The Beach Hut Next Door (18 page)

Then Edmund reached across and put his hand on hers. Inwardly she begged him not to put her under more pressure. Instead, he looked at her and smiled sadly.

‘It’s all right,’ he said. ‘I understand. Please, don’t upset yourself. I wanted to ask, but I … entirely appreciate … it’s … not what you want.’

Elodie’s face crumpled.

‘It’s not that I don’t love you,’ she finally managed. ‘I do. Very much. Just … not in that way.’

He picked up the bottle of wine and refilled their glasses.

‘No,’ he said. ‘I know. I suppose I’d hoped that—’ He broke off with a shake of his head. ‘Never mind. I’m not going to go all self-pitying and mawkish. I don’t want to make it any more difficult for you.’

She thought she was going to cry. Why did his kindness make her feel so sad?

‘I’d do anything to help you,’ he went on. ‘You do know that? School fees for Otto, maybe? Or a holiday? When did you last have a holiday?’

Her mind flickered back to the beach at Everdene. It was the only place she’d ever been on holiday. The only place she’d ever wanted to go. It seemed a million miles away now.

‘I’m fine, Edmund,’ she told him. ‘I want for nothing. And if I ever do need anything, I know you’re there.’

Was that enough, to let him know that she knew if she needed him, he was there? Was that simply exploiting him? After all, what was she giving him in return?

‘It’s all right,’ he smiled, as if reading her mind. ‘You’re not using me.’

Her heart contracted with love, but the wrong kind of love. She knew she would never meet anyone as devoted or kind as long as she lived. But to tie herself to him when she knew, deep down, that she didn’t feel about him the way he felt about her was wrong. It would be cruel. It would end in her disappointment and his disillusionment. She would feel trapped and he would feel betrayed. They would live out their days in a grindingly soulless union, each resenting the other for what they couldn’t provide.

And then Edmund’s fingers stroked her hand gently and she realized why it was She could never give herself to him the way she had Jolyon. She didn’t feel for him, physically; not in the same way. The realisation made her pity him, and she didn’t want him to see that pity. She never wanted to humiliate him that much.

She spent the rest of the afternoon in the Xeroxing room, her head dull with too much wine. The noxious chemical smell of the copying fluid did nothing to help, as she ran off copy after copy of the latest script, the letters bleeding into the cheap paper they used for early drafts. She thought she would go mad with the noise.

At the end of the day, Edmund scooped his jacket off the coat stand as he always did and bade her good night. He was no more stiff than usual. Elodie wondered just how much of their conversation he had taken to heart. If once she had rejected him he had pushed the matter to one side, or if he was going home to reflect on how he might have done things differently, what it was about him that had made her say no? We rarely know the full impact our actions have on others, she thought. She realized she didn’t even know what his house was like: whether he just had a room in a boarding house, or his own flat, or lived with his parents, or had a four-storey townhouse to call his own. How very self-centred she was, she chided herself. She had never bothered to find out much about him. Their relationship had always been about his interest in and concern over her.

More shame burned in her gullet. She really didn’t like herself very much today. She grabbed her own coat, pulled it on along with her gloves, and hurried down the stairs to the ground floor and out onto the street to catch the bus home. She wanted Otto. To hold him to her and squeeze him tight. He was the only human she wanted to be emotionally responsible for.

That night she couldn’t sleep. She lay listening to Otto snuffling in his cot. What if she were wrong to turn down Edmund’s proposal? What if their marriage just happened to work? That they might happily coexist, bumbling along in harmony rather than united in passion, rather neatly balanced? Without the huge expectations that came with a more hot-blooded coupling, that began on a huge high and could only go downhill? What if they found something rich and fulfilling and satisfying that nourished their souls?

She was looking for a fairy-tale ending, she realized. She was looking for what she had once had: a glittering, handsome prince who made her heart pound. But where had that got her?

As dawn began to creep into the bedroom, she finally fell to sleep. And when she woke to find Otto standing in his cot, beaming at her, she decided she would accept Edmund’s offer. It would be a very different kind of marriage to the one she had thought she would end up with. But it would be a good one. Of that she was sure.

She spent all morning trying to pluck up the courage to approach him. He had been perfectly polite and kind to her – there was no evidence that his proposal had been rejected. He was too much of a gentleman to make her feel bad about it. Finally, just before lunchtime, she came and stood by his desk.

‘I think … you rather took me by surprise yesterday. I hadn’t time to think things through properly. I panicked a little. And the offer might not still be open, but I’ve had a chance to think about what you said, and if it’s not too late …’

He was staring at her. She floundered on.

‘If it’s not too late, I would like to marry you. Very much.’

For a moment he said nothing. He screwed the lid back on his fountain pen and put it down. Then he stood up and opened his arms.

‘I will look after you,’ he said, ‘until the end of time.’

Elodie stepped into his embrace. He wrapped his arms around her. She felt dazed, unsure if she had made the right decision. But, most of all, she realized, she felt safe.

Lady Bellnap assured her that she had made a very sensible choice.

‘It’s a choice you have made with your head, and not your heart,’ she observed. ‘Sometimes that’s the wisest course. Our hearts can be broken, after all.’

Hers already had been, Elodie thought. Yet she had survived.

To say the wedding was quiet was an understatement. Just Elodie, in a yellow dress the colour of sunshine, and Edmund, in his usual jacket and trousers, and Lady Bellnap as their witness along with Edmund’s brother. Lady Bellnap took them for lunch at the Capital Hotel afterwards, and gave them Elodie’s favourite painting from her flat, a vibrant oil of two parrots on a branch.

There was to be no honeymoon, as they were going into the studio the following day to record a play. But instead of going home to the flat in Ealing, Elodie and Otto were going to Twickenham, where it turned out Edmund had a small three-bedroomed terraced house. He’d painted the smallest room for a nursery, and bought a new cot, and put up jolly red curtains.

‘I’ve got my old train set ready for him, for when he’s big enough,’ he told her shyly, showing her the boxes containing his Hornby waiting on the shelf.

She threw her arms around his neck. ‘It’s the most wonderful wedding present,’ she told him, and she meant it. His thought, his care, the time he’d put in; it all meant more than she could say.

And that night, she discovered there was a different kind of love. Something gentle and tender and meaningful. There might not be the ecstasy or the thrill, but it left her feeling more satisfied. And at peace with herself. She lay in Edmund’s arms. She had, she decided, done the right thing.

Later that summer, Edmund asked her where she would like to go for a belated honeymoon.

‘Oh, nowhere,’ she said. ‘I’m quite happy.’

But he insisted. ‘I know we’ll have Otto with us,’ he said. ‘But it would be nice to mark the wedding with a few days somewhere. So we have a memory.’

Elodie thought about it for a moment. ‘Everdene,’ she told him. ‘I used to go to the seaside there as a child. I think Otto would like it.’

Since Otto had grown bigger, she had thought more and more about the place where she had been so happy, and how he would love it. Now she had the security of marriage, she thought she felt ready to go back. She had no idea how she would feel, or what she might find there, but the place had meant so much to her as a child and she wanted to pass that carefree happiness on to her son. She could picture him on the sand, his fat little feet pottering about, the waves ticking his skin, the sun kissing him. The urge to return there was primal.

Edmund duly booked them into a bed and breakfast. They set off in his A35 at the crack of dawn early one Saturday. Elodie had packed a picnic basket with hard-boiled eggs and ham sandwiches and flapjacks and a flask of tea. It seemed to take forever to get there, but after hours of tedium suddenly they turned a corner and there it was in front of her, her Everdene. Her heart leaped with the joy, and she pulled Otto onto her lap to show him his very first glimpse of sea.

‘Look, darling,’ she said. ‘That’s my sea, and I’m giving it to you.’

‘Fish,’ said Otto solemnly.

‘Fish and crabs and sea urchins,’ agreed Elodie, remembering the rock pools: she could barely wait to sit with Otto and scoop out the watery treasures. A brand-new bucket was waiting on the back seat for that very purpose.

Edmund looked sideways at her. ‘This place means a lot to you, doesn’t it?’ he asked.

She didn’t reply. She had never told him the truth about her past. Like Otto when he hid under a blanket and thought he couldn’t be seen, if she didn’t tell anyone then it had never happened.

They had a blissful few days. The sun was obliging: warm but not fierce. The bed and breakfast was in a farmhouse half a mile from the coast, and Otto was spoilt rotten by the farmer’s wife, who took him to collect eggs and watch the cows being milked. And every day they went to the beach. Elodie made sure they stayed at the far end, nearest the village, away from The Grey House. But she could feel its pull, and she knew she had to go back there. Whatever it was that drew her back was as strong as the urge to protect her child. Yet her parents hadn’t protected her. Far from it. Now she had Otto, she was even more bewildered by their treatment of her. It went against all instinct.

She left her visit until the very last day. Edmund took Otto off for a walk while she packed everything up. The packing took her all of five minutes, and then she hurried down to the beach, walking along the bottom of the dunes until she reached the hut belonging to The Grey House. She felt as if she could open the door and find herself in there.

She stood at the bottom of the cliff looking up at the house. In two minutes, she could climb the path and be in the garden. Would they still be there? Her mother and father? Could she wander into the house? What would they say if they saw her?

And then she saw him. Desmond. Flanked by a couple of what she presumed were guests. She saw him gesticulate, pointing out the view, Lundy Island, with that familiar proprietorial sweep of his hand. Nothing had changed for him, she thought. He wasn’t standing there wondering where she was or how she was, his only daughter. He was gloating, showing off his achievements and his possessions. And no doubt Lillie would be sitting in the shade, plotting and scheming. Or maybe she had been banished? Maybe there was someone else sitting in her place?

The sun went in behind a cloud and Elodie shivered. She pulled her cardigan round her as if to protect herself. She must be mad to even consider returning or making contact. Apart from anything, it wouldn’t be fair on Edmund and Otto to dig up her skeletons. They had a perfect life: calm and ordered and secure. They were her future.

The past, Elodie decided, belonged just there.

An hour later, they set off for home, Elodie in the back of the car with Otto wrapped in her arms, safe and secure, a bucket full of shells at their feet. Her little family was all she needed.

CHLOE

Driving at night with the roof down felt a little reckless, somehow. And very intimate, as the sky itself wrapped itself round her, deep Quinky blue. The motorway was empty, and Chloe felt as if she was the last person in the world, driving over the horizon. The stars spread themselves out in front of her, and she felt as if she should be using them to guide her, rather than her prosaic sat nav, which told her she had another thirty-four miles to go.

She couldn’t get there fast enough. She couldn’t wait to leave it all behind her: today, her wretched job, her flat. The past two years of stress and sleeplessness and toil which had led to bitter disappointment. And injustice.

The anger boiled up inside her and she tried some deep yoga breathing to try and dispel it, but she knew it wouldn’t work. It was going to take a bit more than a bit of hippy-dippy claptrap to eradicate the rage. Her fists balled up on the steering wheel even now. How could something like that be allowed to happen, in the twenty-first century? The patriarchy, it seemed, was alive and kicking in the streets of Soho. And she didn’t even work in the ‘entertainment’ industry. The girls she knew who worked in the lap-dancing club over the road had more enlightened bosses than she did. Her stomach churned at the memory. But then, while there were girls like Jasmine in the world, being rewarded for your looks rather than your endeavours was going to carry on.

And to prove it, Chloe had had to suffer the ignominy of Jasmine’s smug presence in the office while she worked out her notice. Maybe she should have worn a see-through white lace shirt to the interview? The job might be hers now.

Well, the summer was hers now instead, while she decided what to do with the rest of her life. She was going to have a clean break and six weeks of total freedom while she took stock. There would be no one to answer to. She could do what she liked, thanks to a timely stroke of luck. Swapping her one-bedroom flat in Peckham for a beach hut in Everdene? It was a no-brainer.

She’d gone onto the house-swap site tentatively, not expecting to find anyone wanting to spend the summer in an inner-city high rise. But the email had reached her almost straight away: it was from an older couple who wanted to spend time near their daughter, in Dulwich, as she’d had a premature baby and was struggling for help.

She had looked at the details of the hut with glee, unable to believe her luck. It was about the same size as her flat, with a living area, a sleeping platform, a fully equipped but compact kitchen and a tiny bathroom, but instead of looking out over a school playground, it was about twenty yards from the sea. She could almost smell the ozone and hear the waves crashing onto the sand as she replied to their email confirming the swap.

Now, in her boot, she had a wetsuit, a pile of the books she hadn’t ever had time to read, and an empty notebook from Muji for brainstorming what she might do with her life. She wanted to rediscover her brain, retrain it to think for itself instead of spoon-feeding it bytes of information gleaned from Facebook and Twitter and Gawker and Buzzfeed.

Already, she could feel bits of her brain that had lain dormant reigniting. Before, she would have looked at the stars and not seen them. Now, she began to pick out the constellations she remembered from her childhood. She would buy herself a telescope, she decided. And a book, a proper book, to help her decipher the cosmos.

Excitement fizzed through her, and for the first time she felt grateful that she hadn’t got the promotion. Otherwise she would still be at her desk, compiling notes for the next pitch, going over it and over it until it was word perfect, trying to second guess what would make the client pick them over any other agency. She never had to do that again if she didn’t want to …

Although a small voice inside her told her she did want to. She had loved her job. The campaign director’s role would have been a dream come true for the girl who had started out in Admin only five years ago, making tea and binding documents. Howard had picked her out, told her she was going places, encouraged her, promoted her. Only to choose that talentless airhead over her just as she had nearly reached the pinnacle. Why had she trusted him? She hadn’t expected any favouritism. Just recognition.

Forget it forget it forget it, Chloe told herself. But the nagging doubt still nibbled away at her. If she’d slept with him, like he’d wanted her to, would the job be hers now? Surely that wasn’t how the world worked any more? Surely that wasn’t how he worked? She’d admired and trusted him, right up to that night at the dreamy Cotswold hotel where they’d had their annual Christmas getaway because the company had done so well.

His eyes had been wide with Merlot and sincerity when he’d told her, at two o’clock in the morning in the bar, when everyone else had finally trailed away, that he loved her. That he always had, since the day she’d walked in wearing her crop top and her combat trousers, with the pink streak in her hair. Now, of course, she was groomed and polished and Zara-ed up to the nines.

She’d jumped up, away from him, spilling her wine all over the table.

‘You’re married!’ she cried, and he laughed at her.

‘When’s that ever stopped anyone?’ he asked, and in that moment she saw him for what he was, and all her admiration for him crumbled to dust, and she felt a bitter disappointment combined with a crushing sadness. By that time he’d stumbled towards her and grabbed her clumsily, pulling her to him and whispering in her ear, stroking her hair.

‘You know you want to,’ he mumbled. ‘I’ve seen the way you look at me.’

And she’d wriggled away from him and pulled her arm back and given him the biggest crack across the side of his head that she could manage. The barman had looked over in alarm, putting down the glasses he was wiping.

‘You all right, love?’

Chloe couldn’t speak. Howard was looking at her with a glare of such malevolence it made her stomach turn.

‘You stupid cow,’ he told her.

‘Yep,’ she replied. ‘Very stupid. Very stupid indeed.’

She gathered up her bag with as much dignity as she could muster. She knew she’d had too much to drink, and that her words would probably slur, so she chose them carefully.

‘I respected and admired you,’ she told him. ‘You gave me ambition. I wanted to be like you.’

He was lying back on the sofa, legs slightly apart, an arm along the back, smirking up at her. The rest of her words stuck in her throat, and she realized it was because the words had melted into tears.

She wasn’t going to let him see her cry.

It was all behind her now, she kept telling herself. She wasn’t being manipulated any longer. She turned off the motorway and along the road that would lead to Everdene. It would be late when she got there, but it didn’t matter. She could have the biggest lie-in ever tomorrow, and she would be waking up by the sea, with the rest of her life in front of her.

She woke at dawn, as she hadn’t bothered to draw the curtains in the beach hut when she crashed into her bed at nearly midnight the night before. As she stepped out of the door onto the sand, the scenery outside took her breath away. The pearliest dawn was creeping over the bay, drawing a veil of early morning mist over the sea. A pale yellow sun hovered on the skyline, tentative at first, but after an hour it had found the confidence to shine as brightly as a buttercup. The air was sweetness and light and danced on Chloe’s skin. She breathed it in, feeling the thrill of the new, barefoot in her nightdress on the sand. She wanted to run to the water’s edge, and turn cartwheels. The nightmare was behind her.

For five days, she barely moved from the hut, except for the occasional swim. Her skin lost its London pallor and her freckles came out. She read a book a day, and the stories pushed away the memories of the stress and the frustration.

On her first weekend, she walked into Everdene. She went to collect a seafood take-away from The Lobster Shack – a dressed crab, half a dozen langoustines and a handful of prawns. While she waited at the hatch where the takeaways were dispatched, she saw an advert:

‘Seasonal staff wanted:
waiters/kitchen porter/bartenders.’

Why not? she thought. She loved the feel of the place; its casual buzziness, and it would be the perfect way to get to know a few people. It would give her some cash, and some structure to her day. And if she didn’t like it, she could walk away. She went in and asked for an interview. She had plenty of experience – she’d done her fair share of waitressing at uni.

She was just what they were looking for. Someone bright and informed who could interact with the customers and contribute to the general feel-good vibe.

‘You don’t think you’re a bit overqualified?’ the owner, Murphy, asked her. He interviewed her over a heart-stopping Americano in the restaurant window.

‘Totally,’ she told him. ‘But I don’t care.’

She didn’t. She longed to work here. Every two minutes somebody stopped and spoke to him. She got the feeling that The Lobster Shack was already the place to be, the beating heart of Everdene, even though it had not long opened.

‘As long as you don’t do an amazing job, then walk off because you’re bored,’ Murphy warned her. ‘I can see you’ve got talent. You’re not really waitress material.’

‘I won’t,’ she promised. ‘But if you want any PR doing, I’m your girl.’

He pointed a warning finger at her. ‘You won’t be here long. I know you won’t. But I’m going to take a risk, because you’re just the kind of person we need.’

Chloe put on her Lobster Shack apron on with a frisson of excitement the morning of her first shift, not quite able to believe she had gone from frazzled and burned-out to chilled in such a short space of time. But Everdene had worked its magic. She knew it was a bubble, and that this life couldn’t last forever, but she was determined to make the most of it while it lasted.

And her life got even better. Waitressing was hard work. The Lobster Shack was crammed from midday till midnight, turning tables as quickly as was humanly possible. Rave reviews in the Saturday papers only pumped up the waiting list, making it the must-go-to eating venue of the summer. And Chloe found herself with a new crowd of friends, youngsters who dragged her to Tallulah’s, the local nightclub that had been in Everdene since the dawn of time. There, she danced till dawn, grabbing a few hours sleep before her next shift, but somehow she never felt tired. The air and the sea gave her energy.

And one day she took a delivery from the fisherman who supplied the lobsters. As she took the huge blue crate from him, crammed with the latest catch, she felt a jolt as she looked into his eyes, admiring his rumpled hair, the tattoo on his arm, his shy smile.

‘So who is he?’ she asked Jenna, the girl with the ice-cream van, who gave her a knowing grin.

‘That’s Chris. The boss’s brother.’

‘Murphy’s?’

‘No, Vince. His partner. They’ve got a fishing boat in Tawcombe and they supply all the seafood. Vince keeps a low profile, though.’

‘He’s cute.’

Jenna nodded. ‘He is.’

Something in her tone made Chloe suspicious.

‘But?’

‘He’s absolutely lovely. But he was a drinker until recently. He’s on the wagon. So you need to be careful. That’s all.’

‘Oh.’

‘His dad drowned at sea and he never got over it. He was drinking himself into a stupor. But he’s a top bloke. He renovated my van for me.’ Jenna looked at her. ‘I just thought you should know the truth, that’s all.’

Chloe took on board what Jenna had told her. For the next few days, she observed Chris from a distance. She didn’t want to throw herself into a relationship that was fraught with problems, after all. But he seemed together. The next time Chris came in to make a delivery, Chloe engaged him in conversation.

‘So, how many of these guys do you catch a day?’

He told her all about how they caught them, regaling her for a good ten minutes with his anecdotes, and she watched him go with interest. He was cute, and funny, and he had made her laugh.

Before she had the chance to take things any further, though, she had an email from Howard. She picked it up at two o’clock one morning, after dancing the night away, and suddenly the past seemed as if it was not so far away after all. She felt sick as she opened it. He still had the power to unsettle her, it seemed.

Dear Chloe

This is a very difficult email for me to write. I hope you will take it in the spirit in which it is meant, although I wouldn’t blame you if you pressed delete. But please take the time to consider my words, and think about what I am going to say.

I think you are extraordinary. I think you are an enormously talented person, and a fantastic human being. I realize that admiration took a wrong turn that night in the Cotswolds, and I did a very stupid thing. I blame the red wine and my stupidity for making the biggest mistake of my life.

Or maybe the second biggest. Giving the creative director’s job to Jasmine instead of you was an immense error of judgment. At the time I convinced myself that you didn’t have the experience. That you weren’t mature enough to handle the job. I realize now that I was wrong.

I want you to know that if you want to come back, there will be a role for you. And if, in time, Jasmine moves on – which I am certain she will do – then that job will be yours. Please give this offer a lot of thought. I need you on my team.

I need you in my life. I miss you. I miss your spirit and your laughter and your energy. If you can see your way to forgiving me, I would be the happiest man in the world.

Yours ever,

Howard

Chloe stared at the screen. What on earth was he trying to say? Obviously he was offering her a job, but what else was between the lines? Was he saying that he loved her?

Did she love him? It was the one question she had never dared ask of herself. She suspected she might. That her admiration of him went further than was professional. Was that why his betrayal had hurt so much? She wished he’d never sent it. It made her feel unsettled. It tainted the new life she had made for herself. Bloody Howard, still pulling her strings from hundreds of miles away, when she had worked so hard to erase him. It was scary, knowing that she could send an email and step back into her former life.