Page 87 of Meet me at the Seaside Cottages

‘Where do you think?’

‘I don’t know . . . if I had to guess, I’d say . . . sandwiched in the middle, trying to get on with everyone at once?’

He smiles. ‘Exactly right! That’s how I feel.’

‘Me too,’ says Janey. ‘Squished.’

She has been focusing on him, and keeping an eye on Verity and Felicity, who have raced ahead, and realises suddenly that she’s trampled on a load of bluebells.

‘Oh, no,’ she says, looking down in dismay. The bluebells have so brief a span; to make it even shorter through carelessness feels terrible.

‘There’s plenty more,’ says Lowell, looking ahead. He turns around the wood, a woodpecker in the distance; early swallows overhead. They both look around for a while. ‘I was trying to think if there was anything I could possibly say; anything about these bluebells that a million people haven’t said before, a load of poets and clever people and all that.’

‘I know,’ says Janey. ‘But it doesn’t seem to capture it, does it?’

‘When I was wee,’ says Lowell, ‘I didn’t notice them at all. I mean I’m sure my dad pointed them out but . . . ’ He waves his hands around. ‘It was boring,go out and playstuff, you know.’

‘I do,’ says Janey. ‘You wanted a BMX.’

‘I had a BMX,’ says Lowell.

‘You posho.’

He grins. ‘I’m not even going to mention the ponies.’

‘Good,’ says Janey. ‘Wait – ponies,plural?’

‘If you’re after me for my money,’ says Lowell, ‘I can assure you, it’s all long gone. Tax and care homes. My mum’s body held out a lot longer than her mind.’

He winces; he’s tried to make light of it, but he hasn’t quite judged it right. Janey likes this in him, his obvious discomfort in getting it wrong.

‘What was she like?’

‘For the last ten years, absolutely fucking furious,’ says Lowell. ‘But before that . . . she was nice. Fun. I was just the one in the middle; they didn’t have to worry about me so much. Not like only having one.’

‘Or two,’ says Janey, but she’s smiling.

The sun strikes through the trees on to a wide tree stump and she sits down on it, checking for bugs first. It’s an old coat; it’ll survive. Verity and Felicity have found a fairy circle and have sat down on the ground, child and dog intent on something crawling along a branch.

Lowell is standing, enjoying the sun on the back of his neck.

‘As I got older, and when Verity was little, we thought – I thought – this was just the most magical place in the world. I told her that fairies came here to show you bells if you couldn’t hear them and she believed me completely.’

Janey sees his hands unconsciously sign the words for fairy and bells; he doesn’t even know he’s doing it.

‘That’s beautiful,’ she says.

He looks at her. ‘I don’t think she cares now.’

‘I don’t know,’ says Janey. ‘She’s interested in something.’

‘Getting an iPad,’ says Lowell.

‘Essie wouldn’t be interested either. She might take a picture of it for her Instagram.’

Her shoulders slump.

‘Tell me more about Essie,’ says Lowell.

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