Page 57 of Sunrise By the Sea

And in fact, Storm Brian was starting to put on a pretty good show. The thunder was constant, and she could see lightning glance, as if someone was flicking a light on and off outside, even if she didn’t always catch the forks. The rain crashed against her windows so hard it sounded like hail. She went forwards to watch it more closely. The sea was foaming hard, a maelstrom of white, foaming like a washing machine. She shivered, thinking of boats out there on the sea. But they wouldn’t be out, would they? Everyone knew this storm was coming. They would have found safe harbour, wouldn’t they?

Even as she thought this, she caught the very distant outline of a huge container ship on the horizon. Goodness, she thought, concerned. Those things never fell over, did they? But even so she thought how frightening it must be, facing the great walls of crashing waves. Or perhaps they were used to it.

The thunder grew louder, if anything. But having been through the last storm she found she didn’t mind quite so much; was feeling rather cosy, if anything. She even started thinking about what she would make for supper – was considering a little aubergineparmigianaand had got those precise ingredients in, even if, sadly, just for one. She turned on the oven, then glanced out the back window. Already the little road was turning into a stream once more, with nowhere for the water to drain properly. Well. She could batten down the hatches and wait it out. And all the while knowing that if she had to get out, she could. She couldn’t believe how much better she felt than the last time.

She noticed that the oven had turned on, but the extractor hadn’t, just as she heard another, more distant, crack. She frowned, turned on the kitchen light. Nothing. Oh goodness. There was a power cut. She checked her phone, which was charged, because it was always charged. Even when she used to go out, Marisa was the kind of person who always kept her phone charged.

Okay, she thought. Okay. Don’t panic. She had 4G on her phone. She had charge. She had . . . She frowned. Did she have candles? Of course she did! In her bathroom!

Lighting all her scented candles at once gave a very distinctive pong to the room but did it give the place a rosy glow. Marisa added an extra jumper, and set about eating what was in her freezer. Thank goodness the oven was gas.

She should probably go and see Alexei, she thought. He almost certainly didn’t have a candle – what man had candles just lying around the place, unless they were trying to seduce someone, which as far as she could tell he absolutely never tried to do.

She wondered about his love life. Another musician maybe? A cellist, with hair to her knees. A great Amazon of a person, who could look him in the eye. A girl or a boy? Oh, a girl, he had said. An Amazon girl, she decided, with big long lily-white arms that were absolutely hypnotising as they swayed to and fro: beautiful Valkyrie legs either side of the cello. He would have been completely hypnotised, playing along with the orchestra – did they have a piano in orchestras? Marisa wasn’t a hundred per cent sure – and then he’d had to come to Britain to get this job and he’d had to leave her behind and he was full of powerful jealousy and that’s what made him so angry and making such crashing music all the time . . . Ooh, perhaps she was married to the chief of the orchestra, and he had a passionate Russian desire for her that could never be assuaged and therefore he’d had to flee his mother country to try and forget her, even though he never ever could. Marisa would have liked to have been the kind of terrifying girl no man could ever forget but she wasn’t quite sure how that would work.

So he’d gone to the furthest spot in the world to get away from a doomed love affair and now he was being regularly propositioned by the women in the village but his heart was true only to the cellist and—

Her reverie was interrupted by a steady banging on the door.

‘Marisa! Marisa!’

It was him.

Chapter Thirty-five

Startled, she jumped up, leaving the spoon in the ice cream, which wouldn’t balance, so she just took it with her.

She opened the door, the rain pouring down the lintels, the wind blowing round her ankles.

‘Um . . . ice cream?’ she said as she saw his large startled face.

‘This is not ice cream time,’ he said brusquely. Ah. Obviously their fight was not forgotten. No wonder the imaginary cellist had left him, she thought crossly.

‘This is obviously a time for ice cream,’ she said. ‘The power’s off, didn’t you know?’

‘Of course I know,’ growled Alexei. ‘I know what power cut is. But – we must go!’ he said. ‘Everyone must go. Is the . . . ?’

He waved his enormous hands crossly, searching for the word. Marisa looked at him.

‘The thing! That is between us!’

‘The door? The steps?’

‘The big thing!’

‘You?’

He flapped his hands, even more het up.

‘Is not funny! Come! The road. The road on the sea. The road that is on the sea.’

‘The causeway?’ gasped Marisa.

‘Yes! That! It is washink away! We must go!’

Marisa peered out fearfully into the flashes of lightning, the sheeting rain.

‘Yes!’

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