Summer at Little Beach Street Bakery (35 page)

Thank God, there was Selina, choking, coughing, but already pulling herself up; there was the man, and the small shape of the boy still in the blanket.

And now, above them, were dozens of villagers, hands coming down to help, pulling them up and wrapping them in blankets and giving them hot mugs of tea; and voices chattering and asking were they all right, were they all right; and were they all there?

Polly was hauled up over the wall, her teeth still chattering. All her strength – the strength that had pulled the child into the boat, that had helped her bail, that had dragged her out of the sea’s grasp when they had crashed ashore – all of it had gone, had deserted her completely, and her legs collapsed in a jelly wobble.

To her extraordinary embarrassment, they had to lift her up, as if she was a ten-ton seal that had washed ashore, and sit her down before she collapsed. Even with the wetsuit on, she was shivering from head to toe.

‘You’ll have to get out of that,’ said Muriel, ever practical. Polly nodded. The idea of actually taking off a piece of clothing seemed well beyond her physical capabilities right at this particular moment.

Muriel was the first to say it, but not the last.

‘What on earth… what on EARTH were you thinking? You’re town girls! You’re absolutely crazy, you could have killed yourselves. Easily!’

‘Are they… are they all…’

‘Everyone’s back,’ said someone. ‘It’s all right, my lover. You’ve done great.’

‘But… BUT…’ said Polly. ‘You’re not listening! You’re not listening.’

She knew where she had seen the yellow curly hair of the little boy, had just realised it, and something snatched at her heart in a panic.

‘NO!’ she shouted, through her chattering teeth. ‘You have to listen to me! You have to! There’s… I saw that family. I saw them before. There’s a mother. I saw her this morning!’

This morning seemed unimaginably long ago.

‘There might be another person!’

Suddenly there were a lot of other people there. The RNLI boat had come back in – with, she gathered later, the crew of a Looe fishing trawler that had foolhardily set out to sea – and now Archie and Kendall had materialised in front of her, Archie shaking his head.

‘I can’t believe you went out in the taxi boat,’ he said furiously. ‘You’re not trained! You could have been killed!’

‘I’ll get trained,’ said Polly. ‘But Archie. There were three. There were three. You have to go out again.’

Archie’s face – his rugged, weary face that had spent the entire year anxious, worried about his new command – his face stiffened and he looked at Polly.

‘Are you sure?’

Polly’s mind was foggy, but she was sure of one thing: if the mother hadn’t gone to sea, she’d have been raising merry hell.

‘Yes, I’m sure,’ she said.

Archie nodded, just once, and turned round.

‘Come on, boys,’ he said to the tired-looking men behind him. ‘We’re back out.’

There was not a murmur of dissent; not a complaint. Kendall, Jayden, Sten and the rest fell into line without delay; obeyed their captain without question; and they were gone, back into the wild night.

Then Polly threw up all over the harbour wall.

 

 

Another figure came up to the group, gesticulating and pointing. Wearily Polly turned her head in his direction. Oh lord, it was Malcolm. What on earth could he possibly want now?

To her amazement – she hadn’t been able to hear what he was saying, the roar of the wind in her ears was still so strong; in fact, she had begun to think it would never leave her – the group began to follow him, even Patrick, who had been working on the limp forms of the little boy and the man. Two strong arms, one either side, grabbed Polly and dragged her along with them, but she was barely there.

‘I have to go,’ she muttered. ‘I have to go back. I have to light the lamps. I have to show the light in the lighthouse…’

She looked down and was surprised to find her fingers were still holding tight to the lantern. It no longer worked – it had either been bashed or saturated, or the batteries had run out – but it was still there.

‘It’s okay,’ said Muriel’s soothing voice. ‘The ladies are taking storm lanterns down there. Don’t worry. Don’t worry.’

And indeed, although the wind was still high and furious, and the rain still squalled, the thunder wasn’t quite so frequent and the lightning was more and more of an afterthought as what felt like the entire village traipsed along the harbourside.

 

 

The Little Beach Street Bakery was lit up by candles and all the torches that could be found. It was also incredibly warm. Malcolm had opened up the unused kitchen at the back and turned on every oven. Polly realised just how freezing she’d been.

Someone scrambled off to make great big vats of tea. It was the single best cup of tea Polly had ever tasted, the single best anything, as she sat in an armchair that someone had brought in, dimly watching as people got busy. Nobody spoke to her; if they went past, they just patted her gently on the head or the arm, making sure she was all right. She was quite happy about this. There would be talking, and police, and recriminations, and explanations, and her mother to calm down, and oh lord, Huckle. But for now she had her tea, plus she was watching, anxiously, for signs of life in the rescued pair.

Nobody knew how long they’d been in the water; Polly, when asked, described how she had seen the figures on the wrecked boat from the lighthouse, and that couldn’t have been more than forty minutes, maybe half an hour, earlier, which seemed astonishing to her: surely it had taken hours? Apparently not.

On the other hand, in water this wild and cold, it really didn’t take long, particularly in children. Patrick looked worried, and was sweating in the all-encompassing warmth of the bakery.

The little boy suddenly coughed and moved his head, then, just as Polly had done, threw up a vast amount of sea water all over the floor.

One of the women shuffled between the little boy and his dad, who was still unconscious, to stop him seeing him.

Patrick sat down at the boy’s head.

‘Hello,’ he said. ‘What’s your name?’

‘Josephus,’ said Polly, suddenly remembering. ‘His name is Josephus.’

‘Josephus?’ said someone doubtfully.

‘Yes,’ said Polly. ‘That’s why I remembered it.’

‘Josephus?’ said Patrick softly.

The little boy opened his eyes dully. He couldn’t seem to focus.

‘Hello there,’ said Patrick. The boy blinked.

‘Cold,’ he said.

‘I know,’ said Patrick. ‘That’s why we’re getting you nice and warm.’

‘Where’s my mum?’

‘Um,’ said Patrick. ‘Let’s just get you nice and cosy.’

‘I want my mum.’

‘Sssh,’ said Patrick, not knowing what else to say. ‘We’re looking for your mummy.’

The boy tried to sit up and was sick again.

‘Is this because I was bad?’ he said. ‘Daddy said not to go near the side of the boat. Is it because I went near the side of the boat?’

‘Absolutely not,’ said Patrick, ‘Absolutely not. Come here.’

And he lifted the child, wrapped in his blanket, his limbs still blue with cold, towards the open oven.

‘Ow,’ said Josephus as the blood started to flow back into his nerve endings and bring them back to life. ‘Ow, that hurts.’

‘We’re going to get you something good to drink,’ promised Patrick.

‘Fanta?’ said Josephus.

‘No,’ said Patrick calmly. ‘Not Fanta.’

Muriel brought some very milky tea and handed it over. From the floor there came a groan. The man was stirring too.

‘DADDY!’ said the boy, seeing him. He tried to get up, but his limbs wouldn’t hold him. ‘DADDY!’

Patrick carried the boy over to his dad. The man moved his head from side to side.

‘Wake up, Daddy!’ said the boy, his fingers going to the man’s eyes.

‘No, don’t do that,’ said Patrick, leaning forward, but not before the man had indeed opened his eyes.

‘Josephus?’ he said. ‘Is that you, Josephus?’

‘DADDY!’

The little boy flung his arms round his father’s neck as the man closed his eyes; not, thankfully, lapsing into unconsciousness again, but simply with howling gratitude. He tried to lift his arms to put them round the boy, but couldn’t manage.

‘Right, you two,’ said Muriel practically. ‘Closer to the ovens, please. You’re not the only reprobates who need to be brought back to life tonight.’

Someone brought in a bottle of whisky.

‘None of that,’ ordered Patrick. ‘It’s not good for blood flow, cuts it down.’

‘Um,’ said Muriel. ‘Actually it’s for Polly, Selina and everybody else.’

Polly took the bottle. Selina had gone upstairs to change and had come down looking thin and very young in a jumper that was far too big for her. She glanced at Polly anxiously. The two of them were both shaking. Polly got up on wobbly legs and held Selina, then they both sat back down in the big armchair as other people fussed around Josephus and his father. Polly took a huge slug of the whisky. Whilst she actually preferred the taste of sea water – and both made her splutter about the same amount – she enjoyed the sudden heat that spread through her to her toes, and the way her fingers started to gradually uncurl. She leaned against Selina, and they both stared into the flames of the wood-burning stove.

‘I can’t believe I haven’t seen the bugger in a year,’ said Selina. ‘It must be a year, right?’

She turned to look at Polly.

‘Was it… I mean, was it serious?’

Polly shook her head.

‘Not at all,’ she said quietly. ‘It was just a few times. I was so lonely. I didn’t know anyone, Mrs Manse was really horrible to me, and I was just so alone… single for the first time in seven years, in a strange new town and a new place. He was kind to me.’

Selina winced a bit at this.

‘I think I wasn’t being very kind to him at the time,’ she said. ‘I can see why he went for you. Nice smiley Polly, “everyone have a lovely bun”. I bet you never pestered him about moving out of Polbearne, or getting a better job.’

‘I hardly knew him,’ said Polly. ‘Obviously I didn’t know him at all.’

Selina’s face crinkled.

‘But why did you make friends with me? I don’t understand. Are you sick in the head?’

‘No,’ said Polly. ‘I wanted to tell you, to apologise. But I didn’t know how and it didn’t come up and then I was worried about Neil and got a bit distracted. I was a coward. I kind of hoped it wouldn’t come up. Which was a stupid thing to think.’

‘Well, yes,’ said Selina. ‘There’s about fourteen people on this godforsaken rock.’

‘And one of them’s Jayden,’ said Polly. ‘It was Jayden who told me Tarnie was married. I didn’t know before that.’

‘You said,’ said Selina drily.

‘Anyway, as soon as I found out, I stopped seeing him straight away. So Jayden did me a favour.’

‘Why did you even look at Tarnie, with a gorgeous hunk like Huckle kicking about? That’s what I don’t understand,’ said Selina after a while.

‘Well, Huckle wasn’t at all interested to begin with,’ said Polly. ‘But it wasn’t just that. Tarnie was… he was lovely, Selina. He was handsome and kind and had the loveliest eyes and he was funny and he looked after his crew and…’

Selina didn’t make any noise. None at all. Polly supposed later it was like when people laughed or sneezed: some let it all out, some just couldn’t.

When Selina cried, she made no sound at all. But it was the first time, the only time, Polly had known her to cry at all.