It was a desperate plea even to Nina’s ears. Her brother was rarely in this part of the country and now he was about to move even further away.
‘It needs a lot of work,’ Walt went on. ‘It’s tired, neglected. And let’s face it, you haven’t been to stay there in the last twelve months.’
William reluctantly agreed. ‘Work takes up too much time and we went to France and Italy for our holiday this year, then we tried to go to the cabin but the weather was having none of it.’
Talk turned to the rain that had hit the last time Fliss and Perry were here at Grandad’s and rather than use their buckets and spades at the beach or the inflatable ring Fliss had found that looked like a giant doughnut with sprinkles, they’d played monopoly and left without seeing even a glimpse of the golden sands.
‘I suppose it’s a lot to do with nostalgia,’ William confessed as he looked to Nina. ‘We had some good times there, didn’t we, sis?’
‘We sure did.’ But she’d also had some bad times in Stepping Stone Bay, times she wasn’t going to bring up here and now. Perhaps selling the cabin would draw a line under all of that at last, because there’d be no reason to return to the bay itself ever again.
After she declined the offer of more roast parsnips from Anna, Nina pushed some more. ‘Why are you really selling up, Grandad?’ His reasons sounded far too simplistic and practical for a man who adored his family and had a lifetime of memories at that cabin as well. He and Grandma Elsie had been the ones to paint the walls,they’d embraced being grandparents by spending every day in summer there with their grandkids, they’d loved the cosiness of it come winter and its proximity to the most beautiful stretch of beach on the south coast as far as he was concerned.
‘I’m getting older by the second.’ Walt winked at Fliss who was obsessed by what happened to people as they aged. That morning she’d asked why old people’s skin looked like the dates she’d had at Christmas, and right before lunch she’d wanted to check her great-grandad’s mouth to see whether he had any jewellery on his teeth. Turns out she meant gold fillings or crowns. ‘I need things doing around this place to make it safer for me,’ he added matter-of-factly.
‘Any changes here would be inexpensive, Grandad,’ William put in. ‘And I’m happy to fund them if needed.’
‘You shouldn’t have to.’ Walt had never wanted handouts, it was next to impossible to give him anything in the way of financial help. ‘And I can afford a few minor changes.’ He looked at William and then Nina and explained, ‘I also want to be prepared. I was able to look after my Elsie in her last days and have her here in our home, the home she adored. And the end was quick for her. But I’ve seen what can happen when it’s not. It’s a fact of life, but I would like to live out my days in this house too and without anyone close by to help, I might need to have someone come in on a daily basis. And that doesn’t come cheap. I’d like to be prepared financially, it’ll stop me worrying.’
Hearing him talk that way, planning for an end, might be part of life, but Nina didn’t like talking about it one bit. She would however always be on Walt’s side and dowhatever he needed, whatever made him happy. And that day at their grandad’s house might have been for William and his family’s farewell but it also marked the point where it was time for Nina to step up and be the one to take the reins, with her brother so far away. Nina and her brother had talked about it prior to that day already. With William working in Switzerland for at least the next two years, Nina was more than ready to take responsibility here, especially after she’d left the bay behind and only graced her grandparents with the odd phone call in a whole year while William, despite the demands of his job and being married, had come back to see Walt and Elsie every weekend. He’d done jobs around the house – he’d overhauled their veggie patch, fixed up the fence around the back garden, installed a new shed. Nina hadn’t helped much at all back then, she’d not even visited for that whole chunk of time for fear of bumping into anyone she knew and having to answer questions about why she’d left, why she didn’t want to come back. Questions she couldn’t even answer herself. But slowly, as she got herself together, she’d braved coming more and more to see her grandparents and then just Walt since her Grandma Elsie died eighteen months ago.
Now, at the cabin, Nina finished the call with her brother. ‘I’d better get on, see what I need to bring back with me tomorrow,’ she explained, already thinking of checking other lightbulbs; the one in the bathroom, those in the two compact bedrooms.
‘Make sure there’s toilet roll, nobody likes to be caught out in that situation.’
‘Thanks for the warning,’ she laughed. ‘Give my love to Anna and the kids.’
She ended the call and was about to carry on walking around to see what else she needed when she heard the sound of whistling coming from outside the cabin.
She reached quickly for the lamp and switched it off, crouching down in the corner of the room so she couldn’t be seen through the small window above the table with the lamp. She held her breath as the whistling continued, carried inside through the other window which was open ever so slightly.
Her heart raced at a million miles an hour at her first sight, or rather sound, of Leo Magowan, the man who made her heart skip a beat for years until she’d left Stepping Stone Bay behind. He might only have been whistling, but she’d know that sound anywhere.
Nina waited where she was until she couldn’t hear anything else apart from the swishing of the sea.
She sneezed with all the dust and she jumped when her fingertips met something that the torch, when she switched it back on, revealed to be an eight-legged creature on its back, legs curled up, a casualty of this old cabin. And when she realised she couldn’t stay there huddled in the corner forever she got up without turning on the lamp again. She closed the window she’d opened, not ready to announce her presence tonight, and if Leo was the only person who lived down here, too much activity would be sure to alert him to the cabin being occupied. And that could wait for another day.
Nina did her best to scurry around the cabin and make notes in her phone of everything she needed, unscrewing lightbulbs and taking photos of their specifications, looking in cupboards for what might have been left behind. She nipped in to use the toilet – thankfully there was enoughtoilet roll and some soap for her convenience although she made a note to bring back more supplies tomorrow – it wasn’t as if she could call on a friendly neighbour to ask for some, was it? That might be a little cheeky under the circumstances.
Before she left she braved looking through the smaller window on the far wall of the lounge area again and sure enough all of the window coverings in the other cabin were down now, a dim light coming from behind.
She’d be back tomorrow.
And she had no doubt she’d be seeing Leo Magowan again, very soon.
Chapter Two
Leo
Leo waved the delivery driver off from the parking area at the front of the boathouse and took the last of the boxes inside. As he did so he regarded the O’Brien cabin. He’d returned home to his own cabin late last night after going to see his brother Adrian, who had finally settled back in the Stepping Stone Bay area in a flat not far from here. They’d had a few beers together and Leo, happy to have his brother back in town, had whistled his way home down the track, past his boathouse and the O’Brien cabin and across the thirteen stepping stones to his own place. But when he’d gone to let himself in through the front door he’d had the feeling of being watched and had stopped whistling and turned round, thinking he’d seen something in the corner of his eye. He’d told himself he must’ve been mistaken and with his desperation to use the bathroom, ignored the niggling feeling until he was unable to let it go and fall asleep. He’d taken a torch and gone outside, across the stepping stones, and over to check up on the other cabin. He had a good look around the outside and nothing seemed untoward, no sign of forced entry. He’d even got a chair from his veranda to enable him to look in through the windows which hadcurtains which weren’t drawn completely and it had been enough for him to determine that the cabin was indeed empty, the way it had sadly been for a long time. Not even Walt O’Brien, the cabin’s official owner, came down here much any more apart from to do the odd once-over of the place.
Now, as Leo unpacked the first of the many boxes, he still couldn’t shake the feeling that something was different. He just had no idea what.
‘Jonah, you’re back.’ The young boy with an accent he’d initially mistaken as American but was in fact Canadian had been here twice before. He hadn’t bought anything the first time, and on the second occasion, only a keyring with a navy and white sailboat ornament fixed to a silver ring. And on both times he’d hung around for ages, talking to Leo, asking questions about boats, the sea, anything he could think of. Now, here he was again, still in school uniform, still with the same smile that made it hard to say no. ‘Do your parents know you’re here?’
‘I’m eleven,’ said Jonah and then shrugged the way he’d done before when Leo tried to do the right thing and make sure his family knew where he was. Leo put down the box he’d been about to unpack and went over to the boy who had gone straight to the window at the end to look out over the bay, the sand and the kayakers beyond.
‘You ever tried a paddle board?’ Leo asked when Jonah’s attentions moved to a teenager taking one out and wobbling a good amount before he got going.
