Chapter One
Nina
A gentle mid-September breeze blew Nina’s blonde collarbone-length hair as she walked down the track from the main road where she’d parked towards the cabin that had been in the O’Brien family ever since she could remember. She’d taken this walk countless times before and yet doing it now after staying away for more than a decade made her insides churn. Because not only did this track lead to the family cabin, it also led to the boathouse that still stood in the former boatyard in Stepping Stone Bay. And it was the owner of the boathouse who Nina had walked away from all those years ago and not spoken to since.
The boathouse came into view, although now that the sun had begun to set she couldn’t see it very clearly. Nina had spent the afternoon with her grandad, Walt, before coming here this evening. She could’ve waited until the morning, but she knew she wouldn’t sleep if she did that. She wanted to get this first visit over with and then the rest she’d tackle as it came.
Walt had given Nina the big torch he kept beneath the sink in case of a power cut and she was glad she had it now to stop her from stumbling on any uneven groundas she turned left past the boathouse to go to the cabin. She could’ve driven all the way down here and parked right outside but she hadn’t wanted to bump into anyone coming the other way, preferring to discreetly take the short route on foot, at least this first time. For the last twelve years she had successfully avoided a trip down memory lane by sticking to brief visits on the south coast with her grandad who lived a couple of miles on from the centre of the seaside town of Salthaven and the bay around the corner. The distance had allowed her to hide out at his bungalow whenever she came to visit and avoid any interaction with the locals in the town or the bay.
As Nina’s focus changed to the cabin, her pace slowed, as memories, a blast of feelings, good and bad came back to her. She shivered despite the long cardigan she wore over a summer top she’d teamed with faded jeans. The cabin with its warm honey-brown window frames and small veranda looked exactly as she remembered. She could recall treading the steps up to the front door time and time again as a toddler, a kid, a teenager and an adult. And as she reached the steps now her hand trembled so much she clutched the front door key tighter to make sure she didn’t drop it between the wooden sections and have to get on her hands and knees to retrieve it. She daren’t shine her torch beyond the cabin either because it wasn’t the only one down here. There were just two cabins in such close proximity to Stepping Stone Bay – the O’Brien’s and the one belonging to the Magowans. Or in particular, Leo Magowan, the love of Nina’s life once upon a time. Leo not only owned the boathouse nowadays, he owned and resided in the second cabin that wasseparated from the O’Brien family’s by a mere thirteen stepping stones.
Up the steps and the sound of the key going into the lock on the cabin door felt unique although Nina knew it wasn’t. But the significance of her opening this place up after so long wasn’t lost on her. After so many years, she wasn’t here for a holiday, but to do up the old cabin, bring it into modern times, and once she’d done that she had been tasked with selling it for her grandad. Something she’d never seen coming. The sale of the cabin would mark the end of an era. And it felt like the final stamp on her leaving Stepping Stone Bay well and truly behind.
Nina stepped into the cabin. The inside smelt exactly the same as it always had – a little bit damp but not in a bad way, just in a way that suggested a few windows needed to be opened. Along with that came the salty tang of the sea that had seeped into the walls over time and could never be escaped, given the sandy stretch of beach and the gentle waves were less than a couple of hundred metres away. She shivered because there was a certain chill that came with an empty place, no matter the warmth of memories that came with it. There wouldn’t be many personal items littered around any more; even in the dark she knew it was in need of some tender loving care, and more than that, she noted how bereft the inside of the cabin was of chatter, laughter and togetherness, the sounds and feelings she’d always associated with coming through the front door.
She closed the door behind her and reached for the light switch, smiling to herself that she’d remembered where it was, but the bulb must have gone and so, careful not to bump into anything, she used the torch and madefor the table in the corner of the lounge area straight in front and hoped the lamp worked. It did, but she’d only just flicked it on when her phone rang and nearly made her jump out of her skin.
‘William, you scared me.’ But she was happy to hear from him, to get the update on his wife and children and their relocation to Geneva a few weeks ago. Hearing her brother William’s voice as he chatted excitedly about his new home made Nina think of the children she’d seen on their way to Salthaven. She’d stopped for petrol shortly before she reached the sign to the town and they’d been there buying sweets and crisps as well as a huge set of brightly coloured plastic beach accessories which looked to have everything they needed to build the best sandcastles, from moulds with turrets and rakes for the sand, to little shovels to dig a moat, and flags to put on top of the structure once it was finished. Nina and William had once been as carefree as those two children, they’d loved their days spent going from cabin to beach and back again. But they’d grown up and had both left the bay, William for love and his job and his family, Nina for very different reasons.
‘You’re there now?’ William asked, after her niece and nephew had both come on the phone to say a hello.
‘I sure am. I couldn’t wait until morning.’ She screwed her nose up at the sight of a cobweb in the far corner illuminated in the lamp light and turned her back when her eyes fell on the window that looked over to Leo’s cabin. The only positive was that there were no lights on at his place; nobody was home, she wouldn’t have to face him yet.
‘Does it look exactly the same?’ William asked.
‘Pretty much. Smells the same too.’
‘Of wet feet?’
She began to laugh. ‘It never smelt like wet feet. It smells like the sea, but a bit musty.’ She knelt on one of the sofas covered in a sheet and opened the small window, staying in her position to inhale the air and listen to the distant sound of waves rolling in. She only opened it a fraction, she’d air the place more once she was here properly.
‘Are you sleeping there tonight?’
‘No chance,’ she laughed, looking around her. The place was bare; no shoes cast aside, no colouring set littering the coffee table, no beach towels draped across the backs of chairs or over a plastic airer and no smell of dinner cooking or glasses of wine out on the benchtops. ‘I’ll sleep at Grandad’s; just wanted to have a check around and see what I need to bring with me tomorrow to make it semi-habitable. I’ll probably stay here on and off while I’m doing it up, seems the easiest thing and I can get more done rather than annoy Grandad.’ She loved her grandad to pieces but she knew both of them would need their breathing space, her particularly when it came to processing emotions of being back in the bay.
‘I don’t think he minds.’
‘Probably not,’ she admitted. But she knew she’d be better off if she wasn’t hiding away at his the whole time. She had to face her fears, it was high time. And then she had to get on, get the cabin looking impressive enough to sell for a good price.
In the main room where she now stood she looked over at the small yet perfectly adequate kitchen space with the benchtop along one wall that jutted out a bit to separate it from the lounge area. In the dim light she noted theappliances were all there, but none of the little touches – a mug tree, a utensils pot, maybe a pan stand or a pair of oven gloves waiting to be used. She’d sat at the bench on a high stool as a kid, feet dangling as her gran or grandad made her toast and jam, always cutting it into four triangles, the way she liked it.
Nina and William turned to reminiscing the way only a brother and sister could, with all the joint memories they’d have forever. ‘Remember baking cookies with Gran?’ William chuckled. ‘The first time I mean.’
‘How could I forget?’ She ran a hand along a rather dusty workspace next to the cooktop. She’d loved making cookies with Gran – it never mattered what sort, in fact the more variety the better, and she’d wrap them up into little parcels and leap over the thirteen stepping stones to the Magowan cabin and leave a parcel at their door, hoping it would be Leo who found them first. The first time they’d made cookies Nina had begged to use a recipe for chocolate chip and once they’d shaped the mixture Nina had been in charge of watching them in the oven while her gran hung out the beach towels and swimming costumes. Nina had burnt the lot, she’d thought she had time to duck out to find Leo and have at least a single game of conkers with the shiny beauties they’d found that morning, freshly dropped from the big horse chestnut tree near their school, but one game had turned into many and the next thing she knew Gran was yelling and flinging open all the windows, smoke billowing out of the oven. Nina ran back inside and rather than mouth-watering cookies found black morsels stuck to the baking tray.
‘Gran said she’d never get the smell out of the oven,’ said William. ‘She didn’t leave you in charge for a whileafter that from what I remember. Too easily distracted she said.’ After a sigh William admitted, ‘I thought Grandad might change his mind about selling up. I never expected it to come to this, you there and ready to get to work.’
‘Me neither. But he’s set on the idea, so here I am.’
‘Maybe he just wants it to look nicer and have a good clean and then he’ll fall in love with it all over again,’ he suggested hopefully.
‘Nice thought, William.’ In truth Nina had hoped for the same. She’d thought her grandad would back out at the last minute and tell her to come for an extended visit with him instead. But he hadn’t. And looking around, this place wasn’t just wonderful because she had so much nostalgia tied up in it, its proximity to the bay and the sands made it a winner and with a bit of work it could be a luxury escape.
Thinking of it that way made her even sadder that it wouldn’t be in the O’Brien family for any of them to enjoy at their leisure. And not only that, it made her thoughts flit to the owner of the other cabin who really had made it his home by the sea and never left.
Walt had told them of his decision to sell the cabin over a farewell roast dinner for William and his family as the gravy was poured, the vegetables spooned out of the bowls, and the lunch Nina and William’s wife Anna had cooked together was served. When he’d made the announcement he’d added a diplomatic, ‘It’s time,’ when both William and Nina failed to disguise their shock and utter disappointment. ‘Our family is grown up, it’s time for a new family to make their memories at the cabin.’
William seemed put out as he tilted his head towards Fliss and Perry who were six and eight respectively. ‘Notall of us are grown up. The kids haven’t had much time down there at Stepping Stone Bay at all.’