Chapter Ten
‘What do you think of our latest photo entry?’
I stand back to let Reeni into the kitchen. It’s Monday, the one day of the week I get off, and I’ve been lazing on the couch staring at Alexander Armstrong present Pointless on TV and feeling stupid because I’ve not been able to answer any of the questions.
‘That’s never been the same since Richard Osman left,’ says she, waving glibly at the telly.
‘I still think it’s great.’ I grab the remote and hit mute, and we sit down. ‘I haven’t seen it.’
‘I thought not, or you’d have been on the phone.’
She flicks through Instagram and pulls up a photo.
My heart hits the back of my throat. It’s Daisy.
Someone has opened the window shutter and balanced The Beach House coffee cup on the corner of the window ledge.
There’s an orange-and-blue striped beach towel pooled artistically on the floor and a pair of white trainers with burnt orange heel tabs positioned next to them.
It looks like someone has stepped straight out of them to walk into the hut.
‘Isn’t it fab?’ says Reeni.
My lips twitch into a smile. The photo is beautiful. ‘Who sent it in?’
‘That’s even more intriguing.’ She wiggles her dark eyebrows at me. ‘Do you know anyone by the name @jafflesmeetsurf?’
‘No.’ But as I’m saying the word, a light bulb in my brain flickers.
‘I did some digging.’ She flicks through some more photos and hands the phone over. ‘Check out these.’
I swipe through the photos. There’s a picture of a group of people all balancing on surfboards on the beach and one of them on their stomachs, paddling on boards in the sea.
One of the front of a very cute yellow hut with a brown wooden flat roof and the name JAFFLE HUT in wooden letters across the front and to the left of it half a dozen surfboards propped up.
Another of a familiar blonde lady in a navy apron standing behind the counter, a beaming smile on her face and a green juice in her hand, and the final one is Jackson standing by the propped-up surfboards holding on to a white one covered in black squiggly lines.
I look up at Reeni, then back down to study the photo again.
He’s barefoot, in long orange shorts and a sleeveless baby-blue T-shirt that accentuates how sexy his forearms are.
The breeze has pushed his hair out of his face, and the golden beach and vibrant aqua-blue sea are behind him.
He looks gorgeous, and I try hard to stop it, but my heart cartwheels.
‘He took the photo of Daisy?’ I haven’t seen Jackson, or Greg for that matter, since that evening on the beach a little over a week ago. I’ve avoided walking past the Camper Café. And neither of them has come near The Beach House.
Reeni shrugs. ‘Looks like it.’
‘Why would he do that?’
‘Maybe he’s reaching out, and feels guilty.’
‘But I was the one who accused him of quitting on us.’ I cringe and cover my eyes with my hands.
‘Yeah, but he snapped and stalked away from you.’ She nods towards the photo. ‘He didn’t submit it by accident. He’s not stupid.’
‘I need to get out of here.’ The walls feel like they’re closing in and I need air. ‘Do you want to go for a coffee?’
‘This is exactly what I needed. Olly’s driving me mad at home,’ says Reeni, leaning her head back, her face tipped up towards the sun. ‘I hope he’s not driving Mum mad now.’
‘She’ll be feeding him chocolate, while he watches CBeebies, and smothering him in cuddles.’ I give a little chuckle. ‘And in return, he’ll wrap her around his little finger.’
We’ve wandered along the beach and are now sitting on a bench in the little square at the centre of the village. Reeni’s treated us. I’ve got a coffee and a pain au chocolat, and she has water and a tub of plain, wilted-looking carrot sticks.
‘I think the café’s done.’ I balance the pastry and its pretty floral paper napkin on my knee. It had felt like a treat when I picked it out of the cake display from Bert’s Bakery. Now I feel sick at the thought of even taking a bite.
‘Ellie, no.’ Reeni pushes herself upright off the back of the bench to look directly at me. ‘Why?’
‘I’ve run out of money and I’m tired of walking on a tightrope. The Camper Café is doing a roaring trade.’ I slump back on the bench and pinch the bridge of my nose hard. I am not going to burst into tears in the middle of the village square. ‘I don’t see the point anymore. I can’t do it.’
‘I can help.’ Reeni reaches out to squeeze my arm. ‘Bridge the gap until it picks up. Because it will. You need to give it time. The marketing’s going well.’
‘I love that you want to help, but you can’t bail me out of everything, especially when I’d never be able to repay you the way things are going.’ I give her a sad smile.
‘What about moving the Camper Café on? Could you try that again?’
For a nanosecond, I think I should tell her about the complaint letter I’ve posted, but seeing as I’m in the doghouse with everyone else, I’m not about to risk that happening here too. And I don’t see the point as the council have done nothing anyway.
‘When I mentioned it, Jackson bit my head off and I don’t want to put Milo in an awkward position with his brother. Anyway, I honestly don’t think it’d make much difference at this point. I’m only delaying the inevitable.’
We sit in silence and I watch a huge seagull hopping closer, eyeing up my pastry.
‘How’s the Jackson–Greg tug of love going?’
I splutter and spray coffee out through my teeth. ‘It’s not a tug of love.’ I knew I shouldn’t have told her about that kiss on the beach when Olly was missing.
Reeni exaggerates raising her two arched eyebrows. ‘You sure about that?’ She crunches on a carrot stick. ‘You’ve had a kiss with one. Missed date with the other. And moped ever since.’ I didn’t think she could raise her eyebrows any higher, but she does.
‘That kiss was an accident.’
‘A happy accident?’
‘No. It won’t be happening again. It was a mistake. Anyway, he has a girlfriend.’ I take another slurp of coffee.
‘Ooo. Bit touchy aren’t we?’
Thank goodness she’s lowered her eyebrows, but she’s chuckling away at me now.
‘And I will go on a date with Greg. He’s lovely. I need …’
‘… to stop being a bitch first?’
I swat away a bee as it flies too close for comfort. ‘I was going to say I needed to rearrange, but you’re right.’
‘Have you seen him since?’
‘We’ve texted.’ I pull a face. I thought he’d have popped in for a coffee so I could talk to him properly, but I think he’s avoiding me and our texts are very perfunctory.
Reeni smirks. ‘No booty calls, then?’
I sigh. ‘No, I haven’t had sex with Greg recently.’
‘So, you’d rather have sex with Jackson then?’ she says, poking me with a very wilted, grotty-looking carrot. ‘God, these things are horrible. I’d kill for an ice cream in this heat.’
‘Go and get one.’ I gesture towards the bakery, which does waffle cones and organic ice cream from the local farm.
‘Oh, I can’t. I saw an alternative therapist the other day about getting pregnant. She advised me not to put anything cold near my womb.’
I pull a face. ‘Are you for real? Surely that won’t matter. People have been eating ice cream forever and still get pregnant.’
‘I’m not people, am I?’ Reeni barks. ‘And stop avoiding the question. We’re not talking about me. How do you feel about him?’
‘Which one?’
‘Let’s start with Jackson?’ Reeni’s conker-brown eyes are serious. ‘Ignore the past. Think here and now. Really feel about him?’
I knew she’d start there. And I don’t want to examine my feelings, but she’s staring straight at me. I take a moment.
‘I didn’t think there would be any feelings there. How could there be with the way it all imploded? And we’re grown up now. Surely, we’re different people?’
I pause, knowing if I say the next bit I’ll never be able to take it back.
Sod it. ‘I still feel like I did all those years ago.’ I avoid looking at Reeni and stare at the seagull, daring it to blink.
‘It’s like I’m fifteen again and he makes me feel like no one else ever has.
’ My chest tightens. It’s the one thing I haven’t even let myself think since I first bumped into Jackson.
‘I keep thinking about him. About us all those years ago.’
What I can’t bring myself to tell her is the guilt I still feel at hiding from him the biggest things that ever happened to me. A thing that affected him too, but I never told him. And something I can never take back and never change, but I’ve somehow learnt to live with.
Reeni takes a long sip from her bottle of water.
‘Say something …’ I say, trying to gauge her mood, ‘… anything.’
‘What about Greg? Where does he fit in?’ She pauses to put the lid back on the bottle. ‘Are you being fair to him?’
I shuffle on my bottom and sit up taller. ‘Jackson is my past. Greg’s the future. I know that. I need to find a way to get Jackson out of my head. That’s all.’
‘You need to talk to him, then. You’re not two fifteen-year-olds anymore. Have a grown-up conversation about the past. Put it to bed, move on. What’s the worst that can happen?’
That he’ll be disappointed in me all over again. I answer Reeni in my head before saying something completely different out loud. ‘I don’t think I can.’
Reeni pauses as if she’s trying to work out how to word something.
‘You’ve never even fully opened up to me, never mind him.
But if you don’t deal with it, it’s going to hover above you both like a nasty smell and eventually contaminate everything, including your relationship with Greg.
You need to explain why you ran away from him after the miscarriage. You totally ghosted the poor guy.’
I want to put my fingers in my ears and shout la la la. A part of me knows she’s right, but another part thinks that maybe we don’t. Maybe, I know better. After all, Jackson hasn’t brought our history up, so why should I? I’ll move on with Greg and everything will be fine.
‘Maybe,’ I say vaguely.
‘Ellie.’ There’s a warning tone in Reeni’s voice. ‘Do not stick your head in the sand over this.’
‘Yes, you’re right,’ I say. And she might be, but that doesn’t mean I’m going to take her advice. Besides, my business is going up in flames. I won’t be able to stay around here, and he’ll be going back to Australia, so I won’t be bumping into him. What’s the point of upsetting the apple cart now?
We lapse into silence.
‘Why is everyone bloody pregnant?’ growls Reeni, suddenly.
She nods towards a beautiful lady walking along the main street.
‘She’s about the fourth pregnant person I’ve seen today.
They’re bloody everywhere.’ She grabs a carrot stick out of her tub and bites down on it hard.
‘I’d look far better in that dress, too. She looks a right state.’
The lady Reeni is talking about is wearing a bright floral print dress with a fuchsia sash and a knee-length swishy skirt, and quite frankly, looks stunning.
‘Stop being grumpy. She looks lovely.’
‘Sorry. I’m fed up, that’s all.’ She jams her half-eaten carrot stick back into the tub. ‘Do you know what Aaron had the cheek to say to me the other day? “Come on then, I’m tired. Let’s get it over with”.’
She glares at me as if it’s my fault.
‘As if having sex is a chore. How bloody dare he? And when I complained, he told me to pull myself together and stop feeling sorry for myself. Think about all the people he has to deal with and, in comparison, our life is great.’ She’s grinding her teeth in frustration.
‘Ever think he could be right?’ I brace myself for her reply, but I’m fed up with listening to how shit her life is. She should try mine on for size once in a while.
‘Well, he’s not right. This is my life and I’m his wife. He should be able to empathise with how I’m feeling. He should be supporting me, not comparing me to his bloody dying patients.’
‘Reeni!’
She has the decency to look mortified. ‘Sorry. But why does no one understand what I’m going through?’ She sounds like a sulky five-year-old who just got told off.
‘We do understand. You’re putting too much pressure on yourself. Do you ever think how Aaron feels about all this? He’s not the one who gets pregnant, but he’s not immune to feelings, you know.’
‘Hmmm.’
I want to shake her. At least she has her family, even if she can’t add to it.
‘Are you coming back to ours? Olly would love to see you?’ She’s switched subjects as if our last conversation had never happened.
It’s normally a no-brainer, but I’ve had enough of her company for one day.
‘No. I’d better get back to the café and sort out a plan of action.’
I expect Reeni to try to persuade me otherwise, but she doesn’t.
I have the odd feeling that our landscape is shifting and I don’t like it.
We’ve been the best of friends for as long as I can remember and always had each other’s backs, but there’s a tension surrounding us that’s new and uncomfortable.
‘No worries. I’d better get back to grab Olly before he drives my mother mad,’ says Reeni.
She gets up and walks away and I slump back on the bench and chuck my untouched pain au chocolat to the waiting seagull.