Sunrise By the Sea by Jenny Colgan

Chapter Ten

Actually, it was more like forty-five minutes.

She opened all the fresh empty drawers to put away her things – very few, all comfies, most of her stuff was still in the car, with a plan to drop it off for storage – but did that matter?

The downstairs bedroom was carpeted and cosy and had wardrobes covering one wall, and the bath next door, so she chose that over the mezzanine.

She made up the brand-new bed with the brand-new sheets – what a luxury this was, truly, kitted out for holidaymakers – and sat on it, her knees drawn up to her stomach, holding herself close, looking out on a bobbing sea, feeling far away from everything; feeling safe, the gentle lapping of the water in her ears.

At some point she dozed off – properly out of it, in a way she hadn’t been for so long, besieged as she was by both insomnia and terrible dreams that would not let her rest. But now she fell properly asleep, and didn’t know how long it was when she suddenly jarred awake. At first, she couldn’t remember at all where on earth she was.

Then it came back to her. She’d had to move, to Cornwall, and was in a brand-new house that was incredibly quiet except . . .

CRUMP!

The noise that had awakened her came again. As well as some shouting and a fair bit of cursing. Well, it might have been cursing, she couldn’t quite tell: the language didn’t sound like English.

Carefully, her heart beating fast, she moved out of the bedroom and towards the main door of the little house, where she could see through the kitchen window.

Outside was a group of large, quarrelling men fighting beside a van. Terrified they’d spot her through the glass, she half-crouched behind it. They were all shouting at each other in a language she didn’t understand, and there was a lot of banging. She couldn’t tell if they actually were angry, or whether it was just because she didn’t understand their tongue. Then one of them made an unmistakable gesture at another. Oh. Properly annoyed then.

The object of their ire became clear: the lovely wooden steps up to the front door, necessitated by the steep gradient of the hill this far up. Marisa wondered what it was they were supposed to be unloading from the van and manoeuvring up the steps. Perhaps it was a washing machine. She already had one of those, brand-spanking-new too. Marisa hadn’t expected to get so excited about a new washer-dryer, but there you go. It had been a quiet few months

As she watched, though, it became clear this wasn’t a washing machine at all. In fact, she watched with mounting horror as the object slowly emerged from the van onto a trolley – it was a huge black piano. Not a grand but even so, the idea of them getting it up the delicate wooden steps was somewhat concerning.

There was a lot more shouting and she retreated to the other side of the sitting room. Oh God. Were they all moving in? With a piano? She thought back. Of course. Her new neighbour. He was the children’s piano teacher. But . . . at the school, surely. He was the school music teacher, right? It hadn’t occurred to her at all that he would have a piano here. Surely he did it all up at the school? This was a rental – who put a piano in a rental?

CRUMP. There was another loud bang on the side of the house How thick were these walls anyway? she wondered. She had assumed that nothing could possibly be worse than Caius’ party-threesome house.

Perhaps she had been incorrect in this assumption.

She looked around the pristine sitting room, with its gorgeous views and pale beachy colours. Well, it had been a dream home for . . . almost an hour.

No, no, maybe it would be lovely. It would be lovely. A little bit of tinkling piano. It would be lovely maybe.

SNAP!

Oh my God, was that a step?