Page 10 of New Beginnings At Pencarrow Bay
Peggy was an intermittent churchgoer. She loved the silence and tranquillity, the music, the ancient stained glass, the smell of damp stone and flowers, the mellow burning of beeswax. And she wanted to love– and believe– all she heard about God, although this was a trickier ask. But Piers gave surprisingly good services– it was when he came alive.
Lilac House, as Peggy approached along the road, was lit up in all its pastel glory by the afternoon sun. She saw Lindy and Felix, her son-in-law, on the terrace, standing on either side of a large terracotta pot. Felix looked cross. He was clearly engaged in some sort of altercation with Lindy, whose body seemed tense as she leaned forward, hands gesticulating, her voice a fierce staccato undertone– although Peggy was not close enough to hear the words she spoke.
Felix appeared not to say anything in return. Tall and beefy, not quite handsome, his wavy, light brown hair and broken nose– from youthful rugby encounters, apparently– were set off by the sort of fair skin that flushed pink after a glass of wine or too much sun, giving him an air of bumbling Englishness. Peggy liked what little she’d seen of him.
She was embarrassed now, witnessing the row, andhesitated in her stride. But Lindy had already spotted her, and her whole demeanour instantly changed as she drew back from Felix and waved at Peggy, a charming smile replacing her frown. Felix, too, acknowledged her with a wave, but the tension in his expression took longer to fade and he didn’t smile.
‘Come on up, sweetheart,’ Lindy said, pulling open the weathered wooden gate as Peggy climbed the short flight of mossy steps to the terrace. ‘Ada’s having her tea.’ She led Peggy through the open front door along the passage to the kitchen.
Ada, turning ten in August, was a delightful child, sporty and practical, but she struggled academically. Peggy suspected the move to the exclusive private school in Truro, rather than the high school where most of her village friends were heading, was solely her parents’ ambition– Lindy had indicated she was a fierce supporter of state education and the local high school a bus ride away. Peggy worried for the child. Failure so young might blight her confidence for years to come. Now she sat at the kitchen table, a lighter version of her father’s wavy hair in a French plait down her back, wispy and frayed after a long day at school. She still wore her blue gingham uniform dress and was munching a Jaffa Cake, sipping a mug of milky tea. She gave Peggy a shy smile.
‘Where’s your mum?’ Lindy asked her granddaughter.
‘Gone to the Co-op to get fish fingers.’ Ada gave Lindy a cheeky grin.
Lindy smiled lovingly, but rolled her eyes at Peggy. ‘We live in a fishing village, the sea a stone’s throw from our front door, and this child of ours won’t eat fish in anyform except the frozen finger kind.’ She bent to kiss the top of her granddaughter’s head. ‘I’ll leave you to it, then, sweetheart.’
The lesson went well. Peggy had managed, over the weeks since she’d begun tutoring Ada, to find ways to inspire her in the comprehension and creative-writing exercises. Grammar was harder, but Ada’s vocabulary, at least, seemed to be improving. By the time she sat the exam, Peggy felt she could do well enough.
When the hour was up and Ada had made her usual quick escape to her room, Peggy got ready to leave. Normally Lindy would be hovering, ready to brew tea and settle down for a book chat. Peggy had been particularly looking forward to it today. She wanted to show her the old cookery book she’d found, which she’d brought with her. But there was silence in the big house, except the loud ticking of the grandfather clock in the hall. Reluctantly, she made her way out, stopping to speak to Felix, who was still labouring over a terracotta planter, carefully transferring small seedlings from a tray into the dark soil.
‘I can’t find Lindy. Will you say goodbye to her, please?’
‘No problem. Ada get on okay today?’ he asked, brushing a strand of hair out of his grey eyes with the back of a dirty hand. His accent was estuary English, slightly Cockneyfied on some words, sounding not unlike Peggy’s boys.
‘Yes, she did well,’ Peggy replied. ‘Ada always works hard… She’s such a pleasure to teach.’
Felix beamed. Then his face fell as he flicked his eyebrows and let out a weary sigh, his gaze darting towards the house. ‘Sorry about earlier. Hardly ideal, all this.’ Heblew out his cheeks. ‘Not that I’m not incredibly grateful, of course.’
She gave him a sympathetic smile. ‘I can imagine.’ He didn’t have to articulate how complicated it must be to move in with his mother-in-law, settle in a small village in the furthest reaches of the country– however beautiful– quietly planting flowers by the sea, after the breathless excitement of trading on the financial markets, the huge salary and edgy, drink-fuelled socializing that probably went with it.Complicated for Lindy too, she thought now, having her life invaded, even if it was family. She felt for them all. Not for the first time, she longed to ask what had happened to bring them there, wondered what Felix planned for their future.
At that moment, Lindy popped her head out of an upstairs window and called down to Peggy, making them both jump. ‘Sorry to miss our chat,’ Lindy said, through the open window. ‘I got absorbed in something and forgot the time.’
‘No problem. I’ll see you soon,’ Peggy replied. ‘Say hi to Kim for me.’ She wondered where Kim was– it wouldn’t have taken long to get the fish fingers. But Peggy had often seen her sitting alone on one of the benches that led down to the sea, gazing out across the bay– maybe escaping the problems of their current situation for a quiet hour.
As she walked back up the hill, enjoying the early-evening light playing on the boats in the harbour– it made them stand out, almost glow– she wondered, fleetingly, if Lindy had been avoiding her. It was the first time she hadn’t taken time to sit and discuss with Peggy their current reads. She stopped and leaned on the sea wall in oneof her favourite spots. There was a couple sitting on the beach below holding hands, scrunching their bare toes in the sand and laughing softly. They weren’t young, and Peggy couldn’t help smiling at the image. Goodness, how lucky she was to have fallen in love with Ted. Thoughts of him overtook those of Lindy– who had been perfectly friendly, after all, and seemed pleased to see her.
Ted was going to be late home tonight. He was meeting with a group he had got together when they first moved to the village, of hardcore runners. They individually timed their runs, heavily competitive, and Ted always came home mud-spattered and exhausted. He was older than the youngest runner in the small group by about ten years, but that didn’t faze him. She would wait supper– he would no doubt be starving.
Peggy prepared the meal, then went out onto the terrace to catch the fading light. She began to read. Ted was normally home after the running club by seven at the latest. Eight o’clock came and went, but she didn’t notice: the book was the one Lindy had recommended at the coffee morning, a factual account, written like a novel, of mutiny, murder and shipwreck in the eighteenth century. It totally absorbed her attention and she was looking forward to discussing it with Lindy.
When she finally checked her phone and saw it was nearly eight thirty, slightly worrying images presented themselves– especially as there was no message from Ted saying he’d be late. His ankle had never completely recovered from the rabbit-hole incident on the Heath and retained a residual weakness, which the coastal path, afavourite venue for the running club, could easily exploit. But just as these thoughts began to gain traction in her mind and she reached for her phone to call him, Bolt– not taken on the run because Ted didn’t want to be distracted– barked and raced towards the front door as it swung open.
Ted had been drinking, that much was clear from his dopey grin and the sloppy kiss he insisted on delivering as he wrapped her in a swaying hug.
‘Sorry. Dropped into the Wisket for a half and got carried away.’
Peggy laughed. ‘So I can see. Good run?’ She extricated herself from the aura of beery fumes and went to turn the hob on to warm up the chickpeas. She’d cooked them with beautiful local cherry tomatoes, thyme from the garden and spring onions, dressed while still warm with lemon and olive oil. She was serving them with Cornish pork, sage and parsley sausages from Pete’s– he’d taken to calling Peggy ‘Petal’, fleetingly making her feel like a fresh young thing– and one of Arthur-next-door’s lettuces.
‘Yeah, great. Amazing light up on the cliffs. God, I love this place.’ Ted plumped down on a kitchen chair. ‘Quentin’s Rory is a good runner, you know, strong and light on his feet. I’m envious.’
‘Was the pub busy?’ The Wisket was a community pub, owned by the village– Ted and Peggy had put in a small chunk. As a result, she always felt a certain investment in its success. An old fishermen’s haunt since the eighteenth century, it had been on the skids under its previous ownership and in danger of being bought by Tudor Kostas. The Greek multi-millionaire already owned the Samson George hotel– a fashionable weekend spot for the trendyurban rich– and many other properties in the village. He’d intended to remodel the Wisket into a flash gastro-pub with rooms, although his plans would have been limited by the Grade II listing of the façade. The village had been apoplectic at the thought.
‘Umm… sort of.’ He seemed to twitch slightly at her question, then hurried on: ‘Quentin was there, definitely the other side of sober, but being hilarious, as usual.’
‘You should have texted. I’d have come down and joined you,’ Peggy suggested, as she put the warmed chickpeas on the table and sat down.
Ted looked momentarily uncomfortable. ‘Yeah, stupid. I didn’t think I’d stay long and then…’ He tailed off. ‘You know how it is. You get chatting and time slips away.’
