Sunrise By the Sea by Jenny Colgan
Chapter Eight
‘Gosh,’ said Polly. ‘Avery, I hope you’re not crying. He was only joking.’
‘NO!’ said Avery bravely, although Polly slightly feared for bedtime.
‘He’s not really a bear.’
‘But he said he was very hungry and was going to munch me up!’
Polly thought she would have to have a word with Reuben about his hiring practices, not for the first time.
‘Um . . . I’m sorry about that,’ she said to Marisa.
‘It’s okay,’ said Marisa, who had managed to calm herself down, and was wondering if people had always been so strange and she just hadn’t noticed, or if the world really had changed that much while she’d been sitting alone in her bedroom in Caius’ flat.
She quietly steeled herself to open her mouth.
‘Actually, I’m here for keys too?’
Polly slapped her head.
‘Of course, sorry, what an idiot. I’m Polly, by the way. You must be . . .’ She read the piece of paper. ‘Marisa Rossi? Oh, what a pretty name.’
‘Um, thanks.’
Polly handed over the keys and the file, as the children eyed her carefully in case she turned out to be a leopard or something.
‘Well, welcome to Mount Polbearne. Do you know how long you’re staying?’
Marisa shrugged, and Polly gave her an intense look. She remembered turning up here by herself, a long time ago. It had been a strange experience, to be sure.
‘Well, I hope you like it,’ she said, smiling.
Marisa hadn’t even thought about whether she’d like it or not. She just wanted to get in somewhere and shut the door and hide away from everything else, and if this place was right at the end of the world, well. That would do.
‘I’ll take . . . Can I take a loaf of bread? And some rolls . . .’
‘Oh, of course! Goodness, why didn’t I tell that peculiar man to buy some bread too. I can’t have been thinking straight.’
‘Also, we don’t want him to be HUNGRY,’ came a voice from down by her knees.
‘Could you take one up to him?’ asked Polly. ‘He can pop in and pay for it any time, I know where he lives.’
Marisa was stricken. The idea of going to someone else’s house, of having to . . . No. Today had already been bad enough. She couldn’t. Why couldn’t anyone see that? That life was easy for them and hard for her? Sometimes she wished she could carry a stick around so that people could see there was something wrong with her. Or wear a badge? No, not a badge. Just something people would know to avoid her and not to bump into her or ask her to do things she simply couldn’t do.
Frozen, she didn’t answer, but Polly didn’t notice.
‘Oh, he might have brought his own stuff from the mainland. I wonder if he’s going to eat all those strawberry tarts by himself?’
She chattered on, even as Marisa was mentally breathing a sigh of relief. She took the bread and keys, muttered thanks and escaped outside before Polly had a chance to give her directions.
But outside there were people around, walking dogs, boats coming in, people hailing each other and saying hello and she realised she couldn’t stay like that either, and glanced at the map in the file of papers, and turned, and putting one foot in front of another, started pulling her suitcase up the hill.