Star woke up when the alarm went and looked at the bedside clock. Seven thirty, good – she would have time to go and feed the cat over at Kara and Billy’s place and then get back to the shop. A text was already in her inbox from Conor. Morning beautiful mummy to be. Dinner at mine 7pm tomorrow. Heating will be on full, I promise xx. She smiled. She was always moaning to Conor that his place was never warm enough. And it was probably better to see him after she’d been to the doctor’s anyway, so they would have a definite due date of birth to work to.
‘Bye, Mum, see you in a bit!’ her daughter shouted as she left, slamming the front door.
Star caressed her rounding tummy and felt worried about telling Skye. It could be even trickier than telling Conor had been.
This should be such a happy time, but it was far from the ideal scenario. On paper: pretty girl meets handsome Irishman and they have a baby. The crucial bit missing from the story was: they fell in love with each other as their relationship developed.
From the outside, it appeared that most couples seemed to do everything in the right order and in the right way. They got to know each other, fell in love, had the most gorgeous wedding, moved into a bright and airy home with a huge garden, popped out two adorable children, neatly spaced, with two sets of amiable and flexible grandparents who helped along the way. But did anybody really have the perfect life? Of course not. This was the unreality of ‘reality’ on social media, with its filtered experience that made even the most adequate feel inadequate. Once you turned off this fantasy, you saw that every single person was fighting their own battle to stay afloat in this ever-changing world.
As Star stood under the shower, she thought about the families around her: were there any who fitted the perfection mould? The Dillons, who had been a tight unit, were now blown apart by the inability of Charlie to accept Darren’s sexuality; Kara’s mum had left her husband and younger child for another man; and even behind the bright smile of Mrs Harris from Tasty Pasties lay the memory of her husband dying in a fishing boat accident ten years previously. (Although Philip Gilmour, the owner, had once told Star in confidence that the man had been a bully anyway, and that was why Mrs H. was so relaxed and contented now.) There was always a backstory behind the front page.
Life, Star decided – real life – was one big board game of Snakes and Ladders. First you were up, and then, just when the final square with 100 on it was within reach, you could land on a big snake and tumble all the way down to the first square again. Nothing was guaranteed in life. When happiness came along, it had to be grabbed with both hands and celebrated, bounced about with joy like a beach ball with friends on a sunny day.
Before too long, Star was making her way down to Ferry View Apartments to feed James Bond. An hour had passed since she had woken up, and by now Conor would be over at the other side on the ferry crossing, which pleased her. She wasn’t ready to face him yet and the Airbnb guest would definitely be gone by now. Kara had messaged her last night to tell her that she and Billy had had the most brilliant time and to confirm that the guest was leaving at 5 a.m. today for his return flight. She wrote that she and Billy would pop in and see Star on their way back that evening. Star had been burning for her friend’s support but, not wanting to ruin her minibreak, had decided that telling her face-to-face was much the best option.
With all the dramas going on, she was pleased that things had been so straightforward with the Airbnb booking. She actually hadn’t heard one peep out of Ralph from San Francisco. She had knocked gently before going in to feed James Bond the past two mornings, but the guest had either been out already or was asleep in his room.
She tapped out the code, 1066, took the key from the safe on the wall and opened the main front door to the Ferry View Apartment block – then was nearly knocked over as James Bond raced out past her, taking her breath away. Once she’d recovered, she trotted up the stairs and politely, as if she was a housekeeper in a hotel, knocked on the apartment door with the back of her knuckle. Pushing it open, believing the guest to have departed, she was surprised to notice a small wheelie case standing by the door. Calling out, ‘Hello!’ she went into the kitchen and was opening the fridge door to pop in the pint of milk she had bought for the wanderers’ return when a familiar-sounding and uplifted, ‘Hello, you,’ came back at her.
That was the second shock. With her heart beating madly and a huge rush of adrenaline coursing through her veins, Steren Bligh walked into the lounge to see a bearded figure standing in front of the open doors of the balcony, waiting for her.
Aside from the small scar on the top of his right cheek, he was just how she had remembered him. With her eyes and mouth open as wide as the Hartmouth estuary twinkling in the winter sunshine below, she let out a gasp.
‘Jack? Oh my God – it’s you, Jack! What the hell are you doing here?’