Page 71 of Whispers at The Bookshop Pretty Beach
Daisy rolled her eyes and looked at the time on her phone. 'We can go the normal way past the bakery, or we can go the long way past the duck pond and the old church, or we can go the really long way along the seafront and up the hill, but I don’t think we’ve got time for that now.'
Margot put her hand up as if she were at school. 'The really long way takes ages, but you get to see the boats.'
'And sometimes there are loads of fish, but mostly there aren't,' Evie added.
Miles nodded as if this was all vital information. 'Well, what's it to be then, Margot? You're the route commander today. Mummy says we don’t have time for the long way along the seafront.'
Margot considered her options with serious gravity as if she were deciding on world peace. 'The way past the duck pond, but we have to stop and look at the ducks to see if there are any good ones.'
Miles chuckled. 'We can't pass up good ducks. Never.'
They made their way out through the back gate, which now opened and closed without wrestling with it getting stuck, thanks to Miles's efforts with the latch. Daisy locked the door behind them and tucked the keys into her jacket pocket, already running through the mental list of everything she needed to do once she got back to open the shop.
The air outside was crisp and clean, carrying the scent of Pretty Beach all the way along the lane; salt from the sea, woodsmoke from someone's chimney and baking bread drifting from the bakery. The distant sound of the ferry horn honked and the sky was a shade of pale blue that suggested it might stay clear, though with an odd few clouds here and there, Daisywouldn’t have been surprised if by the time they’d done the school run, it would cloud over.
They walked down the lane behind the bookshop, the twins skipping ahead and then circling back every now and then, their conversation bouncing from topic to topic.
'Miss Pilkington said we're going to do a project about the seaside,' Evie announced. 'We have to find things and write about them.'
'What sort of things?' Miles asked.
'Seaside things like shells and seaweed and that. Boring stuff.'
'Seaweed's not boring! Some of it pops when you step on it. What about when it's really long and you can pretend it's a sea monster?' Margot insisted.
Evie conceded. 'I do like doing that.'
Daisy smiled as she listened to them. These were the conversations she'd been having with them on her own for years. The endless back-and-forth about everything and nothing that formed the fabric of their daily life. Having Miles there to witness and be part of it felt surreal sometimes. Not bad surreal, just very different from the past. It took some getting used to.
'Can we get some cinnamon buns when you pick us up after school?' Margot asked.
'We'll see.’
'Mummy always says we'll see,' Evie explained to Miles with wide eyes. 'It usually means no, but sometimes it means yes if we're really good.'
'That's useful to know,' Miles said seriously. 'I'll file that information away for future reference.'
They reached the turning that led towards the duck pond, and Margot immediately picked up the pace. Daisy winced, hoping that she wouldn’t go flying. The pond with its little stream coming down from the Pretty Beach Hills glinted in thesunshine. A morning jogger was making use of the path that circled the water, two dog walkers stood chatting by the far side and a good few ducks floated serenely on the dark water, occasionally dipping their heads underneath.
Evie pointed. 'Look, there's the one with the green head.’
They stood watching the ducks for a few minutes, the twins providing a running commentary on the various personalities and relationships they'd assigned to the regular inhabitants of the pond. Daisy glanced at her watch and realised that they'd used up most of their buffer time for getting to school. 'Right, troops, we need to get moving if we want to make it before the bell.'
As they walked, Miles fell into step beside Daisy while the twins went ahead a little, still deep in discussion about the relative merits of different types of ducks and whether the pond would be a good place for a boat.
'This is nice. I like this part of the day.' Miles noted.
'Even with the chaos?' Daisy asked and rolled her eyes.
'It feels real and normal. Who would have thought?'
Daisy knew what he meant. There was something about the morning school run that felt like the most ordinary thing in the world and simultaneously like a small daily miracle. The fact that she'd managed to get two small people dressed, fed, and equipped with everything they needed for the day, and that they were walking through Pretty Beach together on a clear morning, felt like an achievement. Sometimes she still couldn’t believe that she had twins and that she managed to getanyonedressed in the morning, let alone all three of them and get them out of the house and to places on time.
As they strolled in the direction of the school, Daisy thought about her day. She had a delivery coming that morning, Lotta was coming over to get stuff ready for an event she was holding in the shop and she had a backlog of work to do for the bakery.Daisy smiled at how her days had evolved to accommodate the various demands of single parenthood and small business ownership. While it mostly worked, it required a level of organisation that sometimes felt exhausting and often she felt as if she was chasing her tail. A tail that had its own home and didn’t pay any rent. She didn’t mind chasing that tail in the slightest.
Miles swept his hand around. ‘Fancy that GayesBooks tried to get a grip on all of this.’
‘I know. It’s not good to even think about.’
