No one could deny that was true, so Uncle Christopher and Aunt Elaine had gritted their teeth and let her get on with purchasing a brand-new two-bedroomed static caravan from Gavin Hewson. She’d have to vacate it every January, but other than that it was a home from home, and with her parents across the road and willing to let her live with them for the month she had to be offsite, Rosie hadn’t seen any downside to the purchase, even though it now meant she had no savings and would probably never get on the property ladder.
‘Who cares?’ Rosie had said with a shrug as she proudly showed off her new home to her family. ‘This is my home. I don’t need another.’
‘Until the land it’s sitting on falls into the sea,’ her mother said grimly.
‘Gavin says if it gets too close to the cliff edge, we’ll just move it to another plot,’ Rosie said with a shrug. ‘Easy.’
No one liked to point out that the caravan park didn’t go back forever, and at some point, there was going to be nowhere to move the caravans that were teetering near the edge of the cliff to. Rosie wasn’t daft and she must have known that. If she was choosing to look on the bright side, well, that was Rosie for you.
Alison had, to her shame, only been inside the caravan once, and that was when Rosie had first shown them all around, when the furniture was still covered in plastic protection. Caravans just weren’t her thing, and she imagined it was quite poky and uncomfortable inside now that all Rosie’s belongings were in situ.
She didn’t want to hurt her cousin’s feelings, though. ‘Thanks, Rosie, but you wouldn’t want me cluttering up the place for three months. It’s okay, I’ll manage somehow. Besides, it would take me about fifty minutes to get to work each day.’
Rosie, though, had got the bit between her teeth. ‘But only four days a week! And it’ll be smashing!’ she cried excitedly. ‘Think of it, Ali. You and me being housemates for three months while we get your life back on track.’ She waved a hand in the air as if revealing a sign. ‘Project Alison! Move in on Sunday with me. A new month. A new beginning. Twelve weeks to reverse your diabetes, make Jenna and Joel realise what twats they’re being, and take back control. What do you say?’
Alison couldn’t deny it sounded tempting. Twelve weeks wasn’t really so long, was it? All right, the commute would be a long one, but it would be worth it in the end. And maybe, if she wasn’t at home and at Jenna’s beck and call, her daughter would realise that she had a point, and that she’d treated Alison unfairly. Maybe Joel would relent and let her see the twins. Maybe they’d organise proper childcare so that Alison’s relationship with her granddaughters could be a more conventional one in the future.
Twelve weeks of having Rosie guarding her eating – because she knew her cousin would take this very seriously and help her stick to her diet. More importantly, twelve weeks of being by the sea, by the river, of country walks and fresh air, of seeing her parents and spending quality time with them, of mixing more with her aunt and uncle and maybe even seeing Niall and Kendra more frequently.
She’d missed Kelsea Sands. She understood the ache that Rosie had talked of because she’d felt it herself. She might only live twenty-four miles or so from the place, but sometimes it felt more like a million.
You either ‘got’ Kelsea Sands or you didn’t, and if you didn’t, you’d never understand the hold it had on so many people’s hearts.
The mudflats of the Humber foreshore, the gleam of sunshine on the water that would dazzle you as you gazed at the horizon, the views across the wide expanse of the river to Lincolnshire, the vast open skies, the half-mile walk down the lane between the Humber and the North Sea, which took you past the church with its overgrown graveyard, along the narrow footpath edged with grassy verges that in spring were splashed with yellow daffodils and in summer bright with scarlet poppies.
The stark beauty of winter trees which, in May, modelled their pretty spring green dresses with lacy hawthorn trimmings. The tangled hedges. The wild grasses.
The North Sea with the wind turbines in the distance. The broken road that hung like a diving board over the crumbling cliffs. The sandy beach littered with rubble from another age.
The emptiness. The sheer simplicity and beauty of the place that could overwhelm you with emotion and reduce you to tears because it was just so bloody beautiful and you had no words to express how it made you feel.
This tiny little place, at the mercy of the tide, held Alison in its grasp forever, and as she thought about it, she experienced a tug of love and longing for home that couldn’t be denied any longer.
Twelve weeks to change her life. Twelve weeks to take back control. Twelve weeks to reconnect with her wider family, breathe in the fresh air and remember who she was.
Twelve weeks to find the old Alison.
‘Okay,’ she said, half laughing at the craziness of it all. ‘You’re on. I’ll bring my stuff on Sunday night after work.’
Rosie gaped at her. ‘Seriously?’
‘Yes, seriously. I need to get my act together, Rosie. I can’t carry on like this any longer, and where better to sort myself out than home?’
Because, she realised, Kelsea Sands had always been home. It was where she belonged. And she was ready to return.
Even if it did mean spending three months in a bloody caravan.
14
Alison eyed the Mars Bar with longing before forcing herself to turn away from the confectionery shelf. All day she’d been attacked by the sights and smells of delicious food at the petrol station. She’d been on a bakery shift that morning, and could still smell the sausage rolls and delicious sweet pastries from that section of the shop. Now she was working an extra shift to cover a colleague so there was no escape. It was enough to make her want to weep.
The last two weeks had been hard. Really hard. All the upheaval of packing her bags and moving down to Kelsea Sands on 1 February would normally have been enough to make her turn to food, but somehow, she’d mustered her strength and started her diet. So far, she’d managed to stick to it, though it had to be said that the bakery shifts were the hardest, especially after having to make such a long drive into work in the early hours of the morning.
If she’d had second thoughts about sharing the caravan with Rosie they’d quickly been dispelled – firstly by her parents’ delight that she was going to be living so close to them for the next three months, and secondly by the pleasant surprise she’d received when she’d tentatively stepped into the caravan.
‘Oh, wow!’ She’d gazed around in surprise, noting how clean and tidy and spacious it was. There was a large open-plan kitchen, dining room and living room, complete with a proper sofa and armchairs, a large television on the wall, and a stylish fireplace with a pebble-effect electric fire.
‘Dishwasher,’ Rosie had said, proudly pointing it out. ‘Bet you never expected that, did you?’
