Page 33 of Coming Home to Sturcombe Bay
Liam was on bat, and he walloped the ball out towards the boundary. The fielder stopped it with his foot, inches before it crossed the boundary and tossed it quickly back to the wicket keeper, but Liam just got his bat over the line before he could be stumped.
All the home supporters cheered as Ollie, who was on the scoreboard, added the three runs to their total.
“Doesn’t Ollie play?” Cassie asked her mum.
“He’d like to, but he often gets called away to an emergency so that would disrupt the team.” She laughed. “He’s training Noah up to be his substitute.”
The little boy was proudly slotting the old numbers back into their box and standing alert for the next score.
Nanna and Arthur were still cheerfully arguing. “No, you silly old duffer. Mavis Tuckett married that Ronald Witheycombe from over by Tavistock, and they went off to Australia.”
“Silly old duffer yourself, Edie Channing. It were her sister Doreen married Ronald Witheycombe. Mavis never got married. She lived with her mum and worked over at the hotel as a chambermaid for years.”
“Don’t you call me a silly old duffer, Arthur Crocombe . . .”
Helen Channing laughed fondly. “They’re happy.”
Chapter Six
After lunch the home team were fielding. They had run up a good score on their innings — a hundred and sixty-one for seven — so the visitors had a tough target to beat. Liam and Tom were bowling. They were a good pair — Tom the fastest, Liam with a mean leg spin. Together they made it difficult for the batsmen to settle into a regular strike.
Between his turn to bowl Liam was out on the boundary. It was pleasantly lazy out there in the sunshine. This was what he had always loved about village cricket — the chance to stand around on a sunny afternoon with not much to do but listen to the birds and the bumblebees and smell the freshly mown grass of the wicket.
Across on the other side of the field he could see his small daughter sitting on the picnic blanket with his mother and his sister-in-law.
And Cassie.
She was wearing a pair of loose navy-blue shorts which showed off her long, elegant legs, and a bright yellow cotton shirt knotted around her waist, flashing brief glimpses of her tanned, toned midriff . . .
Tom was getting ready to start his run-up, and Liam snapped his attention back to the game. Cassie Channing was a distraction he didn’t need.
* * *
“Who wants an ice-cream then?” Julia opened her cool box and with a magician’s flourish produced a pack of choc ices.
“Me!” The children bounced up excitedly, hands out to plead for the treat.
“And what do you say?”
“Please!”
Laughing, she passed them out, offering them to the grown-ups too. Lisa had finished feeding Kyra and laid her on the blanket. Noah was waving her yellow plastic rattle for her and she was batting at it with her tiny pink fists.
Robyn was watching, wide-eyed. “Why don’t I have a baby sister?” she asked Julia.
Ooops! Awkward. The adults looked at each other. How to explain that one?
“Maybe one day,” Julia managed.
“When I’m eighteen?”
“Er . . .”
“Like my tappoo!”
Phew!
“Mummies and daddies can have babies when they get married,” Amy pronounced solemnly. “My mummy’s going to get married to Uncle Bill, and then they can have a baby.”
