The Cornish Affair Read online

  I felt humbled, but also slightly piqued. He’d never asked me to cook anything for him. But then I didn’t write books or have my own show, did I? I was being absurd, I knew, and shrugged it off.

  Nancy sipped at her drink, whilst conducting her usual flirtation with Sam. Harry and I settled into a party planning session.

  “Well, Fin, I do think you might have given me more notice, it’s too bad of you. I’ll have to go back to London and then come down again if you really are going to have it in two weeks time.” Harry said, sipping his real ale, and making a bit of a face.

  I considered what he had said. There was no reason in particular I’d picked the date for the party in two weeks time, I just wanted it soon, before I lost the impetus.

  “Well, Martha could drive you down, I know she’ll come,” I said.

  Harry nodded, and went to the bar to order himself another drink. I was still excited about planning the party, and told all the people I knew in the pub the date I had chosen. Sam offered to do the bar, and Doris asked if I needed any pasties. I whole heartedly accepted both offers.

  Doris, who was wearing a very fetching combo of acid yellow top, and rather short green checked skirt, patted her newly styled hair, “He’s right handsome, isn’t he?” she stage whispered at me, gesturing towards Oliver.

  I was getting used to the uncritical admiration by now, so I merely nodded.

  “Mind you, I’d get Miranda away from ‘im, if I was you,” she added, poking me in the ribs with a sharp elbow.

  “Miranda’s welcome to him,” I hissed back, fed up with the innuendo that I realised was beginning to circulate.

  Doris made a face of surprise at me, “What’s your problem, Fin? Got other fish to fry, have you?” she said, nearly fracturing my ribs this time with her elbow.

  “Might have, might not,” I said, archly. I was horribly aware that my love life, or lack of it, was probably a major topic of conversation in Port Charles, and I really didn’t want to fuel speculation.

  Oliver was leaning on the bar, hemmed in by Miranda, Richard, Will and assorted Port Charles dwellers. I asked Harry if he thought he needed rescuing.

  “No, he loves his fans,” Harry said complacently, probably adding up the percentages owed to him by his nefarious book and TV deals. The pub was warm and smoky, and getting more crowded by the minute. Every time the door opened I expected to see Jace, but only a group of fisherman came tumbling through letting in a welcome blast of fresh air. They were obviously celebrating a good catch, as wads of cash were being handed over the bar.

  The usual haul in these parts were pilchard and mackerel, not great money earners, but there were sea bass, shark and crab that supplemented their treacherous living. (I’d once been out with them, just around the harbour and vowed, never, ever again.) These guys were the toughest fisherman around, and I’d seen them weep like babies at a funeral of one poor man who’d been washed overboard. The skipper, Kev the Beard, who was seventy if he was a day, had a state of the art radar equipment on board his very expensive boat, but he still relied on the wind and tides, and his eye and instinct for the catch. They could be gone weeks at a time, so when they were in port, they certainly made the most of it.

  Kev waved at me, and I got up to greet him.

  “Good catch?” I asked.

  Kev picked up my hand and brushed it against his whiskery lips in a parody of arcane courtesy.

  “Evenin’ Miz Fin. Yep, a proper beauty, what they didn’t want at Padstow, they’ll ‘ave and pay for in London. What you and Miz Nancy ‘avin? It’s all on me tonight.” Kev slammed his large fist on the bar and roared at Sam for a drink all round.

  Kev was a stocky man, born and bred here, with matted hair and a reddish beard. Gold earrings glinted in the light, and his brown wrinkled face was shiny with sweat. His forearms and hands were a mass of tattoos and scars, caused by rope burns, and many years of slashing fish with lethal knives on a heaving deck. He was rolling slightly at the bar, and smelt very highly of beer. It looked as though The Ram wasn’t his very first port of call.

  Foaming pints of beer were being handed over the bar by Sam and handed around. Kev was in the act of passing one to another fisherman, when his none too steady eye lit upon Oliver.

  “Who’s the pouf in the skirt?” he bellowed, slamming his pint down on the bar, pointing at Oliver with a filthy, dirt encrusted hand.

  Oh god.

  “You a shirt lifter boy? Like old ‘Arry over there?” Kev demanded, his face narrowed with distrust.

  Oh god.

  I glanced at Sam for help, but he was I saw, very cravenly engrossed in an animated conversation with Nancy.

  I gingerly stepped forwards. As did Oliver.

  “What if I am?” he said threateningly.

  Patently he wasn’t but oh bloody bloody hell. This was not the time for a gender sexuality lesson.

  I took a deep breath and said as winningly as I dared, “Umm, Kev, let me introduce you, this is Oliver Dean, from London, he’s down working with me at the moment and-”

  “Oliver Dean, the chef from the telly?” Kev sneered suspiciously.

  “Umm, yes, that’s right –“

  Oliver had stepped in front of me, and was glaring at Kev.

  “Well, I’ve got a right bone to pick with you boy! I did yer recipe for monkfish and that poncy Eyetalian bacon, and let me tell you – it were crap! What you want is a nice bit o’ butter on it, thass all yer need, no foreign muck! And as for shirt lifters, one o’ my sons is and finer boy yer couldn’t ask for!” Kev turned to Harry and bellowed, “Come on over ‘ere ‘Arry and give us a kiss!”

  Oliver was grinning his head off and shaking Kev by the hand, delighted to have found such an unlikely fan. There was a general sigh of relief all round, as Kev the Beard was known to be a little rambunctious when he was one over the eight.

  Oliver and he were nose to nose leaning on the bar discussing the best way to treat monkfish, with Harry rolling his eyes at me. I rolled mine back, and the conversation flowed around us once again. I noticed that Kev insisted on buying both Harry and Oliver drinks, treating Harry with an old world rough charm, that he seemingly employed with ladies and ‘shirt lifters’.

  Port Charlesers as they called themselves, could still surprise the hell out of me, I decided.

  I’d lived here all my life, and yes, I suppose there were pockets of bigotry and ignorance, but for the most part people were kind. Their lives had been too hard in most cases for them not to be.

  Sam was shouting from behind the bar, calling for quiet.

  “Ladies and gentlemen, Kev the Beard has bought a drink for us all, I reckon he deserves a toast,” Sam raised his glass at Kev, and we all followed suit.

  “Pysk cober ha sten!” we all bellowed, raising glasses at the skipper.

  Oliver and Harry looked bemused, and I quickly translated for them.

  “Fish, copper and tin,” I explained.

  “There’s only the fish left now, an’ that be goin’ bloody fast,” Kev said, wiping his beer moustache off with the back of his hand.

  All the fishermen nodded their heads sadly at these words from the oracle of the deep, but cheered up when one of them piped up with, “But the dolphins be back!”

  There was a general all round roar of approval, and more drinks were ordered on the strength of it.

  I knew that the dolphins were more than just a good luck talisman to the ever superstitious fishermen. They loved them. They led them to shoals of fish, and guided them through the rough seas. The local people who were not connected with the fishing of the ocean tended to blame the fishermen for the disappearance of the dolphins, but they swore that this wasn’t true. There had been a few occasions that they had snared a dolphin in their nets, but I knew that this caused a great unease amongst them, their feeling being that it was extremely unlucky, (not as unlucky as having a woman on board, of course, but still, unlucky all the same).

  I glanced at my watch,
it was getting late, and still no sign of Jace. Nancy caught me looking at my wrist, and whispered, “Getting tired? I know I am, shall we head home?”

  I nodded. I was tired, and Jace was nowhere to be seen. I suppose I could have asked Will or Richard where he was, and neither of them would have thought it was odd, but I felt a restraint. I didn’t want to.

  I saw that Harry and Oliver were in a huddle of Port Charlesers and fisherfolk at the bar and still had untouched drinks lined up in front of them. Miranda was gazing up adoringly at Oliver, hanging on his every word, much to the disgust of Doris, who was slowly but surely elbowing her out of the way.

  “Shall we leave them here?” I said to Nancy, bending down to rub Baxter’s ears in a farewell stroke.

  “I think they’re old enough to find their way home,” Nancy laughed, “Although with men you can never tell…”

  We waved our goodbyes, and I pushed my way over to Harry and Oliver to tell them to let themselves in through the kitchen, and handed Harry the key. This was fairly common when Harry stayed, usually Sam provided a lock in, and Harry would meander home in a tipsy stupor through the lane, pulling up weeds and flowers to make a straggly bouquet that he would stuff into a jug and leave on the kitchen table for us to find in the morning.

  Kev the Beard gave me a bear hug as I left, nearly crushing my ribs, and promised that he would send up a sea bass to Penmorah in the morning, and Sam enveloped Nancy in a courtly kiss goodnight before we reached the door.

  Nancy and I took great gulps of soft, clean air when we were outside, and soon The Ram was just soft lights and a muted roar of voices behind us. The village was very silent the further we got from the pub, it seemed that there was no-one abroad other than the revellers that we’d left behind.

  “I love it when it’s like this,” Nancy exclaimed, companionably tucking her arm through mine, “It looks like an old smuggling village from a Hollywood B movie, doesn’t it?”

  I knew exactly what she meant. All it needed was a few men lurking furtively in the shadows, rolling barrels of brandy to a safe house and horses with muffled hooves to complete the picture.

  The air was still and the moon was bright. Nancy started to hum a song under her breath as we turned into the steeply banked lane that led home. I had a waft of early honeysuckle from the hedgerow and saw that the dog roses had closed for the night, looking like luminous pearls in the moonlight. An owl flew above our heads on silent wings looking for an early evening snack of a vole of field mouse. We stopped to watch its shadowy outline swoop across the fields. I felt Nancy’s arm squeeze mine slightly.

  “Nancy, “I said impulsively, “Do you ever want to leave Penmorah? I mean, do you stay here because of me, I –“

  “Fin, don’t be silly darling! When it’s time to go, it will be time to go. Now then, why are you having this party and tell me who we are going to invite?” Nancy’s voice was warm and untroubled in my ears. Instead of listening to what she didn’t say, I chose to just hear the words that she spoke.

  I tumbled out a jumble of reasons for holding the party, blessing Nancy that she alone, who had been to nearly every Penmorah party that I could remember, would understand.

  “You know darling, that some of these people that you have such fond memories of may well be too old, or ill, or even not amongst us any more, to RSVP,” Nancy said.

  “I hope you’re not pouring cold water over my lovely idea!” I said, panting slightly as we made our way up the steep part of the lane.

  “No, not at all, I just don’t want you to be disappointed, that’s all. What are you going to wear?” Nancy said, panting not at all. Maybe I should take up breathing through one nostril if this was the result that yoga had, I decided.

  “I’m going to buy a new dress, no, I’m going to buy us both new dresses!” I said expansively, “We’ll go to London and get Harry to come shopping with us, we’ll have the full works, facials, hairdressers, make-up, shoes, the lot! What do you say?”

  I heard Nancy chuckle. “Well, I don’t know what’s got into you Fin, but whatever it is you should do it more often. What a wonderful plan, do you think I could get away with a turban? I’ve always rather fancied one you know, with a peacock feather pinned on to it with a large diamond brooch!”

  “If Bond Street, or wherever it is that they sell posh clothes now, sells them then we’ll buy one, is there anything else that tickles my lady’s pleasure?” I said grandly, thinking that Nancy would probably find one, and then I’d have to buy it. And she’d wear it. I smiled to myself in the darkness and tightened the grip on her arm, blessing the fact that I had such a wonderful aunt.

  “Well, you know, I have seen some wonderful silk harem pants in Vogue that I wouldn’t mind trying on…”

  Chapter Eleven

  I sleepily kissed Nancy goodnight once we were inside and made my way to bed, missing Baxter’s small comforting company.

  “Are you sure you don’t want any tea?” Nancy called from the kitchen.

  I stopped at the foot of the stairs, one hand on the scratched, old mahogany banister, “No thanks, I’m going straight to bed. I bet Oliver wants to crack on first thing in the morning, that is of course if Harry ever gets him home,” I gave a jaw breaking yawn and started to climb the stairs.

  I had never been scared at Penmorah. The house certainly had its very own presence, almost a personality if you like, without being fanciful. After all, who knows what goes on in old buildings? Maybe past owners leave echoes of thoughts and desires like so many layers of old wallpaper, leaving the new owners with a fleeting feeling of never being quite alone.

  I pushed open the door to my bedroom and flicked the light on. I was tussling with myself about whether to cleanse my face à la all the beauty tips tell you to. Cleanse, moisturise, tone, eye cream, and night cream. I decided it was justifiable to simply drag a wet flannel over my face, clean my teeth and collapse into bed.

  The following morning was overcast and windy. I hurriedly got dressed, pulling on a grey hooded top and making a quick attempt at some semblance of make-up.

  I could tell that Harry and Oliver had arrived late last night, all the signs were in the kitchen. The remnants of two bacon sandwiches, the frying pan neatly washed up, the bottle of HP sauce still out on the table, and a pot of cold tea with two mugs were all the evidence needed. Harry’s jacket was slung over the back of a chair, with a sprig of greenery drooping in it, made the kitchen look like stage set.

  Act One: Return from the pub.

  Act Two: The hangover.

  I thought I’d be generous and make them a healthy smoothie for breakfast. I emptied the last of the good natural yoghurt from Will into the blender along with some fresh blueberries, some frozen raspberries a banana and some orange juice. I dribbled in some heather honey and whizzed the whole lot up.

  Normally the hideous noise of the blender made Nelson screech with annoyance, but the kitchen was unnaturally silent. I switched on the radio to mask the absence of sound, and then jumped out of my skin when there was a knock on the kitchen door, and the door swung open.

  It was Oliver. He looked as though he’d been up for ages, and had gone for a morning constitutional. He looked quite revoltingly healthy and hearty, he obviously wasn’t suffering from the effects of the Cherrywood Devil at all. He swigged the smoothie down in one go, and asked if he could cook some breakfast as he was hungry.

  “Be my guest,” I said, gesturing towards the fridge.

  “I picked these,” Oliver said, holding out a handful of flat dark wood mushrooms, “Would you like some on toast?”

  “No, no thanks, they’re so disappointingly small aren’t they? Once they’re cooked, there’s only enough for one really,” I said, making some tea.

  “I wouldn’t mind sharing,” Oliver said, throwing a lump of butter into a pan, and deftly slicing up the mushrooms.

  There was a small silence between us. Probably only noticed by me.

  “It’s been years since I
picked mushrooms, growing up in Wandsworth you don’t get many, although I did when we moved to Kent. Kent was the third pub my parents ran. It was great, I learnt all about what was poisonous or not from the guy who lived there,” Oliver said, helping himself to a mug of tea.

  “How many pubs did your parents have?” I asked curiously.

  “Quite a few,” Oliver said cheerfully, “Though now they’re retired. It’s a funny life growing up behind a bar – very handy mind you when it came to impressing the girls, I can tell you.”

  “Oh.”

  “And of course, it’s where I first got interested in cooking. I used to help in the pub kitchens. Sunday lunches for two hundred, that’s an awful of potatoes to peel… let’s just say I would have longed for a place like this when I was a kid. You must have loved growing up here,” he said, piling the golden mushrooms on some toast. They did smell wonderful, and my mouth watered.

  “Yes, yes, I loved it.” I said.

  I watched him cut his toast in half, and he pushed one of the portions towards me. “Go on,” he said teasingly. “You know you want to.”

  I laughed, “You’re quite right. Thank you.”

  We had breakfast in a comfortable sort of silence, with a bit of idle chatter about the merits of chantrelles versus puffballs in a risotto.

  He swigged the last of his tea, and tore a piece of bread to mop up the juices in the pan, and laughed.

  “What’s so funny?” I asked.

  “I think you’re the only woman I’ve ever met who can talk about risotto at breakfast without making a face, is that natural greed about food or just professionalism?”

  “Both,” I said shortly. Aware that what I’d just said was sadly true. I loved my food, and would often find myself planning the next meal whilst eating the first.

  I heard Nancy whistling a snatch of Mozart as she came down the corridor into the kitchen.

  “Harry still not up? I’ll take him some tea,” she offered, bustling around in her kimono.

  The day drifted inexorably onwards as days do.

  Lunch was had, work was done and plans were made. The phone rang, and the door opened and closed with visitors to Penmorah, but not one of them was a young man of exotic good looks.