Chapter 3
We pull in at Dorchester station in Dorset late in the afternoon. It hasn’t taken too long at all, just a few hours to transport us from the hustle and bustle of Waterloo to this pretty town near the coast. Rose slept for the first hour, and listened to music for the second, and was so bored for the last part of the journey that she actually talked to me.
“So, where is it we’re going again? What’s the name of the place Ella lives? And how long are we staying for?”
“Starshine Cove,” I tell her, for approximately the third time. She might have been distracted by a bright shiny object the first two times. “The wedding’s on Friday, but Ella says we have the cottage for as long as we want, so we can have a little holiday. I’ve booked two weeks off work so we’ll see how it goes.”
We have had a few holidays in the past, mainly to places in the UK, camping and staying in the kind of caravan parks where there’s a kids’ disco at night and some poor soul has to dress up as a giant dinosaur. When she was thirteen, we went on a cheap last-minute fly-and-flop trip to Crete, where we spent the entire week floating around a pool on inflatable flamingos. She’s been to more exotic places with her dad, but this year she claimed she had to work and avoided their fortnight in Barbados.
“It looks gorgeous,” I say, when she doesn’t reply. “You might like it. Starshine Cove, I mean.”
She shrugs, and pulls a “maybe I will maybe I won’t” face. She remembers living in Manchester, but she’s spent the last decade mainly in rural Ireland, interspersed with stays with her dad and granny in London. I suppose she is used to both lifestyles, city and country, and seems to hate and love them equally depending on what mood she’s in.
Rose did her GCSEs last year, and got a good set of results, but so far she has no idea what she wants to do next. Since she left school she’s been working on Saturdays in a bookshop to earn pocket money, and doing some volunteering to try and find something she really loves.
I’m not pushing her to choose – it’s a big decision, and A-levels will wait, as will university. She’s a bright girl, but so far doesn’t seem drawn to anything academic; in fact the only career she’s shown any real interest in is being a florist. She loves working in our garden, and is never happier than when the wildflowers are in bloom. That hasn’t delighted her father, but I am without views on it – as long as she will be happy, and can earn enough money to be independent, that’s all that matters.
I was really driven at her age, determined to get into veterinary school – I worked hard, studied all hours, and achieved my ambitions. Now I work in a call centre because it’s pretty much all I can handle – so maybe I have a weird view of things. All I want is for her to wake up every morning pleased to greet the day, and to meet the world with confidence, not cower away from it in case it bites.
To be fair, she shows no signs of that – she is very much her own person, and often, like now, I find myself staring at her when she is busy with her phone, drinking in her features and wondering how I created something as magnificent as this.
It’s also a good distraction, because the journey has given time for a few niggling worries to creep into my permanently anxious mind. When Ella came to stay with us in Ireland last summer, it was lovely – but it was, somehow, tentative.
We were both happy to see each other, but also both conscious, I think, of how long it had been. Of how much water had flowed under our respective life-bridges. We kept it easy, pleasant, enjoyable – neither of us quite ready to open up fully. And as for Katie and Priya, I’ve not seen either of them for over fifteen years, and although we never fell out, I’m not proud of the fact that I lost touch with them so easily. I allowed them to slip out of my life as though they didn’t matter, when they very much did.
They will have changed – I know I have – and I suppose I am a little nervous about seeing them again. Maybe I should just accept that, instead of getting tangled up in it? I have this fun cycle where I start to worry at something, then get annoyed with myself, and then worry about the fact that I’m worried. Yay.
I am seeing friends I have been away from for a very long time. It is natural to have some anxieties about that. In fact, it would be weird if I didn’t.
As the train slows, I stand up and grab our bags from the luggage rack, handing one to Rose and carrying the bigger one myself.
“Is she meeting us?” she asks, pulling her headphones down. “Ella?”
“No,” I reply, as we make our way onto the platform and through to the front of the station. “Her friend Connie is coming to collect us, then we’re meeting Ella together. She has a dress fitting.”
“And how will we know who Connie is?”
“Ella just said not to worry about that… that it would be obvious!”
That had all sounded a bit mysterious, especially coming from my usually sensible old friend, until we emerge into the pale sunshine of a pleasant spring day. The sky is pastel blue, sea birds are streaking the air, and a curvy middle-aged woman with wild blonde curls is yelling at us, waving her arms over her head.
“Yoo-hoo!” she shouts, jumping up and down to attract our attention. She really needn’t have worried – she is so vivid and loud that she’s probably attracted the attention of passing space stations.
I see Rose blink in surprise – she is very much the cool and silent type, and would rather die than jump around waving her arms in the air. I wave back, and we cross the road to meet her. I am used to being taller than most women, but with Connie the difference is extreme – she may or may not be over five foot. What she lacks in height, she makes up for in exuberance, grabbing hold of me and squeezing. I am not one of life’s huggers, and grimace over her head. She gives the same treatment to Rose, who endures it far more stoically than me.
“You must be Connie?” I say, smiling.
The woman’s face immediately changes, a look of shock and regret on her features.
“Connie? Oh, gosh, no! I’m not. I’m so sorry, I must have hugged the wrong people! Darn it, I do that all the time.”
I am unsure of exactly how to react until she gives me a cheeky wink, and slaps me on the arm.
“Had you there, didn’t I? Of course I’m Connie – who else would I be? And you must be Lucy and Rose. Don’t try to fib to get me back, though, because Ella’s shown me photos of you. How was your journey? Are you hungry? Do you need anything? Come on, keep up!”
She has started to stride away, surprisingly fast for someone so small, and Rose and I share a glance before we do as we’re told and follow.
“This is weird,” Rose whispers as we trot behind her. “I think I’m a bit scared… what if she’s going to kidnap us?”
We catch up with Connie as she is opening the boot of a bright pink Fiat 500, which comes complete with eyelashes on the front headlights. If this is a kidnap car, it’s far from subtle. She takes one bag from me and manhandles it into the boot, and slings the other in the back seat with Rose.
“Thanks for coming to get us,” I say, once we’re all settled in the car – a vehicle that is definitely better suited to someone of Connie’s stature than mine. “I told Ella we’d make our own way, or hire a car.”
“Oh, it’s no bother,” replies Connie, waving off the idea. “And anyway, you’d have struggled to find the place.”
“I noticed that when I looked it up,” I say, watching in amusement as Connie retrieves a paper bag full of cookies from her glove box and silently passes them back to Rose. “I couldn’t find it on any of the maps, even old-fashioned ones on actual paper.”
“No, you wouldn’t. Officially, it doesn’t seem to exist. It’s a very special place, and not to freak you out or anything, but I have the feeling it only lets people who are invited come across it.”
Rose pauses with her mouth halfway to a cookie, and frowns.
“What do you mean, invited?” she says, already looking freaked out.
“I’m not sure what I mean, sweetie. I do have a tendency to ramble. But I found it by chance – car accident. Ella found it by chance – mechanical breakdown. In fact, most of the newcomers, and by that I mean people whose grandparents didn’t live there, seem to have arrived in Starshine Cove when they were trying to go somewhere else. It’s… well, it’s hard to explain, but some people just seem meant to end up there. You could drive around for days, going over the same country lanes, and never find it – or you could just stumble in, not sure what happened, but glad you did.”
She starts the Fiat and pulls out of her parking space with a jerk, and as she drives us out of town, along a dual carriageway and then onto winding country lanes, I suddenly start to understand why she mentioned a car accident. I find myself unconsciously gripping on to the seatbelt, giving it a tug to make sure it’s secure. I look behind me, and see that Rose is staring out of the window, eating another cookie.
I follow her gaze, and tell myself to relax and enjoy it. It really is beautiful here – lush and green, all rolling hills and glimpses of the sea, and spring wildflowers blossoming in thick hedgerows. It’s a different landscape to the one I’m used to, and as we drive, Connie gives us a commentary, pointing out local landmarks and telling us the names of the villages we pass.
It’s all very English, as though we are moving through a living postcard made up of velveteen colour and dripping fronds. One of the roads she takes us through is less of a road and more of a track – sunken down so low after centuries of use that the trees seem to reach out to each other, joining branches above us, sunlight filtering through the canopy to dapple the land beneath. Connie tells us it’s called a holloway, one of the few still used to drive on; the rest are for walkers only, some of them dating back to the Iron Age.
Rose seems far more interested in all of this than I would have expected, and I see her eyes flickering over the bushes and shrubs and petals, smiling at a thick tree trunk that is wrapped with deep green tendrils of ivy, wearing it like a coat.
We come out of the holloway into sunlight that feels impossibly bright after the shade, and start to climb a hill, the road trailing around it like a ribbon. When we finally reach the top, Connie takes us through a big wooden gate that’s pulled open, and down a meandering driveway that ends in front of a small collection of buildings.
They are old, made of mellow golden stone that seems to soak in the sunlight. Some are tall and imposing, others low and sprawling, all set around a perfect cobbled courtyard that is dotted with picnic benches and tables. Planters and hanging baskets are starting to bloom, and as I get out of the car, I hear the air is alive with birdsong.
I turn to look behind us, back the way we came. The view is breathtaking, taking in miles of tumbling green fields and clusters of woods and scattered wildflower meadows, all falling down, down, down to the shining blue flash of the sea.
Rose stands beside me, and I hear her sigh. It is about as effusive as she ever gets, and one look at her face tells me she is captivated.
“Wow,” she says quietly. “No filter required.”
Connie joins us, gazing below with just as much appreciation.
“It never gets old,” she says simply. “No matter how many times I’m here. The best view in the world. You see where the sand curves, right at the bottom? In a kind of little horseshoe shape?”
We both look, and nod when we spot it.
“Well, that’s Starshine Cove. Our very own secret slice of heaven. Right, come on then… I’m hoping there’s a glass of something cold and fizzy waiting for me in there, and I don’t mean Coke…”
She leads us across the cobbled courtyard and towards the buildings. I see various signs, one for an art gallery, another for a pottery, mixed in with a dog groomers’, a carpenter and a micro-brewery. It is quite the creative collective, and all of it looks to be prospering, despite being on top of the hill that time forgot.
We follow Connie to the building at the far end, which is single storey and looks like a barn conversion. A single wooden sign is hanging outside on brackets, swinging gently in the breeze, featuring a simple design of a needle and thread. The thread trails across the sign and stitches out a name – Becky Bell.
The picture window of the barn stretches from ceiling to floor, and features a solitary dressmaker’s mannequin, resplendent in one of the most beautiful gowns I’ve ever seen – a simple silk sheath in the palest of peaches, its hem embroidered with tiny pearls, the shoulders coated in a wisp of scalloped white chiffon. I’m not a woman easily swayed by pretty clothes – especially not wedding dresses, given my history – but this is exquisite.
“Nice,” says Rose at my side. “But I’d have to wear it with my Docs.”
I laugh, and tell her I think that would look grand, and we follow Connie through the door. Inside, there is a large open plan space, plain and white apart from framed pictures of weddings – presumably Becky’s designs brought to life. There are two huge squishy sofas set up with a chunky wooden coffee table between them – a coffee table that is currently burdened by a bottle of Champagne in a silver ice bucket.
I stop and smile as I take in the scene, giving myself a few moments to adjust. Priya and Katie are sprawled on one sofa, chattering away to each other, both holding almost-empty Champagne flutes. They squeal with laughter at something one of them has said, and I suddenly find myself transported through time: to bars in Paris, to youth hostels in Provence, to train journeys along glittering coastlines, to all-night parties around campfires on beaches in Spain… to a different life.
I haven’t seen my friends in person for many years, but time has been kind. Priya still has her glossy curtain of black hair, and although her huge brown eyes are now cradled by fine lines, they still sparkle with humour. Katie has cut her curls into a shoulder-length bob, put on some weight, and looks a lot more respectable than she used to – but her earthy laugh, the kind that says she’s just heard and loved the world’s dirtiest joke, is still as vivid as ever.
They’re so busy giggling that they haven’t noticed us arriving, and I enjoy this quiet moment to just look, to observe. To feel a sense of relief at being back with them, a physical reminder of a time in my life when everything was so very different. I know that once this spell is broken, once it all becomes real, we will just be normal human women with all our complexities and quirks. We might annoy each other, or feel uncomfortable, or have years-old bones to pick – but all of that can wait. For this one perfect moment, I am happy to enjoy this uncomplicated feeling of happiness.
Rose is looking at me curiously, and I realise that I am grinning. That the joy of seeing them again is visible on my face. Perhaps she is not used to seeing this expression, which is a shame, and something I vow to change.
“What’s up, bitches?” I say, as soon as they stop laughing. Both of them turn at the same time, and let out whoops of happiness. Priya jumps up to her feet to run around the sofa and hug me, but Katie just scrambles right over the top of it – clearly she’s not quite as respectable as she looks.
Within seconds I am enveloped in their arms, squeezed into their embrace, all three of us laughing and yelling and eventually doing a series of giant jumps, like a human pogo stick, bouncing around the room in sheer pleasure. We bump into Connie, then ricochet off a wall, and then pinball into the back of the sofa before we finally disentangle ourselves and settle for standing together, holding hands.
Priya lifts up her palm, and places it on my cheek. She stares at me intensely, and it feels like she is reading my soul. She must be a very good – and possibly terrifying – psychiatrist.
“It’s been too long,” she says simply, leaning in to kiss the other cheek. “How did we let that happen?”
I search for signs of recrimination, of blame, but I see none.
“It doesn’t matter how,” replies Katie, firmly. “There’ll be time for post mortems later, or possibly when we’re dead. All that matters is that we’re together again now. Watch out, Dorset, the girls are back in town!”
This gets a far bigger laugh than it deserves, because I suspect we all know that Dorset has nothing to fear from any of us. Priya and Katie are both married with five kids between them, my own daughter is standing in bemused silence behind us, and Ella – well, Ella is about to get married. We are not the irresistible boy-babe magnets that we used to be.
While we have been enjoying our raucous reunion, Connie has settled down on the opposite sofa, enjoying the show and pouring herself a small glass of fizz. She has her legs curled up beneath her, and has tied her blonde hair into a rough knot on top of her head. She’s older than us, I think, but has that Dolly Parton thing going on, where she could be anywhere between thirty and sixty.
“That was fun,” she says, grinning. “If you could bottle that feeling and sell it, the world would be a happier place.”
“And we’d be rich!” replies Katie, letting out an evil-mastermind laugh. “Then we could become ladies of leisure and never work again.”
“I would,” Priya announces. “I love my job, and no amount of money would tempt me away.”
Katie thinks about this, and says: “Well, now you come to mention it… yeah, I love mine too. But maybe I’d go part-time.”
They all look at me, and I shake my head in amusement.
“No,” I answer. “I’d be out of there like a shot!”
I suppose – but do not say – that there is a big difference between what I do to make money, and what they do because it’s a vocation. I mean, I don’t hate my job, not at all – but neither am I passionate about it. That’s fine by me – passion is over-rated in my opinion. It is, though, yet another way in which our lives have separated, another sign of the schism that I hope we can overcome.
“Rose,” I say, ushering her forwards. “These are my friends Priya and Katie. Ladies, this is Rose.”
“Oh my God…” mutters Katie, staring at her. “You’ve grown a bit since I last saw you.”
I met up with Katie when Rose was still a babe in arms, when she was visiting Manchester for a conference. We’d met for coffee, and I’d pretended my life was perfect, even though I already knew by that stage that it was anything but. It was, in fact, the last time I saw her. Between Robert’s disapproval and my own sense of – shame? maybe embarrassment? I’m still not totally sure – the years have slipped by, as years tend to do.
They tried, these women, to stay in my life – but there are only so many excuses you can make, so many calls you can dodge, so many invitations you can turn down before people run out of patience with you. Plus they had their own lives, their own careers, their own marriages and children – and just like that, it feels like a lifetime has passed us by. All of this runs through my mind in a split second, and I feel guilty and sad all at once. I’ve never stopped thinking about them, never stopped wishing things had been different. Never stopped missing them, I suppose – but I did manage to simply turn my back on them. I cut myself out of their lives, and their lives went on.
“How old was I when you last saw me?” Rose asks, eyeing the Champagne. She’s a good girl, but she’s still sixteen.
“Umm… maybe six months?”
“Right,” Rose says, shrugging nonchalantly. “Well, it’s definitely not surprising that I’ve grown then. Nice to meet you again, Katie.”
She handles everything so well, I think, looking on as she nestles between the two of them on the sofa, and I sit by Connie’s side. Meeting new people, her dad, her siblings, all of it – nothing seems to faze her. It’s a miracle really, and I fear I am starting to hero-worship my own daughter just a tiny bit. I reassert control by shaking my head when she points at the booze, and she narrows her eyes and hisses at me.
I have no illusions – I know she has taken a drink before. We’ve all been teenagers, and that’s what parks and illicit bottles of vodka are made for – but knowing it and allowing it are two different things.
Priya is in the middle of asking her what she wants to do when she’s older – which I’d also be interested in hearing – when a very small, rather round brunette woman with an insanely pretty face walks into the room. She’s come from the back, where I presume there must be stock and fitting rooms and probably her workshop, or whatever it’s called when you’re a dressmaker.
She pauses, waiting until she has our attention. “Ladies, Ella is ready to show you her dress – make sure you’re kind!”
Connie sits up tall and actually claps her hands in glee, and the rest of us all immediately go silent, staring towards the back of the room. The woman – Becky the dressmaker, I’m guessing – goes to a long white curtain, and my friend pops her head out from behind it. She sees I am there, grins and nods at me in welcome.
“I thought you might have arrived,” she says. “From the decibel level. Okay, I’m coming out.”
She takes tentative steps towards us, a small but nervous smile on her face. She comes to a stop, and the nervous smile becomes a full-on grimace as we all stare at her.
“Oh no,” she murmurs, looking distraught, “is it that bad?”
Connie immediately leaps to her feet, and the rest of us follow, crowding around her.
“It’s beautiful!” I say, reaching out to touch her but deciding I don’t want to risk messing up the dress. “You’re beautiful! It’s all beautiful!”
“Yeah, what she said!” Connie adds, her eyes swimming with tears. “It really is perfect… we were all just stunned, my love, that’s all.”
Priya, Katie and Rose all start to add their praise, and eventually, Ella laughs, and seems to calm down. She gazes down at her dress, then back up at us, biting her lip.
“It’s not too much? Too young? I mean, I’m not exactly a blushing virgin, am I?”
The gown is white, to be sure, but it is a million miles from being too young. It is, in fact, pure class – made of silk with an overlay of delicate Chantilly lace, an elegant square neckline offset by dainty cap sleeves. The Empire-line waist is accentuated with a silk band and a bow, and the skirt flows down to her currently bare feet.
Ella’s dark blonde hair falls in waves around her now blushing face, and she holds it up to show us what it will look like on the day.
“I was thinking I’ll have it up,” she says. “My friend Cally – she moved to Starshine recently – she’s a hairdresser and she says she’ll do it for me, and my make-up. I was going to get a spray tan, but I keep remembering that episode of Friends where Ross’s goes wrong and he ends up totally orange… and to be honest, it all feels a bit strange! I’m nervous – not about Jake, I’ve never been more sure about anything before – but about the day, and the dress, and all the stuff I’ll have to do!”
Becky fiddles with one of her sleeves, righting a wrong that nobody else can see, and says: “Well, that’s natural, Ella. All my brides feel like that. But it seems to be like you won’t be doing all that stuff on your own.”
Ella looks up and around, at all of us. At Connie, and Priya, and Katie, and Rose and me. She looks at us all, and presumably likes what she sees.
“I don’t suppose I am,” she concedes, finally managing a real smile. “The gang’s all here!”