Chapter 25
‘Can it be fixed, do you think?’ Briony asked after she’d composed herself in the kitchen and had checked that Troy was nowhere to be seen before she stepped outside.
‘I think so,’ replied Peter. ‘I can’t do it here, though.’
‘That’s disappointing,’ commented Sebastian.
‘Yeah, I know, but the hull needs a lot of restoration, and for that it would need to be taken to Southwold boatyard. There’s a boat restoration and repair company there that I used to work for.’
Somehow, Briony had imagined that Clarissa’s father would come along with a toolbox, and that with a few nails and a hammer, it would all be fixed up, right as rain. Of course, she knew she’d been being wildly optimistic.
‘It might even need a new hull.’
‘A rebuild, then, as opposed to a repair,’ Sebastian commented.
‘Quite possibly. Until I get it hoisted up, and we can take a good look, I can’t really say for certain the full extent of the work needed.’
Briony’s brow creased into a frown. She knew what that would entail – money, and plenty of it.
She was about to bring it up, when Peter said, ‘I don’t know what Clarissa has told you, but obviously, as I would need to use the boatyard facilities to repair the boat. I couldn’t do it for free.’
Briony nodded. ‘No, I understand.’
‘But I can take the boat, and give it a proper assessment, see how much time and materials it would take, and then let you know what the cost would be.’
Briony knew that her savings had dwindled considerably.
Peter noticed her hesitate. He added, ‘An assessment will cost you nothing.’
Briony stared at the boat, wondering if it was worth even having it assessed. What was the point if she couldn’t afford to get it repaired? She realised that she hadn’t thought it all through. Briony heaved a sigh. ‘What is your honest opinion of the state of it – is it even worth taking a look, or ...’ she trailed off.
‘She’d be a beauty if I could repair her.’
‘She was a beauty,’ said Sebastian. ‘If it’s money, I’ll buy her and pay for her to be restored. I’d rather that than see her chopped up for firewood.’
‘I was going to offer to do that myself,’ said Peter, ‘if you didn’t want to go ahead. Not chop her up for firewood, obviously, but buy the boat and do the repairs myself.’
Briony looked from one to the other. It would be one thing to have the boat renovated, like the outbuilding, for her grandmother’s return, but another thing altogether to sell something which was not hers to sell. Briony shook her head. ‘It’s not mine to sell. It belongs to my grandmother.’
Peter nodded. ‘I understand.’
‘Sorry, but I think it’s probably going to turn out too costly for me to go ahead and have the boat repaired, after all,’ admitted Briony. She dropped her eyes from his gaze, embarrassed that Peter had made a special trip for nothing.
‘I can secure it with some tarpaulin to protect it from the elements while you ask your grandmother what she’d like to do with it.’
‘That’s really kind of you, Peter.’ Briony sighed. ‘The thing is, I can’t ask her. Not right now. She’s … not well at the moment. I’ll just have to wait until she … she’s better before I ask if that’s what she wants.’
Briony assumed she must have the money because she wouldn’t have been planning to spend it on the outbuilding renovations. Whether she wanted to spend it on the boat, though, was another matter.
‘It’s really kind of you both to offer to buy the boat. I will put that to her too, when I can.’
‘I know who wouldn’t want to sell it,’ Sebastian said under his breath as they both watched Peter examine the boat some more.
Briony stared at him. She decided to be direct. ‘Are you talking about my mother?’ she asked.
Sebastian turned to Briony. ‘I guessed you were Lorna’s daughter. Troy confirmed it when he told me you were here staying at your grandmother’s place.’
‘That’s why I gave you quite a shock – when you first saw me. You knew my mum, years ago, and I look just like her.’
‘I thought I was seeing a ghost. Your likeness is uncanny.’
‘Yes, everyone tells me I take after her. My dad says it’s just as well that I didn’t take after his ugly mug. Not that he is ugly, or anything.’ Briony suddenly felt a lump in her throat. She missed them both, and hated herself for lying to them.
She sat down next to Sebastian on the edge of the wooden hull. ‘The thing is, what you said about going sailing and diving with your friends. Were you talking about my mum, Lorna? I can’t imagine it. She hates the ocean, and anything to do with sea life.’
Sebastian’s dark eyes studied her. ‘Well, it wasn’t always like that. Although she loved music, her passion was the ocean.’
‘Her passion was the ocean. Are you serious?’ Briony couldn’t believe what she was hearing.
He nodded. ‘Oh, yes. We used to spend the summers sailing and snorkelling. Then we both earned our PADI Adventure Diver certification.’
‘Okay,’ Briony said slowly. She had no idea what that meant.
‘And unbeknown to her parents, who would have probably freaked out, we enrolled in the Wreck Diver Speciality course. That meant we could go diving the shipwrecks along the Suffolk Coast too.’
Briony stared at him.
‘Those summers when she came here on holiday were … were amazing.’
Briony suddenly thought of the shell box and the key her mum had said was the key to her heart. Briony assumed she had been talking about how much she’d loved The Beach House, but what if she had been talking about somebody she’d known years earlier at The Beach House – somebody who had broken her heart? What if it was Sebastian?
Even if that were true, there was still something playing on Briony’s mind. All this talk of sailing, and diving, and the ocean – she still couldn’t marry that up with her mum. Briony was wondering if he was mistaken. After all, it was a long time ago. It was as though the young woman he was talking about was a different person.
‘Are you sure you’re not talking about your best friend, the other girl, Troy’s mum?’
Sebastian slowly shook her head. ‘No, I know who I’m talking about. I wouldn’t forget. How could I forget, when I was in—’ he stopped abruptly.
Briony stared at him. Was he going to say, how could he forget when he was in love with her?
She glanced at the outbuilding. Troy’s angry face appeared at one of the windows. Not for the first time, she guessed Troy was jealous seeing her in Sebastian’s company, chatting.
Briony fixed her attention on Sebastian. ‘What happened to Troy’s parents? Why did Troy’s mum leave you with her baby?’
Sebastian stood up. ‘Troy needs help with the outbuilding.’
Briony reached for his hand. ‘Sorry. I know it’s none of my business.’ She wished she hadn’t been so direct.
Sebastian looked down at her hand in his. ‘I can’t believe how much you look like her.’
Briony said, looking up at him, ‘I can’t believe what you said about my mum. You see, I love biology and marine life, but she always seemed to do her best to discourage me from pursuing marine biology.’
‘You want to be a marine biologist?’
‘Yes, it’s been my dream since I was really little. I’ve graduated with a degree in biology, and I’ve got a master’s lined up.’ Briony’s eyes lit up when she talked of her passion.
‘Well, that is just so exciting, Briony. Obviously, your mother’s early passion rubbed off.’
Yeah, but she didn’t want it to,thought Briony.
‘You are your mother’s daughter – that’s for sure.’
Briony looked at him thoughtfully. It had never seemed that way. She wished her mum had told her about her past, what she had been like as a teenager, that they were really so alike. But then she would have had to tell her about Blythe, The Beach House, and the summers she had spent there.
‘That was my dream once,’ said Sebastian, interrupting her thoughts.
‘To be a marine biologist?’
‘Ah, not exactly. I love marine archaeology. It’s what I used to dive for.’
‘Sunken treasure?’
‘If you’d call shipwrecks sunken treasure, then I suppose yes. There are thousands off the coast of Suffolk.’
‘Did you find any?’
‘None that hadn’t already been found.’
‘So, you did dive to a wreck?’
‘Oh, yes. So did Lorna.’
Briony stared at him. This was a whole other side to her mum she never knew about.
‘So, I’m guessing Lorna … your mum … didn’t end up working in marine conservation?’
‘She was interested in conservation? Wow – that’s what I’m interested in doing!’ Briony shook her head in response to his question. ‘Music, like my grandmother. She became a music teacher.’
‘Oh, right. That does surprise me.’
‘How come? She’s pretty good, you know.’
‘I know. She was a really good piano player.’
‘So, why does it surprise you that she became a music teacher?’
‘Because she said she never wanted to be one. Guess something changed her mind.’
‘Responsibilities,’ commented Briony, realising what it meant to have children young and put your life and your own needs on hold. It suddenly dawned on her just what she was giving up, and quite possibly would never return to, by having this baby. She suddenly saw her future all mapped out for her, working in Reggie’s music shop, perhaps even taking over from him, if she could stay living in Suffolk and bring up her child there.
It wouldn’t be a bad life – would it? With the lovely community in Cobblers Yard, and all the lovely friends she’d met. But she had to acknowledge, like her mum, like Sebastian, that it wouldn’t be what she had always dreamed of.
Was that why her mum had never encouraged her in marine biology – because she was just resentful that her daughter would get to do the things she had never had the chance to do herself? Well, perhaps she’ll be pleased to hear I’m pregnant, and I can’t pursue my dream anymore, either.
‘Responsibilities?’ echoed Sebastian.
Briony heaved a sigh. ‘Yeah, well she got pregnant and got married really young, obviously, so that’s bound to affect your decisions, you know.’
‘Oh, I know, believe me.’ Sebastian cast his gaze over to the outbuilding, where Troy was busy working.
‘Troy mentioned that his dad is a deep-sat diver because you can earn good money.’
‘Yeah, I’m good at diving. Wasn’t quite how I envisaged using my diving experience, but there you have it – life doesn’t always turn out how you expect.’
Oh, I know, believe me, thought Briony. She asked Sebastian, ‘What was she like, when you knew her?’ She wanted to know about the carefree, world-at-her-feet teenage Lorna before she’d become pregnant and got married.
Sebastian’s dark eyes lit up. ‘She was the life and soul. I mean if you wanted to have fun with a capital F, she was wild.’
‘Really?’ Once again, she thought that it didn’t sound like her mum. She was no fun at all now. Mind you, neither was her dad.
Briony felt so mean for thinking that. But it was true – the only time she saw her dad really animated, cracking jokes, was when he was packing for a cruise.
A funny thought occurred to her. Perhaps if her parents had never got together, her mum might have been more fun. Briony shook her head. If they hadn’t got together, I wouldn’t have been born.
‘I guess if you were friends with my mum years ago, visiting The Beach House when she was here during the summer, you met her grandparents, my great-grandparents, before they passed away?’
‘Yes.’ He looked about him. ‘They used to hold the most amazing parties.’
‘I’ve seen the photo albums.’ Briony voice her thoughts. ‘It just seemed that when my great-grandparents were alive, this place, which I understand used to be their holiday home until they retired here, was just full of people having lots of fun.’
‘Oh, yeah. There were always a lot of people, friends and relations, who came to visit. There were beach games, and parties, and everyone got a chance to sail in this boat. Then it all changed when they died.’
‘How so?’
‘They both went pretty quickly, one after the other. Best way to go, if you ask me. But anyway, that’s a bit morbid. That summer was a summer to remember, but for all the wrong reasons – your mother and grandparents came down for the funeral. We met up, me and your mother, as usual, but things had… changed, obviously. We knew things were coming to an end. We were growing up. She was going to Oxford University; I was meant to be going into the family business. We still took the boat out, enjoyed the summer as much as we could. We promised to write. She had to return to Oxford early after the funeral. We promised we’d meet here at the end of the summer. But she never showed up.’
Briony stared at Sebastian. Whatever he felt for her mum, she imagined those feelings would no longer be reciprocated. She’d moved on with her life, to Oxford, and had met Andrew. ‘I’m sorry.’ For some reason, Briony felt the need to apologise.
‘Oh, don’t apologise. We were young. I guess I always knew those summers would come to an end, and she’d move on to better … things.’
Briony stared at him, guessing he wasn’t only talking about Oxford, but who she’d met there.
‘Have you enjoyed your holidays here?’ Sebastian asked, changing the subject.
Briony bit her lower lip. ‘My mum and grandmother had a huge falling-out before I was born, apparently. They’ve been estranged ever since. I never knew my maternal grandmother, or this place, until I got a letter asking me to come here.’
‘Really? That is sad. Such a waste, for you and your grandmother, not having the opportunity to know one another, and for you to spend your summers here at The Beach House.’
Briony thought so too.
‘Well, now you’re here, I hope things work out for you, with your grandmother.’
Briony hoped so too.
‘Will your mother be joining you?’ He looked down the beach, as if she’d been joining them any minute.
God, I hope not, thought Briony.
‘Sorry to disturb you both, but I’ve got the tarpaulin.’
They both jumped up from where they had been perched on the boat. Briony had forgotten all about Peter.
‘Here, let me help you with that.’ said Sebastian.
Briony looked at the tarpaulin. ‘You didn’t drag that all the way up the beach, did you?’
‘That’s where the car park is. Didn’t have a choice, did I?’
‘Actually,’ Briony didn’t want to tell him, ‘there’s a single-track lane just before you enter the village that leads to the property. There’s a driveway.’
He rolled his eyes. ‘Now you tell me!’
The look on Peter’s face brought to mind the taxi driver who had driven her there a little over a week earlier. Had it only been that long? It seemed like a lifetime ago – which reminded Briony, once again, that she still hadn’t contacted her parents as she’d promised she would.
She vowed to herself that during the week, while she was working in the music shop and had internet access, she would send an email – otherwise her mum might start questioning Angel to see if she’d heard from her, and Angel might drop a clanger and tell her Briony’s secrets. It was only Monday. As long as I do it before the weekend, thought Briony.
Peter walked around the boat and checked that the tarpaulin was secure. He stopped in front of Briony. ‘When your grandmother is well enough to decide what she wants doing with the boat, just let me know. Then we can get it fixed, if that’s what she’d like.’
‘Oh, I’m sure she would,’ said Briony. ‘She’s in hospital at the moment, but I’ll be sure to let her know, when I can.’ Briony frowned. She hadn’t meant to say that Blythe was in hospital.
As she said that, Troy walked by and overheard the snippet of conversation. He looked at the boat, at Peter, and then frowned at the sight of Briony, sitting with his dad.