Chapter Thirteen
Once she had started something, Alison liked to see it through and that was how she found herself loitering outside Potters Newsagents on a Wednesday lunchtime instead of taking Will home for his nap.
When she’d first suggested forming a Save Our Museum committee to Sariah, she hadn’t been totally honest about her reasons.
She’d talked up the community aspect, but neglected to mention it was also a way for her to keep tabs on that wretched embroidered picture of a boat to see if this SW person came forward.
But then she’d been surprised by how much she had enjoyed the meeting.
She’d felt the old thrill of starting a publicity campaign – and it had been a long time since Alison had had fun or felt excited about her work.
Finding stories, writing press releases and working together for a good cause were a far cry from unblocking the toilets at the sports centre.
What had started out as her personal damage limitation strategy had grown into something bigger.
She genuinely wanted to follow up on the first proper email that had come in, the one from Michael in Fowey about old-fashioned fishing knots.
His story struck a chord with her because it was about the simple pleasures of growing up by the sea and she had emailed him back to say she’d like to visit and hear more.
But the problem was, Alison didn’t have a car anymore – Roy needed it to drive to the repair garage he ran with his two brothers – and taking Will and his buggy on the bus would be a hassle.
However, she happened to know that, like her, Jacob only worked mornings. She also knew that he drove a souped-up Mini, the kind of car a rich kid might get as a 21st birthday present, and so she pushed open the door to Potters Newsagents and wheeled the buggy inside.
She watched as Jacob looked up in surprise and two pink dots appeared on his cheeks. A magazine lay open on the counter and he rolled it up swiftly, but not before she saw its title. It was a copy of History Today, hardly saucy reading material.
‘I’ve come to ask you a favour.’ The words were barely out of her mouth before he said a trip to Fowey sounded great.
‘Sometimes the afternoons drag,’ he admitted.
That wasn’t the case for Alison, who felt like there was never enough time to get the house straight and dinner cooked and Will fed before Roy got home.
‘It won’t take long,’ she said as Jacob strapped in Will’s car seat and pretended not to notice the shower of breadstick crumbs her son was already spreading over the upholstery.
Michael lived in a bungalow on the outskirts of Fowey and when they rang his bell, a dog set up a furious yapping, which was followed by a long pause.
‘Saw you had the baby, so I’ve shut the pup in the kitchen,’ Michael explained when he came to the door.
He was a sprightly man, all sinew and sun-wrinkled skin and he smiled down at Will in his car seat.
‘He’s a cute chap. But my puppy, Max, can be a bit bouncy and we don’t want to scare him, do we? ’
Michael was easy company, happy to tell them his memories of fishing trips with his dad, Brian.
‘Seeing that display of knots on your website, well it took me right back to those quiet times, in the days long before kids were glued to screens. Be a different world, by the time your little one’s grown up.
’ He nodded towards Will, who had fallen asleep on the journey, but was starting to stir and rub his eyes.
Alison took a photograph as Michael demonstrated one of the easier knots.
‘My fingers aren’t as nimble as they used to be, but I can still do the reliable Blood Loop.
’ He smiled, twisting and flicking a line into its shapes.
‘Course, we were only weekend amateurs, but we both enjoyed the peace, looking out to sea and chatting when we felt the urge. And if we landed a mackerel for tea, all the better. So when I saw these knots, all those memories came back.’ He held his fist to his chest. ‘I don’t mind saying, they gave a tug at my heart. ’
Michael tried to show Jacob how to do a simple knot and Alison unbuckled a now wide-awake Will, who made straight for a stray dog biscuit he’d spotted under the table.
Subtly, she tried to prise it out of his chubby fingers and swap it for a healthy rice cake, but Will was having none of it.
‘Sorry, we’d better make a move,’ she said.
‘I’ll offer your story to the press, but we’re also thinking of holding an exhibition. Can we include your words in that, too?’ she asked as they said their goodbyes.
‘I’d be flattered,’ Michael replied.
Alison could already envisage the exhibition’s launch: Della could do hot drinks, Nils could do small bites and maybe Sariah could get them a deal on wine and beer.
As Jacob drove the winding roads back to Portheast, her mind was buzzing with ideas.
‘This could be so good,’ she told him. ‘We can invite the media. Reel them in with all the little human-interest stories and then, boom, break the bigger news story that the council wants to shut down the museum.’
She hadn’t felt this buzz since she’d worked for the PR company in Truro and she told Jacob about the last campaign she’d worked on, which had involved taking journalists on a tour of a Cornish gin distillery.
‘They all got roaring drunk and said they wanted to go clubbing. All these posh London journos ended up in Jangles, dancing to Nineties hits. Can you imagine?’
‘Jangles?’
She’d forgotten Jacob wasn’t a proper local.
‘It’s a Truro institution,’ she explained. ‘Back in my youth it was the place to be seen – think Bacardi Breezers and Ed Sheeran on repeat. And it hadn’t changed a bit.’
Jacob gave her a smile. ‘Ed Sheeran aside, it sounds like you enjoyed your job.’
‘Yeah. I did.’ Alison trailed off, then swivelled round to check on Will in his car seat.
‘But then along came this little one.’ She stroked Will’s cheek.
‘I wasn’t planning on becoming a mum at twenty-one, but life is full of surprises, hey.
Anyway, PR isn’t a job that keeps family hours, so I gave it up.
For now, the sports centre makes more sense: mornings only and I can pick him up from nursery.
’ But even talking about the sports centre made her feel trapped, as if she was already back in the windowless office with the sharp smell of chlorine, the endless complaints and Ollie’s lame jokes.
‘Plus, I get a discount at the sportswear concession,’ she said brightly, holding out her arms to show off one of her many zip-up running tops.
She got Jacob to drop her at the crossroads, explaining that it was better if she walked up to the housing estate from there.
‘Keeps me fit,’ she said with a smile. As she slotted Will’s car seat into the buggy frame, he made a lunge for her hair and she was grateful she’d had it cut short recently – it meant there was less to grab hold of.
‘Right, got to get going,’ she said. ‘Thanks for the lift.’ She started walking as fast as she could up the hill and didn’t look back.
She’d be lucky if she made it back before 5 p.m., when Roy would be revving their knackered Toyota Corolla up their drive.
Already, she could feel her chest tightening.
‘Tell me again,’ Roy said, chewing hard. ‘You took our son, where?’
‘It’s for the Save Our Museum campaign,’ Alison repeated. ‘A guy called Michael over in Fowey does those old-fashioned fishing knots and there’s a framed set of knots in the museum. We’re linking items in the museum with ordinary people’s stories to show they are still relevant and this . . .’
She heard it before she felt it, the crack of his slap. Then came a feeling that was akin to relief, because she now could stop wondering when he’d next explode. The waiting had become the background hum to her life and the not knowing was almost the worst part.
Like a driver whose hands slipped into position on a steering wheel, Roy’s reached for her arms and held them until his fingers found old bruises.
Alison counted to twenty and kept her eyes fixed on Will, who was looking down at his plate of cold peas and pasta.
She reached twenty-two before Roy let go.
‘So, you took my fifteen-month-old son to see a complete stranger – a man who could be a rapist, a child abuser or who knows what?’
He was just a man who made nice knots, she wanted to say.
Who wanted to talk about his dad and had a dog but had shut him in the kitchen because he didn’t want to scare Will who, at that moment, was absorbed in ferrying a row of peas from one side of the plate to the other.
Michael in Fowey couldn’t have known that there were scarier things in her son’s life than a bouncy puppy with a wet nose.
She too kept her head down as Roy talked, telling her the things she’d heard before – how he was out all day, working his fingers to the bone, providing for his family.
‘The whole point is that you can spend your afternoons looking after Will,’ he said.
‘Not go chasing all over the place on your own. Visiting men.’
‘He was a pensioner, Roy,’ she blurted out. ‘He was just an old boy. And besides, I wasn’t . . .’ Too late, she realised her mistake.
Sometimes, she swore Roy could read her mind.
It was as if he’d crawled inside, poked around with his grimy mechanic’s fingers and scooped out all the good bits, the parts that were about having fun or laughing or thinking up ideas, and he was gradually replacing them with something thick and grey, much like the foamy scum she cleaned from the sink each evening.
‘You weren’t what? On your own?’
She could say she was with Sariah, or Della or even Evelyn. But it wasn’t worth it because somehow Roy would be able to tell she was lying and then he’d find out that she’d been in a car with another man, Jacob, a soft posh boy who wouldn’t stand a chance against Roy.
‘Upstairs, now,’ Roy said.
She knew not to argue. As she went, she deftly lifted Will out of his high chair and put him in his playpen.
Then she wound up the clockwork toy that sang nursery rhymes and placed it beside him.
The songs didn’t last very long, but she hoped the sound would be a distraction for her son, once Roy had followed her upstairs.
Every other Sunday, Alison took Will to see her dad, Keith, but even that gap felt too long at the moment, because Will was changing by the day, learning something new and brilliant.
Only yesterday, he’d picked up a leaf, holding its stalk between his thumb and forefinger.
She knew this was an excellent demonstration of his motor skills, which made her proud, but she also wished she could slow down this gallop through his toddler milestones, turn back time and enjoy every milky, tired moment of his baby days all over again.
There were other ways in which she wanted to turn back time as well.
‘Look, his walking is getting steadier,’ her dad said as they both watched Will cruise his way around the living room.
‘I’d say he’s got the family swagger,’ Keith added. ‘The Blake walk, that is. Not those Pinlow boys.’
When she’d left the house, the Pinlow brothers had been spreading themselves around Alison and Roy’s living room, warming up for an afternoon of rugby on the TV. As she closed the front door, she heard the tinny crunch of a beer can in someone’s fist and knew it was the first of many.
Changing the subject, Alison told her dad about how she’d been to Fowey to interview a man. ‘It’s for a campaign to save the museum,’ she said. ‘You know, the one down by the harbour.’
Will was careering straight towards the sharp edges of the coffee table, so she stood up and guided him back to the wooden puzzle her dad had laid out on the carpet.
Then, as casually as she could, she said, ‘Funny thing is, there’s a picture in that museum that looks a little bit like our one.
’ She indicated towards the embroidered picture over the fireplace.
‘But Grandpa Fred wouldn’t have made another, would he?
’ She passed Will a puzzle piece and watched him slot it into place.
Keith looked up at the picture and gave a gruff laugh. ‘No, one in a million, that picture. Just like your Grandma Helena.’
‘That’s what I thought,’ Alison said firmly.
‘Must have been the fashion back then for lots of sailors at sea. Gave them something wholesome to do.’ No one had come forward yet with any information on the other embroidered picture and, logically, there was a good chance SW was long dead and buried.
But if anyone did come out of the woodwork, Alison would be the first to know.
‘Weird old place, that museum,’ her dad said after a while. ‘Can’t say I’ve ever felt any urge to go in there.’
‘You’re right,’ Alison agreed quickly. ‘Not your sort of place.’ She didn’t want her dad wandering in and getting a nasty surprise. Suddenly, everything was starting to feel very stuffy in this small front room, so she stood up. ‘Will, fancy a go on your swing?’
In truth, it was a bit cold outside, but it was always nice to see the garden.
The terraced house had been her grandma and grandpa’s before it became her dad’s and the garden was unchanged, with areas set aside for growing flowers and vegetables.
That afternoon, the earth was still dark and loamy, but Alison knew that come spring there would be potatoes and runner beans to eat, and sweet peas and azaleas for her to take home.
She and her dad took turns pushing Will in the bucket swing and she loved the way her son’s blond hairs caught in the breeze.
‘How’s things?’ her dad asked. ‘At home.’
She knew what he meant, but her dad was already too hard on Roy, always on at him about fixing up their own garden or laying off the beer and it didn’t help, not one bit.
‘Fine,’ she said lightly, in another act of damage limitation.
But Alison knew her father wasn’t fooled.
‘He’s trying,’ she said, toeing a bald patch on the soggy lawn. ‘He took Will out in the buggy the other day without me even asking.’
Keith didn’t reply. He’d brought Alison up on his own from when she was eleven and this fell far short of what he thought made a decent father. She tugged her sleeves down so that they covered her wrists.
‘Too cold?’ her father asked.
‘It has turned a bit chilly.’ She stopped pushing Will and together they watched the swing slow, its arc growing smaller until it was almost at a standstill and she shivered because their visit had gone so quickly. It was almost time to go home.