A Cornish Cottage by the Sea. Jane Linfoot
gone all silent on me, not that she’s ever that cooperative. Not only that, but even if I needed to, I couldn’t ring Mum or Bella.
The realisation slides into focus as slowly as the music – for the first time in months I’m totally on my own. Out of reach. Away from the protection of the people who love me and who have been keeping me safe by never letting me out of their sight. It’s like I’ve accidentally wandered into a no man’s land away from where I should be. There’s a sensible voice in my head telling me I should go back to where I’m safe, where there are people at least. But at the same time I don’t want to rush.
As my foot catches on a stick of driftwood I stoop and pick it up. It’s straight and smooth like a bone and, without thinking, I head to where the beach is firmer and begin to scratch marks in the sand with the wooden point. It’s easier when there’s no one watching. When there’s no one there to see how badly I’m doing, my hand is somehow more free to move. I try one small line, then another crossing it. Then do the same again. And again. Then I try a row of those ‘s’s that always catch me out on paper because the pen won’t curl fast enough so, however hard I try, they end up twice the size of all the other letters.
Scratching with the end of a stick with the wind snatching at my hair, knowing that soon the crash and fall of the tide will thunder over the marks and suck away the traces of where I’ve been, it’s easier. My lips twist into a smile as I look along my wandering line of ‘s’s and ‘x’s and see a whole empty beach stretching into the distance, all waiting to be written on.
A cry in the darkness behind me makes me turn. There’s a big figure and a smaller one, their jackets flapping in the shadows, and another shout as the smaller one springs towards me.
‘Edie Browne! What are you writing?’ Only one person calls me that.
‘Nothing much.’ The wind snatches my words away.
He lets out a wail. ‘That’s way more than when you were writing on paper.’
‘It’s easier here.’ Anyone else, I’d be fed up at them finding me. Cam I don’t mind, although I can’t say the same for Barney.
‘What? On the beach, in the dark?’ He’s very judgmental for six. ‘We’re going for ice cream.’
‘Brill.’ Shouldn’t he be asleep by now?
‘At the Surf Shack.’ He points to a wooden building with swinging lights on its deck, further along the sand. ‘You could come too.’
That’s a bad idea, for a hundred reasons I can’t immediately put my stick on. I’m hesitating when Barney arrives.
‘Best coffee along the bay. They do a mean hot chocolate too.’
‘I’m not …’ Not getting my excuses together fast enough for starters.
‘Cam wouldn’t ask if it wasn’t important to him.’
Even in the dark, with only the smallest shimmer of moonlight reflecting off the blackness of the sea, I can sense his disapproval. If he’s trying to make me feel hugely that I have to, it’s working. If I hadn’t been caught out before, I might have given in already. I slide out my phone, then slide it back in my pocket because it’s not telling me anything. Realistically, I reckon they’ve barely started their flower slides yet.
Barney’s insistent. ‘Five minutes. Then you can go back to whatever’s so pressing.’
He’s overstepping again. Totally ignoring that I’m on a private walk. If it wasn’t for Cam, I wouldn’t be considering this. But, to be fair, without Cam he wouldn’t be asking.
As we kick our way along the beach and up the broad wooden steps of the Surf Shack I’m hoping this won’t be another ‘boat in the bay’ fiasco. But I have to admit there’s something about Cam’s small scrap of a figure beside me, kicking sand in the half light, that makes my heart turn over. That’s what’s tugging me.
As we push through the door into what looks like a hut made from thousands of mismatched planks hammered together, we’re hit by a wall of warmth, and a broad smile from the guy behind the counter. Apart from a few salt-streaked surfers, we’re the only customers. Cam heads for a rough-hewn table, slides onto a metal chair, swings his feet and looks up expectantly.
I grab the chair that’s close to Cam and as far away from Barney as possible. It’s only when he slides into his seat and I get the full benefit of taut denim stretched across muscly thighs that it hits me. I’m so used to thinking of myself as out of the dating scene I forgot to worry that people could think I was here for entirely the wrong reason.
There’s not even time for me to have a good look at the piles of goodies under glass domes on the counter because the guy from behind the counter is already at the table. The glass he puts down in front of Cam is filled with scoops of colourful ice cream, and topped with wafers and a long spoon.
‘Wow, quick work.’ It’s one of my blurts.
‘Thanks.’ Cam’s eyes are huge, but as he picks up the long spoon, he still hasn’t smiled.
The waiter laughs. ‘Same order, same time every week. We like to be ready for our regulars.’ He turns to me. ‘So what can I get for you?’
‘A small coffee, please.’ Despite the cake stacks, sometimes it’s best to be minimal.
Barney turns to me. ‘Way too boring – this is chocolate central. Look at the chalkboard – you have to be wilder.’
As far as I’m concerned, the board he’s waving at might be taller than the waiter but it’s still just a load of squiggles. At least I remember enough about cafés to wing it. ‘A small coffee with chocolate then.’ There’s definitely a name for it, I just can’t nail what it is.
‘A mocha?’ The waiter beams. ‘One mochaccino, coming up.’ He turns to Barney.
‘Great choice – same here, but I’ll go large.’
It’s not just never being allowed to be on your own that’s off kilter here, it’s also coffee sizing. When the waiter comes back it turns out ‘small’ means enormous and ‘large’ is more like one of those boat things that crosses the channel with cars on. They’ve both got lumps of floating cream approximately the size of the Isle of Wight. Around the island the liquid is so thick and chocolatey I wish I was getting the full benefit. But at least it warms me, and the cream is fabulously thick and sticky as I suck it off my spoon.
Cam takes a bite of his wafer then gives me a hard stare. ‘But why didn’t you have ice cream?’
It’s easier being put on the spot by someone Cam’s size. ‘I was too icy already.’
‘Next time you have to have ice cream.’
If I was shivering before, that thought makes my insides go glacial. ‘We’ll see.’ By next Friday I hope to have come up with a plan that doesn’t involve crawling or gardeners or freezing my shit off on the beach. Or not being able to read the menu at whatever this place is called.
Barney watches Cam working his way down his ice cream, then turns to me. ‘Cam’s ice creams at the Surf Shack are a long-standing Friday night tradition.’
As if that explains anything. And then suddenly it all falls into place. Sadie from Zinc Inc had kids and an ex, and didn’t spare us the details. Single dads and mahoosive ‘daddy loves you more’ sweeteners? Compensatory ice creams don’t come any larger than the one Cam’s wading through now. The warning bells couldn’t be clanging any louder.
Knowing the tussles Sadie and her husband had, if this is a divorce, I need to keep my distance. Run for the hills, and now wouldn’t be a moment too soon. As if Sadie hadn’t drilled it into us single women, going within a country mile of a single dad is too near, especially if they’re using the kids to draw you in.
‘That’s great.’ In my head I’m already taking giant strides towards the door. ‘But you