“What’s Alfred’s story?” Annie asked. “Maeve and Gemma seemed to think he didn’t want a home. That can’t be right, can it?” Annie had already decided not to mention that Alfred had slept in the tearoom; it would feel disrespectful to him and besides, it was no one else’s business.
“I’ve known Alfred for years and even I don’t know the exact details. I think Mari knows, but she’d never tell. All I know is he lost his family in a house fire when he was fourteen. He boomeranged around children’s homes until he was eighteen and spent a bit of time at Her Majesty’s pleasure, before finally giving up on society.”
“Oh my God, poor Alfred. I can’t even begin to imagine the mental scars that kind of tragedy would leave. Fourteen! It doesn’t bear thinking about.” Annie thought of the twins at age fourteen, still childlike in so many ways.
“I doubt there was much in the way of therapy or grief counseling in those days,” said Paul. “And I’m not sure being pinballed about the care system would have been much fun either.”
“No,” Annie agreed. “It goes some way to explaining his preference for self-reliance, I suppose.”
They were quiet for a time as they wandered among the final resting places of Willow Bay’s oldest residents.
“Now this,” said Paul, stopping beside a ship’s anchor laid in the center of the cemetery, “is the actual anchor from the actual sunken Willow . . . supposedly.”
“Wow,” said Annie. “So, it’s a kind of memorial?”
“That and an insurance policy.” Paul grinned. “The villagers thought if they rested the ship’s anchor on holy ground, it might tether the lost sailors’ souls and stop them causing mayhem around the bay. Being that they’d driven them to a watery grave, they were somewhat jumpy about spectral retribution!”
“That’s a touch grisly,” said Annie.
“We Willow Bayers like a bit of macabre.”
“You really love it here, don’t you?”
“I couldn’t ask for more,” said Paul. “My dad left the house to me. And between the window cleaning business and the carpentry, I make as much as I need. Being my own boss means I can get out on the water whenever I like.”
“Do you fish?”
“Me?” Paul laughed. “No, I leave the fishing to Ely and his boys. It’s the surf that calls my name.”
“You surf?” asked Annie.
“Kite surfing, wind surfing, you name it,” said Paul.
Annie got the impression Paul was trying to impress her. It was working.
Chapter 27
Penny for them,” said Paul.
Annie blinked and realized she’d wandered to the end of the gravel path that wound through the graveyard and was standing inside the wooden lych-gate.
“Sorry,” said Annie. “I was lost in my thoughts.”
“Anything I can help with?” asked Paul.
“I was thinking that you seem to have the work/life balance thing sorted,” said Annie. “I’ve never been very good at balance. I’m on the lookout for tips.”
“Well, you’re headed in the right direction,” said Paul.
“How can you tell?”
“You’re here, aren’t you?” said Paul. “You left behind something that wasn’t working and struck out on your own. You’re finding your balance.”
“You make it sound like more of a determined effort than it was,” said Annie.
“Then what was it?” asked Paul.
“Running away,” said Annie. “Spur of the moment.”
“You need a perspective adjustment,” said Paul. “Every action can be seen as either a positive or a negative. You need to retrain your mind so that your reactions to your actions are positively charged.”
“Like, A smile is a frown turned upside-down?” asked Annie. She smiled at Paul and he laughed back at her.
“In its most basic terms, yes,” said Paul.
“Where do you learn this stuff?” asked Annie. “Do you have a guru sitting cross-legged in your living room?”
“I’ve read a lot of books and smoked a lot of weed,” said Paul.
Annie burst out laughing. She’d never really got into the whole weed scene. She hadn’t indulged since she and Max had after the twins’ fourth birthday party. It had been a disaster; she’d gotten paranoid and convinced herself that she was having a deep-vein thrombosis and was going to leave her children motherless and spent the next hour begging Max to let her call herself an ambulance.