Page 38 of Summer in Sunset Harbour
‘That’s great news.’
‘I’m lucky to have a daughter capable of doing all the online stuff, while Lindsay, Geoffrey and Barney have been great around the camp. Then there’s Robinson … he’s done so much around the place when he’s been available.’
‘He’s a lovely man.’ Hilda grinned. ‘You should flutter your eyelashes at him a little more.’
Josie felt herself blushing. ‘Don’t be ridiculous. Tiffany was saying the same thing. I’m just not … not ready. And anyway, I don’t think … we’re not really suited, are we? He’s a … what, a handyman? He’s so practical. I’m not. I mean, I’m—I was—a teacher. I’ve spent my whole life indoors. He looks like he spends half his life on the beach. I spent half of mine in a darkened room.’
Hilda patted her on the arm. ‘Oh, Josie, you always assume so much. You know what he does for a living, don’t you?’
‘Fixes things?’
‘I admit that he’s got a knack for it. He installed the water lights in my pond and also repaired the frame around my mock Tudor entrance, but that’s just for a bit of spare change when he’s got nothing else on.’
‘That’s not his job?’
‘Goodness, no. He’s a geologist.’
‘A … geologist? Like, a scientist?’
‘He works for University College London, where he lectures. I think it’s exam period at the moment, which is why he keeps going back upcountry.’
‘Huh. And I was—’
‘A geography teacher?’
Josie smiled. ‘Yep.’
‘I don’t know what it is about the modern world, but people are always so afraid to ask questions that they prefer to just assume the answers. He’s a geologist; you’re a geography teacher. You’re more or less the same age, and you’re both single.’ Hilda grinned. ‘And you’re both divorced.’
‘Are we?’
‘Nat was telling me. She was a lecturer too, got offered a position in Edinburgh. It turned out one of the other lecturers up there was more than just a colleague.’
‘Oh my.’
‘And he has a son, Steven. He’s in the second year of a business degree at Reading University. Robinson often stops in to visit him on the way back down to Cornwall.’
‘Do you make notes on people?’
‘No, I’m just getting old. I’m not afraid to gossip because what does it matter to me anymore? I like to know about people, so I ask. Everything these days is filtered through a screen, people only giving up what they’re willing to tell, and expecting that other people are exactly the same.’ She clenched a fist and tapped it three times against the rock. ‘Just … ask … questions.’
‘All right. Why did you really need to walk all the way up here just to look at the sunset? And why did you want me to come?’
Hilda’s smile dropped. ‘I suppose I shouldn’t push my views on people quite so hard, should I? Ask the dog enough times to bite and it will, and all that.’
‘Come on. Share.’
‘Isn’t the sunset beautiful? I mean, it’s everything I expected it to be and more. Wouldn’t it be great if you could get those colours to streak in the petals of a rose?’
‘Hilda…?’
The old woman wasn’t listening, however. As the sun started to dip below the distant horizon, colours fanning around it as though it were melting into the moor itself, Hilda climbed down from the rock, shouldered her bag, picked up her stick, and started off back down the hill.
‘Come on,’ she called over her shoulder. ‘We really should be getting back to the bike. It’ll be getting dark soon, and I’m not as mobile as I used to be.’
For a few seconds, Josie just watched her friend’s back, before she gathered up her things and started down.
What was up with Hilda? For a woman so insistent that Josie be open and share her feelings, she had locked her own behind a closed door.
