The First Guests Read online

  Through the open bathroom window, we watched him charge off down the lane and eventually out of sight towards the cliffs.

  ‘Migraine,’ I said weakly. ‘A terrible affliction. The only cure for it is to, er, do that.’

  Mary and Joe nodded earnestly.

  ‘I’ll just find that cot,’ I said, sidling out of the room. And then I’d better find Theo …

  Chapter 7

  Twenty minutes had passed by the time I was free to look for Theo. I didn’t have a clue where I was going but I followed my instincts down to the coast road. I crossed over to the path that ran along the cliff edge and leaned on the stone wall, taking in the view down to the rocks on the other side.

  There was no sign of him.

  The wind whipped the ends of my newly black hair into my face and I pulled Theo’s huge padded jacket around me, glad I’d grabbed it at the last minute. The heat had disappeared from the sun altogether now and the air was damp with salt spray. It was so bracing that my skin had already begun to tingle. Just being here was probably as good for me as one of Trudy’s fancy exfoliators, I thought, trying to secure strands of hair behind my ears.

  Far below me, the beach looked almost deserted. To the left, waves were lapping at rocks and a dog was jumping in and out of the water. To the right of me, a set of steps, carved into the rock, led down to the shore and although I couldn’t see him, I had a hunch that Theo was hiding somewhere down there.

  The steps were steep and zigzagged through gorse bushes, but with the rocks behind me, I was sheltered from the wind and I warmed up as I jogged down to the sand. Seagulls squawked as they circled over the sea and the waves made a perfectly rhythmic whooshing and dragging sound as they broke on the pebbly part of the beach. At the far end of the beach someone whistled to their dog, and two children playing in the frothy surf in their wellies shrieked with laughter. There was plenty of noise and yet there was a peacefulness surrounding Brightside Cove that felt like balm to my soul.

  I tipped my head up to the sky and breathed deeply, inhaling the smells of the seaside. I needed this. Right now, I was in exactly the right place.

  Water oozed over the edge of my trainers as I squelched along the shoreline. A wet springer spaniel bounded up to me, dropped a rope toy at my feet and waggled its bottom in the air hopefully, its tongue lolling out of one side of its mouth.

  ‘Sorry!’ someone shouted in the distance, just as I bent to pick the rope up. ‘Mabel, come here!’

  The dog snatched at the toy and scampered off again, showering my face with wet sand.

  ‘Yuck.’ I spat the sand from my mouth, laughing. ‘Thanks, Mabel.’

  ‘Made a friend already?’ A familiar voice reached me on the wind.

  He was sitting high up on a rock like a long-legged gnome, facing out to the sea with his arms clamped around his knees.

  ‘For goodness’ sake, Theo,’ I said with a mix of relief and frustration. ‘You just abandoned me! What was I supposed to think?’

  I marched to the base of his rock and stared up at him.

  ‘That I’m not cut out for hospitality?’ He jumped down and landed with a thud beside me.

  ‘In case you hadn’t noticed, nor am I.’ Honestly, this man was the limit. I was beginning to have sympathy for Kate. ‘Last time I looked I was an actress.’

  To be totally accurate, the last time I looked I was a dangerous diva. My stomach roiled at the thought. At some point I was going to have to contact someone from my proper life and find out what was going on. The gnawing feeling of guilt I had about not speaking to Becky before I left was getting worse. But that could wait; right this minute I needed to find out what had caused Theo to bolt for the door.

  ‘Look,’ I said, patiently, ‘if I’m to help get you through this week, you’re going to have to try a bit harder.’

  ‘Yeah, I know,’ he said wearily. ‘I’m sorry. Again. All I seem to do is apologize.’

  It was on the tip of my tongue to tell him to stop being such a drip and pull himself together but there was something in the forlorn set of his shoulders that held me back.

  ‘No worries,’ I said, looping my arm through his. ‘Besides, I’ve been dying to get on the sand since I arrived. I miss the sea so much when I’m in London. I used to spend half my life on the beach when I was a student. Let’s walk along the edge.’

  I thought he’d protest, but we fell into step and carried on across the bay towards the harbour. My feet were getting soaked, but I felt like a little kid watching my footprints getting washed away by the foamy sea as we dodged the waves.

  ‘I love watching the tide come in and out,’ said Theo, nodding ahead of us to where a dozen or so little fishing boats were grounded in the harbour. ‘In a few hours all these will be bobbing about again, the beach will be half this size and the rock pools over near the sea wall will be teeming with hermit crabs. After eighteen months living here, it still amazes me how quickly things change.’

  ‘Ooh, a big shell!’ I said, pointing to a spot just in front of him. He picked it up and handed it to me and I cupped it in my palm. It was light brown, coarse on the outside and a bit rough round the edges but when I turned it over it revealed its softer side: a whorl of beauty, shiny and smooth, and shimmering in iridescent shades of pink.

  ‘Look what it was hiding.’ I held it up to show him and he stroked the smooth surface with the tip of his finger.

  ‘Who’d have guessed it had all that going on inside it,’ he said with a soft smile and began to plod onwards.

  Ahead of us was a manmade slope which led away from the sea and up to a cluster of shops and cottages and I could just make out a pub sign swaying in the breeze. Theo’s pace began to slow as we approached the slope and I could feel his reluctance to leave the beach.

  I had to know what was going on and what had caused him to run and it felt like now or never. I stopped in my tracks causing him to stop too.

  ‘Theo, what is it?’ I searched his dark eyes for clues. ‘What’s going on inside you?’

  He stiffened and looked out to sea above my head and refused to meet my gaze. ‘I feel calmer down here, like I’m using the whole of my lungs to breathe instead of just the top ten per cent. So this is where I come when it gets too much.’

  It wasn’t exactly an invitation to probe further, but it was probably as good as I was going to get.

  ‘You and Kate loved each other, you still love her, I can tell, so what went wrong?’

  And then he did look at me and the pain in his eyes almost made me weep. He raked a hand across his stubble.

  ‘You know that cot?’

  I nodded.

  ‘It was Ivy’s. Our daughter, Ivy.’

  ‘Oh, Theo,’ I murmured.

  My heart squeezed as a rash of goose bumps slithered down my spine.

  To the left, at the top of the slipway, was a weather-beaten wooden bench in front of a small whitewashed building. Rows and rows of lobster pots were lined up outside and a handwritten board advertising fresh lobster caught daily by Big Dave had been nailed to the door. I quietly took Theo’s hand and led him to the bench.

  I learned the power of silence in drama school. Staying quiet when the audience was expecting you to speak built dramatic tension, had them on the edge of their seats, eyes glued to the stage. Now the moment was prickling with tension. And the stage was all Theo’s.

  ‘She would have been two and a half now,’ he said, easing his wallet from the pocket of his jeans. Tucked into the flap were a handful of photographs. ‘If she’d survived.’

  My throat ached with sorrow as suddenly everything began to make sense.

  ‘Here she is at five months old.’ He handed me a picture of a smiling Kate holding a tiny child. My breath hitched; Ivy was the most perfect little thing I’d ever seen. Even though the baby only had the merest wisp of fine blonde hair, and was wearing cream rabbit-covered dungarees, she was unmistakably a little girl.

  ‘Beautiful,’ I said, clearing m
y throat to banish the lump in it.

  ‘She was,’ Theo said gruffly. ‘Our little angel.’

  My heart skipped a beat as a tear slipped down his cheek.

  ‘Tell me about her,’ I whispered, blotting his tear with my fingertip.

  And against a backdrop of sea and sky and immeasurable beauty, I listened as he talked me through the photos and told me of the joy that Ivy had brought to him and Kate from the moment they’d learned they were going to have a baby. Her arrival had been simple: a fast labour and a water birth and Theo had fallen in love with his daughter instantly and with Kate all over again. A love more fierce and precious than he could have imagined.

  ‘She left us as quickly as she arrived.’ Theo held up a picture of Ivy and him, her little hands on his face, beaming with an adorable smile. The Theo in the picture was the one I remembered. His open smile, his eyes dancing with happiness.

  ‘One minute she did her first roll-over, the next, it seemed, she had a temperature and an infection and before we knew it she was fighting for her life in a hospital crib.’

  ‘What a nightmare,’ I said, my heart swelling with sadness, unable to process what the two of them must have gone through. I slid closer to him and pressed my shoulder to his.

  ‘By the time the medical team diagnosed sepsis, it was too late. She wasn’t strong enough to fight it. She was six months old when she died.’ He rubbed his thumb tenderly over Ivy’s face in the picture. ‘And a piece of me died with her.’

  ‘Oh Theo, I am so, so sorry for your loss.’ My eyes brimmed with tears and I slipped an arm around him. ‘And Kate? How did she cope?’

  His shoulders sagged. ‘Without Ivy, we ceased to be a family, but we’d forgotten how to be just us. At first we clung to each other. Our grief was so sharp that everyone and everything else faded from view; she and I were the only ones who understood the other’s pain. But before long, the cracks started to show and we began to disintegrate.’

  He told me how they’d struggled through bereavement counselling, which had only led to tension between them, each of them sinking under the weight of their own despair, battling with feelings of guilt and uselessness until one day Kate had seen Driftwood Lodge for sale. A fresh start, a chance to reconnect and heal. As Theo didn’t have any better ideas, he’d agreed. He’d more or less abandoned his business as a lighting consultant but he could start it up again anywhere. And so they’d moved on.

  ‘Or should I say Kate moved on.’ He hung his head miserably. ‘To a degree, at least. She made Driftwood Lodge our home, bought some ducks and chickens, came up with the idea for the holiday cottages. But I couldn’t move on. I couldn’t think straight, let alone work. I couldn’t bear the fact that some of Ivy’s things, like her cot, were sitting redundant in that little room under the eaves. In the end, Kate gave up on me. I don’t blame her; I gave up on myself. Devon was supposed to be our second chance at happiness and I threw it away. And I miss her, I miss Ivy, I miss our family, I miss the life we had.’

  My heart ached for the two of them. How cruel fate can be. Instead of bringing up their daughter, and surrounding her with love, Kate and Theo had been plagued by sadness and loss.

  Theo shivered. I was growing cold too, sitting on this draughty bench facing a sharp breeze blowing in with the tide. The sound of laughter made me look round at a group of people gathered outside a pub, called The Sea Urchin.

  ‘Wait here a minute.’

  I dashed off to the pub and came back with two takeaway coffees and some extra sugar packets for Theo. I tipped the sugar in and gave it a stir before handing it to him. He mumbled his thanks but his eyes were fixed on some faraway place, a memory perhaps of a happier time.

  When Theo had spoken about Kate’s ultimatum, I’d been indignant on his behalf, but now I understood a little better. I had to do something. I could do something.

  ‘Let me help you,’ I said.

  He looked down at his coffee as if surprised to find it there and took a tentative sip. ‘You are helping. And so is Archie. Goodness knows what state I’d be in if you two hadn’t turned up when you did.’

  ‘I can do more,’ I said with a burst of energy. I turned to him, my eyes shining. ‘Let’s do it. Let’s take on Kate’s ultimatum. We can get the holiday cottage business up and running properly like she wants. It’s doable.’

  My mind was racing. I could take an extended break from acting and by the time Kate came back, all the brouhaha about my Victory Road blunder would have disappeared and I could go back to London and pick up where I’d left off. Onwards and upwards.

  ‘Is it?’ Theo eyed me doubtfully.

  ‘Yes!’ I cried. ‘We’ll finish the cottages off just as Kate would have done with beautiful interiors and all the little luxuries that make a holiday special. Proper outside space, fluffy towels, beach equipment to borrow, fresh eggs, homemade cakes … I can see it all now!’

  ‘All I can see is a lot of work.’ Theo blinked at me.

  ‘Exactly! This is the perfect way to win her back!’ I got to my feet and began pacing along past the lobster pots and back again. ‘Show her you want to make a go of life. She will be so proud of you.’

  ‘I was a failure at being a dad and a husband.’ He swallowed a mouthful of coffee, and tears sprang to his eyes. ‘I want to win her back but I don’t think I deserve her. All I’ve done recently is let people down.’

  ‘Been there, got the T-shirt.’ I thought of the trail of disaster I’d left in my wake in London. I stood up and held out a hand to him. ‘But tomorrow is a new day. Let’s go home and make a plan.’

  It may have been my imagination but there was a new lightness to Theo’s step on the way back. And the thought that I might have put it there made me feel very happy indeed.

  Back at Driftwood Lodge, the Bird family were having a whale of a time. After a hunt for freshly laid eggs around the garden and courtyard, the two oldest children had begged to be allowed one last walk to the beach before bedtime. As soon as they’d gone, we’d sneaked in to have showers and while I was drying my hair, Theo checked his emails and found one from Archie. He had transferred the money for the car into Theo’s account and was sending a tow truck to collect it next week.

  Theo had money again, for the moment at least. We drove to the nearest cashpoint, withdrew as much as we could and took it straight round to Vic, the builder. As luck would have it, Vic had got some of his mates round for a poker night, one of whom was Geoff the plumber who’d half completed the cottages’ bathrooms. The men were wary of restarting work at Driftwood Lodge, but after Theo paid them what they were owed and I explained that he hadn’t been too well after Kate left suddenly, they promised to be back at work on Tuesday morning.

  We celebrated our success with fish and chips on the way home and ate them on our bench by the lobster pots straight from the paper. The batter was crispy and light, the fish melted in my mouth and the chips were cooked to perfection. Theo hoovered his up and then finished mine, declaring it to be the best meal he’d had in weeks. I was glad to see him eating properly. Hopefully his appetite for life wouldn’t be too far behind.

  The Birds were already settled in for the night when we got back to Penguin’s Pad. There was scarcely any light pollution in Brightside Cove and of course no electricity at all in our cottage, but the moon was full and with a couple of candles and a camping lantern each, there was plenty of light in our makeshift sleeping quarters – Theo in one bedroom and me next door. The air was chilly, though, and I was glad of the extra-thick bedding that Archie had bought. After a trip to the outside loo tucked away next to one of the garages, I settled into my airbed with a book. I’d scarcely got to the bottom of the page when my eyes began to droop. I tucked my bookmark into the pages and put it down, straining to hear any noises from next door.

  ‘How’s your luxury mattress?’ I called softly to Theo.

  He didn’t reply. I rolled off my airbed and tiptoed towards his room, worried in case he was feeling
low again. There were no internal doors up here and so it was easy to spy on him. To my relief, he was fast asleep, his breathing slow, his black curls glinting in the pale moonlight, dark lashes brushing his cheeks and the ghost of a smile playing at his lips. In his hands, relaxed in sleep, was his wedding photograph, and on top of that, a picture of Ivy from his wallet.

  I crept away and back to my own bed, a steely core of determination strengthening my resolve to do my best for him and Kate. I’d almost ruined their wedding five years ago and now fate had presented me with the chance to redeem myself. I might have cocked up my own life, but I was determined to try to salvage theirs.

  Chapter 8

  On Monday morning I was up with the larks, or should I say seagulls. They’d woken me up with their squawking and I’d unearthed some buckets and spades and a tatty-looking bodyboard from a shed for the two oldest Bird children and watched as they’d run off to persuade their parents to take them surfing.

  As soon as they’d gone, I snuck into the house and made myself some toast, took another quick shower and just made it out in time before Mary came back with a wet and howling baby after an incident involving a bucket of cold sea water and a very repentant big sister.

  Theo still hadn’t surfaced so I hunted down the code to the WiFi and decided to finally make contact with the outside world. Luckily the internet signal reached across to the cottages from the main house so I took a coffee up to my bedroom and logged on. I ignored all the notifications from Facebook and Twitter, cast only a cursory eye over the new emails including one from Sebastian and another from that dreadful gossip-mongering journalist Ross Whittaker requesting a follow-up chat, and began a WhatsApp message to Trudy instead.

  Have found the perfect place to lie low for a while: indoor camping, all meals al fresco, and salt scrub facials for free! Xx

  She replied in a nano-second:

  WHERE are you??? My Harrods customers would go WILD for this. Also, get you! There’s a video of you tipping ice on Cecily on YouTube and it’s had over 20,000 hits already. You’re famous! Xoxo