Karen had sent him a lovely letter after the funeral offering to help in any way she could and looking forward to seeing him in the summer. Would she understand his need to talk about Gabby?
After the funeral he’d taken the silver-framed photo of Gabby and him that lived on the mantlepiece of the sitting room of the flat and placed it on the breakfast bar. Taken last summer, here on the terrace in front of the cottage, the two of them had their arms around each other and were laughing at some shared joke. As a couple they’d laughed a lot. Always had, from day one. He’d never quite understood how the vivacious American girl he’d fallen in love with the day she appeared in his life asking for a job could possibly love him in return. But she had.
He’d started his renovation business eighteen months earlier and had recently begun to put out feelers for a freelance interior designer to join the team. He hadn’t advertised, simply hoped to find someone recommended via ‘word of mouth’. Gabby had arrived unannounced one Friday afternoon. He’d done his best to ask her the right questions, and looked at her portfolio (which was excellent), all the while knowing he was going to offer her the job anyway. Bruce sighed, remembering those long-ago days when he and Gabby had laughed and loved their way through life. What was that famous song line about days – ‘We thought they’d never end’. But they had.
These days it had become a ritual for him to talk to the photo, tell Gabby his plans for the day as he ate his breakfast. Not that he had many plans these days, but talking to Gabby every morning had become an essential part of his routine. He couldn’t imagine not doing it now.
Unable to leave the photo behind for the summer, he’d wrapped it carefully in bubble-wrap and placed it between the shirts in his suitcase. Within five minutes of arriving at the cottage he’d retrieved it and placed it on the shelf in the small alcove in the kitchen that held favourite bits and pieces they’d collected over the years.
He poured the bottle of white wine sauce over the chicken pieces, mushrooms and onions and placed the pot in the oven and set the timer. Briefly he thought about asking Karen to join him for supper.
‘What d’you think, Gabby?’ he said, glancing across at the photo. ‘Tonight or tomorrow? Tomorrow is better, I think. Don’t want to look desperate for company, do I? I expect she’s looking forward to a quiet night to settle in.’
Besides, he’d decided this evening he’d fetch the bag from the communal outhouse and sort out the flags, a job he and Gabby had always done together as they enjoyed a glass of wine, and something he’d been putting off doing. But people were arriving and would expect the flag to be flying. He couldn’t disappoint them.
The summer ritual of flying the flag that Gabby had started years ago would begin tomorrow and kick-start summer. You have to fly flags – you can’t leave the flagpole empty, she had always said.
*
Karen glanced at her watch and wondered about wandering along to say ‘Hi’ to Bruce. He’d have finished supper by now and might be glad of some company for an hour. The last time she’d seen him at the funeral, he’d looked heartbreakingly adrift, as if he didn’t quite remember who he was without Gabby at his side. He hadn’t come down at Easter, telling Karen in a phone call that he couldn’t face the cottage yet without Gabby.
This summer was going to be hard for him. At least she had the consolation that Francesca and Wills would at some point both put in an appearance.
Picking up the bottle of red wine she’d opened to accompany her own supper, she went out onto the front terrace and made her way along to The Bosun’s Locker, waving to Joy and Toby as she passed No. 5.
Bruce looked up as she opened the wooden gate that separated the small patio, with its flagpole belonging to The Bosun’s Locker, from the main terrace.
‘Karen. Lovely to see you. How are you?’
‘Thought you might like to share a glass with me?’ she said, holding the bottle aloft. ‘Drink to summer. Unless you’re busy?’ she said, looking at the pile of material she recognised as his flag collection.
‘Almost sorted,’ Bruce said. ‘You know where the glasses are. I’ll just finish tidying up this lot.’
In the kitchen, as Karen reached for two glasses, she saw the picture of Gabby and Bruce. The memory of the perfect summer evening it had been taken on just a year ago flitted into her mind. Whoever could have guessed tragedy was so close?
She glanced out at Bruce carefully folding the last flag, remembering with affection the day he and Gabby had arrived in their lives, twenty-seven years ago. In those days the cottages and grounds had still been rustic, the amenities basic, and her parents had voiced trepidation about the young couple who were the new owners, the changes they would want to initiate.
At first sight, Bruce and Gabby had been a most unlikely couple. Her, extrovert and people-gathering. Him, friendly but reserved in the beginning. The realisation that they too genuinely loved the old-fashioned cottages, which had survived over one hundred years of buffeting by the storms that thrashed the coast every winter, had come as a welcome relief.
Joining Bruce out on the terrace, Karen poured the wine and handed him a glass. The flag bag was full again, the green, black and white Devon flag remaining alone on the table.
‘First one up tomorrow as usual,’ Bruce said. ‘Normal summer routine. Cheers.’
‘Cheers. Here’s to...’ Karen hesitated. It would be insensitive to drink to a good summer when it was going to be such a difficult one for Bruce. ‘The next few weeks. And a sunny summer with not too much rain,’ she added.
Bruce gave her a diffident smile before taking a sip of his wine. ‘Long-term forecast is good, I think. Derek not with you?’
Karen shook her head. ‘No. Too busy at the moment. He’ll be down when the children come.’ Maybe. But there was little point in saying anything to Bruce just yet about the state of her marriage.
Bruce glanced along the terrace. ‘No news about No. 4 yet. Still going through probate, I suspect. Sad to see it empty.’
Karen nodded. ‘Hope someone in the family decides to keep it rather than sell it.’
‘Joy was telling me that No. 3 has been rented for most of the summer,’ Bruce said.
‘Has Charlie told her who it is? Someone we know already?’ Karen said, surprised.
Bruce shook his head. ‘Just a friend of Charlie who needs a place to stay for a while. No definite arrival date yet. Maybe next week.’
Karen sipped her wine thoughtfully. A long summer rental of any of the cottages was unusual. Charlie himself always came down for a week or two with a group of friends, and always around the time of the owners’ annual meeting when joint decisions regarding maintenance, etcetera, were taken.
Wills had once described Charlie’s friends as ‘totally fit’, so summer could be interesting – or not.
*
The next day, awake at 5.30 a.m., Bruce decided it was pointless to stay in bed in the hope of falling asleep again. Four hours sleep a night seemed to be the maximum he could hope for these days as he tossed and turned his way through the hours of darkness.
In town there were familiar noises accompanying the new day. Buses changing gear to climb the hill, car doors slamming, the rattling of the jeweller’s security shutter as he unlocked the shop across the road from the apartment. But here – nothing.
It always took him a couple of days at the cottage to adjust to the silence surrounding him. Seagulls were the only early risers here and the sound of the waves breaking against the rocks below was the only other noise he could hear. Even when all the cottages were occupied in August there was little movement or noise before half past eight. Something to do with everyone being on holiday, Bruce supposed. No need to rise early. He had to admit he liked the all-enveloping morning silence. He’d get up and have his first coffee of the day watching