A Cornish Stranger Read Online Free PDF Page A

hunched to touch the surface of the water, and in the low cloud Gabe imagined she could see ghosts lingering by the banks. The thud of the fishing boat’s motor grew louder.
    Something touched her foot and she squirmed, but knew it would most likely be one of the many grey mullet that lived in these waters. Halfway, she stopped and turned around, seeing that the mouth of the creek was now obscured by the fog rolling in, and everything was muffled. Magic. If only she could block out the rest of the world so easily. She shook her head and began a brisk crawl back to the steps.
    Out of the water and wrapped in her robe, Gabe stared at the river, watching the fog begin to dissolve as the sun grew stronger. It was going to be a glorious day. Hopefully the piano would arrive early and she could then go for a long, solitary walk. Her heart lifted as she climbed up to the cabin. The sky was blue, the sun was warm and the north shore was bathed in golden light. It was good to be home.
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    Moving the sofa to the side of the room, Gabe pushed her hair out of her eyes. It just wasn’t going to work. No matter how she tried she wasn’t going to fit a grand piano into the sitting room unless she lost the dining table, which was too big for the small but functional kitchen. Everything about the cabin spoke about Jaunty’s practical way of life. The kitchen contained only what it needed, nothing more than a sink, a stove, a fridge and a large dresser. No space was wasted or overfilled. It was as though Jaunty’s surroundings needed to be plain to let her imagination soar.
    Although Gabe knew the cabin already existed when Jaunty had moved here after the war, it could have been designed for her grandmother. The kitchen and utility room were outside Gabe’s bedroom on the south side, while the sitting room was next to Jaunty’s bedroom on the north, and the cabin looked west with just a few small windows on the east side, which backed into the hill. Virtually everything about the place ­focused on the river, with almost every glance from the windows providing yet another view.
    Gabe leaned on the dining table and looked out at the bright day. It was so hot it could be midsummer. She opened a few windows and dodged a sleepy wasp. Turning, she sighed. The piano wouldn’t fit in here. There was, of course, Jaunty’s studio, perched on the edge of the cliff among the pines overlooking the river. It was almost as big as the cabin, but it hadn’t been used much recently and would most likely be damp. The question was how damp, because pianos and damp didn’t make good companions.
    This morning, sitting near the mudflats on the old quay, she had heard the music of the creek as the tide began to pull the water from the banks. It had soothed her as it tapped, gurgled and popped its way out to sea. The fog had trapped the sound, which clung to the shore like horns, muffled. She had lost track of the time, listening to the array of tones, and a composition had begun forming in her head, a sonata of the tides.
    Gabe shifted the small sofa slightly. Jaunty was dying and Gabe was OK with that. She swung around. No, she really wasn’t, but she had to be. Jaunty, at ninety-two, wasn’t going to live for many more years, probably only months, and Gabe would try and make them the best that they could be.
    In the kitchen the water for Jaunty’s egg had reached a fierce boil. For Jaunty the egg must be placed into the water only when it reached this point, then cooked for three minutes exactly. Gabe set the silly yellow duck timer she had given her grandmother the Christmas Gabe had been ten. Life was better then; she’d still believed in Father Christmas and her father had been alive. Innocence had not been lost.
    Gabe sighed. Some days she felt she’d been born under a bad moon. Her mother had died from an infection three days after she’d given birth to Gabe; when she was thirteen her