Fern Britton 3-Book Collection: The Holiday Home, A Seaside Affair, A Good Catch

She held it. Rough and coarse but clean and strong. ‘Prudence Carew. How do you do.’

He laughed. ‘Oh, a posh girl! I’ve never met a Prudence before.’

‘Well, my family and friends call me Pru.’

He looked at her steadily and took another draw of his cigarette. ‘Got a boyfriend, Pru?’

She wasn’t sure how to answer this. The true answer was no, but under the circumstances she didn’t want to look an idiot. ‘Oh, you know.’ She shrugged. He shrugged too.

‘And what do you do, Pru Carew?’ He smiled.

‘I’m at university.’

‘Posh and clever.’

‘Don’t make fun of me.’

‘I’d never make fun of a girl like you,’ he said softly. He stood up and held a hand out to her. ‘Want to go for a walk?’

She smiled up at him. ‘OK.’

They moved away from the main party and walked and chatted and laughed together until the first streaks of dawn were visible on the horizon. He told her he was a lifeguard for the summer and in the winter he’d do some labouring. He was Cornish born and bred. In return she told him about the courses she was taking for her business degree, the family firm and Atlantic House. Hoping that he might come and find her. ‘I’m here all hols,’ she said.

She didn’t know what it was that made her feel so comfortable with him, but when she finally got home to Atlantic House and her bed, it was his sea-green eyes fringed with sunkissed blond lashes that burned in her memory. His freckled nose bending towards her, slowly blurring as he gently kissed her goodbye. The feel of his warm hand holding hers as she left to go and find Connie, Tracey and Marion. He had stood and watched from the sea wall as she drove away. She prayed he would come and find her.

*

More than two decades on, an older, wiser Pru smiled ruefully at the memories. Merlin had taught her a lot about life. But that was a lifetime ago. She had moved on – there was no changing the past.

When she reached the top of the cliff above Figgoty’s, the beach below was deserted. Pru scrambled down the steep and awkward path. Some of the rocks were slippery, but she remembered the hidden footholds and managed to jump the final six feet on to the smooth sand below. Only the locals knew about Figgoty’s; no visiting families encumbered with pushchairs and windbreaks would dare make the tricky descent. The beach was sheltered by the huge natural curve of the cliffs. The sea here had a deep swell and the undercurrents could catch out the most seasoned of swimmers. It was here that she and Merlin used to escape on his days off. They would take their clothes off and lie naked on the sand before racing each other into the water and enjoying the pleasure of the cool waves running off their warm skin. She hugged herself.

Why not? she thought. No one can see from the cliff. She pulled her sensible Marks and Spencer hoodie over her head and stepped out of her Rohan shorts. After another quick look to make sure there was no one watching, she slipped off her bra. Placing everything neatly on a dry rock, she ran across the sand and into the icy sea. What would Francis say if he saw her now? Maybe she’d bring him down here when he felt better.

Pru didn’t stop running until she was up to her shoulders, then she took a deep breath and ducked under a breaking wave. When she surfaced, she floated on her back and looked up at the periwinkle sky. It felt so good to be this liberated and unencumbered, she couldn’t help laughing out loud. Turning back on her tummy, she swam through the breakers and out to where the sea was smooth. Again she lay on her back and felt the sun warming her front. Presently she heard another kind of splash over the sounds of the sea. An oar. She flipped over and saw a man in a sea canoe coming ever closer to her. He hadn’t seen her … yet. What should she do? She bobbed quietly, her nose just above the water. He was less than six feet away now and when he saw her he almost dropped his oar.

It was Merlin.

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Connie wondered if she could find the entrance to the cave in the wooded valley after all these years. She’d asked Greg to join her on her walk, but he was busy with emails. Though she made a show of disappointment, secretly she’d been relieved to take the walk on her own. She desperately needed to get out of the house and think about her unsettling row with Pru the other night. The appearance of Merlin had had a very strange effect on them both. She was shaken by how much emotion the memories of that summer had stirred up.

Her sandals allowed the long grasses to tickle her instep as she pushed her way along the overgrown path. She saw the remembered stile ahead of her and, after climbing it, turned right to follow the rushing stream leading through the valley and on to the sea. The first time she’d come here was with Merlin and Pru. The three of them had played Pooh sticks and Merlin had given them their first experience of smoking a joint. It had been a warm afternoon with the drone of flies in the air.

‘Either of you girls know what a fuggee hole is?’ asked Merlin, his blissed-out eyes turning Connie to jelly.

Pru giggled, ‘I wouldn’t like to say.’

Merlin grinned his suntanned grin and clamped the joint between his crooked teeth. ‘Shame on you, Pru Carew. Dirty mind!’

He took her hand and pulled her up the sloping side of the valley.

Connie watched the giggling couple for a moment then hurried to catch them up, not wanting to be left behind. The climb got steeper until they reached a small plateau. Merlin was now leading the way and the girls were scrambling after him. Giggling and stoned.

After about fifty metres, Merlin stopped and bent down on his haunches, pulling aside some tall ferns.

‘’Ere it is.’

The girls crouched next to him and saw an opening in the side of the valley. Carved out of the rock, it was just big enough to take a barrel of brandy or a small crouched person.

Merlin flicked his lighter and, using it as a torch, disappeared into the hillside.

The girls looked at each other nervously.

‘Come on, girls. The lights are on,’ he called.

Pru went first, letting out a gasp as she entered the carved cavern, lit now by six flickering church candles.

‘Oh my God!’ she called to her sister. ‘Connie, you must see this.’

‘What is this place?’ breathed Connie in wonder as she stood in the tall space.

Merlin shrugged. ‘No one knows for sure, but there are several of them in these parts. Prehistoric, I think. The smugglers used them to hide their stash.’

At the back of the dry cave there lay a pile of blankets and an old-fashioned feather quilt. Merlin shook them out and spread them on the floor.

‘Come and lie down next to me,’ he told them. As they did so, he began to sing the Beatles’ ‘Come Together’. His voice ricocheted richly from the walls.

Connie put her arm across his muscly chest and met Pru’s doing the same thing from the other side. Merlin finished the song and put each of his arms under their heads.

‘Oh, my lovely girls. Summer doesn’t get much better than this!’

*

Connie was starting to sweat a bit as she climbed the steep slope and found the plateau. Her heart beat with a sense of stepping back in time. It didn’t take her long to find the entrance, hidden now by a thicket of ferns and gorse. The plants scraped her legs and stung her feet, but she kept going until the small hole was revealed.

As she ducked her head inside, Connie cursed herself for not bringing a torch. Then she remembered that the three of them had scratched their initials just inside the entrance. She closed her eyes tightly and counted to sixty, hoping that this would trick her eyes into seeing in the dark better. When she opened them, her sight slowly adjusted. Turning her head to the right she saw the letters CC, PC and MP.

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As soon as he saw Pru in the water, Merlin stopped paddling and put his head to one side, staring at her from under his still-golden eyelashes. He dropped his gaze to her bare shoulders and then down to the water, where he could clearly see she wasn’t wearing any clothes. He lifted the boat’s paddle out of the water and balanced it across the front of the canoe.

‘So. My little Pru has returned.’

‘I think it’s you who have returned.’

He laughed. ‘True, that. I haven’t been to Figgoty’s since you left me.’

Pru snorted in derision. ‘Stop sounding like a schoolboy and leave me alone. I need to get out and get dressed.’