Page 2 of New Beginnings At Pencarrow Bay
She remembered her surprise when he’d first proposed it.
‘What would you say…’ Ted had paused, staring at her intently one Saturday morning as they sat on opposite sides of the breakfast bar in his sunny kitchen, eating croissants and testing yet another blend of coffee from his scarily professional-looking espresso machine. They’d been seeing each other for more than two years, although were not yet living together. He’d taken a breath, thenfinished his question with obvious trepidation: ‘to the idea of moving to Cornwall?’
‘Cornwall?’ Peggy had been taken aback. This was out of the blue. She knew Ted had grown up in St Ives, but he’d lived all his adult life away from the place. ‘Umm, okay… but what would we do there?’ she’d asked, still not really taking in what he was suggesting. And it was then that Ted had revealed his plan for his coffee business and relocation.
‘I’ve seen this van online, Pegs,’ he’d told her, obviously trying to suppress his excitement. ‘A Citroën. Belongs to an old farmer in Bordeaux. It’s a bit of a wreck so it’ll need a lot of renovating.’ He seemed so fired up, his grey-green eyes flashing with enthusiasm, that she couldn’t help smiling. ‘I thought maybe we could go down on the TGV and collect it, drive it back? It’d be fun, no?’
She gasped, reeling at the unforeseen life change he was putting before her. ‘Wait, you’ve bought it already?’
‘Just now!’ Ted said, his grin so broad it almost split his face. ‘Seize the moment.’
At that point, they had barely discussed putting their separate homes on the market, although they’d been going back and forth for a while about selling up and buying a place together. But Peggy knew that Ted, having recently sold his successful sports-clothing business– T&M Sports, the M for his late wife, Maria– would be looking for a new venture to get involved with: Ted loved to keep busy.
‘Wow… You’re serious about this, aren’t you?’ Peggy had said to him.
‘Only if you are,’ he replied sincerely. ‘I can totally sell the van if you reckon it’s a rubbish idea. But think about it! A beautiful seaside place, one of those little villages…Maybe a house overlooking the sea. Set up the van in a strategic spot, pull in the locals, the tourists.’ He reached across and took her hands in his. ‘What do you say, Pegs? Can you picture that?’
Totally blindsided by Ted’s plans– which had obviously gone well beyond fantasy point– Peggy had not replied as she tried to imagine herself in the setting he’d projected. She’d always assumed the house they’d buy together would be in London.
‘I’m still working, though… Would I run the business with you? Is that what you’re thinking?’ she asked, bewildered. She had no idea about business or about coffee, except that she loved drinking it black and strong every morning– sometimes with a splash of cream.
Ted had considered her question carefully. ‘It’s just a van. I can probably manage it myself with a little local help. Unless you wanted to join in?’
Peggy gave a shrug. This was all too sudden for her to get her head around yet.
‘I sort of imagined you might teach down there,’ Ted was saying. ‘Couldn’t you, with all your incredible experience, teach anywhere? Or maybe you’d like to change tack, do something completely different… like me?’
At that stage, she hadn’t even considered leaving her job at the hospital, but she was sixty, it would happen soon enough, even if approaching the retirement zone felt utterly ludicrous to Peggy. And gradually, over the weeks and months that followed, Ted had brought her round to the point at which Peggy– despite losing her beloved sick children– was itching to get on with the project too. It had been exciting, the next phase in her life.
So far, though, the initial enthusiasm hadn’t translated into the new life Peggy had hoped for. Part of her still felt she was on an extended holiday in Pencarrow Bay, that one day soon they’d pack up and drive back to London, with her familiar daily patterns of existence, to her hospital pupils and her twin sons, Dan and Liam, now in their thirties, who lived and worked in the city and whom she had rarely seen since the move.
Goodness, she missed her boys being only a Tube ride away. Despite going up regularly to London to meet them, and exchanging frequent WhatsApp messages– which seemed to be the preferred form of communication with their age group, the actual phone call almost obsolete– it wasn’t the same. And it was hard for Peggy to accept this was the new, seemingly permanent, order of things.
But now the house was finished– and beautiful, she and Ted agreed– she felt adrift. There seemed nothing particularly fulfilling to occupy her days. Raising money for the village hall, joining an early-morning swimming club or becoming a member of the parish council might be something she’d enjoy– she was keen to involve herself in the village, whatever that took. But would these activities be a satisfying replacement for what she had lost? She still longed to feel a spring in her step, a real purpose to her days… still longed to be among childrenand teach. That had been the plan. What she hadn’t taken into consideration, though, was that Pencarrow was mainly a retirement and tourist village. There weren’t many children living there full time. And seemingly none so far– except Ada for a measly hour a week– who required her skills. So the work she’d thought shemight find in the vicinity had not materialized. She had no desire to teach online, like many retired teachers, and there were no current vacancies in the village school when she’d enquired– although she wasn’t surprised, suspecting that someone of her age, already seemingly retired, would probably not be their first choice.
Now, as she threw back the duvet and sat on the edge of the bed, the floorboards, warm from the sun, beneath her bare feet, she took a long, deep breath and smiled at the beautiful May day she spied through the open window.I’m a lucky woman, she told herself firmly. Since the very first moment they’d met, she and Ted, amazed by the immediate strength of their connection, had enjoyed a love neither had expected, in their late fifties, to experience again. Peggy and Max, her ex-husband, had only fleetingly been so engaged, in the throes of a youthful sexual attraction. It had been pretty much downhill after that. Ted had adored his Maria, but she had died under awful circumstances from which he’d thought never to recover. So they had come together with a certain wonder at their good fortune, and revelled in the chemistry, the compatibility, the sheer joy they felt in each other’s company.Although… Peggy’s thoughts slid uneasily sideways from her good fortune… And the niggle returned.
She’d recently had this creeping sense– which had begun to prick her consciousness with increasing regularity, despite her attempts to push it aside– that Ted was drifting away from her.Not deliberately, she thought. It just seemed that that precious closeness, as they neared their fifth anniversary together, was fraying, fading a little. Peggy loved him so much. But she wasn’t sure how to reconnectwith him, to join him in his love affair with the seaside community he had so easily adopted and seemed effortlessly to be part of. It wasn’t anything she could quite put her finger on, just a feeling he was holding back.Not even that… She couldn’t describe it, but whatever was happening to him, it frightened her.
2
As she walked down the hill later that morning, Peggy admitted to herself that Lindy McDonald had sounded a little intimidating when Ted first filled her in with what he knew about her prospective employer. Lindy had seen Peggy’s ad on the board in the post office and got in touch about Ada.
Lindy, Ted said, had been high up in a huge multinational, in charge of digital marketing, retiring, so local gossip went, with a stonkingly good pension. She was also beautiful– Peggy had seen her about the village. Small and rounded, Lindy always dressed with flair in bright, expensive fashion– pinks, sea-greens and yellows, which somehow matched perfectly with her figure– her look finished off with a messy pure-white bob, very light blue eyes and a remarkably unlined face. She had the energy of two people, despite being in her late sixties, which put Peggy to shame in her rather selfish retirement slump.
When she met Lindy in person for the first time, though, she’d been instantly charmed by the warmth and humour in the woman’s eyes. She didn’t seem even remotely scary or corporate.A bit like Ted, Peggy thought,one of life’s enthusiasts. Which, considering Gordon, Lindy’s husband of many decades, had died less than two years before, seemed even more admirable.
The two women had connected over a shared love of books.
‘Right,’ Lindy had said, purposefully but with a twinkle in her eye, after Ada had scooted upstairs at the end of that day’s lesson. She’d rummaged around under a pile of glossy magazines on the kitchen table, picked up a paperback and slapped it down in front of Peggy as she stood, ready to leave. ‘You’re an English teacher,’ Lindy had said, ‘So you must love reading.’ It wasn’t really a question, and she was clearly not expecting a reply as she went on, ‘Well, this is the most extraordinary book. Had my hair standing on end. You have to read it immediately because I’m dying to discuss it with someone. And nobody round here reads like I do.’
Peggy, slightly taken aback, had laughed. ‘Thanks. I’ll get on to it straight away,’ she’d promised, tucking the book into her bag without more than a glance at the cover. She felt quite excited. To have someone so openly passionate about a book was music to her ears. As she said goodbye, she hoped Lindy was shaping up to be more than just an employer. She had begun to look forward to the time after she’d finished Ada’s lesson, when she and Lindy would sit at the kitchen table with a cuppa and talk about their latest read.
Lindy lived in a large lilac-painted house– named, with admirable originality, Lilac House– on the sea road, overlooking the bay. It had been in Gordon’s family for decades, the family using it as a holiday home until Lindy and Gordon had retired there more than ten years ago– influenced by Gordon’s increasing ill health. It was a beautiful place, much admired and photographed by passing tourists. Georgian in style, symmetrical and restrained, it was fronted by a paved terrace garden raised above the road,where Lindy and her late husband had arrayed pots, low hedges and benches in an attractive Italianate style. It had been built by a harbour master in the early nineteenth century, the exterior hardly changed since then.
Lindy had taken in her daughter, Kim, son-in-law Felix and Ada to live with her last year. As a previously high-flying City boy, Felix had suffered a financial disaster, losing all his money, his job and his reputation. Or so village rumour had it– although Peggy wasn’t sure of the details.
Now, as Peggy reached the house, she was careful not to shake the plastic box, containing the rather-too-crumbly oat and raisin cookies she’d baked that morning– not up to her usual high standard, she was afraid– as she wrestled with the stiff latch on the gate. She saw Lindy at the open front door, chatting to two women, one bent and frail-looking, who leaned on the arm of the younger. When Lindy saw Peggy, she hurried over. ‘So glad to see you, sweetheart,’ she said, embracing Peggy warmly. ‘Come in and meet the gang.’ Ushering her towards the house, she cast a meaningful glance at the women still waiting at the door and whispered, ‘The old lady is Sydna Morgan– she used to be an actress, back in the day. Ninety-six next month. You’ll love her.’
