There’ll be none of that, if I can find us a little New Year retreat. I scroll on, checking out clifftop hotels, sleek harbourside apartments and even a restored fishing boat on a creek. As I stop and sip my coffee, a phrase leaps out from the screen at me: off-grid. Or, more specifically:
An utterly secluded, off-grid haven
With stunning coastal views, our fully restored 18th-century cottage offers the ultimate romantic retreat. In our attic room, formerly an artist’s studio, the glass wall offers stunning views of the night sky (no light pollution here!).
There’s no Wi-Fi or phone signal. You can’t even plug anything in. But you’ll never be bored for a moment at Saltspray Cottage. Heated by wood-burning stoves – and with solar panels providing our electricity – it sits in 70 acres of our own woodland, where a winding path takes you down to our own private beach. Perfect for nature lovers and adventurers yearning to truly get away from it all.
I allow myself a few moments to gaze at the cottage, and check out photos of the nearby coastline with its secluded silvery coves. And I picture James and me, strolling along that winding coastal path – with not a bleeding foot between us – then returning to the cottage to cuddle up in front of that wood-burning stove …
This, I decide, will be my present to James on our first Christmas together. My heartbeat quickens as I click ‘book’.
CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE
ESTHER
When she tells her parents that Miles has been on better behaviour, Esther is aware that it makes him sound like a child. But heisbetter now. He’s being super, super nice – even complimentary, which he never really was before, unless she asked him, ‘D’you like this outfit?’ And he’d look a bit bored and say, ‘Yeah-great-babe!’ And Esther knew she could’ve been wearing a blanket dragged out of a skip for all he was really taking anything in. Now it’s all, ‘Is that new, sweetie? Really suits you!’ and ‘You’re the most beautiful creature, Esther Burton.’ Which is nice, of course. She’s grateful for it, and tries to remember to write it in her gratitude journal.
He’s started cooking too – actual meals, served up at around the time normal people eat. Before his transformation to Ideal Boyfriend, it was all those calorie-counted meals consisting of some shredded vegetables, tempeh and sauerkraut, those fermented foods that are meant to be so good for the gut. ‘I’m twenty,’ Esther has grumbled under her breath many times. ‘I don’t have to think about my gut.’ Whereas Miles does, a lot – or rather his ‘tummy’.(She always feels a tiny bit sick whenever she hears a grown man saying tummy.)
When she thinks about it now, a vast proportion of their relationship has involved having to listen to him ranting on and on, about his DJing or his acid reflux. But not anymore. Now he’s buying fresh fish, parcelling it lovingly in foil and baking it in the oven. It’s still super healthy – served with salads with surprising things in them like fresh herbs and mango. (How did Miles even know where to buy mangoes?) Then he’ll spend about sixteen hours detailing precisely how he made it, which is more information than Esther probably needs in relation to salad assembly, especially in winter when, actually, some chips would be nice – but he likes to keep his weight down. Hers too, she suspects. ‘How are things with the scales these days?’ he’ll ask her occasionally.
‘They’re working fine, thanks,’ she’s retorted, refusing to share the fluctuations of her weight. Anyway, at least they’re finished with those tedious boxed meals from the subscription plan.
One of Miles’s salads is so pretty with its scattering of pomegranate seeds and fresh mint, she suggests he takes a picture of her with it, in the kitchen with daylight streaming in, the way Lauren does. In natural light, that is – rather than in the gloomy cupboard or lying on the smelly grey rug. She posts the picture on Instagram, captioning it:Look at this salad my boyfriend made, all twinkly jewel colours just like my new Bethani pendant.And they love that one.
‘You’re really in the flow,’ says the woman who handles their marketing. ‘We’ve loved what you’ve been doing in that cottagey garden in the countryside. The quality of the pictures isamazing…’
‘Thanks,’ Esther says. She hasn’t mentioned that shenow has a professional photographer on the job. Anyway, they’re not all by Lauren, she reminds herself, in justification. Charlie has taken some too and sometimes, like today, she’ll still ask Miles to rattle off a pic or two. It’s a real mixture these days. It’s more about capturing amoment, Esther reminds herself. And really, anyone with a phone and a half-decent eye can do that.
‘I shouldn’t say this,’ the Bethani woman adds, ‘because we can never tell. But I’m pretty sure we’ll want to keep this relationship going with you for the long term.’
Esther wants that too – not just with the jewellery people but with Miles. Never mind the age difference that her dad seems so hung up about, or the fact that he’s let her down in the past. He’s a new Miles now: lovely, caring and thoughtful.
‘How did I almost screw this up?’ he asks over dinner one night, in her favourite Moroccan restaurant down the road from his flat. Tears are shining in his eyes, and Esther squeezes his hand across the table.
‘We don’t have to go over that anymore,’ she tells him.
‘I’ve been a jerk. I really don’t deserve you, Est …’
She’s feeling especially happy tonight, because more brands have been getting in touch to talk about working with her. Esther has now signed with a prestigious agency who’ll manage this stuff for her. A few weeks ago, everything was falling apart and now it feels as if the Balinese priest is shining good fortune down onto her.
‘Miles, we’ve all done stuff we’re not proud of,’ she says firmly.
‘You’re such an amazing person,’ he gushes. ‘Thank you, babe.’
She leans forward to kiss him. ‘The main thing now is to learn from it all and move on from the past. Because the future is what really matters.’
Maybe all this therapy has been worth it, because it could have been Chrissie saying that.
*
They even go away for a weekend, to an apartment in Bath, for a pre-Christmas treat. Miles has often said he ‘doesn’t see the point of other cities’ (apart from London, he means) and Esther knows he’s a bit funny about ‘The North’, as he puts it. Although he mainly grew up in the country, his parents also had a beautiful townhouse in Chiswick with its own boat mooring on the river. So he considers himself a Londoner really. He seems to think that anywhere north of Brent Cross is all football violence, terrible food and constant rain. He was amazed when Esther told him about all the holidays her dad used to take her on, when she was younger – not just to Majorca and France but places in England too, like Cornwall, the Lake District and Yorkshire.
‘Yorkshire?’ he gasped. ‘What did you do there?’
She told him all about the creepy ghost walk in Whitby, and the donkey rides and ice creams on Scarborough beach. Then there was that time they’d stayed on a farm, somewhere in the Yorkshire Dales, she thinks, where the farmer had let her bottle-feed a lamb and collect eggs in the hay barn every morning – all those brilliant memories with her dad. But Miles had stopped listening by that point.
‘I said I bottle-fed a lamb!’ she snapped.
