Hello, Again

by Isabelle Broom

  Then, when Pepper had merely sighed, she’d added, ‘So foolish, taking a risk like that. I thought Finn was a sensible sort of fellow?’

  ‘So did I,’ Pepper had agreed in a desultory tone, although she could not find it in herself to berate him too harshly. Nobody was immune from the occasional slip-up, and there was no point playing the blame game. Clara and Finn had been friends for a long time; they had drunk too much and had a fumble that went too far. It was as simple as that. No great crime – just very unfortunate timing.

  To be speaking to him again had settled her conflicted heart somewhat, and now that Pepper knew she would see him in just a few weeks, she felt as if some of the pressure had been lifted. She would definitely know by then what she was going to do, she was sure of it.

  Propping the invitation upon the living-room mantelpiece, Pepper collected her things and for once remembered to lock the front door behind her. It was a non-negotiable must, as far as her temporary landlady was concerned, along with removing all hair from the shower plughole and not leaving teabags in the sink.

  Her mother had not changed all that much.

  Pepper missed her studio horribly, but the sting of losing it had been tempered by the people of Aldeburgh, many of whom had rallied around to help. As soon as word of the fire got out – which had not taken very long at all, given Mrs Hill’s fondness for a good old gossip – offers started coming in from all over the town. Sally from the gift shop – who blamed herself for the fire even though, as she told Pepper, ‘I never even tried out my candle, so it can’t have been me’ – had lent her the empty flat above her high-street store to host her sessions, while the landlord of the Turbot had donated a table large enough to accommodate groups and unearthed a set of six chairs from the pub store room. Mrs Hill herself had stepped in to help call and reschedule appointments while the new room was still being set up, and the ladies from the RSPCA charity shop organised a coffee morning that raised enough donations to buy Arts For All a second-hand camera and laptop.

  For so many years, Pepper had imagined herself to be isolated and lacking in friends, but over the past week, she had been proven wrong countless times over.

  She was loved here in her hometown – she could feel it.

  Everything had been sorted out so efficiently that Pepper had only needed to cancel a handful of sessions in the end, and she had enjoyed ordering boxes of new craft materials on the company credit card she had taken out years ago, yet never used.

  It was as if the fire had wiped the slate clean; given her the chance to start afresh with the things that mattered most. Stuff could always be replaced, and walls put back up – the only thing she still felt sad about was her collection of painted tiles. If the fire had happened even a few weeks earlier than it had, Pepper would not have lost anything she had created herself – a fact that baffled her now when she thought about it.

  Those tiles had represented the time she had spent with Finn, and with Josephine, too – time that she cherished almost more than any other in her life. She knew the fact that they were gone did not mean those memories would vanish along with them – those moments that had taught her so much, about herself and what she wanted – but she couldn’t help but feel sad that nobody else would ever get to see them. Not since she was a teenager had Pepper been proud enough of a piece to show to anyone, but that was exactly how she’d been starting to feel about her tiles. She had planned to show Josephine first, then perhaps even Finn. Now, neither would ever get the chance. Of course, logic told her that she could start again – paint the same scenes and generate the same emotion – but that did not feel right somehow.

  Something else would happen to reawaken that artistic spirit that Pepper now knew had never really gone away – and this time when it did, she would not hesitate to listen.

  She was in the flat above the shop unpacking a box of brand-new tile clippers when there was a knock on the door.

  ‘It’s open!’ Pepper called.

  ‘Hello, darling – I’m not interrupting anything, am I?’

  It was Josephine, looking resplendent in flowing blue silk.

  ‘I just wanted to bring you this,’ she said, swinging a carrier bag at Pepper with the hand that wasn’t clutching her stick.

  ‘It’s gin, of course – but there’s another little something in there that I thought you might like.’

  ‘You really shouldn’t have,’ Pepper said, drawing out a hard-edged rectangular parcel wrapped in brown paper. Inside, she found a framed black-and-white photograph of a young couple sitting atop a low wall patterned with tiles. From the spread of rooftops behind them and the glint in the smiling eyes of the woman, there could be no mistaking who it was or where it had been taken.

  ‘Is this . . . ?’ Pepper gasped.

  ‘Not the best quality, I’m afraid, but then it is almost as old as I am,’ Josephine said, bustling over to the kitchen area and opening the freezer.

  ‘Please say there’s some ice in here.’

  ‘Third drawer down.’

  Pepper was still gazing at the photo. The man was dark and handsome, with a broad, intelligent-looking face and thick forearms – one of which was resting casually on the young woman’s bare thigh.

  ‘Josephine, is this you and Jorge?’

  ‘Yes, yes,’ Josephine was now struggling to open the lid of the gin. ‘Damn these hands,’ she muttered.

  ‘Here.’ Pepper hurried over and helped her out. ‘But we really shouldn’t be drinking pink gin in the middle of the afternoon.’

  ‘Poppycock!’

  Josephine dashed a healthy measure into each glass, sighing with pleasure at the sound of the ice cracking.

  ‘Once I get to Australia, I’ll be under the stern watch of Georgina, and I’m telling you now, my darling, gin o’clock will very quickly become a fond but distant memory.’

  ‘I love this photo,’ Pepper told her, taking a sip of her gin and spluttering as the neat spirit hit the back of her throat. ‘You both look so young, so carefree.’

  ‘And so we were.’ Josephine smiled. Today was a good day – Pepper could tell. There was a colour in her friend’s cheeks, and she’d taken the time to apply a dash of lipstick.

  ‘Why did you choose this one to give me?’

  ‘Well, because it’s the only one I have . . .’

  ‘Then I mustn’t take it!’ Pepper was aghast. ‘I mean, I’m really flattered and everything, but you should keep it.’

  ‘Whatever for?’ Josephine fixed Pepper with one of her stares. ‘Darling girl, once I leave here, it is probable that I will not return. No, no – let me finish. I wanted to go back and relive that summer I spent with Jorge, and so I did, thanks to you. It has been so wonderful, seeing it all again and remembering how blissfully happy we were. But now I have done all that, and it’s time to move on to what’s next.’

  Pepper couldn’t bear it. She closed her eyes, as if somehow the words would become less true if she didn’t watch them being said.

  ‘I am going to organise all my affairs before I leave,’ Josephine went on. ‘And the first of those is this photo. You are a part of my story now, so it’s only right that you get to keep the only physical piece of it that I have. Georgina won’t even know who it is in the photo – if I take it with me, it will only end up forgotten, plonked in a shoebox underneath a bed and left to gather dust. At least if you take it now, I know it will be seen in the way it was intended to be. It is the way I want you to remember me. As that young, adventurous girl with an open heart and nothing holding her back from what she wanted. Promise me that you will keep it?’

  ‘Of course I will,’ Pepper was crying now, she couldn’t help it. ‘Sorry,’ she blurted, wiping her face with the back of her hand. ‘I’m a wreck lately – a watering can with extra holes.’

  ‘Darling girl.’ Josephine took a step closer and put an unsteady hand on her arm. ‘You have been through a lot – and I don’t mean just Finn and the fire,’ she added. ‘I know how
much you miss your sister – I can see it. Grief is an absolute beast. When Ian died I felt as if all the threads holding my patchwork pieces together had unravelled at once; I was this great big useless heap on the floor.’

  ‘How did you get from there to here?’ Pepper asked, looking down again at the photo. ‘I feel like the broken bits of me have never mended.’

  Josephine sipped her gin, a smile playing around her lips as she considered this.

  ‘You know, if you thought about it,’ she said. ‘If you put your artist hat on, then really thought about it, you would realise that you already know the answer to that question.’

  Pepper opened her mouth, but Josephine talked over her.

  ‘Now,’ she said, pulling out one of the rickety pub chairs and eyeing it with mild alarm. ‘You promised me in Barcelona that I could have an introduction to that wonderful-sounding Samuel chap.’

  ‘You want to meet him now?’ Pepper asked. ‘As in, tonight?’

  ‘No time like the present,’ Josephine trilled, lowering herself down and wincing with the effort. ‘I’m in both the silk and the red lippy, and I would rather that neither went to waste – no offence, darling.’

  Pepper, who was already reaching for her phone to make the call, rolled her eyes.

  ‘What did your last slave die of?’ she joked.

  Josephine cackled.

  ‘Why, exhaustion, of course.’

  Chapter 41

  When Pepper sent Samuel a message asking if he was free for dinner, he rang rather than texted back.

  ‘Had to check it wasn’t a prank call,’ he had said. ‘This is the Pepper, right?’

  ‘That depends . . .’ Pepper had rolled her eyes at Josephine’s enquiring glance. ‘Which one do you consider to be the one?’

  ‘Oh, y’know? Blonde, tells bad jokes, always covered in splodges of paint . . .’

  When Pepper then explained that she had someone who wanted to meet him, and asked if he would like to come to hers for a meal in order to do so, an excited Samuel had fired about twelve consecutive questions asking if this person was single, and why she needed Pepper there as a third wheel.

  ‘She is single,’ Pepper had told him carefully, ‘but she’s also leaving town soon, so I am afraid marriage is probably out of the question. Oh, and it won’t just be me third-wheeling,’ she’d added, suddenly struck by an idea. ‘My mum will be there as well.’

  ‘This is going to be some blind date,’ he had replied. ‘But OK. Why don’t you come to mine? I’m a dab hand in the kitchen, especially when I have a mysterious lady to impress.’

  ‘Make that two mysterious ladies,’ Pepper had reminded him. ‘Unless you’ve secretly been dating my mum this whole time.’

  ‘Chance,’ he had retorted cheerfully, ‘would be a fine thing.’

  Samuel lived in a maisonette not far from The Maltings, and as Pepper eased her vast Volvo up onto the kerb outside, he opened the front door, spilling light and music out to greet them. He was wearing a grey and white striped apron and had a wooden spoon covered in what looked like tomato sauce in one hand.

  ‘Golly,’ muttered Josephine, who had been busy becoming fast friends with Pepper’s mother during the drive over. ‘You look just like that actor, you know, the one in the alien film.’

  ‘Sigourney Weaver?’ said Samuel, catching Pepper’s eye as he bent to kiss Josephine’s cheek.

  ‘I think you mean Will Smith, right?’ she corrected. Her mum was still hovering uncertainly by the car, so Samuel strode out to offer her his hand.

  ‘You must be Pepper’s mother?’

  ‘Trinity.’ She looked for a moment as if she was going to curtsey, but thankfully settled on a handshake instead.

  ‘Samuel,’ he said. ‘Feel free to call me that, or the Chief, which is one of my many monikers. Or, of course, you could also call me the Fresh Prince of Aldeburgh, which is one-hundred percent going to be another one after tonight.’

  ‘I hope we’re not imposing,’ Pepper heard her mum say as they filed into the house.

  ‘We brought wine.’ Pepper put a bottle of red down on the table, which Samuel had set with proper placemats and candles. ‘This is such a nice place.’

  And it was. The décor in the living-cum-dining room was understated yet thoughtful, with little touches here and there making it feel homely rather than bachelor pad-ish. Pepper’s eye was immediately drawn to a large photo collage hanging above the sofa, which showed what could only be Samuel’s two brothers, sister and parents indulging in various acts of foolhardiness. Like him, they all had warm and open expressions, and she could almost hear the laughter coming from some of the more animated pictures. Many of the photos had been taken in what looked like holiday locations, and almost all of them featured food of some kind.

  ‘I hope you’re all hungry,’ Samuel shouted through from the kitchen. There was the sound of a cupboard door opening and closing, followed by a drawer, then he re-emerged carrying four wine glasses.

  ‘Not for me, thanks,’ said Pepper, then for some reason lifted her hands and began miming a steering wheel. ‘I’m driving.’

  ‘What are we having?’ asked Josephine, who had settled herself into an armchair and was flicking through the Big Issue.

  ‘Spag Bol.’ Samuel glanced at each of them in turn. ‘I hope that’s all right? Please say there are no veggies in the house.’

  ‘I never refuse meat from a man,’ Josephine said blithely, and Samuel bellowed with laughter just as Pepper said firmly, ‘Josephine!’

  ‘Shall I help you in the kitchen?’ her mother said, but Pepper interrupted.

  ‘No, please let me. You stay here and keep this one on a tight leash.’

  Samuel was still chuckling as he scooped a strand of spaghetti out from a pan boiling on the stove top.

  ‘Mind out,’ he said, and lobbed it against the wall where it bounced off and landed with a slithery splat on the floor.

  ‘Not quite done yet.’

  ‘I thought that was an urban myth,’ said Pepper. Then, seeing a lump of Parmesan on the worktop. ‘Shall I grate?’

  ‘That’d actually be, er, great,’ he said cheerfully, pulling open a large drawer which clanked slightly, and passing over a four-sided cheese grater. The kitchen was small but well thought-out, with ample preparation space and a classic Belfast sink. Samuel had a range of fresh herbs living in pots along his windowsill, and a Tottenham Football Club calendar hung on the wall above the light switch.

  ‘It’s really good of you to have us all over,’ said Pepper, pulling out one of the two stools that were tucked under a narrow breakfast bar and settling herself into it. ‘I would have happily hosted at mine.’

  ‘I like being the host with the most,’ he told her, turning from where he was stirring fresh basil into the Bolognese sauce. ‘And I wasn’t sure you’d want the extra stress, not after what happened recently.’

  She had told Samuel about the fire over the phone earlier.

  ‘It has been a bit of a nightmare,’ she allowed. ‘The fire never got anywhere near the main house, thank God, but the smell was horrendous. I haven’t checked the pond yet, but I bet Mr and Mrs Ribbit have moved out in protest.’

  ‘And Mr and Mrs Ribbit are . . . ?

  ‘My frogs.’

  The corners of Samuel’s mouth twitched.

  ‘Of course,’ he said. ‘Silly me.’

  ‘The worst thing is,’ Pepper went on, her eyes not on him but on the lump of Parmesan she was shredding, ‘I had started painting again – for myself, I mean. I hadn’t done anything I liked for years, but I thought that this time––’ She sighed as the familiar regret washed over her. ‘I thought maybe, just maybe, I’d created something worth seeing – worth showing other people.’

  She glanced up to find Samuel staring at her, the wooden spoon in his hand immobile.

  ‘You mean you don’t normally show people your art?’ he asked slowly, and she shook her head.

  ‘Not for years –
not since I quit my degree before it even began.’

  ‘I just assumed you had a great big stash of work somewhere,’ Samuel admitted. ‘I thought it would be all over your house, but I could tell none of those paintings were yours when I came over that one time.’

  ‘You could?’ Pepper was surprised. ‘How come?’

  Samuel thought for a moment.

  ‘None of them felt like you,’ he said simply.

  ‘Well, you were right about that,’ Pepper told him. She had grated far too much cheese now, so she started absentmindedly eating it. ‘Nothing I made had felt like me for a long time; then this summer, after I got back from Lisbon, I was inspired. I started a collection of tiles, and do you know what – they were pretty good.’

  ‘I’m sure they were,’ he agreed, turning down the heat under the sauce. There were orange droplets all down the front of his apron where a bubbled-over splatter had got him.

  ‘Well,’ she went on gloomily, ‘nobody will ever see them now. I stupidly locked the whole lot in my studio cupboard, which is now nothing more than a pile of ash.’

  ‘That is annoying,’ Samuel concurred. ‘But you shouldn’t let it beat you down too much. I mean, you still painted them, right? You still did it. That can only be a good thing. Now you know you can do it – create something you’re proud of that feels like you.’

  ‘I guess so.’ Pepper tucked her hair behind her ears and chewed at her bottom lip. ‘But what if I can’t? What if that was a fluke – a one-time thing?’

  ‘Incoming!’ called Samuel, and Pepper had to duck to avoid being hit with wet spaghetti. This time the pasta stuck fast to the wall, and she laughed as Samuel gave a cheer.

  ‘I get what you’re saying,’ he told her, crossing to the sink. Steam enveloped him a moment later and turned the windows white. ‘I felt the exact same way the first time I assisted on an appendectomy. There was no reason for me to think I had done anything but an excellent job, but I still doubted myself.’

  ‘How did you overcome it?’ Pepper asked eagerly.

  Samuel put the pan of drained spaghetti back on the stove top.