Annie felt her eyebrows rise.
“Maeve!” said the younger woman. “You make everything sound so, so brutal!” She turned to Annie. “Alfred is homeless by choice, kind of. He’s sort of a nature man,” she said. “Believe me, we’ve tried to get him into sheltered accommodation, we’ve had the council out to see him about support . . .”
“Says he’s too long in the tooth,” said Maeve. “Started coming quite a few years ago. Jolly good company when you get to know him. Stays for the summer, goes back to the city for winter.”
“Too long in the tooth?” asked Annie.
“To live indoors,” said the younger woman. “He says he’s lived under the sky too long; he can’t cope with being an ‘inny.’？”
“You make it sound almost romantic,” said Annie.
“She could make dog turds sound romantic,” said the older woman. “Just moved here, you say? I’m Maeve. This is Gemma. You’ve met Podrick.”
At the sound of his name, Podrick, who had been very interested in a dead crab along the way, came bounding back up the beach.
“I’m Annie,” she said, ruffling Podrick’s fur.
A crunching sound behind her made Annie turn. A figure emerged from out of the cave; a hood pulled low partially concealed his face, but she could make out a hooked nose and a wild black beard. He wore a long black wax jacket that grazed the tops of his boots and carried the dirty rucksack on his back. Sea birds flocked around him as he strode up the beach; the pebbles seemed to lie compliant under his feet.
“Alfred!” called Maeve.
Alfred waved in response but didn’t turn or break his stride.
“You nearly scared this poor woman to death!” she shouted.
“Sorry,” came the voice beneath the hood. “No harm intended. Probably shouldn’t be so quick to meddle with things that don’t belong to her.”
He climbed the steps to the promenade, scaled the iron railings with ease, and dropped to the other side, picking his way effortlessly though the boulders until he had disappeared around the curve of the cliff, the birds following in his wake.
“Bit of a backhanded apology,” said Annie.
“He’s all right,” said Maeve. “Just a bit rough-and-ready, is all.”
“How does he survive?” asked Annie.
Gemma replied, “He does odd jobs and gardening for the pubs and general handyman work around the village, so he does all right. The pubs quite often pay him in meals.”
“There are worse things to be paid in,” said Annie.
“Quite,” said Maeve.
“The gulls seem to like him, does he feed them?”
“No,” said Gemma. “He protects them, makes sure their nests in the cliffs stay untouched and looks after them if they break a wing or something. That’s what I mean by ‘nature man.’？”
The clouds that had been threatening to drop all morning suddenly did so. A curtain of cold water collapsed from the sky; the blue-black surface of the sea danced as though a swarm of piranhas frenzied beneath it.
“Oh my God!” screeched Annie.
Gemma was squealing and covering her head with an ineffectual cotton neck scarf. Maeve remained unmoved, as though refusing to let the rain see it was making her wet.
“Quick!” shouted Annie. “Come back to mine.” She pointed over to Saltwater Nook.
The women looked at one another as a shared recognition dawned. They followed without speaking, Podrick leaping about them, excited by the sudden change in the weather. The rain pummeled Annie’s skin pink as she fumbled with the keys at the front door. Her expensive anti-wrinkle cream had run into her eyes and stung like a bastard, so that she was half-blind and squinting when she finally found the right key and the three women and one wet dog stumbled into the lower hallway.
Maeve shut the door on the rain, and Annie flicked the light on. Pools of water collected at their feet as their saturated clothes expunged what they could no longer hold.
“I’ll get the kettle on,” said Annie, making for the stairs.
“I can’t bring Podrick up,” said Maeve. “He’s soaking.”
As if on cue, Podrick, who’d been investigating the bottoms of the skirting boards, suddenly shook himself and sent a spray of water up the walls and over the women. The cramped hallway was already becoming infused with the odor of wet dog. Annie had an idea.
“No problem,” said Annie. “We’ll go in here!”