Love at the Little Wedding Shop by the Sea - Jane Linfoot Page 0,16
waves on the shore below. If I’m missing the rumble of the traffic, it’s only what I expected. I left here for Bristol when I was twenty-one … when we lost Mum. It’s not a thing you ever get over, but after a few blurry years you learn how to hold yourself together every time you re-remember, instead of falling apart. The noise of the city and numbing my brain at the all-night dance clubs somehow helped me cope with the gaping chasm where Mum should have been; if I’d stayed around here, I might just have walked into the sea.
As I push back the duvet, kneel on the high bed under the low sloping ceiling, and lean towards the round porthole window, I shudder at the resounding emptiness of all that ocean. It’s no less desolate or uncomfortable than it was the first morning. There’s just such a jarring contrast compared to where I’ve come from, and the flat I’ve left behind forever.
The old place was clunky and Victorian. Not all the rooms were nicely decorated and some of the plaster was flaking, but at least they were ours. When we moved in, a part of me felt like it was so amazing it had to be too good to be true … which turned out to be pretty accurate, because in the end it was.
The things I liked most about that flat, other people couldn’t see. I adored the constant revving of the engines from the road outside, in the same way people here lap up the noise of the sea. Far from being a problem, the wail of sirens in the early hours was a reminder that I was surrounded by civilisation. I loved that there were twenty all-night takeaways within a few hundred steps of the door, that I never had to worry about going hungry or shopping ahead. Of only being around the corner from a major A&E department. Not that I ever used it myself. I suppose it’s a hangover from when my mum was ill, and we were at the hospital so often that I came to view it as the place that always sorted out our crises. As a healthy person, it’s always great to know if you break your leg or have a heart attack, you’re only ever two minutes away from being saved. You can’t underestimate how secure that made me feel.
As I peer past chimney pots and shiny slate roofs, the immense stretch of blue-black sea far below is scratched with dashes of white foam, and the layers of clouds above it are almost as dark. But if the outside seems so wild, the cosiness inside more than makes up for that. Like now, the delicious smell of coffee and vanilla drifting past my nose is so intense I could almost have my bed in the kitchen. I’m about to go and investigate when there’s a tap on the door.
Poppy’s head appears first, then a laden tray and her pink stripy apron. ‘I’ve got drinks and white chocolate muffins here if it’s not too early for breakfast?’
I can’t hold back my smile as I take in the size of the muffin stack. ‘You know I’m always ready for cake, but you don’t have to wait on me.’
Poppy’s nose wrinkles. ‘You’re technically still on holiday so being spoiled is fine. I’ve been here since six this morning doing final cupcake designs for a wedding reception next week, so I’m ready for a break.’ She grabs a mug, takes a sip of her drink, and her muffin is already peeled.
‘Go on, tell me every last drooly detail …’
She grins. ‘It’s a drive-in-movie 50s-themed wedding party in a school gym. Think red checked paper cupcake cases, pink, baby-blue, and mint-green icing piped to look like ice cream, all finished with tiny triangle wafers and luscious fresh black cherries with bendy stalks. The main food is hot dogs served from a van with real ice cream sundaes delivered by waitresses on roller skates.’
‘St Aidan brides know how to party!’ I take a slug of coffee and peel back my own muffin paper. ‘And when I finally get up, I promise I’ll be dedicating my entire day to uploading my pictures from Brides by the Sea to Pinterest and pimping the Insta account.’
As well as taking photos all around the shop, I’ve also spent a lot of the last week pulling together lists of wedding suppliers around St Aidan and contacting a long list