Chapter Nine
Ruan hung his car keys on the hook next to the caravan door. It wasn’t fully dark and, in the twilight, bats circled above the overgrown jungle that screened the caravan from the cove. He could hear the waves breaking on the rocky shore and owls softly hooting from the trees.
The caravan was stuffy after being shut up all day, and there was still a faint tang from the previous night’s takeaway Thai curry.
He opened the windows and left the door open.
In some ways, he was relieved that Tammy hadn’t hinted about going back to his place, even though he obviously wouldn’t have said no.
It was too soon and, on a practical level, his place wasn’t fit to entertain company. Her studio flat with its harbour views was a palace compared to his ageing ‘mobile home’.
He’d bought it for a song from a friend who’d recently finished renovating their home. His partner and two kids had lived in it for six months and he’d transported it free to Ruan’s land on the proviso that Ruan cleaned it up himself.
Gradually Ruan had scrubbed it down, and found a place for his few possessions. He’d never liked clutter but the caravan couldn’t hold all the stuff from his Bristol flat, so he’d stored the rest in his parents’ garage before taking possession of Seaspray.
From the caravan step, he gazed up at the house silhouetted against the night sky.
The surveyor had told Ruan that the granite walls ‘should still be solid’, although it was impossible to say until the ivy and wisteria were cleared away.
Over the years the house had stood empty, their tendrils had curled around the facade and their leafy fingers had worked their way through cracked windows.
By daylight, you would be able to see orange lichen on the roof slates, many of which were splintered and cracked, allowing the Cornish rain to penetrate the building.
The sunroom at the side of the house had collapsed, probably decades before, scattering broken glass and rotting timber over the terrace which must once have been a cosy suntrap.
The place was a total wreck and even Ruan had been shocked when he’d first set eyes on it a couple of months previously. Yet none of that mattered, because Seaspray had something unique that no amount of sea air or rain or neglect could ever change: one of the most beautiful locations in Cornwall.
It was situated above a cove that was inaccessible apart from the private track that led down from a narrow country lane. A stream gurgled alongside the house, making its way through a wooded valley and emptying into the sea on the south-east-facing cove.
In this sheltered spot, wildflowers and garden plants flourished as if they were in a hot house. The gigantic gunnera leaves, lofty bamboo and rhododendrons told him that the grounds must have once been spectacular, yet currently rivalled Jurassic Park.
Somewhere beyond the vegetation was the most magnificent view of the cove, with its granite boulders, rock pools and clear waters.
The cove had only a strip of sand at high tide. The rest of the beach was made up of huge boulders tumbled smooth like dinosaur eggs, some bone-white, others speckled or adorned with almost-luminous weed. You could imagine a mermaid sitting on one, combing out her hair, waiting to lure a young man.
The setting gave the place an other-worldly feel, and he kept having to remind himself that it was real, not straight from the pages of a novel.
He felt that Seaspray was simply waiting for someone to come along, hack through the thorns like the prince in Sleeping Beauty , and save it from eternal slumber.
His thoughts of mermaids and fairy tales reminded him of Tammy again.
Their evening had been great – amazing – in so many ways.
They’d laughed. They had a love of the coast in common and understood the unpredictability of the sea.
They also shared a love and loyalty to their families, and that was aside from the fact she was so gorgeous she left him tongue-tied.
Yet at the end of the evening, Tammy had seemed almost indifferent to accepting the offer of another date. Could he even call it a date? He’d worried that asking her to watch him kitesurf had seemed overly macho and a bit patronising.
Just when he wasn’t totally sure she did want to see him again, she’d wrong-footed him by flinging herself into his arms when she’d received the good news from the festival.
Although she’d been embarrassed by the impulsive embrace, he’d loved it. He’d hugged that memory close all the way home: the warmth of her body and a fragrance that reminded him of gorse on the cliffs.
It had been a long time since he’d felt this way about a woman – if ever – and he needed to remind himself to tread carefully, especially with a free spirit like Tammy. If he came on too strong, she could easily back off altogether.
Ruan lingered outside the caravan in the twilight, hearing the sea boom as the tide started to run up into the cove.
He wouldn’t sleep for a while for all kinds of reasons.
He’d felt very uncomfortable during some of their conversation as Tammy had talked of sky-high rents and wealthy property owners who’d inherited homes.
Her words came back to him, along with the baffled expression on her face. ‘What a weird thing it would be to come into money from somebody you’ve never even met. I think I’d feel a bit of a fraud.’
She’d summed up exactly how Ruan felt, and now he’d added an extra layer of guilt to his burden.
He’d only told Tammy part of the truth of why he was in Porthmellow or back in Cornwall at all.
Like the client he’d been to visit on the afternoon he’d first met her, he too had come into an inheritance that he didn’t feel he deserved, and it was one that involved a house – a home.
He’d sensed that ‘home’ meant far more than four walls to Tammy, more even than shelter and warmth.
She’d lost her own when she was very young and, along with it, her mother.
Then she’d had to watch her father slowly disintegrating because of the gambling addiction that had caused him to have to sell their cottage.
Finally, she’d lost him forever and Ruan could see how much her memories, bitter and sweet, were rooted in the happier days of her childhood. Ruan’s own family had had their troubles, but they’d always stayed together and he’d enjoyed the stability that had been so sorely missing from Tammy’s life.
How could he tell her, then, that he’d inherited this beautiful, if ramshackle, place from a great-uncle who was virtually a stranger to him?
Ruan had only met Walter Cavendish once when he was about six years old and didn’t even remember the occasion; the whole encounter had been relayed to him by his parents after they’d heard he’d inherited the property.
When Walter visited their house in Bristol, he had been playing in the garden with a plastic sword.
‘You bashed Uncle Walter on the nose with the sword. Drew blood,’ his mum had told him. ‘Even so, he must have had a soft spot for you to leave you his house. It’s all very strange.’
‘How sad that he never had a family of his own and died alone. Though it happens all too often,’ Ruan had said.
‘Well, he was a strange character. You could say eccentric,’ his mum had replied.
‘I have to be honest, he wasn’t popular in the family, always upsetting people with unkind comments.
Your Grandma Mitchell – Walter’s sister – wanted nothing to do with him.
She spent most of her time at boarding school and then went to London to train as a nurse as soon as she left school. ’
‘And she never said anything about him before she died?’
‘She wouldn’t talk about her childhood. I think their mother and father were horrible.
The father was a bully and Clara Cavendish was a huge snob, apparently.
She disowned your Grandma Mitchell when she married your grandad because he was “only a car mechanic”.
I don’t think your grandma ever spoke to them again and might not have even been to their funerals. ’
Ruan had taken little interest in the family secrets until his inheritance and now his grandparents, who had always seemed very kind, had passed away, there was no one to ask.
His grandmother, in particular, might have provided the insight he needed, but it was too late.
‘That’s pretty tragic,’ Ruan said. ‘I hadn’t fully realised.
Grandma and Grandad were lovely people.’
‘They were,’ his father said. ‘And we didn’t like to upset your grandma by dragging up the past. You can imagine we were pretty horrified when Walter said he was dropping in on us that day. But the old sod was civil enough and seemed taken with you.’
‘People can be quirky, capricious and downright malicious in how they arrange their estates – or don’t,’ Ruan mused. ‘Still, it feels wrong to have inherited the place when I’ve done nothing more to deserve it than hit a horrible man with a plastic sword.’
‘Don’t overthink it,’ his mother had said. ‘Call it compensation for what happened with Dad losing the business.’
The splinter of guilt that was always present niggled at him afresh.
His parents had been through a lot of worry and worked hard to support him at uni, making sure he had a good future.
They’d even backed his decision to move from his prestigious Bristol law firm to a modest Cornish practice, but he knew deep down they’d been concerned.
They must have thought he was throwing away the secure future they’d fought to provide for him.
‘I’ll sell the house and split the proceeds with you both,’ Ruan declared. ‘I already have my flat here in the city.’
‘No! We wouldn’t hear of it!’ his mother said. ‘Go and see the old place. Sell it or do whatever you want to do. It’s yours, legally and morally. If Uncle Walter left it to you because he couldn’t think of anyone else, then respect his wishes and accept it.’
Even though Ruan suspected his great-uncle had forgotten about the terms of his will and then fallen ill, he had had no choice but to accept its terms. It was irresponsible to refuse to deal with a legal inheritance.
All he had to do now was decide what to do with it. Restore it and live there or do it up and sell it on. Before he’d met Tammy, he hadn’t been so sure about staying in Cornwall. Now, the scales had begun to tip in favour of making Seaspray his permanent home.