Page 14 of New Beginnings At Pencarrow Bay

He seemed a little puzzled by her abstraction. ‘Nothing much to see, though, was there? A bunch of indistinguishable dots ploughing through a choppy sea. Bit like a horse race, blink and it’s over.’

She smiled now. ‘I’ll make you a coffee and join you as soon as I can,’ she told him.

The crowds were beginning to thin out round the stall as they fell in behind the ramshackle parade of sweet little mermaids snaking its way into the centre of the village.

It was led by a small ragtime band– made up of cornet, clarinet, trombone and banjo– the banjo player looking barely old enough to be out without his mum.

Peggy had once played the clarinet to quite a high level.

Hearing the sound now brought it all back, making her heart contract.

She unconsciously tapped her feet, visualizing how her fingers would play the tune, and felt a powerful yearning wash through her body, responding to the beat of the music.

But the instrument was now in the attic.

She hadn’t touched it in years… It reminded her too much of her mother, Celia’s abrupt departure from Peggy’s life on the arm of the German trombone player.

‘You all right for five minutes?’ she asked Shona.

‘So how’s things, my lovely?’ Quentin asked, eyeing her closely, when they finally settled with their drinks, Peggy perching on the damp sea wall beside him.

He sipped his coffee. ‘I was sad not to see you in the pub the other night, by the way. We had a riotous time. All those sweaty runners spraying hormones about always set the tone nicely, I think.’

She laughed. ‘I would have come down if I’d known.’

Quentin tutted, cradling his cup in his large hands. ‘I assumed Ted would have told you. Naughty boy.’ He spoke affectionately but gave a small shrug. ‘Although we barely exchanged two words. He and Lindy didn’t sit with us.’

Peggy stared at him. ‘He and Lindy?’ she asked, her voice coming out in a strangled squeak.

Quentin looked puzzled. ‘Did I say something?’

There was a pause, during which Peggy tried to get herself under control. She was so silent that Quentin reached out his hand and patted her arm. ‘You look upset. What is it, sweetheart? I hope I haven’t spoken out of turn?’

‘No, no. Sorry.’ Peggy shook her head, as if trying to rid herself of the thoughts that were racing round her brain. ‘It’s fine.’

She smiled at him, an unconvincing grin. There was silence between them, during which Quentin eyed the black council bin further along the road, aimed his crumpled empty cup at it– and elegantly hit the slot. Then he turned back to her. ‘You are upset. Tell me.’

Peggy didn’t have time to respond before she noticed Ted coming towards them through the village at a jog, fully dressed now in jeans and an orange anorak.

‘Hi, you guys.’ He bent to kiss her cheek.

But Peggy was trying to process the new information Quentin had unwittingly given her.

Why didn’t Ted mention that Lindy had been in the pub, that he’d sat and talked with her all evening?

He’d only mentioned Quentin, to whom– according to Quentin– he’d barely spoken.

Why? she wondered. Then a thought occurred to her.

Did he ask Lindy to meet him? Is that why he didn’t want me there?

She gave Ted a considering gaze but did not speak.

‘So I presume my hero won the race?’ Quentin teased, nudging Ted’s arm playfully.

‘Super-close,’ Ted said, laughing. ‘I’m claiming one hundred and thirty-fifth. Although no one was counting after the first three, so I might have done way better.’

‘Bloody marvellous effort,’ Quentin said sincerely. ‘Listen, may I borrow your lovely wife to go and listen to dear mad Ken, or Morton, give his annual mermaid lecture at the war memorial? It’s priceless.’

‘Of course,’ Ted said, as if it had been a serious question. ‘Rose is coming tonight, after all,’ he added, addressing Peggy. ‘She texted to say she’ll be here at six.’

Rose had initially said she couldn’t come to her father’s birthday supper, then said she might be able to, and now, apparently, she was coming.

Peggy was annoyed. Not by Rose– she would enjoy seeing her– but because she wouldn’t have a chance to talk to Ted till after his daughter had left.

Plus there was the problem of the ongoing awkwardness between father and daughter, which Peggy felt somehow she should mitigate when they were all together. She wasn’t in the mood today.

As they made their way along the harbour road towards the war memorial, Quentin asked, ‘Who’s Rose?’

‘His daughter.’ Quentin could be forgiven for not knowing, as Ted rarely talked about his family.

Such as it was. His beautiful, talented artist mother, Lois– who’d lived in her own world of oil paint, fantasy and a certain amount of red wine– had died in her fifties.

And his father, a hard-working administrator of a homeless charity in nearby Carbis Bay, had only made it to his early sixties before cancer took him.

That left Rose, and Ted’s older brother, Alfie, now living close to Lake Louise, British Columbia, where he ran a ski lodge with his Canadian wife, Brianna.

Ted and Alfie seldom saw each other, both wedded to their work, and four and a half thousand miles apart.

Which suited them both, Peggy had worked out.

‘Ah, yes, of course. Now I think about it, he has mentioned her. She’s some sort of scientist, if I recall correctly.’

‘Yes. Marine biology. In Plymouth.’

‘Good relationship?’

‘Not that close.’

Quentin turned to her, his eyes bright with inquisitiveness, eyebrow raised in question.

Peggy sighed. She didn’t really want to go into it. It was Ted’s to divulge, if he wanted to. ‘Let’s just say there are unresolved issues about how Rose’s mother died. And neither of them has been very good at sorting it out since.’

Quentin looked a bit let down that he wouldn’t be getting the full drama, but he nodded sagely. ‘Easy to slip into non-speaks. Done it myself. I’m still very sad about it.’

Now it was Peggy’s turn to be curious. But he didn’t offer any more information and she didn’t press him. Changing the subject, she asked, ‘Shouldn’t Ken be giving his lecture beside Morvoren on Mermaid Day?’

They’d almost reached the war memorial, Quentin’s buggy lurching this way and that to avoid the cars and throngs of people on the busy Saturday.

The small stone obelisk– with a cartouche detailing the names of the dead heroes from the village– was situated in a curve in the sea wall, opposite a row of colourful fishermen’s cottages and Martin Blake’s gallery, which displayed local pottery, glass, sea paintings, jewellery, bronze hares, such as the one Peggy had given Ted, and bird sculptures.

Martin was on the verge of retiring, and Peggy wondered idly what would happen to the place when he did.

Wondered, too, if he would be any more successful than she was at filling his time, when he no longer had the gallery to go to every day.

‘Ken’s nuts,’ Quentin replied fondly. ‘That sort of logic doesn’t impinge on his dottiness, I’m afraid.’

By the time they reached the memorial, the bard was in full flow.

He stood on the steps of the monument, strands of his long golden hair winding around his head in the wind, his purple cloak billowing, arms flung out wide in exposition.

The parade with the jazz band had moved on, the kids not interested, but a few of the older stragglers had stopped to listen to what he had to say, clutching their mermaid finery round their chilly bodies.

‘Mermaids are truly powerful spirits,’ Ken intoned. ‘Look at the Doom Bar in Padstow. Anyone who can move so much sand to such detrimental effect has strength beyond the realms of this world.’

‘What’s he talking about?’ Peggy whispered to Quentin.

‘A previously safe harbour choked by piles of drifting sand because someone shot the mermaid– no idea why– and she cursed the place. So the story goes.’

‘Sounds more like a freak act of Nature.’

‘Really? Oh, you unbeliever!’ Quentin’s jokey response was a tad too loud, causing Ken to swing round and bend his fanatical gaze on them both.

‘You mock. But listen carefully, all you who yearn to be loved. Morvoren can help if you’d only let her,’ Ken said, still staring at them.

‘For too long we have ignored the so-called “mythical” spirits– the piskies and mermaids– dismissed them as nonsense, creatures for fairy tales. But these entities are more real than you and I. They are in the air around us for all time, calling to us, begging us to listen, to heed their magic, access their support. Our beloved Cornwall is full of them, the barrier between this world and the next thinner here than anywhere else in this country of unbelievers…’

On he went, but Peggy and Quentin were not hearing.

Both had been oddly affected by his words, an atavistic superstition rising uncomfortably in their guts.

They looked at each other, faces stiff with a desire not to feel what they were feeling, not to admit to it in any way, and tacitly began to move on up the hill.

‘Okay, so a load of old tosh, then,’ Quentin blurted, when they were safely out of earshot.

‘But powerful tosh,’ Peggy observed, with a weak smile.

They laughed, relieved they’d had the same reaction, but feeling foolish just the same. She didn’t know anything about Quentin’s insecurities on the Rory front– maybe his increasing disability frightens him? – but she was certainly having a wobble about Ted. She wasn’t sure what to think.