Annie's Lovely Choir By The Sea

by Liz Eeles

  Kayla grabs a handful of dripping glasses from the draining board and raises her eyebrows as she follows Roger into the bar.

  ‘Sorry, Annie, we’re hosting Kieran’s eighteenth birthday party at lunchtime so it’s all hands on deck. It’s half-term and he and his mates are already here helping us to set things up. Speak later about the zombies thing? I’ll call round after my shift.’

  Will Young is singing about joy on the radio but I switch him off after Kayla’s gone and the kitchen goes quiet, except for a low hum from the fridge. Usually, Will’s voice cheers me up when I’m down and soothes me when I’m stressed, but today it’s just not happening. The Trebarwiths have murdered my love of music. It’s like Game of Thrones with musical scores.

  I drag a high stool towards the window and sit watching as people come and go from the pub. Some are carrying helium balloons and birthday banners and one man arrives wearing a face mask of Prince William. He does a royal wave to some approaching friends and flips them the middle finger when they get closer. Her Majesty would not be amused.

  I’ve reached that awful self-pitying stage where other people’s happiness only magnifies my own misery. So I slip off the stool and head for the bar to find out what time Kayla’s shift ends.

  Oops. As I come round a corner in the narrow passageway, I spot Kayla getting up close and personal with a punter. Chuffing hell! I’m all for good customer service but Kayla is taking the concept to extremes. Standing on tiptoe, she’s snogging the life out of some bloke while birthday boy Kieran, the bashful kid I met recently in the pub, looks on aghast. Kayla has her hands clamped to the man’s face and is pressed up against his tight, muscular body. Hold on a second. For the love of all that’s holy, the man kissing Kayla is Josh.

  I draw back round the corner, heart hammering. He must be the new man she was secretive about. The real man. Wow, she’s certainly changed her tune. One minute Josh is a knobhead and the next she has her tongue down his throat.

  The worst thing – well, almost the worst – is that Toby’s right. Josh Pasco really is an unprincipled womaniser who uses his good looks and sexy vibe to get off with all and sundry. Felicity, Kayla and who knows how many others have fallen for his grumpy charms? I was almost added to his list.

  What a perfectly horrible day this is turning out to be! I run through the kitchen, bare feet slapping on the tiles, and don’t stop running when I get to the pavement. I hardly notice the sharp gravel.

  Alice is clattering about in the kitchen when I get back so I close the front door quietly, creep upstairs to my room and lie on the bed, staring at the ceiling. Fat tears spill out of my eyes, roll into my ears and trickle down my neck.

  High above me, a large spider is weaving an intricate web that stretches from the light fitting to the cornicing. Normally I’d throw a hissy fit because I hate spiders but right now I can’t be arsed. A squadron of spiders with hairy legs could march in here and start line dancing and I wouldn’t give a monkey’s.

  After a while I pull myself together and write a brief email to Toby.

  Thanks for the job offer. Happy to accept. See you at work on Monday. All the best, Annie.

  Then I hang out of the window and press ‘send’. There, that’s done.

  Pulling out my huge suitcase from under the bed, I pack the clothes and belongings Amber sent for me. The case is too heavy for me to manage but I’m sure Toby will bring it back to London the next time he’s visiting Alice. Next I share out essentials – a few work clothes, make-up and toiletries, the photo of my poor, maligned mum – between my rucksack and a canvas bag and lug them down the stairs.

  Alice hears the commotion and comes from the kitchen into the hall. ‘What’s this, Annabella? Are you leaving so soon?’

  I ignore the tremor in her hand when she takes off her apron and folds it on top of the radiator. The next few minutes are going to be awful but I can’t stay here any longer.

  ‘I’m sorry, Alice, but I need to go. I’ve had a job offer from Toby and it starts on Monday. Look.’

  I thrust my phone under Alice’s nose so she’ll know I’m not lying.

  She glances at Toby’s email. ‘I see.’

  ‘If I go now I can get a seat on the lunchtime London train.’

  Alice nods. ‘That makes sense.’

  ‘I’m sorry it’s all a bit rushed but if I get back to London today I’ve got the weekend to get ready for my new job. And Emily will be moving in soon so I’m no longer needed.’

  ‘Of course.’ Alice’s smile doesn’t reach her eyes. I so don’t want her eyes to look sad. ‘Before you go, let me apologise for not telling you about Sheila. I see now that I should have, and I didn’t mean to tarnish your memories of your mother.’

  ‘It’s all right, Alice.’ The fight has gone out of me too and I can’t face talking about Mum any more. ‘I can’t stay here forever and you’ll be OK until Emily moves in, won’t you?’

  ‘Of course. I’ll be fine.’

  ‘Please could you get this back to Josh.’ I hand over the polished wood box with Ted Pawley’s baton nestling inside it. ‘Tell him – just tell him I had to leave.’

  ‘If that’s what you want. How will you get to the station?’

  ‘I’ll walk to the phone box and call a taxi.’

  ‘And there’s nothing I can do to persuade you to stay a little longer?’

  ‘I really need to get back to the life I had before I came to Salt Bay.’

  ‘In that case, thank you for all your help and it’s been lovely getting to know my great-niece.’ Alice smells of violets and face powder when she leans forward and kisses me on the cheek. ‘I’ll miss you, Annabella. Please come back and see me. We don’t need to talk about your mother if you’d rather not.’

  Her eyes look bright and I nod, too full of emotion to speak. Grabbing my bags, I rush to the front door and, when I look back, she’s standing at the foot of the stairs.

  ‘Bye,’ I blurt out. ‘Look after yourself, Alice.’

  * * *

  The taxi driver slings my bags into his boot and drives slowly out of Salt Bay. As the car climbs high above the village, I look out of the grubby back window. Was it only a few weeks ago that I stumbled down this hill and Josh almost ran me over? The village is spread out behind me – the vast, never-still ocean, huddled cottages, and I can just make out Tregavara House standing sentry where the land meets the sea. It all looks beautiful.

  I think of Alice in the house on her own. Jeez, am I doing the right thing? Curling my hands into tight fists, I take slow, deep breaths. Of course I am. It was only ever a short-term arrangement, and staying longer is out of the question now Alice has slagged off my mum, Kayla and Josh are getting it on, and I’ve discovered that Sheila’s alive.

  It was dangerous, too, chips in my niggly inner voice, because you were getting sucked in. And what is there to stay for anyway? You’ll soon be forgotten. Emily can look after Alice, Josh can run the choir and they’ll both make a better job of it than you. And why did you think that Josh would be interested in you, with your squidgy thighs and boring brown hair? Don’t you just hate your inner voice when it’s being a right bitch?

  The taxi driver does a double-take in his rear-view mirror when I blow my nose.

  ‘Are you all right, love?’ he calls over his shoulder.

  ‘Fine, thanks,’ I gulp, gazing pointedly out of the window. Please mate, don’t be sympathetic or I’ll end up sobbing and snotting all over your taxi. It won’t be pretty. He takes the hint and turns on his radio, flooding the car with music. I know that song. It’s The Communards’ classic ‘Don’t Leave Me This Way’. I sigh and put my fingers in my ears. Sometimes music can be cruel.

  Chapter 26

  By the time we reach Penzance station, I’ve composed myself and – hooray – the one o’clock train to London Paddington is running as scheduled. That’s the first good news of the day. And there’s time to buy a sandwich and nip to the ladies’ for a safety wee, so I can
avoid using the train toilet later – my pelvic floor muscles refuse to relax when the door could slide across at any moment to reveal my lily-white arse.

  With a couple of minutes to spare, I board the train and nab a window seat near the luggage rack. Opposite me, a pinch-faced woman with black hair and pale, translucent skin settles down with her knitting and a tub of salad. Her needles click as she knits one, purls one.

  The train is warm, clean and comfy but I’m miserable as we pull out of Penzance. And my low mood persists while we trundle through Cornwall, stopping at small stations with pretty names; St Erth, Camborne, Redruth. This journey is going to take forever. After we’ve gone through Liskeard, I try to get some sleep. But whenever I settle down for a snooze, all I can see are Josh and Kayla locked in a steamy embrace while Alice looks on with sad, sad eyes. After a while I give up and resign myself to the fact that I might never sleep again.

  As the miles crawl by, I email Kayla to apologise for leaving and ask her to persuade Josh to take over as the choir’s conductor. Leaving the choir without saying goodbye makes me feel awful and, to be honest, I’m starting to feel foolish for bolting. But life was too complicated with Alice accusing my mum of being a heartless liar, and grandmothers appearing out of the blue, and Josh turning out to be the man Toby said he was. Anyone in that position would have done a runner. Beyoncé, Dame Judi Dench, the Queen. Absolutely anyone. Wouldn’t they? I’m tempted to ask the woman opposite what she thinks but that would be crazy, so I finish off my email to Kayla and press ‘send’. I don’t mention seeing her with her tongue down Josh’s throat. What’s the point?

  The stations we’re passing through get bigger and busier as we approach the capital and my spirits rise when we reach the outskirts of London. I’m almost home! Closer to the city centre, we trundle past the backs of terraced houses, blackened by pollution. Grubby forgotten washing flutters from lines strung up between flats, and graffiti is plastered across high, red-brick walls. In the distance I can see lofty buildings dominating the skyline. God, it’s good to be back.

  At last, almost five and a half hours after leaving Penzance, our train edges slowly into Paddington station and I haul my bags onto the platform. Jeez, it’s like stepping out of a bubble into the first day of the Harrods sale. A wall of sound hits me, with commuters pushing past, jabbering into their mobile phones and tutting when I can’t find my Oyster card.

  The tide of rush-hour commuters sweeps me into the Tube station and onto the District Line platform which is totally rammed. The train arrives with a belch of hot air from the tunnel and we all pile in, almost on top of one another. I can tell from the filthy looks that my bags are getting in people’s way but no one complains, because that’s not what Londoners do. I soak up the smells and the clattering of the train on the tracks and notice that my heart palpitations are back already.

  At Notting Hill Gate, I switch to the Central Line and before long I’m walking through Westfield shopping centre in Stratford. Annabella Sunshine Trebarwith is back in her ‘manor’.

  Jennifer would hate the shopping centre's opening hours. She shuts up shop at half past five and will be gossiping right now in The Whistling Wave. Possibly with me as the topic of conversation. I’ll probably never see Jennifer again, which makes me more sad than I would have expected. And chances are I’ve seen the last of Alice, Kayla, Cyril and Josh. But it’s for the best, I tell myself firmly, ignoring the heavy feeling in my chest. The Trebarwith family and Salt Bay were an experiment that didn’t work out; a different life that’s come to an end. Now everything can get back to normal. Hallelujah!

  Lights are shining from apartment windows when I head away from Westfield towards home. My flat is near the area that was regenerated for the London Olympics. Olympians at the peak of physical fitness strolled through these streets, close to the flat where I now slob around in my PJs. Which is pretty cool, though dispiriting on days when I don’t have the energy to move off the sofa.

  With my waistline in mind, I climb the stairs to the third floor of our block and give a deep sigh as I push my front door key into the lock. I’m finally home.

  ‘Annie, what the hell are you doing back?’ Amber is sitting on the sofa in her bra and pants and is a vibrant shade of orange. ‘I’ve just fake-tanned and wasn’t expecting anyone.’ She grabs the thin dressing gown next to her and pulls it across her lap. ‘Why are you here?’

  ‘I texted from the train and said I was on my way home.’ I drop my bags, roll my aching shoulders and take a good look round. The flat looks like closing time at The Whistling Wave. Dirty glasses and empty wine bottles cover the kitchen worktops, a foil tray of congealed curry is in the sink, and the floor is littered with strips of coloured paper from party poppers. That’s the problem with having an open plan flat – you can’t close a door on the mess.

  ‘I can’t get texts right now,’ says Amber, moving her leg and smudging orange across the cream sofa. ‘I dropped my mobile down the toilet last night and now it’s not working, which is well annoying. You’d think they’d, like, make them waterproof or something ’cos everyone texts on the toilet. Anyway, my mum said to put it in a bag of rice, like that’s going to help.’ She snorts and points at a box of Uncle Ben’s on the windowsill. ‘But I thought I’d better try or Mum won’t buy me another one. She got well lippy because I’ve only had this one for a month. The last one got nicked at Cinderella’s, you know… the club,’ she adds helpfully, just in case I’m under the mistaken impression that one of her friends is named after a fairytale.

  ‘Though dropping the phone wasn’t my fault,’ pouts Amber. ‘I’m sure they’re making mobiles more slippery on purpose so you have to keep replacing them. It’s a conspiracy.’ She frowns and smooths out some streaks on her legs. ‘Um, when are you going back to Cheshire, then?’

  ‘I’m not.’

  ‘Oh – my – God!’ Amber’s eyes open wide in her tangerine face. ‘You’re back for good?’

  ‘Afraid so.’

  ‘But what about Gracie? She lives here now and you can’t just throw her out and make her homeless. There are laws about that.’

  ‘I’m not planning on making Gracie homeless. I know I’ve come back a fortnight earlier than I said so I’ll sleep on the sofa until Gracie can find somewhere else and move out. That was always the plan when she moved in.’

  ‘I suppose, though it might take a while,’ mutters Amber.

  ‘That’s OK. She doesn’t have to rush. Well, not too much. Though it would be good to have my room back quite soon.’

  I eye the streaked, lumpy sofa apprehensively.

  ‘I’m sure she’ll do her best. But it’s not terribly convenient.’ Amber stands up, shoves her arms into her dressing gown and strops past me into her bedroom. When she slams her door, the vibration makes the empty bottles and glasses rattle. Welcome home, Annie!

  * * *

  The next couple of days are pretty dire. The sofa is more uncomfortable than it looks and, though there are no screeching seagulls to wake me up, people streaming towards Stratford station do exactly the same thing. Still half-asleep and disorientated, I listen out for the dull boom of waves hitting hard stone and the sound of Alice pottering in the kitchen and feel a stab of disappointment when I hear sirens and car horns instead.

  Gracie is not amused by my sudden appearance and either ignores me or grunts in my general direction. In the evening, she and Amber sit in one another’s bedrooms playing music or watching the Kardashians until well gone midnight. And the bathroom looks like the stockroom at Boots.

  Bottles and potions litter every surface and I find a pot of anti-wrinkle cream wedged behind the false nails. They’re both teenagers for goodness’ sake! I, on the other hand, am getting on a bit so I nick a few splodges for the skin around my eyes which has been knackered by all that Cornish weather.

  All in all, I’m not feeling my best when I arrive at Fulbright and Linsom on Monday morning to start my new job. Getting into the shower was
almost impossible with Amber and Gracie bagging it first, and my clothes are creased because the iron is broken. Gracie grunted that she dropped it while she was drunk, and pointed out a scorch mark on the carpet. She’s proving to be rather tiresome.

  Putting all that to one side, I plaster on a smile and push open the heavy front door of my new employer. Tucked away behind the market with McDonald’s cartons blowing across the doorstep, Fulbright and Linsom is less grand from the outside than I expected. But inside it’s awesome. Huge gilt-framed oil paintings of country landscapes hang from the picture rail and there’s an enormous walnut desk with gold edges across the back wall. Behind it is a well-preserved woman in a fitted dress whose perm is tight and yellow-blonde. The name badge above her left breast says ‘Madeleine’.

  ‘May I help you?’ Her voice is so posh it’s intimidating. She sounds like a female version of Simon Callow.

  ‘I’m here to see Toby.’ Madeleine stares at my creased shirt and raises an eyebrow. ‘He’s arranged for me to work here, from today.’

  ‘You’re the temp?’ She gives a tinkly laugh, as though it’s the most ridiculous thing she’s ever heard. ‘I’ll let Mr Trebarwith know that you’re here at’ – she glances at an ornate gilt clock on the wall ‘– nine twenty-two.’

  ‘Mr Trebarwith said I didn’t need to be here until nine thirty,’ I say sweetly, hoping that she can read my mind. What a total cow.

  ‘Annie, there you are.’ Toby breezes into reception wearing raspberry-red trousers and a matching V-neck jumper. He’s drenched in aftershave and I try not to breathe in when he leans over to kiss me on the cheek. Oops, that didn’t work – a suffocating scent of musk flies up my nose and starts tickling the top bit near my eyes. Damn my stupid allergies! I start sneezing over and over while Toby winces and pulls a crisp white handkerchief from his pocket.