Follow a Star (12 page)

May crouched over Bill in his berth, drawn by the faint groan as he came to.

‘What happened?’ he grunted.

‘Have you really forgotten?’ she asked, feeling horribly concerned. This was her fault – they should have called for medical assistance the previous evening, but Bill had been so insistent that he hadn’t been knocked out that she’d taken his word for it. Besides, she needed him to shout instructions while they limped into a small inlet where they were able to pick up an isolated mooring.

‘May, I work on building sites – I know the difference between a bang on the head and serious concussion,’ he’d assured her. ‘And since I’ve been too busy to get it cut, my hair’s thick enough to cushion the blow.’

Nevertheless, once she’d made sure he wasn’t going to bleed to death either and watched him down a stiff Scotch for the pain, she carried her sleeping bag into the main cabin, taking the berth opposite so she could check his breathing throughout the night and make sure that he hadn’t died on her. She stroked his forehead now, as Bill grunted into wakefulness, checking that it wasn’t clammy or feverish.

‘Bill,’ she said gently, afraid that if she wasn’t vigilant he might still slip into a coma, ‘do you know who I am?’

His eyes flew open and she stared into their black depths, checking each pupil in turn to make sure they were evenly matched. What if there was bleeding inside his skull? He could be dying of cerebral compression right now and it would be all her fault. Come to think of it, his face
was
looking slightly flushed, but how was his pulse? May felt for his wrist, but her attempts to take a reading were somewhat hindered by the throbbing of the blood in her own body. Ah, there it was, but was it full and bounding? How could she tell? And his breathing? She turned the side of her head to his face. Wasn’t that slightly heavy too?

‘Bill,’ she said urgently. ‘Tell me who I am.’

His eyes fluttered and he gave a faint moan.

‘
Bill!
’ she clasped his face between her hands, willing him to give her a sign that he was in there somewhere.

‘You,’ he said, frightening the life out of her as he suddenly reared up beside her. ‘You’re the woman who was so nearly the death of me.’

‘Me?’ May said, recoiling. ‘You’re the one who told me at the start of the voyage how important it was to always watch for what the boom was doing!’

Nevertheless, he was still looking worryingly uncomfortable. Perhaps he’d sat up too quickly?

‘Are you all right, Bill? Shall I make you a cup of tea?’

He winced and leaned forward. May patted him tentatively on his shoulder but couldn’t help notice that the area that seemed to be giving him most discomfort seemed to be in his lap region.

‘Water would be fine, May, if you don’t mind,’ he ground out at last. ‘I’ll be on deck – I think I could do with some fresh air.’

Even though she turned away to give him some privacy as he unzipped his sleeping bag and climbed out, she decided it would be prudent to see if being upright aggravated his pain. He grabbed his trousers and as he shot past, it was evident that Bill’s boxers were bulging with an erection that could take someone’s eye out. She flopped back against the bulkhead feeling a bit pink and giggly. Blimey, Bill had a second career waiting as an underwear model with a kecks department like that! Trying to think serious thoughts and compose herself while she poured them both a glass of water, May was just about ready to face Bill when he called out to her.

‘Come and look at this and tell me what you think!’

May, silently shaking with laughter, bit her lip, and had to steady the glasses for a moment before she spilled water everywhere. She took a deep breath.

‘There you go,’ she smiled, handing him a glass. Even though he was fully dressed again and all, presumably, was safely gathered in, May couldn’t quite dismiss the fleeting image of those hard thighs and black figure-hugging trunks. His hand brushed hers as he took the drink and set a few nerve receptors tingling. When he tipped his head back and the strong muscles of his throat worked as he drained his glass, May was convinced she felt the ground move under her and wondered if she’d missed a bang on her own head somewhere along the line.

She was about to sit down, when he took her arm and pointed over the side at the receding tide. ‘We’re just about to take the ground again, see?’

Well, at least the bumping about was nothing to do with her but down to
Lucille
, settling down on the bilge plates beneath her hull that kept her steady on dry land.

‘That means we’re not going anywhere until the water comes back again,’ said Bill, ‘I’m afraid we’re stuck.’

In the confusion of their arrival, May had barely registered where they were, but now, as the sun broke through on what promised at last to be a perfect summer day, she began to absorb the beauty of their surroundings. Selfishly, she couldn’t help think that there were worse places to run aground.

Lucille
sat in a little creek off the main channel which snaked through a labyrinth of tributaries and islands separated by reedy tufted mud banks which made up the backwaters. With the tide so low, it seemed that on the seaward side the sand stretched away for hundreds of acres. On the landward side, the mudflats gave way to saltmarsh, rough shrubby pasture then the good land above the high tide. Silvery palisades of wooden stakes, remnants of man’s efforts to manipulate the sea, protruded from undulating swirls of silty sand stretched up to an endless sky, and right beside them, as the waters receded, the sea birds were eyeing up their favourite spots on a vast rippling sand bank glistening in the sun.

It looked blissful to her, an escape from whatever was waiting for her when she went home, but to Bill, with so much on his mind, it must feel like a prison. She turned back to him regretfully. ‘I’m so sorry. If I’d managed to warn you about that swinging boom sooner, you could have been on your way to see your uncle by now.’

She sank down on one of the cockpit lockers, reluctant to believe that her voyage was really at end. ‘I suppose I could make a start on tidying up and packing things away,’ she offered.

Bill swung round to throw her a look of sheer disbelief. ‘Here we are marooned next to a perfect beach on an island that only appears once a tide. It would be criminal to waste such a beautiful day. Come on, we’re going ashore.’

Little more than a mile or so from the creek, in a Victorian villa transformed by its keen new owners into a smart boutique B&B, Fiona Goodwin gazed across at Little Spitmarsh’s seafront and remembered that she really ought to smile before answering the phone. It was supposed to show in your voice, wasn’t it? And heaven knows she was in need of something to give her a lift. Surely it wasn’t natural to be permanently exhausted? Was it her age?

Maybe this summer, when Paul turned thirty, he’d feel in need of a holiday too? Her own thirtieth birthday seemed a dim and distant memory these days. Was it really six years ago? The same evening she’d met Paul who was out on a stag do? Maybe she wouldn’t have been quite so chuffed with herself for pulling a toy boy for her birthday had she known that he’d end up encouraging her to plough what savings she had into buying the albatross now hanging round her neck.

Listening to her caller, though, Fiona soon found that her smile came quite naturally. Since he’d phoned to make his booking
after
the early morning ordeal of serving breakfast, she didn’t even have to rush him and could listen to that beautiful, seductive voice at her leisure.

‘Thank you, Mrs Goodwin, you’ve been so helpful …’

Fiona found herself holding her breath, whilst her unknown guest considered his words.

‘… so understanding.’

‘My pleasure,’ she exhaled, closing her eyes. ‘I’m glad I could help and I look forward to meeting you very soon, then.’

In the three years since Fiona and her husband, Paul, had opened Walton House, Little Spitmarsh had seen its financial tide beginning to turn thanks to the opening of Samphire, an upmarket restaurant which was still managing to attract foodies willing to make the long pilgrimage to the bleak east coast. The restaurant had been the brainchild of property developer Matthew Corrigan, who’d certainly shaken the place up when he’d come to town, but he must have got more than he’d bargained for when his path had crossed, quite literally it turned out, with feisty boatyard owner Harry Watling, who was fiercely protective of the business her father had started. Fiona liked Harry, but she wasn’t a woman Fiona would ever care to rub up the wrong way, tiny as she was.

Nevertheless Matthew and Harry made a dynamic team. The restaurant and an annual film festival had almost reinvigorated parts of the once seedy town to the point of gentrification, encouraging a smattering of galleries, cool vintage shops and a few of the hardier pilgrims to snap up some of the most attractive old buildings along the seafront as second homes. Twirling a strand of long dark hair round her finger, Fiona tried to guess which of the new category of visitor the man at the other end of the phone would turn out to be. Foodie, film buff or Up-from-Londoner?

He laughed gently. ‘Well, I sincerely hope I don’t disappoint you,’ he murmured in that gorgeous accent that hinted at emerald fields shimmering under the kiss of soft Kerry rain.

‘Oh, Mr Cavanagh, you couldn’t possibly disappoint me,’ she said, looking round to make sure Paul wasn’t within earshot. ‘All our guests are assured of the warmest of welcomes.’ The most fun she was likely to have in a long time was anticipating the arrival of the mysterious Mr Cavanagh this evening. That and a weekly trip to the cash and carry over at Great Spitmarsh. Away from the seafront, their own so-called high street remained snaggle-toothed with vacant units and a depressing number of house clearance shops crammed with the yellowing and dusty possessions of the dear departed, only added to the sense of ghosts lingering in the shadows of any economic recovery.

All the same, she thought, half listening for an echo of his ripple of amusement even after he’d ended the call, she would feel a bit miffed with her imagination if the reality of the man she’d conjured up turned out to be a disappointment. Mr Cavanagh, she thought, absent-mindedly stroking the phone, sounded romantic too. Lucky the woman, whoever she was, who was about to be surprised with such a thoughtful and caring gesture.

‘It was another nappy,’ said Paul smugly, leaning over the reception desk making her jump. ‘In Trafalgar,’ he added, lifting an ominously bulging bin bag. ‘Though it got me wondering if we should have named the rooms after battles rather than shipping areas since I thought the blockage was about to defeat me.’

Trafalgar, Lundy, Fastnet, Rockall, Cromarty. Names for the guest rooms to evoke the ritual and the reassurance of the shipping forecast. Respite for the weary. Beacons in the dark. A talisman she’d swum to herself many times when the night ahead seemed too long. Names to hang themes on when they were bringing Walton House back to life. Pale washes of sea green, muted tartans, crisp white sheets, sleek, restful bathrooms and translucent cubes of Hebridean seaweed soap. Everything set for her guests to soil, steal and abuse in return.

‘Why do they do it?’ Resentment surged through her. ‘They wouldn’t flush a disposable nappy down the lavatory at home – why do they do it here? They seemed such a nice couple too.’ She stabbed at the keyboard, pulling up a screen. ‘I’m minded to send them an e-mail and tell them they left something behind. Their manners for a start.’

‘Don’t, Fee,’ he said, reaching over to lay his hand on hers. ‘Give them a break,’ he said gently. ‘It was their first time away with a new baby. You could see they were finding it a shock to the system.’

And no wonder. Where friends had suddenly heard their body clocks ticking, Fiona had heard nothing. When they presented their new babies for her delight, nothing within her had stirred except relief that the responsibility of looking after such a small and helpless person wasn’t hers. And when they regaled her with tales of pre-eclampsia, emergency Caesareans, tears and stitches she felt plain horror. Why would any woman willingly subject herself to such a terrifying ordeal?

Fiona silently ground her teeth at Paul’s pet name for her when there was so little room left for endearments in the drudgery of her everyday life. ‘It would have been a shock to our system too, if you hadn’t been able to fix it,’ she complained. Paul’s hand, she noticed, was still damp. She only hoped it was clean.

‘They weren’t thinking straight. One of them probably threw it down the loo instead of in the bin, in their rush to vacate the room. I bet they’d be horrified if they knew what they’d done. Don’t do anything that would embarrass them too much to make a repeat booking.’

She folded her arms and tried to ignore Paul’s beseeching look. He tried a winning smile, which only made her crosser. Did he have to be so bloody cheerful about everything? The trouble with Paul was that he loved his job, loved every single aspect of it. If ever there was an ideal match for the perfect host, it was Paul: loves getting up at stupid o’clock to prepare meals – check; is tolerant and patient at all times with everyone he meets – check; enjoys routine maintenance and downright menial chores – check; has superheroic energy levels and relishes long hours – another check. Nothing about owning and running Walton House ever got him down. With his long legs, spindly frame and ceaseless desire to please, he was like a lanky, overgrown dog bounding around with endless enthusiasm and a constantly wagging tail.

Thinking about the wagging tail would normally have made her giggle, except that their love life had become a bit of joke lately too. It was all very well for Paul, who was something of an early riser and seemed to think it was perfectly fine for him to rush through his idea of a wake-up call. Fiona, however, sometimes felt like one half of an Olympic team constantly striving for a record-breaking time for two people to climax and get showered and dressed before preparing breakfast.

When was the last time they’d shared an evening bath? Sat in scented water, sipping wine by candlelight and swapping sexy stories? Shared a massage and a cuddle and soft, sweet, tender love-making? And the fault was as much hers as Paul’s. The truth was that given the choice of sleep or sex, she would have opted for an extra hour of shut-eye every time. At least the morning quickies kept them in touch; left to her, they might not have a sex life at all.