Page 23 of Sunrise By the Sea

‘You don’t need to stay, Daddy,’ said Avery.

‘I will,’ said Huckle. ‘But I’ll just take a call outside, okay, you guys? I’m right here.’

The two little ones scampered into the house and Mr Batbayar left the door ajar and disappeared with them into the house.

Huckle smiled apologetically at Marisa.

‘Hello,’ he said. ‘You’re one of Reuben’s newbies. How’s it going?’

Marisa froze. All she could think of was ‘Oh, you’re American’ which was a fairly ridiculous thing to say to someone who presumably already knew they were American. A bright flush stole over her.

But he seemed very nice and gentle. She could . . . She was standing in her own doorway. She was safe. She was fine. She forced herself to stay put.

‘Uh . . . it’s good,’ she said. ‘Bit noisy.’

Huckle frowned and looked around. It wasn’t like Mount Polbearne to have noise issues; they weren’t on any flight paths, and there were very few cars. The masts clattered in the harbour from time to time, that was about it.

Marisa nodded towards next door.

‘Oh, of course! Oh, how nice to live next to all that music . . . oh.’

He saw her face.

‘Well, you get out to work, don’t you?’

‘Um . . . I work from home.’

‘Oh.Oh.’ He smiled. ‘Well, good luck. You might learn a lot.’

From the open door came the noise of very small fingers doing their best to find middle C.

‘Uh-huh,’ said Marisa.

Huckle’s phone rang again and with an apologetic grin he moved across the way to take the call.

Marisa felt rather proud of herself for at least managing that much of a conversation. Before she could think better of it, she quickly stuck the note in the little ornate postbox on the porch, then disappeared inside.

Then she immediately changed her mind and wanted to go outside again and retrieve it but she couldn’t because Huckle was there and instead she decided that throwing herself into work was probably a good way not to have to think about what she’d just done. She then went and redid the entirety of the next year’s budget, saving the department about five per cent, as it happened, and got so thoroughly engrossed, and was listening to Biffy Clyro so loudly through her headphones that she completely missed the knocking on her door the first time. She heard it the second.

Chapter Eighteen

Oh God. She was going to get murdered. The children must have left their lesson everyone else must have gone. She was completely alone. She glanced out to sea. The sky had clouded over; everything looked heavy and grey.

Perhaps she could pretend she wasn’t in.

Bang! Bang! Bang! Bang!

Oh God, how would that even work? She couldn’t do that.

She sighed. She knew the note had been a bad idea. He was going to be furious. This was awful. Everything was awful. Her heart was racing. Maybe she could go and hide in the bathroom again.

But she couldn’t hide for ever.

Maybe she could.

No. No she couldn’t.

‘Hello?! Hello?!’

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