Chapter 34
T he next three days were a whole new form of torture.
Jude went through the motions of being competent in the kitchen even though all his knives betrayed him, slicing his knuckles as if he was an amateur rather than a contender for the best new chef in Britain.
Rob alternated between making nice with their first paying guests and coming back to the kitchen to dispense first aid.
Each time Jude turned the air blue in the kitchen, Rob wrapped each new cut with plasters the same colour, kissing him better for longer than was strictly necessary before getting back to what he did best, making everyone who crossed the New Anchor’s threshold feel welcome and special.
Louise also did her best to maintain a brave face while serving tourists she’d worked so hard to lure back. But like the village missing its sandy star attraction, she too missed something vital.
Trevor, who drove from St Ives early each morning, put his finger on it on the third day.
Jude overheard him as Trevor restocked the bar for them without asking.
“It’s okay not to know how to feel, sweetheart,” he said to Louise over the clink of bottles.
“Waiting like this to hear if any more of the One for Luc k is found, or for definitive news about your parents, is awful. No one expects you to be the life and soul of the party with all of that hanging over your head,” he promised.
“Like no one would begrudge you taking some time for yourself while you’re waiting.
That’s why I’m here, like Susan and Carl and so many more of your friends.
We’re all here to make waiting for news easier, if you’ll let us. ”
“I can’t take time out.” Louise sounded as wretched as Jude felt. “I need to be here, close to the phone, just in case.”
Just in case was a sword over all of their heads that might plunge at any moment.
Maybe Marc thought so as well. He followed Louise closely—had done for days now—as if his presence might shield her.
Rob had been doing the same, Jude realised, with his near-constant hovering, meaning that his absence now was conspicuous.
Jude missed him more than seemed reasonable considering it hadn’t been long since Rob had rolled out of their shared bunk with a cheery, “Got an errand to run. Be back before you know it.” Now Jude glanced at his watch.
Nearly two hours had passed, much longer than a quick errand should take, surely?
He asked, “Have you seen Rob?” from the bar doorway.
“No.” Trevor tidied away the bottle of cognac that Rob toasted each new guest with.
“Not since I passed him on the hill out of the village.” He made short work of polishing the spot where the bottle had stood, the counter gleaming warmly as he braced both hands on its wooden surface.
Concern etched lines into a face that still exuded kindness.
“Is there something I can help you with until he gets back, Jude?”
“No.” Jude picked at the edge of one of his blue plasters, wondering when the absence of someone who used to be a thorn in his side stung more than the fresh nicks on his knuckles. “I just wondered where he was.”
“Go on,” Trevor urged both Jude and Louise. “Both of you. Take a break before the lunchtime rush. Looking after yourselves is important.”
Jude took Trevor’s advice, taking himself off to sit outside with the seagulls on the sea wall, staring for once not out to sea, but at where the street curved uphill, away from Porthperrin.
The sun warmed his face as he waited and the breeze ruffled his hair, flirty, like the man he watched for.
Jude pushed strands back from his forehead and stood as he heard the low rumble of Betsy’s engine, and when Rob appeared at the end of the quayside, windswept and so gorgeous, Jude could hardly get his words straight. “Where did you and Betsy get off to?”
“Foraging.” Rob brandished the bag he carried with a smile so bright it dazzled. “And Betsy needed petrol.”
“How much did the car lot guy offer for her, this time?” Jude asked, but he already knew Rob’s answer.
“Doesn’t matter. There isn’t enough cash on the planet.”
Jude peered into the bag Rob held out. “Mushrooms.”
“Ten out of ten for observation skills.” Rob emptied the bag onto the wide top of the sea wall and let Jude pick through them. “We’ll make a chef out of you yet.”
“I would have come with you,” Jude muttered, turning each mushroom over, checking the colour of their gills before throwing a couple of dubious ones into the water. “That way I could have spotted those two weren’t edible before you tried to poison our guests.”
“Like you would have been looking at the ground if I had taken you with me. We both know that you would have been too busy staring at the view to be useful.”
Rob teased, but Jude didn’t like the way he sounded so sure. That had been the old Jude, not the new version who valued what he had, right here in each moment.
“I wouldn’t have wasted time looking out to sea, if you’d taken me with you,” Jude said, brushing dirt from his palms before tugging Rob close by his belt loops.
How could he with Rob to look at? He moved both hands up, over Rob’s sun-warmed shirt, the heat radiating through its cotton similar to the heat flooding Jude’s chest and cheeks as he told his new truth.
“I told you that you’re my horizon, these days, didn’t I? ”
“You did,” Rob said, breathless as if he’d run down the hill instead of driven.
He stepped into an embrace that did nothing to help Jude cool down, his kiss so soft and giving, opening to Jude without hesitation.
Rob broke away to ask a quiet, “Any news?” before leaning in for another kiss after Jude shook his head.
This one was more consoling, and given with so much tenderness that Jude could hardly breathe after it ended.
Instead, he let Rob pull him closer, his forehead finding safe harbour in the crook of Rob’s shoulder.
How could something so simple as this—a shared kiss, a pair of arms that opened for him, an offer to brace him while his head felt this heavy—how could this one man be everything he needed?
That was a second brand-new truth that lifted him like a smaller wave hidden behind a first high one.
He remembered when his dad first taught him how to swim in the sea, reminding him not to panic.
It didn’t matter if tall waves swamped him, he’d instructed.
Another wave would be right behind it ready to lift him if he’d let it.
And that was exactly how it felt to Jude right then, Rob being there to raise him up when sinking had seemed certain. Rob did so much more than buoy him.
After everything else that was so complicated, putting how he felt into words was easy.
“I love you so much.”
Rob’s arms around him tightened. “So you should.” He joked although his voice was thicker than usual.
“Love you too.” He spoke quietly but his next swallow was audible.
“For however long you need me,” he added as if there was any reason in the world Jude wouldn’t.
Jude leaned back to say so just as a shout came from farther down the quayside.
“Hey!” Louise stood outside the Anchor next to a stack of Rob’s auction chairs and tables. “Can you two lovebirds stop snogging for long enough to do some real work?” Her hair whipped in the breeze, and she slid a hair-comb through to tame it without looking, just like their mum used to.
“What do you say?” Rob held out a hand. “Are you ready?”
“Yeah.” Jude threaded his fingers through Rob’s and they walked back to the Anchor together. “I’m ready,” he said, even though it turned out he truly wasn’t.
The phone rang at the end of the lunch service.
Jude heard it at the same time as Louise, who appeared in the bar doorway, her knuckles white around the damp cloth she held just as Jude’s blanched around the kitchen door jamb.
Trevor got to the office to pick up before the caller rang off, his back to the door by the time both Jude and Louise got there.
They both were close enough to hear him say, “Hello, you’ve reached the New Anchor. How may I help you?” as if he was about to take a dinner booking, and they both saw the pencil he’d plucked from the desk drop to the floor with a clatter.
Trevor’s back straightened suddenly, but Jude felt like his own was missing its spine, and perhaps Louise felt that collapse might come in the next second as well.
Her grip on his hand should have been painful.
Jude barely felt it, numb until Rob arrived and said, “Hold on.” Both Jude and Louise did as he instructed, clutching each other as all of Trevor’s breath hissed out.
“No!” Trevor almost yelled into the phone receiver. “No!” He did shout that time, and Jude felt his whole world grind to a full stop, once more.
This was what he’d expected.
This was also what he’d hoped would never happen.
Trevor turned to face them, the phone still held to his ear, his eyes swimming.
“No,” he said once more. “This isn’t Jude speaking.” A tear fell, followed by another. “It’s Trevor Mirren.” His voice was so thick. “It’s me. Trev.”
“Who is it?” Louise’s grasp on Jude tightened again, but he didn’t notice the sting of her nails.
Instead, the moment Trevor next spoke, a new unsteadiness rocked him as if another storm had struck Porthperrin, fierce enough to wash away more than only the beach, wild enough to shove Jude’s whole stalled world back onto its axis.
Trevor said, “I expect you want to talk to your children, Simon,” and Jude’s world finally started to revolve, once more.