The Beach Hut Next Door (5 page)
She banged on the door, imagining the worst: Chris, slumped on the sofa with a bottle of whisky in one hand, unkempt, unshaven, possibly even unconscious. And possibly even … she didn’t want to think about it. She cursed her strong opinions and her outspokenness. As much as they had just done her a favour, she feared their other consequences.
As she waited for an answer, she wondered why she couldn’t keep her opinions to herself and mind her own business.
She was wrong-footed, therefore, when Chris answered the door vertical, if a little pale, but definitely having shaved, his skin looking pink and clean as a newborn piglet.
‘Oh!’ she squeaked.
‘Hi,’ he replied.
‘I was worried. The landlord at the George said you hadn’t been in. So I thought you might be …’
‘Lying in a drunken stupor and a puddle of wee?’
Jenna shrugged and nodded.
Chris leaned against the doorjamb, smiling proudly. His jumper rode up and she caught a flash of his washboard stomach.
‘I haven’t had a drink since the night before last.’
Jenna blinked. ‘Seriously?’
‘Seriously. After I saw you in the George I went up the road and got totally bladdered in the Town Tavern. The worst bender ever. Believe it or not. Threw up so much my eyeballs nearly came out …’
Jenna winced. ‘Too much information …’
‘I’m not kidding. Then I woke up yesterday and I thought: Jenna’s right. She’s totally nailed it. Drinking myself to death is pointless. It’s not fair on Vince, more than anything. I keep letting him down. And if we lost the business, Dad would never forgive me …’ He looked subdued, and she saw, despite the pink newness of his shaven skin, that there were dark rings under his blue eyes; darker than the rings around his irises. ‘So that’s it. I’m on the wagon. From now on, not another drink will touch my lips.’
Jenna could see that under the bravado he was trembling; whether from the emotion or the need for a drink, she couldn’t tell. Probably both. She touched his arm.
‘Chris, that’s amazing. That’s so brave.’
He shook his head. ‘I know I’ve got a long way to go. I don’t trust myself yet. I don’t know how long I’ll be able to last. But if I can do one day without drinking, then maybe I can do two. And if I fall off the wagon, I can get back on it again. He gulped, slightly overwhelmed by his outburst.
‘If you ever want to talk about it,’ said Jenna. ‘If you need a mate, you know where I am.’
He gave her a grateful smile. Yet again, she thought how gorgeous he was; how the girls would be queuing up.
‘You’ve already done enough,’ he told her. ‘I’m going to have to find myself stuff to do. Maybe start surfing again. Get a dog, maybe …’
She held up the bank’s paperwork. ‘I got my loan,’ she told him. ‘For the ice-cream van.’
‘Awesome.’
‘And now I need to find someone to help me do it up.’ She grinned up at him. She knew he was handy: the Maskell brothers did all their own repairs and building work and kept their boats in working order.
Chris took the bait quite willingly.
‘Hey, listen. Look no further. I need a project to keep me out of the pub. That’ll do nicely.’
‘Well, I know how good you are with your hands.’
Jenna wasn’t flirting. She’d known Chris since forever.
‘We can take it down to the boatyard. You can keep it there for the time being.’
‘Great. Cos if I take it back to mine, some bright spark will take it for a joy ride.’
‘Do you want me to come with you and try and knock Weasel down?’
‘Do you know what? I can handle Weasel. And now I’ve got the money I can negotiate.’
‘Spoilsport.’
Jenna felt a burst of excitement. Her recent victory still tasted sweet, and she felt so proud of Chris. Not to mention relief that her outburst hadn’t tipped him over the edge.
She put her arms round his neck. ‘You’re going to be OK. You know that?’
Chris patted her back. ‘I hope so. I feel like shit, if I’m honest. I’ve been held together by Beck’s for the past six months at least. I’m not sure my body can take it.’
‘Just call me,’ said Jenna, ‘if you ever think you’re going to cave in.’
‘I’m not caving in,’ said Chris. ‘Come on. Let me come with you to Weasel’s. Please. I could do with someone to take my frustrations out on.’
‘Go on, then,’ said Jenna. ‘If you can knock him down to twelve, I’ll split the difference with you.’
Just over a month later, Jenna was dozing in bed early one morning. In her sleep, she could hear the chimes of ‘Greensleeves’; at first from a distance, then coming nearer and nearer, slightly out of tune – a nostalgic sound that conjured up images of children running from afar, clutching a few coins in their hands, eager to queue up at the window and survey the price list before choosing.
The next thing she knew, her brother was banging on her bedroom door.
‘Here – there’s a bloke outside for you.’
She scrambled out of bed and downstairs to open the door.
Outside, on the pavement, was her ice-cream van. Fully renovated, the paintwork gleaming, painted in cream and pink stripes with ‘The Ice Cream Girl’ emblazoned along the top of the window. At the wheel was Chris, grinning from ear to ear.
He got out and handed her the keys.
‘MOT sorted, tax sorted, new tyres, resprayed …’
He gave a little bow.
‘Oh my God, she’s beautiful,’ breathed Jenna. ‘More beautiful than I could ever have imagined.’
She could picture the van resting at the top of the beach, her paintwork gleaming, a long queue of people snaking from the window while she scooped out ball after ball of ice cream to cool them down. It would be hard work, she knew that – she would have to find as many opportunities as she could to make a decent profit – but Jenna wasn’t afraid of hard work.
She threw her arms around Chris’s neck and squeezed him. ‘You are amazing,’ she told him.
‘Well. Enjoy her. And I want the first ice cream, when the day comes.’ He turned to go.
‘Hold on – let me give you a lift back at least.’ Jenna lived on the outskirts of town and it was a good walk back in.
‘It’s OK. I’m going to run. Part of the new fitness regime. Gonna get myself back into shape.’ He patted his already flat stomach with a grin and started to jog along the road.
Jenna watched him go. She prayed that he would find the strength to stay on track. He’d been a wreck for a long time. But she would keep an eye on him, from afar.
She turned back to the van. She climbed inside, pressed the button and listened to the jangle that would herald her arrival. She threw back her head and laughed with joy.
She spent the day in a frenzy of excitement, unable to wait for Craig to come home so she could show him. She unpacked all the dresses that she had stowed away when she moved back to her mother’s, disillusioned: the ones that had been her trademark when she sold ice cream from the booth on the front – fifties halter-necks with circular skirts in bright colours, splattered with flowers and cherries and hearts. She’d wear a different one every day again, she decided.
And when Craig arrived back from his course that evening, she couldn’t stop laughing when she saw his face.
‘What on earth is that?’ he asked, looking at the van parked on the road outside. No one would dare touch it now they knew he was home.
‘This,’ said Jenna proudly, ‘is going to make me my fortune this summer.’
Craig looked at her for a moment, puzzled. She could see he wanted to ask where she had got the money to buy it, but didn’t quite like to.
‘I went to the bank,’ she said, ‘and forced them to give me a loan. I wouldn’t leave until they coughed up.’
She took him by the hand.
‘Come inside,’ she commanded him. And inside the van, she wound her arms around his neck and kissed him, for if it wasn’t for Craig, goodness knows where she would be, but certainly not where she was now. And the future was even brighter. She could feel it in her heart.
The Ice Cream Girl was back. All she had to wait for was the summer.
There was nothing more thrilling than being handed the key to a new house. Nothing to beat the sensation of sliding the key into the lock and pushing open the front door, wondering what you would find, breathing in the stillness, knowing that now you could do what you liked; that you could make it yours.
As she held the cold metal in her hand, Elodie thought of the times she had gone through this ritual over the years. Five or six, she calculated, each time with an incremental rise in property value. She was, after all, her father’s daughter more than her mother’s, and she had inherited his business acumen rather than her mother’s spendthrift tendencies. Not that she didn’t like spending money. On the contrary, she had already spent several thousand in her mind before she’d even got to the front door, putting up a new set of gates and re-landscaping the drive and pulling down the awful flat-roofed garage someone had stuck up.
The difference between the money Elodie spent and the money her mother had been used to spending was that Elodie worked on the basis that you had to speculate to accumulate. Anything she spent was an investment, or an enhancement to her investment. And it was her own money that she was spending. Her mother, as far as she knew, hadn’t done a day’s work in her life. Her mother had been a professional wife. A role for which, Elodie realized now, she herself had been groomed. An over-priced girls’ boarding school that taught you how to make rum babas but sapped you of any ambition; a job with daddy; no mention of anything intellectually strenuous …
In some ways, thank goodness things had turned out how they did, or she would just be a carbon copy of her mother.
The front door hadn’t altered. Oak, with large metal studs, a latch with a twisted ring for a handle, and a mortice lock that opened surprisingly easily. As she stepped inside, the ghosts all came fluttering forwards to meet her. She knew perfectly well they were only in her mind, but they were just as real. And the smell. How was it that the particular smell of a house never changed? The Grey House scent was a familiar mixture of seaside dampness and wood and something else that unlocked the flicker of a memory but wouldn’t be pinned down. The trace of someone’s perfume, perhaps?
She stepped into the hall. The staircase rose to her right, curving upwards, its bannister as inviting as it ever had been. How many times had she slid down it as a child? How many times had she walked down the stairs from her bedroom, carrying a book or her bathing things or an empty glass or cup? And what of the last time she had walked down those stairs, her head held high and her heart thumping at the thought of what was to come, her father’s hand in hers? The final descent. Even now, the emotion made her chest feel tight.
She walked through the hall, through a shard of dust motes spinning in the midday sun, ignoring the doors to the dining room and the morning room and the corridor that led down to the kitchen and scullery and heading straight for the drawing room. As soon as she opened the door, the light from the French windows blinded her, the light that bounced off the infinite sea; the sea that was the reason for the house being built. And she could hear it, too, the roar that never ceased, for the waves here never abated; the comforting susurrus that used to reassure her whenever she woke in the night, lulling her back to sleep with its gentle rhythm.
The room had barely changed. Its shelves were empty of the books and ornaments she had grown up with; the wooden floor was scarred where the furniture had stood. The yellow curtains were still there, faded and thick with dust. They hung limp and tattered, as if too tired to carry on their job. The chandelier, too, was crusted in grime. But it was still a room to take the breath away, with its perfect proportions, the full-width French windows leading out onto the garden, and the staggering view beyond.
Elodie stood in the doorway. She felt an incredible calm settle upon her. She had done the right thing, she felt sure. There was no other place on earth to make her feel like this. She walked across the floorboards, her footsteps echoing in the emptiness. She twisted the metal knob that undid the lock of the French windows. Even now she could remember the extra push you needed to unlatch it. As she stepped outside, the wind ruffled her hair, playfully rearranging her Sassoon-style bob, as if to say this is no place for your city chic, madam.
She had so many plans. Landscapers, builders, decorators: she had them all lined up. There was a strict schedule to adhere to if she was going to meet her deadline. The beauty of it was that it was all here. She didn’t want to change a thing. All she wanted was for it to be restored to its former glory. Except for the hideous garage, there was to be no smashing down of walls, no restructuring, no ripping out of the kind that was so fashionable in magazines and on television. After all, you couldn’t improve on perfection. She wanted the house to be just as it had been, the last time she was happy. So that she could be happy again. It was just within her reach. She could feel it.
But first, there was something she had to do. Someone she had to see. How easy it would be not to. How easy it would be to forge ahead with her plans regardless, and leave that particular door closed for ever, never knowing what lay behind it. Forgiveness, Elodie knew, was the way to make her soul, and therefore her happiness, complete. Because without forgiveness, she couldn’t forget, and unless she could forget …
She pulled the card out of her handbag. It had taken a bit of dissembling to get it. The address for all the conveyancing had been care of the solicitor, so that had given her no clue. But if there was one thing Elodie had inherited from her distaff side, it was the ability to give off the air of being someone. And when Elodie chose to pretend to be someone, she was hard to resist, especially if you were a gullible and rather bored estate agent in a small seaside town. He’d been easily foxed by airy hints of a bunch of thank-you flowers for the vendor.
‘I know how hard it must have been for her to give up the house. And I want to reassure her it’s in good hands,’ Elodie had gushed, wide-eyed with sincerity. Moments later, she’d had the address of the nursing home in her hand.
And it wasn’t a lie. Not really.
July 1962
Lillie Lewis was the mistress of ceremonies at The Grey House. Of that there was no question. It was her playground and her guests were her playthings. More than one person had compared her to Marie Antoinette, and not just because she was French.
Every year she decamped to Everdene for the summer, and had free rein and a limitless budget to entertain whomsoever she liked. Her husband Desmond came down at the weekends, for the factory he owned, which churned out jam and money in equal measure, couldn’t stop just because the sun was out. On the contrary, this was its busiest time, when strawberries and raspberries and apricots burst their skins and begged to be transformed into sweet, sticky preserves. The air around the factory smelt intoxicating in summer – to anyone who didn’t actually live near it, that is. After a while, you longed to go to sleep without the scent of hot sugared fruit invading your sleep. It got into your nostrils, your hair, your dreams.
There was money in jam. Oh yes. More than even Lillie Lewis, not known for her pecuniary restraint, could burn through (although she could drive a hard bargain, as those who dealt with her knew). And there were some – many, in fact – who observed afterwards that money is no substitute for attention.
Lillie far preferred summer at The Grey House to the rest of the year in the Lewis’s ugly, sprawling Gothic monstrosity in Worcestershire; a former lunatic asylum which Desmond felt had the stature and grandeur he needed to prove his social standing. For, like many people who made a lot of money very quickly, he felt the need to prove his wealth over and over again, as if it might disappear if he didn’t ram it down people’s throats. It had been a pleasant surprise to him, his ability to turn a profit, but it became something of an addiction – an obsession, almost.
The Grey House had been Lillie’s choice; an impulse purchase she had seen in
Country Life
. It hadn’t taken her two minutes to persuade her husband that a summer home was the ultimate proof of your success. She relished her guests’ delight in the setting, overlooking Everdene Sands, the most glorious bay on the north Devon coast. The house slept twelve comfortably, but as many as you liked if you weren’t worried about bunking up, which children, especially, weren’t. Tents, bunks and hammocks abounded, all in the spirit of summer fun. Four or five families would descend at a time, some related to the Lewis’s, some not. Some whom Lillie barely knew, but had taken a fancy to at a point-to-point or a dance. She collected people. And then she entertained them. As a hostess, she was unbeatable. No need was left untended; she asked nothing of her guests but for them to do just as they pleased.
She would appear at midday, in a pink silk peignoir, all décolletage and déshabillé, then smoke her way through three cups of very strong coffee, opening her post, only paying any real attention to missives from fashion houses announcing their new collections, which she would annotate with a fountain pen, putting exclamation marks next to anything she really liked so her dressmaker could copy them. She rarely ate: the occasional piece of ham or triangle of bread, but her disinterest in food was evident.
At midday, she poured her first glass of champagne, a glass that stayed topped up to three quarters full for the rest of the day and from which she took tiny, delicate sips, as if it were the bubbles in the champagne keeping her oxygenated. She drank about a glass an hour, so was never drunk.
She bathed at one, was dressed and coiffed by two, then wrote letters until three. By then she deemed herself awake enough to start communicating with the rest of the world, and the whirlwind of organization for the evening’s social events would begin. Meanwhile, her guests would have made the most of the facilities at The Grey House – the huge drawing room overlooking the garden in which were laid out the day’s papers and the latest magazines, the tennis court, the terrace for sunbathing, the beach hut and, of course, the wide blue ocean beyond. Grown-ups relaxed in the knowledge that the children roamed in packs and looked after each other, all under the vaguely watchful eye of the Lewis’s good-natured and obliging only daughter, Elodie.
And although she had no interest in food herself, Lillie understood the importance of a good table for guests. So she sat with a towering pile of cookery books, making lists of recipes for the kitchen staff. Mousses and fricassees and terrines and jellies and blancmanges: anything with visual impact that took hours to prepare. Her favourite was a show-stopping fish mousse in the shape of a salmon, decorated with piped mayonnaise and wafer-thin slices of cucumber, wedges of lemon, curls of parsley and served with melba toast.
Lillie would smile at her guests’ gasps of admiration, as if she had applied all the cucumber herself, and would chain-smoke at the end of the table while she watched them devour it. After dinner there would be dancing in the drawing room with the latest records sent down from a shop in Carnaby Street, or moonlit croquet, or charades.
Lillie’s guest list was drawn up with military precision at the end of June and followed up with handwritten letters of invitation on lilac notepaper. Occasionally, just occasionally, Desmond asked her to invite a business associate or customer and his (invariably his) family. Lillie could hardly refuse, because no doubt the associate or customer had in some way contributed to the Lewis wealth, but it annoyed her because it upset the equilibrium.
This had been exactly the case with the Jukes. Desmond had asked her, at very short notice, to include them in the upcoming weekend, and Lillie was irked, because that particular Saturday’s dinner was centred around the Kavanaghs, who had bought the manor house in the next village, and Lillie wanted all her attention to go on making them feel special. As local royalty she didn’t want them to be overshadowed, but Desmond pulled rank, which he rarely did, because the Jukes were instrumental in his plan for world domination.
The Jukes owned a chain of upmarket grocery stores in strategic locations that Desmond had his eye on as a possible acquisition. It didn’t do to have all your eggs in one basket, or indeed all your jam in one jar, and he was eager to diversify. The Jukes had fallen on hard times since the founder had passed away six years ago. It was evident to anyone with half an eye for business that they now didn’t have a clue about running the shops. Desmond was keen to swoop in and take over – a substantial investment and his entrepreneurial eye would mean a soar in profits, he felt sure. But the Jukes needed convincing this was the way forward first.
‘They can’t read a spreadsheet between them,’ Desmond told Lillie, ‘so they don’t know they are in trouble. I need to charm them; show them the way forward – and make sure they don’t go to anyone else for investment.’
He’d been to each of the shops and assessed their profitability. Ill-stocked shelves, dilatory staff, minimal advertising, dreary window displays – the shops were sliding backwards into the post-war austerity everyone else was charging away from. And Desmond knew retail. After all, his wares were readily available all over the country. There was barely a home that didn’t have a pot, or even two or three, of Lewis jam on its shelves. From castle to council house, it was classless; universally popular.
But as Desmond had pointed out, where do you go after jam? He was tired of experimenting with flavours – and anyway the money was in the popular; for him there was little point in experimenting with peculiar fruit varieties in an attempt to brainwash the nation. No, his ambitions lay elsewhere.
So the plan was to lure the Jukes down for the weekend so Desmond could butter them up and steer them into a deal of some sort. And although she was disgruntled that her carefully balanced guest list had been tampered with, Lillie loved nothing better than a challenge and the chance to charm. One of her favourite things was to watch people melt under her ministrations. As narcissists go, she was a beguiling one who managed to make people think it was all about them, not her.