‘Is this a good time?’ Bel asked her father. She had called just before going over to Patsy’s for supper and could hear the tinkle of The One Show’s incidental music in the background.
Her father laughed, but Bel wasn’t sure if it was at what she’d said or at something on the television. ‘Maybe I’ll call back tomorrow,’ she suggested.
‘No, no, sweetie, it’s good to hear from you,’ Dennis said, sounding to Bel unusually mellow. Probably already downed a glass or two, she thought. ‘Tell me about the hovel.’
‘Well, it’s quite hovel-like. But some friends helped me clear out the worst bits. I even managed to light the Rayburn.’
‘Friends?’ her father queried. ‘Not that hippie female from next door?’ He coughed. ‘She never liked me.’
‘Her name’s Patsy, Dad. And, yes, she’s been brilliant.’
‘Still got pink hair?’
‘No, it’s grey now.’
Dennis harrumphed. ‘So you’re having fun?’
Bel looked for an edge to his question, but could detect none. ‘I am. It’s gorgeous here. I had a swim and a bacon sandwich this morning. The water was freezing – you wouldn’t have liked it.’
He laughed. ‘Well, I’m really missing you, girl. Place is horribly quiet without you. Don’t get too comfortable, I’m counting the days till you get back.’
‘Are you having Flo’s curry tonight?’ she asked quickly.
‘I am. Looking forward to it. She’s a great cook. Better than you.’
‘Thanks, Dad.’ She was sure he was just teasing, but she twitched, nonetheless. ‘OK, well, I’ll let you get on with your evening,’ she added.
There was a long silence. ‘Dad?’
When he spoke again he sounded almost choked. ‘You won’t leave me, will you, Bella? Please … don’t leave me all alone again. I know I can be a bit of a nuisance sometimes, but I love having you around. It’s changed my life.’
She held her breath. ‘Of course I won’t leave you, Dad,’ she heard herself say. She couldn’t bear the despair in his voice.
‘You’re not there with that man of yours, are you?’ he asked plaintively.
‘Dad, please … I haven’t got a man.’
He took a while to reply. ‘I love you, Bella,’ he said quietly. ‘You do know that, don’t you?’
Dennis very rarely said those words and Bel was taken aback.
‘I love you too, Dad.’
After she’d said goodbye, she stood in the silent cottage and let out a weary sigh. Her father had been nice to her that evening. A bit maudlin, but he’d seemed happy to talk, after the recent rift over her trip away. It was harder to remember his dark side when she was at a distance and no longer under constant hectoring. Harder still to stand back when he was behaving well. I’ve just promised I won’t leave him, she reminded herself, torn and confused by the conversation.
Outside she heard the arrival of the two men at the chapel next door and knew she had to go. But first she went into the back garden and pulled some delicate pink blooms from a straggly rose bush by the fence, pricking her fingers as she wrestled the stalks from the plant – there were no scissors in the kitchen drawer – and burying her nose in the sweet, almost spicy freshness, which reminded her of her mother. It was all she could think of to take Patsy tonight – small recompense for all her kindness – but she vowed she would remedy that as soon as she made it to a shop tomorrow. She’d intended to go out earlier, but she’d lain down for what was supposed to be a short nap and slept for nearly three hours.
Micky nudged Jaz as Patsy set the glorious pie on the kitchen table. It was baked in a round blue-rimmed enamel dish, mustardy, garlicky steam wisping from the pie whistle in the centre of the glossy golden crust. He pronged his two fingers towards the sardine heads poking comically up through the pastry, then swivelled and pointed them at Jaz. ‘They’re looking at you,’ he said, in a sinister voice.
Jaz yelped in mock alarm and covered her eyes, her cheeks flushing. It was clear to Bel, sitting opposite with JJ, that the teenager had a bit of a crush on Micky and his cherub charm – which he seemed in no hurry to dispel.
Patsy, dressed in an orange cotton kurta over faded jeans, feet bare on the stone floor, took up a large knife and ceremoniously slid it into the pastry. Her weather-beaten face was sweating, but her dark eyes were alive with pleasure. ‘Couldn’t get pilchards today. Had to settle for sardines.’
They watched in hungry anticipation as she doled out portions of the dish with a pie slice. Inside were chopped hard-boiled eggs and tiny new potatoes, a rich sea of bacon lardons fried with onion, garlic, fennel, parsley and tomatoes surrounding the upright fish. For a second, Bel wished Louis was there. Although she knew if he was he would be bending Patsy’s ear to extract the exact details of the recipe for the mouth-watering dish. A big bowl of lettuce – fresh from the garden and dressed with lemon and olive oil – was the only accompaniment.
There were groans and exclamations of appreciation round the table, followed by a reverent silence in the warm kitchen as everyone concentrated on their delicious food – except Jaz, of course, who was picking unenthusiastically at her bowl of butter and cheese spaghetti.
‘So what does JJ stand for?’ Bel asked, after the pie had been dispatched and Micky had cleared the plates. Patsy was dishing up stewed rhubarb in blue pottery bowls, a tub of Cornish vanilla ice cream doing the rounds.
‘It’s grim. I don’t tell people, in case they decide to use it.’
‘I’ll say if you don’t,’ Micky threatened, to general laughter.
Giving his friend a dirty look, JJ turned to face Bel. She couldn’t help being amused by his apparent distress. ‘Jonjo,’ he said dully.
‘Like the jockey.’
JJ sighed. ‘Yeah, yeah, like the bloody jockey.’
‘Everyone always says that,’ Micky told her, with a grin.
‘When I was ten, I decided to call myself JJ instead. I refused to answer to anything else until everyone gave in.’
‘I don’t see what’s wrong with Jonjo,’ Bel said honestly. ‘You’re Irish, then?’
‘My father is. My mother’s Hong Kong Chinese.’ He smiled at her. ‘It could have been Wing or Fung or Chong, not that either Irish or Chinese played particularly well at Moorcroft High.’
‘Were you teased?’ Jaz asked, ears pricking up.
‘Nothing I couldn’t handle. Boys are just mean if you’re different.’
‘So are girls,’ Jaz said, with feeling.
Bel caught the fleeting look of anxiety in the teenager’s eye, but Patsy appeared not to notice. It was strange, she’d barely been in the village for twenty-four hours, yet already she cared about these people as if she’d known them for years. She felt oddly at home, her father and the Earls Court flat existing in another universe.
‘So, did Lenny’s spirit leave with his beloved chair?’ Patsy asked Bel, seemingly in all seriousness. ‘I certainly felt him strongly last night.’
‘You did?’
Jaz sighed resignedly. ‘Nonna sees ghosts all over the place.’
‘Well, that’s because there are ghosts all over the place, young lady. I hope the poor man is transitioning well.’
Transitioning? Bel thought of the modern use of the word and quickly dismissed the prospect of Lenny wanting to identify as a woman.
‘He didn’t have a negative bone in his body,’ Patsy mused, to no one in particular. ‘I can’t see him getting trapped in the lower realms, myself.’ She turned to JJ. ‘Can you?’
‘Totally not. It was only the chair that held his imprint. Now it’s gone, he should be free. I hope he is.’
Bel glanced sideways at him to see if he was joking. But he didn’t seem to be. Micky, on the other hand, was grinning broadly.
‘You’ll be laughing on the other side of your face when you die and find yourself earth-bound,’ Patsy, noticing his grin, retorted. ‘Don’t come crying to me when you can’t move to a higher dimension or meet your spiritual guide.’
Micky didn’t look remotely worried. ‘I’ll tell on you to Rhian,’ he teased.
Drawing herself up, Patsy said, ‘I don’t think the vicar would disagree with anything I’ve just said.’
‘Hmm. Not so sure about that.’
Ignoring him, Patsy turned to Bel. ‘Rhian will be back on Thursday. She’s been visiting her old mum in Plymouth, who’s got dementia.’ Bel watched as her face lit up, her eyes sparkling. ‘I can’t wait for you to meet her.’
Bel nodded her agreement, feeling suddenly a bit disoriented. It was as if she had been transported to another dimension, sitting at the large red Formica table with solid pale-wood legs – probably from the fifties – among her new friends in this strange kitchen, the wooden chapel beams above her strung with drying herbs, the air warm with cooking scents, listening to talk of ghosts and the afterlife. But the dimension seemed familiar to her, one that she felt she’d inhabited many times before.
When Bel got back to the cottage at the end of the evening, the stove was still quietly glowing. She stood for a moment and wondered about Lenny, took a moment to see if she, like Patsy, could feel his presence. A nominal Christian, long since lapsed, she liked the notion of Lenny’s spirit being free. He sounded like a special person. But there was nothing except warmth and quietness inside the thick stone walls and she felt a little foolish. JJ had offered to show her how to bank down the Rayburn for the night, but she’d thanked him and said she would manage. She filled the firebox with logs and left it at that. If it goes out, it goes out, she thought, as she poured water into one of the two tumblers she’d found in the cupboard and went upstairs to bed.
The next morning was as beautiful as the previous one. Bel was down on the sand by six thirty and stepping through the cold surf with laughing anticipation, shivering as she went. There was a chilly breeze today and she knew getting out would be harder. But as soon as she was submerged in the salt waves, she forgot that the water was cold, stretched out her arms and kicked her legs with the utmost pleasure. It felt as if her limbs were almost thanking her for the effort as she pulled strongly towards the far end of the beach, adrenalin surging through her body.
Half an hour later, towel wrapped round her waist, grey sweatshirt on, she made her way back up the concrete hard. As she reached the lane leading to the village, she heard her name called and turned to see JJ waving at her from the steps of his van on the headland at the far side of the beach café. ‘Coffee?’ he called, lifting his arm as he mimed drinking.
She waved back, giving him a thumbs-up.
‘Come round by the path,’ JJ instructed, pointing.
Bel walked behind the café along what she thought must be the coastal path. It was narrowed by spring foliage and uneven underfoot. On the other side of a thick bank of bramble bushes – bent inland from the continual offshore wind – and to the left of the path stood his silver and black motor-home. A surfboard in a blue neoprene cover and what looked, to Bel’s inexperienced eye, like a paddleboard were propped against the back. There was no sign of Micky’s van, which Patsy said was normally parked alongside.
JJ was standing in the open doorway, grinning. ‘Thought you might like a warming Americano.’ As she walked towards him, he glanced at the towel around her waist. ‘You should invest in a dry robe, you know, if you’re going to swim every day. They have some acid green ones on sale at the Co-op on the main road at the moment.’
‘Dry robe?’
He laughed, standing back to usher her inside.
Bel climbed the rickety step and entered the van’s interior. To the right she saw a small sofa and drop-down table. To the left, at the driver’s end of the van, there was a double bed with a yellow duvet, and a tiny closet she assumed to be a toilet/shower room. The kitchen, complete with two gas hobs, a microwave and a small fridge, was in the middle. It didn’t feel as claustrophobic as Bel had expected, although the pastel blue, green and pink floral pattern on the upholstery did not seem like JJ’s taste. He kept the place immaculately. Even his two wetsuits – one short, one long – hung just inside the door.
‘Small but perfectly formed,’ JJ said, as he watched her take in her surroundings.
Bel smiled, feeling self-conscious with her bare legs and damp swimsuit, hair plastered to her head. The space meant she and JJ were close enough for her to smell the eucalyptus scent of his shower gel and she found it oddly disturbing. ‘It’s great,’ she said, as JJ selected a coffee pod and slotted it into a serious-looking machine.
‘Black? This baby froths milk if I ask it nicely.’
‘Black is fine,’ she said.
‘Sit.’ He waved a hand towards the pastel sofa.
‘I’ll make the seat wet, I’m afraid.’
‘You can change, if you want.’ He pointed to the closet door.
She shook her head regretfully. ‘I came ill-prepared. I’ve got nothing to change into.’
He smiled. ‘Gotta get the robe.’ Turning, he pulled a supermarket bag from the top of a mesh tube hanging on the wall above the sink and handed it to her.
She sat down, the bag under her soggy towel. JJ lounged against the wall – there was barely room for two on the sofa – as they both sipped the delicious black coffee. ‘Where’s Micky?’
‘Off putting up shelves for one of his mum’s friends. In Penzance.’ His gold-flecked eyes rested on her for a moment. ‘We’re not joined at the hip, you know.’
It seemed important for him to tell her this, although she wasn’t sure why. There was a brief silence between them. It didn’t feel awkward to Bel – JJ seemed uncommonly laid-back – but his masculine beauty made it hard for her not to stare.
‘What did you do in London?’ she asked, wanting to dispel her thoughts.
From the look on JJ’s face it seemed he was reluctant to answer, but knew he must. ‘I was an events organizer for super-rich Americans, for my sins. People who wanted a VIP experience in the UK.’ It was clear he was reciting from a much-repeated script. ‘So, for instance, I’d arrange a private tour of the Royal Mews, or a day test-driving everything from a go-kart to a Lamborghini, or a last-minute dinner at Gordon Ramsay’s impossible-to-get-into gaff, that sort of thing.’ He gave an apologetic shrug. ‘I had a lot of fun – checking out five-star hotels around the world, for instance. Doing stuff, going places I’d never be able to afford otherwise. But after a while it became a tad depressing. Those no-shit rich people are never satisfied. Nothing’s ever special enough.’
The job seemed such a strange one for her new friend. ‘I can’t really imagine you all spruced and suited and kowtowing to the jet set,’ she said, with a smile. Although he’s charming enough, she thought. ‘Did you always do that sort of work?’
JJ put his cup on the side and slid down the wall onto his haunches, his eyes now level with Bel’s. He gazed at her silently, not answering her question. ‘You have unusually pale eyelashes,’ he said. ‘Like Micky’s, but his are sun-bleached, of course.’
Bel blinked and, annoyingly, found herself blushing.
‘Sorry. That sounded a bit personal. It wasn’t meant to.’ He rose to his feet again. ‘Anything to avoid talking about my other life. This one is all I have right now.’ He seemed almost defiant.
She, too, got up, reminding herself she hardly knew this man. But right from the start their exchanges had felt more direct than she would have expected from a new acquaintance.
‘Have I frightened you off?’ JJ asked, looking anxious that he’d offended her.
Bel laughed. ‘Not at all.’ But she was suddenly keen to be out of the confined space of the motor-home and put some distance between her and JJ. His presence was having a strange effect on her.
Inhaling the cool sea air with some relief, she walked back up the lane. Her damp swimsuit was making her shiver, although the morning air had warmed and the breeze had dropped. Entering the house, she cast an apprehensive glance towards the Rayburn, which, miraculously, had managed to retain just enough hot ashes overnight for her to rekindle the fire earlier. Still alive. She patted one of the lids with a satisfied smile as she heard her mobile vibrate on the counter top.
‘Hi, Bel,’ Tally said, her voice heavy. ‘Can you talk?’
‘Of course.’
‘Dad’s been on. Trinny’s had the baby. A boy.’ Tally fell silent and then Bel heard a muffled sob. ‘I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to cry. It’s just he sounded so made up about it. Kept saying how amazing he is and how beautiful, how much he loves him … Told me how fantastic it is having a son.’ Another sob. ‘I just found it really hard.’
‘Oh, sweetheart. I’m sure you did. He’s your father.’
‘I’m not five, Bel, I’m twenty-five. How can I be jealous of an innocent little baby?’ She sounded furious with herself.
Bel didn’t reply at once. She was dealing with a mix of emotions but she didn’t want to acknowledge any of them. Instead she felt angry on Tally’s behalf at Louis’s insensitivity towards his daughter. This was a baby Tally had found out about just a few months ago, the mother a woman barely older than Tally herself whom she’d met only briefly at 83.
‘I know it’s silly,’ Tally was saying. ‘And I know he does love me. But he didn’t love me enough to be around much when I was small. It was only when you came on the scene that he started making an effort.’ Bel heard Tally exhale loudly. ‘He sounded so in love with Apollinaire.’
‘Apollinaire? Quite a mouthful.’ Bel now felt the bite of jealousy she’d tried so hard to hold off, as she imagined him cradling another woman’s baby. Renewed pain, too, at her own loss, the familiar knowledge, so long accepted in the shadows of her mind, that she would never hold her own child in her arms.
When she’d found out she was pregnant, a few years after they’d got together, Louis had folded her in a hug with real tenderness. Gazing at her sadly with his dark eyes, he’d said, ‘I’m so sorry, Bel. You know I don’t want more children. I did warn you. I was very, very clear.’
Torn, shocked by a pregnancy she’d never thought would happen, she’d held her palm to her belly. ‘I know you did. But that was in the abstract. This is real. This is our baby, Louis.’
He’d continued to hold her, but his expression clouded. ‘You’re, what, forty-three? That could be dangerous for both you and the baby, couldn’t it? And suppose there’s something wrong with it?’
Desperate not to acknowledge what he was implying, she’d insisted tearfully, ‘Lots of women have healthy babies in their forties, these days.’
He’d sighed and led her over to the sofa, sat her down as if she were an invalid. Waving one hand around, the other clutched over hers, he went on, ‘This place, it’s small, on the main road, and with all those stairs, it’d be chaos, a nightmare, with a small child and a buggy.’ When she didn’t reply, he added, ‘How would we cope? We both work twenty-four/seven.’
She’d been too confused to offer a coherent argument. Stumbling over her words, she said, ‘People work with kids, they manage …’
Louis, at his most reasonable, nodded slowly. ‘True. Although I’m sure it’s hell.’ Then he paused. ‘But, fine, maybe, if those people really want children. I just couldn’t handle the responsibility of being a father again.’ Another pause. ‘I can’t do it.’
Tears streaming down her face, she’d insisted, ‘But you are a father again, Louis. I’m carrying your baby, our baby, right now.’
‘It’s not a baby, Bel,’ he replied, with the patience of a parent correcting his ignorant offspring. ‘It’s a minute embryo. You can’t be more than a few weeks gone. You had your period on my birthday.’ Which he remembered, maybe, because they’d both wanted to make love.
Then he folded her in his arms again. ‘Don’t cry. Please. You know how much I love you. I just can’t do this. Not even for you.’
The word ‘abortion’ had not been mentioned until the following day.
With huge reluctance and misgivings, Bel had booked the appointment at the clinic – mostly to stop Louis’s relentless nagging – although she never believed in her heart of hearts that she could go through with it. In fact, she was considering the possibility of having the baby on her own, if Louis remained steadfast in his refusal to be a father again.
What would have happened to their relationship if she’d kept the baby or gone ahead with the termination against her will, though, was never tested. She miscarried three days before she was due at the clinic – a surprisingly simple, sharply painful, devastating expulsion one summer evening, just after service had finished. In the agonizing aftermath, Louis was the kindest and most solicitous he had ever been. She even began to believe that he was genuinely sad the baby had been lost.
Tally’s voice brought her back to the present. ‘They can always call him Olli … or Polli,’ her stepdaughter was saying now, in an attempt at humour she clearly didn’t feel.
‘I’m certain your dad was exactly the same when you were born, Tally. He won’t have told you, because that’s Louis for you, but I’m sure he absolutely adored you then, and still does, of course.’
Tally ignored her reassurances. ‘He’s really keen I go down over the summer.’
‘Well, it might help to meet the baby. He’s probably very sweet. And he is your half-brother.’
‘I know, I know.’ She sniffed. ‘Do you think I’m a horrible person for being jealous?’
‘God, no. My own feelings are much more horrible than yours, I assure you.’
‘Sorry, Bel. I didn’t think,’ Tally said. ‘Are you OK?’
‘I’m fine. But your father’s dealt with the whole thing in such a crap way. It’s not surprising we’re smarting. Don’t beat yourself up about it. Your reaction is entirely normal.’
‘I don’t know what I’d do without you, Bel,’ she said, in a small voice.
Her stepdaughter’s words were so heartfelt, Bel wanted to hug her.
‘How’s Cornwall?’
They chatted on for a while, putting behind them the painful conversation they’d just had, until the usual demands of her work made Tally hurry off.
Bel sighed. Apollinaire: Louis’s baby. It seemed so unreal she was almost unable to take it in. His eager acceptance of Trinny’s baby was in such stark contrast to the fight he’d put up when she’d told him she was pregnant. It’s a long time ago, she told herself now, in an attempt to mitigate the ache. But it was only a few months since she and Louis had been working at the restaurant and living together above it, her life path with him firmly set out before her. Despite the financial problems with 83 – exacerbated considerably by the pandemic – she’d had no inkling of the eruption waiting to blow her world apart.
Shaking herself free of her thoughts, she went upstairs to shower. I’ll take the bike and explore, she thought. Find the Co-op, buy some basic provisions, something nice for Patsy, maybe even run to a famous dry robe.
Patsy seemed to take it for granted that Bel would eat with them every night, but she felt awkward accepting her neighbour’s hospitality without contributing, and looked forward to being able to return the favour properly if, at some point, her kitchen became a bit more functional. Even if it’s just a sandwich and salad supper on the beach, she decided, casting a guilty thought Vinny’s way as she remembered slathering white sliced with margarine and rubbery ham.
As she stepped over the lip of the pink bath, Bel had to accept that the cottage still felt quite strange, but she was getting used to the newspaper stacks and the cold porcelain toilet rim. They seemed like a small price to pay for the kindness she’d met with, the sense of home the village engendered. Even three-legged Zid, the cat, named after Zinedine Zidane, according to Patsy, by the previous vicar – who’d been as obsessed with football as he was with God – had popped in again that morning and actually deigned to sit on her lap for a couple of minutes.
Louis is my past, she told herself firmly, holding the shower attachment aloft and dousing herself in lukewarm water. Leave him, his girlfriend and his baby to history.