Page 49 of A Secret Cornish Wish
I look at Rob.
‘What’s that look for?’ he asks, smiling at me.
‘I just never saw you doing am-dram, that’s all.’ I grin. ‘When we were at school, you were really worried about being on stage with us that time, and back then you were into your rock music and your guitar.’
‘I can do both, can’t I?’ Rob says, still smiling.
‘Do you still play?’
‘Of course. Not as much as I’d like, but I still have my guitar with me at uni – except it’s an electric one now, which I have to play with headphones plugged in or I get complaints from my housemates.’
‘Fair enough.’
‘And you’ve clearly not noticed my T-shirt.’ Rob sits back so I can see the emblem on his black T-shirt a little better. It’s a yellow smiling face with its tongue sticking out.
‘Nirvana,’ I say knowingly.
‘It is indeed.’
I open up my shirt and show him my T-shirt.
‘Ha ha! Great minds!’ Rob says, seeing my own T-shirt with the same emblem, but in black on a white shirt. ‘Things don’t change that much, then?’
‘Look at me.’ I gesture to my clothes. ‘Do I look like I’ve grown out of being a rock chick?’
‘Bit more grunge in there now, though.’ Rob grins, looking me up and down. ‘Mixed with a tad more art student.’
‘I’m going to take that as a compliment,’ I say. ‘I’m never going to be elegantly strutting my stuff down the catwalk in a designer dress like Cindy Crawford now, am I?’
‘Do you want to be?’ Rob tilts his head a little. ‘I’ve always liked the fact you’re you, and you don’t try to be anyone else.’
My cheeks pink a little at his compliment.
‘Thanks,’ I murmur, feeling suddenly embarrassed. ‘And I like the fact you can be rocking out on your electric guitar one minute and prancing around on a stage the next.’
‘I don’t do much prancing.’ Rob winks. ‘But I’ll let you off.’
We stare at each other, and for a brief moment it feels like we’ve never left this spot, this town or each other.
There’s a splashing sound in the waves below, but we don’t turn to look at it. We still only have eyes for the person opposite.
The splashing sound intensifies and we both turn to look down into the sea below us.
‘Did you see that?’ Rob says, staring hard into the waves, which are now rhythmically rolling into Morvoren Cove again as if nothing has happened. ‘It looked a bit like . . . you know . . . Do you even remember?’
‘Of course I remember.’ I turn my gaze back from the sea to look at him. ‘Like you, I remembereverythingfrom back then. It looks like it might have returned.’
‘Or . . . ’ Rob says slowly, looking into my eyes once more. ‘Perhaps it never went away . . . ’
And I’m pretty sure neither of us are talking about the splashing in the waves any more.
Thirteen
Claire looks so pretty as she walks down the aisle of St Nicholas, the tiny, but quaint little church in St Felix, that I feel quite emotional.
Her dress is pure white silk, has a fitted bodice, long leg-of-mutton sleeves and a voluptuous full skirt with layers of tulle underneath to push it out even further. On her head she wears a delicate ring of flowers framing her face, and her light auburn hair is pinned up at the sides and styled in loose ringlets. Her huge bouquet of flowers only makes her tiny frame seem even smaller as she walks on the arm of her father, beaming happily at all her guests.
The pews both sides of the aisle are packed full of Claire and Jonathan’s friends and family, and it’s halfway down on one side of the church that the mermaids sit squashed together on one of the wooden pews.
