Page 76 of One Cornish Summer With You
‘Thanks. BBC Good Food recipe. I’ll send you the link. I cook half the time now and one night a week me and your mum go out.’
‘Date night.’ His mum giggled.
Bloody hell.Thankfully the conversation refocused on food and how Ruan was managing life in the caravan in general.
Then the conversation moved on to the renovation, with Ruan trying to sound enthusiastic about the progress so far. The talk did lead him to a topic he’d been meaning to broach – and another reason for his visit.
‘I’ve been thinking about Great-uncle Walter,’ he said.
‘I wouldn’t bother,’ his father grumbled.
Ruan smiled briefly. ‘I do have his house, so it’s hard notto be curious. You said he came round here when I was little and he spoke to me. Apart from me trying to cut his nose off with a toy sword, can you remember if he gave you any clue then that he – had a soft spot for me?’ Ruan suppressed a shudder as he said it.
‘I doubt Walter had a soft spot for anyone. All I recall of the day was the effort it took to be civil to him. Even when he was on his best behaviour, he could be rude. If I’d known how he was going to treat me later on, I’d have refused to let him over the threshold.’
‘I remember,’ his mother said. ‘We had tea in the garden. It was my idea because we thought – God knows why – he might be more mellow out there. He wasn’t too bad, as a matter of fact. Earlier, you’d been helping me prune the roses, in your own way, and Walter remarked on it.’
Ruan shook his head. ‘I can’t remember.’
‘No. He spoke to you about the garden and you showed him a rose you’d hacked off. Don’t worry, I’d let you do it. And then you ran off into the house and came out with the sword, swishing at the roses and accidentally bashing him on the nose too.’
‘We were holding our breath,’ his father said, looking angry even thirty-odd years later. ‘If he’d said anything out of turn or upset you, he’d have been out on his ear!’
‘He didn’t,’ his mum said. ‘He was OK with Ruan. He even laughed. It was later he had a few choice words about Cousin Annabel being a “loose woman”.’
‘Nice man,’ Ruan muttered.
‘Anyway, we survived and he left. It was later that heturned nasty with us too. I think he went even further over to the dark side as he got older. Probably early-onset Alzheimer’s. Wasn’t he in a care home in his later years? Anyway,’ his mum said in her ‘cheery chin-up’ tone, ‘enough of that old devil. Have you been seeing your mates? How’s Kane?’
The thought of his friends lifted Ruan’s spirits too. ‘He’s fine. He and his partner have a baby boy,’ he said, smiling as he recalled a photo of Kane’s eight-month-old sitting in his high chair, his face smeared in apple purée.
They chatted about Kane for a while and Ruan updated them on a few other of the kitesurfers his parents had met. Some had stayed at Ruan’s parents when he was younger and while he was at uni if they needed a place to crash while they went surfing.
‘Have you made any new friends?’ his mum asked.
Despite his worries, Ruan chuckled.
‘What’s funny?’ she asked.
‘You make me sound as if I’m seven and still at primary school.’
‘Do I? I was thinking of something much more grown-up than that,’ she said archly. ‘As you well know.’
‘If you mean women, then …’ He hesitated. ‘I’ve met a bunch of new people in Porthmellow.’
He couldn’t even tell his parents about Tammy because he’d have to go into the whole saga of meeting her, getting closer and then growing apart. All in a month. He wasn’t able to make sense of the process himself, let alone articulate it to anyone else. She’d flitted in and out of his life like a shadow, like water trickling through his fingers.
‘Are these friends all kitesurfers?’ his mum asked, intruding into his thoughts.
‘No. Some are artists. One works for the police. All kinds of people. They’re in a yoga group.’
His mother clapped her hands in delight. ‘You’re doing yoga?’
‘No. No. I came across them on the harbour one day and we got talking. I don’t exactly know how, but we hang out.’
‘Hang out? Ruan, you ceased to “hang out” when you were sixteen,’ she said.
‘OK. There’s one woman, Tammy. She’s … I like her, but, Mum, please don’t ask me any more details because it’s complicated.’
