35.

Two months had passed since Biddy’s first encounter with Terri and, to her immense surprise, she found herself looking forward to her Wednesday visits to Cove Cottage more and more with every week that passed. She had started to feel a strange, fluttering sensation in her tummy as the bus passed through the town and the coast road came into sight: a bit like little butterflies dancing around inside her. It reminded her of the feeling she sometimes got when she used to paint the birds on the beach and they would swoop and dance and chatter, just for her. Or that surge of pleasure she’d felt all those years ago on the day Miss Jordan had taken her shopping. And on the bus journey her mouth would start to water in anticipation of what delicious treat Terri might have baked that morning.

The cottage was everything she had ever dreamed it would be, and more; and each time she stepped across the threshold, it took her breath away that she was actually going inside the quaint little house she used to sketch and had fallen in love with from a distance many years ago; into its very hall, and study, and kitchen. She’d started to use the bathroom even if she didn’t need to go, just to sit on the pale pine toilet seat and wash her hands with the soap that smelt of lemons, and dry them with what must surely be the softest, fluffiest, whitest towels in the world. Apart from her own home, she had only ever been inside one other house in her entire life, and that had just been twice to Mrs Thomas’s. On both occasions she’d gone to number 21 to deliver post which had been put through their letterbox by mistake, and even then she’d never been invited further than the hall. Not that she’d have gone anyway. Of course she was going to go to Miss Jordan’s house once, but then, as it happened, she never got the chance.

But Biddy knew it wasn’t just being in the cottage that she looked forward to – it was spending time with Terri too. She missed her father dreadfully, and wondered now if the pain she felt in her heart was partly due to loneliness? Oh, she was used to being alone, she’d been alone her whole life long, and she’d never really questioned it before; never considered loneliness as an actual emotion that applied to her. But now, as her contact with Terri rolled on from one week to another, she began to wonder if the permanent ache in her chest, which had been there since her papa died but seemed to ease in Terri’s presence, was something more than grief.

Of course Biddy was well aware that, as a counsellor, Terri was simply doing her job, but with each visit to the cottage they spent less and less time in Terri’s office, and more in the kitchen, drinking tea and eating cake. She had started to feel less of a ‘patient’ as such, and more of a . . . ? Precisely what, she wasn’t quite sure. She hesitated to use the word ‘friend’ after her previous experience with friendship, as the last thing in the world she wanted to do was get Terri into any kind of trouble. But trouble with whom? Dr Graham? It struck her then that Terri must be getting paid by someone to help her. After all, why would she see her voluntarily? No one – apart from her father of course, and Miss Jordan, and maybe, lately at any rate, Dr Graham, and Mrs Thomas on the odd occasion, and the doctors and nurses at the hospital after her fall – had ever willingly chosen to spend time in her company. So if Terri was getting paid, was the money coming from Dr Graham himself?

These were the thoughts that had almost stopped her from getting off the bus at the Cove Cottage stop on this particular Wednesday afternoon. Maybe, she thought, her cheeks flushed with humiliation, Terri was only nice to her because she was getting paid to be nice, and not because she actually liked her. Who was she kidding? She almost choked on the idea; the very notion that someone like Terri Drummond would want to be her friend made her feel sick to her stomach with a wave of self-loathing. The lovely fluttering sensation vanished in a flash as she allowed the dark thoughts to take over. By the time the bus turned down Bay Road towards the shore, Biddy had decided to stay on board, get to the station in Whinport, the next village on, and wait there for the 3.30 return. She’d phone Terri when she got back and apologise. Tell her that her leg was playing up, or something. Tell her she was sorry, but she couldn’t come back again. And that would be that. Tears welled in her eyes and that old familiar lump, which hadn’t been around much these past few weeks, despite her father’s absence, throbbed at the back of her throat.

But then, there was Cove Cottage in the distance, jutting out of the headland like a glistening pearl, its whitewashed walls and bright blue shutters glimmering in the early March sunshine. Biddy’s heart lurched. She imagined Terri in the kitchen, preparing a tray of something delicious for them to eat, placing out bright floral napkins and her favourite mugs with the poppies on them. The memory of the second time she’d gone to the cottage rushed through her; when she’d somehow, strangely, easily, poured her heart out. When Terri’s own words had echoed those of Miss Jordan’s from all those years ago; when Terri had silently, gently, held her whilst she wept. No one would touch her if they didn’t want to, never mind hug her. She knew that. No – Terri was good, and kind, and clever, and funny, and maybe even properly liked her just a little bit. And, yes, maybe some day, she might even be her friend.

‘Oh,’ she uttered a little gasp of panic as the bus stop came into sight, and struggled out of her regular window seat three rows from the front (far enough from the driver but close enough that she didn’t have to walk too far up the aisle or pass too many other passengers) just in time.

As Biddy rang the old brass doorbell she felt so relieved, and the smile she presented to Terri when she opened the door took not an ounce of effort. And when Terri asked her if she liked scones she wondered how she could have been so stupid as to even consider not coming here today. She hadn’t had a scone for months, not since Papa had become really sick, and she missed them. They used to bring home fruit scones from the Griddle bakery every Wednesday after their weekly outing to Ballybrock market. But that stopped when Papa became too poorly to make the trip. And when he told her one day that the scones from Tesco were repulsive and shouldn’t be served to pigs, she never bought them again. But she’d never had a scone that had actually been baked by a person in their very own kitchen, and right now, right this moment, she was desperate for one.

‘Oh, yes,’ she beamed at Terri, feeling a sudden desire to hug her. ‘I love them.’

‘Marvellous,’ Terri sang, as she took Biddy’s coat and hung it on the coat stand. ‘Well then, you can help me bake some. I haven’t had time yet today to make anything for our afternoon tea, and there’s a new recipe I’m desperate to try out. So we can do it together now. It’s got raspberries in it and,’ she winked, ‘white chocolate.’

There was a sudden clatter. Biddy had dropped her stick.

In a split second, her smile vanished, and reality slapped her in the face. She’d made a huge mistake. She should have stayed on the bus after all. Terri wanted her to bake – and she couldn’t. She still couldn’t. All these years on and she’d never learnt. Oh, she’d picked up the basics of cooking from her father over the years, and could make things like stew, and vegetable broth, and shepherd’s pie. When he became ill she really had no choice, and she sometimes quite enjoyed it. It was a distraction. But she wasn’t adventurous; she never deviated from the limited repertoire of recipes passed on from her father – acquired over time by watching him closely as he prepared the meals, rather than any handwritten instructions. Even though she often watched the cookery items on her daytime TV shows with awe, wondering what things like pasta bakes and mushroom risotto and goat’s cheese and onion tart tasted like, she didn’t experiment, and she never baked. Her baking chance had passed. And that was that.

And now that humiliating truth was about to be revealed to Terri. She felt sick. What was better – to own up and make a fool of herself, or try to bake and make a fool of herself? Why was she so incapable of doing normal things? Because she was a weirdo, that’s why: a dumb, stupid, bloody weirdo.

‘Biddy? Are you OK? What happened? My word, you look as though you’re about to pass out.’

Terri had grabbed her by the elbow and she realised with a jolt that she’d dropped her stick on the floor. She might as well get it over with.

‘I can’t bake,’ she stuttered, her cheeks flushed with shame, as Terri retrieved the stick and handed it to her. She waited for Terri to laugh, to tell her she couldn’t be serious, that all women her age could bake. Maybe now Terri would realise what a weirdo she was after all.

‘Well then,’ Terri beamed, ‘I shall bake the scones, and you can make the tea.’