A Good Catch: The perfect Cornish escape full of secrets

Jesse was still just a boy. Let him have his dreams; there was time enough to be a man.

*

Jesse left the cool of the narrow lane of terraced fisherman’s cottages, and was walking up the hill away from Trevay and towards St Peter’s, the fishermen’s church. The graveyard slumbered in the warm sun and delicate white cow parsley heads shuddered in the light breeze, making shadow patterns over the cushions of forget-me-nots growing beneath them. He always glanced at his grandfather’s grave as he passed. Today its granite headstone glittered like a smile. Jesse touched his brow and saluted his grandfather before carrying on up the hill towards the sheds.

The sheds were a series of around thirty to forty home-built wooden structures, owned by the people of the town who had no garages attached to their houses, which, since most of the houses were built long before the motor car was invented, was the majority. The sheds had started as makeshift stables and boat-houses but now contained all the detritus of modern living. It was a kind of shanty town sited on a two-acre plot of flattened mud and sand. Opposite the sheds, some of which were now two storeys, stood a long line of boats of all kinds. Dinghies, clinker boats, fishing boats, rotting hulks, along with trailers of varying sizes on which the boats could be towed down the hill, through the town and down the harbour slipway into the water. At the entrance to the sheds was the second of only two public phone boxes in Trevay. The other box was down on the quay. Every resident knew the number of these boxes and regular calls were made between the two to give a shout to the lifeboat crew or call a man home for his tea.

Jesse walked past the phone box, kicking up a little sandy dust as he did so. He looked over to his father’s shed, which had expanded over the years and was now a run of four sheds linked together. On the upper floor were the words Behenna Boat Yard est. 1936, painted in fading blue and white letters.

He saw Mickey before Mickey saw him. His best friend since nursery school, Mickey Chandler was the person Jesse shared everything with. Mickey was standing outside his own family’s smaller shed, unlocked now with its doors wide open to the sun, and was polishing the chrome of his pride and joy: a two-year-old Honda moped, a present from his family and friends for his recent sixteenth birthday.

Jesse lengthened his stride, taking the headphones from his ears and calling, ‘Hey.’ Mickey stood up and shielded his eyes with the hand holding the stockinet duster; Jesse could smell the metal cleaner on it.

‘Hey,’ he replied.

Jesse was now close enough to give his best mate a punch on the arm, which was returned with equal force and affection.

‘I thought you were revising,’ Mickey said, returning to his polishing.

‘I thought you were too.’

‘Waste of fuckin’ time, isn’t it?’

‘Yeah. Want a snout?’

‘Please.’

Jesse pulled a crumpled packet of Player’s No. 6 out of his pocket and offered one to Mickey.

‘Ta.’

‘You got a light?’

‘No. Have you?’

‘No.’

‘Shit.’

Both boys pondered on the dilemma of having cigarettes but no means of smoking them. Mickey laughed first. ‘You’re bloody useless, Behenna.’

Jesse grabbed his friend in a headlock and they scuffled contentedly for several minutes.

Eventually they stopped

‘Bike’s looking good,’ Jesse told him.

‘Got my test next week.’

‘Gonna pass?’

‘Of course.’

‘Can I come out with you?’

‘Sure. I’m gonna ask Loveday out when I’ve got me licence.’

Jesse’s heart flipped at the sound of Loveday’s name. Mickey was in love with Loveday and had never made any secret of it. Jesse had never admitted to Mickey that the mention of her name, let alone the sight of her, was enough to shoot a flame of desire and longing coursing through his body.

‘Her arse is too big for the seat,’ he observed.

Mickey smiled. ‘Yeah. And what an arse. Imagine having her arms around you, holding tight, pressing those big boobs against your shoulder blades.’

Jesse could imagine all too clearly, but said only, ‘Fill your boots, boy.’

3 (#ua1629851-8146-5fc8-8ac7-cc02047107f9)

‘How do I look in these?’ Loveday had struggled into a pair of lime-green leggings, her face flushed and perspiring.

Greer, sitting neatly on the edge of Loveday’s unmade bed, wondered what to say. Should she tell her friend that she looked embarrassing? That the hideous leggings were pulling at the seams and clearly revealing the revolting cellulite clinging to her thighs. Could she tell her that she needed to lose a lot of weight and learn how to dress properly? Though on the plus side – and Greer did feel slightly guilty about this – Loveday did make Greer look great by comparison.

‘You look like Loveday Carter,’ she managed.

Loveday turned back to her reflection in the mirror that hung off the back of her bedroom door. ‘I like the colour. They didn’t ’ave ’em in the next size, but I’m gonna lose a bit of weight before the summer comes.’ She turned sideways and looked at herself from right and left. ‘If I put on my orange T-shirt, that’ll cover me bum.’

Greer looked down at her own slim legs in their perfectly fitting Pepe jeans. The orange T-shirt might cover Loveday’s bottom, but it wasn’t going to disguise the two rolls of fat wobbling between the bottom edge of her bra and the elastic waist of the leggings.

‘There. What d’ya think?’ Loveday asked a few moments later. Greer looked up.

She wanted to say, ‘Loveday. You look ghastly. You couldn’t be wearing a less flattering outfit. Your breasts are too big, your stomach is enormous and your derrière huge.’

Instead, she said, ‘It’s very you.’ She stood up and smoothed her hands over her own trim derrière, brushing off imaginary flecks. Loveday was now at her dressing-table mirror. The dressing table itself was strewn with several used cotton wool balls and a large amount of ancient make-up; a cold, half-drunk cup of tea and an empty Diet Coke tin. Hanging from a glass hand with curved upright fingers were strings of gaudy beads and a worn pair of knickers.

Greer pulled the collar of her crisp white shirt up at the nape of her neck and checked that the cuffs of her sleeves were turned back as the models in her mother’s monthly Vogue magazine did. She wanted to get out and see Jesse. ‘Come on. The boys will be waiting for us.’

Loveday took one last look in the mirror and smacked her matte red lips together. Recently she’d been copying Madonna’s make-up, even adding the beauty spot above her lip with an eye pencil. ‘I can’t find my black pencil so I’ve used the green one. I rather like it. What do you think?’ she said, turning to Greer. ‘It shows off me green eyes, don’t it?’

Greer blew her cheeks out and thought for a moment. ‘I think you look … unique.’

Loveday hugged her uptight friend. ‘You are so sweet. Unique? Really?’

‘Really.’ Greer extricated herself from the miasma of Giorgio Armani’s Beverly Hills rip-off scent, bought in Truro’s pannier market.

‘And what does that mean? Sounds posh,’ bounced back Loveday, reaching for her heavily fringed and studded, stone-washed denim jacket.

‘It means you are a one-off.’

*