Chapter 7
7
Exhilarated by my day of meeting folk, but exhausted by peopling all day, I walked back through my new front door and looked around with fresh eyes. Instead of seeing all the things that needed doing, I saw opportunities. The chance for me to prove myself, not to anyone else but only to me. My back felt straighter. My shoulders felt lighter. I was holding my head higher. I could do this, and I absolutely would do this. I would prove to Michael and Claudia that I didn’t need either of them in my life.
One of the things I had loved so much when I first visited this exquisite cottage were the floor-to-ceiling whitewashed shutters on every floor. Beyond them the matching-coloured decking opened onto the grassed lawn, which clearly needed a good tidy up, and the sand dunes beyond, leading to the turquoise sea which was glinting in the early-evening sunshine. I grabbed my phone and took a photo but when I went to send it to the girls, I realised that the phone didn’t capture the beauty and depth of the layers of natural habitat, so didn’t bother.
As I walked over to the shutters and ran my hands along the grain of the wood, chunks of age-old paint came off in my hand and dropped onto the floor. The wood seemed solid enough, but it’d need a good sanding down and a re-paint. Despite always fancying the idea of getting my hands dirty, I’d never really been one for DIY, Michael claiming it as his area of expertise, but I knew that would need to change. I wanted to do things myself. I wanted to make myself proud. I would show them all. Something told me that this house was going to be a money pit so once I’d got a builder’s professional opinion I would have more of an idea of what I could pay someone to do and what I’d have to do myself.
Back at home in Staffordshire, I knew quite a few people that I could call on to help, but here I knew no one. Maybe I would go and grab a cuppa with Bill down at the beach one of these days and find out more about the sort of projects his son had worked on. You never knew when you’d need certain skills in the future, even if you didn’t need them right then. And people like that normally had a plethora of tradesmen contacts of their own.
Venturing out onto the decking, I trod carefully. A few of the panels were quite squishy in places and would need repairing or probably replacing. How hard could it be?
‘Hi there.’ I turned in surprise to where the voice was coming from. ‘You must be Jo. If there’s anything I can help you with, just give me a yell.’
On the adjacent decking, which looked a sight safer than mine, a woman was sitting on a swinging bench with a book in her lap. She gave a little wave.
How lovely it would be if I could have some nice garden furniture on my own decking in time. Or even a cocoon chair. I’d always wanted one of those but Michael never fancied one.
The neighbour coughed and I realised that I’d drifted away for a moment. My family always did call me a daydreamer, although back then it was because I was trying to think of twenty-five different things all at the same time. And that was quite a task for a woman of a certain age!
‘I was just saying, if you need anything, let me know.’
‘Thanks, that’s really kind of you.’
‘No problem at all. There are only these three buildings up here in this part of the resort, so we’ll need to stick together. Also, I’m a boutique bed and breakfast so if you have any visitors that you don’t like enough that you want them to stay in your home, maybe you can point them in my direction.’ Her tinkling little laugh was a pleasure to hear. ‘I’m just grabbing half an hour before the next lot of guests arrive. I’ve been running round like a woman possessed today getting all the linen changed after the last people. Honestly, why us guest house and hotel owners think white towels are a good idea is beyond me. I mean, I know it’s because people can see how clean they are but believe me, when you’ve had a hen party of twenty-year-olds staying for a weekend and they’ve all wiped their fake tans on my gorgeous white bamboo bath towels and Egyptian cotton sheets, I’m thinking that white is the worst colour. I’ll need to boil them for weeks to get the stains out. Filthy madams!’
I made a face to show her I understood, remembering a time when one of the girls had used fake tan and I’d had the same issue. I’d ended up throwing her sheets away because I couldn’t get the stains out and made her promise never to use fake tan again until they left home. Strangely, the girls never used it when they were the ones who’d have to wash the towels.
‘The new people the other side of you should be moving in soon too. Rumour has it he’s an ex-footballer and she’s one of those influencer types. I’ve not met them yet but I hope you’ll all settle in wonderfully. I won’t bother you, but feel free to bother me if you need anything.’
I moved nearer to next door and the woman so I could chat better.
‘Thank you. It’s a bit daunting being somewhere new. Especially when I’m on my own. But I’ll get there in time. There’s no rush.’
‘Well, good luck to you. I’m sure you’ll be fine. We’re a welcoming bunch here. I’m Kate, by the way.’
I turned and grinned.
‘Nice to meet you, Kate. I’m Jo.’
‘When you’re settled, maybe we can have a glass of wine together to celebrate your arrival.’
‘That would be lovely. Thank you.’ I couldn’t believe how friendly everyone had been so far today. There were days at home, old home now, when I never spoke to a soul. Everyone was busy getting on with their own lives. Maybe everyone was so chatty here because they lived in a lovely place and were doing things they wanted to in life.
Kate picked up her book, signifying that the conversation was over. She looked so relaxed and at peace, her chair swinging gently in the breeze, and I hoped that it wouldn’t be too long before I started to find my own peace. I thought back to the old garden in our family home. It was so very different to this one. A real family garden. We’d gone from having a huge Wendy house and swings and slides when the girls were little, to having it landscaped beautifully with rows of flowerbeds on each side. In more recent years the garden had been pristine, with artificial grass rather than real turf and plants in pots. Not something I particularly liked but again had agreed to because it was what Michael had wanted. He’d loved the idea of plants in pots, whereas if I’d had free rein, I would have had colourful wildflowers filling the flowerbeds.
I realised how much I’d missed having a garden. Even the place I’d moved into recently had only a small, grassed area and it had never really felt like home so I didn’t do much with it. The thought of the small plot of land I had here filled my heart with joy and my brain was working overtime, thinking about how much work it would take to get it into some order. Aunty June had obviously had someone helping her to keep it neat and tidy, but there were so many things I would do differently.
It was only recently that I’d begun realising how much I had forgone a lot of things that I liked to please Michael and the girls. Now I only had myself to please. It felt exciting yet so unfamiliar and very daunting at the same time. I just needed to break the habit of thinking about Michael and what he would think all the time. As I looked around me now, I realised how a beautiful garden full of multi-coloured poppies like Mum used to have would look stunning against the backdrop of the sand dunes and grassy verges and the sea beyond. I grabbed the small notebook and pen that I’d tucked into the back pocket of my jeans and wrote down ‘ask Jill about poppy heads’. Jill, one of the ladies in the WI group I’d been a member of, had a beautiful garden and offered poppy heads to all the members each year. Some now would come in very useful. In fact, maybe when the house was a bit more habitable, I thought to myself, I could invite Jill to come and stay. She would definitely be a great help with gardening advice and I missed our friendship.
My phone rang and I glanced at the screen to see that it was my daughter Lucy. I also realised it was nearly 8p.m.
‘Hi, Mum,’ she said.
‘Hi, darling. How are you?’
‘Busy as always. It’s just a quick call to check in. Have you spoken to Melissa today?’
‘Not yet, no.’
‘She’s probably busy too. I know she had a week of back-to-back surgeries. Hold on a mo.’
I could hear her talking to someone in the background; she was telling them that she’d only be a few seconds.
‘I’m really sorry, Mum, but I have to go. It sounds like one of the heifers at the farm up the road has got a calf on the way and it’s got stuck in the birth canal. One second.’
Sadly, this was a common occurrence whenever Lucy phoned. She was such a busy person.
‘Just get me a new pack of those long rubber gloves from my office, please. Sorry, Mum, that wasn’t meant for you.’
I laughed. ‘Thank goodness for that. Although I could do with some of those for cleaning this place.’
‘Sorry, Mum. Got to go. Speak soon.’
And then she was gone. I’d had many conversations like this recently – with both of my daughters. Both over-achievers with huge jobs and not much time for long conversations. I was so proud of all that they had accomplished. I mean, there weren’t many parents who could say that one of their children was a vet and another a doctor. But sometimes it did make me feel sad that they gave so little thought to me, though it also made me more resolute about doing something for myself.
Like Mum said, there comes a time when you realise that it’s your time. Your time to take back your life and live it to the best of your ability. Life really is too short to be sitting around waiting for people to come to you. I realised that last Christmas Day when I thought that because of the situation with Michael and I being apart, the girls might come and stay, but both of them were on call. I’d spent the day on my own. Mum had invited me round to her friend’s house where a big group of them were getting together as they did every year but I was in such a funk, I hadn’t wanted to go. I wanted to spend my first Christmas on my own reflecting on how the hell I had got there.
Laughing to myself and realising how far I’d come since those very early dark days, I removed the new bedding I’d bought from its packet. I would normally have put them in the washing machine and ironed them so they looked pristine before putting them on the bed but again there didn’t seem much point when it was only me.
After fluffing up the pillows, I walked over to take another look at the view from the window. There wasn’t much to see at that time of night apart from a few twinkling lights across the bay, but in the distance it looked like someone had lit a fire on the beach, and there was a group of figures huddled around it.
As I looked out, I felt my shoulders relax and I sighed, realising just how much I was looking forward to getting stuck in. I’d be breathing life into this cottage and doing the same for myself too. We deserved it.