Annie smiled and thanked her while Mari continued to fuss around the small sitting room. “You can park by the garden fence; that’s what John does,” Mari went on. “He’s got one of those 4×4 thingamies, makes light work of the shingle.”
“That’s very kind of you,” said Annie. “Thank you.”
Annie drank the last bit of her tea and stood to leave, putting out her hand, and Mari took it. Her hand felt small and frail in Annie’s; the skin was loose around the slender bones and her fingertips were rough from a lifetime of hard work. Annie found herself feeling protective of this slight elderly woman and the home that she held so dear.
Mari stood and watched Annie to the garden gate.
“Good luck!” Mari called. “And bring jumpers!”
Annie smiled and waved back.
“Don’t worry about a thing!” Annie shouted back.
She felt pleased with herself and—dare she say it—really quite positive about the next few months. She had just bought herself some time to decide what she would do next, and not having to pay a deposit or a month’s rent in advance was excellent news for her credit card.
The breeze teased some wayward strands of hair loose from her ponytail and Annie felt like a romantic heroine embarking on an adventure. She felt inclined to have a little gallop—there was no one around to see her, after all—so she thrust her arms out to her sides and let the wind ruffle her bingo wings as she erupted into a kind of lolloping jog. She would find herself in this place by the sea; how could she possibly not find herself in such perfect, dramatic surroundings? Her spirits soared. “This is the start of something wonderful!” she shouted.
A seagull swooped in low, coast-bound from the ocean, chanting its unmistakable song of the sea, and shit on her head.
Chapter 10
Annie’s hair was still very much stuck together with cack—despite having used a whole packet of tissues on it—as she revved her engine all the way up the hillside and pulled into the car park of the Sunken Willow.
The landlord looked up from his newspaper as she entered the bar.
“Shit on?” he said.
“Very much so!” Annie replied.
A woman sat in the far corner, nursing a pint of ale. She looked up from her book and over her glasses and said: “Happens to the best of us.”
Annie smiled uncertainly.
“I’ll just go and clean up a bit, and then I’d like to order some lunch, if that’s all right?” said Annie.
The landlord, a tall bespectacled man with gray thinning hair, nodded and pointed toward a sign that read Mesdames.
“Thank you,” said Annie.
A broad black woman in a billowy orange blouse with a clichéd barmaid cleavage emerged from a doorway behind the bar and stood beside the landlord. Her long black weave was pulled up and wound around her head in two mounds like a cottage loaf. She looked at Annie.
“Shit on?” she said.
Annie grimaced.
“Yes,” she said. “I’m just going to clean up a bit.”
“Wait on,” said the woman. She ducked back out of the door and returned seconds later with a bottle of shampoo and a towel, which she handed over the bar to Annie.
“Residential hazard,” she said. “I always keep a bottle of shampoo handy for the afflicted! I’m Pam,” said the woman. “Landlady. That there is my husband, Bill. And propping up the bar is our daughter, Emily, on her lunch break.”
The woman in the glasses raised her pint and nodded in Annie’s direction, her impressive Afro bobbing gently of its own accord.
“Now off you pop,” said Pam. “And get that shit off your bonce, and we’ll talk about getting you some lunch.”
“Thank you!” said Annie. “Thank you so much. I feel disgusting! I’m Annie, I’m going to be looking after Saltwater Nook—” She didn’t get to finish.
“You’re the lady Mari found!” said Pam, though Annie had been under the impression it was she who had found Mari.
But she smiled as she said: “Yes.”
“It’ll be strange without her here!” said Pam. “She’s been here longer than most and outlived the rest. But it can be rough down there, and she’ll be better off with a friend to share the winter days. You know the history of the place, don’t you?”
Annie was distracted; she touched her hand to her head and felt her hair hardening. Pam saw and threw her arms in the air.
“Oh, look at me!” she said. “Talking about history when you’ve got a head full of shit!” Pam bustled Annie round to the ladies’ toilets and pushed her inside.