Chapter 4
Chapter four
Juliet
Juliet always felt a bit flat without guests in the house.
She liked guests like the Australian boys: boisterous, cheerful, needing her to bustle around them.
The retired couples who came on walking holidays were soothing in their own way, and certainly slotted into the order of things with calm neatness, but they didn’t need her the way these lads did, frying them a half dozen eggs each for breakfast and letting them wash out their dirty kit in the kitchen sink.
Now she stood in the doorway of Lucy’s room and watched while she grabbed her sweater and reached for an elastic for her hair amidst the detritus strewn across the dresser.
How had Lucy managed to make such a mess in less than twenty-four hours?
And why did her sister’s mess irritate her when she knew she would put up with the Australian boys’ muddy boots and dirty socks?
Well, the Australians were leaving tomorrow. Lucy wasn’t.
“I’ll get the dogs’ leads,” Juliet said, and turned away.
Back downstairs she jammed on her hiking boots and reached for her waterproof jacket before looping the dogs’ leads around their sleek heads.
They always knew when she was taking them out, from the moment she even seemed to think about it.
Now they pranced around her with nervous excitement, butting her thigh with their noses.
She heard Lucy coming down the stairs; she’d changed into jeans, but she was wearing those ridiculous ballet flats and her jacket was actually velveteen.
“It’s going to rain,” Juliet told her. “Don’t you have proper gear?”
Lucy glanced at her jacket. “Umm . . . I have a winter parka, but it’s kind of heavy, considering it’s supposed to be summer.”
“You’ll need a proper waterproof here unless you want to catch pneumonia.
” Juliet reached for one of the spare waterproofs she kept for guests and tossed it to Lucy.
“Here. You can use that until you can get something suitable. Those flats will be soaked in seconds. The beach is tidal, you know. The sand is always wet.” Belatedly Juliet realized how stern she sounded.
“Sorry,” Lucy said. Her sister looked like a kicked puppy. She’d looked the same when she’d made that comment in the kitchen about answering phones not being rocket science. And maybe it had sounded a little mean, but honestly. How hard a job could it be?
“You can borrow a pair of boots too,” she said gruffly, leaning down to lace up her hiking boots. “There’s probably a pair your size in the hall.”
A few minutes later they were heading down the high street, bundled up in coats and boots, their heads lowered against the chill wind.
“I can’t believe it’s August,” Lucy said as she dug her hands into the pockets of her coat. “August. It’s ninety degrees Fahrenheit in Boston.”
“Sounds awful,” Juliet answered shortly, and patted her thigh. “Milly. Molly. Heel.”
“I suppose it was pretty muggy,” Lucy allowed. “But it’s bloody freezing here. It can’t be above fifty degrees.”
“I don’t know Fahrenheit,” Juliet answered, “but it’s not that cold. You just have to dress appropriately.”
She sneaked a glance at Lucy and saw she was doing the kicked-puppy thing again. Her shoulders were hunched against the wind, her head lowered, her eyes streaming. But then Juliet’s eyes were also streaming; they were walking straight into the wind.
“So how long have you been living here?” Lucy asked.
Juliet narrowed her eyes against the onslaught of the wind. No matter what she’d said to Lucy, it really was freezing out, even for Cumbria. “Ten years.”
“What made you choose this place? I would have expected you to live in London or something, doing something important. Stockbroker or solicitor or something.”
Juliet let out a bark of a laugh at that. “Solicitor? I didn’t even finish university.”
“Didn’t you?” Lucy’s gaze widened and Juliet gritted her teeth. She didn’t know what annoyed her more: that she’d told Lucy or that Lucy hadn’t known. “Why not?”
“I dropped out. Wasn’t for me.” Juliet dug her hands into her pockets and started to walk faster. “I did a catering course instead.”
“I never knew that,” Lucy said, and Juliet shrugged.
“Why would you? We haven’t exactly kept in touch.”
“I know, but . . .” Lucy trailed off and Juliet didn’t fill the silence.
What was there, really, to say? Their mother and Lucy had chosen to make their lives in Boston, separate from Juliet.
They’d been perfectly happy in their little bubble of fame and fortune, a far cry from the council flat Juliet had grown up in, when Fiona had been struggling through night classes and jobs working in pubs.
Lucy had no idea of what life had been like before Fiona Bagshaw had become the Fiona Bagshaw.
“So a catering course,” Lucy said after a moment. “Have you always worked in the hospitality industry?”
“I got a job at a big hotel in Manchester right after graduation. I worked there for a few years.” Until her life had fallen apart, though not in the spectacular way Lucy’s had; more of a desperate, quiet crumbling.
“So how did you end up in Hartley-by-the-Sea?”
Juliet dug her hands deeper into the pockets of her waterproof. “I was on a walking holiday up here and I stopped and decided to stay for good.”
“Really? You just . . . stayed?”
Juliet shot her a narrow look. “Why all the questions now, Lucy?”
“Because I’m living with you, and I realize I don’t even know you, not really. We’re sisters—”
“Half sisters.” It popped out before Juliet could keep herself from it, and Lucy blinked, clearly stung.
“Half sisters,” she agreed, “but we’re the only siblings we’ve got—”
“True enough, I suppose.”
Lucy continued stiltedly, “I don’t think I’ve thanked you properly for putting me up. Inviting me here, I mean. I really do appreciate it. I had nowhere to go—”
“You could have stayed in Boston.”
Lucy shook her head. “No. I’d rather have gone anywhere than stay there.”
Juliet raised her eyebrows. “Even a poky village with the worst weather in all of England? Although to be fair, it has been a miserable August. It’s not normally quite this cold.”
Lucy raised her eyebrows right back at her. “And you told me it wasn’t that bad.”
“Well.” Juliet could feel a sudden smile tugging at her mouth, surprising her. Were they actually joking with each other?
“It’s beautiful here,” Lucy said, and fluttered her fingers. It took Juliet a second to realize she was trying to touch her hand. “Look at that,” she exclaimed, and flung the other hand out to encompass the view.
They’d turned off the high street at the train station, and had been walking along a lane aptly named Beach Road, with sheep pastures on either side, the steep, gray-green fells cutting a jagged line out of the horizon.
As they rounded a gentle hill, they could see the sea in the distance, glittering under a sun that had emerged from dark storm clouds, offering that syrupy golden light particular to England, even though most of the sky was still a deep, dank gray.
The wind blew their hair into tangles around their faces and tears still streamed from their eyes, but in that moment, facing the stark beauty of sea and sky, Juliet felt her spirits lift.
Lucy must have felt it too, for she grabbed Juliet’s hand and squeezed. Juliet went rigid in shock, but Lucy was clearly oblivious. “It really is beautiful,” she exclaimed. She turned to Juliet, her smile ridiculously radiant. “I can see why you stayed.”
Juliet pulled her hand away from Lucy’s and called the dogs forward. “Let’s go. Milly looks like she needs a poo.”
They let the dogs run about on the beach for a good half hour, racing along the water’s edge, wet sand spraying up behind their long, elegant legs.
“So where did the Australians go off to?” Lucy asked as they stood huddled by the concrete promenade that ran along the beach, all the way to the flimsy-looking bungalow with a sign in peeling black paint that was Hartley-by-the-Sea’s beach café.
“The pub,” Juliet answered. “They’ll stagger back when Rob throws them out tonight and then conquer Scafell Pike tomorrow.”
“Rob?”
“Rob Telford. He’s the landlord of the Hangman’s Noose.”
“Nice name.”
“It adds character.”
Lucy gave a small smile, and Juliet gave one back. So apparently she and her sister could chat like normal people, for a few minutes at least.
“So, are all your guests like these Australians?”
“They’re almost all walkers or hikers. I get the odd guest who’s here for something else, visiting relatives or doing research for a dissertation on Wordsworth or Beatrix Potter. But we’re a bit far off the beaten track for that sort of thing, so walking it is.”
“I saw a sign for Wordsworth’s house, I think, on the road here.”
Juliet nodded. “Up in Cockermouth. And Hill Top, Beatrix Potter’s house, is in Ambleside. There’s not much going out this way, though, besides walking.”
“But that’s enough to keep you in business, I suppose.”
“I manage.” Juliet nodded towards the café. “It’s not much, but they serve coffee and tea and some toasted sandwiches. You fancy it?”
Lucy beamed at her, making Juliet feel guilty again. She should be kinder to Lucy; it was just that she wasn’t always sure how. Or if she really wanted to. “Sounds great,” Lucy said, and Juliet called for the dogs, who came loping to her, butting their narrow heads against her leg.
“Get off, you’re soaking,” she exclaimed, but she stroked them all the same before looping their leads around their necks and heading for the promenade that led to the café.
Juliet could tell Lucy was a bit nonplussed by the shabby, muggy warmth of the café, the windows that overlooked the frothing sea fogged up.
The small room was scattered with tables with peeling tops and rickety chairs, and only a handful of patrons.
It wasn’t some upscale Boston bistro, that was for certain.
Mary, the café’s owner and a buxom woman with flyaway white hair and a booming laugh, handed them a grease-splattered laminated menu upon their arrival; Juliet had tied the dogs up outside.
“What can I do you, Juliet?”
“A cup of coffee and a toasted ham and cheese, please, Mary.” She glanced at Lucy. “What would you like?”
“I’ll have the same.”
Mary rang up their orders on a till and Juliet took out a ten-pound note while Lucy fumbled with her pockets. “My treat,” she said shortly, and Lucy stammered her thanks, which Juliet ignored. “How’s the heart, Mary?” she asked, and the older woman made a wry face.
“Still ticking, more or less.”
“Hopefully more.” Mary gave her the change, which she tipped into the plastic box for the Royal National Lifeboat Institute. “Mary had a heart attack last winter,” she told Lucy as they walked to a table by the window. The sun had retreated again and rain spattered the glass.
“Is she okay?” Lucy asked, turning around to gaze at Mary before Juliet tapped her on the shoulder.
“She’s not going to fall down dead, so you can stop rubbernecking,” she said, meaning it as a joke, but it didn’t come out like one. She clearly had trouble with delivery.
“Do you know everyone in the village?”
“No.” She didn’t actually know that many people, considering she’d been here ten years. She certainly didn’t know many people well.
“So how unusual is this for August, really?” Lucy asked. Juliet had seen that the thermometer outside the café had registered eleven degrees Celsius. “Tell me the truth.”
Juliet shrugged. “Not that unusual, I suppose, but we keep hoping for better.” Mary came over with the coffees and after thanking her, Juliet stirred hers slowly, her gaze on the gray clouds, a wisp of blue just barely visible underneath.
The definition of hope. “When the weather’s good here, it’s really, really good. ”
“And when it’s bad, it’s horrid?” Lucy finished with a smile, and Juliet let out a sudden, rusty laugh that seemed to take them both by surprise.
“‘There was a little girl, who had a little curl,’” she quoted.
“Yes, like that.” Then, impulsively, she added, “The day I arrived here, I came from Whitehaven on the Coast-to-Coast walk and the sun was just setting over the sea. It was amazing, really. It had been the most wonderful day, pure blue skies and bright sunshine the whole time. And warm, even though it was September. I stood on the top of the head by the beach right there”—she nodded towards the window—“and watched the sun turn the water to gold and I felt as if—well, as if I didn’t need to go anywhere else. Finally.”
Lucy was looking almost weepy, and Juliet felt a flush rise on her face. She didn’t normally sound so bloody sentimental. She didn’t think she’d told anyone that story before, or even articulated it to herself. And yet somehow the words had spilled out to Lucy of all people.
“Why—why did you . . . ,” Lucy began, stammering a bit, and Juliet braced herself for whatever prying question her sister was going to ask.
Then Mary plonked their plates on the table and the moment broke, much to Juliet’s relief, although she couldn’t quite suppress a flicker of disappointment that Lucy hadn’t finished asking her question—not that she’d intended to answer it.