An Endless Cornish Summer Read online

  Grandad Billy had passed away a few years ago and everything now fell on the shoulders of Finn and Dorinda. Their grandad used to love to pop in and do some work when he could, and he’d been sailing his own dinghy in the calm waters of the estuary when he’d suffered a massive stroke. The Morvahs were devastated but they also agreed that it was what Billy would have chosen.

  These days, their mum had no time to work on painting the boats, and the management of the yard was eating into Finn’s own time as a craftsman too. As well as the three family members, Morvah Marine usually had another two or three self-employed craftspeople working on various projects.

  Finn tried to return to his work but his mind was pulled back to the mermaid time and again. He was desperate to know why she was so fascinated by the yard.

  It had to be something to do with Joey, something that his brother was keen to hide. Joey attracted women like a magnet attracted iron filings and had a sure-fire technique for impressing them. With his surf dude looks – not that he surfed – he’d take them out on his boat on a mellow evening, drop anchor at a secluded cove and usually not return until dawn.

  It worked every time and for a while Joey would be grinning like a Cheshire cat and out every night – until he grew bored. Over the spring, two different exes had already rocked up at the boatyard and told him what they’d thought of him, and Finn didn’t blame them.

  A chilly breeze brought goose bumps out on his bare arms. He had no right to judge Joey. Finn had secrets of his own that he wouldn’t want anyone to find out – especially not his younger brother.

  Chapter Three

  Had the dark-haired brother seen her?

  Rose kept her eyes glued on the estuary as she crossed the slipway and rejoined the coastal path towards Falford village. She wondered if she’d turned away too quickly. Perhaps she should have smiled rather than hastily pulling her eyes away like she was guilty of a crime.

  She’d found it impossible not to stare at him. How could she not? He was tall, with collar-length hair that was almost black. He wore a dark blue hoodie and cargo trousers, and even at this distance, she was sure he was frowning.

  She’d seen another young guy, too, on her two other visits to the boatyard; fairer, hunky but more – dare she use the phrase? – ‘boy band’. Yes, that was it. The blond one was almost too handsome. She smiled at herself. She was making a lot of assumptions about these men, although admittedly, she did know their names now, and a little bit about them. Finn and Joey Morvah. She’d looked them up on the Morvah Marine website and knew that they were partners in the yard run by their mother Dorinda.

  The coastal path in this part of south-west Cornwall wound its way around the creeks of the Falford estuary like a child’s squiggle. It had rained overnight and the path was muddy in parts and bordered by trees, ferns and bluebells. Rose was glad she’d decided on Doc Martens to go with her midi sundress and denim jacket. With an umbrella in her backpack, no one could say she wasn’t prepared for anything.

  She lingered at a point in the path where the trees parted and there was a pocket of sand that you could almost call a beach. It was barely big enough for more than two families, but there were none anyway, on this May morning. Tucked into a small promontory that jutted into the sea, the spot gave her a good view back at the yacht club and the Morvah boatyard.

  She could make out Joey in his bright red T-shirt and Finn, stretching his arms high into the air as if he’d been too long bending over a boat.

  Until now, she’d been careful to approach from different ways or observe the yard from the Ferryman pub on the opposite side of the creek. The previous day, she’d found a table on the terrace of the thatched inn, and ordered a coffee, so she could get a better look at the boatyard from a safe distance. It was a good place to watch all the comings and goings, and while she’d enjoyed her cappuccino, Joey had spoken to a young woman in a leather jacket. Rose had seen her throw her head back and laugh. He obviously knew her well and the way she batted him on the arm showed they were very good friends, possibly more.

  Dorinda had emerged shortly afterwards and the mood had turned less sunny. Joey’s ‘friend’ had left after throwing up her arms in frustration – or anger. A little while later, she’d stormed into the pub as Rose was walking out. She was still visibly angry and Rose had overheard one of the bar staff asking her: ‘What’s up, Sophie, as if I couldn’t guess?’

  However, it was only today that Rose had dared to venture much closer to Morvah Marine itself. The sounds had been loud and intriguing: the whine of an industrial machine, hammering and banging that almost drowned out the clanking of sails against the masts and the cries of seagulls. She’d taken a risk, getting so near, and she’d paid the price. Finn had seen her today and he’d definitely seemed disturbed by her presence.

  She would have to be more careful. Although she had no intention of doing it, she wondered what she would say if she did march up to the Morvah brothers, ready to confess.

  ‘Hello, I’m Rose. You don’t know me, but I think one of you saved my life?’

  It sounded weird – deranged even, and Rose wouldn’t blame anyone for thinking she was odd at best, a dangerous stalker at worst.

  Over the past few days, Rose had wondered many times if she should have come at all, but the fact remained that she was still very excited about the chance to research the dig location and the many other ancient sites in the area. That was reason enough to be here. Life had taught her to grab every chance and so she had – if she found out who her donor was too, then that would be a bonus. A huge bonus.

  For now, her focus had to be on finding a place to live. She couldn’t live at the Haven guest house forever although she planned to stay for at least the rest of the week while she looked for more permanent accommodation in Falford.

  Picking her way along the shore, she eventually found the creekside footpath again. It wasn’t shaded by trees so she could see the estuary clearly and watch the oystercatchers pecking at the mudflats with their orange beaks. The scene struck her as familiar, even though she’d never been there before.

  Was this the spot?

  Rose found a low flat rock to sit on and pulled a hardback out of her backpack.

  A Guide to Ancient Sites of Penwith.

  The well-thumbed guidebook fell open to the pages where she kept the greetings card from her donor. Even with careful handling, it was becoming a little worn from being looked at so often – just like her gran’s letter to her.

  She had sent the letter to her donor via the donor charity the same day she’d read Granny Marge’s letter and received the card in response a few weeks later. She hadn’t been allowed to give her name, of course, and he hadn’t given his in reply. Encouraged, she’d written again but he hadn’t answered a second time. However, Rose’s curiosity had been fired up and fanned further by her gran’s suggestion that she find the man and thank him in person.

  She held the card to check the watercolour scene on the front against the view over the creek.

  ‘Hmm …’ It could be …

  The pub wasn’t in exactly the right place, but the pink cottage with a thatched roof was there … and the artist, whom she’d googled many times, had been born in Falford. She was pretty sure he’d painted it while sitting somewhere nearby.

  The sun came out, glinting on the shallow pools of water and its rays were hot on her back. She took off her jacket and felt the sun warm her shoulders, inhaled the smell of wild garlic and let the murmurings of waterfowl fill her ears. It was great to be alive – especially when you’d come so close to not being.

  ‘You look done in,’ Katie, the landlady of the Haven B&B, said before sitting Rose down in the conservatory with a large pot of tea and two cream scones.

  Katie’s comment and kindly manner reminded her of Granny Marge. She was also right. Rose had been knackered after her walk to the boatyard. In the end, she’d decided to take a ‘circular route’ back to the guest house and had become lost
. Her phone said she’d walked over six miles and by the time she got back, she was hot, stung by nettles and thirsty. Cycling the flat Cambridge fenland was no match for the ups and downs of the Cornish coast.

  After devouring the cream tea, she went up to her room intending to have a quick bath before coming down for the evening meal. However, the exertion, and probably the emotional toll, had drained her and she’d been too tired for dinner and fallen asleep. She woke at dawn, lying on top of her bed, still wrapped in the fluffy robe from the shower, a towel under her head.

  That morning she sat in the window seat of her room with a pot of coffee, examining the handwriting again. It was neat, but sloped backwards. It hadn’t been dashed off. It was a man’s handwriting – well, the transplant centre had been able to reveal that much. ‘Men make better donors,’ Rose had explained to Maddie.

  ‘Glad they’re useful for something,’ Maddie had joked.

  Smiling, Rose read the words again, reflecting on the efforts she’d made to find her donor’s identity despite him not replying to her second letter.

  Glad you’re feeling better.

  Good luck in the future,

  Wishing you a fair wind and calm seas.

  No name, of course. That wasn’t allowed but the card was her first clue. It could have come from anywhere, of course, but she was sure it had been sent by someone with connections to Falford. The sailing allusion had led her to google marinas and boatyards in Falford and she was off, lit by the flame of curiosity. After all, in her job as an archaeologist, she was used to research, digging deeper and never letting go until she found what she was looking for.

  It had taken a few days trawling the Internet, using a myriad of search terms, before she’d struck gold. It was a comment on a local Cornish newspaper article about a drive for bone marrow donors in the area around Falford. Rose had squealed with delight. A colleague had poked his head around her door and asked if she was OK, and she’d had to make up some guff about finding an academic paper she’d been searching for.

  The comment, from ‘Anonymous’ sounded angry and upset, and bemoaned the fact that only a few people had responded to the appeal for donors and that going on the register was a ‘no-brainer’ that could result in someone’s life being saved. It implied that the young locals were ‘snowflakes’ – a word Rose detested. Rose suspected the writer of the comment might have lost someone recently, or be waiting for a transplant. Whatever the circumstances, they were very distressed.

  Rose’s heart went out to them, and she hoped their situation had had a good outcome. Although it was by no means certain or even likely.

  The comment did give her the glimmer of light she was seeking, however.

  She now knew that there had been a campaign to recruit donors in the Falford area, and that some people had come forward. It also made sense that her donor lived locally. Her great-great-grandparents had come from Cornwall, so it wasn’t so improbable that a match was found there. She probably had a genetic connection. She’d had a lot of time to wonder, to research while she was ill, and it was well documented that most Cornish people would probably have married partners local to their place of birth in those days. Many local people could probably trace their ancestry back nine hundred years or even longer.

  However, Rose wouldn’t have even thought of Cornwall or made the connection to her ancestors until she’d received the greetings card with its picture of the Falford estuary. On the rear was a line saying.

  Falford Creek at high tide

  From an original by Nash Santo.

  Armed with more information, she’d done more googling that had led her to a few more tantalising clues that the treasure she was seeking was waiting for her in Falford. She’d unearthed another newspaper story showing Nash with ‘the Morvah family’ at an exhibition. There were pictures on Facebook from the Falford Regatta, where they seemed to be part of the organising committee or at least heavily involved.

  In one photo, Dorinda was handing over a trophy to a man in oilskins and it was clear the family were key members of the community. Finally, she’d come across a sad piece of news: an obituary in an online news site saying that Nash had died around five years ago.

  By now, Rose had spent so long searching for these people, inhabiting the place they lived, imagining them going about their daily lives, staring at their faces, that she felt she knew them. Discovering that one of them had died felt personal – like the few occasions when she’d had to deal with the deaths of other people she knew who were waiting for transplants or whose treatment hadn’t worked. People she hadn’t even met or people whom she’d only gotten to know via an online forum.

  Poor Nash was gone, but the nugget of gold he’d left behind – the clue to her donor’s identity – was safely preserved now and could lead her to the man who’d saved her. While she couldn’t be one hundred per cent certain it was one of the Morvah brothers, instinct told her it was.

  It was true that Granny Marge had urged her to find the man who’d saved her just when she’d been thinking of applying for the Cornish grant. But how was Rose to know that her donor came from Cornwall too – and only half an hour’s drive from the dig site?

  Surely it was fate? Surely, she was meant to track him down and thank him?

  Rose laughed at herself. She needed to get real. Fate was merely the way people justified doing things they wanted to but probably shouldn’t.

  In reality, confronting her donor was a step too far for her and most of all, the tone of the card hadn’t indicated he wanted any further contact with her. On the other hand, that didn’t mean he actively didn’t …

  She told herself she was here legitimately anyway, for her work, so surely, just finding him and seeing him wasn’t a crime – was it?

  Chapter Four

  After Katie had presented her with a full cooked breakfast, Rose decided to explore the part of the village on the opposite side of the water to the boatyard. She could have wandered up the creek to the little footbridge along the valley but the passenger ferry saved a mile-long walk and anyway, looked much more fun.

  Even on the short journey across the water, it was cool and she had to wrap her scarf around her neck. She’d put her hair up in a twist to stop it blowing wildly. When your hair had fallen out and you didn’t know if it would ever grow back again, you tended not to take it for granted.

  Since her transplant, she’d barely visited a hairdresser apart from for a treatment and the very tiniest trim. Her hair had also grown back a couple of shades lighter than before. It had been mousy but had come back to a blonde that her mother had said it had been like when she was three. Rose hadn’t been sure whether this was a good thing or not. She didn’t want to come across as Goldilocks. She might have cut it into something ‘manageable’ or ‘practical’ before her illness, but not now. She gloried in it, leaving it loose and flowing whenever she could. Like letting her hair grow wild, she was ready for an adventure – to take a risk.

  The other two people on the boat were clearly hikers, middle-aged and clad in sturdy boots. Rose sat facing forward, and as she climbed out of the ferry, the boatman gave her his hand to make sure she didn’t slip.

  The houses on the other side might only be a hundred yards across the water, but they had a different character and looked much older. The boatyard bank had mostly Victorian houses such as the guest house and the yacht club, which had been rebuilt and added to over the past century.

  In contrast, the granite and whitewashed cottages of the older part of the village must date back many centuries, Rose thought. She wondered if any fishermen or boatmen could still afford to live here but thought it was unlikely, given the number of discreet holiday-let plaques displayed outside front doors bedecked with roses and flower tubs.

  A man with pink shorts and dreadlocks was unbolting the door of the Ferryman Inn and said a good morning as she walked up the steps by the pub. Briefly, Rose thought of asking him about finding a place to stay. Maybe he even had a
room to rent, but then she noticed the sign for ‘luxury waterside accommodation’ and thought the rooms would be way out of her budget for the summer.

  Her salary as a junior academic was OK-ish and she didn’t have a mortgage on the cottage Granny Marge had left her. Plus her mum had helped her out with inheritance tax and so Rose knew she was very fortunate. She’d managed to find two junior doctors to stay at the cottage at a token rent, and in return for keeping the garden neat and tidy. However, any waterfront property in Falford was likely to go for hundreds a night in the summer.

  Of course, it would have helped if she’d known she was coming to Cornwall months before but that wasn’t how life worked and she’d only learned that her grant application had finally been successful two weeks previously. Since then, she’d been caught up in the whirl of term end, looking after her students as their exams approached and marking.

  Funny that she’d only finished her own PhD a few years before, even though she was a decade older than some of the PhD students. They must think she was an old fogey at thirty-two.

  She smiled then stopped in the lane above the pub, suddenly unsure of what to do and where to go next – struck again by the realisation that she had no unequivocal idea of what she was actually doing in Falford.

  A few yards down the lane, she came across a row of whitewashed cottages with knobbly walls and thatched roofs. In addition to the Creek Stores, which sold groceries and supplies, there was an expensive-looking gallery, and – rather randomly – a shop with a driftwood sign above the bow window that declared:

  Cornish Magick

  Its bow-fronted window was crammed with crystals, healing stones and a mishmash of folklore bits ’n’ bobs that Maddie would have called ‘tat’. Imagining her friend turning up her nose, Rose decided to reserve her opinion until she’d had a better look. She was strictly scientific herself, but her illness had also made her far more tolerant and understanding of other people’s ways of getting through tough situations and life in general.