‘We’ll look for another one,’ I say.
‘Where?’
‘In a mooring somewhere. Come on, Shells.’
‘Alison’s just texted, asking if we’re OK.’
Alison is Shelley’s big sister. She’s not my biggest fan, nor I, hers. She thinks I’m not good enough for Shells; it will give me great pleasure to remind her in future that without me her sister would have drowned.. ‘Tell her we’re fine, we’ve got a plan,’ I say. Thinking of sisters, I am reminded of mine. Should I text Val, let her know what’s going on? Don’t be stupid Harry. She doesn’t even know we’re here. Why worry her? Best to let her know when we’re safe out the other side, when I can brag about my brilliant survival skills.
We force our way back through the swell of people, a deeply unpleasant experience. Sweaty bodies push against us, the smell of panic and fear. I can feel Shelley stumbling in my wake, but I can’t hold her in this crowd, we both have to make our way through, until, eventually, we pass the station and are back on the road again.
It takes nearly an hour to reach the car, place our bags back in the boot and set off again. We crawl back along the way we’ve walked, but once we’re past the quay the road is clear and I’m back in control. We’re not like the hopeless hordes in Penzance, heading nowhere. We’ve got a plan and it’s a good one.
We start at Mousehole, but it’s just like Penzance. A handful of rowing boats are left in the quay. I consider whether it’s worth trying one of them, but they just don’t look seaworthy enough and I’m definitely not a strong enough rower. I look at the lifeboat station, but that too is gone; according to Twitter they’ve taken a load of people up north to safety. Shame we didn’t get here sooner. Still, I refuse to be deterred. There’s plenty of places along the coast; I’m sure we’ll find something. It’s just a matter of persistence, that’s all. We climb back into the car and drive on.
The third bay reveals nothing, either. Shit. I don’t say anything to Shelley, but my heart sinks, and for the first time I experience a flutter of doubt. I’m getting tired and hungry. I wish I’d told her to pack some food, though to be honest she really should have thought of it. After all, I’ve been doing everything else. We drive on. I am trying not feel a bit sorry for myself, when I spot a sign for Dowetha and my spirits rise again. Surely, this time we’ll find something? I put my foot on the accelerator and speed in the direction of the beach.
Harry is everything to me.
It’s been that way for years. I adore him.
I’d do anything for him, follow him anywhere …
And yet, lately, I have found myself asking myself whether any of this is true any more. Harry’s been my life for so long that I’ve never questioned him until lately. In the beginning, he seemed so thoughtful and sensitive. I was his special girl, his fair lady, his queen. He always checked how I was and made sure no harm would come to me. Yet today, when I’m frightened, really, really, frightened, it’s like he hasn’t even noticed. I know he’s trying to get us out of here, and maybe he’s right that a boat is the answer. But it wouldn’t hurt to ask me how I’m feeling, surely? He’s not even asked my opinion, just assumed he knows best. When I do try and say anything, he just sighs and speaks over me. It’s infuriating, insulting and upsetting all at once. But I still stagger after him in my five-inch stilettos, holiday bags balanced on shoulders, because, after all, what else can I do?
The trouble is Harry is always so sure he is right – there’s never any room for doubt. I suppose that’s what attracted me to him in the first place – that sense of certainty. I love Dad, of course I do, but he’s got this annoying habit of always seeing the other point of view, always weighing up one side against the other. Which was a bit wearing for a teenager looking for definitive answers. I think that’s why Harry’s absolute conviction was so attractive. Here was someone who knew exactly what he was doing, what he thought about everything. A real man, who understood what was what. The fact that he had money and was prepared to share it just added to the allure.
I wasn’t even supposed to be in the bar that night. I’d only gone because Liv reckoned we could get in if we had fake ID and I was trying to prove her wrong – and because I’d just had a row with Dad about my lack of GCSE revision. It was unusual for me to be so daring, to pretend to be at Liv’s when we were outside the nightclub hoping our false documents would get us inside. I was astonished that they did and even more so that it was so easy to pretend to be eighteen with all the men at the bar slavering over us, all eager to buy us a drink. Harry was the one who stood out, though. Tall white, muscular, he had something about him – a toughness, a sense he got what he wanted – that I found instantly appealing. Even the age difference didn’t bother me – it made him seem trustworthy. He offered us cocktails and treated us like grown-ups. It was so nice to be taken seriously for once; Dad and Alison always treated me like a kid. I lapped it up.
He invited us both back and we drank prosecco and ate canapés on his balcony. He talked about his hotel business, all the celebrities he’d had stay. It all seemed so glamorous and exciting. Liv was worried he might be a creep, but he didn’t try it on, and when I said it was time we went, he ordered a cab for us, kissed me on the cheek. So, of course, I gave him my number. I didn’t really expect him to call because nothing like that ever happened to me. But he did, and he took me to a posh restaurant and told me he thought I was beautiful and asked me out. I had to confess about my age, then, and he was perfectly lovely about it. He said he thought that I was very mature for my age – he’d assumed I was twenty at least. For the first time in years I felt that I really mattered. It wasn’t that Alison and Dad didn’t love me, or I, them, but they were so close after Mum died that sometimes I felt a bit shut out. Harry said I was the centre of his universe and for a long while that held true and he was everything I needed.
But lately, it’s all felt a bit wrong. Ever since I moved in, it’s begun to feel like he’s taken me for granted, that I’m not as important as I once was, that other things – work, mates, TV – come higher on his list. Take this holiday, for example. He’s promised me a holiday for ever. He’s had business trips to Rome and Paris, looking into setting up there, but he’s never taken me, even though I begged him. He said I’d only be bored, as he would be working, but one of these days we’d do it properly, do New York, maybe. But that’s never happened. We only came down here because he was meeting some potential investors in Penzance. He said that Cornwall was much nicer than New York anyway and we’d avoid jetlag. He only had a few work meetings, he said, and after they were done we could go to the beach. But the meetings lasted all day and in the evening he went drinking, leaving me to mooch around the cottage on my own.
It hasn’t all been bad. The cottage was pretty enough, it was rather like the house in Yorkshire, where we lived before Mum died. So even though I was a bit lonely, I felt quite at home. I watched my way through lots of box sets, and once or twice I got the bus into town to have a spa. On the second day, I found that the cupboard door in the back sitting room actually led into a small music room. There was a piano and piles of sheet music, including a bunch of folk songs that I used to sing with Dad. It had been years since I’d sung them, but since there wasn’t anything else to do, I thought I might as well give it a go. Though my voice was a bit rusty at first, the old tunes soon came back, reminding me of happier times – Dad and I performing for Alison and Mum in the days before her illness, when we were a proper family. I’d forgotten how much I loved singing with him, and how content the four of us were just to be together. We never seemed to hang out like that after her death, I think we all missed her too much.
But even rediscovering music couldn’t make up for the fact that I was alone for most of the week. And there was no way I could tell Harry about it. He’d only have laughed. Folk music is so not his thing. So as the week went on we just got further and further apart until last night, when I begged