July 2009
Jesse Behenna, managing director of Behenna and Clovelly Fish Company, surveyed the assembled faces of his staff as they lined up in the bar of the Golden Hind and waited for him to say a few words. Spencer was finally retiring after a lifetime spent working on the boats with three generations of Behenna men. There would be a retirement luncheon later on, which Jesse would be too busy to attend. But his father would be there, along with plenty of Trevay’s salty old seadogs, who would regale each other with tales told a thousand times before. Scanning the expectant faces, Jesse noted that Bryn Clovelly wasn’t there. Both he and Edward still held their seats on the board, in non-executive roles, but Bryn was more likely to be seen on the golf course these days, though he still enjoyed blustering pointlessly at the annual shareholder meetings.
Three years ago, Jesse had bought another stretch of the harbour, at least the length of a football pitch, and had demolished the ramshackle buildings that had been there for as long as anyone could remember. The old chandler’s, the boat engine workshop, the damp and worm-riddled sail loft. All gone, to be replaced with a twenty-first-century, three-storey building made from glass and metal, with an atrium and balconies overlooking the estuary. The old fish market next door had been given a revamp and was still the money-making heart of the business, even more so now that it had its own adjoining restaurant, which had become a destination in itself and attracted wealthy holiday-makers and locals alike.
Jesse looked like the epitome of the relaxed modern executive. His open-necked shirt was Paul Smith and his tan leather brogues were Church’s, but his full head of blond hair still fell in boyish waves and, even though he was often stuck behind his desk, driving deals stretching from London to Madrid, he still liked nothing better than going out with the boats and crewing with Mickey. Creeping crow’s feet around his eyes were the only indicators of the stresses and strains that came with Behenna and Clovelly.
‘And so, let’s raise a toast to the man who has been the beating heart and soul of Behenna and Clovelly for longer than anyone else – Spence! It won’t be the same without you, but luckily we’ll still get a chance to see your ugly mug every lunchtime here at the Hind, which is where I imagine you’ll be spending most of your retirement.’
There was a round of cheers as Jesse gave Spencer and his wife two all-expenses-paid tickets for dinner and a show in London. Spencer’s wife wiped away a tear, and Spencer, embarrassed at all the attention, looked awkward.
As the group clapped and crowded around Spencer, oohing and aahing at his gift, Lauren, Jesse’s assistant, touched him on the arm to get his attention.
‘Houston, we have a problem.’
Jesse was on immediate alert. ‘What’s up?’
‘Just got a call from Bob. A lorry jack-knifed on the A30 and there’s been a pile-up. His van is totalled.’
‘Is Bob all right?’ Jesse’s brow was creased with concern.
‘He is totally fine, but he won’t be able to get that consignment of John Dory and sea bass where it’s supposed to be.’
‘They were destined for the River Café and the Dorchester, weren’t they?’
‘Correct.’
Jesse thought quickly. ‘Has Phil left with that order for Rick in Padstow yet?’
‘I think he’s just loading up.’
‘Right.’ Jesse fished in his trousers and pulled out a pile of notes. He quickly counted out £200 and pushed it into her hand. ‘Tell him change of plan. He’s to take his delivery to London instead. Give him a new manifest, and I’ll give Rick a call and square things with him.’
‘What will you do?’
‘I’ll find him something even better and drive it there myself.’ He took his BlackBerry out of his pocket to make a call just as Greer’s number popped up on his screen. He hesitated a moment before answering.
‘Hi.’
‘How’s Spencer’s send-off going?’
‘Fine, but I’ve got a work crisis so won’t be back until later …’
‘Jesse – I was counting on you to take Freddie to his maths tutor tonight.’
‘Can’t you do it?’
‘No! I told you, I’m visiting clients in St Just this afternoon – that new restaurant that looks out over the headland. It’s a really important commission as they’re refurbishing the whole place. It needs my complete attention. I did tell you all of this already.’
‘Well, it’s tough, Greer. He’ll just have to get on his bike and take himself there. Where is he now, anyway?
‘He’s managed to twist my arm to let him out on the boat with Hal, even though he should be revising.’
‘You’re too soft.’
‘And you’re not?’
‘Listen, I’ve got to go. I’ll text you later.’ He sighed and rang off, running his hands irritably through his hair before heading back to his office.
*
Hal was feeding a mackerel line off the side of Freddie’s solid wooden rowing boat. His hair was flame red like his mother’s but, unlike her, he was as brown as a nut; he always went a deep golden brown like his dad. Freddie was pulling at the oars, his blond hair now almost bleached white in the intense heat of the Cornish summer.
The sun was hot and the sea smooth and both boys were stripped to their waists. Hal was wearing a pair of battered Converse and an old pair of cut-off jeans. Freddie, by contrast, looked as if he was out of a Ralph Lauren advert, in his tailored shorts and expensive deck shoes.
The only sound was that of the oars in the rowlocks as Freddie pulled them in and out of the water, backwards and forwards.
‘I’ve got another,’ Hal said, pulling a flapping gleam of mackerel out of the water and into a bucket that held two others. ‘I’m a mackerel magnet!’ He thumped his chest, Tarzan-style. ‘Can’t wait to get these babies over a fire.’
‘Do you always think about your stomach?’ Freddie laughed.
‘Oh, yes,’ said Hal, putting his baited line over the side again. ‘That and the gorgeous Kelly Brook. Keeps me busy.’
‘You’re always busy, ain’t yer!’ and Freddie made the universal sign for wanker at his best mate.
‘Oh, fuck off,’ Hal replied genially. ‘What you doing later?’
Freddie pulled a face. ‘Mum’s got me a maths tutor for the summer. Says I’ve got to buck up.’
‘Bollocks. Can’t you duck out? Dad’s getting the barbecue out later and Mum will be doing some of her Chinese pork ribs.’
The idea sounded a lot more appealing to Freddie than swotting over his maths books. Didn’t his mum know that it was summer?
‘What’s the point in maths anyway? Ain’t you going out on the boats when school’s finished?’
‘Not if Mum has her way. Stick me in a suit and call me an accountant, she would.’ Freddie frowned at the thought, but then something in the distance caught his attention. He stopped sculling and laid the oars inside the boat. ‘What’s that bloke doing up there?’ He pointed to the headland above Tide Cove.
Hal followed his gaze and saw the outline of a man struggling to stand up straight. As the two boys watched, the man staggered, fell over, got up again and then tottered to the edge of the cliff. Trying to find his balance, he staggered forward again and then, missing his step completely, fell and slid over the side of the cliff onto a narrow shale ledge, which began to crumble at its edge.
‘What the fuck’s he doing?’ said Freddie.
‘Oh shit,’ shouted Hal, and the two friends watched, horrified, as the man tried to stand again but slipped, breaking the shale beneath him. They heard his scream as he fell the one hundred metres headfirst into the sea below.
The boys remained shocked for a split second, then Hal pulled out his mobile phone and started to dial 999.
‘Shit. I haven’t got a fucking signal.’ He shook the phone violently, hoping that it would catch some radio waves, however small. Nothing.
Freddie had already turned the small boat round and was heading towards the spot where he thought the man had fallen.
‘Can you see him?’ he asked breathlessly.
‘Nothing.’ Hal was still waving his phone about. ‘Got it. Got a signal.’
Freddie pulled with all his might on his oars as he heard Hal speaking down the phone. ‘Hello? Yeah, there’s a man just fallen off the cliff at Tide Cove … I’m in a boat … no, it’s a rowing boat … about two minutes ago he fell. We’re on our way to see if we can find him but I think we’ll need the lifeboat … yeah, I’ll hang on but I might lose the signal … Hello, hello?’ He looked at the phone. ‘Shit. Lost signal.’
‘Are they coming?’ asked Freddie breathlessly.
‘She said she was going to put me through but—’ His phone rang. ‘Hello? Yes it was me who rang you … we need the lifeboat and an ambulance … I’m Hal Chandler … my dad’s the mechanic on the Trevay lifeboat … hello ? Hello?’
Hal threw the handset into the bottom of the boat in frustration. ‘The signal keeps going.’
‘They’ll get here,’ said Freddie, his arms straining with effort. ‘I know they will.’
For the next few minutes, neither boy spoke to the other. Freddie was trying to ignore the pain in his shoulders in an effort to keep the boat moving forwards, and Hal was kneeling in the prow of the boat, scanning the rolling sea.
‘I see him,’ he shouted suddenly.
Freddie drew the boat alongside the man, not knowing whether he wanted to see what lay there. ‘Is he breathing?’ he asked Hal.
‘He’s face up, anyway,’ said Hal.
Bravely he put his hand in the water and pulled at the man’s jacket, bringing him closer to the boat. ‘All right, mate?’ he said fearfully. ‘We got you.’
There was no response.
Freddie turned and looked over his shoulder at the man’s face. It was pallid, the eyelids puffy and closed. A good week’s worth of grey stubble covered his jowls and a frond of red seaweed had caught in it. ‘Is he dead?’
‘I don’t know,’ said Hal shakily.
‘Keep his head out of the water until the lifeboat comes,’ Freddie ordered.
‘I’m trying.’ But Hal didn’t know how much longer he could hold on.
*
Jesse was just a minute away from the office when he felt his pager vibrate in his pocket just as he saw Mickey dashing towards him.
His face was etched with anxiety.
‘We got a shout on the lifeboat, Jesse.’
‘Not a boat in trouble, not in this weather – the water’s as still as anything.’
‘There’s a body in the water. But, Jesse, it’s the boys.’
Jesse’s heart froze. ‘What do you mean?’
‘They made the call.’
All thoughts of lorries, John Dory and maths tutors fled his mind.
He and Mickey raced to the lifeboat station.
*
Freddie thought he could hear something. An engine coming fast from around the corner of the headland. He looked over his shoulder and, with a shout, said, ‘It’s them. They’re here.’ In crazy relief he stood up and started to wave and shout. ‘We’re over here! Dad, we’re over here!’
‘Sit down,’ shouted Hal. ‘You’re tipping the boat, I can’t keep hold of him.’
The Spirit of Trevay in its orange and blue livery, had never looked more wonderful as it approached the boys and the drowned man. At the helm was Jesse. ‘There they are,’ He slowed the powerful engines and expertly brought the boat alongside the small rowing boat.
Leaving the engines idling, and shouting orders to the crew, Jesse climbed up on deck and leant over the side. He saw the white faces of Freddie and Hal staring up from the little boat.
‘Are you boys all right?’ he called.
‘We’re fine, Dad,’ said Freddie with a sob of relief. ‘It’s this bloke, he fell off the cliff.’
Hal was still hanging on to the man’s jacket and valiantly keeping his head out of the water.
Jesse, thanking a God he wasn’t sure existed that the two boys weren’t harmed, took a look at the casualty. His heart skipped a beat and he involuntarily swore.
Mickey was up on deck now and scanning the rowing boat for Hal.
‘Hal!’ he called. ‘You’re OK?’
‘Yes, Dad.’
‘What you got there?’
‘This man just fell off the cliff,’ Hal called back, tears coming in shock and in the relief of seeing his father. ‘I’ve been holding him. I don’t know if he’s dead.’
Mickey was first to clamber down into the wooden boat and take the weight of the man from Hal. ‘It’s all right. I’ve got ’im. You can let go now.’
When Mickey could see the man’s face he frowned. ‘Jesse,’ he shouted. ‘It’s your’n brother. ’Tis Grant.’
Jesse was feeling an old sickness in his stomach, a sixth sense that the past was about to collide with the present. ‘Are you sure?’ he asked.
‘Yeah, I’m sure.’
Mickey had a toughness that his wiry frame belied. Swinging Grant’s body round in the water, he managed to get his hands under his arms and haul his dead weight into the bottom of the little boat.
‘Is he dead?’ asked Jesse, who as coxswain would never leave the lifeboat.
‘Give me a minute,’ said Mickey. He put his ear to the man’s nose to see if he could hear or feel any breath. It was hard to tell with the soft breeze playing around the two boats. He put a hand inside the collar of Grant’s camouflage jacket and felt the cold neck for a pulse.
Jesse and the boys waited.
‘I’ve got it!’ Mickey said. ‘I’ve got a pulse, but it’s faint. Radio for the ambulance to meet us on the harbour. Let’s get him back quick.’
*
The side ward in the hospital looked over the car park and a sprawling cemetery.
Grant lay in the bed with a drip in his arm, an oxygen tube in his nostrils and a big bandage round his head. The young doctor was talking to Grant’s parents and Jesse.
‘He’s had a pretty big bang to his head. He must have hit something when he fell. Not a rock but maybe a piece of flotsam. Piece of wood, maybe. There’s not much of a cut but he has a lot of swelling. When he wakes up he’s going to have quite a headache.’
‘It’s a miracle he didn’t drown,’ said Jan, his mother. She was sitting on a small chair at Grant’s bedside and was holding his hand.
‘Indeed,’ agreed the doctor. ‘He managed not to swallow much water but I think that the amount of alcohol he’d already consumed meant that he was very relaxed when he fell and therefore didn’t panic when he hit the water.’
Edward was standing by the window, his back to the room. He was watching an elderly man wearing a tweed hat standing by a grave. A small girl of about twelve, maybe his granddaughter, guessed Edward, was hopping and skipping around him whilst swinging a Marks & Spencer plastic bag. The man said something to her and she stopped her skipping and opened the bag, taking out a potted plant with garish pink blooms. The old man took it and reverentially removed his tweed hat and bent to place the offering at the headstone. As he struggled to stand up, the young girl offered her arm and the two of them walked away. Edward turned his back on the comforting mundanity of the scene, and faced his own.
‘It’s Freddie and young Hal I’m proud of,’ he said. ‘Young lads. To do what they did. Bloody brave.’
Jesse nodded. ‘Yeah. They’m did well.’
‘What was Grant doing on those cliffs?’ Edward asked. ‘We haven’t heard from him for years.’
‘Two years,’ said Jan. ‘We had that letter from him. Remember? Telling us he was out of – ’ she lowered her voice so that the doctor wouldn’t hear – ‘prison.’
Edward’s mouth tightened to a thin line. ‘Sorry, Doctor, but you may as well know. Grant has been a Heller all his life. Since he was a boy. If there was a fight he’d have started it, if there was trouble, he was in it.’ Edward shook his head. ‘When he joined the Marines we thought he was in the perfect job.’
‘He got his green beret, Doctor,’ said Jan, wanting the doctor not to think too badly of her son, but Edward ploughed on.
‘Fat lot of good that was. He couldn’t keep his fists to himself. Got court-martialled. Banged up in chokey for eight years.’ Edward put his hands to his head and rubbed his temples. ‘Dishonourably discharged four or five years ago. We haven’t heard from him since. He couldn’t even send me a note just to let me know he was all right. We had no idea he was back till today.’
Jan started to cry quietly and rummaged around in her handbag for a tissue.
Edward looked at her with pity. ‘He broke his mother’s heart and now look at him. I wish he’d never come back.’
Jan shouted through her tears. ‘Don’t say that.’
‘I’ll say what I like.’ Edward raised his voice in return. ‘He’s brought us nothing but heartache and—’
Jesse stepped in. ‘Dad. That’s enough. We’re all upset.’ He turned to the doctor. ‘I’m sorry, Doctor.’
*
Jesse had insisted that his parents go down to the hospital cafeteria to get something to eat and drink.
‘Let me sit with him till you get back.’
On his own with Grant, Jesse wondered what his brother’s dramatic reappearance would mean to the family. Did Grant know that Jesse was managing director of Behenna and Clovelly? Bryn and Edward were still nominally joint chief executives, but the day-to-day running of the company was in Jesse’s control. Had Grant come back hoping to get a slice of the company? There was no way Jesse would give him one. He looked down at Grant, lying so still in the bed, so white against the pillow. How could he come back here after all this time? Jesse had seen the damage that Grant’s behaviour had done to his parents, and he had worked his fingers to the bone doing fourteen-hour days to make Behenna and Clovelly the best in the business. He had clients across the globe, and a reputation that was the envy of his competitors. He was damned if Grant was going to come back and fuck it all up.
‘What are you doing back here, Grant?’ he asked.
Grant didn’t open his eyes. But he answered, ‘I missed my family.’
Jesse put his face close to his brother’s. ‘Well, we haven’t missed you,’ he said with menace.
‘That’s nice, little brother.’ Grant slowly opened his eyes and winced. ‘My head hurts.’
‘It will.’
‘I didn’t mean to fall off the edge. I was just having a little drink when I saw the boys in the boat. Thought I’d get a better look at ’em.’
Jesse’s heart started to pound. ‘You’re lucky we got you out.’
‘You rescued me?’ Grant coughed a little. ‘Got any water? My throat’s sore.’
Jesse looked and saw a plastic jug of water and a beaker on the bedside cabinet. He poured half a cup and handed it to Grant. ‘Here. I ain’t nursing you. Hold it yourself.’
‘How lucky I am to have a brother so kind.’ With difficulty, Grant took the cup and held it to his lips, taking a couple of mouthfuls. ‘So you rescued me then.’
‘Coxswain on the lifeboat, ain’t I.’
Grant attempted to laugh but started to cough, spilling the water on the bedclothes.
‘Lifeboat, eh? What a pillar of the community! So unlike your scallywag of a brother. How proud Mum and Dad must be,’ he said with venom.
Jesse couldn’t take any more of this bullshit. In a dangerous voice he said, ‘Just tell me what the fuck you’re doing here.’
‘I told you,’ Grant smiled. ‘I missed my family.’ He opened an eye. ‘And those lovely boys.’ He smiled a smile of pure evil. ‘By the way, how is the gorgeous Loveday? Oh, and your uptight wife, Greer? I’d have had a go at Loveday myself, but I don’t like taking sloppy seconds, especially from my little brother.’
Jesse lifted his fist and would have smashed it into Grant’s face sending him spiralling back to oblivion, if it hadn’t been for the door opening and the arrival of Jan and Edward.
Jan ran to Grant’s side. ‘Son. You’re awake. It’s OK. You’ve had a terrible fall but the doctor says you’ll be fine. You’re safe with your family now. We’ll take you home.’ She took his hand and, rubbing it, dropped a kiss on his forehead.
‘Thanks, Ma,’ said Grant. ‘Give us a hug.’
Laughing through her tears, she bent and hugged him as best she could.
Over her shoulder Grant looked at Jesse and winked slyly. ‘Yeah. I’m home, Ma. With my family. For good.’