Page 24 of Summer in Sunset Harbour
A rustle of sound made her spin round. The basket was eight feet off the ground, its handles caught by a hook made out of a wire coat hanger. Leaning over the wooden guard rail of the platform overhead, a man with a thick grey beard was pulling on a rope attached to the hanger, the basket slowly rising through the air.
‘Hey!’
Josie jumped, fingertips just catching the basket’s bottom, but not enough to get a decent grip. She stumbled forwards onto her hands and knees as the basket rose over the guard rail. For a moment, the man’s eyes met with Josie’s, then he ducked out of sight.
Josie sat up and rolled over. Only as she did so, did she feel a stab of pain in her knee where she had landed on a protruding stone. It had cut right through a section of her jeans that was already frayed, digging deep into the skin of her kneecap. Blood pooled in a deep gash, running through her fingers.
As she felt in her pocket for a handkerchief, Josie looked up at the treehouses above her, then thumped her hands on the ground. She opened her mouth to shout something meaningful, but all that would come out was an angry, frustrated scream. When she looked up, four faces quickly ducked back out of sight.
‘If Nat doesn’t mindthem being there, there’s not a lot you can do,’ Hilda said. ‘I mean, you said you offered them the basket of food, so it’s not like they stole it by taking it, is it? And you said you tripped over?’
Josie ran a hand through her hair. ‘I can’t do it anymore,’ she said. ‘I just can’t.’
‘I know the local police constable,’ Hilda said, a note of desperation in her voice. ‘He lives down in the village. Do you want me to have a word?’
Josie, slumped over in the chair, pushed herself upright. ‘No, it’s okay. I’ll go if you tell me where I can find him. I need a walk to clear my head.’
‘Oh, he lives down in one of the harbourside cottages,’ Hilda said. ‘Do you want me to call him first, just to make sure he’s in?’
Josie shook her head. ‘I’ll surprise him,’ she said, forcing a smile. ‘That way he’ll have less chance to plan his escape.’
The policeman,predictably, wasn’t home. As Josie gave his doorbell another desperate ring, however, she couldn’t help but feel a sense of satisfaction in this latest failure. Like a bout of self-flagellation, she probably deserved it. After all, everything she had tried to do in recent memory had failed. She had tried to be a good mother, a good wife. A good teacher. Even her ability to be a good friend to Hilda was slipping, like a section of cliff about to give way. And being some kind of free spirit entrepreneur resurrecting an abandoned campsite was as laughable as it was sad.
She staggered away from the policeman’s cottage, feeling a half-hearted sense of jealousy at how pretty his house was, and wandered down to the harbourside. Too tired even to sit on one of the benches lined up with a view of the harbour and the cliffs, instead she just slumped to the ground, feet dangling over the harbourside wall.
Had the water been more than a gentle trickle or perhaps the fall—five feet at best—great enough to cause any damage, she could have just pitched herself over. As it was, she simply stared down into the murky green, weed drifting in the slow-moving water as though it might present her with an answer.
She could see her own reflection in there, a vague outline of a human, against a backdrop of mockingly cloudless sky, and—
—a looming figure, leaning over her, one hand lifting to push her over the edge—
‘Jose! Jose, is that you?’
A heavy hand cracked down on Josie shoulder, and she looked up to see Cathy Ubbers-Benson leaning over her. One hand still lay on her shoulder, the other clutched an enormous bundle of white sheets.
‘Oh, hi. Cathy, isn’t it?’
The hand clapped down again. Josie suppressed a wince of pain.
‘The very same! Oh, you remember! It’s like we were born to be best friends. What’s this, ice-cream time?’
‘Ah, no. I was just thinking about something.’
‘Come on, love, tell Auntie Cathy all about it!’
‘Auntie’ Cathy was at least fifteen years younger than Josie, perhaps more, but the huge, jovial woman couldn’t surely make matters worse.
‘You don’t know where I can find the local policeman?’ she asked. ‘I’m after some help from emergency services. I didn’t want to worry anyone with a call out, though.’
‘Love, I don’t, but if it’s emergency services you need, perhaps my daddy can help. He’s a volunteer fireman, don’t you know?’
‘Really?’
‘Yeah, best in the village.’ Cathy chortled. ‘Only one in the village, but we’ll keep quiet about that, won’t we?’
Images of siege towers moving up against castle battlements came to mind. Josie looked up. ‘I don’t suppose I could borrow a ladder?’
Cathy’s father,Colin Ubbers, had one in his shed which Cathy was happy to loan out.
