EARLY AUGUST
Belle, Chloe & Emily
A book? A bleeding book? Someone called Stella who was pregnant – so it would seem from the letter she’d found on the dining table – had left her a book as a present. How the heck did this Stella woman think Belle would have time to read a book? With two lively – hyper at times if they had too many sweets with E numbers in them – girls in tow, she’d be lucky if she had time to read the instructions on whatever ready meal she was going to put in the microwave, wouldn’t she?
And really she ought to go into the bedroom bit and get the girls to calm down. They were bouncing about on the bed, being dinosaurs. Veloceraptors or something, so Chloe said. The chalet was detached, but it was only made of wood, and the people in the other chalets probably had their fingers in their ears by now. But she wasn’t going to. Chloe and Emily were excited, that was all, and if she was honest with herself so was Belle, even though she was holidaying alone, without Mark, who had pulled out of their marriage, and his commitments to the children. Chloe had been two and Emily newborn when he’d announced he didn’t love Belle any more.
‘It might be best,’ he’d said, ‘if I have minimal contact.’
‘Best for whom? You or the girls?’
Mark had merely shrugged.
‘Well? Just so I know.’
‘Katie won’t like it if I keep coming round. Besides, she’s got two boys and is expecting…’
‘Oh, just go,’ Belle had said. It was obvious now he’d been having sex with Katie for quite some time, although since Emily’s birth there had been very little of that for Belle. ‘Bugger off and play happy families. See if we care!’
That was two years ago and everyone had been telling Belle it was time she moved on, found a new man, got over it. Ha ha, what did they know? A new man had found her – Aaron, who did maintenance in the block of flats Belle lived in with her girls. Or he was trying to. Belle was doing her best not to give off any signals that she liked him, although she did. There was nothing not to like. Six months ago he’d been taken on as maintenance manager and he was for ever knocking on her door saying stuff like he had half a can of paint left over from working on other flats in the block and was there anything she wanted touching up. Belle always laughed because a comment like that was a bit cheeky, wasn’t it? Aaron never pushed it though. So far Belle had resisted his charity, as funny and charming and handsome as Aaron was. He didn’t take offence and all he said was to let him know if she needed any help. He’d come from a one-parent family himself and knew how hard it had been for his mum.
Well, one-parent families were the norm, didn’t you know, her sister, Gemma, had told her. But there was nothing normal about having to do everything on your own – the house jobs, the school run, the doctor and the dentist when the girls needed to go, changing light bulbs, sorting blocked drains – in Belle’s opinion. And there was the matter of actually getting round to a divorce. Part of Belle had hoped Mark would come to his senses but she knew now he never would. The thing was, divorces were expensive and she didn’t have much cash to spare. She couldn’t imagine Mark did either seeing as he was supporting his new family, and sending Belle £30 a week for ‘treats for the kids’ as he put it on a note the first time he’d sent it. There’d been no note since. At least he was doing that and Belle was grudgingly grateful because the second the notes arrived in the post she was round at the local Spar putting money on the electric and gas. But she was no fool – even that could stop at any time.
‘You could get a DIY divorce,’ Gemma had said. ‘You just ring up the courthouse and ask for the papers to be sent to you. You fill them in and post them back with a cheque for the fee and in no time at all you’re a free woman.’
‘Are you kidding?’
‘Much cheaper, Belle. If there aren’t any issues over finance, like a house to sell and share the proceeds of, or childcare, then it could all be done and dusted in a couple of months. Mark’s not likely to want regular access to the girls, is he?’
‘Is the Pope likely to marry?’ Belle had said.
Belle was pretty certain there’d be no issues over finance, because their flat was rented. And as for the childcare – well, Mark had proved pretty much that he was just buying his daughters off with the money he sent for ‘treats’ each week. He hadn’t asked to see them since the day he’d left. And he’d not sent cards or presents on their birthdays or at Christmas either.
‘Ha ha, very funny. I’ll take that as a “no” then,’ Gemma said. ‘But you don’t have to make a joke of everything, Belle.’
‘I bloody do. The girls have had a bit of a shitty start to life and they don’t need me sitting around with a long face all the time, do they?’
‘Well, no. But if you’re nervous about it, I’ll come to the courthouse with you to fetch the papers.’
‘All right,’ Belle said. Anything to shut her sister up for five minutes. She knew if she didn’t ring up and ask for them Gemma would ring up and ask for them herself and present them to her. So she had them. And she’d filled them in but so far she only had about sixty quid saved towards the cost of it all.
And now she had been given this holiday, which old Anne Maynard opposite had won in a magazine competition. Old? Belle didn’t know how old Anne was exactly… maybe early seventies. Belle didn’t like to ask, but Anne acted old, used it as an excuse not to do things like go for a walk or spend money on something new she needed – like a kettle that didn’t leak. ‘I don’t know how much use I’d get out of a new kettle at my age. Would it be worth the expense?’ That was what she always said if Belle suggested she needed something that required money being spent on it.
‘Are you sure you want us to have this?’ Belle had said when Anne came over with the vouchers she’d won. Belle would rather have had money in lieu of the gift but she couldn’t tell Anne that and she ought not to look gift horses in the mouth, ought she? ‘Aren’t you supposed to go if you’ve won?’
‘I don’t want to go. I never did like the seaside, not back then when I had the obligatory fortnight there with my grandparents, and I’m not going to change my opinion of it now. And the prize is transferable. I’ve checked. And anyway, what would I do with a holiday?’ Anne had said. ‘Life’s one long holiday for me now I’m retired, and besides, I want you and the girls to have it. It will be good for them to be by the seaside. You might even find a new man.’
‘Not you as well!’ Belle had said.
‘And not that maintenance man I see knocking on your door rather a lot these days.’
‘Hey! He’s all right is Aaron.’
‘Got you! Stood up for him a bit quick there, Belle.’ Anne laughed. She tapped the side of her nose, and winked theatrically.
‘I didn’t want him dissed, that’s all,’ Belle said. ‘Besides, things could get complicated if I have another man around. You have no idea what hoops I have to go through to get the benefits I do, which isn’t much.’
And what’s more, she could have added but didn’t, no doubt Mark would stop sending the money each week if he thought for a second Belle had someone else in her life. At least she could tell the girls with an honest heart, when they were older, that their dad had provided for them in his way. Who knew what they’d think of him when they were old enough to understand what had happened? At least she had that little crumb to offer them. For now.
Still holding her book gift, Belle realised the noise was getting louder from the other room. She was being a bit of a grump, wasn’t she? She ought to be more grateful that people were concerned for her. Her girls might be noisy and overexcited but they were healthy. She needed to remember that.
‘Simmer down, you two,’ Belle called out to them. She hugged the book to her. ‘I might get time to read you, and I might not. But thank you, Stella, whoever you are.’
‘How far?’ Belle asked. She’d arrived by train and taken a taxi to 23 The Strand and hadn’t really taken much notice of how far apart things were. The taxi driver had carried her case for her – and charged for it! – from the stopping-off point to the chalet.
‘About a mile to a supermarket. Tesco. There’s only the one here. Tiddly. If you want harissa paste or fresh figs, forget it. I think there might be a Lidl but I haven’t found it yet.’
Belle’s neighbour for the fortnight in Number 24 The Strand had a baby strapped to her chest and a bag of shopping in each hand – the bag of shopping with a French stick poking out of it had been the clue that the young mum had found a supermarket. Belle thought her neighbour, dressed in high-end jeans and a designer top, looked a bit posh to be spending her holiday in a chalet. She sounded posh too.
‘I shan’t be needing any fancy stuff,’ Belle said. ‘Fussy eaters both of mine. It’ll be fish fingers and baked beans and crisps for a fortnight.’
‘It won’t hurt for a fortnight. I’m still breast-feeding so I’ll need to watch what I eat.’
‘Really?’ Belle said.
‘Really. I know breast-feeding isn’t so popular these days but, well, it’s there, it’s free and it stops me doing other stuff while I’m doing it.’
‘I didn’t mean that. I meant I wish I’d looked as good as you so soon after my two were born. Oh, you meant watch what you eat as in eating things that won’t upset the baby, didn’t you?’
‘Yes, that. And thanks for the compliment.’
Belle’s temporary neighbour gave her a watery smile, and Belle had a hunch that, despite the beautiful exterior and confident manner, the woman was struggling a bit. Been there, done that.
‘Yeah, well,’ Belle said. ‘I meant it. I breast-fed mine and, from the benefit of experience, I’d say go easy on the curries.’
‘I’ve already discovered the disaster that is second-hand curry! Can I ask? Did you drink?’
Drink? Did this woman think Belle was some sort of dypso? But yes, there had been the occasional glass of red which helped both Belle and her babies sleep. Especially after Mark left. The shit.
‘Apart from the usual, like water and builders’ tea, yes, I have been known to have the odd tipple.’
‘Oh good. Your two look like angels standing there so good while we natter, so it can’t have done them much harm.’
Crikey, they were being especially good, weren’t they, Belle realised now. And after the mayhem of the veloceraptor game, which had gone on way past bedtime the night before, she was glad of it. And you are a scared-as-hell new mum and a bit lonely with it if I’m reading between the lines.
‘No, it didn’t. They still get half a glass of red in their nighttime cocoa though.’ Belle waited for the woman’s reaction. She got it.
‘You don’t!’ She started to back away.
‘No, of course not. Only joking.’
‘Well then, Cooper will have to acquire a taste for white wine soon, perhaps, because what’s a holiday without a few drinks. Won’t you, little man?’
Cooper? Belle had been out with a petrol-head once who lived for his classic Mini Cooper – all chrome wheels, and pared down this and that, and wearing driving gloves, for goodness’ sake, like he was a throwback to the sixties. But the romance never got past a handful of dates. It had been obvious from the get-go she would always come about six places down from his car, his mates who were also into Mini Coopers, his job in a car-sales place, John Denver records, and his mum.
‘Hello, Cooper,’ Belle said, reaching out a finger to touch the back of Cooper’s tiny, pudgy fist.
Sometimes she wished she’d given her girls names that were a bit different – Scarlett, or Venus, or Blaise, or something. Did people get on in life better if their names made others stop and really concentrate on them? Oh well, it was too late now. And besides, she was called Belle and nothing wonderful had happened to her yet because of her name, had it?
‘So, you’re saying a drink here and there won’t upset my breast-feeding routine too much?’
‘I’m no expert,’ Belle said. ‘But in my inexpert opinion it won’t hurt at all. I’m Belle by the way.’
‘Fiona. I’d shake your hand if I had a free one to offer.’ The baby, Cooper, wriggled and grizzled. ‘Time to go. I’ve held you up far too long nattering on. But thanks. Catch you later, Belle. Perhaps, you know, if we have a mutually convenient window of time we could natter some more. Over a coffee. Or wine?’ Another little smile from Fiona but less watery this time.
God, I sure as hell hope so. Belle jiggled her fingers at Fiona and Cooper in a sort of wave goodbye. I could use a friend.
Hmm, perhaps things wouldn’t be so bad after all. Perhaps, when she and the girls had settled in a bit, she’d ask Fiona round for a drink.
‘Are we nearly there yet?’ Chloe whined.
‘Nearly,’ Belle lied. She hoped she was. She’d popped into a café at the bottom of the town to ask directions and the man at the counter had waved his arm in the direction she had to go. Over the railway crossing, up through the pedestrian precinct. Belle could see the barriers going down for the train so there was a way to go yet. And it didn’t help that the pavements were heaving with people and buggies and mobility scooters, with kids totally out of control running in between all of that. She wouldn’t let go of her two for a moment.
‘My knees hurt,’ Chloe grumbled. ‘Can I ride in the buggy?’
‘Buggy, buggy, buggy,’ Emily shouted.
‘Really!’ An elderly man glared at Belle. ‘Such language from one so little.’ He pointed at Emily as though she was something best left in the gutter.
Oh gawd, he’d thought Emily had said ‘bugger’, hadn’t he?
‘Best take yourself off to Specsavers, mate,’ Belle said. ‘They do hearing aids in there. She said “buggy”. That’s the thing she’s sitting in.’
Belle scooted off, Chloe hanging on the handle of the buggy for dear life. She didn’t wait to hear the man’s response.
But it was getting even busier here. Even more kids were screaming like banshees – whatever one of those was, but Belle’s mother had always used that phrase and now she did too – here than on the seafront. Why the heck weren’t their parents taking them to the beach? The beach was free for a start and when kids went into town they were always wanting something.
‘Mummy, can I have a lolly?’ Chloe said.
‘A lolly what?’
‘A blue lolly.’
‘Oh, you,’ Belle said, risking taking a hand off the buggy handle for a second to ruffle Chloe’s head. ‘You know I was looking for the word “please”, not the colour of the lolly you want!’
‘So, can I? Please?’
Could she spare a pound or so for two ice lollies? Because if Chloe had one then Emily was bound to want one too. Gemma had been like that when she and Belle were young. She remembered once when she’d had a cold, a really bad one, and she’d had to have antibiotics because it went to her chest and gave her a bad bout of bronchitis.
‘Want one!’ Gemma had screamed as their mother doled a teaspoonful of pink mixture into Belle’s mouth. Their mother had pointed out that you couldn’t have antibiotics unless you really, really needed them and Gemma had yelled the house down, screaming that she didn’t want them, she wanted a cold!
The memory made Belle smile.
‘Okay. But that’s the only one today. No asking for another when we get back to the beach.’
They joined a queue at a kiosk selling ice cream and lollies by the railway station. A woman with short grey hair was in front of Belle and her family. She had two children with her – a boy of about eight and a girl a couple of years younger. Grandma and grandkids, at a guess. Belle felt a pang of something – regret? sadness? anger? – that Mark’s mother would never stand in a queue with Chloe and Emily, seeing as she’d cut off all ties and sided with her son. No doubt she was playing grandma to Mark’s now-‘melded’ family, as she’d seen it termed in a magazine once. Melded, for goodness’ sake.
The boy suddenly leaned into the woman, and then slid an arm around the back of her waist, before reaching for her shoulder.
The woman turned, put an arm around the boy and hugged him closer. Then she kissed the top of his head.
And just look what she’s missing out on! The little tableau was a mixture of joy and sorrow for Belle to witness. Her own mother was very good at caring for small children but she wasn’t a hugger or a kisser.
‘Note to self,’ Belle said, under her breath. ‘Hug and kiss the girls more.’
‘You’re squashing me!’ Chloe yelled, squirming in Belle’s arms. ‘And your kisses are all sloppy!’
Chloe was barefoot, her feet covered in sand and bits of broken shell, and there was a sliver of grass-green seaweed, like lettuce, between her big toe and the one next to it. Her hair was every which way because she wouldn’t stand still long enough for Belle to comb it, and Belle had decided it wasn’t worth the stress of making her. At home, Belle always liked the girls to be well turned out, but here it didn’t matter so much. Did it matter anyway? Didn’t it matter more that the girls knew she loved them?
‘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 in 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 me!’ 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.’
‘Fred?’
‘He’s the owner. So you’ll have the cake, yes? For your daughters?’ Ana waved an arm towards a rather large man who was walking along behind the counter with a bit of a limp, Belle noticed.
‘Thank you,’ Belle said. ‘And thank Fred for me.’
She’d come here again. She’d have to portion out her spending money to be able to do it but it felt good in here. And what was more, Ana and Fred’s kindness had stopped the cold feeling she’d got from Fiona’s rebuff earlier.
Full of coffee, and milk and cake, Belle and the girls walked back along the prom, the girls walking on the low wall, or rather wobbling, because the huge red stones it was made of were all different shapes and sizes. When they got to the dead end where all the chalets were, the girls jumped from the wall and began to swing on the railings, like monkeys. At the beginning of the holiday Belle might have yelled at them not to do that as it was dangerous, but she had, at last, begun to relax a little. She’d made herself stop worrying the girls would split their heads open swinging from the railings. She’d stopped worrying they’d drown when they stepped into three inches of seawater at low tide. She’d stopped worrying they might swallow the sand on their fingers when they ate their picnic lunches. The weather had been warm and sunny apart from one day when there’d been a bit of cloud.
‘Belle!’
Fiona. As Belle and the girls neared their chalet, Fiona came out of hers, Cooper in her arms. She walked carefully down the steps with her precious cargo.
‘Hi,’ Belle said.
‘Hi. Gosh, you all look as though you’ve had a lovely day.’
‘We have. You?’
Fiona made a so-so gesture with her head.
‘I’ve come to apologise,’ she said. ‘I was really short with you the other day and I didn’t mean to be. I was having a bit of a moment.’
‘A bit of a moment,’ Belle repeated. ‘Some of my moments last for days!’
‘I thought you’d say something like that,’ Fiona said. ‘I don’t know I’ve ever met anyone like you. But anyway, I’m sorry.’
‘No need to be,’ Belle said. ‘Want to talk about it? Your “bit of a moment”, I mean.’
‘Your place or mine?’ Fiona said.
Belle felt a tug on her T-shirt then. It was Chloe.
‘Can we go on the beach, Mummy? Please. We don’t want to do colouring again.’
‘Oh, bless her,’ Fiona said. ‘She remembers the last time we had a chat, she and Emily did colouring.’
‘Got a memory like an elephant, that one,’ Belle said. She reached down and ruffled the top of Chloe’s head. ‘No, you don’t have to do colouring. Fiona and I can chat on the beach, can’t we?’
‘We certainly can. I’ll just go and lock up, and I’ll be with you.’
A retaining wall was uncovered at low tide, so Belle and Fiona sat on that while the girls ran to and from the water’s edge, or stopped to pick up shells and pebbles to add to the vast quantity they’d brought back from the beach after each visit and left in a pile in the corner of the deck. Somehow, Belle was going to have to spirit those back onto the beach when the girls weren’t looking before they went home.
Now she was sitting there and, having instigated the meeting, Belle thought Fiona looked decidedly uneasy.
‘So,’ Belle said. ‘The “bit of a moment”?’
Fiona had put Cooper in a carrying chair beside her on the wall, and she shrugged, her shoulders going almost to her ears.
‘I was having a sort of panic attack. Breathing fast, feeling faint, that sort of thing. I’ve never experienced anything like it before but I’ve had a few since Cooper was born, always when I’m on my own. They seem to be getting worse, not better. Sam was out running so, although I was feeling jittery, I thought I’d test myself and take Cooper out. I walked to the harbour easily enough but on the way back my legs just turned to jelly and it was as much as I could do to keep upright. Did you ever feel like that?’
Oh dear, what to say here? Belle had felt a million things as a new mum, but with no Mark around after Emily was born she’d had no option but to do a lot of things that made her jittery.
‘No,’ Belle said. ‘But my situation was different. It was either go out or turn into Miss Havisham, so out it was.’
‘Oh!’ Fiona clapped both hands over her mouth. ‘Sam said that! That I’d turn into Miss Havisham if I stayed indoors all the time. He just doesn’t understand.’
‘Well, he wouldn’t, would he?’ Belle said. ‘His hormones haven’t been hit by a ten-ton truck as a result of having a baby, have they? Not that I’m dissing him. I’m sure he’s a great bloke.’
And then, as though her thoughts were being controlled by some other being, Aaron popped into Belle’s head… he understood how it was for her on her own with two little ones, and no cash, and not a lot of company, didn’t he? Why was she thinking of him now, when Fiona needed her?
‘Oh he is. Really,’ Fiona said.
‘Just asking then, and don’t shoot, but why the running all the time? Is he like that at home?’
‘He runs, yes,’ Fiona said, ‘but not all the time. He says he’s taking advantage of the fact we’re computer-free here. He spends a lot of time online when we’re home. That was my choice, to have the lowest level of communication we could have on this holiday. Just simple phones.’
‘We’ve got something in common then, with simple phones. I knew there had to be something. I went for the least expensive option available and I text mostly because that’s the cheapest. And that’s not a cue for you to get the violin out.’
Fiona stuffed the muslin cloth back in Cooper’s carry chair.
‘I feel better already, talking to you,’ Fiona said. ‘But joking apart, I do seriously question my ability to be a mother, even though it was my choice. Sam wasn’t so sure, but I’m not getting any younger, so we went for it.’
‘Spare me the details!’ Belle laughed. ‘And talking of the love of your life, because something tells me he is, here he is now, like someone out of Chariots of Fire, haring along the beach.’
‘Oh,’ Fiona said. ‘I’ll get back now.’ She stood and picked up Cooper’s carry chair, hooking it into the V of her arm. ‘Thanks, you know, for the chat. I feel heaps better. Not going as mad as I thought I might be.’
And then Fiona skedaddled back to her chalet with almost indecent haste, and Belle was left wondering if she’d ever feel that joy at seeing someone again. Even Aaron. Given time.
It had been a long day. But with the girls now in bed and asleep, Belle rang Anne on her mobile.
‘Anne? It’s me, Belle.’
‘Oh, that stranger,’ Anne said, but there was a little laugh in her voice. ‘Thought you’d been whisked off by a tall, handsome fisherman and we’d see you no more.’
‘Ha ha,’ Belle said. ‘I should have rung before and I’m sorry about that.’
‘And so you should be,’ Anne admonished. ‘And there was me worrying you’d all drowned or something.’
‘Well, worry no more. The girls and I are having a great time. They’re as brown as nuts, and in danger of going feral they’re spending that much time outdoors.’
‘Good. That’s how it should be.’
‘So, what I’m trying to say, Anne, is thanks for the gift of this holiday. I didn’t know it but it’s just what I needed.’
‘Ah, but I knew it was just what you needed, didn’t I?’
‘Seems you did. Is my flat still standing?’
Suddenly Belle was flooded with a wave of homesickness.
‘It is. But better bring your sunglasses back with you. You’ve got a yellow front door now.’
‘Yellow?’
‘As in bananas and buttercups. Glossy like the latter. That maintenance bloke did it. I don’t suppose you asked him to, did you?’
No. Belle hadn’t asked him to but she remembered Chloe dancing around him when he’d been painting railings outside and telling him yellow was her favourite colour and did he have any yellow paint. What a kind thing to do.
‘Aaron,’ Belle said. ‘He’s called Aaron.’
‘Whatever,’ Anne said. ‘Anyway, bring me a stick of rock, and get off that phone. I know you’re pay-as-you-go. I’ll sleep easy tonight now I know you’re alive and kicking. Night night, sleep tight.’
‘Hope the bugs don’t bite,’ Belle finished, her voice hoarse with emotion at her old friend’s kindness and love, but the signal had broken up.
She’d take a stick of rock for Aaron too. Just as a little joke, but he’d know she’d been thinking about him by the gesture, wouldn’t he?
Belle took her book out onto the deck to read. There was enough natural light to read by still, and when that went she’d open the door a little and read by the light from the chalet. She hadn’t read much, just a couple of chapters, but she was enjoying it.
And then she heard crying. Loud female crying. Coming from 24 The Strand. Fiona? Belle hadn’t heard the baby cry much, if at all. But she had just seen Fiona’s man – about half an hour ago – in running gear, jumping down onto the beach before running off in the direction of the harbour. Again.
The sobs from next door got louder. A whole ton of ‘what ifs’ went through Belle’s mind. What if Fiona’s man had thumped her one? Domestic violence was classless, wasn’t it? What if he’d called time on their relationship? Belle knew how that felt. She put her book face down on the table, left the front door of her chalet slightly ajar and went to investigate. She wouldn’t go in. Just stand in the doorway so she could hear if Chloe and Emily woke up needing her. She had a gut feeling that Fiona needed her more right now.
Belle knocked, quite loudly. The noise sort of echoed in the still of the evening. The moon was just beginning to get up, a hazy half-moon just above the horizon.
The crying stopped and then the door of 24 The Strand slowly opened and Fiona’s red, blotched, mascara-streaked face peered out.
‘Yes?’ she said.
‘Um,’ Belle said. She could hardly ask if Fiona was all right because she patently wasn’t, even though she’d been cheerful enough earlier when she’d rushed off so she’d be there when Sam got back. So Belle said the first thing that came into her head. ‘I was just wondering if you could loan me some, er, sugar. Just a screw of it in a bit of paper. For my tea. Please. If you’ve got any.’
‘Sugar,’ Fiona said, and seemed to crumple. Belle could see the baby asleep on the couch, tucked in safely with cushions that had sailing boats and seagulls on them just like the ones in her own chalet.
‘Yes. But it doesn’t matter if you haven’t got any. I heard crying and…’
‘Sorry if I disturbed you.’
‘You didn’t. Look, I saw your bloke go out earlier so, if you’re on your own, why don’t you pick up Cooper and come into mine? I’d come in here – if you want me to that is – only I won’t leave my girls.’
‘No. Of course not.’ Fiona wiped the sleeve of her linen top across her eyes. ‘Would you mind? If I come in for a bit? Sam’s gone for a run. He’ll be about two hours and… shit, I’m rubbish at this motherhood thing. I’m scared.’
‘Then we’ll be scared together,’ Belle said.
‘I’ll just leave a note for Sam and be right there. Thanks.’
Belle ran back to her chalet and checked on the girls who were sleeping with their arms wrapped round one another. She pulled Chloe’s long, fair hair back from her face and plonked a kiss on her daughters’ heads. She grabbed the box of Kleenex she kept beside the bed in case of sniffy noses in the night. She’d seen a film once where someone was pouring their heart out and the person they were pouring it out to did nothing but hand them tissue after tissue.
And then Fiona was there with Cooper.
‘Shall I open the wine?’ Belle said.
‘One won’t hurt.’
‘I’d say one is flipping essential at the moment.’
And I probably need it more than you do, seeing as I seem to have taken on the role of shoulder to cry on big time.
Belle went to the fridge for the wine and came back with the now-half-empty bottle and two glasses.
‘The thing is, Belle,’ Fiona said, accepting a glass, ‘you seem so capable. I see you with your girls with their hair all brushed and looking so clean and tidy in their shorts and T-shirts, and when you’re all on the beach, playing, they come back to you all the time for a hug and to be picked up. And I don’t know how to be like that.’
‘It’ll come,’ Belle said. ‘Cooper’s a bit small to tell you he loves you to the moon and back yet, but he will.’
‘Oh God, I hope so. We had a little bit of a “do” just now, me and Sam. I was moaning that I looked a mess since having Cooper and he said that was nonsense, I looked just fine to him. He said Cooper had to come first at the moment because he’s so helpless. I know he’s right but it’s hard. And I am managing without all the things I usually do, like pedicures, manicures, waxing, the gym, getting my roots done and all that sort of stuff, to stay looking the same Fiona that Sam fell in love with. No, scratch that. I’m not managing at all.’
‘Babies don’t care what sort of mess you look. Not that I’m saying you look a mess. You know jimjam days?’
Fiona nodded.
‘Well, I had jimjam weeks. And I’ve never had a manicure or pedicure, been to a gym or been waxed, never mind the cost of expensive hair-dos, but I can see once a woman gets on that particular ride it would be hard to get off.’
‘Jimjam weeks?’ Fiona said, struggling to smile.
‘Yep. Went to bed and got up in the same jimjams more than a few times. But, hell, it didn’t kill us.’
‘I’m glad to know that,’ Fiona said. She knocked back her glass of wine. ‘I don’t suppose I could bother you for a cup of tea, could I?’
‘No bother.’
‘One sugar,’ Fiona said. ‘Oh, you haven’t got any sugar. I’ll…’
‘I’m a terrible liar,’ Belle said. ‘I’ve got plenty of sugar. That was just an excuse to come round. I was being nosy about the crying. I saw your Sam go out earlier. I’ll just make the tea.’
‘I’m being a drain,’ Fiona said, now with a mug of tea in her hands. ‘Sam wants me to go to the doctor. He thinks I might have post-natal depression. I keep crying. And…’ She stopped talking, looked at Cooper, leaned in as if to kiss him and then jerked her head back to look at Belle. ‘And I don’t think I love Cooper,’ she finished in a whisper.
Belle had never had post-natal depression but she knew plenty who had. She’d bet her last ten-pence piece that Fiona was suffering too. What to say now? She took a deep breath.
‘Motherhood’s a bit like sprouts, Fiona. Well, I think it is. You know, they’re obligatory at Christmas and everyone’s supposed to eat them, especially if your mother or your granny or some aged aunt has cooked them. ‘Oh, you’ll love them,’ they all say. And they add all sorts of things like bacon and chestnuts and lemon and herbs and so on, but still some people would rather love a Tasmanian Devil. Me? I got to love them eventually, sort of like a slow burn.’
Fiona was staring at her open-mouthed.
‘The sprouts or your girls?’
‘Both. Although I lucked out not getting the depression.’
Fiona made a strange, strangled, gurgly sort of sound.
‘Oh God, sorry. Not appropriate? My mouth running away with me. Too long on my own with only kiddywinks’ gobbledegook for company.’
Fiona began to laugh. Belle wondered if she was having some sort of breakdown, going from one emotion to the other so quickly.
‘You’re priceless, Belle. You really are. How come you’re here on your own with the girls? Errant husband notwithstanding.’
Belle told her about Anne Maynard and how she’d won the competition and given the prize to Belle as a present. Some spending money too.
‘And you? You don’t look like the sort of woman who holidays in a teensy chalet in the summer holidays when the place is heaving with kids.’
There was so much each of them didn’t know about the other yet, wasn’t there?
‘Hmm,’ Fiona said. ‘And that’s not helping. Usually, Sam and I go to Italy or the South of France. Corsica. Sicily. But that would mean having staff to do the cooking and cleaning and work in the grounds, and I didn’t want that. I just wanted it to be Sam, and Cooper, and me. Simple. Just getting to know one another as a family. Sam had booked a villa in Sardinia as a surprise but I begged him to cancel. And then I found this.’ She placed Cooper down on Belle’s couch and tucked the cushions around him. Belle was about to jump in and say she’d swap a chalet for staff in a villa in Sardinia – or anywhere else for that matter – any day, but Fiona took a quick breath and carried on. ‘I used to come here with Nanny. A fortnight every summer. We stopped in a hotel – in a suite – but we spent our days on the beach or taking boat rides, or going to the zoo. It never seemed to rain. I wanted that for Cooper.’
Boat rides? The zoo? Belle hadn’t done either of those with her girls yet, but it didn’t seem to matter because they’d had a lovely time without them.
‘Well, it hasn’t rained since we’ve been here,’ Belle said. ‘Is your grandmother still alive? Mine’s not. I only ever had the one… well, the one I knew about who knew about me… and she died when I was eleven.’
Fiona ran a tongue along her lips as though they’d suddenly dried, then she pressed them together.
‘I didn’t mean it was my grandmother who brought me here. It was my nanny I came with.’
‘Like a servant?’ Belle said. She’d never met anyone who’d had servants before – it was a different world to the one she lived in.
‘Not exactly. Nanny was part of the family until I was eleven. My parents both worked – they still do, my mother as a GP and my father as a cardiac surgeon. And then, I passed the 11 Plus and my parents decided I could go to grammar school and they’d save all the private-school fees. So Nanny went to another family who needed her.’
‘What? Just like that? Cut her off? Separated you? Did you miss her?’
‘Yes to all that,’ Fiona said. ‘And now I’ve got Cooper I can’t imagine being separated from him. My parents want me to have a nanny for him so I can go back to work.’
‘And what do you want?’
‘Maybe go back to work eventually but not yet.’
‘What work?’ Belle asked. ‘Just being nosy. Ignore at your leisure.’
‘I’m a designer. Children’s clothes. Nightwear is my speciality but I do other things. I get commissions from all the big names – M&S, Next, Harrods, among others.’
Blimey, her girls might be sleeping in something Fiona had designed right at that moment. In M&S pyjamas, via the British Heart Foundation charity shop on Dugdale Road, both of them.
‘So, who’s doing it now, now you’re here?’
‘My staff are running the day-to-day stuff. I’ve brought a sketchpad with me and have been trying out a few ideas but it’s not gelling. Sam’s cross about that as well, seeing as I asked that he leave his iPad behind so he couldn’t work and we’d have to grow together as a family. While we’re here. And always. Hopefully.’
‘I can see how that might have made him a teensy bit cross, but you can only be you, be who you are.’
And where the hell have I got this counsellor’s hat from all of a sudden when I can barely sort out my own life, never mind anyone else’s?
‘I’m being mean to Sam and I don’t know how much longer he’ll put up with it. I’ve got it into my head I’m the only one who can feed him, do anything for him at all. I even iron Cooper’s socks, for goodness’ sake, I’ve got it that bad. I have a hard time seeing Sam hold him even, and I just want to snatch him away in case he hurts him. Which I know he never would. I’m just being illogical.’
‘It’s the hormones talking,’ Belle said. ‘Got to be with all that ironing-baby-socks stuff. You’ll get to the point when you’ll think “won’t someone have this little bleeder just so I can go and have a wee”. You really will.’
Fiona guffawed with laughter and Cooper lying beside her twitched in his sleep. She laughed so hard she began to cry again. Belle passed her a tissue.
‘Thanks. The NHS should hire you,’ Fiona gulped, swiping another tissue from the box Belle put on the couch beside her. ‘Laughter is the best medicine, so they say.’
‘I don’t know that it’s a miracle cure I’m providing but it’s good to hear you laugh. You scared me earlier, you really did. I had a whole scenario going in my head where I was going to find you a victim of domestic violence and have to call an ambulance or something.’
‘Never that,’ Fiona said. ‘Domestic violence victim, I mean, not that you haven’t worked a miracle.’
‘Well, now I’ve jumped in with my two not very PC feet, I’ve got an idea.’
Belle rifled through the pile of flyers for this attraction and that she’d picked up at the tourist office when she’d collected the key. ‘No barbecues on the deck,’ the woman had said in a sniffy voice. And that was giving her another idea. But first…
‘Here we are. I knew it was here somewhere. The Palace Package. I’m assuming that’s not Buckingham but that big white hotel about twenty minutes’ walk towards town.’ She opened it out. ‘Here you go. Gym, pool, waxing, beauty treatments – which I’m assuming means things like pedicures and manicures and facials – and hairdresser. Half-day package with lunch.’ Belle didn’t think the cost of it – £70 – would shock Fiona in the slightest so she didn’t mention it. And I’m coming over a bit bossy, trying hard not to make it look as though I’m out of my depth and might actually be able to help her. So she added in a gentler voice, ‘It might do you good to find the world of glamour treatments still exists and that you can slip back into it, if only for a little while.’
Fiona reached for the brochure.
‘Hmm,’ she said.
‘Don’t hmm and haw,’ Belle said. ‘Sam might jump at the chance to have Cooper to himself for the morning. And you might be pleasantly surprised to find he doesn’t need to call the paramedics just to change a nappy. You could express some milk or something, or there’s the ready-mixed emergency option you can get at the pharmacy. What do you think?’
‘I think you’re a schemer,’ Fiona laughed.
‘Oh, I haven’t finished yet! Did that bundle of misery on legs in the tourist office wag a finger at you and say, “No barbecues on the deck!”?’
‘Yes.’
‘Right. Let’s have one, shall we?’
‘Now?’ Fiona looked startled but no longer surprised at anything Belle might suggest.
‘No. Not now. On our last night so we can’t be frogmarched out of here before our fortnight is up.’
The girls slept in late so Belle decided she’d just lie there and read until they woke up. All the sea air and racing about on the sand, and the change in routine, was getting to them. They were probably more than a bit fed up with Belle slathering them in Factor 50 sunscreen but only put up a token resistance and didn’t jiggle much. And was it Belle’s imagination or were they growing in front of her eyes? Didn’t everyone tell you not to buy school uniform for the coming year the minute they broke up from school in July because they would have grown out of it by the time September came round? Especially shoes.
Belle was on chapter ten now. When there was a knock at the door, she grabbed a throw from the back of the couch and wrapped it around her. She was in her third-best nightie, which had once been white but was now a sort of beige with half the lace hanging off the neck. She hoped it wasn’t the bundle of misery on legs from the tourist office who might have read her mind about the barbecue, and her rational self knew it wouldn’t be. It had to be Fiona.
So, pinning a smile to her face in case Fiona was having another down moment, she opened the door wide.
‘Hi. I’m Sam. Fiona’s partner.’
‘Belle. Pleased to meet you at last. I’ve seen you running and I’ve heard a lot about you.’
‘All good, I hope,’ Sam said.
‘The best.’ Not a total lie. And then she remembered all the sadness and seriousness of the previous evening and a wave of guilt washed over her that she hadn’t asked. ‘Is it Fiona? Has something happened?’
‘Fiona is fine. And I want to thank you for being so kind to her last night while I was out, rather selfishly running, when – perhaps – it might have been better if I’d stayed with her. She says, do you fancy coming over for coffee? When you’re, um, dressed.’
‘What time is it?’ Belle asked.
She hadn’t had breakfast yet, having decided to wait until the girls surfaced.
‘Ten-thirty. Shall we say you’ll be over in half an hour?’
‘We most certainly shall,’ Belle said. ‘Thanks for asking.’
‘So, Belle, say you’ll come,’ Fiona said.
Belle had just been invited to spend the afternoon at the spa at the Palace Hotel. Sam had offered to look after all the children but there was no way Belle was going to let a man she’d only just met be in charge of her daughters. Belle was like a lioness with her cubs and no one, but no one – apart from her mother and Anne Maynard – ever had the girls on their own.
‘Thank you, but no,’ Belle said. ‘I wouldn’t have the first idea what to do in a gym, or all the gear you need, or…’
‘You could borrow some of mine,’ Fiona cut in.
‘You mean you’ve brought enough gym gear on holiday to loan out?’ Belle laughed. ‘If you don’t mind me asking… oh gawd, I’m putting my foot right in it here, overstepping the mark perhaps… why do you have to be so, well, more perfect than perfect, because from where I’m standing you look pretty good to me.’
‘That’s what I tell her,’ Sam said. He was looking at Fiona as he spoke.
‘You do,’ she said. ‘Sam’s a TV producer… mostly history documentaries but occasionally other stuff and we do get to go to lots of events connected with that.’
‘But not since Cooper was born? The feeding thing?’ Belle said.
‘No,’ Fiona said.
‘Well, you don’t find many breast-fed two-year-olds, so before you know it you’ll be back doing all that stuff.’
Sam burst out laughing.
Fiona smiled too.
‘See,’ she said, ‘I told you Belle was a tonic, didn’t I?’
‘Quite a few times,’ Sam said. ‘Thanks, Belle.’
‘So, do come with me this afternoon, Belle. On me. All of it.’
I am so not a charity case even if I’m on benefits was what Belle was thinking. Was that how Fiona and Sam were seeing her? Was she carrying her lack of cash on her shoulders like a bloody yoke or something? Belle thought about saying all that but changed her mind. She’d be throwing their kindness and potential friendship away if she did.
‘Sorry, no,’ Belle said. ‘All that sort of thing has never been me. Besides, from what I know from films and magazines and stuff, going to a spa is very much a personal thing. I mean, you can hardly share a pedicure, can you? Or a massage. And I don’t know I’d want some woman with her hands all over my personal bits.’
‘God, Belle,’ Fiona said. ‘You call a spade a bloody shovel, don’t you?’
‘Yes. It’s the best way in the long run. But I’ve got another idea. Why don’t you go, Fiona, and leave this man in here in charge of Cooper? My money’s on you finding them both here when you get back.’
Fiona put an arm around Sam’s shoulder, and pulled him towards her, kissing his cheek and snuggling into him.
‘And I’m fast turning into a gooseberry,’ Belle laughed. ‘Come on girls, drink up. We’re off to the zoo.’
Belle took the girls to the zoo. She discovered Dinosaur World in Torquay and took them there as well. Her holiday spending money was eking out nicely, but it wouldn’t be long before they had to go back home.
She saw Fiona go out on her own a couple of times, and while she was out Sam went out with Cooper strapped to his chest. Belle saw his mouth going nineteen-to-the-dozen as he chatted to his son as they strode along the promenade.
And here was Fiona now, back from wherever it was she’d been – the gym at a guess because her hair was tied back at the nape of her neck and, as she got closer, Belle could see she had flushed cheeks and not a scrap of make-up.
‘Hi!’ Belle called as Fiona neared 23 The Strand. ‘Coffee time? The girls and I are just having one. Well, I am. The girls are on fruit smoothies.’
And that was another thing: it had been the devil’s own job to get the girls to eat healthily at home but here they’d even started asking for fruit smoothies.
‘I’ll just see if Sam’s back with Cooper,’ Fiona said, slowing down.
‘He’s not,’ Belle said. ‘I saw them go out and I’ve been here ever since and he’s not come back yet. Your very own neighbourhood watch scheme.’
‘In that case,’ Fiona said, bounding up the steps. ‘I don’t mind if I do. Forgive any non-fragrant aromas.’
‘Forgiven,’ Belle said.
‘Can I just say,’ Fiona said when Belle came back with her coffee, ‘thank you for pushing me to go to the gym on my own. I don’t think I would have done it if you hadn’t. And you were quite right – Sam and Cooper were perfectly all right when I got back.’
‘Good,’ Belle said. ‘I know how hard it is sometimes letting go of that responsibility all mums – well, most – feel, and especially with a newborn.’ She looked at her daughters, almost overwhelmed by the love she had for them. But it wasn’t going to be a good idea for them to listen in on any heart-to-heart she and Fiona were about to have. ‘How do you fancy watching CBeebies, you two?’ she asked.
‘Yeah!’ they said in unison. Chloe clapped her hands over her head and Emily followed suit.
‘Right, I’ll just go and put it on. Come on.’
‘So, where were we?’ Belle said, sitting back down. ‘Ah yes, I remember, I was saying how hard it can be to let other people be in charge of our little masterpieces. I mean, it took me for ever to trust Anne to have the girls on her own, but she’s brilliant with them.’
‘Your opposite neighbour, right?’
‘Right. She was there when Mark and I moved into our flat and seemed very friendly, always giving us a wave, or passing the time of day, but I was so wrapped up in Mark back then I tended to ignore her. Then, one morning, after Mark had left and I was rushing to get Chloe to nursery, Emily screaming her head off for England in the baby buggy, I heard her shout “Help!” as I crossed the road. And there she was, all twisted up on her front path. She’d fallen on wet leaves and broken her wrist.’
‘Does she live alone?’
‘She does. Got family somewhere but they never visit.’
‘So you turned Good Samaritan?’
‘I did. I rang for an ambulance and went with her to the hospital. Came back home with her as well. And it all went from there really. I did a bit of shopping for her, prepped the veg for her and stuff like that. Pushed the vacuum around and gave the kitchen floor a once-over with the mop. Her place was cleaner than mine by the time her plaster came off!’
‘I don’t know my neighbours,’ Fiona said, and Belle thought she sounded so sad.
‘Do you want to?’
‘Most are out all day, like I was. Before Cooper. I can see being home all the time with him could be lonely. And then there’s the fact he’ll need to be with other children.’
‘So, what’s home like?’ Belle asked.
‘Converted warehouse, which just means quite big apartments with high ceilings and lots of original ironwork about the place.’
‘Count me out of that then,’ Belle laughed. ‘Dusting ironwork’s not for me’
Belle knew she could have bet her last two-pence piece Fiona would have a cleaner but wasn’t going to ask.
‘Anyway, enough about me,’ Fiona said. ‘I like that necklace, by the way. Gorgeous colours. Aubergine is a favourite of mine. Did you make it?’
Belle had to lift her necklace away from her chest to see which one she was wearing.
‘Ah, this one. Yes. It began life as about four necklaces I picked up in a charity shop in the next-to-nothing department. All different colours and different sorts of beads but I took them all apart and restrung the ones I liked best.’
‘Well, I’d buy that,’ Fiona said. ‘If you were selling.’
‘How much? You know, just so I know what people are prepared to pay if I ever get around to being able to afford a computer and getting myself fixed up to sell online.’
‘Thirty pounds. Forty.’
‘Bloody hell,’ Belle said. ‘Really?’
‘Really. It’s easily worth that because it’s a one-off, isn’t it?’ Fiona looked towards the beach. ‘Oh, there’s Sam and Cooper. I’ll go now. Sam was talking about driving out over the moors or something. A bit of history research on the way, I wouldn’t be surprised. Thanks for coffee. And the chat. I’m really glad I met you, Belle.’
‘Back to you,’ Belle said as Fiona leapt from her chair and ran to her family.
Belle sat fingering her necklace long after Fiona had gone. Fiona had planted the seed of an idea in Belle. Once she was back home, she’d need to give the path her life was taking a seriously good think. But working at something she loved doing – like making jewellery – had to be the way to go, didn’t it?
Fiona and Sam – with Cooper in his daddy’s arms, Belle was pleased to see – came to say goodbye. They were going home a day early because he’d had a phone call to say a contract had come up which needed signing immediately. Fiona looked thrilled to be going back to a life she knew and obviously loved.
‘I’m so glad we met,’ Fiona said, hugging her. She plonked a noisy kiss on Belle’s cheek.
‘Me too,’ Belle said, although she harboured no illusions they would stay in touch, and wasn’t going to suggest they did. They lived in totally different worlds, didn’t they? ‘I’ll look out for your name on the credits, Sam. But I’ll have to change my viewing habits for that. It’s all CBeebies in our house. Never watched a history documentary in my life.’
‘Make sure you do!’ Sam wagged a playful finger at her.
‘Thanks, you know, for everything, Belle,’ Fiona said. ‘You were my port in a storm more than a few times. There was a shift after you knocked on my door, concerned about me.’ There were tears in her eyes. She still had a way to go in getting her confidence as a new mum up, but she was getting there.
‘There’s a port for everyone,’ Belle said. ‘Anne Maynard opposite has been mine a time or two, and giving me this holiday and all.’
‘Will you come back?’
‘Yes!’ Chloe shouted, jumping up and down in excitement. Emily joined in, clapping her hands wildly over her head. Belle was about to ‘sssh’ them but decided against it. She’d start getting off their backs a bit now, let them be how they were, how they wanted to be. She’d just have to talk over them.
‘Well,’ Belle said loudly as the whooping and jumping continued. ‘I asked about it at the tourist office and the woman there said this one is up for sale and she didn’t know what would be happening next year. Some people keep them for their own use, leaving them empty when they’re not around, and others just buy them as an investment and keep the rentals going. She’s taken my details.’
‘Talking of details, could I have yours?’ Fiona asked. ‘I’d like to design something for your girls and have it made up. A present. I’ve already sketched out a few ideas and I’ve got a good idea of their sizes.’
Blimey, that was a surprise, Fiona wanting to keep in touch, and having gone to so much trouble already.
‘I’ve only got a mobile or a snail-mail address, I’m afraid. Will that do?’
‘Of course. No one’s worked out how to send parcels through the ether yet, have they?’
No, no they hadn’t, but the way things were going with technology, Belle thought it probably wouldn’t be long before they did. She printed her details on the business card Fiona handed her.
‘We never did get that rebellious barbecue in, did we?’ Belle said. ‘Now you’ve got to go back a bit early.’
‘No, but it was a delicious thought and it got me through some tough days just thinking about it. You’re the best.’
Am I? No one had ever told Belle that before but she was going to believe it from now on. No, that wasn’t entirely true – Aaron had said she was the best a couple of times, just in general conversation about how she’d been doing finger-painting with the girls or making fairy cakes or something… perhaps it was time she believed him too. A warm and fuzzy feeling came over her thinking about Aaron. She’d missed him always being there, she knew that now. Time to give him a chance to be in her life, perhaps?
And then there were more hugs and kisses and the little family were gone, Sam pulling their two cases behind him as Fiona pushed Cooper in his buggy.
Belle waved and waved until they were out of sight.
Dear next occupant,
Well, I’ve had a lovely time here at 23 The Strand – all three of us have – far better than I could ever have imagined. I’ve read a whole book for the first time since I left school numpity-nump years ago. I’ve learned to be proud of what I’ve achieved (so far!) and I’m going to ditch those bits that went a bit pear-shaped. Oh, and I made a couple of friends as well. The book was a present from the person who was here before me, and it seems it’s the thing to leave something for the next occupant, although no one is going to shoot you down in flames if you don’t. So here you go, then. A bottle of wine. I hope you have someone to share it with.
Bottoms up!
Belle, Chloe & Emily