‘Thanks, Joan.’ I smiled. She was certainly making it easy for me. ‘I appreciate that. I’ll see you soon.’
‘Not that soon, I suspect,’ she said shrewdly. ‘You take care, Tess, love and don’t worry about your father. Or work.’
‘I won’t,’ I whispered and hung up.
With the scene set, and my booking confirmed, all I had to do when I got up Saturday morning was prepare for my secret getaway. Having not taken a holiday for so long, my causal wardrobe was somewhat depleted, but a whirlwind shopping trip soon rectified that.
My appetite had made an unexpected comeback thanks to Joan’s coaxing and I ate my way through most of what she had loaded into the fridge as I packed my bags and then settled down on Sunday to prepare emails for Chris and Lucy. I explained what to expect in my absence and apologized for not letting them in on the finer details of my short-notice departure. The less they knew, the less my father would be able to get out of them.
By the time I had scheduled the emails to be sent the next morning – when I would be winging my way to Wynmouth – I was feeling a little nervous. Or was I excited? It had been so long since I had done anything so self-centred, anything that didn’t revolve around work, that I really couldn’t be sure. My current mental state was hard to pin down, especially as Mum’s diary had added its own unique layer of turmoil to it, but Wynmouth would soon set me straight. I hoped.
*
The journey to my personal paradise should have taken no more than three hours, but I was behind the wheel for nearer five. Not one, not two, but three crash clear-ups had hampered my stretch of motorway journey and I was well into Cambridgeshire before I started to notice the change in the scenery. It felt like an age since I had slowed down enough to look at green things growing.
A little further on I crossed the final county line and drove deep into Norfolk. Eventually, the first signpost directing me towards Wynmouth came into view and I swallowed down a lump in my throat as I tried to quell my mixed emotions.
‘Home sweet home,’ I whispered as I slowly pulled into the village and the sun, which had been positively shining down all morning, disappeared from view. ‘Well, for a couple of weeks anyway.’
The bank of grey cloud blowing in from where I knew the sea was waiting for me to spot it could have dampened my spirits, but I didn’t let it. After all the waiting and remembering, I was finally here. I had finally found my way back to the one place in the world where I had always felt happy and the sun always shone, in my mind at least.
I let down my window and breathed in a lungful of the longed-for salt-laden air as I drove around the large expanse of grass known predictably as The Green and smiled at the wooden sign featuring an image of a tall ship in full sail. The paint wasn’t quite as bright and pristine as I remembered and there was a definite lean to the stake which secured it, but I knew a sailor featured too and that there was a legend told about him on stormy nights. I couldn’t recall the details but hoped to be reacquainted with them soon.
The picturesque row of traditionally built brick and flint shops caught my eye next and looked comfortingly familiar, although perhaps a little smaller and certainly quieter. I scanned around but there wasn’t a soul in sight. It was quite deserted, but then given the gathering clouds perhaps the locals had headed home in case it rained, and of course it wasn’t the school holidays yet which would no doubt make a difference to numbers too.
I carefully swung the car around the tight bend which would lead me to the Smuggler’s Inn pub, my long-coveted Crow’s Nest Cottage and then a view of the beach.
‘I can see the sea!’ I shouted in the timeless tradition, even though there was no one to hear me.
The road dipped gently down – and the stretch of beach I had been dreaming about finally came into view. It was only the narrowest of glimpses between the two rows of houses lining the lane, but it made my heart skip nonetheless.
With no one behind me I slowed the car to a stop, pulled on the handbrake and took it out of gear. The little lane was single track, one way only and, in my opinion, offered the prettiest slice of coastal view in the whole of Norfolk. I could see the pub on the left and knew my cottage was just beyond it but set back a little with the tiniest garden and picket fence in front.
On the other side there was a row of what would have once been fishermen’s terraced cottages. There were half a dozen or so, also built in the traditional style and from local materials, and I hoped they weren’t all given over to the holidaying masses. Hypocritical I know as I was a holiday-maker myself, and I also knew that a village like Wynmouth needed to make ends meet. But I hated the thought of the place being devoid of local families, and bursting at the seams with tourists during the summer and then abandoned and boarded up in the winter.
It was all about striking the right balance, but aware of the soaring real estate prices on such picturesque properties in other places along the coast, I knew that most definitely hadn’t been achieved. The scales were weighted firmly in the holidaymaker’s favour there.
A sharp toot behind me brought me back to my senses and I waved a hand in apology to the impatient-looking chap on a tractor. At least there was one fisherman still in the village then. The old tractors, rust-riddled affairs thanks to the saltladen sea air, were used to pull the little boats up and down the beach and in and out of the sea.
‘Sorry,’ I called as I pulled away and indicated left, but I don’t think he heard me.
He had inched so close to my bumper that I didn’t think he could see my indicator either, but he must have known where I was going. There really wasn’t anywhere else, unless I wanted to take the car beachcombing. Focused on making the tight turn without scraping my paintwork, I hadn’t been able to look at the cottage as I squeezed by but it didn’t matter. I would be turning the key in the lock soon enough.
Fat raindrops had started to fall as I pulled into the pub car park and unloaded my bags and by the time I had walked back around to the lane and negotiated the incline up to the cottage it was falling faster, but it didn’t stop me taking a moment to admire the riot of colourful flowers in the front garden or the brick and flint façade.
The cottage was every bit as beautiful as I remembered. As I wrestled with the gate, which was a little twisted on its hinges, and scrabbled about in the leaking porch, searching for the pot with the door key hidden under it, I felt extremely happy to be back in Wynmouth, even if it was raining and some of my memories were already being subjected to a little fine-tuning.
‘It’s under the one on the other side,’ said a woman’s voice close behind me.
‘Shit,’ I swore as I dropped the pot in my hand, and it landed on the step with a sharp crack.
I picked it up and turned around.
‘Sorry,’ said the woman, who was loaded down with bags, ‘I didn’t mean to make you jump.’
‘And I didn’t mean to break this,’ I said, showing her the damage and feeling my face flush as I bit my lip. ‘It’s cracked all the way down one side.’
‘It doesn’t matter,’ she said kindly, shaking her head. ‘I’m sure we’ll be able to glue it back together.’
I set the pot aside, located the key and finally stepped into the cottage. The door opened straight into the bijou sitting room I had seen online. It was even cosier than I had imagined with a squishy sofa and chair, an old pine desk under the sash window and a well-stocked bookcase next to the brick fireplace which housed a log-burning stove. It was definitely tighter for space than I had imagined when I posed for my holiday snap.