The Beach Hut Next Door (13 page)

The girl picked up Murphy’s phone and keyed her number in, then dialled it. Her own phone rang in her bag.

‘There,’ she said. ‘Now we’ve got each other’s numbers.’

Vince met Murphy’s gaze.

‘She might want a job as a waitress,’ Murphy explained.

‘I think we’re fully staffed,’ replied Vince. They weren’t, but he wasn’t going to give her an inch.

‘You never know,’ said the girl, handing Murphy his phone back. Staff walk out all the time. Just call me.’

She stood up, tossing her hair back over her shoulder, confident of Murphy’s eyes on her toned body. She was slinky and dangerous. Vince didn’t want her anywhere near his friend.

He walked her to the door, a firm hand in the small of her back. ‘Leave him alone,’ he said. ‘He’s happily married.’

She gave a mirthless laugh. ‘There’s no such thing,’ she replied. ‘And he’s a grown-up. He doesn’t need you minding him.’

He does, thought Vince, as he opened the door and ushered the girl out into the warm night air.

He shut the door and turned back to Murphy, who was looking the worse for wear, slumped on the banquette.

‘What are you playing at, mate?’

‘Ah, nothing. She was nothing.’ But his expression was dark.

‘Do you know if Anna got back OK?’

Murphy didn’t reply for a moment. ‘Probably,’ he said eventually. He didn’t seem to care. Vince didn’t push it.

‘It was a good night,’ he said.

Murphy shook himself out of his gloom and grinned.

‘We’re going to clean up,’ he said. ‘Hey, that artist from the hut next to yours is definitely after you.’

‘You reckon?’

‘She couldn’t keep her eyes off you all night.’

‘I didn’t notice.’

‘No, I know you didn’t, Vince. That’s the infuriating thing about you. You haven’t a clue. Sometimes I wonder what’s the matter with you.’

You don’t want to know, mate, thought Vince. You don’t want to know.

PIP AND EDIE

The girl was wearing a green silk dress. A deep, bright green. Almost iridescent. She reminded Pip of an exotic parakeet as she flittered about the bookshelves. It was very plain, a shift dress, and it outlined how very tiny she was. Her hair was bleached white and cut in a very short crop. Her eyes were huge and wide with spidery lashes that must be false – no one could have lashes like that in real life – her face pale and otherwise un-made-up.

He wondered what she was doing in the library. She didn’t seem to have a great deal of concentration. She would find a book, sit down and read for a while, then sigh, then close whatever she was reading, look up at the ceiling, then open a notebook and scratch away in it with a stubby old pencil, scribbling and crossing things out. Then she would stare around at the other people in the library. She didn’t seem to mind them noticing her staring; she smiled back, not disconcerted in the least.

One woman couldn’t take it. She stood up and marched over to her. ‘Could you stop staring?’

The girl pouted. ‘A cat can look at a king.’

‘I don’t care. It’s bloody rude. If you don’t stop it, I’ll call Security.’

The woman stomped back to her place. Pip smothered a smile and the girl caught his eye. She seemed to notice him as if for the first time, which didn’t surprise him. Pip was used to not being noticed. He looked away, hoping she didn’t think he was leering. But she put her head to one side and stared at him, as carefully as a customs officer screening an X-ray machine.

A moment later, she got up and came and sat next to him. Pip felt himself go rather warm. He wasn’t used to female attention, and he got a sense that this creature didn’t quite follow the same rules as everyone else. Exactly the opposite of him. Pip was big on following rules. He had done all his life. He didn’t think he’d ever stepped out of line. He was the model of propriety.

She leaned over to him. ‘I didn’t think,’ she said in a stage whisper ‘people really had leather elbow patches, except in movies and books.’

Pip looked down at his corduroy jacket, which did indeed have leather elbow patches. He’d had it so long he couldn’t remember where it had come from. He’d had it all throughout university, he was pretty sure. Perhaps his mother had sent him up with it? He certainly couldn’t remember going and buying it.

‘Well,’ he replied. ‘I guess they do. Unless we
are
in a movie, in some parallel universe.’

She looked delighted with his reply.

‘What are you doing?’ she asked him. He was surprised by how forthright she was, but pleased to find it didn’t bother him in the least.

‘I’m trying to write a review for an anthology of poetry.’

She clapped her hands. ‘Of course you are! That is
exactly
what you would be doing in the movie!’

Pip smiled and looked down at the three paltry sentences he had managed to write. When he’d offered to do the review at the meeting, the editor had been keen for him to have a go, but now he was trying to pin it down in black and white, it was proving devilishly elusive. So he’d decided to take the morning off and seek inspiration at the library. The office was open-plan, and too noisy for the kind of thought the task needed.

‘What sort of poetry?’

‘Oh, love poetry,’ he said, with a sigh. ‘Is there any other kind, really? Any other kind that matters, anyway?’

Her proximity was making his heart skitter and lollop. He remembered, when he was small, his rabbit’s heart beating at the same rate whenever he scooped him out of his hutch. He used to worry the little creature wouldn’t survive the anxiety.

‘Well,’ she replied. ‘There’s war poetry. That’s kind of important.’

‘It is,’ he agreed.

She ran her thumb over the edges of her notebook with a sigh. ‘I’m trying to write a song. But I know it’s not going to happen today. Sometimes you just know.’

‘Yeah.’ Pip stared at his insufficient contribution. He could sit here all day and it wouldn’t get any longer. ‘I’ve got that feeling too. You can’t just
make
it happen.’

‘Sometimes it’s best to give in. When the muse doesn’t strike.’

‘I feel as if it’s all been said before.’

‘It probably has. The trick is to fool people.’ She waggled her fingers as if she was about to perform magic.

He frowned. ‘It seemed like such a good idea when it was in my head. It was all so clear.’

She leaned in close. ‘You need a distraction. If you think too hard about it, it will never work. But if you concentrate on something else …’

Her eyes were dancing.

Pip felt strange. His heart was still tripping over itself, his head felt light, his palms were slightly clammy; his mouth dry. Once, at university, someone had put something in his drink and the sensation was not dissimilar. Some wag had thought it hilarious to spike the square. He’d stumbled about spouting nonsense before wandering off back to his digs. No great spectacle. Even on drugs, it seemed, he was boring.

He breathed in, but that made his symptoms worse, as he inhaled her scent. Honeysuckle: suddenly he was sitting in a garden on a summer’s day. Pip suspected he didn’t have long. His instinct told him this girl’s attention span was minuscule. Something else would capture her attention if he didn’t move fast.

Pip wasn’t used to acting on instinct or impulse. He certainly wasn’t the kind of person to hit on women in libraries. But he told himself if he didn’t, he was going to stay exactly who he was for the rest of his life: square, staid, dull, bookish, stolid Pip, remarkable only for his photographic memory and his beautiful handwriting. Yet in less than a minute, this girl had unlocked something in him: the desire to be spontaneous and take a risk.

It was thrilling.

‘In that case, do you want to go for lunch?’ he asked.

The words were out. He could hardly believe it. He tensed himself for a rebuff. Ridicule at worst; polite rejection at best.

She put her hands on the table, straightened her back and widened her eyes. She looked pleased. ‘Really?’

‘Why not? It’s nearly one o’clock. Neither of us are getting anything done.’

The angry woman looked over at them, scowling at their sotto voce conversation. Pip looked back at her, defiant, and felt a curious tingle: a mini wave of euphoria at his rebelliousness. The girl scrabbled for her things, gathering them up and stuffing them into a sparkly drawstring bag that looked more suited to a nightclub.

‘Come on then.’

The woman looked sour as they walked past. The girl threw her the sweetest of smiles. Normally Pip would be cringing if he was with someone making a scene or an exhibition of themselves, but he found this rather funny.

Outside, the sun bounced off the Bloomsbury pavements. Pip took off his jacket and slung it over one shoulder, pleased he had put a decent shirt on that morning: unironed, but clean. He led her to his favourite café, which had a tiny courtyard garden, with whitewashed walls and pots of pelargoniums. They ordered ciabatta stuffed with salami and mozzarella and avocado and tomatoes and basil, and cans of lemon San Pellegrino to wash it down.

‘I want you to tell me everything about you,’ his new friend demanded, picking the avocado out of her sandwich and eating it first.

‘There’s not really a great deal to tell. I’m astonishingly dull.’

‘It might seem dull to you.’

‘No, really.’

‘Try me.’

Pip didn’t usually like talking about himself, as he could see people glaze over before he even started. But in the warmth of the sunshine, under her inquisitive gaze, he began to unfold himself.

‘I work for a literary magazine. I’m a sort of general dogsbody. I look after all the contracts for the contributors, post the books out to the reviewers, organize the interviews, catalogue everything that comes in – anything anyone else doesn’t want to do, really.’

‘That’s pretty cool.’

Pip braced himself. Usually at this point, people told him they were writing a book, or were going to write a book. He always felt they expected him to say: ‘Send it to me; I’ve got contacts. I’ll get you a deal’. As if he was going to recognize their undiscovered genius on the spot and change their lives. As if he even had that power! But she didn’t. Thank goodness.

‘By the way,’ he said. ‘I don’t know your name.

‘Edie,’ she told him. ‘After Edie Sedgwick. My mother is a Warhol fan.’

‘Pip,’ he told her with a rueful grin. ‘Mine’s a Dickens fan.’

‘Pip’s sweet. It suits you.’

Pip blushed, not sure how she knew or what that meant, but he felt it was probably a compliment. Edie was looking at him.

‘So where are you from?’ she asked. ‘I can tell you’re not from London.’

His accent always gave him away.

‘I grew up in a village in the Peak District. With my mum. I never knew my dad. He left when I was eighteen months old. So she had to work to support me – she was an English teacher.’

Edie nibbled on a sun-dried tomato. ‘That must have been tough for her.’

‘Well, I suppose so. But she always seemed quite happy. We were quite happy.’

Pip turned his can of drink round and round. Edie had a curious energy about her – she almost fizzed.

‘I was a bit of a swot,’ he went on. ‘I wasn’t really any trouble.’

‘No getting drunk and throwing up in the hedge? No snogging unsuitable girls on the doorstep?’

Pip smiled. ‘No. As I said, deadly dull really.’

‘I’m sure not. Just not the same as everyone else.’

That was true. Pip had never felt like anyone else. He’d always felt an outsider. Never one of the gang. But now was not the time to go into that.

‘Anyway, when it came to going to university, I didn’t want to leave her on her own. But I got into Cambridge. She insisted I had to go.’

‘Of course you had to go. You couldn’t stay at home with your mum for ever. That would be weird.’

‘I know. And she was so proud.’

Pip remembered his mum standing in his room on his first day at Cambridge and crying with the joy of it. The bloke he was sharing with looked at them both a bit oddly.
His
mum had kissed him goodbye and floated off in a cloud of perfume – all jeans and high heels with a huge handbag and lots of jewellery. Pip’s mum was more like a nan in comparison, with her sensible shoes and cardigan and her grey, undone hair. He remembered not wanting her to leave. Wanting to run from the room and get back on the train home with her. He wasn’t a mummy’s boy. He really wasn’t. He was just shy. He hated talking to new people, and he knew he was going to have to do it over and over again in the next few weeks.

He’d survived. Of course he had. His mum had gone back home and left him to it. But even now he was still a bit awkward and socially inept. He hated meetings, phone calls, parties … any social interaction, really. It was funny, he thought, how Edie had managed to draw him out. He didn’t feel awkward in her company at all. She made him feel totally comfortable.

She leaned back in her chair, and Pip could see how fragile she was, her collarbone jutting out from behind the green silk, her arms skinny. Despite her childlike frame, though, she had a force and a strength he found reassuring.

‘Listen,’ she said. ‘It’s Friday. Can you have the rest of the afternoon off? There’s somewhere I’d like to take you.’

Pip thought about it. He had plenty of leave owing to him. He never took unnecessary time off. He never had days off sick. If he phoned in and said he wasn’t coming back this afternoon, he didn’t think anyone would mind. Or possibly even notice. But he was supposed to be going back home this weekend to see his mum. He’d already got his train ticket. He was looking forward to it. Being able to relax in the comfort of his own home, knowing he wasn’t going to have to force himself to be polite and socialize. They wouldn’t do much. Watch a bit of telly. Play Scrabble.

Yet somehow Edie’s invitation intrigued him. Something told him he shouldn’t turn it down. For the first time in his life, he wanted to do something spontaneous.

‘Why not?’ he said, and he felt as if he was standing on the edge of a cliff about to free-fall, but as if there was deep water beneath that would make his landing safe in the end. A risk. An exhilarating risk.

Edie jumped up, her chair scraping over the gravel.

‘We’ll take the train,’ she said. ‘We’ll be staying overnight.’

‘Won’t I need to pack something?’

‘We’ll get you a toothbrush at the station.’

She was gone, in a blur of green, and he followed her. He couldn’t believe what he was doing. Following a strange girl who knows where with nothing but his wallet. Luckily he had plenty of money on him. Cash and credit cards.

He called his mum in the taxi.

‘Mum. I hope you don’t mind. I can’t come home this weekend after all.’

He felt terrible, letting her down. He imagined her, in their little kitchen. She would have made a cake. It would be in the flowery tin on the blue melamine table, waiting for him. There was always cake in that flowery tin. He could remember prising the lid off as a child, the smell of sugar and vanilla. The comfort.

‘That’s OK, love.’ He couldn’t tell if she was hiding her disappointment, or if she really didn’t mind. ‘There’ll be another weekend. You have fun, now.’

‘Take care, Mum.’

He hung up. Edie looked at him. ‘It’s your life,’ she told him.

‘I know,’ he said, and was surprised that he didn’t feel as guilty as he thought he might.

At Paddington, Edie told him to wait for her on the concourse.

‘I won’t be long.’

Pip watched her head off amidst the throng and disappear into the first-class lounge. He was standing next to a florist, surrounded by buckets of bright blooms, waiting for the Friday afternoon travellers to make romantic gestures and impulse purchases. When she didn’t reappear, he wondered with a hot prickle of anxiety if perhaps she’d played some sort of trick in an effort to get rid of him, but then why bother dragging him here in the first place? She was a curiosity, he thought.

Eventually he saw her white-blonde head weave its way amidst the commuters. She held two first-class tickets.