'You'd better get out before either of us does something we might really regret,' she warned him.
'I think I just have! I stopped before the home truths. I should have waited until afterwards-and at least that way I might have got you out of my system once and for all!'
And he slammed his way out of the house before she had time to think of a suitably crushing reply.
CHAPTER EIGHT
THE resumption of power supplies to the house gave Shelley a feeling of having some control back in her life. It was just slightly galling that she had Drew to thank for the speedy arrival of men in vans wearing overalls.
'It's very sweet of you to come out so quickly,' she ventured to the man from the Water Board.
He shrugged. 'Drew Glover drinks with the boss-what do you expect?'
Guilt at the inequality of life nagged her. 'That's terrible!'
'Not for you, it isn't!' The man grinned at her, and looked around curiously at the house. 'You're going to be living here, are you?'
The tone of his voice told her what he really meant-that she looked all wrong in a tiny semi, wearing her sleek designer clothes. And he was right.
'For the time being,' she said, aware that she was making her mind up as she answered his question. 'But I'm going to decorate, first. Then decide.'
'Yeah,' he agreed. 'The place could do with it!'
She spent the rest of the afternoon and most of the evening scrubbing the house from top to bottom and fell into bed exhausted after eating beans on toast. To her great pleasure and even greater surprise, she had a dreamless and Drew-less night's sleep. Maybe she was slowly working him out of her subconscious. Maybe …
The next morning, following a delicious hot bath full of childhood memories, Shelley walked into the village centre to buy groceries and a newspaper. It was a cool, misty morning and in the distance the sea looked all fuzzy and indistinct, like a grey mohair scarf lying on the shore, stretching as far as the eye could see. The sea drew her like a magnet, and she decided that she would go for a bracing walk before she bought her shopping. If she had heavy bags to carry she knew she wouldn't get round to it.
She peered into the windows of the shops as she passed, noticing that there was nothing which catered for clothes of either sex … not even a baby boutique. She wondered if the new-look Milmouth approved of that.
She was dressed more appropriately today in an outfit which was casual and warm. She had hung the linen suit at the back of her wardrobe where she suspected it would remain unworn. At least for the time being. In the meantime she found a pair of black jeans and a black sweater in her suitcase, which were the most suitable things for facing a blustery sea breeze.
Admittedly, the jeans were designer-made so they were cut to flatter rather than to stride around in-and a costly cashmere sweater wasn't the best thing to wear if you were pottering around the house! But they were the best she could come up with and obviously she was going to have to invest in some new clothes. Maybe she would suggest that shopping trip to Jennie soon.
The sky was grey and smoky and rain didn't look very far away, but Shelley took a chance, and walked along the shoreline, filling her lungs with great breaths of salty air. Beneath the mist, the sea was the colour of mercury and the tips of the waves were crested with bubbles like bath foam. Seagulls circled overhead like low-flying aircraft, and in the far distance she could see the slow, stately movement of a ship.
She walked until she was pink-cheeked and glowing and told herself that she was free to explore where she wanted-and that if her path took her through the sand-dunes and past the old coastguard's cottage, then so be it. Drew might own half the Westward but he didn't own the beach yet!
As she approached, she thought that it was a little like childhood in reverse. Instead of being smaller than she remembered, the cottage looked about twice the size, and closer inspection soon showed her why. It was twice the size, but the extensions had been so carefully constructed that the entire building somehow retained that look of being there for centuries. Clever, she thought grudgingly. Very clever.
It was long and low and whitewashed, and the window frames were all painted a deep delphinium-blue. The garden was beautiful-with tall, billowing grasses and the blue-green blur of lavender bushes which blended so well with the landscape. The pale frothy flowerheads of hydrangeas blew gently in the sea breeze and she could see small, silver-leaved plants and the maroon fronds of a Tamarix.
But there was no sign of Drew.
She told herself that she was relieved not to have seen him as she walked slowly back to the village centre and pushed open the door of the general store. And she told herself that again as she looked around her appreciatively.
The shop had been deliberately designed to look as though you were stepping back in time-to a time when provisions were wholesome and processed foods rare. Except that it now sold olive oil from Tuscany, which was comparable to the fruity blend she used to buy in her local market in Italy! On the floor were great sacks of coffee beans, filling the air with their dark, bitter scent-along with all kinds of dried mushrooms, and boxes of exotically flavoured biscuits. And bread which looked hand-baked, and cheeses from local farmhouses-not the tasteless blocks she had been used to as a child, which had looked like soap and tasted like soap!
The man who served her was called Charlie Palmer, and he chattered away and told her that he owned the shop. He looked about thirty-five, and wore the wedding ring and comfortable smile of the happily married. He filled up three boxes with all the basic foodstuffs she needed, then added fresh eggs and some organic meat which he had talked her into buying.
'Oh, heavens!' groaned Shelley, wondering how she was going to carry everything home. 'I've bought more than I meant to! And I haven't even started on my fruit and veg yet!'
'I trust you're buying them next door, and not from the out-of-town superstore?' He gave her a humorous frown.
'Oh, I am! Definitely!'
'Well, if you bring it all in here, I can deliver later, when I shut up shop.'
She smiled at him. 'That would be wonderful! And very kind of you.'
He smiled back. 'It's a calculated kindness. That sort of service gets me custom. People don't mind paying a little bit more if they get the personal touch-and who in their right mind would want to do their shopping in a place the size of an aircraft hanger?' He pulled a face. 'Where do you live?'
She told him.
'Next door to Jennie Glover?'
Shelley nodded. 'That's right. Do you know her?'
'My wife does. We've got a baby the same age as Ellie. And, of course, I know her brother.'
'Do you?' asked Shelley casually.
'Yeah-I supply coffee and chocolate to the hotel.' He grinned. 'Oh, and Drew thrashes me at tennis occasionally, too!'
'Really?' Shelley decided to risk it. 'I didn't know that Drew played tennis?'
Did she detect a twinkle in Charlie's eyes? Was he, as his sister had once been, familiar with women asking him sneaky little questions about Drew?
'He only took it up a couple of years ago, apparently-and he's sickeningly good!' He wrapped a piece of cheese in greaseproof paper and looked up. 'Friend of yours, is he?'
Shelley spoke from the heart as she remembered the harsh way he had left her, and the bitterness of his parting words. 'Oh, no! No.' She saw Charlie looking at her as if she were slightly deranged. Or lying. 'Not buddy-buddy, not really. I just knew him way-back-when.'
'You grew up round here, then?'
'That's right. I've just … ' She hesitated, having no desire to tell this man, however nice, her whole life story up until now. 'Come home,' she said simply.
She spent the next week in a flurry of activity, pruning the hedges at the front of the house and cleaning out all the cupboards inside. The garden at the back needed very little attention-thanks, she realised, with an odd little beat of her heart, to Drew. She stared out of the window at the Michaelmas daisies which were the exact colour of the curtains of the Lilac suite, and sighed.
She was persuaded by Jennie to go down to the boatyard at Milmouth Waters to see Jamie hard at work. And to see the boat which he was desperate to buy.
Shelley had grown up by the sea, and recognised a beauty of a vessel when she saw one. Inside the cavernous interior of the boatyard, the Misty Morn was strong and hunky and yet elegant, too. True, she had been allowed to run down into a state of disrepair, but there was nothing that lots of hard work and love wouldn't cure.
She spotted Gerald O'Rourke straightening some rigging, the unlit butt of a cigarette clamped between his lips. He had been working round boats at Milmouth since the beginning of time-or so it seemed.