I’m not sure why this is unnerving, but as I look around at Mum and Plum, it feels like everything suddenly got a whole lot more complicated.
Rye isn’t just a random employee – as boss of the place his father owns, he couldn’t be any more involved. And as Rye’s lifelong friend, Kit is up to his neck in it too.
I turn to Kit. ‘So is that everything? Or are there other surprises?’
He shrugs. ‘No, that’s it – for now.’
Except it isn’t, because this changes everything.
Rye smiles. ‘I can only apologise. If I’d been behind the desk in my work suit when you arrived, you’d have realised sooner.’ He picks up an ice bucket. ‘Let me get more fizz to make up for the misunderstanding.’
By the time he comes back we’ve had time to reset, and once he starts popping corks and filling the glasses, he’s such a natural we can’t understand how we didn’t get it earlier. But the slicker Rye looks, the more doubts I’m having, and I know I need to get this straight in my mind.
I take a swig of my Fizzero to build my courage and look at Kit. ‘In which case I assume your relocation to St Aidan wasn’t entirely by chance either?’
Kit stares down at the bubbles in his glass before he looks up to answer. ‘Rye wanted to make his dad’s place a success. The deal they offered me on Latitudes was so generous it knocked all the other places I was considering out of the running.’
‘You got a friends and family discount?’
Rye laughs. ‘Given that it meant having a good friend like Kit around, the terms were bound to be preferential.’
Whatever I said to the gang earlier, it’s obvious Kit is so much more involved than I imagined. Under these circumstances I can’t possibly work for him.
‘Before we go on, we have a surprise for you too,’ Nell says.
I can’t think what she’s going to say. Something about the baby’s name?
She lets out a laugh. ‘Flossie’s made up her mind, Kit. She’s going to take your job!’
There are whoops and squeals. It’s only when I hear Rye calling, ‘Let’s drink to that! Welcome to the High Tides team, Floss!’ that the full impact of what just happened sinks in.
It feels like there’s no backing out. I’m on the inside, not the outside. And the game has changed.I just hope I can handle what’s coming.
26
The Deck Gallery, St Aidan
Closed roads and space invaders
Monday
George Alfred Harry Trelawney Trenowden was born at Truro Hospital at ten-thirty the next evening, weighing in at nine pounds ten ounces. Two days later he and Nell were settled back home in St Aidan, and when George senior announced that they were ready for visitors we all went around to meet him.
Shadow and I took him a tiny sage green dragon suitable for newborns that I saw in Plum’s gallery and fell in love with because the wings were so cute. And for a short time we all sat around marvelling that Nell and George are parents, and they have a tiny human who looks just like George but with a redder face, who will no doubt occupy every second of their thoughts for the next twenty years and longer.
I’d actually been worried I might cry, but the devastation in the kitchen caused by most of St Aidan calling for tea and cake wiped all the baby emotion away. By the time I’d loaded the dishwasher, put all the flowers into vases and narrowly stopped Shadow demolishing an entire tin of Scottish shortbread, I didn’t need my tissues anymore. And then we all went back to doing what we were doing before, and life went on.
As Plum and I are the only baby-free ones left in the group, we felt a fleeting but significant connection, which led on to a crazy late one at the dog-friendly Hungry Shark karaoke night, and a suggestion that I should go along to hers with my next batch of sweets to taste once they were ready. So on Monday I arrive in the light, airy, very white Deck Gallery, carrying a bag of Ivy’s cups and a basket of other random goodies, and we sit around Plum’s long table on her arty metal chairs to finesse my concoctions.
As an international business magnate it’s fortunate Sophie’s good at delegating and can free herself up from office meetings for ones like this instead. Obviously once she and Clemmie heard Plum and I would be here with ice cream, they weren’t going to stay away.
I look around the table, ready to tell them what I’ve brought for them to sample, but before I can Sophie cuts in.
‘Before we begin, has anyone heard any more about Mum?’
Over the years Sophie and I have often gone out with the same crowd or ended up at the same parties, but I can’t actually remember a time when we’ve deliberately sought each other out. But Mum’s upcoming date with David Byron has drawn us together like we’re magnetic.
The slightest whisper we hear around the town, it’s pinged off in a text. When I called round to see Mum the day after the spa night and found her with her entire wardrobe strewn across her bedroom, Sophie was the first to know. When Fenella from Fish Quay Fashions rang Sophie to tell her Mum had been in later the same day, half an hour later she’d messaged me with photos of every outfit she’d tried on.
