‘With your mum.’
‘Yes, Leo!’ he yelled as, backpack wobbling on his back, he took off at a rate of knots towards the track that led to the main road.
‘Watch out for cars!’ Leo called after the boy. The Stepping Stone Bay Boathouse was accessed from the single-lane road, or more like a track, given its surface, with little pockets for passing vehicles to pull in along its length, some of which might have trailers with watercraft, given he sold accessories for private equipment and people came here if they needed to mend their own craft.There was enough parking in front of the boathouse for four or five cars including Leo’s truck with its thick tyres that made getting up and down the reasonably steep track easy enough.
Leo waited until Jonah was out of sight and then picked up the sign his little assistant had placed outside for him when they went downstairs. Leo had one more sign which was a permanent one and positioned down at the double doors of the shed below pointing people up here should they wish to hire water craft or shop for their sailing needs.
Back inside the boathouse Leo picked up his binoculars that were stationed at the side of the window at the far end. From here he could watch anyone who had hired equipment from him, and he took a moment to check up on the happy couple he’d just sent out. He smiled; they weren’t bad, their balance was quite good and he felt as though he was intruding when he saw them share a kiss across paddleboards. Talk about romantic and still in the honeymoon phase. He watched them head towards the buoys, careful of the young lad in his own kayak who was trying to keep up with his dad who had just reached the buoys and was skirting their perimeter now.
Satisfied that all was well and knowing that as well as an on-duty lifeguard there was a lifeguard station on one side of the bay if anyone ever drifted and looked like they were in trouble, Leo set down the binoculars. At least today’s couple were relatively sensible. Only last week a trio of teenage girls had hired paddleboards and gone beyond the buoys without so much as glancing back. Leo had called out to them using his megaphone and they’d reluctantly come back to where he’d explained they needed to be, given their lack of experience. It wasn’t a hard and fast ruleof course but he was a pretty good judge of whether someone would be able to cope beyond the area he could keep a good eye on. They’d at least stayed closer to the shore after that, not going beyond the buoys, but water savvy they were not. Leo had spotted one of them attempting to do a headstand on her board – she’d fallen off quite spectacularly, and he’d seen her mate attempt a cartwheel from one board to the other – a stunt which did not work out. He’d seen the other girl remove her buoyancy vest and put the bright pink item on her board at the end ready to do who knew what and he’d been about to call out over the megaphone again when her own, more sensible, friend must have told her to put it on. As he’d watched them, every time they went out of sight for longer than they should have done, he had a feeling of dread pool in his stomach. The three of them had come to shore laughing away but Leo had wasted no time giving them a warning not to repeat that kind of behaviour. He’d tried to sound serious but not a total ogre but it was difficult, and most of his focus had been on avoiding the attention of the girl who kept adjusting her bikini in a way that suggested she was doing it for his benefit every time she moved the material. He hoped they’d got the message about water safety but he was more than thankful they weren’t locals but holidaymakers who would hopefully move on to another beach and someone else’s watch next time.
Leo ran a one-on-one kayak lesson at five o’clock for someone who’d been gifted with a voucher for her birthday and was thankfully water savvy and ready to listen, and just before he closed he sold keen surfer and local man, Steve, wax for his board as well as a new wetsuit, so he was ready for his usual surf session in the morning.
Leo locked up the downstairs, turned off all the lights there and back in the shop and after making sure the front door was locked as well as his truck parked in the parking area, he made his way home from the boathouse to the cabin that some would assume was a holiday rental given its size – not very big at all – and proximity to the beach. It was one of only two down here, hidden from the main road, secret to anyone else unless they came to his place of business. The cabin was where he now called home and he loved everything about it, from its proximity to the beach and the water to the short commute he had, and the fact he could see his home from work and vice versa. The commute still made him smile every so often and if he went to the pub and overheard people bemoaning their bi-weekly trips into London for their job or daily drives up the motorway to the office, he’d be reminded of how lucky he was to stroll from A to B the way he was doing now.
Leo lived and breathed Stepping Stone Bay, just the way he liked it. He couldn’t imagine giving all of this up, not for anyone or anything, even when the weather was wild and the sea air clung to his hair and he took it home with him, he wouldn’t have it any other way.
Some days Leo gave very little thought to the other cabin down here. It was just there, separated from his by the stepping stones. But since he’d inspected the place last night he was thinking about it again, conjuring up old memories, good times. He hated it when that happened, it made it hard for him to move forwards, and after Nina had left it had taken him a long while to do that. In years gone by the Magowans and the O’Briens had fully utilised these cabins as their holiday escapes. The kids – Leoand his brother Adrian, Walt’s grandchildren Nina and William – had spent hours and hours down here every summer and indeed in the off-seasons. But those hazy days of summer hadn’t lasted and neither had Leo’s relationship with Nina. One wild and windy evening everything had changed, a tragedy had left its mark.
As he walked past the O’Brien cabin Leo thought of Walt. He always seemed well, jolly even, and he was usually talkative when they crossed paths, as long as Leo wasn’t busy. Walt always wanted to know about the boathouse and how business was going, and his friendship with Leo’s Granny Camille saw to it that even though Nina had left Leo’s life, their families remained entwined.
Past the O’Brien cabin Leo strode easily between stepping stones to reach his own cabin. When he was a kid he’d bounded from one stepping stone to the next, turning to do it again back the other way, then repeating the game over and over again until he was puffing and out of breath. When they became friends Nina had joined in, the game keeping them amused for hours. Nowadays it didn’t hold quite the same allure.
With the absence of street lamps, an automatic light came on to welcome him up the steps that led to the front door of the cabin set back on a modest-sized veranda that wrapped partially around the back of his home. The veranda was big enough to invite a few people over for drinks, it was wide enough for the bistro-style table and three chairs as well as a barbecue. He’d strung festoon lights from the grand tree on a patch of grass beyond to the tip of the roof of the cabin and he spent many an evening out here listening to the waves crash against the shore, feeling the salty breeze on his face. You’d think he’dhave enough of it in his line of work, but he never did. It was a cosy place in the winter too – constructed to withstand proximity to the beach and the sea and the ups and downs of the weather throughout an average year.
Inside, after a long day at work, Leo wasted no time getting in the shower, the steam soon filling the room and taking any stresses away.
Over the years Leo had taken his cabin from a basic beachside residence to a real home, adding in better-quality everything. The bathroom had gone from having a questionable floor and useless extractor fan to having a walk-in rainfall shower and a window to properly get the air in and circulating when you left the room. As a kid he’d had to endure the drippy effort of a shower head hanging over the bathtub, but not any more. Now he stood beneath jets of water that had a bit of oomph to wash his day away down the plug hole, the water swirling and gurgling to its finale.
With a towel wrapped around his lower half Leo went into the main bedroom, which was just big enough to fit a double bed, a wardrobe and two bedside tables comfortably. He pulled out a fresh pair of shorts from the drawers hidden behind the wardrobe door and after another once-over his body with the towel, pulled them on before heading to the kitchen where he took out a beer from the pale-yellow retro fridge. The original fridge in the cabin had been yellow and as a little boy he’d always thought it was like the sunshine, that it had a place in a home by the sea, and so when it went kaput and he saw a photograph in a magazine of this model in the same colour he knew he wanted it and that it would fit perfectly. He’d sympathetically remodelled the kitchen, which was more of akitchenette given its size and the way it was at the back and to one side of the lounge area, giving it oak wood benchtops atop glossy white cabinetry with a sleek oven and smooth induction cooktop. The lounge area had been repainted a fresh white with the merest hint of blue and he’d added in comfy dark blue soft furnishings along with a walnut coffee table with a super-soft-beneath-the-feet shaggy seafoam aqua rug in front of the log burner he’d installed. These days the Magowan cabin, or Leo’s place as it was now referred to by the family, was a beachside paradise no matter the weather.
Leo headed outside with his beer. It was a Friday night and although he was working tomorrow, Friday was Friday, time to kick back. He switched on the festoon lights and happily sank into the comfiest of the three chairs and put his feet up on the bistro table. He wouldn’t get away with it anywhere else, but could get away with it when he lived on his own. He wouldn’t do it if he had company, but these days he rarely had anyone here to reprimand him, although he was working on getting Adrian to come down and visit, to sit with him and soak up the joys of the bay he’d once loved. His brother would get there, he had to, the sea and Stepping Stone Bay were in his blood, and deep down Leo had always known he wouldn’t have turned his back on it permanently. Seeing Adrian so lost was difficult, but being back in this part of the country seemed like a significant first step in the right direction. Not that he’d say that to Adrian, at least not yet. His brother tended to deal with things in his own time and in his own way. They both did.
The wall on Leo’s veranda was low enough that he could see the sea from here, the bit of beach he’d beenon with water craft today, and if he had a set of binoculars he’d be better able to see the very end of the pier that sat round the other side of the bay and past Salthaven’s main beach. He could just about make out the lights from the café at the end of the pier now and as he tipped his head back to get a swig of beer, he wished he’d had the foresight to go there to grab something to bring back here for dinner. He hadn’t been for a few weeks, he was always so busy, but they did such good food, with a specials board that changed according to the seasons.
It was only after he’d finished his beer that Leo couldn’t ignore his growling stomach any longer and without much more than a tin of beans in the cupboard and not even any bread, armed with a torch, he trekked from his cabin, followed the thirteen stepping stones past the O’Brien’s cabin, and went on up the track towards the main road and the pizzeria he frequented so often they didn’t need to ask his order – thick-crust with onion, three types of cheese, tomato, herbs and anchovies, along with a sprinkle of chillies that left his mouth tingling. As his pizza bubbled in the special oven he chatted with the owner Nico and his wife who seemed to have a baby permanently glued to her hip.
Before too long he was setting off back to his cabin, pillowy-doughed pizza encased in its box and the aroma teasing him as he whistled a random Italian tune he’d heard in the pizzeria. The festoon lights from his own cabin welcomed him back but as he drew closer to the O’Brien cabin ready to pass on by, he froze. Last night he may have doubted his sanity, thought he’d seen something when he hadn’t, but tonight there was no mistakingit. The front door was propped open and inside someone was milling about.
And not just anyone.
Nina.
Chapter Three
Maeve
Outside beneath the sunshine Maeve took two glasses of freshly squeezed apple juice over to Molly and Arthur, the original owners of the little café at the end of the pier in Salthaven. Now of course the café was owned and run by Jo, their granddaughter, who was pregnant with twins and, lucky for Maeve, looking for extra help in the café for twelve months minimum.
Molly had her eyes closed to feel the warmth of the sun on her skin as she tilted her head back while Arthur sat next to her reading the newspaper with one hand holding the pages, his other hand pushing the stroller with Jo’s one-year-old daughter Ava inside, back and forth, keeping the toddler asleep.
‘Thank you dear,’ Arthur spoke softly, closing his newspaper and putting a hand-painted paperweight on top of it as Maeve set his glass down in front of him and Molly’s in front of her.
‘She’s sound asleep,’ Maeve smiled, braving a peek at Ava who looked so peaceful it gave Maeve a little pang of nostalgia for the days when Jonah had been like that, all chubby cheeks and innocence. It wouldn’t be long before he was taller than her, the rate he was growing.
‘We’ve had a whole ten minutes so far,’ Molly put in, ‘she usually dozes for forty-five minutes if we’re lucky.’
‘She’s a ball of energy when she’s awake,’ Maeve grinned. Jo’s husband Matt had brought Ava in yesterday to say hello to her mummy while she was at work and when it wasn’t too busy, but Ava had only lasted a few minutes before Matt took her outside where she could toddle along the pier holding his hand.
