‘How old is he anyway? He said he’s on a year out. Does he mean a year out after university?’
‘Who cares? So what if he’s younger than you? That boy is all man.’
‘What?’ I glance at her with bafflement.
‘You know what I mean. You like him, otherwise you’d be getting your coffee for free from Seaglass.’
‘Yes, but Beach Café does pastries.’
As my increasingly curvy waistline can attest to.
‘Andeye candy,’ she adds pointedly. ‘Don’t tell me you haven’t been enjoying a hit ofthatalong with your morning croissant.’
‘I prefer the pain aux raisins.’
‘Shut the fuck up and get out of the car.’
It’s Dan’s birthday and Amy has arranged for a bunch of us to hide out in a cave while she takes him for an early dinner at Blue Bar in Porthtowan, the next village along, after which they’ll go for a romantic stroll along the beach. We’ll leap out and scare the living shit out of him and then get very drunk together.
It’s a solid plan, apart from the fact that we only have a window of about three hours before the incoming tide will cut off our escape route. The tide comes in very fast here and is extremely dangerous, so someone had better keep their wits about them.
Rach and I intend to walk home and collect the car in the morning before the car park charges kick in.
‘Is Michael working tomorrow?’ Rach asks as she pops the boot to release the party paraphernalia we brought with us.
‘Yes, but I wouldn’t rely on him to do a Pay and Display for you, if that’s what you’re thinking.’
‘That’s exactly what I was thinking.’
Michael still works for the National Trust at Chapel Porth as a parking attendant, a job he loves because he’s a total car nut and he gets to see all sorts here. Plus, his boss organises a vintage car run sometimes – Michael adores him.
‘Maybe I should just drive home,’ Rach mutters, and I feel bad because she’s taken up the torch as my personal taxi driver ever since I sold my parents’ BMW.
It felt like a step along the road to recovery – I no longer have to deal with the pang of guilt I felt every time I saw it parked in the driveway – but I should probably think about getting another car. I’m only resisting because it’s better for my guests to have the whole garden to themselves and I have nowhere to park a car if not in the driveway.
‘Have a few drinks with me,’ I beg Rach. ‘We can stumble home in the dark later – it’ll be fun with a bunch of us.’
‘Stumble would be about right. The last time I walked home to Aggie from Chapel Porth, I fell in the bloody stream.’
‘At least you didn’t take the cliff path,’ I joke, and immediately regret it because it makes me think of Finn and his mum, but Rach is too busy getting out of the car to notice my pained expression.
We’re just hauling the last of our bags from the boot when Tarek pulls into a space beside us with his girlfriend, Gaby, in the front seat. Chris, Kieran and Kieran’s girlfriend, Hayley, slide out of the back.
Tarek has ice and cool boxes, plus several six-packs, none of which he’ll drink himself since he’s Muslim and alcohol is haram in Islam. I’ve got to know him quite well over the last eight months. He submitted the planning permission to convert the house and oversaw the work, and I’m thrilled with the results. Currently, there’s a young family of four staying downstairs and the sound of the children’s giggles travelling up through the floorboards has been making me smile. The little boy and girl are a far cry from last week’s raucous ten-year-old twin boys who play-fought all day, every day and broke two plates and three glasses, plus the living-room lamp. I can’t lie: I was glad to see the back of the little buggers.
A few more old schoolfriends arrive, so we have plenty of hands to help carry everything down to the beach. Luckily Dan’s birthday falls on a full moon, because if this was next Friday’s neap tide, we might not be able to get around to the caves at all.
Grass-carpeted hills roll up and away on either side of us, vibrant green beneath the candy-floss-blue sky, but as we navigate the large pebbles that lead to the beach, the soft curve of hillside gives way to sharp-edged cliffs, which seemto tower ever higher as we make our way downhill. The sand feels thick and claggy underfoot and a light sheen of sweat coats my skin as we trudge on, trying to find a shallow spot in the stream where we can cross without getting our shoes wet.
We decide to make the cave itself our party palace and set about stabbing tall solar-powered lights into the sand. Hayley brought decorations, but Rach confiscated her balloons, giving her a lecture about the damage they could do to wildlife. Recently Rach has been working as a part-time surf instructor and she also volunteers at the local Surf Life-Saving Club, but has just applied for a full-time job at Surfers Against Sewage HQ. I hope she gets it.
Now Hayley is in a bad mood, trying to stuff the ends of paper streamers into cracks and crevices and swearing every time one tears off because the walls are so damp.
‘How about we rope them around the solar lights?’ I suggest, trying to appease her.
We’ve just finished stringing the streamers from solar lights around the perimeter of the cave when Brendan rocks up. I catch sight of him outside the wide, jagged opening and do a double take. The sun is hitting him from behind and making his hair glow with a golden hue.
He looks like an angel, I think, as I go outside to say hi and meet the mere mortal he’s brought with him.
