Page 5 of The Path to the Last House Before the Sea

Memories of the wedding ceremony had faded over the years, but one remained clear: the vicar booming, ‘Should anyone present know of any reason that this couple should not be joined in holy matrimony, speak now or forever hold your peace.’ And a deathly hush falling across the church.

Magda had imagined speaking up so many times since. ‘It should be me! I love Stan more than Penny does.’

But what an awful, spiteful thing that would have been to say. And patently untrue, because Penny had been a loving and faithful wife until the day she died. It was only right that Magda had forever held her peace.

But she hadn’t hung around in Heaven’s Cove after that. She’d lived in Scotland for years and enjoyed her share of love affairs. One man, long ago, had asked her to marry him and she’d seriously considered it. But it wouldn’t have been fair on him, because no one ever quite measured up to Stan.

Magda had never told anyone how she felt, including Penny. She hadn’t known, had she? The panic fluttering in Magda’s heart smashed through her memories, and her eyes flew open. She took a few deep breaths, trying to calm herself.

She and Penny had been the best of friends who told each other everything. Almost. So how could she not have realised that Magda was in love with her husband?

She didn’t know, said the voice in her head that had reassured her constantly since Penny’s death. It was probably empty reassurance. A trick of her subconscious. But she chose to believe it anyway, and Penny had never given any inkling that she suspected Magda’s pathetic, unrequited passion.

It had remained both pathetic and pointless, because Stan was an honourable man who loved his wife, and Magda could never have done anything to hurt Penny.

But now her best friend was dead, and the longing Magda had worked so hard to extinguish had flared once more. What a wicked woman she was.

The creaking of the churchyard gate cut through Magda’s thoughts and she waved automatically at Florence, one of Heaven’s Cove’s oldest residents, who’d just appeared with an armful of bright spring blooms. The flower shop by the quay had to be doing a roaring trade in graveyard daffodils today.

‘Good afternoon, Magda. We’re lucky with the weather,’ called Florence, her voice hard to hear above the screeching of a seagull overhead.

‘It’s nice to see the back of the rain,’ Magda agreed, getting to her feet. Usually she’d stop and chat with Florence. But right now she wasn’t in the mood for making cheerful conversation – and she feared that Florence, over ninety but still sharp as a knife, would see through any fake jollity. She’d probably ask what was wrong and Magda would have to lie, because she could never tell anyone the shameful truth.

‘Sorry to dash,’ she added, ‘but I need to get back to the parlour.’

‘I dare say you’re busy selling ice creams now the sun’s come out,’ said Florence, leaning on her walking stick. ‘And Alyssa’s tours will be picking up with the change in the weather. How’s she doing living in that caravan at the bottom of your garden?’

‘Fine. At least I think she is,’ said Magda, her hand hovering above the gate.

‘It can’t be easy, living there on her own. Quite lonely, I’d have thought. She doesn’t seem to have any family.’

‘I really must go but I’ll see you soon. Take care.’

That was rude of me, thought Magda as she hurried across the village green. She’d not so much taken her leave of Florence as fled, and heaven knows what the elderly lady would think of her.

But she’d been thrown by painful memories. Memories and feelings that needed to stay put in the past.

FOUR

ALYSSA

Alyssa stepped inside the caravan and dumped her bag on the table, next to a large brown envelope that had arrived that morning in the post but she’d yet to open.

Her feet were killing her, but she put baked beans into the microwave and two slices of bread in the toaster before collapsing onto the bench-seat with a loud oof. It had been quite a morning, thanks to the sneery tourist, but food would revive her, ready for her second job of the day.

She pulled her feet up beneath her and felt herself relax in the warm sunshine streaming through the windows. The caravan had become home over the last few months, though why it had ended up sitting at the end of Magda’s garden in the first place was still a mystery.

‘It was already here when I moved into the cottage,’ Magda had told her. ‘I used it for storage initially, when I opened the ice-cream parlour, and I’d started converting it into accommodation when you arrived, although it’s pretty old.’

The caravan certainly was old, and made of wood. It was more, Alyssa thought, like a large shepherd’s hut than the mobile metal boxes that clogged village roads in the summer, infuriating the locals.

But it was fine for her. There was a tiny room, containing a toilet and basin, that was so small you had to back into it; a cooking area with an electric hob and sink; a fold-down table; and the seat she was sitting on, which opened out into a bed.

The only thing missing was a shower, but Alyssa nipped into Magda’s cottage and used hers. That had been the agreement when she moved in, and it seemed to be working well. Though crossing a snowy winter garden in a dressing gown hadn’t been much fun.

Overall, the caravan was short on space but it was homely and cosy, and it provided a welcome bolthole from the world outside.

Alyssa was trying to work out how a shower might fit into the caravan when there was a knock on the door and Magda poked her head inside.

---