Raye had cackled. ‘Just wait and see, Ivy. Wait and see.’
When Ivy reached the centre of Fox Bay, on her way to meet her mum and Liv at Cod Almighty for a homecoming meal, she realised that Raye had been right. Something had definitely changed.
Take, for instance, the train station. Forcing the wheezing car into a space, Ivy stared in amazement. Usually, only one or two passengers would alight at Fox Bay, if that. It wasn’t uncommon to be the last passenger on the train by the time itmade it all the way down the coast to the town. Today, though, crowds of people poured off the train, chatting excitedly.
Ivy climbed out of the car and caught snatches of their conversations.
‘This place is so cosy!’
‘Shall we hit the bookshop first?’
‘Or the Unmissable Gems of Fox Bay boat tour maybe?’
‘A cream tea at the Mariner’s?’
‘Weneedto get one of Fin’s cinnamon buns.’
Bewildered, Ivy headed along the pavement to Cod Almighty. Her mum and Liv were in the window, holding up a sign that read WELCOME HOME IVY! She went inside and allowed herself to be enveloped in her mum’s warm, slightly bony hug. Her mum was a whirlwind of energy, all sharp angles and elbows, with freckles and thick red waves of hair like Ivy’s. She was also the kindest person Ivy knew and an eternal joiner, signing up for everything from the PTA to the Litter Collection Team; all in spite of the long hours she worked as a receptionist at the doctor’s surgery.
‘Darling,’ she whispered into Ivy’s hair, ‘look at you! All grown up! My clever art student.’
‘We missed you,’ whispered her little sister, Liv, burying her own curly head into Ivy’s waist.
‘You’ve got so tall,’ Ivy said, extricating herself from her mum’s hug and rumpling her sister’s hair. ‘You’re going to be taller than me soon.’
Liv, who was nine years old, very practical and wanted to bethe next Sheryl Sandberg ‘so that someone in this family makes some money’ wrinkled her nose. ‘I doubt it,’ she said matter-of-factly. ‘Your dad was six foot five and my dad was, and I’m quoting Mum, a short arse.’
‘I don’t think I said that about him, love,’ her mum said, going pink. ‘Come on. Let’s get Ivy some tea.’
‘What,’ Ivy said, gesturing to the people bustling along the pavement, ‘is going on here and what has happened to the sleepy little seaside town I left behind? Is there some new festival I don’t know about?’ It was the only explanation she could think of. Fox Bay had a penchant for eccentric traditions and festivals, going big on things like Pancake Day, egg rolling, midsummer rites and Samhain. But it was usually confined to the locals. Ivy couldn’t remember anything bringing in the tourists likethis.
‘Of course, you haven’t been here since it all kicked off.’ Her mum had tucked her arm through Ivy’s. ‘Remember when that writer, Kathleen Lee, came here last summer? You were away on that residency, but I told you about it.’
Ivy remembered, of course. A celebrity romance author called Kathleen Lee had launched her book in a hidden bay in their town. The launch had gone viral, with an exclusive signing from Kathleen Lee at Wildest Dreams, stoking the book’s already mammoth pre-sales and turning it into a phenomenon.
‘But it wasn’t like this,’ Ivy said, bewildered.
‘Well everything just snowballed after that,’ her mum said. ‘Some big travel writer from the US wrote a feature calling Fox BayEngland’s Secret Seaside Paradise. They said we were “theUK’s answer to Stars Hollow”. And since then, it’s just been hordes of tourists.’ Her mum sighed. ‘Which I suppose makes this secret seaside paradise rather …unsecret. Good for the local businesses though. The bookshop is especially popular, of course.’
‘Wow,’ Ivy said. ‘I didn’t realise it had got so big. Is Kathleen Lee really that famous?’
‘She’s huge. There’s even talk of a movie ofOcean Deep.Although that might just be a rumour. I haven’t seen an announcement yet. You know what this place is like for gossip.’
As they navigated their way back to the car after finishing their chips, Ivy found that the town was indeed crawling with tourists, thronging the cobbled streets, taking selfies in front of Old Bill’s boat, posing with glass bottles fitted with tiny paper scrolls on the shoreline, buying crystals at Tamsin’s shop and having coffee outside the picturesque Mariner’s Arms.
‘Gosh,’ Ivy looked around in amazement. ‘It’s quite a change. I’m not used to seeing this many people at once in this town.’
Her mum laughed. ‘And you always said nothing happened here! Well, now look.’
It was true. Ivy had left to discover the outside world at the precise moment the outside world had come to Fox Bay.
On her first day at Wildest Dreams, Josie had brought Ivy up to speed.
‘The tourists mostly don’t buy much, and they like taking photos reading by the fireplace – but don’t let them light it, darling, I suspect it’s a death trap. It’s for something called TikTok. And then they usually head off for sightseeing.’
‘What else is there tosee?’ Ivy had asked, confused.
‘Oh, Old Bill has his tours – Unmissable Gems of Fox Bay, that’s what he’s calling it. He takes tourists out in his boat, they go to Seal Island and back, then they have tea at the Mariner’s and go home again. It’s all fairly harmless and it’s been great for the town.’ Josie added coyly, ‘I’ve decided to capitalise on all this attention myself – it’s called a side-hustle, apparently. I’ve moved in with Fin – my beau, darling, I refuse to use the word boyfriend – and I’m renting out the top two rooms to tourists. They think staying in a bookshop is unbelievably charming. So if you could take on thetiniestbit of the housekeeping I’d add that to your wages.’
