Edie Browne's Cottage by the Sea Read online

  Aunty Jo’s voice cuts in. ‘I know the sea’s still grey, but there’s no need to look that gloomy, Edie.’

  I swallow, resist pointing out that she’s in no position to talk about people looking miserable and let out a sigh for everything I’m not doing. It’s not just the status and the sense of satisfaction I miss. It’s the camaraderie, and the banter, and knowing there are a whole load of tradespeople working their butts off to do their best jobs for you. Most of all, it’s the human contact. However much they drove me to distraction on some sites, at the end of any working day I’d have spoken to more people than I could count.

  ‘There’s something indoors to cheer you up.’ Aunty Josie sounds even gruffer than usual.

  ‘Really?’ I rub the dust out of my eye and force myself to think of something that’s not Zinc Inc. Not that I’m ungrateful, but please may it not be yet another ballet DVD. I’ve managed to force her out for a walk every day, down the twisty streets to the shop above the harbour – to be fair, we have had earache from the wind – but other than that it’s been wall-to-wall tutus. I never thought I’d be begging to watch Cash in the Attic and reruns of Garden Rescue, or be desperate to sit and listen to my mum saying Charlie Dimmock has let herself go and could do better with her choice of sweatshirts. I’m not being mean, but if home had been nearer and the Uber less expensive, I’d have gone.

  ‘The Secret Garden colouring book arrived this morning. And some Faber Castell felt tips.’

  ‘Thank you.’ If she was less sharp I’d say how sweet it was too, but I don’t want to risk her jumping down my throat. Colouring is what I turn to when my head feels like it’s going to burst. Which is usually straight after I’ve been working at my puzzles, which are a lot less fun than they sound. Fitting the pieces together is supposed to help, but when it comes to those dimension things, I’ve totally lost it. At the moment, trying so hard and still ending up with a random pile of plastic bits literally blows my mind.

  It’s also strangely soothing to colour when the ballet’s on. Mostly I do Hearts and Flowers. Now and again I use Bella’s I’m Sick of This Shit book. Mum went storming off when she saw that one. But it was actually great for me because it meant Bella totally gets where I am. It fits, because we’ve been besties since we met in junior school. Even when she was seven Bella had that same effortless Kate Moss fabulousness. In the least posh part of Bath where we lived, with her purple nails and her denim ra-ra skirts embroidered with sequin appliqué she stood out like some exotic flower. Back then her mum worked at Tammy Girl and provided Bella with a non-stop supply of strawberry lip gloss and lemon sherbets. Bella’s heart is so big, she gave the sweets away. Mostly to me. I still run best on sugar, even now.

  Lately my tears have a mind of their own. They come gushing down my face and the first I know is when my shirt is soaking. Or my thick woolly scarf that I use to wrap up against the cold. Like it is now.

  ‘Oh, dear, crying won’t do, Edie – if anyone knows that it’s me.’ Aunty Jo is holding me at arm’s length, staring at me with an appalled scowl. ‘Come on, dry your eyes. I’ll show you the big barn where Harry was going to have his main workshop.’

  Somehow I’m still holding a handful of her coat sleeve. ‘I was going to give you a hug. For the book?’

  ‘There’s no need – one click, that’s all it took.’ She’s pulled away.

  ‘It’s a nice coat.’ I’m not letting her off, if she won’t have a hug she can have a compliment. ‘It makes you look like Paddington. Or one of those men who save people from the sea.’

  She pulls away, frowning. ‘Oh, dear, it’s my first ever anorak. Don’t lifeboat men wear red, not yellow?’

  ‘No …’ I know this one. ‘Fire engines are red, yellow shows up in the sea.’ And mostly Paddingtons are blue, but Tash had a yellow one so we could tell them apart and didn’t fight. Except she used to steal the wellingtons from mine because she liked the blue ones better than the red ones. She also stole the massive middle chocolate from inside the big doors on my advent calendar one year too. It’s lucky for me I can still remember that, because I never let her forget it either.

  ‘The yellow’s too much, isn’t it?’ Aunty Thing’s staring down at herself.

  I’m kicking myself for making her doubt. So often I can’t find any words at all. Then the wrong ones have this awful habit of tumbling out before I can stop them. ‘It’s great – yellow’s big this year. And it’s got fur.’ I definitely know this one. ‘It’s a parka. That’s good too.’

  ‘You’re right there with your colours and your fashion.’

  ‘Too right.’ There’s no need to panic about the future. I could always try a Saturday job in H&M for a bit. Obviously I’d have to brush up on my cash skills and sort out my numbers first, but whatever.

  I follow Aunty Josie beyond the stone-flagged courtyard towards a monumental stone building with huge wooden barn doors with a small door at the centre. As we push through into a vast space I’m pulling my sunnies down off my head.

  ‘Wow, looking at this you can see why people say barns are like cathedrals. I can see why Harry loved it.’ In spite of the grey day there’s light flooding from windows in the high roof and, with its massive hewn timbers, it’s as big as a village hall. So long as you overlook the monster piles of old planks dumped in random places across the floor, it’s a lot more finished than the stable spaces even though it’s not clear what its use is. I move across to a huge glazed doorway on the other side and take in the next group of buildings beyond a strip of grass. ‘Are they yours too?’

  ‘No, thankfully, only the field. Those buildings are let out – there’s a caravan factory and a few others.’ She’s about to turn back when she stops. ‘Who’s this?’ There’s a boy hugging himself back against the door frame, staring at us through the glass.

  When I push up my shades to get a closer look, the blue jacket is familiar. ‘He was on the lane with a dog the day I came, remember?’ Kicking the mud, just like he is now. Before I can remind her that he hangs out with Mr Nosey-Neighbourhood-Watch she’s turned the key and pushed the door open.

  ‘Can I help you?’ Her tone is so stern he shrinks so far into his jacket his face almost disappears. ‘Aren’t you too little to be out on your own?’ If she meant to prod him, it’s worked.

  ‘Actually I’m not small, I’m six.’ As he stands up straighter he ages inch by inch. ‘Have you got any cake at your house?’

  ‘Cake?’

  He’s wrinkling his nose. ‘I’m having some later, but I’m actually hungry now.’

  I laugh at how direct he is. ‘Sorry, I ate the last piece for breakfast.’ I’ll pick up more when we finally brave the cold and go down to the harbour later.

  His eyebrows shoot up. ‘You can’t have cake for breakfast.’

  I find myself back-pedalling under his scorn. ‘It’s not every day. Well, hardly ever. Only because we ran out of oats.’

  Aunty Josie clears her throat. ‘Actually we have got cake at the cottage.’ She wrinkles her nose. ‘But you’ll have to wipe your feet before you come in.’

  ‘You bought cake?’ I didn’t mean to shriek so loud. But what the heck happened to sugar-free? And where the hell’s she hiding it? I might have had some after lunch if I’d known, that’s all.

  ‘There’s no need to sound so shocked, Edie. It’s Sunday.’

  ‘So?’

  ‘It’s a ballerina thing. If you’re careful what you eat every other day of the week, you can eat whatever you like on Sunday.’

  ‘That’s what you do?’ Apart from it being a million years since she danced, I’m not sure if I’m gobsmacked at the deprivation or relieved she’s breaking out.

  ‘Of course. I wouldn’t have a figure like this if I didn’t.’

  She’s half the width of my mum and me, but we just assumed she had different genes. ‘So what have you got?’

  She gives a cough. ‘Carrot cake – it arrived this morning.’ Which explains how it’s
escaped my cupboard raids. She turns to the boy. ‘If you’d like some, we’ll be in the cottage next door. You’d better ask your mum first. Or your dad. Or whoever’s looking after you.’ She gives a sniff. ‘Or not looking after you.’

  ‘That’s Barney.’ He’s already running.

  She calls after him, ‘Come around the back. Tell Barney he can come too. We’ll make some tea.’ She turns to me. ‘That must be the window cleaner.’

  I clamp my sunnies firmly back on my nose. ‘Barney? Really?’ If that’s the same guy from the lane he’s the last person I’d want to serve tea to. Unless it was green. ‘And, by the way, he doesn’t actually clean windows.’

  ‘Like you say, it’s good to get to know people.’

  ‘It is.’ Anyone other than him.

  7

  Day 137: Sunday, 18th March

  At Periwinkle Cottage

  Epic Achievement: Discovering a carrot patch in the vegetable rack.

  I’m not sure if it’s the thought of guests or the excitement of an all-you-can-eat day, but as soon she’s delivered my new colouring book Aunty Thing rushes off and starts crashing around the kitchen. As she clatters the cups and plates onto a tray and gets out a gigantic teapot, she’s dancing around so fast her gold pumps are leaving light trails.

  She waves at the next room, snaps out another order. ‘Get the cake, Edie, it’s in the vegetable rack.’

  That’s not a place I’ve visited yet, but moments later I’m back in the kitchen sliding a square cake out of the box, eyes popping at the creamy topping and bright orange knobs of icing carrots sprouting green sugar leaves.

  She’s tutting critically as she watches me unwrap it. ‘It’s an M&S carrot patch cake – the milkman picked it up for me from Penzance.’

  ‘It’s pretty fab.’ Even though I’m reeling from being bossed about, I have to hand it to her. In my other life with Marcus I might even have tucked the idea for that away in my mental recipe file and pulled it out later as a cute sweet to take round to his friends’ for a weekend barbie. My desserts were the sole trick I had to impress them with. Marcus’s mates in creative media – and he had a lot – took male bonding to a whole new level. The kind where, if they weren’t away on some kind of wacky adventure, they were incapable of making it through a weekend without meeting up on someone’s patio. Mostly they swilled back craft beers with odd names and incinerated choice lumps of cow from the craft burger shops while they tried to channel their younger selves. Even though they’d graduated from flats to houses, due to soaring Bristol property prices and the burst of the dot com bubble, no one had yet made it to the stage of owning a full-blown flower-filled garden. So we chewed on our chargrills in back yards, sitting on stacked-up railway sleepers listening to Wonderwall against backdrops of reclaimed brickwork.

  At the time it felt like we’d be twenty-something all our life, and be doing that for ever. Then the inevitable happens, someone forgets to take their Pill, someone else thinks ‘Why not us?’ And, before you know it, baby bumps aren’t just trending, they’re exploding under every Nicole Farhi silk T-shirt. And whatever people say about not letting kids change their lives, they’re kidding themselves. I had an aunt’s-eye view when Tash had Tiddlywink and Wilf. It was like a hurricane upended their home and then came back through for seconds. Put it this way, once you shell out more on a Bugaboo Cameleon pushchair combo than a Vera Wang wedding dress – and there were plenty of both among Marcus’s friends – nothing’s ever the same again.

  But, getting back to Aunty Jo’s carrot patch, even for a cake-face like me, it’s huge. I’m also impressed at how obliging the door-to-door people are around these parts. I’m counting the sprouting carrots in my head and I get all the way to eleven before I falter. It could be the sea air, or Aunty Jo making me count along with her when she does her before lunch Stay Young stretches. But that’s the most I’ve reached for a long time, so in my head I’m giving a silent cheer.

  ‘We could have tea in the conservatory? As we have company.’

  ‘Great plan,’ I say. It’s warm in the garden room, even on cloudy days, and this way we sidestep the visitors seeing we live in what looks like a rainforest theme park.

  By the time the boy is kicking his way across the courtyard we’re settled onto basket chairs, marvelling at how the gunmetal paint on the window frames matches the shine of the distant sea. Aunty Jo pushes the door open, points at the mat and, after a frenzied foot wipe, the boy wanders over to where my pens are spread out on the low table next to me.

  He’s giving my felt tips a hard stare. ‘Aren’t you too old for colouring in?’

  I smile. ‘You think so?’

  He shrugs. ‘I don’t like colouring. I go over the lines.’

  I get that. ‘Same here.’

  His hands are deep in his pockets. ‘Making up your own pictures is better for your imagination.’

  Why didn’t I think about that? He could be right. ‘Anyway, I’m Edie Browne with an ‘e’, and this is Aunty—’

  She’s straight in there, filling the gap. ‘Jo. Aunty Jo. Jo like ‘joker’, because I laugh a lot. Let’s see how that one works?’ From the look she gives me she knows I’m liable to forget.

  I turn to the boy. ‘So do you have a name?’

  ‘Cam. Except at school I’m Cameron Michael Arnold, but that’s so long to write.’ He sounds despondent. ‘I’m really slow at writing.’

  ‘Me too.’ I’m not actually getting how Aunty Jo is any fun at all, but I can sympathise with the slow part. Even so, I bet if we had a race he’d win. If he’s here because he’s a sponge fan too we could have a lot in common. ‘But I’m fast at eating cake.’

  His eyes pull back into focus. ‘Barney said to hurry, we’re going to see a customer.’

  Aunty Joke’s tone hardens. ‘He will still have time for tea?’

  ‘Nope.’ Cam’s shaking his head.

  ‘That’s a shame.’ Not. I’m mentally punching the air with relief as I reach for the knife. ‘I’d better go fast then.’

  His brow furrows. ‘What are those orange things?’

  Do six-year-olds understand irony? ‘They’re icing carrots because it’s carrot cake. They’re meant to be funny.’

  He wrinkles his nose. ‘I don’t like vegetables.’

  That’s another thing we have in common. I prise off a carrot top and pass it to him. ‘Try one, they’re delish.’ Not that I could taste them myself, but if they’re M&S they have to be. As I watch him chew, his frown melts. ‘Good?’

  ‘Yep.’

  Aunty Joke isn’t giving up on her teapot. ‘Well, you can always have tea another time. Next weekend, maybe?’

  I slice through the buttercream. ‘One for now and one for later?’ I pass Cam the first chunk in kitchen roll, then wrap up the second.

  Aunty Jo prompts me, ‘Don’t forget – do some for Barney too, he’s here now. I just hope he doesn’t look at how dirty our windows are.’

  Damn. People like him don’t deserve cake. And I’m giving up on the window cleaner thing.

  When Barney finally slides his shoulder up against the frame, he fills the doorway. Then my worst nightmare happens and his eyes lock with mine. I clutch at my stomach as it lurches into some kind of cartwheel, spectacularly fail to stop it as it slips into freefall and somehow lose my grip on the cake knife, which arcs through the air and clatters onto the tiles next to Barney’s feet.

  He stoops to pick up the knife and as he stands up his lips twitch. ‘Hey there, butterfingers.’

  I roll my eyes. ‘You again? So soon.’

  Then, as his eyes slide down to the cake, they widen. ‘Nice carrots. Is that homemade?’

  Why the hell would I even care he’s noticed? As for the pang of disappointment that I can’t claim the cake as mine, that’s bonkers too because he’s the last person I’d want to impress. That little pool of wide-eyed awe of his isn’t one I’d want to bask in. Honestly.

  I feel my nose wrinkle. ‘I gu
ess someone with a home made it.’ I have no ideas where that bollocks came from, but I have to come clean. ‘It wasn’t me.’

  He looks half amused. ‘In that case I won’t say great cooking. Or make any mention of baking and entering.’

  I’m groaning inwardly at that, but I don’t flinch. ‘And I won’t say thanks a lot for the compliments, although I might risk an “enjoy”.’ But that’s only for Cam’s sake, obviously. Okay, someone please tell my mouth it’s time to stop. ‘And in case you’re thinking of sending the special constables round to interrogate us, it isn’t stolen – the person who brings that white stuff in bottles brought it.’

  His nostrils flare slightly. ‘Any cake is good cake as far as we’re concerned. Not that we’re desperate or anything.’

  ‘I’ll take your word on that.’ I swear that’s my last word too.

  ‘Ready, Cam?’ He cocks his head at the boy, then turns to Aunty Jo. ‘I hope it’s okay he gate-crashed your afternoon tea?’ He’s raising an eyebrow at Cam. ‘C’mon then, big man, fast as you can, we’re already late. What do you say?’

  ‘Thanks.’ Cam’s clutching his stack of cake parcels, dropping crumbs as he hurries out onto the stone-flagged path.

  ‘You will come again?’ There’s no time for Aunty Jo to say more because they’ve almost reached the lane.

  So there’s ‘in a hurry’. And there’s ‘bad mannered’. And I know where my money is.

  As she pulls the door closed behind them her voice has lightened. ‘He was nice.’

  ‘He was, I don’t see many kids that age.’

  Her eyes narrow. ‘Not the child, I was talking about Barney.’

  It takes me a while to pick myself up off the floor. ‘Nice, in what way?’ All that stubble and on-trend scuffed Timberlands still don’t make up for rushing off. Or accusing me of robbery. Even worse, now he’s gone my heart is pounding and my pulse is racing. I blame my faulty adrenalin circuits. The slightest excuse, they flood my body so I’m ready to run away. Which is great for survival and outsmarting the Neighbourhood Watch brigade, but leaves me feeling way more jumpy than I’d like.