Summer at Little Beach Street Bakery
Page 46

Polly’s eyes were shining with tears.
‘We had to send him away.’
‘No way,’ said Selina, genuinely shocked. ‘That is so harsh. Not because of Lucas?’
‘No,’ said Polly. ‘Well, yes. And no. No. Just because.’
Selina came and put her arm around her.
‘I am so sorry,’ she said. ‘I am so, so sorry.’ She paused. ‘I cannot tell you how weird it is for me to be saying that to somebody else for a change.’
Polly managed a weak smile.
‘I can imagine.’
She swallowed the lump in her throat.
‘I miss him,’ she said. ‘I miss them both, I miss them so much. Huckle’s gone too.’
‘I know about that,’ said Selina. ‘I haven’t heard that mad bike for ages. I overheard someone in Muriel’s saying he’d gone away for work. Then they all looked at me like that was my fault too. After…’
‘Where did Dubose go?’
‘I don’t know,’ said Selina. ‘It’s kind of my hobby, making men disappear at short notice.’
Polly looked at her.
‘Why…’
‘Because,’ said Selina. ‘Because I was unbelievably lonely and because he was nice to me.’
Polly got a massive flashback to the previous year, and to Tarnie. She shook her head.
‘I understand. And people aren’t blaming you.’
‘Really?’ said Selina. ‘They all think you’re mad for buying that lighthouse, by the way.’
‘Thank you for that totally surprising piece of news,’ said Polly drily.
Selina looked down and kicked a rock with her foot.
‘So apparently I’ve managed to completely screw things up for everyone. That’s the message I’ve been getting. Everywhere I go, everyone falls totally silent. Apparently I keep a tiger in my house who brutally attacked the mayor or something.’
She looked up, her mouth still twisted.
‘I had no idea Neil was the most popular person in this town.’
‘Yeah,’ said Polly sadly. ‘Yeah, he is.’
‘And I’m the psycho bitch who tried to get him killed.’
‘I’m sure they’re not saying that.’
‘Might as well be,’ said Selina. ‘You know, even the vet doesn’t like Lucas.’
Polly kept a prudent silence.
‘How’s the shop doing downstairs?’
‘What, since I lost you your job too?’
‘Just asking,’ said Polly.
‘They put a pile of unsold tuna sandwiches outside the other day and it stank the place out for a week. Lucas went berserk, ripped open all the bin bags.’
‘Oh God, poor Jayden.’
Suddenly Selina sank down on to a rock and crossly hurled a stone out to sea.
‘Poor Jayden! Poor Polly! Poor Neil! Poor everyone else. You know, this was the last place; the last place I could come. This is pretty much the end of the road for me. No job, nothing to do, the compensation is basically gone. And now I’m here and everybody hates me. I mess it up and I mess it up and I mess it up, and even when I don’t bloody mean to mess it up, it’s my bloody fault for owning a bloody cat, as if I’m the only person ever to own one of the damn things! I didn’t realise. I thought it was just some bird.’
Polly shook her head.
‘Sorry. It was my fault. I’ve learned. He shouldn’t… I shouldn’t have had him as a pet. Seabirds aren’t pets. He shouldn’t have been following me about.’
Polly’s voice caught in her throat.
‘It’s right that he’s gone.’
Selina was still staring out to sea.
‘Everything I touch turns to shit.’
Polly took off Huckle’s big warm shirt and wrapped it around Selina’s shoulders.
‘Sssh,’ she said. ‘It’s okay. It’s not your fault. None of it was your fault.’
All the animosity Polly had been harbouring towards Selina and her cat melted away when she saw how fragile and sad Selina was; instead, she felt guilty for having avoided her, being too caught up in her own problems and too upset over what had happened to Neil to want to spend any time with her.
It was getting freezing. Dawn was a little way off, but not far; it was the very coldest, bleakest hour of the morning, the time when absolutely everything feels at its worst.
Polly knew only one way out of this. It was the first time she had felt like this in a while. Maybe it was being with someone else sad. Maybe it was the morning itself, or the truce that comes when you realise that, in fact, the rest of the world isn’t out to cause you pain and trip you up. That most people’s intentions are the same: just to get by the best they can, which sometimes succeeds and sometimes does not; that Selina wasn’t plotting to harm her bird and make her lose her job. That we are, in the end, just fallible human beings and we all make mistakes, and if you can forgive other people, then that is almost exactly the same as forgiving yourself, and feels just about as good.
‘Hey,’ she said. ‘Um. I was thinking.’
Selina scrubbed her face crossly with the cuff of Huckle’s shirt, which made Polly a little sad as she would have to wash it and it wouldn’t smell of him any more.
‘What?’ Selina said.
‘You know,’ said Polly. ‘When I feel awful, there’s only one thing that makes me feel any better.’
‘I don’t really want a drink,’ said Selina.
‘It isn’t that, actually,’ said Polly.
Selina looked at her.
‘What, then?’
‘Come with me,’ said Polly, and she held out her hand.
In the lighthouse kitchen, Polly turned on all the lights, which were horribly bright as they hadn’t got round to replacing the humming overhead fluorescent tubes. They both winced.
‘Okay,’ said Polly, noticing that Selina was still shivering. She really was most frightfully thin. ‘First things first. And first thing is coffee. Black.’
‘Does it have to be black?’
‘Yes,’ said Polly. ‘I forgot to buy milk again.’
She turned on the coffee machine, instinctively glancing around for Neil, who was fascinated by the noise it made and liked to advance on it bravely. Then she remembered that of course he wasn’t there. He’ll be back soon, she told herself sternly.