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For my husband Richard with love.

July

I am not a product of my circumstances. I am a product of my decisions.

(Stephen Covey)

Week One

Ten days earlier, when Carrie Penfold had gone home for Sunday lunch, Elizabeth, her mother, had handed her a thick, official-looking envelope.

‘This arrived on Friday for you.’

‘Postmarked Bristol,’ Malcolm, her father, said in his slow Somerset way of speaking. ‘Looks important. We had to sign for it.’

Elizabeth handed her the paperknife from the bureau. ‘You’d best open it. No point in playing guessing games.’

Carefully slitting the envelope open, Carrie pulled out the letter. The clearly expensive and embossed, cream-coloured paper, had the name of a firm of lawyers printed across the top.

Carrie quickly scanned the typewritten words before looking at her parents.

‘It’s from a firm of solicitors who want me to contact them as soon as possible in connection with the estate of one Robert Trumble, deceased. I don’t know anyone called that,’ she said, puzzled.

Her parents had looked at each other in consternation before Elizabeth had said quietly, ‘Trumble is a name on your birth certificate.’

It was Malcolm who, ignoring her protests, had insisted on ringing the lawyers Monday morning to make her an appointment.

‘You can’t ignore letters like this.’

Carrie, who had planned on doing just that, didn’t answer.

She’d known practically from the moment she was placed in the antique wicker rocking cradle, lovingly recovered in her honour, that she was special. Adopted. It had never been a secret. Calling her their special chosen daughter, Elizabeth and Malcolm had lavished love and praise on her all her life. Even through her difficult teenage years.

When, on her eighteenth birthday, Elizabeth had presented her with her original birth certificate and told her she was free to try and contact her biological parents if she wanted to, Carrie had looked at her horrified.

‘Why would I do that?’ she’d asked. ‘Do you want me to find and contact them?’

Elizabeth had shaken her head. ‘No. But you do have the right these days. Dad and I wouldn’t ever stand in your way. Even if we’d rather you left the past undisturbed. Selfishly, we’d feel hurt if we weren’t enough for you.’

‘You’re my Mum and Dad,’ Carrie had said, hugging her tightly. ‘As if I’d ever do anything to hurt you two.’

The birth certificate had been replaced, unlooked at by Carrie, alongside her adoption papers in the ‘Important Documents’ file in the ancient wooden bureau in the farm office. Where it had stayed forgotten and ignored for the next ten years. Until now.

Elizabeth had offered to go to the meeting with her, for moral support, and now, on the first day of July, the two of them were walking along an elegant street in the Clifton district of Bristol, peering at the numerous brass plates fixed to stone gateposts at the front of what had once been grand Victorian houses, now reduced to offices and flats and the occasional alternative health practice.

The law firm they were looking for appeared to occupy the whole of one imposing detached villa. Carrie pressed the entry intercom and gave her name. Inside, thick carpet absorbed the sound of their footsteps as they walked across the foyer to the reception area.

Ushered into a woodpanelled waiting room, Elizabeth whispered, ‘It’s a bit posh, isn’t it?’

Carrie nodded. ‘I expect their fees are extortionate. Hope they don’t charge me for this visit.’

Five minutes later, when the receptionist returned and escorted them up the sweeping staircase to an office overlooking a park, Carrie, expecting a man of her parents’ generation, was surprised to be greeted by a younger man..

‘I’m Ari Saper and I apologise sincerely for keeping you waiting,’ he said, indicating they should take a seat in front of the large, modern, glass-topped desk.

‘The senior partner who wrote to you has asked me to meet you today as he’s been called away,’ Ari said, opening a folder on his desk and taking out some papers and an envelope. ‘At this point, I need to ask you for some formal identification,’ he said, looking at Carrie.

Carrie reached into her tote and brought out the file Elizabeth had insisted they bring, ‘just in case’.

‘Birth certificates and formal adoption papers are all in there,’ Elizabeth said quietly.

A quick shuffle through the papers, and Ali handed the file back. ‘All in order, thank you.’ He smiled and gave a little cough before continuing.

‘Miss Penfold, I have to tell you that you are the sole beneficiary named in Robert Trumble’s will.’

‘But who is he? I’ve never met him,’ Carrie protested.

‘I understand he was your biological father. He’s left you a considerable fortune. He also left you this letter.’ Ari picked up the envelope from the desk.

It was Elizabeth who reached out and took it as Carrie sat there, stunned. ‘Thank you.’

‘I appreciate this has come as something of a shock,’ Ari started to say, but Carrie interrupted him.

‘Tell me about him. What did he do? Where did he live? When did he die? Has there been a funeral?’

‘He was a university lecturer here in Bristol. He died a year ago from a heart attack. The funeral was very private. I’m afraid it’s taken us a little while to find you.’

‘When you say a considerable fortune, how much? Like a lottery win of millions – or a more realistic figure?’ Carrie said.

‘Lottery size of several million. And of course his property – a flat in the centre of Bristol and a house down in Devon. We hold the deeds to both here.’

‘Can I refuse the inheritance?’

Ari looked at her, startled. ‘There would be certain formalities we’d need to follow, but yes, you can refuse to accept the legacy if you wish. But why would you refuse and give all that money to the government? It’s a chance to change your life.’

Carrie glared at him. ‘I love my life. I have no wish to change it.’

An hour later, another file of papers in her tote alongside two keys, Carrie and Elizabeth stood up to leave the solicitor’s office.

‘I’ll be in touch soon with some more papers for you to sign,’ Ari said. ‘Should all be formalised in about eight weeks. Please don’t hesitate to call me if you need help – or something clarified.’ He held out his hand. Numbly, Carrie shook it.

Both he and Elizabeth had applied pressure to get her to accept the legacy rather than rejecting it out of hand. But it was Elizabeth’s whispered ‘You can do a lot of good with that kind of money’ that in the end had persuaded her, and she’d taken a deep breath and signed the papers Ari handed her.

‘Let’s find somewhere for a drink and lunch,’ she said now as they left the offices behind them and turned into Clifton Village. ‘We passed a bistro-gastro-pub on the way here that should do the trick.’

Five minutes later they were sitting at a small, wrought-iron table in the garden of the pub Carrie remembered seeing, with glasses of wine and deciding what to have for lunch.

After taking a long sip of her drink, Carrie sighed and turned to face Elizabeth. ‘I don’t want this legacy to change who I am. It’s such a huge amount.’

‘Somebody famous, I forget who, once said money doesn’t change you – it simply brings out the person you were all the time. Or something like that. Anyway, you’ll be fine because you’re lovely all the way through.’

‘Oh, Mum. I hope you’re right. But I’m frightened that, if nothing else, it’s going to change my life beyond all recognition.’

*

Severe delays because of roadworks on the M4, followed by a broken-down car blocking one of the narrow Devonshire lanes once she’d left the main road, had conspired to make Karen Weston late. The fact that her lateness was also due in part to her delaying leaving home until she’d talked to Derek was infuriating. What a waste of time that had proved to be.

She’d wanted to arrive mid afternoon but it was nearer six o’clock when she turned on to the single unfenced track that climbed the edge of the cliff towards the old coastguard cottages. Two minutes later she drove into one of the parking spaces reserved for ‘The Captain’s House’.

Glancing across the parking area as she got out and locked the car, she registered the presence of the large 4x4 that belonged to Bruce in ‘The Bosun’s Locker’ and the ancient estate car of Joy and Toby, the unofficial caretakers of the cottages and year-round occupants of No. 5. Other than that, the parking lot was empty. She knew Hazel and Simon in No. 2, the last of the owners who regularly spent the whole summer here, were due to arrive tomorrow.

Karen sighed happily as she looked around. This was such a unique place, with the large ‘Captain’s House’ and smaller ‘Bosun’s Locker’ like mismatched bookends, holding up the six cottages in between. Despite the few modern improvements made down the years, principally the creation of the swimming pool and tennis court, the century-old weathered stone building of the complex, sitting on its clifftop overlooking the Channel, gave off a comforting air of permanence and solidarity.

The fact that only two of the eight properties were regularly rented out, and then only to friends and family, not commercially, was one of the main benefits of the old cottages for Karen. Everybody who came for the long summer holiday had some connection to the place, making for a tight-knit community with people knowing each other.

Karen shuddered as the image of the complex of holiday cottages in Cornwall Derek had persuaded her to spend Easter in one year came into her mind. Three hundred chalets accommodating a thousand people at the height of the season. She’d hated the place on sight. Derek had wanted to buy one.

He’d been furious with her when she’d said she didn’t like the place. Couldn’t see why anyone would want to have a holiday there.

‘But look at the amenities. Swimming pool, crazy golf for the kids, restaurant, pub, cinema, sports room. It’s got everything you could want on a holiday.’

‘But I don’t want any of those things – apart from the pool and we’ve got one in Devon.’ She’d shrugged. ‘There’s no character. All the chalets look alike. It’s just too busy for me. Not relaxing at all. Give me The Captain’s House every time.’

Making her way down the short path to the front door, memories of that visit to the detested Cornish complex lingered in Karen’s mind. Why now? Probably because of something Derek had said that afternoon, she decided.

‘You’re obsessed with that damn place,’ he’d muttered when she’d reminded him it was today she was driving down to Devon for the summer. The fact that it also signalled the first day of their trial separation, he seemed to have forgotten.

‘Could buy a decent villa down on the Costa del Sol and have guaranteed sunshine if you’d only sell it. And have money in the bank.’

‘Not going to happen, Derek,’ Karen said. ‘Especially now. Right, I’m off. Let me know if you do decide to come down while Francesca and Wills are around. I haven’t told them about us needing time apart to rethink things.’

An emphatic shake of his head. ‘Not sure there’s any point in even coming down.’

Karen had sighed and left. A few years ago he would have kissed her properly, told her to drive carefully and to ring when she arrived. Those days were in the past, though, and the chances of them returning were slim.

Unlocking the large wooden front door, Karen released a deep breath. She was back in the place she loved most in the world. The place where her problems faded temporarily into the background. Derek and his bullying would never win. No way would she ever sell this house.

Once the shutters on the large bay window of the sitting room were open, she sank down onto the cushioned window seat. Always her favourite place to sit. She loved the way the front lawns dropped away leaving nothing but the sea in full view, giving the sensation of standing on the bridge of a ship. People visiting the house for the first time always pointed that out, which amused her. Did they think she perhaps hadn’t realised? That the past forty-odd summers had been spent here in some sort of daze?

Sitting there looking at the sea, choppy as the evening tide turned, Karen offered up a silent thank you to her parents, who’d had the foresight to buy the house as a holiday home all those years ago – and then to leave it to her, not her brother. He’d been openly relieved to inherit their parents’ detached house close to the university town where he was a lecturer.

Not that he didn’t like The Captain’s House. He and his wife came for a holiday every summer, claiming it set them up for the year. But he didn’t love it with the passion Karen did. She couldn’t imagine a life without it. Maybe Derek was right and she was obsessed. But it was so good to be back here with eight weeks of summer stretching ahead of her.

Eight weeks of days with no real routines, swims in the infinity pool whose water she could see sparkling in the late sun, games of tennis, communal get-togethers and barbecues. The only thing missing would be the continual presence of the children.

Wills would be home sometime this month and Francesca had promised to come for a fortnight in August. The first summer in eighteen years without either of them being around for the whole of it.

Wills had no idea how much she’d missed him the last few months while he travelled on his gap year. The occasional postcard was no compensation. Summer here wouldn’t be complete until he arrived back safely from his travels.

She knew things changed as life progressed, of course she did. Children growing up and gaining their independence was only natural. Francesca, being the eldest, had been the first to take flight four years ago for a career in the arts. At the time Karen had consoled herself with the thought that Wills, at fourteen, would be home for a few more years. She wasn’t ready for the nest to empty completely. Nor was she ready for how fast those four years had flown.

She’d realised recently that certain milestones, while openly acknowledged as being part of the general melee of family life, actually made a deeper impact than at first seemed to be the case, their full extent hidden, iceberg-like, way below the surface.

Francesca and Wills would, of course, always be connected to her because she was their mother, but at eighteen, nearly nineteen, Wills was now busy following Francesca into the wider world. Making his own decisions, choosing the life he wanted. A life she would inevitably be on the outskirts of, as she now was with Francesca, rather than being involved in the day-to-day minutiae.

It had been Wills’ decision to go travelling for six months, to get his own place, to study medicine, rather than the decisions Francesca had made four years ago, that had hurled unwelcome and unforeseen changes and challenges into her life.

If she were honest, though, she’d known for some time that an eruption in her own life was inevitable. The ground beneath her feet had been trembling for a few years now. The big final quake, destroying everything in its path, was getting nearer. Could she honestly say the changes she was facing, had initiated, were unwelcome? No. That was what this trial separation was all about – her trying to gain control of an uncertain future. She just needed to let her natural optimism rise and fight the frightened feelings about what the future might hold.

Watching a small sailing boat beating its way back into harbour, Karen decided she wasn’t going to worry about anything over the summer. She’d follow her own mother’s default philosophy for once: ‘Remember, Karen, life has a habit of sorting things out one way or another if you leave them alone.’

Karen had always secretly thought the philosophy was a bit of a coward’s way out, much like the old cliché ‘least said, soonest mended’, but this summer she intended to test the validity of both. With any luck, by the end of summer, decisions would have made themselves.

*

Bruce Adams, slicing onions and mushrooms for his chicken casserole supper in ‘The Bosun’s Locker’, heard a car arriving and guessed it was Karen. Good. Karen’s arrival signalled that summer proper was about to begin. Although, of course, it would be a new version of summer. His first without Gabby. He muttered to himself as his eyes began to stream. Damn onions.

There had been a lot of firsts in the last six months. Months in which he’d learnt how quickly life could change as well as the true meaning of loneliness. No siblings, either his or Gabby’s, to give support, no cousins to offer a comforting word, no children to share the despair of heartbreaking loss. Just him. Alone.

Of course he had friends who’d offered their sympathy, attended the funeral, and then, muttering ‘Time’s a great healer’, slowly drifted away, back into their own lives where they didn’t have to suffer the embarrassment of not knowing what to say to him. All he really wanted was to be able to talk to someone, anyone, about Gabby. If he couldn’t talk about her, he was afraid the essence of her would disappear from his memory.

Karen had sent him a lovely letter after the funeral offering to help in any way she could and looking forward to seeing him in the summer. Would she understand his need to talk about Gabby?

After the funeral he’d taken the silver-framed photo of Gabby and him that lived on the mantlepiece of the sitting room of the flat and placed it on the breakfast bar. Taken last summer, here on the terrace in front of the cottage, the two of them had their arms around each other and were laughing at some shared joke. As a couple they’d laughed a lot. Always had, from day one. He’d never quite understood how the vivacious American girl he’d fallen in love with the day she appeared in his life asking for a job could possibly love him in return. But she had.

He’d started his renovation business eighteen months earlier and had recently begun to put out feelers for a freelance interior designer to join the team. He hadn’t advertised, simply hoped to find someone recommended via ‘word of mouth’. Gabby had arrived unannounced one Friday afternoon. He’d done his best to ask her the right questions, and looked at her portfolio (which was excellent), all the while knowing he was going to offer her the job anyway. Bruce sighed, remembering those long-ago days when he and Gabby had laughed and loved their way through life. What was that famous song line about days – ‘We thought they’d never end’. But they had.

These days it had become a ritual for him to talk to the photo, tell Gabby his plans for the day as he ate his breakfast. Not that he had many plans these days, but talking to Gabby every morning had become an essential part of his routine. He couldn’t imagine not doing it now.

Unable to leave the photo behind for the summer, he’d wrapped it carefully in bubble-wrap and placed it between the shirts in his suitcase. Within five minutes of arriving at the cottage he’d retrieved it and placed it on the shelf in the small alcove in the kitchen that held favourite bits and pieces they’d collected over the years.

He poured the bottle of white wine sauce over the chicken pieces, mushrooms and onions and placed the pot in the oven and set the timer. Briefly he thought about asking Karen to join him for supper.

‘What d’you think, Gabby?’ he said, glancing across at the photo. ‘Tonight or tomorrow? Tomorrow is better, I think. Don’t want to look desperate for company, do I? I expect she’s looking forward to a quiet night to settle in.’

Besides, he’d decided this evening he’d fetch the bag from the communal outhouse and sort out the flags, a job he and Gabby had always done together as they enjoyed a glass of wine, and something he’d been putting off doing. But people were arriving and would expect the flag to be flying. He couldn’t disappoint them.

The summer ritual of flying the flag that Gabby had started years ago would begin tomorrow and kick-start summer. You have to fly flags – you can’t leave the flagpole empty, she had always said.

*

Karen glanced at her watch and wondered about wandering along to say ‘Hi’ to Bruce. He’d have finished supper by now and might be glad of some company for an hour. The last time she’d seen him at the funeral, he’d looked heartbreakingly adrift, as if he didn’t quite remember who he was without Gabby at his side. He hadn’t come down at Easter, telling Karen in a phone call that he couldn’t face the cottage yet without Gabby.

This summer was going to be hard for him. At least she had the consolation that Francesca and Wills would at some point both put in an appearance.

Picking up the bottle of red wine she’d opened to accompany her own supper, she went out onto the front terrace and made her way along to The Bosun’s Locker, waving to Joy and Toby as she passed No. 5.

Bruce looked up as she opened the wooden gate that separated the small patio, with its flagpole belonging to The Bosun’s Locker, from the main terrace.

‘Karen. Lovely to see you. How are you?’

‘Thought you might like to share a glass with me?’ she said, holding the bottle aloft. ‘Drink to summer. Unless you’re busy?’ she said, looking at the pile of material she recognised as his flag collection.

‘Almost sorted,’ Bruce said. ‘You know where the glasses are. I’ll just finish tidying up this lot.’

In the kitchen, as Karen reached for two glasses, she saw the picture of Gabby and Bruce. The memory of the perfect summer evening it had been taken on just a year ago flitted into her mind. Whoever could have guessed tragedy was so close?

She glanced out at Bruce carefully folding the last flag, remembering with affection the day he and Gabby had arrived in their lives, twenty-seven years ago. In those days the cottages and grounds had still been rustic, the amenities basic, and her parents had voiced trepidation about the young couple who were the new owners, the changes they would want to initiate.

At first sight, Bruce and Gabby had been a most unlikely couple. Her, extrovert and people-gathering. Him, friendly but reserved in the beginning. The realisation that they too genuinely loved the old-fashioned cottages, which had survived over one hundred years of buffeting by the storms that thrashed the coast every winter, had come as a welcome relief.

Joining Bruce out on the terrace, Karen poured the wine and handed him a glass. The flag bag was full again, the green, black and white Devon flag remaining alone on the table.

‘First one up tomorrow as usual,’ Bruce said. ‘Normal summer routine. Cheers.’

‘Cheers. Here’s to...’ Karen hesitated. It would be insensitive to drink to a good summer when it was going to be such a difficult one for Bruce. ‘The next few weeks. And a sunny summer with not too much rain,’ she added.

Bruce gave her a diffident smile before taking a sip of his wine. ‘Long-term forecast is good, I think. Derek not with you?’

Karen shook her head. ‘No. Too busy at the moment. He’ll be down when the children come.’ Maybe. But there was little point in saying anything to Bruce just yet about the state of her marriage.

Bruce glanced along the terrace. ‘No news about No. 4 yet. Still going through probate, I suspect. Sad to see it empty.’

Karen nodded. ‘Hope someone in the family decides to keep it rather than sell it.’

‘Joy was telling me that No. 3 has been rented for most of the summer,’ Bruce said.

‘Has Charlie told her who it is? Someone we know already?’ Karen said, surprised.

Bruce shook his head. ‘Just a friend of Charlie who needs a place to stay for a while. No definite arrival date yet. Maybe next week.’

Karen sipped her wine thoughtfully. A long summer rental of any of the cottages was unusual. Charlie himself always came down for a week or two with a group of friends, and always around the time of the owners’ annual meeting when joint decisions regarding maintenance, etcetera, were taken.

Wills had once described Charlie’s friends as ‘totally fit’, so summer could be interesting – or not.

*

The next day, awake at 5.30 a.m., Bruce decided it was pointless to stay in bed in the hope of falling asleep again. Four hours sleep a night seemed to be the maximum he could hope for these days as he tossed and turned his way through the hours of darkness.

In town there were familiar noises accompanying the new day. Buses changing gear to climb the hill, car doors slamming, the rattling of the jeweller’s security shutter as he unlocked the shop across the road from the apartment. But here – nothing.

It always took him a couple of days at the cottage to adjust to the silence surrounding him. Seagulls were the only early risers here and the sound of the waves breaking against the rocks below was the only other noise he could hear. Even when all the cottages were occupied in August there was little movement or noise before half past eight. Something to do with everyone being on holiday, Bruce supposed. No need to rise early. He had to admit he liked the all-enveloping morning silence. He’d get up and have his first coffee of the day watching the breaking dawn from the terrace.