Chapter Five
‘My flat’s only a couple of minutes away,’ she said, then realised instantly how that invitation might sound. ‘So you can borrow a clean shirt of my dad’s,’ she added hastily.
He glanced at the beach and back at her, disbelief etched on his handsome face. ‘But you’ll miss your design being … taken.’
‘No, I won’t,’ Tammy said, pointing over the railings as a wave rolled in and covered the design. ‘It already has.’
When the wave retreated, there was almost nothing left to show where the sun had been.
Normally, she’d stay to watch the sea wash away every last trace, but today felt different. As Tammy walked away, she felt a strange sense of relief flooding through her, as though her dad would have wanted her to turn away and move in a different direction.
That thought made her feel almost light-headed.
‘I’m so sorry,’ Ruan said, breaking the trance-like state she’d been in.
She snapped back to the present. ‘I’m not. It’s the natural way of things. You can’t stop it. Now, come with me and we’ll see about his shirt. Like you said, you don’t have much time.’
Families and kids milled around. Some of the teenage locals were already leaping off the harbour wall into the deeper water by the Smuggler’s. Their parents were sitting outside the pub, drinking pints and Pimm’s, basking in the first real heat of the year.
Tammy hurried on with Ruan in tow, already torn about making her impulsive offer. What was she doing inviting a complete stranger into her flat? After only half an hour’s acquaintance? Yet that seagull had given her the perfect excuse to spend a little longer with him and find out more.
The question was, how much did she want him to know about her ?
He might already be wondering what she wanted by inviting him back. He knew almost nothing about her and he certainly couldn’t imagine that she’d already told him one big lie.
She had been angry with the sea. It was the sea that had taken her father: whether he’d gone into it willingly or not. Since her mother, Debbie, had left when she was twelve, it had been just Tammy and her dad, Neil, and his sudden loss had hit her like a hammer blow.
Actually, she wasn’t entirely alone now, she supposed, stopping outside a shop called the Harbour Gallery.
‘I should warn you,’ she said, keeping her voice light, ‘my landlord will be in.’
‘Does he bite?’ Ruan asked, deadpan.
She chuckled. ‘No, though he definitely barks and he’s pretty protective when it comes to me. My flat’s up there,’ she said, indicating a balcony above their heads. ‘This is his studio and gallery and he lives downstairs too.’
She led the way down a cobbled alley to the side of the gallery. At the rear, she turned a sharp left across a small yard with a weathered bench and an old pub table which had a misshapen mug on it, as if the potter had spent all evening in the pub before he’d thrown it.
‘Tammy!’ A man with grey hair tied back in a ponytail hailed her through the open door.
‘Hi, Davey. Sorry, we’re in a bit of a rush.’
Davey walked out of the studio, cleaning a tin mug in his hand. His bushy eyebrows knotted together as he glared at Ruan. ‘You’d better not be a bleddy bailiff,’ he growled.
‘Not this time, Davey,’ Tammy said with an eye-roll.
‘Lucky for you,’ Davey said.
‘He’s joking,’ she said to Ruan, who mouthed ‘Hi’ and raised his hand in greeting.
‘We’ll be back in a sec. I’ll explain later.’
Davey curled a lip and glared at Ruan. ‘Not sure I want to know.’
A faint jingling came from the shop attached to the studio.
‘You have customers, Davey,’ Tammy called behind her, conscious of Ruan standing by her, clearly dumbstruck.
‘More’s the pity. I was just getting into a new design for a water jug.’
‘Sounds good. Can’t wait to see it,’ Tammy said. ‘We really are in a hurry. Catch you later!’
‘Yeah. Hey!’ he called after her. ‘Any news from the OceanFest people?’
‘Could you hang on a sec?’ she asked Ruan and walked back into the studio. ‘Not yet,’ Tammy said, half wishing she hadn’t even mentioned to Davey that she’d pitched for a slot at the county’s biggest surf and arts festival. ‘I think I’d have heard if I’d been selected by now.’
‘That’s a shame,’ Davey said. ‘They’d be bleddy mad not to choose you.’
‘Thanks, but I think that ship has sailed. Gary at the Arts Centre said he had the nod from them weeks ago. He’s already heard he’s got some space in the art exhibition, so I doubt very much they’ll be in touch at this short notice.’
‘I’d like to go round their office myself and make them put you on their bleddy list,’ Davey declared.
‘Don’t!’ Tammy cried, knowing he just might. ‘It can’t be helped and I’m fine with it. There’s so much competition. Talk about it later. I can have a better look at your new pot, too.’
‘It’s a jug,’ Davey muttered.
‘OK,’ she said with a grin.
Leaving Davey muttering about the festival, she rejoined Ruan. ‘I’m sorry about all that,’ she said, screwing up her nose before extending her arm to guide him. ‘Welcome to the Harbour Gallery. Please come this way!’
Ruan was clearly amused, which was good of him after the reception he’d received from Davey.
Tammy wasn’t sure anything Ruan might have said would have been to the fearsome Davey’s liking anyway.
He was like a large shaggy guard dog who’d die before letting anyone near his owners. Or in his case, Tammy.
She didn’t know whether to be annoyed or touched by her landlord’s concern for her. She might have understood if she’d been seventeen and creeping home drunk with some guy from the local bar. However, now she was in her thirties, it was harder to take being under Davey’s scrutiny.
Using her bum, she shoved open a door with peeling blue paint and a crack across its porthole-style window. ‘The apartments are through here. Mine’s on the top floor.’
Tammy let Ruan climb the narrow stairs ahead of her. The building had once been a sea captain’s house but now housed the gallery, Davey’s studio, and his own flat, all on the ground floor. Her own one-bed apartment occupied part of the first floor with storage space in the attics.
On the small landing, she squeezed past Ruan. ‘I need to unlock it.’
‘Doesn’t everyone leave their doors unlocked in a small town?’
Tammy wasn’t sure if he was joking or not. ‘Maybe sixty years ago. Not now. People have been known to wander up here thinking it’s their holiday let, so I play it safe.’
‘I don’t blame you.’
‘In here,’ she said, letting him go ahead and leaving the door wide open, knowing Davey was within screaming distance should she need him. She also had a spare rake out on the balcony.
Ruan went ahead of her and stopped, his jaw dropping at the sight that met him.
Tammy winced inwardly at the unwashed laundry piled in a heap on the sofa along with the wrappings from last night’s fish and chips and the lingering tang of vinegar. She’d been out late scoping a remote cove on the Lizard as a possible location for a sand design.
‘Sorry. Wasn’t expecting visitors.’
‘Don’t apologise,’ Ruan said, turning to her with a smile.
She agreed with him. Since when had she cared what anyone thought of her living arrangements? She must stop apologising for being herself.
Anyway, her laundry arrangements hardly mattered because Ruan was gawping at the French doors. ‘That’s one hell of a view.’
‘Yeah. It’s not bad,’ she said, amused and quietly proud that he was impressed.
While her flat wasn’t large, she liked to think it had one of the best outlooks in Porthmellow.
She was lucky that Davey rented it to her at such a reasonable price and hadn’t decided to turn it into a holiday let.
He could have made so much more money that way.
Davey letting her have the place had come at a time when she thought luck had not only passed her by, but had stuck up two fingers as it sailed past.
Ruan had crossed to the French doors. ‘From here, it looks as if you could step straight into the harbour.’
‘Only if you’ve spent too long in the Smuggler’s. Wait here a mo while I find the shirt.’
The truth was she didn’t have to ‘find’ it. She knew exactly where it had been for five years. It was hanging on the far end of the rail away from her scant collection of dresses and jeans. It was plain white and only an M&S job, not the high-end stuff she was sure Ruan normally wore.
She slipped it off the hanger, and couldn’t resist holding it close to her face, even though she knew there would be no trace of her dad left. It was the only shirt she’d kept – his Sunday best.
She slipped it back on the hanger. Don’t think, she told herself. Do not think. Just do. It’s no use to you, and he’d have wanted it to go to a good home, wanted it to be useful. He’d hated waste and besides, he and Tammy hadn’t had the luxury of wasting stuff.
As she left her bedroom, a wave of worry washed over her.
What if Ruan had just accepted the shirt to be polite?
Had she forced him into an embarrassing situation where he couldn’t say no?
He might rather turn up to his meeting with ice-cream stains and be thinking of how he could wriggle out of accepting it.
It scared her how much she wanted him to want to be there. She hadn’t felt like this about a man for as long as she could remember and yet she didn’t even know how old he was.
Maybe a little older than her? He had a few greying threads in his dark hair but he was younger than forty. It was hard to judge in the suit which added such gravity to his appearance.
When she returned, he’d moved closer to the window and was peering out over the harbour with its fishing boats and yachts, paddleboarders and tombstoning teenagers, drinkers and shoppers, and squawking seagulls having a field day.
‘Here you go,’ she said.
He turned away from the view to her.