Chapter 5
The whole green is covered in trestle tables, shelves, and clothes racks on wheels. You can barely see the grass, there’s so much stuff being shared. It’s like a giant car boot sale, without the cars, and without the sales.
“Wow,” says Rose, gazing at the ocean of random items. “I think I may have died and gone to heaven. Are you sure we can’t bring that teapot with a donkey’s tail for a handle?”
The donkey teapot is just one of the items in Kittiwake that Rose had tried to bring with her this morning. The cottage is homely and cosy and cute, but it is out-dated – it looks exactly like a place owned and decorated by a couple who are now in their eighties.
“I don’t think it’d be polite to get rid of other people’s stuff, love – and anyway, leave it long enough and it all comes back into fashion. If you’re that keen to take part, why don’t you offer up your headphones and your stripey fingerless gloves?”
“I’d rather offer up my still beating heart, Mum. I suppose it’s all very… Marie Kondo, isn’t it? Do you think everyone’s gone through their houses, deciding which things give them joy, which things are useful, and which things should be given to a neighbour?”
I browse one of the tables, which features – among many other delights – a toilet roll holder knitted into the shape of a doll, a pair of old-fashioned roller boots, a huge stack of What Car? magazines from the 1980s, and a big box of golf balls. I see that Rose is tempted by all of it, but I limit her to the roller boots. I will spend every minute she’s using them imagining trips to AE, but a girl’s got to live.
Connie’s stall is absolutely brimming with jumble – clothes, books, crockery, toys, a collection of knitting needles and balls of wool. I see toiletry sets and a battered Walkman and even a heap of different-sized dumbbells. If this is what she’s cleared out, I wonder what could possibly be left in her house.
She spies us approaching, and runs around to greet us, grabbing something from the table first.
“Look!” she says triumphantly. “I got him back, my lovely old singing fish!”
She holds the plastic bass up for us to inspect, and I decide that “lovely” would not be my choice of word. But as she presses the button and dances him around as he sings, I don’t think I’ve ever seen a happier person.
“George had taken him,” she says excitedly, “you know, my father-in-law, I showed you his cottage yesterday? He’s a wise old goat, and said he knew I’d want him back at some point, so he kept him for me… come on, I’ll introduce you!”
We trail behind her, Rose clutching her boots, until we are presented to a handsome older man with a shock of silvery-white hair and dazzling blue eyes. He’s dressed smartly in a shirt and tie, and his face breaks into a welcoming smile when he sees us. At his feet, curled up in a large ball, is an elderly Golden Retriever who thumps her tail once at our approach.
I kneel down to pet her, seeing the greying muzzle and cloudy eyes that signify a long life in one of these gorgeous creatures. I stroke back her fur and look into her eyes, gazing up at George and asking: “Has she been checked for cataracts, or is it nuclear sclerosis?”
“The second one,” he replies, leaning down to ruffle her mane. “Not much we can do about it, but she gets along just fine. She won’t be chasing many more squirrels up trees, though, that’s for sure. She’s Lottie, by the way.”
Lottie gives my hand a gentle lick, and I stand up to actually pay attention to the human who allegedly owns her.
He offers up a handful of silk scraps. “Can I interest you in some… what would you say these are, Sam?”
He’s talking to a tall dark-haired teenager who is helping him with his table. Sam is even more dapper than George, and is wearing a shiny gold pocket watch with his waistcoat. He takes the bundle, inspects it, and frowns.
“Vintage post-war cravats, George,” he says. “Some of them very fine indeed. You can’t get rid of these!”
“Why not, lad? When am I ever going to wear a cravat? Take them yourself if you want. You know I’ve got to get rid.”
He looks at me and grins, adding: “I’m down-sizing. I’m moving to a smaller house, and I seem to have amassed quite a lot of stuff over the last few decades. Can I interest you in a set of cricket whites and the complete works of Wilbur Smith?”
I laugh, and wave my hands in protest.
“No, thank you!” I say quickly. “I’ve got to get a flight home at some point. I can’t be taking half of Starshine Cove with me.”
George looks crestfallen, but gives me a wink to show he doesn’t mean it. I notice that Rose is chatting to Sam about the neon-orange roller boots she’s still holding like a baby. She asks if he wants a go, and he says he likes her purple streaks, and before you know it they seem to be friends. It has taken them ten seconds to decide that they are of the same tribe.
I hear him warning her “there’s no wi-fi, you know…” in a horrified voice, as he leads her away to show her the best table for “handbags and gladrags”.
Connie is trying on one of George’s charcoal greatcoats, which comes to her ankles, and he places a fedora on her head to complete the look, her blonde curls bursting out beneath it.
“There,” he says seriously. “You look like the world’s most ridiculous spy!”
I laugh, then leave them to it and continue to wander. Everyone chats to me, and tells me their names, all adding to the blur of new knowledge I feel like I have nowhere to store. As soon as they find out that I’m Ella’s friend here for the wedding, many of them go on to regale me with stories about how she helped cure their gout, or treated their asthma, or brought Larry around to visit them when they were feeling low.
It is lovely to hear all of this – to see how Ella has found her place here. She lived for many years in London, struggled through the dark times of Covid working in a busy hospital, and only ended up in Starshine when she split up from her long-term boyfriend Mark and went on a crazy road trip all by herself. I suspect there’s more to the story than that, but when she visited me in Ireland last year, we were both still taking gentle steps back into each other’s lives.
It makes me happy to find her here among these people, very much part of a community, and apparently thriving in every possible way. I work from home quite a bit, and even when I’m in the actual physical building, keep myself to myself. I have no close neighbours, and even though the nearest town is a small one, I’d be hard pressed to tell you much about the people who live there. In fact, I probably already know more about the residents of Starshine Cove, even if I do get their names mixed up.
That, I realise, as I browse a stall that seems to be made up entirely of board games, is not the fault of the place where I live; it is the fault of nobody but me. I needed that insulation, that cocoon of safety, when I first ran from London and from Robert – but now?
Now, maybe it’s less of a cocoon and more of a smothering blanket. Rose won’t be around forever, and what happens then? I could turn into one of those women who lives alone apart from twenty-five cats. Except I’m allergic to cats, so the future is even more lonely. I might just have to get stuffed animals instead. Or a dog. I’ve always wanted a dog, but always felt like it was too much of a commitment – I wouldn’t be able to pack my bags and leave if I had a dog.
I decide that I am being silly – that I am in a beautiful place on a sunny day, and that I am wasting the opportunity to enjoy this Aladdin’s cave of other people’s stuff. One person’s tat is another person’s treasure, after all.
I rummage around on the stall, and emerge with a 1980s version of Hungry Hippos, in absolutely mint condition, complete with its lurid red and orange box. I pop some coins into the charity box, and walk away grinning.
I used to play this with my brother Jamie when I was a kid, squatting on the floor around the coffee table in the London flat where we grew up, Mum and Dad watching something exciting like Miami Vice or Blankety Blank in the background. It often got very competitive, and on one occasion Jamie – two years older and obsessed with Batman – picked the whole thing up and threw it at the wall when he lost. Mum made him crawl around on the carpet collecting all the little marbles by himself, while I sniggered in the background. Ah, happy times. Jamie lives in France now, but I’ll send him a picture at some point.
As I wander, I notice Ella standing with Jake behind a small table adorned with a relatively scant selection of random rubbish. I suppose she’s not been here that long. Her little dog, Larry – part Bedlington, maybe part Shih Tzu, maybe part sheep – is playing with a squeaky toy in the shape of a bone. Every time he bites it and it makes a noise, he leaps away in terror. Then he sniffs his way back, and repeats the whole process, apparently shocked and surprised every single time.
I stride over towards them, and triumphantly wave my Hungry Hippos game in front of Ella’s face.
“Oh my God!” she shrieks in delight. “I remember that! We’ve got to play.”
“You don’t want to challenge me to a game of Hungry Hippos,” I say seriously. “I’m a demon.”
Jake laughs. “I’m the same with Monopoly. Brings out my evil side. You must be Lucy?”
He holds out his hand for me to shake, and I totally appreciate the civilised gesture – this is a huggy kind of place, and I’m not sure that is ever a thing I’ll grow to love.
I shake Jake’s hand, and stare at him for a bit. I’ve seen photos, of course, but real life is very different. In real life, he is even better looking – all dark and brooding, like Heathcliff meets George Clooney. I find myself fascinated by him – it’s like encountering a peacock in the middle of a flock of ostriches.
“Can I interest you in a barely used toastie maker, or a not-at-all used air fryer?” Ella asks, gesturing at her table. I’ve noticed quite a few air fryers today. Alas, poor gadget.
“Or a collection of shot glasses decorated with the signs of the zodiac?” Jake adds. “We have everything apart from Taurus.”
“Darn,” I say, feigning disappointment. “That’s my sign!”
Ella narrows her eyes at me – she knows full well that I’m a Virgo – and asks me how I’m finding Starshine Cove.
“Lovely. Overwhelming. Complicated. I can’t remember everyone’s names and it’s a bit like being parachuted into a Dr Seuss story…”
Both of them laugh at this – as relatively recent additions to the village, Ella only last summer and Jake five or so years ago – they obviously still completely understand that reaction.
“Rose is loving it,” I add, looking around and spotting her with Sam on the patio outside the café. Rose is waddling around on her roller boots, Sam is pinging up and down on a pogo stick, and both of them are wearing feather boas.
I smile at the sight, and say: “She seems to have settled right in. You can never predict with teenagers, whether they’re going to love something or hate it.”
“Or maybe do both at the same time?” responds Ella. “They’re very good at multi-tasking like that. It’s so nice to see her again, Lucy. Sam’s great, he’ll look after her. Dan and Sophie – Connie’s kids – are also great, but they’re a bit under the cosh because they’ve got their A-levels coming up. Not so bad for Sophie – she’s already got an unconditional offer from the catering college she wants to go to – but Dan has applied to medical school, and we all know how much fun that is.”
“Has he had any offers?”
“Yep, Liverpool and Leicester. So that’s an achievement in itself, and now he has to chase the As.”
I nod, and feel a flood of sympathy – I recall it all too well. I’m suddenly glad that Rose is more interested in flowers than becoming a doctor.
“How are the plans going?” I ask. “And where are Priya and Katie?”
It had been wonderful seeing them yesterday, but part of me was concerned that was just the initial veneer. The novelty. I mean, they seemed genuinely happy that I was there, but what if I’m wrong? What if they were faking it, and after I’d left they’d bitched about the fact that I’ve been out of touch so long?
More to the point, why am I even thinking this? Katie and Priya have never been the kinds of women who do that – and yes, they might have changed, but they won’t have had complete personality transplants. This is all my own paranoia creeping out.
“The plans,” Ella says, screwing up her nose, “are fine, I suppose. My parents are arriving tomorrow, and Jake’s family, so that’ll be fun.”
She says this in a tone that implies it will be very little fun indeed, and I see Jake’s arms snake around her waist, giving her a reassuring squeeze.
The wedding is in two days’ time, and although I know Ella keeps saying it’s all “low key”, I can see how stressed she is. Jake proposed to her at New Year, but they didn’t tell anyone, and she didn’t wear a ring – they wanted to give themselves some breathing space to plan the wedding that they wanted, rather than it being a communal pastime. Having spent some time here now, I can understand that. Connie’s exactly the kind of person who would do an online course to qualify as a wedding planner, and possibly also become a vicar so she could perform the service.
Instead, they quietly booked a local church, and arranged a honeymoon, and organised a marquee for the village green. After that, everyone else was invited to join in, and the food, drink and entertainment are all being sorted locally.
“And as for Priya and Katie,” she continues, “well… they finally got out of bed at about eleven and had a cocktail with breakfast. I suspect we had a lucky escape last night.”
The other two had been out for a meal in Dorchester. Ella pleaded wedding admin, and I pleaded exhaustion. I was tired, it was true, but I was also a bit overwhelmed. The thought of sitting with my old pals in an intimate setting like a restaurant, getting quizzed, felt like too much of a test for me right now. There was too much I wasn’t ready to talk about, too much I wasn’t ready to face.
“They’re still at the inn now,” says Ella. “I swear, Lucy, they’ve not been sober since they got here!”
I laugh and reply: “Well, that’s often the way when women have young kids and they get a few days away from them. They’ve got to make the most of it!”
Priya’s husband and her daughters are due to come down tomorrow, though I’m not at all sure about Katie’s boys yet; she hasn’t mentioned it. I remember the intensity of having a little one around – the constant need to be entertaining them, or listening to them, or just watching them. Whatever they’re up to – doing the splits, climbing a tree, picking their nose – they seem to have a pathological need for you to witness it. “Mummy, look!” is a constant chorus.
Rose, of course, is now at the age where she doesn’t want me to watch anything she does, which is an entirely different challenge.
“Well, they’re definitely doing that!” Ella replies, passing me the Virgo shot glass and grinning as I take it. She knows me too well. “Are you still okay for tonight?”
I nod, and confirm that I am. Tonight is Ella’s hen do, and also Jake’s stag do, although both of them will hopefully be combining in the Starshine Inn. Jake doesn’t seem the type to end up chained to a lamp post in Glasgow, stripped naked and painted in woad, but who knows? She tells me to meet her at the back of the café later, and I carry on mooching around the stalls. Part of me is tempted to join the lushes in the pub, maybe for a sneaky mojito or two…
I smile as I remember my amusing mojito encounter at the airport. The super-hot and also very nice man who bought me a drink, and wanted my number. Or the very swanky Amelia Leamington-Smythe’s number, at least. Sadly, my life is more Hungry Hippos than haute couture, and it would never have worked out – mainly because I don’t think I’ll ever trust a man again, and also because, you know, I’d told him a pack of lies, which makes me a fine one to talk about trust. Still, nice to be fancied, even if I was in disguise.
I wander over towards a stall that looks a bit different from the rest. There is one large table, which is covered in the world’s dustiest collection of crap – clunky boxed VHS videos, romance novels from the seventies with swooning heroines on the front, piles of cuddly toys, fake Barbies still in their packaging, postcards so faded that they are almost sepia, strings of bead necklaces, egg cups, sunhats… You name it, it’s on that table.
Behind the table stands a tall, thin man with a long white beard. Give the dude a pointy hat and a staff, and you’d half expect him to be accompanied by a brave band of Hobbits on a perilous quest. His aviator shades spoil the look somewhat, but a T-shirt emblazoned with an illustration of Stonehenge sits right at home.
“Welcome,” he says seriously, gesturing towards his goods. “The treasures of Trevor’s Emporium await you…”
Ah, I think, smiling and saying hello – Trevor. The man who runs the shop. It looks like he’s been hoarding some of this stuff for a lot longer than a year.
He has a smaller table set up on one side, complete with an incense burner wafting patchouli into the air, and a cork notice board covered in tiny white cards. Standing next to this display is a small chimenea, flames clearly visible inside it.
“Here,” says Trevor, passing me a small pad of Post-it notes and a pen. “Write down what you want to get rid of on this blessed day of Spring Greening, and throw it into the fire. Cast aside that which no longer serves.”
I stare at him in confusion, half expecting him to do a Connie-style wink and make a comment about how he fooled me, but he seems entirely genuine. Huh. I look at the paper, and frown at the fire, and eventually come to the conclusion that it can do no harm – and nobody will ever see what I write anyway.
I place the pad on top of my Hungry Hippos box, and think about what I’d like to throw away, what I’d like to cast aside. Gosh, I decide – so much.
I scrawl down the word “fear” first of all, but know that I have a lot more I’d like to add – cynicism, anxiety, insomnia, being scared of small dark places, always second-guessing myself, an irrational aversion to coasters…
I look up at Trevor, and ask: “Do I have to write everything on a separate piece? Will it work if I combine it?”
He looks momentarily taken aback, as though nobody has ever asked him this before – and to be honest I can’t quite believe those words came out of my mouth. I spent years training in a science, for goodness’ sake, and now I’m standing here haggling with the gods of Spring Greening.
“I think it’ll work whichever way you do it,” he replies. “Use as many sheets as you like. Get it all out there, and then watch it go up in smoke! You’ll feel better, I promise you.”
I smile uncertainly, but I’ve gone too far down this path of madness to back off now. I scribble down all the things I want to get rid of, and I end up filling three Post-its. I whisper goodbye, screw them up into a ball, and lob them into the open chimenea. They crackle and blacken, curls of smoke wisping up, up, and away. I watch the smoke float off into the cloudless sky and wonder if I will be a completely different person now.
I feel a hand touch me on the shoulder, jump like a scalded cat, and bite back a scream. Right. Apparently not.
“Sorry!” says the woman standing before me. “I’m about as stealthy as a baby elephant; I thought you’d heard me.”
“No, I’m sorry,” I say quickly. “I was distracted. I was… casting stuff aside.”
“Yeah. Well, that is distracting work. I’m Ella’s friend Cally – just wanted to pop over and say hi.”
Cally is shorter than me, as most women are, with glorious long dark hair and curves in all the right places. She has a killer smile, and exudes a quiet warmth that has nothing to do with the chimenea.
“I came by earlier,” she adds, whispering conspiratorially, “and I wrote ‘two stone’ on one of those Post-it notes… but then I went and ate a jam doughnut and half a blackberry muffin in the café, so I don’t suppose I can expect miracles.”
She is slightly overweight, but in a way that suits her – in a way that suggests she just enjoys life a little bit too much to ever be skinny.
“Nice to meet you, Cally,” I say, taking a very small step back in case she decides to hug me. “Is Sam your son? He seems to have adopted my daughter.”
“That’s right. He’ll take good care of her, don’t worry. Look what I got!”
She brandishes a chunky plastic VHS box, complete with a garish cover, and I stare at it, trying to make out the title.
“The original Battlestar Galactica!” she says, her voice squeaking with excitement. “Trevor has the best stuff.”
She gives Trevor a beaming smile, and he looks slightly abashed. I suspect Trevor might have a little crush on Cally.
“So,” she asks, gesturing towards the pin board, “now you’ve got rid of stuff in the fire, what are you going to take?”
I study the corkboard and its white cards, pinned up in random shapes, some missing squares where cards have already been taken. I spot some made by children, done in neon shades with felt-tip pens, offering exciting options like “a dinosaur”, “wellies filled with jellies” and “a date with SpongeBob SquarePants”. Tempting stuff.
I laugh and browse the other cards. I see “afternoon tea at the Cove Café”, “free cut and blow dry” and “cake-making masterclass” among them. I could also avail myself of a sack of new potatoes, a tarot reading, or a ride on a tractor. That would be quite a day, wouldn’t it?
Some of them are less obvious, and altogether more enticing – one card simply says “LOVE”, in capitals and decorated with little pink hearts. Another carries the word “FAITH”, and one below it says “HOPE”. These all sound marvellous, and I gaze at them with way too much longing.
“Take as many as you want,” Trevor says, following my eyes. “I replace those cards straight away – I make sure we never run out of love, faith or hope. There’s only one tractor ride, though.”
I laugh, and feel suddenly ridiculous – what is this place doing to me?
Cally puts down her video box, and pulls the cards off the board. She hands me Love and Faith and Hope, and pats me on the arm.
“Take them,” she says, smiling. “We all need a bit more of that stuff in our lives, don’t we?”