by Kim Nash
I thought back to last night when I sat in Aunty Lil’s lounge – which I needed to remember was now my lounge – gazing out to sea at the amazing view of the glorious sunset, turning crimson red, burnt orange and vibrant gold until it disappeared over the beach, wondering what the future held for me. Right then, 37 Larkspur Lane seemed to be the most natural place in the world for me to be. I felt at home and at peace here. The familiarity of being here in Muddleford felt right.
Within such a short time of being here I felt a sense of belonging that I could honestly say I hadn’t felt for a long time. Was it because I had so many happy memories here? Was it because there was a tiny bit of me that felt that Aunty Lil was still around me steering me in the right direction? I liked that thought particularly and definitely felt a sense of comfort from it. But what was I to do? I couldn’t possibly stay here, could I? I had a life back in Staffordshire.
I had rung Shivani to talk things over with her. She was gobsmacked by the news and we’d talked on a Facetime call for over an hour. I’d taken her on a guided tour of the house and she’d said that she loved it and was coming down at the earliest opportunity. I was so looking forward to her visiting and showing her around all the old places I knew.
While she’d also lost her job when the company folded, she’d immediately joined her family business as their marketing manager which they’d been asking her to do for years. She was loving it so far, even though it was very early days and said that she wished she’d done it years ago, instead of being defiant and wanting to do something independently of those around her. But she had needed to find her own feet and was trying not to regret those years of working for someone else. We’d talked about the fact that everything was a lesson learnt to move you forward in life. Perhaps this inheritance was mine.
‘Have you been anywhere yet?’ Jack’s voice brought me back to the present.
‘Not really. I’ve been to Aunty Lil’s beach hut and the café on the beach. That brought back many memories,’ I said. ‘I can’t wait to catch up.’
‘What are you doing this afternoon?’
‘I have no idea. I have to get the car insured at some point and get used to driving again. That was an incredible surprise, I can tell you, when I opened the garage door.’
He threw his head back and laughed. ‘I bet it was. No little-old-lady car for Lil. Only the best Mercedes C-Class Cabriolet for her. She treated herself six months ago so it’s nearly brand new and I bet it’s got hardly any miles on the clock. She only ever used it to go to Waitrose. That’s how it remained in that pristine condition without a scratch.’
I smiled at the thought of Aunty Lil driving around town in that very glamorous car and immediately felt pressure to keep it the same way. I’d never owned a car, even though I’d passed my test a few years before. I just couldn’t afford it and there was always Callum’s car, although he didn’t really like me driving it.
‘If you’ve got no other plans, will you let me take you out for a couple of hours before dinner tonight, Nellie-bum? I could pick you up at around three when I finish work. For old times’ sake, hey?’ He nudged my shoulder. ‘Go on, Nell. Say yes.’
How could I possibly refuse?
Chapter Ten
Once Jack left, I felt a little lost again, so I thought I’d make the most of the glorious sunshine and wander over to the beach for a walk. I grabbed the keys to the beach hut and threw a carton of milk and a jar of instant coffee in my bag. My trainers were at the front door, but as I went to slip my feet in, I was reminded of the sign on the beach-hut door and nipped upstairs to fetch my flip-flops from my case, deciding to see if life really was better in them.
The pace at the beach was slow, people meandered along as if they had all the time in the world. They seemed to be mainly either on holiday or retired, and every person who went past either smiled or said ‘Good Morning.’ What a pleasant change from the rat race at home, when people barely grunted at you as you walked to the bus stop.
I ambled along to the beach hut, copying the pace of everyone around me. When I reached number 136 I opened up the double doors and propped them open with the stones. Now I was on my own I could have a good mooch round. I didn’t like to go rifling through everything in front of Dom yesterday. I found a small radio in a cupboard, which I took out and plugged in. I smiled as it tuned straight to Radio 2. I should have known Aunty Lil would have had some sort of music in there. It reminded me to hunt down a radio in the house too. It had been very quiet last night. There was a TV and a Freeview box, but I couldn’t settle on anything properly. Perhaps it was because it was the first night in a different place. Plus I had a lot of things whirring around my mind about what to do with the house in Staffordshire, now I couldn’t afford to live there alone, although now I actually could. My head hurt!
I noticed a microwave at the back of the hut, which I hadn’t yesterday, and a door in the corner which I also hadn’t seen. When I opened it, to my delight there was a tiny loo. Well, that was a bonus. All mod cons here. At least I wouldn’t have to use the public loos, which in my memory had always had an extremely whiffy pong about them.
I filled the kettle with water from the sink and switched on the fridge. There were two deck chairs hanging on the walls, just inside the doors, and after a couple of attempts to put one of them outside the hut on the small area of raised decking just before the promenade, I sat down and drank my first beach-hut cup of coffee overlooking the sea, with the warmth of the sun on my body. It all felt oh-so good. I really did feel relaxed here.
Remembering that in my handbag there was a notebook and pen, I grabbed them and read what was already in my book. I loved a list. Nice stationery and a list. Sometimes it’s the simple things in life that make you happy.
Page one of the book was headed up ‘Wedding Cancellations’. There were still a lot of things that needed sorting but, right now, I had bigger things to think about. I turned the page, sucked the top of my pen and gazed out to sea for a few minutes, then I started to make some more notes which flowed onto the page without hesitation.
* * *
Choices to make:
* * *
1. Live in Muddleford/Live in Staffordshire
* * *
2. Sell 37 Larkspur Lane/Rent out 37 Larkspur Lane
I needed to ask Dominic if he knew what rental price it would fetch. But what if I’d rented it out and then wanted to come down for the odd weekend?
3. Short-term holiday lets/long-term rental
Surely short-term would be harder work to manage/clean/keep on top of. I needed to do research into that.
4. Sell the beach hut/Keep the beach hut
If I did go back, I could come down for weekends if I fancied it but wouldn’t have anywhere to stay. Could you sleep overnight in a beach but? Would I want to? More research needed.
5. Sell the car/Keep the car
I put a big tick next to ‘keep the car’. I think I’d already made that nice easy decision.
6. Look for a job/Do I want a job?/Do I need a job?
Did I have an opportunity to completely rethink my career and think about what I’d love to do? I’d always loved reading and when I was at university did an English literature degree. Perhaps I could get a job proofreading. I could even think about setting up my own company. Or maybe I could see if there was some volunteer work going. The local library maybe.
* * *
This was all getting quite exciting and one question just led to another. Life was stressful back home. A constant treadmill. Not having a job to be constantly thinking about, or another person to be considering was actually quite liberating. I missed Callum, but the last few nights I hadn’t missed the constant emotional worrying of whether everything was ok for him and whether the things I did were pleasing him. Then there were the practical things which were always left to me, like wondering what was in the fridge, or whether I needed to go shopping, the whole what to be cooking for dinner and what I could do
him for his lunch to take to work the next day and not worrying about all the other day-to-day things that go on in my life in Staffordshire. I didn’t actually miss Callum as much as I thought I would. I felt that it was more the routines and habits that we had formed over the years that I missed.
If I was going to be truthfully honest with myself, not having a wedding to plan and to be thinking of every five minutes, was a huge weight lifted from my shoulders. If I thought about it, the wedding had become something that was just a focus. I wasn’t even sure that it was what I had still wanted as time had gone on. Callum’s mum had had so much input into it, guiding us in how she wanted us to do things, I wondered whether it was what we had wanted at all – it was hard to say no to things while they were putting so much money into it. And while I’d been frantically saving to put some money towards the day to show that I could contribute, Callum had still been off shagging bloody Saskia and paying to stay away in hotels, so he clearly didn’t care about the money side of things.
Right at the start, I had said that I’d have been perfectly happy to have gone to Barbados and got married on the beach. For me, not having family around to celebrate such a monumental occasion, meant that the one day that was supposed to be the perfect day of my life would be missing something vitally important, so there was always going to be a sadness around it whether it be in the UK or abroad. Over here, it was even more noticeable that I wouldn’t have been on my father’s arm, walking down the aisle to my intended. Callum’s father had stepped forward and said that he would love to walk me down the aisle but, while it was really very kind of him, it really wasn’t the same. But I couldn’t say that without offending anyone so I went with the flow to make everyone else happy, even if I wasn’t.
All of those thoughts had been clogging up my brain for so long, and now it was free I had room to explore new ideas. I’d never even thought before of setting up a business. I wondered if it was possible. I was sure Dom could help me with the legal side of things. He seemed like the fount of all knowledge and a general all round very good egg. And if I had to invest in the business and didn’t start earning straight away, now that I had some funds behind me, I would have a bit of a cushion. While I knew money wasn’t everything it really was going to be life-changing for me.
* * *
7. Organise funeral
This was a job I was really not looking forward to. I’d need Dom’s help on this one. Or Jack’s family. They would know who to invite. I didn’t know who would want to come along. Maybe I could even talk to Norman about it later. If he’d been in Aunty Lil’s life over recent years, then surely he’d know who her friends were and who I needed to ask.
8. Organise wake
Should I have it at the house or at a nearby café or pub? I suppose I couldn’t decide until I talked to the others. Definitely something I would have to crack on with booking though.
* * *
I wished I had had the chance to talk to Aunty Lil more over recent years and known about her daughter Sophia and shared some of her sadness. It would have been so much to bear on her own. She must have been so brave. I could kick myself for not making more of an effort to get in touch.
So often you can say that one day I’m going to do that, and yet you allow other things to get in the way. Before you know it, weeks have gone by, and then months. The next time you think about it a year has rolled past and then another. You really should make the time to do the things you want to do and say the things you really want to say. Time is something that you can never get back.
It was too late for me to make amends with Aunty Lil. We’d both missed out on the last twenty years. And that was downright silly. Because of a rift that had gone on between her and Mum, I’d lost one of the most important people in my life. And that stung. I could never make it right. Why do people not make the effort?
A lone tear rolled down my cheek. I missed Aunty Lil and the relationship that we had. Being back here was making me remember what a wonderful influence she’d been in my life. I’d never felt this emotional. Not even when Mum died, because there was so much anger inside me then.
People say that hindsight is a wonderful thing, but I think it’s crap.
Chapter Eleven
Laughter brought me back to the present. A couple strolled past holding hands and obviously found something funny. I couldn’t believe that I’d dozed off. Not into a proper deep sleep but one of those states where you knew things were going on around you. I could still hear the faint tinny sound of the radio in the background, but was too tired to keep my eyes open. It reminded me when, years ago, I used to ask my dad whether he was asleep and he would say he was just resting his eyes. I gave a sad smile. Being back here was evoking many memories and remembering that we were a happy family unit once upon a time. When Mum and Dad were great fun to be around.
But there were also many times when I had hated Mum and Dad being around me. When I used to lie in bed at night with my hands over my ears shutting out their yelling. They were the times that I used to crawl into bed with Aunty Lil and she’d put her strong arms around me and rock me to sleep. They were also the times when Jack and I would take off to the beach and sit under the old pier, and he’d let me cry and talk and get it all out of my system before I went home to be faced with it again. He had known my innermost fears and was my best friend in the whole world.
My tummy groaned. The DJ on the radio did a time check and I couldn’t believe it was 2 o’clock. It was no wonder I was hungry. I’d had nothing since the morning when Jack brought the croissants round.
Jack. There it was again. I only had to think of him and my stomach flipped. It was so funny to think that I was still getting this feeling all these years later. I was sure it’d go after a day or two. Everything was new at that moment and I was going through so many emotions and feeling permanently discombobulated. I still couldn’t believe that he lived next door.
As he was coming round at 3 p.m., I thought I’d better make a move back to the house. I hadn’t been able to work out why Aunty Lil had the beach hut when she lived so close to the sea, but having a glorious cliff-top view from her lounge window wasn’t the same as being right on the beach. Now I’d spent a morning there I totally got it. I felt as if my soul had replenished after only a few hours and my broken heart had started to heal a little bit. I knew I had a long way to go and that I was going to have to dig up a lot of old feelings and memories, and deal with them one way or another, but right then, I felt that I was getting there and like anything was possible.
Switching off everything, I locked the doors behind me and patted them.
‘Goodbye, see you very soon,’ I muttered.
I didn’t want people around me to think I was bonkers talking to a building, but it felt like the right thing to do.
* * *
Back at the house, I fought the urge to shout, ‘Aunty Lil, I’m back,’ like I always used to. There was a big difference in temperature between inside and out, and I shivered as I entered the hallway. I thought for a second that I saw a slight movement in the lounge, but when I went to investigate there was nothing there. It was just my imagination playing tricks on me.
Jack was going to be arriving shortly, so I ran upstairs and jumped in the shower. I grabbed a strappy flowery sundress from my case and teamed it with a cornflower-blue cardigan. I knew I should probably take some time to hang up my clothes in the wardrobe but I didn’t really know how long I was staying. Was it really worth it? I slathered on some tinted moisturiser, which slightly covered up the pink glow from snoozing in the sun, slicked mascara on my lashes and a little natural-coloured lip gloss across my lips, and spritzed myself with Sarah Jessica Parker’s Lovely perfume. Looking in the bedroom mirror, I fluffed up my hair.
The doorbell rang. Bang on 3 p.m. A little nervousness crept in. What on earth was the matter with me? I took a deep breath, and spoke to my reflection.
‘Get a grip, Nell. It’s just Jack.’
&nbs
p; I ran down the stairs, flung open the front door and let him in. As he walked past me, I caught a waft of Hugo Boss. My body tingled. I’d bought some for Callum a couple of years ago but he hadn’t liked it and it had sat unused in the bathroom cupboard. I had completely forgotten at the time why it smelt familiar, but right then a memory popped into my mind of buying some for Jack for his fourteenth birthday that last summer.
‘At your service, m’lady.’ He bowed then mock saluted.
I giggled. He’d always had the gift of making me laugh.
‘Your carriage awaits.’
‘Actually, I wondered if you’d mind if we went in Aunty Lil’s car?’ I said.
‘Your car now, Nellie-bum. Of course! You can chauffeur me instead. Great idea.’
‘I keep forgetting it’s mine.’ I grabbed the keys from the dish on the hall table and locked the front door behind us as we went out to the garage and opened it up.
I was glad at that point that the house had a double garage because the car seemed huge and I didn’t fancy manoeuvring it out of somewhere smaller. I was so pleased that Jack was with me and confided that I was nervous about driving but knew I needed the practice. I took it slowly to start with, easing the car out onto the drive with a big exhale of breath. Jack talked about the day his dad had taken him and Aunty Lil to the garage to collect the car and he came back with her to make sure she was OK with everything.