Fern Britton Short Story Collection: The Stolen Weekend, A Cornish Carol, The Beach Cabin

This was immediately followed by the clatter of buckets being overturned as Helen came dashing out of the bathroom and down the stairs. She managed to catch him before the front door of the cottage had creaked fully open.

‘Where are you going? You promised me that someone would come out to have a look at it. That was days ago and we’re still waiting.’

‘Think you’re the only one with a leaky roof? There’s plenty worse off than you, maid, and I can’t be expected to sit twiddling my thumbs, waiting!’

‘So I have sit around and twiddle mine! But of course, my time isn’t important, unlike Piran Ambrose, historian of note!’

Piran frowned at the sarcasm in her voice. ‘What exactly have you got to do that is more important than my job?’

‘Er …’ Helen faltered momentarily, but then rallied: ‘I promised to run Queenie down to the surgery later. Her bunions are playing up.’ She jutted her chin out defiantly.

‘Bunions, eh? Really? How taxing for you.’ Piran was quite good at sarcasm himself when it suited. ‘Look, maid, we’re talking about the discovery of a Roman fort here! This is the most significant find Cornwall’s seen in decades – and it’s only two miles from my own doorstep. Opportunities like that don’t come along very often in a historian’s life. The archeological team need all the local support they can get. The bad weather has hampered the dig and they’ve got to work quickly if the site isn’t going to be washed away by more bad weather.’

Piran and Helen stood at the door and looked out at the ominous sky.

‘But what about me and the cottage? Aren’t we in danger of being washed away too?’ she asked plaintively.

Piran shook his headed and headed off towards his car, speaking as he went: ‘Look, I’ve asked Gasping Bob to come out, He should be here later.’

‘Who?’ Helen shouted after him.

‘Gasping Bob!’ And with that, Piran climbed into his pickup and sped off.

‘For some reason,’ Helen said to herself, ‘that name doesn’t inspire me with confidence.’

‘Where’s my phone?’ Simon’s panicked voice carried through the hallway and upstairs to where Penny was hunting for some ibuprofen in the bathroom cabinet. She was finding it impossible to wind down. Even though the shoot was over, the phone hadn’t stopped ringing with requests and queries for Simon. His stress levels were starting to get to her now. She’d slept badly and had a throbbing pain in her shoulder, not to mention the remnants of a hangover.

‘By the front door, on the sideboard,’ she shouted back, riffling through the packets of aspirin, indigestion remedies and vitamin C tablets.

Moments later, another anxious shout: ‘My car keys, where are they? I just had them in my hand.’

‘Oh, for heaven’s sake!’ Penny gave up her fruitless search and headed downstairs. She found Simon anxiously hopping from foot to foot. ‘Where did you have them last?’

‘Just now!’ His voice was a strangled screech.

‘Calm down, darling. They won’t have gone far.’

Penny’s eyes spied his Nokia, still on the sideboard, and next to it a set of keys.

‘Here you are, Simon. You must have put them both down when you put your coat on. Now, is that everything?’

‘Er … not sure, possibly not. Look, I’ve got to go – I’ve should have been at St Peter’s ten minutes ago! Bye.’

He planted a distracted peck on her cheek and then dashed out the door.

As the house settled into silence, Penny let out a sigh of relief. ‘Right, now for half an hour on the sofa with a hot-water bottle on my shoulder.’

Switching her mobile phone off, Penny boiled a kettle, filled her hot-water bottle with its Paddington Bear cover – tatty and much loved since childhood – and headed off to put her feet up. She’d no sooner arranged herself on the sofa than the doorbell rang. Penny pretended not to hear it. It rang again. More insistently this time.

‘Bother, bother, bother.’

Penny launched herself from the sofa and stomped down the corridor. She threw open the door, ready to tell whoever it was to bugger off, but managed to bite back on the words when she found herself confronted by the toothless grin of Queenie Quintrel.

Normally Penny would have been delighted to welcome the ancient Cockney proprietress of the village store, but right now she wasn’t it the mood. She offered a tight smile. ‘Queenie. What an unexpected pleasure.’

Queenie had run the village store for longer than anyone could remember. An evacuee from London during the war, she’d stayed on and married a local man. She’d never lost her accent, and her outspoken manner and blue rinse were as famous as the home-made pasties she sold in her shop.

‘Wotcha, Pen. Ain’t you expecting me?’ An untipped fag dangled between her lips, its blue smoke wisping its way into the Vicarage.

This left Penny on the back foot. ‘Er, should I be?’

‘Yeah! You ain’t forgot, ’ave yer?’

‘Possibly.’

‘The Great Pendruggan Bake-Off, ain’t it! Raising money for the St Morwenna’s Respite Home for the Elderly. We’re all supposed to be making something and you and me was gonna be a team, remember?’

Penny’s heart sank. Yes, she did remember now. How could this have come around so quickly?

‘But I thought that was months away?’

Queenie gave one of her trademark cackles. ‘Well, it was months away, months ago! I did tell Simon to remind you I was coming round today when I saw him at church on Sunday.’

‘He’s got so much on his mind, he must have forgotten. Does it have to be today? You see, I’ve …’

Queenie wasn’t taking no for an answer. ‘It’s gotta be today. I’ve got Simple Tony in, minding the shop for a couple of hours, but you know what ’e’s like! Anyway, the first round of judging is tomorrow and we’re on. Dontcha remember, we’ve called ourselves “The Best of the West”. I’m doing the best of Cornwall with my Cornish pasty pie and you’re doing the best of London with those little puff-pastry cheesecakes, Richmond Maids of Honour.’

‘But I haven’t done any shopping … the ingredients … the recipes …?’

‘Never you mind about that, dearie. I’ve got all we need in this little bag of tricks.’ Queenie stood aside to reveal a bulging tartan shopping bag on wheels, fit to bursting with bags of flours and other sundry items.

‘Now shove out the way. We’d better get a move on.’

Penny stood aside as Queenie wheeled all before her. Her shoulders sagged, as she felt all resistance drain away – along with any hope of five minutes’ peace.

2 (#ulink_4fc3aa3c-4a7f-5d4b-9782-d22195add94d)

Helen ended up waiting in all day for ‘Gasping Bob’. Despite leaving him numerous messages, there had been no word from Piran. Presumably he’d been so absorbed in his Roman fort that he’d forgotten all about her. That evening, the storm took a nasty turn as another weather front settled in over the region. Helen made her way up to bed with a strong sense of foreboding about what the latest bout of wind and rain would do to her little cottage. She slept fitfully and was already awake when a large chunk of her bedroom ceiling caved in, the water cascading down the flaking plaster and all over her John Lewis symmetric weave, thick-pile rug.

Not normally given to crying, she sat in stunned silence and surveyed the wreckage of what used to be her bedroom. Feeling the hot well of tears threatening to bubble over, Helen realised she had reached some sort of breaking point. Grabbing her dressing gown, she made her way down to the front door and pulled on her wellies. Within minutes she’d jumped into her little car and driven the short distance to Piran’s house. It took a few angry thumps on the old wooden front door before his gruff voice could be heard from within.

‘All right, keep your ruddy ’air on. Where’s the fire?’

The words died in his mouth as he took in the vision of his usually elegant and graceful girlfriend. Sopping wet and looking like she’d been dragged through a hedge backwards, Helen fired out her words like short, sharp pistol shots.

‘If I have to suffer one more night of Chinese water torture in my own home, I, Helen Merrifield, am personally going to beat you, Piran Ambrose, to death’ – she yanked a sodden and muddy welly from one foot – ‘with this Wellington boot!!’ She brandished it at him.

For a moment Piran could only stand there in his hastily pulled on boxers, gawping at her. Then he collapsed into gales of helpless laughter. Helen promptly burst into tears and Piran scooped her up, took her inside and then tucked her up in his bed.