Storm is mooching about when I get home.

‘Where have you beeeeeen?’ she whines, pulling off my denim jacket and throwing it at the coatstand. She misses and it crumples down the back of the radiator.

‘I went to Jennifer’s and then had a walk across the cliffs. It’s gorgeous up there. You ought to try it sometime.’

‘What, walking?’ Storm shudders. ‘I don’t think so. It sucks that there’s nothing like the Tube round here but why would I walk more than I have to?’

‘Exercise. Fresh air. Pleasure.’

Storm gives a ‘does not compute’ frown and propels me into the kitchen, which is spotless with piles of gleaming washed pots on the drainer. Emily’s been busy.

‘Whatever. I was worried Jacques would get back before you and it would just be the two of us in the house ’cos Emily’s out.’

‘I thought you were out too with Serena and you don’t need to be worried about Jacques anyway,’ I say confidently, though there’s a slight niggle at the back of my mind.

Is it irresponsible to have a stranger in the house? I know very little about him – apart from the fact he was once an adulterer who seduced foreign students. Which really doesn’t help.

‘Serena’s going out to see some old friend of her mum’s who’s down here on holiday from Derby or Dundee or somewhere.’ She grimaces because if it’s north of London it doesn’t exist. ‘They invited me along but I didn’t fancy it. Having lunch with old ladies isn’t much fun and someone from school might see me. Anyway, I thought you could take me to the pub for lunch. To cheer me up. I need chips.’

‘Gee, thanks, Storm. That’s very kind of you to allow me to buy you lunch.’

‘Yeah, I think so too.’ Storm grabs her ginormous plastic sunglasses from the kitchen table and flings open the back door. ‘Come on then. I didn’t have any breakfast ’cos I was so, like, traumatised and now I’m getting hangry.’

Hungry plus angry is a toxic mix when it comes to Storm so I grab my keys and usher her outside.

To be honest, it’s nice going out with Storm, even when I’m merely viewed as a meal ticket. But maybe the pub isn’t such a good idea this lunchtime.

‘Let’s go to Maureen’s instead,’ I suggest when we get closer to her tea shop, which is looking jaunty in the sunshine. Striped red and blue bunting is pinned above the door and tourists are chatting at tables covered in red gingham cloths.

‘Nah, you’re all right. I’d rather go to the pub.’

‘You can have a sundae at Maureen’s with clotted cream and chocolate sprinkles.’

Some mother substitute I am, tempting Storm to get stuck into a mountain of sugar. But she keeps on walking.

‘Nah, I need lots of chips. It’s definitely a carbs kind of day when your own mother doesn’t want to see you.’

Sighing, I catch up with my half-sister and follow her towards the whitewashed pub. Maybe I’m feeling awkward unnecessarily and Jennifer will give Jacques the brush off, just like he let her down almost forty years ago.

---

The Whistling Wave is heaving with even more people than usual on an August afternoon and I don’t recognise half of them. They’ll be holidaymakers spending a week away in gorgeous Cornwall before heading home to the rat race. I get a sudden pang for the buzz and excitement of London but ignore it.

‘Why is this place so rammed?’ complains Storm, trying to hurry up a young man and woman who are leaving their table by standing uncomfortably close.

‘Let them have some space.’

I give the back of Storm’s T-shirt a gentle tug and she steps back a millimetre while the tourists hurriedly grab their bags and leave.

‘Well, that worked.’ Storm sinks onto the woman’s chair and puts her elbows on the table that’s littered with salt specks, sauce splatters and breadcrumbs. ‘Ooh, this table’s disgusting! Did they get any food in their mouths?’

‘It’s mad in here today,’ says Kayla, suddenly appearing with a cloth and knocking all the table detritus onto the uneven flagstones. ‘Are you eating? Specials are on the board.’ She reels them off by heart without an ounce of enthusiasm.

‘What would you recommend?’ I ask her.

‘Definitely not the boeuf bourguignon ’cos Dan’s getting it out of a tin. He’s filling in for Frank, who’s off sick, and let’s just say that cooking isn’t his forte. Sadly, watching The Great British Bake Off doesn’t turn you into a chef. The crab salad’s all right ’cos there’s not a lot that he can do to spoil that.’

‘Can he cook chips?’ Storm is so worried, she stops texting for a second.

‘Even Dipshit Dan can manage the deep fat fryer though I wouldn’t want to be near that today. It’s so hot in the kitchen during the summer, I can’t be doing with being in there.’

‘But you’re from Australia. You should be used to soaring temperatures.’

‘Yeah, but in Oz we have a nifty little invention called air conditioning.’ Kayla pants and blows her fringe off her forehead. ‘I’m going to take a break in a min so order your food at the bar and I’ll come and join you.’

By the time I’ve fought my way to the bar and placed our orders, Kayla has clocked off for lunch and comes to sit with us.

‘Don’t you think Roger needs a hand?’

Roger has damp patches under his armpits and his sparse, grey hair is sticking up like grass.

‘He had a break a while back so it’s my turn. What’s going on with those two then? Roger says he’s your B&B bloke.’

She takes a slurp of lemonade and tilts the glass towards a table at the back where Jennifer and Jacques are talking, heads bent together. She did turn up then. While I’m staring, Jennifer glances up and catches my eye. Oh, great! She’ll think I’m in here spying on them.

‘I have no idea what those two are doing. None at all. Why should I know? No one tells me anything. It’s a complete mystery.’

Oops, I’m talking too much. Taking a huge swig of my sickly sweet orange juice, I pretend to be studying the desserts menu, but Kayla narrows her green eyes.

‘You’d tell me if you did know, wouldn’t you, Sunshine?’

‘Of course I would.’

I give a little laugh as though I’d rather gouge out my own eyeballs than keep a secret from my blabbermouth Aussie friend.

‘Hhmm. It all looks a bit intimate to me. Do you think they’re on a date?’

‘What?’ Storm snorts so hard, Coke dribbles down her nose and she blots at it with a tissue. ‘Those two on a date? They’re both, like, ancient.’

‘I hate to break it to you, Storm mate, but even old people go on dates. Sometimes they even have sexual intercourse.’

‘Eew, that is disgusting.’ Storm pulls a face and slams her drink down on the table. Sugary liquid slops over the glass and dribbles across the wood.

‘Hey, watch it. I’m the sucker who’s got to mop that up. What’s the matter with you today, anyway? You’ve got a face like a bulldog chewing a wasp.’

‘Nothing,’ mutters Storm, arms folded and strop-face on.

‘Weren’t you supposed to be going up to London today, to see your mum?’

Storm shakes her head.

‘Storm’s trip had to be cancelled at the last minute because the situation at her mum’s house changed.’

‘That’s a shame.’ Kayla wiggles her eyebrows at me but doesn’t pursue it, thank goodness. The last thing I need is Storm going off on one in a packed pub while Jacques is watching. ‘So what’s happening with running the B&B then, Annie? Can you see yourself doing it long-term?’

‘Maybe, as long as the roof repair holds. But what do the locals think about having a B&B in the village? Jennifer was a bit iffy.’

‘Jennifer’s always a bit iffy but it’s your house and no one can tell you what to do with it. Not everyone liked the thought of you reviving the choral society but now half of them claim it was their idea. And anyway, Alice left the house to you and not to them.’

Now Kayla is talking too much. ‘So what you’re saying is that people have been kicking up a fuss about it.’

‘A few, maybe. But they’re just set in their ways round here. And who cares what people think anyway?’

‘I do. Salt Bay’s my home and I don’t want to upset the people who live here.’

‘Pah!’ exclaims Kayla. ‘They’ll be far more upset if you sell the house to Toby and he turns it into holiday flats, especially if he rents them out to his posh idiot friends.’

‘You what?’ Storm’s head jerks up from her Twitter feed.

‘Nice one, blabbermouth.’

‘How was I supposed to know you hadn’t told her?’ whines Kayla, rubbing her shin where I’ve just kicked her.

‘There’s nothing to tell because nothing’s been decided. It’s just a possibility.’

‘And they don’t tell me anything anyway ’cos they think I’m just a kid.’

‘We don’t think that but we don’t want to worry you.’

‘Barry used to say that but all it means is I worry all the time that there’s stuff no one’s telling me. And I get that you’re short of cash, Annie, but if you sell the place to Toby and he mucks it about, the old lady will come back and haunt you.’

Cheers, Storm. My sister goes back to tweeting in a right old huff while Jennifer and Jacques continue their conversation in the corner. One event changed the course of Jennifer’s life forever and I’m at a fork in the road too. One way leads to Salt Bay and possible penury while the other leads to who knows where.

‘Here you are – bon appetit!’

Dan slams down a crab salad in front of me and a plate piled high with chips in front of Storm. The fish I insisted Storm order with her chips is almost hidden beneath a mound of deep-fried potato.

‘How’s it going, Dan. Busy day today?’

It’s a rhetorical question but I feel sorry for the poor bloke who looks like he’s on fire, from the tip of his scarlet nose to the ends of his pillar-box-red ears.

‘It’s manic, the fryer keeps going on the blink and I’m going to tell Roger he owes me double-time for coming in on my day off.’

‘Good luck with that,’ murmurs Kayla, glancing at her boss, who’s scolding an emmet for resting his feet on a chair. He spots Dan talking to us and gestures for him to get back into the kitchen.

‘Unbe-feckin-lievable after I’ve done him a favour!’

Dan stalks off in a fug of sweaty pique while Storm gets stuck into her chips and I take a mouthful of crab salad. Ugh, Dan hasn’t washed the lettuce too well and it’s gritty. I start forlornly pushing the salad around my plate with a fork.

‘Look at the three of us!’ Kayla leans back in her chair and stretches her arms out wide. ‘Here we are in one of the most beautiful places in the world – Cornwall, that is, not the pub – on a gloriously sunny day. But I’m hideously overworked’ – she says that last bit extra loudly for Roger’s benefit– ‘you, Storm, are miserable ’cos your holiday’s off for some strange reason I haven’t got to the bottom of and you, Annabella, are worried sick about money and property. Come on, live a little. I mean, you’re getting married to a lovely man. He’s not my type – far too glowery. But you make a lovely couple. We so need to cheer ourselves up.’

She drums her fingers on the table and then her face breaks into a huge grin. ‘I know exactly what’ll do the trick. We can go wedding dress shopping on Saturday afternoon. There’s that new shop in Trecaldwith that’s down near the bank.’

‘That sounds lovely, Kayla, but being worried sick about money means I can’t buy wedding dresses from posh, expensive shops.’

‘We don’t have to buy them, silly. Just try loads on, have a giggle and get some ideas for when we hit the high street, which had better be soon ’cos you’re getting married in just over a month. And Storm can try on some bridesmaids’ dresses.’

Storm pauses with a chip halfway from plate to mouth. ‘You’ve gotta be kidding, right? There’s no way I’m dressing up in some sugar-pink frilly thing with bows or I might do a Serena and refuse to be a bridesmaid at all.’

I can imagine Storm in a sugar-pink frilly thing with bows. She’d look rather lovely, with her scowl. Like the grumpy, foul-mouthed princess of South Cornwall.

‘You’d better come with us on Saturday and try some dresses on then so you can point us away from the frilly pink meringues,’ says Kayla, giving me a wink. ‘We could always have lunch afterwards at KFC.’

‘Hhmm.’ Storm is more interested now there’s the possibility of a Bargain Bucket. ‘I suppose I could come, seeing as I’ve already arranged with Jennifer to have this Saturday off. Talking of which’ – she glances at her boss, who’s listening attentively to her former lover – ‘that is so lame.’

‘What is?’

‘Old people getting it on when it’s far too late and they should know better. You and Josh are bad enough kissing all over the place.’

She wrinkles her nose and contemplates a better world where no one over the age of thirty is allowed any physical contact on pain of public humiliation. What a miserable world that would be.

The scrum at the bar has thinned out and Roger ambles over with a grubby cloth that he’s using to mop his brow.

‘Phew, that was a busy half hour. The trouble with coach parties is they all pitch up at the same time and expect immediate service. They were heading for Land’s End but the driver got lost. I mean, all you have to do is head for the end of Cornwall. How hard can that be?’

He huffs and puffs and wipes the sweaty cloth across our table while I wince. Roger isn’t the hottest on hygiene. His kitchen’s not too bad and the pub is dust-free but his personal hygiene leaves a lot to be desired. His belly is busting out of his beer-spattered T-shirt, and greying bristles are sprouting from his chin. I give a little sniff. Yep. Roger definitely has a whiff of chip fat about him.

‘What’s the score with those two, Rog?’ asks Kayla.

‘Monsieur Bouton is someone from her past.’ Roger sighs and stuffs the cloth into his trouser pocket.

‘Really? I can’t imagine Jennifer with a racy past. Are you sure?’

‘I asked her when she was buying their drinks. She said she knows him from her time in Paris, when she was studying music at that fancy-arse place. Then she told me to stop being so nosey which is rich coming from her.’

He gestures for me to shuffle along the window seat and wallops his backside down next to me. ‘Do you think she’ll go back with him?’

‘What, to France?’ Kayla laughs. ‘Why on earth would she? They’re only talking and it’s not like they were lovers or anything.’

She glances at me and starts bouncing up and down. ‘Ooh, they were! OMG! Go, Jennifer!’

Damn my stupid face which is hopeless at keeping secrets. Storm does a mock retch and goes back to her tweeting.

‘Shush, Kayla. It’s Jennifer’s business so let’s leave it that way. And you’re leaping ahead, Roger. They’re only catching up.’

‘You’re right,’ he says firmly. ‘Jennifer would never desert Salt Bay and give up all that this village has to offer.’

Kayla stretches her arms above her head and yawns. ‘Nah, of course not. She’d never leave behind an empty bed and early morning starts in a village that smells of fish for a posh house with Monsieur Smoothy Chops in the chic French capital.’

She giggles and nicks a chip from Storm’s plate but Roger’s beefy shoulders slump.

‘Huh! What’s so special about Paris?’

‘The Louvre,’ says Kayla helpfully. ‘And the Seine. And the Eiffel Tower and Montmartre. Plus brilliant food – better than Dan can manage.’ She prods my limp lettuce which is definitely gritty.

‘There’s no way sensible Jennifer will run off with that smarmy French bloke who’s not so hot compared to Cornish men. What’s he got that I haven’t?’ asks Roger rather unwisely, puffing out his chest.

‘Nothing, apart from a sense of humour, Gallic good looks and a thirty-two-inch waist,’ sniggers Kayla but she stops when I kick her again under the table. Roger blusters and grumps his way through life but right now he looks vulnerable and upset. He stares at the floor and breathes out heavily.

‘Just joking, mate,’ says Kayla. ‘You’re not bad for a Cornish bloke in his sixties.’

‘Fifties,’ mutters Roger.

‘Yeah, that’s what I meant. Fifties.’ Kayla winces at me and shrugs.

‘Would you be upset if Jennifer did leave?’ I ask Roger gently.

‘I dunno. Probably. Yeah. I’ve never thought of it before because I reckoned she’d always be around. But me and Jennifer go way back, and the place wouldn’t be the same without her.’

‘I’m sure you’re leaping to all sorts of wrong conclusions. And whatever may or may not have happened between them in the past, Jennifer’s not the type of woman to go ga-ga over an old suitor.’

As I finish speaking, Jennifer lets out a high-pitched tinkly laugh that carries across the pub. I’ve never heard her do tinkly before and it’s slightly disturbing. Roger closes his eyes and sighs. ‘I have a bad feeling about this.’