A Day at the Beach Hut

by Veronica Henry

  Toasted pumpkin seeds

  The night before, mix the oats in the milk and leave in the fridge to soak. In a separate bowl, zest the lime over the mango chunks and squeeze over the juice. Then go to bed safe in the knowledge you will have a lovely breakfast waiting the next day.

  In the morning, divide the oats between two bowls and top with the mango.

  Finish with a drizzle of honey, a dollop of your chosen yoghurt and a sprinkling of toasted pumpkin seeds.

  Pimped porridge

  If it’s chilly or wet, or if you are at the beach in autumn, when the sun is lower in the sky and the air is sharp and fringed with mist, there is nothing more satisfying than a bowl of porridge. Porridge gets a bad rap because it is often cooked without love and care or attention and you end up with a bowl of gloopy wallpaper paste. But a sharp eye and a few thoughtful additions can turn it into a bowl of luxury that is warming and filling. Buy good oats and cook them well and you will get a heavenly creamy carrier for all sorts of flavours that is like being wrapped in a blanket. I always keep a tin of Flahavan’s oats for porridge or flapjacks on my shelf (true to my Irish roots!). Porridge is divine served with cream and a carapace of soft brown sugar, but this is my favourite ‘pimped’ version.

  SERVES 2

  250ml full-fat milk

  250ml water

  100g good-quality porridge oats

  1 tbsp light soft brown sugar

  1 tsp ground ginger

  Zest and juice of 1 orange

  6 Medjool dates, chopped

  Put the milk and water in a saucepan, add the oats and sugar and stir thoroughly, then bring to the boil. Lower the heat and cook for 5 minutes, watching like a hawk to make sure the porridge doesn’t catch on the bottom of the pan. Stir in the ginger, orange zest and juice and half of the chopped dates and cook for a further 5 minutes. Take off the heat and leave to cool a little. Spoon into bowls and top with the remaining dates. The addition of cream, Greek yoghurt or extra sugar is entirely up to you!

  AN EARLY MORNING SWIM

  I’m in the throes of endeavouring to become a year-round swimmer, inspired by a friend whose Instagram account documents her daily swim with friends on the Dorset coast come rain, shine, fog, mist, hail, snow, ice … I yearn for an ounce of her intrepid bravery. As I write this, the sea is starting to cool rapidly after the warmth of summer, and getting in without donning a wetsuit becomes more of an ordeal. But a group of us have sworn to keep going for as long as we can. Maybe we will even make it in on Christmas Day? We’re spurred on by the evidence that cold-water swimming has a positive effect on mental and physical health, and it’s good to have a challenge. Character-building.

  I phone my neighbouring friend early in the morning. Fancy a swim? She laughs nervously before agreeing. We’ve dared each other now. We have a pact. We pack up our togs and our towels and meet to walk halfway down the beach where we are unlikely to be seen by anyone else. This is a private moment! (We do, when we walk our dogs, see a man who swims au naturel each day without any self-consciousness, but we don’t have his bravado.)

  There’s a point at which we can tell each other this is a silly idea and go for a coffee instead. But we don’t. We tentatively put our beach bags down, eyeing the frill of waves on the shore. How cold will it be? We walk to the edge, silent with both excitement and dread but united in our daring.

  We stride into the sea, gasping as the liquid wraps itself around our ankles, splashing ourselves to acclimatise. But strangely, after a moment or two, it’s no longer a shock, and we persevere, walking through the shallows. As we reach knee height we are slowed down by the weight of the water, but we plough on, getting used to the cold. As the water comes up to our thighs, we know we have to brace ourselves. By the time it reaches our waists, we can barely breathe, but there is no turning back. This is the point we have to quite literally take the plunge and dive under. The waves are getting higher and are taunting us, sometimes flicking us with icy droplets that make us squeal. We look at each other … one … two … three …

  I plunge beneath the next wave. The world changes in an instant. It’s blue and slow and dreamlike and silent. I feel a burst of triumph that I had the courage to do this. It’s wonderful.

  We pop up and look at each other, grinning. For the next fifteen minutes, we play. We splash and dive and float, twisting and turning, sinuous in a way that we never are on land. I feel graceful, something I rarely feel on terra firma. My body, not inhibited by gravity, will do almost whatever I ask of it.

  I lie on my back and stare at the clouds. There is just sand and sea and sky and me. I could be the only person in the world. I am weightless, boneless, both my mind and body drifting. I’m hyper-aware but also switched off. I feel safe and secure, cradled by the water. Is this what being mindful means?

  I turn so I can watch the sun rising above the water. The sunrise is one of life’s certainties. I reflect on how lucky I am, how everyone should be able to do this and allow their troubles to float away.

  Afterwards, we peel off our wet things. I wriggle into my towelling hooded robe, my skin tingling, my mind alert, my heart still pounding from the adrenaline. We congratulate each other on our fortitude. We scurry back up the beach, jubilant, safe in the knowledge we have earned our cappuccino and ready to face whatever the day brings us. Nothing will be as challenging as braving that water!

  Picnic food

  I’ve Seen That Face Before

  Anna would never have believed she could be happy again. Three years ago, she was on the verge of a nervous breakdown. Strung out, exhausted, miserable, stressed. Eaten up by the injustice of life, when all she had ever done for her staff was try to be supportive. But there was always one, wasn’t there? Someone who saw the world entirely differently from you and chose to misunderstand your motives, twisting them to their own advantage. And in the end, Anna couldn’t take it any longer. Her resignation would be seen as an admission of guilt, but she knew she was innocent and that was all that really mattered.

  The company had feigned protest when she handed in her letter, but she knew she was tainted. No one liked a tribunal. No one liked accusations of bullying and constructive dismissal. She was guilty of neither, but people still looked at her doubtfully. It rocked her confidence. It took all the joy out of what she did. Before the court case, she had been rising high and was regularly approached by other companies. Afterwards, even though she had won, she knew she would be stuck where she was, with no chance of promotion or being headhunted.

  She was immediately put on gardening leave. She had no idea what she wanted to do, but she knew the corporate life was no longer for her. She wanted a complete change, to forget the whole sorry business. So she’d signed up to do a patisserie course at her local college. She went from being someone who lived on Marks and Spencer ready meals to banging out brioches and rum babas with ease. Being a stickler for detail and precise about timings, she was, it turned out, a natural baker.

  And now, here she was, the owner of The Beach Bun, a seaside bakery in a little row of shops in Everdene. The premises had been a rather gloomy and old-fashioned sweet shop that sold homemade fudge and rock. She had taken on the lease for five years, put in a new kitchen, painted everything white and got a carpenter to put up chunky oak shelves with iron brackets. And from there she sold all her favourite baked goods. There was a zinc counter with half a dozen high stools where people could have a coffee and their pastry of choice.

  It was exhausting. Even more exhausting than her old job. She got up at five every morning and made sure she was in bed by ten at night, otherwise she couldn’t have managed. She took on several other members of staff to help. But she loved it. She wouldn’t swap it for the world.

  Once, she would have been out of the house by seven, dressed in her suit and high heels, laptop ready to be whipped out on the train until she reached work. Now first thing in the morning she did the croissant run along the row of huts on the beach. She had a big wicker
basket filled with pastries: pains au chocolat, pains au raisin, pecan swirls, cinnamon buns, blueberry muffins. Her offerings were one up from anything you could get in the supermarket: her pastry was flakier, her filling plumper, her icing thicker. It was a good way to start the day; people were always happy to see her.

  Then she went back to open the shop. On went the Italian coffee machine, pumping its rich scent out into the street. The shelves behind the counter were piled high with bread and rolls and focaccia. The counter was filled with savoury tarts and spanakopita and Spanish tortilla, sausage rolls and Scotch eggs, and, of course, plump, bulging pasties. Everything you could possibly fancy for a picnic on the beach.

  From nine o’clock there was a steady stream of customers until she closed at three. She had to shut then because she’d never get the next day’s bake done otherwise.

  This year, she was going to be in profit. Her investment and hard work were going to start paying off. And she couldn’t have been happier. The HR manager she had once been seemed like another person. She certainly looked different, with her once-bobbed hair well past her shoulders and bleached by the sun, and her baggy linen dungarees with a Breton shirt underneath. Her myriad work suits had gone off to a charity that provided interview clothes for women who couldn’t afford a smart outfit. She hoped they had brought luck to whoever wore them.

  There had only been one blip in the past three years, and she should have seen that coming. Of course, men like Dino didn’t stick around for women like her. Men like Dino had wanderlust; and another kind of lust too. He was beguiling, infuriating, magnetic.

  And sitting on the third stool along when she got back to the bakery this morning.

  He was sipping an espresso and chewing on an apricot Danish, as if he hadn’t announced out of the blue at the end of last summer that he was off to Santa Fe for the winter. He’d developed his own brand of aqua yoga and was in high demand with celebrity clients. If his body was anything to go by, his regime certainly worked. With his blond mane, sea-green eyes and his bronzed limbs, he was his own best advert. He worked in Everdene every summer for a reclusive actress who had a house overlooking the beach. Three hours a day training and the rest of the time was his. Last summer, he’d spent most of that time with Anna. Until his vanishing act. She hadn’t seen or heard from him since. Yet here he was, as if he’d never been away.

  Anna had every intention of walking straight past him and hiding in the kitchen until he had gone. But he put out his hand and grabbed her wrist. Pulled her to him and lifted her hand to his mouth, kissing the back of her fingers.

  ‘Babe.’

  She wasn’t falling for it. He was an arrogant, thoughtless … well, not quite monster, because he had many redeeming qualities. But he was selfish. A selfish pig.

  A selfish pig who was making her tummy flip over and over and unseemly thoughts enter her mind.

  ‘Dino,’ she said. ‘Fancy seeing you here.’

  ‘I gather the pastries are out of this world.’ His eyes danced with mischief.

  ‘They certainly are.’

  ‘And the owner.’ He had on a necklace with a golden dinosaur charm. A play on his name. A gift from some doting client, no doubt. It nestled at the base of his throat. She remembered pressing her lips to the hollow in his collarbone, feeling the pulse underneath. What did the dinosaur mean? Nothing? Something? Everything? To someone. Who?

  She gave him a tight smile and tried to pull away. ‘Well. It’s lovely to see you, but I’ve got work to do.’

  ‘Anna.’ The way he said her name made her insides feel like melted butter. ‘Come for a swim when you’ve finished, eh?’

  She put up her hand, shaking her head. She felt angry. Didn’t he realise what he’d done to her, leaving her in the lurch like that with only twenty-four hours’ notice? She hadn’t heard a word from him. It was only now that she was starting to feel normal again. Not so bruised and battered.

  ‘It’s how I roll,’ he told her the day before he left. ‘I move around the world. Wherever the work takes me. Someone reaches out and I go.’

  ‘You could have warned me.’ She thought how needy she sounded as she spoke, but dammit – she deserved a bit of respect, didn’t she?

  She wasn’t going to put herself through it again. But Dino was insistent.

  ‘We can go for a paddle. I’ve got a spare board. It’s perfect out there today.’

  He’d taught her to stand-up paddle last summer, and she’d loved it, gliding across the water on the SUP board. She hesitated. What harm could it do? The conditions were indeed perfect. Quite calm beyond the frill of surf at the water’s edge. It was one of her favourite things to do, head out towards the spit of land that went around to the next bay. Sometimes there were even dolphins.

  His eyes were on her and she felt uncertain. It’s just a paddle, she told herself. They certainly couldn’t get up to anything untoward out there.

  ‘I finish at three,’ she said, and walked away, hating herself for giving in. But feeling more alive than she had since he left.

  ‘Dino’s out there,’ her assistant baker Steph said, fixing her with a stern eye as she came into the kitchen. There were racks of cooling tarts and quiches, ready for the lunchtime rush. Steph was mixing up spinach with feta, grating in lemon rind.

  ‘Yep,’ said Anna, pulling out a mixing bowl and placing it on the table, looking up at the whiteboard to see what needed preparing next.

  ‘Tell me you’re not seeing him.’ Steph had seen how much of a wreck Anna was when Dino left.

  ‘We’re just going for a paddle.’

  ‘Anna.’ Steph’s tone was stern. ‘Don’t do it. He nearly destroyed you.’

  ‘He didn’t, though. I’m here, aren’t I?’ Anna poured a cloud of flour into the bowl.

  ‘I thought more of you,’ said Steph, shaking her head. ‘I thought you had more self-respect.’

  She started layering up sheets of filo pastry, basting each one with melted butter.

  Anna sighed. It was the chemistry that was the problem. That inexplicably powerful equation that drew her and Dino together. The formula was impossible to resist. It was the same chemistry that happened when you combined certain ingredients: flour, sugar, fat. The result was irresistible. She tried to explain this to Steph, who rolled her eyes and picked up a plump, sugary Chelsea bun that had just come out of the oven.

  ‘If I told you that if you ate this, it would make you violently ill, would you eat it anyway, just for the pleasure? And then spend the next few days with stomach cramp, being sick into the toilet? Dino is poison!’

  ‘Okay, okay.’ Anna knew her friend spoke the truth. Dino was poison. She would get hurt. Even if he was utterly delicious and she longed to devour him. ‘I hear you, Steph. I won’t go.’

  She was strong enough to go back on her word. It wouldn’t kill him. There would be another Anna somewhere in Everdene. Some girl willing to give Dino her undivided attention and fulfil his needs. He would show her a good time too. She shivered as she remembered how good he was at massage, those long, strong fingers caressing every sinew, making her melt into the mattress. No wonder he was in such high demand.

  But emotional needs – he didn’t look after those so much. What he had done had been brutal and uncaring, and he seemed to have no conscience. How else could he swan back in here and simply pick up where he left off? Someone needed to teach him that he couldn’t treat people like that.

  Maybe it should be her? Maybe she should be the one to teach him a lesson? No one else had stood up to him before. And if it wasn’t pointed out to him that his behaviour was out of order, how was he to know?

  Anna furiously rubbed butter into the flour, but she couldn’t help wondering if Dino was still in the café, or if he had left. She looked at the clock. Another five hours before they were due to meet. She had plenty to get on with in that time to take her mind off it.

  Somehow the hours flew by, and, before Anna knew it, it was a quarter to three.
Dino would be waiting at the slipway that led to the beach, two paddle boards leaning up against the wall. She imagined him in his board shorts, his torso, ripped and gleaming, his strong legs, his broad shoulders. His golden hair, which he’d tie up in a knot on top of his head before they went in.

  She tried to steady her breathing as she tidied up her work area. She would have to come back at six to put on tomorrow’s bakes. Steph looked after the small team that would keep things going between three and six while Anna had some breathing space. She slipped out of the back door while Steph was out of the kitchen. She didn’t want her asking any questions.

  She walked along the parade of shops, weaving her way among the holidaymakers who were on the hunt for fish and chips, buckets and spades, postcards to send home. The sun was starting its slow descent. The sea glimmered turquoise, reggae drifted out of a surf shop and once again Anna felt grateful that she’d landed on her feet by taking the risk and coming here. The flat above the bakery was only tiny, but it had two Velux windows that let in the sun, and at night she could see the stars in the sky smiling down on her. She’d painted everything white, then picked up various bits of rattan furniture, some potted plants and some brightly coloured throws to make it a bright and welcoming space to live in. She hadn’t let anyone share her rather lumpy double bed since Dino. She had been too wary.

  She walked down the slipway to the beach and, just as she’d imagined, there he was, waiting for her.

  ‘I knew you’d come,’ he smiled, and she smiled back. She peeled off her dungarees and shirt, revealing her costume underneath, picked up one of the SUP boards and grabbed a paddle.

  ‘Come on, then,’ she said, and they headed out across the sand. The tide was on its way in, only halfway up the beach, so it took a while to reach the water. They lay their boards flat then pushed their way through several sets of waves before reaching the calm of the back. They clambered onto their boards, standing up then using the paddles to push themselves further out to sea.