A Cottage by the Sea

by Carole Matthews

  ‘Say something,’ she urges. ‘Tell me to fuck off or something, for Christ’s sake.’ Flick takes a last drag of her cigarette and stubs it out angrily in the sand. ‘I wasn’t even going to come this week. Ella was desperate for me to be here, but how could I? Art and Ella would be loved-up, I thought. And how could I watch you and Harry playing happy families and me be on my own? Again. But when I met Noah, I thought that I could do it.’

  It seems ridiculously optimistic.

  ‘Noah’s a great guy. I’ve tried so very hard to love him, Grace. It would be so much easier if I did.’

  ‘You asked him to marry you, Flick.’

  ‘Oh, God.’ She puts her head in her hands. ‘I’m such a fuck-up. I don’t even know why I did that. It was seeing you and Harry together and then Ella with her baby. I felt that nothing good ever happened to me. I’m just fickle, flaky Flick. No one takes me seriously, I’m just here to provide the fun. I wanted something good for me, Grace. Is that so awful?’ She starts to cry and wipes the tears away with the back of her hand. ‘I thought that if I was with someone else, then Harry would have to accept that was the end of it. That it would all be fine.’

  ‘Does Harry love you?’

  ‘I don’t know. He thinks he does. When I told him that I was really going to try to make this work with Noah, he was distraught.’

  ‘That was the night he went missing in the storm?’

  It all seems so very clear now. Why else would he have risked his life in that weather if there wasn’t something gut-wrenchingly important behind it? All that flirting, that feigned fondness, it wasn’t done to win me back, it was all a sham to make Flick jealous. I feel such a fool.

  She nods. ‘He’s a stupid twat.’

  I can’t help a half-smile at that. You can tell when it’s true love with Flick.

  ‘I’d told him again that we couldn’t be together. How could we?’ she says. ‘Then, when he went off like that, I thought I was going to lose him.’

  ‘Me too.’

  ‘I realised then that I still wanted to be with him. Silly old duffer. But you’re my best friend, Grace. I couldn’t go on sneaking around behind your back. I have tried so hard to end it with Harry, but I can’t.’ She turns to me. Her face is blotchy, her eyes red. ‘So, as you said, “Now what are we going to do?”’

  ‘Oh, Flick,’ I sigh.

  ‘I’ll go away. I’ll never speak to him again. I’ll never darken your door. I’ll emigrate.’ She sobs. ‘Just tell me what I can do to make this right with you, Grace.’

  ‘I wish you’d told me, that’s all. So that I didn’t have to find out like that.’

  I glance back at our bedroom window, the one that overlooks the beach. I wonder if Harry is watching us now, trying to lip-read our conversation. The vision of Flick and Harry joined together will stay with me for a long time.

  ‘When we were running round together at university breaking hearts, who knew that it would come to this?’ A tear runs down her cheek.

  ‘You were always the one who broke hearts, Flick. That was never me.’ I’m not the destructive kind. I’m the picker-up of pieces. Perhaps that’s my role now too. I check that my pulse rate is settled. I check that my heart is content. Then I say, ‘You should be together.’

  That makes her start in surprise.

  ‘If you love each other, then you should be together.’

  I could fight for Harry, but what would be the point? We might limp on for another year, maybe more, but where’s the joy in that? Perhaps I’ve learned from Ella that forcing a relationship, trying to make someone stay with you when they’d rather be with someone else or be somewhere else, is like trying to push water uphill. There’s a way forward that doesn’t have to involve conflict and pain. What’s the point of Harry and me trying to patch things up when, actually, all we both want is out?

  ‘Harry’s packing now,’ she admits. ‘I think he wants to leave here as quickly as possible.’ Typical Harry. When it comes to the important emotional stuff, he hates confrontation. ‘I expect he thinks that Noah will want to lump him.’

  ‘He’s not like that,’ I offer in Noah’s defence.

  ‘I know. He’s a great bloke. He will make someone a fantastic husband.’ She rolls her eyes at me. ‘If you’re into birdwatching.’

  This would be the time to tell her. To come clean and admit my feelings for Noah and his for me. I could tell her that Noah never wanted to marry her and that he was coming back to break it off with her. But my mouth remains shut. I wonder, would I be hurting much more about this if I hadn’t met Noah this week? But while I can’t rant and rave at them for their affair, I can’t bring myself to be so magnanimous either. I was going to sacrifice any chance of happiness with Noah, and put Flick’s feelings first because she’s one of my very closest friends. It seems that she didn’t afford me that same courtesy. But then I know what Flick’s like. I just hope for Harry’s sake that she makes a go of their relationship and doesn’t get bored with him after a few months. If I’m brutally honest, I don’t hold out great hopes for them. I think that very soon Harry won’t be enough of a challenge for Flick.

  ‘This isn’t just a fling for me, Grace,’ she says. ‘I know what you’re thinking.’

  ‘If you’re going to take my husband, Flick. I want you to love him. I want you to love him for ever.’

  ‘And I’ll try,’ she promises. ‘This time, I’ll try. I’ll try my very hardest. We’re just so right together, Grace. You must see that.’

  In some strange way, I can.

  ‘I wouldn’t risk our friendship if I thought this wasn’t for good.’

  She sounds so sincere that I really want to believe her.

  ‘Despite all this, I’d dearly love it if we could still be friends.’ She sniffs. ‘I couldn’t bear not having you and Ella in my life. When Ella has her baby, she’s said that she wants us both to be godparents. Could we do that together, for her?’

  I watch the ebb and flow of the waves. What do I do? Cling on to the ties that bind us, the bonds of friendship, or let them be pulled apart by the tides? Our friends define us. Sometimes they are our biggest strength and sometimes our biggest weakness. Do I accept that Flick will always be Flick and that her behaviour really shouldn’t surprise me? If I have loved her for so long for who she is, why should that change now?

  Do I give Harry and Flick my blessing and try to repair our relationship? I’ve had great times, great years, both with my husband and my friend. If I turn my back on them, wave them goodbye and cut them out of my life, I would be wasting all those precious years. I take a deep and steadying breath. I look at Flick, at the pain on her face, and I can’t do it. To me she’s still that troubled young girl at university, the one who does her best but invariably falls short. I realise that I’m stronger than her and it’s up to me to make this work.

  Perhaps I won’t ever feel quite the same about Flick again. There’ll always be a wound in my heart that she’s caused, with a sticking plaster over it, but we’ve been through a lot together. Do I want that all to be for nothing? Can I put our friendship above this betrayal? I hope so. I’m sure it won’t be easy but, at the end of the day, I don’t want to see her or Harry miserable in their lives. If they can make each other happy, then they should do it with my approval.

  Sighing to myself, I nod. ‘I think we should try.’

  Flick puts her arms round me. ‘Thank you, Grace.’ Her tears soak through my T-shirt. ‘I feel so ashamed.’

  ‘Just make this relationship work,’ I say. ‘That’s all I ask.’

  ‘Harry and I can’t cause all this upset for nothing. I’m going to give it my best shot.’

  ‘Love him,’ I say. ‘Cherish him.’

  ‘I will, I promise you.’ And I do believe in my heart that Flick really means it this time.

  ‘We’d better go and speak to Harry.’

  ‘He’s probably thinking that you’ve hit me over the head with an axe and are now burying me in
a shallow grave.’

  ‘Then he doesn’t know me very well.’

  But perhaps the point is that I haven’t known myself very well either. That could all be about to change.

  Chapter Seventy-Seven

  As we go back inside, arm in arm, Harry is coming down the stairs with his holdall. He looks as if he’s dressed hastily as his shirt is buttoned up all wrong. The clothes that he’s stuffed in his bag are spilling out of the top. Panic seizes him when he sees us.

  Ella is sitting at the table, flicking through a magazine. She looks up at our entrance, glances at Harry and then back to us. Her pretty features settle into a frown as she says, ‘Would someone like to tell me what’s going on here?’

  ‘There’s no easy way to say this, Ella.’ Flick takes a deep breath and then launches into: ‘Harry and I are lovers. Have been for a while.’

  Ella’s mouth drops open. Harry’s does too.

  ‘We’re going to try to make a go of it,’ Flick continues. My husband looks quite dumbstruck by this announcement.

  ‘You and Harry?’

  ‘Are you really so surprised?’ Flick asks.

  ‘Yes, I bloody am!’ Ella says. ‘What about Noah? Yesterday you were marrying him. Even for you, Flick, that’s moving on quite quickly.’

  ‘Obviously there’ll be no wedding now.’ She sighs. ‘I guess it was a long shot anyway.’

  Ella turns to me, her face dark, perturbed. ‘How do you feel about this turn of events, Grace?’

  Resigned. Elated. Crushed. Liberated. Frightened. Excited.

  I settle on, ‘It’s a lot to take in.’

  ‘I bet it is. How could you, Flick?’ Ella snaps. ‘To one of your own friends? To Grace? We are closer to you than your own family. What were you thinking of?’

  Flick looks as if Ella has slapped her in the face.

  ‘I’ve given Flick my blessing, Ella.’

  ‘Really?’ She stares at me, amazed. ‘Count yourself very lucky, Flick. If you’d had an affair with Art, I’m not sure that I’d be feeling so gracious towards you both. I’m not that happy with you anyway. I asked you if there was something going on between you and Harry. You swore that there wasn’t.’

  ‘I know,’ Flicks says bleakly. ‘I feel like a total shit. And so does Harry.’

  ‘But not enough of a shit to end it?’ Ella fumes.

  It’s clear from his expression that Harry wants the ground to swallow him up and I see him for the person he’s become, not the person I married.

  ‘I’m sorry, Grace,’ he mumbles.

  ‘I’ll get over it,’ I assure him. ‘But I think you should both leave now.’

  ‘I haven’t packed yet,’ Flick says.

  ‘Then go and do it.’

  Without protesting, Flick scampers upstairs.

  ‘I’ll walk you to the car,’ I say to Harry.

  He seems about to kiss Ella, but thinks better of it. Perhaps he feels that the gesture would take him just too close to her and that Ella isn’t in any mood to forgive and forget.

  ‘This has been a lovely holiday,’ he says. Really, he does.

  ‘You must come back again soon,’ Ella says sarcastically.

  But you know, strange as it may seem, I can actually envisage a time when it might be possible for us all to be together again. I can’t see the six of us having a holiday at Cwtch Cottage in the near future, but with a huge amount of goodwill we might build our bridges in time to attend Baby Hawley’s christening.

  I follow Harry out to the Bentley, with the big dent in the back. I wonder now whether this shiny monstrosity was bought in an effort to impress Flick. He gazes disconsolately at his damaged car but, frankly, I’d consider that the very least of his problems at the moment. He drops his bag on the ground.

  We look at each other and it’s like staring at a stranger. I can hardly believe that I’ve spent so many years of my life with this man. In a short space of time, he’s turned into someone I don’t recognise.

  ‘This is a terrible business,’ he says without meeting my eye. ‘I realise that, Grace. I’m most dreadfully sorry. I could have handled it so much better.’

  He couldn’t really have handled it much worse.

  ‘If you can move your stuff into the spare room before I get back,’ I say, ‘that would be very helpful.’

  ‘Of course. Of course.’

  ‘You can buy me out of the apartment,’ I carry on.

  ‘You don’t want it?’ He looks taken aback by that.

  ‘No,’ I say.

  I’m going to take this opportunity to change my life and already I feel quite light-headed with the thought of it. I shouldn’t be afraid though; if Ella can embrace change, then I don’t see why I can’t. I should see this not as the end of something, but as an exciting new start. But Harry doesn’t need to know all this. Not yet.

  ‘You’ll be all right, Grace,’ Harry says, sounding slightly disappointed. Perhaps I was meant to fall apart but, at the moment, I feel stronger than I have in a long time. ‘You always are.’

  ‘I hope she looks after you, Harry.’

  In truth, I don’t know if having a hot meal on the table every night is as important to men as having hot sex. With Flick he’ll have a much better chance of the latter than the former. Still, Flick’s shortcomings in the domestic department aren’t really my problem. Harry has made his bed and he’ll have to lie in it.

  ‘We had such high hopes, didn’t we, Grace?’ he says sadly. If I’m not mistaken there’s a tear in Harry’s eye. ‘And it’s all turned to dust.’

  I don’t like to contradict him, but I still have high hopes, with or without a man by my side.

  Thankfully, just as Harry and I are beginning to be awkward with each other, Flick arrives. She’s towing her wheelie case through the gravel, her sunglasses perched on the top of her head, looking as if she’d be more at home in Puerto Rico than Pembrokeshire.

  ‘Hey,’ Harry says.

  Flick keeps her eyes on the ground. ‘Hey.’

  He takes her case and puts it in the boot. Now they’re both uncomfortable and it’s time to make myself scarce.

  ‘Well,’ I say, ‘good luck.’ At least one of them is going to need it.

  Flick bursts into tears. ‘I’m sorry, Grace. So sorry. Can you forgive me?’

  I nod. ‘You’re not waiting to tell Noah yourself?’

  She shakes her head. ‘You do it,’ she begs, and adds, without a trace of irony, ‘You’re so much better at this kind of thing than me.’

  I can’t tell her that Noah will more than likely be relieved that he doesn’t have to broach the subject himself. I wonder where he’s gone. His errand has kept him away for only a short time, but he won’t believe that he’s missed so much.

  She pulls me to one side and lowers her voice. ‘He loves you, Grace.’

  ‘Harry?’ I cast a glance at my red-faced husband who is fussing in the boot.

  ‘Noah,’ she corrects. ‘I’ve seen the way he looks at you. And you both love all that outdoors and nature stuff. If he doesn’t love you yet, then I’m sure he soon will. But perhaps you know that already.’ So it seems that Flick wasn’t entirely unaware of our attraction. ‘You’re better suited than he and I ever were.’

  We are, I think. Yet for you, to preserve your happiness, I was prepared to turn my back on him to go back to my old life.

  Harry is now hopping about awkwardly. It’s clear that he’s anxious to be gone from here, to forget about me as fast as he can. If Harry can just walk away without any explanation, then he will. Would he ever have left me if I hadn’t walked in on them and caught them red-handed? Would he have carried on with the affair when we got home and made me believe all along that there was something wrong with me? Would he have let me pass up this chance of finding real love? The only reason he wanted to make a go of our marriage was because he thought he’d lost Flick.

  Suddenly, I can feel anger rising inside me, bubbling up like a spring. I wish he’d jus
t leave. Now. I’m trying to do this amicably, but my patience does have its limits. ‘You should both go.’

  ‘You can’t let us leave like this, Grace,’ Flick says. ‘I can’t bear to see you simply stand there. Say something. Do something.’

  Then something snaps inside me. Flick’s right. There is something that I need to do.

  ‘Could you just wait a moment?’ I say. ‘I won’t be long.’

  They both wait, bemused, while I stride back to Cwtch Cottage. I open the front porch and inside, after a little rummaging beneath the growing pile of coats, I find what I’m looking for.