‘At least I’m not pimping Castle’s property for him.’ She shifted uneasily on her feet before it struck her he was pointing at the estate agent’s shop. ‘I hear you are quite good at the sales stuff.’ His tone softened. ‘You showed a property to my cousin the other day and she’s put in an offer. You’ll see her at the wedding, so let’s hope she doesn’t pull out. Did you get my invite?’
‘Thanks, but I’m busy that day,’ she mumbled as she turned to walk away.
He grabbed her hand. ‘Please can we put our doomed relationship behind us, Aria? I’m sorry for what I did. I shouldn’t have asked you to marry me. It was a dick move. I was just feeling so guilty for sleeping with Lu-Lu behind your back and wanted to prove I could commit to you properly by putting a ring on you. Lu-Lu convinced me I was making a mistake, that she was more my cup of tea, and insisted I broke it off. As I said at the time, it wasn’t personal. There was nothing wrong with you.’
Aria removed her hand from his as she attempted to process his speech. ‘So impersonal you couldn’t tell me face to face?’
‘The way it ended is something I now regret. Lu-Lu helped me compose it. I thought she’d add a feminine slant to soften the blow.’ Justin looked shifty. ‘But instead she only added the sad faces. In her defence, she’s always preferred emojis to actual words.’
‘That’s no defence! Are you telling me she helped you write the bloody text?’
Tiger barked as Aria raised her voice.
‘Not exactly! Look, Aria, I’m trying to have a moment here. To get it all off my chest, you know?’ Aria’s disgusted expression didn’t discourage him from continuing. ‘I’m sorry that you caught us in bed together. When you came charging over so distraught. Lu-Lu likes to have sex every day. She also lets me do that thing you never, you know with her butt—’
‘Oh my God, too much information!!’ Aria screeched, knowing this intimate image of Lu-Lu would be scorched into her mind’s eye forever.
But Justin wasn’t done. ‘Fine, enough about us for now. This Castle bloke, have you set a date?’
‘Oh no, Justin. You don’t get to control the conversation. It’s my turn to tell you some truths. You were a two-timing, deceiving bastard, and a terrible lay. I can’t believe you had the audacity to re-use the invitesIdesigned forourwedding! That’s so cheap.’
‘I had a copy on my laptop, and it seemed a shame to waste them. But I guess you might have wanted to use them as you are getting hitched too?’
She shook her head, unable to believe the stuff coming out of his mouth. ‘No Justin, we wouldn’t have recycled them like you recycled me.’
He pressed his fingers together, a praying hands emoji brought to life. ‘I hear what you are saying, Aria, and it’s totally justified. I was a thoughtless son of a bitch, and I can see that now. I’m really sorry. Can I try to make it up to you? I could offer you a job? We need someone in sales who knows the area, and I know for a fact I’d pay you more than you are earning over there. We could even throw in a caravan for you to live in if it all goes pear-shaped in the luxury lodge.’
She bristled. ‘I have a job, Justin. And Nic and I are great.’
‘Fine, then. Well, enjoy your wedding planning and please do come to ours. I’ve invited you both. I’m just surprised he hasn’t bought your hut and knocked it down yet. He’s swiped everything else from under all our noses.’
As he sniped, she scrutinised the man standing before her in a back-to-front cap and branded sports vest that barely covered his chest. His babyish face still couldn’t produce decent stubble – it was patchy, at best. He’d never grown up. Even if Nic hadn’t spun into her life like a lit-up Catherine wheel, Justin would never be her person. He’d done her a favour by ending things. It had been brutally final, but it was the right outcome. ‘I’d like to say it was nice to see you, Justin, but it wasn’t. I suggest you stop letting Lu-Lu make your decisions, write your own texts and grow a pair of balls,’ she said, tugging on the dog’s lead and walking briskly away.
***
Aria sank into the back seat on the bus with some relief, picking up a text from Nic to say he’d gone to Brighton to see his mother and would take her out to dinner on his return. Wondering if that had anything to do with their conversation about families and knotweed, she got off at her stop and plugged the code into the gate. Turning right when the path split, she glanced down at her patch of beach and the land she’d worked so hard on.
‘Whaaat the…’
She ran forward, blinking in the sunshine, unable to believe her eyes. In the place where the cabin had always stood, there was a pile of wood and rubble, pieces of furniture, and broken glass. The entire hut had been demolished to a pulp. Not even the once so sturdy sofa bed remained. Along the line of the path stood a series of weary sunflowers, like useless sentry guards.
Even Tiger seemed to freeze when he saw the mash of rotten timber and glass that had once been their refuge.
A pitiful cry stuck in her throat as she picked her way along the path to where the simple veranda used to be. In a frenzy, she began kicking at the earth, as though she could dig it up. Tiger joined in, clawing at the ground. Despite the sunshine, she felt cold. Then her whole body started to shake, breaths coming in gasps. Holding her chest, she tried and failed to calm herself down. Her legs took her on autopilot to Nic’s front door, where she banged hard with her fists and rang the bell multiple times. When no one answered, sheleaned against the porch railing, still struggling to breathe. All she could think of was her dad painting the door, collecting seeds from the flowers to replant, and building the compost toilet. That self-serving wrecking ball of a man had ripped apart one of her last connections with Eddie. But no, that kind of guy didn’t get his own hands dirty – he’d have paid someone else to destroy her property. She ran down to the beach to see if anyone was still around. When she drew a blank, she collapsed on the pebbles and cried. For her dad, for herself and for the simple home she hadn’t realised how much she’d loved until she’d lost it.
50
In days gone by, when he was more welcome, Nic would have marched straight up the hill. But today he texted his mother his location and hung out on the beach, his childhood feeling like a shadow behind him. Summers of freedom, with salt in the air and a board under his feet, destroyed in his teen years by his father’s infidelity. Propping Mum up after their separation and helping her build a business from the settlement, sketching out plans for properties of his own had been hard, but it set him up for life. Brighton was where he began, and he normally felt a kind of peace here. But today, the electronic sounds from the arcades were a distraction. He was used to blowing dandelion clocks where he could only hear the sound of his own puff of breath. His nerves were jangling about the prospects of meeting his mother and being by the sea. He wasn’t sure why he’d chosen this as a meeting place. It was all a bit overwhelming. But this was a good time to practise the calming breathing techniques a therapist had recommended. He sat on the sand, took his shoes and socks off and focused on the rise and fall of his rib cage.
‘Nicolas.’ That was all she said. One word, filled with the intensity that had infused hospital visits. He tried not to let that put him off. Instead, he leaped up and kept his greeting cheerful as though he’d seen her only last week.
‘Hey, Mum. How are you?’
His mother stood on the beach in a red and white floral kimono, wearing wooden sandals embroidered with cats. She carried a parasol even though rain had been forecast. He noticed her hair had grown longer, flecked with strands of grey she hadn’t tried to cover. Free from his father and her kids, she had become the person she’d always wanted to be. He wasn’t sure whether to hug her, but she made his mind up for him by keeping a distance. Then she surprised him by pulling two towels out of a beach bag and spreading them out. This reminded him of his night under the stars with Aria, and he checked his phone. When he’d shared the good news about planning, Theo had returned his message in capital letters, and even his father had been on the phone within minutes, whereas Aria had sent muted congratulations by text and then stayed away for the night. Weirdly, she’d failed to reply to any messages since.
His mum nodded to the near-empty beach. ‘The weather is changing. We might have to relocate to a café unless you fancy a swim.’
‘I don’t go in the water anymore.’ He flashed back to the night she’d been so vile to him, prompting him to take the jet ski onto the lake so dangerously. They had a lot of bridges to build, and he guessed the rift would have destabilised her as much as it had him. He studied her out of the corner ofhis eye while pretending to look at a family digging a castle. ‘Thanks for meeting me here. I wanted to have a conversation on neutral turf,’ he said, picking out his words carefully so they didn’t fall back into shouting at each other.
