by Karen Swan
‘You won’t get anything more than dinner-party anecdotes out of them if you do that. It’ll have to be face-to-face.’ His tone brooked no further discussion on the subject.
Laura suppressed a sigh. ‘Okay then, if you’re sure.’ It’s your money, she didn’t add.
‘We’d better start by having the meeting we didn’t have yesterday, but you’ll have to come to me this time. My diary is non-negotiable at the moment.’
Laura’s hackles rose again, even though she knew that his point was fair. ‘Fine. Where are you?’
‘In the City, off Whitechapel. I’ll email directions through to your PA. Then we can go over the list of people for you to meet, and my expectations for the piece.’
Laura swallowed, wondering what on earth that meant – something gold, pretty and sentimental, surely?
‘Can you make lunch on Monday? Oh, wait . . . I’m just checking my diary. No, I’ve got lunch on already – it’ll have to be coffee.’
‘Yes. Fine.’ Laura rolled her eyes.
‘Three o’clock?’
‘Fine.’
‘Okay, I’ll see you then.’
‘Uh, wait!’ Laura called out, sensing his hand hovering over the disconnect button.
‘Yes?’ Impatience flickered at the edges of his words.
She swallowed hard. This was not going to be easy. ‘I’m afraid I’m going to need to ask for the money upfront,’ she said quickly, like ripping off a plaster. ‘I’ve got to, uh, order all the materials in advance and gold isn’t cheap, obviously.’
‘That’s fine. We can sort it out when we meet on Monday.’
‘No, I’m sorry, but it has to be today,’ Laura said firmly, grateful that this was a telephone conversation and he couldn’t see her eyes closed in prayer. She needed that money today to secure the beach hut and it had to be ready cash or nothing at all. Even if her savings weren’t tied up in accounts that took ten working days to release, there would still be no question of accessing them. She had to live within the bounds of this life, not her past.
There was a terse silence. ‘I’ll have the money wired to your account within the hour. Send my PA the details.’
And the line went dead. Laura stared at the phone in her hand – was that his riposte to her shutting the door in his face?
‘Oh my God,’ Fee gasped. ‘Did he just hang up on you?’
Laura replaced the phone on the handset. ‘Yes. He’s so damned rude. And self-important, and . . .’
‘So it’s all off,’ Fee breathed, her shoulders sagging.
Laura looked at her in surprise. ‘No. Quite the contrary. You need to send over an email with the bank details. He’s paying in full within the hour.’
‘Seventeen grand? Within the hour?’ Fee screeched, doing a jig on the sofa. So Christmas was back on! ‘How the hell did you manage that?’
‘Well, not by making friends,’ Laura grimaced, drifting over to the east window. The dawn haze was drifting off and the estuarine waters were being leeched out to sea, leaving Old Grey standing monumentally, like the last watch, on the banks.
‘It’ll be fine once you start.’
‘Mmmmm.’ Laura chewed on her thumbnail anxiously.
‘Stop doing that. You look like you’re harming yourself,’ Fee tutted, pulling her hand down. ‘That’d be all we need. Laura Cunningham with a self-harming disorder.’ She rolled her eyes exaggeratedly.
Laura shook her arms out. ‘I just haven’t been able to swim this week, that’s all. And I get twitchy . . .’
‘Yep, I know. But you’re still coughing from that chest infection last month. That’d be all we need. Laura Cunningham with double pneumonia.’ Fee rolled her eyes again.
Laura laughed. ‘You drive me insane, do you know that?’
‘Oh great. That’d be all we need!’ Fee cried, throwing her arms in the air dramatically. ‘Laura Cunningham with a mental breakdown . . . ’ She giggled, giving a sudden shriek as a cushion flew through the air and hit the window, forcing Old Grey, who was now flying past, to turn a sharp right and find somewhere more peaceful to fish for his dinner.
Two hours later, she found the man waiting by the bus stop at the top of the steps, as promised, wearing a black shiny bomber jacket and a pleased expression.
‘Laura?’ he asked, his shorn light brown hair immovable in the wind.
‘Hi, Roger,’ she said, shaking his hand.
‘She’s just down here,’ he said, heading down the steps that led on to the beach.
He waited for her at the bottom and they stomped through the sand together, bodies braced against the wind.
‘Have you had much interest in it yet?’ she shouted across at him as they walked past the rows of huts that she’d never bothered to inspect or lust after. She always preferred walking in the surf – the water was why she came, not the sand – but up close, she saw they were as different as children. Aside from the obvious differences in decor – pastels or brights, painted interiors or wallpaper – some were double-fronted with verandas, terraces and steps, others were little more than painted garden sheds that had been craned on to a beach. Some were painted in contrasting candy stripes; others were super-minimal in unpainted timber with fully glazed sliding doors. One had a wood-burning stove pipe sticking out through the roof.
Roger threw his head back and chortled as though she was being funny. ‘I’ve had to turn my mobile off,’ he hollered back. ‘My wife’s totally fed up with it. It’s insane! You were lucky, I’m telling you. The next person called literally as you rang off.’
Laura felt her pulse quicken. Was this man playing her, trying to justify the price? Or had Jack been right after all?
They slowed down as they approached a row of huts that had been painted in a harmonious palette of ice-cream shades – pistachio, baby pink, vanilla, ice blue and lilac sorbet. They appeared to be middle-ranking in terms of their size and position on the beach, Laura thought – double-fronted with small verandas, a window either side of the door and three steps off the beach.
‘And here she is,’ Roger said proudly, resting a leg on the steps of the one hut that looked like it was about to blow down. ‘This is Urchin.’
Indeed she was one. The hut was third in a row of seven, peach-coloured, paint peeling off in huge flakes like some sort of architectural psoriasis, and the door was – well, it wasn’t a door. It was just a slab of plywood bolted to the front.
Laura looked back at Roger with her mouth agape.
‘I know. She’s a bargain, that’s for sure,’ he said, looking up at the decrepit structure. ‘She’s been in the family for three generations now, but my kids want to go to Center Parcs on holiday nowadays and, as you can see, I haven’t got the time for the upkeep.’ He blew out through his cheeks regretfully, but still Laura couldn’t say a word – he wanted fifteen thousand pounds for this pile of firewood? ‘Come on, I’ll show you inside,’ he said, bounding up the steps and unlocking the deadbolt.
He took off the plywood and Laura stepped in. It was freezing inside, at least five degrees colder than on the beach, and an overpowering musty smell, born of years of damp towels, assailed her. The floor was so sodden the boards actually bowed, and the flimsy curtains were covered in mildew. What was supposed to pass for a counter appeared to be part of a chemistry experiment with unidentified black fuzzy fungi creeping over the silicone sealant like bees over honey.
‘So what d’you think?’ Roger asked, checking his watch. ‘You can see the potential, I expect?’
‘No, not really,’ Laura murmured, rooted to the spot. She didn’t want to touch anything in case it broke or infected her. Clearly the entire structure would need to be gutted and completely refitted.
‘So, there’s running water . . . well, more like gentle-walking-pace water,’ he said cheerfully, clearly only hearing what he expected to hear. ‘No electricity, of course, but that’s part of the charm, I guess, isn’t it?’
Laura rotated on the spot and looked out of the rotten cra
cked window. The view was the best thing about it. Was this really what Jack dreamed about? Would this really be a dream fulfilled for him? He was handy at DIY, but giving it to him as a ‘doing-up’ project seemed like more of a burden than a gift. She would have to get a proper carpenter in to restore it if she was going to bother doing this at all, but that would be another couple of thousand on top, eating up all her immediate easy-access savings.
‘I hate to rush you on this,’ Roger said, checking his watch again, ‘but I’m going to need a decision from you, I’m afraid.’
‘I’m sorry?’ Laura looked at him. He was insane if he wanted her to make a snap decision about throwing fifteen grand at this.
‘The fella who rang after you is coming any minute. He was dead determined to get it, but I said you rang first, so . . .’ Roger shrugged gallantly.
Laura sniffed doubtfully. She knew he was playing her. She couldn’t earn and blow that kind of money in one day without at least giving it some thought. Even if it had been a super-fancy hut with underfloor heating, Bose surround-sound, an Aga and a helipad on the roof, she’d have had to think about it.
The sound of heavy treads on the steps outside made them both jump. A stocky man who looked like he bench-pressed old ladies for laughs looked in, his bulging arms resting on the door jambs. ‘Well?’ he asked, out of breath. ‘Did she wannit?’
Roger looked at her and Laura felt her mouth dry up. She didn’t see the attraction, couldn’t understand the clamour around these things. Jack had told her – when he’d had no inkling that it was even a possibility – that he’d jump at the chance, but would he really jump at this? Would anybody, except for Knucklehead here?
Roger shifted position impatiently. The big man was eyeing her twitchily.
‘Fine, I’ll take it,’ she said sullenly, pulling out her chequebook. Handing Jack his dream was within her gift now. It was the very least she could do.
Chapter Five
It was late when Laura stirred the next morning. Saturday. In spite of Jack’s best efforts to help her drift off the night before – a glass of wine, a relaxing bath, a massage and some routine but satisfying sex – she had still slept badly, waking with her usual start at two a.m., her heart beating triple-time.
She had lain in the dark for four hours, part of her wanting to get up and go downstairs and work on some ideas for a new bracelet she was starting. But the other part of her wanted to stay in the warm bed where at least there was the prospect of sleep coming back for her. And besides, she hadn’t wanted to risk waking Jack – he loved sleepy sex. It had been safer to just lie still and let her head fill up with all the things she needed to do on the beach hut. She had signed the contract and paid the full horrid asking price there and then. It was legally hers and there was so much to get on with in the next few weeks if she wanted to have it ready for Christmas Day it made her head hurt. First on the list was hiring a carpenter, so that it at least had a door and a floor that wouldn’t sag beneath a flip-flop, and she needed a plumber to come in and replace the pipes. Once that was done, she could concentrate on the fun things – painting and decorating it, buying some furniture. She’d seen some very nice wooden bunting at the gift shop by the pedestrian crossing that she thought would look good strung up along the gabled roof, and she rather fancied one of those designer-paint sludgy-colour combinations . . .
Sleep had come to her only when the winter songbirds had finally woken, their busy chatter the signal that it was safe to close her eyes again. The darkness had gone for another night.
From her bed, Laura heard the telltale creak on the second step from the top and knew Jack was coming up with her breakfast. She stretched languorously, her eyes on the light that escaped around their blind, as she assessed from its dimness exactly which shade of Pantone grey the sky was going to be today. She felt the cool air on her bare arms – both she and Jack liked a ‘fresh’ room, leaving the windows open even in the winter – and quickly tucked them under the duvet again, just as Jack bumped the door open with the tray.
‘Morning,’ he smiled, setting it down on the bed as Laura took in the just-orange-enough tea and thickly buttered toast.
Jack passed her the tea, but it was too hot to sip, so she took a bite of toast instead, self-consciously munching in the quiet room as he watched her.
‘What do you want to do today?’ she asked him after a minute or two.
Jack shrugged. ‘Well, they’ve started selling Christmas trees at the supermarket, but it seems a bit early yet, don’t you think?’
‘Yes.’
‘We could go for a walk on the beach.’
‘We could. Arthur would be happy.’
‘But there is a strong north-easterly today.’
‘Oh. Cold.’
‘Yes.’
‘We could always go to the leisure centre and have a swim and a sauna,’ Laura suggested, but Jack just wrinkled his nose.
‘Saturday morning. Too many kids running around.’
‘Mmm.’ Laura started on the second triangle of toast.
‘Actually, I do need another phone charger for the car. It’s barely working at all now,’ he said brightly. ‘We could go to Carphone Warehouse and get a new one. Plus we need some batteries for the Sky remote.’ He smiled. ‘How does that sound?’
‘Great,’ Laura nodded.
‘Okey-dokey,’ Jack said, getting up, reaching over and kissing her lightly on the tip of her nose. ‘I’ll start running your shower, then, and we can get this show on the road.’
Laura looked back up at their cosy cottage as Jack locked and double-locked their glossy pillarbox-red front door. His insistence upon vigilant security was a foible that Laura found alternately sweet and irritating. Today it was sweet. Charrington – a tiny fishing village on the Suffolk coast – was hardly a crime hot spot. The most the police ever had to bother about was drunk teenagers dropping chips on the pavement on a Friday night, and parking violations on the promenade.
Laura waited for him as he pushed a hand against the door for good measure, and she looked up at the deep stone windowsills, wondering whether some boxes might look good on them. Lead planters would look particularly fine against the red door and would tie in nicely with the bushy grey thatched roof. It wasn’t a big house by any means – just a two-up, two-down – but it was so pretty; all the houses in Pudding Street were. It was true what they said on the telly – location, location, location. Here, they lived in one of the best-maintained streets in the town and they were only three streets back from the beach and a four-minute walk from the town centre.
Satisfied that their home would be adequately protected during their short absence, Jack took Laura’s hand and started leading her down their narrow, pedestrianized lane, ambling past their neighbours’ thickly plastered old walls that, still now, looked to Laura like roughly spread royal icing. She loved the names of the cottages – the Old Pilchard Shed; Thistledown; Old Owl; Sunny Corner. Theirs – East Cottage – seemed rather humdrum by comparison, but Jack had put her off changing it when they moved in, as he’d said it was bad luck to change a house’s name. A couple of bicycles were chained to black metal downpipes, and there were more and more scooters parked in front of the cottages every month – what Rome had known for generations and London for a decade, it seemed, had finally trickled out to Charrington.
They turned left, inland, at the end of the road, a sharp gust of wind buffeting them as they stepped out of the protection of the lane. Arthur dropped his tail and Jack held her hand more tightly as she shivered. It had been a mild, wet autumn, but the Met Office had predicted arctic conditions for the winter, and if this wind was anything to go by, it looked like they had it right for once.
The lines of small red, blue and metallic silver cars parked along the outer streets alerted them that, for most people, the Christmas countdown had begun, and as they turned right into Main Street, they heard the mechanized music of the Santa’s Grotto in the town square. It was nothing mo
re than a mobile home painted dark green, with tinsel around the window frames and garish lights fastened to the sides in the shape of Rudolph pulling a sleigh. At the front, a scowling teenager Laura recognized as Ruth, on an apprenticeship at her hair salon, was dressed as an elf. In truth she would have made a better Santa. She had the shape for him and, in time no doubt, she’d have the beard.
Laura and Jack walked by without making eye contact. Laura didn’t want to antagonize her. She used her nails when washing Laura’s hair as it was.
‘What do you think about the new Rav?’ Jack asked her as they queued at Greggs for some apple turnovers – their weekly treat.
Laura looked at him. ‘I haven’t made my mind up about what I think of the old Rav yet,’ she replied drily.
Jack grinned – her sarcasm always amused him. His hands squeezed her waist and she laughed out loud, squirming away from him. ‘Because I was thinking it’s probably about time we considered trading up. The Volvo’s getting pretty tired now. It’s up to a hundred and eighty thousand miles; the gearbox is sticking. Plus the MOT’s coming up in a few months.’ He shrugged nonchalantly. ‘I just thought the new shape looked good for us. The boot’s just about big enough, good mpg and . . .’
Laura crossed her eyes, and this time he laughed out loud. ‘What. Ev. Er.’
‘Does that mean you’ll come and look at some, then?’
‘So long as I get to choose the colour – inside and out.’ She narrowed her eyes. ‘How are we going to pay for it, though? It’s not like we’ll get much for the Volvo.’
‘I’ve seen some good HP deals around. I think I can negotiate them down to the numbers I’ve got in my head,’ he nodded assuredly.
‘HP?’ Laura echoed, taking the paper bag from the assistant as Jack handed over the change. And I’ve just spent fifteen thousand on a heap of painted kindling. ‘I don’t know, Jack. I’d rather we didn’t get into that.’
Jack’s face fell. She’d seen the thumbed copies of Autocar under the mattress on his side of the bed.
‘I just mean, can’t we wait a bit till we could pay upfront instead?’ she pleaded. ‘I’ve already told you I’ve got money coming in pretty regularly now.’