“Mr Cooper.” Paul was beside him, stony-faced. “Do you think my customers might be left in peace to eat their food?”
“They don’t have any food yet.” Mark Cooper smiled at us. “This will only take a moment. I’ve had several witness stories; I just need a quick photo with the dogs.”
The whole café stared, fascinated. Emma shrugged. “We may as well.”
I caught Paul’s eye as I stood and wrangled Elvis. The café-owner looked furious. “All publicity is good, right?” I said to him, and he smiled briefly and stepped aside.
Emma and I trailed outside with Mark and the dogs, he organised us into position at the top of the ramp with the beach behind us, and Emma told him her story: Bertie had never seen the sea before; he was over-excited and running about. “My bootlace came undone, I bent to tie it, and when I straightened up again, Bertie had disappeared. Then I heard Elvis barking and saw Marnie wade into the sea.”
“I didn’t stop to think.” That could be my epitaph. I hadn’t stopped to think before rushing headlong into marriage with Jeff after knowing him for four months. Sue had tried to put me off, but I had been so sure, swept along by the super-confidence and great hair. “Elvis was first to see Bertie, though; otherwise, I might have missed him. Anyway, all’s well that ends well.” A Clarion cliché if ever there was one.
Emma asked if Mark had the photo he wanted.
“Cool, yeah, no probs. Ciao.” He backed off, waved into the café, and Steph waved back. Paul was nowhere to be seen.
Emma grimaced. “He said, ‘ciao’.”
“I know.” I watched the journalist cross the street. “Do you think we can sue him?”
“For being an irritating prat? Possibly.”
Emma and I returned to our table in the cafe, and Steph brought a toasted sandwich for Emma and soup for me. Again, I felt the clientele's eyes on me as I supped and hoped they were reassured I would survive the experience.
“Tell me about yourself,” Emma said.
“Well,” I began and then hesitated. The women at the table behind had stopped talking. “I’ll tell you outside.”
“Mysterious past?”
“No, sadly.” I relented a bit and told Emma how I’d spent every holiday I could with my grandmother in Lilac Cottage and that she’d given it to me. “I love it here.”
“What do you do?” Emma sipped coffee. “You’re married.” She nodded to my wedding ring, which I still wore, despite my protestations to the contrary.
I looked at her, and she met my gaze and then smiled. “Got it.” She began talking about her two children away at university and how she loved being at home some of the time. I told her about Sue and Colin living nearby and how their son Don was also at university while Lizzie, their eldest, lived in Australia. This brought the conversation to our own education, and I found myself confessing to the desire to write a novel.
“What sort?”
“Don’t know, really, I keep veering from mystery to romance and back again.”
“It could be both. Just do it.” Emma shrugged. “What’s stopping you?”
“Nothing now.” I realised this sounded enigmatic and mouthed outside.
“Secret squirrel,” Emma whispered. “Cool, yeah, no probs.”
“Ciao.”
We laughed, and then Emma went up to the counter to pay. Steph served her with barely a smile, and when she returned, Emma said, “I feel our waitress may need customer service training.”
“My thoughts, too.” I stopped Elvis from visiting every table in the place as we made for the door. Some devilment made me turn, wave at the counter, and call, “Bye, Steph.”
The waitress looked up with a startled frown, then forced a smile. She didn’t wave. Elvis and Bertie raced over the sand, and Emma and I followed more sedately. I steeled myself and then, for the third time, related my tale of woe.
“I’m trying to be professional and non-judgemental,” Emma said. “But what did you see in him?”
Don’t say ‘great hair’. “Jeff was more confident than me and full of plans for us both…plans which never quite materialised. I admired him at first and, well, I was in love. After that, I got swept up in his life and never stopped to think where we were going.”
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“It’s too soon to make decisions, but I’ll do it for free if you file for divorce.”
“What? No, wait, you already bought me lunch!”
“Bertie’s priceless to us; it will be my pleasure. You told me the house is yours. Has Jeff registered his marital right of occupation?”
“Huh?” I stared at Emma. “You could be speaking Klingon right now.”
“I know it’s heavy stuff. Do you have kids?”
“No.”
“Well, that makes it easier. Try to talk to your husband and see if you can work everything out regarding the house and his lottery win.”
“I need to find him first.”
“If you hit a brick wall, we can help with that.”
“Thanks, Emma. I’m grateful for your help. I never thought that a week ago I’d be - Jesus.”
“You’d be Jesus?” Emma stared at me, puzzled, followed my gaze and snorted with laughter. We watched Elvis streak across the sand, tailed by Bertie, heading for a father and son playing football. My dog pounced, grabbed the ball and legged it.
“This is my life now.” I broke into a jog. “Opening conversations with an apology.”
“It’s one way to meet people.” Emma puffed along beside me. “Not to mention good exercise…save you a fortune on a gym membership – Bertie, no!”
Elvis and his canine co-star bounced the ball between them, barking loudly. Emma and I staggered up, apologised to the father, who was doubled over with laughter, and then the football smacked me on the forehead. “Yow.” I reeled sideways, tripped over Bertie, and hit the sand.
The son pointed and laughed, and then Elvis burst his football, and he stopped laughing. “I’m so sorry.” I struggled to my feet. “Let me pay for that.”
“Nonsense, we have loads more at home.” The father grinned. “It was worth it for the entertainment.”
Emma and I grabbed our respective dogs, snapped on leashes, and made for the last ramp to the promenade before he changed his mind. “I’ll walk up with you and Bertie and see if Sue’s in,” I said. When we reached Elder Lane, Emma took my mobile number and suggested we keep in touch.
“Well, see you soon for another exciting experience. Bye, Elvis.”
“Bye, Bertie.” I waved them off along the pavement, then went up the path to Sue and Colin’s front door and rang the bell. Sue opened the door, I released Elvis, and he barged past her and galloped inside. “Oh, you look…er….”
“Don’t say it.” Sue stepped back to let me in. “Or I’ll kill you with my bare hands.”
A voice sang out from the living room:
“Elvis, you’re nothing but a hound dog…whoo..hoo….”
“Colin’s back home already?”
“They needed the bed. Or maybe he was so annoying they couldn’t wait to get shot of him.” Sue trudged towards the voice, and I followed.
“Colin, hey, how’re you doing?” I stopped beside the settee where Sue’s husband lay propped on cushions, his foot and lower leg in plaster.
“Marnie. Mar-neee. Nee-hee. Ha, ha, ha.”
“It’s his pain meds.” Sue heaved an enormous sigh. “I might take some myself.”
“I’m hunky-dory. Hunky. Monkey. Chunky. Funky...lumpy. Humpty Dumpty!”
“I see what you mean.” I jumped away as Elvis tore past me and thundered upstairs, and then Sue and I backed out into the hall. “Can I help?”
“You’ve got enough on your plate. Don’s coming home on Friday, so I’ll be fine.” Sue looked up to the first landing where Elvis stood with a toilet roll in his mouth. “Hey, you’re not the Andrex puppy – drop that now.”
Elvis did as he was told, the toilet roll bounced downstairs, unravelling as it went, and then he followed at high speed. Sue and I dived forward and wrestled with him amid a sea of shredded tissue, finally managing to refasten his leash. Sue straightened and looked at me. “No word from Jeff?”
“None.”
“Have you tried the best man…what’s his name?”
“Ollie. I’ll go and see him and Cheryl. If I phone and they’re hiding Jeff, Ollie might lie to me – I need to see the whites of his eyes.”
“Good thinking.” Sue opened the front door. “Keep me posted, yeah?”
“Yeah.” I stepped outside to a cry of:
“Elvis has left the building…ha, ha, ha, ha, ha.”
“If I murdered him now, it would be justifiable homicide, right?”
“Absolutely. No jury would convict you.”
On the walk back to Lilac Cottage, I thought suddenly about my inability to have children and wondered if this was the reason behind Jeff’s departure. He’d been keen to start a family soon after we were married – or eager to practise, anyway – and I’d gone along, as I usually did because it was the done thing.
Be honest. You were relieved when it didn't happen, weren’t you?
I stopped short. Elvis looked at me, and I shrugged. “I’m right; I was relieved. Maybe I sensed what kind of man Jeff was - or I didn’t really want kids.” Elvis twitched his ears. His look said, ‘Stop talking to yourself in the street’.
I walked on, remembering what happened when I failed to become pregnant after two years: my husband took himself off to the doctor, declaring that one of us must be faulty, then returned and said his sperm could enter the 200m backstroke at the next Olympics.
After that, we didn’t practise quite so much.
You were relieved about that too.
“So many wasted years….” I coughed. “Okay, I know, I’ll stop talking out loud – oh, God, I’m doing it again.” I hurried on, head down, past the houses on Hill Street until I reached my cottage. As we went through the front gate, I saw a young woman on Mr Simpkins’ doorstep and heard my neighbour’s raised voice:
“I have no idea what you are talking about, young lady. Please go away.”
Elvis and I went inside, he whined at the back door, and I let him out. The stranger could have been a Jehovah’s Witness, but they usually travelled in pairs. Maybe she was selling dusters. I laughed and filled the kettle, and then the doorbell rang. “Oh, great.”