Page 49 of Secrets and Seashells at Rainbow Bay
‘Good idea.’ I smile at Benji and place my hand on his arm. ‘What would I do without you?’ As I realise how this sounds, my face reddens.
‘It’s okay,’ Benji says, sensing my embarrassment. He pats my hand still resting on his arm companionably ‘The feeling is completely mutual, I can assure you.’
‘Can I join you in the sun?’ a voice calls across the courtyard, and we see Tom walking towards us carrying his own plate. ‘The rest of the courtyard is in shade at the moment.’
‘Sure, come on over,’ I call, and Benji and I shuffle along the bench a little so there’s room for three.
‘I feel like I’m interrupting,’ Tom says as we all sit in a line on the bench. ‘The two of you looked deep in conversation when I came outside.’
‘Don’t be silly,’ I say. ‘You’re not interrupting at all. We were just chatting, weren’t we, Benji?’
‘Absolutely.’
‘How’s the spring cleaning going upstairs?’ Tom asks. ‘Joey told me you’d decided to have a go at clearing those unused rooms against Arthur’s advice.’
‘Gossip travels fast around here! Yes, I am, and it’s going very well right now, thank you.’
‘Glad to hear it.’ Tom takes a large bite of his sandwich.
‘Talking of gossip, I don’t suppose you’ve found any up there?’ Benji asks. ‘It would save me a job if you did.’
‘Nope, nothing as yet, but I have decided to hold a car boot sale.’
Benji snorts with laughter, as Tom hurriedly swallows his mouthful of sandwich, before asking, ‘Where? Here?’
‘Yes, here; what’s wrong with that? There’s loads of old junk up there. It’s stuff that we really don’t need to keep, but someone else might like. I thought it would be a good way of raising some extra cash for the renovations.’
The money that the last Earl left me was diminishing fast, and I was starting to worry that I would run out before we got everything up and running.
‘Your idea is admirable,’ Benji says, ‘but a car boot sale? There’s not many cars around here – a horse and carriage sale maybe?’
‘Okay, ayardsale then. No, make that acourtyardsale. We can set up some tables right here, and invite people to come and sell their stuff alongside our old tat. It might be fun. Our first proper event.’
‘There’re some trestle tables in one of the sheds – I saw them the other day when I was looking for some tools,’ Tom suggests helpfully. ‘They’d be perfect.’
‘Great.’
‘It’s not a bad idea, actually,’ Benji admits. ‘Now you’ve omitted the car boot part.’
‘Glad to hear you approve. I’ll talk to Arthur later about some possible dates.’
‘Be careful what you select to throw out, though, won’t you?’ Benji warns. ‘Remember one man’s trash is another man’s treasure.’
‘And one woman’s rubbish is another tile on the floor of our tea room!’ I remind him. ‘Don’t worry, I’ll be careful. If there’s anything worth discovering up in those rooms, then I’m going to find it!’
Nineteen
After lunch I return to my sorting. The afternoon is much like the morning – three piles, and this time I remember the bin bags, so one of the piles quickly becomes a mound of black shiny plastic.
I’m just thinking it might be time to call it a day, so I’ve time to smarten myself up a little before collecting Charlie from school, when I discover an old tea chest. It had been hidden in the corner of the room behind what I’d thought was an old roll of carpet, but in fact turned out to be a very large Persian-style rug.
I’m about to leave it until I come back tomorrow, when I notice that the box seems to be filled with books. Nothing new there, I’ve already found enough old books to start a second library downstairs, but these books seem different: from the outside they look like leather-bound notebooks. I lift one from the box, expecting it to be filled with more tiny print – my ancestors’ eyesight must have been a lot better than mine is, to be able to read all the fine print I’ve seen today. Perhaps they’d all worn glasses?
But as I open the cover of this book, immediately I see it’s different.
The writing inside is still tiny, but instead of coming from a printing press the words have been written with a fountain pen.
‘It’s a diary!’ I say as I notice the first entry has a date. ‘Oooh, I wonder who wrote it—’
