Page 1 of The Cornish Cream Tea Holiday
Chapter One
The whitewashed, semi-detached cottage could not have said ‘summer holiday’ any more boldly if it had been wearing a floppy hat and a pair of shades. It glistened in the early June sunshine as Thea Rushwood stood looking at it, leaning against the car from which she had just extracted her stiff body, enjoying a breeze that was unmistakably seaside. The wafts of salty freshness inhabited all of her senses and sent her excitement up a notch.
She was finally here.
The drive from Bristol had been a lot longer than Apple Maps had first suggested, due to it being Saturday – changeover day – the beginning of June, and perfect weather. If any combination of things pointed firmly in Cornwall’s direction, then it was those three. Thea felt a stab of unoriginality at her holiday destination, and rubbed the back of her neck, which was tense from hours in the driving seat, the traffic jams, the complete standstill when she’d reached Exeter that was due, the signs told her, to a charity rugby match.
She shouldhave been sharing the driving. She should have spent the journey chatting and laughing with her best friend Esme, anticipation building between them, instead of listening to the radio and eating a duck wrap from the services one-handed so she ended up getting plum sauce on her chin. But.But.She was here now, with three whole weeks ahead of her where she need do nothing but tick off the items on her and Esme’s bucket list, a lot of which involved lying on the beach and reading book after book, eating fish and chips, drinking cold beers, and not answering emails or dealing with any customer queries at all. Ha! Takethat, Esme.
Turning one hundred and eighty degrees, Thea put the white cottage behind her and looked out over the Cornish coastline. It was inconceivable to her that the sea could glitter quite so much, as if someone had chucked the world’s supply of diamonds across a floor of sapphire-coloured marble. The breeze wasn’t strong enough to put crests on the waves, but there were jaunty little humps, the tide ambling towards land in a welcoming sort of way.
Port Karadow: a bustling, cheerful seaside town, if one long-ago memory and her research were telling her the truth. Here, on the edge of it, were these two cottages, attached down the middle, a mirror image of each other, as if they might have once been a single house. They were longer than they were tall, generously sized, and had uninterrupted views of the sea. A paved walkway ran in front of them, then there was a wide gravel space with room to park several cars, and beyond that, sloping grass ran down to a hedge dotted with starbursts of little white flowers.Then it was the coast road, then the clifftop heathland that ended abruptly, with a significant drop down to the sea below.
The most popular beach, she and Esme had been told when they had booked the cottage, was back towards town, where the tall cliffs fell away, just before the quaint, cut-out harbour in the centre of Port Karadow. There were other, more secluded coves along this stretch of coastline, and Thea was looking forward to exploring them.
She watched, already feeling more carefree, the stress of the long drive sliding off her, as a red car turned into the driveway that led up to the cottages. Mrs Harris, Thea decided. Sure enough, a woman who looked to be in her early forties, with a neat bob of ash-blonde hair, got out and strode over, her arm outstretched and a smile on her face, wearing green wellies despite the dry, sunny day.
Thea felt a familiar tension return to her shoulders, her usual urge to clam up, but she forced herself to match the woman’s smile.
‘Theophania, I assume?’ the woman said loudly.
Thea tried not to wince. ‘Thea is fine,’ she replied. She had to learn to ignore thefull namerequests on registration forms and just call herself Thea. ‘Are you Mrs Harris?’
‘Yes, but do call me Mel. Welcome to Port Karadow! Here’s your key.’ She held out a single key on a keyring, a photo of a Cornish beach stuck inside a see-through plastic frame dangling below.
‘Thank you,’ Thea said as she took it.
‘Usually I would have left it in the lock box,’ Mel went on. ‘But I thought it best to come and greet you in person, so I could explain.’ She glanced at the houses.
‘Is that a holiday cottage too?’ Thea asked, peering beyond Mel to look at the second house, to see what was making her brow crinkle. Mel had tanned skin and freckles, fine lines around her eyes and mouth that suggested she was always outside, that she had a healthy, invigorating lifestyle.
Thea wondered if her own pale skin could ever become freckled, or whether her dark, wavy hair – that she wore long enough to brush her shoulder blades – could develop lighter strands after regular exposure to sun and coastal winds. Mel also had a bright, no-nonsense approach that Thea couldn’t help envying. Confidence was clearly not a problem for her.
‘Not a holiday home,’ Mel said now, her tone hardening slightly. ‘It used to be, when we bought Sunfish Cottage, but the owner sold it at the beginning of the year. It’s a private house now, which is what I wanted to mention.’ Mel touched Thea’s arm lightly and drew her towards Sunfish Cottage’s ocean-blue front door, until they were sheltered by the shallow porch, the panes of coloured glass in the decorative door panel lighting up the sides of their faces.
Thea bit her lip. She thought Esme would have loved this low-level subterfuge, a mystery before they’d even got inside their cottage. She would have to tell her about it later.
‘Everything OK?’ she asked lightly.
‘The new owner,’ Mel said. ‘He’s doing some work on the house, on Oystercatcher Cottage – though I don’t know if he’ll keep the name.’ She shook her head. ‘We had some complaints from our last guest about the noise. Some banging and sawing sounds. The house needs somemodernising, it’s true, and it’s his right to do whatever he wants, but …’
‘You’re worried it’ll disrupt my holiday?’ Thea asked. So far, she hadn’t heard a peep from the house next door, but there were no cars parked in front of it. The builders probably weren’t working on a Saturday.
Mel sighed. ‘I had hoped it might have stopped by now, but I heard hammering as recently as yesterday, so I wanted to come and meet you, to mention it in person. It’s not ideal, when you’ve come for an idyllic Cornish holiday. And on your own now, too.’
‘Oh that’s fine,’ Thea said breezily, even though it wasn’t. ‘My friend had a work emergency at the last minute. It’ll be lovely, being here alone, with nobody to argue with about what to do. I’ll have free rein for the entire time, and when does that ever happen?’
Mel brightened. ‘Too true. I have three children, and the eldest just moved up to secondary school. You wouldn’t believe how many sports clubs and extra-curricular activities she needs dropping off at. Free rein sounds like another planet at the moment.’ She smiled. ‘I’m glad you’re looking forward to it. Would you like a tour of the cottage?’
‘Yes please,’ Thea said, and there was an awkward moment where they both stood in the porch, waiting, until Thea remembered she had the key. She unlocked the door and stepped inside.
It opened straight into an airy living room, the walls white and slightly uneven, with dark wooden beams bisecting the ceiling and matching, solid-looking furniture. The open fireplace would hold real fires when the weather was cold enough, an empty basket positioned next to itwaiting for logs. Two squashy turquoise sofas faced each other over a low wooden tea chest that served as a coffee table, a small, flatscreen television in the far corner clearly an afterthought. The ceiling was higher than Thea had anticipated, and the sea-facing windows let in acres of sunlight. Glass ornaments in swirling pinks and blues, their abstract shapes indefinable, added a shimmer of colour on the windowsills, and the thick carpet was a soft blue. On the right-hand wall, between two wooden doors, there was a low bookcase filled with paperbacks.
‘This is the main space,’ Mel said, all efficiency now the unpleasant business of next doorhad been dealt with. ‘Nice and cosy, but with lots of room for lounging or entertaining.’
Thea nodded. She didn’t anticipate entertaining anyone, but the sofas looked comfortable, and there were books:so many books. This place, she decided, was perfect.
It wasn’t as if she didn’t have a whole electronic library in her bag – her Kindle was close to its storage limit – or that she didn’t live her life surrounded by books working at Bristol library, but neither of those things were the point. Books were an essential part of her life, and a new bookshelf, somebody else’s curated selection of stories, was to her what a new dig site was to an archaeologist. You could find a new author or novel you’d never heard of, but, once you read a few pages, wonder how you’d ever survived without.
