If it’s not too much trouble, please could you ring your bestie at the bank and grab me an appointment to talk about loans …
Paying back Maude is just the start. I’ll have to borrow more once I get a business plan. I have to stop and fan my face when I think about that. But what’s that old saying, ‘You can’t make an omelette …’?
Which reminds me to break off to text Nell.
Coming home tomorrow to bake for the garden party, please can you bring me eggs xx
She texts straight back:
Will do. Good woman. Bring on Laura’s School Dinner Nostalgia nights!!! x
Then I go back to George:
… and could you possibly ask your insider contact at the estate agents if there are any teensy properties suitable for a ‘pop up’ kitchen that aren’t up on Rightmove …
I’ll be looking for a beach hut rather than a restaurant, but if I’m serious – and I am, even if the word does make me go rigid – I need to look under every proverbial stone on the proverbial beach
… and please, please, please can I have my job back?
Obviously, I save the biggest one for the end.
Big love, Clemmie x
I add a kiss for mermaid luck. Then I give a silent ‘eeeek’, press ‘send’ and collapse back against my chair. I’ve done it. It’s symbolic. I’ve crossed the line from being a person who takes the easy way out. And I’m one email closer to being a person who takes responsibility for shaping my own destiny and is fully prepared to deal with whatever shit that entails. In that one hugely long sentence I accept that maybe life won’t ever be simple again. But at least I’ll be working my butt off to be where I want to be, doing what I want, with the people I love.
Then I email Sophie and tell her I’ll be back to bake for Thursday and please will she send me some menu suggestions. I’m on the FlyBE website booking a flight when my coffee arrives. Then the post van squeals to a halt by the kerb and the postman winds down his window and throws a parcel onto the table along with a long explanation that is possibly about it getting lost in his footwell.
By the time I’ve got a seat confirmed on the plane tomorrow teatime, I’ve opened another teensy seascape, and a tiny piece of drift wood plank, with some painted words on …
Life takes you to unexpected places, love brings you home
Which makes me go all teary all over again.
If the postman had delivered that in the first place … I’d still be doing exactly what I’m doing. So, seeing I’m on a roll here, I ring Plum and ask her if she can pick me up from the airport. She saysYes, great, thank jeez you’re coming home, woohooo. Then I say,Less of the wooohoooos, I’m on fifty pence a minute here, oh and thanks for all the seascapes, they really helped. And she says,Seascapes?What seascapes?She sees so many I don’t blame her for getting confused. So, I say,Never mind, we’ll sort it tomorrow, I can’t wait. And can we please stop off at Waitrose on the way back?
At which point the waiter comes over, and I order a huge hot chocolate and a ham salad baguette, because facing Maude is going to take a massive protein boost. One minute I’m licking breadcrumbs off my finger, writing lists of Little Cornish Kitchen school puddings down on my serviette. The next there’s a scramble of paws, a strangled bark, and a cold wet, black nose is pushing into my ear. Then my sandwich whooshes of my plate and hits the pavement. A second later it’s gone. There’s only one dog I know who’s as fast as that at swiping sandwiches. But he should be in …
‘Diesel?’ I’m still looking down at the pavement, so it’s the deck shoes I see first. Then the soft faded jeans and that flash of tanned torso between the low-slung belt and the polo shirt. ‘And Charlie?’ I’m shaking and dizzy but I manage a croak. ‘What are you two doing here? Apart from stealing baguettes.’
Charlie pulls up a chair and Diesel curls up in the teensy space between the table and the café window. ‘We’re here on a flying visit, the ferries were doing special summer offers.’
‘Really?’ I’m blinking in disbelief because August is peak time.
Charlie pulls down the corners of his mouth. ‘No, actually that’s not true at all, it cost an arm and a leg to get on the tunnel. We hated it so much without you we had to come. But most of all I want to say sorry.’
I let out a sigh. ‘I should be the one apologising, you were right, I should have told you earlier.’ Funny how I thought I’d never face him after a kiss, and yet as I stare at his lips it’s hard to believe it ever happened at all.
He shakes his head. ‘I should have respected your choices. I was only angry because I was so desperate for you to stay. Especially after the beach.’ His forehead crinkles. ‘You do remember the bit before the shouting?’
So, I didn’t get away with it. ‘When I jumped you?’
‘If that’s how you like to remember it, it didn’t feel like that to me.’ He’s almost smiling. ‘You might not realise, but that very first day you yanked me and Diesel in off that balcony everything changed for me. It was as if I’d been living life in black and white for years and suddenly you turned the colour back on. I’ve come to tell you that too.’
I let out a breath. ‘That’s such a lovely thing to say.’
He’s leaning towards me, his lovely face lined with tension. ‘You’re not like anybody I’ve ever known before, Clems. You’re quirky and feisty and funny and unique and beautiful and you amaze me every single minute that I’m with you. That’s why I’ve been trying so hard to make things work in St Aidan, I had no idea you’d disappear so fast.’
I can’t help remembering what Nell said, and I have to clear this up before I get my hopes up. ‘I know we were trying to get you to have fun, but are you really ready for someone else?’
