Page 51 of Carry Me Home

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Chapter Eleven

NINA

The May Bank Holiday fete has been happening on the beach at the cove for longer than anyone can remember.

Dot claims it started in 1953 for the Coronation. Bill says it was the Jubilee in ’77. Mrs Penhallow insists her grandmother ran a cake stall here before the war, though which war she won’t specify. The truth is lost to time and selective memory, but the result is the same: every year, rain or shine, the village descends on the sand with bunting and a half-arsed brass band and a collective determination to have Fun with a capital F, whether the weather cooperates or not.

This year, the weather is cooperating. Aggressively.

‘It’s not natural,’ Mum says, fanning herself with the programme. ‘This heat. In May. It’s continental.’

‘You sound like Tom’s dad.’

‘Don Darcy is a sensible man. We agree on many things.’ She’s perched on a folding chair behind my coffee stall, watching the chaos. ‘Is that Tom on the coconut shy?’

I look. It is Tom on the coconut shy.

He’s wearing a faded blue T-shirt and shorts I don’t think I’ve ever seen him in – Tom in shorts is a genuinely disorienting experience, like seeing a newsreader out of context in a supermarket – and he’s explaining the rules to a small child with the patient intensity of someone who takes fairground games extremely seriously. His silver blond hair is almost iridescent under the glare of the ferocious sun, and I bet his eyes are glowing a tropical sea blue. His legs are tanned. I don’t know why I’m noticing that Tom Darcy has tanned legs. I’ve known him for eleven years and I’m fairly sure he’s always had legs and they’ve always been exactly that colour in summer and I’ve never once had an opinion about them.

I’m having an opinion about them now and I’d like it to stop.

‘Three balls for a pound,’ I hear him say to the child. ‘You have to knock the coconut completely off the stand. Not just wobble it. Completely off. Those are the rules. I don’t make them.’

‘Who does make them?’ the child asks.

‘Ancient tradition. Possibly pirates. The history is unclear.’

The child considers this, accepts it, and hurls a ball with surprising force. The coconut wobbles. Stays put.

‘Unlucky,’ Tom says. ‘Two more goes.’

‘How did he end up on the coconut shy?’ Mum asks, cutting into my thoughts about tanned legs and sea blue eyes.

‘His dad volunteered him. Don’s on the judging panel for the sandcastle competition and apparently couldn’t do both.’

‘That sounds like Don. Delegating the manual labour while he gets to award ribbons.’

‘The Darcy men have a system.’

‘They certainly do.’

I turn back to my stall because I have a queue and no business thinking about anyone’s legs. I’m making fancy coffee for a steady stream of customers, using the portable espresso machine I hauled down here at six this morning, and the queue hasn’t stopped since ten. The stall is doing well. The cakes are almost gone. Maisie has appointed herself my assistant and is handling money with the fierce concentration of a future accountant, while Mum enjoys her day off and trip to the bay.

‘That’s three pounds forty,’ Maisie tells a tourist. ‘The scone is extra. The jam is free but only if you’re nice about it.’

‘Maisie,’ I say.

‘What? It’s true. Rude people don’t get jam.’

‘Everyone gets jam.’

‘That’s not how I’d run things.’

‘You’re eight.’

‘I’m nearly nine. And I have business ins-ti— insti— instincts.’