And then Ella came along.
Sennen had sat in the summer heat of the exam hall, six weeks from her due date, hating the kicks of her unborn child, hating being pitied by her teachers.
She rubbed a hand across her eyes and tightened the straps on the rucksack. What a model daughter she had been. Two babies by a father unknown and now she was leaving. Leaving them, her A levels, her over-indulgent liberal leftie parents who had supported her through it all – and leaving Cornwall.
She hovered on the landing outside Henry and Ella’s room. She didn’t go in. She knew she would never leave if she saw them, smelt them … She kissed her hand and placed it on their nameplates on the door. Downstairs, she tiptoed through the hall. Bertie the cat ran from under the hall table with a mew. She put her hand to her mouth to stop her startled cry then bent down to tickle him. ‘Bye, Bert. Have a nice life.’
Slowly she turned the handle of the downstairs loo and edged in carefully, making sure that the rucksack didn’t knock over the earthenware plant pot with its flourishing spider plant. Bert came with her and she had to nudge him out with her boot before closing the door behind him. The front door was too noisy to leave by.
The loo window always stuck a little and the trick was to give it a little thump with your palm. She held her breath, listened for any noise from upstairs. Nothing. She wound the small linen hand towel around her fist. It took three good pushes, each stronger than the last before the window swung open, noiselessly.
She threw the rucksack out first and then carefully climbed out after it.
She pushed the window shut and stood in the moonlit, tiled courtyard. In a corner was Henry’s little trike and in another, Ella’s beach pushchair. She had meant to take both in in case of rain, but had forgotten. She looked up to the night sky. Cloudless. It would be a dry night.
She picked her way over the sandpit, held in a wooden box that her father had made for her when she was little and now given fresh life to with a coat of scarlet paint, and made her way to the gate. The hinge creaked a little, but before it had shut itself she was already gone. Around the corner, down the lane and out to the bus stop by the harbour.
Pendruggan, 2018
Kit Beauchamp stirred the tomato soup in front of him. ‘When will your brother get here?’
Ella put her bowl down on the kitchen table and sat opposite him. ‘Why? Nervous?’
Kit looked up into Ella’s golden eyes. ‘Should I be?’
‘He’ll adore you,’ she reassured him. ‘And if he doesn’t, you’ll know about it pretty quickly.’
‘Oh blimey.’ Kit really was nervous.
Ella loved that her boyfriend was taking this meeting seriously. Her brother was the only family she had left. His opinion counted for everything. She picked up her spoon and replied, ‘Tomorrow lunchtime. He’s getting the early train down from Paddington. Should be at Bodmin by about one.’ Ella pushed curls the same colour as her soup behind her ears and dipped her spoon into the steaming bowl. She sipped and burnt her top lip. ‘Ow.’
‘Careful,’ Kit said, blowing on his own spoon.
Freckles bounced across her face as she opened her mouth to fan cool air onto her burning tongue.
Kit tore at the centre of his crusty French roll and handed her some. ‘It’ll cool you down.’ She took it gratefully.
For a couple of minutes neither spoke, quietly enjoying their simple lunch.
‘I suppose,’ frowned Kit, ‘I don’t want to make a bad impression.’
Ella giggled. ‘I think Henry is the one who needs to be more worried. He can be a total arse.’ She pulled Kit’s hand over the table and rubbed it against her cheek. ‘You’ll be the brother he never had.’
Kit let his hand trail her cheek and chin. ‘He’s very important to you, isn’t he?’
She blew on another spoonful of soup and nodded. ‘We are the last of the Tallons.’
Kit wiped the final crust of bread around his bowl. ‘Why do you think the solicitor wants to see you both?’
‘The usual, I expect. Mum has either hidden herself so well that she doesn’t want to be found, or she’s dead.’ Ella put her spoon down. Kit saw the lost child in the woman in front of him.
‘He’ll find her,’ he said with a certainty he didn’t feel.
‘I don’t know.’ Ella sighed. ‘Pass me your bowl.’
‘I’ll wash up,’ he said glancing out of the window and looking at the sky. ‘Fancy a walk? The dogs could do with one. Or are you too tired after all that vacuuming for your brother?’
Ella looked over at Terry and Celia who were lounging in their separate beds looking as disdainful as only Afghan hounds can.
‘Well, Doggies? Fancy a walk?’
Terry managed a discreet waft of his feathery tail while Celia sighed and raised an eyebrow. ‘What a pair of lazy gits,’ laughed Ella. She put her arm out to Kit as he passed on his way to the sink. ‘But can it be to Trevay? I need to pick up some steak to make pasties for Henry tomorrow.’
Henry couldn’t wait to get out of London. When the most recent solicitor’s letter had arrived last week he had managed to wangle a decent chunk of leave in Cornwall. He wasn’t too bothered about the letter. Another routine meeting. He and Ella had had so many since their grandmother had died. The problem lay with his unreliable, irresponsible mother who had left him and Ella when they were just tiny. He had been about two and Ella just over one. She’d disappeared to God knew where for God knew what whim and never come back. It had left Granny and Poppa heartbroken. Not to mention Henry, who still had vague memories of his mother. Sitting on her lap, being folded into her arms … Stop it, he told himself. Hopefully the solicitor would tell him and Ella that his mother was lost forever, or dead. Either would be fine with him. Then at last they could sort out Granny’s estate and move on with their lives.
He returned his attention to the work on his desk. Two reports to finish, three phone calls to make and a handover to his colleague on how to deal with any issues that might arise in his absence and then – he rubbed his hands gleefully – Cornwall here he came.
Ella and Kit closed the door of Marguerite Cottage and waved at their nearest neighbour, Simon Canter, the vicar of Holy Trinity Church.
‘Good afternoon,’ Simon greeted them as he walked through the churchyard. ‘Beautiful day. Enjoy it.’
‘We will,’ Ella called back.
He was right. It was a lovely day and as she waited for Kit to open up the car and load the dogs, Ella took time to absorb the moment. The Pendruggan village green with its cluster of old and new homes around it. Above her, tiny white cloud puffs floated in the bluest of skies. The smell of gorse on the wind, bringing with it the light rumble of surf on Shellsand Beach.
‘Come on. Jump in,’ said Kit, jangling the keys of his slightly aged car.
She climbed in. ‘It’s a day to be happy.’
‘It’s always a day to be happy for me,’ he replied reversing out of the