Chapter 38
Heather
Heather’s phone began to fire off notifications at around three o’clock in the morning.
At first, she had no idea what the constant beeping was as, sleepy-eyed, she reached for the bedside light and switched it on.
Disorientated at first, she thought she was back in London; despite the net curtain billowing in the open window, she assumed it was a fire alarm going off somewhere in the old flat.
She threw back the quilt, her feet touching the floor finally waking her up properly.
That was no smoke alarm, Heather wasn’t even sure if there were smoke alarms in Ocean’s End.
She looked across at the old sideboard that sat snugly in the corner of her room.
It was a squat affair, with an aged mirror that had blackened round the rim.
Her phone, sitting at its edge, vibrated and rang out once more.
Bleary-eyed, she picked it up, expecting it to be some random advertiser, taking the worst moment to sell their wares.
She was wrong. It was a new group, set up and including her in it.
The Daisy Pickers. What on earth? Who had added her to this?
It took another minute to figure out that the members were all familiar, all ex-employees of the flower shops she’d owned in London with Philip.
Bloody Charlotte, she’d mentioned this that day in London. Heather immediately tapped the three dots at the top of the messages to extricate herself from the group, but then something made her hesitate. She knew all of these people, could she just…
But she hadn’t spoken to most of them since they’d sold the shops. Their lives had simply pedalled on as before: she had left the shops behind her, but as far as she knew, the people who had worked for her had been content to work for the new owners.
Her finger hovered over the icon for a moment.
She knew what this was, opening it would only be confirmation of the fact.
Already, there were fifty notifications, another now, from Dawn who had started out with them in the Camden Road shop.
Heather smiled, she’d always liked Dawn, a middle-aged woman who could have been bitter about losing her daughter, but somehow remained a kind-hearted soul who always went the extra mile for every customer she dealt with.
Heather took a deep breath, pressed on the conversation that was ongoing, that she had not asked to join and that she knew already would shake her world in a way she’d never expected it to be shaken.
It was exactly as she expected. A line of photographs, downloading to her phone.
A gorgeous newborn baby, pink-faced, wrinkled, eyes closed, mouth pursed – beautiful.
It was the most beautiful baby, just as every baby Heather had ever seen was beautiful, and for a moment she caught her breath.
Philip’s baby had arrived; her ex-husband was now a father.
All their lives forever changed and she felt once more that familiar yank at her heart – it was the feeling of change, wringing its way through her body, not bad change, but change all the same.
So many photographs , she thought, as her thumb moved them up the screen of her phone.
A baby girl, proud father, exhausted and Charlotte, beaming at the camera, looking down on her daughter as if she’d just managed to do something no other woman had ever managed before.
Stop it . Then there were the comments, the oohs and ahhs , the isn’t she gorgeous and she’s the image of her mother .
Who knew there were so many emojis for congratulations, it’s a girl ?
Heather thought for a moment she might be sick, her back resting against the pillows, crouched over her phone, her body filled up with an unfamiliar tension that threatened to throw her whole insides upside down.
Was it jealousy? Could she really not be wholeheartedly happy for Philip’s good fortune and wish him well in the way his life was panning out?
She started to type, her fingers racing across the phone keypad.
Well done, so thrilled for you both, she is absolutely beautiful.
For what felt like eternity, her finger hovered over the screen.
Then she took a deep breath. Felt the air exhale from her lungs as if she was releasing every stress and tension she’d ever felt in London, in the business and in her marriage to Philip.
No.
She would not play along with Charlotte’s cruel games.
She had moved on with her life, finally.
It had taken too long, but now she was here, in Ocean’s End, surrounded by people she truly loved.
Perhaps it was the news that Constance was dying, but everything in life seemed to have fallen into perspective suddenly.
She tapped the three dots, made her selection.
Exited the group and exhaled. My God, that felt good.
She would let Philip know tomorrow that she wanted no further contact, he could tell Charlotte.
They were welcome to each other. She fell asleep smiling, feeling somehow liberated anew.
It was a beautiful baby, though, she thought, a really beautiful baby.
Although she certainly didn’t expect to, Heather slept soundly for what remained of the night.
So soundly, in fact, that she woke the next morning to the aroma of freshly brewed coffee and frying bacon wafting up from the kitchen below.
The sun was beaming in through the window so brightly that it lit the room up with a pristine yellow that reminded her of how things looked here when she was a child and it felt as if summer could last forever.
‘Oh, you’re still here? I assumed you’d gone out earlier. I’ll just add some extra to the pan, we can sit together then when Ros arrives.’ Constance nodded towards the kitchen window, where she’d probably already spotted Ros making her way across the fields in the distance.
‘I can’t remember the last time I slept so late,’ Heather told her as she leaned against the sink, looking around the kitchen with fresh eyes.
God, she loved being here; it was shabby and worn out and everything was dated, but it felt as she was tethered to something that felt right for her.
When Ros arrived she told them both about her divorce from Philip and how he’d moved on so quickly with Charlotte and, now, news of their baby arriving in the night.
‘And you’re okay?’ Ros said.
‘I’m okay,’ Heather said, passing her phone across to Constance to see the baby pictures.
‘Are you sure? I mean, it’s such a big part of your life, you’d be well entitled to feel a little out of sorts today,’ Constance said. She had turned positively gooey-eyed at the sight of the baby.
‘It feels weird, in a sort of I-can’t-believe-Philip-is-a-father way.
I mean, I can’t help wondering how he feels now and imagining his life spooling further away from mine than I’d ever really played out in my mind when we were going for the divorce.
But at the same time… I have no regrets about it. ’
‘Charlotte sounds like an absolute cow, if you don’t mind me saying so.’ Ros made a face.
‘She really is, but it doesn’t matter, it’s nothing to do with me any more.’
‘Well you did the right thing, cutting it out straight off, better for everyone in the long run,’ Constance said.
‘I suppose, the only thing is, it makes me wonder about where my future is going to fit into the world and what it’s going to look like,’ Heather said and that was the truth of it.
That was exactly how she felt right now.
A week ago, she thought she’d stay here with Constance indefinitely, certainly she’d had no intention of booking a flight back to London.
But now, Constance wouldn’t be here any more, and Ros might be leaving too – what was left for her?
‘You don’t want to go back to London, do you?’ Ros asked.
‘I mean, it’s where I’ve always lived, I’m not sure I’d know how to live anywhere else.’
‘Well, I don’t think that’s right,’ Constance said and she put her cup down deliberately on the table. ‘I mean, you seem to be happy here, living here, working on the books and walking the beach and…’ She reached across the table. ‘You know, you’re welcome to stay for as long as you want?’
‘I know that, thank you, Constance, but I can’t stay on holidays for the rest of my days…’
‘So, why have it as a holiday? Lots of people go to other countries and then retire there, you hear about them all the time – that couple we were watching the other night on TV, Constance, remember, in their castle in France, they just sold up everything and moved. You could do that… if you wanted to?’ Ros said.
‘I’m not sure I’d be up for buying a chateau.’ Heather smiled. It was absurd; she couldn’t just stay here on her own.
‘I’m being serious. You could buy a house here, open a flower shop or any sort of shop you wanted. I mean, if you have enough money to get started, why not?’
‘You are actually serious? But what would I do…’ It was fairly obvious that there was no great market here for fresh flowers or for much of anything else that wasn’t already being catered to.
‘You could work on the Maggie Macken Foundation,’ Constance said and her cheeks reddened as if it had taken a lot of courage to say it.
‘Oh, Constance, what I’m doing for you with the books isn’t so I’ll have a job at the end,’ Heather said. ‘It’s because I want to help you and I loved the books – I want to make sure that other people get to enjoy them too.’
‘It doesn’t mean it couldn’t be your job, if we managed to make some money on them.’
‘You need that to fix up this place,’ Heather said quietly, except, now, it turned out that Constance wouldn’t be here to see the roof repaired or the house secured.
‘What good is this place if the whole estate is gone to pot? It needs to be properly managed, that’s just common sense.’