He was pointing at a metal column topped by a square-shaped box that rose from the sea like a sentinel just over two miles from the harbour boundary. A scarcely visible ladder ran down its length into the choppy waters.
'How can you fit in there, Daddy?' asked Cally peering up from beneath her hood. 'It's very tiny.'
Gabe grinned. 'It's bigger than it looks. That's where I'll probably be next week, checking it out.'
'It's too far to swim,' she said, frowning.
What they couldn't see was the important submerged part of the structure, two giant twin rotors resembling aircraft propeller blades attached to either side of a steel monopile which was set into a deep hole drilled into the seabed. Essentially it was a brilliantly conceived device for harnessing power from the sea itself, using tidal flows to turn the rotors.
It was situated where full advantage could be taken of the Bristol Channel's high tidal current velocities; because sea water was eight hundred times more dense than air, quite slow velocities of water could generate significantly more energy than whole crops of surface windmills, and with considerably more regularity and predictability. Gabe's company APCU Engineering (UK) was but one of a consortium of varied companies involved in the production and financing of the prototype, with the UK's DTI and European Commission also partly funding and supporting the enterprise. The parent company, whose invention this was, was aptly named Seapower. The end view was to create whole lines of such marine turbines just off the coast of countries and continents around the world, most of them linked to national grids.
However, as cost efficient and energy productive as these marine current turbines would be, there was a downside, and this was one of the reasons APCU's engineering skills had been sought for the prototype. Maintenance and repairs were, to say the least, challenging, and APCU's engineers had suggested that if the structure's rotors and drive chain could be raised above the waterline when necessary, then maintenance and repair could far more easily be carried out working from a surface vessel. Gabe, who many times in the past had helped design and worked on offshore oil rigs, had been sent to Devon to replace a colleague who had had to resign from the project for health reasons. The temporary assignment was to assist in solving the various but crucial technical problems involved in such an operation.
Loren tugged at his elbow. 'Dad, won't it be awful working out there all day? What if there's a storm?'
'Uh-uh. I only have to visit the actual site now and again. Most of the problems are gonna be worked out on paper. S'why I brought my laptop and printer with me.' The AutoCAD computer program was a boon to the engineering industry, solving problems that used to take hours, if not weeks, in seconds. 'Most of my work time's gonna be spent at the company's local office in Ilfracombe.' Ilfracombe, some ten or twelve miles away, was the nearest big town to Hollow Bay. 'And then a lot of work I can do back at the house, so you'll probably be seeing much more of me than usual.'
'But you brought your laptop too, Mum,' Loren said, turning to Eve. 'Why do you need yours?'
'Oh, just to keep hooked up to a few magazines back in London. You know I still do occasional freelance work.'
'But you haven't for a long, long time.'
'No, and it's time I got back to doing something useful.' God, Eve thought to herself, as if writing trivia for women's magazines was anything useful. At least if some assignments did come up they would keep her mind occupied for a while. She desperately needed distraction and she intended to call some of the mags she'd written for in the past. Perhaps an article on moving to the countryside, or making friends in a completely new environment. Perhaps something on how it feels to lose a beloved child. No, not that—she could never do that.
Cally, who was barely tall enough to see over the harbour wall, tugged at Gabe's hand, impatient to move on. 'Can we go now?' she pleaded. 'Chester will be lonely on his own.'
Feeling wicked, they had locked the whimpering dog in Crickley Hall's kitchen: it would have been even more heartless to leave Chester tied up by his lead in the rain while they had lunch. Besides, they had spoiled him last night when Gabe had brought him up to their bedroom and allowed him to lie at the end of the bed (Gabe had felt Chester continue to shiver in his sleep before he, himself, had dropped off). Leaving the dog alone today might just cure his nervousness. Of course, equally, it might just make him worse. With an inward sigh, Gabe turned away from the sea and led his family back up Hollow Bay's main but narrow thoroughfare.
Towards the end of the street and almost opposite an iron and concrete bridge that crossed the swift-flowing river, they came upon a shop whose broad sign above two large plate-glass windows proclaimed it T. Longmarsh, General Store/Newsagent, and Eve, her arm linked through Gabe's, brought them to a halt.
'I need to get something for tonight's dinner,' she told Gabe. 'And for tomorrow's lunch.'
Gabe peered through the window. 'Okay, let's see what they got. S'all freezer-packs by the look of it.'
Cally had taken time to stand in the kerbside gutter and stamp her Wellington boots into the stream of water that rushed towards a storm drain further along. Loren jumped away to avoid being splashed.
'Hey, Cally, quit it,' Gabe warned. 'You can look at the books in the store while we shop.'
'Bummer,' Cally complained as she stepped back onto the kerb and Gabe had to hide his grin as Eve frowned at her.
Loren giggled, but knew better than to encourage her sister's take on Bart Simpson, so turned away as if honestly interested in the window display. Eve mounted the step into the store's porched entrance and the wood-framed glass display cabinet next to the door caught her eye. Inside it were cards of various sizes and colours, each bearing handwritten or typed messages advertising second-hand goods or services for purchase or hire. She glanced over them with casual interest. There were plumbers, gardeners and garden tools for hire, a pram, used cars and kittens for sale. There were ads for a veterinary service, estate agents and local dentist on view, and more items for sale such as an 'almost new' Apple computer and a Singer sewing machine, cottages to rent, and a church jumble sale announced for a date long since passed. There were faded cards for a psychic reading, an undertaker, speckled pullets, a lime distributor and a reconditioned tractor.
'We going in, hon?' Gabe prompted from the rain-soaked pavement.
Eve had been lost for a moment—such moments were becoming more and more frequent lately—taking in the cards without registering any in particular. A bell tinkled above the door when she pushed through.
The shop was crowded with small freezer units and shelves loaded with confectionery and tinned food, alongside stationery, the smaller kind of DIY products—glues, picture hooks, nails, saws and hammers—with stand-alone magazine and book racks taking up much of the floor space. Jars of sweets, miniature displays of mints and chewing gums, and local and national newspapers shared space with a cash machine on the counter, behind which a plump woman of middle years and severe countenance had become alert to her new customers.
Eve, Gabe, Loren and Cally piled in, dripping wet, a fresh breeze blowing in with them, carrying rain through the porch and over the threshold. Gabe hastily closed the door behind them to preserve the warmth inside.
'Pretty nasty out there,' he said half apologetically to the woman behind the counter, who merely stared back at them through horn-rimmed glasses. 'Yep,' he answered himself under his breath, 'it's pretty wild.'
Eve nudged him with an elbow and he feigned interest in a bookrack close by. Eve immediately went to one of the two freezer units, smiling hello to the shopkeeper as she passed by her. Shrugging off her hood, Cally trotted over to the shelves of sweets and chocolate bars, while Loren went to the magazine carousel.