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Gate posts and trellises, birdfeeders, festive wreathes and bin bags were strewn everywhere, and the winter detritus of rotting leaf piles and the browning remnants of summer bedding plants that had accumulated in each little garden since autumn were now thrown messily across her path.
Looking up, through the drizzle, she saw that strands of Minty’s tasteful white Christmas bulbs that had been strung between the lampposts were here and there loosened and looping down over doorways or blown up over rooftops.
She stopped to right the antique bicycle that had come unfixed from Jowan’s front garden railings. Its wheels were twisted and its basket smashed like it had collided with a car. His cottage appeared dark and empty. Maybe he was walking Aldous?
She’d call in on her way back Up-along, just to let him know she was back and to ask if it was OK if she stayed at the bookshop until Magnús checked out on January the second – a date she knew she’d begin to dread the closer it got. Still, she wasn’t going to let that spoil today.
There’d be a big tidy-up effort this afternoon. No doubt Minty had it all in hand. She was probably assembling her staff and issuing orders from behind her clipboard at this very moment. Even the idea of sweeping cobbles and litter-picking was appealing, if she was doing it with Magnús. For now, though, she had a different job to do.
Still clutching the coat bundled in her arms, she made her way down onto the harbour wall.
The water was slate-grey and turbulent, and the swell surged as if it had forgotten all about retreating for morning low tide.
Huge white clouds lined with grey and looking heavy with yet more rain gathered out on the horizon.
‘Better get this over with quick,’ she told herself, making for theDagalien, which yesterday had seemed safe from further harm on Tom Bickleigh’s trailer far up the beach but this morning now looked fragile and precarious as the waves reached all the way up to the trailer’s back tyres. She walked over the pebbles towards it.
‘Poor thing,’ she said, lifting a hand to touch its prow. ‘What a way to end up, eh? After all those years of hard work. Up on a trailer in a strange harbour.’
The tarpaulin that the men had fixed over it yesterday had come loose and was lifting gently in the dying wind.
Alex pressed her forehead to the gunwale and closed her eyes. Aside from the surging surf and the noise of trickling water running in rivulets down every slope and channel to the sea, there was not a sound.
Not a gull shifted on the shore – they were still sheltering. The harbour was deserted; she was the only person braving the chilly drizzle this morning and she was glad of it. She wanted to be alone to say goodbye to the life she’d lived for eight years.
‘Dad,’ she said. ‘I’ve come to tell you I’ve decided to sell yourDagalien, once she’s repaired.’ Alex ran her gloved hand down the boat’s curved hull, crouching to look under the keel. ‘She needs a lot of work, but… so do I.’ She smiled sadly. ‘I don’t really know what I’m going to do yet, but I know it’s not this. This was your life. For the first time ever, I feel like I’ve something else waiting for me. I don’t know what, but I’ll find it. Maybe I’ll open my own tea room somewhere… not Port Kernou, though. I don’t want to go home at all. I…’ Alex shivered as she found the words. ‘I know I could definitely do with finding someone to talk to – a professional, I mean. A grief counsellor. I didn’t even know I needed one until yesterday, can you believe that? It was me and Magnús talking about how there are no quick fixes that did it. You can’t fast-track healing, even if you’re happy and right in the middle of falling in love.’
She paused, smiling at the sudden knowledge that this was exactly what was happening to her. She was falling in love. It seemed so miraculous she wanted to laugh and cry at the same time. The realisation strengthened her resolve. ‘And I… I want to sell the house too, I think. Get it on the market, along with theDagalienand… move on. What do you think?’
She lifted her eyes to the sky and watched as if for a sign that she’d been heard but, like all the times before, there was nothing. Only for once, there was a little blossoming sense of peace within her. She’d brought that about, along with the help of storms Minnie and Nora. She wondered at how so many seemingly unconnected factors had combined to get her to where she was now. She’d run off not knowing she needed to get away, not just from Ben, but from everything, and she’d shipwrecked her boat thinking the whole time fate was giving her a raw deal and taking away her livelihood when in fact this harbour had given her so much.
With a deep breath, she took the coat from under her arm. ‘This belongs to you,’ she said, addressing the spot where the boat’s name plate had once been fixed. ‘It never fitted me. I was drowning in the thing. It belongs on board.’ She kissed its waxy surface and stepped up onto the trailer’s metal axle so she could lay the coat safely inside.
Now that she was here actually making the break she felt lighter than she could ever remember being, even with her future so uncertain.
Alex ran through her plan, such as it was.
Ben’s dad had told her that arrangements had already been made to take the boat to Bideford for repair. While it was in Tom’s friend’s boatshed being tended to, she’d get the advertisements posted. She wouldn’t see theDagalienagain and that was OK.
Now the moment had come, it wasn’t as hard as she’d imagined. She was turning a page, wondering what the first words of her next chapter would say.
One thing was for sure; she’d have to repair the straps on the ripped tarpaulin this instant before she headed back to the bookshop. The boat would end up filled with rain at this rate.
As she reached for the heavy plastic sheeting, trying to haul it over the open deck, she said her last farewell, thinking of Magnús waiting for her and wanting to get back as soon as possible. That was when she caught a glimpse of the huddled figure through the steamed porthole in the cockpit door.
‘Who’s there?’ she yelped.
Was someone sheltering from the storm? Were they hurt? Or homeless? Should she shout for help? What the hell was going on?
The cockpit door opened slowly and a pale, pinched face peered out. Alex lost her footing, staggering backwards onto the pebbles, unable to believe what she was seeing.
‘Eve?’
