The Beach House

by Jane Green

  Every time she is in her room she gets her stuff out and looks at it. She opens the boxes and sets out her wares in lines, colour-coded, moving them around in different arrangements, but she doesn’t use anything, doesn’t take the tags off the toys, doesn’t scrape off the stickers. She just likes to see what she’s got, although the buzz is short-lived. The first time, when it was just a lipgloss, she felt high all night, happy and giddy with excitement. Every time she opened the drawer and saw the shiny pink tube, she felt good again.

  Already, after only a few days, the excitement isn’t as great, but still more than she usually gets in her boring old life. Maybe she should try somewhere else. Maybe next time she should go to Kool Klothes.

  ‘So what do you want to talk to me about?’ Bee is nervous, running her fingers around the top of her coffee cup in the Sconset Café. ‘I thought you wanted our lawyers to handle everything.’ She can’t keep the bitterness out of her voice, nor the fear.

  Daniel takes a deep breath and tries to speak, but nothing comes out.

  ‘What is it, Daniel?’ Bee looks at him closely. ‘Whatever it is, just tell me.’

  Daniel shakes his head then looks at her. ‘Bee, I haven’t been completely honest with you.’

  Horror floods into her eyes as a thought comes into her head. ‘You were having an affair,’ she whispers, her breath catching in her throat. Not a question, a statement.

  ‘No.’ He shakes his head. ‘I would never do that to you. I swear to you, Bee, I’ve never been unfaithful to you.’

  Her relief is palpable. ‘So what is it? What could be so terrible that you can’t tell me?’

  ‘I don’t know how to tell you.’ His face is white, his breath short and shallow. ‘This is something I’ve known for a long time, but something I didn’t want to face. I thought I could just deny it, but I can’t do that anymore…’

  ‘You’re gay.’ Bee spits the words out, a reflex, she doesn’t think about what she’s saying and expects Daniel to rebuff her, to laugh or tell her she’s being ridiculous, but she also knows, as soon as the words are out, that they are true, and when Daniel looks down, unable to meet her eye, it’s confirmed.

  ‘Oh Jesus!’ Bee shakes her head and laughs bitterly as she looks up at the ceiling. ‘I can’t believe this is happening to me.’

  Daniel doesn’t know what to say. ‘I’m so sorry,’ is the only thing he can manage.

  ‘You’re sorry?’ She attempts a laugh again, still bitter, mirthless. ‘I’m sorry. I’m sorry I didn’t listen to all my friends before we got married. Everyone told me they thought you were gay and I told them they were ridiculous, you were just sensitive, in touch with your feminine side. I can’t believe how stupid I was.’

  ‘You weren’t stupid. I didn’t even know myself.’ Daniel doesn’t know what to say. He had expected many things, but not this bitter derision, not this anger.

  ‘Oh my God!’ Bee says again. ‘No wonder! No wonder you never wanted to sleep with me. I thought it was me, that you didn’t fancy me, that I was somehow deficient, not sexy enough, not thin enough, not curvy enough, whatever… It was me, but not in the way I thought.’

  Daniel shrugs uncomfortably and looks away.

  ‘You swear you never slept with anyone else?’ she says suddenly. ‘You swear on your life?’

  ‘I swear.’

  ‘I mean – God, the health risks. You swear…’ She pauses, then says something she never thought she’d hear herself say. ‘You swear on the children’s lives?’

  ‘I do.’ Daniel is shocked, but at least he is able to answer truthfully. ‘I swear on the children’s lives I have never been unfaithful. Bee, Honestly, this is new to me too. You don’t have anything to worry about.’

  ‘I did have AIDS tests when I was pregnant,’ Bee spits, ‘so at least I know we’re all fine.’

  ‘Jesus, Bee.’ Daniel shakes his head in disbelief. ‘Is that all you have to say? That you’re relieved you haven’t got AIDS?’

  ‘I don’t know, Daniel. What do you want me to say? That I’m thrilled? That now I know it wasn’t me and there is nothing I could have done to save our marriage? Do you want me to welcome you into my life as my new gay best friend? Should we hang out together and gossip, perhaps? Or maybe you want to come into my closet and tell me which clothes I should keep and which I should chuck. Come to think of it, you always were pretty good at that.’

  ‘Jesus, Bee. Do you have to be so goddamned bitchy?’

  ‘You know what, Daniel?’ Tears start to fall as Bee stands up abruptly from the table. ‘Yes. Yes, I fucking do. My husband of nearly six years has just announced that our entire marriage was a sham, that everything I ever believed to be true was a lie – and you don’t think it’s okay to be bitchy? I don’t even know what to say to you.’ Bee shakes her head and holds up her hand to stop Daniel saying anything in return. ‘I can’t, Daniel. ‘I can’t talk to you any more. Not tonight.’

  And with that, she’s gone, and Daniel sits there with his cold coffee for over an hour, unable to think. Unable to move.

  ‘Are you okay?’ Daff’s sitting on the porch, sketching, as Daniel walks down the driveway. ‘You look terrible.’

  ‘I’ve been better,’ he says and sighs.

  ‘What is it?’ Daff puts her notebook down and gestures for Daniel to sit.

  ‘I just told Bee.’

  Daff’s eyes widen. ‘You mean, you just told her?’ Daniel nods. ‘Oh God,’ she says, wanting to put her arms around him to hug him but not quite sure if that would be appropriate, given that this is someone she barely knows. ‘How did she take it?’

  Daniel snorts. ‘Let’s just say not well.’

  ‘I’m sorry.’

  ‘Me too. I suppose I had this romantic vision of her accepting it and appreciating my honesty, and of us being able to walk away from this as friends.’

  ‘That could still happen,’ Daff says gently. ‘It will just take some time for all of it to sink in, I imagine. And she’s bound to be upset in the beginning. This is something you’ve presumably lived with, on some level, for years, but it’s got to be an enormous shock to her.’

  ‘It wasn’t that she was upset that was so difficult. It was her anger.’ Daniel sighs again. ‘I just didn’t expect the force of her anger.’

  ‘It must have been so hard.’

  He nods. ‘Hey, thanks for listening.’ Daniel turns to Daff and this time she just opens her arms and gives him a hug, and he holds her gratefully before letting go.

  ‘Nan? There’s something wrong with the bedroom window in my room.’ Daff coughs discreetly as a wave of smoke from Nan’s cigarette wafts gently up her nose. ‘I can’t open it.’

  ‘Michael will take a look,’ Nan says. ‘He went into town a little while ago, but he said he’d be back before lunch. I’ll send him up as soon as he gets in. Have you any sort of breeze in there? Windermere gets stifling so quickly without the windows open.’

  ‘A little. I opened the bathroom window, but it’s not great. Still, better than air conditioning any day.’

  ‘I quite agree.’ Nan smiles before breaking into a coughing fit.

  Daff shifts uncomfortably. ‘Nan, I know it’s none of my business but do you think the smoking might be making you ill?’

  ‘Why, because of this cough? I’ve had this for years!’ Nan says. ‘The cigarettes have nothing to do with it, and even if they did I’m an old dog and utterly unwilling to learn new tricks.’

  ‘I worry about you,’ Daff says. ‘I just don’t think they’re good for you.’

  ‘Of course they’re not good for you.’ Nan chuckles. ‘Nothing that’s fun ever is, and I’d rather live a happy shorter life than a dull long one.’

  ‘Why do I doubt that anything in your life has ever been dull?’ Daff grins.

  ‘It was all terribly exciting when I was young,’ Nan says, and smiles. ‘Lately it did get a bit dull, although now I feel more alive than I have done in years.’

 
; ‘Well, that’s good to hear,’ Daff says. ‘Daniel’s chicken soup clearly did the trick.’

  ‘Oh look,’ Nan says. ‘Here comes Michael. Michael, darling? Daff’s window’s sticking. Can you go up with her and take a look?’

  It shouldn’t feel intimate, standing in her bedroom with the landlord’s son, but Daff unexpectedly feels slightly awkward. If this were in her home, or in a kitchen, she could offer him a coffee, do something with her hands, but standing here, next to the bed, she is suddenly very aware of her proximity to Michael, and suddenly aware of his masculinity, something she really hasn’t noticed before.

  As he leans up to examine the window jamb, his T-shirt – a faded old Nantucket red T-shirt, fraying at the edges – rises up and exposes his stomach. Daff shouldn’t look, doesn’t know why she is looking, and she is embarrassed to feel a flush rising on her face. She only looked for a second, but enough to see an expanse of flat, tanned stomach, the line of muscle, faint hair disappearing into the waistband of his shorts.

  ‘I see what the problem is.’ Michael cranes his neck and Daff notices the breadth of his shoulders, his strong hands helping him to balance as he looks up. ‘We need some oil and we’ll be fine. It’s just sticking a bit.’ He looks down at Daff and smiles, and she blushes, turning quickly to hide it.

  ‘I’ll go and ask Nan,’ she says, hurrying out through the door, pausing only when she is safely outside the bedroom.

  Good God, she thinks, leaning against the wall. I know this feeling. I remember this feeling from another lifetime, one I haven’t even thought about in years. This feeling, this heart-quickening, surging, faint-making feeling is lust!

  She giggles to herself. She hasn’t thought about a man, any man other than Richard, for years. And Richard was her husband, the feelings he elicited in her were entirely different from the feelings she is feeling right at this very second.

  She had lusted after Richard in the beginning, but after Jess was born desire had all but disappeared, coming back in odd spurts at awkward times.

  Sometimes she would walk upstairs thinking she was looking forward to making love, and then she’d have a hot bath, as she did every night, and she’d climb into her long white flannel nightgown, as she did every night, then slip between the cool sheets with her book, and by the time Richard had finished watching television, or reading the paper, or doing whatever he was doing, and came to bed, reaching for her, the only thing she ever wanted to do was sleep.

  Not that she didn’t enjoy it once they had started, but she was never the instigator, never the one who leaned over and started stroking his thigh, or snuggled up to him, reaching down to rub his stomach, reaching lower, and lower.

  She was someone, she decided at some point during her marriage, who didn’t have a high libido. She had forgotten about the times when she was single, the flings she had, the relationships where the excitement, the thrill, the sheer lust were enough to drive her crazy.

  She had forgotten what it felt like to look at another person and feel a flash of heat, imagine what it would be like to caress their stomach, bury your nose into their neck just to smell them, feel their strong hands around your waist, lifting you up, turning you over.

  She had forgotten.

  Now she remembers.

  Chapter Nineteen

  Bee swings up to the front door in a crunch of gravel, and gets out of the car, her face frantic with worry.

  ‘What is it?’ Nan is on her knees pulling weeds out of the gravel. ‘Are the girls okay?’

  ‘Yes.’ Bee’s voice is breathless. ‘It’s my dad. I need to see Daniel. Is he here?’

  ‘I’ll go and get him.’ Nan gets up quickly and lays a hand on Bee’s arm as she passes her, a quick reassuring squeeze. Whatever is wrong, Nan knows that it will pass. One of the other joys of getting older, she has realized: you become more accepting, of both the good and the bad.

  Daniel had said it hadn’t gone well when he had told Bee the truth, and however much she likes Daniel, and she does, she feels for Bee, knows what it is like to suddenly be a single mother, to have the rug pulled out from under your feet when you think that everything in your life is perfect.

  And there is more than that. There is something about Bee that touches her heart. She doesn’t know what it is, and this is a woman she has barely spoken to, but there is something about her eyes, the sadness, that is so familiar to Nan it is almost painful.

  ‘What is it?’ Daniel comes rushing out, his reluctance forgotten once Nan told him there was something wrong. He hasn’t seen Bee in two days, but was planning on having the girls the next day, and was already dreading seeing her, dreading the force of her anger, her bitterness and fury.

  ‘My dad,’ Bee says, and finally she allows herself to crumple, and Daniel steps forward and takes her in his arms, resting his chin on her head as he has always done, rubbing her back in a gesture at once so familiar and now so alien. He doesn’t know if he is supposed to be doing this, but he doesn’t know what else to do, and this is Bee. His wife of six years, the mother of his children. A woman he loves. A woman he may always love, just not in the way she has always wanted.

  ‘What is it?’ Daniel says when her tears have subsided and she seems to realize where she is, pulling abruptly away and wiping her wet cheeks.

  ‘He’s had a fall. The hospital called this morning. He’s drifting in and out of consciousness.’

  ‘Oh God.’ Daniel’s eyes widen. ‘Is he going to be okay?’

  ‘They don’t know. I have to go, though. The girls are playing with the next-door neighbours at the house and I don’t want them to hear there’s anything wrong with Poppa, but there’s a flight to LaGuardia this afternoon. Can you take the girls?’

  ‘Of course.’ Daniel doesn’t hesitate. ‘Is there anything else I can do?’

  Bee shakes her head. ‘I’ll phone when I get there. I’ll drop the girls back here in about an hour.’

  ‘Fine. And Bee, I’m sorry. I’m sure he’ll be okay.’

  Bee doesn’t say anything. She turns and walks back to her car, and Daniel wants to reach out to her, make it better, but there’s nothing he can do.

  Bee is shaking so hard she has to pull over at the side of the dirt track from Nan’s house. She buries her head in her hands and lets the proper crying start. ‘Why me?’ she screams out to the silence of the empty road. ‘Why is this happening to me?’

  For Bee is not used to not being in control of her life. Bee is, has always been, the golden girl. Good things happen to Bee, not things like this. Not her husband leaving her and announcing he is gay. Not her father falling and there being no one other than Bee who could possibly look after him.

  And her father is not old, for God’s sake. It’s not like he’s a frail old man who is destined to be ill. He may be seventy, but he is the healthiest, fittest seventy-year-old she has ever seen, looks years younger, everyone has always said so.

  As the only child of divorced parents, Bee has always known, has always assumed, that at some point the roles would be reversed and she would have to look after her parents. Not her mother so much – her mother remarried ten years ago and Fred adores her, and even if he were to go first, her mother would be okay. But her father has never found anyone since he divorced Bee’s mother. He has seemed to withdraw more and more the older he has become, and Bee has had to step into a parental role, phoning him every day, making sure he is okay, inviting him to their house for all the holidays, even, on occasion, trying to introduce him to nice women she has met.

  But this she isn’t ready for. Not yet. He isn’t supposed to have falls, or serious illnesses, or anything serious for years. He’s her father, for heaven’s sake. He’s the one who’s supposed to be looking after her, particularly now, when her entire life is falling apart.

  Why is this happening to her now?

  Bee screams and howls, the wind carrying her anguish away, and when the rage has finally dissipated she breathes slowly and deeply, then turns
the engine back on. ‘I can do this,’ she tells herself, driving down the road past all the new construction, the builders looking at her curiously, her eyes clearly red and raw from crying. ‘I can do this,’ she says, and by the time she turns onto the main road, she knows she can.

  Lizzie and Stella are already at home at Windermere. Nan comes out, barely able to contain her excitement at having the two little girls to stay, and takes them both by the hand.

  ‘I’ve got trunks full of wonderful dressing-up clothes,’ she tells them, leaning down so she is on their level. ‘Sparkly gowns and velvet capes.’

  ‘Do you have fairy dresses?’ Lizzie asks.

  ‘Most definitely,’ Nan assures her. ‘And somewhere I should even have genuine fairy tiaras. Did you know that a few little girls who have stayed here have even seen real fairies in the garden?’

  ‘No!’ Lizzie’s eyes widen as she looks at Nan. ‘Real ones? What do they look like?’

  ‘Oh they’re quite beautiful,’ Nan says. ‘But they only come if you build houses for them.’

  ‘Houses? What kind of houses? How do you build a fairy house?’

  ‘You have to use only natural things, like shells from the beach, and twigs, and grass to tie things together. You have to make them a roof so they don’t get wet, and a bed to sleep on, and then they’ll come back. I haven’t had fairies in this garden for a while, but no one has built them a house.’

  ‘Can we build them a house?’ Stella asks.

  ‘Well, I suppose we could,’ Nan says, and the girls leap up and down with joy.

  Michael watches Nan from the doorway with a smile. It is astonishing, really, how she has come to life, surrounded by people. Of course when he was a child here, Windermere was always filled with people, with laughter, with life. But after his father died everything seemed to shut down, and he never would have thought it possible for the house to recapture some of the glamour of days gone by.

  The window frames are still rotting in places, numerous shingles are missing on the roof, there is clearly an extraordinary amount of work needed to restore Windermere to its former glory, but the house feels again like the house he grew up in, like a house that contains both history and happiness.