Page 2 of New Beginnings At Pencarrow Bay

Peggy woke to Ted’s kiss brushing her bare shoulder. She’d been vaguely aware earlier, as she dozed, of him rummaging for his clothes, then dropped back to sleep, knowing he would be off for his morning run around the bay. Now she turned over and smiled up at him.

‘It’s so beautiful out there, sweetheart,’ Ted said. ‘Pop down later, if you fancy. Pam promised to make those lemon and blueberry tarts you love. I’ll save you one.’ He’d changed from his running gear into jeans and a navy T-shirt, which showed off his toned chest and lean, tanned arms.

Peggy reached up and laid her hand against his cheek.

She loved him so much. Miss you were the words she didn’t say.

He was only going down the hill to the car park on the headland beside the castle, barely ten minutes’ walk.

It would be a ridiculous statement and she smiled inwardly at her foolishness.

But he would be away, totally absorbed in his work– or ‘passion’, you might better call it– until at least four thirty, then potentially sucked into an evening sail or a hike to the lighthouse.

Henri, the sixties Citroen truck, painted a fetching sky-blue, which Ted had converted to sell his coffee and buns, was, Peggy often mused resignedly, the third person in their relationship, these days.

At least she had something different to do this morning. ‘Lindy McDonald has invited me to a coffee morning later– something about raising money for the village hall roof,’ were the words she said, as she reluctantly withdrew her hand from Ted’s cheek.

‘That’ll be nice,’ he said, after a moment’s hesitation, which Peggy put down to his already thinking about the day ahead. ‘She’s amazing, Lindy. A proper force for good.’

She was, indeed, amazing, and had been so kind to Peggy as a newcomer to the bay.

She’d got to know her because she was tutoring Lindy’s granddaughter, Ada, once a week for an hour: the child needed to pass the entrance exam to get into a competitive Truro private school.

Lindy had insisted Peggy come to the gathering today.

‘You need to meet some fun ladies, get out more,’ she said, giving Peggy a knowing wink, although Peggy hadn’t mentioned she’d yet to make many friends since their arrival in Pencarrow Bay eighteen months before.

She’d had her head down, until a couple of months ago, working, and supervising the people who came to do the hard and heavy bits, like the plumbing, the electrics and the kitchen fittings, on the renovation of their charming 1920s modernist villa on the cliffs.

Shearwater– named after the sooty shearwater bird, according to the overly chatty estate agent– had been a case of love at first sight, the house something of a fire sale.

The owner had recently died and his son, living in Berlin with no interest in a UK seaside retreat, was apparently desperate to liquidate the inheritance.

Peggy and Ted had glanced at each other as they stood in the porch of the house, before the agent had even unlocked the front door, and grinned.

They knew they would buy the place, despite the work needed on the interior, which looked as if no one had touched it for decades.

During those early months in Pencarrow she’d seemed to be perpetually covered with dust, the smell of paint in her nostrils, stubborn streaks in her auburn hair, splinters in her fingers, the whine of power drills in her ears, her eyes permanently crossed as she peered at her laptop and tried to decide between a daunting array of tiles for the bathroom or kitchen.

Traditional? Abstract? Patterned? Plain?

She’d thoroughly enjoyed the process, surprising herself, because it wasn’t something she’d done before, but she hadn’t had the time or energy for socializing as well.

But Peggy knew it was more than that, really.

She wasn’t quite sure how to get her toe in the door of the social life of the village– such a new environment for her– without the obvious lever of the coffee truck that Ted had used so successfully.

So she was pleased when Lindy had invited her to the coffee morning.

Genevieve Dixon, known as Gen, who managed Kyma, the chic boutique favoured by the moneyed guests who stayed at the Samson George hotel in the village, was becoming a friend.

She had worked with Peggy on ideas for the décor, interior design not being her forte.

Gen was an artist by training, and although fashion was her preferred medium, she had a good eye.

They’d bonded when Peggy was poking around in the shop one morning and they’d got chatting, Peggy explaining about the renovations and throwing up her hands in bewilderment at the raft of colour and fabrics that faced her.

Gen had kindly offered to assist. But Gen didn’t have much spare time in which to hang out between working long hours at the shop or on designs for the career in fashion that had so far eluded her.

Now, as Peggy lay listening to Ted opening the front door and calling Bolt– the brindle black-and-tan rescue greyhound they’d adopted as a symbol of their commitment to each other– she realized she was nervous of Lindy’s coffee morning.

Even though she’d been in the bay for well over a year, she still felt unsettled, like a fish out of water.

Who are these ‘fun ladies’? Will I have anything in common with them? Would they find her fun?

Peggy knew she was keen to embrace the very different nature of a Cornish village, compared to the hectic life of the capital city.

She’d spent the previous forty years in London where, if some random smiled at you in the street, they were either nuts or about to ask you for money.

In the village, everyone said hello all the time, and many seemed to know who Peggy was, even if they’d never been introduced.

She loved that. Loved being able to look anyone in the eye without caution, that people seemed a lot more relaxed, more ready to chat.

But she hadn’t found her group yet– friends with whom she felt open and at ease, as she did with the few she’d left behind in London.

Ted, with his boundless energy, enthusiasm and sociability, had had the jump on her in bonding with the community in the bay.

He’d been out and about there from the start, making friends with his customers and building useful connections with tradespeople, suppliers and local businesses.

Like Bolt, who was in danger of becoming the village mascot with his charming affability, Ted, as Peggy often pointed out, was a serial bonder.

He could talk to anyone, any time, under any circumstances, with no apparent effort.

His confidence, of which she was almost envious, had been one of the things that had attracted her when they first met. It just made everything so much easier.

Who am I now? Peggy asked herself, as she turned over in bed and gazed out at the day.

How could she relate to new friends if she didn’t know who this new retired Peggy was?

Because she felt that her identity had been unwittingly stripped away with her job.

She’d been a teacher all her adult life.

Her work, she realized, had come to define her– and she knew it was a bad idea to be defined by anything outside your control.

She thought back to when she’d said goodbye to the team at the Great Ormond Street Hospital School, to which she’d devoted the previous fifteen years of her working life, teaching English to A-level standard.

The children she taught suffered from so many different health problems. Chronic, life-changing conditions that denied them a normal education– some for short periods, others for years as they bounced back to the hospital with ongoing issues.

Kids undergoing endless rounds of chemo- and radiotherapy.

Others with serious mental health problems. Those who had endured multiple surgeries over the years.

They had inspired such awe in Peggy: their bravery, their resilience, their humour in the face of disability– in some cases potentially lifelong– and possibly death, their struggle to be ‘normal’…

to reach for a future that might not happen.

She’d loved her job even if, in some cases, it was less about passing exams, more about creating a temporary diversion for her pupils.

She would attempt to draw a child’s attention away from the drudgery of bodily discomfort, another painful procedure, or just the boredom of a restricted ward-life without their family and friends, offering them a sizzling novel, a fiction from another time, an essay where they could transport themselves into a different world and be a person who was strong and healthy and carefree.

On her last day, her colleague and friend, D’Andre, had brought in a tin of his mini carrot and orange cupcakes with cream-cheese icing, which were melt-in-the-mouth delicious.

Louisa, a teaching assistant, had got some of Peggy’s pupils to design and paint a beautiful flowery banner saying, ‘We love you, Ms Gilbert. We’ll miss you very much.

’ And Peggy’s boss, Christine, had given her a signed copy of a Nigel Slater cookbook– because, her reasoning went, Peggy would have loads of time to cook now she was retiring: Peggy loved cooking.

They’d been so kind, so genuinely sad to see her go.

And Peggy, walking away from the hospital, along Great Ormond Street and skirting Queen Square that evening, had felt utterly bereft.

She would have cried if she hadn’t been on a crowded pavement, in a packed Tube.

It was as if someone had chopped off a body part.

But she had fallen in love with Ted. And Ted had a plan.

She remembered her surprise when he’d first proposed it.