Page 13 of Summer in Sunset Harbour
Hilda let out a giggle that made Josie cringe. ‘Don’t pretend you didn’t notice. Did you see how I dropped that point about your divorce in there, just so he knows that you’re single?’
‘I’m really not interested in painter and decorators.’
‘They probably earn more than singer-songwriters.’
Josie couldn’t help but smile. ‘Even so, I’m still not interested. Even if I did like him—which I don’t—I can’t even think about that kind of stuff right now. It’s all too … fresh.’
‘Oh, Josie, you’re such a cynic.’
‘I am not. I’m an optimist. That’s why I’m still here instead of running for the bus stop to escape.’
‘So, you’ve decided to stay?’
Josie let out a long sigh. ‘Only until the next thing goes wrong.’
Hilda hopped up and down on one foot. ‘How wonderful. Come on, let’s go and get some coffee at mine. I want to show you a couple of my new rose designs. You know, a company in Japan offered me half a million for my patent on a new blue rose design I’m working on. I’m not sure whether to accept or not.’
‘You even need to think about it?’
‘Money isn’t everything,’ Hilda said.
‘So, it’s coffee at your cavernous, five-bedroomed house—’
‘Six, dear. Five not including mine.’
‘Your six-bedroomed house, and then you’ll wave me goodbye as I trudge off to my dirty little cabin in the woods, where my chances of becoming a serial killer’s victim are approximately five-hundred times greater?’
Hilda grinned and patted Josie on the arm. ‘The greater the challenge, the greater the reward, dear.’
8
Sea Currents
Despite barricadingthe door to her shack with an old table, Josie slept poorly, waking up to incessant rain outside. As she peered out of the door, wondering whether she would find a wicker man erected in the clearing outside, she couldn’t help but feel a pang of regret that Hilda had convinced her to stay.
First things first. As a teacher, making lists and keeping notes had kept her from going insane or being crushed beneath a pile of unfinished tasks. She stared out at the remains of the campsite, mentally taking stock of everything, wondering where she ought to start.
There was nothing much that could be done outside with the rain, but there were a number of cabins hidden away among the trees. She grabbed a raincoat and an umbrella and headed out. Within a few steps her shoes were caked with sloppy mud, and she could feel it getting right down into her toes. Wellington boots went on the list.
She found eight cabins, all padlocked. While vines had reclaimed a couple, through grimy windows the insides looked in relatively good order, even if the décor was a little out of date.
It was likely Nat had the padlock keys hidden away somewhere, but with no inclination to trudge up a muddy hillside to his house, she went looking around the campsite instead, wondering what else she might find. The play barn in the centre was also padlocked, but wandering about in the rain, she came across the shower and toilet block Nat had mentioned, with taps that actually worked, and to her even greater surprise, had hot water. While the drains immediately began to back up, clogged with years of mud and fallen leaves, the warm water felt good on her hands, and she even managed a smile.
‘Come on, Josie,’ she muttered to herself, glancing up at the tree canopy overhead as she realised that for the first time that morning the rain had actually stopped.
Things were looking up.
Near the edge of the trees, where the gravel road entered the forest, she found an old signboard lying in the hedge, its wooden legs rotted away. The surface, however, was durable plastic, and after wiping off thirty years of crusted dirt, she found herself presented with a map of the park.
To her surprise, there was a welcome cabin which doubled as a camping shop hidden behind vegetation not twenty yards away. After digging her way through ferns, brambles and vines, she peered through a grimy window to see a line of keys hung up on hooks behind a reception counter. The door itself required a regular key—which she of course didn’t have—but things were still looking up.
The map threw up some other surprises, too. It turned out that the tower thing she had found was a helter-skelter, the tallest permanent structure in Cornwall, and part of a wider children’s park and play area which included a section called ‘Treetop Adventure Land’. Josie scowled at a cartoonish picture of several interconnected treehouses with smiling children playing among the walkways, and vowed to reclaim them.
An hour later,she found herself trudging down the path to Nathaniel’s place. This time, Robinson was nowhere to be seen, but Nathaniel was outside, standing by a giant piece of driftwood, chipping away at it with a knife.
He grinned when she told him what she wanted.
‘Ah, maid, I don’t have coin for anything like that,’ he said. ‘Me’s a man of simple means.’
