Phillipa Ashley - A Perfect Cornish Summer

‘What’s amazing?’

Chloe held up a finger. ‘Now wait, you have to guess.’

Sam was weary after a day of climbing ladders, making pies and crushing disappointment but she couldn’t help but be infected by Chloe’s enthusiasm.

‘The festival has been given a lottery grant to fund it for the next zillion years?’

‘No … but it’s almost as good.’ Chloe smiled. ‘Go on, guess.’

‘Aidan Turner has agreed to open it by emerging from the harbour wearing only a mermaid’s tail?’

‘In your dreams. And he would have to be a mer man , but, sadly, no. Try again.’

‘I can’t. I’m too knackered so please, please put me out of my misery.’

‘I’ve got another chef for the festival! And he’s massive – and cheap!’ Chloe did a jazz hands pose. ‘Ta da!’

‘Wow. That is amazing. It’s a bloody miracle. It’s fantastic! You’re a star …’ Sam rocketed from the depths of despair to sunny skies in the course of ten seconds. ‘How did you manage that?’

‘I thought you’d be pleased! I phoned a colleague in my events company for help and she’d worked with him at a big TV food show and said he might help. I couldn’t believe he was available, but it turns out he has links to the local area that go way back—’

‘Who is it?’ Sam demanded and a micro second later, icy little fingers plucked at her skin. No. It couldn’t be … it wasn’t …

Chloe burst into a grin, and actually jigged around on the spot with delight.

‘It’s Gabe Mathias!’ she trilled. ‘Can you actually believe that? Much better than Kris Zachary. More famous, and he’s Cornish!’

Sam’s stomach turned over. Every hair on her stood on end. With a massive effort she forced a smile to her face. ‘Gabe Mathias? Wow. Wow … wow …’ she kept saying like a toy dog whose batteries were running down.

She was just so shocked … so horrified; the penny had started to drop the moment that Chloe had mentioned local connections. God, why hadn’t Chloe found someone else? Sam would have welcomed anyone, anyone else with open arms . In fact, if they’d asked SpongeBob SquarePants to headline the food festival, rather than Gabe, she’d have snapped him up in a trice.

@PorthmellowChick:Festival posters are up. Kris Zachary’s coming. I love his shows. #summerfestival

Chloe seethed with doubts as she trudged up the steep road that led to her apartment. Oh dear. Had she done the right thing in asking Gabe to take over from Kris?

She’d assumed Sam had enough on her plate, and had been thrilled when her contacts had led to the actual Gabriel Mathias stepping in as star chef at such short notice. In fact, she hadn’t been able to believe her luck. He was well-known, well-respected – solvent – and let’s face it, extremely easy on the eye. His Mediterranean recipes, Greek heritage and Cornish background seemed like a dream combination for the festival. In fact, hadn’t he even been born in Porthmellow?

She couldn’t understand why the festival had never booked him before. Perhaps he’d been too expensive – although his agent had said he was willing to do them a ‘good deal’ that wouldn’t be as pricey as Kris Zachary. It had all sounded almost too good to be true – and judging by the look on Sam’s face, perhaps it was. There was definitely an air of panic behind Sam’s expression of surprise. Oh … bugger.

Too late now. Chloe dropped her keys in a ceramic jar on the kitchen counter top. It was pale blond wood, free of clutter, just like the rest of the apartment. Whitewashed walls with a few well-chosen pieces of art from local galleries. The Crow’s Nest was perched high above Porthmellow at the top of a captain’s house that had been converted into three smaller flats.

It was quite a climb up from the harbour, but it kept her in good shape and its nooks and crannies were the total opposite of the neo-Georgian pile she’d shared in a leafy Surrey suburb with Fraser, her ex-husband.

Chloe had bought the Crow’s Nest after she and Fraser had split and had it completely renovated before she’d moved in. The plastic turf on the terrace had been ditched in favour of wooden decking, and the stone wall replaced by glass so she could see over the rooftops of Porthmellow towards the harbour and open sea. She did feel as if she was sitting on the bridge of a ship, gazing down on the comings and goings of the harbour and with a grandstand view of the waves.

She’d kept the cheesy Crow’s Nest name: it was rather fun after all, and she definitely needed a bit of fun. Besides, she knew her Hannah would love the name … at least she hoped she would. Chloe wasn’t sure about anything as far as her daughter was concerned and with the way things were between them, it was unlikely that Hannah would ever see the flat anyway.

Chloe liked her kitchen and her home to be immaculate, with nothing out of place. She hadn’t always been like that. Before Hannah had gone to uni she’d been more than happy to live amidst the chaos of daily family life. Shoes discarded in the hall, school books and magazines littering the sitting room, a hamster’s cage on the dining table, and Hannah’s room resembling a junk shop.

Since she’d moved to the Crow’s Nest, it made her anxious to have a thing out of place in the apartment, or a hair out of place on her head. She knew a shrink would say it was her way of bringing order to the chaos in her personal life and she didn’t care. It was her way of coping with the loss. She missed her ex still, and even though he’d had an affair with the barista at the office coffee shop, she still harboured an idea that he might come crawling back to her, apologetic and reformed. She knew that was unlikely and she should forget about him but she was only human . She missed Fraser’s company, before his affair, they’d been happy enough. For all his faults he was a good if over-protective father, funny and for most of their marriage, a loving husband.

Most of all, she missed Hannah like an organ that had been torn out of her body.

Chloe sank onto one of the kitchen stools as a fresh pang of guilt seized her.

Sam had asked her again about Hannah that morning and once again Chloe hadn’t been quite honest in her reply. In fact, she hadn’t been honest with any of her friends in Porthmellow. She hadn’t exactly lied to them, but she certainly hadn’t told the truth either.

Because the truth was too painful to admit. Hannah wasn’t a Fresher. She’d actually left university the previous year and was now living in Bristol with her boyfriend, Jordan, and their baby – Chloe’s granddaughter – Ruby. Neither Sam, nor any of the committee members knew she was a granny. She couldn’t face talking about the situation. It was too raw and bizarrely, Chloe also felt ashamed of it. Everyone around her seemed to have close bonds, especially Zennor and Sam. Even though she’d heard on the grapevine that they were estranged from their older brother and that Sam might empathise, she still couldn’t bring herself to talk about her own family problems. She might break down or act unprofessionally. It felt like something she had to deal with herself so she buttoned it up and put on a front.