Page 23 of The Little Island Flower Stall
Celestine chuckled. Bella was glad to see her back to her usual self after the dip in mood earlier on the stall.
‘I think I’ll quickly phone home too,’ Bella said. ‘I mean Mum and Dad, not…’
‘Yes,’ Celestine said. ‘Good. If you so much as think about contacting that dreadful husband of yours, I will have words with you – for your own good, of course.’
Bella nodded. ‘I have no intention of contacting him unless I really have to. But I suppose I will have to at some point. There’s so much to sort out, but I feel as if I can’t face it at all.’
‘It must be awful. I’m so sorry to learn what you’re going through.’
Bella gave a wan smile. ‘It is what it is, as they say. I really only have myself to blame for the mess I’m in now.’
‘You need to stop saying that. It takes two to make a marriage work, after all. He was the unfaithful one, wasn’t he?’ Bella opened her mouth to reply, but Celestine spoke into the gap. ‘I know you haven’t shared the details, and I might be a dim old woman, but even I can guess at that much. He broke your heart, didn’t he? You loved him.’
‘Loved. The past tense being the important bit.’
Celestine raised her eyebrows with some scepticism.
Bella shook her head slowly. ‘He hurt me, yes. I can’t deny I’m broken-hearted, but only at the way it ended and the way he treated me. I don’t love him, not now. It’s clear he didn’t love me; so knowing that, why would I still love him?’
‘Because fairness is not the way love works,’ Celestine said, and something in her tone reminded Bella of the darkness that had descended over her earlier that day.
‘Anyway,’ Bella replied, steering the conversation to safer waters, ‘you don’t need to worry. I’m going to wander down to the sea and phone Mum and Dad just to let them know I’m OK. It’s not like they need to worry or anything, but…’
‘I’m sure they’ll never stop worrying about you no matter how old you are. You go ahead – my quiz is starting on the television anyway. We’ll have cocoa when you get back if you like.’
Bella smiled. The way Celestine lived here in St Rosa was so endearingly old-fashioned she couldn’t help but love it already. Walks on the beach, television quizzes, fish straight off the boat for tea and cocoa before bed. It was wonderful, if a little nutty to a twenty-first-century sensibility.
She kissed Celestine lightly on the cheek. ‘I won’t be too long. You’ll be all right?’
‘Of course I will. Off you go.’
Bella’s wanderings took her back to the beach. All the shacks were locked up for the day now, but the promenade was still busy with people making the most of the day’s final drops of sun. On the sand, children ran up and down, casting long shadows, some playing ball games, some chasing each other, and some in and out of the sea. A few people walked dogs, others were in couples, hands clasped together or arms around each other. Bella might have been upset by the sight, but she was strangelyunmoved. Sean had hurt her more than she’d even admit to herself, so much that she was still finding it hard to feel anything about him – at least, nothing that seemed real. It was like a burn that was so bad her nerves could no longer tell whether she was sensing hot or cold. One day soon, perhaps it would really hit her. For now she was glad of the numbness.
Finding a seat on a bench overlooking the sea, she dialled the landline at her parents’ house. Her dad picked up.
‘Hello, Dad,’ she said. ‘Just thought I’d let you know I’m here and everything is all right and see how you and Mum are doing.’
‘Ah…’
Something in her dad’s tone caught her off guard.
‘What’s wrong? Has something happened?’
‘Nothing…it’s nothing to worry about. Don’t get upset?—’
‘Upset? About what?’
‘Sean came round with some boxes. Some more of your things. Things you hadn’t managed to take with you when you first left. He said he wanted to clear you out of the house, once and for all.’
Bella’s breath caught in her throat. Despite what she’d told herself only moments before, her dad’s words were like a punch to the gut. Just when she’d thought Sean couldn’t get any crueller, he’d gone and surpassed himself. But on immediate reflection, she wondered why she was shocked. It would have been a reaction to their phone call the day before. He wasn’t the sort of man who’d take any kind of snub lying down, and he’d want to have the last word, no matter what it meant for anyone else.
‘I’m sorry,’ her dad said. ‘We’ve got it all here – you don’t need to worry about that.’
‘I’m surprised he didn’t bin it and take a photo to send me, quite honestly. I suppose I ought to be glad he bothered to bring it over.’
‘I can’t tell you if all the things you left behind are here or not, of course, not knowing what there was.’
‘I doubt if I could on first look,’ Bella said. ‘I took all the most important things with me at the time, so I doubt any of it’s irreplaceable anyway.’
