The Beach Hut (2 page)

‘I’ll open the hut up for you. Give it an airing.’

‘See you later, for a cup of tea.’

Jane was resolutely cheerful. She had only wavered for a moment. He had heard the catch in her voice, the hint of anger at having been left in such a terrible financial mess when her husband had keeled over on the platform at Paddington. The hut had been hers, left to her by her mother. Graham Milton hadn’t been able to take that with him when he shuffled off this mortal coil.

Roy had been disgusted when Jane told him the details. It was a disgrace, to leave your wife in poverty like that. There had been no pensions, no life insurance, no cash, and a huge mortgage on their Georgian rectory to pay off and no endowment to cover it. Graham Milton might have been a financial advisor, but he obviously didn’t heed his own advice. He probably thought he was being clever, cashing in all their assets, making investments that he thought were going to make him rich quick. Only the gamble had backfired. Instead of coming clean, he had desperately tried to plug the gaps, but got himself deeper and deeper into debt. It was the stress of keeping it all quiet that had killed him, everyone agreed. And poor Jane, totally oblivious until the solicitor and the accountant had broken the news to her, widowed and penniless overnight.

For all Graham Milton’s airs and graces - and he’d had a few, not like his wife - he wasn’t a gentleman, not in Roy’s book.

He hung up. The call had unsettled him. He wasn’t usually sentimental, but Jane Milton selling up was like the end of an era. She had the plum hut, the best pitch at the top of the beach, the first one to be built. People would be falling over themselves to buy that one. He could imagine the article in the
Telegraph already: on the
market for the first
time in fifty years
. . .

He remembered clearly the day she’d arrived. She’d been Jane Lowe then, of course. She’d fluttered over the beach in her polka-dot dress, her legs long and bare, her brother and sister scampering behind. He knew as soon as he set eyes on her that a girl like her would never take a boy like him seriously. He’d left school at fourteen, didn’t play tennis, his parents didn’t even own their own house, let alone have money left over to buy a beach hut.

Roy told himself to not even try. He didn’t want to set himself up for humiliation. She was bound to have a boyfriend already, called Gregory, or Martin, who would turn up in a Triumph Spitfire and cricket flannels to whisk her off for gin and tonics at the golf club. All Roy had was a bike. He could hardly stick her on the crossbar and pedal her down to the local pub.

There had been one summer, the summer they were both seventeen, when they’d started to get quite close. He’d been selling ice creams, and she used to come and talk to him in the kiosk, because he had a wireless. They’d listen to the latest hits, discussing their merits, and sometimes she would dance, and he’d long to have the nerve to dance along with her, but he was far too self-conscious. Not like Jane, who didn’t care what anyone thought, swaying and twirling and clicking her fingers. Once, she’d grabbed his hand and tried to make him dance too, and he thought he might die, of a combination of embarrassment and the thrill of her touching him.

‘Loosen up, Roy,’ she laughed at him. ‘Dancing’s good for you. It’s wonderful!’

Thank God another customer had arrived at that moment, and he tore himself away and busied himself serving a 99, concentrating as the stream of sweet ice cream oozed its way into the cone until he cut it off with a practised flick of the wrist. And then Jane’s mother had waved from the hut, indicating lunch was ready, and Jane had skittered off, dancing her way across the sands.

His chance had gone.

And then she’d got that job, disappearing up to the house on the cliff. After that, he’d never really seen her, except for that one night, the night he couldn’t really think about even now without a huge twinge of regret, an overwhelming longing for what might have been, even though it could never have been. Not in a million years. And then she was gone, up to London, until years later she came back as Mrs Milton, by which time it was far, far too late, of course, because by then he was married to Marie.

Roy sighed. Even now, if he narrowed his eyes a little bit, to block out the telephone mast on the hill in the distance, and pretended it was the Beatles on the radio instead of Take That, nothing much had changed. The horizon never altered, the sea was the same, he could still be there . . .

 

The Lowe children were sick with excitement when their father bought the first hut on Everdene beach. They had been watching them go up for the past six months, whenever their parents brought them to the beach at the weekends or in the holidays. When their father had presented them with a big key, with a brown label attached emblazoned with the number one, they had been puzzled. Then Robert had screamed, ‘A hut! He’s bought a hut!’ and they had raced over the sand to be the first, all arriving at once, crowding round the door.

Inside it was as snug and well equipped as a gypsy caravan. Two sets of bunk beds - Robert and Elsie would have to go toe-to-toe, because there were five of them altogether, with Mum and Dad and Jane having one each. Dear little cupboards and a Calor gas stove. Deckchairs were neatly stacked in one corner. There was a shelf, with hooks to hang cups, and rails to hang wet towels. A perfect little home from home. They were to stay there all summer, with their father travelling down at weekends.

It wasn’t long before they couldn’t remember life without it. The water was their natural habitat. They spent most of the spring, all of the summer and some of the autumn diving in and out of the waves, scrambling over the rocks and bounding over the dunes, armed with fishing nets, buckets, spades, sandwiches. Now they would have somewhere to store all their treasures, somewhere to huddle if it rained, somewhere to dry themselves off and hang their wet towels. And their mother could sit inside all day, doing whatever it was she did - fussing, organising, cooking, writing letters.

Three years on, however, and the eldest Lowe, Jane, was not so enamoured. Where once she would have pounded along the beach, her pale yellow hair streaming behind her, now she was bored absolutely rigid. A summer spent on the beach with her tiresome younger siblings? She might as well be dead. She sat in one of the striped deckchairs, flicking idly through magazines, knowing full well that if she actually got up and joined in she would feel far, far better, but something inside refused to let her and so she remained stationary, day after day, with the stubbornness of an adolescent.

She could still be in London, having fun. Maybe most people had gone home for the summer vac, but not all. It wouldn’t be bloody dead, like this place. She thought longingly of the smoky little clubs and cosy pubs where she’d been spending her evenings. Of course, she wasn’t supposed to leave the college at night, but she and Sandra had found a way of getting out and getting back in again without being noticed. And it wasn’t why her parents were forking out all that money. They wanted her to come out with tip-top typing and shorthand skills so she could have a career. How very enlightened of them. Jane didn’t want a career. She wanted a good time.

Typically, she had spent seven months at Miss Grimshire’s before she had discovered the real delights of London nightlife. And the final two months, before she left with her certificate (merit and 140 words per minute, despite burning the candle at both ends), had passed in a flash and suddenly she was back in Everdene, leaving her new self behind, a party-loving creature who wasn’t yet fully formed. She wanted bright lights and action and clothes and music and laughter . . .

Finding herself in this total backwater with no hope of any social life whatsoever had plunged her into gloom. Well, there was a social life, but it involved rounders on the beach or burnt sausages - not drinking brandy and ginger in a tiny club with music throbbing through your body.

And so she was sulking. Her mother was not best pleased. Her mother was incensed. She wouldn’t stop banging on about her daughter’s new-found lassitude. Prue Lowe didn’t believe in sulking, or lolling, or dozing, or festering - all the things Jane felt inclined to do. Prue was an up-and-at-it sort of person, a doer, an organiser, and she never knew when to leave well alone.

‘You can’t just sit in that deckchair moping all holidays, ’ she chided her eldest daughter. ‘Go and get some exercise. Have a walk along the beach.’

Jane just rolled her eyes and went back to her magazine. She’d read it four times already, but the chances of getting anything up to date in the general shop in Everdene were pretty remote. She was all right if she wanted knitting patterns and foolproof recipes for a sausage plait, but not if she wanted to know what she should be wearing this autumn.

Not that she had any money to buy the clothes she salivated over.

The closest she got to having fun was sitting with Roy Mason in the kiosk where he sold ice cream, listening to the radio. She made him turn it up when one of her favourites came on. She tried to get him to dance, but he jumped away from her as if he’d been branded whenever she touched him. Boys in London didn’t jump away from her, far from it. Maybe she just wasn’t Roy’s type? He seemed very keen on Marie, whose mother ran the café at the end of the promenade. Marie worked in there too, and sometimes she came down to the beach with a bacon sandwich for Roy, and Jane made herself scarce. Two’s company, after all.

The third time Marie had found Jane with Roy, she cornered Jane in the post office.

‘You keep away from him,’ she warned, an accusatory finger pointing in Jane’s face.

‘Hey,’ replied Jane, holding up her hands to indicate her innocence. ‘We’ve only been talking.’

Marie shot her a look of pure venom. Jane kept away from Roy after that, not because she was afraid of Marie, but because she didn’t want to cause trouble for Roy. He was nice. He was far too good-looking for Marie, with his dark hair and brown skin and kind eyes. He didn’t know he was good-looking. You could tell that by the way he carried himself. Not cocky and arrogant like some of the boys she’d met, who thought they were God’s gift when they weren’t, far from it. Maybe the city did that to you, made you more confident than you should be. It had certainly made her more confident.

As the days dragged on, Jane could tell her mother was running out of patience. Prue wasn’t tolerant of people who didn’t fit into her idea of how things should be. Jane was spoiling her fantasy of a happy seaside family holiday. She clearly expected her daughter to be gungho, and take part in the same activities as her younger brother and sister. If Prue had her way Jane would be scrambling over the rocks in her Start-rite sandals, squealing every time she spotted a crab, tucking with gusto into the selection of sandwiches Prue provided for lunch - fish-paste, egg or Marmite.

Jane certainly didn’t begrudge her siblings the experience, but it didn’t mean she wanted to take part. And it wasn’t as if she wanted to sit here, full of torpor, her very being crying out for something, anything to happen, though she didn’t know quite what. It was the slowest agony, and she wasn’t entirely sure of the cure, but she was pretty sure she wasn’t going to find it on Everdene beach. She couldn’t explain it to her mother, who obviously expected her to stay the same age for ever. Carefree, childlike, innocent.

It was ironic, therefore, that Prue organised the very thing that made sure Jane would never be innocent again.

 

It was a Thursday morning, and by eleven o’clock the sun was burning bright in the sky. Jane was uncomfortably hot, and was taking refuge in the cool shade of the hut. She was contemplating walking into the village and calling Sandra from the telephone box, to find out if she was having as dull and miserable a time as she was. Maybe she could ask her to come and stay? They wouldn’t be able to get up to much, but at least they could gossip and giggle together. Debate the merits of the boys they had met. She’d ask her mother if she could invite her - Sandra could come down by train, Daddy wouldn’t mind motoring over to the station to collect her . . .

‘Darling!’

Jane started, her eyes flying open. She’d been on the verge of drifting off. Her mother was standing over her.

‘You will not believe what I’ve arranged!’

She had a smile on her face Jane knew of old. A mixture of self-satisfaction and determination, which meant Prue was pleased with whatever she had done, and whoever she had done it on behalf of had jolly well better be pleased as well. Jane’s heart sank. If it was golf lessons, she would absolutely refuse. Her mother had been muttering about organising something for her at the club. Jane thought she would rather die.

‘I’ve got you a job.’

Jane stared at her. This wasn’t what she’d expected.

‘There was a card pinned up in the post office.
Competent typist wanted.
’

Jane breathed out slowly. It could have been worse. Much, much worse.

Her mother was still looking excited. There must be more. She leaned forward.

‘Terence Shaw,’ she pronounced.

Jane gazed at her, quite blank.

‘Terence Shaw!’ repeated her mother. ‘The novelist!’

Jane frowned and shook her head.

‘I’ve never heard of him.’

Prue gave a little tut of impatience and Jane felt aggrieved. Her mother was no great intellectual - Jane couldn’t remember the last time she’d seen her reading a book - so why the scorn?

‘You must have. He’s . . . infamous. Sells bucket-loads of books, apparently. Rich as Croesus. Which is why he can afford one of those . . .’

Prue waved her hand vaguely towards the houses further down the beach, on the top of the cliff. There were only half a dozen of them, built in the nineteen thirties, sprawling Art Deco houses with flat roofs and curved fronts, set in their own grounds. They each had a
Great Gatsby
smugness, with their spectacular views and private tennis courts.