The Cornish Affair Read online

  The work was pleasant enough, and we rattled through it. We had the occasional spat over stuff, his propensity to over use fennel seeds. My seeming inability to give up garlic. I had to point out to him that it was after all, my creative genius with flavours that got me where I was today. He replied by hitting me with a rolled up tea towel.

  Things were OK.

  In fact, things were a bit more that OK.

  I’d cracked the ultimate asparagus soup – a heavy chicken stock, poach, sieve, add butter, add cream, finish off with truffle oil – a real anorexics delight, that one. Oliver had been perfecting a fragrant cous cous with a lamb tagine for his supermarket range.

  I was enjoying myself. I found that against the odds, cooking with Oliver was, and I hate to admit it, fun.

  I mean, not fall around laughing so hard that you think you might wet yourself type fun, but, fun nevertheless. He’d calmed down a lot in the past few days, and we’d fallen into a working routine that suited us. Though he still got unduly agitated when his mobile phone couldn’t get a signal, or his e-mails were delayed.

  Jace had called in a few times, bringing a tray of courgettes, complete with their wonderful papery yellow flowers intact, and bundles of the first season’s asparagus, but Oliver had always been there and he hadn’t stayed very long.

  Oliver was scrupulous about writing things down, and to my particular joy, cleaning the kitchen. Nothing in it had ever looked so gleamingly new. Ever. He even polished the taps. That’s the sort of cleaning I mean. We had written up our notes on my computer and frozen large quantities of food, ready for sampling. (All food had to stand up to home freezing, and if it passed the test, we knew that it would be OK on a commercial basis.)

  We decided that we’d have a drink at The Ram, then drive over to Padstow for Rick Steins magical way with fish as a sort of farewell dinner, the night before we were due to leave for London.

  Oliver had gone to the cliff top to take a last look at the dolphins (they were obligingly regular in their habits, and could normally be relied on to cavort across the bay somewhere between the hours of three and four) and I was in the kitchen, standing at the sink, admiring the trees outside dancing in the wind, the leaves blowing silver on one side and a pale green on the other, wondering why I didn’t know the name of it. Nancy would, that’s the sort of thing she knew. It was strictly her department, the garden. I was employed by her to occasionally weed, or help with pruning things, but even then I got it wrong. I’d once pulled up whole bed of baby lupins, thinking they were groundwort. She’d banished me indoors to make tea.

  Oliver came crashing through the door, looking shaken and gasping for breath.

  “Christ, the cliff top crumbled away practically beneath my feet! It was bloody frightening-”

  “Erosion,” I said. “It happens all the time. I suppose I could have the path underpinned or something, but it seems hardly worth while. Are you OK? Was it a big chunk that fell away?”

  Oliver ran his hands through his curly hair. “Big? Big? It was fucking huge, that’s what I’m trying to tell you… And the other side of the house,” he gestured with his hand to the south, “The sky, it’s incredible… you can’t see it from here, come outside and look.” He pulled me by the arm, and dragged me outside, round the corner of Penmorah.

  I stood rooted to the spot.

  He was right, it was incredible.

  I had never seen anything like it.

  A dark milky sky above me stretched into thunderous black clouds rolling in from the south. I turned my head and saw that the sky behind us was blue and clear. It was like looking at that Magritte painting where night turns into day above a house. It was impossible to tell where the colour stopped. It was beautiful.

  We stood there gawping at it, till I heard the phone ring from inside. I reluctantly turned away to answer it, and as I did so, the lightening arrived.

  A jagged streak of brilliance hit the ground some way off, over the woods, and seconds later I saw the fire. A tree had been hit. I waited for the thunder, and sure enough the ominous roll of ten thousand beer barrels being rolled in a cellar stormed through the sky. We made it back into the kitchen, and I slammed the door behind me.

  I went to answer the phone, and as I put my hand out, the kitchen which was now plunged in dark gloom, was lit up as if by phosphorous. More lightening. I shrank my hand away from the phone, illogically aware of electricity and storms (My brain was saying danger to me and I listened to it. Coward that I am.) The phone had stopped ringing now, anyway.

  I stared out of the window and saw the next flash of white lightening strike. It filled the horizon in a jagged streak of power, brighter than the sun.

  The next boom of the thunder started as a sharp crack, blooming into the loudest rolling, banging noise I had ever heard. Without apparently moving my body I found myself crouching under the kitchen table, my hands over my ears.

  Oliver soon joined me.

  The storm carried on for ages, right above our heads. It was impossible to talk, and we just sat under the table, clutching hands. We had the occasional freak storm here, but not anything like this. There had been no warning, nothing.

  The wind was gripping Penmorah and shaking it. I heard the sighing groan of a tree coming down quite close to the kitchen, and prayed that it wouldn’t come through the roof or windows. Another splintering crash told me that the greenhouse had been shattered. The force of the storm was elemental, primeval in it’s severity. I knew without even looking at Oliver that he was frightened.

  So was I.

  Normally thunder storms can be quite exhilarating, but this was like being caught in the vortex of a giant washing machine, having thunderbolts hurled at you by a malevolent god. Any creature caught out in this stood no chance. I hoped that Baxter and Nelson were being looked after. I comforted myself with the thought that The Ram was a safe place to be in a storm and Nelson would have his head tucked under his wing, surrounded by the Rampersaud family. They’d be OK.

  The badgers in Penmorah woods should be alright as well, deep underground, well protected from this fearful battering. But the birds, and foxes, the squirrels and the deer, they would have to fend for themselves. As for the dolphins… well, I had no idea what it would be like for them amongst the angry sea. Perhaps they all holed up in a watery equivalent of The Ram and battened down the hatches whilst ordering large rums.

  “Do you think it’s easing off?” Oliver shouted loudly in my ear. I couldn’t tell how long we’d been under the table. Every second seemed like a minute.

  The wind had dropped, but the rain was still torrential. We gingerly crept out from under the table. The thunder had receded, and the sky was still as black as pitch. But even as we stood at the window, the sky slowly lightened, turning from night to a dull dark grey. The rain, which had been solid sheets of water being dumped from the heavens, went back to just being rain.

  Oliver and I turned and hugged one another. We kept our arms around each other for a heartbeat longer than was comfortable. We broke away and began talking at the same time.

  “My God… that was awesome, wasn’t it?”

  “Come on, let’s go and see what havoc has been wrought,” I said, burrowing in the glory hole in the hall for some suitable clothes.

  I handed Oliver a waterproof and sat down to pull on some boots. After having struggled for some time with a recalcitrant zip, we finally pushed open the front door.

  A scene of devastation hit us.

  Trees had been uprooted, benches overturned, great swathes of earth looked as they had been ploughed up. The mud and water soaked everything in sight. The roses Nancy had so lovingly planted were in shreds, not one was left standing. Yellow petals fluttered forlornly around the large puddles, that once was a lawn.

  I ran around to the back of the house, and stopped, horrified at what I could see.

  The cliff top had gone.

  Where there had been a line of bushes that led to the woods and had mar
ked the path, there were none. Raw jagged roots and bare naked earth were all that there was. I could clearly see the sea crashing over the fallen rocks, trees and earth at the foot of the cliffs.

  The greenhouse was crushed by a large limb of an oak tree, which had been ripped off, whilst the rest of the tree leant drunkenly against a small sturdy chestnut.

  Miraculously, Penmorah itself seemed untouched. All I could see were a few missing slates.

  I flung back the hood of my waterproof, feeling dizzy with relief.

  “Jesus, that could be worse, couldn’t it? I’ll have to get the path seen to now, won’t I? Not that there is a path, of course! I must phone the village and see what the damage is down there, and poor Nancy’s garden is in a bit of a mess, and-”

  I stopped abruptly when I saw Oliver’s face.

  “What? What is it?” I asked in alarm.

  Oliver turned his head and looked at where the cliff edge had been, and then looked back at Penmorah.

  “Fin, look, I might not know anything about landslides, or erosion, but I do know that the cliff is a damn sight nearer the house this afternoon than it was this morning. I don’t think it’s safe. You need to get advice, maybe from a structural engineer.”

  I gaped at him.

  “But the house is fine, there’s been no damage to it, look, you can see-”

  “I can see that you want it to be fine, but Fin, look, look at the cliff.”

  I turned my back on it and went inside. The kitchen was dark and I switched the lights on. The power was down. This sometimes happened in storms and I wasn’t too worried. It would be back on again soon. I tried the phone, but that too was dead.

  I heard Oliver walk in behind me.

  “Are you OK?” he said.

  “Fine. I can’t call anyone at the moment, my phone’s off.”

  Oliver passed me his mobile, and I held it the palm of my hand for a moment, wondering who to call first. I think we both jumped when it started to ring. I gave it back to Oliver to answer.

  I gathered from his side of the conversation that it was Harry calling to see if we were alright – although how he knew that we might not be, didn’t occur to me. Oliver passed the phone to me, and I pressed it to my ear.

  “Fin, my God, you’ve been in the middle of a freak tornado, did you know? We heard about it on the news, apparently it hit North Cornwall first, went out to sea and then came back on itself, we tried calling but there was no answer.”

  I remembered the ringing phone just before the storm hit. “No, we were in the garden looking at the sky. Oh Harry it was incredible… but now, well, the mess is awful and Oliver thinks that Penmorah may be unsafe…” I was aware that my voice was very high and I was gabbling. It made me sound like Minnie Mouse on helium, and I took a deep breath to calm down.

  Harry helped by telling me that he would arrange for a surveyor to come, and passed me over to Nancy. We spoke for a while, and I tried to play down the scene of destruction in her beloved garden. I didn’t fool her though.

  “Oh darling, don’t worry. Plants have a habit of growing back very quickly you know, you and Oliver are safe, that’s all that matters.”

  “The greenhouse has gone, too, I’m afraid,” I said, wondering if she’d mention the cash crop that she was tending in there.

  “Oh well, that is a shame,” she said hesitantly.

  I decided it really wasn’t worth pursuing. I promised to call her later on that night, as soon as the power was back.

  “Oh don’t bother darling, we’re off to a modern cutting edge play full of social significance at the Royal Court. To make up for it we’re going to have a lovely dinner afterwards in Soho, I’m making Harry take me to the French pub as well, so we may be late,” she said, sounding very merry.

  I turned at the welcome sound of a cork being pulled from a bottle. Oliver handed me a glass, and we silently toasted one another.

  “Well, a tornado. That’s something to think about, isn’t it?” Oliver said, raising his drink to me.

  “Indeed.”

  We drank in silence for a while. I wondered if I could possibly be suffering from some sort of post storm syndrome. I felt curiously flat, but edgy, too. The experience that I’d just been through had been so intense, that now it was over, I didn’t know what to do with myself. I glanced out of the window, the sky had cleared and the rain had nearly stopped.

  “It was terrifying while it lasted, wasn’t it?” I said, sipping my wine.

  Oliver glanced at me, “Christ, yes. Are you alright?”

  “I feel a bit strange,” I said.

  “I know what you mean. Do you feel a bit restless?”

  I nodded.

  “Me too.”

  We sat in the dusky kitchen clutching our glasses of wine, with the air full of crackling static electricity around us, audible to nobody but us. The previously silent birds started to make a row outside the window. I walked over to the door and flung it open. The smell of raw wet earth flooded through the kitchen. It smelt of life.

  Oliver stood up and reached for the bottle of wine. He slowly topped my glass up, and then his own. His every movement seemed very slow and deliberate, or was it just me thinking that?

  I picked my glass up and went to sit next to him at the table, not opposite him where I had been sitting. I moved closer to him so that out arms were very nearly touching.

  What was wrong with me? Was I trying to seduce this man? I honestly couldn’t tell you, I just felt drawn to him – and up till now I couldn’t with any truthfulness have told you if I even liked him, let alone fancied him. I was sure it just wasn’t me that felt this almost irresistible compulsion to touch him, surely he must feel it too?

  I took a gulp of my wine.

  Well, if he wasn’t going to make a move, I would.

  I would.

  Really.

  Just as soon as I finished this glass of wine.

  I felt Oliver tense the muscles of his arm, in preparation to moving, and I took another gulp of wine.

  He stood up, and reached down to pull me up too. His hands were warm, and his eyes were fixed on mine.

  “Are you thinking what I’m thinking?” he asked gently.

  Well, probably.

  I nodded.

  Oliver started to kiss me. I blindly fumbled for the table to put my glass of wine down, I thought I’d found it safely but the crash of glass on the flag stoned floor told me I’d been wide of the mark.

  I know that comparisons are odious, but I just couldn’t help it. After all, I reminded myself, it wasn’t often that I got kissed by two men in the space of the same number of weeks.

  Jace kissed like a boy.

  Oliver kissed like a man.

  He was holding my head in his hands, and had his tongue deep in my mouth. I was kissing him back with a passion that I had never felt before.

  I broke away, I was gasping for breath and started to run my hands through his curiously rough curly hair and over his muscular back. I breathed in deeply the scent of him, from the cradle of his neck. I could feel his hands slowly move down to cup my buttocks.

  At the sound of my name being called, we both jumped away from one another, as if scalded.

  I could hear Sam shouting from outside, and I ran to meet him.

  “You’m alright?” Sam asked anxiously, taking in the great chunk of cliff that had fallen away.

  “Yes, what about the rest of Port Charles,” I said.

  “Pretty bad. I had to walk up ‘ere. Couldn’t get the van past the trees that have come down, Kev and the boys was out in it, he’s not come back yet. Still, plenty of time. Baxter’s OK, an’ I just seen Jace an Will tryin’ to patch up the roof on Pritti’s cottage, ripped right off!” Sam said, pulling back the hood of his rain soaked coat and wiping his brow with one hand. He looked shattered, and I went to make him a cup of tea, then remembered the power situation. I thought about putting the kettle on the hob, but it would take ages, so I poured him a glass of
wine instead. He took it gratefully.

  Oliver was questioning him about the amount of damage there was.

  “Fair bit, I reckon. Old Mrs T is fair shook up, Doris is with her… but I reckon you’s two should come back down to The Ram for the night. I don’t like the look of the sky, more rain tonight, not to mention the wind getting’ up again. That cliff goes any more an’ you’ll wake up in the sea!” Sam said, draining his glass of wine with the sad lament of a man who really wants a pint of the devil instead.

  Oliver looked questioningly at me.

  “Yes, I should go down and help, anyway,” I said, “I’ll just throw a few things in a bag and we’ll head down.” I calculated that Oliver and I would have some time alone together.

  “Best go now, afore it gets dark,” Sam said firmly.

  Chapter Fifteen

  We scrambled about, packing food from the freezer into bags to take down to The Ram.

  All I could think of was what if… what if Sam hadn’t turned up, what if Oliver and I had rushed upstairs, or even slaked our passion on the kitchen table? What if…

  I heard Oliver call from the hallway asking if I had any boots that he might fit into.

  “I’m not sure, try the cupboard under the stairs, some of my father’s are probably still in there,” I shouted back, stuffing containers of frozen venison casserole into my bag.

  Sam was gathering up oddments for me, and I saw that he was emptying the contents of the fridge into another bag. He glanced at me, and said, “Best to be sure, it could well be days afore we get any more supplies, I reckon the roads are pretty impassable.”

  I nodded.

  He held up a pink suede roll that he’d picked up from the depths of the overcrowded freezer, looking puzzled, “What the hell’s this?”

  “Nancy’s jewellery, perhaps you could keep it safe for her?”

  He nodded, and carefully tucked it into his inside pocket. He patted it importantly, and gave a soft secret smile to himself.

  “Candles, shall I bring candles?”

  “Nah, the post office’ll have loads, not to mention Miranda, even if her’s be stinkin’ of that langee langee stuff,” Sam said dismissively.