Page 14 of The Path to the Last House Before the Sea

‘Is that right? I wonder why.’ Magda tried very hard not to purse her lips but it was impossible. She’d never really liked Miri, who was focused and successful but sometimes came across as bossy and cold. She knew that Penny had found her difficult.

However, Magda told herself, Jack loved his wife so Miri must have many good qualities that she had yet to discover. Though loyalty to her husband didn’t appear to be one of them: the pending divorce had knocked poor Jack for six.

‘I hope she’s not messing him about, Magda. I wish he’d had a marriage like mine. I miss Penny.’

‘I know you do. Me, too.’

When Stan stared out across the water, his jaw tight, Magda had an urge to rest her head on his shoulder, a comforting gesture offering support to a dear friend in pain. Only the whole situation was now too fraught for comforting gestures: now that Penny had died and Stan was no longer ‘out of bounds’, the easy familiarity with Stan that she’d managed to foster over the years had been replaced by a torrent of second-guessing her every move.

The questions that tormented her in the early hours sprang into her mind: Should I tell Stan how I feel? How would he react to such news? And the most upsetting question of all: Why would he love someone like me?

She and Penny had been great friends but, in many ways, they were chalk and cheese. Magda was a tall woman, angular, with a long nose, high cheekbones and a state of mind that tended towards the negative. Even her name, chosen by her Polish mother, sounded harsh and hard. Whereas Penny… that name sounded gentle and sweet, which is what her friend had been: all soft curves and a sweet nature.

That was why Stan had first fallen in love with his beloved wife. So what made Magda think he could love a woman like her?

Beside her on the bench, Stan took a lick of ice cream and began to cough. ‘Sorry, sorry,’ he spluttered. ‘It went down the wrong way. You’d think at my age I’d know how to swallow my food.’

Magda patted him on the back, which seemed an appropriate, non-romantic gesture, until his spluttering eased. Then she steered the conversation into safer waters – village life, and the weather – until Stan tapped his watch and said he had to get back to the shop.

A sea mist had started to roll in and Magda shivered as she watched him walk away, his figure blurring in the encroaching fog. She could see the man he had been almost fifty years ago – youthful, energetic and strong – rather than the more stooped, silver-haired figure he’d become. Not that his changed looks made any difference. She loved him whatever.

It sounded like a TV drama, Magda suddenly realised, tendrils of mist curling around her. Something she’d watch on a Sunday night, to relax before the week to come. The tale of a poor, deluded woman madly in love with a man who thought of her as nothing other than his wife’s best friend.

But this was no TV drama. It was real life. Her life.

Magda sighed as she got to her feet. What bad luck.

NINE

ALYSSA

It had to be the smallest library in the world.

Alyssa was no stranger to large municipal libraries, laden with books and smelling of ink, dust and floor polish.She’d spent hours in them, studying for her nursing exams. But Heaven’s Cove Library was very different. Not only was it crammed into a room above a boutique that sold clothing Alyssa couldn’t afford, it also smelled of – Alyssa sniffed – the sea. A bracing aroma of fish and seaweed cancelled out any other smells, thanks to the open window facing the quay.

Alyssa glanced around the room, at the full shelves and paperbacks piled everywhere, many of them with battered covers. It was less a library and more a muddle of books that people no longer wanted.

But there might be something amongst the chaos that shed light on the old village smuggling ring. Though it was hard to know where to start.

‘Are you looking for anything in particular?’ asked Belinda, bustling over. According to the rota of volunteers pinned to the wall, she was on duty that morning.

‘Yes, I—’ began Alyssa.

‘Only it’s a complete jumble at the moment,’ Belinda continued. ‘Everything’s donated, you know. People kept complaining there was no library in the village, so I spearheaded this project.’

‘That’s very impressive.’

‘Thank you. If you need something doing, do it yourself. That’s my motto.’ Belinda smiled. She was a sturdy woman with grey hair pulled into a tight bun. ‘So, what are you looking for? We have fiction, a number of biographies and a small health section. Does any of that interest you?’

Definitely not the health section, thought Alyssa, rememberingwading through nursing textbooks.‘Do you have anything on local history?’ she asked.

But Belinda was still talking. ‘How are you getting on living in that caravan? It’s rather unconventional.’

‘I suppose it is,’ said Alyssa, not wanting to get into a long conversation with the woman renowned as the village gossip.

Belinda had apparently become far less inquisitive since her sister had come to live in the village. But even so, the last thing Alyssa needed was someone asking her lots of questions. She’d had quite enough of that before her life in Heaven’s Cove – gossip and rumour perpetuated by people who didn’t have a clue about what had really gone on.

What she’d really done.

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