‘Um, Mary, I was wondering whether I could ask you a favour.’
‘Sure, Marigold. What can I do for you?’ Mary raised her eyebrows expectantly, hoping it wouldn’t be an imposition. She really had to be getting back to the painters.
‘My daughter has just come back from working in Italy and she’d like to try her hand at painting. She’s very good. She’s always been good, she’s just never had the confidence. She was wondering whether you’d allow her to paint a portrait of your dog.’
Mary’s face lit up. ‘Bernie? She’d like to paint Bernie? Well, of course she can. He’d love to be painted.’
‘Oh, good. I’ll tell her. She’s nipped out but she’ll be back later.’
‘I’ll give you my mobile number and you can ask her to call me.’
Marigold gave her a piece of paper and a pen and Mary proceeded to write it down. ‘He’s a handsome devil, my Bernie,’ she said, ‘and he just adores people.’ She then went to the back of the shop in search of beer.
‘We can’t say the same about cats,’ said Eileen under her breath.
A moment later Mary returned with twelve cans of beer.
‘I’ll expect Daisy’s call,’ she said, taking her wallet out of her handbag. ‘And I’ll tell Bernie the good news so he can get excited. He’s never been painted before.’
‘If it’s good enough she might display him in the village hall,’ said Marigold. ‘She’s hoping to make a career of it, you see.’
‘What a good idea. A great place to advertise. The English are potty about their dogs.’ Mary smiled mischievously. ‘I’d rather have Bernie painted than my children, but don’t tell Brian!’
Marigold laughed. ‘I won’t.’
When the door closed behind her Eileen shook her head. ‘And I won’t tell Dolly. To have her cat’s killer immortalized in paint might just tip her over the edge.’
Daisy walked up the path that snaked along the clifftops. She hadn’t walked there in ages. In spite of coming home a couple of times a year, for Christmas and usually once in the summer, she never found the time for walks. She remembered skipping up this path as a little girl, her mother’s voice calling her back snatched by the wind that blew in gusts off the sea. It hadn’t changed. It was exactly as it always had been. But she had changed. She yearned for her childhood now. Life had been simpler then. Fewer worries, or so it seemed. Six years in Italy, which had been good, now felt like lost years, wasted years, years invested with no return. She worried that her heart would never mend. It felt like grief, this leaden feeling in her chest. She was mourning the death of a relationship, yet her love lived on and had nowhere to go.
The truth was that Luca had never lied to her about not wanting marriage or children. It had been she who had foolishly believed she could change him. She had believed he would love her enough to give her what she wanted, that if she hung in there he would eventually back down. There came a moment when she realized he never would. That was last week. Luca hadn’t betrayed her; she had betrayed him. After all, they had so much in common. She was bohemian, like him. An independent free spirit, like him. They both loved art and music and culture. Neither was particularly materialistic. They’d lived simply but well, relishing Italy’s sensual bounty: the food, the sunshine, the art and architecture and, most of all, the beautiful countryside. He had believed they’d wanted the same things, while all along she had secretly wanted more. It wasn’t he who had moved the goalposts, it was she. If she had gambled six years of her life and lost, she had only herself to blame.
Now she was home she had to start again. A new career and a new life – it felt more like the picking up of the old one. She didn’t want to live at home, like Suze. She didn’t really want to live in this small village either. She was used to living abroad, in a cosmopolitan city. Used to living independently, but she had no choice. She didn’t have the money to buy a place of her own and she didn’t want to waste what she had on renting when she could live at home rent-free. And she needed to watch her pennies if she was going to give