Summer at 23 the Strand

by Linda Mitchelmore

  ‘You shouldn’t be so delicious then,’ Belle said, pretend-biting Chloe’s arm.

  ‘Me! Me!’ Emily shouted, jumping up and down beside Belle’s chair, hanging tightly on to her arm. ‘Eat me! Eat me!’

  ‘You can be pudding. When I’ve finished my dinner. Yum, yum!’ Belle grabbed Chloe’s hand and pretended to nibble her fingers.

  There were other holidaymakers out on their decks, but further down. Belle hoped the noise she and the girls were making hadn’t reached them. No one was giving them ‘keep the din down’ looks anyway. And then the door of Fiona’s chalet opened and she stepped out onto the deck looking a vision of utter loveliness in white – floaty skirt that skimmed her ankles, deep V-necked top, the whole held together with a wide gold belt – that made Belle go green about the gills with envy, before remembering her mother’s mantra that green was a colour best left to cabbage.

  Fiona waved.

  Belle waved back.

  ‘Sorry if we’re disturbing you!’ she said, louder than her normal speaking voice but not so loud anyone over in Torquay would hear her. More than a few times, Belle had been told she had a voice like a foghorn, not that she’d ever heard one of those to know if it was a good, or bad, comparison.

  ‘Not at all,’ Fiona said, walking to the rail nearest Belle’s chalet, the better to be heard. ‘Cooper’s just dropped off to sleep – at last! – so I thought I’d sit outside in the sun for a moment.’

  ‘You could sit in it here if you like,’ Belle said, making a beckoning gesture.

  Fiona shrugged. She looked back into her chalet.

  ‘I don’t know that I should. Sam’s gone for a run.’ She looked as though she might cry, and Belle wasn’t sure if that was because Sam wasn’t there, per se, or because she was struggling without him.

  ‘Up to you,’ Belle said. ‘But you could leave the door open a bit and then position my spare chair so you never take your eyes off it. I’ve got wine.’

  ‘You could sell ice to the Eskimos,’ Fiona laughed. ‘Won’t be a sec.’

  She went back into the chalet – to check on Cooper more than likely.

  ‘Mummy’s going to chat to Fiona now, you two. Can you be really, really good and do some colouring in those books we bought in town?’

  Belle had bought the girls a bumper colouring book each and a packet of twenty felt-tip pens she was now having second thoughts about. What if they got felt-tip all over the cushions or the bed covers or something? Or the couch? Oh well, she’d just have to face that scenario if it happened, wouldn’t she? There was nothing they could shoot her for, which was what her old granddad used to say if she broke something when she was little.

  ‘Can we have ice cream after?’ Chloe asked.

  ‘That’s blackmail!’ Belle laughed. ‘You schemer!’

  ‘Ice cream! Ice cream!’ Emily said. ‘Can we?’

  ‘Yes. But you’ll need to do the colouring on the table inside. I don’t want you getting sunburned.’

  She wouldn’t mind a bit of a tan though. When did she ever sit outside at home? Or in the park she walked through most days on the way to the shops or to take Chloe to nursery? It was all such a rush there. Well, maybe it was only a rush because she made it so.

  Belle and the girls went inside and Belle set up the colouring and divided the pack of felt-tips in two – ten each.

  ‘You can use each other’s colours but you must ask. No snatching.’

  ‘Okay,’ the girls said in unison as Belle took the wine from the fridge and found two glasses.

  Belle bent to kiss the girls on the tops of their heads and went back outside. Fiona was already there, her chair positioned so she was facing her chalet door.

  ‘It’s only a screw-top, I’m afraid,’ Belle said, waving the bottle of Pinot Grigio towards Fiona. ‘Bargain basement, but it’s chilled.’

  ‘Double fine,’ Fiona laughed. ‘Just the one for me though.’

  ‘And me,’ Belle said. ‘There’s such a thing as being drunk in charge of a minor, so I’m told. Can’t take the risk.’

  ‘Because?’ Fiona asked as Belle unscrewed the bottle-top and filled two glasses, handing one to Fiona.

  They chinked glasses and Belle had to pinch herself that she’d just invited Fiona for a drink. It had to be the sea air relaxing her, didn’t it? Giving her a bit of confidence.

  ‘Oh, just stuff,’ Belle said. ‘You don’t want to know.’

  ‘We all get stuff, Belle,’ Fiona said. ‘Different stuff for different lifestyles and all that, but it’s still stuff. I’ve noticed you’re on your own with the girls. No ring.’

  ‘Yeah, well,’ Belle said.

  ‘Gimme, gimme, gimme,’ Fiona said with a smile that would have given the sun a run for its money. ‘Sometimes it’s good to share. And sometimes it can be good to do that with someone you’re not asking to sort things for you.’

  Belle got up and pulled the door to without clicking it totally shut.

  ‘Dumbo ears in there!’ she laughed, sitting back down again. ‘So, the upshot is the girls’ dad did a runner just after Emily, the youngest, was born. He’s stepdad to two boys now and he and his new squeeze have a child of their own as well. The girls don’t see him at all – his choice – but he does send money every week. No note, no nothing.’

  ‘Not totally heartless then,’ Fiona said. ‘And I have to say you didn’t sound bitter saying all that. I think I might have done.’

  ‘Ah ha, I’m on my best behaviour,’ Belle grinned. ‘’Cos you’re here. And I do do my best not to be negative around the girls. But I’ve been lemon mixed with vinegar inside more often than is good for me. I know I need to let it go a bit. Mark’s not coming back.’

  ‘Have you dated?’ Fiona asked. ‘Since, I mean.’

  ‘Are you kidding? I’m a stay-at-home mum for the moment. But the second the Benefits Agency get a sniff someone else might be helping out financially they come down on you like a ton of bricks wanting to cut this and that. Not worth it.’

  ‘But I detect you’d like to,’ Fiona said.

  ‘It’s not so much me wanting to date, but there is someone – Aaron – who’d quite like me to change my mind on that. He’s the maintenance man for the block of flats I live in.’

  ‘So, what’s stopping you?’

  ‘The girls. Fear. I mean, it wouldn’t be fair if they get to know Aaron and he them, and they get to feel secure with him in their lives, being a father figure, and then it all goes pear-shaped and he buggers off like their dad did. Well, would it?’

  ‘Perhaps not,’ Fiona said. ‘But no relationship is one hundred per cent guaranteed, is it?’

  Belle got the feeling Fiona meant her and Sam, but, unlike Fiona, she didn’t have the chutzpah to ask such personal questions.

  ‘Shall I top you up?’ Belle asked, lifting the bottle from the table. She was aware she was talking too much about herself but Fiona was asking, so what else could she do but answer?

  ‘No, thanks. One will be just fine. Two and I get sleepy, three and I dance on the table! What did you do for a job before you had the girls?’

  ‘Not a lot,’ Belle said. ‘I worked in a big department store, flitting from department to department – wherever they needed me really. I had no grand plan. And then I decided marriage and motherhood were the way to go, because did I really want to be selling expensive things I’d never in a million years be able to buy myself to people with fat expense accounts for ever? I quite liked it in the jewellery section though. Costume jewellery was a favourite. I’ve even messed about with beads and the like making my own.’

  ‘Maybe that’s the way for you to go in the future then?’ Fiona said. ‘Internet selling. I mean everyone can go into Marks and Spencer, or Next, or even Harvey Nichols, and buy something exactly the same as everyone else can buy, but if you had exclusive designs you could sell online. Charge more too.’

  ‘Bleedin’ ’ell,’ Belle laughed. ‘Are you my Fairy Godmother just blown i
n or something? I’ve never given that a thought before.’

  ‘But you like the idea?’

  ‘I do. Only thing is, I’d have to save up for a computer first!’

  Emily came out onto the deck saying she needed a wee.

  ‘And that’s me brought down to earth!’ Belle laughed. ‘I’ll just sort her out…’

  ‘Don’t rush,’ Fiona said. ‘I’ll get back now anyway. Thanks for the invite.’

  ‘Thanks for listening to me witter on,’ Belle said. ‘I’ll return the compliment next time if you need to witter.’

  ‘You say the funniest things, Belle,’ Fiona said.

  She stood up and air-kissed Belle, as Emily began to dance on the spot in desperation.

  ‘Hang on, darling,’ Belle told her. ‘We don’t want a wet deck, do we?’

  Because she didn’t have very much capacity for carrying things on the buggy, Belle went into town every day. She bought a bottle of wine so she could offer Fiona another glass but she hadn’t seen much of her. Chloe had stopped grumbling about the walk into town and back because there were rides outside the gambling arcades for children to go on. Fifty pence a time, and Belle limited the girls to two rides a day. Bob the Builder was their favourite, which Belle thought ironic because wasn’t that what their errant father was – a builder?

  And they always stopped off at the geo-park on the green on the way back so the girls could go on the swings, or the trampoline. At least that was free. Chloe, ever cautious, even found the courage to climb up four rungs of the rope ladder. Emily had yelled, ‘Me! Me! I climb!’, getting herself in a right strop when she hadn’t been able to. The only thing that got Emily out of a strop was the promise of ice cream.

  They were halfway through the first week.

  ‘Right, girls,’ Belle said. ‘Five more minutes and then it’s over to the pier for an ice cream.’

  ‘Ice cream now!’ Emily shouted, which was exactly the response Belle had hoped for. It was getting hotter by the minute and she didn’t hold out much hope for the butter she’d bought… it would be a fatty, gluey mess if she didn’t get back and put it in the tiny fridge.

  ‘Okay.’

  ‘Want bubble-gum,’ Emily said, pointing to the bright-blue tub of ice cream when they got there.

  ‘Oh, hi there,’ the young lad who ran the ice-cream kiosk said. ‘One ice cream, two cones. Right?’

  Belle had been cheeky the first time she’d gone to buy the girls an ice cream and said, because they were so small, they couldn’t eat a whole one and could she have an extra cone if she bought an ice cream. The lad had said he was fine with that.

  ‘I’m not having bubble-gum ice cream,’ Chloe said. She folded her arms across her waist and pouted. ‘It makes your tongue go blue. You’ll have a horrid blue tongue, Emily, like toilet cleaner!’

  ‘No,’ Emily said.

  ‘Yes, it does. And your poo…’ Chloe screwed up her nose like there was a bad smell under it already. ‘You’ll do blue poo.’

  ‘Sorry about them,’ Belle said.

  The lad laughed.

  ‘No worries,’ he said. ‘I’ll just put half a scoop of whatever they want in separate cones. Got two small sisters of my own. I feel your pain!’

  Belle prepared to walk away, bubble-gum ice cream for Emily, and strawberry for Chloe – two small measures in separate cones.

  ‘See you tomorrow, Emily,’ the lad said. ‘You too, Chloe. And Mum.’

  ‘Belle,’ Belle said. ‘I’m Belle.’

  ‘Niall. Enjoy the rest of the day. Bye.’

  A cluster of people came towards the counter and Belle and her girls left, Belle feeling less alone now she knew the name of the friendly lad in the ice-cream kiosk. He was probably doing a summer job from school or before going to uni. Everybody seemed to go to uni these days, and Belle wondered if her girls would. She’d need to get a decent job before she could even consider that for them though. She liked Fiona’s idea of making jewellery and selling it online but that was just pie in the sky for the moment, wasn’t it? When they were older, maybe she’d start seriously looking into it, but until then she’d have to stay on benefits.

  And hadn’t she had a right row with some official somewhere about that!

  ‘There’s childcare help so you can work,’ the woman had said, when Belle had explained she couldn’t apply for whatever job it was the woman thought she should have applied for, because she had no transport to get to wherever it was the job was. And besides, she needed to be there for the girls, especially as they were both so little, because she had no regular alternative care.

  ‘Now, look here,’ Belle had said. ‘I didn’t marry and have my girls expecting their dad to scarper. And I didn’t have them expecting someone else to bring them up. That’s up to me, and for good or ill I’ll stand by the decisions I make for their welfare.’

  But it was hard sticking to her guns on this and it would be impossible without the help she got from her mum and Anne Maynard, who bought fruit for the girls every week, and was for ever coming over to Belle’s with a chicken or a packet of mince or something because ‘It was two for one in the supermarket, Belle. Daft to leave it there, isn’t it? And how in heck am I going to eat it all?’

  There were tables and chairs set up outside the café next to the ice-cream hut so Belle sat down and Emily scrambled onto her lap, Chloe sitting in the other chair, swinging her legs to some song she had going round in her head – ‘Let It Go’ from Frozen probably, because that was still her song of the moment – so they could eat their ice creams.

  Oh. Fiona. She was hurrying along, Cooper in a sling thing draped across her shoulder. And she was alone. No Sam.

  ‘Fiona!’ Belle called out, and Fiona slowed. ‘Come and join me?’

  Fiona changed course.

  ‘Have you got time for a coffee?’ Belle asked. She knew the invite meant she should pay and she did have enough money in her purse for that.

  ‘I’d love to but I can’t stop. Cooper is beyond stinky and I forgot to bring a spare nappy with me. What a lousy mum I am.’

  ‘You’re not a lousy mum,’ Belle told her. ‘And stinky babies I have done!’

  ‘Sorry. Another time, Belle,’ Fiona said. ‘Got to go.’ She waggled her fingers in a ‘bye bye’ gesture and was gone.

  Well, that felt like a slap in the face with a damp dishrag, didn’t it? Belle let her feelings at the rebuff out in a long, slow sigh because that was exactly what it felt like – a rebuff. Maybe she had wittered on too long about herself when Fiona had come to have a glass of wine with her, and maybe Fiona had merely been polite, asking all the right questions and sounding interested in Belle’s life. Maybe she didn’t give a fig really.

  ‘You’ve got to stop feeling so flaming hard done by,’ she hissed to herself under her breath. Fiona had her life and her problems, and Belle had hers. She’d wait now for Fiona to issue the next invitation anyway. And in the meantime she’d get on with her holiday.

  But no invite came. And Belle did get on with the holiday. She took the girls to the beach most days, and it was even warm enough for them to splash about in the sea for a little while as long as she wrapped them up in warm towels afterwards and got them into dry clothes.

  ‘Right, girls, come on, we’re going out.’

  ‘Where?’ Chloe asked.

  ‘I haven’t decided yet. A surprise.’

  Belle gave the girls a quick lick-and-promise wash with a damp flannel, and brushed their hair free of tangles. Why did their hair get so tangled at the seaside? All that sea breeze or something. And not to mention all the sand in the bottom of the shower when she’d finished washing them before bed.

  ‘You can go on the helter-skelter on the end of the pier today,’ she told them as they skipped along beside her, each holding a hand. The spending money Anne Maynard had given her was lasting well, seeing as Belle was portioning it out carefully every day.

  ‘Yeah!’ Chloe said.

  ‘And m
e!’ Emily said.

  ‘And you can put some 2p coins in the machines on the pier. I’ve been saving them up.’

  Belle did consider it might not be the best thing to be doing, encouraging her girls to gamble, but there was something about the flashing machines and loud music and chink of the coins shooting into the dish when anyone won that was pure holiday atmosphere, and why shouldn’t they have some of that?

  They spent almost two hours on the pier and then walked to the harbour, paddling along at the water’s edge, before walking back towards 23 The Strand again.

  ‘Can I have a drink?’ Emily asked. ‘I’m thirsty.’

  ‘A drink what?’ Belle prompted.

  ‘A drink of milk,’ Emily said.

  ‘She means to say “please”,’ Chloe said, pushing her sister to emphasise the point.

  ‘Now, now, no squabbling. Just one little “please”, Emily, and the milk is yours. Oh look, there’s a café here. The Port Light. What luck!’

  ‘Please,’ Emily said with a massive grin and Belle was suddenly filled with such love for her feisty younger daughter that she scooped her up into her arms and smothered her with kisses.

  ‘In we go then, young ladies.’

  In The Port Light, Belle asked for a coffee and a glass of milk for the girls to share. The young woman behind the counter said she’d bring it over in a minute.

  Belle hoped it would only be a minute in case the girls got restless. They’d not had much experience of sitting in cafés, being good. There was a jug in the middle of the table holding knives, forks and spoons. And a fan of paper napkins. Belle gave the girls a spoon each to play with while they waited, and a napkin.

  ‘One coffee. One milk to share,’ the girl – it said Ana on the badge pinned to her blouse – said, arriving with a tray. ‘And cake. Carrot cake.’

  ‘I didn’t order that,’ Belle said.

  ‘I know. It’s not a good shape to sell. You can have it if you’d like it. For your little daughters. Fred says it’s okay.’