“We’re not animals, Daddy.” Rory, otherwise known as Aurora, crawled down my back and over to Gully. “Mama said I can have wine when I’m grown up.”
“Did Mama say how old you had to be to be grown up?” He fussed with her hair with his free hand.
Aurora looked up, her seven-year-old self full of confidence that was definitely the stuff of Hollands. “Eighteen.”
“Eleven more years of drinking carton juice. Better start to enjoy it.”
She pulled her tongue at him and then headed to the little bookcase near the fire and pulled out a book, she and Ash starting an argument about who got to read it.
“Where’s Iris?” Amelie frowned, staring like she expected Gully’s wife to appear from nowhere. “I needed to see her about Ash’s party.”
“She had a meeting with Cass.” Gully mentioned the head teacher at the primary school and one of our friends. “Ash punched another kid in the face at lunch time break.”
“Why?” Amelie narrowed her eyes.
“A boy was picking on one of the kids in the year below, so Ash apparently stood up to him and lamped him one. Cass phoned me this afternoon to say he needed to see one of us. It was ‘Ris’ turn. I did the Rory meeting last week.” He stretched and yawned.
“What was that about?” Zoey drained her glass.
She knew the kids and most of the Puffin Bay residents, having been here often enough over the years, and when we spoke on the phone when she was away, she always demanded a full low down on everything that was happening,
“Rory doesn’t stop talking and she thinks she’s the teacher. None of it was a surprise and my mam said she had the same issues with me. God help the school when he starts.” He pressed a kiss against Jasper’s hair and ruffled it with his hands. Jasper was fiddling with Gully’s wallet, quite content. “Anyway, how’re you, Zoey? How’s life treating you?”
I shifted away from the table, leaving Zoey to catch up with Gully, getting the juices for the kids. I’d babysat them from when they were tiny, giving Gully and Iris a break. Aurora had lived with me for a week when Ash was tiny, and he’d been in hospital for a few days.
I then headed into the kitchen to order food, finding Amelie following me.
“What else is going on with Zoey?” Her hand grabbed my shoulder before I could get there. “Why’s she selling her house?”
Amelie had visited Zoey there a couple of times when she’d been to London to see friends. She’d stayed there once or twice too, and I knew she kept in touch with Zoey.
“There was a break in there and it’s spooked her.” I folded my arms. “I think she needs to be somewhere she feels safe and she can escape.”
“And that place has always been Puffin Bay. Not just for her either.” Amelie nodded and then sighed. “Caleb, sugar, is that flat going to be big enough? You’re used to having your own space and - ”
“We’ll be fine.” Although I knew that wasn’t what she was asking. “We always are.”
“Then is it clean enough? I’d classify it at hazard level five when I went in there. I wish you’d said you hadn’t had time to stay on top of it – I could’ve had it deep cleaned while you were away.”
“I might’ve seen a mouse in there last night.”
The look of horror on her face was similar to mine when I’d seen the wee beastie.
“You are joking?”
“It’s only a mouse. We get loads on the boats.” I shrugged, knowing she wasn’t going to take this quite as well.
“Okay. We’re going to need to do something about this. Don’t say anything to Zoey.” She headed off, a plan already made.
We stayed in the pub until closing time, several of the locals coming by to say hi when they found out that Zoey was back. She was cheerier by the time we headed back up the stairs to the flat, her smile back in place and one that made her eyes light up, full of gossip from the town and opinions on the new café that’d been opened up as a rival to Amelie’s Cakery in the community centre which had been established for years.
“Does the town need two cafés?” She sat down on the sofa, stretching out her legs, her blonde hair still windswept.
“Amelie isn’t bothered by it. She said it hasn’t made any difference to the takings at the cakery.” I squished down into a chair that’d seen better days. I still had Amelie’s old furniture from when she’d lived here, twelve years ago. When she moved in with my dad, she’d kept the flat as her bolthole in case she got cold feet. Her feet had stayed warm and it’d been me who escaped here instead. More than a decade later I really needed to think about getting my own place and maybe growing up and buying house shit.
“Hmmm.” Zoey stretched out some more, looking around the room. “I love how little things change here. Every time I come back, there’s something different but most things are the same. It’s nice.”
I nodded, watching her, hoping she didn’t notice the small creature looking at us from a corner. Zoey hadn’t changed much from when we’d first met, just before the community centre opened and I’d been delivering flyers about it with my dad. Her face was sharper, her hair lighter and she was tiny and toned and probably several pounds lighter even after demolishing the lasagne and another portion of cottage pie for supper.
