Page 47 of A Secret Cornish Wish
‘I broke up with my last girlfriend a few months ago. I quite like being single right now, to be honest. I’ve got a lot on this last year of uni, with exams and my dissertation.’
‘Me too. We have a big final show of our artwork that’s quite a large percentage of our final grade. Not really any time for relationships. Right, this is me.’ We’ve arrived at the top of our road.
‘I do remember,’ Rob says, glancing down the street. ‘I remember a lot of things from back then.’
‘Good times,’ I reply quickly. ‘Happy memories.’
‘Very happy . . . It’s been really good to see you again tonight, Frankie. Really good.’
Rob looks into my eyes, and I’m shocked at how I feel when he does.
‘So . . . I guess I’ll see you tomorrow, then, at the wedding?’ Rob says when I don’t speak.
‘Uh-huh . . . ’ I whisper, as I just about manage to take control of my voice once more. ‘I’ll be there.’
I stand awkwardly on the pavement, not really knowing what to do. How is Rob having this effect on me again, after all these years?
Pull yourself together, Frankie!‘Goodnight, Rob.’ I manage to say in a voice that sounds vaguely normal.
‘See you tomorrow, Frankie.’ Rob winks.
I manage to reclaim control of my legs now, and I begin to walk down the road towards my old house – a small part of me feeling like I don’t really belong here any more, but, quite unexpectedly, a much larger part of me feeling like I’m fifteen again, and I’ve never been away . . .
Twelve
The next morning, I have a bit of a lie in. And as I snuggle under the duvet of my single bed, with Jon Bon Jovi looking down at me from the wall, I think about the previous evening.
Our little get-together was a lot of fun, and it was great to catch up with everyone again. Although I was used to seeing Claire when I came home to visit, for lots of reasons – but not for a want of trying – I hadn’t seen the other mermaids in a long time.
And I hadn’t seen Rob in about three years, I decide, as I try to remember our last encounter. I think it was probably in our first year of sixth form, when Rob had been home from his private school for the holidays and we bumped into each other on the beach one day when I was early meeting Claire and Suzy.
It was a little awkward, as it often was after the night of the school dance. Neither of us ever spoke about what happened that night; our ‘relationship’, if you could even call it that, simply faded away, and we were both happy to keep it that way. At least, that’s how it seemed.
Rob would still, occasionally, hang around with us when he was home from school, but as our little gang slowly thinned out with the departure of Mandy to London, then Suzy to follow her singing career, followed by Eddie and then myself after our A levels, our encounters became fewer and far between, until they never seemed to happen at all.
I thought about Rob more often than I cared to admit, and wondered how he was getting on. As casually as I could, I would try to get information about him from Mum or Claire when I was back in St Felix. But really Rob was just my teenage crush from school, who I was lucky enough to be with for a few fun days one summer, until he messed everything up at the dance with that girl.
However, if it wasn’t for Marnie, Suzy might never have had the confidence to showcase her voice. We all knew she could sing, but she never had the confidence to share her talent with anyone else. Now, it seemed, the confidence she gained from performing was about to get her foot in the door of her dream career.
I envied her.
Although I got into art college and I loved being in Glasgow, I still have no idea what I’m going to do when I graduate next year. Being a professional artist, as many of us on the course already acknowledged, was a dream that was incredibly hard to achieve.
‘It’s all right for you,’ I murmur, looking up at the poster of Jon Bon Jovi. ‘I bet you always wanted to be in a band. I bet you never had any of these problems, and I bet you never had a patchy love life, either?’ I grin at the poster silently smiling back at me. ‘No, of course you didn’t. Just look at you!’
Eventually I get up and grab a cup of coffee and a piece of toast from the kitchen. Mum and Dad have gone to do their weekly big shop at the local supermarket so I have the house to myself.
I work out roughly how long it will take me to get ready to be on time for Claire’s wedding at three o’clock. I need to shower, wash my hair, blow-dry my hair – I hate blow-drying my hair as it takes ages to dry, but it will have to be done today – then I need to do my make-up and actually get to the church.
I decide I’ve got just enough time to take a walk to freshen up both my mind and body after last night. In comparison to some of my student nights out, last night was fairly tame alcohol-wise, but I still want to look and feel my best for the wedding later, and a blast of fresh sea air will be just the job to blow away any alcohol-induced cobwebs.
I pull on some jeans, an old T-shirt and my burgundy Doc Marten boots, which I virtually live in at uni. I pull my unwashed hair back into a loose ponytail, then I wrap a checkered shirt around my waist in case the sunshine through the window is a decoy, and, as so often happens in St Felix, the wind is blowing in off the sea and it’s actually quite chilly – even in August.
I lock up the house, then walk down the hill into town.
St Felix, as is inevitable on a sunny Saturday in August, is filled to the brim with holidaymakers as I wind my way through the town. In their hands they carry a mixture of buckets and spades, bags filled with pasties, and melting ice-creams. It’s quite the art getting through them without getting ice cream in my hair or Cornish pasty in my face as they dawdle around on ‘Tourist Time’ or ‘Holiday Hours’ as we locals call it – i.e. slowly with all the time in the world.
I wonder if they’ve discovered my little hideout yet?I head up to my favourite place tucked high up in the rocks. When I was there yesterday it was late in the day; now it’s lunchtime – peak time for someone looking for somewhere quiet to sit and eat their lunch.
