by Karen Clarke
Not wanting to draw attention to myself by taking my boxes through the café, I put them down and reached for the back door, just as it swung open.
‘Oh, it’s you,’ said Gwen, as I reeled aside to avoid being smashed in the face. ‘You shouldn’t stand there, mate, it’s dangerous.’
‘I was about to come in,’ I protested, wondering how she’d come by a job at the café. Maureen, who’d worked there for years, had been much nicer, like a friendly aunt. In fact, everyone had called her Auntie. ‘You should have checked there was no one here.’
‘There isn’t, usually.’ She drew a packet of chewing gum out of her trousers’ pocket. ‘Want some?’ She held out the pack and shrugged when I shook my head. ‘Don’t blame you, mate,’ she said. ‘’Orrible stuff, but better than smoking twenty cigs a day.’
‘Definitely,’ I said, remembering the choking fits when Meg, Tilly and I had tried to start smoking, luckily without success.
‘You’re the wonder girl, then?’ She looked me up and down, with about as much pleasure as someone finding dog poo on their shoe.
‘Sorry?’
‘The one with the brilliant life we’re all supposed to admire.’
‘I—’
‘I lived and worked in London for fifteen years,’ she butted in. ‘It ’ain’t all it’s cracked up to be.’
‘I didn’t say it was.’
‘Anyone would think you’d split the atom, the way your parents carry on.’
Who did she think she was? ‘I’m not responsible for what they say about me when I’m not here,’ I said, face flaming. ‘And, anyway, you don’t have to listen to them.’
She moved her chewing gum around her teeth and pressed her back to the sun-warmed wall of the café. With her meaty build and military haircut, she could have been a bouncer. Her upper arms strained at the cuffs of her top, and her small, brown eyes probed me from under heavy brows. ‘’Ard not to listen,’ she said. ‘They’re always bragging abart you and your brother, like no one else’s kids ’ave ever done anythink interesting.’
Oh god, it did sound a bit over the top. My annoyance gave way to embarrassment. ‘Well, I’m… I’m sorry if you’ve been offended by it,’ I said. ‘They are ridiculously proud of us, I’m afraid.’
She moved an eyebrow. ‘S’pose it’s not your fault,’ she said when the gum had completed another circuit of her mouth. ‘I’d probably feel the same if I’d spawned a couple of kids, but it just feels like it’s a bit too good to be true, if you know wha’ I mean?’
Sadly, I did. Unnerved by her knowing stare, worried my face was giving something away, I bent to pick up my boxes. Appearing to lose interest, Gwen inclined her face to the sun and shut her eyes. Grabbing the opportunity, I slipped into the passageway of the café, trying to claw back my earlier high spirits.
‘Cassie, sweetheart!’ Dad emerged from the little storeroom-cum-pantry with a giant box of teabags in his hands. ‘Meg was just asking whether you were going to drop by.’
I almost dropped my boxes. ‘She’s here, now?’
‘She doesn’t start work for a couple of hours, but came in early hoping you’d pop in.’
‘Right.’ I’d probably met hundreds of people since leaving Seashell Cove, but my stomach was doing somersaults at the thought of seeing Meg again. We hadn’t stayed in touch, after all, and probably had nothing in common any more.
‘Tilly’s here, too.’
‘What?’
‘She’s leading one of her coastal walks in a while, but is dying to see you.’ Shit. I wasn’t sure I was up to this. What if, like Gwen, they’d got so sick of hearing about how successful I was, they hated me on sight? They might even be hatching a plan to bring me down a peg or two. Or, to have a go at me for not reaching out sooner. I hadn’t so much as looked them up on Facebook, but, then again, they hadn’t reached out to me either.
‘I suppose it won’t do any harm to say hello.’ I hadn’t realised I’d said it out loud until the smile dropped off Dad’s face.
‘Harm?’ His brow furrowed. ‘They can’t wait to hear about everything you’ve achieved.’
They’d already have heard, if Gwen was to be believed. Still, I could always play things down – which wouldn’t be hard, considering there wasn’t much to play up to at the moment.
‘I’ve brought the new teas and coffees,’ I said, trying to buy some time. ‘Would you like to have a look?’ I shuffled past Dad and placed the boxes on the polished tiles, but when I straightened he was peering past me through the open back door.
‘Is that Sir Lancelot?’
‘Nan said I could borrow him.’
‘At least she hasn’t got rid of him yet.’ His face clouded over. ‘I don’t know why she’s so hell bent on wiping out the past.’
‘She’s not,’ I reassured him, even though that’s exactly what Nan seemed to be doing. ‘She’s minimising, that’s all.’
He brightened. ‘Maybe she’ll be over it soon, like with the lace-making, and the hill-walking, and learning Mandarin.’
I hesitated. ‘I expect you’re right,’ I said, guessing it was what he wanted to hear.
‘Come on, then.’ He jerked his head for me to follow him. ‘Your audience awaits.’
‘But…’ I gestured helplessly at my boxes.
‘We’ll look at those later,’ he said, and I had no choice but to trot after him, pushing my scarf off my forehead to avoid looking like a pirate.
The café was a bustle of chatter and laughter, with Mum in her favourite position behind the counter, slicing a generous portion of cake for a customer.
‘Here’s our favourite daughter,’ she said, as Dad joined her and started refilling the tea caddies. He winked at me, as if to say ‘prepare yourself’.
‘This is Cassie,’ Mum said to the customer, who smiled politely at me. ‘She was an event manager for a big company in London called Five Star.’ The words emerged in a rush, as if she wanted to impart as much information as possible. ‘They have a New York branch as well, which Cassie helped to set up last year, and she was responsible for bringing in some really high-profile clients.’ Oh god, Mum, stop it, I willed, but she was on a roll. ‘She was practically running the company, but has left now, to set up her own business, and she’s going to be putting on some events for us here, at the café.’
‘Sounds impressive,’ the woman said, eyeing me with respect. ‘I wish my daughter hadn’t dropped out of university.’ She looked weary all of a sudden. ‘She’s been dithering about at home ever since, living off the bank of Mum and Dad.’
I wanted to say something comforting, but Mum was speaking again, while Dad was distracted by a man requesting his bill.
‘We encouraged our two to be independent from an early age,’ Mum was saying. ‘We wanted them to experience life away from here, to not feel tied to the place where they grew up.’ She turned gooey eyes on me. ‘They’ve certainly done us more than proud.’
Bloody hell, was she always like this? I tried to catch the woman’s gaze to signal that I was, in fact, human, with faults, but she’d taken her cake and was moving away, her shoulders drooping underneath her coat. Poor woman. She’d come in to enjoy some home-made cake, and had received an unwanted side order of smug parent.
‘What did you say all that for?’
Mum blinked at my tone, the pleasure fleeing her face. ‘What do you mean, love?’
But the effort required to explain seemed too enormous. ‘It was a bit much, that’s all,’ I said. ‘I’m hardly Oprah Winfrey.’
It was a rubbish comparison, but luckily – or unluckily – Gwen returned at that moment, radiating bad temper. ‘Yes?’ she barked at the man behind me, as if I wasn’t there.
‘A buttered scone and a latte, please.’ He didn’t seem to mind her brusque manner and I edged away and left them to it, fluttering a wave at Mum to show her I was fine.
‘Out there,’ Dad mouthed, poking his pen in the direction of the terrace. Through the w
indow I caught sight of the back of someone’s head, and knew in some primitive way that it was Meg. Part of me wanted to turn and run – to leave the past where it was, haloed in a golden haze of sunshine – but, as if sensing I was there, she turned and met my eye and it was too late.
I stiffened my spine and made my way outside.
Chapter Nine
Two pairs of eyes tracked my approach to the table furthest away, and I grew clumsy under their scrutiny, jogging the elbow of a man about to sip some coffee, causing it to slosh onto his putty-coloured trousers.
‘I’m so sorry,’ I said, snatching a napkin off the table and thrusting it into his lap, dismayed to see a dark stain seeping across his crotch. ‘I hope it wasn’t too hot.’
He thrust back his chair and stood up. ‘Leave it,’ he ordered in an American accent. ‘I’ll put cold water on it in the rest room.’
He stalked off, leaving behind a tight-lipped woman, who I assumed was his wife, studiously avoiding my eye as she cradled a fluffy white dog.
‘Maitland, you always were a clumsy mare.’
I turned in the direction of the voice, which I instantly recognised as belonging to Tilly Campbell. Forgetting my nerves I hurried over, a smile breaking out on my face. ‘I can’t believe you’re both here,’ I said, watching as first Tilly, then Meg, stood up to greet me. For a moment, we didn’t speak, weighing each other up in the way of people who hadn’t seen one another for years, assessing what had changed.
Meg still looked as though she’d just walked through a meadow, with her soft, wavy, honey-blonde hair and English rose complexion. In a short-sleeved, floral-print dress that flared out from her hips, she’d clearly stopped worrying about her (invisible) back-fat and embraced her gorgeous curves, and learnt to enhance her baby-blue eyes with make-up.
By contrast, Tilly was still all angles; tall, with sloping shoulders, and penetrating green eyes in an elfin face. Her fine dark hair was cropped short, showing off her incredible cheekbones, and she could have passed as a student in a stripy shirt, skinny jeans and faded red sneakers.
‘I can’t believe that the first time we see you in years, you’re groping some bloke underneath the table.’ Her eyes danced with amusement and affection, and my answering laugh was watery with rising emotion.
‘I can’t believe that Legal Mystics are finally back together,’ said Meg, and suddenly we were hugging and laughing and saying, ‘It’s been too long,’ and ‘You look fantastic,’ all at the same time, and I knew it was going to be all right.
‘So, how come you’re both here?’ I said, finally pulling out a chair and positioning myself between them, while the young waitress placed a pot of tea and a plate of chocolate-chip cookies on the table. ‘From your mum,’ she said shyly, before scooting away.
‘We were hoping to see you, you idiot.’ Meg grinned as she poured the tea, her face bright with feeling. The sun sparked off a selection of jewels nestling on her ring finger, and catching my look, she said, ‘Oh yes, I’m getting married next year.’
‘That’s amazing!’ I’d have put bets on Meg being the first of us to get married. ‘Congratulations.’
‘To Sam,’ she added, before I could ask who the lucky man was.
‘Sam from school?’ That wasn’t exactly surprising, either. Even at sixteen they’d been inseparable, to the exclusion of everyone else.
‘The one and only,’ said Tilly, pretending to stifle a yawn.
‘He’s not boring,’ Meg protested, just like she had in the beginning, when Tilly and I used to tease her about his love of fishing and collection of cycling magazines. ‘We actually broke up for a while, while Sam was at university, but got back together six years ago.’
‘Like a fairy tale,’ said Tilly, doing a moony face. ‘They’ve got a house together and everything.’
‘You’re still in Salcombe?’
‘Of course, where else?’ Tilly answered for her. ‘You know what a home bird she is.’
Meg gave her a fondly indulgent smile and, even though our paths hadn’t crossed since leaving school, I felt a pang that they’d been catching up without me.
‘What about you?’ I asked Tilly.
‘Young, free and single.’ Her soft, wide mouth tilted up. ‘I’m not a nun, or anything, I go on dates, when I can be bothered, but I can’t imagine settling down. Not for years, anyway.’
It was somehow typical of Tilly, who’d always been more interested in reading, or redecorating her bedroom during the holidays, than hanging out with boys.
‘How come you’re back in the UK?’ I reached for a cookie and broke it in half. ‘I thought you’d settled in Canada.’
She shrugged and picked up her mug, which looked small in her long, slender fingers. ‘After my grandparents died, my parents wanted to come home,’ she said simply. ‘Dad had a house built in Ivybridge, not far from where we used to live, so I’m there at the moment.’ I remembered her father had been – and presumably still was – an architect. ‘Thought I’d look up Meg, because I knew she’d still be around, and here we are.’
‘But what about your life in Vancouver?’
‘You know Tilly,’ Meg said, helping herself to a cookie and taking a delicate bite. ‘She always goes with the flow.’
That was true. So laid back she’s practically horizontal, Dad used to say.
‘I always thought I’d come back one day.’
‘Not so different from Meg, then,’ I said, smiling.
She looked about to protest, then subsided with a laugh. ‘I guess not.’
We looked out over the cove and fell silent for a moment, taking in the vista of unbroken blue sky and twinkling sea, offset by the deep green grass carpeting the headland.
‘Remember when we used to lie on towels on the beach, and plan our futures?’ said Tilly.
‘I do.’ There was a wistful edge to Meg’s voice. ‘I wanted to run my own bakery one day.’
‘God, that’s right,’ I said, memories rearing up. ‘And Tilly thought she’d be living on a barge.’
‘I’ve no idea why.’ Her bemused expression triggered giggles. ‘I wanted to be an Olympic swimmer, too.’
‘You were a strong swimmer,’ I said, remembering. ‘We could never keep up.’
Meg turned to me, eyes shining. ‘You always said you’d end up living in London, and you are,’ she said. ‘You couldn’t wait to get away.’
‘I know.’ Back then, only London had represented the future my parents had insisted Rob and I were entitled to – the one it would be virtually impossible to achieve if we’d stayed in Seashell Cove. ‘Well, I’m not there at the moment,’ I added lightly, and before they could probe, I turned quickly to Tilly. ‘You didn’t have a career in Vancouver?’
‘I’ll never be a career girl.’ She sank back in her chair, catching crumbs in her hand as she took a big bite of cookie. ‘Anyway, I can do my job anywhere.’
‘When it suits you,’ said Meg, throwing me a conspiratorial look that made my heart soar. I’d missed this, I realised. The three of us had been as close as sisters once, and I’d taken them completely for granted. ‘You always liked to do as little as possible,’ she added.
Tilly’s lips twisted into a modest smile. ‘Wouldn’t want to overstretch myself by having a proper job.’
I smiled, but something in Meg’s face told me Tilly’s words had hit a sore spot. I supposed it was OK for Tilly. She’d never wanted for anything. Her parents were well off and could afford to support her, whereas Meg had been raised by a single mum and probably had to work hard for every penny. Tilly was ten years younger than her sister, and had been thoroughly spoilt by her parents, to the point where it was a miracle she’d turned out to be as unaffected as she was.
‘I hear you’re working at the café,’ I said, switching my attention back to Meg.
She nodded. ‘My hours at the bakery were cut, so I only work mornings now. Business isn’t so good.’ Her smile flickered, and I wondered if she was remembe
ring her dream of running her own. ‘Anyway, I gave the café a call on the off-chance, and your mum offered me a job.’
‘Did you make these?’ I waggled my cookie at her.
‘I did.’ She blushed softly. ‘What do you think?’
‘Delicious,’ I said. ‘No wonder this place is full.’
‘I like it.’ Her smile was warm and genuine. ‘Your parents are lovely to work for.’
‘What’s with Gwen?’ I lowered my voice in case she was loitering somewhere. ‘She was really rude to me earlier, and she looks like she could hurt someone.’
Meg giggled, revealing the tiny gap between her front teeth. ‘She’s fine,’ she said. ‘Well, she’s not, but the customers love her, for some reason. She’s Maureen’s cousin, and got the job after Maureen retired.’
‘Ah.’
‘She doesn’t give much away, but Maureen told your mum that Gwen had been through a bad break-up with her husband when she lived in London, and she lost her job and wanted a fresh start.’
I could relate to the fresh start bit. And losing a job.
‘Don’t your parents keep you up to date with what’s going on here?’ asked Tilly, finishing the last cookie in two bites. She appeared to still eat like a ravenous horse, without ever gaining weight.
‘They’re more interested in what I’ve been doing,’ I said. ‘They can’t get enough of my stories.’ My mood dipped slightly. The truth was, I’d enjoyed telling my stories, knowing they always got a good reaction. Like the time someone fell off a party boat, and had to be rescued by police divers. Sometimes, I’d even embellish the stories for effect.
‘When I was helping with the café makeover, they talked about you a lot,’ said Tilly, emphasising ‘a lot’.
‘And yet, you’re still happy to see me.’
They both laughed.
‘They think I’m too busy to be bothered by what’s going on here, or that I won’t find it interesting.’ A bubble of shame floated up. Whenever I’d phoned, I hadn’t always got around to asking about home, or I’d had to break off to take a work call or deal with some ‘emergency’. No wonder they thought I wasn’t interested.
