Thirty-One
I walk back from the Lyle art gallery on Monday afternoon with my head full of thoughts, each jostling for attention.
My interview went extremely well, and Cordelia offered me the position there and then if I wanted it. The gallery houses many fine works of art – mainly modern, which isn’t exactly to my taste, but the job, the benefits, and most importantly the salary, are so good that dealing with a bit of modern art would to be a small price to pay.
I hesitate at a junction in the road. One cobbled street leads back to Claire’s house, where I know everyone is waiting for me to hear what happened at my interview. The other tarmac path leads up towards Morvoren Cove, where I know, if I’m lucky, I can spend a bit of time on my own for a while just thinking. And, boy, do I have a lot to think about.
Decision made, I quickly text Claire, telling her the interview has gone well, and I’ll be back soon to tell her more. Then I hurry along a narrow street that leads down towards the harbour.
As I walk quickly along Harbour Street, I pause for a moment at the deserted flower shop. It’s so sad to see it like this, abandoned and empty. No buckets of flowers outside, calling to people as they pass by. No bouquets being made up inside, and then tied with one of Rose’s special white ribbons.
I hope you’re all right, Rose
, I think as I stand gazing into the blank window. You’ve been through so much over the last few years.
Then I think about William, Rose’s late grandson, and her granddaughter, Poppy. Life can be so cruel. Maybe I should take my chances while they’re being offered to me. You just never know what’s round the corner.
I stand in front of the flower shop for another minute or so, before I decide I really must leave if I want some time alone up in my favourite spot. I’m about to walk away and continue on towards the hill, when I spot something on the wooden window ledge of the shop. I stare at it for a moment, before calmly picking it up and carefully placing it in my pocket.
Then I carry on my way, along the harbour and up the grassy hill, where I climb even higher before reaching my special place, which I’m overjoyed to see is just being vacated by an elderly couple wearing hiking boots and carrying rucksacks. They smile at me as I pass them.
Finally, I sit down, and as I do I let out a long sigh. But then I replace it by inhaling a deep breath of fresh sea air, and I immediately begin to feel calmer.
What a thirty-six hours it’s been. How do I even begin to process it all?
Let’s start with the easy stuff
, I tell myself.
The easy stuff is the job offer. It sounds great. Perfect, even. Absolutely nothing to complain about there. It’s almost too good to be true, so I spend the next few minutes trying to find a loophole or a drawback, something to make me decide to stay in Glasgow. But I can’t.
Before yesterday, my other worry would have been where we were going to live if we did move back here. But when I told Claire about my job offer, she went into overdrive.
‘Oh my goodness! That’s amazing. It would be so lovely to have you back here again. You can stay with me,’ she continued when I mentioned accommodation. ‘For as long as you like. You can have the room you’re in now, and we can clear the box room for Rosie. It needs decorating and we can do it in whatever colour she likes. I say box room – it’s easily big enough for a single bed and some furniture. One of the boys was going to have it at one stage, but they decided they liked sharing and playing their computer games and the like. So we left it like that, but it would be perfect for Rosie.’
‘Claire, take a breath,’ I said, trying to calm her down. ‘I haven’t got the job yet.’
‘Oh, you will! I know you will – it’s written in the stars. Talking of which, we’ve even got a little studio outside where you could paint in your spare time. I say studio, it was actually my dad’s shed, but it’s not really a shed, more of an outhouse. I can just see you in there creating your works of art – maybe you could sell some of them? You know how much the holidaymakers here love to buy a painting of St Felix to take home with them.’
‘I think we’re getting a little carried away now.’
‘Nonsense, you’re good and you know you are. Please say you’ll come and stay, Frankie. Alice will be off to uni soon and I’ll be so lonely here on my own with only the boys. I’d love to have some female company to even it out a little.’
So I agreed, if only to calm her down, that if
I got the job, and I decided to take it, I would temporarily come and stay with Claire until I was able to get my own place for Rosie and me.
Right, that was the easy stuff; now to something a little more complex that needed my attention.
Mack.
After Mack’s declaration in the early minutes of Sunday morning, I was lost for words for a moment or two, just sitting there and staring at him.
‘I should go,’ he said, standing up. ‘I shouldn’t have said that. I’m sorry.’
But, as he made a move for the door, for once in my life I didn’t wait for my brain to OK something. I did as Mack suggested I should do, and followed my heart.
Seeing him leaving, I jumped up and rushed over to him, grabbing his hand. Then, as he turned back towards me, his face full of sorrow and regret, I simply kissed him.
The look of surprise mixed with joy on Mack’s face is one I think I’ll never forget. And as I think about it now, I smile.
And what happened next, as we both followed our hearts and not our heads, and way before anyone else returned to the house, is something I don’t think I’ll ever forget either.
But Mack was due to fly back to New York late this afternoon from Heathrow. He left with Rob and Nixie early this morning, with the promise of calling as soon as he got back so we could sort something out.
That was another funny thing to happen – Nixie.
Cordelia left me in the ladies’ toilet on Saturday night, staring at my reflection in the sink mirror in a state of complete shock. As I stood there, Rob’s PA, Nixie, had exited the third of the cubicles behind me.
‘Hi,’ she said, smiling at me.
‘Hello,’ I replied.
‘I hope you don’t mind but I couldn’t help overhearing just now,’ she said as she washed her hands next to me. ‘That sounds like a great offer – you should take it.’
‘Sadly, it’s not quite that simple.’
‘Why isn’t it?’ she asked, moving over to the hand-dryer but not putting her hands underneath.
‘Just lots of stuff to consider.’
‘Isn’t there always?’
‘Probably.’
‘Rob talks a lot about you, you know?’ Her beautiful set of perfect white teeth formed into a warm and genuine smile.
‘Sorry.’
‘Why are you apologising?’
I shrugged. ‘Well, you and he must be . . . ’ I waved my hand awkwardly at her. ‘You know?’
‘Sleeping together?’
I feel embarrassed now as I remember.
‘Most people assume that,’ Nixie replied calmly. ‘But we’re not. Our relationship is totally a professional one.’
‘Sorry.’
‘Stop apologising. What is it with you English and your apologies? Is it like queuing? Do you just enjoy doing it?’
‘Not really. We moan about it mostly – queuing, that is.’
‘And the weather.’ Nixie winked.
‘Yes.’ I grinned. ‘We moan a lot about the weather too.’
Nixie smiled again, before becoming serious. And I saw in her sharp eyes she was definitely no bimbo. Underneath all her Botox and bleach, Nixie was one smart cookie. ‘You only get one life, Frankie. You never know how long it will last. Do what you think is right for you and for your daughter. Don’t go worrying about anyone else. Life has a funny way of showing you the right path to take. It might not be the path you’ve chosen for yourself – but know that whatever happens, life has got your back – eventually.’
And then without needing to dry her hands, she left.
‘Life has got my back?’ I repeat now. I sure hope so, because this next path already seems to have so many obstacles and I’ve not set off along it yet.
Realistically, what are Mack and I going to sort out when he phones? He lives halfway across the world in a huge busy metropolitan city. And I’m currently considering moving even further away from him, to a tiny, if beautiful, Cornish fishing town.
How are we supposed to have a relationship with that distance between us? Right now, it seems totally impossible.
But even just the memory of last night puts a huge smile on my face.
‘Life, I really hope you’ve got my back this time,’ I say into the wind, which picks up my words and carries them off into the sea. ‘Because this is definitely not the path I expected to be on – in fact, my whole life has suddenly become a huge, great detour.’
I reach into one of my pockets and pull out what I picked up from the shop window ledge.
It’s a beautiful conch shell. I probably wouldn’t have thought much of it if I found the shell anywhere else. But finding it so prominently on the flower shop windowsill made me think.
You never know what’s going to happen next . . .
‘If this is a sign from you, I get it,’ I say into the wind again, as it carries my words out onto the waves once more. ‘I have to make the most of every opportunity, because you never know when it might be your last.’
I reach into my other pocket, and then I look at what’s in my hand.
Two small shells rest in my palm – a cockle shell and a horn shell. Both of them in delicate shades of pink and cream.
The cockle shell, I found on the sink when Nixie left the restaurant toilets, and the horn shell had been on my seat when I stood to shake Cordelia’s hand after I accepted the job at the gallery. How I didn’t feel it when I sat down, I still couldn’t figure, but now it doesn’t seem to matter.
‘If that’s what you want, life, then that’s what I’ll do!’ I call out to the sea. I look down at the beach and then behind me at the town. ‘St Felix!’ I declare. ‘At long last it looks like . . . ’ My voice breaks. ‘I’m coming home!’
A tear runs down my face. As I brush it away and turn back, I hear the familiar, and for the first-time, comforting sound of splashing down below.
As I look down a tail flips over in the waves below me – its scales shimmering in the bright afternoon sunlight. I watch totally mesmerised as the tail splashes around below me not once, but several times. And suddenly I realise that the tail, and whatever it belongs to, is giving me its unique seal of approval.