Edie Browne's Cottage by the Sea

by Jane Linfoot

  ‘So you actually got him for me?’

  ‘Well er … yes … and … er … no.’ The hesitation is the giveaway.

  ‘But why?’

  ‘You’re young, and vibrant and alive, if there’s a way of getting you your freedom back, we have to explore it.’ That’s so kind and so full of hope it’s making me warm and shivery all at the same time. But it wasn’t what I meant.

  ‘But you hardly know me.’

  ‘Yes, I do.’ The lines on his face deepen. ‘In any case, I reckon as humans we’re hardwired to help, whether we know each other or not. It’s part of our instinct, it’s what makes us survive.’ He lets out a sigh. ‘When I was having a rough time when I first had Cam, people came through for me, and now it’s my turn. Helping out isn’t about reciprocating or paying back, it’s more about paying on. Then, next time, you’ll be there for someone else. Well, you already are with Cam, but you know what I mean.’

  ‘You’re so full of thoughts.’ I’m sucking away the spit that’s pooling under my tongue, and he’s still shrugging this off.

  ‘Don’t overstate what I’m doing here, you went a few yards on your own with someone else’s dog, while I watched out for you. I simply wanted to show you, however bad things seem for you, living with the threat of seizures, there will be a way, that’s all.’

  ‘Whatever the reason, thank you.’ Any moment now I’m going to be wailing. But then Dustin bounds over, whacks me in the leg with his stick, then comes in for more fuss. By the time I’ve buried my nose in the top of his silky head, I’m more myself again.

  Then Barney jumps to his feet, and this time, as we meander back towards the blue and white railings and the seafront, I’m so grateful I’m not wanting to hurry ahead or beat myself up for earlier. As we reach the broad stone steps that lead away from the beach, I stop to pick up another shell. He springs up onto the cobbles ahead of me and turns.

  ‘There is something else I’m hoping you could help me with.’

  ‘And?’ If he wants me to pop round to give Dustin his dinner while he and Cam are out tonight, that’s fine.

  ‘I want to take your ideas a step further. I was so wrapped up in getting the shells right and the business off the ground, I missed the bloomin’ obvious. The way people have reacted to your pictures, having a show hut or two would definitely help sales.’

  ‘Cool, that’s fine by me, you’d definitely ace it if you decorated a couple’ It’s actually so satisfying I feel like punching the air, but I manage to hold back. ‘You don’t have to stop at show huts, you know.’

  ‘Go on?’

  ‘You already do made-to-measure shells, but if you did bespoke hut interiors and offered a tailored design service, you’d really add value.’ I’m astonishing myself at how much of the jargon is still there to pull out, and I’m on a roll here. ‘I mean, why stop at the insides? You could design the outside spaces too. Better still, you could have a corner of one of your barns full of quirky bits and pieces for people to choose from to put in their huts.’

  ‘Whoever said you were a creative genius was seriously understating. You’ve just consolidated my business plan for years to come.’

  I roll my eyes at him. ‘Bollocks, Barney person, it’s common sense.’ Maybe with a bit of beachy magic thrown in.

  ‘However much it was staring me in the face, I still managed to miss it all this time.’ He’s shaking his head. ‘More important than ever now, I’d like to offer you some work.’

  ‘Work, like a job?’ My jaw has dropped because it’s so far away from what I was expecting.

  His lips are twitching. ‘How would you feel about turning these ideas of yours into reality? Part-time hours, you can begin with an hour here and there. You could start with a show hut?’

  ‘So, painting?’ As I nod, my tummy’s done a triple flip at the thought of real, actual employment.

  ‘Yep, the areas are small so they’re fiddly but they shouldn’t be too tiring.’ His eyes are shining. ‘If we’re going down the fancy route, I’d need your help with accessories too. With your latest brainwave, they’ll be for inside and outside.’

  I’m feeling too weak to reply.

  He takes in how far my jaw has dropped and back-pedals. ‘Sorry, that’s me getting carried away, the last thing I wanted was to overwhelm you.’

  ‘Over what?’ If he was planning to scare me shitless, he couldn’t have done a better job. My legs have frozen halfway up the steps.

  ‘Okay, Edie Browne, breathe.’ He’s managing to smile and burst with kindness all at the same time. ‘Let me start again – could you spare me an hour on Monday morning to roll some very pretty paint onto a very tiny wall?’

  Put like that … ‘Yes, I could.’ My mind is jumping ahead to everything I should be asking. ‘What time, when?’ What to wear. The music they’ll be listening to. If I need to bring my own sandwiches.

  ‘Let’s stay relaxed about this. After we’ve taken Dustin and Robert out, the paint of your choice will be waiting, I’ll be there all day. So I’ll get the biscuits in, and whenever you feel ready, you just turn up with your smile and your overalls.’

  Sounds like he’s covered most bases. Which is just as well because I went out for a walk and apparently I’ve come back with a new career. It’s like the guy who climbed a hill and came back down a mountain. Well, not quite, but you get the idea. However huge my excitement rush, I decide, on balance, not to throw my arms around him and smack kisses all over his cheeks. I only hope I don’t disappoint him.

  30

  Day 212: Friday, 1st June

  At Periwinkle Cottage

  Epic Achievement: Filling up my work wardrobe (just not in the way I’d hoped.)

  If the last two weeks have shown me anything, it’s that nothing in life is predictable. There I was expecting to be painting the cottage and the stables, and instead I’m messing around with shepherd’s huts and falling over the children, who are suddenly all on half-term. I mean, when do they actually learn anything, because they’re hardly ever at school? I’m putting the hours in – weekdays, weekends and holidays – and I’ve got my work cut out to catch up with what they already know.

  When I’m down at the barns with Barney the first week it leaves Aunty Jo free to go to all the classes, as well as the over sixties lunches, which are completely not what the name implies, because they seem to go on all day. And at Periwinkle the work is still progressing even though I’m not there. Thanks to Malcolm bringing in a couple of his mates from the Silver Surfers Club, cake consumption has gone through the roof, but space by space, the cottage is being transformed. As the paper is peeled off, the rooms left behind are light and airy, but best of all, they’re looking very neutral and wonderfully marketable.

  I’m still arguing over colour schemes with Aunty Jo. Her going big on bubblegum and neon rainbows is not helpful, not at this point or any other, come to that. We’re rolling up the old carpets, painting the worst floorboards, scrubbing the best ones, mostly painting the walls white with an occasional hint of whisper grey, and little by little we’re getting there with that airy beach hut feel.

  As for me, going out to actual work, even for a short time every day, leaves me feeling slightly stunned and a lot more exhausted than I expect, considering the tiny amounts I’m doing. But it’s also so good to break free from being at home all day, and any job with all-you-can eat Jammy Dodgers – a great choice, thank you, Barney – can’t be so bad.

  Having the dogs on hand at the barns to watch and cheer me on makes up for my attention span being painfully short. Barney must either be very desperate or some kind of saint, because if I were an employer I wouldn’t give myself a job. It’s funny how things like not being able to concentrate aren’t obvious when you’re pottering around the house, but when you’re at work there’s no place to hide. If I’m supposed to be painting, it’s pretty damned obvious if I break off to wander round the orchard to see how the apples are coming on – nicely, in fact, a lot of
the trees are laden. The first couple of days are the worst. I spend an inordinate amount of time marvelling at the kind of patterns the apple green leaves make against the velvet blue of the sky, and watching the seagull crowds that follow the fishing boats as they chug back towards the harbour. But after a few days I get into a better rhythm, and I learn to break up my short bursts of painting with outings to search for accessories to bring the huts to life.

  We begin with the Wriggly Tin Man hut, where the outside is exactly what it says and which Barney has already painted the colour of a stormy sky, which kept him close enough to his comfort zone, with the windows picked out in cream. Inside I start by painting the walls creamy white, then add in shades of light grey for the feature areas, with darker grey on the flat cupboard fronts, and chunky timber on the tops.

  I find some lovely grey and white geometric prints in Loella’s fabric piles which Aunty Jo makes into cushion covers, along with some plain yellow ones too. For the furnishings we decided that reclaimed would be more in line with the feel and be more cost-effective than new, at least until we actually get some firm orders in, so I head off around everyone’s houses to see what I can steal. Barney lets me have a soft petrol blue quilt cover which is grey enough to work, I borrow a couple of teak fifties-style sling chairs from Aunty Jo, that used to be in Harry’s study in Happy-town, and I take a coffee table from Beth’s dad’s garage that Barney tops with rough-hewn planks. A couple of vintage storm lanterns come from Aunty Jo’s barn, and Beth lets me borrow some of her tall candle lanterns for inside, and some stumpy ones to go up the steps. Then her dad lends me an old book on tin mines, and I get some copies of some of the old black and white pictures of miners from there and put them in some mismatched frames. By the time I’ve added in a couple of black and white stripe deckchairs outside and attached a string of solar light bulbs to poles around the sitting area, it’s almost there. Two old milk churns with Malcolm’s white flowers tumbling down the sides, and a little hanging plank sign saying Tin Men live here, and Barney’s happy. Considering I’m not a fan, I’m surprisingly pleased with myself. It’s a long way off Zinc Inc standards, I know, but the dappled light of the pear trees and the sea shimmering in the distance somehow make up for that.

  When the post comes on Friday morning at the end of my second week, Aunty Jo and I have finished our Oat So Lovely and are lingering over coffee in the sunshine at the table out in the courtyard, waiting for today’s influx of children. As I catch a glimpse of the familiar logo on the mini-catalogue the postman hands me, my heart lifts.

  ‘Leah Lemon – I’ve missed these clothes so much.’ I’m reading and remembering at the same time, and as I tear off the plastic, this arriving at the end of my first two weeks back at part-time work feels particularly auspicious.

  ‘Your nice slacks come from there, don’t they? And your tops.’ Aunty Jo leans across. ‘Ten per cent off too, Sweetpea, that means the clothes cost less than normal.’

  ‘That’s good then.’ It gives me even more of an excuse to treat myself after so long without shopping.

  ‘It’s probably because you haven’t bought any for a while, they’re trying to tempt you back.’

  ‘You can never have enough capri pants.’ That’s my mantra for the day as I flip through the pages. Ditto to summer chinos. Especially when the next size up from the ones I have upstairs would give me just that little bit more breathing space. When I come to the page with the lightweight tailored jacket and trousers, my tummy does the kind of flip you get from seeing your boyfriend when you’re a teenager. ‘That’s what I’m really looking for.’ I’ve never done suits for work, but I picked this one out last year as perfect for those days with tricky meetings. It’s grown up enough to send out the message that you can’t be messed around, without making you look like you take yourself too seriously. Sadly, by the time I got my fancy new title to go with the suit they’d sold out of their summer lines in my size, but I promised myself I’d buy one as soon as they came in again.

  ‘A work suit?’

  I’ve got no idea why Aunty Jo’s sounding so doubtful; the way my time here is flying by, I’ll be back in Bath before we know it. But there’s no time to ask because Dustin is bounding towards me, and by the time he’s finished saying ‘Good morning’ he’s practically sitting on my knee.

  ‘Work clothes? For goodness’ sake don’t go ordering any more overalls unless you want to melt, there’s a heatwave coming.’ It’s typical of Barney to join in as he saunters across the gravel, but he’s usually closer to the mark than that. ‘I’ve been meaning to say, I’ve got loads of Levi’s with ripped knees at home, if you’d like some to make into cut-offs for painting, just give a shout.’

  ‘That would be lovely, thank you, Barney. Bermudas and T-shirts will be much cooler for Edie than those synthetic boiler suits.’

  ‘I reckon they’ll fit you okay.’

  Don’t you just hate it when tall guys take the same size as you in jeans? As if it’s not bad enough having Aunty Jo accepting the offer, now I’ve got to squirm while Barney stares at my thighs to check.

  ‘I’ll bring you some T-shirts too.’

  ‘Great, I’ll look forward to that.’ I can’t wait. Cast-offs from down the lane don’t quite cut it when I had my heart set on a Leah L suit.

  ‘There you go, Sweetpea, summer shorts will be much more useful than office clothes for now. Does Lily Lemon do beachwear? Maybe you could order some of that?’

  ‘Or maybe I’ll leave it for now.’ I try to ignore how deflated that’s making me feel. At this rate Leah Lemon will be crossing me off her mailing list, so I’m not writing this off entirely. I’ll have another look after work. It’s funny how those two little words make me feel like I’m giving a secret, silent cheer. As if I’m almost human again.

  ‘So now Tin Man’s finished, which hut are we going onto next?’ Barney picks up on Robert’s hard stare. ‘That’s after the dog walk, obviously.’ Having seen the first hut finished, he now wants to do a hut for every theme so far, but we’ll see how that goes.

  ‘We’ll wait to do Dots and Daisies.’ I chose some wallpaper samples from the internet, and Aunty Jo organised for the entire pub at the over sixties lunch to send off for the same ones, so I can get enough bits of paper to cover a whole wall of the hut in a random patchwork of flowery prints. But we’re still waiting for those to come.

  ‘We could do a beach one next, seeing it’s so warm? The Seaside Stripes, or She Sells Sea Shells.’ Barney’s rubbing his hands.

  ‘The stripy fabric’s here.’ As I smile at Aunty Jo she’s already nodding. ‘If you have time to sew it?’

  Barney’s tilting his head. ‘So what about the furniture for that? It’s fine ransacking everyone’s garden sheds, but we’ve pretty much exhausted the supply along the lane. We might need to go shopping.’

  ‘That’s my line, Barney.’ And I just made a sassy comeback, even without my suit. Except this far I’d done everything I could to avoid saying it, hence the begging and borrowing. ‘What about the internet place with the happy endings and the bids?’ I watch his eyes cloud and clear again.

  ‘You mean eBay?’ He pulls a face. ‘Sorry, but I haven’t got time to run around the county for that, we’ll try some real shops first.’

  ‘So do you know somewhere?’ If we were in Bristol, I’d know the exact places to get interesting pieces to upcycle without getting ripped off. But we’re not. And it’s obvious any shopping around here will mean leaving St Aidan. I’ve actually got used to pottering around Barney’s yard, but I’m really not ready for a long trip out of town with him, even if the entire gardening club comes along too.

  ‘I get mate’s rates at Junkyard Warehouse in Falmouth – we could try there? And Cam’s gone off with Loella for the day, so I’m free.’

  ‘Falmouth?’ I might have been fast with my last comeback, but there’s more to take in here. I always relied on that thing in my car to tell me where places were, but I’m sure i
t’s not near.

  ‘No need to look so appalled, Edie Browne. We’re not going to the moon, it’s only forty-five minutes away.’

  ‘About like Bristol to Bath, Sweetpea.’ Aunty Jo translating for me is almost automatic these days. It’s not the distance I’m bothered about.

  He gives a low laugh. ‘Definitely no sailing or tree climbing. If we shoot straight off after the walk, we’ll easily be back for when Cam comes home.’

  ‘An all day trip then?’

  ‘That depends on your definition of day.’ He laughs. ‘And how long you take over lunch. But if we’re doing it, we’d better get going, those shepherd’s huts aren’t going to fill themselves.’ Yet again he’s talking complete sense. This has to be done. Some of us will have to grit our teeth and get on with it. The sooner it’s done, the sooner it’s over.

  ‘Great. Got you.’ This is a working day, I’m entirely used to keeping everything professional, there’s no need to look at it as anything else. Get in the car, source what we need, drive back home again. How hard can it be? I know Marcus and I used to search for months before we found the perfect pieces for his place, but it’s so much less agonising to choose when it’s for anyone else than for yourself. If anyone knows why my ‘Happy Friday’ sign’s flashing up in my brain as I take Dustin’s lead from Barney, please let me know. Answers on a postcard to Edie Browne, Periwinkle Cottage. Because I’m damned sure I don’t know myself.

  31

  Day 212: Friday, 1st June

  Gone Shopping

  Epic Achievement: Getting déjà vu – I’m guessing that’s a good thing.

  (Even if it’s only to do with chairs.)

  However tiny my new job is, having a day out for it is another box to tick on my way back to normality, so I should be whooping. But work trips are like everything else around here – there’s a rest-of-the-world version, and then there’s the St Aidan sort. First off is the transport – not the truck itself, more that Barney has to move a heap of Cam’s felt pens, a couple of empty muffin papers, Robert’s Christmas dog jumper, and a whole pile of shed sketches before I can even see the seat. Then as I climb in, he slides up the volume on his phone.