Page 6 of Sunrise By the Sea

‘Sure,’ he said. ‘Worth a shot.’

‘I didn’t know they knew about each other.’

‘Yeah, well, I didn’t originally plan it like that but . . .’

If the situation hadn’t been so awful, Marisa might have appreciated it: typical Caius to be cheating on two people and for them to immediately forgive him and want to move in with him.

He lifted his hand in a ‘what can you do when you’re so attractive?’ gesture.

‘So,’ he said, pulling round his laptop and showing her something, ‘come look at this.’

She flinched. Even with Caius, she didn’t like getting too close to other people. He rolled his eyes.

‘Look! Look at the picture.’

She squinted down to see what he was showing her. It was a little chalet perched on top of what looked like a hill, surrounded by water.

‘What is that?’

He shrugged. ‘My uncle Reuben. Lives down in Cornwall?’

Marisa had heard of this legendary uncle, who owned a huge estate, had his own beach, his own tech company, was rich even compared to Caius’ incredibly rich family and was also apparently the biggest dickhead anyone had ever met.

‘Well, he built these chalets for tourists staycationing this year and then everyone looked at the tearing rain and went to Spain instead so they’re just sitting there. And I figured, seeing as you’re not really going to work these days it doesn’t matter where you are . . . and you want peace and quiet and I . . . don’t want that . . .’

It was true. Armed with a letter from her GP, Marisa had finally made an official request to work from home for the foreseeable future. It was a headache for Nazreen and made Marisa miserable and guilty, but it had just got too difficult for her.

‘Where is it?’ said Marisa suspiciously.

‘I mean, it’s very picturesque . . .’

‘Where?’

‘I can’t . . . one of those limey words. I want to say Potbeans?’

She looked at him.

‘Mount Polbearne?’

Everyone knew Mount Polbearne. It was a remote tidal island off the southern coast of Cornwall; a tourist attraction, but a tiny place.

‘You know it?’

‘Of course I know it – it gets completely cut off for half of every day and you can’t own a car there and in the winters it gets cut off for months and you’re miles from anywhere.’

‘I thought,’ said Caius, ‘that would beperfectfor you.’

The bell rang. Marisa looked up worriedly.

‘Uh, yeah, the guys are just coming over to . . . hang?’ said Caius hopefully, as Marisa dived back into her room.

Chapter Five

The party noise that night was . . . prolonged. Marisa tucked her head under her pillow and found she was too exhausted even to cry. Sleeping had been hard for so long – possibly because she was taking so little physical exercise she simply wasn’t tiring herself out enough. But this was pushing her beyond her limits.

She looked at the link Caius had sent over. Well. It was there, it was available and it was a lot less than she was paying at the moment to live in a lovely two bed right in the middle of a vibrant city, even though she couldn’t take a single step into that vibrant city; she barely looked out of the window.

And what choice did she have? Nobody wanted her, not really. She couldn’t face crashing her mother’s full life with her sadness and gloom; her mother had loved her own father, of course, but she had taken a more pragmatic view. Life was for living and celebrating: he had been old, very old, and had had a long and happy life with a family he adored and a job which, while it didn’t make him a rich man, had made him a satisfied one. So the blubbing and the dressing gowns at teatime seemed to her mother self-indulgent at best; at worst, an active insult to a man who lived and loved and worked his whole life. Marisa didn’t know how to bridge the chasm between her mother and herself. She didn’t know how to bridge the chasm between herself and the rest of the world.

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