Chapter 19
Chapter Nineteen
JUDE
Idream about her hands.
In the dream she’s explaining instructions to me patiently and slow, the way she was yesterday at the harbour. But I’m not hearing a word because I’m watching her fingers. Sure. Capable. Knowing exactly what they’re doing, exactly where they belong.
Must be nice. Knowing where you belong.
I wake to grey light and the smell of damp. Monday. The house is cold because I forgot the heating again, which is becoming a pattern I should probably examine but won’t. I lie there staring at the ceiling, trying to shake the dream.
It doesn’t work.
The kitchen tells a story I don’t want to read.
Mug of tea in the microwave – stone cold, reheated but never drunk.
Dad must have been up before I was, which means before five.
And on the counter, yesterday’s catch log in his handwriting: the careful capitals that haven’t changed since I was a kid, except the weights are wrong.
Two columns that don’t add up. A species name – pollack – spelled with a D that shouldn’t be there, and Reuben Harding has been spelling fish names since he could hold a pencil.
I stare at it. Then I pick up a pen and fix the numbers quietly. Pollack with two Ls, no D. Weights recalculated to match the buyer’s receipt.
Dad’s tired. That’s all. Early mornings, broken sleep, running the Mary Jane with a replacement mate instead of Kit. He’s been tired.
That’s all it is.
Normally I’d be on the water by now. Monday morning, the Mary Jane cutting through the swell, hauling pots with Dad barking orders like he’s been doing since I was old enough to hold a rope.
But Dad took her out at five with Davey Pascoe – the temporary mate we’ve brought on while Kit’s in New York.
Dad said I should make myself useful for once and chase up the restaurant accounts. See if I can convince them our prices aren’t highway robbery.
His faith in me is touching, really.
Never mind that I’m the reason half those restaurants buy from us in the first place – because I built those relationships, face by face, handshake by handshake.
So here I am. A morning off I didn’t ask for, in a house that’s too quiet, thinking about a woman I shouldn’t be thinking about.
I check the swell from the kitchen window. Force 4, onshore, rubbish conditions. My board is against the wall in the hallway where it’s been for weeks, gathering dust, quietly accusing me. I should go. The water would clear my head, wash this restlessness out of my bones.
I don’t go. I make coffee instead, and stand at the window watching the sea do what it always does: carry on, regardless.
Truro by half ten. Three restaurants, two fish suppliers, and a new seafood bar on Lemon Quay that’s been buying from Fowey but might be persuadable.
This is the bit nobody sees. The bit Dad treats like it’s a consolation activity for the son who can’t haul nets fast enough.
But here’s the thing about the boring bits: without them, Harding and Sons doesn’t exist. Kit can fill the boat with fish.
Reuben can captain her through any sea the Atlantic throws.
But someone has to sell the catch. Someone has to know that The Merchant wants whole bass on Fridays but fillets on Tuesdays.
That Finisterre underpays by eight per cent and isn’t worth the diesel.
That the new place on Lemon Quay has a head chef from Padstow who grew up eating Cornish fish and will pay premium for day-boat quality if you can guarantee supply.
I know all of this. It’s in my head the way engine parts are in Brynn’s – muscle memory, instinct, the accumulated weight of years spent paying attention to details nobody else bothered with.
First stop: The Merchant. Dan behind the bar, already smiling when I walk in. We’ve been supplying them for six years. The relationship runs on handshakes and honesty and the fact that I remember his daughter’s name is Grace and she’s applying to vet school.
‘Jude. Tell me you’ve got crab.’
‘When have I ever not had crab?’
‘Last March. Three weeks. I nearly had to buy frozen.’
‘That was a freak storm and you know it. I threw in a free box of langoustines to make up for it.’
‘You did. Grace still talks about those langoustines.’
We go through the order. I adjust the pricing – two per cent increase, in line with fuel costs, which I’ve calculated to the penny and printed on a single sheet because Dan respects numbers more than arguments. He scans it, nods, signs. Done. It’s a negotiation that looks like a chat but isn’t.
Second stop: Finisterre. Less friendly. The manager’s new, doesn’t know me, tries to push the price down by fifteen per cent.
I let him talk. Then I pull out the comparison sheet I made last night – our prices versus Fowey, versus Newlyn market, versus the Plymouth wholesalers.
Day-boat quality at twelve per cent above market rate, which is fair and we both know it.
He signs. Grudgingly. But he signs.
Third stop: the new place. The Quay Kitchen. The head chef is a woman called Mira – small, fierce, with a focus that strangely reminds me of Brynn. She tastes the sample I’ve brought – line-caught mackerel, still gleaming – and her eyes go wide.
‘This morning?’
‘Four hours ago. Still had rigour when I packed it.’
‘I’ve been buying from Fowey. It’s good, but it’s not—’ She holds up the mackerel. ‘It’s not this.’
Twenty minutes later I’ve got a trial order for three weeks and a handshake that feels like a contract.
Driving back along the A390, the hedgerows blurring green, I pass the turning for Plymouth.
The university sits somewhere beyond those hills – the marine biology department, the research labs, the conservation programme I used to look up on the school computers when I was supposed to be doing maths.
I slow at the junction. Just for a second. Then I drive on.
Not now. Probably not ever.
But the thought follows me all the way home, like a dog I once fed and now can’t shake.
The village shop is quiet. Monday afternoon lull, the weekend tourists gone, Sea Salt Bay returned to the people who actually live here.
Dot’s behind the counter, reading glasses perched on her nose, working through a crossword with the intensity she usually reserves for other people’s business. She nods when I come in. Goes back to her puzzle.
I’m staring at a shelf of pasta like it holds the secrets of the universe when Nina materialises at my elbow.
‘Jude Harding.’ She peers into my basket. ‘Doing your own shopping. Should I alert the press?’
‘Hilarious.’
She looks better than she did a few months ago. The shadows under her eyes have faded, and there’s colour in her cheeks again. Still fragile underneath – a brittleness she masks with bright smiles and too much energy. Peter’s death left a crack in her that hasn’t fully healed. Maybe never will.
‘What’s the occasion?’ Already following me down the aisle, because Nina has never met a boundary she couldn’t cheerfully ignore. ‘You only ever buy bread and milk. Sometimes beer. This is unprecedented.’
‘I’m cooking dinner.’
‘For who? Your dad? Isn’t he a cod and chips man?’
I grind out a grimace. ‘Not my dad. And it’s none of your business.’
‘Oh my God.’ Her whole face lights up. ‘You’re cooking for Brynn.’
Pretty sure Nina is a witch.
‘It’s none of—’
‘This is the most exciting thing that’s happened all month.’
‘It’s the third of the month.’
‘And already you’re providing entertainment.’ She grabs my basket, rifles through it. ‘Let’s see what we’re working with. Pasta, good. Jar of—’ She stops. Looks at me. Looks at the jar. Back at me. ‘Jude. No.’
‘What?’
‘Jarred sauce? You’re trying to impress a woman with jarred sauce?’
‘I’m not trying to impress anyone.’
‘You’re a terrible liar.’ She pulls the jar out, examines it with open horror. ‘Does this even have real tomatoes in it? Or is it just red-coloured sadness?’
‘It says tomato on the label.’
‘Oh, lovey’ She puts it back on the shelf like it’s contaminated. ‘Come with me. We’re fixing this.’
I don’t argue.
She leads me through the aisles, plucking things from shelves with the confidence of someone who knows what she’s doing. Fresh tomatoes. Basil. Garlic. Olive oil. A lemon.
‘Peter used to make this for me,’ she says, and her voice only catches a little.
‘Date Night Pasta, he called it. Said the secret was the lemon – just a squeeze at the end, for brightness.’ She pauses, a tomato in her hand, her gaze somewhere far away.
‘He made it the night he proposed. Burned the garlic, set off the smoke alarm, and I said yes anyway.’
I don’t know what to say. Never do, when people hand you a piece of their broken heart and trust you not to drop it.
‘Sounds like him,’ I manage.
‘It was.’ She blinks, comes back, drops the tomato in my basket. ‘Fresh pasta, not dried – Dot keeps the good stuff behind the counter. And don’t overcook it. Peter always said—’ She stops. Swallows. ‘Well. You’ll figure it out.’
Twenty minutes later I’m at the counter, wallet lighter, watching Nina head for the door.
‘Thanks,’ I call after her. ‘For the help.’
She waves without turning. ‘Don’t mess it up, Harding. Peter’s recipe deserves better than that.’
The bell jingles. Through the shop window, I watch her pause on the pavement, pulling her cardigan tighter.
And I see Tom.
He’s across the street, just come out of the chandlery, and he’s stopped dead. Staring at Nina like she’s the only thing in the world worth looking at. Like he’s been looking at her for years and can’t figure out how to stop.
She doesn’t notice. Keeps walking, head down, arms wrapped around herself.
Tom watches her go. Then shakes himself, shoves his hands in his pockets, and heads the other way.
‘At least she’s talking about him now.’
I turn. Dot’s peering at me over her glasses, crossword abandoned.
‘Peter,’ she clarifies. ‘For months she couldn’t say his name. Now she’s sharing recipes.’ Her smile softens at the edges. ‘Grief’s a strange creature. Takes its time.’