In a Kingdom by the Sea. Sara MacDonald

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       CHAPTER TWO

       Cornwall, 1966

      Whenever I am sad or unhappy I run to Cornwall in my head. I no longer have a home there but I take myself through the rooms of the house where I grew up as if they will still be exactly the same; as if my parents still inhabit the rooms, still roam the garden and orchard full of ancient apple trees.

      I can still hear the sound of the chickens in the long grass and Maman’s cry when the fox got any of them or she spotted a rat near the feed.

      I can see Papa stripped to the waist as he dug out a vegetable patch on a piece of the field next to the house. I can see Maman watching him from under her sunhat and remember the little flush inside me as I sensed, but did not understand, the innuendo of their banter.

      My first memory of our house is standing on the balcony with my father gazing downhill across a field of wild flowers to the sea. There was a mist hanging over the water like a magical curtain and the sea was eerily still, like glass.

      ‘Fairyland!’ I whispered. To a five year old living in a terraced house in Redruth, it was.

      ‘Can you imagine living in this house?’ Papa asked me, sounding excited.

      ‘I wouldn’t like to live with Aunt Loveday. She’s old, Papa, and she smells.’

      ‘That’s not very kind, Gabby,’ my father said. ‘It’s sad. Loveday is too old to live here any more. She can’t cope with all the stairs so she is going to a private nursing home. This house has to be sold to help pay for her care …’

      My father sighed as he looked down at the neglected garden.

      ‘Poor old Loveday. She’s lived here all her life. It is a big thing for her to admit she can’t manage on her own. Now she wants her home to stay in the family.’

      ‘So, are we going to buy her house?’ I asked my father, following his eyes across the jungle garden.

      ‘Maybe, if we can afford to. The house has to be valued first. If we moved here you would have to leave your friends and change schools.’

      I stared out at the sea, blindingly blue below me. ‘I don’t mind. I’d love to live here. We’d have the beach and a garden to play in but Dominique won’t want to move. She’s got so many friends, she won’t want to leave any of them.’

      ‘Leaving some of them behind would be no bad thing,’ my father said. ‘She might make more sensible ones and concentrate on her schoolwork …’

      Loveday’s house was an old and shabby granite house. Once a farmhouse it lay foursquare and solid, facing the coastline. Loveday, a distant cousin of Papa’s, had slowly sold off most of their land but had protected the house by keeping all the surrounding fields.

      Papa pointed to the village sloping off to the right of us. Fishermen’s cottages lay in tiers raised above the water. We could not see the small harbour full of fishing boats from here, or the lifeboat station; they lay out of sight beyond the point, like another little hamlet. On this side of the village there was only the perfect horseshoe cove and the coastal path through fields.

      ‘With a little imagination, this coastline could attract so many more people …’ my father murmured to himself.

      Maman came bustling onto the balcony with Dominique behind her. They were carrying a French loaf, cheese and tomatoes. Maman looked happy. My sister looked bored and sulky.

      Maman kissed the top of my head and said to Papa, ‘I rang the education department at County Hall this morning. There are no staff vacancies in the village school at the moment but I would almost certainly be able to teach in Penzance.’

      She dropped the bread on the table and turned and looked out at the sea, and the garden below. ‘We would be mad not to try to buy this house, Tom, however hard it will be. I could do supply teaching. There will always be work in the shops and hotels in the summer season. I could probably earn more money having two part-time jobs than I do teaching.’

      Dominique rolled her eyes, dismissively. ‘Maman! Are you going to stop teaching in Redruth to be a cleaner like Kirsty’s mum? Just so you can live in this house?’

      ‘Dominique,’ Maman said. ‘I have loved Loveday’s house from the first moment I saw it. I would do any job that brings in money to live here. I do not want to spend my life in a rented house in Redruth with no garden. This might be the only chance Papa and I have of owning a house …’

      ‘But this village is miles away from anywhere,’ Dominique wailed. ‘It’s like a dead place. I won’t have any friends. I like Redruth …’

      ‘In a couple of years you’ll have to change schools anyway,’ Papa said. ‘You’re good at making friends. You’d soon make new friends in the village …’

      ‘It’s a boring, boring village. It doesn’t even have a proper shop …’ Dominique was in a rare bad mood and spoiling the morning.

      ‘Loads of tourists will come to the beach every summer,’ I told her.

      ‘Big deal.’ She flounced off down the steps to the overgrown garden.

      Maman said, slightly deflated, ‘It is a bit off the beaten track, Tom. If we did B&B, would anyone come, apart from walkers?’

      ‘There СКАЧАТЬ