There, see? No drama. Everything was fine. All was peachy. Indeed, for two entire minutes, my life was perfectly balanced. Naturally it was pivotal, but I'd learned to make the most of any brief beatific Mument, any minuscule ray of sunshine. The sun came out completely when my phone beeped again. It was Ted.

“Hope you found a bed last night. Mine was rather lonely.”

I smiled.

“Are you suggesting it's going to get crowded? Are you sexting?”

I almost dropped the phone.

“Ha! No. Heavens no. Night.”

“Night night.”

I smiled — blushed too, massively. But a particularly warm and delicious feeling came over me as I snuggled down under the duvet. One might almost call it a rosy glow.

Chapter 24

The day of the regatta dawned bright and clear: the heatwave looked set to continue, but this particular morning was without the heaviness and mist of the last few days, less still and steamy, infinitely fresher. A stiff breeze swept off the sea to the estuary. In response, a myriad of colorful sails at sea and on the shore fluttered violently, so that a positive cacophony of marine noises filled the air, complete with what seemed like an above average quota of seagulls circling and calling, as if they'd rounded up a few more recruits from further down the coast for the occasion.

To call it a regatta was pushing it, frankly. Indeed, the elderly in the village still called it The Fete, but Belinda had seen fit to expand it over the years and renamed it into the bargain. It was very much her show and, although the villagers joined in, there was a fair amount of feet-dragging and sniggering behind hands about self-designated Queen B's misplaced aggrandizement. Unlike Falmouth, which was a week-long event with carnivals and floats, this was a tiny one-day affair, with beach sports in the morning for the children and sailing races in the afternoon.

At some point during the day, the local brass band would take up position on the quay to embark on the musical program and could happily be relied upon to provide chaotic light relief. They rarely practiced, or at least not together, comprising as they did of retired businessmen and local schoolchildren, and were officiated over by a very pompous female conductor who became more and more irritated with her tuneless assembly and banged her baton furiously on her music stand as the audience dissolved. To everyone's amusement she usually fell out with Belinda, and on one famous occasion a standup-knock-down had ensued over whether ‘God Save the Queen’ should have one or two verses; it was said Belinda's ample bosom had been poked with the baton, but that may be wishful and apocryphal. Time and again a local rock band, or even a folk band, had been suggested, but Belinda wouldn't budge: this was how it had been done in Roger's father's day and grandfather's day and by golly she was not breaking with tradition now.