Chapter 11
Chapter Eleven
NINA
The May Bank Holiday fete has been happening on the beach at the cove for longer than anyone can remember.
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.’
She’s not wrong. She’s terrifying, but she’s not wrong.
Mum laughs, delighted, and I catch her eye across the stall.
She came down yesterday, just for the long weekend – ‘To see the fete, to see you, to make sure you’re actually eating properly and not just feeding everyone else.
’ We’d stayed up late in my flat, drinking wine while Chips snored between us, and she’d looked around at the café, at my life, at the pictures on the wall and the penguin magnet on the fridge, and said, ‘You seem better, love. Settled.’
I hadn’t known what to say to that. Better than what? Settled compared to when?
But something has shifted. I don’t know when. The café feels like mine again. The grief feels different – still there, still real, but less like drowning and more like weathering.
And then I glance across the sand and see a tourist walking past, same height as Peter, same loose-shouldered walk, and my stomach folds in on itself so fast I have to grip the edge of the stall.
A breath. Two. The man turns and he’s nothing like Peter – wrong face, wrong everything – and the wave passes, and I’m still standing, and the coffee machine is hissing, and Maisie is arguing with a tourist about jam.
I’m still standing. That’s something. Three months ago, that would have been the floor.
Maisie tugs at my sleeve. ‘Nina. There’s a situation.’
‘What kind of situation?’
‘Jude’s trying to win the big bear. He’s been at it for ages. It’s getting sad.’
I look over at the coconut shy. Jude is indeed there, ball in hand, face set with determination. Brynn is standing a few feet away, arms crossed, watching with an expression that’s trying very hard to be unimpressed and not quite succeeding.
‘He’s been trying for twenty minutes,’ Maisie reports. ‘Tom says his technique is all wrong. Jude says Tom doesn’t know what he’s talking about. They’re arguing about physics.’
‘They would be.’
‘What’s physics?’
‘The science of things moving. Or not moving, in Jude’s case.’
Maisie considers this. ‘So Jude is bad at physics.’
‘Jude is bad at coconuts. It’s not the same thing.’
I leave Mum in charge and make my way through the crowd. The beach is packed. Kids everywhere, sandcastles in various states of construction, the brass band doing something enthusiastic and slightly off-key near the water’s edge. The air smells like salt and sunscreen and frying onions.
‘—trajectory is wrong,’ Tom is saying as I approach. ‘You’re throwing too high. You need to hit the base, not the top.’
‘I’m hitting the coconut. That’s the point.’
‘The point is to knock it off. Which you’re not doing. Because your trajectory is wrong.’
‘My trajectory is fine.’
‘Your trajectory is why you’ve spent four pounds and won nothing.’
‘That’s very supportive, Tom. Really feeling the team spirit.’
‘I’m not on your team. I’m running the stall. I’m professionally neutral.’
Brynn catches my eye and shakes her head. ‘They’ve been like this for half an hour. It’s exhausting.’
‘Why doesn’t Tom just win it for you?’
‘I suggested that. Jude said it would be cheating. Then he said it would be emasculating. Then he threw another ball and missed.’
‘Sounds about right.’
‘I don’t even want the bear,’ Brynn says, but she’s smiling. ‘It’s enormous. It’s taller than Maisie. Where would I put it?’
‘In your heart?’
‘My heart isn’t that big.’
‘Your boat?’
‘Now you’re just being stupid.’
Jude throws again. The coconut wobbles violently, spins on its stand, and settles back into position with what I swear is a smug little shimmy.
‘That should have counted,’ Jude says, lips turning down, his sandy hair flopping into his gaze.
‘It didn’t fall off,’ Tom says. ‘Those are the rules.’
‘Your rules are broken. The system is rigged.’
‘The system has worked since 1953. Possibly since pirates. You’re just bad at it.’
‘I’m not bad at it. The coconuts are weighted wrong.’
‘The coconuts are coconuts. They don’t have settings.’
I’m laughing before I can stop myself, and both of them turn.
Tom’s expression changes when he sees me.
I’ve been noticing more lately – it softens, but then seems to catch itself, settles into the dry expression he wears like armour.
The whole thing takes about half a second.
I don’t know why I’m tracking the stages.
‘Nina.’ Jude gestures dramatically at the stall. ‘Please explain to your friend that this game is a scam designed to humiliate honest men.’
‘It’s not a scam,’ Tom says.
‘Then prove it. Show me. Since you’re such an expert.’
‘I’m running the stall. I can’t compete.’
‘You can compete once. For science. For the advancement of human knowledge.’
‘That’s not—’
‘For Brynn.’ Jude plays his final card. ‘She wants the bear. I can’t win the bear. You win the bear. Simple.’
Tom looks at Brynn. Brynn holds up her hands.
‘I really don’t want the bear.’
‘She wants the bear,’ Jude says firmly. ‘She’s being modest. Win her the bear, Tom.’
‘This is ridiculous.’
‘This is tradition. This is what friends do.’
Tom sighs and picks up a ball. The crowd around the stall has grown; people sensing drama are flocking with the British bloodlust for fairground competition. ‘One throw,’ he says. ‘Just to prove it’s not rigged. Then you can stop complaining.’
‘Fine. One throw. But it has to be the big one.’ Jude points at the enormous teddy bear hanging from the top of the stall. It’s bright pink, vaguely terrifying, and roughly the size of a small refrigerator. ‘That one.’
‘That one requires three coconuts in a row.’
‘Then throw three times. I believe in you.’
‘You just said one throw.’
‘I’ve revised my position. Three throws. Go.’
Tom picks up three balls. The crowd holds its breath. Somewhere behind me, I hear Mum’s voice along with Dot’s in return – ‘What’s happening?’ ‘Tom’s trying to win Brynn a bear.’ ‘Oh, how lovely.’
He throws the first ball. The coconut flies off its stand like it’s been shot.
The crowd cheers. Jude’s face falls.
‘Lucky,’ Jude mutters.
Tom throws the second ball. Another coconut, another clean hit, another roar from the audience.
He does it casually, without effort, the same quiet competence he brings to everything – windows, coffee machines, injured dogs in the gorse.
His forearm flexes on the throw and I watch the muscle move under his skin and then I look at the sky because the sky is safe and has never made me feel confused about anything.
‘Oh, come on—’
The third ball leaves Tom’s hand in a perfect arc. The coconut doesn’t just fall – it rockets off the stand and lands in the sand three feet away.
The crowd goes wild. Maisie, who has abandoned the coffee stall entirely, is jumping up and down screaming. Even Brynn looks impressed, though she’s trying to hide it behind her hand.
‘That’s impossible,’ Jude says flatly. ‘That’s actually impossible. You’ve been practising. In secret. You’ve been preparing for this moment your entire life.’
‘I’m a vet,’ Tom says mildly. ‘Good hand-eye coordination.’
‘You have sorcery, is what you have.’