Sunrise By the Sea by Jenny Colgan
Chapter Twenty-four
It was a glorious evening, and Marisa took the potatoes – which she was mashing with plenty of salt and cream – to the little balcony terrace.
To her right, the sun was setting in a light medley of gold and pink. It was wonderful. She glanced round at the houses meandering up and over the hill, down the other side to the northern edge of Mount Polbearne, and the thin land bridge that came and went and joined her little end-of-the-world yellow house to the mainland and the rush and dash and fuss of the rest of the world. She glanced back into the lemon house. She was happier where she was.
The chicken roasting started to smell heavenly; so good it felt unfair, like leaving a trap for a hungry dog. Sure enough, eventually, the shaggy head appeared on the balcony.
‘I am thinkink we should be better . . .’
He had looked up the word but it had gone from him.
“. . . nybor?”
‘Were you,’ said Marisa, continuing to mash. His eye strayed irresistibly to the potatoes. There was clearly lots. ‘You don’t have any cooking sherry, do you?’
His head tilted.
‘Sherry? It’s . . . Spanish wine.’
He vanished and came back with a Rioja, proffering it willingly.
‘Um, no. Like. Sweet wine. Is it? Yes.’
‘Oh!’
He vanished again and returned with port.
‘What . . . do you have an entire bar in there?’
‘Yes.’ Alexei nodded gravely.
‘What? How? Why?’
‘My friends . . .’
He looked slightly caught out then, as if he hadn’t meant to mention them.
‘When I move . . . they said, you must take alcohol, you move to England. They buy me presents. Was funny.’
He said the last words quietly, as if it didn’t seem funny any more.
‘But you’re Russian,’ said Marisa. He looked as if he didn’t know what she was talking about.
‘So?’ he said.
‘Why did you . . . ?’
She was about to ask why he had moved there but he had disappeared once more.
‘What you want?’ came from inside his blue house.
Okay,’ said Marisa. ‘Well. If you really have everything. S-H-E-R-R-Y.’
He disappeared then eventually came back with a very expensive-looking bottle of Amontillado.
Marisa couldn’t help cracking a smile.
‘No way! Well.’
‘You want?’
‘It’s too good for cooking.’
‘You drink it?’
‘No. Do you?’
‘No! Was for new English . . . friends.’
They both looked awkward then and Marisa didn’t say anything.
Therein followed a small problem of how to get it over the balcony. It didn’t occur to either of them just to open their front doors. Instead Marisa grabbed one of her big yellow striped towels and held it in the gap between the two balconies, and he gently lowered it in.
‘Thanks for this,’ she said. ‘Would you . . . like to eat?’
She could tell he was still annoyed with her and desperately wanted to swallow his pride and say yes.
‘Well, what are you having for dinner?’ she asked him.
He frowned. ‘Is fine.’
‘What?’
‘Cabbage that is stuffed.’
‘That sounds . . .’
‘Is very good.’
‘Okay,’ she said. ‘Supper will be about fifteen minutes. I’ll leave it up to you what you do with the cabbage.’
‘Is very good,’ said Alexei with feeling.
‘Well, bring it. I’ll see you on the balcony.’
Marisa returned to where the chicken was browning beautifully and put the potatoes back on the heat. She added garlic to melting butter and threw in some chopped onions, sprinkling them with a huge splash of the expensive sherry. The smell was absolutely divine.
Quickly she made up a salad, slicing her precious sun-dried tomatoes into little sharp-tasting shreds with the kitchen scissors, but letting long luxuriant thin slices of parmesan settle onto the rocket leaves. Then she threw the mushrooms into the hot butter with the onions caramelising gently, and ground a large amount of white pepper into the mix. This she poured over the chicken with its crunchy aromatic skin, added the completely luscious mashed potatoes and the sharp little salad, then carried two hefty platefuls out to the balcony.
Alexei arrived at about the same time with some pale-looking cabbage on his plate. He looked at her plate and he looked at his plate. Then he took his plate and hurled the cabbage off it over the side of the rocks, till it splashed into the water below.
It was so unexpected Marisa let out a bark of laughter, and after that it felt very odd not to sit out with one another and chat, or so Marisa thought. Alexei, however, gulped down his food like a bowl had just been set in front of a dog, in complete silence. Then he looked up, noticing she had barely started.
‘Is very good,’ he said, still chewing.
‘Okay,’ said Marisa. ‘So. Um. Do you like being a piano teacher?’
There was a pause.
‘Um,’ said Marisa eventually, when it became clear he wasn’t going to fill it.
His beetle-like eyebrows came together.
‘You play the piano?’
‘No.’
‘Any instrument?’
‘No.’
‘You sing?’
‘No.’
‘When you are happy? Or in the shower? You do not sing? You have no music?’ His face looked sad. ‘It is sad to have no music.’
Don’t start, thought Marisa. Don’t tell me about sad. She used to love music, used to go to gigs all the time. Here she just used it to block out the rest of the world, to block out other people’s music and noise.
Out over the sea a gull called. The waves pounded onto the rocks below. It was as quiet as it had been since Marisa had moved in.
‘Well,’ she said carefully. ‘Silence is nice too. Listen?’
The push and pull of the water came back and forth. Another gull answered the cry. The lighthouse flooded their windows, briefly, and off again. There was the distant clatter of the masts of the fishing boats, clicking in the wind.
He did listen, tilting his large head to the side.
‘Well,’ he said finally. ‘Perhaps that is just a different type of music.’
‘Perhaps it is,’ said Marisa quietly.