Summer Visitors by Susan Sallis

Author:Susan Sallis [Susan Sallis]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 0101-01-01T00:00:00+00:00

Rosemary sat with Mark and her grandmother and watched the swimmers with thin lips. She needed to do something really electrifying to shock Jan, and then Rory. Perhaps Jan actually had kept their ‘secret’ and Rory knew nothing about the marriage pact, so she had to think of something so shocking, Jan would be forced to tell Rory, and he would be forced to come to St Ives and see her. She began to gnaw at her bottom lip.

The next morning, she went round to Porthmeor by herself. It was easily arranged: Grandma and Mr McGovern thought she was with her parents and Mark, and they thought she was with Philip and Etta. Rosemary – unusually – wanted to be by herself. There were two emotions she could not bear: one was guilt, the other was shame. The guilt she felt about Mark sometimes came between them so that she could not meet his happy face nor let her gaze wander to the blanket that covered his stumps. She would get up and walk away from him on the flimsiest excuse. Today she felt shame, and it was just as unbearable to be with any member of her family. She walked across the neck of the Island and knew she was a wicked girl and would never go to heaven. She glanced up at that thought, as if checking on it, and saw without surprise that the cloud layer was getting thicker. Philip had said earlier, ‘Don’t worry, this sky will clear by ’s afternoon,’ and she said categorically, ‘No it won’t, Philip, it will get worse.’ She nearly added ‘And it’s all my fault’ but stopped herself in time. Philip would not ask questions but the way he would look at her from beneath the brim of his horrible old hat, would make the shame even worse.

She surveyed the beach from the tumble of rocks at the town end, and for the first time in her life saw it as a place of desolation. The sea was flat calm and the colour of Grandma Briscoe’s kitchen spoons, the beach tents had their canvas rolled halfway up the frames anticipating a very high tide later, and looked like a row of tired herons. Not a soul in sight, not even Jim Maddern and his donkeys. Well … just one. Someone slicing the wet sand methodically with the long hooked knife that pulled up sand eels for bait.

Rosemary had excellent eyesight but she made funnels with her hands and applied them to her eyes like binoculars in an effort to focus the one figure away from the enormous expanse of sea and sand.

It was Rory Trewyn.

She lowered her hands and stayed where she was. Triumph writhed inside her but could not emerge as a shout of recognition or a crazy run across the beach. Her ploy – her shameful ploy – had brought him to her just as she had hoped, but now he was here the shame was no longer so private.

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