Page 129 of A Secret Cornish Wish
‘Oh, yes?’ Muriel pricks her ears up. ‘What sort of things?’
I tell Muriel all about my experiences in St Felix with what may have been a mermaid. From our first encounter with the barrel full of supposed treasure, to our wishes, and the splashing and huge fishes’ tails we’ve witnessed over the years.
‘Is there anything else?’ she asks when I’ve finished.
‘Isn’t that enough?’ I smile, feeling like a huge weight has been lifted from me now I’ve told someone.
‘It’s plenty to be going on with. And have you found any of the mermaid’s treasure by any chance?’
‘I thought you said the treasure wasn’t real?’
‘Not that treasure. I said a mermaid’s treasure is much more likely to be something natural. There have been stories about a mermaid giving their necklace to a human piece by piece until they’ve collected it all. If they keep it, so it can be repaired and put together again, then they know the human they’ve helped is truly worthy. But if the human loses or discards the pieces they’ve presented to them, then they’ve failed and chosen badly.’
‘So what are these mermaid’s necklaces likely to be made of?’ I ask, although I’m pretty sure I know what Muriel is going to say.
‘Shells,’ she says, looking at my collection on the windowsill. ‘Very much like the ones you have over there.’
‘I met a really interesting woman today,’ I tell Claire that evening.
‘Really, who?’ Claire asks. Claire is currently running around looking for her phone before she heads out to a meeting of her organising committee for the school reunion. Which is only a couple of weeks away now.
‘It was the lady I told you about who commissioned the painting of Morvoren Cove. She came to collect it today.’
‘Oh, yes, the one with all the mermaids hidden in it. What was she like?’
I choose my words carefully. ‘Intriguing.’
‘How so? Oh, there it is!’ Claire finds her phone, where it often is when it goes missing, behind one of the cushions on the sofa.
‘She just was. Look, you’re in a hurry. I’ll tell you about her later. Oh, Claire, just before you go, you don’t happen to have a book of baby names lying around somewhere, do you?’
‘Why, you’re not pregnant are you?’ Claire grins as she pulls on her jacket. ‘Oh God, you’re not, are you? I mean, I know you and Mack are . . . ’
‘No!’ I say firmly. ‘I am not pregnant. Menopausal, perhaps. But not pregnant.’
‘Why do you want a baby book, then?’
‘I want to look up some names and their meanings, that’s all.’
Claire glances at the bookshelves stuffed with books. ‘No, I don’t think I have any more. I had one when the children were born, but I think we gave it to a charity shop. Why don’t you just look on the internet? There’s bound to be loads of websites full of names on there. Right, I have to go. See you later.’
‘Bye!’ I call as Claire dashes out of the door.
Why had I not thought of looking online? It was so easy these days, compared to when we were all at school and had to use encyclopaedias and the school library to find anything out. These days, all the information you could ever need was at the touch of a button.
I grab my phone and Google baby names.
Then I enter several very specific names into the search box, and I find exactly what I’m looking for . . .
Thirty-Eight
I awake the next morning to someone banging hard on our front door. After my internet search of baby names and their meanings, and what I subsequently discovered, it had taken me a while to fall asleep last night, so I’m not really with it as the prospect of a new day dawns.
It takes me a moment to realise that it is someone banging on the door, and not some workman or other doing repair work down the street.
Assuming Claire is up and probably answering the door, I lie back down again. But then I hear thundering again, but this time it’s the sound of someone rapidly climbing the stairs with purpose.
Claire doesn’t knock like she usually would. She simply flings opens the door, so I sit up.
