“The storeroom?” asked Annie.
Mari pointed behind her to a door under the stairs.
“Cellar,” said Mari. “If you want to keep anything down there, keep it off the ground. If the tide rises too high the cellar floods. It’s not flooded for the last few years; not since the council started building up the beach defenses each year, at any rate. But I don’t like to take it for granted. All this climate change makes me nervous. There’s a tunnel down there, leads to an outcrop near the cliffs,” she went on. “Used to be used by the smugglers, but we bricked it up and stacked it with sandbags to try and keep the flooding at bay.”
“Smugglers! Wow!” said Annie, ignoring the part about climate change and the inference that she might get swept away. “What a fantastic piece of history!”
“Aye, it was all blaggards and moonshiners round these parts,” said Mari. “There’s a big freezer down there with ice cream and cones on the shelf above.”
“Oh, I don’t think I’ll be opening the kiosk,” said Annie. “I’m not looking to start a business; I’m trying to leave one behind.”
“Suit yourself,” said Mari. And then she added, “There’s another chest freezer down there and a smaller one, both for personal use. Keep them topped up; if the winter turns bad and the hill gets cut off, you’ll be glad of them!”
They climbed the stairs, Mari leaning heavily on the handrail for support, her breathing labored not, Annie thought, by the climb so much as her knees, which Annie could see were causing her pain. Mari pushed open the door at the top of the stairs and ushered Annie into a bright little sitting room. A long chintz two-seater sofa sat opposite a high wing-backed armchair upholstered in a raspberry-and-cream tartan; a small coffee table piled high with books sat to the side of it. In one corner was a wood burner, with a black flue that ran up the wall and through the ceiling, and in the other a small flat-screen TV sat on a leather trunk. The walls were lined with shelves of books, stacked higgledy-piggledy where sheer volume made neat and tidy impossible, and stuck everywhere were small yellow Post-it notes with little scribbled messages.
A cushion-clad window seat was framed by two large sash windows facing out across the ocean.
“What an amazing view!” said Annie.
“Isn’t it,” said Mari. “It’s never the same twice. I’ve lived here over eighty years and never tired of looking at it.”
“Won’t you miss it while you’re away?”
“I dare say I will. But I won’t be too far from the ocean,” said Mari. “I’m going to stay with a friend who has a house in Cornwall. It’s close by the sea. Not as close as this, mind, but it’s only a short walk away.”
“More of a home away from home than an escape from winter,” said Annie. “I thought you’d be off to Spain or somewhere.”
“Ah, well, maybe next year,” said Mari. “This is a practice run. My nephew’s idea, really. Last winter was too much for me; there’s winter, and then there’s seaside winter! I’m not as hardy as I used to be. Sometimes the weather was so bad I couldn’t get out for a week at a time, though my friends in the village are very kind, and I didn’t want for anything. My friend June, in Cornwall, lives on a high street; everything’s on the doorstep. It takes me an hour to climb that hill.” Mari motioned with her head toward the hillside. “And that’s on a good day. But with the January wind against you . . . Like I said,” Mari continued, almost as if Annie weren’t there, “I’m not as hardy as I used to be. The locals kept an eye on me, along with my nephew, but I don’t like fuss. I don’t want to be cosseted like some decrepit creature that’s passed its usefulness. I want to be able to look after myself for as long as I’m able.”
“Still,” said Annie. “It’s nice to know people are looking out for you.”
Mari smiled.
“John’s a good boy,” she said. “I don’t say he’s not. But he forgets I used to change his nappy! I daresay if his mother were alive, he’d be fussing over her instead, but she’s not, God rest her, and sometimes his extravagance drives me to distraction. Look at those!” she said, gesturing toward the windows. “Triple glazed! Triple! Did you ever hear the like?”
“Were the old ones drafty?” asked Annie, only just noticing that the room was bereft of any of the sounds of the blowy shore outside.