‘And Milla Vanilla isn’t?’ I roll my eyes and try again. ‘You could be Columbus because you sail round the world? Or maybe Captain Kirk.’ Don’t knock how random this is, it’s a great way to avoid more challenging topics.
Nic’s staring at me as we walk. ‘From the Starship Enterprise?’
I nod. ‘I’m not an obsessive, but it’s well known in Star Trek history that Kirk is the person who removes his shirt the most. There may be some parallels there.’
‘And we’re both in charge of our ships – I could go with that.’ He laughs. ‘It’s good to see you with red cheeks today not green ones.’
That’s exactly the kind of conversation bullet I was hoping to dodge here. ‘Just what I need! A reminder of my failandto hear that I’m scarlet.’ I quicken my pace so we can get there before I go puce and he starts asking me if I’ve readThe Sober Diariesor done any dependency workshops. But that only makes me even more breathless.
He’s talking long easy strides beside me. ‘I’m guessing that if we’re widening the search for a venue we’ll be eating a lot of ice cream over the next few weeks.’
Even though it’s pounding from the exertion, my heart still manages to wither. Much as I love ice cream, lately I’m finding him even less comfortable to be with. And him talking weeks not days isn’t encouraging either. I need to crack this venue search as soon as possible before we reach as far as London. ‘Aren’t there boats to deliver?’
‘This is my priority; I’ll be on it full time now until it’s sorted.’
‘Great.’ It’s not great at all. Now he’s back, I can’t think why I wasn’t more delighted to see him go away.
He bobs to pick up a pebble and rubs it between his fingers. ‘The trouble with walking on the beach without a dog is it always feels like something is missing. My mum and dad have a houseful, we need to borrow them.’
We don’t agree on many issues, but he’s right on this. ‘We always had dogs when I was younger. They used to love the beach.’
‘So are your parents still in Rose Hill?’
I swallow away a sudden rush of saliva, then move in to brush it off. ‘My dad left when I was small, so he didn’t ever figure, but my mum died eleven years ago.’
He lets out a long sigh. ‘I’m so sorry, I wouldn’t have asked if I’d known.’
Making other people feel okay is always my first job when they find out. ‘It’s fine. I’m more used to her being gone now. But however long it is, I don’t think about her any less – I still miss her every day.’ Every hour actually.
His face creases. ‘Poor Milla.’
My mum hated wallowers; I owe it to her to lift the mood again. ‘She’s never that far away. Most things I do, I can hear her voice in my head telling me what she thinks.’ I send him a grin. ‘She was so vibrant and alive, she’d hate us to be sad. Most of those party bangers came from what she called her “playlist to die for”. She was never going to leave quietly, she had the whole village reverberating for months.’
‘She sounds awesome.’ He dips across and gives my elbow a squeeze, but I do a spurt in my speed trot and it’s over before it’s begun. ‘That must be where you get it from.’
By the time my mum reached the stage where she couldn’t move out of our living room, she took delight in arguing the toss with the village vicar when he visited, so usually he steered clear. And she never talked about heaven as real. Instead, she insisted she’d be crossing the proverbial rainbow bridge for pets, and finding our dogs and all the guinea pigs we ever had, along with the three rabbits who escaped, gambolling in a sunny meadow on the other side. And she always promised that whatever happened she’d always be here to watch over us kids. But there are times, like now, when I look up and see Merwyn haring along the beach towards us, snapping at the tangles of dried seaweed, and it really feels as if she’s up there gently pulling the strings as she reclines on one of those fluffy clouds.
I slow down to a gasping walk and shout to Captain Kirk. ‘Unless Ivy took a hearth rug out for a walk there could be a dog on his way to meet us.’ I bend down and call. ‘Mer-wyn!’
A moment later he hurtles at our legs and starts haring backwards and forwards, barking, jumping up at each of us in turn.
‘Hey, take it easy, mate.’ Nic puts a steadying hand on Merwyn’s head, which works for a nanosecond before he belts off again to meet Ivy.
Ivy’s got a beret pulled down over her ears and her blue fake fur collar pulled up against the horizontal gusts and she still looks like she came off a catwalk. Not in a stiff twig way like Phoebe, but in a vibrant, alive, beautiful way, like a dark Claudia Schiffer. Her face lights up as she greets us. ‘I thought we could walk the last bit together, it’s lovely coming in to the castle garden straight from the beach.’ Her face breaks into a grin. ‘Merwyn and I only came here full time in January, the novelty hasn’t worn off yet.’
I’m racking through my memory banks as we follow her up the sand and past some bushes. ‘I think I remember coming past here when we were children.’ Then suddenly it’s in front of us, and as we stare across a lawn to a wide building with end towers and battlements and light-grey stone walls, I’m gasping. ‘It’s like something out of a film, only better, because it’s real.’
Ivy’s looking shy. ‘Welcome to Cockle Shell. This is the higgledy side of the cosiest castle in the world.’ She nods at me. ‘Truly, if you think it’s amazing now you should see it in the moonlight. And it’s lovely because inside it’s even smaller than it looks from out here.’ She’s shaking out her keys, pointing towards a pergola. ‘That’s the terrace over there with the hot tub. Come around the side, and I’ll take you in through the main door.’
I can’t hold back my enthusiasm. ‘This is idyllic. I can just imagine the hens rushing out onto the beach to make sandcastles.’ I bet they’d love messing around in the rockpools too.
Our feet are scrunching on the gravel path as we go around the other side, then Ivy leads us out onto the lawn so we can see the front. ‘This is the garden side with the proper symmetrical façade. It would be so lovely for hens to have afternoon tea on the lawn here in the summer.’
I can barely hold back my excitement as I take in walls that have been punched through with small paned windows, with a square tower at each end. ‘Scones and jam and dainty cucumber sandwiches on vintage china plates in front of the castle … it couldn’t be any more perfect.’
Then she leads the way closer and pushes open the huge plank front door, and we follow her into the hall, with a huge chunky staircase and lovely flagstone floors and walls too. ‘I first came here in December, and we had the hugest tree here decorated with shells and miniature gin bottles.’
‘Who does Bill let it to usually?’
