‘So how are you getting on?’ asked Rowena the next day.
Carrie clamped the phone firmly to her ear. She’d been determined not to be in when Matt got back from his night of passion with Natasha, so she’d walked down to the town. She’d finally succumbed to the Tate and spent several hours wandering round it, sitting in front of the artwork and installations. Huw would have had to be bound and gagged to enter a gallery.
‘Sorry, Rowena. I can’t hear you. There’s a demonic seagull trying to attack me.’
She flapped her arm and the gull flew off, but not before it had swiped her ice cream. ‘Get off, you horrible bird!’
‘Where are you?’
‘On the roof of the Tate in St. Ives. You have got to see their new Damien Hirst installation. And the naive fishermen’s paintings are incredible… Oh, and did you know that the Barbara Hepworth sculpture garden is here—’
‘Yeah, yeah, but how are you getting on?’ cut in Rowena.
‘Fine.’
‘Only fine? I thought you might have had more to report by now.’
‘Okay. I get it. If you expected us to fall into each other’s arms, it hasn’t worked. Matt’s just spent the night with Natasha on some skanky old luxury yacht.’
‘Sounds totally crap. I can see why you’d rather stay in a rusty old camper van.’
‘Wash your mouth out, Rowena. Nelson would faint if he heard that. Look, I’m sorry to disappoint you, but I’m not the slightest bit bothered about Matt. He isn’t my type.’
‘What about Spike?’
‘I passed on Spike. I’m a free agent these days.’
The seagull was back, eyeing her paper bag of groceries. She gave it her best death look.
‘That’s a shame. He sounded cute,’ Rowena went on as the gull stared at Carrie like the creepy little boy in The Sixth Sense.
‘He turned out to be a tax inspector,’ muttered Carrie, deciding to leave out the fact that he’d also left her on the beach stoned out of her skull.
‘Well, it’s not exactly grounds for dumping the guy, but I suppose it’s your life.’
‘How are you getting on, Rowena?’
‘The truth? It is bloody manic. Mayhem. I don’t want to go on about me, but you won’t believe who was on the set this morning…’
Half an hour later, Carrie’s mobile was beeping to show the battery was running low and the seagull had dive-bombed a family into handing over their chips. It was late afternoon. She figured Matt would be back by now, unless he’d decided to stay on the yacht for another night. She wanted to get back to Dolly, have a shower and wander into town for the evening. She’d seen flyers saying there was a band playing at one of the waterfront pubs. One of those Ye Olde Something or Other places by the harbor. Gripping her bag of supplies tighter, she peered at the leaflet in the pub window. It was a Nirvana tribute band.
‘It is you, isn’t it?’
She turned to see Lola smiling at her.
‘What are you doing here?’ They both said it at the same time.
‘You first,’ said Lola, flicking back her long hair. She seemed nervous, shy even.
‘Matt wanted to revisit old haunts,’ said Carrie. Trying to avoid the seagull muck, she deposited the groceries on the pub table.
Lola hopped about nervously, then said, ‘We missed you and Matt.’
Carrie was glad Matt wasn’t here now with Natasha. She had a feeling Lola still had a major crush on him.
‘Have Spike and the others gone home?’ she asked, but the question was answered by the man himself strolling out of the pub.