Page 22 of Coming Home to Sturcombe Bay
“They might be better if you’d let the dentist fit them properly,” Cassie offered gently.
“Dentists! As bad as doctors. And they callmea fussy old woman! I’ve got nothing on them for fussy, the lot of ’em. Now, come and sit by your old Nanna and talk to me.”
Cassie concealed her eye-roll as she went to fetch a chair so that she could sit close to her grandmother. “How are you feeling?” she asked.
“Pretty well, considering I’m dying. Oh, don’t look so upset about it — I’m quite settled to it in my mind. It’s time. Ninety-three years is more than enough for anyone.” She reached over for a biscuit and dunked it in her tea. “You know, I was just fifteen when I first met your grandfather. He was a cadet at the Royal Naval College in Dartmouth.” She smiled dreamily. “I thought he was the most handsome man I had ever met.”
Cassie had heard the story many times, but she wasn’t going to interrupt Nanna’s happy reminiscences. “I’ve seen his photos.” She glanced at the old wedding photo on the sideboard. “He certainly was handsome. He could have been a film star.”
It was the right thing to say. Nanna beamed. “He could, too. When we went out together, all the girls envied me for being on his arm.”
“And I bet the boys envied him just as much, for having you.”
Nanna chuckled. “Well, yes — maybe they did, maybe they did.” She went on nodding to herself, seeming to drift into memories.
“You didn’t get married for quite a few years after you met, did you?” Cassie prompted.
“No. He had his heart set on a career at sea.” Nanna sighed. “It had been his ambition since he was ten years old, to be the captain of a Royal Navy ship. I knew I couldn’t ask him to give that up for me. If he had, sooner or later he would have started to feel restless, and in the end he would have resented me for holding him back.” She fixed Cassie with a look full of meaning. “So, he followed his dream, and I waited. It was the right thing to do.”
Cassie acknowledged the truth of that with a wry smile. “Just like it was probably right for me too, to go away. But you werelucky, you married him in the end, so you both got what you wanted.”
“I did. Fifty-two years we were married.” She closed her eyes again. “What’s meant to be is meant to be.”
She seemed to have fallen asleep again. Cassie sipped her own tea, her mind drifting back in time. Nanna had always understood her thirst to travel — she said she had inherited the wanderlust gene from her grandfather.
It was Nanna who had encouraged her to believe that she could make the dream come true. Who had nudged her into taking her PADI diving certificates, paying for the courses as a birthday present. Who had suggested that she look on the internet for information about how to get a work visa for the USA.
Then when she was seventeen, she had met Liam Ellis. Well, she had known him all her life, of course — he had been one of her brother’s best friends since they were at school. But she’d just been Paul’s kid sister, tagging along with the gang, probably a bit of a tomboy, determined not to be left out.
But that Easter he’d come home from university in Bristol to help out in his dad’s veterinary practice. And of course he’d been invited to Lisa’s twenty-first birthday party. The memories were still so vivid . . .
* * *
The house was crowded. The furniture had been moved to make space, and people were dancing in the sitting room, nattering in the kitchen, queuing for the bathroom. And probably doing other things in Lisa’s and Paul’s bedrooms among the coats.
The big joke was that Lisa’s boyfriend Ollie and his medical student mates had brought along a stack of cardboard urinal bottles for people to drink out of instead of glasses.
Cassie had made a bit of an effort to look nice. Her mum had taken her into Exeter to get her hair trimmed, and the hairdresser had suggested she change to a centre parting. And Mum had bought her a pretty top in a soft emerald green, with a handkerchief hem. Though she’d insisted on wearing it with her usual jeans.
She’d been carting a bag of empty beer cans out to dump them in the dustbin. As she came back into the kitchen, she found Liam Ellis spreading a lump of French bread with a thick layer of butter.
“Oh!” Her heart thumped.
He turned and smiled at her, a flicker of surprise in his eyes as they skimmed over her. “Hello. I was just nicking some bread. I came straight down from Bristol and I haven’t had any supper.”
“Oh, that’s fine.” She felt as if she’d been running. “Help yourself — there’s plenty. Would you like some ham or cheese with it?”
“Cheese would be good.”
She turned to the fridge, hoping he wouldn’t notice the blush of pink that had risen to her cheeks. “Here you are. Cheddar or Brie?”
“Cheddar will be fine.”
She got the knife out of the drawer, cut him a thick wedge, and put it on his bread. He flashed her another of those smiles as he bit into it.
“Great, thanks.”
“Would you like some more?”
