The Rose Petal Beach (8 page)

‘Do I have to close my eyes or something?’ I asked, as we stood at the top of the stairs that led down from my flat.

‘If you want, but if you fall down them that’s your look out,’ he said, laughing to himself.

‘You!’ I said and gave his shoulder a playful shove.

Outside, the crisp, clean atmosphere chased away any remnants of sleep that might have been lurking in my head and I was suddenly wide awake.

‘Tah-dah!’ he said, his hands pointing in TV-presenter fashion at the car that sat directly outside the flat. It looked older than either of us, was probably more rust than anything else, but was clean and shiny.

‘What’s that?’

‘A car!
The
car! I bought you a car.’

I blinked in surprise. ‘You what?’

‘I bought you a car.’

‘Wow,’ I said, staring at the shiny burgundy surfaces of the car in front of me. I didn’t even know what make it was but it was a car. ‘I can’t believe … Where did you get the money?’

‘I earned and saved every single penny,’ he said, immediately on defensive. ‘If you don’t believe me—’

‘I do believe you,’ I cut in. ‘Of course I believe you. I’m only curious how you could afford a car when you’re working at two different bars just to keep your head above water and afford college as it is.’

‘I’ve been working extra shifts during the day so I could save for this.’ He draped his arms over my shoulders like a casually thrownon cardigan. ‘Do you like it?’

‘I love it,’ I replied. ‘But … How can you take on more daytime shifts if you’re in college most days?’

‘I took a break for a while. I’ll go back to it soon.’

‘Scott! College is important.’

‘Says the woman who didn’t even go.’

‘Yeah, well, I can always go another time. You’re already there, you don’t want to throw away that opportunity.’

‘Do you know why I bought you a car?’ he asked, changing the subject.

‘Ummm, no.’

‘Because I think we should do it. I think we should go to Brighton with that promotion you were offered.’

‘No, we already talk—’

‘No, no, look, staying here because of me is stupid. And, no matter what you say, it is because of me.’

‘There’ll be other opportunities.’

‘TB, you’ve got a promotion to become head of Corporate Communications for a multinational company, and you’ll be the youngest person to hold that position in their history. Do you have any idea how proud of you I am? You can’t throw that away for a boyfriend.’

I leant my head back so I could look up at him, he bent his head to look down at me. ‘You’re not just a boyfriend,’ I said. What happened had fundamentally changed us and how we were together. Our love was never hidden, always spoken, always shown. Our time together was always relished and revelled in.

‘I say, we pack up everything in this car, and we head on down to Brighton. We get there, get settled and then, you know, think about trying again in a couple of years.’ I knew exactly what he meant: we both wanted to try for another baby, we both knew we were scared in case it happened again. We would, though, when the time was right, when everything was in place. ‘I can always use the car to come back for college until I find another course down there.’

‘Will you marry me?’ I asked.

His whole face softened into a smile I had never seen before. It needed to be remembered in paints, on a canvas, anything, because it showed the texture of happiness. ‘Yes,’ he replied. ‘Yes, I will. Can’t believe it’s taken you so long to ask.’

‘Well, I had to be sure, didn’t I?’ I joked before returning my gaze to the car.
Our
car. ‘This is so special,’ I said. ‘This is a present with a whole new life attached to it.’

‘You deserve it, my love.’

‘You do realise I can’t drive, don’t you?’

‘What?’ He was stricken. ‘I thought you could. Oh, great, typical Scott, buy a present without checking the person can actually use it.’

‘Just tricking you!’ I laughed.

‘You!’ he laughed and tickled and tickled me until, gasping with laughter, I agreed never to trick him again.

My fingers close around the smooth metal of my platinum wedding ring. I rotate it back and forth around my finger. Nothing makes sense. In all of this, nothing is making any sense.

Here’s the thing I don’t like about being single: waking up alone. The rest of it I really can handle, no matter what other people might try to tell me. It’s this part I find hardest.

I long to have someone to sleep with. You can get sex anywhere, it’s all around you and you can pluck it out of the air almost – if you’re willing to compromise (a lot) on quality, usually – but it’s difficult, really difficult to find someone you connect with enough to sleep with.

I love waking up with a man’s arms around me and his body next to mine, feeling like I am part of something whole instead of mostly incomplete. I like it and I crave it, sometimes more than sex. It doesn’t seem to work as well with one-night stands, not sure why. Maybe it’s because you can’t pretend too hard? You can’t allow yourself to relax and sleep properly if you know at the end of it he’s probably going to be gone very early the next day, if he stays more than a few hours at all. Even if he stays till dawn, even if you have that early connection that leads to morning sex, you know he’s leaving and never coming back. When you crave the intimacy of sleeping with someone, having it faked for only a few hours is worse than not having it at all.

I’ve opened my eyes this morning feeling flat. My mobile is definitely be-janxed, which means I have to go to the office when I’d planned on working from home today. I could do without driving all the way to Kent now, but they’ve got no way to get in touch unless it’s by email and for some reason that’s not enough for my company. They need to know they can talk to me at whatever time they want.

My limbs don’t come anywhere near the edges of the bed, my body is not enough to fill it up on its own.

Tami and Scotty pop into my mind. I bet they’re waking up right about now, curled up together, their skin so close it could almost be that they’re one person. I bet he kisses her on the top of her head as I’ve seen him do a million times, I bet she smiles and snuggles into the crook of his neck. I sound so jealous, and that’s because I am. I am of pretty much every couple who sleep together, not just Tami and Scotty.

I’ve mentioned them a couple of times now, so I’m sure you’re curious about how I know them. Well, about nine years ago, the banker who lived at number eighteen Providence Close lost his job – couldn’t have happened to a nicer wanker, sorry, banker, if you ask me. I knew him because I used to work in the City and he’d been on the fiddle for years. Anyways, he had to sell his house pretty quickly, so when this couple came along with a huge deposit and the ability to move quickly he sold it to them and never looked back.

Nine years ago

Whenever I saw the neighbours who I talked to on the Close they’d always have a different story about who was about to move into number eighteen. Gus at number forty-eight said it was a widower and his six children, Leenie at number three said it was a single mother who’d won the lottery, Cleo at number ninety-six said it was the banker who’d had to sell the house in the first place under a different name so he could cheat the tax man. So when I saw the new owner coming out of the house, dressed in a dust-smeared T-shirt, old jeans, and wild, ‘manual labour’ hair, I kind of guessed he was none of these things.

‘Hi,’ he said, a grin taking over his face when he saw me.

‘Moving in, I see,’ I replied, pausing outside the small iron gate and then leaning against the gatepost.

‘Yes, a very long process, considering I’m moving a one-bedroom
flat into a five-bedroom house. There’s so much stuff.’ He shrugged. ‘It doesn’t make sense, you know?’

He had this cute way of wrinkling his nose to emphasise how baffling things seemed to him. And his habit – which is what I could tell it was from the way he did it – of running his right hand through his brown locks started a tingling in my stomach. But it was his smile, the way it was a little bit higher on one side of his mouth than the other, that made me fall for him. In my head, we’d kissed, made love, set up home, got engaged, had a huge wedding and were trying for a baby by the time he’d said ‘you know?’

I nodded at him.

‘So it’s only you moving in, then?’ I said, trying to hide my hope. One-bedroom flat, no visible sign of anyone else helping with the moving process, all on his own at what seems a crucial phase … Ergo, moving in alone. Single. Available. As was I. Available, that is.

‘No. God, no. I couldn’t live in a house this big on my own. My wife is at home directing the packing. She’s six months pregnant and would be here doing this bit herself, too, if I’d let her. She’s pretty amazing. I can’t get her to slow down.’ Ah, married. The second he said that, I switched off the ‘available’ light I’d been metaphorically flashing and focused on his wedding ring – pretty unusual it was – and, most importantly, backed off. I liked the thrill of the chase, I liked that bit when you meet someone and you know it could go any way, but, as I said to you a minute ago, I’d been cheated on, my husband did it to me, my husband left me for someone else so I was not going to ‘go there’.

I met Tami a little while later and I’ve been grateful ever since they’re in my life, that I’m like family to them, and them to me.

The spurt of water on my tired body is a divine experience. There’s nothing like the first shower of the day to wake you up and get you going. To tell you the truth, I’m a bit unnerved about driving
past Tami and Scotty’s last night and the lights being off. It’s so not like them. The last time that happened was when Cora’s appendix burst and she had to be rushed in for emergency surgery.

I haven’t got time to drop in on the way to work, so it’ll have to be afterwards. Although once I’m in the office who knows what time I’ll leave? I’ve just got this nagging feeling that all is not well over there. I’ve got a feeling … Ahh, you’ll probably laugh at me, so I won’t finish what I was thinking. I’d better get on with this shower and then hit the road to Kent. Joy, joy, joy.

‘Rice Pops? Again?’ Cora protests when her bowl is full to the brim with small pieces of cereal.

‘You didn’t have Rice Pops yesterday, did you?’ I ask. Yesterday morning seems an age away.

‘No,’ she replies.

‘So what’s the problem?’

‘We always have Rice Pops.’

‘Apart from yesterday. And, if I recall correctly, the day before, as well. In fact, this is the first time you’ve had them all week.’

‘We always have Rice Pops,’ she repeats.

‘OK, Ansy, would you like Rice Pops?’ I ask, reaching for the pink and white spotted bowl in front of her to swap with Cora’s blue and white striped one.

‘OK, Mama,’ Ansy replies. ‘But I don’t want the ga-ga spoon, I want the BIG Wallace and Gromit one. Not the little one, the big one.’

I make the swap and return my attention to Cora. ‘What would you like instead?’

Her large brown eyes are swimming with tears, her mouth is turned down, while her pulled-in chin is wobbling.

‘What’s the matter?’ I ask.

‘I don’t want that bowl. It’s the baby bowl.’

This morning they woke up within minutes of each other in the big bed and both lay very still, looking around them, taking in the surroundings. They looked suspiciously at each other, then reached under the covers – and Cora discovered she was still wearing her jeans and Olympics T-shirt. Anansy, who always puts her pyjamas
on the moment she comes in from school to save time later, discovered she was still wearing her red towelling dressing gown.

‘Good morning, sleepyheads,’ I said brightly, trying to crowbar some normality into the day before fragments of last night came crashing in. I’d sat between them all night, drifting in and out of sleep, waiting for something to tell me that I’d imagined everything that had happened.

‘Morning, Mama,’ they mumbled, stretching and unknotting their young bodies. Slowly, their expressions changed and I could see what happened last night was playing in their minds. I put my arms around and hugged them. ‘We’re going to be OK,’ I said to them, dropping a kiss on each of their heads. ‘So will Dad. He’ll be OK, too, I promise.’ In response, they wrapped their arms around me, managing to avoid each other’s arms, and clung on.

Right now, Cora and Anansy are telling me in their own ways that they didn’t believe me.

‘Here we go.’ I decant the Rice Pops from Cora’s bowl into Anansy’s. I know this will not be enough for the tall eight-year-old with two shoulder-length plaits on either side of her head. It’ll still have yuckiness on it so won’t be fit for any other cereal. Taking the bowl, I go to the sink, pausing to open the dishwasher and pluck out the requested spoon. I wash both items with washing-up liquid and the green sponge, making a big show of it so neither can protest on its level of yuck-freeness.

‘OK, what would you like?’ I ask Cora.

I see it in her eyes, in the way she moves her face, I hear it, too, in the short breath she takes before she mumbles, ‘cornflakes.’ What would she like? Her daddy back, please.

‘Me, too,’ I say to her and fill up my own bowl with cornflakes, too. She knows what I mean, what I am saying.

Fourteen years ago

‘Do you ever trace your name in the stars?’ Scott asked me.

We lay on the beach, our second night in Brighton, and stared
up at the sky: ink-black and endless; a bottomless ocean suspended above our world. It was cold and we were freezing, but it’d seemed criminal not to come out here to see the black sea up close.

‘No, I’ve never done that’.

‘Look, it’s easy.’ He raised his hand, curled his other digits inwards, making a pencil out of his index finger. ‘See?’ His hand moved in big strokes, taking in multiple stars, multiple galaxies. A stroke down and then across: ‘T’. A diagonal sweep up, a diagonal sweep down, one across: ‘A’. A sweep up, then down a fraction, up a fraction, then long sweep down: ‘M’. A sweep down, two small sweeps top and bottom: ‘I’. A diagonal sweep up, a diagonal sweep down, one across: ‘A. TAMIA.’ As he wrote, I could see it, I could see the invisible line that joined up the heavens until they were all about me. Until me, my name, filled the sky. ‘Can you see it? Can you see your name up there?’