A Day at the Beach Hut

by Veronica Henry

  SERVES 4

  400g dried penne

  50g butter

  2 garlic cloves, crushed

  4 large vine tomatoes, finely chopped

  400g frozen raw king prawns

  Sea salt and freshly ground black pepper

  50ml vodka

  Zest and juice of 1 lemon

  100g crème fraîche

  Handful of chopped flat-leaf parsley

  Cook the penne in a large pan of boiling salted water according to the packet instructions, until al dente.

  Meanwhile, in a wide saucepan, melt the butter and add the garlic, taking care not to burn. Tip in the tomatoes and cook for 5 minutes until softened, then add the frozen prawns, season and stir everything together. Keeping over a low heat, add the vodka and lemon zest and juice. Heat through gently until the prawns have all turned pink. Stir in the crème fraîche and warm through.

  Drain the penne and tip into the sauce, stirring until it is evenly distributed and making sure everything has warmed through. Scatter over the parsley.

  Paella

  Spanish paella is a hearty and sociable dish. This version is far from authentic, but it is quick and easy and flavoursome and perfect for bringing to the table with a fanfare!

  SERVES 4

  8 skin-on, bone-in chicken thighs

  1 tsp hot smoked paprika

  Sea salt

  1 lemon, cut into 8 wedges

  Olive oil

  50g butter

  1 onion, thinly sliced

  1 garlic clove, crushed

  50g chorizo, thinly sliced

  1 red pepper, thinly sliced

  400g paella rice

  1 litre hot chicken stock

  2 saffron strands

  1 × 300g packet frozen mixed seafood (mussels, squid, prawns), raw but defrosted

  150g frozen peas

  8 large crevettes, cooked

  Handful of chopped flat-leaf parsley

  Preheat the oven to 220ºC/fan 200ºC/gas mark 7.

  Rub the chicken thighs with the paprika, put into an ovenproof dish and sprinkle with some sea salt. Squeeze 2 lemon wedges over the chicken and tuck the rest among the thighs. Drizzle with some olive oil and put in the oven until cooked through and the juices run clear – about 25 minutes. Keep warm in a low oven.

  While the chicken is cooking, melt the butter in a large flat-bottomed pan. I have a paella pan, but I sometimes use my flat-bottomed wok if I’m not making a huge paella. Add the onion, garlic, chorizo and red pepper, and cook gently until softened, about 10 minutes. Tip in the paella rice and stir until coated, then cook for a couple of minutes while you mix the chicken stock with the saffron. Pour the stock over the rice, bring to the boil and turn down the heat to very low, leaving the rice to absorb the stock. This will take about 15 minutes.

  Towards the end, stir through the seafood and peas and heat through until thoroughly cooked. Top with the chicken thighs, then garnish with the crevettes and the chopped parsley.

  West Country mussels

  We are lucky where we live to have an abundant choice of West Country cider, and I use it a lot in cooking: the apple-y tartness cuts through so perfectly in both sweet and savoury dishes. It’s ideal for mussels – I love lugging a big net home, and the clatter as I tip them into the sink to wash. Less than fifteen minutes later I can bring a huge pot to the table for everyone to share, the empty shells piling up as everyone slurps their way through. And the scent as they are cooking just smells of holiday.

  SERVES 4

  2kg net of mussels

  50g butter

  1 large onion, chopped

  2 garlic cloves, chopped

  125ml cider

  1 tbsp chopped flat-leaf parsley

  2 tbsp crème fraîche

  Sea salt and freshly ground black pepper

  Rinse the mussels in cold water, pull off any beards and make sure they are all closed. Give any that aren’t closed a sharp tap to see if that will make them shut. Discard any that are still open. In a large lidded pan, melt the butter and sweat the onion for 10 minutes until nice and soft, then add the garlic and cook for 1 minute. Add the cider and let it bubble away for a few minutes. Tip in the moules, mix them around then cover and steam for about 5 minutes. Shake the pan from time to time. After 5 minutes take a look to see if the mussels are mostly open. If not, give them a couple more minutes.

  Drain the mussels into a colander, keeping the cidery liquid. Discard any mussels that are still closed. Put a lid on the mussels to keep them warm. Pour the liquid back into the pan, add half the parsley and boil for a couple of minutes to reduce, then add the crème fraîche. Season to taste.

  Serve the mussels in a big bowl and pour over the cider sauce. Sprinkle over the rest of the parsley.

  Family favourites

  Behind the Façade

  As Reg lay back in the stripy deckchair staring at the shore, his arms folded behind his head, he thought it was probably the first time he had relaxed for years. He couldn’t get used to the feeling. It was a sensation he usually only got after several beers, but this wasn’t as fuzzy; he could still notice things. Beer was anaesthetising, while right now he felt fully alert, able to enjoy his surroundings. He wasn’t even going to let what had happened get to him. He was one hundred per cent chilled. One hundred per cent.

  He wasn’t quite sure what he put it down to. It couldn’t just be because Lily wasn’t there. That wasn’t fair. Maybe it was because the kids were that bit older? He didn’t have to hover over them quite so much. They were nine and seven, and although he still had them in his eyeline, he could let them think they were doing their own thing. It was important to give children a sense of independence.

  Or maybe it was the setting? He’d landed with his bum in the honey, he had to admit. His clients were often grateful and gave him thank-you gifts, but this was the most generous gesture of appreciation yet: a whole week by the sea in a beach hut.

  ‘It’s sitting empty until August, when all the family go down,’ his client had told him. ‘My husband won’t let me rent it out, but I know he’d be delighted to let you use it. It would be our pleasure. You’ve done a fantastic job on the bathroom. No stress at all.’

  That’s what happened when you went the extra mile. People were good to you. Reg never left a job until he was completely sure the client was happy, and it paid off. A lot of his mates got the job done as quickly as they could and sent off the invoice, but in Reg’s view that was a false economy. And this was the proof. He’d re-grouted Felicity Banner’s bathroom three times before she was satisfied. Every other plumber he knew would have told her to stick her grout where the sun didn’t shine after the second attempt. His patience had been rewarded.

  The beach hut was like something out of another age. The England not of his youth, but his grandfather’s. Deckchairs. Windbreaks. Rock pools. Sandcastles. Ninety-nine ice creams. Sand between your toes. Simple pleasures. It made up for the awfulness of the situation.

  He didn’t want to think about the row he and Lily had. If he wasn’t careful he would start feeling guilty, but he’d had to stand his ground. The situation had got out of control. He didn’t know what was going to happen next, but, in the meantime, he was going to make things as normal as he could for the children. Well, except for the fact that he’d banned anything electrical, as there was no wi-fi in the beach hut. There had been protests at first, but it was amazing how quickly they’d forgotten to plug themselves in.

  The two of them were totally engrossed with putting the finishing touches to the sandcastle he’d built with them. He’d shown them how to do it properly, something he remembered from his own childhood and somehow not forgotten. It was engrained in him, the science of mixing sand and water in the right proportions, of building solid foundations. And the result was a magnificent sprawling castle that any king would be proud of. Elsie and Zak were smoothing the walls into shape, widening the moat, pressing shells onto the walls and sticking the lit
tle paper flags he’d bought onto the ramparts. He couldn’t remember the last time they’d played together like this.

  He looked at his watch. He should probably start cooking. The kids would be starving – the sea air had given them appetites he could hardly keep up with. He was looking forward to making them dinner. He loved cooking. He’d always fancied himself as a bit of a chef. He loved messing about in the kitchen, doing his Jamie Oliver impersonation which always made them laugh. He’d do something simple they could stick on a plate and take outside to eat with their fingers. Tacos. Or chicken souvlaki. Something spicy. Pukka!

  And thank God there would be no bloody performance before they got stuck into their food for once. The whole thing had taken over their life. From the minute they got out of bed, Lily was there with her phone, directing every single moment, making sure they looked like the perfect family. Nothing on her timeline remotely reflected the reality of their everyday life. Every item of clothing was picked out for them, every hair on their head was either smoothed or ruffled, depending on the mood she was going for. Everything around them was positioned carefully. Even the dog wasn’t allowed to be itself. Everything was themed, and colour co-ordinated, and styled, and curated, into a life that Reg didn’t recognise as their own.

  And Reg was rarely allowed in shot. A big burly plumber with a beard and a bit of a tummy? He didn’t suit the narrative at all. He was a lovely bloke but he wasn’t photogenic. He laughed it off, but of course he was hurt. No one likes being left out. He’d put up with it to start with, because the whole ‘influencer’ thing seemed to have given Lily back the confidence she’d lost and, anyway, it was his fault. When she was made redundant from the recruitment company she’d worked for, he suggested it as a joke.

  ‘Why don’t you set yourself up as an influencer? You’ve got a good eye.’

  And she did. She was always moving things around in the house, changing the colour scheme, styling it up to look fresh, and their friends were always amazed by her ingenuity in making things look a million dollars despite only spending pennies. She had an eye for a bargain and was the queen of the discount stores. And there was nothing she didn’t know about upcycling. He often came home to find a familiar piece of furniture had been sanded down, repainted and given a crackle glaze or, worse, a layer of decoupage.

  Within a month, she had a thousand followers. Within six months, ten thousand. And it grew from there.

  He’d started to object when he could see how it was affecting the kids. They spent their whole life posing, Elsie with one hip jutting out and a bit of a pout, while Zak had a variety of slouchy poses with his hands in his pockets or his back against the wall with one leg up behind him. They had, Reg learned later, had several online tutorials teaching them how to stand. They were mannequins being remotely controlled by their own mother. But they could no longer behave like normal children. Of course, they were all over it when some new toy or gadget or appliance arrived, ripping open the box with gleeful frenzy. But he thought what they really wanted was a stable home and a mum who could pay them attention for more than five minutes. It wasn’t as if he wasn’t working hard enough to give them everything they needed.

  ‘I don’t think it’s good for them,’ Reg told Lily. ‘I think you should stop for a bit. Think about doing something else. I mean, it can’t last forever, can it?’

  ‘But this is so easy!’ Lily protested. ‘I can do it without even leaving the house. Without even getting out of bed! This is how we get all that stuff, Reg. I don’t see you turning your nose up at it. Our life is so much better for it. If we want something, I figure out how we can get it for free, and then it arrives on the doorstep.’

  This was true. She had hundreds of thousands of followers. She was great at telling the kind of visual lies people seemed to want to lap up. Every waking moment was spent thinking about the next set-up. And she was high on her own success. But she was wrong. It wasn’t easy. It was hell. They weren’t allowed to relax for a second, any of them. And behind the façade their life was chaos. Everything in frame was perfect, but out of shot there were piles of props, clothes, boxes, clutter and mess that Lily didn’t seem able to see. She never had time to restore their life so it matched the lies. Reg did his best to reimpose order but he often didn’t get home till gone seven. And he didn’t like to point out that he was the one earning the actual money. Lily’s freebies were the icing on the cake, but they didn’t pay the mortgage.

  And she was never off her phone. She was constantly counting the likes on her latest post, and responding to her followers with inane, gushing comments. It was impossible to have a conversation with her unless she started it, in which case you probably had two minutes before she was distracted again.

  Every day the delivery man staggered up the path with boxes: scented candles that smelled like toilet cleaner; fondue sets; glittery fake eyelashes; electrical appliances that smoothed or curled your hair. Kitchen gadgets that were totally unnecessary – why did you need a popcorn maker when you could make it in a saucepan with a lid on? And the packaging drove Reg nuts. He spent every evening folding down cardboard boxes for the recycling bin.

  Occasionally it would be something worth having. The day they were given a flashy SUV to drive round in for twenty-four hours had been fun. They cruised around fiddling with all the extras and the kids watched movies in the back seat from screens embedded in the head rests. But it just left them with the feeling that their own car was lacking once it was sent back.

  It was hollow. Shallow. But Lily couldn’t see it. She was hell-bent on world domination, trying to grab the biggest prizes. And when she was offered a week in Ibiza at a new resort, Reg put his foot down.

  ‘I want a proper family holiday. I want to relax. I don’t want to be on show. I don’t want to have to stop what I’m doing every five minutes and take a picture. And nor do the kids.’

  ‘Fine,’ said Lily, her eyes flashing with fury. ‘I’ll go on my own, then. It’s me they want. I’m the one with influence.’

  Reggie stared at her. How had she become such a monster? His sweet, funny, kind Lily. But what could he do? He wasn’t a controlling man, who wanted to be in charge of his wife’s career or what she did every day. Far from it. He wanted her to be fulfilled. He wanted her to have ambition. He wanted her to be a success.

  But not at the cost of their family. Not at the cost of Lily herself. He wanted his old Lily back. His comrade. His partner in crime. His friend and his lover. She’d lost her softness and her humour. She’d become hard and brittle and driven.

  He’d taken her to the airport yesterday. Of course he had. He wasn’t about to stop her going on the holiday of her dreams, and he’d got the beach hut lined up for him and the kids. She and all the other influencers were staying at the swishest airport hotel as the flight was so early the next morning. She’d taken a photo as they left the house, of her surrounded by her luggage (gifted) and her cashmere yoga pants and hoodie for travelling (gifted) and her outsize sunglasses (gifted) and posted it: Sooooo excited to be off to Ibiza’s newest Dream Resort #holiday #dreamcometrue #blessed #watchthisspace.

  She didn’t have to give anything a second thought. Reg had it all covered, because their parenting had always been about teamwork. He did his share, straight down the middle, because his own mum and dad had taught him that was what you did. You divided all the graft between you, and if you were better at something than the other person, that was your domain. Lily was better at hedge-cutting than him, because she was meticulous about straight lines, and he was better at making beds, tucking everything as tight as it could be. So they played to their strengths.

  But lately, he felt like the hired help. He didn’t mind housework or childcare or any of it, but she just assumed he’d pick up the slack. And he was knackered. The last thing he wanted was to become a nag, or spend his time moaning, so he held his tongue. Maybe this week was what they needed? A break from it all. And each other. He and the kids could chill out
and relax and do exactly what they wanted without being choreographed. And she could control every moment of her trip to Ibiza, every outfit, every cocktail, every sunset shot.

  He’d talk to her when she got back. See if they could find a way of going back to their old selves, without sacrificing her achievement or cramping her style. Perhaps a ban on photos at the weekends? It was the relentlessness of it he couldn’t cope with. He stood up with a sigh, checked that both of the kids were still in sight, and headed into the hut to think about food.

  He stopped in his tracks. She was there, standing on the doorstep. In the same outfit he’d left her in the day before, but not looking so groomed and sleek. She had no make-up on, and her hair was scraped back into a scrunchie.

  ‘Lily?’ He rushed towards her. ‘What’s happened?’

  ‘I didn’t get on the plane.’ Her face crumpled. ‘I got the train down here.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘They were awful. All the other people who were going. They completely ignored me. They all knew each other, and they just acted as if I wasn’t there. They were so up themselves. I felt like a nobody.’

  He didn’t like to ask her what on earth she’d expected. He could have told her what she would be walking into. But he wouldn’t take pleasure in saying, ‘I told you so.’ She looked so fragile and shaken and vulnerable. She’d been living in a make-believe world, and had gone crashing into the hard truth. He was there for her. They were there for her. Her family.

  He put his arms around her and pulled her to him. She felt tiny in his arms, and he squeezed her tight.

  ‘Mum!’ Elsie and Zak had spotted her and come racing up, their faces alive with excitement to see her. ‘What are you doing here?’

  ‘Hey, you guys. Change of plan.’ She held out her arms and they ran into them. ‘What have you been doing?’

  ‘We made a sandcastle. And we’ve been rock-pooling. Can we take you to the rock pools?’