The Drowning by Valerie Mendes

than the processed kind.”
    “Have you looked at the place recently? I don’t mean dashed in and out of it like a headless chicken. I mean really looked.”
    “Can’t say I have. Never got the time. As long as it’s clean . . . Pass me the tomatoes, Jenn. And the parsley. Used to grow this in the garden when I was a lad.”
    Jenna persevered. “Clean isn’t good enough, Dad. We’ve got competition. The walls aren’t pink, they’re dowdy. The paint on the window ledges has peeled in the heat. The front door’s disgusting. The tables outside are thick with rust. We cover them with tablecloths when what we really need is new furniture. We should be tempting people to sit down, not putting them off.”
    Dad stopped stirring the soup. He stared at her, his wooden spoon dripping over the simmering liquid. “D’you know what? You sound just like my Lydia.”
    “What a thrill,” said Jenna grimly. “How is she, by the way?”
    Dad gave a watery smile. “Having a good time without me, by all accounts.”
    “Yes, well, when she decides to come home, we’ll have a surprise for her, won’t we? A Cockleshell she’ll hardly recognise: white walls, a floor that’s newly sanded and polished, blue woodwork, cream lamps and a couple of new paintings. Let’s get rid of those horrible chintzy curtains and splash out on some modern white crockery.”
    “It’ll cost a fortune!”
    “Not if we shut the place and do the work ourselves. We could get the lot done in a week at the most. How about it, Dad? A whole new look for our Cockleshell.”
    Dad’s eyes lit up. “We could tell Mum we did it to tempt her home.”
    “Exactly . . . She’ll be so impressed with you. Come on, now. What do you say?”
    Dad grinned. He turned to face her and saluted with the spoon.
    “Aye, aye, Captain Jenn. When do we sail?”
    She was up a ladder outside the Cockleshell in the warmth of the late-September sun, sanding down the top of a window frame, her mind, blissfully, a total blank.
    Inside the tea room, Dad slapped white paint on a wall. He sang to himself, one of his off-key sea shanties that seemed to have no certain beginning and no particular end. Listening, Jenna realised it was not a sound she’d heard for many weeks.
    Behind her she heard another voice, slow and husky.
    It made her heart leap into her throat, though she did not know why.
    The voice paused for a moment. Then it said,“Jenna?”
    She turned to look.
    Standing at the bottom of the ladder was someone she recognised, a face she’d seen before – yet she did not know his name.
    “Jenna Pascoe? Great to see you again. We were just on our way to the shops.” His face was tanned, his body tall and lean, his eyes dark. He wore an immaculate pale grey tracksuit with a white stripe framing the collar. By his side smiled a shorter woman with a face hauntingly like his own.
    Jenna crawled clumsily down the ladder, aware that her jeans were covered in paint, her hair knotted into a grubby scarf, her hands grimy with dirt.
    “I’m sorry, do we know each other?”
    “Ah.” He grimaced. “You don’t remember me?”
    Once again his voice seemed to tug at her heart. “I . . .”
    The details of that panic-stricken afternoon washed across her mind more vividly than they ever had before.
    Hesitantly, she said, “Are you . . . Did we meet when—”
    “Yes. I’m Meryn Carlyon.” He held out his hand. “I was one of the lifeguards on Porthmeor Beach . . . the day it all went wrong.”

Meryn
     
    “I’m so sorry.” Jenna blushed. Meryn’s hand felt cool and roughened by the wind and tide. “Of course I remember.”
    “It was a terrible afternoon. I wouldn’t be at all surprised if you’d blotted the whole thing out of your mind.”
    “I only wish I could.”
    A frosty pause hung in the air like the first snowflake of a winter’s day.
    “This is my mum.” Meryn slipped an arm round his companion. “I’ve been so busy on the beach I’ve hardly seen her