Chapter 44
Celia looks at the bathroom shelf that was crammed with Amanda’s numerous pots and jars, and which is now empty.
Unlike her friend she has never adhered to any kind of beauty routine.
She is a soap-and-water type, very low maintenance.
Working with plants would make manicures impractical and really, she can’t see the point.
In the living room, she waters those that now populate the shelves in here. She no longer feels she has to keep them all in the plant room, with a small overspill allowed in Logan’s room. In fact, the word ‘allowed’ doesn’t even feature any more. Celia does whatever she likes.
She is repositioning Spike on the shelf when Amanda appears. Soon he’ll be going home with Enzo and Mathilde. Celia just wants to make sure her tea ‘cure’ wasn’t a fluke, and that he really is back to full health. ‘He’s looking a lot perkier, isn’t he?’ Amanda remarks.
‘Yes, he is.’ Celia nods, though it’s still baffling to her. ‘Weird, isn’t it?’
Amanda laughs. ‘D’you think he was putting it on? By flopping over like that, I mean?’
‘To get attention, maybe?’ Celia grins.
‘Yeah, to keep Enzo on his toes,’ Amanda suggests.
‘God knows. Honestly, I always liked to think I had all the answers. But really, what do I know?’
‘A lot, Celia. You know a heck of a lot.’ She senses Amanda assessing her for a moment. ‘So, anyway, you’ve got a date tonight?’
‘A date .’ Celia laughs, scoffing at the word.
But if it’s not a date, then what is it?
Last Sunday, on the beach, she and Enzo had taken a walk together while Valérie and Mathilde tended the fire.
‘I was wondering,’ he’d said, ‘if you’d like to go out to dinner sometime?
’ Of course she had said yes, but then perhaps it’s just a friends thing he’s looking for?
Unaccustomed to dating in any form, Celia has no idea.
She sees Amanda checking her watch. Celia knows she’s leaving within the hour and now her friend is hugging her, minty-breathed and smelling of her colossally expensive moisturiser from the hefty glass jar. ‘You promise me you’ll look after yourself, won’t you?’ Amanda says.
‘Yes, of course I will.’
‘As well as you look after your plants?’
Celia nods, aware of tears prickling her eyes as she studies Amanda’s face.
Amanda was always beautiful, she reflects. At her wedding she seemed different – jawline taut, lips a little plumped, something off-kilter, she’d thought. But now those features have softened and she looks like the Amanda she always knew.
‘Before I go,’ Amanda says, ‘can we do something?’
‘Sure, what?’
Amanda beckons her through to the kitchen where she bobs down to pull open the bottom freezer drawer. She looks up, grinning. ‘Celia, what is all this shit?’
Celia laughs. ‘A load of haggis-en-croutes.’
‘Please enlighten me,’ Amanda teases.
‘Um… Geoff’s company wanted to do a premium range. He was convinced this would be it – the big seller, the game changer in premium snack foods…’
Amanda is laughing now. ‘And no one tried to persuade him it was a bad idea?’
‘Oh, you know what he’s like.’ Celia chuckles. ‘When his mind’s made up, there’s no reasoning with him.’ It’s true; you could show him a lemon, and if he decided it was a cabbage, you could argue until you were crying hot, frustrated tears and it’d still be a cabbage in Geoff’s eyes.
‘Well, it’s time to clear the decks,’ Amanda announces. ‘Give me a bin bag.’
Celia hesitates. Would it be wasteful to throw them away?
She hates waste. But really, what else could be done with them?
So she hands Amanda a bag, and they start to pull out all of those haggis-en-croutes that filled the entire drawer, and which always made a little more of Celia’s lifeblood seep away every time she saw them there.
And now, with the job done and Amanda’s taxi on its way, Celia ties up the bag of failed pastry products and carries it out to the bin.
* * *
Celia doesn’t quite know what to do with herself on this cool and breezy Tuesday afternoon now Amanda has gone. Logan is out, meeting his old chess club friends, and soon he’ll be away volunteering again and she will be quite alone.
Switching her attention to tonight’s date with Enzo, and needing to clear her head a little, she heads out on a walk.
At the park she follows the path that snakes up the hillside, past runners and dog walkers and young parents with gaggles of toddlers and kids.
A black spaniel runs to her and she stoops to ruffle its head.
Then finally she reaches the flagpole at the top and she can see for miles.
For a few minutes Celia sits on a bench and she breathes it all in. Then she starts to make her way back home, figuring that perhaps she’ll wear that dress tonight. The beautiful blue and green one, the gift from Amanda. Perhaps this is the occasion it’s been waiting for.
She is wondering which shoes to wear as she approaches her flat.
Those block-heeled red shoes really have to go, she decides, having concluded that they will never miraculously fit her.
Next time she’s out, she’ll drop them at the charity shop.
That terrible shift dress, too; the one she felt so uncomfortable in at Amanda’s wedding. She knows she’ll never wear that again.
Now Celia pokes her key into the lock and realises with a start that her front door is unlocked. Her heart thuds. Has Logan come back unexpectedly?
Tentatively, she pushes it open. ‘Hello?’ she calls out into the hallway.
‘It’s me,’ comes a male voice, and he steps out of the living room, into the hallway, looking sheepish and tired.
Geoff. A sudden fury rises up in her. ‘What are you doing here?’
‘I… I just wanted to see you.’ He looks down at his feet.
‘You can’t do this,’ she exclaims. ‘Geoff, you don’t live here any more. You can’t just march in here whenever you feel like it!’
‘I know, I’m sorry…’ He fishes keys from his trouser pocket and hands them to her. ‘I should’ve called,’ he adds. ‘I need to talk to you, Celia. That’s all.’
She looks at the man she thought she knew so intimately.
Now he seems like a stranger to her. A stranger she almost feels sorry for, standing there in his beige sweatshirt and jeans.
She’d loved him once, and Logan had too.
He will always be Logan’s father – the one who was there for him, albeit in his somewhat remote, Geoff-ish way.
‘What d’you want to talk about?’ she asks. Please, not the legal stuff , she wills him. She’s not quite ready for that yet.
His gaze meets hers and his cheeks redden.
‘I want you to know it’s all over,’ he murmurs.
‘The thing, I mean. It’s finished now. It was all a mistake…
’ He clears his throat and looks distractedly around the hallway, his gaze resting briefly on the trailing variegated ivy than now tumbles prettily from the shelf.
‘Celia, I’d like to come back,’ he adds, ‘and try to make things right again.’
Celia regards him steadily. ‘You mean she’s kicked you out.’
‘No, no. It just wasn’t working.’ He blushes hotly. ‘And actually?—’
‘Geoff, admit it. You have nowhere to go, do you?’
‘Well, there are friends, of course,’ he blusters. Then he gazes at her with an expression of what she can only interpret as hope.
She looks at him, considering what he’s just told her. Then she strides through to the living room, opens the shallow drawer beneath the coffee table, the drawer where all kinds of random bits are kept. She pulls out the key with the paper label attached. His mum’s writing: Caravan spare.
‘Here you go,’ she says calmly, ‘in case you’ve lost your set.’
‘Oh. Um… thanks,’ he murmurs.
‘I know you have friends,’ she adds, not unkindly. ‘But I don’t need it, and you might one day.’
‘Yeah, good to have it,’ he mutters.
Celia raises a smile. ‘And it does have an incredible view.’