Christmas on the Little Cornish Isles: The Driftwood Inn
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He had half an hour to spare before his ferry to St Mary’s arrived so he walked down the track and onto the beach. The tide was slowly filling the channel between Petroc and Gull Island and the remaining islets of sand glittered in the morning sun. Soon they’d shrink to nothing, presenting one smooth and silvery expanse of water between Gull and Petroc.
Leaving his pack by a rock on the powdery sand, Patrick sauntered down to the sea. He picked up a small stone and cast it over the water. It skipped a couple of times then sank. The water was so shallow, he imagined he could see it resting on the bottom. He tried again with a larger flatter stone. Feeling confident, he snapped back his wrist but fluffed his aim and managed only one bounce.
‘Here. Let me try.’
Maisie Samson’s voice was unmistakeable; her soft local accent was tinged with dry amusement. He didn’t think she was laughing at him, and even if she was he wouldn’t have blamed her. He found himself ridiculous most of the time. He turned around to see her standing a few feet behind him, her arms folded. How long she’d been watching him, he didn’t know, but he felt as if he’d been caught smoking a fag at school by the matron. She wore skinny jeans and an old Arran fisherman’s sweater that hung off her slight frame. It had obviously been her dad’s at one time – or a boyfriend’s. It could still belong to a boyfriend now, he supposed. He shoved one hand in his pocket.
‘Good morning,’ she said.
‘Morning,’ he said, jiggling the stones in his pocket nervously.
‘I thought you’d left already.’
‘I’m waiting for the ferry. I decided to stay one more night. How did you know I was going home?’
She shrugged. ‘I assumed. Everyone left yesterday.’
‘The kayaking students are still around,’ he said.
‘Apart from them. Javid told me the rest of the site was empty and I don’t think there are any other tourists in any of the B&Bs or holiday cottages on the island at the moment.’
‘Do you and Javid monitor everyone’s comings and goings?’
‘Pretty much. Like I said, everyone knows everything on Gull. Sooner or later.’
How much later, he thought. How long would it take for the islanders to know his comings and goings – and secrets?
Maisie shrugged and rubbed the sand with her sneaker. Patrick had the feeling she was embarrassed about her comments when they’d been flirting again the previous day, and she’d certainly been eager to get rid of him after their banter was over. Unable to meet his eye, she scraped the shingle with the toe of her Converse, but if she were so keen to avoid him, why was she hanging around now?
He considered collecting his pack and leaving her alone but she suddenly peered at the shingle and picked up a stone. She crouched low at the water’s edge and, without a word, set the stone free with one deft flick of the wrist. It skipped over the water once, twice … seven times in all until it finally disappeared.
‘You should have been in The Dambusters,’ said Patrick.
She laughed out loud. ‘The Dambusters? That’s an old one. You’re surely too young to have seen that?’
‘Ditto,’ said Patrick.
‘Mum and I have been force fed that film by Dad, every bank holiday without fail. Now he has it on DVD so we’re made to watch it regularly as an example of our glory days.’ She shook her head and a smile, a heartfelt one, tilted the corners of her mouth. ‘How could we not watch it? My great-great-uncle Horace was a mechanic on those planes in the war,’ she said. ‘Horace knew Guy Gibson, the man who led them. My dad remembers Uncle Horace from when he was a boy.’
Patrick whistled. ‘I’m impressed.’
‘Me too. Sort of. Can’t imagine being in a war, but Horace is still a terrible name … Why don’t you have another go with your stones?’
‘You only want to show me up when I fail spectacularly.’
‘Of course I do and I hope you’re not going to disappoint me.’
In two minds as to whether Maisie wanted him to disappoint her or not, Patrick tried his very best over the course of the next five minutes. He found stones every bit as good as Maisie’s yet she beat him each time by at least two bounces.
‘Damn it!’ he said in exasperation as another stone sank just feet from the shore.
Maisie stood by with her hands on her hips, watching him critically. ‘Your technique needs honing,’ she said.
While Patrick selected another pebble, round the headland, out of sight, a whistle tooted.
Maisie nodded in the direction of the jetty. ‘That’s your ride to St Mary’s,’ she said.
His ride out of there and his escape plan, thought Patrick. His last chance to do the right thing and leave Gull forever. His fingers curled tighter around the stone in his palm. Ignoring the whistle, he bent low and flung his stone.
Three skips.
Still crap.
He wandered down to the water and fished another promising-looking stone from the wavelets. The water ran down the cuff of his sweatshirt.
The ferry whistle tooted again, twice and more urgently.
‘If you don’t leave now, you’ll miss the ferry and that means you’ll miss the Islander ferry to Penzance and have to stay another night, unless you’re prepared to fork out for a plane ride.’ Maisie’s voice reached his ears from behind.
‘This is true,’ said Patrick, enjoying the weight of the stone in his hand and the cold water trickling down his arm. He’d soon found out that the ocean was as cold here as at home, where it pounded the coast, chilled by the Antarctic. People – tourists – thought it would be like a warm bath and were shocked and disappointed when it froze your nuts off, same as their own seas. Same here, he guessed … but he wasn’t disappointed by Gull Island yet. He might be, given time. He’d always been disappointed and always messed things up …
What about this time? Judy had asked him to give the place at least a chance. Greg and Judy had given him a chance before, many many chances … so maybe he owed it to them both to stay a bit longer now.
It would be no hardship to spend a little longer in Maisie Samson’s company, that was for sure.
He flung the stone away, not expecting anything. It glanced off the water, again and again. Five, six, seven times and maybe more until it slipped under the surface.
‘Wow.’
Patrick turned. Maisie was silhouetted against the morning sun, miming applause while her auburn hair blew across her face in the breeze. She reminded him of a girl in a Shakespeare play he’d been forced to study at school.
Though she be but little, she is fierce. He smiled at himself. If Maisie knew what he was thinking, she’d probably walk straight off.
Toot. Toot. Toooooot.
‘That’s your last chance. You’ll have to run,’ she said.
‘My pack’s too heavy to rush.’
Maisie grabbed the top of it. ‘I’ll help you if you want.’
She’s daring me to go, he thought. Or daring herself. Or am I kidding myself?
He stayed where he was. ‘One more stone first.’
She let go of his pack. Patrick doubted she’d have got far with it anyway. ‘OK but it’s your funeral.’
He thought about throwing another stone but something kept him rooted to the beach, looking at her looking at him.
Patrick thought back to the notice pinned on the corkboard in the laundry room and to his chat with Javid last night. Maisie wasn’t the only one who had her spies. He glanced at the fort on Petroc opposite and in the distance he heard the putter of a boat engine. The ferry nosed its way beyond the headland and headed back to St Mary’s.
The breeze freshened. Maisie pulled her hair off her face and held it out of her eyes as she joined him at the shoreline. Water lapped at her shoes but she didn’t seem to mind. ‘You’re too late. You missed your chance to escape from Gull,’ she said. ‘You’ll have to make other arrangements now.’
Maybe not, thought Patrick as madness seized him. He turned to her and the words came tumbling out. ‘I could be wrong, but I hear you’re looking for a barman.’
Chapter 7
If Maisie had been sitting on her favourite rock when she heard the Blond’s announcement, she was sure she’d have fallen off it. All her smart replies flew out of her mind in favour of a strangled: ‘Sorry?’
‘Sorry? As in sorry, the vacancy’s been filled? Sorry, if it was a choice between Hitler and me, you’d hand the job to Adolf?’
Maisie spluttered. ‘Don’t be so daft. You’d be perfect. I mean, you’d make a perfect – a very good and competent – barman. I’m sure.’
‘But?’
‘Five minutes ago, you were leaving. Your bags are packed. Look.’ She picked up the rucksack again, which was about as tall as she was, and almost toppled over.
‘Careful, Maisie Samson. Don’t want you doing yourself an injury.’
‘I’m worried I might do an injury to more than myself if I take you on at the Driftwood.’
Patrick folded his arms and raised an eyebrow. ‘So you’re not up for the challenge?’
Maisie bit back a reply. Her heart was beating faster than she liked and she was on very dangerous ground. She wanted him to work for her and dreaded it in equal measure, for entirely opposing reasons.
‘There was a notice advertising the job in the campsite reception … that wasn’t a figment of my imagination, now was it?’ he said.
‘No. It was a real notice and there is a vacancy.’
‘And you just said, if my hearing didn’t deceive me, that I’d be perfect.’
‘That was wrong of me. You don’t have any experience …’
‘I thought I’d make a very competent barman?’
‘I only meant you’ve the gift of the gab. You seem to like talking, anyway.’
‘Miaow,’ said the Blond. Maisie could have cheerfully hit him with his rucksack, if she could have got it off the ground.
‘I need someone who can hit the ground running. I can’t carry passengers.’
‘Two transport metaphors in one sentence. She’s smart.’
‘And you’re fired,’ said Maisie, thinking of lobbing a stone at him and hoping it bounced off his head. ‘I don’t even know your name.’
‘What? You mean the Gull Island grapevine hasn’t worked this time?’
‘Don’t flatter yourself. You’re not that famous yet, but it would probably be a good idea to introduce yourself if you’re interested in applying for the job.’
The Blond stepped forward and stuck out his hand. ‘It’s Patrick. Patrick McKinnon. I don’t think we’ve been formally introduced.’
Heat rose to Maisie’s cheeks. That kiss they’d shared in St Mary’s had been anything but formal but at least she had a name at last.
Patrick McKinnon. It was a nice, normal name that suited him well. She shook his hand briefly but firmly then stepped back to maintain her distance. Her heart was beating much faster than she wanted it to.
‘I appreciate it’s an unconventional way of going about things and if you don’t like the look of me or can’t stand my cheek, then fair enough, but I do have plenty of experience. I’ve worked in half a dozen pubs and bars in my time, including one in Melbourne for the past five years as bar manager. I can even turn my hand to some cooking if it’s basic. I can get references that’ll prove I’m not about to run off with the takings or the customers.’
‘OK. I’ll admit that sounds tempt … I mean satisfactory, but how do I know you have the right to work here?’ Maisie said, recovering her composure a little. ‘Gull Island may be the back of beyond and, yes, rules are broken, but I can’t afford to be in trouble with the powers-that-be.’
Patrick smiled. ‘I have the right to work here, rest assured, and I can prove it.’
‘It can get lonely here in the winter,’ she said. ‘Lonely and monotonous. Seeing the same old faces day after day, being stuck on the isles – on Gull Island – for days at a time when the weather closes in. This island can send people nuts, believe me.’
‘All the more reason to have a fresh face around the place, eh?’
For me, thought Maisie, but maybe not for you.
‘That flyer had been up so long the sun had almost faded the words away. You need someone urgently and from what I hear, staff are in short supply on Gull Island. I can help you in the pub and kitchen but I can also help you in other ways.’
His eyes twinkled. Maisie went all shivery. ‘Such as?’ she said, as prim as a maiden aunt.
Undeterred, Patrick pointed at the pub. ‘I could help your dad re-slate that roof and paint the woodwork that’s peeling off. The place will need a new coat of render before spring by the look of it and that terrace furniture needs re-varnishing. Your dad’s not been too well, I hear, so perhaps he could do with a hand.’
The Driftwood Inn sign creaked in the wind. The seagull picture was so weathered it might have been a penguin and the lettering was starting to dissolve. Maisie pursed her lips but her stomach did a flip. She’d winced when she’d seen her dad struggling with the roof earlier and she knew her mum was worried sick. Everything Patrick said made sense. Too much sense, so why was she hesitating? She desperately tried to get a grip and think rationally about the situation.
‘OK. I accept you have experience and we do need some practical help around the place as well as in the Inn but I don’t know anything about you. I only learned your name five minutes ago. If I’m to take you on, it’s only fair that I interview you properly and check all the paperwork’s in order.’
‘Fine. Is now a good time?’
‘As good as any as you’re not going anywhere in a hurry.’
Patrick held out his hand to let her walk ahead of him across the terrace. ‘Bring it on, then.’
Maisie gave him six weeks tops. Less if the weather was particularly crappy over the autumn. He’d definitely be gone before her mum had made the Christmas cake. She led the way into the pub and suggested he take a seat in the far corner while she collected some paperwork and her tablet.
What have I done? What the chuffing heck have I done? she thought, her inner voice nagging at her like a stroppy toddler. He’d make a great barman but he’d also have the female population of the island falling at his feet, not to mention some of the guys. And while he’d doubtless be very handy to have around, he might also prove an unwanted distraction to her while she was trying to run the place and get ready for Christmas and get a hundred-and-one jobs done over the off-season.
She had to remind herself that she hadn’t actually given him the position yet. She was in control, she had to remember that, whatever the outcome of the next half-hour.
Patrick dumped his pack on the floor while Maisie went through to the tiny back room next to the kitchen that served as an office-cum-staffroom. She could just make out her dad wheeling a barrow through the archway at the rear of the garden that led to another allotment where there was a glasshouse and her mum’s flock of chickens. It was just as well that her parents were safely out of the way for a little while at least. She didn’t want an audience while she interviewed Patrick, and she wanted to make up her own mind about him.
The advantages of taking on Patrick McKinnon were obvious: he’d draw in what scant custom there was and, she was sure, he’d work hard and long hours. He was the answer to her dreams, in so many ways, and that’s what bothered her most. Setting aside the fact that she fancied the faded jeans off him, it was too good to be true that an attractive, personable and experienced Australian barman had rocked up at the arse end of nowhere just when she needed a personable and experienced barperson.
Maisie found her tablet, a notebook and pen and tried to focus on the questions she’d usually ask her potential staff for the Driftwood. Patrick, she reminded herself, was no different and deserved no special treatment. If he didn’t tick all her boxes, he could be on his way back to St Mary’s or wherever. This was business now.
‘OK,’ said Maisie, returning to the table and putting her iPad and notebook down. ‘Before we go any further, I have to ask you this. Why do you want to lock yourself away for six months here when you could be enjoying the sun in Australia? I hate to ask it, but why are you here at all?’
Patrick smiled. ‘Now, that,’ he said, ‘is the question I’ve been asking myself for the past ten minutes.’
‘I’m not going to answer it for you,’ she said with a smile.
‘You don’t have to. Until half an hour ago, I was going back to Melbourne. Although that’s not strictly true. I’ve had a mind to stay on here ever since I set foot on the isles. I came over to London a week ago with the intention of having a working holiday.’
‘Funny time to come here, the end of October.’
‘A mate told me there would be a lot of seasonal bar work going, with the festive season coming up. I believe it starts at Easter over here.’ He grinned.
‘It’s crazy,’ said Maisie. ‘Christmas cards in the shops in August …’ She realised she was agreeing with him too readily. No matter what had gone on between them before, this was meant to be an interview. ‘I can see why you’d want some work in London, where there are tons of jobs at Christmas, and I can even possibly understand why you’d want to be here when the weather’s crap, but why would you want to stay on Gull Island itself?’
He sighed. ‘I’ll be honest with you. I could have got a job in London just like that.’ He snapped his fingers. ‘And earned a lot more money, but it’ll be a nice change to get out of the city, even a city like Melbourne.’
‘Why did you leave your last bar in Melbourne?’ she asked, still unconvinced. ‘Did they let you go?’
He smiled. ‘They didn’t let me go as in sack me. I’m on a sabbatical as you’ll find out if you take up my references.’
‘When,’ she said. ‘I will be taking them up, I can promise you. If I take you on. How many busy city bars can afford to let their managers have a sabbatical?’
He nodded. ‘It does sound fishy, I agree. I can see I’m going to have to be straight with you.’
Maisie’s hackles rose at his flippant reference to telling the truth. ‘I won’t stand for an ounce of bullshit, let’s get that straight from the start.’
‘Well, it’s a long and boring story …’
Maisie folded her arms and firmed up her tone. ‘Why don’t you try me?’
Patrick held her gaze, but she refused to flinch. He could try it on all he liked but she had to show him who was boss from the start and she wouldn’t be fazed by any diversion tactics, however much they might make long-dead feelings stir, deliciously, low in her belly.
‘There was this bloke … let’s call him a special mate …’
Chapter 8
The penny dropped in Maisie’s brain with a loud ‘kerching’. Damn it, how had she not realised before? A bloke, a ‘special mate’. Patrick was gay and running away to Gull from a wrecked relationship, just like herself. That relationship just happened to be with a man.
Argh. Maisie kicked herself for her naivety in assuming that he was straight and fancied her. She smiled encouragingly at him, rueing her presumption.
‘I see,’ she said.
Patrick frowned as if he couldn’t see why or what Maisie ‘saw’ at all. ‘Do you?’
‘Yes, I mean, no. Sorry to interrupt you. Please carry on.’
‘This bloke, Greg is – was – a good friend of mine. A very good friend, you could say …’
Maisie arranged her face into sympathetic-good-listener mode. She felt sorry for him, having to explain himself, and perhaps she should tell him now that his personal life was none of her business unless it related directly to his work.
‘Greg was like a father to me,’ said Patrick.
‘Father?’ Her voice was almost a squeak. Maisie had to make a physical effort to wipe the grin of relief from her face. Not gay then. But … what other surprises were coming from left field? Plenty, if her hunches about Patrick McKinnon were right.
‘Yes, or a father figure, though he would have laughed at me for saying anything so schmaltzy. He thought of himself more as a good mate, which he was. Sorry, I’m not making much sense, am I?’
‘Greg was also my boss at my last place of work in Melbourne. The Fingle Bar, which of course you’ll know all about when you google it and email or phone to talk to them.’
‘Will Greg vouch for you?’ she said, noting his name on the pad.
‘I’m sure he would if he could …’
Maisie glanced up.
‘He’s been dead for six months.’
‘Oh God. I’m so sorry.’
‘So am I. Sorrier than I can tell you, but there’s nothing he or I can do about it. Greg had cancer, and he was only fifty-one. He’d taken me on at the Fingle as a pot washer and by the time he passed away, I was managing the place. It’s a big bar overlooking the Yarra River in the heart of the city. You’d like it.’
He hesitated. She smiled encouragingly. ‘Sounds great. Go on.’
‘Cutting a long story short, Greg was my mentor and friend. He helped me out at a time in my life when I was going way off the rails. Without him I’d have ended up in a bad place – I already had, to be honest – and finding out that he was sick made me and him rethink a few things. Greg told me his cancer was terminal late last year and that I should use his bad luck as a wake-up call for my own life.’
‘I can understand that,’ said Maisie, surprised but pleased by his honesty. Losing Keegan – and losing their unborn baby at the same time – had turned her own world upside-down. For the first few weeks after her miscarriage and Keegan walking out on her, she’d felt like someone had picked her up, shaken her until she didn’t know night from day, or anything at all. When she’d slowly emerged from a cocoon of grief and loss, the world had looked completely different.
‘Maisie?’
‘Sorry. You were saying? Greg’s illness made you re-evaluate your priorities.’
He smiled at her. It wasn’t like her to use language like that but she’d been reminded of what she’d written in her resignation letter to her line manager at the pub. She’d used cold and formal words then to describe the raw pain and anger she’d been feeling over her double loss.
‘Greg asked me if I was really happy running the Fingle; he told me to get out and see the world while I was young and fit. He told me he regretted staying so long in one place and now it was too late for him. He wished he’d taken his wife and kids to live in and experience other places when he’d been younger. I stayed on to help Judy but now I’ve decided to take a break and made my plans to see the world.’
‘So you came to Britain first?’
‘Yes.’
‘Any particular reason?’
He ran his fingertip over the table top, a smile creeping over his lips. ‘Ah, that’s simple. I am British.’
OK. He was full of surprises.
‘My parents emigrated from London when I was a baby so I think of myself as Aussie. I have dual citizenship and two passports, so there shouldn’t be any problem with my right to work. Crazy, really, when I’d never set foot in the motherland before last week.’
‘OK, but why Scilly? Why not Stratford, or Scotland or Yorkshire? Cornwall even?’
‘Because Greg’s great-grandparents on his mum’s side used to live on Scilly way back in the day. He was always going on about their heritage and vowing he’d come over and see it but he never made it. He made me promise I’d include it on my trip, so here I am.’
‘Wow. What were their names? Do you know? Many Scilly families have lived here for generations so some of their descendants are sure to have known Greg’s ancestors.’
His brow furrowed. ‘God. I can’t think. He never said, or if he did I wasn’t listening hard enough. The granddad’s first name might have been Rex … or Robert. Or was it Harry? Sorry, Greg just referred to him as “the old boy”. I didn’t take too much notice of the details and, to be honest, most of what he told me was while he was in a bad way at the end. He was confused and on a truckload of meds for the pain, but he made me promise I’d come over and see the UK and his roots.’