Instead of giving her an earful, Richard sat in her reading chair, the one overlooking the bay. It really was the most gorgeous view and she’d enjoyed it more over the past day than she had since moving in. She’d been far too busy on gin shack business to appreciate that her bedroom had the kind of view many spent a lifetime dreaming of. It had been nice having some time to herself, even if it wasn’t at the beach hut where the view was even better. It had given her time to reflect on what had happened.
She waited for Richard to start. For him to give a reasoned argument as to why she shouldn’t be doing what she was doing. But for a long time… a bloody long time… he remained silent.
‘You haven’t come all this way just to sit here.’ It was Olive who broke the silence. It was making her uncomfortable, she was so unused to her son not having something to say.
There was another pause before Richard finally spoke. ‘You know you’ve been very lucky, don’t you?’
The question felt like a trap. That somehow, no matter how she answered, she would end up saying the wrong thing. ‘What do you mean?’
‘They should have arrested you. What you were doing was illegal. You’re lucky they didn’t stick you in a cell.’
This was more like the Richard she was used to. It was odd to find comfort in being chastised by her son, but it was easier to cope with than the silent treatment.
‘Well, they didn’t. They were very reasonable because they realised it was a genuine mistake. How was I to know it wasn’t allowed?’
Richard shook his head, looking out of the window, not wanting to meet her eye. ‘You were selling alcohol from your beach hut. How could you not realise that kind of activity would require a licence?’
‘We weren’t setting up a bar. It was just going to be a hobby club and the money was to cover the expenses. It was only the same set-up as if it was the WI or a knitting group.’
‘Only it wasn’t wool you were covering the expenses for, was it? It was alcohol.’
‘Yes, but we weren’t selling alcohol, not like how they misconstrued the club. It was a mistake.’ Olive knew she should get up out of bed. In refusing to comply with Matron’s demands, she’d grown lazy. Now she wanted to be able to grab her son’s attention, but he was too busy looking out of the bay window.
‘It’s time for you to give up the lease on the beach hut. I’ve spoken to Matron and Oakley West are happy to take it on so you’ll still be able to go there when the activities coordinator arranges trips there. But no more of this mucking about, leaving the retirement quarters without telling anyone. No more leading your friends astray and getting into trouble with the law.’
It was Olive’s turn to be silent. Olive’s turn to be unable to look at her own flesh and blood. Instead she stared at the old black and white photo of the four of them. What had happened to that happy boy? The child she’d longed for as she’d struggled to get pregnant the second time round. In the photo, Jane was twelve. The girl who never reached her teens. They’d wanted another as soon as she was born, but another pregnancy wasn’t forthcoming. They’d not had the same technology back then they did these days. The best advice had been to keep trying and, just at the point they’d given up hope it would ever happen, Richard came along. Chubby and bold and sure of himself right from the start. The five-year age gap always made Jane the proud older sister always looking out for Richard. She knew the sense of loss in Richard’s life had been enormous. His male role model and his protective sister gone in one day. But however hard it had been, it should never have led to a mother-son relationship as testing as this. The act of removing her beach-hut privileges was no longer about him caring about his mother. It was being served up as some kind of punishment in the absence of the police providing one.
‘You can’t.’ Olive said it so quietly she expected Richard not to hear. All forms of protest had been kicked out of her and she was winded, not able to recover.
‘You’ll still be able to see your friends. I’ve spoken with Matron and asked that she lets them know when there’ll be supervised trips there. It’s not like you won’t be able to see them still.’ With his back turned to her, Richard’s words were cold and she realised now why he wasn’t looking her in the eye. Guilt.
‘You can’t.’ Olive managed to say it louder this time. She wanted to move. She wanted to do whatever she could to safeguard her independence, but she couldn’t recover that quickly from what her son was saying.
Richard moved for the first time. ‘The locks have already been changed, Mother. So, there’ll be no more sit-down protests or late-night jaunts to get drunk with your friends.’
Olive turned away and curled into a ball. What was the point? If her son was insistent on shredding all forms of happiness remaining in her life, why would she want to continue? This time it was her turn to allow the stretch of silence to fold out before them.
‘Say something then, Mother.’
But Olive didn’t know what to say to her son. His actions were unnecessarily cruel. ‘There isn’t anything to say. I’m clearly incapable of doing anything without supervision. So I won’t do anything from now on. Just how you want it to be.’ Olive tucked herself more comfortably in bed.
Richard sighed. ‘You’re here at Oakley West to enjoy the social activities they have planned for you. They’re on offer for your benefit. So, why you felt the need to set up your own extra-curricular club is beyond me. And to go and get yourself nearly arrested is just reckless. So go ahead and have a sulk, but ultimately you’ll realise this is for your benefit.’
Not for the first time, Olive wondered if she was a teenager getting a ticking off from her dad. And however much she didn’t want to act like a teenager, there was something about being told she was having a sulk that made her want to sulk even more. She hugged her duvet to her a little closer.
‘I only worry because I love you.’ Richard stood up, giving Olive his full attention for the first time since his arrival. ‘This will give you a chance to enjoy Oakley West to the fullest. And don’t go getting any more crazy ideas. No lawyer wants to end up representing his mother.’
When Richard left, there was so much more Olive wanted to explain. She wanted to tell him about The Gin Shack Club and that what had started off as three friends planning to share in some bespoke gins had turned into far more people attending than she’d ever imagined. She wanted to explain how it wasn’t just an excuse to get drunk, as he might have thought, but a chance to explore some of the speciality gins she loved so. It was sad that her son was so caught up in how irresponsible she was, he wasn’t able to hear about the joy it brought her. And at times, joy was such a rare thing, it paid to embrace it, especially when others were able to share it with you.
But there would be no more meetings of The Gin Shack Club. Even if they wanted to somehow try and meet, having ownership of the beach hut taken away from her was so hurtful, she didn’t have the strength to continue.
The joy had officially been sucked from the room and, if she was being honest, a little bit had gone from her heart as well.
Chapter Sixteen
Randy and Veronica were the first of Olive’s visitors. They came in that afternoon when Olive didn’t turn up for lunch, smuggling bread rolls and lumps of cheese with them.
‘You’ve got to come down for dinner, Olive. You can’t stay up here for ever,’ Veronica said.
‘I can’t.’ It was all she was able to say, still processing the locks being changed at her beach hut.
‘Why not? What’s up?’ Randy asked.
When Olive explained what Richard had done, her two friends were appalled.
‘Surely he can’t do that? It’s your beach hut. He can’t just take it off you.’ Veronica tore open a roll, taking any annoyance out on the food.
Olive wasn’t about to get her appetite back any time soon. ‘Unfortunately he can. When he renewed the annual tenancy for me, he switched it to his name.’ Olive hadn’t given
the action any thought at the time. It had been something to do with her changing addresses in the year. But now he’d used it against her.
‘We can’t let him do that. Can’t we chain ourselves to the hut or something? Make him see how important it is for you.’ Veronica’s sandwich-making skills were really lacking, seeing as she wasn’t concentrating on the task in hand. She passed Olive the torn bread roll with a hunk of cheese wedged inside.
There was a lump forming in Olive’s throat almost as big as the piece of cheddar. She didn’t want to cry in front of her friends. The relationship with her son was so hard to explain. ‘I don’t have the energy to argue. Not any more.’
‘We’ll keep The Gin Shack Club going. We can sort something out even if it means holding secret meetings at Oakley West. This isn’t the end yet,’ Randy said, finding the fighting spirit Olive had misplaced.
‘It’s no use trying to do anything here. Matron will be watching us like hawks.’ Veronica sounded as defeated as Olive.
‘No. It wouldn’t be the same doing it here.’ Olive’s G&T ritual was so much more than just a nightcap. It was a vessel raised to days gone by. To a hobby she’d shared with her husband. She’d never told Richard about her passion. It was a private treat because she’d always been certain he wouldn’t approve, especially with his choice to be a teetotaller. And it must have come as a shock to learn of his mother’s hobby. Why else would he have reacted in quite such a harsh way?
‘It’s not right that your son handed over the keys to your beach hut to Oakley West. If he gets unlucky, next time I see him I’m going to give him a piece of my mind.’
‘If you could,’ Olive said. Richard might be her son, but this had stretched the limits of her maternal instinct to protect. If Randy wanted to have a pop at her son, she wasn’t going to stand in the way.
‘You have to eat something, though. Even if you don’t want to get out of bed, you still have to eat.’ Veronica gestured towards the unappetising roll in Olive’s hand.
‘They should have brought your lunch up if you’re not well enough to go down to the dining hall.’ Randy helped himself to a lump of cheese that hadn’t made it into the rudimentary sandwich.
‘That’ll be Matron making a point and trying to get me to come out.’
‘Well, she can’t carry that on for long. It’s not exactly good care if you let a personality clash force one of your residents into a hunger strike. Eat up, then,’ Veronica said, pointing at the untouched offerings.
‘I’m not hungry.’
‘Are you really planning on staying up here and not eating?’ Randy asked.
Olive hadn’t formulated any plan. All she knew was, at this moment, she was too upset to eat. ‘I just can’t face food at the moment. I’m sure I’ll get hungry enough to eat at some point soon. Thank you for thinking of me and bringing something up.’ It was good to know at least someone was concerned for her welfare. Moving to Oakley West was supposed to have been for the benefit of her wellbeing, but it wasn’t exactly working out like that.
After that day, at least the Oakley West staff started to deliver meals to her room. They weren’t going to completely neglect one of their residents, possibly for fear she might have gone to the press and claimed she would have been better treated in prison.
But still Olive’s appetite did not return. Instead, it waned. She picked rather than ate, much to Veronica’s concern.
It wasn’t long before all of Olive’s beach-hut neighbours had visited. First it was Skylar with Lucas in tow, but as there was little in terms of entertainment for a young boy, they didn’t stay very long. Skylar left with promises of visiting again soon and bringing some homemade cake with her in the vague hope it might kick-start Olive’s appetite.
The rest of the beach-hut residents followed in a procession of morning and afternoon slots, almost as if their visits had been planned. Olive was pretty certain it was Randy and Veronica behind the carefully organised timing of the visits. And she was really thankful for it and for the company, but somehow her enthusiasm to leave her room or eat properly didn’t return.
Other than Randy and Veronica, it was Tony who was her most regular visitor. As he’d predicted, he’d been made redundant from his job after the local IT firm got bought out by a much larger American company.
‘Anything going today?’ Olive asked.
Tony was perusing the job section of the local paper and, between them, they carried out what had become a regular routine. He would go through the job ads seeing if there was anything suitable, then he would update Olive on the local news before handing the paper over to her so she could tackle the crossword with his assistance. It made the mornings Tony popped by pass quickly and he was actually very good company. Easy to talk to. Easy to be silent with.
The crossword seemed easy today. Some days she would struggle, others she would breeze through the clues certain the newspaper was getting lazy and using the same grids. She was going to have to start saving them up to double-check so she could launch her scandalous complaint. Then there was the possibility she had better things to do, though these days she encouraged anything that distracted her from thinking about the loss of her beach hut. Maybe becoming a bitter, twisted old woman who trolled people just for kicks was the way forward. Or perhaps not. She could think of a million other things she’d rather do, and at the same time, none of them was enough to make her want to leave the comfort of her bedroom.
‘I’ll see you again on Thursday then, Olive.’
‘Thursday it is.’ Unlike most of Olive’s other visitors, Tony wasn’t busy trying to encourage her to get out of bed or fussing over how much she was eating. He was very stalwart in that he came to keep her company and that was it. No hidden agenda.
‘Oh, I almost forgot. I brought this in for you. It’s one of the specialist gins Randy discovered… all the way from Iceland. I thought you’d like to be the first to try it.’ Tony placed the glorious silver and lilac bottle on the sideboard near the door. ‘Let me know what you think when I next see you.’
When the room was empty and it was just Olive and the gin, she smirked and let out a little laugh. Maybe Tony did have a hidden agenda and had just been more careful in how he went about it. Normally, Olive would return to the newspaper to go through all the articles, seeing as Tony only ever presented her with the highlights. But today, the bottle was calling her. She tried to ignore it, to resist the signal it was sending out to her. She wasn’t deliberately refusing to eat, she’d just not felt hungry since Richard’s visit, the upset still stopping her from wanting food. But perhaps, as Tony had obviously expertly worked out, it wasn’t food that was the answer.
As she had only been venturing out of bed to use her en-suite bathroom and read her book in the chair over the past week, going over to see what flavour gin it was, was the first time she’d felt motivated enough to move for a reason. She didn’t recognise the bottle so, unless there had been some rebranding, it seemed Randy had been successful in his search for an exclusive bespoke gin. It was such a shame The Gin Shack Club would never get to try it. Still, that shouldn’t stop her from having a taste, should it?
The bottle had a glorious snowflake design, but the writing wasn’t in English so it didn’t give any clue what kind of gin it was. Holding it up to the light, she could see the liquid was clear. It looked so inviting, but she wasn’t about to start drinking before midday and switch to an entirely liquid diet. That would never do. She would save it as a treat for later in the evening. As a rule, she didn’t drink at home. It had been her beach-hut indulgence. But as she no longer had a home or a beach hut, a nightcap in her room was the only option.
And the fact she was planning to have a drink meant that perhaps she should try to eat her dinner for a change.
Almost as if she’d sensed Olive’s change of heart, it was Matron who delivered her food that evening.
‘It’s been over a week, Olive. You really do need to st
art joining us in the dining hall again. It’s not good for your health staying here in one room by yourself.’ Matron flitted around the room, straightening things up like she was some kind of Florence Nightingale.
‘I haven’t been alone. My friends have been visiting.’ In fact, a week away from the world had been quite refreshing. Sometimes it was acceptable to want to step off the planet.
‘We can’t have you wasting away in here for ever. I’m going to have to get your son to visit again if you’re not getting involved again by the end of the week.’
Trust Matron to play the trump card. She’d clearly caught on to the fact that Olive’s being here was supposed to be for her son’s convenience, so anything that detracted from that would cause trouble between them. ‘My appetite just hasn’t been right. I think it’s returning, though. I’m sure I’ll be up to coming down in the next couple of days.’ She offered a sweet, entirely fake smile to Matron. She didn’t like having her in the room. It was like an inspection, and it was making her uncomfortable. Hopefully she would disappear soon.
Picking up the dinner tray from her side table, Olive hoped that some visible effort to eat would help get rid of Matron. The steak pie with mash and veg did actually look appetising. She might manage to do more than play with her food like a toddler.
‘Let’s hope you’re right. We don’t want to have to worry him unnecessarily.’
Olive tried not to read too much into Matron’s words, instead concentrating on cutting into the pastry. Surely, if there was any grub in the world that could restore a person’s appetite, a good pie was it.
‘What’s this?’ Matron asked.
Olive’s returning interest in food had her salivating over the first forkful, but Matron’s nosiness stopped her from tasting the pastry.
‘It’s a gift.’ Olive saw Matron eyeing up the snowflake-covered bottle.
‘What’s in it?’ Matron picked up the bottle to give it a closer inspection.
The Gin Shack on the Beach Page 12