Summer at 23 the Strand

by Linda Mitchelmore

  Caroline rubbed the sand off her feet and from between her toes. She slipped her sandals back on. She wouldn’t be able to walk all the way back on the beach because, already, she could see the beach being covered with sea in the distance.

  The Boathouse pulled her in. She walked up the concrete steps from the beach and along the promenade towards it. There were tables set up outside with huge umbrellas and four bench seats at each table. Tables for friends to share. Each table had a huge umbrella advertising a beer of some sort – Fosters, Stella Artois, Bass. Just about every table had people crowded around it. All happy, all smiling, all with a glass in front of them or in their hands, and many with plates of food. It was noisy with chatter but there was no raucous behaviour. No drunks. This, Caroline thought, is what responsible drinking is all about, isn’t it? Responsible drinking – could she do that? She looked back to where she’d walked from and the sea seemed to be sprinkled with diamonds. Would she have noticed a thing like that had she still been hungover from the day before?

  ‘A small Pinot Grigio,’ Caroline said to the girl behind the bar. Small wasn’t a word that was usually in her lexicon when it came to alcohol, but she had to start somewhere, didn’t she?

  ‘One small Pinot Grigio coming up,’ the girl said, placing it down in front of Caroline and holding out her hand for the money. ‘Enjoy.’

  Now, this was where she’d normally have hoisted herself onto a bar stool and sat there waiting for someone to come and start up a conversation. Someone who would probably buy her another drink. But there were no bar stools here. And a sign. ‘NO DRINKING AT THE BAR, THANK YOU.’

  It was too lovely a day to sit inside so she took her Pinot Grigio back out to the terrace, holding the glass by its stem so as not to warm up the chilled wine.

  God, but it smelled divine. And chilled perfectly. Just one little sip.

  ‘Well, it’s Monday morning and I have survived one day without alcohol,’ Caroline said into the mirror above the basin in the bijou bathroom. Yesterday, sitting outside The Boathouse, just about the only single drinker there, she’d found she hadn’t been able to take that one little sip after all. What a surprise that had been!

  She tried to smile about it now but the smile wouldn’t come. She knew there was a long, long way to go. She’d read warnings about ‘dry’ alcoholics – those who dared not have an alcoholic drink ever again. She wasn’t sure she wanted that. There were times when clinking glasses, sipping champagne, was just so good for the soul. She wanted to be able to do that – should there be something to clink glasses for, celebrate. And someone to clink glasses with. At Luke’s wedding maybe?

  Today, shopping was on Caroline’s agenda. According to the little local map she’d found in a pile of leaflets about what to do and where to go in the area, there was a supermarket twenty minutes’ walk away. It would be a test. Could she walk around it without gravitating towards the wine aisle? Could she? Would she?

  Caroline put on a pair of white crops (no red wine while wearing those in case it spilled) and a Breton-striped top. She slid her feet into toe-post sandals.

  ‘Ready.’ Why was there a feeling of dread in the pit of her stomach as though she was off to fight a war?

  And then someone knocked on the door. Someone from the letting agency, Caroline decided, checking everything was okay.

  She opened the door.

  ‘Oh.’

  Danny, with whom she’d worked for a short time and had been the only one in the whole office to have any sort of understanding of what she was going through, stood there, a tentative grin on his face.

  ‘I know, I know,’ he said. ‘You told me to fuck off.’

  Caroline felt herself blush. Yes, she had said that. It wasn’t the way she talked when she wasn’t in her cups, or angry, or anxious.

  ‘And you said…’

  ‘I know what I said, Caroline. I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have given like for like. I’ve come to say sorry.’

  ‘I’m just going out. To the shops.’

  She looked at Danny as though seeing him for the first time. He was a good couple of inches over six feet tall. He had candle-straight fair hair with a fringe that flopped on his forehead. He was wearing Levis and a black T-shirt that was a little tight across his chest. He didn’t look that sexy in a suit, Caroline thought, then chided herself for even thinking that. It would be cradle-snatching to start any sort of relationship with Danny and she was pretty certain he didn’t feel that way about her. But why was he here?

  ‘Ah,’ Danny said. ‘A more polite way of saying what you did before when you didn’t want my company?’

  ‘No. I didn’t mean it to sound like that. I am pleased to see you but it’s a bit of a surprise.’

  And she was glad to see him – see anyone actually. Loneliness was beginning to taste like bile in her throat.

  ‘Not least to me,’ Danny said. ‘I’ve been feeling guilty I didn’t come after you that day you got the sack. I ought at least to have given you a hug goodbye or wished you all the best, or something. In front of everyone would have been good. You know, stood up to that sanctimonious lot who think they’re better than everyone else. God only knows what secrets some of them might be hiding.’

  ‘It’s okay,’ Caroline said. ‘I never even imagined you might do that.’

  ‘And I ought not to have encouraged you with my glib comment about putting vodka in your coffee instead of brandy. It was hardly the support I thought I was giving you. Sorry.’

  ‘Don’t be. And it might surprise you to know I’m not putting either in my coffee at the moment. Wake-up call and all that.’

  ‘Good. Um, well, now I’m here and I’ve got that off my chest and you don’t look as though you want to kill me, I could come to the shops with you. Buy you a coffee en route or something. It’s nice here, isn’t it?’ Danny waved an arm in an arc, taking in the whole bay. ‘Never been before.’

  ‘Me neither,’ Caroline said. ‘And thanks. I’ll be glad of the company. I’ll just get my bag, and then I’ll lock up.’

  ‘Great,’ Danny said with a smile. He leaned against the doorpost of 23 The Strand waiting for her to return.

  ‘So,’ Caroline said. ‘Coffee first? Have you come all the way from Bath?’

  ‘Yes, and yes,’ Danny said.

  Caroline had no idea how he’d found out where she was – or why – but she wasn’t going to ask. Not yet.

  ‘There’s a café just along here,’ Caroline said. ‘Just teas and coffees and cakes.’

  ‘Sounds good to me,’ Danny said.

  Danny held open the door for Caroline to go into The Port Light. Such a caring, nurturing gesture and one she hadn’t expected. There was a warm lump of something in her chest… the start of happiness perhaps? Caroline hadn’t felt like that in a long time.

  ‘What’ll it be?’ Danny said. ‘My treat for butting in on your day.’

  ‘Tea, please. No sugar.’

  Danny came back with a pot of tea for two and two slices of lemon drizzle cake.

  ‘I don’t do cake,’ Caroline said.

  ‘I know you didn’t ask for it but I’m buying. You’re way too thin. You can’t fight this thing on an empty stomach.’ He slid a slice of cake across the table to Caroline.

  Way too thin? Who the hell did he think he was saying things like that? Caroline drew in her breath sharply. Well, stuff him and his holier than thou attitude! She had a mind to swipe the tray of teas and the cake off the table and just walk out. Had she been full of alcohol she might have done.

  While Caroline was still struggling to think of a sharp retort, Danny said: ‘Shall I be Mum?’

  And that’s when the tears fell. They rolled down Caroline’s cheeks, large and hot and very wet and not at all healing. And silently. She struggled not to let the hurt she felt deep down inside escape her lips in a noisy and embarrassing way with much nose-blowing and wracking sobs.

  Danny handed her a napkin.

  ‘Was it some
thing I said?’

  ‘I am a mum,’ Caroline said, sniffing through her tears. ‘I’ve got a son.’

  ‘I know. Office gossip gave me that information on, I think, day two.’

  ‘Oh.’ She began to cry harder, unable to hold back wracking sobs now. ‘Sorry. I’m a mess.’

  ‘I know that too. That you’re in a bit of a mess at the moment – not that you are a mess, you understand. You’ve got class and style about you.’

  ‘Stop being nice to me, Danny. You’re making me worse. We ought to go.’

  ‘No. I dare say this place has seen a few personal dramas unfold over its tables before now. Besides, they’re all so wrapped up in their cake and paninis that no one’s noticed.’

  Caroline looked around The Port Light to see if Danny was telling the truth and no one had noticed her having a mini breakdown. No one, it seemed, had. God, but she could a use a drink right now – any drink would do, any colour, and a big one. She didn’t think it would be sensible to tell Danny that though. She was feeling a bit shaky. The emotion of what she’d just told Danny or alcohol-withdrawal symptoms? Who knew?

  ‘What’s your son called?’

  ‘Luke. Yesterday, someone called out “Luke!” on the beach and I thought for a second it was my Luke and my heart almost stopped. I haven’t seen him for five years. He’s denounced me as his mother. I leave messages on his mobile but he never gets back to me. Someone left a message on my phone to tell me Luke’s getting married but when I tried to ring the number back it had blocked me. I don’t think for a minute I’ll be getting an invite to the wedding. I don’t know why I’m telling you all this.’

  ‘Because I’m here, perhaps?’ Danny said. ‘And I’m a son. Is that an okay enough reason?’ He picked up the slice of lemon drizzle, licked off the lemon rind and icing top and then bit a large chunk, and Caroline noticed what lovely teeth he had – large and straight and very white. Danny’s teeth, before he closed his lips over them to eat the cake, made Caroline conscious of the fact her dentist had told her alcohol was eating away all the enamel on her teeth. She ran her tongue under the top set. Still there.

  ‘How did you find me?’ Caroline asked. She hadn’t told a single soul she’d booked 23 The Strand.

  ‘Ah, now there’s a question! The short answer is Mr Brewer asked me to go through your computer history and clear your email address and all your emails the second you walked out the door.’

  ‘I thought he might do something like that. And the long answer?’

  ‘I’ll précis that for the moment. I was worried about you and no one else – and they’d all worked with you a lot longer than I had – seemed to care. I thought you could use a friend. But, guess what? Naughty, naughty…’ Danny wagged a finger at her. ‘You’d been using your bank email address to send private emails. And there it was. The booking and confirmation and everything.’

  ‘I’m not the only one to take advantage of a business email address for private messages. I could name a few famous names who have.’

  ‘And got caught out!’ Danny smiled. ‘That hardly exonerates you though. Does it? But don’t worry. Everyone does it and Mr Brewer is never going to know that you did. So, Sherlock, that’s how I found you’d booked to come here. And like I said, I fancied a day at the seaside. And as I’ve got no one to, you know what, as I told you…’

  ‘Well, I’m not doing that!’ Caroline said.

  ‘I’m not suggesting you do. Saying that is just a euphemism for I’m on my own, you’re on your own, so how about we spend the day together? Not the night. And another reason for me coming here is that my father drank himself to death. If anyone understands how your Luke must feel, then I do.’

  On the walk into town to pick up some groceries Danny told Caroline how his father – a barrister – had struggled with his alcoholism.

  ‘It wasn’t pretty,’ Danny said. ‘He blamed pressure of work, of course. My mother stood by him far longer than she should have done and she just stopped loving him in the end, I know she did, although she never said as much. As for my brother and me, we never stopped loving him because in his sober moments he was a wonderful father, but we did wonder if he ever loved us.’

  ‘Oh, Danny,’ Caroline said. What else could she say? She was doing the selfsame thing to her son, wasn’t she? And her husband had probably stopped loving her long ago. Well, she knew he had.

  ‘And now the violins bit,’ Danny said. ‘It was me who found our father hanged in the detached garage at the end of the drive.’

  Danny’s revelation stopped Caroline in her tracks and Danny took a few steps forward before noticing she wasn’t beside him. He turned back and reached a hand out towards her.

  ‘Come on. You don’t want a blubbering wreck on your hands, do you?’

  Caroline could see the pain, still, behind his eyes, which were glossy with unshed tears.

  ‘You just did. In The Port Light.’ Caroline took the hand he was holding out towards her.

  ‘That’s okay. I’m an expert on tears. Thanks for listening.’

  Danny patted the back of Caroline’s hand and then let it go.

  ‘You too.’

  ‘It’s easier to walk and talk,’ Danny said. ‘Don’t you think? Your turn.’

  ‘I could, but my story’s not half as harrowing as yours, apart from the wrecking of my marriage and relationships.’

  ‘Can you pinpoint what made you dally with alcohol in the first place?’

  Caroline had asked herself that a thousand times and the answer was always the same.

  ‘I chose the wrong man to marry. But I’d made my vows and I did my best to stick to them. We both knew we were on sticky ground and when we had a child together I thought it would unstick a bit, but it didn’t. By which time I was…’

  ‘Trapped,’ Danny finished for her.

  ‘I felt it was a duty that Luke should be able to say “Mummy and Daddy” in the same sentence. So, seeing as you’ve asked, alcohol became my crutch before Luke could talk even. Just a couple of glasses a day. Once he was at school it escalated, but when I failed to collect him at three o’clock a couple of times, the headmaster gave me a right rollicking and threatened me with all sorts of things. So I stopped. For a while. I was back working in the bank by that time, and that helped. But you know how it is – there’s always someone asking if you fancy going to the pub after work.’

  ‘No is such a little word, but very often it can be the hardest to say. Shall we keep walking? Keep talking?’

  ‘Both,’ Caroline said.

  Danny was right. It was easier to say stuff when they were walking and talking. It didn’t seem to matter that people might overhear them.

  ‘I asked my dad a million times why he felt he had to drink himself senseless, what he was trying to escape by doing that, and apart from the pressure-of-work excuse he trotted out on almost a daily basis, he couldn’t say.’

  ‘I think we lose the reason for it as our habit bites deeper. You know, people who drink too much on a daily basis.’

  ‘Alcoholics, you mean,’ Danny said.

  Alcoholic? That’s what I am. Caroline knew that but it still came as a stinging blow to her heart to hear Danny say so.

  ‘Why are you doing this?’ she asked.

  Danny shrugged.

  ‘We’re both jigsaw pieces of the same puzzle, perhaps. I searched the net endlessly for information about alcoholism and poignant quotes and so on. The one that seemed to sum it all up goes something like this – “Alcohol is a very effective dissolving agent. That’s a chemical fact. But it also dissolves families, marriages, friendships, jobs, and bank accounts. But it never dissolves problems.”’

  ‘I wish I’d seen that,’ Caroline said. ‘A long time ago.’

  ‘But you stopped looking?’

  Caroline nodded. How wise and kind Danny was for one so young. And how damaged. But not bitter, not that she could detect anyway.

  ‘So,’ Danny went on. ‘I know what your
Luke must feel like having lived with a drunk for a parent, and I think you and my father had the same demons, whatever form those took.’

  ‘Ouch!’ Caroline said. Danny had just called her a drunk, which seemed even worse than being called an alcoholic, but somehow she didn’t feel insulted. Well, how could she? – it was true. ‘You’re telling it how it is.’

  ‘I’m not judging though,’ Danny said. ‘And dinner is on me. When we’ve bought the wherewithal from the supermarket that is. Nearly there.’ He reached in his back pocket and pulled out a wallet, opened it, and handed Caroline three twenty-pound notes. ‘You cook, I’ll wash up.’

  ‘I don’t cook.’

  ‘Fine. I’ll cook, you can wash-up.’

  So that was what they did. Danny cooked chicken wrapped in pancetta with some lightly steamed greens and a tray of ready-prepped sweet potato fries. Tiramisu for pudding courtesy of Tesco Finest. No wine. Although there was brandy in the tiramisu, but Caroline told Danny how Dr Shaw had recommended she shouldn’t go cold turkey.

  ‘A child could eat this,’ Danny had said, spooning up a portion of tiramisu and holding it out towards Caroline.

  And now, the washing-up done – which they’d done together, Danny washing, Caroline wiping… and how companionable that had been – they were sitting outside on the deck. It was still warm. There were people swimming still, and a few families still on the beach, the children racing about, coming back now and then to eat a sandwich or take a biscuit before running off again.

  ‘It’s not the best coffee, I’m afraid,’ Caroline said.

  ‘Anything that someone else makes for you is the best,’ Danny said, and Caroline had a feeling there was more to Danny’s story than he’d already told her. A failed marriage perhaps? Or was it that he was just so scarred from his heartbreaking memories that he couldn’t make relationships of whatever sort work? Caroline wasn’t going to spoil the day by asking. Who knew? Only Danny.

  What Caroline did know was that it was very easy to talk to him. He’d said he didn’t judge her and she knew he didn’t.

  ‘What’ll you do for a job now Mr Brewer’s given you the old heave-ho?’