Page 59 of Summer at Harbour View House
‘Huh?’
‘We booked it last night, after the party.’
‘You, ah, what?’
‘Isn’t it amazing? I so wish you could come with us, but I think Davey wants us to be alone. Squee! Honeymoon! I just can’t believe this. Thank you, Nat.’
‘I … ah, want to die.’
‘I left you a note on the table. There are a few people you need to call about the concert. I hadn’t quite finished, but I’ll be back next week, so don’t worry. I’m not moving out just yet, not until Davey and me find a place to live together. I’ve left my other two cases upstairs.’
‘Am I actually awake?’
A car horn beeped from outside. ‘Oh, that’s Matt,’ Hannah said. ‘He’s driving us to Newquay Airport.’
‘You can fly to Barbados from Newquay?’
Hannah giggled. ‘Don’t be silly. We’re flying up to Gatwick, and from there out to Barbados. I can’t wait! But I miss you already. Don’t worry, I’ll be back in a week, and I’ll tell you all about it.’
‘I should be alive by then.’
Hannah ran over and pulled Natasha into a hug which only made her stomach churn. ‘Thank you for everything,’ she said. ‘Right. Got to go.’
Natasha watched Hannah dance happily out of the door, then stumbled through into the kitchen. As though having paused while Hannah ran to the car, the rain began to pummel the windows, rattling against the glass. Natasha located coffee, cornflakes, and headache tablets, consuming them in that order. Then, after lying on the sofa for a while, watching bland morning television, she retrieved Hannah’s note.
Hannah’s handwriting was like her personality, hurried and extravagant. Natasha’s tired eyes slowly began to decode it. A second backing singer had agreed to appear, and it looked like Hannah had pulled off another scoop by convincing the keyboard player who had sued Eddie in the Nineties to put aside his grievances for one last show. Below that, there was another note: GET EDDIE TO CALL CURVE AND K.H.B.
Natasha couldn’t figure out what K.H.B. meant, but there was a number beside it which she assumed was for the former Cowslip guitarist.
And below it, finally, was another note.Ben: drums???
Natasha frowned. Ben had never said anything to her about playing drums. Lizzie had said Jago could play the guitar, and he had pulled it out at the wedding reception last night to hack his way through a couple of Beatles songs, but when she asked whether he could play lead guitar for a reformed hair metal band, he had burst into laughter, coughing a piece of walnut cake all over her.
‘Maid, you’s more likely to get a decent tune out of King James in his tank up there,’ he had told her. ‘I mean, I ain’t sayin’ I couldn’t, just that you’s more likely to empty the field and fill the pub.’
After breakfast, the rain stopped just long enough for her to take a walk down to Winter Vale Beach to clear her head. Much to her disappointment, there was a sign up on the lifeguard hut saying NO LIFEGUARD ON DUTY TODAY, and the beach itself, battered by a freezing wind, was deserted. She walked to the shore, but then the rain returned, so she made a hasty retreat back to the house.
With little else to do, she decided to start calling the numbers left on Hannah’s list. She felt ridiculous as she climbed up into the loft, but Hannah, who had obviously spent a lot of time up here recently, had tidied it, prised the boards off a small skylight window at the end, and even put a couple of freshly potted plants on the windowsill. Natasha, sitting on an upturned bucket by the little window, looking out at the churning English Channel through glass smeared with dirt and rain, put her phone to her ear and called the Curve.
It rang for a long time. She was just about to give up, when a hissy voice said, ‘Yes?’
‘Ah, is this the ah … Curve?’
‘Yes.’
Natasha took a deep breath and adopted the best phone voice she could muster. ‘Ah, this is Natasha Bright. I’m calling about your possible participation in a Cowslip reunion concert on August 31st, in Penkoe, Cornwall, in aid of local facilities and properties under threat from outside investors.’
‘I know that. The other girl told me.’
‘So, um, I can count you in? We’re happy to pay your expenses. St. Austell has some wonderful B&Bs….’
‘No.’
‘Oh well, that’s too bad. Isn’t there any way we can convince you.’
‘He wronged me.’
‘Ah … who?’
