Sunshine and Cider Cake, page 1
The Great Summer Street Party Part 1
Sunshine and Cider Cake
Georgia Hill
One More Chapter
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First published in Great Britain by HarperCollinsPublishers 2022
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Copyright © Georgia Hill 2022
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Cover design by Lucy Bennett © HarperCollinsPublishers Ltd 2022
Cover images: Shutterstock.com
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Georgia Hill asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work
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A catalogue record of this book is available from the British Library
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This novel is entirely a work of fiction. The names, characters and incidents portrayed in it are the work of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or localities is entirely coincidental.
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All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, down-loaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins.
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Ebook Edition © February 2022 ISBN: 9780008519742
Version: 2022-01-20
Contents
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Chapter 31
Chapter 32
Chapter 33
Acknowledgments
Thank you for reading…
About the Author
Also by Georgia Hill
One More Chapter...
About the Publisher
For the ADCs. Thank you for the ‘Zoom handholding.’
The Berecombe News
A Year of Commemoration
By: Keeley Sharma
This year sees the seventy-fifth anniversary of D-Day. We owe an enormous debt of gratitude to those brave American boys who went to fight on French beaches for our freedom.
No one can overestimate the impact of thousands of GIs arriving on our shores. Rumour has it that, even in our little town, several babies were the result of this friendly invasion and this reporter knows of at least one marriage!
This year the invasion is happening all over again. Berecombe is playing host to our American allies once more. All surviving soldiers who were billeted in the town and who went to Omaha Beach have been invited. New museum director Noah Lydden is co-ordinating the commemorations and says it will be a year-long feast for mind and body and, most importantly, a whole lot of fun. Street parties, special-event films, a D-Day Parade, a black-tie ball at The Henville and much, much more will be organized in and around the town.
So, come along, get dressed up and join in the fun!
Chapter One
‘You can’t argue with the view.’ With reluctance, Ashley Lydden turned her back on the sun-soaked vista of sea and sky that was Lyme Bay and observed the tiny office instead. She smiled at her cousin fondly. Oblivious to the glorious late February day outside, Noah was hunched over his computer, his hair tousled and his brow furrowed in a look she knew well: preoccupation mixed in with a smattering of frustration. She waited patiently until he’d finished whatever it was he was doing.
Eventually he swung around on his chair. ‘Ash, it’s so good of you to come down and help me out with this. I’m swamped, to be honest.’ He shot her a grateful look.
Ashley shrugged. ‘Hey, being stuck in Ludlow with the parents or a few months sunning myself in Berecombe. It’s a no-brainer.’ She flicked a long, dark lock of hair away from her face. ‘And in between helping you organize this madly epic extravaganza, I shall attempt to do some painting. Unless I’ve forgotten how to do it. What on earth made you make it so complicated when you’ve only been in the job for five minutes?’ She made her way gingerly through the muddle of papers and piles of books and sat down on the only other chair.
‘I didn’t. I had in mind a fairly simple verbal history project. Then the Friends of the Museum group got hold of me and put me right.’ Noah grimaced. ‘Apparently Berecombe is a town that likes to celebrate and the seventy-fifth anniversary of D-Day wasn’t something they were going to let slip by. There’s one,’ he frowned, ‘Biddy I think her name is – she terrifies me. I’ve been holed up in this office twenty-four/seven since I started the job in September. I thought it would be far too little time to organize anything big, but Biddy put me right on that. Says the town rallies. She might be right; it’s got a fabulous sense of community.’
Ashley laughed. ‘At least the view from your window is good. I can think of worse places to be holed up in.’ She nodded to the panoramic view of the town’s promenade and beach. A fresh breeze blew in and made the blind-pull flutter. It brought with it the intoxicating scent of salt-laden air.
‘One advantage of being slightly up the hill and three floors up. I reckon this place has arguably the best view of any museum in the UK.’ Noah winced. ‘I suppose the other advantage is my thigh muscles have never been so honed.’
‘No need for the gym then.’
‘No time.’ He groaned. ‘Speaking of which, I’d better get my skates on. I’m holding an introductory memory session in twenty minutes.’ He glanced at his watch. ‘I’m going to have to jog.’
‘Where are you headed to?’
‘A café at the far end of the prom. Millie Vanilla’s, I think it’s called. Been in a few times. Fabulous place.’
‘I know the one. Next to that fantastic bookshop.’ Ashley raised her eyebrows. ‘You’ll have to run. It’s at least half a mile. I’d jog with you, but…’ She let the sentence trail.
Noah was busy collecting his handheld recorder and notebooks. ‘But you can’t keep up with me. Slowcoach,’ he teased. Then, realizing what he’d said, he turned back to her, stricken. ‘Ash, I’m so sorry. I didn’t mean—’
‘Will you take that look off your face! It’s fine, honestly. I just have to take life at a slightly more sedate pace these days.’
‘Oh lordy, Ash. I feel awful.’
‘Stop it,’ she said sternly. ‘I developed an extremely thick skin very soon after the accident.’
‘Well, look, meet me in the café later, then. I’ll treat you to a coffee and an unseemly large cake to make up for my appalling lack of tact. It does the most wonderful food – one reason I chose to base the memory project there.’ He came to her and dropped a kiss on the top of her head.
‘And there won’t be a memory project unless you go.’ She pushed him playfully. ‘Go!’
‘See you later?’
‘See you later, coz. Bye.’
Ashley didn’t move. She was in no hurry to leave. She sat enjoying the view and the salty air whipping in through the window. Marshmallow clouds, the sort found in children’s picture books, scurried across the pale-blue sky. Sky met sea at an almost indistinguishable horizon and everything seemed huge and open. Humbling. Since coming to Berecombe, she’d become fascinated by the sea. Its moods swung from sullen to angry and back to serenely calm, sometimes in less than an hour. She’d never tire of it. Her fingers began to itch; she wanted to get out there and paint.
She gathered her bag and straw hat and got to her feet. Although her injuries were well on the way to being healed, everything had to be done at a slower pace these days and her balance still wasn’t perfect. Thinking of the stone spiral staircase which led down from Noah’s office into the museum proper, she cursed. It would take her an age to negotiate it. But she was determined to do it.
Collecting her rucksack from reception, she heaved it onto her back and made her way out into the sunshine. The museum was tucked behind the town’s little theatre on a main road leading out of Berecombe, and she had to concentrate to navigate the narrow pavement thronging with tourists and too near the buses, which thundered through belching diesel. As she reached the beginning of the promenade that ran parallel to the sea and eventually led to the harbour at the other end of town, she stopped for a second and breathed a sigh of relief that she’d made it. As she did so, a man behind knocked into her.
‘Oi! Watch out! Mind where you’re going!’ Then he passed her and caught sight of the stick. ‘Oh, sorry love. Didn’t see that you were…’ His face shut down in embarrassment and he strode off.
Ashley steadied herself, found her balance, adjusted her rucksack’s weight to the middle of her back and walked on. Since the accident there had been a shift in how people treated her. Many were kind but a few displayed impatience. They’d tut as she held them up in shops, barge past her as she took up too much room on the pavement. Sometimes they even verbally abused her. For a while she’d stopped venturing out alone. Eventually, though, pride and frustration conquered the fear and she began going solo again.
Her parents hated it, terrified she was vulnerable to attack, or that she would fall and be unable to get help. Their concern, although she knew it came from a place of love, was suffocating. It was what had driven her to accept Noah’s request. That and the offer of the self-contained flat in the house he was renting near the centre of town, which had reasonable bus links and the promise of, if not paid work at the museum, then something to keep her mind occupied.
Her parents, reluctantly agreeing to the plan, had driven her down in a car stuffed with belongings. She’d tried not to laugh; it was a sad parody of when they’d driven her to teacher training college a decade ago. Her father had sniffed around the flat, grudgingly agreed it would do, being on one level, and then had examined it for trip hazards. Her mother, having stocked up the freezer with Tupperware boxes of home-cooked meals, had fretted about whether her daughter would cope. Ashley had squeezed her tight, reassured her she’d be fine and reminded her that she had Noah on the floor above just in case. They’d eventually got into the Jag and disappeared. They were breaking the journey back at a country hotel and Ashley hoped they’d have a chance to relax. Since the accident everything had been full-on and she knew they were exhausted. She loved her parents and was deeply grateful to them for the care they’d taken of her while she recuperated, but living with them had been teeth-gnashingly awful. She’d reverted to being a moody teenager – only worse. She wasn’t proud of how she’d behaved and her parents hadn’t deserved it. After waving the car off, she’d shut her own private front door, leaned against it and breathed in sea air and freedom.
And now, scanning Berecombe promenade for an empty bench facing out to sea, she spied one in the distance. Trying not to hurry before it was taken, she concentrated on walking properly, as the physios had taught her. Back straight, consciously feeling the concrete beneath each part of her foot as it made contact and making sure she had both feet facing forwards. Her shattered pelvic girdle had meant she had needed to learn to walk again and, even now, when she was tired, her left leg dragged a little. Not today though. Unless you were looking closely, you wouldn’t notice anything amiss. Apart from the stick, of course, and Ashley hoped she’d be able to ditch that soon. By some miracle, seeing as the town was busy with spring sunshine-seeking tourists, the bench was still vacant when she got to it. She collapsed onto it gratefully. It was the furthest she’d walked since arriving in Berecombe. Lifting her head to the sky, she drank in the warm sunshine and relished being alive.
Chapter Two
Ashley began her routine. Putting her rucksack on the bench beside her, she took off her straw hat, wedging the brim under her bag so it wouldn’t blow away. She tied a scarf around her hair. The whisper of bluey-green silk stopped it blowing into her eyes while she worked and, along with giant sunglasses, hid the scar which ran livid behind her ear. She rested her watercolour pad on her lap and took out her travelling paint tin. She regretted not being able to bring an easel but just couldn’t carry it along with her rucksack and stick, needing her hands free should she fall. The little tin of Windsor and Newton paints, her plastic jar of water and pad did the job until she could get home to paint on something larger. It was like taking visual notes before working them into the final piece and worked well for her. Stowing the stick inside the rucksack, she thanked the heavens that the latest incumbent was collapsible. Her little ritual performed, she surveyed the coastline with pleasure, taking in the solemn grey Blue Lias cliffs and the fossil hunters scrabbling over the rocks in an attempt to find a scrap of ammonite or belemnite. The Lias bled into the fiery red of the sandstone at West Bay which then, in turn, seeped into the blinding white of Portland. She made a mental note to look up what buses could get her there; she’d love to visit but driving was out of the equation at the moment. Ashley had become entranced by this stretch of coastline.
Aware someone had sat at the other end of the bench, she shifted her body away and towards the view. She hoped the signal was clear: Do not disturb. Meeting new people could be fraught, as she was forced to explain yet again why she walked with a stick. It could be exhausting. Today she simply wanted to concentrate on painting. Too few people took heed of body language, but to her relief, this particular person took the hint.
She began to work, ignoring the tourists walking past on the promenade and the traffic on the road which ran parallel. For a while she used pencil and made some rapid-fire marks, enjoying the rasp of pencil on paper. She’d discovered she attracted less attention when drawing. For some reason a vividly painted watercolour drew a crowd and she was still getting used to the attention. A cloud drifted over the sun, transforming the scene into something with softer shades, something more subtle, and she worked even quicker to capture the change in light. The breeze got up, making the cloud blow off to the east. Immediately everything became bright yellow and turquoise again. It was too much of a temptation. Flicking over to a new page, she dipped her brush into water and began to paint.
Eventually, as her back was getting stiff, she stopped. She was just about to put away her kit when a car horn split the peace. It was followed by the sickening crunch of metal grinding on metal. Shouts. Aggressive swearing. Ashley flinched so violently, her pad slipped from her fingers and the water jar rolled to the ground, scattering brushes. Concentrating on her breathing, she screwed her eyes shut. Counting backwards in her head, she became aware of a voice to her right. A man. An American accent.
‘Aw jeez, you’ve dropped your things. Here, let me.’
Ashley opened her eyes to see a man crouching on the sandy concrete, gathering up her painting things in his big hands. He rose to sit beside her. Too traumatized to take much in, she caught a flash of humorous eyes in a friendly face.
‘Shall I put them in your bag?’
‘No!’ The response came out sharper than intended. Softening, she explained, ‘It has to go in a certain way or it won’t all fit.’
‘Okay.’
He sat patiently while she opened the rucksack. He made no comment on her trembling, clumsy hands or the stick which she took out, extended and laid on the bench between them.
‘Just tell me what you need first,’ he said equably. Handing things over in the order she requested, he kept up a running commentary about the accident behind them. ‘Looks like just a shunt,’ he said. ‘No real damage except to the trunk. Two young guys, by the look of things. Got to the stage of exchanging numbers now. All calmed down.’ He handed her the now empty water jar, having first screwed on the lid. ‘Sounded worse than it is, I guess. Often does when cars hit one another.’
‘Not always.’ Ashley took the watercolour pad from him and slid it into its slot. She zipped up the rucksack but made no attempt to move. She didn’t trust her legs quite yet.
