Page 4 of My Summer of Magic Moments

‘Have you checked your gas bottles?’

‘Uhh …’

‘You know, the big orange things just under your kitchen window. When they empty you need to change them.’ His patience appeared to be thread thin. Trust her to get Mr Grumpy as a neighbour.

‘No, I don’t know anything about those.’ It wasn’t as if the property owner had left any useful instructions or anything for guests. How the hell was she meant to know?

‘And I don’t suppose you know how to change them either?’

Spot on there, matey. ‘Nope.’

‘Right, well I suppose I’d better show you then. Then you’ll know how to do it yourself next time.’ And not bother me was very clearly the next line, though unspoken.

They headed round to the side of the cottage outside the kitchen. Two large orange metal canisters stood propped under the window. Ah.

He lifted one easily; it seemed light. ‘Empty.’

She felt a right idiot for not checking and not knowing anything about gas bottles. It just came piped out of the ground where she lived.

‘Okay, so turn the switch here,’ he continued. ‘Then turn this valve on top until it clicks, like this.’

‘Oh, okay.’ She was nodding, trying to take it in.

He lifted the connection away from the bottle it had been on, shifted the empty canister out of the way and dragged the other into position. ‘Opposite way to fix on, screw valve back, flip switch to “on”. Pretty simple, really.’

‘Right, well, sorry to bother you and all that.’ It had obviously been an inconvenience to him.

‘And you’d better tell old Mr Hedley to get a new one in so you don’t run out altogether next time.’

‘Okay, will do. Thanks.’

He just nodded. ‘Right, well, that’s me done.’ He turned and walked away, back to his tidy beach house, and closed his door. Back to his life. She wondered for a second what it was like, his life? It seemed like he might be there on his own after all. Then she put her thoughts aside. She had her own life to worry about. Her own hurts to heal. It seemed like her neighbour wouldn’t be a nuisance with noise, at least. In fact, he suited her plans for peace and solitude very well.

4

A hot, bubbly bath

Awake again. The rickety bed creaked as she moved. Pitch black. There were no streetlights out here, just the sound of the rush and pull of the waves on the shore for company.

God, her left boob was uncomfortable. She must have shifted to lie front-down in her sleep and crushed it a bit. The scar was still tight sometimes, and then that weird taut pain nipped down her arm from the armpit. She wriggled her fingers, loosening them up.

She lay there thinking. She’d done it, made her escape to her cottage by the sea. Got away for a while. A chance to breathe again.

It felt like she’d been in limbo since the op and the chemo, the radiotherapy thereafter. She’d grown used to that new life of appointments, hospital visits – it had structured her days and become her norm. She’d become friendly with the nurses and the other patients, and in an odd kind of way she missed them. Even though it was for the best-ever reason that she could jump ship and leave that weird journey. It had felt strange trying to settle back into her old life, which had come as a surprise after longing for that day so much. Yet nothing seemed the same once she was back working at the newspaper, catching up with her lovely friends Andrea, Jo and the girls in the office. When they started chatting about which shoes to wear with which dress for their Friday night out, it felt like a world away from where she’d just been. She should have been leaping around with joy, but she just felt quiet inside, more thoughtful than she’d ever been. Yes, it was good getting back to work, but it was like the axis of her world had shifted.

She travelled back in her mind to the line-up of fake leather chairs, the chemo ward – sitting there with magazines and chit-chat, everyone’s lines attached to a drip like something out of a sci-fi movie. The hour’s wait, unnerving at first, but then you got used to it. She’d made it through … She felt tears prick behind her eyes. Others hadn’t. Rebecca, Leanne … the friends she’d chatted with, looked forward to seeing on her weekly visit, a nod and a wave to their families as they passed, saying hello, goodbye. Talking, planning what they’d all be doing when they got out of this place. Bloody hell – some of them had never got out of that place, and she owed it to them to make the best of this life she’d been given back.

Claire had the feeling that change was about to happen, but she didn’t know quite how yet, which way things were going to go. All she knew for sure was that she couldn’t waste the rest of this life, this new chance.

Yes, she was beginning to find her feet, though life still seemed a little wobbly at the moment. She must hold on to the fact that she’d been given the all clear, or as clear as they could promise for now. And for now was a good enough place to start.

It was still dark outside – she could see from the crack in the curtains. It must be the early hours of the morning. She should try and get some more sleep, but her head was way too busy. She’d get up and make a cup of camomile tea.

Venturing downstairs, she popped the kettle on and waited for it to come to a boil in the cranky kitchen. After steeping the teabag, she took her mug through to the lounge. She didn’t bother to put the light on. It was peaceful standing there just gazing out at the night sea, the silver flickers on the crests of waves under the light of a crescent moon. The warmth from the mug in her hands was calming.

She thought she saw a glimmer of light flick on, then off, possibly from the cottage next door? Maybe she wasn’t the only one up at weird hours in the night. She’d put the light on in the kitchen – had that disturbed him? After all, it was three a.m. Oops, he might be an even grumpier neighbour tomorrow.

Claire woke up groggy after her restless night. Tea on the balcony time.