Chapter 18 #2
‘Seriously, Fiona, I’m just down in the dumps.
Maybe I’m low on iron.’ Because she certainly wasn’t going to tell Fiona Dixon what was really bothering her.
The less air that fire got, the better. Hopefully, it would blow itself out.
Maybe they’d have whatever they’d have and then, Danial would move on to the next girl to come his way. He was certainly good looking enough.
‘Well, if there’s anything I can do…’ Fiona sat back, peered along the road and then down towards the beach. ‘Did I tell you, I had my colours done?’
‘Didn’t that go out with the Ark – they were talking about that nonsense thirty years ago…’
‘Say what you want,’ Fiona laughed. ‘It has literally changed my life. Maybe you should have it done. It’d take that washed-out look from you…’ Still catty beneath it all. People didn’t change, Blythe thought, and that didn’t do much to cheer her up either.
‘I’m not washed out,’ Blythe snapped, but of course, next to Fiona, everyone was washed out – her whole life revolved around maintaining her good looks.
Well, that and a full social calendar with occasional dabbling in extra-marital affairs that her husband was either too blind to see or had given up trying to stop.
‘Am I washed-out looking?’ Blythe asked now, more a question of herself than Fiona.
Her friend could be brutal, once the words slipped out, she was already sorry.
‘You just look tired, nothing a good night’s sleep and leaving your worries to one side wouldn’t sort out.’
‘I don’t have any worries.’
‘Well, that’s what I would have thought.’
‘Oh, you’re impossible,’ Blythe said, and she pulled her jacket more tightly around her.
She needed to get a grip. The fact was, she had a lot to be thankful for.
She was in good health; she had a daughter that she adored.
Her marriage was rock solid, wasn’t it? That question lingered in her mind more often than she cared to admit these days.
Once again, she pushed it aside. She and Kip may not be exactly Romeo and Juliet, but they were still going strong, a team, united.
God knows, there were plenty, like Mae English who’d give their remaining teeth to have even a tenth of the blessings Blythe took for granted.
‘You’ve never changed Blythe.’ Fiona laughed.
‘What’s that supposed to mean?’
‘Well, if there was something bothering you, something I could help you with, you wouldn’t tell me anyway, you’ve always been a one-woman team, fixing your own problems or stewing in them until you have no choice but to do something about them.’
‘I’m not sure that’s a compliment.’ Blythe knew it was bang on the money.
‘It’s not.’ Fiona laughed now. ‘And it sort of is, I mean, I admire you. I couldn’t have made the success of my life that you’ve made of yours.
You got up and made something of what you had, you did it on your own terms.’ She stopped, lowered her voice and pinned Blythe with a look that she knew meant more than anything else Fiona had said already.
‘And you, my dear, you didn’t marry into your money,’ she rolled her eyes, because that was exactly what Fiona had done.
‘And when your grandfather and that awful Marcus did the dirt on you, you bore it with dignity; you damn well wiped his eye.’
‘He wasn’t awful.’ Blythe, as always, was quick to jump to Marcus’s defence. The strange thing was, she didn’t know why she did that, because while he might have been Rae’s prince charming – he was a downright snake in the grass to Blythe.
‘Whatever, you keep telling yourself that,’ Fiona said.
‘Anyway, look where it got the pair of them. I don’t suppose that she’s selling ten cups of coffee a day and there you are, with all your stars and on the verge of being included in the White Diary guide,’ Fiona said and Blythe could see it now.
Admiration. It was the first time she realised it.
Fiona rated what she’d done with Still Water House, even more so, because Fiona was one of the few people who knew exactly what had driven her all these years.
‘Hmph.’ Blythe sighed then. ‘But I still look like crap and Rae is over there and even if her roots are grey and she hasn’t worn a scrap of make-up in fifteen years, she looks like Twiggy’s younger sister.’
‘I never liked her as much as you, anyway,’ Fiona said impishly, and she passed her extra biscotti across to her friend and they sat in contented silence for a while, looking out at the waves.
‘Oh dear, what time is it?’ Fiona bent down to search in her large designer bag.
She pulled out a small compact mirror and patted her nose with a thin veil of powder.
She looked at her watch then as if there was somewhere she needed to be, but they both knew, Fiona was as free as a bird with no one to answer to except herself.
‘Oh, look at the time, I’m meant to be at the retirement home dropping off a sponsorship cheque for their new gazebo. ’
‘Oh, the retirement home? Kip is out there this week, working away,’ Blythe said.
‘Really?’ Fiona said, but she was already draining her espresso, closing her enormous bag over.
‘That’s nice, darling,’ she said, getting up quickly and it felt as if suddenly, she’d remembered something that was far more pressing than any sponsorship cheque.
It would be a man, of course, some man who belonged to some other poor trusting wife.
‘Must dash,’ she said after air-kissing Blythe on both cheeks.
Blythe watched as she tottered on her ridiculously high heels towards her Mercedes, and she couldn’t shake the feeling that she’d missed a step somewhere in their conversation.
What would she do if Siggy fell in love with someone and decided to leave Pin Hill one day?
The idea of the Val boy? So much worse than just an outsider she couldn’t trust, from what Fiona said, he was even worse than she thought.
Exactly the sort of person Blythe had always carefully steered Siggy away from.
Oh, God. She didn’t want to think of him dangling the carrot of travel and adventure before her daughter – that wasn’t at all what she wanted for Siggy.
What had she wanted? To keep her safe. To keep her close.
To keep her here. Siggy running the guest house and the hotel – that had always been the dream.
A relationship with the Val boy was out of the question.