Edie Browne's Cottage by the Sea

by Jane Linfoot

  ‘So what’s the music?’ That’s the first rule for successful work trips – negotiate what you’re listening to and how loud the second you get in the car if you want to avoid all-day Shania. Not that I’m grumbling. But when I’m bumping down the lane in a double row cab with a pick-up on the back that would make a builders’ van seem luxurious, I can’t help a little pang for my own shiny work car complete with the Advanced Technology speaker upgrade.

  ‘The soundtrack from Bridget Jones.’

  ‘Er … really?’

  ‘Malcolm’s suggestion, on shuffle to keep an element of surprise. Apparently every woman loves it, so it should be relaxing.’ He shoots me a sideways grin. ‘You have to admit, there are a lot of similarities.’ The points he got for saying woman not girl are scrubbed out in an instant.

  ‘You’re saying I’m like Bridget?’

  ‘Not the posh bit, because your West Country burr is really strong when you swear.’

  ‘And eff you too, Barney Barn.’ That’s the one bit I wouldn’t have minded.

  ‘I know your hair’s darker, but think about the rest – sunnies on your head, being hot and having no idea, both being accident prone and full of unrealised potential, your penchant for bunny ears. Enough said? You even wrinkle your noses the same.’

  There’s so much there to argue with, I’m not even going to try. What’s more, I’m not sure if it’s good or bad that he’s so familiar with BJ he can make the comparison.

  ‘But Bridget wasn’t ill.’ I never pull the illness card, but just this once I’ll make an exception if it means I can shut him up. And if he’s skipped over the glaringly obvious, like us both being single, similarly wide, and our trousers being at least three sizes larger than we’d ideally like, I’m not going to flag those up either.

  ‘That’s how you define yourself, isn’t it? The stroke really is all you see.’ As he blows out his cheeks and lets out a long breath, his laugh has flipped to accusing disbelief. ‘No one else even gives that a second thought. Yes, we’re considerate, and we care, but when we look at you we see everything you can do, not what you can’t. You know the biggest reason you’re like Bridget? Because you’re frigging amazing, and exactly like her, you can’t even see that.’

  ‘Is that it?’ Somehow I manage to close my gaping jaw enough to get that out. ‘Are you done?’

  ‘Not quite.’ He’s drumming his fingers on the steering wheel. ‘From now on, please let’s concentrate on the stuff you’re good at and forget the rest. Is that a deal?’

  ‘I s’pose.’ To be honest, I’m too shocked to say anything else. No one’s ever been that insensitive or harsh enough to speak to me like this before. Worse still, I’m torn. I’m blazing that he’s had the cheek to wade in. But when I stop to think harder, along with the angry protest he’s dishing out compliments by the shedload.

  ‘Great. In that case we’ll let Robbie sing a bit louder.’

  As the music fills the cab I sit back against the scuffed plastic of my seat and let Me and Mrs Jones wash over me. Bella will be jumping up and down when I tell her about this later, I can hear her now, screaming ‘hot like Bridget Jones’ is workplace harassment’. Whereas Tash might see the wood through the trees – or is it the trees through the wood? She’ll focus on giving him the benefit of the doubt. Or is benefit something to do with make-up?

  Whatever, it seems like now Barney’s said his piece and I’ve agreed terms. We’re moving on, so I brace myself. I’ve spent the whole beach walk gearing up for serious discussions on subjects like Are milk churns the limit of our twee-ness? – heaven help me if they’re not – and Does he see his client base as essentially coming down on the side of ditsy print, gypsy jewels or hewn slate? But there’s absolutely no chance for me to impress anyone with my conversational gems because he keeps up a running commentary of every village we drive past. And as if travelling with the talking version of Cornwall’s Lonely Planet guide wasn’t enough, we’ve got the dogs along too. Dustin’s sticking his nose in my ear over the back of the seat and dribbling on my shoulder, but this is the one bit I’m pleased about.

  As we finally chug our way into Falmouth the streets are clogged with traffic. By the time we emerge onto the waterfront the sun’s washing over the stone cobbles and, despite the open windows, I’m baking because the truck windscreen is acting like a greenhouse. The quayside here is every bit as picturesque and mismatched as St Aidan, but somehow much bigger and taller and wider with industrial echoes around the edges. I take in the mix of pink and white and stone houses that are just as colourful as the ones I’m familiar with, but the expanse of jade water crowded with bobbing boats and masts seems to stretch forever. It might be the light sparkling on the harbour or it could be the upbeat tempo of It’s Raining Men, but whatever it is, I’m less cross than I was.

  Barney seems to know where he’s going with no help from the woman on the satnav who tells you what lane to get into, and he winds his way between the buildings and pulls up behind what looks like a weathered yet very bulky shed. I’m squinting at the sign, but Barney gets there first.

  ‘Four floors of beautiful rubbish. Welcome to The Junkyard.’ He’s looking pleased with himself as he jumps down from the truck and opens the back door. Then he whistles to Dustin and carefully lifts Robert down from the seat and lets him scamper off across the gravel car park. ‘We should find the right combo of kitsch, stylish and battered here.’

  I slide my sunnies onto the top of my head as we head towards the entrance. ‘Do you think there’s a toilet?’

  ‘Behind the office, first on the left.’ He holds the door open for us all, and points me towards the ladies.

  By the time I come out again, I’m reassured my foundation hasn’t slithered off my face and onto my shell top. As I make my way across a huge room stacked with rows of furniture piled high to where Barney is chatting to a guy with major muscles and a bushy beard, it’s probably too dim for anyone to notice quite how long I’ve spent getting my lippy back to perfect. But at least it’s light enough for me to immediately spot a couple of quirky little pieces that would fit nicely into a shepherd’s hut.

  ‘Edie Browne, come and meet Greg, he’s just made his first sale.’

  ‘What’s that?’ Being from St Aidan, I wasn’t expecting him to start this fast.

  ‘I’ve bought a job lot of two hundred seafront deckchairs.’

  ‘Are you sure about that?’ Four more huts, two chairs each. Even if he decides to do five, I’m sure that’s still way too many.

  ‘It’s possibly a hundred and ninety-two more than we need straight away, but as the old saying goes, “They’re too good to leave in the shop”. Greg will deliver and there’s plenty of room to store them upstairs at mine.

  ‘Ok-a-a-a-a-y.’

  ‘Once you paint some witty words on them they’ll sell like hot cakes for ten times what I’m paying, I can already see customers asleep in chairs with lines of zeds on. Our second joint venture, if we carry on like this we’ll be relocating to a tax haven in the Cayman Islands in no time.’ His lips are twisting. ‘Now back to the real business, can you see anything you’d like for the huts?’

  As if one joint venture wasn’t enough already. As it is, another chance for me to earn should make me feel like laughing not groaning. Then as I begin to scour the nearby piles, there’s something about the dust floating in the sunlight shafts than takes me back to all the Saturdays Marcus and I went hunting in Bristol for those perfect reclaimed pieces for his house. We once drove all the way to Glasgow for two designer leather chairs I’d bought on eBay for a snip. I can still remember how good the super-sized ice-cool Cokes tasted when we stopped at Burger King on the way home. Looking back on that person biting into her Whopper Meal Deal Double Decker and fries, it’s hard to think how excited I was for that future with Marcus. How naive I was to be so cheery and hopeful when it was all going to come crashing down within a few years. Back then we were still a team. Marcus was always the one who
muscled in to open negotiations in the reclamation warehouses. But I was the one who chipped away and whittled and wheedled until the owners came down to something we could afford.

  If I hadn’t made the deal with Barney about looking forwards not back, I might be cursing that I’ve lost that edge. Kicking myself for not being able to work out what the price tickets say, let along get in there to bargain and argue. But as it is, for one time only, I’m going to let it go. Let’s face it, any guy who just bought a barn full of deckchairs doesn’t need my help with haggling.

  However great it was rushing around the country being carefree and clueless, I’m not wholly sure I’d swap back to that, even if I could. Would I rather be wildly over-optimistic, with everything ahead of me to lose? Or is it better to have lost it already and be coming through the other side? It’s funny to think I’m still looking for chairs. But deep down it’s a relief to be doing it from a more grounded, realistic place. Rock-bottom wouldn’t be the destination of choice for a lot of people. But when you actually arrive there, there’s a reassuring firmness and solidity that no one tells you about. There’s something peculiarly okay about being in a shit place where the smallest improvement can seem like great news.

  As I look up I realise Barney’s watching me.

  ‘You look like you do this a lot.’

  ‘With my ex, for that house I once told you about.’

  Barney’s brow wrinkles. ‘So what did you do at work?’

  ‘I told you that too, I shouted at builders.’

  ‘And what were they building?’

  ‘Lately I mostly oversaw large developments of exclusive flats.’

  ‘Jeez, I can see why patchwork didn’t exactly hit the spot after that.’ He’s blinking at me. ‘And why I’m extra lucky to have you picking out gems for the huts. So is there anything here that would work?’

  As I realise Barney’s staring at me expectantly, I turn my mind back to the job in hand.

  ‘How about this?’ The cupboard I’m pointing to is plain, but best of all, it’s not too deep. ‘It will paint up very nicely. But there again so would this – and this – and this – and this – and this.’ As I move along the rows I’m picking out shelves and chests of drawers and tables that would be insignificant in a larger house, but would be perfect for where we want to use them. As Barney moves behind me, nodding, Greg’s sticking red ‘sold’ stickers on the fronts, and making notes of the numbers on their price tickets.

  ‘Everything all right, Edie?’

  ‘You’re putting on sold stickers, but we haven’t made up our minds.’ Somehow I thought we’d be considering everything suitable, Barney would scratch his head, agonise about the prices, and then we’d be choosing the best ones. ‘Do you want all of them?’

  ‘It saves coming back again.’

  ‘That’s true.’ I’ll go with that.

  ‘Actually, I need to come clean. I’m not just buying for the huts you’re working on. I’m taking your other suggestion to heart, buying stock to sell on.’

  ‘You’re making a shop after all?’

  ‘There are still a couple of stables left in the barn yard at Periwinkle. Just supposing I rent those and you take charge of styling …?’ His eyes are bright as they lock with mine. ‘We’ll have an instant interior design centre for garden buildings.’

  ‘You do know they’re only temporary?’

  ‘Obviously we can’t stay there forever, but for the price of the paint we’d get an idea of whether it was workable. You could put your signs and the deckchairs in there too, and Beth’s lanterns, and Loella’s quilts and Josie’s cushions, along with anything else you sourced.’ He seems to have covered the lot, right down to the sweeteners.

  ‘Browne and Barnaby then?’ I’m being ironic.

  ‘It’s got a nice ring to it.’

  My eyes are open so wide I think they’re going to burst, but my throat has closed because that was the last thing he was supposed to say. ‘Tell me you’re joking.’

  ‘The great thing is, this is just the beginning – these wooden boxes don’t only have to go on axles and wheels or concrete plinths, we could explore the tree house aesthetic too.’ He’s sounding so excited, but someone has to bring him down to earth again.

  ‘But how many people actually use their tree houses?’ I can’t believe I thought shepherd’s huts were as bad as it could get. If we’re talking useless toys for rich people, tree houses are so much worse. When I made suggestions, I wasn’t bargaining on getting heavily involved.

  ‘If they’re properly constructed and designed, people love pods at tree level. With your vision and my timber skills, we make a crack team. All you need to do is say the word, Edie Browne. I can sense how reluctant you are to exploit your talent, but I’m not letting you give up on this one.’

  ‘Great.’ It comes out a lot more squeaky than I planned because it’s so far from the truth. If ever I needed motivation to get back to Zinc Inc, the civilisation of Bath, and the blissful comfort zone of retirement flats, it’s the threat of building shepherd’s huts in the sky.

  ‘Anyway, we’d better get on.’ He gives my elbow a nudge with his. ‘There’s the whole of this floor to look through, then the easy chairs and wood-burners are upstairs, and then there’s an outdoor section too. And we could call in at a chandlery or two while we’re here.’

  ‘Right.’ My knees are feeling as weak as my croak. As morning’s go, this one has been one of those times there are no words wide enough to express the size of the disaster area that sprung out of nowhere. As a measure of how uncomfortable it’s been, I’d have swapped it for a patchwork class in a heartbeat. If this is what happens when I think out loud, next time I need to keep my mouth shut. Having ideas is one thing, getting embroiled is something else entirely.

  ‘I’ll get Greg to send out for some coffee and sandwiches, you look like you need an early lunch.’

  Which has to be the best news I’ve had since I left St Aidan.

  32

  Day 226: Friday, 15th June

  At Periwinkle Cottage

  Epic Thought: Life is made up of billions of infinitesimal fragments, most of which are exceedingly ordinary, because that’s just how things are. But once or twice in a lifetime you can look back and identify one of those minuscule slivers of time as being extraordinary, having a significance that completely outweighs its tiny size. A moment where your world shifts, and the tilt changes the direction of your life forever.

  The strange thing was, when Barney suggested I should stop worrying about the things I couldn’t do, I only agreed to shut him up. I only ever meant to pretend to do it, and only for that day until he forgot about it. Inside my secret self, I think I was scared to let go. Terrified that if I stopped remembering how I used to be, I’d never get back there. That forgetting would be like throwing away the map that showed me the way back to myself. As if letting go would be like waving off the spaceship and deciding to stay on an alien planet.

  But what I accidentally discovered that day was that it was possible to give myself a temporary break from the torment without giving up on the bigger picture. When I blanked out what I wanted to do but couldn’t, initially it was only for a few seconds when I made myself stop remembering the deals I used to strike. But those few breaths when I stopped beating myself up for what I couldn’t do were bliss. Better still, when I tried it for longer I had so much energy left over, I could concentrate better. But most of all, I felt lighter. And so much more free.

  So I’m still just as determined to get back to who I was, but letting go of the frustration means that I’m more able to focus on doing that. Best of all, it’s freed me up to make better progress. Thanks to Barney I’m fast-forwarding to my destination instead of going in slow-mo. As Aunty Jo pointed out, this is what she’s been telling me to do since the day I got here. And once I stopped to think about it, this does tie in with all her ‘All you need is wheat grass juice and a finger post pointing in the right direction’ a
nd ‘Dance your best dance, no one gives a stuff if you fall over’ mantras. But if you’re not ready it’s hard to listen, and even more impossible to hear.

  The day we went to Falmouth, Barney must have struck it lucky. Since then I’ve expanded the approach. Doing all the things I’m good at for now, and forgetting about the rest is like finding the secret motorway back to where I began. But when I finally get back to Zinc Inc, however much I have remastered, I won’t ever be quite be the same person. I’ll certainly never take anything for granted again.

  So when we came to planning the bathroom makeovers for the cottage, I helped choose the tiles, but I didn’t let it bother me that I couldn’t do sketches for how the tiles should fit. Like the latest decorators, the tiler came from the over-sixties lunches, which seem to be bursting with retired tradesmen looking for jobs to keep their hands in. If only I’d been old enough to go there myself when I first arrived, we’d have got this quest up and running a whole lot faster.

  I never did manage to make a proper list of work at Periwinkle, and with my new rules and the fact that a lot of the work is already done, I probably won’t be bothering now. As Aunty Jo says, we seem to be getting on fine without it. In any case, no one in St Aidan takes much notice of lists or instructions, they just turn up on the day and get on and do what needs doing.

  To show how much progress we’re making, Aunty Jo made a map of all the rooms in the cottage, and as each one is decorated I colour it in. She also made a barn yard map too, but this has the colours and the names of the people in the stables, also written by me. Loella ended up with her last ‘l’ and ‘a’ on another line. When she saw it she didn’t seem to mind – far from it, she was actually thrilled. And with my new ‘let it go’ attitude I tried to give no fucks either. Actually, strangely for something so unimportant, I did give some fucks, but I made sure it wasn’t too many. And with Barney taking the last two stables for his showroom, the barn yard is completely coloured in.