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Copyright
Published by AVON
A Division of HarperCollinsPublishers Ltd
1 London Bridge Street
London SE1 9GF
www.harpercollins.co.uk
First published in Great Britain by HarperCollinsPublishers 2019
Copyright © Phillipa Ashley
Cover design © HarperCollins Publishers 2019
Cover illustration © Hannah George 2019
Phillipa Ashley asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work.
A catalogue copy of this book is available from the British Library.
This novel is entirely a work of fiction. The names, characters and incidents portrayed in it are the work of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or localities is entirely coincidental.
All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this ebook on screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, downloaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins.
Source ISBN: 9780008316129
Ebook Edition © March 2019 ISBN: 9780008316136
Version: 2019-03-28
Dedication
In memory of Mike Fosbrook, my inspirational English teacher
Contents
Cover
Title Page
Copyright
Dedication
Prologue
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fifteen
Chapter Sixteen
Chapter Seventeen
Chapter Eighteen
Chapter Nineteen
Chapter Twenty
Chapter Twenty-One
Chapter Twenty-Two
Chapter Twenty-Three
Chapter Twenty-Four
Chapter Twenty-Five
Chapter Twenty-Six
Chapter Twenty-Seven
Chapter Twenty-Eight
Chapter Twenty-Nine
Chapter Thirty
Chapter Thirty-One
Chapter Thirty-Two
Chapter Thirty-Three
Chapter Thirty-Four
Chapter Thirty-Five
Chapter Thirty-Six
Chapter Thirty-Seven
Chapter Thirty-Eight
Chapter Thirty-Nine
Chapter Forty
Chapter Forty-One
Chapter Forty-Two
Epilogue
Acknowledgements
Keep Reading …
About the Author
Also by Phillipa Ashley
About the Publisher
Prologue
September 2008
Porthmellow.co.uk Town Blog Forum
MoaningOldMinnie: Another shop closed? That’s three in the past six months. This town’s going to the dogs! Why doesn’t somebody from the council or chamber of trade do something before we have tumbleweeds rolling round the harbour?
‘I swear someone’s going to drown one of these days,’ the old man said in his thick Cornish burr. ‘And guess who’ll be the one to have to fish the little buggers out.’
It was all Sam Lovell could do to hide a smile at her neighbour Troy Carman’s expression as he watched the teenagers in wetsuits opposite the Smuggler’s Tavern. They were laughing and jeering as they egged each other on to leap off the harbour wall into the inky waters. Every Sunday evening in Porthmellow, from spring through to autumn, it was the same: the town band playing outside the pub and teenagers tombstoning into the harbour. A last hurrah of the weekend before everyone had to go back to work and school the next morning.
Sam rested her half of lager on the peeling table. Like a lot of things in Porthmellow, the tavern was in dire need of a spruce up. ‘Didn’t you do a bit of tombstoning when you were a lad?’ she asked.
Troy shook his head at the kids shrieking as they climbed onto the top wall above the harbour. ‘Back in the day I might have, and we didn’t have these fancy wetsuits, then. I used to do it in my cotton underpants. Our mum went mad. I only had three pairs. One to wash, one to wear and one for Sunday best. Full of holes, they were too, by the time they’d been through her mangle a hundred times.’
‘Troy. I love you to bits, but that is way too much information,’ said Sam, trying to purge from her mind the image of her elderly neighbour leaping into the harbour in a pair of pants as murky as the water.
Although the sun was shining on the terrace of the Smuggler’s Tavern this September evening, it was too little too late. The summer had been grey and gloomy far too often, keeping visitors away from their remote part of Cornwall. Times were hard and many families had had to miss out on a holiday altogether. It was exactly what the little harbour town didn’t need – not to mention Sam herself, who had left her job to start her own catering business the previous year. Who could have foreseen a global crash? Certainly not Sam, who’d been too busy keeping her family together after losing three of the people she loved most within the space of a couple of years.
But on evenings like this, Sam almost found herself able to put that to the back of her mind.
Troy finished his pint of Proper Job and wiped foam from his lips. At seventy, he was still working part-time as a deputy harbourmaster and no one knew the waters around Porthmellow better than he did. Although, Sam thought with a smile, the man approaching her table came pretty close. Drew Yelland was a few years older than her, tanned as tea, his fair hair burnished by the sun, a gold earring glinting in the evening light.
‘Hello. Sorry I’m late.’ Drew kissed her on the cheek and nodded cheerfully at Troy. ‘We were late sailing back into the harbour. Bunch of bankers on the boat today. Didn’t know their arses from their elbows. Didn’t seem too bothered about the recession either. Don’t think it’s going to dent their consumption of Bolly. Talking of which … your glasses look empty. I’m dying for a pint. Can I get anyone a drink?’
Troy flashed a mouth full of teeth, which, oddly, made Sam think of tombstones. He rubbed his hands together.
‘Don’t mind if I do.’
‘I’ll help,’ said Sam and gathered their empty glasses onto a tray. She always did this, wanting to help the landlady who’d had to let some staff go because trade had dropped off. She also wanted to talk to Drew.
‘How’s business on the Marisco?’ she asked as they waited for the landlady to pull their pints. Drew ran a small sailing charity that took groups out for trips on a vintage trawler.
‘Could be better.’ Drew handed over some cash for the beers. ‘To be honest, bookings have fallen off a cliff since the crash and things aren’t going to get better over the winter. We rely on the corporate and private money to subsidise the educational trips. The business customers are cutting back on teambuilding days and Joe Public can’t afford luxuries like learning to sail. Which basically means we can’t afford to take out the kids who really need a treat and a chance to build their skills and confidence.’
‘I’m so sorry, Drew … I know where you’re coming from. It’s tough at Stargazey Pie too – people still need to eat, luckily, but it’s still hard,’ said Sam, grimacing. ‘I’m not sure I’d have set up the business if I’d known what was coming. I had a good job already at the craft bakery and it felt mad to leave it last spring, let alone now.’
‘Would any of us do anything if we could see into the future?’ Drew picked up the tray of drinks from the bar.
Sam shook her head. ‘I’m glad I couldn’t see what was coming with Mum and Ryan.’ And Gabe, of course, she almost added, but she didn’t want to mention his name. The pain was still too raw. When the love of your life shopped your own brother to the police and then left town while your brother went to prison – well, it tended to leave its mark on you.
‘You’ve had a rough few years, but keep the faith. Keep at it. Stargazey will be a success. We’ll just have to ride out the storm somehow. We can’t stop it from coming.’ Drew grinned. ‘And anyone who’s Porthmellow born and bred will tell you that.’
Nodding, Sam held open the door for Drew. A burst of brass band music hit her ears and she blinked at the contrast of the gloomy interior with the bright sunlight glinting on the water. Sam zoned in on the ‘To Let’ sign on the fish and chip shop at the end of the harbour. Gabe and his family had worked there and lived in the flat above it until he and Sam had split up; his parents had retired a few months previously and no one had taken it over yet.
The ice-cream parlour next door was shuttered up and wouldn’t re-open until spring. Bryony Cronk’s new dog grooming business had set up in the old greengrocer’s shop, but both units either side had blanked-out windows. Despite its shabbiness, Porthmellow was in Sam’s blood, she loved its harbour and its quirky clock tower, every sunny day and each wild winter storm. Drew was right: no one could predict the climate, economic or otherwise. Just as there was nothing she could do about tourists choosing to go elsewhere.
While Sam and Drew had been inside, Troy’s wife Evie had joined their table. Sam saw her wincing a little, knowing she’d started to suffer from arthritis in her knees. It was a steep hike down to the harbour from Stippy Stappy Lane where the Carmans’ terrace stood a few doors down from Wavecrest Cottage, the home Sam shared with her sister, Zennor. Until a year ago, their brother, Ryan, had lived there too.
Drew fetched Evie a G&T and they returned to watching the kids jumping in the water.
‘Is that your Zennor?’ asked Evie, pointing to a tall, slender girl with long black hair, poised ten feet up on the wall above the harbour. ‘Haven’t got my driving glasses so I can’t really tell.’
Sam shook her head. ‘Yes. It is,’ she said, wincing as Zennor threw herself off the wall and landed with a splash. She bobbed up immediately, squealing in triumph, and Sam heaved a sigh of relief.
Zennor was just one more kid who thought they were invincible … same as their brother, Ryan, had. Same as Sam’s ex Gabe used to do when they were kids. She could picture Gabe now, in his board shorts, lean and slender, his smooth olive skin glistening with water as he climbed again to the top of the wall around the pub.
People would jeer or urge him on, but Gabe never cared what anyone else in Porthmellow thought – except perhaps for Sam.
She’d stand by, trying to act cool while all the time her heart would be in her mouth. What if he hit his head on the rocks or some piece of rubbish under the water? She remembered the time he’d vanished underneath and not come up as quickly as usual; he’d been under just long enough to make her squeal out in horror and cause everyone to stare at her. Then he’d popped up yards away by a boat. She’d been ready to jump in after him … ready to risk it all to save him.
Not anymore.
At twenty-one, her days of risking life and limb for a bit of a laugh were long gone, She had too many responsibilities these days.
A loud scream startled her out of her reverie, but it was followed by gales of laughter from the teenagers.
Troy clicked his tongue against his teeth. ‘Bloody dangerous. Harbourmaster would like to stop it but there’s no point. Kids’ll do it anyway.’
‘Zennor’s no kid,’ Sam said, ‘but I can’t stop her. I thought she’d have grown out of it by now.’
‘She’s just having a bit of fun. I’d have a go myself if my knees would let me. How old is she? Fifteen?’ said Evie.
‘Just,’ said Sam.
‘She’ll soon stop when boys get on the scene,’ said Drew.
‘They already are. Ben Blazey’s up there too,’ said Sam, spotting a skinny young lad in a shortie.
Evie laughed. ‘Young Zennor will eat him for breakfast. He never says boo to a goose, that boy.’
‘He creates enough racket on that scooter of his,’ Troy grumbled. ‘How he makes it over from Mousehole to here without killing himself I don’t know.’
Drew smirked at Sam and she bit back a giggle.
Evie held up a finger. ‘Ah, thanks for reminding me, Troy.’ She delved in a large shopping bag. ‘Have you seen this?’
‘What’s that?’
She spread a crumpled flyer on the table. ‘Picked it up in town the other day when I went to my computer class. Thought you might fancy coming?’
Sam peered at the leaflet. ‘Autumn Festival on Mousehole quayside. Folk Bands. Hog roast. Food fair. Cookery demos. Cider tent. Sounds good.’
‘I saw that too. How do you fancy coming with me and Katya? Thought we’d take Connor along too,’ Drew asked Sam. Katya was Drew’s wife; they had a baby son together, Connor.
Sam wanted to go, but she was sure Drew was only being kind, inviting her along with his family. Drew had been one of the townspeople who’d looked out for the Lovell family after her mum had died. He was part friend, part surrogate older brother since Ryan had been sent away.
‘I don’t know. Saturday is it? I should be working …’ Sam made her pies in a small unit tucked in a back alley and sold them direct from the kitchen or from a stall at events. She’d have loved a mobile unit herself but the business was still in its early days. She baked every morning for six days a week and did a few outdoor events as well as Friday nights on the Porthmellow harbourside. She’d managed to scrape up the cash for a second-hand stall and small oven to heat the pies. Her dream was to have a proper van like some of the bigger street food businesses but she couldn’t afford that yet. For now, she had to take every opportunity to get some revenue in to pay the rent and loans on her catering kitchen. There wasn’t much time or money for extras or treats.
‘We can go along later in the day,’ said Drew. ‘Don’t you shut at lunchtime on Saturdays?’
‘You have to have some time off,’ said Evie.
Before Sam could make an excuse, Zennor jogged up. She was barefoot, dripping, and pink in the cheeks from cold and excitement. ‘Hello! Fancy coming in, anyone? Troy? I hear you were champion tombstoner back in the day.’
Troy slapped his palm over his glass. ‘Eh. Don’t drip in my pint, maid. Watered down enough as it is without you adding to it.’
‘We were talking about going to the Mousehole Autumn Festival,’ said Sam, still unsure whether to accept Drew’s offer. She was sure that Katya might not enjoy another woman taking up family time.
‘I saw the flyer. The bands sound shit,’ declared Zennor, shaking her head. Water corkscrewed off her locks and spattered the flyer, making the print run.
‘Eh!’ Troy groaned.
Sam shot her sister a glance. ‘Zen. Do you mind?’
‘About the water or saying sh—?’
‘Both, as a matter of fact. Why don’t you go and get changed? It’s getting cold out here.’
Zennor shrugged. ‘I’m fine.’
Sam bit back any further remark. She had to remind herself she was Zennor’s sister, not her mum – even if she had had to take on that role at just twenty.
‘So, does anyone fancy going?’ said Drew. ‘The invitation’s there.’
Evie clapped her hands together. ‘Why don’t we make it a party? We could fork out for a taxi so we can all enjoy ourselves properly. It says the festival’s sponsored by the Cyder Farm.’
Sam could have hugged Evie. She’d probably guessed that Sam would be happier in a gang, even if it did include two pensioners.
‘That sounds like a much better idea,’ said Zennor. ‘I’m up for it if cider’s involved.’
‘You’re not eighteen yet, maid,’ said Troy.
‘One small one won’t hurt her,’ said Evie. ‘And we can all keep an eye on her.’
Zennor giggled. ‘Can I ask Ben? He’s having a shitty – sorry crappy – time at home at the moment.’ She shot a look at Sam.
‘The more the merrier,’ said Drew. ‘Shall I go ahead and book a minibus?’
As her companions buzzed with excitement, Sam peeled the flyer from the table and held it up. The evening rays shone through the soggy paper and the words had merged: bands, festival, food …
Their mother had loved a sing and a dance. She always enjoyed hearing the fishermen’s choir and the town band and liked nothing better than when everyone joined in at the end of the evening with a rousing chorus of ‘Trelawney’. And she loved seeing the streets packed on a sizzling summer day or taking the girls and Ryan to the Flora Dance at Helston or the Obby Oss on May Day in Padstow. Their father walked out on the family when Sam was very young and her mum, Roz, had brought them up on her own. She pictured her mum dancing on the beach at Newquay as the sun set, a flower garland in her hair, holding hands with Sam and Zennor … At the memory of those carefree times, and the reminder of what she’d lost, her heart physically ached. Sam longed to experience that again, to see Porthmellow’s streets alive with music and laughter, a buzz in the town … joy and fun …
‘Sam?’ Evie’s hand was on her arm. ‘Are you all right? Will you come?’
Sam forced a smile to her lips. ‘Yes … yes. Why not? Let’s go … but actually, I’ve got another idea.’
‘What’s that, my love?’ said Evie softly.
All eyes turned to Sam and before she could chicken out, she spoke her thoughts as they tumbled through her brain.
‘This might be mad but … why don’t we kill two birds with one stone? Go to the event, but treat it as a research trip too? I mean, look around us. The town’s going downhill fast right at a time when local people need help. We need to attract more visitors and really put this place on the map. Make it famous for something.’
‘Yeah, but for what? We’re just another Cornish harbour town with vicious seagulls, weird locals and crap weather,’ said Zennor.
Sam had to smile. ‘We’re not just another town. We’re unique. We have character – and characters – and dramatic weather that makes the headlines. We could be as famous as Padstow or Mousehole or St Ives. Why shouldn’t we be?’
Drew put his pint down. ‘I like your way of thinking, but famous for what?’
‘For our festival. I think we should have our own.’
Eyes widened. Zennor snorted. Troy blew out a long breath. ‘But who’s going to organise it? Sounds like a lot of work and disruption to me, maid.’
Troy was right, of course, but it was too late. The idea had taken root in Sam’s mind and was gathering energy and power like a great wave bearing down on the harbour. She couldn’t shake off the thought that her mum would have been at the centre of a festival if she’d been here. As the town band reached a crescendo of ‘Trelawney’, Sam imagined her dancing on the quayside, smiling and laughing.
Evie was right too, and her mum would have agreed. Sam was working too hard. She was only twenty-one and she had the weight of the world on her shoulders, a business, young sibling to support through college, another who’d come out of jail and she never saw. Organising a festival would be hard work but it would be fun too, and be a fitting way to honour her mum’s memory and maybe bring a bit of sparkle back to the town and her life.
‘We’re going to organise it,’ she declared, buoyed by bravado. ‘Us lot. We’re going to get it off the ground and we’re going to make a big success of it.’ She threw a glance at Drew. ‘Because storms or not, we have to do something to help Porthmellow.’
Chapter One
Early May, Eleven Years Later
The 10th Porthmellow Food Festival
June 29-30 – Porthmellow Harbour
Don’t miss our biggest and best ever festival!
Over 100 food, drink & craft stalls – live music all day
Chef’s Theatre with cooking demonstrations including
Star Chef Kris Zachary of BBC Weekend Kitchen Show
‘Cornwall’s coolest food event’ – The Sunday Times
Sam brushed rainwater from the laminated poster in her hand. Ten years. That was a third of her life. How could they have flown by so fast?
She still had to pinch herself at how the festival had grown since that first mad idea outside the Smuggler’s Tavern. Blinking raindrops from her eyes, she tried not to look down. She was only six feet up on the stepladder, but it was more than enough for someone who hated heights at the best of times. This was most definitely not the best of times. The rain and wind had been torrential since she’d set out from the cottage at six a.m., hoping to get the posters up before she had to get things going at Stargazey Pie. It was hard to believe it was the start of May.
Gritting her teeth, she tried to clip the cable tie around a council sign warning people not to drive off the quay. One false move and she could topple onto the cobbles or plunge through the deck of the Marisco. Now, that would go down really well with Drew: a great big Sam-shaped hole in his precious boat. Her fingers were slippery and numb with cold, but she wanted to have the posters up now spring was – allegedly – well underway. Hordes of people would start to flock to the town and hopefully flock back again at the end of June for the festival.
‘Woof! Woof! Woooffffff!’
Sam gripped the ladder as deafening barks rang out across the harbour. Her foot slipped and she had to let go of the poster to hang on. It fell onto the wet cobbles and into a large oily puddle. Still holding on for dear life, Sam twisted round to see a Rottweiler jumping up and drooling as it tried to sniff – or possibly taste – her feet.
A woman in a long leather coat and a Megadeth T-shirt glared up at Sam as she struggled to hold the beast back. Sam steeled herself. ‘Morning, Bryony. Mizzly out here today, isn’t it?’
Bryony prodded the laminated poster with the toe of her Doc Martens. ‘I’d hoped you’d decided to give the festival a rest for a year.’ The dog barked again so Bryony ramped up her own volume. ‘My Sacha hates all the noise and smells.’
Bryony stroked Sacha’s head while Sam tried to let the words wash over her. It didn’t do to argue with Bryony, Cornwall’s self-declared canine expert and the most unlikely metal fan on the planet. Woe betide anyone who dared question her views on dogs, music … or the festival, or tourists, or the weather, or anything else. Sam had often thought that if Professor Stephen Hawking had ever visited Porthmellow, Bryony would have been sure to take issue with his theories on black holes. She lived in a small house not far from Wavecrest Cottage. Sam often heard Sacha barking from fifty metres away.
Spotting a rare gap in Bryony’s tirade, Sam dived in while she could. ‘Well, the festival does bring lots of people into the town who might not otherwise come. Local people and tourists and it’s put Porthmellow on the map as a foodie and arty haven.’