A Season for Second Chances(34)
Chapter 26
By midafternoon on Saturday, Annie was waxed and ready for her maybe/maybe-not date with Paul. The skin around her bikini line still resembled a plucked goose, but she supposed, if it came to it, at least it was better than the coir welcome mat she’d been sporting before.
It had been years since she’d been on a date—decades, in fact—and she was nervous. The last time she’d dated, the most pressing issue had been whether her kissing partner’s braces would tangle with her own. Deep and meaningful conversations centered on what was happening on Party of Five and whether Britpop or grunge was cooler. The idea of dating with nigh on thirty years of baggage trailing behind her felt almost insurmountable.
Annie had dressed in a pair of baggy teal corduroy dungarees with a thick jumper that had diamonds and stripes woven into the knit. She had pulled her hair up into a red polka-dot headscarf and worn her most comfortable desert boots. She loosely resembled a Land Girl, but this kind of casual style suited her, having always been big of boob and round of cheek. She’d finished the ensemble with red lipstick and a dousing of perfume around her neck in the hopes that Paul would get close enough to give her a sniff.
Paul was as easygoing as their first meeting had suggested, which was just as well since Annie was sketchy about first-date protocol. Right from the start he had set the tone for informal, unpretentious conversation, and without the pressure of having to appear witty or profound, Annie had relaxed into being with him. There wasn’t much about Willow Bay that he didn’t know, nor were there any people who didn’t know him. If Annie’s presence at Saltwater Nook hadn’t been known by the entire village before their date, it certainly was now. She could only imagine the gossip. And what’s more, she didn’t care. The idea of being regarded as a strumpet was infinitely more interesting than her previous reputation as long-suffering wife.
“I’m a carpenter by trade,” said Paul. “A boat builder. I used to travel from yard to yard around the coastline, wherever there was a contract going.”
“What kind of boats did you build?”
“Fishing trawlers mostly,” said Paul. “Yachts and the occasional houseboat.”
“No cruise ships, then?” asked Annie.
“Nope, no cruise ships. Although I’ve had a few commissions for suites on some of the big liners.”
“What made you give it up?” asked Annie.
“It gave me up,” said Paul. “Boat yards were closing down up and down the country; contracts became harder to find. And to be honest, I got tired of chasing them. When my dad got sick, I came back here to look after him. I never left.”
They were weaving leisurely in and out of the moss-covered gravestones in the oldest part of the churchyard of St. Andrew’s. The church was on the tour. Apparently, the vicar of St. Andrew’s in the late eighteenth century had not been averse to storing smuggled contraband in the crypt to be shared—for a reasonable price—among his Willow Bay flock.
“Do you keep your hand in with the carpentry?” Annie asked, running her fingers along the rough stone arch of a crumbling tombstone. She was enjoying herself; she felt grown-up and yet younger at the same time.
“Oh yeah,” said Paul. “I fitted out the Willow Bay Stores, and the bar and pews at the Bounty are mine. Every time someone wants a new kitchen, I get called in. Alfred lends a hand with the bigger jobs; he can turn his hand to anything.”
“What’s Alfred’s story?” Annie asked. “Maeve and Gemma seemed to think he didn’t want a home. That can’t be right, can it?” Annie had already decided not to mention that Alfred had slept in the tearoom; it would feel disrespectful to him and besides, it was no one else’s business.
“I’ve known Alfred for years and even I don’t know the exact details. I think Mari knows, but she’d never tell. All I know is he lost his family in a house fire when he was fourteen. He boomeranged around children’s homes until he was eighteen and spent a bit of time at Her Majesty’s pleasure, before finally giving up on society.”
“Oh my God, poor Alfred. I can’t even begin to imagine the mental scars that kind of tragedy would leave. Fourteen! It doesn’t bear thinking about.” Annie thought of the twins at age fourteen, still childlike in so many ways.
“I doubt there was much in the way of therapy or grief counseling in those days,” said Paul. “And I’m not sure being pinballed about the care system would have been much fun either.”
“No,” Annie agreed. “It goes some way to explaining his preference for self-reliance, I suppose.”
They were quiet for a time as they wandered among the final resting places of Willow Bay’s oldest residents.
“Now this,” said Paul, stopping beside a ship’s anchor laid in the center of the cemetery, “is the actual anchor from the actual sunken Willow . . . supposedly.”
“Wow,” said Annie. “So, it’s a kind of memorial?”
“That and an insurance policy.” Paul grinned. “The villagers thought if they rested the ship’s anchor on holy ground, it might tether the lost sailors’ souls and stop them causing mayhem around the bay. Being that they’d driven them to a watery grave, they were somewhat jumpy about spectral retribution!”