Page 57 of The Cornish Cream Tea Holiday
They walked to the edge of the pebble beach and Ben jumped onto it, Scooter loping easily down next to him. Ben held out his hand and, even though Thea didn’t need help, she took it.
‘Thanks,’ she said, and they fell into step as they crossed the pebbles, quickly reaching the spit of land that would take them to the lighthouse. It reminded Thea of theinvisible pathway in anIndiana Jonesfilm; precarious and potentially deadly.
‘It’s not as wide as the walkway to St Michael’s Mount,’ Ben said. ‘But that’s got National Trust funding, whereas this place …’ he gestured around them.
‘It’s been left to fend for itself.’
‘Exactly. But that’s better, in some ways. It’s a piece of untouched history.’
‘Why hasn’t anyone done anything about it?’ Thea asked as they began walking across the path. There was a few metres’ leeway on either side of them, the water here lapping rather than churning, as it was around the base of the lighthouse, but she still felt exposed and was glad to have Ben beside her.
‘Same reason I’m worried about the Old Post House, I guess. It’s not exactly tourist material, when the road down here isn’t built for multiple cars and you can only reach it at low tide, and then they’d need to do a whole lot of work to refurbish it. It’s in a state. I hope you’re not scared of spiders.’
Thea shuddered. She was. ‘Are there alotof spiders?’
‘There are a lot of spiders,’ he confirmed. ‘Mostly in the corners, though. You’ll be fine.’
‘Does Scooter eat spiders?’
‘Not when there’s ham on offer,’ Ben said. The dog stared up at him, as if he understood every word. ‘Look.’ He stopped walking, and Thea did the same. They were close to the lighthouse now, and despite her trepidation, she was eager to see inside.
‘What is it?’
Ben took her arm and gently pulled her closer to him, then he pointed into the distance, towards the horizon. ‘See them? You can just about make them out.’
‘Where am I looking?’
‘Here.’ He bent his knees so that his head was next to hers, then, with a finger, angled her chin so she was looking in a slightly different direction. ‘See them?’
‘Are they … Oh my God! Dolphins?’ She had never seen them in the wild before.
‘They’re a bit far out to see clearly, but you can spot their fins, right?’
‘I can see them!’ She was breathless. ‘Wow, Ben.’
‘Pretty great, huh?’
‘Verygreat. Thank you.’
‘No problem. I told them to pop by, just for you.’
Before she could reply, he had moved on, and she missed the way he’d been sheltering her from the wind.
‘They’ve not even bothered to secure it this time,’ he said, as Thea joined him at the base of the lighthouse. A padlock was hanging loosely from the lock, and it only took Ben a moment to wrench the door open. It looked solid, but it gave a loud screech when he pulled, the hinges rusty from years of disuse.
She expected a musty smell: damp and dirt and years of dust, but although it wasn’t as fresh as the sea air, it also wasn’t as bad as she’d anticipated.
‘Wait here a sec,’ Ben said.
‘What are you worried about?’ Thea asked, as he and Scooter stepped inside. ‘Ghosts? Vampires? Criminals?’
‘Killer spiders,’ he murmured. Thea didn’t know what to say to that, so she was quiet until he came back, peering out of the doorway with a smile on his face.
‘Fine?’ she asked.
‘Fine,’ he repeated. ‘Come on in.’
The interior of the lighthouse was everything she’d expected, and also not. The majority of the space was taken up with the stairs that twisted up the middle, winding up and up to the top of the building. There were a couple of windows on the ground floor, letting in swathes of golden, summer light, highlighting a wooden table and a couple of old, rickety dining chairs.
