Finding Hope at Lighthouse Cove

by Jessica Redland

  I heard Callie gasp. In slow motion, she turned from Clare towards me, her mouth open and her eyes wide. ‘Oh, Clare,’ she whispered. ‘That was—’

  But I didn’t stick around to hear the end of the sentence. ‘Excuse me,’ I muttered, then fled. I could barely breathe as I ran through the bar and down the stairs to the ladies. My chest felt tight, my stomach felt tight, my eyes were blurred. I threw myself to my knees in the first cubicle and vomited. Tears rolled down my cheek as I vomited again and again.

  ‘Elise? Are you in here? It’s Callie.’

  I tried to shut the door but wasn’t quick enough.

  ‘Ooh, not pregnant, are you?’ she said.

  ‘Of course not. I’m struggling to shift this gastric flu that I’ve had for weeks.’

  Callie nodded. ‘Sorry, I was only kidding. I talk too much. Open mouth, don’t engage brain. That’s me. Especially when I’m nervous. And I’m really nervous right now around you two. I told Sarah I could handle it, but I’m way out of my depth.’

  I didn’t know what to say. Did she want me to say everything was okay because it really, really wasn’t and I wasn’t going to lie? I pressed down on the toilet seat and heaved myself to my feet. ‘What do you want, Callie?’

  ‘To check on you. What Clare said was way out of order and she knows it.’

  I grabbed some more loo roll and blew my nose, wiped my eyes then flushed it away. ‘So she rushed down here to apologise, then. Oh no, she didn’t. She sent you to do her dirty work instead.’

  ‘She was coming, but I stopped her. I told her you probably wouldn’t want to see her right now.’

  ‘You’re not wrong there.’ I squeezed past her to the sinks where I washed my hands and splashed some cold water onto my face.

  ‘Are you coming back upstairs?’

  I dabbed my face dry with a paper towel and turned to look at Callie. She looked terrified. Who could blame her? That had been an ugly scene upstairs – the worst ever exchange I’d had with Clare and poor Callie had been caught right in the middle.

  ‘Give me a minute and I’ll be up, but I won’t be staying. I hope you understand that.’

  ‘And I hope you’ll understand this. It’s the same thing I’ve just said to Clare. I barely know either of you, but I do know you’ve got years of bad history between you. I don’t know what it’s about and I don’t really care. What I do care about is Sarah. The reason the three of us are in Minty’s this afternoon is because you two also care about Sarah. Or at least I hope you do.’

  ‘Of course I—’

  ‘I haven’t finished.’ Callie pushed back her shoulders, stood a little taller, and fixed her eyes on mine. ‘Sarah loves you both but, as I understand it, you’ve done nothing but cause heartache for her with your constant bickering and sniping at each other over the years. I hope the performance upstairs was not an example of how you usually behave when you’re together because, if it was, you must have put Sarah through absolute hell. If you were my friends and you behaved like that, I’d have ditched you both because what I’ve seen is toxic. It would wear down even the most patient person.’

  I opened my mouth, but she silenced me with a raise of her hand.

  ‘I’ll tell you when I’m finished. Don’t say it’s all Clare’s fault. Yes, what she said upstairs was inexcusable, but I’ve seen you dish it too and she was right; you were being rude and judgemental about her just now. There are less than four months until the wedding. I don’t give a damn whether you tear each other to shreds after that, but for the next four months, you’re going to act like the grown-up, mature women I know you both are and not the childish idiots you become when you get together. Sarah’s dreamed of this day all of her life and you’re not going to ruin it for her. When we go upstairs, I’m going home. I know you want to leave too, but I urge you and Clare to get a coffee, sober up, and talk instead. Really talk. Work out why the hell you hate each other and find a way to turn that around. Can you do that?’

  I looked down at the woman who was a good head and shoulders shorter than me and two years my junior, and I felt ashamed. Weren’t you meant to become more mature and wiser as you aged? ‘Give me two minutes,’ I said.

  ‘I’ll wait upstairs with Clare until you appear, then I’m off.’ She opened the door. ‘Did you know that Sarah toyed with not having any bridesmaids for her wedding? Nick told me that she had a panic about it. She couldn’t pick between you, but knew you’d tear strips off each other if you were bridesmaids together. She was in tears about it. That’s why they were late to their own engagement party.’

  ‘No,’ I muttered. ‘She didn’t say.’ Poor Sarah. Had we really caused that?

  ‘Of course she didn’t. She doesn’t want to lose either of you so she ties herself in knots trying to keep the peace. And did you know that she originally turned down the December date at Sherrington Hall because she was devastated about what had happened with you and your husband? She was worried that you might think she didn’t care if she started planning her dream day. Nick had to beg her to accept the cancellation because he knew they’d have to wait a couple of years if she didn’t. I know that what you’re going through right now is one of the shittiest things that could happen to someone, but don’t punish everyone else because of it.’ She visibly relaxed. ‘I’ve said my piece. I’ll see you upstairs.’

  I rested my hands on the sink unit and drew a few deep breaths. That was me well and truly told. She was right, though. She’d told some home truths and it was finally time for Clare and me to do the same and address whatever it was that had caused a wedge between us for over a decade. Best get this over with…

  25

  Clare stood up as I tentatively approached the table. Her eyes were red as though she’d been crying. Surely not. Sarah said Clare never cried. Callie stood up too and pointed to a pot of tea and a glass of water on the table. ‘On me. Clare says you don’t drink coffee. I hope you two can sort things out.’

  ‘Sorry, Callie,’ I said.

  ‘Don’t be sorry. Just sort it out. Now.’ She sighed, shook her head, then left.

  Clare indicated for me to sit. My legs felt very weak so I was grateful to take a seat before they buckled. I gulped on the water, hands shaking. Were the shakes from being sick, my lecture from Callie, or the confrontation I was about to have? Probably all three.

  ‘I’m so sorry,’ Clare said. ‘I mean that genuinely from the heart.’ Her green eyes pleaded with mine. ‘I’ve no idea what made me say something like that. You hit a raw nerve and I lashed out.’

  ‘It hurt.’

  ‘I know. It was meant to. It’s a gift of mine. Or an affliction.’ She pointed two fingers to her head as if holding up an imaginary gun. ‘Quick brain, quick to dish out insults, but also quick to regret them. Like just now.’

  I’d need to accept her apology or we’d never move on. I took a sip of my tea. ‘You said I hit a nerve. I don’t follow.’

  Clare picked up a beer mat and tore thin strips off it. ‘I don’t have many friends,’ she said. ‘I have lots of acquaintances, but not many people who I would call genuine friends. I find it hard to trust people and very hard to let them in. Sarah’s the only person I’ve let get close to me, but even then, there’s a lot I’m guarded about.’

  ‘About what? About your past?’

  ‘Yes. And I’m not going to confess all about it to you either just now.’

  ‘I wasn’t asking you to.’

  Clare looked up for a moment and caught my eye. ‘Good. Because I don’t want to talk about it.’ She cast her eyes down and continued shredding the beer mat. ‘Let’s just say that some bad stuff happened when I was younger. I didn’t want to spend the rest of my life being the sort of person to whom bad things happened so I imagined the type of person I wanted to be: someone strong and confident who took no shit. I liked that person so I became her, particularly at work. It’s worked for me. I’ve just been promoted as a result. But that person’s not the whole me. Clothes
, cosmetics, manicures… it’s just an image for that person, but it’s one that makes me feel comfortable and safe. It’s the one I want the outside world to see. It doesn’t define me, though. When I’m in on my own, I wander around make-up free wearing a Minnie Mouse onesie. That’s more the kind of person I am. But don’t you dare tell anyone that. Especially the onesie thing.’

  I smiled. Clare in a Minnie Mouse onesie was not an image I found very easy to conjure up. ‘I’m sorry. As you said, I don’t really know you. I didn’t think.’

  Clare pushed aside the scraps of beer mat and looked up. ‘Ditto. Must be an epidemic.’

  I took another sip of my water. ‘I have a tricky question. Why are we like this with each other? Maybe addressing that will help us move on.’

  Clare shrugged. ‘It’s how it’s always been.’

  ‘I know that. I vividly remember the first time I met you and the filthy looks you kept giving me.’ It had been Sarah’s second term at Manchester University and I’d finally agreed to visit for a weekend. Sarah had been so excited about introducing us that she seemed oblivious to the snarls from Clare the second we met. I’d never felt so uncomfortable or unwelcome in my life. It had deteriorated from there with Clare sneering at me for marrying so young and me defending my actions, swearing that we may be young, but we knew it would last. Hmm. Didn’t manage to prove her wrong on that one.

  ‘That was because you’d upset Sarah,’ Clare said.

  ‘What? How?’

  ‘By not visiting her sooner. It had been a big thing for her moving from here to a huge city. She was homesick for her family and for you and she was worried about the two of you drifting apart by living at other sides of the country, not to mention her being single and you being married. A visit from you in her first term would have reassured her that everything was okay. You kept promising you’d visit and you never followed through. She was devastated, you know. She thought there was no space for her in your life anymore now that you were a mature, married woman.’

  Oh, the irony! She was right about me deliberately avoiding Sarah and her new life, but not about the reason. ‘I didn’t know she felt that way,’ I said. ‘Do you want to know why I didn’t visit in her first term?’

  ‘Enlighten me.’

  ‘I was scared to. I’d just married my childhood sweetheart, I was renting a flat in the only town I’ve ever lived in, was studying here, and planned to teach here when I graduated. My life wasn’t exactly filled with adventure. By contrast, my best friend who was originally going to do teacher training in Whitsborough Bay with me had decided it wasn’t the career for her, had changed to Business Studies at Manchester, and was about to start an exciting new life without me. I was scared of visiting her in case she saw me as the boring, unadventurous person I was, sticking out like a sore thumb against all these exciting new friends with whom she was living.’

  Clare stared at me for a moment, her green eyes soft with understanding. ‘That’s pretty ironic,’ she said eventually. ‘What a pair of eejits you two were.’

  ‘Tell me about it!’

  Clare sipped on her coffee. ‘I’m sorry I judged you. I never paused to think there could be another explanation for you not coming.’

  ‘Thank you. And thanks for telling me about Sarah. I only thought about myself, not how it affected her.’

  ‘What made you visit in our second term, then?’

  ‘We spent time together over the Christmas break and I realised she was still the same Sarah, but if I didn’t make an effort to fit into her new life, our relationship might not stay the same. I was dreading meeting you, though.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘Because you were the new me. You were the person with whom she did everything. Up until that point, it had been the two of us against the world.’

  Clare shook her head. ‘You’re saying you were jealous of my friendship with Sarah?’

  ‘If you want to put a label on it…’

  Clare laughed. ‘Yet more irony because I was jealous of you too.’

  I smiled. ‘Really? Why?’

  ‘I’ve already said I don’t make friends easily, but there was something about Sarah. I warmed to her the minute I met her. She’s the only person I’ve ever fully trusted. She’s also the sort of friend I wish I’d had when I was younger to support me through…’ She tailed off and stared out of the window.

  I cleared my throat and she looked back at me, a distant look in her eyes, then continued. ‘She was the friend I’d have wanted and, childish as I can see it is now, I was jealous that she’d had you and you’d had her at a time when I hadn’t had anyone. I wanted to make the most of my time with her and not share her with you.’

  ‘Wow!’ I said. ‘So we were both jealous of each other and we’ve let it drag on for twelve years. Pretty stupid, eh?’

  Clare rolled her eyes. ‘Eejits. I don’t think that’s all, though. I think we’re very different personalities so we clash. Sarah’s somewhere in the middle.’

  ‘True.’ I held out my hand. ‘Do you think we can call a truce for Sarah’s sake?’

  ‘I’m willing to give it a go if you are.’

  We shook on it. As I sat back in my chair sipping my tea, I realised that I’d finally seen something vulnerable about Clare and instantly I didn’t feel threatened, inferior, ugly or undesirable next to her. How could I? She was just as insecure and messed up as me. Something had clearly happened to her when she was younger that had scarred her for life. I suspected we’d draw a line in the sand and tolerate each other going forwards – too much water under the bridge to become friends – but I wondered if she’d ever fully open up about her past to Sarah because it sounded like she had demons to face. Only time would tell.

  26

  ‘I really appreciate you helping me to re-stock.’ Sarah set a box of gifts down on the shop floor next to me. ‘It’s not the most exciting way to spend a Friday evening, especially when we were meant to be going out for a meal.’

  I smiled. ‘I honestly don’t mind.’

  ‘You’re a star. I’ve got so many new lines to get out that there’s no way I can do it during shop hours. Let me put off the lights nearest the window so nobody can see us.’ She wandered over to the door and flicked a couple of switches. ‘That’s better. Probably shouldn’t take too long with two of us. We could go for a curry afterwards if you like.’

  ‘Maybe not curry,’ I said, pulling a face. It was nearly two weeks since I’d been sick in Minty’s following my altercation with Clare and I hadn’t felt right since. In fact, I’d felt ill on and off since Sarah’s engagement party. Sarah had said that some of her customers had found the bug sticking around for weeks. They weren’t wrong about that.

  ‘Are you still feeling sick?’

  ‘It comes and goes. I think it’s that gastric flu thing that I had last term. That’s the problem with being a teacher – you work so hard and so intensively all term then you take your foot off the pedal in the holidays and wham! If I don’t feel better when I start back at school next week, I’ll make a doctor’s appointment, although I need to find a new GP. I don’t want to go to Gary’s surgery.’

  ‘Can’t say I blame you. Could be awkward.’ She ripped the tape off the box and pulled a few small boxes out. ‘If I give you one of each type of gift, can you unwrap it and put it on the counter? Then we can decide what to move to make way for the new stuff.’

  I did as she asked. My phone beeped and I fished it out of my bag. ‘It’s Daniel. Apparently he misses me and wishes he could see me tonight. He hopes we enjoy our meal and think of him with beans on toast and a DVD for one.’

  ‘Didn’t you tell him we’d ditched the meal?’

  ‘Must have forgotten to mention it.’

  ‘How’s it going after the incident with Stevie?’

  Good question. ‘It’s not the same. To be honest, we’ve not seen much of each other. He’s been extra attentive when we’ve been together, but I’m not feeling it.’ I knew
exactly what the obvious next question would be.

  ‘Then why not just end it? What’s the point in stringing it out when your heart’s not in it?’

  Another good question. I switched my phone to silent and put it in my bag, then busied myself rearranging the boxes on the counter into a straight line to avoid looking at Sarah. ‘I don’t want to end it. I know I should and I will, but not just yet. I’m not ready. I will be soon. I’m just… Actually, can we change the subject? You wanted me to unwrap each of these, yes?’

  ‘Yes please.’

  We both worked in silence for a while. I knew she’d be desperate to challenge me more about Daniel, but my tone had clearly said ‘drop it’ and she’d have picked up on it.

  Stevie and I had spoken on the phone a few times and he’d challenged me too… but he’d also known when to drop it. I’d even had a lecture from Curtis: ‘No shag’s that good. Dump the tosser!’

  ‘Clare told me she’s got a promotion and is moving to Leeds.’ I called down the shop. ‘Is it this weekend that she moves?’

  ‘Yes. She officially starts on Monday. She’s staying with my brother while she looks for somewhere to rent.’ She wandered over to the counter with a few more gifts and started unwrapping them.

  ‘How is Ben?’ I asked. ‘I didn’t get a chance to speak to him at your engagement party with going home early.’

  ‘I haven’t seen him since then, but I’ve spoken to him a few times. Nick’s asked him to be an usher and he’s well chuffed with that, although Lebony can’t come to the wedding, of course.’

  ‘They’re still going strong?’ Lebony and Ben had starting seeing each other years ago but, because Sarah hadn’t mentioned her in ages, I’d assumed they’d called it a day. Lebony worked for a charity overseas so limited time together had surely put a strain on things.