The gardener grinned. ‘This is vintage. Original.’
Kiki turned the volume right up and started singing.
‘You know this?’ He looked surprised.
She carried on singing, smiling at him, and he smiled back and joined in, and the two of them started harmonising and Hattie felt the thrill of adventure she’d been missing all her life. Kiki was cooler than cool.
He dropped them off at the roundabout outside Stratford and Hattie and Kiki fell about laughing. Hattie secretly hoped they could just get the bus home, but she wanted to be daring, like Kiki. To push the boundaries and ignore the rules.
Then Kiki had given her an idea last time they went shopping. Indirectly.
‘It’s not fair us girls have to pay for all this stuff. Guys don’t,’ Kiki had said, indignant, standing in the chemist with a basket full of toiletries: Immac and shampoo and hairspray and eye make-up remover and five different nail polishes.
Hattie thought she had a point. Luke had a pot of gunky hair wax and some deodorant; that was the extent of his cosmetics. She had shelves full of stuff to keep her looking good. Kiki was right. Why should girls have to foot the bill?
That’s when she’d had her brainwave.
Hattie put the tan bag down and picked up the next one: a silver lamé shopper, capacious, with good long handles. She sighed. Why had she tried to be something she absolutely wasn’t?
Because she was an idiot. She’d just been trying to impress Kiki. Their first trip out to Inglewood’s she’d got away with a flagon of Tom Ford perfume, a silk Ted Baker cardigan and a pair of sunglasses. Kiki’d had no idea what she’d been up to. She had looked on in amazement when Hattie produced them half an hour later in the café down the road.
‘It’s a piece of cake,’ Hattie said airily. ‘All the shops pretend they’ve got all this security but they haven’t. You’ve just got to hold your nerve.’
‘I didn’t think you were that kind of person.’ Kiki had looked at her oddly. At the time, Hattie had thought it was admiration. Now, looking back, perhaps there had been a hint of disapproval?
Yesterday they had gone into Birmingham. Hattie thought about her haul. She’d stuffed it away at the back of her cupboard when she got in last night. She wouldn’t be able to explain any of it. A silk scarf by a designer so famous even Lizzy would recognise it. A purse. Hair dye and false eyelashes and some fake tan.
She had to admit it had given her a bit of a thrill. An adrenaline rush. She’d liked the feeling. Hattie was nervous of drugs, which some of the girls at school took; she didn’t indulge, mostly because of her competitive ice skating. It was the perfect inbuilt excuse. She told people they had random drug testing at the skating club. They didn’t, but at least no one pushed her into it. Sometimes she wondered what she was missing out on, but not enough to experiment.
Kiki hadn’t joined in with the shoplifting, even when Hattie told her how easy it was.
‘My mum would kill me if I got caught,’ Kiki said.
‘You won’t get caught,’ Hattie assured her. Looking back, she realised that Kiki didn’t want to do it not because she was scared of being caught, but because she thought it was wrong.
Now, standing in the middle of the handbags in the very shop where she’d committed her first crime, Hattie felt very afraid. What had she been thinking, taking risks like that just to impress Kiki? She thought perhaps she hadn’t impressed her that much, after all. And if she got caught shoplifting, she’d jeopardise her place at uni and she’d have a criminal record. She could lose everything.
She felt hot and cold all at once. And she wanted Lizzy. Kind, comforting, unjudgy Mum. She could tell her anything and she never flinched or shouted. She talked things through calmly and gave brilliant advice.
OK, so Lizzy wasn’t tall and skinny and cool like Kiki’s mum Meg, with her leather leggings and her curated ear. She didn’t have access behind the velvet ropes in all the clubs in Birmingham or a white SUV with tinted windows. But she was always there with a smile or a mug of hot chocolate, happy to sit and watch endless episodes of How I Met Your Mother on Netflix.
Lizzy was like a comfort blanket. When you grew up, you didn’t have it with you all the time, but it was still there, in case you needed its softness and warmth. But they’d been careless with their comfort blanket. Done the equivalent of dropping it out of the pushchair to land in a muddy puddle.
Shame at the things she had done and what they had all done, as a family, seeped through Hattie. It made her feel nauseous and shaky. The lights in the shop felt searingly hot and the noise was deafening and the smells – the leather from the handbags, the scent from the perfume hall – became so cloying they seemed to choke her.
‘I don’t know what machine to choose. There’s too many. I need help.’ She was dimly aware of Luke in front of her.
‘Hat?’ He looked worried. He put his arm round her. ‘Hat? Talk to me?’
‘I feel funny,’ she said and flumped against him.
‘It’s OK,’ he said in her ear, his voice gruff. ‘I’ve got you.’
And she felt her knees go from under her, but he didn’t let go, her twin brother. He didn’t let her go.
22
On their way to Micklestone Candlelight Market, Lizzy and Harley stopped at the Ship Aground to use their wi-fi to Skype Caroline.
‘She’ll be totally fine with it. I promise you,’ said Lizzy. ‘God, this place hasn’t changed since 1987. Except it doesn’t stink of stale fags.’
The pub was exactly as she remembered it. The plate-glass front overlooking the sea, with the breath-taking views. The long bar along the back, with every bottle in the world you could want to drink from. The pool table in one corner and the posh banquettes on one side and the rickety tables on the other. Even the food looked the same: burger and chips, fish and chips, omelette and chips … It hadn’t changed because it didn’t need to. It was by the sea. Why would it need driftwood furniture and tasteful grey paint and a chalkboard menu? That all cost money, and what the Ship Aground already had was priceless.
Harley called up Caroline on Skype, handed Lizzy the phone then headed off to the bar to grab them a couple of take-away coffees for the car.
Caroline’s face appeared on the screen, smiling.
‘Hey, Harley.’ Then she frowned, peering. ‘Lizzy?’
Lizzy beamed into the screen.
‘Caroline! Merry Christmas. I’m sorry about Richard’s knee. How is he?’
‘Well, you know. Moaning and groaning and drinking on top of his painkillers, which he shouldn’t be. But … why are you on Harley’s phone? Or have I cocked something up?’
‘Well,’ said Lizzy. ‘I’ll cut a long story short. Basically I got fed up and did a runner. You said I could use the hut so … here I am. But I just wanted to double-check it was still OK.’
‘Of course. You can stay there as long as you like. And Harley will make sure you’ve got whatever you want – you’ve obviously found him. He’s your go-to guy.’
Lizzy cleared her throat. This was the tricky bit.
‘That’s another thing. He’s had a bit of a falling-out with his mum’s boyfriend. Poor kid. He’s really cut up. So do you mind if he stays too?’
‘Wow.’ Caroline blinked as she tried to take everything in. ‘Well, I’m totally happy for both of you to stay there as long as you like. But are you OK, Lizzy? You and Simon?’
Lizzy made a face. ‘Basically, I suppose. I just feel a bit used and abused. They’re not always very thoughtful, my family. And I’ve had enough of it. I need some time out. Being here kind of gets you back to basics, and what you really want. Though I still don’t know the answer to that …’ She laughed and gave a little shrug.
‘Oh God, who does?’ said Caroline. ‘I want to run away sometimes, too. I think it’s a difficult age, our age. Like … if
you don’t get it right now, you never will.’
‘Yes,’ said Lizzy. Having verbalised her feelings to Caroline, she felt even more resolute about what she had done. ‘I knew you’d understand.’
‘Are you in the Ship Aground?’ asked Caroline, leaning forward excitedly.
‘I am,’ said Lizzy. ‘And it hasn’t changed a bit.’
‘I know. It feels like only yesterday we were in there together. Young, free and single.’
‘Over-made-up and drunk,’ added Lizzy.
‘We were gorgeous. I just wish I’d appreciated it at the time. I thought I was fat!’
‘Tell me about it.’
‘Well, listen. Come and stay out here when the silly season is over. Get some sun poolside and I’ll make you cocktails and we can play Duran Duran at full blast and let our hair down.’
‘You’re on,’ said Lizzy. ‘Merry Christmas, Caroline.’
‘Merry Christmas, darling Lizzy.’
She pressed end and stood up. ‘It’s all good,’ she said to Harley, who handed her a cardboard cup of coffee. ‘So let’s go. I want a hot pork roll with apple sauce and maybe a doughnut.’
He looked horrified. ‘After that breakfast?’
‘It’s Christmas! You have to eat your own bodyweight in lard. It’s the law,’ grinned Lizzy.
The drive along the coast to Micklestone was spectacular. The tortuous road curved across the moors, dense with dry bracken and gorse, the bare brown earth exposed in between. Shaggy brown ponies stood with their heads lowered against the biting winds, sturdy and untroubled by the elements. They were built to withstand an Exmoor winter.
‘Brrr,’ shivered Lizzy. ‘Poor things.’
From time to time they would turn a corner and there would be the sea, dark green and treacherous, miles below them under the black rocks. It was both thrilling and terrifying to watch the waves.
Harley was quiet on the journey.
‘I’m worried,’ he said, ‘that Mum will persuade me to go back.’
‘How much longer have you got?’ asked Lizzy. ‘You can leave home soon. Are you going to uni?’
‘I haven’t applied,’ said Harley. ‘Anyway, it’s not me I’m worried about. In the long run. I wouldn’t be happy leaving her with him. Or River.’
Lizzy glanced at him.
‘It’s just a feeling,’ he said.
Lizzy slowed down as the traffic started building up. She felt disquiet at Harley’s situation. She didn’t think he was exaggerating, and he didn’t strike her as the kind of moody and antagonistic teenager who might provoke an older man’s exasperation. Tony sounded unpleasant at best. She mustn’t get involved, she told herself, she had her own problems. Though she didn’t mind being a sounding board or encouraging him to talk to his mum.
They edged their way into the town amidst all the other cars queueing.
‘We’ll never get a parking place,’ fretted Lizzy.
‘There. There, there, there.’ Harley pointed at a Mini edging out of a space. Lizzy whizzed up and waited, then reversed neatly in.
The two of them got out of the car and walked along the narrow pavements towards the town. Micklestone was a medieval village on the edge of a steep cliff, locked in another age, with ancient stone buildings, humpbacked bridges and a marketplace overlooked by a rambling castle. Every Christmas it took advantage of its historic perfection and held a week-long market, the cobbled main street given over to vendors and traders and everywhere lit by glass lanterns filled with candles.
‘Oh,’ said Lizzy, as the magical scene unfolded in front of them. ‘Oh, isn’t it pretty?’
Harley was scanning the stalls for his mother. There were dozens of them, and the visitors milled amongst them, buying up everything on offer. The air was heavy with the scent of mulled wine and hot chocolate laced with rum.
‘There she is,’ said Harley suddenly. ‘There’s my mum. That stall there, on the right. Come on.’
23
‘Thank you, sir. And a very merry Christmas to you too!’ Leanne handed over the wreath, carefully wrapped in tissue and packed into a cardboard box.
She hadn’t been sure about renting a stall at Micklestone – even just a small trestle table cost a fortune. And who left buying a wreath until the day before Christmas Eve? A lot of people, it turned out. She had sold six already, which at thirty pounds each had covered her fee. She was now heading into profit, which lifted her spirits no end.
She had various themes for her wreaths: a Highland theme, with lots of tartan; a Scandi theme, with carved wooden hearts; and her favourite, the seaside theme, made with sea-green ribbon and decorated with shells and starfish. They were works of art, and she felt proud when customers ooh-ed and aah-ed over them. She was amazed how much they’d been admired. People liked to be traditional at Christmas but they also liked something a bit different, a little twist. She was surprised how many men had bought them. They shopped in a very different way from women, and were more impulsive, more likely to buy something that caught their eye and pleased them.
She was thrilled with how successful her new enterprise had been. She’d hit upon the idea in the hopes of making some extra cash for Christmas. She had bought greenery from the wholesaler, boxes and boxes of it. And ribbon and accessories. For the past three weeks she had spent hours making wreaths and selling them at various markets around the West Country. She’d sold out every time.
She had made sure to be careful to hide her money. She did a rapid mental calculation of how much she had made and was pleased with the outcome. She didn’t tell Tony, though. She’d lied to him about how many wreaths she had made, and how much profit. She squirrelled the cash away in her handbag – there was a zip with a secret pocket at the very bottom. She didn’t call it her running away fund, because if she called it that, it meant admitting to herself that she had something to run away from.
Leanne was starting to realise that perhaps she had made a horrible mistake.
She had thought herself the luckiest woman in the world when she’d moved in with Tony. A three-storey house with a sea view? She only had to walk down to the bottom of the hill and turn right to see the whole of the harbour in Tawcombe.
Moving in with someone was a big commitment and maybe she had been a little hasty after only two months of dating. But it was wonderful to get out of the rented accommodation, to have central heating and her own front door and not to have a row about the bins every week. Most of all, it was nice for River to have a garden to play in. A four-year-old shouldn’t be cooped up in a top-floor flat.
And there weren’t many men who’d take on a single mum with a toddler and a teenager.
She had been giddy with it all when Tony had first asked her out. Working two jobs was hard, but when Harley had become old enough to look after River in the evenings, she’d bolstered her book-keeping income by doing a couple of shifts at the Spinnaker down on the harbour. It was the locals’ pub rather than the tourists’, which was why she liked it. She’d started to feel part of the town. Tony was a regular, and she was charmed because he actually bothered to talk to her rather than just look.
In honour of moving to the seaside she had totally embraced the surfer girl look: tiny frayed shorts and singlets with sneakers, kimonos and crocheted tops, floaty flimsy dresses with suede ankle boots. She hoped it wasn’t tarty and that she wasn’t too old – you had to start being careful at thirty-six – but she worked hard at keeping herself toned.
Her new image was very different from the groomed and polished veneer she’d had for so many years when she’d lived in the city: high heels and styled hair and painted nails. Gone was the sleek black bob and in its place was shoulder-length tousled beach hair, streaked blonde from the sun (well, not the sun, technically, but that was what you were supposed to think). She’d even had a tattoo on her shoulder – a tiny gecko.
Moving away after what had happened had been the right thing to do. She didn’t miss Birmingham one bit. It had been a military campaign to get herself out of the city, but she couldn’t bear the gossip, couldn’t carry on knowing Richie was breathing the same air as her when he’d betrayed her, so she had run as far as she could. And no one wanted the wife of someone who’d been done for fraud to do their books. Somehow her clients had dropped away one by one. In Tawcombe, no one knew. She’d picked up new business quite quickly – she was good with figures.
She’d stayed away from men for the first few months. She was wary, and besides, Harley and River had been through enough without her bringing someone new into their lives. But when Tony had shown interest, she had been drawn to him. Maybe it was because he was older than her – about ten years – although he was still pretty fit. He had money too – not that she was interested in men for the size of their bank balance; no one knew better than she did that it could vanish overnight. But she missed dressing up and going out for dinner. She and Richie had eaten out all the time, but since coming to Tawcombe fish and chips once a week was an indulgence.
Tony owned the arcade in the middle of town, where holidaymakers pumped their spare cash into rows of flashing machines in the hope of a big payout. He had a burger bar too, at the end of the harbour, and a car park by the beach on the road leading out of town. His family had bought them all with cash when the owners were on their uppers. Seasonal cash businesses. The trick was to have more than one: if it rained, the arcade was full; if it was sunny, the car park filled up. Tony was no fool. He was a respected pillar of the community too, captain of the yacht club, on the local council.
Christmas at the Beach Hut Page 15