Meet Me at the Lighthouse: This summer’s best laugh-out-loud romantic comedy

“Let’s do news first. How’d it go with Gareth?”

She pinkened slightly. “Not bad. I mean, he didn’t get lucky or anything, just a bit of a fumble. Seems a nice lad, for a rugby player.”

“One night nice or second date nice?”

“Second date nice,” she said with a soppy smile. “We’re going for a drink tonight. Proper drink this time, I’m not working. Maybe I’ll get to find out why he’s got ‘Tripod’ on the back of his rugby shirt.”

“Heh. Knowing your luck he’ll just be a really keen photographer. All right, let’s do the thing.” I lifted a hand for her to high five. “Ow! Not so hard.”

She looked down at my head on her shoulder. “So now your news. What did you and Ross Mason get up to last night, apart from what by the state of your eyes I’d say was a pretty heavy session?”

“You had to ask. Listen, Jess, this is going to sound bizarre, but… I may have just slightly, I mean accidentally, while I was pissed…” I groaned. “Me and Ross’re going into business.”

When I’d filled her in on the lighthouse plan, I was expecting a pretty vocal reaction. But Jess just stared.

“Well? Aren’t you going to say anything?”

She didn’t answer. I picked up an open box of Maltesers from the table and waved them under her nose like smelling salts.

“Helloooo? Is my sister in there?”

Eventually she picked her phone up from the arm of the sofa and started tapping at the screen.

“What’re you doing?” I asked.

“Googling what I need to do to have you sectioned under the mental health act, since you’ve clearly gone totally off your chump.”

I sighed. “It does sound a bit insane, doesn’t it?”

“A bit?” Jess looked up from her phone to twitch an eyebrow at me.

“It’s just… well, it’s some excitement, isn’t it? I’ve been bored stiff for months. Bored of my job, bored of blokes, bored of this stupid small town…”

She snorted. “If you’re bored get a hobby. Take up bloody… I don’t know, decoupage or bondage or something. Better still, finish your damn book.”

I flinched at the reference to the long-neglected novel.

“Honestly, Jessie, I really want to do this.”

She narrowed her eyes. “This is about him, isn’t it?”

“Who?”

“Come on, don’t play innocent. You’re talking to someone who’s known you since we shared a womb,” she said. “Ross Mason. You fancy him. We both know you never lure a bloke on to the slammers unless you’re trying to get into his knickers.”

I winced. “That’s the other thing I wanted to talk to you about. Did you know he’s married?”

Her eyebrows shot up. “Christ, seriously?”

“Well, separated. They’re filing for divorce as soon as they’re allowed to. Ross just casually dropped it into conversation today as if he thought I knew.”

She shook her head. “See, this is why everyone should be on Facebook. How else are you supposed to stay on top of 500 old schoolfriends’ relationship statuses?”

“And last night… God, I was this close to going to bed with him, Jess. I feel awful.”

“You didn’t know, did you?”

“I should’ve. Molly must’ve mentioned it a dozen times.”

We both went silent for a minute, and I knew we were thinking the same thing.

“Are you remembering –”

“– when Corinne came?” I said. “Yeah.”

We never met our dad, James, before he died; not even once. Mum’s relationship with him had been all over by the time she found out she was pregnant, which according to family legend hadn’t stopped Grandad having to be narrowly restrained from punching the guy, and he’d never shown any interest in us after that. When we got older and learned the whole story, the feeling became more than mutual. But the day Corinne had come to visit loomed large in my little kid memory.

She’d been pretty – beautiful really: a tall, willowy woman in middle age, with silvery skin and long, silken hair, prematurely white, like something out of a fairytale. We were only seven, but we could tell by the way Mum paled when she answered the door that it wasn’t a welcome visit.

They’d been closeted in the kitchen together for nearly an hour when they eventually emerged. Mum’s cheeks were wet, and Corinne’s eyes looked red-rimmed too.

“Can I have five minutes with them?” Corinne asked Mum quietly. And there was a sort of hungry, longing expression in her eyes as she looked over to where me and Jess were watching cartoons obliviously on the rug.

Mum looked uncertain, but eventually she gave a slight nod, and Corinne came to kneel by us. I don’t remember all she said, but I remember her hugging me, and a whisper, very faint: “You should’ve been my little girl, you know.” She pressed a tenner each into our hands – more money than we’d ever had in one go, back then – and she was gone. Although she and Mum grew close in later years, the two of us never saw her again.

After she left, Mum called us to her on the sofa and cuddled us like she’d never let go. It scared me. I think I was half afraid Corinne was going to come back and take us away, for some reason I didn’t understand.

“Who was that lady, Mummy?” Jess asked.

“A kind person I hurt once. Her name’s Corinne.”

“How did you hurt her?”

“Well, chickie, her husband lost his job because of something I did and it made her very sad.”

“Why did you do it then?”

Mum smiled and stroked Jess’s hair. “Oh, I was too silly to know better. It was a long time ago.”

“What did she hug us for?” I demanded.

“Didn’t you want her to, my love?”

I shrugged. “It was ok. She smelled nice. She doesn’t know us though.”

“She’s lonely, that’s all. The man she’s married to goes away a lot, and she doesn’t have any children.”

“That’s mean to leave her on her own.” Jess looked thoughtful. “If I was her, I’d get married to somebody different.”