Chapter Nineteen
On the journey back to Portheast, Evelyn found herself at a loss for anything to say. She’d been flattered that Sariah had asked her along, but she’d ended up feeling like a spare part, watching Sariah and her mother exchanging sharp words, locked in a battle of wills.
‘Sorry for dragging you into my family mess,’ Sariah said when she dropped her off at the crossroads. ‘Must rate as the worst day trip ever.’
‘Well, it was good that you went. At least you’re talking again,’ Evelyn said, trying to be upbeat.
Then she watched the minibus disappear off in the direction of Warburn Hall.
From where she stood, Evelyn had two choices: turn towards the caravan site or walk down to the quay to check on her museum.
But Evelyn felt disinclined to take either route.
Instead, she continued walking uphill, leaving the town behind.
Passing through the kissing gate, Evelyn remembered the walks along these cliffs with her parents.
‘It’s a good place to think through a worry.
I often come up here alone,’ her mother had told her.
At the time, Evelyn couldn’t imagine what worries they might be, because her mother’s days did not seem that arduous.
They were spent painting flowers and drifting through the rooms of their Victorian home, stroking furniture and looking out at the distant sea.
Unlike Sariah, who seemed to freely admit that her childhood had been a disaster, Evelyn had always believed that growing up in the Silver family made her the luckiest girl in the world.
She lived in a lovely house and, at weekends, the surrounding countryside was their garden: when coastal path walkers passed them by, the Silvers must have made a perfect picture.
Elsbeth worked on her watercolours, intent on capturing the exact yellow of the common bird’s-foot trefoil, while Edwin pottered among the wildflowers with their young daughter.
Evelyn could almost hear the bright ting-ting of her mother’s brush on the side of her enamel water cup, or her father’s voice as he explained which plants not to touch.
‘Sea campion has the nickname witches’ thimbles, so we don’t pick that one,’ she remembered him saying.
‘The flowers are bad luck – harbingers of death.’
As Evelyn reached the worn trail of the coastal path, she turned her face to the wind and its force felt like a comfort, a constant in her life.
Around her she saw still-snug buds of gorse, briars threaded with brown ferns and, beyond that, the blues of the open sea.
Her mother had been right: this was a good place to pause and take stock, except Evelyn felt more confused than ever.
She was starting to question the whole Save Our Museum enterprise, because what good had it done so far?
It had reopened deep wounds for Sariah and it had revealed that the seemingly chipper Della had washed up in Portheast after a breakdown.
It was becoming clear that Alison was finding motherhood hard and could no longer spare the time to help out, and soon she would have to break the news to Jacob that the painting he fondly remembered was a fake.
And Evelyn’s vain hope that someone would recognise her piece of lace was fading fast. All these meetings and chats and photos and the website had come to nothing.
Perhaps the sensible thing would be to give up their boat shed leases and let the council do its worst. Like those girls from the pub had said, at least there would be jobs for Portheast.
The next morning, she was woken by a drilling sound in her ear: Toots demanding his breakfast. It was a good job he was so insistent, because Evelyn felt a yearning to stay in bed.
Even with its duvet dusted with cat hair, it was the safest place to be when one of her low moods rolled in, stealthy as sea mist.
Over breakfast, Evelyn opened the stories@ emails and saw, to her surprise, that the first email was from Alison, filing an interview she’d done with a man called Michael about a framed set of fisherman’s knots.
It was a short but lovely paragraph, but her eyes flicked to the bottom, where Alison had signed off: As mentioned, I must regretfully step back from the project, but I wish you every success and will be cheering you on from the sidelines.
Alison was only confirming what she’d said already, but Evelyn felt the disappointment sink in like a smooth, dark pebble.
Having a toddler and a part-time job must be hard work, but this sudden departure didn’t feel right.
When Alison had chaired that first meeting, it was like seeing her come to life: she was capable and enthusiastic and had good ideas for how to get the museum into the news.
She was wasted at the sports centre. Evelyn wished there was something she could do to help her out.
Evelyn’s dark mood lingered all morning as she sat at her museum desk, listening to the plink-plink of rainwater coming in through the hole in the roof.
When the door opened at lunchtime, she let out an exasperated tut, and looked up, expecting to see Della.
But it was a man in a jacket bearing a supermarket logo.
‘Wrong address,’ she called out to save him the bother of coming inside.
Taken aback, he got out his phone and read aloud: ‘Please email us or come to the museum during opening hours.’ He looked around. ‘This is the museum, right?’
‘It is indeed. My mistake.’
‘I’m on my break, see,’ the man said and held out his hand. She took in his handlebar moustache and hair tied back in a scrappy knot. ‘I’ve come about my watch.’
She braced herself to explain yet again that this wasn’t a lost property office, but the man was flicking back to the website on his phone.
‘This one,’ he said and showed her the picture of a wristwatch, stopped at 11.
21. ‘My mum donated it, she’s Mrs Brown, and I’m Carl Brown.
When the watch broke, I said chuck it out, but she said, no, it was of maritime interest.’
Evelyn invited him to sit and, heart thumping, readied herself to hear her first proper story. Carl explained that while these days he delivered groceries, for many years he’d been a volunteer with the RNLI and it was after one of his first callouts that his watch had stopped working.
‘This was in the winter of 1997, so I was barely twenty,’ he said. ‘I was half expecting the call as I could see for myself that the sea was getting really rough – waves as high as houses and they were relentless. Times like that, it’s as if the water is at war with itself.’
Evelyn nodded because there had been times when she’d stood at a safe distance and witnessed the power of the sea.
‘We got word that a rogue surfer had gone out and run into trouble. She’d lost her board and was being tumbled by the waves, pounded with each fresh one.
The terrible thing was, we could see her coming to the surface for a few seconds and then she’d get dragged under again.
By the time we reached her, she had started to drift out in a rip tide and her strength was all but gone. ’
Evelyn discovered that she was sitting on the edge of her chair, keen to hear more.
‘She had barely any breath left in her. It wasn’t far back to shore, but when we all reached dry land, the relief was incredible.
It wasn’t until I got home that I noticed my watch glass had cracked.
It was meant to be top of the range, waterproof and all the rest. It didn’t survive that rescue, but our crew did and so did the surfer. ’
Carl gave a small cough and she knew he’d already chosen his words for this last bit. ‘I’m glad my mum donated the watch to this museum. I hope it stays here forever, stuck at 11.21 as a reminder of the immense power of the sea – and the lifesaving work RNLI volunteers do.’
Evelyn felt a rare swell of hope. If they could get more stories like this, her museum might just be saved. ‘Thank you so much,’ she said because Carl was already standing up.
‘Got to get back to work – deliveries to make,’ he explained.
‘Right, of course,’ she said to his retreating back, then called out, ‘Do come to the exhibition.’
It took her a while to decipher her scribbled notes and then type them up, using her laptop rather than her key-deficient typewriter, but when she’d finished, she scrolled through the text, her heart beating fast.
Looking around, she realised she felt a desire to share this moment with someone and proudly carried her computer the short distance next door. Della tossed down the cloth she’d been using to wipe the counter for her non-existent customers and squinted at the document on the screen.
‘Mate, this is the business.’ She grinned at Evelyn. ‘This is a great story for the press. And if we can get enough like this for the exhibition, there’s no way the council can refuse to renew our leases.’
Evelyn smiled back. ‘It is rather good, isn’t it?’ she ventured. On returning to her far darker boat shed, she realised what a novel pleasure it had been to share good news with someone who wasn’t feline or an ex-department store mannequin.
In a further fit of efficiency, she opened up the online spreadsheet and added a big fat asterisk beside the listing for the watch, to signify it had a story.
Then she pulled up the emails, proud to be juggling not one but two documents on screen at the same time.
Yes, she was definitely getting into the swing of this system Sariah had set up.
In fact, she could see a new email had just arrived, which no one else had read yet. It was about the embroidered picture on sailcloth, the one she’d seen Alison admiring, and an idea began to take shape.
Without hesitating, Evelyn composed a reply and her fingers flew over the keyboard with a new-found enthusiasm.
Dear S. West,
Thank you for contacting us to let us know that you recognise this piece of embroidery.
It is a very fine piece of work, which I have long admired without knowing its origins.
If you are able to shed light on this matter, please email back or drop in at the museum, between 9 a.m. and 5 p.m. We are collating stories for a forthcoming exhibition on 19th March.
It is called Second Chances and the aim is to save the Portheast Museum of Maritime Curiosities.
Sincerely,
Ms Evelyn Silver,
Curator
The glum mood of the morning was forgotten because Evelyn could already envisage the grand opening of the exhibition: there would be a ribbon to cut, she would wear her smart wool dress and there would be cheering.
The assembled media would look on, rapt, while council officials hung their heads in shame, realising the error of their avaricious ways.
Then the imaginary cheers faded and the memory of another exhibition opening elbowed its way in, one so disastrous that it had ended her career.
Evelyn could still feel the sensation of falling and hear the crack of ancient pottery hitting the tiled floor.
It was a sound she would never forget, nor the collective gasp of horror.
She shook the memory away. No, it would be nothing like that. Yesterday, she’d witnessed Sariah bravely confronting her past and now Evelyn also needed to be bold. With a frisson of anticipation, Evelyn gave her email a final skim and pressed Send.