Ghostwritten

‘Thanks.’ But Klara had already picked up my plate and was spooning a huge portion onto it. ‘Oh, I couldn’t eat that much,’ I protested.

‘Try,’ Klara said firmly as she handed it to me.

‘It looks delicious. Is it made with your own fish?’

‘It is,’ Beth answered. ‘Our son Adam goes to the cove every morning and puts down lobster pots. He also uses short nets that he stakes to the sea floor, just a few yards out. He gets plaice, monkfish, scallops and sole and we buy them from him to sell in the shop. It’s an important part of the business, especially in the season.’

I took some salad. ‘Is it still the season now?’

Henry joined us at the table. ‘Just about – it finishes at the end of the month. But we have local customers, and we supply the hotel, so we stay open nearly all the year round.’

‘And the cattle, I presume they’re yours.’

‘They are.’ He unfurled his napkin. ‘We rear them for beef, which provides the greater part of our income. They’re South Devons. We used to have Friesians when this was a dairy farm.’

‘I remember them,’ I said without thinking. ‘I remember them being herded down the lane; I remember the big silver churn at the end of your track. We used to scoop the milk out with a ladle and put the money in a jar.’

Klara glanced at me in surprise. ‘You’ve been here before?’

‘She has,’ said Henry.

Klara put some fish pie on her own plate. ‘When was that?’

‘Oh, a long time ago; I was … a child.’

Klara picked up her fork. ‘And where did you stay?’

‘At one of the holiday houses near the beach. I can’t remember which one.’ I resorted to my usual strategy of deflecting unwelcome questions with questions of my own. ‘But could you tell me about the farm?’

‘Well …’ Beth shrugged, smiling. ‘It’s a busy life. There’s always something to be done, whether it’s mending the fences, hedge-cutting, bucket-feeding a calf or pulling up ragwort and nightshade: we work very long days, especially in the summer.’

‘Not that we complain,’ Henry added. ‘We love this place.’ He smiled at Klara. ‘And we’re very lucky in that my mum still does so much.’

Klara laughed. ‘I’m sure I’d drop dead if I stopped! After sixty-three years, my body wouldn’t be able to cope with not working.’

I studied her. She had a wiry vigour, her movements quick and efficient. Her hands were rough and callused, her fingertips bent with arthritis. Her shoulders were round, as though shaped by the wind.

I had another sip of wine. ‘So Adam does the fishing …’

‘He does,’ answered Beth. ‘He also paints.’

‘Your husband was telling me. I love the seascape in the cottage; he’s very talented.’

‘He lives in Porthloe,’ Beth went on, pleased to hear her son praised, ‘with his girlfriend, Molly, and their baby. Klara runs the shop and grows most of our fresh produce. I prepare the shellfish,’ she continued, ‘and I make the bread and preserves that we sell. Henry looks after the cattle, and does the accounts.’

‘An unending task.’ He rolled his eyes.

Beth poured herself some water. ‘He’s also a Coastwatch volunteer.’

‘Really?’

Henry nodded. ‘There are a few of us who do it from the old coastguard hut on Polvarth Point. We keep a lookout for any incidents at sea, or on the beach or the cliff paths.’

‘People do such silly things,’ Klara said.

‘Like what?’ I asked faintly.

Henry sighed. ‘They walk too near the cliff edge and slip, or they go out in a kayak, with no knowledge of the currents, and get carried out to open sea. We have kids floating away on rubber dinghies, or getting stuck on the rocks at high tide.’

‘Sometimes people dig tunnels in the sand,’ said Beth. ‘If I see that I always warn them not to.’ She looked at Klara. ‘Do you remember what happened to those boys?’

‘Oh, I do,’ she responded quietly then turned to me. ‘In fact I might talk about that to you.’

Heat spilled into my face. ‘Why?’ I asked, too abruptly.

‘Well …’ Klara was clearly taken aback by my reaction. ‘For the book. I’ve been thinking about some of the more memorable things that have happened here over the years.’

‘Of course.’ I sipped my wine to cover my growing distress. Why had I come here? I should have followed my instincts and stayed away.

Now Henry was talking about a calf that, the year before, was lost in the fog. ‘It ended up in the sea,’ he told me.

‘In the sea?’ I echoed.

‘Something must have spooked it,’ Beth explained. ‘A dog or a fox, because it had swum two hundred yards out from the beach. Luckily, a friend of ours was out fishing, saw it, and managed to get a rope round it and hauled it into his boat. When we got it back its mum kept pushing it away because it smelt of brine.’

‘We had to tie them together,’ Henry added. ‘In the end she let it feed and all was well. But it was a miracle it hadn’t drowned.’

‘Jenni …’ Klara was looking at me reproachfully; she nodded at my plate. ‘You’ve hardly eaten.’

‘Oh. I’m sorry. It was delicious, but a bit too much …’

Henry laughed. ‘You have to eat up round here, otherwise my mum gets upset – don’t you, Mum?’

‘Don’t worry,’ Klara told me. ‘He’s just teasing you. But you’ll have some ice cream.’

‘I’ve eaten so well, Klara, I couldn’t manage another thing, but thank you.’

‘Coffee then?’

‘Oh, yes please. I never say no to that; I drink so much, it probably flows in my veins.’

Over coffee and the petit fours that Klara pressed on me, I learnt a bit more about Vincent. He was three years older than Henry, a civil engineer, divorced with one grown-up daughter.

‘I met Vincent years ago,’ I told them, ‘at my friend Nina’s twenty-first – he’s her godfather.’

‘That’s right. He and her dad were at Imperial College together.’

‘We were on the same table at Nina’s wedding.’