Secret Evenings in Pretty Beach

by Polly Babbington

  Momentum had started to gather so quickly with the pop-up restaurant that Dimitri had swiftly decided to up the price again, taking Sallie’s advice that it would make the events even more exclusive and sought-after. Sallie hadn't been wrong, and as they’d held their breath and thought that it might have been an incorrect business move, the opposite happened and Lottie and Dimitri found themselves with months of booked out events and their plates very full with the planning and organisation.

  Word-of-mouth marketing had been key to their success, together with the beauty of social media and the gallery of beautiful images on the website which showed the amazing venues for the secret events, the fabulous food and people having fun. The people of Pretty Beach had rallied together and got behind them with Holly continually advertising the events in the bakery, Suntanned Pete marketing them to his clientele at Seashells Cottages, and the women of the WI spreading the word.

  The only problem that they hadn’t seen was that people wanted more, and that they needed to source more locations, come up with new ideas, brainstorm different styling and themes, and provide more opportunities for more people to try out their Secret Evenings in Pretty Beach.

  It had been unexpected, busy, fun, and wonderful all at the same time and Lottie and Dimitri had held on for the tumultuous ride without taking a breath.

  Lottie was also on another eventful ride. Her relationship with Connor had gone full steam ahead and they’d gone from the kiss in the garden to very much being an item. One minute she’d been alone and lonely, the next on the arm of Connor a lot of the time. Lottie spent nights staying over at his house, Connor had online-met her boys and although nothing had been said since the ‘partner’ comment on the beach, they were very much together and she was loving every second of it more and more.

  Lottie had gone from facing being on her own to revelling in every single aspect of being with Connor. She met him after work at his workshop, they went for long walks by the sea, he’d bought a bike and they rode around Pretty Beach together and he’d taken her on the train to meet his mum and dad. It had gone like lightning and Lottie had dived in head first, without so much as a look back, and luxuriated in being dipped in gold at every opportunity she could.

  Chapter 58

  A month or so later, Lottie walked out of the Gardening Club meeting in Pretty Beach Village Hall with a bag full of cuttings, a packet of seeds for a rare black sunflower, and a container of Syd Sprinton’s highly-acclaimed Locals Only worm tea from his worm farm.

  She pushed up the sleeves of her cardigan, got her sunglasses out of her bag, and took out her phone to call Connor. No answer. He’d been away quite a bit for the last few weeks with a set of new recruits who, Lottie had ascertained, were highly elite and not much talked about, and although she was meeting him in the Smugglers that night, she had wanted to run a date past him for an evening they were supposed to be going to at the old Orpheum cinema in Pearl Beach.

  Walking all the way along Seapocket Lane and then strolling along the laneway, she read the signs on the noticeboard outside the curry house and popped into the Spar for some biscuits.

  Even though Connor hadn’t answered his phone, she thought that she would pop in on her way home. Stop for a cup of tea if he had time. Share a Digestive with him. Or maybe something else.

  She laughed to herself. Share something else with him? Who even was she? She had not held back with Connor at all. They’d had fabulous sex in all sorts of places, he had been charming and witty and kind, she’d fancied the pants off him every time she had set eyes on him, they’d stayed up long into the night talking about all sorts, from politics and the state of the country to how she really wanted to visit the Great Barrier Reef.

  But most of all, Lottie Cloudberry had opened her heart and as she had done so she had realised just what she had been missing for the long, lonely years since Charlie had passed away. Being with someone, chatting, all the beautiful endorphins of connection, holding hands, feeling like she belonged with him... all of those things had added up to her walking around in a haze of happiness because Lottie had one hundred per cent fallen in love and it had warmed the cockles of her soul.

  Lottie reached the end of the laneway and started towards the Boat House. She strolled past the kayak hire shop watching the stream go past her on the left and then smiled in pleasure as she saw one of Ben’s seaplanes come into view overhead and land out on the sea. What a place to live. What a place to live and to have found love.

  Just as Lottie was passing the seaplane yard she spotted Lochie and Ollie the lads who worked for Ben washing down Ben’s truck on the driveway. Lottie waved from the road and Lochie who was a friend of one of her boys sauntered over to say hello.

  ‘Hey! How are you?’

  ‘I’m good, Lochie. Really, really good. How’s your mum? Is she out of hospital now?’

  ‘Yep. She’s much better, thanks. Oh, and thanks for the lasagne delivery - helped us out of a spot that night.’

  ‘No worries at all. You’re so welcome.’

  ‘Where are you off to, then?’ Lochie asked.

  ‘Just popping in to see Connor. I tried his phone but there was no answer so I thought I would stop by on my way home.’

  ‘Right. I saw them all go in this morning. Very hush-hush by the looks of this lot. Only four of them too.’

  ‘Yeah, Connor said it’s a very elite group this week.’

  ‘I wouldn’t know, but I see them coming and going as I go past on my bike. See you around, then,’ Lochie said, gesturing that he needed to get back to washing Ben’s car.

  ‘Will do. Give my love to your mum. Let me know if you want any other deliveries,’ Lottie replied and held her hand up to say goodbye as she made her way to the end of the road to Connor’s workshop.

  Lottie looked up at the sky. It was a shame she was spending the whole afternoon prepping for an event. It was a perfect day for a walk up to the lighthouse or a long sit on the beach with a book.

  She jumped across the stream at the bottom and walked across the gravel driveway of Pretty Beach Diving School, acknowledging that Connor’s car was there and therefore assumed that he was inside.

  It was very quiet and there was not much to see from the driveway. The back of the old, but immaculate, building of the diving school had nothing other than one non-descript door that she’d never seen open - they’d always gone around the back.

  She walked to the right side of the building and looked into the carport. Strange that there weren’t any cars. Maybe the training had finished earlier than Connor had thought it would. She walked past the carport and turned left looking out to the sparkling sea on the right as she turned the corner of the building.

  Just before she went to open the door she took out her phone to see if Connor had called her back. There were no signs of life at all at the place and all the windows at the back except for one down the end were tightly closed. She put the code in her phone. Nothing from anyone at all.

  As Lottie was putting her phone in her bag, she suddenly heard a voice. A female voice, and something about the tone of it made Lottie stop dead in her tracks. She couldn’t make out where the voice was coming from or what it was saying but it didn’t sound right to her.

  Lottie peered into the window to her left but the blackout blind was tightly pulled across the window. She walked further down the path, past the door to the kitchen, and made her way to the open window at the end which she knew looked into the classroom with all the desks and computers.

  As she approached the window she moved more cautiously, mesmerised by the almost crooning female voice. As she got closer, she could make out what the voice was saying.

  ‘You’re an amazing instructor. You were out of this world last night,’ the voice continued.

  Lottie went cold feeling the blood draining out of her face. As far as she knew, which admittedly wasn't a lot, Connor was the only instructor at Pretty Beach Diving and he’d told her that he was on an online confe
rence the night before.

  Lottie edged closer to the window straining her ears to listen as the voice went on.

  ‘Your performance is outstanding, Connor. You really have to be one of the best I’ve had. Perhaps the best.’

  Lottie grimaced. This was not the voice of a student telling a teacher he was good. This was the voice of someone who had very clearly had a very nice time with Connor and his outstanding performance.

  Lottie held onto the window ledge and peeped around the architrave of the window where she could see the back of Connor dressed in his Pretty Beach Diving School uniform holding something in his hands and shaking his head, and just in front of him stood a woman of about thirty with long curled blonde hair twisted over her left shoulder, a tight pair of combat trousers, no top, and as she stood there she was running her hands over her very pert breasts.

  Chapter 59

  Lottie stifled a gasp and quickly backed away from the window. She’d seen enough. So, the elite diving school came with more benefits than everyone had thought. Maybe that was why it was all clouded in such mystery? What else went on there that Lottie didn’t know about?

  As Lottie slowly and quietly walked back along the path, her heart pounded with shock, dismay and disbelief all rolled into one hideous sickening package in the back of her throat. She followed the path back the way she came, went past the carport, hurried over the driveway, and leapt over the stream.

  She made it to the road when the bile started to rise in her mouth. Walking across the grass verge, she held onto the trunk of a tree as her head flailed around, and she thought she was going to faint.

  But Lottie didn’t faint; instead, she breathed in and out and then knelt down and vomited over and over again behind the tree until there was nothing left to come out.

  After a couple of minutes of calming herself down, Lottie got up, looked around, closed her eyes, and told herself to remain in control.

  There will be a reason for this. Don’t take it at face value. A little voice repeated over and over again as her brain wrestled with what she had just witnessed.

  What on earth could be the reason though that a young woman could be standing in the middle of the classroom in broad daylight with her top off telling Connor that he was amazing? There wasn’t a single thing Lottie could think of.

  Lottie put her head down, made her way over to the Old Town and as the heavens opened as she got to Strawberry Hill Lane, she sprinted the rest of the way up the hill, pushed open the gate, and burst into the front door.

  She shut the door behind her, took off her cardigan, put it on the dresser in the hall and walked into the kitchen with the basket holding the seeds, cuttings, and worm tea.

  Lottie sat down at the kitchen table, put her head into her hands, and rubbed her eyebrows and temples over and over again.

  What do I do now? Where’s the guidebook on what to do when you accidentally see your new boyfriend/partner/lover standing in front of another woman with her top off? When he’s supposedly at work.

  Lottie had no idea what to think, what to do, or more importantly what to say.

  As she sat there in the kitchen staring into space and going over and over what she’d seen through the window, it didn’t make any sense. She tried to focus on the afternoon ahead and opened Dimitri’s tablet to the plan for the afternoon of cooking and prepping, and read all the way down the list. The fact that two minutes later she couldn’t recall one word she had just read or remember what tasks she had to do for the day made her put the tablet back down on the table, open the door to the boot room, put on her gardening clogs, and head out to the greenhouse.

  She pulled open the door, wound the window at the top to let in a breeze, and plodded down to the end of the shingle path and stood examining a row of seedlings. She reached over to the pile of pots stacked up beside the table, methodically lined them up on the potting table, filled them with potting mix, and started to transfer the tiny little seedlings into the bigger pots.

  There must be an explanation. I thought he liked me as much as I liked him. I thought we were an item.

  As Lottie slowly worked her way through the seedlings she’d decided that she had three choices. Completely and utterly ghost him and forget that Connor had ever taken a step in her direction, go round there right away, interrupt him at work and have it out with him, or behave like an adult, text him and tell him that they needed to talk.

  Just as she was sweeping leftover potting mix back into the bag her text pinged. She looked at her phone to the notification on the front. A text message from Connor.

  Good afternoon, Princess. How are you? Look, sorry, but I’m going to have to give our drink at the pub a miss this evening. Something’s come up at work and I need to be here to sort it out.

  Lottie shook her head and didn’t know whether to laugh or cry.

  Something’s come up at work! I bet it has, Lottie thought grimly as she read through the text. The question is what has come up though? We’d all like to know.

  As Lottie stood there staring at her phone she felt anger well up inside her. So much for talking to him like an adult. She was livid. She would go round there and tell him exactly what she thought.

  Or maybe she would sit on the floor of the greenhouse and cry, and cry, and cry.

  Chapter 60

  As Lottie continued in the greenhouse, many different thoughts were going through her brain. Had she totally misinterpreted the whole thing? Was it, from his point of view, not quite as serious as she had thought it was?

  She’d spent the early part of the afternoon sitting on the greenhouse floor in tears thinking about how she had dived in headfirst without a look back, and now found herself in a situation she really didn’t want to be in. Walking back into the house she went through the boot room, put the kettle on the Aga, and chastised herself for not going slowly with Connor. Why hadn’t she just spent months going on dates? She’d nigh-on hurtled herself into his bed like some lonely, desperate old housewife.

  The anger from earlier had abated and now all she felt was a sadness deep down in the pit of her being. The bit of her that had opened up had slammed shut, and she kept hearing the voice from the podcast whispering to her. Sometimes you should just accept that you will be on your own.

  How could she have fallen in so deeply? Swept away by the blue eyes, the confident manner, the way he called her Princess and treated her like one too. She’d positively revelled in all of that. Starved of affection and lonely, it was like she’d drunk him in encapsulated by everything - his amazing body, the lovely dates, the fabulous sex, waking up in his bed. Every single thing had been dream-like, movie-like.

  Where was the bit in the movie though where the girl saw the boy standing in front of another girl? Another topless girl?

  As Lottie rolled the ladder over from the left-hand side of the kitchen shelves, she climbed up, took Dimitri’s Greek biscuit tin down, took out one of the icing sugar-covered pastries, and dunked one into her tea. Just as she took a sip of her tea the back gate bell went. Getting up, assuming Dimitri had forgotten his key again, she walked all the way through the garden and yanked open the back gate. Standing in her uniform, phone in her left hand, and a couple of glass bottles with stoppers on top in her right, was Juliette.

  ‘Hellooooo. Just passing. I made a batch of lemonade a few days ago and thought I’d pop in with one on my way past. I’ve a new baby in the Old Town by the hotel.’

  ‘Hi, Jools.’

  ‘My goodness! What the hell has happened to you?’

  And with that Lottie burst into tears. Huge big ugly sobs came out racking Lottie’s tiny body.

  ‘What’s happened?’ Juliette said pushing the gate open further. ‘I’m coming in. Come on. I’ll make you a cup of tea.’

  Lottie trailed behind Juliette as they made their way back through the garden to the kitchen. Once inside seeing Lottie’s tea on the table Juliette put it in the microwave, poured herself one from the pot and they both sat
down.

  Lottie had stopped crying, had wiped underneath her eyes and blown her nose into a tissue.

  ‘Right. What’s going on? Has the school phoned? Has something happened with one of the boys?’

  ‘No, thank goodness.’

  ‘Okay. Then what?’

  ‘I’m not sure I want to talk about it. I can’t believe it.’

  Juliette put her hand on top of Lottie’s. ‘You don’t have to tell me anything. I’ll just stay for a bit until you’re feeling a bit better.’

  ‘It’s Connor!’ Lottie blurted out.

  ‘What’s happened with him? Have you had an argument?’

  ‘I saw him at work with a woman. A woman with no top on.’

  ‘Sorry? What do you mean at work? What, they were getting changed to dive?’

  ‘Ha! No. They were in the classroom at the back with the door shut.’

  ‘You’ve lost me, Lottie. Start from the beginning. Connor was standing in the classroom at work with someone with no top on? Why, and how?’

  Lottie began the whole story from when she’d decided after the gardening meeting to pop in on Connor for a cup of tea, even though they were meeting at the Smugglers later on for dinner. She continued with how she had made her way to Pretty Beach Diving going past the Boat House bumping into Lochie, seeing Connor’s car in the driveway but not many signs of life and then getting around the back and overhearing a woman’s voice.

  ‘And then, yes. The window at the end was open and I could just see through the blinds. Connor standing there and a young woman without a top on.’

  ‘That’s really weird,’ Juliette noted.