by Daisy Tate
Freya said sorry, silently irked that Izzy always had to be so bloody mysterious.
Out of the corner of her eye she saw Charlotte drumming her fingers against her lips. You could almost see the wheels whirling behind her green eyes.
‘Izzy … it’s going to take time to sort the cottage out, isn’t it?’
Izzy shrugged, ‘Probably.’
‘Then why don’t you and Luna come and stay with me?’
Izzy froze, then abruptly, like the sun coming out from behind a cloud, beamed. ‘Seriously?
Charlotte’s smile widened with Izzy’s. ‘Absolutely. There’s a granny flat above the garage next to the pool house. You and Luna would have plenty of room there. You’re completely welcome to stay in the house of course—’
Emily stopped her. ‘You do not want the slobbiest human being in the universe living in your house.’
‘True dat,’ Izzy said, without an ounce of irritation, and then to Charlotte, ‘Really?’
‘It would be lovely. Especially with the children away and, you know, other things.’
‘Well, then,’ Izzy’s grin actually reached her ears. ‘I suppose that’s part one of the wish taken care of!’
‘What’s part two?’ Freya couldn’t help herself.
Izzy tapped the side of her nose. ‘That’s for me to know …’
Chapter 5
Izzy was on the verge of a tizz.
All of this agreeing to move in together was insanely wonderful but, now that she had said yes, it was as if she’d given the girls free rein to shoot questions at her, firing-squad style.
The quiet voice inside her head was as familiar to her as her own. Her mother’s. These are the people you need most, it said. You can’t run for ever, it said. They’re all you have now.
Freya made a spinning motion with her finger as she finished the remains of her toasted-cheese sandwich. ‘Can we go back to “The cottage I inherited from my dad” part?’
‘Sven, yeah.’ The cottage. That was safe territory. Ha! Apart from the toxic mould.
‘Your dad’s called Sven?’
‘Yup! I know. It’s all very Mamma Mia. You can thank my mother.’ She resisted the urge to burst into song after clocking the ‘go on’ nods. ‘He was a guest lecturer the same year my mum was at Cardiff University, and apparently this was their tryst house. He was married and had kids back in Sweden. Mum was adamant she’d never wanted a husband, so – as you know – he was never in the picture.’
He could’ve been. She’d just never wanted to let him in. Inviting someone else into her heart only to lose them as well hadn’t seemed all that fab a prospect after having just had her insides garrotted when her mum passed. His letter asking her to reach out had been included in her mum’s will. She’d read it once then filed it away with her mum’s death certificate.
‘And he just gave you their cottage?’ Freya couldn’t seem to wrap her head round it.
‘Yes ma’am. I don’t know. Survivor’s guilt? Somehow his family knew I existed and that I was working in Hawaii. Internet maybe? Letters? Dunno. Anyhow, when he passed away a couple of years ago, his son got in touch and said his dad had left me the cottage.’
‘Sven?’ Freya again.
‘Yup!’ Izzy pointed to her café au lait complexion. ‘You knew I was half-Swedish, didn’t you?’
‘Noooo,’ Freya shook her head back and forth.
‘Weird. I thought we’d talked about everything at uni.’
‘No,’ Emily said in her matter-of-fact way. ‘We didn’t.’
Charlotte nodded in agreement.
‘Izz.’ Emily clapped her hands together. ‘Forget about getting it fixed. You should just sell up.’
‘Well, as things stand, I have no way of getting back there to do anything with it seeing as my van is dead. Do you think Uber would drive to Nr Cardiff? Do they even have Uber out here?’
‘I’ll drive you,’ Charlotte and Freya said simultaneously. They turned to each other, laughed and said, ‘Snap!’
When their giggles died down, Freya looped back to Izzy’s origin story. ‘So, let me get this straight. Your political, Africa-first, feminista, poet mother fancied blonds?’
‘Yup! Me, too it seems.’
‘Oh yeah …’ Freya flicked her thumb back at the campsite. ‘I forgot Luna’s half-ABBA too.’
Izzy shook her head. ‘Nope. Danish. But his name was Thor!’
Emily snorted. ‘It was not.’
Izzy nudged her with her foot. Spoilsport. ‘Who wants their hot Danish baby-daddy to be called Alfred?’
They all laughed. Freya cackled and asked, ‘Can we call him The Hot Danish instead?’
‘See? Alfred’s an awful name, isn’t it?’
The girls, mercifully, left that as a rhetorical question.
Izzy sighed and closed her eyes so she could picture him on the beach, stuck as he was, back in time, as a beautifully sculpted blond Adonis. ‘He was hot. Bright blue eyes, swimmer’s muscles and a thick shock of white hair you could run your fingers through for days, but, alas, he was a wandering soul.’
That. And she’d fallen pregnant right after her mother had died, so …
‘And he doesn’t help you at all with Luna? Child payments? Nothing?’ Charlotte looked appalled.
‘Nope. I didn’t ask.’ She hadn’t known where he was to ask back then, but in all honesty? Now that she did, there’d been so many other things on her mind that hunting down Alf had been the least of them.
Emily, as usual, stayed quiet on the topic. She’d already made her point very clear: Izzy was being a class-A moron for not getting in touch. Harsh, but very possibly accurate?
If she was totally honest, she was as frightened of getting in touch with him as she had been of reaching out to her father – even with the invitation. Alf had been the Don Juan of the surfer scene. There one breathtakingly perfect moment, gone the next. Sure, his departure had been at her bidding, but it had definitely been a protective move. Her mother had taught her never to expect people to treat her the way she treated them because people rarely delivered. Cynical. But helpful. And possibly slightly misguided? She’d never questioned her mother’s adamant No Marriage clause. What if Theodora had actually been completely and totally in love with Sven? Thought she’d found a perfection she could never lay claim to, and had cloaked her heartbreak in the politics of proving she didn’t need a man to feel complete?
Nah. Her mum liked being her own boss. More than once, she’d said looking after a man was as exhausting as having a baby. No offence sugar, but she didn’t need to be wiping butts no more. Not when she had all that living left to do.
Ah, cruel world.
‘And there’s no way of getting in touch with him now?’ Charlotte asked.
There was. She just didn’t have the slightest clue how to go about that first little foray down memory lane. Hey, Alf! Remember me? Hot chick with a surfboard in Morocco? Yeah. There were lots of those, I know, but … anyhoo … see attached pic. Fruits of my labour thanks to your seed and, if you’re interested, there’s some other stuff, too …
‘I don’t know.’ She waved it off as if it wasn’t an option. ‘My mum was a big believer in self-reliance. I guess it rubbed off on me and re-formed as an aversion to relationships.’ She picked up a handful of sand and let it trickle through her fingers. ‘I’ve had a few flings over the years, but nothing that made me want to tie the knot. Like mother like daughter!’ Izzy twisted round and looked for her jumper. Now that the sun was beginning its descent, she was getting properly cold. She gave her arms a rub, looked up and saw the girls were still waiting for more. Izzy laughed to lighten the mood. ‘I’m good. I’ve got my girlies again. What more could a girl want?’
They all smiled at her then went quiet for a bit. Petting dogs. Nibbling away at the remains of a crusty loaf of sourdough. Watching a fresh batch of clouds skittering in from the west where they had, no doubt, been replenishing their stores after drenching Irelan
d in days of downpour. The rain would come, but for now everything was as it should be.
Charlotte gazed at the stars and then back down at their cosy little sprawl of people, blankets and dogs round the fire. For the first time since she’d arrived in Wales, she felt genuinely capable of facing her future. Emily was right. She’d been hiding behind her ‘everything’s fine’ mask for too long.
She’d been treating the seaside cove like a cocoon. A place to shelter from the myriad of pragmatics that lay in wait. Lawyers. Joint bank accounts being cleaved in two. Telling her children their parents were no longer in love.
She wasn’t entirely sure the news would come as a revelation. Whilst she hoped the children took her love for them for granted (she’d been sending largely unanswered texts all week), she was afraid Oli’s behaviour had coloured their opinion of her. And not for the better. With that age-old clarity of hindsight, she could see he’d long since had a way of paying attention to her when she was being useful and dismissive of her when she was putting forward her own point of view. So she’d ramped up the former and slowly but surely stepped back from the latter. Being useful, she was beginning to see, had been her armour in life. Oh, she still planned on being useful. She was good at it. But from here on out, it would be on her terms.
Some day soon she’d have to sit down and try and figure out exactly what those were.
‘Marshmallow?’ Freya held out a banana-leaf plate.
They all oohed and aahed over the animal carvings Freya had crafted out of the jumbo marshmallows. Freya’s creative mojo was popping up in all sorts of unexpected places today. She’d even put Emily’s hair into one of those amazing fishtail plaits and decorated it with little seashells. From the back she looked like a Disney princess.
‘I’ll have one.’ Emily took a marshmallow penguin and speared it on to her ‘special roasting stick’. It was crooked, like a witch’s, she’d said with a wicked laugh. ‘Shooo, Dumbledore. This one’s for Auntie Emms.’
Dumbledore bumbled over to the blanket that Freya had freshly cleared of sand and lay down in the centre of it. He blinked out at them from beneath his curtain of sandy brown eyebrows. He reminded Charlotte of Colin Farrell. Or was it Firth? One of them, anyway.
She leant back, the heels of her hands sinking into the sand and thought, this is lovely. The fire crackling away. Everyone toasting marshmallows and chatting over one another about nonsense, really. Whether or not a woman in her forties could still wear a hoody. If the whole coconut-oil thing was a myth (Izzy swore it wasn’t). If they knew anyone who genuinely liked spiralized vegetables.
It was like going back in time. They’d done this every now and again during their final year at uni. Packed up whatever food they’d had in the fridge and gone down to the beach in Izzy’s van or Freya’s beat-up old Land Rover that she’d inherited from her brother. The old-fashioned kind that bumped you around like a sack of potatoes. Rocco had followed her down from Scotland in his new Land Rover to ensure she made it. He always seemed to be looking out for his kid sister. She wondered how that would’ve changed things for her if she’d grown up like that. Knowing there was someone who was always looking out for her.
She caught Izzy throwing some seaweed at Emily, who batted it off only for it to land on Freya’s tray of marshmallows. Freya flicked it away, only for it to land on Charlotte’s lap. They all grinned at her with those same naughty smiles they’d shot her when they’d devoured one of her cakes and forgotten to offer her any.
Bless. She had three someones looking after her.
Come to think of it, these past few hours had been the very first time anyone had properly looked after her in years. Even that time she’d lost over a stone with the flu, her family had never once offered to sort out supper, or do the laundry, or to make their own beds. The cleaning lady had eventually taken pity on her and said she’d come an extra day each week, but only if Charlotte didn’t take offence if she wore a mask.
‘Go on Charlotte,’ Izzy said, taking a marshmallow. A lion from the looks of things. ‘We interrupted you earlier. You were saying?’
Charlotte couldn’t believe she was telling them all this, but they had sworn the ‘what goes on in the campground stays in the campground’ oath, so … ‘He’s had the flat for a couple of years now. A pied à terre. For late nights at the office and …’ Oh, you almost had to laugh now that she knew what had really been going on. ‘He said he’d bought it so the two of us could have wicked trysts up in the city.’
‘And did you?’ Izzy asked through a mouthful of marshmallow.
Charlotte peeked through her fingers at her wide-eyed friends. Should she just confess it? She dropped her hands. ‘Let’s just say, we’ve had sex twice since he’s owned the flat and both of those were at home so … I suppose you could say it’s virgin territory for me.’ Admitting it made Charlotte feel like one of those women at the gym who had no problems being naked in front of strangers. Striding confidently to the shower in the buff, instead of hunching over and scuttling to the stall as quickly as possible with a huge bath sheet wrapped round her as Charlotte did.
‘You’re jokin’.’ Freya looked horrified. Doubly so when Charlotte threw her a nonchalant shrug.
Gosh. Had she not really cared that they hadn’t had sex?
‘That’s not good. Monty gets totally—’
‘Ooooup! No. Nope.’ Emily frantically waved her hands for Freya to stop talking. ‘Too many details. I don’t want to picture Monty naked. Not now. Not ever.’
‘Why? What’s wrong with Monty?’
Freya’s eyes shot to Izzy, who maintained a steady focus on a little plait she was weaving on top of Bonzer’s head.
A little too loudly, Freya insisted, ‘I’ll have you know Monty is perfectly serviceable when naked.’
‘Serviceable,’ Izzy sniggered. ‘Sexxxx-ay.’
Freya shot daggers at her.
Emily made vomit noises. ‘Please. Can we discuss Charlotte and her horror of a husband instead? Much better to shred a complete and utter arse to bits than …’ She feigned retching again.
Izzy started laughing. ‘For someone who sees people at their physical worst for a living, you have a bit of a naked phobia thing going on here.’ She stood up and started making striptease noises, circling round Emily, all the while wafting the hem of her shirt up to her belly button.
‘Work is work,’ Emily snapped, yanking her hair out of the fishtail plait, seashells tumbling to the sand as she stuffed it into an exacting ponytail. ‘All right?’
Izzy stopped dancing and went back to plaiting Bonzer’s coiffure.
Charlotte gently suggested shutting the door on the topic.
‘Good idea,’ Freya said. ‘Shall we talk about Izzy’s cottage?’ She sighed wistfully. ‘I wish someone would leave me a cottage.’
‘No you don’t. Not in Nr Cardiff,’ Izzy said. ‘Besides. You’re inheriting a farm.’
‘No. Well. That’s different. It’s mostly going to my brother. The farmer.’
‘How is your brother?’ Charlotte asked. She’d been waiting for an opportunity to ask after him.
‘A hero. Still single.’ Freya opened her palms heavenward and gave them a ‘how crazy is that?’ look. ‘Trying to keep the farm ticking along so my father doesn’t completely lose his marbles. So, pretty much the same as always.’ She sighed. ‘How he manages to always be so jolly is beyond me. I’d top myself if I were in his shoes. Half the time, I want to top myself in my shoes. I mean – not really top top myself. Obviously. I’ve got the kids and Monty, but Rocco? The man exudes contentitude. Is that a word?’
‘Contentment,’ said Charlotte.
‘Yeah. That’s it.’ Freya looked up into the starlit sky. ‘Rocco is a man very much at peace with himself. Like Mum was. And Dad. He is a happy, contented man.’
They all sat with that for a moment. Rocco and his positivity. Freya, the apple who had fallen further from the tree.
‘I miss my kids,’ Freya
said.
‘I miss Looney,’ Izzy buried her head in Bonzer’s fluffy coat. He twisted his head round and licked her hand.
Charlotte missed hers too, but she was definitely enjoying this little beach bubble away from real life. Precious days away to absorb the fact her marriage was well and truly over. She loved the children. Of course she did. Would throw herself in front of a car for them. She’d fed them, clothed them, put cool cloths on their heads all night long when they’d needed it. Driven them to the A&E at all hours. For broken arms, asthma attacks, a sore toe. Made birthday cakes, catered to rounds of veganism, nothing but pasta, a raw food diet that had lasted half a day. All of which added up to a love that simply transcended anything she’d ever known.
She patted the Deluxe Folding Chair pocket for the phone. She’d been planning on sending a pair of ‘thinking of you’ texts to her two. Nothing too sentimental, just … letting them know she was here for them. ‘Why don’t you ring them?’
‘No.’ Izzy shook her head, looking about as old as her daughter. ‘I want to hug her. Have you smelt my daughter? They should bottle that.’
‘We can video-call them.’ Freya pulled out her phone again.
‘Oh, for god’s sake!’ Emily threw up her hands. ‘You know there’s a way to fix this.’
‘What?’ They all looked at her.
‘We join them in the morning for the zip wiring.’ She threw a naughty look at Charlotte. She’d confessed earlier that she had always wanted to go zip wiring. See if she could get an adrenaline buzz from anything apart from calling a code red.
Charlotte shook her head in an ‘oh, you’ smiley way. It was fun having secrets with someone. Especially Emily. She’d always been such a dark horse and now they had a secret!
Izzy sat up and beamed. ‘That’s a genius idea. Frey?’
Freya looked round the group, clearly lifted by the growing buzz of a most excellent idea. ‘Sounds good to me.’
They all turned to Charlotte. ‘You up for a bit of an adrenaline rush, Lotts? Get those cobwebs loose for the next chapter in your life?’
The idea of zip wiring filled Charlotte with absolute terror. Then again, so had going to a party dressed in a frock made entirely of Cheerios, but she’d done that.