by Jane Linfoot
As for the doughnut sugar, that’s down to the explosion of new stalls I have to pass along the village streets and the quayside on my dog walking route, all offering free tasters to first timers and locals. Basically, whether it’s Dizzy Doughberries, Fat Bottoms’ Sugar Shed, Heavenly Holes or any of the other delicious-sounding assortment of names, I’m powerless to walk past empty-handed.
Summer wouldn’t be summer without the echoes of tennis either. Aunty Jo is a huge fan and so long as she’s not out for lunch, the rhythmic thud of balls being whacked around the courts at Wimbledon drifts across the courtyard from the open French windows of the day room. As the first wave of carpet fitters move in we’re coming painfully close to the end of her tiny budget.
And then the school holidays begin, and suddenly we’re getting what all the crowd jokes have been about. Before it was mainly at weekends when you needed a tin opener to get across the beachside car parks, but now it’s all day, every day. On the busiest days it’s sometimes hard to spot any sand at all between the beach towels.
All the children from nearby come down with us for a dip in the sea when we go for our early morning dog walks. Then once we get home from the beach the kids are like a sea swell, and spend all day swirling between the orchard and the barn yard and Aunty Jo’s. All except for Cam that is. He mostly follows Dustin around, who, in turn, rarely moves out of slobbering distance of my T-shirt.
With Periwinkle and ‘the quest’ it’s one of those times when all the ends pull together at once. One day it’s looking like it’s still a million miles away from done. Aunty Jo is buffing up all the new bathroom tiles and polishing the taps until they’re more gleaming than the ones on the Flash advert. The kitchen doors are still up in the barn getting their final coat of makeover paint, we’re shunting the last of the Happy Valley furniture out of the house to store at Barney’s, falling over the second wave of carpet fitters as we move in the pieces I’ve borrowed from the shepherd’s hut showroom.
Before I know it, Aunty Jo is putting out all her specially made cushions on the sofas and chairs we’ve brought in, I’m rushing around, adding in little touches like driftwood and ropes of hanging shells and my beachy notices, and Barney is drilling to hang up my specially made Periwinkle Cottage sign. And up in the barn yard Beth and Loella have put extra strings of bunting over all the doorways to make it look extra twee there too.
Back in the cottage garden Malcolm couldn’t be spending any more time sprinkling and trimming the grass and nurturing his borders, and the pots of flowers are exploding with colour. This is the only living lawn in St Aidan to have survived the scorching summer and still be so green it looks like it’s fake not real.
Then late one afternoon, just as we’re on course to finish, Loella rocks up with the news that her friend with a luxury hideaway has had a last-minute already-paid-for cancellation, so we’ve got the offer of a handful of tipis for a night of free beachside glamping, a few miles up the coast. To everyone else, it’s a no-brainer. To me, however seductive, it’s a typical St Aidan last-minute hitch I could do without.
Loella’s looking at her phone. ‘It’s already teatime. I promise we’ll have you back before breakfast, Edie B.’ She’s tweaking the cushions on Aunty Jo’s sofa and wagging her finger at me. ‘Bring your swimmers and your toothbrush – and your lippy if you must – pick you up in ten, you’re bunking in with us.’
Not long later, we’re a few headlands along the coast, and we’re wandering between the most picturesque encampment of pale brown tipis decked with unlit fairy lights, and out onto the pale sand of a tiny private bay.
Loella has every right to look delighted. ‘See, Edie, it’s every bit as gorgeous as I told you?’
I have to hand it to her. ‘It is, I’d forgotten how amazing it feels to be on an empty beach.’
‘That’s the trouble with living in a holiday destination, it’s too easy to forget to go away.’
I’m about to point out I’m only days away from disappearing to my mum’s for her party, but Cam comes and pulls on my hand, so with Dustin bounding along beside us we make our way down to the sea.
We swim and splash in the shallows on our bodyboards, explore the rock pools nestling at the edge of the bay, then we pull in a game of beach volleyball while the guys cook dinner on the gas barbie up by the tents. Then, thanks to a supremely civilised ‘no noise, no fires’ rule, the campfire singalong is replaced with burying Barney, and then we all lie around on luxury sun loungers and watch the sun go down. The first stars come like pricks of light in the smoky blue of the evening and we’re still gazing upwards trying to count them when the sky has turned black and is splashed with a trillion spots of light and the moon slides up so high its reflections are shimmering in the sea.
Beth is the first one to stir. ‘Well, that’s the last of the bubbly.’ They’ve downed quite a few bottles since we arrived. ‘We might as well see if those gorgeous beds are as comfy as they look.’
I leave them to get the younger kids settled down and nip across to the toilet block with Mia for a quick shower. By the time we wander back to the tipi with our toothbrushes, the children’s cries have mostly died down and Loella dips into view through the tipi flaps.
Her voice is low. ‘Hey, I hope you don’t mind, there’s a tiny change of plan.’
‘What’s that?’
‘Cam wanted to sleep in with my lot, he snuck into your bed.’
‘Great, so …?’
‘If you wouldn’t mind swapping to Cam’s bed instead?’
Sleeping with BARNEY? Somehow I manage not to swallow my tongue. ‘Fine.’ It comes out as a rasp, but I’m hoping she’s too sozzled to notice. I can’t make more of this than it is. We’re all adults here, why wouldn’t I sleep in a tent with a friend? So long as I can get my lustful thoughts under strict control …
She squeezes my hand. ‘Thanks, I know Barney would be really grateful. Cam’s never wanted to do a sleepover before, so if he’s ready to do it on his own we don’t want to hold him back.’
I’ve noticed the same with Tash. Once the responsibility of being a parent kicks in, those kiddie worries are so overwhelming they override everything else. There’s apparently very little room for the normal adult behaviour that created the kids in the first place. The real wonder is that anyone has more than one child. And seeing that Barney is even more oppressed by being an unexpected surrogate parent, I’ll be completely safe from his side. He’s going to be beside himself worrying about Cam. Even Bella would see that. So I have nothing to stress about here.
I tiptoe between the swinging light strings, and when I get to Barney’s tipi he smiles up at me in the half light from where he’s lounging on some stripy rugs in the entrance.
‘Thanks for this.’ He glances into the tent behind him. ‘We actually got some amazing beds, but Cam and I decided we’d rather sleep out here, under the stars.’
‘He was mad to swap, I had a wartime camp bed.’ I laugh as I peer past him to two huge vintage beds, covered in pillows. ‘Anywhere’s good for me, I’m knackered.’ I was, but I’m not now. In fact, I’ve never felt more awake.
‘Sit down.’ He pats the ground at the side of him, although to be fair he’s lying more than sitting. ‘So, you’re almost done at the cottage, you’ve finished the shepherd’s huts. I reckon you’re due a rest.’
‘Maybe.’ We’re on reassuringly neutral ground with this. As I flop down onto the soft rug I make out his T-shirt, his bleached low-slung jeans turned up at the bottom. ‘So long as there’s any furniture left to paint, when I come back from the Bath trip I’ll carry on with that.’ Being busy takes my mind off the uncertainty of what’s coming next. ‘Now it’s almost here, I’m really nervous about going back.’
‘You’ve got no need to worry, the way you handle customers, you’ll smash your way back into Zinc Inc.’
‘I hope so.’ Meeting Jake next week is the big test I’m working up to.
‘Not many people know
what it’s like to lose what you’ve poured your whole life into.’ His voice is desolate. ‘Or the guts it takes to start over, and claw your way back.’
My heart’s going out to him. ‘You know from losing the boatyard. But you’ve come back from that so well.’
‘It’s your help that made my business finally come together.’ He nods. ‘But this is your moment, not mine. Now you believe in yourself again, whatever you put your mind to, you’ll be able to do it. Your talent will take you wherever you want to go.’ He lets out a sigh. ‘When I think of how you were when you arrived on the lane, you’ve come so far.’
‘It’s all thanks to you. I took your advice to stop worrying, tried the new direction you suggested. There’s only one box on my to-do list I haven’t ticked …’ And damn that that slipped out into the darkness. As Bella’s constantly reminding me, I still haven’t had a snog, let alone slept with anyone. I’m guessing from the somersaulting tummy I get around Barney that everything in that department is still in working order, but she keeps pushing me to find out.
‘So what’s left?’ He sounds intrigued.
‘Swimming with dolphins.’ I’m pleased how fast it comes out considering I’m making it up.
‘That’s bollocks, you used to hate water. I could take all night to guess, although I have a pretty good idea …’ There’s laughter in his voice as he nudges me with his elbow. ‘If you’re a princess looking for a frog to kiss, just say the word. I’ll be more than happy to help.’
‘You would?’ I’ve imagined this so many times, now he’s here for the taking it’s almost unreal.
‘I’m not claiming to be an expert, I’ve been out of the game longer that you. But I’d do my best to step up to any challenge you throw at me.’
My heart’s banging against my chest wall so hard I’m blurting. ‘I’ll have to do it with someone … at some stage … obviously … and it would help if there was … er – chemistry …’
‘We’d be okay there.’ He runs his finger down my arm and watches my shiver. ‘I think the problem would be knowing when to stop. But it’s one night, it’s been handed to us. We could think of it as a gift?’
I can feel the heat of his thigh pressing against mine. ‘One time only …’ I’m leaning against him, running my finger over the shadows of his forearm, up the muscles of his biceps and under his T-shirt. ‘We’d never mention it again …’ my palm is around the back of his head, my fingers are locking in his hair, and as I’m pulling him towards me I feel like a total tart, but I don’t even care ‘… not to anyone … not even to each other … ’
His breath is warm on my lips. ‘Stop talking, Edie B, and try this …’
As his lips touch mine I stop breathing and lean into the soft, sweet warmth of his mouth. Then my body explodes, and even though my eyes are tight shut, I’m still seeing stars, bright and white, shooting against a dark velvet sky. The distant fall of the waves on the beach come and go, the warm night air is soft on our skin and there’s the sense of falling into a time slip. And then, slowly, our lips are parting.
‘So … ’ Barney’s voice is low and gritty. ‘How’s that for fireworks? You are getting those sparks?’
If I’d stuck my fingers in a plug socket my body wouldn’t be fizzing this much, but it’s too good to stop now. ‘Maybe we could try that one more time … just to make sure …?’
*
It’s one of those nights that falls out of nowhere and feels like heaven. At six I wake up bursting for a pee, and it hits me that the glam in glamping stops short of en suites. So I stagger off to the loo block, and when I get back minutes later Cam’s crawling under the rug next to Barney.
38
Day 297: Saturday, 25th August
In Saltings Lane
Epic Achievement: Fitting an entire garden’s worth of bunting into a teensy suitcase – have flags, will travel! – and feeling like a living, breathing pop-up party. (After all this effort I so hope the buffet is good because I am majorly looking forward to that bit.)
Woo-hoo! Bring on the birthday cake and profiteroles – just saying.
Not that I’m excited about going home, but waaahhhhhh …
And then we’re back. And Loella was right, we were away such a short time, it’s as though glamping never happened. And Barney’s been as good as his word. So much so, it sometimes feels like I dreamed the whole thing, although I rerun it in my head a hundred times an hour. At least.
And then suddenly the cottage is done done. Everyone from the barn yard is wiping their bare feet on the brand-new door mat, padding around the house, admiring the light and airy spaces, and gasping at how expensive the light grey newly painted kitchen units look under the new hardwood work surfaces. And even though they all know a buyer will definitely spell the end of the road for their temporary homes in the stables they still manage to smile and say what an awesome transformation it’s been and hug us and wish Aunty Jo all the luck in the world with her sale.
And before we know it, all our friends have melted away, and the estate agent is there making notes and snapping pictures on his iPad.
All the time the final push to finish the cottage has been going on, I’ve been getting Facebook messages from Jake at Zinc Inc. They started with close-up photos. A detail from a super slick bathroom cabinet. Kitchen drawer sides made from glass. Some funky toilet cubicles from a bar revamp in town. All the things he knows would literally make my heart beat faster, because they’re so well designed and executed. And it’s scary how well he knows me; he’s not wrong once.
Seeing as this is work I want to be my best self, so with the kids’ help I make a long list of suitable words to pick from to speed up my replies. Awesome, wow, sick, brill, on point, fabuloso, effing amazing. Then, just for fun, and because Beth has trained me never to let an idea go before I’ve squeezed every creative drop out of it, I paint a load of signs saying the same thing. Before I know it, Plum’s given me my own Exclamations! hat-stand to hang signs on at the gallery, and they’re also selling like hot cakes at the shed on the quayside, and on Etsy too. In fact they’re rivalling my other current best-sellers – deckchairs saying Cat nap and Dog tired with stencils of a curled up cat and a Robert-dog on. Beth and Aunty Jo are keeping track of sales because apparently there’s a box on the tax return form we have to fill in when the time comes. And I know we’re in the middle of the tourist rush hour, and it’s a long way from any amount that would make Marcus raise an eyebrow, but I’m still excited by how much cash is mounting up from some old bits of wood, some worn-out deckchairs and a few painted words.
Jake’s picture messages keep on coming, and when he adds in a few lines of writing I barely notice because it’s hidden among so many photos. When he sends the bones of a pitch he’s done for flats in a mill conversion, my shiver is pure fear, but the afterglow is excitement. And the teasing goes on, all the way through July. By the time we’re into August, I’m itching to get back to my real job in a proper office. But the best part of all is that now summer is almost over and it’s nearly time for me to go back to where I came from, probably all thanks to Barney’s last push to reassure me, I feel ready for it in a way I never imagined I could.
*
‘Well, we did it.’
Aunty Jo and I are out on the lane, and as we wait for our early morning ride out of town, after the rush of getting ready, I’m pulling her into yet another celebration hug. There were times back in the spring when the tasks ahead seemed insurmountable, and it was impossible to think we’d ever get to this point. But here we are. With the cottage on the market and looking wonderful, Aunty Jo is one buyer away from a secure future wherever she chooses to make it. And here I am, mended and almost ready to close the circle and pick up my old life where I left off.
‘We have to admit the sea air has worked for both of us along the way.’
‘It certainly did, Sweetpea.’ Apart from her signature coral-pink lippy, Aunty Jo couldn’t look more different from the person
who answered the door the day I arrived. It’s not only that she laughs and smiles, and wears proper clothes instead of Harry’s pyjamas. Thanks to the two-for-one deals and the delectable sticky toffee puddings down at the Yellow Canary, she also no longer looks like she’s going to snap in the middle.
It’s not just the sea air, though – it’s the people here who’ve helped us make our journeys. And however much I’m longing to get back home, and however much this was only ever meant to be for a short time, there has to be a sadness about leaving a place and the friends who have played such a big part in helping us put our broken selves back together again.
But we aren’t saying ‘goodbye’ for good just yet. It’s true, we are standing beside our pull-along cases waiting for Malcolm to arrive in his Ford Granada and whisk us off to Bath but it’s just a short visit for my Mum’s sixtieth party. My stomach flutters with excitement though, when I think of picking up where I left off, and wandering down those wide, elegant streets to the office. It’s only when I get a warmth in my chest as I think about the beautiful, familiar, pale stone vistas that I know how much I’ve missed them. Malcolm and Aunty Jo are coming for a night or two over the Bank Holiday, but I’m staying on a bit longer. I’ll catch up with Jake, pull in a hospital appointment, and grab a fleeting taste of the city vibe I know I’ll be longing to get back to, and then get the train back down for a last couple of weeks with Aunty Jo.
Barney and Loella are already down on the beach with the dogs and the kids, so we’re leaving without a wave-off committee. Ever since Dustin came to my rescue even though I didn’t need rescuing, he’s been sleeping in the crook of my knees, and in the day Cam has been with us too. Standing here without either of them for the first time in ages, every time I look down at the gap by my hip where they should be, there’s a horrible lurch in my chest as if I’ve lost something.
