Page 102 of The Cornish Cream Tea Holiday
Chapter Twenty-Seven
As she walked, Thea soaked up her surroundings. The bright, cheery town, the way the buildings – some of them pale, some brightly coloured – looked like an assorted box of sweets, shiny and enticing in the June sunshine, and how that contrasted with the wildness of the craggy coastline, the blue-green expanse of the sea. She wanted to remember it all, to save it in her mind until the next time she was here, knowing a photo wouldn’t do it justice.
She walked along the harbour front, busy with tourists eating ice creams and throwing bread to seagulls already fat on discarded chips; past a family where the smallest, welly-clad boy was being held up by his dad to look through the telescope pointing out to sea. She got wafts of holiday aromas, of coffee and fried batter and the sharp scent from the fishing boats. It made her think of Ben and his barbecue event, starting later on the beach, and her stomach tightened with nerves.
She cut up the alleyway that led to Main Street, then took the smaller, less obvious path that snaked between houses, its steeper trajectory leading to the Old Post House’s hilltop position. She still couldn’t decide whether to go with Meredith and Finn, or stay away.
She wanted to try and talk to Ben one more time before she returned to Bristol, but she didn’t want to make that afternoon’s event about her.Ben was so often in the background, so the fact that he was putting himself on show meant he really cared about this, and she didn’t want to ruin it. Perhaps she could do something with Esme and Alex, then try and speak to him that evening.
She slid her hands into her pockets, looking for her phone, and found only the key Anisha had given her. She heaved herself up the last, steepest part of the hill, and the Old Post House came into view: neat chimneys first, then the tiled roof, then the rest of it in all its tatty, charming glory.
‘Hello,’ she said to the building, then looked behind her, checking nobody had overheared. But, it seemed, everyone was milling about the town centre, and she supposed there was no real reason for tourists to come up here since the post office had closed – unless they were taking the hiking trail she’d been on when she discovered it. She would have to come up with a marketing campaign to start her off:The views and books are worth it –something like that, only infinitely catchier.
She was musing on the wording, wondering why her vocabulary had chosen to desert her when she wanted to call on it most, as she took out the key Anisha had given her and unlocked the door. It creaked inwards, its hinges inneed of a good oil, and as she stepped into the gloomy interior, she heard something scuttling in a corner. She shuddered, hoping the spiders here weren’t big enough to be quitethatloud. She closed the door gently behind her and the whole frame shook, dust particles dancing in the air.
As Thea walked further into the room, golden light filtered through the admittedly grimy windows, touching everything with a warm, gentle glow. Her excitement built as she took it all in, the confirmation that – beyond the broken shelves and dented counter where the till used to be, through the dust and disuse – there were the makings of a wonderful bookshop. The staircase would have to be checked for stability –everywherewould have to be checked for stability – but once it was solid, she could have sections on the upper and lower floors, and make use of the whole building.
She did a small circuit of the downstairs space. The back corners, furthest from the sea-facing windows, were the creepiest. The shadows here were as thick as the dust, and there was a wonky bookshelf, bare apart from a small cluster of cuddly toys, the gleaming plastic eyes of a koala bear and a puppy staring out at her from their huddle. ‘Ugh.’ She patted her pockets again, thinking that she would be able to see things better with her phone torch.
Again, she came up with only the key to the building, and as she tapped her back pockets absent-mindedly, a memory flashed into her head: putting her phone on the side table at Sunfish Cottage before she pulled her boots on. The thought of Esme and Alex behind the bedroom door had made her hurry out without pausing, and she realised she didn’t have her phone with her. The thoughtwas slightly disconcerting, but not enough to make her give up on her tour.
She climbed the stairs gingerly, each tread creaking. The upper floor still held the remnants of Sylvia’s life, a few pieces of furniture that she must have decided she didn’t want. Thea wondered what it would be like to live here; to be trapped in the upstairs space like Rapunzel, and have most of your conversations through the open window.
She moved to the front of the building, because it was the views she really wanted to see. The windows were cleaner up here, the frame Sylvia had pushed up to get people’s attention clear of grime.
Beyond the glass, the sight didn’t disappoint. Port Karadow stretched ahead of her, a field of rooftops and squat chimney stacks, sliding down by degrees like the seats in a theatre circle, the glistening blue of the sea in the harbour the curved, faultless stage. It was magnificent. She could see how Sylvia had been reluctant to give it up: not just because this had been her home with Eric, but because she had a view that not many other people got to see.
Thea pressed her palms against the rough wood of the windowsill. She wished she had her phone with her, so she could take a photo through the glass. There was movement behind her, something shifting or scratching, and she shivered. At least there was a plan to get rid of the bats humanely. The spiders? She didn’t know what would happen to them. She imagined some kind of gentle fumigation, all the arachnids exiting the building like in that terrifying scene fromArachnophobia, and suddenly the glitter of the sea, the bright sunshine, was calling her.
She stood up straight and stretched her arms to the ceiling, then glanced at her watch. An hour and a half until Ben’s barbecue session with Marcus. Could she really miss it, when it meant so much to him, and she had come to realise that he meant a lot to her? She turned away from the window, the floorboards creaking, then the creak turned to a judder and there was a crashing, wrenching sound, so loud and close that Thea put her hands over her ears, the whole building shaking around her.
The walls were trembling, and she could feel vibrations beneath her feet, the tearing sound going on and on, assaulting the quiet stillness of her visit. Dust and cobwebs fell from the ceiling, and she squeezed her eyes and lips closed, even as her breathing sped up. She wanted to lean against a wall, because her legs were shaking along with the building, but leaning no longer seemed like a safe option.
After what felt like long, long minutes, the groaning and splintering stopped, and the shudder settled to nothing. Thea could sense the upheaval it had caused, the shrill sound of birds outside – the goldcrest probably hadn’t enjoyed having his foraging disturbed – and the squeaks and scuttles of things,creatures, inside. She dusted herself down and took a couple of tentative steps. It was definitely time to get out of there.
It wasn’t until she was halfway down the staircase that she realised the doorway looked very different to how it had when she had come in. It had felt dark, overshadowed, when she stepped inside, and she remembered the heavy wooden beam Ben had shown her: the one he had thought was unsafe.
Thea tiptoed down the last couple of steps, her hand lightly touching the handrail, and realised the beam had proved Ben right. One side of it had fallen, and it was covering the doorway at a jaunty angle, like a hefty no-exit barrier.
She grimaced. It would probably have had to be replaced anyway, but she didn’t want to have to admit to anyone that she’d managed to add to the building’s problems with one, short visit. She walked up to it and pushed against it. If she could get the other side to come down, then at least it would be on the floor and no longer blocking the door. She pushed and pushed, but the beam felt as if it had grown out of the ground, it seemed so solidly in place.
Thea flexed her fingers as the first, tiny trickle of panic filtered through her bloodstream. But it would be all right, because even if she couldn’t move the beam, she could slip behind it, and open the door far enough to get out. Except, she remembered, the door opened inwards, and there was less than a foot between it and where the beam now rested, as if it had been there for eternity. She went to grab the handle, to see just how far shecouldget the door open, and realised the fates had conspired to give her yet another challenge. When the beam had fallen, it had knocked the door handle off. There was nothing to grasp onto, nothing to pull. The doorway she’d come in by, she realised, as the trickle of panic turned into a stream, was not going to be the way she got out of this place.
Thea walked slowly around the ground floor of the building, fully aware, now, just how unstable it was. She tested the window frames, hoping for a loose one – one she couldslide up and bend through, to get out into the fresh air. They were all wedged firmly closed.
At the back of the ground floor, next to the terrifying toy bookshelf, there was a door into what she presumed was an office or storage space. She hadn’t tried it yet, worried that it might harbour some things she didn’t want to face on her own. But she was out of options.
She pulled the handle and the door flung open. It was dark inside, but not too dark, and she found a small office with a desk and a long table, which she presumed had been used by staff for sorting the post. Its only window was above the desk, and it was only about the size of her head. Big enough to fit a mouse through, but not a whole Thea.
The tiny bathroom next door was similarly unhelpful, with a hardback-sized, frosted window, and Thea had to work hard to stop panic overtaking her reasoning. There had to be something she could do: some way of getting out. She felt in her pockets again for her phone, even though she’d established, she’dremembered, that she’d left it at the cottage.
Gingerly, she went back upstairs, hoping that the falling beam wouldn’t have lined up a whole domino effect of collapses. She didn’t want to go back to the front of the building, but that was where Sylvia had stuck her upper body out of a window and spoken to her and Ben, and it seemed like her best – her only – option.
She got her fingers under the frame and gently lifted it up. She was met by welcome fresh air, and the seaside sounds of waves breaking and seagulls, distant voices carried on the wind. Thea’s pulse settled slightly, and she peered down. The ivy looked strong, but the drop was substantial, and she was quite a lot heavier than a goldcrest.
She lowered herself to the edge of the windowsill, felt the subtle shift of the building as she sat, and prayed someone – a hiker or a dog walker – would come past soon and rescue her.
Half an hour later, Thea was beginning to despair for herself and her future bookshop. Nobody had come past. This was an almost-forgotten corner of Port Karadow. No wonder Sylvia had leaned right out of the window and heckled passers-by so she could have some company. How would Thea attract customers if nobody walked along this road? How would she ever have customers if she never even got to open the bookshop, because she’d died alone inside the building she’d chosen, starving to death and then being eaten by giant spiders?
She cursed herself for so many things: for leaving her phone behind; for suggesting that she was going to take herself off for a walk, and for telling her friends that she wasn’t sure she was going to Ben’s event. Did Esme and Meredith think she’d decided to miss it? It had just started, and she fancied she could smell his delicious food. She wondered if he had struck up some kind of entertaining banter with Marcus Belrose. She couldn’t imagine him doing that, but maybe that was because he’d been so taciturn with her the last couple of times she’d seen him. Perhaps, without her in his sights or his thoughts, he was as sunny as a person could be.
With her bum sore from sitting on the edge of the windowsill, and her throat parched – because she hadn’t even brought a bottle of water with her, so quick was she to leave Esme and Alex to it – Thea slunk down onto the barefloorboards. She rested her arms on the sill, her gaze focused on the road outside. This way, she would be able to see her rescuer approaching. Because someone had to come past eventually, didn’t they?
She sighed. She had wanted this place – badly, it turned out – and now the universe was laughing at her. She was going to be trapped here for ever, without selling a single book to a single, happy customer.
If it was possible to die from self-pity, then it might turn out to be the way Thea went. She leaned her head on her arms, gazed out at sunny, sparkly Port Karadow going about its day without her, and prayed for a lost tourist.
