Page 119 of Meet me at the Seaside Cottages

‘Not at our age!’

He grins, and then he kisses her, and pulls her abruptly closer to him, then closer still, and everything is bliss.

*

Afterwards, dazed and stupefied, astounded that it is even the same day, astounded that it has taken her until she was fifty-five to have sex like that, Janey sits downstairs, languid, unable to move, like a happy cat, a sleepy puppy under each arm. Lowell has put some Bach on his record player.

‘What happened to Gary Numan?’ she asks. He is dressed again – in clean trousers – and is making them omelettes, which makes her very happy because she is unbelievably hungry.

‘Well, you change as you get older. I like this too now.’

She listens. She doesn’t know much about classical music. It is a piano, that’s about all she can tell.

‘Is this sexy?’ she says. ‘Because if you were planning on seducing me later, I think that horse has bolted.’

‘I am planning on seducing you later,’ he says, tossing up the omelette, and the straightforward way he says it makes her shiver. ‘But also, this is very sexy! Listen!’

She does.

‘Do you hear how one hand picks up the tune and the other repeats it and turns it round? Total equality. Neither partner is dominant. Balance.’

She listens for a while until she can hear it.

‘Beautiful, yeah?’

‘I thought Bach was all, like, churches and stuff.’

He comes over with the pan and kisses the top of her head. ‘He had nineteen children,’ he says. ‘Sex is all he knew.’

‘And this,’ says Janey, ‘is why you are so very useful on a pub quiz team.’

And she gets up to join him at the kitchen table, wondering where he stands on giving large dogs small titbits.

48

Essie has been back to the fancy gift shop, which has been overwhelmed recently, and bought the biggest, fanciest ribbon she can find. It is pink and covered in diamanté studs. She adds some clip-on hair bows to keep Freuchie’s hair out of her eyes. She adds a leopard print leash. Then on a whim she buys the dog a leopard print jacket. And then she walks to the End of the World pub.

Shelby is chalking up the board for that night’s specials. It is Mexican night, apparently. Suddenly Essie feels incredibly impressed that somebody is having a go.

‘Uh, Shelby?’ she says.

‘Yeah?’

‘If you don’t want her, there’s loads of other people who do, so don’t worry about it but . . . I thought for the bar . . . ’

And she brings out the carrier behind her.

Shelby comes forward suspiciously. But when she sees what’s inside – Freuchie with her adorable little bow and pink diamanté collar and little leopard print jacket, she can’t help herself.

‘Oh, mah God!’ She looks up. ‘Really? For me?’

Essie nods. ‘I wanted to say thank you for helping us at the airport.’

‘Has she got a name?’

‘All yours,’ says Essie.

‘Wanna come in for a drink and show me how to work this thing?’ she says to Essie, almost off-handedly.

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