic,’ he says.

‘You’re not afraid of storms, are you?’

‘I’m afraid of the electricity going out and us freezing to death,’ he says, gruffly.

I think for a moment of something a pervy boyfriend told me years ago. That if two people get in a sleeping bag naked, they generate significantly more body heat than they would individually. That if the two people find each other attractive, it’s an additional 5 per cent on top. I always wondered if that was bullshit, but I could never bring myself to look it up.

The lights go out and we’re plunged into darkness.

‘Fuuuck,’ Caleb says.

‘Do you happen to have any candles in your place?’ I ask, feeling my heart race. I haven’t seen a single one here, nor did I have the sense to buy any, in case of power cuts.

‘Maybe. Somewhere.’

‘Do you have a lighter on you?’

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