Summer at Little Beach Street Bakery
Page 74
The little cottages looked like they were huddling together, turning their eyes away from the onslaught of the storm, trying desperately to escape attention. The cracking noise in the sky was ear-splitting. From the window Polly saw the rain fling itself furiously against the rocks – then realised it was no longer rain, but great big hailstones, sweeping in and hurling themselves crazily against anything they could find.
‘Oh lord,’ said Polly out loud, suddenly frightened. She heard, somewhere, the tinkle of glass – was it upstairs? Had a particularly large hailstone hit a window somewhere? There was another tinkle, and another. Polly suddenly found herself gulping a little, fearful. She wished more than ever that someone else was here; she desperately missed Huckle’s large, comforting presence.
She found herself worrying about old Mrs Brodie and Mrs Carter up in those badly insulated cottages right at the very top of the town. Mind you, they and their families had been living through storms without electricity for generations, she supposed. It was unlikely this would bother them much; they’d probably be miles better off than she was, living ludicrously exposed like this. For a start they wouldn’t be crashing around trying to find the last remnants of those tea lights Huckle had lit for her the night he’d built the bath. She managed to find a long book of matches and light a couple of candles. It was reassuring to have some illumination, however feeble, until she caught sight of a terrifying witchy apparition appearing out of nowhere in the cloudy bathroom mirror, and screamed, the sound vanishing into the howling wind, crashing hail and another clap of thunder.
Bollocks, said Polly to herself. Bollocks bollocks bollocks. She realised she was shaking, and tried telling herself not to be so silly. It was a storm. She lived on a rocky outcrop in the middle of the sea. Storms were in essence what happened.
She was suddenly so grateful for Archie’s caution and wisdom. If the fleet had been out on the waves tonight, it would have been unbearable for everyone. Thank God they were all safe.
Sleep, though – as the lighthouse creaked, the tower pushing this way and that in the wind – would surely be impossible.
Some nights Polly could sleep through a storm if she was tired enough; she would feel warm and cosy in her bed, safe under the blankets. But tonight was nothing like that at all. This was torn from a different world, and she felt for her funny old home, worrying about the harbour wall and the old church at the top of the island losing chunks here and there, falling further into disrepair. It was a struggle to persuade the local council to come and empty the bins, never mind invest in a crumbling infrastructure that was falling into the sea slowly but surely, and the storm would only make things worse.
She took a candle and carefully inched her way up the stairs to the sitting room, where she could see more from the window and had less chance of being literally scared by her own reflection. Even so, her shadow advancing up the tall stairwell walls was like something from a children’s story.
‘That’s it,’ she grumbled. ‘I am definitely getting a dog.’
Once at the sitting room window, up high, she picked up her mobile, but of course there was nothing, and the ancient old landline phone that had been left behind when they moved in, with its big old buttons, wasn’t working either.
Had she not been so frightened, the sight from the windows would have been oddly thrilling. Under the ripping sky, there were tiny pinpoints of light here and there, scattered about on the island: candles in windows; one or two bobbing up against the wind, obviously people going to check on their neighbours; here and there a brighter torch. It was, bar the sweep of the lighthouse every twenty seconds, very much how it must have been a hundred years ago, thought Polly. Two hundred. More.
She gazed out, the noise still crashing in her ears even though the sitting room windows were closed, hypnotised, entranced by the sense of looking back into a dark world where the only light was fire, where you were indeed an island, reliant on everyone around you to get by: not the council, not the government, not ASOS or the Looe supermarket. That this was all there was, all of them in it together.
She glanced at the boats in the harbour; although kept apart by tyres to stop them bumping into each other too aggressively, they were still jostling. The waves were shooting high above the harbour walls. She remembered how some nights the water would hit the windows of the flat. This was definitely one of those nights: the tide was as high as any she could remember. It was beyond wild: not a night to be out in, not at all.
She stared at the tiny candlelit village: occasionally a shadow passing here and there; a dark figure, moving quickly. Nobody was asleep tonight. She thought of all the people of Polbearne past, their names repeated so often in the graveyard above the town: the Brodies, the Tarnsforths, the Manses: all the lives – hard, dangerous lives, when things were tougher than they were now – that had gone on here, in unheated homes, dependent on a good wind and a good catch, or worse, bounty washed up from the sea.
It was this that made her love Mount Polbearne: the sense that its beauty was borrowed, temporary; that it had a hard edge too: the work and the pain that underpinned what it had always taken to live here. It had never been a home for the rich.
Until now, she supposed, with the weekenders and their second homes, and their nice fish restaurant and their loud, unabashed voices. But really, Mount Polbearne belonged to its people, the people who’d been raised here and had families here, and who had stayed through the bad times and the good.
Polly was lost in her reverie when she slowly began to realise something, then jumped up in horror. The town was dark, the world was dark; only the flashing of the lightning forking the sky illuminated them. The lighthouse had gone out.
Chapter Twenty-Three
‘What if the lighthouse goes out?’ she had asked her solicitor, who was, she remembered, the absolute cheapest one they could find at the time. He had looked a bit uncomfortable and said, ‘Well, you ring the coastguard,’ and Huckle had sniggered and said, ‘Polly, just take a really big torch up there and whizz round and round,’ and Polly had said, ‘That’s not very funny, it could be dangerous,’ and Lance, the young estate agent, had said he couldn’t remember ever hearing of the lighthouse going out, and then he had paused and said, well, you know, except in the daytime, obviously, and Huckle had giggled again and Polly had accused him of not taking this seriously and he had given her a big kiss on the cheek and said, ‘May I remind you, madam, that you are the one buying a four-storey house with one room per floor and a big electric hat, which is just about the least serious thing I have ever heard of,’ and the solicitor had rather peevishly looked at his watch and said, ‘Is this bird normally allowed to walk over important paperwork?’ and that had kind of been the end of that conversation.
‘Oh lord,’ said Polly out loud, suddenly frightened. She heard, somewhere, the tinkle of glass – was it upstairs? Had a particularly large hailstone hit a window somewhere? There was another tinkle, and another. Polly suddenly found herself gulping a little, fearful. She wished more than ever that someone else was here; she desperately missed Huckle’s large, comforting presence.
She found herself worrying about old Mrs Brodie and Mrs Carter up in those badly insulated cottages right at the very top of the town. Mind you, they and their families had been living through storms without electricity for generations, she supposed. It was unlikely this would bother them much; they’d probably be miles better off than she was, living ludicrously exposed like this. For a start they wouldn’t be crashing around trying to find the last remnants of those tea lights Huckle had lit for her the night he’d built the bath. She managed to find a long book of matches and light a couple of candles. It was reassuring to have some illumination, however feeble, until she caught sight of a terrifying witchy apparition appearing out of nowhere in the cloudy bathroom mirror, and screamed, the sound vanishing into the howling wind, crashing hail and another clap of thunder.
Bollocks, said Polly to herself. Bollocks bollocks bollocks. She realised she was shaking, and tried telling herself not to be so silly. It was a storm. She lived on a rocky outcrop in the middle of the sea. Storms were in essence what happened.
She was suddenly so grateful for Archie’s caution and wisdom. If the fleet had been out on the waves tonight, it would have been unbearable for everyone. Thank God they were all safe.
Sleep, though – as the lighthouse creaked, the tower pushing this way and that in the wind – would surely be impossible.
Some nights Polly could sleep through a storm if she was tired enough; she would feel warm and cosy in her bed, safe under the blankets. But tonight was nothing like that at all. This was torn from a different world, and she felt for her funny old home, worrying about the harbour wall and the old church at the top of the island losing chunks here and there, falling further into disrepair. It was a struggle to persuade the local council to come and empty the bins, never mind invest in a crumbling infrastructure that was falling into the sea slowly but surely, and the storm would only make things worse.
She took a candle and carefully inched her way up the stairs to the sitting room, where she could see more from the window and had less chance of being literally scared by her own reflection. Even so, her shadow advancing up the tall stairwell walls was like something from a children’s story.
‘That’s it,’ she grumbled. ‘I am definitely getting a dog.’
Once at the sitting room window, up high, she picked up her mobile, but of course there was nothing, and the ancient old landline phone that had been left behind when they moved in, with its big old buttons, wasn’t working either.
Had she not been so frightened, the sight from the windows would have been oddly thrilling. Under the ripping sky, there were tiny pinpoints of light here and there, scattered about on the island: candles in windows; one or two bobbing up against the wind, obviously people going to check on their neighbours; here and there a brighter torch. It was, bar the sweep of the lighthouse every twenty seconds, very much how it must have been a hundred years ago, thought Polly. Two hundred. More.
She gazed out, the noise still crashing in her ears even though the sitting room windows were closed, hypnotised, entranced by the sense of looking back into a dark world where the only light was fire, where you were indeed an island, reliant on everyone around you to get by: not the council, not the government, not ASOS or the Looe supermarket. That this was all there was, all of them in it together.
She glanced at the boats in the harbour; although kept apart by tyres to stop them bumping into each other too aggressively, they were still jostling. The waves were shooting high above the harbour walls. She remembered how some nights the water would hit the windows of the flat. This was definitely one of those nights: the tide was as high as any she could remember. It was beyond wild: not a night to be out in, not at all.
She stared at the tiny candlelit village: occasionally a shadow passing here and there; a dark figure, moving quickly. Nobody was asleep tonight. She thought of all the people of Polbearne past, their names repeated so often in the graveyard above the town: the Brodies, the Tarnsforths, the Manses: all the lives – hard, dangerous lives, when things were tougher than they were now – that had gone on here, in unheated homes, dependent on a good wind and a good catch, or worse, bounty washed up from the sea.
It was this that made her love Mount Polbearne: the sense that its beauty was borrowed, temporary; that it had a hard edge too: the work and the pain that underpinned what it had always taken to live here. It had never been a home for the rich.
Until now, she supposed, with the weekenders and their second homes, and their nice fish restaurant and their loud, unabashed voices. But really, Mount Polbearne belonged to its people, the people who’d been raised here and had families here, and who had stayed through the bad times and the good.
Polly was lost in her reverie when she slowly began to realise something, then jumped up in horror. The town was dark, the world was dark; only the flashing of the lightning forking the sky illuminated them. The lighthouse had gone out.
Chapter Twenty-Three
‘What if the lighthouse goes out?’ she had asked her solicitor, who was, she remembered, the absolute cheapest one they could find at the time. He had looked a bit uncomfortable and said, ‘Well, you ring the coastguard,’ and Huckle had sniggered and said, ‘Polly, just take a really big torch up there and whizz round and round,’ and Polly had said, ‘That’s not very funny, it could be dangerous,’ and Lance, the young estate agent, had said he couldn’t remember ever hearing of the lighthouse going out, and then he had paused and said, well, you know, except in the daytime, obviously, and Huckle had giggled again and Polly had accused him of not taking this seriously and he had given her a big kiss on the cheek and said, ‘May I remind you, madam, that you are the one buying a four-storey house with one room per floor and a big electric hat, which is just about the least serious thing I have ever heard of,’ and the solicitor had rather peevishly looked at his watch and said, ‘Is this bird normally allowed to walk over important paperwork?’ and that had kind of been the end of that conversation.
