Page 1 of And Then There Was You

One Merryn

Summer nights in St Ives are strange beasts. Vivid and raucous, joy-filled and stressful. And busy. Always busy.

But tonight is a good one.

There’s a rare lull in the crowds, most holidaymakers tucked into their overpriced fishermen’s cottages that no fisherman could ever afford to live in now.

The bars have kicked out their patrons – most of them, anyway, a few stragglers still clinging stubbornly to their pints as the bar staff will them to leave.

It’s a warm evening, as the last twelve days have been, but tonight there’s a cool breeze blowing in from the sea.

It makes the rows of tiny white lights dance over Fore Street, the loose curls lift and sway around my face.

Beyond, the ink-black waters of the harbour are almost at full tide, lapping against the harbour walls and rising up the slipway that leads to the lifeboat station.

Light-trails of reflection from the restaurants, bars, shops and houses of the town dance over the waves, magical as ever.

And I’m happy.

Content.

Bone-tired, after a long day at work, of course. But peaceful.

There was a time in my life, not so long ago, when I didn’t think I’d ever feel like this again. When pain and betrayal and worry eclipsed everything else.

But I’m here. Alive. Thriving. And tonight St Ives is hugging my heart.

‘You’re quiet.’

Seth Hartley, my best friend, ever the observant one.

He walks beside me, swaying a little after the unwise tequila shot he chose to end the night with, the slap of his ever-present flip-flops echoing around the darkened buildings of St Ives’ main shopping street.

He’s funny when he’s drunk. He’ll be funnier still tomorrow morning, when the impending hangover kicks in. And I love him for it.

‘I’m just taking it in,’ I reply, giggling when he bumps sidewards against me. ‘Unlike you.’

‘Hey, I’m the biggest fan of the amb . . . ambi . . . vibe of the town,’ he insists, bottom lip jutting out at the word that escapes him. ‘I just choose to find it in liquid form.’

‘You’ll regret it tomorrow.’

‘Abso- bleddy -lutely.’ He sniggers. ‘Might as well make the most of the crime before I pay the price for it.’

I grin at him as he loops his arm through mine. ‘I’ll bring you a strong coffee first thing.’

‘And that, Merryn Rowe, is why you’re my heaven-sent angel.

’ His words dance and blur, sounding more like hevnnsenanggel .

He probably won’t remember this conversation tomorrow, which is just as well.

Seth famously believes he is a titan when it comes to holding his drink.

None of his friends have the heart to correct him.

It’s far more fun watching his misplaced pride at play, knowing what a lightweight he was the night before.

The journey home is slow but tonight I don’t mind. We natter about unimportant things, giggle and fall silent as the constant burr of the sea and chatter of seagulls carries us.

We’re just taking a short cut along North Terrace when I see it.

Out on the pavement. The last thing I expected to see.

Seth is still chuckling about a drunk woman we passed a while back, not realising he is on a similar level of inebriation. ‘Did you see her legs? Cooked spaghetti! No way she’ll make it up that hill . . .’

‘Seth.’

‘Wibbly wobbly woman . . .’

‘ Seth .’ I grab his sleeve.

‘Wasson?’

‘Look!’

His eyes follow my pointing finger. ‘What? Who put that there?’

I can hardly believe it. But it’s real.

A piano.

Just left on the pavement, in the almost-midnight gloom.

I hurry over, my fingers meeting the warm wood of the instrument.

It’s old, scratched a little along the side, and the varnish has worn away along the edge of the lid, where countless fingers have lifted and closed it.

But the scent of the wood – musky and sweet with dust, age and ancient polish – brings a thousand buried memories back to the surface.

I look to my left to see which building it’s come from. The three-storey house in whose shadow it rests is boarded up, a large Brotherson Developments sign nailed to the chipboard covering the front bay window.

Brotherson Developments – everyone in town knows them. Whenever one of the larger houses comes up for sale, you can bet Bill Brotherson and his team of developers will get their hands on it.

They don’t deal with old pianos, though.

‘It’s probably broken,’ Seth says, rounding the piano. ‘Probably sounds like it should live in a Wild West saloon.’

‘It might be okay.’

Gently, I lift the lid, revealing the keys.

None of the veneers are missing, all the keys intact and aligned.

Yellowed with age, certainly, but far from broken.

My fingers hover over the keys, the long shadows they cast in the moonlight stretching over ivory and ebony.

But they shrink back, just before they make contact, like before. Like every time since . . .

My heart contracts with them, as an age-old rush of defeat joins the assault. I start to lower the lid – but Seth’s hands find the keys, a haphazard chord ringing out into the night. The tuning isn’t perfect, but it’s a clear, sure tone.

Seth grins. ‘Sounds good to me.’

I rest my hand on the piano’s side. ‘Why would anyone throw this out?’

‘They probably just want rid. Can’t see Bill Brotherson knockin’ out a few tunes for his demolition team.’ He peers closer, pulling up a sheet of paper that’s been taped to the front of the piano. ‘Yep, they definitely want rid.’

I move to his side to read the message hastily scrawled across the paper in thick marker ink:

FREE TO A GOOD HOME

And maybe it’s because of the memories the piano brings back, or maybe it’s the weariness of a long work day making me emotional, but in that instant, my mind is set.

‘I want it.’

‘What?’

‘ Free to a good home – my home.’ I beam at my friend, who stares back.

‘Be serious.’

‘I am serious. Nobody wants this, but I do. We could wheel it back to mine . . .’

‘Mer, you’re insane.’

But I’m not. I am thinking more clearly than I can ever remember, my heart swelling as I imagine this beautiful, old, forgotten instrument finding its forever home. In my home.

‘Help me push it back.’

‘Giss on! Where do you think you’ve room for this gert thing?’

‘It’ll fit, I know it will.’ I beam my brightest smile at him, willing him to relent. ‘Come on, Seth? Help me?’

Maybe I’ll regret this tomorrow. But tonight the unexpected magic of finding the piano is impossible to ignore.

Seth snorts, shaking his head. ‘Whatever. Grab that end, then.’

‘Yes! I love you!’

I don’t hug him like I want to, for fear he’ll change his mind in the time it takes to happen. So I hurry to the other side of the instrument and take hold of the edge of the case.

Together, we ease the piano carefully off the high kerb onto the road.

The old wheels squeal and creak in protest, but they move, and once we have a little momentum the instrument glides over the sand-dusted tarmac.

Every bump registers with a metallic reverberation inside the piano’s upright frame; I wince with each one.

I remember once, long ago, watching a piano being manoeuvred into a room. Two surly men huffing and puffing while a third barked orders at them.

Watch the side! Steady now! This is a delicate instrument, not a wooden box . . .

Seth and I are far from delicate, but moving the piano to the bend in the road and getting it down a narrower pathway requires significant effort.

The creaks and squeaks and metallic groans of the piano continue as we swing it over cobbles and kerbs, narrowly miss plastered stone walls and avoid discarded chip papers picked clean by seagulls.

It doesn’t help that Seth is already three sheets to the wind or that neither of us has ever attempted to move a piano before. But we make clunky, bumpy progress through the streets of St Ives, giggling as we go.

It feels audacious. Exhilarating. Magical, in a completely loopy way.

Finally, we bumble down a narrow alleyway and emerge in Star Court. It’s quieter here, the only café on it closed since five p.m.

My café.

My home, too.

My whole world in one slightly wonky, delightfully quirky little building.

Sweet Reverie, my café, snuggles between two similarly eccentric buildings – Porthia Surf on the left – Seth’s surf shop – and Dydh Da deli on the right (currently being renovated by a middle-aged couple called Gi and Heather).

Unlike Seth, who has a flat higher up in town, just off Tregenna Hill, I live in the tiny apartment above my shop.

I feel beyond lucky to live here, even though the building has seen better days and there’s barely enough room to swing a guinea pig in my home, let alone a cat.

As for a piano . . .

Seth helps me rest the piano on the thin strip of pavement outside and heads to the front door.

‘Nope.’

‘What?’

‘Not possible, Mer. You might just get this thing into the café, but there’s no way it’ll go up the steps to your place.’

My heart crashes to the pavement. Why didn’t I think of that?

The staircase to my home is super narrow and steep, so much so that the only way to safely navigate it is to brace your hands on either side and duck where the stairs turn under the ground-floor ceiling to take you up the last few steps to the first floor.

It’s a feature of the fisherman’s cottage it once was, endearing and quirky but tricky at the best of times.

And absolutely, resolutely impassable to elderly dark wooden pianos.

Crestfallen, I stare at the almost-midnight piano.

I should accept defeat and wheel it back to the derelict house for someone else to find. But I can’t shake the feeling that it chose me .

I know how daft that sounds.

The warmth of Seth’s arm meets my shoulders. ‘I’m sorry, lovely. It’s a lush old thing.’

‘It is.’