A Time for Living: Polwenna Bay 2 Read online

  Or at all, actually.

  “Beware the Greeks is all I’m saying,” she warned.

  “Never mind the Greeks. It’s tall, dark, handsome Londoners you should watch out for,” teased Issie as they turned left past Symon Tremaine’s restaurant, The Plump Seagull, and joined the tide of bodies flowing towards the mini fete on the village green. “Nick and I reckon Cashley fancies you.”

  “Well, that shows how little you two know then!” retorted Mo while silently thanking God that nobody knew about that midnight kiss except for her and the villain of the piece himself. She would simply die of shame if they did. In Polwenna Bay this would be like owning up to fancying the fisheries minister or something. With her face starting to glow, Mo pretended to be fascinated by the nearest stall, which only made Issie even more suspicious.

  “Since when have you been interested in crocheted doilies?”

  Mo ignored her. The small village green was crammed with an eclectic mix of stalls selling everything from pickled onions to splodgy paintings by the village’s resident artist. On one of the stalls, there were tarot readings courtesy of Silver Starr, the patron of Polwenna Bay’s New Age shop, Magic Moon. A local folk duo was providing the music, pasties were being sold from a cart and everyone seemed in high spirits. Even the seagulls were having a wonderful time feasting on debris from overflowing bins and dive-bombing tourists for ice creams.

  “Let’s get our cards read,” suggested Issie, making a beeline for the rickety stand where Silver Starr, dressed up in full Romany costume, was busy shuffling her deck and charging five pounds for the privilege of listening to her making up utter nonsense. With her flowing white hair, flouncy clothes and jangling jewellery, Silver certainly looked the part. In reality her name was Shirley Potts and she came from Uxbridge. Everybody in the village knew she was about as psychic as one of the pasties on Patsy Penhalligan’s cart.

  “Are you out of your tiny mind?” Mo said. “She’s a total fraud.”

  “So you say, but Saffron Jago swears by her. She says Silver’s told her things that nobody else could know.”

  Mo rolled her eyes. “Saffron Jago has the IQ of a lettuce and a particularly stupid lettuce at that. Besides, she’s got such a mouth on her that everybody knows her business; it wouldn’t be hard to predict who she’d fallen out with or what poor soul she fancies.”

  “Oh ye of little faith,” sighed Issie. She had her hand on the small of Mo’s back now and was propelling her sister towards the stall. “It’s just a bit of fun. Unless,” she paused thoughtfully, “you’re scared?”

  “Of course I’m not scared! I just don’t want to be robbed of five pounds to be told a bigger work of fiction than something J K Rowling could come up with,” Mo said scornfully.

  “Then you’ve nothing to lose, have you? And the money’s going to the church repair fund anyway, which will mean that Cashley will have even less hope of snatching it out from under our noses. Tra-da! Everyone’s a winner!”

  “You always did have an answer for everything,” Mo grumbled, because there was no arguing with this logic. “What on earth are you doing back here in Polwenna, Issie? You should be doing a law degree.”

  But Issie was too busy shoving Mo onto the folding chair opposite Silver Starr to answer. Reluctantly, Mo parted with a fiver, the last from her biscuit barrel of emergency money, and prepared to be well and truly ripped off. It might be for a good cause but unless her bank manager wanted to be paid in riding lessons Mo had absolutely no idea how she was going to make the next month’s mortgage. Maybe Silver Starr would actually be useful and come up with the lottery numbers? That was the kind of psychic intervention Mo could do with, rather than having to listen to a load of old mumbo jumbo about her love life.

  While Issie and Silver discussed the raft race – Silver seeming much too pleased that the St Miltons had lost, for a woman who was supposed to be into good vibes and karma – Mo shuffled the deck and tried to focus on a question she wanted answering. There were far too many, that was the problem. How was she going to pay the bills? Was her top horse ever going to come sound again? Would her brother Jake ever truly forgive her for a mistake she’d made years ago? Why had Ashley given her the woods? Where had he gone? Was he ever coming back? Did he think about their kiss as often as she did?

  No! This had to stop! It was as though she had Ashley Carstairs on repeat: images of his hard and insistent mouth, and the way his dark eyes had held hers, kept popping into Mo’s thoughts at the most inappropriate times. Now he was even hijacking her tarot reading. Not that she cared much about Silver Starr’s drivel, but it was yet another thing to hold against him.

  “Have you a question in mind?” asked Silver Starr, leaning forward and practically suffocating Mo in a cloud of patchouli scent. “If you cut the cards my spirit guide will give me your message.”

  It was all Mo could do not to laugh rudely at this. The only spirits that ever came anywhere near Silver were Jack Daniel’s and Tia Maria, when she went to the pub after shutting Magic Moon. Still, Mo decided that she might as well play along with it all for the sake of charity. She cut the cards and tried very hard not to think about Ashley’s stern profile, dark stubble and close-cropped mocha-brown hair.

  Bollocks.

  Maybe her question should be: what on earth am I going to do about him?

  Silver leaned over and her eyes widened when she saw the card at the top of the pile.

  “I don’t know what your question was, Mo,” she breathed, “but here’s your answer – and my guides are never wrong.”

  Mo glanced down, more jolted than she would ever care to admit. Mumbo jumbo or not, this wasn’t what she’d wanted or expected to see.

  The card that Mo had drawn from the tarot pack was the Lovers.

  Chapter 2

  The problem with taking the train from London to Cornwall was, Ashley Carstairs had soon discovered, that for four hours there would be little else to do but think. This was seriously bad news: thinking wasn’t something he relished nowadays.

  As the 9.06 First Great Western train from Paddington to Bodmin snaked its way out of the station, Ashley settled into his first-class seat and resigned himself to an enforced period of inactivity. He supposed he ought to try getting used to it. There was going to be plenty more of this in the months ahead – weeks and weeks, probably, that would make sitting in an empty carriage sipping Costa’s finest and flicking through The Times look like the height of excitement.

  And this was if he was lucky.

  The train jarred and screeched along the track, winding its slow way through the intestinal tangles of the rail network. As the carriage jolted over an uneven section, coffee sloshed over the rim of Ashley’s paper cup, scalding his hand and snatching his attention away from dark thoughts of engineering works, signal failure and that great British staple, leaves on the line. Whether he’d actually arrive in Bodmin when he was meant to was anyone’s guess, he reflected grimly – and whether there’d be a taxi in the vicinity willing to take him to Polwenna Bay was also in the lap of the gods. He might be back by the afternoon or he might still be travelling by dusk; nothing was certain. Ashley wasn’t accustomed to making this journey by train, so his fears weren’t necessarily well-founded. Still, he didn’t like this feeling at all. He hated not being in control. It made his palms itch.

  Was he a control freak? Ashley wondered as he mopped up the coffee with the edge of his paper. Maybe. He’d certainly been accused of this in the past by ex-girlfriends and colleagues alike. As though wanting to be in charge of your own destiny was a bad thing! Only an idiot, some dippy hippy like that moron Silver Starr in the village, would be happy to bob along in the stream of life and let things happen to them. Ashley made things happen. Take the house he was renovating in Polwenna Bay, for instance. Everyone had said that Mariners’ View – or Mariners, as it was generally known – was too inaccessible to ever be a viable project. Nevertheless, he’d bought the place, taken the unfinished plans
his father had drawn up all those years ago, shipped his builders in and given the house a new lease of life. Him, Ashley! Not some whim of fate or glimmer of stars.

  No wonder it grated that he had no control whatsoever over what was happening to him now.

  As the train crawled past warehouses and gas towers and squat red-brick houses with grimy windows, Ashley leaned his head against the glazing of the carriage and regarded his reflection quizzically. Dark eyes stared coolly back at him and the scimitar-sharp bones of his face seemed even more pronounced than normal from sudden weight loss. His hair was pushed under a beanie hat and hidden from view, which was how it would have to stay for the foreseeable future.

  Is this a control freak I see before me? Ashley mused. Maybe, although to be honest, he wasn’t quite sure who this reflection was anymore. On the surface it looked very much like Ashley Carstairs, one-time demon trader on the London Stock Exchange and latterly CEO of a property-development company – but the eyes were shadowed and the cheeks sprinkled with stubble, and he was wearing a hoodie and faded Levi’s jeans. The bloody hat was simply ridiculous too.

  Ashley looked away, dispirited. It was a far cry from his usual sharp and groomed look. Was this the beginning of the end?

  Personality changes, including abnormal and uncharacteristic behaviour

  He grimaced. The leaflets might be lurking in the bottom of his Ted Baker holdall but he didn’t need to have them spread out in front of him to know word for sodding word what they said. Maybe it was another side effect, but he seemed to have developed amazing memory skills lately. Anyway, he was dressed down, that was all. There was no need to go to Cornwall sporting Paul Smith and Gucci. The Polwenna Bay locals didn’t have a clue about fashion. They couldn’t tell George at Asda from Georgio Armani: it was all fishing smocks and wellies for them. As for the ridiculous hat – his hand rose to it and for a moment hovered on the soft fabric as he contemplated taking it off – well, that was starting to feel like a necessity, armour even, warding off a plethora of questions and, even worse still, sympathy. Christ. Ashley couldn’t bear sympathy. It drove him wild and his tongue soon stung anyone stupid enough to express it.

  Irritability

  That wasn’t a symptom. That was his personality. He’d never suffered fools gladly. That was what made you a killer on the trading floor, not sitting round being all touchy-feely. Show one iota of weakness in the City and you’d be chewed up and spat out before you could even twang your braces. It was even worse in the country. If Ashley gave any of the builders working on his latest Cornish project so much as an inch they’d all be downing tools, chomping pasties and drinking tea till sunset rather than getting Mariners fixed in the timescale he wanted – or rather needed – it completed by.

  He wasn’t irritable: he was just demanding and precise, liking things done his way and to the deadline he set. Which, Ashley guessed as the houses rolled by, took him right back to the control-freak question again. He sank back into the velour seat and closed his eyes for a moment, letting the movement of the carriage rock him into quiet contemplation. The truth was that there had been far too many things in his life left to chance lately. Too many possibilities and maybes and statistics offered as factors that could be in his favour. But there were also odds that were well and truly stacked against him. Doctors tried to skirt around those – focusing on the positives, they called it – but Ashley would far rather know all the facts, however unpalatable. That was just the way he was; he needed to know the odds, be it when taking a punt on shares, buying a crumbling Cornish property or looking at his own future. Fate, chance, destiny, call it whatever you want; Ashley didn’t like it and he certainly didn’t intend to sit back and just let it all unfold. No bloody way. Being in control was far more to his taste.

  Yet there was one person who had somehow managed to sneak under his guard and make him lose his grip on anything nearing rational thought. Even though his sight was domed by his closed lids, Ashley could see her face as vividly as though she was actually here in front of him and staring back with those scornful wide blue eyes, the irises ringed with indigo as though some Renaissance artist had just wandered by to add the master stroke. He pictured the cinnamon dusting of freckles across her snub nose and saw her riot of auburn curls, with as many colours running through them as there were greens in the sea – a crazy tangle of damsons and clarets and strands of gold. He could almost taste her lips too and feel her trembling when he kissed her, her mouth warm and velvet soft against his as his hands slipped down to clasp her narrow waist and pull her hard against him. In the salt-scented darkness of a mild June night Ashley had felt her melting into him and his senses had swum.

  Hallucinations and dizziness

  If that had been a hallucination then they’d both been tripping. She’d kissed him back. She’d wanted him every bit as much as he’d wanted her. And dizziness? He almost laughed out loud in the quiet carriage. Christ, he’d felt dizzy all right. A massive surge of desire did that to a man. All the blood went from your head to somewhere far lower down!

  Abnormal and uncharacteristic behaviour

  Maybe, but Ashley was certain that this wasn’t down to any medical problems. Alas, this wasn’t a symptom his consultant could help with, even though it was bloody inconvenient and had led to a whole host of other complications. Unfortunately, this woman was Morwenna Tremaine, Ashley’s arch-enemy in Polwenna Bay and the one person who had caused him no end of trouble with the developments to his house. Everything he tried to do, there she was blocking his way with her ridiculous eco notions. Morwenna Tremaine, sexy or not, was a major pain in the backside.

  And he couldn’t stop thinking about her…

  Ashley’s eyes sprang open. He was going to have to try because Mo Tremaine was pricklier than the gorse that topped the cliffs and seemed to be the only woman on the planet immune to his charms. Even giving her the woods they’d been fighting so bitterly over hadn’t seemed to make the slightest difference. Admittedly, his motives had been less than altruistic: in a moment of weakness he’d been trying to bargain with God by showing that he was capable of doing the “right” thing. It seemed foolish now. Mo hadn’t even said so much as thank you, which was pretty galling. Even the vicar had phoned him to express her gratitude – although Ashley suspected that his gift to Mo hadn’t come as a surprise to the Reverend Jules, who’d seen the legal documents lying around when he’d absent-mindedly left them in St Wenn’s.

  Forgetfulness

  Hmm, maybe, although he didn’t seem able to put Morwenna Tremaine out of his head, did he? He should have kept the woods, for all the good the grand gesture had done him. So what if it had felt like the right thing to do at the time? It hadn’t made the least bit of difference with either God or Mo, and the way things stood now he could really do with a driveway to Mariners – especially once he was officially no longer allowed behind the wheel. It would have helped Dr Penwarren to reach him more easily, too.

  This was not the way to go on today. Annoyed with himself for setting so much as one footstep into the dangerous wilderness of negative thinking, Ashley turned his attention back to the world outside. Beyond the carriage and his own dark thoughts, it was a glorious August day. Even in London the sun was blushing the dusty and dirty buildings of the city with rosy light and making the windows glitter. The glimpses of sky above the jagged rooftops were a cloudless cobalt blue, the same hue as the sea that shimmered and rippled beyond his project house. In spite of everything, Ashley felt a surge of excitement. This project meant everything to him. He only hoped he could see it finished before—

  The train shuddered to a sudden halt, thankfully jolting him out of this reverie. More coffee sloshed onto his paper and Ashley hissed impatiently through his teeth. A red light heralded God only knew how many minutes of waiting until somebody somewhere decided they could move again. Frustrated, Ashley stared out at the rows of terraced houses backing onto the railway line, with their narrow gardens running up to the f
encing by the tracks. Evidence of people’s private lives was strung out for all to see. Here a trampoline. There a scruffy vegetable garden. Along a bit, another garden was just a no-man’s land of weeds and brambles. In the next there was washing pegged on a line, intimate and exposed. Behind the curtains and the grubby windows people were living their lives with no idea that he was there, staring from this train into their small and enviably normal worlds. Some maybe were eating their breakfast. Others might be making love. Another bunch could be planning the day ahead, a sunny August Saturday full of possibilities and choices and the taken-for-granted hope of a future. Lives replete with the incomparable Midas wealth of the healthy.

  The signal changed and the train lurched on, clacking over the points and gathering speed. The houses became blurs, melting into the greens and greys of the suburbs and dissolving into the floodplains of Berkshire, threaded with the silver ribbon of the Thames.

  He glanced down at the chunky gold watch on his wrist. Christ, had they really only been going for twenty minutes? He missed driving already and it was only two days into the self-imposed ban. His consultant had said that since there’d been no fitting and no lapses of concentration (Ashley wisely hadn’t mentioned the constant and inconvenient thoughts about Mo Tremaine), he could continue to drive for now – but Ashley didn’t trust himself. There were too many variables. The risk of having a fit, and the damage he could do as a result, didn’t bear thinking about. Having lost his own parents to a drunken driver he knew better than anyone else how devastating a second’s lapse in concentration could be. It was better to just leave the Ferrari in Chelsea and the Range Rover slumbering under the leaves in Fernside woods. At least in Polwenna Bay he could walk everywhere. For the time being he was staying in a well-appointed hotel, so he was close to everything he needed. Once Mariners was finished, Ocado could be his new best friend.