Page 92 of Meet me at the Seaside Cottages

*

Essie does a remarkably efficient job of replacing the newspaper, only briefly stopping to read the headline, which was, predictably, about the housing crisis and how young families were having to move into the caravan park on the next bay along, while homes that might once have belonged to them were sold at eye-watering prices to be used for holiday lets, or as second homes for people who lived down south to visit for a couple of weeks a year. She makes herself not look at it. A local person is going to be helped.

Then she takes the dogs out into the garden. The speedwell is coming up through the grass; it needs mowing. She wouldn’t blame Lowell for giving up while it has a clutch of noisy puppies charging through it at all hours of the day. She gives the chicken wire a thorough check all round the edges. Nothing seems too gnawed so far, but she wouldn’t put it past Smokey to be able to jump over it quite soon.

As she’s straightening up, she senses a presence behind her, and whips around. Outlined against the old Victorian schoolhouse, at first she thinks she’s seeing a ghost: a school-age girl with long, dark hair, standing with her hand buried in the neck fur of a huge dog.

Of course, the dog is Felicity, which means the child must be Lowell’s daughter, Verity. She hadn’t come out before and Lowell hadn’t thought to introduce them.

‘Hello,’ she says, then remembers Verity doesn’t speak, and waves to her. Her mum tried to teach her a little sign language when she was younger but she had loudly protested that it was boring and pointless because she wasn’t going to do the same job as her mother. She winces, now, remembering that. She didn’t want to be cruel to her mother; sometimes she was just upset about other things and it just came out.

Anyway, her mum had been right: it would have been useful. She waves again, limply.

Verity stares straight at her with huge dark eyes, very like her father’s, but she doesn’t say anything. He’s an old dad, Essie thinks. He’s older than her stupid dad. Mind you, her stupid dad has a six-year-old. They’re all at it, dirty old men.

‘I’m here for . . . the puppies?’

Brilliant financial fixer by day, she thinks, puppy poop-scooper in the mornings. Modern all-round woman.

She expects Verity to come and play with the pups – they couldn’t be any more adorable right now, eyes open, tugging and playing with a selection of toys, rolling around the grass, eating some of it in chunky little Bute’s case, then realising that it was not meant to be eaten and coughing it back up again melodramatically – but she hangs back, standing with Felicity, who is avoiding her pups in case they try – as they always do – to fix their painful teeth on to her still-drooping teats in the hopes of a feed, even though those days are gone and the dogs are now on cereal, a development that is to prove not much fun for Essie in the mornings and cause a sharp spike in bleach sales at the Scot Nor.

Essie beckons her over to at least give Bute a cuddle, but Verity quite slowly and deliberately turns away with Felicity and walks her to the other side of the garden, the part that the pups can’t get to. This isn’t, Essie reckons, about being deaf. She is ina definite mood. Essie can empathise, being in a fairly massive mood herself, and wishes she could figure out a way to bridge the gap.

Presently Lowell emerges with a coffee for her.

‘Thanks,’ he says, passing it over and taking a sip of his own. ‘It’s . . . a bit much in the mornings. No? Too hot for you.’

‘Wait a minute,’ says Essie, as a small, shiny black nose emerges from his cardigan pocket. ‘How come you’ve still got Argyll?’ She looks at the other pups. ‘God, I counted wrong. Shit, I could have lost one.’

‘Well,’ he says, ‘she’s so wee. It’s not really fair to let her compete with the other pups; she doesn’t get enough food.’

She appears to be licking butter from his fingers.

‘Uh-huh,’ says Essie.

‘How’s your mum?’ he asks.

Essie sighs and he looks surprised.

‘Really?’ he says. ‘She’s . . . she’s dead nice, your mum.’

‘Oh, yes, everyone just loves her,’ says Essie, not without bitterness. She’s still feeling stung and almost misses the implication of Lowell asking about her. No, she thinks, that’s just ridiculous. Not her dumpy mum. She discounts it immediately.

‘I’m sorry,’ says Lowell, glancing at Verity, who, as soon as she notices, turns away quite dramatically. ‘I know a bit about what it’s like to be a disappointment to your offspring.’

*

Essie looks over too and smiles, but Verity scowls back. Essie glances up at the sky. It is black and threatening. It’s going to rain today, no doubt about it. Not a lot of fun when you’re cross with a parent.

‘Is she missing her mum?’

‘I think so. It isn’t going to help, me having to work today.’

‘I have a plan,’ says Essie, because, suddenly, she does.

The rain comes on and they stick the pups back in the laundry, then Essie feels around her bag. She has let her personal grooming drop quite considerably since she’s been back, but it doesn’t mean she’s forgotten. She heads into the main room.

Verity doesn’t hear her come in until Essie approaches carefully, waving. She doesn’t smile.

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