Page 12 of Sunrise By the Sea

The house smelled brand-new. Obviously, given the digger parked nearby, nobody had ever lived there.

At the other side of the large room in front of her was a glass door that led out onto a balcony that looked straight down over the other side of Mount Polbearne, away from the town and over the lighthouse and out to the open sea, far below. It was breathtaking.

The ground floor was one large kitchen diner, a windowless bathroom with a real bath, and a small bedroom; upstairs was a mezzanine with a pointed roof, another little terrace and a bathroom too.

The furniture was plain but lovely; a pale stripped wooden floor covered in an oatmeal hessian rug; a plain but incredibly comfortable neutral L-shaped sofa, with pale yellow cushions a . . . Oh my goodness. Marisa practically ran to it. A real fire! But, even better, a fire that looked real but ran off gas so she didn’t actually have to chop logs or do anything like that.

It was beautiful. It was the loveliest, neatest, cosiest little place she could possibly imagine. It was by far the nicest thing that had happened to Marisa in a very long time. She thought for a moment she was going to cry.

She texted thanks to Caius, who was only a few hours into Marisa not being there and was already wondering why the kitchen surfaces had stuff on them, then started to unpack her bag. There was something about the place that appealed immediately; the quietness, the remoteness. Nobody knew she was here. Which was a little frightening, but also rather comforting. She could be safe here.

She could lock herself away, work and never come out again. She had everything she needed. She could go out on the balcony, order supermarket deliveries, work from home . . . This was absolutely perfect in every way. Here, she would definitely get better.

The door closing was the sweetest sound she’d ever heard, closely followed by the silence that enveloped her, although when she opened the balcony doors, the sound of the sea was suddenly very apparent, swooshing gently at the foot of the cliffs far below. Yes. She would stay here, she would finally get her therapist, breathe in the sea air, luxuriate in the peace and quiet away from the stress of other people’s parties and the noisy city. She would finally heal. This was perfect.

In the event, she felt this way for slightly less than an hour.

Chapter Ten

Actually, it was more like forty-five minutes.

She opened all the fresh empty drawers to put away her things – very few, all comfies, most of her stuff was still in the car, with a plan to drop it off for storage – but did that matter?

The downstairs bedroom was carpeted and cosy and had wardrobes covering one wall, and the bath next door, so she chose that over the mezzanine.

She made up the brand-new bed with the brand-new sheets – what a luxury this was, truly, kitted out for holidaymakers – and sat on it, her knees drawn up to her stomach, holding herself close, looking out on a bobbing sea, feeling far away from everything; feeling safe, the gentle lapping of the water in her ears.

At some point she dozed off – properly out of it, in a way she hadn’t been for so long, besieged as she was by both insomnia and terrible dreams that would not let her rest. But now she fell properly asleep, and didn’t know how long it was when she suddenly jarred awake. At first, she couldn’t remember at all where on earth she was.

Then it came back to her. She’d had to move, to Cornwall, and was in a brand-new house that was incredibly quiet except . . .

CRUMP!

The noise that had awakened her came again. As well as some shouting and a fair bit of cursing. Well, it might have been cursing, she couldn’t quite tell: the language didn’t sound like English.

Carefully, her heart beating fast, she moved out of the bedroom and towards the main door of the little house, where she could see through the kitchen window.

Outside was a group of large, quarrelling men fighting beside a van. Terrified they’d spot her through the glass, she half-crouched behind it. They were all shouting at each other in a language she didn’t understand, and there was a lot of banging. She couldn’t tell if they actually were angry, or whether it was just because she didn’t understand their tongue. Then one of them made an unmistakable gesture at another. Oh. Properly annoyed then.

The object of their ire became clear: the lovely wooden steps up to the front door, necessitated by the steep gradient of the hill this far up. Marisa wondered what it was they were supposed to be unloading from the van and manoeuvring up the steps. Perhaps it was a washing machine. She already had one of those, brand-spanking-new too. Marisa hadn’t expected to get so excited about a new washer-dryer, but there you go. It had been a quiet few months

As she watched, though, it became clear this wasn’t a washing machine at all. In fact, she watched with mounting horror as the object slowly emerged from the van onto a trolley – it was a huge black piano. Not a grand but even so, the idea of them getting it up the delicate wooden steps was somewhat concerning.

There was a lot more shouting and she retreated to the other side of the sitting room. Oh God. Were they all moving in? With a piano? She thought back. Of course. Her new neighbour. He was the children’s piano teacher. But . . . at the school, surely. He was the school music teacher, right? It hadn’t occurred to her at all that he would have a pianohere. Surely he did it all up at the school? This was a rental – who put a piano in a rental?

CRUMP. There was another loud bang on the side of the house How thick were these walls anyway? she wondered. She had assumed that nothing could possibly be worse than Caius’ party-threesome house.

Perhaps she had been incorrect in this assumption.

She looked around the pristine sitting room, with its gorgeous views and pale beachy colours. Well, it had been a dream home for . . . almost an hour.

No, no, maybe it would be lovely. It would be lovely. A little bit of tinkling piano. It would be lovely maybe.

SNAP!

Oh my God, was that a step?

Chapter Eleven

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