Page 27 of Summer in Sunset Harbour
Barney’s head lifted. ‘Do you think?’
Geoffrey gave him a supportive pat on the shoulder. Josie smiled again. ‘Yes. I think that would be a good idea. Or perhaps give them to a children’s home or something. I bet none of those kids will ever have worn anything like that.’
‘I’m a size twelve.’
Josie grimaced. ‘Well, perhaps some of them have big feet.’
‘They could use them as flowerpots,’ Geoffrey said. ‘Avant-garde.’
Lindsay was still glaring at Josie. ‘You think you have all of the answers, don’t you?’
Josie held her gaze, seeing not only anger there in Lindsay’s eyes, but resentment, and a little hopelessness too. Whatever the older woman had been through in life, she felt certain her own troubles paled in comparison.
‘No,’ she said. ‘I don’t have the answers. But I think that I’m starting to find some of them.’ Then, unable to resist, she added, ‘How many answers did Mike give you?’
‘Mike,’ Geoffrey and Barney said together, both smiling. ‘We had a number done on us there.’
‘What do you mean?’
Geoffrey chuckled. ‘Among other things, St. Michael is the patron saint of banking and the police. We showed up here to escape everything he represents, and every evening he laughs in our face.’
‘It’s like being in purgatory,’ Barney said.
‘Is that why Dennis left?’
‘Oh, no,’ Geoffrey said. ‘He just got tired of walking down into the town to scrounge for food every night. Me, I enjoy the exercise.’
Josie stretched out her bad leg, feeling the tug on her hamstring. It felt better than before, a little tight, but she could probably walk on it.
‘I saw you’d been in the barn,’ she said.
‘Only so many games of rummy you can play before you lose your mind,’ Barney said.
‘Are any of you any good at table tennis?’
‘Lindsay has a wicked forehand,’ Geoffrey said, to which Lindsay just gave a sharp shake of her head and a hiss of denial.
‘Well, my friend is rather good, and I’m terrible. I wouldn’t mind a bit of practice. Doubles?’
‘Bagsy with Lindsay,’ Barney said.
‘And afterwards, how about you come to my cabin for something to eat? I have a bit of food in, and perhaps you might be a little more comfortable there than in this treehouse.’
Geoffrey and Barney immediately nodded. Lindsay glared at the floor for a few seconds, before grudgingly saying, ‘Well, if you’re both going, I suppose I might as well.’
Lindsay,it turned out, indeed did have a wicked forehand, but her anger made it misfire frequently, and with some steady defensive play, concentrating on getting the ball over the net while waiting for the other pair to make a mistake, Geoffrey and Josie came out narrow winners by two sets to one.
Afterwards, they went up to Josie’s cabin, where they set up a little barbeque outside, grilled some burgers and sausages that Josie had bought and even opened a bottle of wine.
‘So,’ Josie said, a little wine loosening her tongue, asking the question her nose had been dying to ask for the last hour. ‘Do you wash in the sea?’
‘Sea or the stream down there,’ Geoffrey said. ‘Every few days.’
Josie wrinkled her nose. ‘How about your clothes?’
‘Oh, when we get a warm enough day. They don’t dry out all that quick when it’s cold and there’s so much rain in the air.’
‘Right. I was wondering about that.’
