High Tide Page 3

  And in the meantime he was wearying of his work. Hospital politics were grinding him down. He knew what he was doing was for the greater good, but actually – what about the good of Sam? Was it selfish to want to do something different? He hadn’t signed a contract that said he had to save lives for the rest of his life. Maybe this was a golden opportunity? A golden ticket out. Someone was offering to buy their house, at over the market value. There would be no agent’s fees; no hassle. He and Louise had stretched themselves to buy it when they were young, taking out the biggest joint mortgage they could afford, and the area had improved dramatically in the meantime. The house was worth a small fortune, and it was too big for just the three of them, really. This offer was carte blanche to change the future. For all of them.

  He mulled the prospect over. Where would they move, given the chance? Pennfleet, he thought, was the place they were happiest. They went there every summer for a fortnight, renting a cottage on the harbour front. There, time seemed to go more slowly and life was less complicated. The children had more freedom. He suspected it was naive to think that holiday feeling could extend to the rest of the year, but in fact – why not? They wouldn’t spend their lives rushing, stuck in traffic jams, breathing in smog, fighting for a parking space.

  He decided to research the possibilities. It started off as an experiment, but the further he looked into it, the more excited he became. He began by looking at houses for sale on the internet. There were several that would be suitable. One in particular that would be a dream come true, a stone cottage overlooking the river, in need of TLC but just waiting for someone to love it and bring it back to life.

  And then he saw the lease on a small café near the harbour and a whole new possibility unfolded. He could see it in his mind’s eye with a breathtaking clarity: a deli-cum-café stuffed with upmarket delicacies for holidaymakers to take on their picnics or boat trips or bike rides.

  Sam had always been a foodie. He was much more interested in cooking than Louise. He always had a sourdough starter on the go, and baked fresh bread every weekend. He made pizza with the kids, spreading out the toppings so they could create their own, and taught them how to make chocolate-chip cookies and hand-roll sushi and grind spices for curry. It was always Sam who did the cooking for dinner parties: he’d spend days researching recipes and tracking down ingredients, dragging Louise to Borough Market to exclaim at the glorious selection of vegetables, with their rainbow colours and crazy shapes: romanesco broccoli and purple carrots and nobbly Jerusalem artichokes. He would inhale the musty stink of artisan cheeses as if they were a potent drug, and would spend hours buying new spices and herbs. Once he stared longingly for fifteen minutes at a glass jar holding a rare white truffle, and Louise laughed at him – but when she gave him his birthday present a few weeks later, he didn’t need to open it to know what she had bought him. He could smell its rich, earthy, musky scent through the paper. She laughed at his reaction: his delight and his reverence as he unwrapped the tiny delicacy which was almost worth its own weight in gold.

  Running a café or a restaurant had long been a secret ambition. Well, fantasy: Sam wasn’t a fool. He knew it would be hard work, and that profit margins were slim. But he could see it so clearly in his mind’s eye, and it gave him a fizzy sensation in his stomach, and he realised that this was the first thing that had made him feel hopeful since Louise had died. He worked out that if he got what these mystery buyers were offering, he would have enough to buy the riverside house and do it up, secure the lease on the café and reduce his mortgage by half.

  How could it not make sense? He would have more time to spend with his children, precious time that was slipping away all too quickly. At the moment, they had a complicated rota that involved far too much latchkey for his liking. All too often the kids were fending for themselves. It was far from ideal, given that they were still both vulnerable, even if they were old enough to make beans on toast.

  He spent a week talking himself in and out of the idea. One minute it was logic, the next it was madness. Friends’ reactions varied wildly, from telling him he was insane to give up a secure job with a pension plan, to urging him to live the dream. He tried to imagine Louise’s reaction and was distressed to find he couldn’t gauge it, which made him realise how long she had been gone. He couldn’t feel her influence any more.

  In the end, he decided they needed a family conference.

  He assembled a file. He printed out the house and café details, and drew out his plans for each of them. He sent off for the local school prospectus. He did comparative pie charts of the finances. He didn’t believe children should be left out of financial affairs. How could they be expected to handle their own if they didn’t understand borrowing and risk taking?

  And then he sat down round the dining-room table with Daisy and Jim and painted as vivid a picture as he could of how life would be in Pennfleet, being sure to point out the pitfalls as well as the advantages.

  ‘I’ll have to work weekends – during the day – but you can both have jobs in the café, waiting or washing up. There won’t be a big cinema or an ice rink or glittery shops. The winters are long. You’ll be leaving your mates behind – though they can come and stay, obviously.’

  ‘Can I do Art A-level?’ asked Daisy. ‘Instead of maths?’ She was ever the negotiator.

  ‘Can we have a boat?’ asked Jim.

  ‘Well,’ said Sam. ‘Yes to both, I suppose.’

  Daisy and Jim looked at each other and grinned.

  ‘Is that a yes?’ he asked them, and they replied with a resounding cheer.

  Sam felt his stomach flip slightly. He was scared. This was a massive decision. But he was also excited, and it was nice to have a feeling other than dull dread in his stomach.

  And now, here they were. He’d bought the house from an elderly couple who were moving into sheltered accommodation, and it hadn’t been touched for at least thirty years. And of course, despite a reasonable structural survey, once the builders started ripping things out and knocking walls down, all manner of hideousness revealed itself. Now, however, it was perfect.

  It was three storeys high and right on the water, just downstream from the harbour, overlooking a wooded bank on the other side of the river. Sam worked hard with the builders to make it as bright and spacious as possible. They knocked down walls to make a ground-floor open-plan kitchen/living/dining area. Everything was painted dead-flat white; the kitchen units were white gloss; the big modular sofa and blinds were dark blue. Not a strikingly original colour scheme, perhaps, but perfect for a seaside family home. Practical and nautical.

  At the far end of the room were bi-fold doors that opened out onto a narrow balcony. And from the balcony was the special bit: a trap door, from which dropped down a ladder. A ladder that plopped straight into the river when the tide was in. Here, they tied up the dinghy they used to row out to their boat. There was no garden, but who needed a garden when the river and the sea were theirs for the taking?

  The first thing they all did when they moved in was to hang a canvas blow-up print of Louise. A black and white shot of her in a pixie bobble hat, laughing, looking ten years younger than the thirty-nine she had been when the picture was taken.

  ‘Where do you think Mum would like to go?’ Sam asked, holding the canvas in both hands and surveying the blank walls.

  ‘She’d like to look at the sea, I think,’ said Daisy.

  Jim agreed. They hung her on the wall that looked out across the harbour over the Atlantic. Sam hoped the gesture wasn’t mawkish or sentimental. It wasn’t a shrine. It was a reminder. He was never going to pretend to anyone Louise hadn’t existed. And he certainly didn’t spend unnecessary amounts of time looking at the picture. It grounded him every now and again, that was all. Gave him reassurance and strength.

  It was getting dark as Sam reached home. And it was home, even after just one summer there. The house welcomed him as he pushed open the front door. There were all their coats
and wellies and skateboards and bicycles in the hall, their clothes drying on the rack in the utility room, the scent of Daisy’s perfume (Daisy by Marc Jacobs, which Sam had given himself extra points for finding last Christmas) and the smell of microwaved popcorn the kids had made to keep them going until he got back and cooked them supper.

  As he pushed open the door to the kitchen, he realised Daisy was already cooking, while Jim sat at the island glued to his iPad.

  ‘Hi, Dad!’ Daisy greeted him, standing by the hob prodding at a pan of pasta. ‘I’m doing us pesto penne. Jim and me are starving.’

  ‘That’s great, sweetheart. Thank you.’ Sam gave his daughter a hug, kissed the top of her blonde head and ruffled Jim’s hair.

  ‘Hey, Dad,’ Jim managed.

  ‘How did you guys get on today?’

  They’d been at their new school a month, and so far the signs were good. No teething problems. He was yet to attend a parents’ evening, but they were both as conscientious as a father could hope for.

  Jim sniggered. ‘Daisy got on OK, didn’t you, Daze?’

  Daisy rolled her eyes and gave her brother one of her looks. He just grinned back at her, wide-eyed. Sam raised an eyebrow. There was something going on. He wasn’t going to press, though. He would hear about it in good time. The way her cheeks were tinged with a pale-pink blush told him there was probably romance in the air. He’d been waiting for it with part dread, part curiosity.

  Daisy wasn’t going to give anything away, though.

  ‘I got started on my art project – I’m doing Vivienne Westwood. Her influence on fashion. It’s going to be cool.’

  Daisy was fashion-mad, which was ironic given they were so far away from London now. But she didn’t seem to mind. She still managed to maintain her own individual style. She customised all her clothes. At least she wasn’t a sheep, thought Sam.

  ‘Fantastic. Jim? Physics test?’

  ‘Fine.’

  ‘Fine in your opinion, or mine?’

  ‘Sixty-seven per cent. Which was one of the highest.’

  Kids did this, Sam had noticed. Presented their results in comparison with the rest of the class.

  ‘That doesn’t mean anything, does it? It could have been the highest out of a lot of not-very-good results.’

  Jim just looked at him, and Sam smiled as he flipped open the fridge to get out a bottle of beer. ‘OK. You know what you need to do. I’m not going to nag. I trust you.’

  He never knew quite how much to breathe down their necks, or how much input to have on their homework. He settled on taking an active interest, but not interfering. He was there if they needed help, but he wasn’t going to be a tiger father. Louise had always said it was up to them to motivate themselves. But he was very aware they had both started at a new school, and he wanted to be supportive.

  Daisy served up the penne and they sat round the island, eating and chatting. Sam wondered if Daisy would let slip whatever Jim had been alluding to earlier. A boy, obviously. His stomach clenched a little at the thought. It would be a turning point, with its own set of worries. He hoped he was going to be able to handle it. Because, of course, no one would be good enough for his beautiful, elegant, funny, quirky daughter. He looked at her grating parmesan onto her pasta, her head wrapped up in a white and gold scarf like a turban, her eyebrows groomed and darkened into a shape that gave her face a definition it hadn’t had before, and he realised she was a young woman, not a girl.

  Jim, at the other end of the island, with his tufty hair and geeky hipster glasses, was very much still a boy, gawky and spindly and able to recite the spiel of every alternative stand-up comedian seemingly after just one viewing. He was funny, which went a long way in this world.

  Hold your nerve, Sam told himself. They are going to be fine.

  Later, when they had both gone upstairs to their rooms to finish off their homework, Sam flopped down on the sofa and stared at the blank television screen mounted on the wall. This was the time he missed Louise the most. He just wanted someone to lean against while he finished his beer and watched the next box set. He’d done them all over the summer: Game of Thrones, House of Cards, Breaking Bad, The Killing … He was four episodes into a gritty French cop show at the moment. He sighed, flicked the telly on with the remote and pressed the buttons until he found the next episode. It would take him to Paris for an hour or so. Then he could go to bed.

  Upstairs, Daisy and Jim were watching Stewart Lee re-runs in Jim’s room instead of doing their homework. Jim was in his gaming chair and Daisy was sitting on the floor applying a silver crackle glaze to her nail varnish.

  Jim looked at her. She’d already plucked her eyebrows – again. He didn’t get it, really, the obsessive attention to things that didn’t matter, like the shape of your eyebrows and the colour of your nails. But he was used to it with Daisy. Their mum had been a lipstick-if-it’s-a-really-special-occasion sort of person, whereas Daisy had a different look for every minute of the day.

  And, of course, now there was a bloke in the offing it was only going to get worse.

  ‘You going to tell Dad about Oscar?’

  ‘Yes,’ said Daisy. ‘When the time’s right. So you can shut up.’

  ‘I’m not going to say anything!’ Jim protested.

  ‘It’s not as if there’s anything going on. He asked me out, that’s all. And I haven’t even said yes yet.’

  ‘He thinks he’s God,’ said Jim.

  ‘No,’ said Daisy. ‘Everyone else thinks he’s God. He’s actually really nice. And quite shy.’

  ‘What does he see in you?’ asked Jim.

  Daisy spread her arms out. She was in a panda onesie, her hair still wrapped up in a turban, her face plastered in a moisturising mask.

  ‘Why do you even ask?’

  The two of them rolled about on the floor, laughing. They were both used to Jim teasing her. It was just what they did. Underneath they were unbelievably close.

  Daisy screwed the lid back on her nail varnish. She had been really surprised when Oscar had sat next to her on the bus that afternoon and asked what she was doing at the weekend.

  ‘There’s a band on at the Neptune, if you want to go. I don’t know what they’re like. But it could be a laugh.’

  Oscar had been the first person Daisy really noticed when she arrived at her new school. He was very tall, and wore a greatcoat with silver buttons and the collar turned up, skinny jeans tucked into big boots with the laces undone, and a paisley scarf with long tassels. With his dark, messy hair and long eyelashes, he stood out a mile.

  She supposed he’d asked her out because she was a novelty, a newcomer from London, which was where he was from, too. She hadn’t said yes, because she wasn’t sure if her dad would let her go to the Neptune. She was plucking up the nerve to ask him, because she wanted his approval. Daisy knew her own mind, but she wasn’t a rebel, not really. And she respected her dad.

  She could also sense the other girls at school would be a little jealous of her being asked out by Oscar. There was no doubt he was the coolest boy in the school. Daisy felt a bit funny inside when she thought about being alone with him.

  She didn’t want to talk about it with Jim, though, so she changed the subject to something she’d been thinking about for a while.

  ‘You know what?’ she asked. ‘I think it’s time Dad got a girlfriend.’

  Jim gave her a pained expression. ‘Are you serious?’

  ‘Course I am.’

  ‘What about … you know. Mum?’

  ‘In case you haven’t noticed, she’s not here any more.’

  ‘No, but …’ Jim looked upset as he absorbed the notion.

  ‘Seriously, you know what? Mum wouldn’t mind. Dad needs company. He needs someone to hang out with. All he does is work. And watch TV. And look after us.’

  ‘I can’t imagine him with someone else.’

  ‘He can’t stay single for the rest of his life. And it has been four years.’

&nbs
p; ‘Yeah, I know, but …’ Jim frowned and shrugged. ‘It makes me feel weird, thinking about it.’

  Daisy touched her nails to her cheek to make sure they were dry. ‘Don’t you think he must be lonely?’

  ‘He’s got us.’

  Daisy gave her brother a level look.

  ‘Oh God,’ said Jim. ‘You’ve got sex on the brain.’

  ‘I’m not just talking about sex. I’m talking about … companionship.’

  Jim looked baffled.

  ‘I guess you wouldn’t understand.’ Daisy blew on her nails to accelerate the drying process.

  ‘What can we do about it, anyway? Isn’t it up to him?’

  ‘I don’t know,’ said Daisy.

  Jim looked down at the floor.

  ‘No one would be like Mum.’

  Daisy looked at her brother. Sometimes he drove her nuts, but he was still her little brother. And suddenly he seemed really young and not that annoying at all.

  ‘Hey.’ She sat down next to him and gave him a hug. ‘Of course no one will ever be like Mum. But that doesn’t mean Dad has to be on his own for the rest of his life.’

  Jim didn’t answer for a while. He just stared at the carpet. Daisy felt bad she’d even brought the subject up. Jim was much more protective of their mother’s memory than she was. It wasn’t that she didn’t care. Or that she didn’t miss her. She had to be robust about it in order to survive. She was about to squeeze him even tighter when he looked up. He was grinning, and there was a gleam in his eye behind his glasses that Daisy recognised.

  ‘I’ve got an idea,’ he said.