by Ali McNamara
But even though the weather is promising bad things, we take one of our favoured routes: through the town, along the harbour’s damp sand while the tide is out, then up the long winding road that leads to Pengarthen Hill. I’m just wondering whether today might be a good time to finally take that trip up to Trecarlan Castle when a vehicle toots its horn. I turn to see Jake’s van slowing down and pulling in next to us.
Aside from working at the shop and looking after Basil, I’ve been seeing a fair bit of Jake over the last few weeks. Sometimes we’ll go for a drink together at the Merry Mermaid, or if he’s passing by at lunchtime to see Lou at the post office, he’ll pop into the shop to say hi. We’ve even eaten our lunch together a couple of times, leaning up against the harbour wall in the midday sunshine, like we had the day we’d been decorating the shop.
Jake appears to want nothing more from me than to be my friend. Even though the more time we spend together, the more attracted to him I’ve become, I’m happy for it to be that way if that’s what he wants. Jake is great company, relaxed and funny. He makes me laugh a lot, and I like that; there aren’t many people who can do that. Between him and Amber, my lips have been finding themselves turning upwards into a smile more lately than they’ve done in years.
Jake winds his passenger window down as his van pulls to a stop, and two heads poke through the gap.
‘Hey, Jake, hey, Miley,’ I say, smiling at them both.
‘It’s a windy day for a walk,’ Jake says, shifting across to the passenger seat. ‘Poor Basil will blow away.’
Miley leaps from the window down to the pavement to see Basil, who she absolutely adores. Basil, in his usual aloof way, allows Miley to hug him, but doesn’t respond.
‘Aw, Basil, we know you love her really,’ I joke, leaning down and fussing him.
Basil eyes me, then shakes himself, so Miley gets covered with the remnants of sand still left in his coat.
Jake and I both laugh as Miley tries to do the same, and gives herself a full body shake like a dog.
‘Are you busy today?’ Jake asks. ‘Only I was going to ask if you wanted to come up to the nursery later. You said you’d like to visit sometime.’
I don’t think I did actually say that. It’s more a case of Jake having asked me once and me mumbling something that sounded affirmative to be polite. For weeks he’s been offering to show me around his nurseries so I can see where most of the flowers for the shop come from. So of course I’ve had to keep making excuses not to go. I’m just about coping with a shop full of fresh flowers these days – as long as we keep the door propped open to let in lots of fresh air. But I doubt I could cope with polytunnels and greenhouses stuffed full of the things.
‘Yes… and I will,’ I say, about to make my usual excuse, but I’m saved by my phone suddenly ringing in my back pocket. ‘One moment,’ I tell him, reaching for the phone. ‘It’s Amber. Hi, Amber, what’s up?’ I ask. ‘No, I’m not at the house – I’ve taken Basil for a quick walk… Oh, right, have you tried— You have? Right, well, I’d best come back and take a look then… No, no plumbers yet, it’ll cost too much. Let me have a look first. I’ll see you in a few minutes.’ I end the call.
‘What’s wrong?’ Jake asks.
‘Apparently the sink is blocked at the shop, and Amber doesn’t know why. I’ll have to go and take a look. So, sorry, it’s no-go on the nursery visit today,’ I tell him, trying to sound disappointed.
‘Aw, shame,’ Jake says. ‘Look, I’m heading in the direction of town; would you and Basil like a lift?’
‘That would be great, thanks.’
Jake slides back over into the driver’s seat, and Basil and I climb into the passenger side, Basil sitting in the footwell, Miley sitting on my lap.
Jake grins as he sees us.
‘Quite the menagerie you have there, Miss Carmichael.’
‘Can you try and get us there as quickly as possible?’ I ask. ‘Cutting Basil short in the middle of his walk isn’t usually a great idea. He likes to pace himself, and…’ I hesitate, trying to find the polite way to phrase it: ‘his offerings.’
‘I’m on it!’ Jake says as he indicates and pulls out into the road and a not-so-delicate aroma begins to fill the van.
‘Perhaps you’d better wind down the window,’ I tell him apologetically. ‘He is an elderly dog.’
Jake hastily opens his window. ‘No worries,’ he says kindly. ‘Miley often has a similar problem. I’m used to it!’
On my lap Miley hides her face in her hands.
When we arrive at the shop, Jake drops the three of us outside and drives off in search of a parking place.
‘Hey, you got here quickly,’ Amber says as we pile through the open door. She looks with interest at Miley as she immediately leaps straight for the rolls of ribbons – her favourite items in the shop. ‘Were you with Jake? I thought you were walking Basil?’
‘We bumped into Jake on our walk and he kindly gave us a lift back,’ I tell her while I remove Basil’s lead and get him settled with fresh water in his bowl. ‘What’s up with this sink?’
‘It’s blocked,’ Amber says, as we leave Miley happily playing with the ribbons and head for the back room to examine the sink. ‘I tried to empty a vase of water down it but it won’t go – look.’
I peer inside the large Belfast sink and see dirty flower water lying stagnant at the bottom of the ceramic white porcelain. I wrinkle up my nose. ‘Yuck, it stinks!’
‘I know, that’s why I was changing the water in the bucket.’
‘Do we have a plunger?’ I ask.
‘A what?’
‘A plunger. Oh, what do you call it in America? Like a rubber thing with a wooden handle – you use it to suck stuff out of sinks.’
‘Yeah, we call that a plunger too.’
‘Do we have one?’
Amber shrugs. ‘Haven’t seen one about the place.’
The shop bell rings. ‘What seems to be the trouble, ladies?’ Jake calls, coming round the desk to the back room. ‘Do you need a man’s help?
‘Not unless you have a plunger on you,’ I answer, riled as always by Jake’s often old-fashioned attitude.
‘Well…’ Jake grins, and Amber laughs.
‘We could maybe borrow one?’ Amber suggests.
‘Or I could pop back to my house and get one for you?’ Jake says. ‘Take me a few minutes. But we definitely have one – I used it not so long ago in our bathroom.’
‘No, it’s quite all right, thank you. I’ll take a look underneath. It might be the pipe that’s blocked. I’ve seen my dad do this loads of times.’
‘I can do that for you,’ Jake offers as I get down on my hands and knees. ‘Save you getting dirty.’
‘Thanks, Jake, but I don’t have my crinolines on today. I’m sure I’ll be fine.’
‘OK…’ Jake says, and I see him and Amber exchange a look as I slide myself under the sink. ‘Whatever you say, Mrs Pankhurst.’
‘All right, I’m sorry,’ I say, squinting up at him from under the sink. ‘But a woman can do plumbing, you know.’
‘She was like this when I wanted to buy her a drink,’ I hear Jake tell Amber while I try to unscrew the pipe that leads up to the sink. I’m quite confident I know what I’m doing, even though these pipes are slightly different and somewhat older than the ones I’d seen my father loosening. ‘Quite antsy.’
I know Jake is only trying to wind me up, so I choose to remain silent and deal with my pipe.
‘That’s our Poppy,’ Amber says. ‘Soft and sweet on the inside, hard and crisp on her outer layer. Like a lovely M&M candy.’
‘Or a really nasty zit,’ Jake adds. ‘The kind that just explodes everywhere when you squeeze it!’
‘Oi!’ I snap, trying to sit up but forgetting I’m under the sink. ‘Ow!’ I cry as my head hits the white porcelain, and rebounds back against the pipe I’ve just loosened. ‘Blah!’ I cry, as the pipe falls away from the waste outlet, and filthy, smelly water
flows down on to my head.
Jake’s face appears under the sink as I’m pushing my dirty, stinky hair away from my face.
‘You were right,’ he says, obviously trying not to laugh, ‘about women plumbers. You’ve cleared that blockage a treat, the sink is completely empty now!’
Twenty-one
Striped Carnation – I Cannot Be with You
I dry myself as best I can with the few small towels we have at the shop, then Jake insists on walking me back to the cottage, leaving Miley happily tying ribbons into Amber’s long hair.
‘I’ll be back in a bit,’ he tells Amber, ‘once we’ve got Mario here – or is it Luigi who’s the plumber? – into some dry clothes.’
Amber laughs. ‘I believe it’s both!’ she says. ‘My brother and I used to play those video games all the time back in the States.’
‘When you two have quite finished mocking me!’ I protest. ‘I’ll be perfectly fine walking back to the cottage myself.’ I don’t want Jake to see, or smell me like this for a moment longer than necessary.
But Jake insists. ‘I feel partly responsible,’ he says as we walk back to the cottage together. ‘Something similar happened to me once when I was unblocking a sink. I probably should have warned you.’
‘What happened to you?’ I ask, surprised to hear this. Jake has always seemed so capable.
‘Bronte helpfully emptied a bucket of floor cleaner down the sink while I was underneath it!’
I grimace. ‘I bet you smelled better than I do now though,’ I say as we reach the cottage and I open the front door.
‘A bit – I had quite the tang of lemon about me, and very clean with all the disinfectant.’
I have to laugh. ‘Well, thanks…’ I say, dithering about on the doorstep, assuming he will leave.
‘I’ll make you a nice hot cup of tea, shall I?’ Jake offers. ‘That wind is mighty cold today – you must be freezing, walking around with wet hair and clothes. You’re normally pale, Poppy, but you look almost blue right now!’
‘I am a bit chilly – yes,’ I have to admit. ‘But don’t you have to get back to work?’
Jake looks at his watch. ‘Call it my lunch hour. Perk of being your own boss. The guys up at the nursery can look after the place for a while.’
‘In that case, tea would be great, thank you. Proper tea, mind – none of Amber’s herbal nonsense!’
‘As if!’ Jake grins. ‘Tea only comes one way in my book: builder’s strength!’
I leave Jake in the kitchen filling the kettle, while I enjoy a lovely hot shower. My grandmother’s cottage may be old, but the hot-water system is as good as gold when it comes to running hot baths and showers.
I emerge a few minutes later wearing grey jogging bottoms and Amber’s purple NYU hoody; my towel-dried hair is combed but hangs damply down my back.
‘One tea!’ Jake announces, setting a steaming hot mug of tea down on the kitchen table. ‘Two sugars, isn’t it?’
I nod. ‘Yes, that’s right. Thank you.’
Jake glances at me, then looks away.
‘What?’ I ask, self-consciously running my hand over my damp hair. ‘What’s wrong?’
‘Nothing. You’re wearing colour, that’s all.’ Jake grins. ‘It’s like suddenly going from a black-and-white TV to a colour one.’
I look at him, puzzled.
‘Oh, sorry, you’re probably too young to remember black-and-white TV, eh?’
‘No, I do vaguely remember my grandmother having one here, before my parents bought her a colour one to watch gardening programmes on. Anyway, this is Amber’s sweatshirt. I borrowed it to get warm.’
‘Ah, that figures,’ Jake says, nodding. ‘Shame, that colour really suits you.’
I feel myself blushing, but luckily my cheeks are already flushed from my super-hot shower. ‘Don’t start that again,’ I bluff, ‘about the colour of my clothes – who are you, Cornwall’s answer to Gok Wan?’
Jake laughs.
‘Anyway,’ I continue, always happier when Jake and I are being flippant with each other, ‘you’re almost as bad as me with your uniform of checked shirts, blue jeans and your staple Timberland boots!’
‘Ah, you got me!’ Jake says, looking down at his attire. ‘Touché, Miss Carmichael.’
My full name is actually Poppy Carmichael-Edwards. My mother and father’s names combined. But when Jake calls me Miss Carmichael I get a funny fluttery feeling in my stomach. Like someone has let a kaleidoscope of butterflies loose. So I’ve never wanted to correct him.
‘Shall we take this up to the sitting room?’ I ask, lifting my mug of tea. ‘It’s much nicer on a sunny day than down here in the kitchen.’
‘Sure,’ Jake agrees.
We head upstairs and settle ourselves comfortably on the sofa, while the sun pours in through the French windows, immediately warming my chilled body.
‘Amazing, isn’t it,’ Jake says looking out of the window, ‘how it can look so glorious out there, when in reality it’s freezing cold.’
‘Joys of living by the sea, I guess. The wind is our constant companion.’
‘Isn’t it just. I do love it here, though. I always wanted to live by the sea, and now I do, I’m not going to complain.’
‘Where did you live before?’ I ask as I sip on a very strong, but good cup of tea.
‘We lived in East Anglia when the children were very young – Bedfordshire, to be precise, not far from Milton Keynes.’
‘What did you do there – grow flowers?’
‘No, nothing like that. I worked at the safari park at Woburn.’
I open my eyes wide. This I was not expecting. ‘Really? How fabulous. What did you do there – look after the tigers?’ I say jokingly, thinking he’ll say he worked in admin or something equally boring.
‘Not quite – apes, primates and monkeys.’
Of course he did. Now Miley makes more sense.
‘Wow, that’s a bit different than growing flowers in a Cornish nursery, isn’t it – why did you change?’
‘My father fell ill,’ Jake says sadly. ‘He desperately needed someone to take over the family business – only child, see. There was no one else.’
‘I know that feeling well,’ I tell him. ‘The only child and the family business part.’
Jake nods. ‘I resisted at first. I liked my job, and I knew it would mean uprooting the family, but the children were still small, and Felicity’s family had originally come from St Felix – one of those strange coincidences life often throws at you – so she was very keen to move here.’
Jake falls silent as he’s lost in his memories for a few moments.
‘Do you ever regret it?’ I ask gently. ‘The move?’
Jake thinks. ‘No. The kids have had a much better life growing up here by the sea, I’m sure of it, and Felicity was always happy here as part of the community.’
‘But what about you?’ I press. ‘Are you happier here growing flowers than you were working with the animals?’
Jake looks at me. ‘Poppy, if you’re asking me this to try and justify what you’ve done by moving here, then I can’t answer that question for you.’
‘Sure, I understand.’ I look down into my mug.
‘But if you really want to know,’ Jake says gently, ‘I’ve always been happy here in St Felix, and that can’t be wrong, can it? Being happy.’
I shake my head. ‘You’re right. The place does seem to have that effect on people.’
‘It surely does.’ Jake leans forward and picks up a book from the table. ‘You seem a lot happier than when you first arrived. Calmer.’
I think about this while Jake flicks through the book.
‘Yes, I suppose I am. Do you think we’ve discovered a sort of Cornish Lourdes?’ I ask, thinking about the French town renowned for the healing powers of its waters.
‘If we have, it will be great for the town,’ Jake says, smiling, ‘Imagine all the tourists we’d attract if we could heal everyone
that visited of all their woes. What’s this?’ he asks, holding up the book. ‘It’s full of names and flowers and problems and stuff.’
I hadn’t realised he’d been looking at one of the flower notebooks Amber and I had discovered.
‘Oh, it’s nothing. We found a bunch of these notebooks in the shop, listing past clients. Amber’s been reading up on them.’