The Beach Hut Next Door (3 page)

‘OK.’ Vince nodded. He could totally visualize it. ‘But I’m not sure where I come in.

‘Ah. That’s the beauty of it. The USP.’

‘Really?’ Vince had never seen himself as a restaurateur.

Murphy grinned. ‘We’re just going to serve seafood. Lobster, crab, mussels and prawns. With skinny fries on the side. That’s it. Red or white wine, no choice. Big baskets of home-made bread to dip in extra virgin olive oil while you wait for your catch to be cooked.’ Murphy sat back and smiled. ‘Simple. Are you in? Fifty-fifty.’

‘You want me to invest?’

‘Vince – I’m in total awe of what you do. You know that. I love that your business has been handed down, and it’s traditional and sustainable and all that shit. But I think you need to – pardon the pun – widen your net. Take a chance. Get out of your comfort zone.’

‘Hey. Listen. I’ve been out of my comfort zone. I still am. It’s not that great.’

Murphy looked a little shamefaced. ‘No, I realize that. I didn’t mean that kind of out-of-your-comfort- zone. I meant something stimulating. And profitable!’

He leaned across the table. His eyes were shining, green and glassy as the marbles they used to roll on the pavement. ‘Vince, I wouldn’t ask you if this wasn’t a winner. And if I didn’t think you were the right guy. I have other people who would invest. I think this project is perfect for you. You get to supply the main ingredients. The publicity will be great, because it has that artisan, hands-on, handed-down-through-the-generations story behind it that the press all slaver over.’

Vince looked at Murphy, trying to assess how objective his pitch really was. Yeah, they were mates. Yes, it was a good match. But he knew Murphy knew he still had money, even after the improvements they had made. Money he hadn’t touched because he considered it blood money: his father’s insurance payout. It sat festering in his current account. He couldn’t even be bothered to put it in a high-interest account, even though the manager at the bank kept pestering him to move it.

As if he could read his thoughts, Murphy grinned. ‘This isn’t because I know you’ve got the cash. It’s because ever since the day I clocked you in that schoolyard and you tried to do a deal with me on those blackjacks, I’ve wanted to do business with you. But I’ve had to wait nearly thirty years for the right project to come along.’

Murphy unrolled another piece of paper. On it was a logo: The Lobster Shack, and a lobster motif, in bright coral on turquoise. It was perfect.

Vince took a swig from his glass because he knew that silence was the killer when you were doing a deal, and that the less he said the more Murphy would say, and he wanted it all out there before he shook hands on it.

‘Everdene belongs to us, Vince. It always has done and it always will. And I want people to flock here because of us. I want people to plan a weekend around this place. I want a waiting list as long as your arm. Customers being turned away on a Saturday night. I know that will happen. It’s all there. It’s all to play for. But I don’t want to do it without you. There’s no point in doing it without you.’

Vince could feel in his bones that it was a good idea. It was just the sort of joint Everdene needed: relaxed, casual, buzzy. A foodie haven that wasn’t pretentious but had all the buzzwords. And if they didn’t do it, someone else would move in. Murphy was right. Everdene belonged to them.

‘Why the hell not?’ he said, and held out his hand for Murphy to shake.

‘Right decision,’ Murphy pumped his hand hard. ‘Man, we are going to clean up.’

As he left the Ship Aground, Vince decided to sleep in the hut that night. Murphy was driving back up to Chiswick, and Vince knew if he went back home to Tawcombe he would be straight on a downer. Either Chris would be there, and he would find his state depressing, or he wouldn’t, and Vince would worry until he heard the door go. He still wasn’t sure at what point Chris’s drinking had turned from normal laddish over-indulgence to dysfunctional; nor did he know what to do about it. Nothing he said seemed to make a difference: threats, concern, ultimatums. They all went unheeded.

It was cold and dark and windy on the beach, but Vince didn’t care. Once inside the hut, he snapped on the side lamps and lit the wood-burner – it would warm the place up quickly. Soon it was surprisingly cosy, while the wind whipped itself into a frenzy outside. Sometimes it blew so hard he worried the entire hut would blow away, but after half an hour it was as warm as toast inside and Vince snuggled into his bunk, wrapping himself up in a nest of blankets. The wind had died down, and all he could hear was the relentless sea pounding the sand.

The sea. They had such a conflicted relationship. It provided everything he had. It was his daily life. But it had taken away the one person he had looked up to and admired. Every day he looked out at the water and cursed it. Yet they were inextricably bound. He couldn’t imagine life without it.

And tonight it was the sound of the sea that soothed him to sleep. Vince was excited by his new venture with Murphy, but there was a crack in the plan he couldn’t hide from: a little worm of a flaw that he also knew was part of what had attracted him to the venture. It would inevitably bring him into contact with Anna, and he knew he would spend his days and nights wondering if and when he would next see her. And when he did, it would be the sweet torture it always was.

Anna. His curse. His obsession. His infatuation. As he lay there, he finally admitted to himself that she was the only thing that mattered to him. He was addicted to the possibility of her and there was nothing he could do about it.

JENNA

Jenna had never wanted anything quite so much in her entire life.

The want took her by the throat; it felt tight, like a silken rope. She swallowed, aware that she shouldn’t show too much interest. She knew the rules of negotiation.

She walked carefully around the object of her desire. It was tatty and unloved, but she could immediately visualize it brought to life. Next to her, she could smell Weasel’s signature scent of Bell’s and Embassy mingled with the sweat of anticipation. He was watching her every reaction, sucking on the last inch of his cigarette, his beady eyes narrowed.

They were in his lock-up, an old warehouse on the harbour at Tawcombe. She was astonished by the amount of clutter: boxes of trainers, surfboards, crates of booze, car parts, a row of decapitated shop dummies. God only knew where it had all come from or where it was headed. The key with Weasel was not to ask questions. Or, at least, only to ask the questions that were pertinent to your particular deal.

‘Hold on.’ Weasel chucked his cigarette on the floor without bothering to put it out, and climbed inside the van. Jenna watched him through the sliding window, above which was written ‘Go on – you know you want to’ in brown cursive writing. To the right of the window was an ancient menu with faded photographs of lurid, additive-encrusted ice creams.

Weasel pressed a button by the dashboard and ‘Greensleeves’ played out, slightly discordant and jangly and incredibly loud in the confines of the warehouse. It was the clincher.

Weasel gave a proud smile, like a toddler who has done something particularly clever for its adoring mother.

Jenna nodded, indicating defeat.

‘How much?’

‘To you, darling – fifteen hundred.’

‘There’s no MOT. Or tax.’

‘Exactly. If there was, you’d be looking at twice that. Take it to my mate and it’ll sail through. Guaranteed.’

Jenna wondered, if that was the case, why Weasel hadn’t organized it for himself and got the higher price, but she didn’t ask.

Weasel was the Arthur Daley of Tawcombe. Which was saying something, because Tawcombe wasn’t short of people trying to swindle you. Somehow, though, Weasel was the top dog. Jenna spent most of her life trying to avoid him and his ilk these days, but this was just too tempting.

Weasel had come looking for her, because he knew she would want it, and he was right.

‘I fort of you,’ he told her, ‘as soon as I saw it. You were the Ice-Cream Girl, after all.’

‘I was,’ said Jenna, cautious. She had indeed spent considerable time hawking ice cream to the great and good of Tawcombe, from a booth down near the front, until her boss had done the dirty on her and shut up shop without paying her. Even now, people told her how much they missed her. Everyone, it seemed, loved ice cream.

Which was why she knew this was an opportunity she couldn’t afford to turn down. She would never have enough money for a proper place in town to sell from, but a vintage ice-cream van? That was within her reach. It was perfect in its simplicity. She had the contacts, the knowledge and a supplier: a dairy farmer who made thirty-two flavours of delicious Devon ice cream. She could get a pitch on the beach at Everdene; take the van round the campsites – the possibilities were endless.

She felt a tingle of excitement inside her that was like nothing she had felt for a long time. A shoot of optimism. The enticement of a challenge. The chance for a new beginning.

‘Twelve hundred,’ she said to Weasel.

He gave a leery sniff.

‘Sweetheart, I can get two grand no problem if I take it to auction up country.’

‘Fine. Do that then.’ Jenna shrugged and went to walk away. ‘See ya.’

She’d nearly reached the door when Weasel called her back.

‘Firteen hundred. Cash. By the weekend.’

‘Done.’

She held out her hand and took Weasel’s grimy one. Not that a handshake with him was worth anything. But she was pretty sure he wasn’t going to find another buyer too quickly. The thing with Weasel was that he was lazy. He wouldn’t want to be bothered. So she was confident she had a deal.

The only snag was where the hell was she going to get thirteen hundred quid from in the next three days? Jenna didn’t know, but she didn’t care either. She wasn’t going to let this opportunity slip through her fingers. She wanted this little baby really badly. It was going to be her future. It was going to make her feel good about herself again.

Her life had changed dramatically over the past year, since she had met Craig. There were things in her past Jenna wasn’t proud of. She had been able to justify some of them up to a point, because there was no doubt she’d been dealt a rough hand. Growing up in a deprived town like Tawcombe was tough. Oh, it looked all too pretty on the surface, with its picturesque little harbour nestled amidst the dramatic coastline and the impressive architecture, but underneath the facade there was little economic infrastructure and a lot of unemployment. And with that, disillusionment all too often blotted out by alcohol and drugs, for what else was there to do?

Jenna could easily have found herself going down that route. Some of her family already had. But Craig had saved her just as she was about to cross the line. He’d intervened, her knight in shining surf shorts. She gave a little shiver as she thought of his toned body and his strength. His strength, both inner and outer, that had helped her see there was a better way.

There was a better way, but it had still been tough. It still was tough. Craig had been working as a policeman up country, but had managed to get a transfer to Bamford, the nearest large town. He was away a lot at the moment, on training courses, and did a lot of night shifts. And they were still living with her mother, because he hadn’t sold his flat yet – once he had they were going to buy somewhere. Well, he was. Jenna was very conscious that she had nothing to contribute, and that made her feel useless and like some sort of sponger. While her family drove her insane, with their rowing and arguing and the constant drama and the dogs barking.

And in the meantime, she was finding it impossible to get a proper job, with proper money, because most of the work down here was minimum wage and seasonal and she had no qualifications. In the summer season she sang, doing cover nights twice a week at the George and Dragon in Tawcombe and the Ship Aground in Everdene, but the pay wasn’t fantastic. People seemed to think you should sing for the love of it, never mind that you were packing the place out and helping their tills ring. And in the winter, there was no one to listen – some locals, maybe, but there weren’t enough of them to make it worthwhile anyone paying her.

The ice-cream van was the answer to her dreams. She could get it done up easily enough – sometimes it was handy knowing everyone who was anyone in Tawcombe. She just needed to get her hands on the money.

One thing she was sure of. She wasn’t going to ask Craig for it. He had done so much for her already. And she wanted to prove herself to him. She wanted to prove that she wasn’t the low life she had been when he first met her, nicking money on the beach. If he hadn’t seen something good inside her, if he hadn’t believed in her, she’d have been up before the magistrate, she’d have a criminal record – like almost everyone else in her family – and she’d be in with even less chance of a new start.

Jenna thought she was probably the first person in her family to go and see the bank manager. They dealt strictly in cash. They didn’t have a mortgage or a credit card between them. They had a morbid fear of anyone official, so the bank was somewhere to be avoided like the plague. But she’d already committed the ultimate cardinal sin by going out with a copper, so she thought she’d give it a go.

She made an appointment with the high street branch. She put on a black polka dot skirt, a polo-neck and a pair of high boots, finishing off the ensemble with a pair of black glasses from the supermarket, hoping she looked both respectable and entrepreneurial. She put her business plan in a clear folder, and tried to remember everything she had ever gleaned from watching
Dragons’ Den
and
The Apprentice
.

She was left waiting for twenty minutes before being ushered into a glass cube with a round table and plastic chairs by a man in a cheap grey suit. Her details were called up onto the computer. Her stomach churned while the manager surveyed the figures.

‘I’m sorry,’ he said finally. ‘But you’re too high a risk for us. Your credit rating is very poor. You don’t have a regular wage, or any collateral.’

‘So that’s a no?’ said Jenna. She felt slightly sick.

‘Yes.’

She stood up. She felt humiliated but, more than that, she felt angry.

‘So here I am, trying to better myself, and you’re not prepared to invest in me?’

‘I’m afraid that’s how it works.’

‘So I just go back to where I was? Scumming about with the rest of them?’

‘I’m very sorry. But we can’t take the risk.’

Jenna picked up her paperwork. She felt sick with frustration. She’d been foolish to think that playing it straight was the way forward. Her family would laugh at her if they knew.

And she couldn’t tell Craig, because Craig would immediately offer to lend her the money, or, worse, give it to her, and the whole point of this was to prove, both to him and herself, that she was worth more, that she was capable, that she wasn’t just a thieving nobody.

As she left, she turned to the manager.

‘So, when I sort the money for myself, and go on to make a killing, you won’t be wanting me to bank the profits here, right?’

The manager held his hands up in a helpless shrug. ‘Listen, if it was up to me …’

‘I know, I know. The computer says no,’ said Jenna. ‘Thanks for your time. Not.’

She walked back up the high street and towards home. She passed a bin and shoved her business plan inside it, watching a half-eaten burger spill its entrails onto the carefully calculated figures. What was the point? Her dream was shattered. It was so frustrating, when she could picture it all so clearly. It was made for her, that van, but the chances of her getting her hands on it were so remote.

There were loan sharks, of course. They wouldn’t be mealy mouthed about her credit rating. Their exorbitant rates of interest soaked that up. It would take her two minutes to contact one of them; they roamed the estate where she lived with her family, enabling instant gratification and impulse purchases.

She looked at the high street – the run-down shops, the bookies and the pubs where the underbelly of Tawcombe ran amok. This was her world, and she couldn’t see a way out, not without hanging onto Craig’s coat-tails. Maybe that didn’t matter? She knew he wouldn’t mind. But she had wanted to feel proud of herself. At the moment she felt worthless. She didn’t feel as if she deserved his attention. All sorts of horrible possibilities were wandering through her head, including compromising herself with Weasel. She sighed. She must be desperate to even give that head room.

She walked towards the harbour, pulling her jacket around her to shield herself from the wind. The tide was out, and the boats that had been left in the water over winter were wedged into the grey sludge. In a few hours the scene would change completely as the harbour filled up again. It was compelling. One of the reasons people were so drawn to Tawcombe. It was a never-ending story.

She turned along the back of the George and Dragon, which looked out over the sea. In the height of summer, you couldn’t move on the terrace for heaving bodies. Now, it was empty and desolate, the furniture stacked away. She decided she’d go in for a drink and see who was about. She didn’t want to go home yet. She couldn’t think at home. There was always too much going on, the telly thundering and the dogs wanting attention.

Inside, there were only three customers. One interacting with the fruit machine, one doing the
Sun
crossword and one sitting at the bar.

‘Hey, Chris.’ Jenna perched onto the stool next to his.

A pair of bloodshot eyes slid round to her, peering out from under a shaggy fringe. His hand was curled around a pint of lager. Jenna knew it would probably be his sixth or seventh, and he wouldn’t stop until gone midnight. He was part of the furniture in the George, although he might move on to another pub further down the pier later if he got bored.

She liked Chris. Everyone did. But there was nothing anyone could do about the way he was living his life. There was something broken inside him and no one knew what to do about it. It had been terrible to watch, his descent into self-destruction over the past twelve months, but it was starting to become part of the rhythm of Tawcombe; a given. People had stopped commenting and just accepted that was how he was and that he wasn’t going to change.

Chris gave her one of his sleepy smiles and raised a finger to the barman to get Jenna whatever she wanted to drink. He was infinitely generous. His slate was the biggest in town and he always settled it, every Friday, not seeming to care that he was subsidizing the drinking habits of most of the slackers in Tawcombe. It was easy to take advantage of him, but he didn’t care. ‘What else am I going to spend it on?’ he would ask.

Jenna got out her purse. ‘I’m good, thanks,’ she told him. She was going to pay her own way. She asked for a hot chocolate. She wanted the comfort of sugar, not alcohol.

‘So what’s going on?’ Chris leaned his head in one hand and rested his elbow on the bar, looking at her. He hadn’t shaved, and his hair was wildly overgrown, but he was still compellingly attractive – the boozing hadn’t raddled his fine features and his killer smile; the dark-blue eyes with the black rings round the iris might be bloodshot, but they still drew you in. He was always interested in people and what they were doing. He would help you weave your dream until four o’clock in the morning. He just wasn’t very good at weaving his own.

Hordes of women had tried to help him. He’d had no shortage of them queuing up at the beginning, thinking they could save the handsome fisherman with the tragic past from himself. But, in the end, none of them could cope with the car crash that was Chris after about seven o’clock in the evening. A shambling, incoherent wreck who slid from charming to obnoxious in the melting of an ice cube; who would get himself mixed up in fights with bellicose out-of-towners who didn’t know not to antagonize him and thought he was an easy target; who would turn over tables and then stumble home, veering from one side of the road to the other like the ball in a pinball machine. If it weren’t for the fact that Chris kept the tills ringing over the winter months, he would be banned from every pub in town.