All That She Can See(16)
‘Here goes nothing,’ she said as she smiled and took her first selfie.
Cherry took that Sunday to explore a part of Plymouth called The Barbican. There was a little ferry that would take her there. It only cost a pound a ticket, took fifteen minutes and it left from Royal William Yard. She stuffed her bag full of the flyers she’d had printed for the opening, with the address of the bakery and the date of the event in big bold black letters against ‘cupcake-frosting pink’ paper. (Cherry didn’t realise such a colour existed but the woman in the printing shop assured her it was legitimate. After hearing all about Cherry’s bakery, of course.) She hopped off the boat with the only other two passengers who had taken the trip over. They were looking at her and her striped pyjama bottoms with disdain, even though she was wearing a coat over the top and her nice slippers with the reinforced soles. Cherry couldn’t help but feel a little lost. Although she was so much better at social interaction these days and didn’t feel as awkward around people as she once did, new places still made her feel uneasy. This was ironic considering she moved around so much, but the truth was that Cherry liked comfort and once she’d come to know a place she’d rarely venture further than a mile from her bakery. All she needed was to get through the initial trepidation of being somewhere unfamiliar and then she would finally relax.
‘Oh, I almost forgot.’ Cherry turned back to the boat driver and handed him a slightly creased flyer. ‘My bakery. It’s in Royal William Yard. Officially opens on the thirteenth. Please come? Lots of free samples.’ The driver took the flyer with a smile and nodded his thanks. Satisfied that at least one person might show up out of interest, Cherry turned on her heels and headed for the quaint shops up the little hill.
Cherry pulled out her phone and started taking pictures of the lights above the streets and the old shuttered windows, and sent them to Miss Kightley. I love it here! she wrote and smiled at the ‘boop’ noise the phone made as the message whizzed off. Cherry was staring at her phone, contemplating exactly how the message was transported from one place to another, when someone crashed into her. His sunglasses came clean off his face and his coffee sloshed over the side of his cup and onto his expensive-looking shoes.
The man turned on Cherry. ‘WHAT is your PROBLEM?!’ His face was a livid shade of red.
‘I’m so sorry! I should have been looking where I was going!’ Cherry said, mortified. She bent down to pick up the glasses.
‘Give them to me,’ he snapped.
Cherry was about to hand them over when the man snatched them from her fingers and she was sure she heard one of the temples crack. ‘Stupid little girl,’ he spat, opening his palm and seeing the clearly broken pieces of his glasses come apart in his hand. He looked at her, the expression on his face one of absolute fury. ‘Look what you’ve done! Skipping about like the whole world is at your beck and call. Not giving a moment’s thought to those around you.’
Cherry took in his young, wrinkle-free face, his thick dark brown hair, only slightly speckled with grey, his trendy, long, tan coat and faded jeans and she wondered how old he must be to have called her ‘little girl’. She was twenty-four and he didn’t look all that much older than her – two or three years at the most, although his eyes seemed far older. The man continued to berate her and as she wasn’t used to dealing with conflict, she would normally have tried to find a way out of the conversation as quickly as possible. Yet he didn’t seem to be looking at Cherry. He was looking past her, at something behind her. She glanced over her shoulder and saw only Loneliness peeking out from behind a lamp post, clearly not used to dealing with conflict either, but there was nothing else of interest. She turned back to the man and something over his shoulder caught her eye. There, holding hands in an unusually neat line were Frustration, Cynicism and Mischief. Cherry had learned over the years that the more orderly and organised the Meddlums behaved, the longer they had been attached to their owner. These three had clearly been around one another so long that they were completely in sync, each of them enabling the others’ bad habits. Frustration stood in between Cynicism and Mischief, squeezing their warped and broken hands. Its green skin was bubbling like boiling water, blistering and bursting. The other two were gazing at it with what looked like adoration. The sight turned Cherry’s stomach.
‘Are you even listening to me?’ the stranger demanded, catching Cherry’s disengaged eyes and glancing over his own shoulder.
‘I think I’d better be going,’ Cherry said, circling the man whose red cheeks were now returning to a normal hue. ‘Oh, but here.’ Cherry dug into her bag. Although unpleasant to talk to, he was clearly troubled. Exactly the kind of person she should be helping. ‘Just… come along. I think it might help.’ Cherry fled before the stranger could say another word.
It took a little bit of time and a lot of deep breaths to shake away the ugly feeling the angry stranger had left her with. At times like these she wished she was back in her father’s house, in her old room, with the door bolted shut. Things had been less complicated before she’d re-engaged with the world. Loneliness reached around her shoulders and gave her an uncomforting hug and whispered, ‘But you’re not there. You’re here. Alone.’ Cherry shrugged off its arms but the words kept running through her mind, repeating themselves over and over in her own familiar voice.