Page 17 of The Bookshop at the Cornish Cove

It seemed that we were both pondering what he’d said when he cut into my thoughts.

‘What about you, Nancy?’

‘What about me?’

‘No one special in your life? Who are your holiday companions?’

‘Definitely not a special someone. I’ve spent a long time focusing on my work. Being a teacher, despite what everyone thinks, is not a nine-to-three job with tons of holiday time. It’s a vocation. You are everything to some of the kids. Their parent, their mentor, their social worker, their doctor. It’s exhausting and then when you do get home, you have marking to do and lessons to plan. And targets to meet and grades to achieve so the school looks good. It’s an awful lot of pressure and it was starting to affect my mental health. Yes, I did get summer holidays off, but that was when I’d throw myself into this passion project. I spend my spare time doing this.’ I swept my arm around me.

‘So, no Caribbean holidays for you then?’

‘God no! You won’t find me contributing to the air pollution of the world. If more people stopped flying we wouldn’t be having the global warming issues the world is experiencing.’

‘And we’d all be a little more miserable too.’

‘Not necessarily. There’s nowhere nicer than Cornwall in the summer. It’s as hot as the Caribbean at times and probably just as beautiful too. I mean, why would you ever want to be anywhere else?’

I spotted a bottle lid poking out of the sand.

‘Interesting…’

‘Not really, just life. I don’t feel like I’m missing out on anything. And, when the opportunity came along for me to start the bookshop, when Aunty Theresa left me some money, I jumped at the chance. It had always been a dream of mine, and she’d left me a note saying life was short and that you shouldspend it doing something you love.’ I reached down and picked up the bit of blue plastic. ‘Did you know that bottles and bottle tops in particular take longer to break down than many other plastics?’

‘I did not know that. Thank you for enlightening me.’

I swung round towards him, ready to reprimand him for making fun of me, but he was standing still, staring at me.

‘What?’

‘I was waiting for your next jibe, that’s all.’

He held up his hands in surrender.

‘None coming. Iamgrateful to you for explaining all of this to me. I suppose despite visiting here when I come to see Nan, it was stuff I never considered.’

‘Well, raising awareness is important to me. I don’t really have time for proper holidays any more because I’m busy doing this. Mum and I sometimes go and hire a lodge in the countryside from time to time, but when you live here in Driftwood Bay…’ I took a deep breath and stood and appreciated my surroundings: the golden sand beneath my feet, the gentle waves lapping at the shore, the autumn sun brightly shining low in the sky, the boats in the harbour in the other direction and the pretty pastel houses around the harbour ‘…why would you want to go anywhere else?’

Dennis looked around him and sighed loudly.

‘I don’t think I ever really appreciated it before.’

Dennis was a little bit of an enigma to me. Despite spending time with him talking about business, I didn’t really know an awful lot about him.

‘Why are you here, Dennis?’

‘Because Nan lives here?’

‘No, I don’t mean that. You said you were here for a month. Why are you here? Why not in Las Vegas, or Dubai or somewhere else exotic? And why are you helping me?’

Dennis dropped to the sand and patted the space next to him, placing all the paraphernalia he’d been carrying on the other side of him.

‘I fucked up.’

11

I turned to face him and he hung his head in shame.

‘What do you mean?’

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