Page 12 of One Summer

‘We like each other. I’m allowed to have friends.’

‘Not when they’re my colleagues.’

‘You should become a jewellery designer. It’s creative. You’re a creative person. Hand your notice in and follow your passion.’

‘Because jewellery design is such a stable, lucrative career?’

‘It was for Mr Tiffany,’ she says, quite seriously, as if my efforts will be a rival to Tiffany & Co’s near two-hundred-year dominance of the fine jewellery market.

‘And I bet it’s emotionally enriching,’ she goes on. ‘Seeing things that you made with your own two hands. We’ll help you out if you need money.’

It’s a nice offer, except for the fact that they don’t have any money, either. Nobody in my family has money. It arrives in our left hand and leaves via our right hand, usually within the day. My parents live in a rented house, have no savings and live month to month. I appreciate the sentiment, but unless they’ve won the lottery and haven’t mentioned it, I won’t be accepting their charity.

Anyway, I can’t bear the thought of more change, not when my romantic life has just been rear-ended by a snow plough. A mud plough? A cheetah.

‘Don’t worry about it. I’m okay,’ I say. ‘I can handle Scotty. I’m tougher than I look.’

I’m not tough. I’m just faulty. My brain is a ball of tangled wires and my thoughts leap from one point to another without ever connecting with anything. I probably need to be taking medication of some sort to normalise my brainwaves. No wonder Max thinks I don’t have a plan for my life. I don’t know what I want. I don’t even know where to start. In the dark hours of the night, I’ve begun to wonder if I’m experiencing derealisation, because nothing feels real to me anymore. I’m just a brain in a jar, thinking.

‘You know, there’s a perfect job for you going down here,’ my mum says. ‘There’s an advert in The Voice. Someone’s put up a flyer in the corner shop, too. It would be lovely to have you close by again.’

Her words catch me off guard and jolt me back into the moment. I was sure she’d start talking about Max. Asking me how he is, how his work is going, if we’re going to get married.

‘I can’t come back to Cornwall, Mum. I have a life here.’

I don’t mention Max. She can assume I mean him. I’m not lying – I’m just withholding.

‘Not just any old part of Cornwall. I’m talking about Loor. You’d be close, but we wouldn’t be able to just stop by on a whim. We know how much that annoys you.’

‘They have publishing jobs on Loor Island, do they?’

My voice drips with scepticism.

‘Not publishing exactly, but in that sort of wheelhouse. To do with literature, anyway. Very much so.’

‘It’s a bookshop, isn’t it?’

She clears her throat, as if I’ve offended her.

‘Managing the bookshop, which is a position of authority! You love bookshops! Your first ever job was in a bookshop! You’re only an assistant now but you’d be the boss.’

‘Mum.’

‘What? You’d actually get to work with books there, not just photocopying contracts and printing orders for stationery or whatever. You could read in your lunch break. When was the last time you actually read a book for fun, Lindy?’

I can’t remember. Then I snap my fingers.

‘Last week. I read Nigella’s new one.’

‘That’s cheating. Recipe books don’t count.’

‘They do count. Recipe books come with little stories now.’

‘Yes, and it’s dreadful,’ she says, venomously. ‘I don’t want to hear about the childhood raspberry-picking expeditions that inspired this pesto pasta dish. Just give me the recipe already.’

I smile. I can tell from her voice that my mother knows I’m upset, which could go either way. Sometimes she’ll back off and try to soothe me, and other times she’ll strike while I’m at my most vulnerable in the hope that I’ll crack down the middle and do what she wants.

‘I don’t have time to read for pleasure,’ I say. ‘I have to read so much for work. The last thing I feel like doing on my downtime is reading some more.’

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