Once he’d actually managed to find the place again, Dev slept all right that first night in the Spindrift B&B. If he didn’t count the dreams where Bench Bloke somehow turned out to be his long-lost dad and Ceri was his mum, for Christ’s sake, which was rich seeing as she had to be younger than he was. And everything was pink, but that was a direct result of the room. The B&B advertised itself as gay friendly, which was why he and Mal had chosen it, despite them not being actually a couple or even mates with benefits except on nights they got really wasted. Or lonely, or horny, or all three. Which was great, yeah, but for some reason the owners had decided that meant the whole bloody place had to look like an explosion in a Barbie factory. Dev wondered if Mrs. Quick would be offended if he started wearing his Ray-Bans indoors.
She’d dished him up an awesome cooked breakfast, described as “full Cornish” but which seemed pretty identical to a full English to Dev—there was fried egg, bacon, sausage, beans, and grilled tomato. The only difference seemed to be potato cakes instead of fried bread, and something called hog’s pudding where you’d normally get a slice of black pudding nobody in their right mind would touch with a bargepole. Dev ate the lot, including the hog’s pudding, which the lesbian couple from Glasgow he’d got talking to over breakfast told him tasted a lot like haggis. Dev had never had haggis, and he’d always reckoned it was one of those things everyone hated but ate because it was traditional, like Brussels sprouts at Christmas, but this stuff was actually tasty.
Huh. Maybe he’d pick up a haggis next time he saw them on offer at Tesco. Of course, he’d have to find out what neeps and tatties were if he did that, seeing as Val from Glasgow had said they were the only proper things to eat with haggis and then changed the subject before he could say, You what?
“And what will you be up to today?” Carol, the younger and prettier one, asked him. She was small and blond and talked a bit different from Val, like maybe she hadn’t always lived in Glasgow, but Dev didn’t know enough about Scottish accents to tell for sure. “Will you be doing a wee bit of surfing?”
Dev patted his belly with a grimace. “After eating this lot? I’d flippin’ sink. Probably cause a bloody tsunami on me way down and all. Nah, thought I’d take a wander up to Big Guns Cove and have a look around. What about you two?”
Carol glanced at Val and smiled. “We’ll be paying a visit to the Round Hole and the castle up on Caerdu Head. It’s steeped in Arthurian legend there, you know.”
Val snorted into her tea, although she somehow managed to make it sound fond. “Black knights and sea serpents, I ask you. When you know full well that castle was nae built till long after Arthur’s time. You stop your havering, and we’d best be away now, or we’ll not get anywhere. You have a good day, laddie, and we’ll see you tonight.”
Dev watched them go off smiling and hand in hand, and felt a bit melancholy for some reason. Of course, he was disappointed he hadn’t got to hear more about the black knights and sea serpents. Had they meant, like, black knights, meaning Turks or Saracens or whatever the fuck they’d called them in those days, or was it just a saying, like they’d had black hair or black flags or black hearts or something? And sea serpents were well cool, obviously.
Dev had half a mind to run after Val and Carol, say he’d go with them—except what kind of a git barged in on someone else’s couple time? No, he’d stick to his—hah—Big Guns and head off in the opposite direction.
At least he’d feel he was getting somewhere. Sort of.
First, though, Dev decided as he headed down the drive of the B&B, he was hitting the Square Peg Café. Not for another shite cup of coffee. To find out what was going on with Ceri. It’d make the round trip far enough to think about taking the bike—but sod it, it’d only be a couple of miles or so. And he really needed to walk off that breakfast. His jeans were tight enough already.
As he made his way through the town, Dev could hear church bells ringing, although they sounded a fair way off. For some reason, he’d forgotten it was a Sunday. Funny that. Second day of his hols and he’d already lost track of what day it was. That’d be St. Ia’s, then—the tourist info had mentioned that as one of the attractions. Maybe he’d find out where it was and pop in sometime, but not today. Dev wondered how he was supposed to pronounce it. Saint Eye-yah? Saint Ear? Why did they have to have all different saints around here anyhow? Most of the churches he knew back home were called Balham (Insert Denomination of Choice) Church, but even the sainted ones had names you recognised and knew how to say, like St. Mary or St. Anselm. He’d never even heard of a St. Ia, and he wasn’t that unreligious. Okay, so he never went to church except when someone he knew was getting hitched or had popped a sprog and was getting it christened, but he’d done years of RE in school.
Then again, he had failed his GCSE. Mostly due to arsing about during lessons, which had been a bit of a feature of his school career if he was honest. He hadn’t really got his head screwed on straight until he’d left the place and started at college, where they’d actually treated him like an adult, not a really dim, annoying toddler they’d be glad to see the back of.
Ceri was back in her frumpy skirt at the Square Peg Café, dishing out coffees with a surly grunt before moving on to clearing tables.
Dev marched straight up to her. “Oi, what was that all about?”
“What?” Ceri didn’t even look at him. She just carried on stacking plates. Badly.
Dev picked up a knife that’d skittered off a plate and onto the ground, and handed it to her. By the jam-smeared blade, because he was a gent like that. “You. Blowing me off last night.” He licked strawberry-flavoured sticky stuff off his fingers, and tried to ignore the sniggering coming from a couple of twin lads aged about twelve sitting round a table with Mum and Dad.
He briefly thought about explaining he hadn’t meant blowing me off in the sex sense, but decided it’d probably make them snigger even worse. Then he saw what they were eating and did a double take. Seriously? Dev liked a clotted cream tea as much as the next Brit, but not at ten o’clock in the flipping morning.
No wonder Ceri didn’t think much of tourists.
“Didn’t think you’d want me around no more, did I?” Ceri muttered. “After what she said to you.”
“Yeah, well, whoever she is, she can go . . . stuff herself.” Dev glanced guiltily at the kids, which nearly made them piss themselves. Dad carried on stuffing himself with his over-laden scone, oblivious, while Mum heaved a pointed sigh. Dev looked away again quickly. “You off at five again, yeah? I’ll see you then, all right.”
“Want to hear my side of the story, do you?”
“No. Far as I’m concerned, there ain’t no story. Just some ginger bi—bit of fluff stirring up sh—stuff, that’s all. I’ll see you later. And oi, smile a bit, yeah? I want two bags of crisps tonight.”
She did smile at that, so yeah, job done. Dev strolled off to reward himself with a cup of coffee from somewhere decent.
Not that he actually deserved a reward, seeing as he hadn’t done the first bloody thing about the whole reason he’d come here yet. But, well. He had three weeks, didn’t he? Plenty of time. And, yeah, this was his holiday, wasn’t it? Only one he’d be getting all summer. So he deserved a bit of relaxation, right? It’d put him in a better frame of mind for . . . stuff.
Dev found a place near the tourist information office that served him a proper Turkish coffee, thick as used engine oil but way tastier. Trouble was, all that caffeine left him keyed up and jumpy as he walked out of town on what he later realised, looking at the map the lady at the tourist information place had given him, was the wrong path. He’d come down the same way, he reckoned, that Ceri had taken him to the Sea Bell last night, but before he got as far as the pub there was a fork off to the right leading back the way he wanted to go. Dev took it, and a few minutes later found himself looking across a broad, sandy cove.
There was a lifeboat station with a weird, curved roof directly below him, which according to the map made this Mother Ivey’s Bay. The sea stretched out forever in front of him. Under the clear skies—so different from yesterday Dev wouldn’t have believed it—the water was a rich, deep blue it hurt to gaze at. Salt-laden air ruffled his hair, which he hadn’t bothered to gel, and drenched his lungs, so fresh it made his chest catch.
The beach looked better than Dev could ever have imagined for somewhere in Britain. If the weather kept shaping up warm, he was going to be back here later with his trunks on. There was a broad stretch of golden sand on which a few families had already staked their claims, loomed over by dark, craggy cliffs. There wasn’t anyone in the water yet, except a couple of toddlers paddling with their dad at the water’s edge, shrieking and running as the waves broke gently on their little legs.
Dev wandered along the narrow road that hugged the contours of the cliffs, its edges bordered by scraggy little bushes that might have been gorse or heather or something. He wasn’t all that good on plants, all right? The beach ducked in and out of sight with the bends in the road, but the view was never less than seriously awesome.
He’d heard places described as “unspoilt” before, but he’d never really got what it meant until he saw this cove. All right, so up top where he was right now, there was a road and a car park and stuff—a few odd shops and a pottery, it looked like—but down on the beach there was nothing except what nature had bunged down there. No public lavs, no kiosks, not even anyone hiring out pedalos or windsurfers.
Dev was used to a beach being somewhere you went to muck about and have a laugh with your mates, or sleep off your hangover after clubbing all night. This place, though . . . It was about as different from Magaluf as, well, Porthkennack was from Balham.
And maybe this place really was in his blood, because for a moment the thought of going back home to the dirt and the smells and the endless, soulless brick, concrete, and tarmac of London seemed almost unbearable. Even the cries of the gulls overhead seemed less earsplitting today, more just part of the scenery.
Then one of them shat on his bare arm, the droopy-beaked bastard.
Christ, that was gross. And he had sod all to wipe it up with. Fucking marvellous. Dev glanced around—any mums up here with young kiddies? A baby wipe would be magic right now, ta very much.
No such luck. They were all either on the beach already or still in their holiday homes spooning goo into tiny mouths. Dev did see someone up on the cliff with him, though. Was it . . .? He blinked. Yeah, it was him all right.
Bench Bloke. The drunk from yesterday. He was standing on the cliff a hundred yards or so ahead, round past the end of the beach where the cliffs climbed up to the Big Guns place. And he was too bloody close to the edge for Dev’s liking. For Christ’s sake, there was a warning sign and everything.
Of course, if you were planning to jump . . .
Ah, sod it. Dev looked at his arm. The bird shit was already starting to dry in the sun. He crouched down, wiped it off quickly and ineffectively on one of the least scratchy-looking bushes, and jogged on over to Bench Bloke. With all this good karma Dev was storing up, he was going to come back as a bloody billionaire in the next life.
“All right, mate?” he called out.
The sea-blue eyes seemed a lot more alert today as they swung round to focus on him. A frown formed a crease between them. “You’re . . . from yesterday. In town.”
He didn’t look like an alcoholic. He didn’t have the bloodshot eyes, the reddened complexion, and the broken veins Dev remembered from Mal’s uncle. He just looked tired. He’d trimmed his beard since yesterday. Dev was relieved to see it. He couldn’t be that far gone if he’d bothered to get out the trimmers. Anyway, the more groomed vibe suited him, and weirdly, didn’t make him seem any less at home here on the wild, craggy clifftop.
“Uh, yeah. Listen, mate, you wanna step back from the edge a bit? I’m getting vertigo just looking at you.”
“Worried I’ll fall?” He sounded bitter.
“No, I’m worried the sea spray’s gonna mess up your hair.” It came out a bit sharper than Dev meant it to. “Course I’m bloody worried you’re gonna fall,” he added in a softer tone, then ruined it all by adding an automatic, “you tosser,” on the end.
Shit. Then again, maybe not, because the bloke actually smiled at that, the half smile Dev remembered from yesterday.
Then he stepped away from the edge, thank Christ. “Happy now?”
“Over the fucking moon.” Dev had meant it to sound sarcastic, but it came out mostly relieved. “I’m Dev,” he added quickly before the bloke could pick him up on it. “From London. Here for a few weeks. You?”
The bloke blinked, like he hadn’t been expecting conversation. “Kyle,” he said at last. “From Epsom in Surrey, although I live here now.”
Dev nodded, then realised that’d look a bit odd. “Yeah. I heard.”
Aaand there went the smile. Fizzled out like a ciggie in a urinal, and Dev had been the one who’d chucked it there. Bugger it. “Heard a lot about me, have you?” If Dev had thought Kyle sounded bitter earlier, his tone now could curdle clotted cream.
Dev forced a cheeky smile. “Yeah, mate. Didn’t you know? You got your own page on the Tourist Info website.”
Result. The smile was back. Except it was a bit more twisted than Dev would’ve liked. “On display for a limited time only: the incredible collapsing man.”
“Hey, we all got our problems. Listen, do you wanna go for a—” Dev broke off. Shit, had he really been about to offer an alcy a drink? He stared at Kyle, appalled. “Shit, sorry, no, course not—”
Kyle stared back for a mo, eyes wide—then, which was weird as fuck, burst out laughing.
And fell over.