Now that winter was almost upon them, Rosa was thankful for the sea wall in front of the cottage. It acted as an adequate defence, apart from the one terrible storm they had had the summer before last, which had not only flooded the café, but had caused carnage on the beach and to sea life, including many of the gulls.
She’d noticed recently that the tides were definitely getting higher and had thrown up more than just seaweed, especially around the time of a full moon. The sea would sometimes completely engulf the Bay, thrusting boats right up close to the wall in front of their house, disappearing as quickly as they had come with the ebbing tide. She couldn’t recall this ever happening when she had first moved here.
With its fantastic array of shops and eateries, and its stunning beach and cliff location, Cockleberry Bay was a sought-after area in which to live. There were generations of families who had been born here and would never leave, so the sea-fronted properties rarely came onto the market. When they did, it was usually city-dwellers on the look-out for a second property who, on promising hungry estate agents back-handers for immediate information, snapped them up quickly. So it had been fortuitous timing that the detached and desirable Gull’s Rest should come up for sale just when she and Josh were looking for a new home before the baby came, and that they should get wind of its availability before anyone else.
Gull’s Rest had been owned by a rich city gent, Sandy Hamilton-Jones, and was previously being lived in by his estranged wife, Bergamot. The agent had unprofessionally told Rosa that Mr Hamilton-Jones, despite making his wife sign a pre-nup, had come a cropper. A massive divorce settlement had gone in her favour and, with regret, he had had to let the house go. Rosa was disgusted that the very same woman who had stolen money from her Corner Shop last Christmas had lucked out in this way, but was also incredibly grateful that Bergamot had moved out and left the Bay long ago so there would be no onward chain.
It had originally been Josh and Rosa’s plan to move to nearby Polhampton Sands. However, Josh had quickly realised that it made no sense to move out of the Bay as Rosa didn’t drive, and if he wasn’t around it would mean her travelling backwards and forwards by bus or taxi to help run the café or the Corner Shop, and see her friends. Rosa was delighted at their final decision to stay in Cockleberry Bay. She loved it here. Far removed from the deprived area in the East End of London in which she had grown up, this vibrant seaside town was somewhere she was now more than happy to call her home.
Gull’s Rest had a cornflower-blue front door with a silver starfish knocker that Rosa had insisted on adding, and, with its beachfront location, offered magnificent sea views from every angle, upstairs and down. After living in the compact flat above the Corner Shop in the main town, being in this place, with its large living space and underfloor-heated wooden floors felt like living in a mansion. The back garden was perfect for a young family and dog, too, with its lawn leading down a small hill to an orchard of apple and pear trees.
On viewing the property, Josh had randomly got excited about the greenhouse that the old owners had left, and had been insistent that he would grow tomatoes, chillies, peppers and cucumbers – in his whispered words to his wife, ‘as long as my cock’. None of which had yet materialised. Although her husband of two years had said that moving to the new place would allow him to slow down and help her with their Cockleberry businesses, he had just taken on a contract in New York for the old firm he had worked for previously, with Carlton, his mate and work colleague.
With Little Ned being so young, the married couple had discussed the pros and cons long and hard, but in the end the ever-resilient Rosa had been fine about Josh going. A few weeks in New York would earn him a particularly good income, which in turn would buy him time at home. A lucrative contract like this would see him through for the next year at least, and with their café share and his many investments, the Smiths would be in a more secure financial position than ever.
If Rosa was completely honest, the thought of spending quality time alone with Little Ned, their son, quite appealed to her. It would surely be easier only to have to think about feeding the pair of them, and if she wanted to go to bed as soon as the baby was sleeping, she could do so, guilt-free. The other bonus was that she and Josh had a lot more to talk about on their Skype calls, and as long as he was back in the middle of December as planned, she could count down the last days until his return with the Advent calendar she was intending to purchase.
Considering how busy life was with a young baby, Rosa knew the few weeks would fly by. Josh was a good man. A hard worker and great provider, and that was one of the reasons she loved him. He made life easy. Not that she wasn’t a hard worker herself; far from it. Yes, Titch now had the Corner Shop, and Rosa’s newly discovered brother Nate was managing the café, but Rosa still very much had a hand in the running of both businesses. And now, as well as trying to concentrate on spending as much time with her son as she could, she was dedicated to making a success of Ned’s Gift, the charity she had set up in her great-grandfather’s name; the same Great-grandfather Ned Myers who had originally bequeathed her the Corner Shop in Cockleberry Bay. The very man towards whom, despite never meeting him, she felt so much admiration and gratitude. It was in his memory, and with Josh’s complete approval, that she had named their first-born Benedict Christopher Smith (‘Little Ned’).
Rosa awoke from the deep slumber she had fallen into on the window-seat to a tapping on the front bay window. A voice was saying urgently, ‘Rose, Rose! Wake up and let me in.’
The sleepy mum didn’t even need to open her eyes to see who it was. There was only one person she knew who called her Rose.
Hot was barking and scratching at the back door. Little Ned had just started to cry upstairs. Rosa opened the front door, then with eyes half-closed sloped her way up the stairs to return a few minutes later after changing and comforting the baby, to find Titch holding out her arms to her pink-faced baby and pointing to a steaming mug of tea on the kitchen table. Hot had been let in and was now calmly chewing at a toy in his dog bed in front of the log-burner in the other room.
‘I was sparko. I never usually miss him crying,’ Rosa moaned.
‘Hardly. You woke up just as he started. Teething, I guess. Poor little lad.’ Titch cuddled the baby against her neat pregnancy bump, allowing him to push his sweaty head right into her breast, leaving a line of dribble as he did so. ‘He’s going to be a big, tall boy like his daddy, this one, I reckon.’ Titch rocked him gently.
‘And the Worst Mother Award goes to Rosa Smith.’ Rosa splashed a bear-shaped teething toy with boiled water, waited until it was cool, then handed it to her friend to see if Little Ned wanted to gnaw on it. ‘I wish I had a manual that told me exactly what to do and when to do it. And the state of his nappies too, at the moment! Fluorescent green we had this morning. Why does nobody tell you about these things?’
‘I did try,’ Titch said, ‘but until you experience it, you don’t realise how bloody hard being a mum is. Have you got any biscuits?’
Rosa dug out a clean muslin cloth from a kitchen drawer, handed it to Titch for the dribble then fetched a dachshund-shaped biscuit tin from the side.
‘Ah, that reminds me,’ Titch said. ‘Look in my bag, Rose.’