Page 12 of The Little Flower Shop By the Sea
‘What’s wrong?’ Jake asks, looking at me questioningly over the table. ‘You’ve gone all quiet on me. And you may be many things, Poppy, but you’re certainly not that.’
Never one to mince my words, I tell him straight: ‘I don’t see married men.’
Jake looks around him. ‘Where don’t you see them?’
‘No, I mean I don’t date married men. It’s one of my rules.’ I sit back smugly in my chair and fold my arms. Actually I’m lying, I don’t have rules for dating, but it makes me sound good.
Jake’s tanned forehead furrows at first, puzzled by what I’m saying, and then his expression changes to one of mirth. ‘You think this –’ he waves his finger backwards and forwards between us – ‘this is a date?’
Miley, sitting on his shoulder, mimics him by shrieking and holding her tummy as if she’s belly-laughing.
My cheeks annoyingly redden once more. ‘Well, what is it then? You ask me out for dinner, then you tell me you’re married. I’m sorry, but the twonevermix in my world.’
Jake nods. ‘Ah, now I see.’
‘What? What do you see?’ I demand.
Jake takes a long drink, draining the last of his pint, then he places the glass firmly back down on the table.
‘Well, thanks for making me feel like the local letch – which I can assure you I’m not. I was merely being friendly, that’s all. Rose was a lovely lady and a good mate of mine, and I thought it would be the right thing to do to look after her granddaughter. Obviously I was wrong.’ He stands up. ‘Enjoy your evening, Poppy. Maybe I’ll see you around before you leave St Felix.’
Then to my horror, without a backward glance he turns and walks with Miley in his arms through the doors of the pub.
Sitting still in my seat, my cheeks flaming as hot as the plates of steaming fajitas Richie is serving to a couple at a nearby table, I lift my glass of beer and sip quickly, glancing around me to see if anyone else has witnessed what’s just happened. But the pub is fairly empty and the few people who are in here are too involved in their own business to be watching me. So I quietly stand up and slip out of the door unnoticed.
Which is exactly the way I like it.
Four
Snowdrop – Hope
Snowdrop Cottage, my grandmother’s old home, is a tiny two-up two-down terraced house in the middle of another narrow street, bizarrely called Down-Along, which leads up from the opposite end of the harbour to The Daisy Chain.
It’s not that far from the shop, but I need to pull up in front of the narrow whitewashed cottage to unload my stuff from the Range Rover, and in doing so I manage to block the entire road for a few minutes.
Eventually, after apologising to the queue of drivers I’ve held up, I park the car back at the nearby Pay and Display car park then return to the house to unpack.
It doesn’t take long, I haven’t brought that much stuff with me, so as soon as I’ve hung a couple of bits up in the bedroom I used to sleep in as a child with my brother, found some bedding and made up one of the twin beds, I take a quick look around the house.
The downstairs is much as I remember; the quiet, pretty bedroom I’ve chosen to sleep in is at the back of the house next to a tiny bathroom. At the front, looking out on to the street, is a cosy kitchen with pale blue wooden units, a black Aga range cooker, and a kitchen table with four chairs. Upstairs, my grandmother’s old bedroom at the front of the house is exactly as I remember it; there’s a huge wooden bed with a feathery patchwork eiderdown, standing in the middle of whitewashed wooden furniture that belongs in a much bigger room. At the back of the upstairs of the house there’s a light, bright sitting room, with a plump scarlet sofa covered in further patchwork cushions, a rocking chair, a small TV, and a large bookshelf packed with books, magazines and papers. The reason my grandmother had chosen to have her main living room upstairs is easy to see when you enter the room. Through an ornate pair of French windows that lead out on to a small balcony, the back of the house commands a glorious view of St Felix Bay that I remember vividly.
I take a quick peek through the windows. Sadly much of the view is blanketed in a dense sea mist and it’s tipping down with rain. But what I do notice standing out on the balcony, drinking up the raindrops pelting down on them, are bunches of drooping yellow daffodils and colourful tulips in a series of wooden planters.
My stomach growls as I stand there, and I realise I’ve not eaten since I stopped at the service station earlier. So I head downstairs and pull on a big navy mac with a hood that’s hanging on a peg outside the kitchen. I toy with the sou’wester that’s hanging next to it, but decide I look daft enough already in this get-up without adding to my humiliation.
Then I grab my bag, lock the door and head down into the town to find food.
It’s not long before the smell of fish and chips comes wafting towards my nostrils, so I head into Harbour Fish & Chips – shaking myself like a dog before I go through the door to remove as much water as possible from my person.
There are a couple of people already queuing in front of me so I stand back and wait.
‘Just the one portion tonight, is it?’ I hear the round, jolly-looking counter assistant ask. ‘That’s not like you, Jake. With your lot it’s usually a bulk order!’
Oh no, it isn’t, is it?
But it is.
‘Change of dinner plans, Mick,’ a familiar voice says. ‘The kids have already eaten. It’s just me tonight.’
