Louis was leaning against the side of the van, arms crossed, gazing towards the sea, when Bel slid to a halt in the car park. The place had filled up in the time it had taken her to get the cash: people arriving for a day at the beach. It was a warm, sunny June Saturday and later it would be packed on the sand.
Seeing him again, realizing he was actually here, Bel still found it vaguely shocking. Like a bad dream where people and places are all muddled up.
Propping her bike against the van, she took the wad of twenties out of the back pocket of her jeans, handing it to him in silence, genuinely not knowing what to say to him.
He stood to attention, smiling tightly, and thrust the notes into the pouch at the front of his sweatshirt. ‘Thank you. Really, thank you, Bel.’ His voice was heavy with relief.
She moved aside to let a Dacia with surfboards tied to the roof rack reverse slowly into a slot by the hedge. ‘What are you going to do now?’ she asked.
Louis shuffled his feet, didn’t look at her. ‘Umm, one more small favour? Could I have a quick shower at yours? I want to present myself at the pub before it gets busy. But if I go like this they’ll take one look and tell me to fuck off.’
Bel knew this was probably true, but she felt a sudden spurt of resentment. Louis was dragging her into his mess: making this her problem. ‘OK,’ she said shortly, then reached for her bike.
Louis grabbed her arm. ‘Please, don’t walk away. We can talk, can’t we?’
Shaking him off, she inhaled slowly, so as not to shout at him. Then she squared up to him. ‘Listen, Louis. Your apology may mean something to you, but it means almost nothing to me. You nearly destroyed me. I’m trying to build a life for myself down here, now. And that life does not include you.’
Louis’s tired face registered immediate shock. He jerked back as if she’d hit him. ‘Whoa, Bel. That’s a bit harsh.’ Then his face fell, his expression no longer indignant. He added, ‘I realize I deserve it, of course, but …’
She stared at him. ‘But what? I hope you’re not looking for sympathy from me.’
Louis seemed suddenly defeated. ‘No, no, of course not. I’m sorry. I know this whole thing is totally my fault, but I’m in a dreadful state right now and saying all the wrong things …’
She took a breath and felt the anger drain away. Speaking more gently, she said, ‘Stop talking then and get yourself cleaned up. Go and find a job. The front door’s open.’
She didn’t know where she was going, but it wasn’t to stand around in her house while Louis had a shower and tried to inveigle her into more conversations about how incredibly sorry he was.
‘Do you want to ask Louis to the party tonight?’ Patsy asked later, when Bel was sitting in her neighbour’s kitchen, pinching off the tops of blanched broad beans and sliding the bright green inside out of the wrinkled, waxy skin for the couscous, which would accompany Patsy’s spicy harissa chicken.
Bel stopped what she was doing and stared at her friend, astonished: she’d spent the last half-hour explaining how shocked and depressed she was by Louis’s presence in the village.
Patsy, having turned the chicken pieces with a pair of tongs, slid the tray back into the oven. Then she came over and sat opposite Bel at the table, hands clasped. ‘I heard you, Bel,’ she said, ‘but you can’t stop him being here. If you’re going to be in a perpetual state of anger and irritation that he is, it’s you who’s going to suffer.’
Bel bridled. ‘So you’re suggesting I just open my arms and forgive him?’
Patsy raised an eyebrow at her tone. ‘I’m saying you don’t have to be frightened of him, love. He can’t control you. So he comes to live nearby. So what? You see him here and there, you wave, you move on.’
‘You don’t understand,’ Bel wailed. ‘Maybe he wants to get back with me … I looked after him too well before. I don’t want the pressure. I just want to be left alone.’
Patsy shrugged as if she didn’t understand the problem. ‘Just be very clear.’ She smiled kindly. ‘If you’re clear, he’ll hear you, I promise.’
Bel knew Patsy was right. So why did it feel threatening to have him in her space? What was she afraid of? My own weakness? Louis wasn’t a thug: he wouldn’t insist if she told him to leave her alone. ‘Please don’t ask him for supper, Patsy,’ she begged.
‘Of course I won’t, if you don’t want me to. It was only a suggestion … I’ve always found schmoozing the enemy works better for everyone than lining up the tanks.’
‘Yeah, OK. But can we schmooze Louis another night?’
Patsy grinned. ‘Finish those beans, sweetheart, then go and lie down. Or have a swim. Or a nice warm bath. You’re traumatized. Give yourself a break.’
Later, Patsy’s kitchen was buzzing, the room filled with fragrant cooking smells, music, laughter and noise as the joyous teenagers joshed each other and swigged beers, crammed crisps into their mouths.
Bel had been for a soothing swim and had calmed down somewhat. She’d listened to Patsy. Now she and Rhian were laying the bowls, cutlery and napkins on the table. Supper was ready. They would start as soon as Micky and JJ arrived – both five minutes away, according to a text from JJ.
‘This is so lovely,’ Bel said, surveying the scene.
Rhian smiled. ‘Patsy has a way of making her kitchen feel like home to everyone who walks through the door. It’s quite a gift.’
Patsy, her back to them both, harrumphed. ‘I just like the place full of people.’
The side door was pushed open and JJ’s tall figure, followed by Micky’s curly blond head, appeared. They stood side by side, tanned and grinning – Bel noticed they’d even put on tidy shorts for the occasion. Then Micky stood back, revealing someone immediately behind them.
‘Look who we found lurking in the lane,’ Micky said, holding out his hand with a loud ta-dah, like a magician producing a rabbit out of a hat. ‘He says he’s a friend of Bel’s, which is good enough for me.’
Louis’s eyes immediately sought Bel’s. He looked beyond sheepish. ‘Listen, I don’t want to gatecrash. But Micky said I should come and at least say hello.’
Patsy hesitated, then waved her wooden spoon in the air. ‘You’re here now. Stay. There’s plenty for everyone … It’s Louis, right?’
Bel was silent, feeling her cheeks flame with annoyance as introductions were made. Louis was at his most charming, self-effacing best. Even Jaz, as soon as she heard he was the chef who used to live with Bel, came over all wide-eyed and eager, the shy looks she usually reserved for Micky now solely for the new arrival.
JJ sidled up to her, as everyone began to help themselves to food, and nudged her shoulder. ‘The ex, I take it,’ he whispered, swishing his eyes towards where Louis was making the teenagers laugh about something. ‘You OK?’
‘Not really.’
‘Micky insisted,’ he said apologetically.
‘Not his fault,’ she replied.
The teenagers sloped off with their bowls to drape themselves on the sofas at the other end of the long room. The adults sat on benches round the laden table. Bel gazed at her food, but suddenly didn’t have an appetite. She noticed Louis kept his distance, planting himself between Micky and JJ, as if for protection. It didn’t take long, though, for him to regain his usual confidence and begin to hold court. As always, it related to food.
‘You should see the kitchen,’ he said, of the Lantern. ‘It’s disgusting, totally chaotic. I’ll have quite a task licking it into shape. The fridge is so full of mouldy food it could walk to the bus stop.’
Amid the general laughter, Bel caught his veiled glance: he was checking her reaction. So he got the job, she thought, torn between relief that he wouldn’t be borrowing any more money, and despair that he was clearly staying. She stared back at him blankly, without smiling or acknowledging the news, and he quickly turned away. As with earlier, she thought she sensed his disappointment. And it was that which depressed her still further. He wants me to forgive him. Such an unfair emotional pressure.
When, much later, the party broke up, Bel stood at her front door and watched Micky and JJ, Louis between them, saunter off down the lane into the night, laughing and chatting like old friends. She shut herself inside the cottage, jealousy twisting viciously at her gut as she hunched in her chair, feeling quite sick from too much wine and too little to eat. Louis’s the charismatic one. Louis’s the brilliant chef and raconteur. Louis’s the person everyone’s drawn to. And herself? A ‘genderless lump’ who’d lost her spark, according to her father. The painful feelings of inadequacy – held back in recent weeks as she basked in her life-affirming new friendships and freedom from Dennis’s put-downs – now came flooding back. Bastard, bastard, bastard, she muttered, not clear whether she was referring to Louis or her father. Or both.