‘No bloody way. If your physio says you need to get moving more, then I’m afraid I’m doing everything I can to support Esme in getting you back to full health.’
‘I knew you’d be on her side.’ Tony did a mock huff.
‘Would you like a tea before we start on the hard stuff?’
‘That sounds perfect.’
‘Just don’t be telling Esme I’m supporting your health regime by getting you to sample alcohol. I don’t think that would go down so well.’ Olive poured them both a drink from her thermos, glad to have a reason to sit and pause for a while.
‘Has there been any more evidence of someone squatting in here?’ Tony asked, accepting his cuppa gladly.
‘No. Not that I’ve noticed. I think I scared them off when I nearly discovered them that morning. I did stop coming early in the morning to see if that would encourage them back so they’d be caught, but as far as I can tell they haven’t. Although the only big giveaway was the towels, and if they’ve grown wise to that then I’m not sure how I’d be able to tell.’ Olive’s jumper jingled as she drank her tea. She had one for every day of the week and most of them featured bells. This one was decorating the top of a Christmas tree.
‘It does seem odd. That they managed to get in and out without a trace.’
There was still a part of Olive that doubted it had ever happened. That in fact it was one of those days when she had lost a marble. Several of them for that matter. But she knew that wasn’t the case now. Even though she would never really want the squatter to come back and invade her space, at least it would confirm one hundred per cent she wasn’t going crazy. ‘If they were planning on coming back, all the carry-on at that new wine bar would be enough to put them off. They’re really making some noise with all the refitting they’re doing.’
As if on cue, right at that moment some loud drilling started. Olive was sure it was three or four drills, not one, and that they had to synchronise their watches for the specific time they were allowed to start work.
‘Blimey, that’s not exactly a relaxing beach noise. We’ll both need ear defenders with that racket going on.’
Fortunately one of the drills stopped, making it less like sitting on the outskirts of an action movie.
‘Hopefully they’ll be finished soon, otherwise there’ll be no tourists or beach-hut owners wanting to pop by.’ Even though it was the beginning of November, as long as people huddled up nicely, Westbrook Bay was the perfect place to go for a walk, maybe do some crabbing or look for treasures among the rocks. Even the metal-detector gang were avoiding this part of the sands at the moment with all the noise.
As for the beach-hut community, there were fewer of them about at this time of year. The temporary beach huts, only rentable over the summer, were packed up and hidden away from the elements, ready to come out again next season. There were only twenty or so permanent beach huts that were available to rent all year round and Olive’s was one of them. They were slightly more substantial than the seasonal huts and, with their porch areas, they were roomier as well. The rules meant they weren’t for overnight sleeping. It was a shame really because Olive had always liked the idea of staying late to watch the stars and then not having to worry about traipsing back home because she would be allowed to snooze in her deckchair. But the local council, who owned the beach huts, didn’t allow such things.
‘It’s a good job they’re opening soon. If that noise continued for too long it would put everyone off.’
‘It’s the volume. I’m sure we never caused this much disruption when we fixed up the Gin Shack.’ It was possible that was because everyone in the community had been involved, and so no one noticed because they were all there in among the thick of it. Bottoms Up obviously had professional shopfitters in who were on a schedule to get it done. Olive would be glad when it was finished.
‘What have you got here for me to try then?’ Tony pointed towards the brown concoctions lined up along the table.
They really did look like cough medicine. Olive was going to have to work on the appearance. ‘I’ve been trialling something for my Christmas cocktail. I need you to help me taste them to see which has the best flavour.’ Olive wasn’t going to mention she was concerned the little experiment might not have worked at all, given the colour of each of the mixes.
‘What’s in them?’
‘Have a taste and see if you can work it out.’ Olive wasn’t about to tell Tony straight up as she wanted to know if it was possible to work out the flavour without knowing. She needed to know if the taste of Christmas was coming across or if it just tasted like she’d soaked a load of raisins in gin. ‘Go for the one on the left first.’
Olive picked up the same one. It was the faintest colour of brown and the one with the least amount of mincemeat. She’d not mixed them with anything else yet as she didn’t want the flavour to be affected. At the same time as Tony, she took a sip of the mixture.
‘Yum. That tastes like Christmas pudding or mince pies to me,’ Tony said, before taking a second taste.
Tony was right. There was a pleasant background flavour the mincemeat had added that was like the essence of a good mince pie.
They carried on tasting the other four samples, with their differing amounts of mincemeat to gin, and both agreed the second one gave the best level of flavour, with neither ingredient overstating the other.
Deciding what to mix it with and how to present it was quite another task in itself. Tony thought it would be fine with just a simple tonic, whereas Olive thought adding something like a Cognac would add richness to the flavour, with perhaps some champagne to really bring it to life. She needed to try them out to see what worked best and Tony agreed a regular walk to her hut was certainly worth it if this was what he got to do at the end of the journey. Olive just had to hope he didn’t stagger back or she really would be in trouble.
‘How are you going to compete with Skylar’s Holly and Ivy decorating efforts? You’ll have to do something fancy.’
‘For that, I’ve had an idea.’
‘Have you? What are you going to do?’
‘I figure it’s going to be the Mince Pie cocktail, so I wanted to fashion the glasses somehow so they look like a mince pie.’
‘How you going to do that?’ Tony took another sip of the gin. It was obviously moreish.
‘I want a martini-style glass that’ll be silver on the outside, like it’s a mince pie case. Then I need to find something that’ll look like pastry on top with a straw through it to get to the drink. I’m not sure what to use and it’s a bit Heston Blumenthal, but whatever it takes to win.’
Because even though Olive wasn’t a competitive soul, it turned out she’d really like to win this. After all, she was the Gin Queen, and in the same way the Gin Shack could do with an award, she’d quite like the crown to go with it.
Chapter Sixteen
On the morning of Bottoms Up’s opening, Olive went with Veronica for their usual morning swim.
But neither of them ended up going in the water because of all the activity by the old café. Rather than no one being there, like they were used to, the new bar had a footfall never seen before at that time of day.
‘What are they up to?’ Veronica asked.
They’d set out the deckchairs so they had a perfect view of everything that was going on. It was handy that the café was at the point where the promenade curved towards them, giving them the ideal vantage point. From the looks of it, they’d taken receipt of some early-morning deliveries and were in the midst of ferrying them inside, and there was someone else scrubbing at the frontage where they’d taken all the posters off, leaving marks on the building.
‘Cleaning off those posters by the look of it. That’ll teach ‘em for putting up such scandalously made-up statements. Best bar, my arse!’ If Olive ever came face to face with the owner she’d teach them about manners.
‘Do we know who’s taking over?’ Veronica asked, sipping the hot chocolate they’
d normally enjoy post-skinny-dip.
Olive shook her head. ‘Tony and Richard haven’t heard anything. It’s all a bit of a shock. I think I’m most upset about the fact we can’t get fish and chips there any more.’ It had been a regular treat for as long as Olive could remember to have a fish supper from the beach café. She was really rather upset to see it go and for the previous owners to have neither let them know nor say goodbye.
‘Maybe they’ll serve food as well? We might still be able to have some dinner from there to enjoy here.’
It was a possibility. They obviously had all the kitchen equipment in there unless they’d ripped it all out to make more room for the bar. ‘Look, they’re taking the bum off. Maybe the real sign will tell us if they do.’
At either end, two gents on ladders were climbing up to take the sign off. It reminded Olive of the night when it had originally been put up and they’d caught whoever it was doing it. Perhaps it had been these two guys, now doing the reverse.
Olive also noticed that, leaning against the building, was the new business sign ready to go up. If that stated they were the best bar in town, she might end up vandalising it before it got put in place.
‘Do you think we should go and take a look?’ Veronica suggested and Olive wondered if her friend was also able to read minds, adding to the spy theory.
There was a choice between Olive whizzing past on her Segway for a quick recce or them both wandering over and playing the dithering old ladies who just wanted to know what was going on.
‘Let’s walk over and pretend like we don’t know anything.’ Olive realised that if by any chance they’d seen her playing chase on the Segway, they’d soon know she was involved with the gang that chased them. If, indeed, they were the same people. If they weren’t, she was worrying unnecessarily.
Finishing off their hot chocolates, the two women headed over as inconspicuously as possible.
It was quite a hard process, remembering how to walk naturally when, really, it was for the purpose of snooping. Olive developed a walk not unlike the one she’d adopted when she’d been with Tony and had been attempting to appear like she belonged in the boys’ gang.
Apparently, spying on workmen who might also be vandals required Olive to have a swagger as well. She wasn’t entirely sure why, but once she’d started it was a hard thing to give up.
‘Why are you walking like that?’ Veronica asked, aware of the change in gait pattern.
‘Don’t even know. I just figured they wouldn’t beat us up or anything if we went with being two vulnerable old ladies.’
‘I thought we were two vulnerable old ladies? I didn’t think we needed to play-act the whole business?’
‘You can never be too careful.’ Olive knew it was ridiculous. She didn’t even know why she was trying to convince Veronica of the fact, but it was one of those things… once she was committed, she was committed, whether it was a good idea or not.
Sccccccrrraaaaaappppppppppppee.
Olive stopped her exaggerated limp to see what the noise was. At first she thought it was from the old café, but then the noise happened again and it was right next to her. ‘What are you doing?’
The noise was coming from Veronica. ‘Joining in,’ she said, as she scraped her shoe along the concrete of the promenade.
Olive continued, making sure her friend didn’t leave her behind. ‘Don’t we look stupid, both having a limp?’
‘I did make sure mine was on a different side to yours.’
‘Well, that makes it look completely normal then. We would have looked like total freaks if we’d matching limps.’
‘Stop it. I blame you for this.’ Veronica scraped her way through another step.
‘Well, we can’t stop, can we? They’ve looked in this direction now. We can’t start unlimping like some modern-day miracle has occurred. We’ll just have to carry on until we get there.’
‘And back,’ Veronica pointed out.
So, as if they were trying out to be extras in the cast of Walking Dead, Olive and Veronica continued the painfully slow limp along the prom to see if they could find anything out.
It turned out their very poor acting efforts weren’t really worth it at all. They found out very little by walking past the old café. The new sign held no information other than what they already knew. The two blokes putting it up had nothing to do with the new business – they were just sign writers doing their job. And because Olive had seen so little of the person responsible for the bottom sign, she had no clue as to whether either of these two guys had extended their sign skills to include craft-fiti.
‘We can walk the long way back,’ Olive said as soon as they were out of earshot of the two more-than-likely innocent gentleman.
‘But… oh.’ Veronica didn’t say any more, obviously realising, as Olive had, that the longer route meant they didn’t have to continue walking like idiots.
The wine bar seemed to have lots of activity going on within, but as the boarding was still up, they wouldn’t get to see more of how they’d changed the inside until later.
Once the pair were on the slope, out of view, they both started walking like normal.
‘Why on earth did we think that was a good idea?’ Veronica rubbed her side, having put out her own equilibrium.
‘I’m not sure it ever was a good idea. It did slow us down, though, to take a proper look at things.’
‘Did you see anything then?’
‘Not a sausage. Nothing more than what we already knew. What about you?’
Olive shook her head. For what had turned out to be a particularly tiring walk, they’d not really benefitted in terms of what they’d wanted to find out. At least it had kept them occupied and given them some exercise in the absence of their usual Tuesday-morning skinny-dip.
‘Drat.’ Veronica stopped in her tracks.
‘What’s the matter?’
Veronica nodded her head towards the road. ‘I guess we limp to the next bench until they’re gone.’
The two sign guys were walking along the path towards their van, so the mysterious limps were going to have to reappear.
Falling into the same walking pattern as before, Olive and Veronica slowly made their way to the next bench and plonked down with some relief.
‘They’ll be asking if we need wheelchairs to get us back if we’re not careful.’
‘Hopefully they won’t notice us.’
‘Yeah, cause there’s loads of other people about to distract them from the two old ladies with walking issues.’
Olive and Veronica cast their eyes to the view of the sea as the two blokes passed them again with more signs.
Once they’d gone, Olive peered back at their van, trying to work out whether the coast was finally clear and they could head back to Oakley West for breakfast without being seen by anyone who might think they had a limp. The van belonging to the sign guys was very obvious, what with it being covered with… signs. Its door was closed and there was nothing outside, so there was every hope they were done with going up and down, giving them a chance to escape.
‘Let’s go,’ Olive said, not wanting to hang about any longer.
Veronica started off, about to head along the cliff path that ran along the top of the promenade.
‘This way.’ Olive wanted to head along the path to the road. She had no real reason to other than there was a chance they might be able to see them from the café if they took that path.
The sign guys hadn’t been particularly careful with their parking. They’d obviously tried to make things as easy as possible by giving themselves as short a carrying distance as possible. In doing so, they’d stopped pedestrians from passing along the path as they usually would.
It was a good job their limps weren’t real, because if they had been, they might have struggled with having to walk along the grass and squeeze their way between two vans. There must have been lots of equipment to unload, ready for Bottoms Up’s opening, if there were this many vans.
It was as she was shuffling between the two vans so as to be able to cross the road that Olive noticed. The second van, which she’d barely paid attention to before, was a white transit. Paying more attention, she saw the license plate started with a C.
Of course, there were probably hundreds of vans that would meet that description. But was it such a long shot to think this was the one from the other night, when it was sitting outside the place the bum had been attached, and when the business was opening tonight.
Olive knew Richard would tell her not to jump to conclusions, but she was pretty certain if they found out who drove that van, they’d know who had carried out the craft-fiti attacks. And if that person was linked to Bottoms Up, they’d know for certain whether it was the kind of business that was prepared to play dirty.
Chapter Seventeen
Olive was hoping (and she had good reason to hope) that tonight was the night Richard would come clean over his romantic life.
She didn’t want him to tell her all the intimate details, obviously, but it would be wonderful if his developing relationship with Skylar was solid enough for him to be prepared to share it with her.
The reason Olive was so hopeful was because Richard had invited her to meet him at the Gin Shack before going down to the opening. He was going to make them a bite to eat to last the evening and Olive was giving up Oakley West’s brilliant catering for the occasion.
It had been decided they would keep the Gin Shack closed that evening. Tony was happy for Richard to do that, and they’d both agreed it made good business sense. Not in terms of money, but hopefully anyone planning a Tuesday visit would pop in another evening that week so they didn’t lose custom as a result. It made more sense in that, by allowing the bar to have its opening night without competition, it meant they wouldn’t risk opening to a quiet night and everyone would get chance to check out the new place. There was still plenty of scope for their customers to be patrons of both places. The Gin Shack provided a weekly menu so it would be perfectly doable to enjoy an evening there and another at the wine bar and nobody would lose out.
Christmas at the Gin Shack Page 11