by Jenny Colgan
Polly nodded. Selina let out a great sigh.
‘And I have to… my therapist thinks this too. Because I have a therapist now. How wonderful is that? I always hoped I’d have a therapist.’
‘Lots of people have therapy,’ said Polly mildly.
‘Lots of people have scabies,’ said Selina. ‘Didn’t want that either.’
Lance stiffened. ‘You have scabies? Only, the lease…’
‘It’s a figure of speech,’ said Selina. She was sharper, more brittle, thought Polly, than the last time she’d seen her.
‘So, my therapist…’
Polly had a sudden flashback to the couples’ therapist she had insisted Chris go with her to at one dark stage towards the end of their relationship. It had been incredibly painful. Chris had sneered at the expensive cars parked outside the practice, its smart reception, the well-dressed therapist with her trendy glasses. He’d sneered at Polly too, for wanting the therapist to like her, for answering questions helpfully.
‘Oh yes, you win that one,’ he’d say, in a tone of voice so nasty she simply couldn’t recognise the sweet, shy art student she’d once known. And then she’d hear herself, placatory, soothing, talking like an annoying nagging mother to a recalcitrant child, and she couldn’t recognise herself either.
The counsellor had done her best, but had started quite early on to talk about debt mediation services to ‘get to the root of the problem’. At the time Polly had taken this at face value and thought it would be helpful (which it would have been if Chris had ever agreed to go). Now she saw it starkly for what it had been: a counsellor who could clearly see that what had once been between them had gone, and who was trying to ease them apart in the most practical way possible.
It made her sad to think of it, even as she consoled herself with the fact that Chris had a new girlfriend and she was happier than she’d ever been. But all those years… all those years, she told herself, got you where you are now. All those years were necessary. If you were just happy from the day you were born, how would you ever know? How would you appreciate how good life could be if it had never been crap?
But of course it was worse for Selina; so much worse. She’d been perfectly happy, more or less – things hadn’t been perfect between her and Tarnie, but that hardly mattered now – and it had been torn out of her hand, like a wave smashing a bottle against a rock.
‘… my therapist thinks it won’t be a bad thing to come home. Reconnect with Tarnie’s world, feel close to him instead of blocking it all out with sex and getting drunk. Well, I think that’s what she thinks. That’s therapists for you: you suggest something and they just say “mmmm” and you have to figure it out from there.’
Polly nodded. ‘Well, it seems like it might make sense. But you never liked it here, did you?’
Selina shrugged. ‘My husband disappeared for weeks on end, worked all night and came home knackered and stinking of fish, with no money in his pocket. That’s what this place did for him. And I begged him and nagged him not to, and he wouldn’t listen to me for a bloody second. Just as well he died, we’d only have ended up divorced.’
The pain in her words was so stark, Polly couldn’t help putting her arm around her.
‘Oh, fucking hell,’ said Selina. ‘When does it stop, this? When do I stop feeling like this, being like this, all the time? Is this the answer, or just another dead end?’
‘I don’t know,’ said Polly honestly. ‘I really don’t know.’
Polly hadn’t been up in the flat for a long time. Jayden occasionally stored flour there if they needed to, and sometimes Neil forgot and flew back to the wrong house, but otherwise she hadn’t had much call to go up there in the last year. It reminded her too much of the pain of moving, alone, to a strange place; of the long, cold months of the winter after Tarnie had died, when Huckle had gone back to America and she had waited for him, not knowing what to do, missing him so desperately that all she could do was bake bread and stare out to sea and wonder if this was the rest of her life.
‘Can you show me it?’ Selina asked, when Polly revealed it had once been her flat. ‘Only Lance will just give me the spiel.’
‘I won’t,’ protested Lance. ‘I’ll probably forget it.’
Polly’s instinct was to decline, but she couldn’t, of course. She put on a smile, cleared away the tea things and said that of course she would.
‘Polly knows what an excellent piece of —’
Polly gave Lance a warning look.
‘Obviously when it’s had some modifications done,’ said Lance, coughing. Polly gave him an even more meaningful look.
‘Oh, just come on then,’ said Lance crossly, and Polly let them through the side door of the bakery so they wouldn’t have to go outside into the crashing wind.
The stairs were as vertiginous as ever, the little bulb taking a strong pull to make it work, and there was a lot of noise as they clattered upwards. Lance had the Yale key; Polly had a spare in case of emergencies. With the bakery shut downstairs, the building was ominously silent.
But as they stepped into the flat, even on such a grey day, the light flooded through the huge front windows that looked straight out to sea, as if you were flying over it.
‘Wow,’ said Selina, moving forward. ‘That’s quite a view.’
Polly thought of the nights she’d fallen asleep in front of that view. Her old armchair was still stationed by the window, but the rugs and the pictures and the lovely sofa had of course all gone across to the lighthouse, on a day of hard work that had caused more swearing amongst the fishermen than she’d ever heard before, and she heard them swear a lot.
The bare scrubbed boards still inclined gently towards the front of the room, meaning you couldn’t leave an orange on the floor safely, but the roof tiles were mostly watertight now, and the bathroom and the kitchen, though the most basic of units (and avocado in the case of the bathroom), were at least now clean and safe to use. The basic bed in the back room was still there. Polly had a very quick and uncomfortable flashback to a sun-drenched afternoon she had once spent there with Selina’s dead husband, but suppressed it immediately.
‘This really is a dump, right?’ Selina was saying, looking distastefully at the kitchen. Polly felt slightly offended. Okay, it was a dump, but it had been her dump. ‘Does it get cold in the winter?’
‘The bakery heats it up?’ said Lance hopefully.
Selina looked confused.
‘But we’ve just been in the bakery, and it’s freezing up here,’ she said.
‘Yeah, but we’re shut now,’ said Polly. ‘It’s probably really warm at… five a.m.’
Selina sighed, then went and looked out of the window again. Her face grew thoughtful. It was a look Polly recognised.
‘It’s a lovely view,’ said Polly. ‘It’s very restful.’
Selina frowned at the lighthouse.
‘Does that thing light up?’
‘It’s a lighthouse,’ said Polly.
‘Does it shine in here?’
‘You see, I never thought to ask that question before I moved in,’ said Polly. ‘But you can buy really good blackout blinds these days.’
Selina looked at the lighthouse again.
‘Do you really live there?’
‘Yup,’ said Polly.
‘By yourself?’
‘No… with my boyfriend,’ said Polly. ‘And my… my pet.’
Selina’s face dropped.
‘You’re so lucky,’ she said.
Polly didn’t know what to say. She knew she was.
‘Are pets allowed here?’ Selina said to Lance.
‘Um, dunno.’ He looked at his papers. ‘No snakes.’
‘Do I look like I keep snakes?’
‘Nobody looks like they keep snakes,’ said Lance wisely. ‘But you find the buggers all over the place. Take it from an estate agent. Worst bit of my job.’
‘The worst bit of your job is all the snakes?’ said Polly.
‘Yes,’ said Lance stoutly.
‘I would not have guessed that.’
‘Me neither,’ said Selina. ‘Anyway, no. It’s a cat.’
‘Snakes with fur,’ said Lance, sniffing, then remembered he was meant to be showing a flat. ‘And also, wonderful. I love them.’
‘He’s beautiful,’ said Selina.
‘It’s nice to have a pet,’ said Polly, stopping herself when she realised she was about to add ‘when you’re all alone’.
‘What have you got?’ said Selina. ‘We could have a play date.’
‘I’ve… it’s a bird,’ said Polly. There was no point in explaining Neil to people who didn’t already know. They either thought she was a total weirdo, or cruel, or a cruel weirdo.
‘Oh. Like a canary?’
‘A bit like a canary,’ lied Polly.
‘Although I do think it’s cruel to keep birds in cages.’
‘Oh no, this one is totally free-range,’ said Polly. ‘So probably no play dates.’
‘Oh, Lucas is very gentle,’ said Selina.
‘So you’re taking it?’ interjected Lance cheerfully. If the client was already booking social occasions, the deal was probably in the bag.
Selina glanced back at the flat and sighed, then looked ahead at the horizon.
‘Yes,’ she said. ‘I guess I am.’
Chapter Seven
‘I can’t believe I’m doing this.’
Kerensa was getting dressed in Polly’s bedroom. Polly was trying not to send covetous glances via the mirror at Kerensa’s patently very expensive matching underwear. She couldn’t remember the last time she’d worn matching underwear. Come to think of it, Huckle had also mentioned mildly in passing that if it wasn’t too much to ask, could she possibly stick to the traditional number of holes in her underpants, i.e., three.
‘Are you eyeing me up?’ said Kerensa, expertly applying layers of serum, moisturiser, primer, CC cream and bronzer in the manner of somebody painting a house. ‘Only, I’m totally married.’
Her enormous engagement ring caught the light of the evening sun.
‘Yes,’ said Polly. ‘It’s been a really tough secret to carry around all this time. But I feel like I’m there now. Actually, no, I just like your posh bra.’
Kerensa smiled. ‘I know. I spend a lot of time with not much on…’
‘Can we not go into this again?’
Kerensa glanced at where Polly was sitting on the bed, haphazardly trying to paint her nails.
‘How do you guys sleep on such a tiny bed?’
Kerensa’s bed was bigger than king-size. It was in fact called emperor-size. It was basically about four beds stuck together, in Polly’s opinion. The sheets were changed every single day. This would have horrified Polly if she hadn’t been so desperately envious. There wasn’t much of Kerensa’s life that she was envious of – she was too busy to travel, she couldn’t imagine wanting to kiss Reuben, she didn’t really have a lot of interest in handbags, and there was nowhere she’d rather live than the lighthouse.
But the bed was really very, very nice.
In the lighthouse, by way of contrast, they hadn’t been able to get a full double mattress up the stairs, never mind a bedstead, and there wasn’t a flat wall to stand it against anyway. They could have conceded defeat and moved into the little dank room at the bottom of the tower, but Polly was having none of that. So instead they slept upstairs in a three-quarter-sized double bed. Huckle’s feet stuck straight out the bottom, like he was in ‘Goldilocks and the Three Bears’. Kerensa thought it was appalling. Polly didn’t know how Kerensa could find Reuben so far away in their acres and acres of white linen. She herself vanished inside Huckle every evening, curled up underneath his arm, a tangle of limbs until it was impossible to know where one of them ended and the other began, their hearts beating in unison, their breathing slowing together. On the rare nights when he was away from home, she had found herself propped up in front of the window, looking out to sea again, completely unable to sleep without him. Even though she wouldn’t mind a proper bed, Polly knew she would never again sleep as soundly as she did on those nights in their tiny rolled-together space.
‘We manage,’ she said defiantly.
‘I suppose you’re so knackered from running up and down those ridiculous stairs…’
‘You’re right,’ said Polly. ‘If only I was wealthy, I could hire someone to carry me up on their shoulders.’
Kerensa grinned. ‘Or put a lift in.’
‘If you put a lift in,’ pointed out Polly, ‘there’d be nothing left but lift.’
Kerensa pulled on a pair of tights, brand new, an expensive make, straight from the packet. She never wore her tights twice. Polly couldn’t get her head around that fact.
‘You’re making best friends with the widow of the guy you banged. Are you sure this is a good idea?’
‘It’s just a night out,’ said Polly, glancing at her watch. ‘It seemed mean to go out with everyone and not invite her. I remember what it was like when I first moved here and didn’t know anyone.’
‘Yeah,’ said Kerensa. ‘You had to go out and shag the first married fisherman you saw.’
Polly gave her a look.
‘Oh, come on,’ said Kerensa. ‘Isn’t it better this way? Better out than in? So I don’t accidentally sploof it up after my third glass of wine?’
‘No,’ said Polly. ‘Seriously, I don’t want it mentioned at all. It’s embarrassing to me, and it could be devastating to her. She’s in a bad state. This could make things worse.’
‘Or maybe the truth would help?’
‘Sometimes the truth helps,’ said Polly. ‘Other times it makes everything a million times worse, especially when the other person isn’t there to shout at. I thought he was single, remember? If he’d even bothered to mention her, I wouldn’t have gone anywhere near him. It was all his fault. So why make her feel worse? Plus, she needs friends right now, and I think we can be that.’
‘Well, as long as you manage not to sleep with her brother or anything… Where’s the Huck?’
‘At a honey conference in Devon, would you believe,’ said Polly. ‘It’s like three hundred apiarists. They all get together to discuss floral patenting and hive conservation and drink mead. But Dubose is coming.’
‘He’s cute,’ said Kerensa.
‘Yes,’ said Polly. ‘He’s slightly less cute when he leaves his laundry all over the stairs and spends a lot of time complaining that there’s not much to do here.’
‘There isn’t much to do here.’
‘See, I get enough of it from you. I don’t need it from anyone else.’
‘Okay,’ said Kerensa. ‘Tell me about Huckle’s conference. Tell me they get dressed up.’
‘Well, there’s a dinner…’
‘No, I mean tell me they get dressed up as bees.’
‘They do not get dressed up as bees.’
‘That is so disappointing.’
‘Well,’ said Polly, ‘I might have bought Huckle a black and yellow striped sweater.’
‘No way!’ said Kerensa, grinning. ‘Are you making him wear it?’
‘Are you joking? He fills this house head to toe with puffin shiz. I need to get my revenge somehow.’
‘Ha,’ said Kerensa. ‘Do you think they listen to a lot of old Police songs?’
‘“Don’t Buzz So Close to Me”?’
‘“Da Bee Bee Bee, Da Ba Ba Ba”.’
The two girls burst out laughing.
‘Okay, we’re obviously pissed already,’ said Kerensa, looking at her glass. ‘I think we need to go out before we’re too pissed to get down the stairs. Down is harder than up when you’re pissed.’
‘I know, like horses.’
‘What do you mean, like horses?’
‘Horses can walk upstairs but not down. If you find a horse at the top of a lighthouse, it’s really terrible news.’
‘I do not know how I functioned in the world without kno
wing that.’
Kerensa slid a long-sleeved, very plain but clearly insanely expensive dress over her head.
‘Cor, that looks like it was made for you,’ said Polly cheerfully.
‘Um, yes,’ said Kerensa. ‘That’s because it was.’
‘Seriously?’
‘Seriously,’ said Kerensa. ‘Someone stuck a pin in me at the fitting and Reuben threatened to sue them.’
