Page 3 of Love from Pretty Beach

A couple of hours later, Darby was no longer snivelling or shivering, but she still had sore bits on her nose.

She was very deliciously clean in her pyjamas and dressing gown with washed hair and a moisturised face.

Things were looking up. Tucked on the left-hand side of her sofa under triple layers of blankets, and her doggie Lola, by her side, she’d self-soothed by way of fresh pasta doused in a lemon sauce and a ginormous smattering of Parmesan cheese.

There may have been a homemade dish of leftover tiramisu ready by her side.

In Darby Lovell’s world, tiramisu solved a lot of things in life.

It was that cold in the house in Pretty Beach that she needed a throw, an eiderdown and a quilt just to stop her bits and bobs from dropping off.

Overall, compared to how she’d felt in the car, she was slightly better.

A plateful of carbs and a slab of tiramisu did that for a girl.

A freezing cold night in Pretty Beach greeted the arrival of a new year and outside the window, startlingly pleasing to the eye, frosty sparkles twinkled.

However, despite breaking her own rule and having both the heating cranked up and the woodburning stove jumping with flames, neither of them were doing their job at keeping Darby particularly toasty.

In the deep depths of her old house, it was very, very cold.

So blooming well cold. That tended to happen when you bought an old coastal house full of drafts, made of thick walls, with single-paned windows, and heating that wasn’t up to much.

It didn’t really help that Pretty Beach was having an unusually cold patch where it was not only threatening to snow, but locals were saying that a storm was brewing and wouldn't they know about it. Darby had shuddered when she’d heard that.

Although not being what was referred to as a “True Blue” resident of Pretty Beach, she’d been around long enough to know that if and when the locals said that a storm was on its way, it was a good idea if you took note.

As she looked around the sitting room, feeling softened by the soothing properties of the carbs but still ridiculously and pathetically sorry for herself in just about equal measure, Darby nodded her head up and down quickly and gave herself a stern talking to.

She had to get a grip. She was not going to let herself drop back down into the well that had swallowed her whole when she'd got back in her car after dropping Molly at the station.

She would not be beaten by the loneliness and the looming desperation of a very empty new year.

She had a lot to be grateful for in her life. She must focus on that.

However, as she sat alone marooned in a cocoon of blankets on the sofa, it was hard to remain upbeat.

Despite how much she tried to force herself to look on the bright side of life, it was New Year’s Eve and here she was again, not only alone in the house, a real-life Billy No Mates, but she was cold to boot and categorically lonely, too.

Sitting staring in front of her, she tried to look for positives and realised that there was one good, undisputable thing; pretty much the only way was up. Am I right?

Letting out a huge sigh, Darby attempted to self-massage the little nook under her jaw bone; she’d read that a lot of tension, stress and trauma were often locked up there.

As she pressed her thumb and wiggled, she looked around the sitting room and chastised herself for her procrastination in not decorating it.

She’d just not been able to get her act together.

Like the rest of the house, the sitting room had not been touched in terms of decor since the 1980s.

It wasn’t that it didn’t have potential, because for sure, it had it in spades.

No, it was just that despite all her very best intentions, she hadn’t been able to face the job of doing it on her own.

Meaning that the new start hadn't happened. In fact, the house, and she really, had stayed precisely the same as the day she’d walked in.

Hello, 1980s decor. Hello, needs a reinvention.

For five years, she'd sat on the past-its-best sofa and looked at the peach flowers on the 80s wallpaper that had winked at her from above the wood-burning fireplace. She’d traced the pattern on the flowers so many times that sometimes when she closed her eyes, enormous, imposing flower heads sat imprinted on her eyelids.

Staring at the matching peach, in places threadbare, carpet, Darby tutted and thought about the fact that she knew that underneath their cloak of peach lay gorgeous, wide, thick, floorboards made by craftsmen from another time.

As she sat under the layers of blankets, she lifted her chin, squinted and pondered painting the picture rail and how it might look without its coat of peach.

Ditto the ceiling as she looked up and stared at the same cobweb that had made itself at home in the corner for oh, about two years.

Letting her eyes drift down to underneath the picture rail, Darby sighed.

Pretty depressing all around, really, it had to be said.

Comfy though and safe, so there was that.

Tutting to herself about all sorts, Darby shook her head about it all: the potential of the room, her gathering of furniture, her lack of motivation, her sadness at being alone.

An odd little growl sound came out of the back of her throat.

She was so low that she was actually annoying herself.

Some feat, indeed. Five long years of looking at the same peach flowers, hours staring at the peach carpet, way too much time thinking about painting picture rails and walls. A lot of lonely, wasted time.

The worst thing about the house conundrum was the fact that the whole place was dripping in potential, which is precisely why she’d sunk her money into its bricks and mortar in the first place.

Once she’d moved, though, and the reality of the wallpaper, the peak 1980s pine wall-to-wall fitted kitchen, complete with its patterned clad extractor fan, had all been too much and so she’d lived with it.

As she sat in silence and pondered it all, she wondered when she was going to get her blooming finger out, sleeves rolled up and get on with it.

It wasn’t as if she hadn’t had offers of help; her oldest friend, Penny and husband Jack had practically begged her to do something.

They’d offered all sorts, but somehow Darby had never had the gumption to follow it through.

She hadn't wanted to start a decorating job, get fed up with it, and then have to live with the mess, which was why the whole house, in all its peach rose glory, had remained the way it was on the day she’d bought it.

Ditto the garden. All of it needed a whole lot of work, thought, direction and energy. None of which she had at her disposal.

Snuggling up on the sofa, she pressed the remote to turn on the TV shoved in the corner on an old table she’d inherited with the house and waited for it to come to life.

Clicking through the apps to YouTube, she waited for the home page to load, leaned forward to the coffee table, snapped off the top from a new bottle of Hendricks and poured some into a glass.

At least she had her online friends to see her through the emotions of the eve of a new year.

Sometimes it felt as if the women on the screen who beamed into her life were the only people who actually got her.

Very good friends indeed. Strangely enough, when with them, Darby somehow felt, without uttering a word, as if she was being heard.

As if they were having a conversation via the blue light of a screen.

On that freezing cold last night of the year, it was the only company Darby would see. Another new low.