Page 68 of Meet me at the Seaside Cottages

‘Just walk over there.’

‘No way!’ says Essie. ‘What, just turn up out of the blue? God, Mum, you are so Gen X.’

Which feels not remotely fair, as Essie had adored everyFriendsrerun when she was a tween, and had always said she was envious of the way people just turned up at each other’s houses without a hundred and seventy-five WhatsApp messages needing to be sent first.

‘It’ll be fine.’

‘A strange girl turning up on his doorstep. No way. Come with me?’

Janey was going to tell her not to be daft, she’s a grown-up, but oh, how often does Essie want to do things with her? Plus, it might be ridiculous but . . . she wants to see Lowell. She isn’t young; she’s certainly far too old to have a crush. She thought she’d grow out of it. She thought, when she was younger, that surely only the young felt terrible yearning. Grown-ups couldn’t possibly feel it. And she doesn’t, for the most part. She can appreciate a nice-looking young man, but this is different somehow. It’s the smell of him, the gentle timbre of his voice; the way he thinks deeply before he speaks; his beautiful house, and the clear reflection of his character drawn upon it; his deep love for his daughter. She has it bad. Not that he would be looking at her. But she has it far too bad not to traipse past his house, like a teenage girl going out of her way to get on at a different bus stop.

‘Sure,’ she finds herself saying. ‘Plus I want to see Bute.’ She quickly amends this to, ‘All of the puppies.’

‘Has her arse gone back into proportion with the rest of her body yet?’

‘She’s the Kim Kardashian of dogs,’ says Janey. ‘Only a bit hairier.’

*

Outside in Carso it is a day to make you sing. The birds are everywhere, chattering with excitement, and everything is yellow and bright; the grass, after the long winter rains, as green as a jewel, and, if you look closely, buzzing and humming full of life. Clematis bursts like slow-motion fireworks from hedgerows, and the streets are full of Saturday people; early tourists, excited to have beaten doom-laden weather reports: locals just going for a stroll, feeling the luxury of being able to discardtheir big winter puffas; considering leaving the house without one of Gertie’s knitted berets on. Unfurling their instinctive hunches against the north wind; embracing its sweeter, sunnier cousin.

‘See,’ says Janey, following Essie and shading her eyes. ‘If it was like this every day you’d get bored. You’d get fed up of all the lovely weather and you’d hate the sunshine. Whereas when it happens like this, it has a rarity factor that brings you far more joy . . . ’

‘Hmm,’ says Essie. ‘Rather than horrible then amazing, can it not just be “not bad”, and average everything out?’

‘No,’ says Janey. ‘I love the horrible too. That’s what the peat stove is for, and the big curtains, and a good book and the telly.’

Essie looks at her, uncharacteristically open. ‘You really love it here, don’t you?’

Janey nods at old Mrs Patterson on the high street, hoping she’s solved her feedback issues. ‘Of course I do . . . oh. Yikes.’

Lowell is in front of them. Janey immediately flushes hot, completely flustered. She hasn’t even had a chance to put some mascara on.

She is so attuned, she had already recognised him, all the way down at the harbour’s edge; the bulky shape of him, getting out of an electric Volvo. An electric Volvo was exactly, she thought, what a stupid architect would drive.

She thinks back to the night before. When nothing happened. When they shared a bottle of wine on a weekday night, and the thought that they were a man and a woman in the same room did not even cross his mind. She feels her body slump. Even more than it slumps normally.

‘Oh, is that him?’ says Essie, craning her eyes and starting forward.

Lowell has gone to the back door of the car and is opening it, and a slight, short figure with long, dark hair is getting out. Janey feels her heart-rate speed up.

‘Ooh,’ says Essie. ‘He’s got a girlfriend.’

Janey feels faintly hurt – not that he has a girlfriend, because she already knows that the figure is not at all his girlfriend; but that Essie might not consider it of the slightest concern to her whether he does or not.

‘Don’t be daft,’ she says, as they squint in the sun. ‘That’s his daughter.’

‘Okay. Well, good.’

‘She’s deaf,’ says Janey.

‘Oh, right. Has she got an implant?’

‘She doesn’t.’

‘Oh, no.’ Essie stares at her hands. Janey had made both her children take basic courses in BSL when they were small, but they hadn’t practised it or kept it up.

‘You’ll be fine.’

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