Chapter Four
“Much Ado About Nothing”
Thankfully, Ellie saw no further sign of Will or Alex that evening, as no one emerged from the snug before she and Nicki left to take the boys home. The gleaming yacht – which Nicki confirmed was Alex’s – had also gone from the harbour the following morning.
It had been a restless night, and giving in around four in the morning, Ellie sat up and nestled wearily against her pillow, laptop on her knees, desperately trying to calm the thoughts scampering through her tattered mind.
Why had Will been in Polkerran? Was this his first visit after all those years, or did he regularly come down with Alex? Surely Nicki would have found him more familiar, if he did… And would he be back, or would seeing Ellie – and she knew he’d recognised her – be enough to put him off?
Telling herself it was old history landed on deaf ears, and with no answers to hand, Ellie soon fell victim to searching social media, but Will was absent in his own right.
The only things she could find were fan-led Instagram and TikTok accounts or Facebook groups full of older fans obsessed with every snippet of information or photo they could find.
He’d been so successful, yet a search of IMDB showed nothing recent.
She’d known, of course, about his early roles – bit parts on stage and a small, recurring role in a soap for a few months – but her mind shied away from thinking about their conversations back then.
Any news reports focused around the premieres for the films and TV series that had catapulted him to fame. Beyond that, the few other links she found on Google were to older interviews. It was as if Will had vanished from the world.
Frustrated with having indulged her interest and keen to put the brief encounter behind her, Ellie buried herself in potential work, setting up a few video meetings to discuss possible shoots once back home and working on the reels she’d intended to post the previous day.
Once the boys were in school and Nicki had left for the appointment with the surgeon, Ellie returned from a brisk walk to find Anna’s kitchen buzzing with people.
‘Hey, come and meet some of the locals.’ Anna beckoned her over to the long, scrubbed pine table by the window, and Ellie was pleased to see Phoenix sitting in between two elderly ladies, who eyed her with avid interest.
‘This is Nicki’s cousin, Ellie, who’s been helping out at home, with Hamish in hospital. This is Mrs Lovelace and Mrs Clegg.’ Anna indicated the two elderly ladies. ‘They like to come for tea and a chat in the mornings.’
‘Alright, my lovely? How be the young’un after his lunar composting?’
‘Lumbar decompression, Mum,’ suggested a lady seated in the window seat, bouncing Bertie on her lap. ‘I’ve seen you in the village. Jean Lovelace.’ She nodded towards the elderly lady with silver curls framing her wizened features. ‘My mum.’
‘Jean runs the ice cream shop in season,’ Phoenix added, as she stirred sugar into her mug. ‘And works at the Point Hotel in the quieter times.’
Ellie smiled at the only gentleman, seated opposite Phoenix. His weather-beaten features bore a mischievous air as keen eyes scanned Ellie’s face.
‘This is Patrick,’ Phoenix continued. ‘I’m not sure who keeps who in order, but these three muddle along together somehow.’
‘Wasson, young’un?’
‘All good, thank you. I’m lucky enough to be staying in one of Anna’s beautiful rooms and spend my days in the orangery pretending to work while I get swept away by the view.’
‘Would you like a tea or coffee?’ Anna walked over to scoop up Emma, who’d pulled herself up and was making her way around the coffee table, little hands gripping the wood, tongue stuck between her lips in fierce concentration.
‘No, I’m fine, thanks,’ Ellie said. ‘I’ve got a few calls to make, and Nicki should be back soon.’
She waved goodbye to the group in the kitchen and headed to the orangery, but as so often happened, she was drawn to the windows.
It was a beautiful late September day, the sea gliding into the bay as though on a conveyor, barely a ripple breaking its surface.
A small white boat could be seen not far below the cliffs supporting Harbourwatch – one which Anna had explained before now was Larry the Lobster’s – and as she watched, he hauled up a large open-work pot and began to empty his catch.
Ellie turned her back. Thank goodness Hamish would be home the following week.
She needed to leave Cornwall and its heart-wrenching memories and return to the even tenor of her days.
No more fear of bumping into Will again, or seeing that dismissive look in his eyes; eyes that once held warmth, fire, love…
Trembling, Ellie’s hands gripped the back of a chair.
‘Enough,’ she said, fiercely, closing her eyes, the murmur of conversation from the kitchen intruding. Then, she looked at her watch. Had she missed a message from Nicki? She should have been home by now.
‘Don’t you dare be flat again,’ she scolded her phone as she tugged it from her pocket, but as she did so, it rang. ‘Hi. Are you on your way back?’
There was a muffled sound, followed by a suppressed sob.
Ellie’s heart lurched, and she pressed the phone to her ear. ‘Nicki? What’s wrong?’
‘It’s Hamish,’ Nicki croaked. ‘This numbness, it’s more than that. He’s got this…’ She hiccupped, then sniffed. ‘He’s paralysed from the hips down.’
‘What!’ Ellie exclaimed, her skin awash with cold.
Snuffling came down the line. ‘They’re saying it’s most likely temporary, but they have no idea when it will ease off. He’s allowed to go to his parents as planned, but now we don’t know for how long, and you’re leaving next week.’ Nicki wailed. ‘I’ll be all alone and unable to do enough hours.’
Expressing sympathy as best she could, Ellie sank onto the chair in front of the table doubling as her desk. Was she imagining it, or could she hear doors clanging shut? This wasn’t going to be a quick fix. There was no immediate escape on the horizon.
Ellie could be stuck in Polkerran Point for a very long time.
Nicki had been frantic by the time she’d returned from the hospital, choked with worry over Hamish and fraught with anxiety over how to manage the situation.
‘It’ll be fine,’ Ellie soothed, picking up her cousin’s bag, which had fallen to the floor when she’d failed to hang it properly on the back of a chair.
‘I called Mum, but she and Dad can’t come down, not until half-term.’
Nicki’s parents were both teachers in a secondary school.
‘Look, sit down,’ Ellie said firmly, steering Nicki onto a kitchen stool and taking the one opposite.
‘Wait! Where are the boys?’ Nicki’s eyes darted to the sitting room.
‘Over at Harbourwatch with Mollie. They were invited to tea. Listen. I’ll stay.’
Nicki sat back in her chair. ‘But your business, Ellie. You need an income as much as any of us.’
It was true, and the profit she made on the cards wouldn’t cover the rent on her flat in Oxford, or the bills. Parking it for now, Ellie took her cousin’s hands in her own.
‘I’ll find work. Something. But I can’t walk away. I won’t leave you.’ Ellie swallowed quickly. What was she committing to here?
‘Poor Hamish,’ Nicki cried, fishing for a tissue. ‘He desperately wants to come home, and now we don’t know when he will.’
Ellie popped back to Westerleigh to do a few jobs on the laptop before returning to Little Cott, and Nicki spent the evening – when not exchanging messages with Hamish – swinging between gratitude towards Ellie for extending her stay and guilt for disrupting her cousin’s life.
‘Anna would’ve helped if she wasn’t going away.
And the boys are always welcome at Harbourwatch, but Kate – she’s a colleague and friend – works full time too.
Matt – Anna’s brother – and Gemma live on a tidal creek, pretty much only accessible at high tide, and are too remote to help with school runs, and although there are other parents willing to chip in here and there, it’s so disruptive for the boys not to be at home to do homework or just… be themselves.’
‘Please don’t worry,’ Ellie begged her as she washed up after dinner. ‘I need to go and do this wedding shoot, but I’ll be straight back. My other clients aren’t tied by timing for the work we had planned, and they’re being very flexible.’
She refrained from telling Nicki a couple of them – new, not regulars – had chosen to go elsewhere when Ellie tried to reschedule them a second time, and she didn’t blame them. She’d probably do the same thing in the circumstances.
A further pressing dilemma had been where to stay. She couldn’t impose on Anna and Oliver much longer. Besides, they were going away…
There was a small holiday let opposite Nicki’s cottage, fronting onto the water, which would have been the perfect location, but when Ellie enquired about it, the cost was simply too much.
Perhaps she’d best pitch a tent on the beach?
Ellie came downstairs the following morning, weary from another disturbed night and thankful Nicki – who was on a later shift – had time to do the school run.
There was a pretty glass heart-shaped dish on the hall table, filled to the brim with a variety of shells.
‘Aunt Meg’s,’ Anna said as she emerged from the snug carrying a cake stand. ‘She was obsessed with collecting them.’
‘They’re lovely.’
‘I picked my favourites for the dish.’ She looked a little embarrassed. ‘Don’t tell Oliver – he thinks I had a clear out – but I couldn’t bear to throw any of them away, so there’s a much bigger store of them in a box in the cellar.’
Ellie laughed. ‘Sounds like my mum. She’s hoarded every card we’ve ever sent her. Little does Dad know what’s actually in the large flat crate under their bed!’
It was heartwarming to discover a now-familiar domestic scene when they entered the kitchen – Oliver at the table, spoon-feeding Bertie, most of which appeared to be landing on the little one’s bib rather than in his mouth – and Anna scooping up Emma to pat the wriggling baby’s back.