Page 32 of Meet me at the Seaside Cottages

‘We’ll go and find the owner,’ says Janey. ‘I’m sure they can sort this out.’

Nobody mentions what happens if they don’t want to sort it out.

16

The house address is on the edge of town, and turns out to be the large, crumbling Victorian schoolhouse Janey herself attended for a couple of years until they built a brand-new pebbledashed flat-roofed one, which itself has now been pulled down. It is looking very worn – weeds growing out of the path – but is still standing. The old playground is now a garden – a beautiful one, she sees, looking closer, with new bougainvillea popping out of the corners like fireworks.

‘Mum!’ says Essie. ‘Mum! He was going to kill those puppies!’

‘People do,’ says Janey, sadly. ‘Sometimes.’

‘Evil people.’ She looks at her mother. ‘You have to take one.’

‘I’m in no position to have a dog,’ snorts Janey. ‘I work twenty miles away!’

‘Dogs love going in cars.’

‘In a hospital!’

‘Dogs are therapeutic in hospitals, everyone knows that. Anyway, you don’t work in a hospital, you work in a shipping container in the corner of the car park.’

‘It’s a prefab, thanks,’ says Janey, although for once Essie is right. ‘Anyway, I think I have enough on my plate for now, don’t you?’

Essie frowns. ‘What, you mean with me?’

‘No, of course not. Look,’ she says, changing the subject quickly. ‘This is my old school. I knew they’d made it into a house but I didn’t know people lived here now.’

‘Who?’ says Essie.

‘I don’t know.’

‘You! Not knowing someone in Carso?’

‘It’s a town!’

‘It’s a . . . hamlet.’

‘It has a Scot Nor,’ says Janey. ‘I don’t want to have this conversation again.’

‘It doesn’t have a railway station.’

‘It has an airport!’

They step into the garden. The wind has died down. It is overgrown, but filled with spring flowers, randomly scattered: tulips everywhere in different colours, and some early-budding roses. Janey bends in to have a closer look and can hear the buzzing of industrious bees going about their business among the thick grass; under the clear sun it looks an enchanting world to be in. In the shadier parts under the trees, wild white mushrooms are growing, in fairy rings, and, here and there, small patches of bluebells.

‘What a pretty garden,’ she says.

‘It’s a mess,’ points out Essie.

‘Yes, but it’s a pretty mess.’

‘Like me,’ says Essie, to make her mum smile, which it does.

‘You’re not a mess!’ says Janey. ‘The world is a mess, and you got stuck in it.’

‘Nobody else is,’ says Essie, quietly.

‘Everyone else is!’ says Janey. ‘Some people are just better at hiding it than others.’

---