An hour or so later, Darby was driving home through dark lanes, making her way back to Pretty Beach. All around was quiet except for the hum of the heater and the occasional hoot of an owl. As she drove, she thought about the evening and musedher ideas and the strange notion that her ordinary life might actually be interesting to other people.
Back at the house, in her pine-clad kitchen, she made herself a cup of tea and sat at the kitchen table with the notebook open in front of her. It would be funny to give it a go. Or maybe not. Looking at the honey-coloured pine cupboards that had dominated the space and her mind for five years, she shook her head. Every single thing was pine; the cupboards, the pelmet above, the spice rack, even the extractor fan housing that jutted out into the room. Closing her eyes, Darby pictured the kitchen as she wanted it to be. Cream painted units with their doors removed, an airy, open feeling, a beautiful range cooker in sage green or cream with space around it to breathe. Open shelving styled with her favourite pieces, a few trailing plants, her cookbooks, herbs. Calm, soothing, her.
Nodding, she squinted and imagined herself yanking the cupboards off the wall. Yes, she was going to do it. She would film herself, too, as she jumped in and took the plunge. Small steps were the key. One small step at a time until she felt better about her life.
Flipping a page in her notebook, she wrote a title at the top and underlined it with a wavy squiggle. Say hello, world, toLove from Pretty Beach.
7
Afew days later or so, Darby had shelved all ideas of videoing herself. Waking up to a grey January morning that had made her want to stay under the duvet not just for the day but for the whole week, she was exponentially pleased that at least she didn’t have to go to work. She would, instead, be able to spend the day pottering around at home pretending to clean. Pulling on her thick white flannelette dressing gown, she padded down the stairs and shivered. The morning that greeted her was so unbearably chilly, she actually thought she might see ice on the inside of the windows.
The house felt really cold, really peach, as if it was suffering from a New Year's hangover. It wasn't the only one. For sure, someone in the house was. Shuffling into the kitchen in her sheepskin-lined, sexy slippers, she flicked on the kettle and stood by the window looking out at the garden and watched as a robin landed on the bird bath and had a little drink. The kettle felt as if it took an age to boil while she stared at her overgrown garden. The bitter, though beautiful, January morning revealed its neglect with absolutely brutal clarity. The harshness of what looked back at her did not make her feel good.
Tutting, she sighed at her lack of gumption. In the summer, she always told herself that she could get away with her lack of care by saying that the garden was charmingly wild; in winter, not so much. Frankly, it looked abandoned, sad and not very welcoming. A bit like someone she knew. Brambles choked the flower beds, the greenhouse had several panes with cracks, a rotting garden table was in dire need of a spruce up and the small white table in the corner needed more than a jetwash to give it a new lease of life. The whole place required some serious elbow grease, a good few weeks of graft and an owner who had her act together. Best she got on with the job.
After waiting for her tea to brew and making herself a huge mug, Darby flicked through her notebook. Neat lines of long lists looked back at her. She tutted about the lists, plans, ideas, thoughts and notions. They were more than ridiculous. As she pulled the book closer and scanned her musings, she truly wondered if it was the evidence of a small madness looking back at her. Sniggering at the words "Cottage Confidence", she shook her head. What on earth had she been thinking? The very phrase made her cringe to her toes. Not just cringe; laugh out loud. Self-mocking cackling, in actual fact.
Chuckling, her notes were quite amusing and as she dipped a chocolate-covered Hobnob into her tea, Darby scanned down, turned the page and shook her head as all her new year, new me, new life, new house aspirations flew out the kitchen window.Love from Pretty Beach? Really? She’d gone stark raving mad.
Looking around at the cold kitchen did not a happy life make. With its white 80s tiles and wood-effect units, how could she possibly have imagined filming herself in the kitchen? Making her no-knead bread and the recipes she loved? Pah, ha ha. Book reviews? Laughable. Tutting, Darby closed her eyes for a second and grimaced. So much for cottage confidence. Where even was that?
However, she continued to amble her brain through her lists. Reading through her notes, she nodded, tried to think objectively and contemplated some of her points. Actually, some of them weren't entirely mad, she had to admit. The observations about what made her favourite channels successful were, in the cold light of day,astonishinglyastute. Plus, her list of potential content had a certain logic to it.
Without a conscious decision, she reached for her phone, opened the camera app and turned it to face her. Good Lord! She'd need a filter or sixty-five or a trip to Turkey for a face lift. If she ever put herself online, the trolls of the World Wide Web would have a field day with her. Squinting, she peered closer at the screen and tried not to wince. Flattened pillow hair, no makeup on, a sleep crease down the right side of her face and the overhead light created shadows under her eyes. If she ever needed work, an extra from a vampire film could be an occupation.
Feeling as if she was just about to launch herself off the white cliffs of Dover, Darby pressed the record button and started speaking to her reflection. ‘Um, hello there. Ooh, that sounds odd. I mean, just hello not hello there. Hi or should I say hiya? I'm... well, I'm Darby and I suppose this is my first attempt at making a video. Oh, I’m not sure where I should be looking. Do I look at myself or the dot thingy?’ Darby swore, giggled and swore again. ‘I guess it would be stupid to say my surname. I’d need to think about online safety, that's what I always tell my children. Anyway, my name is Darby. Yeah, Darby’s quite unusual, too. Right, so, I’d probably have to be careful with that. Maybe my name is Dee. Anyway…’
Darby gestured vaguely around the room. ‘I live in a house in Pretty Beach, which is a little seaside town in... well, it doesn't matter where, really. The thing is, I've been watching other people's lives for years now, and recently I had this mad ideathat maybe I could start my own channel. Truth be told, I’ve been feeling a bit down in the dumps and what with another year rolling around I have to say what, really, do I have to lose? You know?’
As she spoke, weirdly, Darby relaxed. Really, it was the same as talking to herself or the kitchen wall, which she did quite often, anyway. As she rattled on, she forgot she was recording. Goodness, she was actually quite enjoying it.
‘I suppose the thing is I've been a bit stuck lately. Well, not lately, if I’m totally honest, for a while, actually. I keep meaning to do things - redecorate, sort out the garden, get on with life generally but somehow, I never quite manage it. I watch all these wonderful women online who seem so capable and confident and, well, unstuck. I started wondering if maybe documenting what I am doing might help me actuallydosomething instead of just thinking about it. I’m just going to film this for me and keep it private so I’ll be able to see how far I’ve come. I’ll let my friend Penny know and give her a password or something. Yes. That would work. Ooh, quite exciting really! Penny will crack up when she sees this. Hello Penny.’
Darby looked around the room, taking in the pine cupboards and old worktop with new eyes. ‘This place is a bit of a disaster, but I’ve been trying to count my chickens and you know what? It's mine, and it could be lovely if I could just work up the blooming gumption to get my backside in gear. When I bought this place after a, well, a particularly nasty relationship break-up where I was left for dead, not literally dead, but you know. Anyway, I knew this house was oozing with potential, but I, well, I stalled. The same goes for the garden, and probably for me too, if I'm being honest.’
Darby was rather surprised that the words seemed to flow surprisingly easily. Stranger things happened at sea. ‘I'm in my early forties. I moved here thinking I'd reinvent myself, butinstead I seem to have become rather lost. But maybe it's not too late to get unlost. I don't know if anyone will want to watch me fumble my way through house renovation and life renovation, but perhaps that's not really the point. Perhaps the point is just to start. I don’t know. At least Penny will watch me.’
Darby looked at herself on the phone screen. She was far from glamorous, and her dressing gown needed a wash. She certainly wasn’t perfect, but real. ‘So, yeah, this is me in my terrible dressing gown in my unchanged house in the first month of the year, trying to work up the courage to change things. If you're watching this because I have decided to publish, thank you for taking the time to listen to a woman ramble on about her life and if you're in a similar place - feeling a bit stuck, a bit lost, a bit unsure how to move forward; well, maybe we can figure it out together. Who knows what might happen?’
Pressing the stop button, Darby couldn’t believe how natural it had felt. As she watched it back, the rawness actually made her well up a little bit. She stared at the small video file on her phone and wondered whether to right away delete it and pretend it had never happened. She could file it away with all her other abandoned projects and return to the safety of watching other people's lives instead of living her own. Yeah, she’d totally do that.
Then again, perhaps documenting would give her the oomph to make little changes. There was one thing Darby Lovell knew for free: there was no one coming to save her anytime soon. The only person who would help her she knew inside out, up and down and very very well: herself.
Emailing herself the video, she then made another cup of tea, and shook her head as she wiggled the teabag around the teapot. She had no idea what she was doing or where she was going, but for the first time in years, like years and years, not just the five years she’d been in Pretty Beach, but like decade years, shefelt a spark of something. She was actually doing something for herself. It felt strangely, weirdly, happily, oddly, blooming well good. She’d maybe give it a go.
8
It was a few days later. Darby hadn’t done anything with the video. In fact, she hadn’t thought much about it at all because she’d spent three days at work and on each day, she’d worked late because one of the other girls had called in sick. Which had meant that she’d come home, had something to eat, got her stuff ready for the next day and gone to bed. Which also meant that she was now more than ready for her day off.
The morning had started with a lot of promise. Not only had Darby woken up full of the joys of spring, she’d also heard on the radio that the weather was going to be gorgeous. Things in her life had been a whole lot worse. With a nice sunny day ahead of her, a blue sky out the window and a lot of motivation around her, she’d decided to get on with the job in hand of getting more footage of her yet to be started, still-a-fantasy channel. Fairly full of herself, she’d positioned her phone against the fruit bowl, angled the light just so through the kitchen window, and faffed with her hair so it looked less bird's nest, more presentable.
She’d decided in her wisdom and by way of her notebook full of ideas that she would start a real girl’s no-knead artisanal baking segment to tag onto her first introductory video. The reason behind it being that the bread was easy and you didn’tneed to pay extortionate Hampstead prices to have it. It really was very simple, easy even, to whack out a few loaves of your own.
Turning the oven on and with her twenty-five-year-old cast iron pot ready for its on-screen debut, the kitchen was still orange, but it was clean. With the camera angled from a spot on her little kitchen table, all that showed of the kitchen was Darby’s windowsill full of pots of herbs and some very nice condiments.
'Right then. Here I am making artisan bread. I first started making this when, well, when I was no longer prepared to fork out my pension for fancy bread. Not that I have a pension other than what the government will be liberally sprinkling on me, but anyway.'
Reaching up to the cupboard, she took down a large old-fashioned mixing bowl and a wooden spoon. Not sure if she’d definitely turned on the camera, she walked around, tapped on her phone and checked. Back in her spot, she held up a packet of dried yeast. ‘This is your best friend. If it's your first time, buy these individual packets or you can buy it in a tub. I buy both, whichever is on offer.’
