‘That’s ridiculous. No phones?’
‘No signal, even if there was a phone. The But ’n’ Ben’s a fair way doon the headland.’
Beatrice steeled herself with a deep breath. ‘Why must everything be so complicated here? I suppose I’ll just have to walk doon, I mean, walkdown! I’ll cancel the classes and ask the teacher for my refund, throw myself on their mercy! I think mine is a pretty reasonable request, don’t you?’ She flashed Atholl a wry smile which he didn’t return. ‘Just point me in the right direction, please. Can I leave my case here? I’ll be back within the hour and I’ll have some tea in my room or something.’
Atholl shrugged his shoulders. ‘Eugene, can you give Beatrice directions to the But ’n’ Ben, please? She’ll want to see the headland and the top of Rother Path on the way.’
Gene met his brother’s eyes before shrugging and walking Beatrice through the inn to the door. When they were outside and breathing clean, salty sea air, Gene raised a bony finger and pointed Beatrice’s way along the street.
Everything looked so different this morning – blue instead of grey in the sky, sandy dust drying on the road instead of the petrichor of yesterday’s rain, and tourists exploring the freshly exposed shore as the tide retreated.
‘You’ll walk all the way along the front, past the chippy and up by the school, follow the pavement and keep climbing the hill ‘til you’re out of breath. Stop at the stile in the fence and climb over intae the field. Follow the clearing through the corn ’til you come to the muddy path.’
‘How do you know it’ll be muddy?’
Gene snorted his amusement and carried on. ‘Keep to the edge o’ the path all the way doon tae the rocks, then ye need to get on your hands and knees and climb doon until ye see the coral. The But ’n’ Ben’s up above it.’
‘The coral?’
‘The coral beach?’ He threw her an uncomplimentary look. ‘It’s famous, I’m sure of it. Cannae mistake it, it’s like nae other along this stretch o’ coast. But mind tae keep tae the rocks.’
Beatrice was shaking her head, astonished. ‘OK.’ She’d never heard such odd directions.
‘If ye get lost, call for Echo; he’ll come and find ye.’
‘Echo?’
‘The inn dug?’
‘I know who he is. Is he the fourth emergency service round here, then?’
‘He’s got better hearing than any man and he’ll come runnin’.’
With that Gene swooped back inside the inn, leaving Beatrice free to laugh. For the first time in a long time, shereallylaughed and the convulsive motion loosened her knotted shoulders. This was it. It was happening. She had known her laughter would come back to her one day. She laughed all the way along the road by the sea wall, glancing at stranded boats on the sand and as she walked on past rows of parked cars and the tiny picturesque terraced cottages, she couldn’t stop. Gradually, she felt her throat tighten and her eyes stinging. She was laughing, at last, but crying with relief and sadness at the same time.
How could a woman get herself into such a state? All alone in a strange village with tears on her cheeks, laughing like the gulls on the lampposts while shattering deep sobs forced their way through her throat. She reached for the little red post box on the sea wall to steady herself. A few breaths and she’d be fine, she reassured herself. She’d grown used to giving herself comfort. And besides, she had come this far.
On Friday hadn’t she been stuck at home, guzzling wine in her pyjamas? She’d planned a solo trip and actually undertaken it, not bottling it at the train station, but really, actually making her way to another country. And here she was about to ask for her money back from a teacher she’d never even met. Money she’d rather put to better use doing something else, but what exactly that might be, she didn’t know. Yes, this was really something. A sneaking sense of pride warmed her. Even if she was doing her damnedest to get away from this peculiar place, she had at least started out on an adventure, and she’d let herself think about some really difficult things, and she’d interacted with a bunch of strangers, and she’d laughed too. Yes, that was something.
‘You’ll be fine, Bea,’ she said aloud, checking with a glance behind her that nobody was in earshot.
Somehow, out here under the morning sun and thinning watery clouds she believed it a little better than she had at home in Warwick.
Walking on along the street, wiping her tears with a tissue and blowing her nose, she passed the few closed-up shops and the shuttered ice-cream kiosk. The church bells rang behind her but she didn’t turn around.
‘Keep climbing the hill ’til you’re out of breath,’ Gene Fergusson had said. And so she faced the steep pavement ahead, took one long stride, then another, and another, her eyes fixed dead ahead and the sun on her face.
Chapter Seven
The Coral Beach
The path was indeed muddy, but she had come this far in the increasingly close morning air and her black pumps were now horribly mucky. Beatrice hadn’t bargained on the midges that clustered above the mud as she walked, crablike, along the thin grassy verge that lined the path. They stuck to her lip balm and made her head itch, but after a few moments of sideways walking she came to the top of the hill and reached the rocks Gene had mentioned and suddenly the midges cleared.
Down below her over the rocky outcrop gleamed the slightest hint of sunlight on turquoise blue sea. How on earth could a craft school exist down at the bottom of this boulder-strewn route? It was barely a path at all, just a slight clearing through the gorse, grass and jutting lichen-speckled rock that led down towards the sound of gentle waves.
Gene was right, she had to use her hands and knees, as well as her bottom and feet, to lower herself down some of the steeper rock steps. Butterflies and moths rose up from the long grass at the sides of the trail. Eventually, after she felt she’d climbed downhill at least ten metres, she found the view opening out before her, and the sight made her pause. She might well be running late for class but this view asked to be stared at from the very conveniently placed rocky platform, flat like a table top. She sat for a moment.
A deserted beach of pure white, scattered with golden seaweed and shaped like a crescent moon lay inside a bay of sun-bleached rocks down below her. The water that lapped the shore was shallow and a wonderful tropical blue. She had never seen such an enticing bay and she’d swum in the Mediterranean umpteen times with Rich. On the low headland up above the little white beach were steeply sloping meadows with, at one corner, a wild-looking garden with colourful flowers. Inside the garden’s low stone walls stood a little whitewashed cottage with a silvery thatched roof. She knew it must be the But and Ben. There were no other buildings nearby to confuse it with. There were no signs of life though, and the cottage’s low door was closed.
