‘Can you stand back a bit, Rads?’ Joy took her daughter’s hand, imagining her plummeting into the surf.
Crabbing wasn’t something Joy knew much about. Her family was never one for British beach holidays, they’d always go all-inclusive in Sharm El Sheikh when she was growing up and even then they weren’t the bucket and spades type. They liked things a little fancier. They’d probably be away in some exotic resort right now, come to think of it, making the most of the summer heat. She still wasn’t used to it; the not knowing where they were or what they were doing. This is how it feels, Joy thought, when you’re cut off.
‘Mum? You’re doing it again.’ Radia jolted her hand.
Joy’s eyes snapped to her child’s. ‘I’m here, I’m here. Just thinking about how we get a crabbing line. Wasn’t there a convenience store in the visitor centre where the coaches were pulling up?’
‘But that’s miles away!’
The both looked back at the point where the entrance to the harbour turned into the path that led Up-along.
The perilously steep cobbled path they’d just come down was now obscured by the seaward-facing row of cottages and their backyards bursting with palm trees and spruces. The two rows of cottages that made up the village zigzagged and twisted all the way up the incline past the pretty cobbled side street that led off to the Borrow-A-Bookshop. Yet further up the slope, right up on the hill, the turrets of Clove Lore’s Big House could be seen, the St Petroc’s flag flying against the blue summer sky, dotted about this morning with puffy white clouds. The visitor centre was up there by the entrance to the estate, at least a thousand-yard climb, maybe two.
Day visitors and guests from the Siren’s Tail were spilling down onto the beach. It was already a hot day before the prospect of a long climb.
‘Maybe you can make a friend and play with their crabbing things?’ Joy told her glum daughter, scanning the wall for a group of friendly looking kids.
A voice from behind them startled her. ‘You can borrow the Siren’s rods and nets, if you like?’
Turning, they saw a man dragging empty crates along the wide concrete expanse.
‘Can I?’ Radia called back gleefully. ‘Where are they?’
Joy instinctively shrank back, thinking how it was both a curse and a blessing that her daughter, through sheer necessity, had been forced to become good at making friends wherever she found them. Unlike Joy, she hadn’t a shy bone in her body.
‘Rads,’ she cautioned, even though she wasn’t sure what exactly her objection was going to be. That this guy was a stranger? That kids can’t go talking to justanybody, even if they are smiling in an unthreatening way and keeping their eyes on their crates, showing no desire to bother them?
She’d found over the years that some blokes, once they twigged Joy and Radia were travelling alone, wanted to pry, or buy them lunch, or to meet Joy that night for a drink. She hated it, the intrusion.
‘He’s busy, Rads, he’s working,’ was the best Joy could manage, but she already knew it wasn’t going to make any difference. The promise of a morning’s crabbing was on the horizon and Radia wouldn’t be put off by her mum’s fear of strangers.
‘Wait there,’ he called back, before abandoning the crates and disappearing through the pub doors, giving Radia enough time to throw her mum a warning look that said,Don’t spoil my fun, it’s fine.
He was back and striding towards them in moments, carrying a sealed Tupperware, a long pink plastic net, a homemade rod with string weighted by a stone, and a bucket printed with orange crabs all around the sides. ‘Will these do?’ He smiled again, directed right at Radia. Then, more warily, he lifted his eyes to Joy. ‘Just drop them back inside the pub when you’re done.’
‘Thank you,’ Joy said, fighting the stiffness in her voice. She could feel her daughter’s eyes boring into her from below, wishing her mum wasn’t like this.
‘Do you…uh, know what you’re doing with these?’ He handed the net to Radia.
‘Nope! Can you show us?’ she grinned back, reaching for the rod too.
‘Radia, the man’s working.’ Joy tried a polite smile.
‘I can spare a minute,’ he replied brightly, ‘if that’s OK with you, of course?’ His brown eyes were so appealingly soft and unassuming, Joy had no choice but to relent.
The little fishing party made their way to a spot by the harbour steps, close to thePeter’s Bountymooring.
The man crouched at the top of the steps, telling Radia to sit down safely and to mind the mooring rings. She informed him that she never fell. Joy tried not to react.
When Joy had been precocious in public as a child, her mum would say, ‘What are you like?’ and chuck her chin or rub a finger under her ear. Or she’d playfully roll her eyes, all the while making a show of connecting with the other adult, the one who’d witnessed the cheekiness. Maybe they’d join in and call her a ‘little madam’ or some other thing and the grown-ups would smile indulgently. Joy had never done that.
That would mean establishing some kind of understanding with a stranger, allowing them into their little family bubble to observe Radia and comment on her. Nobody got to say anything about her child. Nobody had the right to. She knew it made her standoffish and she didn’t mind, and Radia didn’t know any differently.
Radia didn’t know anything about the school gate camaraderie of mums, the blithe comments made at coffee mornings about the ‘terrible twos’ and the tantrums of a ‘threenager’, and all the other little burdens or funny moments shared.
That’s why instances like this – interacting with new people – felt especially brilliant for Radia. Meanwhile, Joy could only look on, hoping it would end soon.
‘Ooh, what are those?’ Radia was asking, peering into the stranger’s Tupperware tub as he peeled the lid off and crouched by her side.
