Sunrise by the Sea by Jenny Colgan

Author:Jenny Colgan
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: William Morrow Paperbacks
Published: 2021-04-16T00:00:00+00:00

Chapter Forty-One

Polly left it as long as possible to go to the bakery. Huckle tried to get her to have a sleep but she wouldn’t, instead moving around the kitchen cleaning up and putting away tins and ingredients. Everyone had stumbled home to snatch some rest, but she’d need to alert Jayden, her colleague, and, frankly, she had to have a look herself first.

“I’ll go and get out the insurance papers,” said Huckle, even as he was falling asleep himself, the twins safely in front of the TV now the power was back on. “But, you know . . .”

Polly did know. It was simply impossible to properly insure a tidal island that got cut off at every high tide, and they had all seen the problems people had had over in the West Country with the 2018 floods. Even if they were up for any money, it would be a long time coming.

Polly sighed and pulled on her wellies.

“I’ll come,” said Huckle, but his eyes were already closing and his voice was trailing off.

“I’ll call you if I need you,” said Polly. “Don’t let the twins eat the leftovers.”

“LEFTOVERS?” said Avery who appeared to have the ears of a bat.

“I’ll be back at lunchtime,” said Polly. “We’ll have them then.”

“Leftovers now!”

“Come on, Neil,” said Polly, grabbing her raincoat and pulling on her wellies. “Let’s go.”

* * *

It was impossible to believe when you stepped outside that there had been a storm at all. The sky was a fresh-washed blue, a few innocent-looking clouds drifting by. The sun bounced off the wet cobbles like a billion glistening diamonds, rendering the whole of Mount Polbearne almost too bright to look at.

Polly hadn’t brought her sunglasses, and wished she had, but was too bone weary to go back and get into a whole “leftovers” conversation again.

Instead she trudged onward. After a few moments she was joined by someone—Marisa—whom she thought had left ages ago.

In fact, Marisa had been standing near the lighthouse, trying to give herself the courage she’d found last night to get back up the hill again, past everyone. Willpower, she’d found, was something that came and went. Or perhaps, when she thought about it, it was something you had a finite supply of and once you’d used yours up for the day you had to plug yourself back in to whatever your battery was—in her case, a chat with her nonna, in her house, cooking and watching TV.

But seeing Polly made her feel safe, somehow. Even the little bird that seemed to follow her wherever she went cheered her up.

A thought leapt up in Marisa that she was being creepy and a bit of a stalker, but Polly’s face brightened to see her, and she tried to tell her brain to quieten down.

“Hello,” said Polly. “I thought you’d headed home.”

“I’m . . . I’m going,” said Marisa. “Do you mind if I walk with you for a bit?”

“Not at all,” said Polly, remembering Marisa’s condition. “I’ll walk you all the way if you like.

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