Christmas at the Beach Hut

by Veronica Henry

  She remembered the prescription in her handbag. She went into the kitchen and took it out and looked at it. Would taking them be an admission of failure? A realisation that she couldn’t cope with the ordinary, the day to day, the mundane? There was nothing to justify taking them. No bereavement or divorce or trauma. Did she really need antidepressants? Or should she, as they say, just ‘get a life’? Do more of the little things that until now she hadn’t had time for? Like tying velvet bows?

  Of course she didn’t need antidepressants. She was just a middle-aged woman facing up to some changes in her life, she thought. She tucked the prescription behind the Indian takeaway menu on the noticeboard and carried on tying bows until she had got it down to a fine art.

  8

  The sun was leaching from a pale wintry sky faster than Harley could walk. He’d just managed to catch the last bus, and it dropped him on the esplanade with a wheezy hiss of its brakes and a puff of diesel. He was the only person to get off: a massive contrast from the summer months, when the driver could end up waiting more than ten minutes for the streams to disembark. Summer in Everdene was a short, sharp spike bringing much-needed visitors and money. Winter was long, dark and filled with weather: storms and freezing fog and terrifying waves that showed no mercy.

  As he jumped onto the pavement he eyed the beach in front of him. Today the sea was quiet and calm; the tide was edging its way in nonchalantly across the pale-pink sand that would soon turn to grey. The fading light bounced off the bay: a rich deep turquoise that would soon turn to navy.

  Hardly any of the shops along the front were open. Everdene was too far off the beaten track to be a lure for tourists at this time of year. The Spar shop had a few straggly trees in nets propped up outside. The Ship Aground served mulled wine and played seasonal anthems on a loop. The locals would all be heading home from whatever job kept them sustained, if they were lucky enough to have one. They might venture out later, for a drink, but for now the little seaside town was settling down for the evening as the lights went on and plumes of smoke began to curl from the chimneys.

  Harley shifted his rucksack onto his shoulder and strode towards the beach. He wanted to get to the hut before dusk, because the darkness here was as dark as night ever got, and the light from the few street lamps didn’t reach far. The sky overhead would be as flat and black as an iPhone screen. If there was no cloud the stars would be little pin pricks of hope, like fairy lights strung across the horizon.

  He was still wound up from this morning’s confrontation. He could still see the hostility in his adversary’s eyes; smell the sourness of his distaste and feel the man’s fingertips on his chest. He knew what Tony wanted. For him to lose his temper. So he could make Harley look like the bad guy. For months and months he’d been chipping away at him. Little jibes. Verbal jabs. Loaded remarks that no one but Harley would understand. Tony was everything that Harley hated: racist, sexist, narrow-minded, controlling … He had a small-town mentality that, combined with being a big fish in a small pond, made him think he could behave how he liked and treat people how he wanted. Of course, what most people saw was the smiling, successful charmer: Tony rarely let his mask slip. He had to Harley, though. Harley could see right through his performance.

  And Harley couldn’t put up with it any more. He had to get out before he lost control. Luckily, boxing had taught him when not to fight back. His coach had drilled into him how to keep his temper. Nevertheless, he had a limit, and he could sense that his limit was approaching. He was afraid of his own anger.

  The cortisol was still pumping through him, making his blood fizz as he headed towards the slipway that led down onto the beach. The air cooled him a little, wrapping itself round him, damp with sea spray. Gradually he was able to breathe again, and he filled his lungs with ozone, letting the fury dissolve. He tried to visualise it leaving him, drifting off along the beach in rivulets.

  That man was not worth his anger.

  But he still felt a knot inside him. A tangle of helplessness and fear. Was he a coward, to leave the two people he loved most in the world with the person he hated the most? Harley didn’t want to spoil Christmas for Leanne and River. His mum and his little brother were more important than he was. Tony viewed Harley as a threat, that much was clear, and maybe without him in the house things would be easier.

  He could feel the cold of the sand through the soles of his trainers. As he reached the end of the slipway and turned left, the wind jumped out at him, gleeful with spite, and he blinked, pulling his padded jacket tighter. Head down, he walked parallel to the shore. To his left, the row of beach huts began, protected from above by the dunes.

  He knew each and every one. When they were first built, back in the sixties, they were simple wooden structures, with very basic sanitation. Only a few originals survived. Over the past decade, a slew of wealthy middle-class families had swooped in, putting in every mod con until Everdene looked like Nantucket, all white and blue and grey weatherboards. Some were the last word in luxury: state-of-the-art fridges with ice-makers and fancy cookers with pizza ovens and charcoal grills lurked behind the shabby chic frontages. Some were holiday lets, changing inhabitants every week; some were lived in all summer by families who decamped from their city homes. Some were only opened occasionally.

  It was one of these Harley was heading to now. A shrewd businessman had bought the Lobster Pot in the late seventies for his wife and children to escape to while he worked. It was still in the same family. His daughter now lived in Dubai: Caroline Openshaw descended about three times a year, leaving it empty the rest of the time. Her family usually came over for Christmas and Harley had got everything ready for them, but he’d had a message earlier that week to say they wouldn’t be coming. At the time, he had thought nothing of it, but now, after his altercation with Tony, it was serendipity.

  ‘Feel free to use the hut if you want,’ Caroline had said in her email. ‘No point in it sitting there empty!’

  She was one of the more generous owners. Harley had a summer job as a caretaker for several of the beach huts. He did running repairs, took deliveries, filled the fridges with groceries and wine, liaised with cleaners and babysitters and taxi drivers to make sure the summer crowd didn’t have to lift a finger. Once there had just been his boss, Roy, tending to their needs. Roy had been there when the huts were first built. Now, he supervised a team of six, most of them local college kids. As jobs in the area went, it was a good one: it meant Harley could leave the house and hang out on the beach at Everdene nearly every day in the holidays. And there were always pretty girls to chat to.

  They loved Harley, with his cinnamon skin and light-green eyes. There was no one else like him round here. He was exotic and glamorous: a hint of rum and reggae. Even though his dad came from Handsworth, not Trenchtown, he was more authentic than some of the surfing guys that tried to emulate his look. He didn’t show off about being the real deal, but he knew the girls could tell. And with his skinny jeans rolled up and his faded T-shirts and his intricate tattoos, he had a rock ’n’ roll glamour that was irresistible.

  Of course, just like Tony, people made assumptions, thought he peddled dope for the holidaymakers, but that was for idiots. On the contrary, Harley was squeaky clean; he had the occasional beer when the sun went down, but for the most part he lived for his fitness and his art. He had done several murals for cafés and restaurants in the area, all with a sea theme. People couldn’t get enough of mermaids and pirates, it seemed. His dream was to go to art college. It was a fantasy at the moment, though. He couldn’t afford it, and he didn’t want to leave his mum. Not yet.

  He’d had to step away for the time being, though. He didn’t know if it was because of Christmas, but the atmosphere seemed to be getting worse. And Harley knew his presence antagonised Tony. That he only had to breathe to wind the man up. So maybe if he made himself scarce, tensions would ease.

  Though par
t of him didn’t want them to, because he wanted his mum to see the truth. Why couldn’t Leanne see what Tony was really like? Was she really taken in, just because he was captain of the yacht club and was on the local council? Was she really impressed by all of that? Maybe she was, because Tony was such a contrast to Harley’s dad … Maybe she’d been drawn to Tony’s respectability?

  His pretend respectability. Sticking on a blazer for a council meeting didn’t make you a good person. It made Harley even more uncomfortable, the fact he was supposed to have respect for Tony’s status. Yes, Tony could make things happen in Tawcombe – licences and planning permission – but he usually only made them happen if he could benefit in some way. He always had an ulterior motive.

  Harley’s biggest fear was that Tony and Leanne would get married. She and his dad had never got round to it, and Harley could sense that Leanne wanted a ring on her finger for security. For River. Even though River wasn’t Tony’s. If that happened it would be even more difficult to make her see the light.

  ‘He’s a good man,’ Leanne would tell Harley, over and over. She was still pathetically grateful to Tony for the roof over their heads. She couldn’t see that the price was her freedom.

  Harley saw things she didn’t. Harley heard things she didn’t. He didn’t want to crush his mother’s dream, but it was getting harder and harder for him not to say what he thought about the unnecessary rules and expectations Tony forced them to live under. It had all been very chilled out and relaxed that first summer. Barbecues and boat trips. Once they’d moved in, though, Tony had begun to change. Tidiness and quietness were enforced. The house didn’t feel like a home. No shoes allowed inside, no loud music, nothing out of place …

  Leanne didn’t seem to notice what was happening, like a lobster put into cold water and gradually heated up. Harley had, though, because he didn’t have the disadvantage of thinking himself in love.

  ‘It’s his house,’ Leanne would protest, if Harley complained. ‘We have to respect that. We’re very lucky.’

  It was an impossible situation. He couldn’t stoke things up and bring them to a head just to prove he was right, because that would be dangerous. But if he didn’t, the situation could go on for ever. It was unbearable. For Harley, at least. Leanne seemed to be able to put up with it. But she’d always been able to put up with a lot. It was both a strength and a weakness.

  Was it irony, how opposite Tony was to his own father, who had lived in a whirl of chaos and impulsivity? The volume had been turned up to ten whenever Richie was around: the sparky kid from Handsworth who’d made it to grammar school, against the odds, and done well for himself, becoming a financial advisor – until it all went wrong and he was done for fraud … Then there had been raised eyebrows and mutterings. People loved to judge.

  Richie had protested his innocence and insisted that he had been conned by his partner, Aubrey Fennel, but Richie’s signature was all over the paperwork. The paper trail led right back to him: the bulk of their clients’ money had been plunged into a high-risk investment scheme which relied on the stock-market falling. And it hadn’t.

  Just because Aubrey had managed to abscond with the remaining funds, didn’t mean that Richie wasn’t responsible for what had happened to his clients’ money. The police made an example of him. Financial advisors were supposed to be trustworthy. He had given the profession a bad name. He had to be suitably punished. Four years in gaol, and his assets were used to repay the victims.

  Harley remembered how one day they’d had everything; the next, nothing, for with Richie’s prison sentence went his business, and therefore their house. And Leanne couldn’t bear the shame, for some of Richie’s clients had been their own friends.

  So she had fled Birmingham with Harley and River, fled the gossip and the speculation. Which was how they’d ended up down here, in what Leanne had hoped would be paradise, and a fresh start for her and the two boys.

  Harley trudged on, passing the hut where two girls from London had had a big party last summer, after their GCSEs. It had all got out of control, with dozens of their mates getting far too drunk, and one of them had nearly drowned. Harley had helped the two girls clear up the next day – the hut had been trashed, and they were hysterical. They were idiots. Rich idiots. The girls had been super grateful to him.

  The light was nearly gone. The sea was pewter-black now and the temperature had dropped. He quickened his pace. He knew this stretch of beach better than anyone, he knew every single hut, every knot of wood. You could have dropped him here blindfolded and he would have been able to tell where he was by the smell: the clean gusts of air, sharp with salt and the faintest trace of seaweed, like opening an oyster.

  At last, here it was. Wide and sprawling, with a balcony at the front and wooden steps, it glowed white as whalebone in the semi-darkness. He went round the back of the hut and dug in the sand until he found the little tin where the spare key was kept. Time and again he’d suggested a new lock on the door, with a code for security, but for all their money and international jet-set lifestyle, Caroline seemed to want to keep the traditions of the hut, out of sentimentality perhaps, and having an old key in a rusty tin was part of that.

  He slid the key into the lock and pushed the door open. Caroline might want to keep the key in a rusty old tin, but the inside of the hut had been renovated with no expense spared. Harley flicked the light switch and a warm glow filled the room.

  The walls were wooden, washed in pale cream paint. There was a mezzanine with a double bed in the roof and two sets of bunk beds at the back behind thick linen curtains. The living area was open plan with a small kitchen hand-built from driftwood, and two low-slung couches flanked a wood-burning stove, a pile of fresh logs stacked neatly either side. The floorboards were covered in sheepskin rugs that felt like walking on clouds.

  Harley felt the stress in his body ebb away. He breathed in, relishing the calm, the silence, the lack of tension. The hut seemed to pull him in and give him the hug he needed. He could almost hear it whispering that everything would be all right. He flumped down into one of the couches, cocooned in its velvety softness.

  He shut his eyes. He had feared that he might not be able to shut them without seeing Tony’s face in front of him. Or hear his taunting barbs: the ones designed to make Harley lose his rag and make the first move. It had taken all his strength not to react. He was never, ever going to give Tony the pleasure of making him lose his temper.

  He had to retreat, to work out his next move. He’d read the Art of War. This was a tactical withdrawal. He could let Tony think he had won, for the time being at any rate. Though he had no idea what to do next. After all, he was only a boy, with no money, no power, no influence. Still, he felt sure something would present itself.

  He will win who knows when to fight and when not to fight.

  There was something else he had to think about, too, but he didn’t have room in his head for it right now. He put his hand in his pocket to feel the card inside. He’d taken it off his chest of drawers as he left the house. He felt a pang of sadness for a moment as he imagined his dad writing it. Did they have a shop in the prison? How did he get the advent calendar? For a moment, he had a flashback to the two of them queuing for Revenge of the Sith – Harley had only been about five, but his dad had brought him up on Star Wars DVDs and he had been sick with the excitement of it all, holding his dad’s hand and jumping up and down.

  He didn’t want to think about his dad yet. It was added pressure and the situation was already complicated. He could think about him once he’d figured out what to do about Tony and his mum. He’d better text her and tell her he was staying out – he quite often did so it wouldn’t ring any alarm bells yet. He could have a proper conversation with her tomorrow, and tell her the truth. That he wasn’t coming back. That he wouldn’t be there for Christmas.

  He fired off a text then picked up a fleecy blanket that was
folded on the arm of the couch and wrapped it round himself. He longed to sleep, but he didn’t quite feel comfortable using one of the beds, even though Caroline had told him he could use the hut. He still felt awkward about taking her up on her offer. He knew if he told her his situation, she would probably tell him to stay there as long as he liked. But he didn’t want to tell anyone what was going on, because that made it real.

  He had nowhere else to go, though. You couldn’t crash at any of your mates’ over Christmas – it was family time. He would hide here for the time being. No one would see him or know he was there. Just while he gathered his strength, sorted his head out and worked out what to do.

  In less than a minute he was fast asleep.

  9

  At five o’clock, Lizzy made herself a cup of tea and ate two luxury mince pies, peeling off the lids and loading it up with squirty cream underneath. She was the only person in the house who liked them, but they tasted of Christmas – buttery and spicy and sugary – and she relished every crumb.

  Then she set about assembling the lasagne. She wasn’t the greatest cook in the world, but she could rustle up stodge. It was one of the things Simon had appreciated when they first got together, the fact she actually ate. He had groaned in ecstasy the first time she’d made him spag bol – not a gourmet recipe, just mince and Dolmio with handfuls of grated Cheddar flung on top – but to him it was manna.

  ‘You have no idea,’ he said, shovelling it in with abandon. ‘You have no idea. Amanda only ate Cup a Soup and slices of lean chicken breast and grapefruit.’

  Lizzy had extended her repertoire and improved her methods and ingredients over the years, though it was still bog-standard family grub. Lasagne was their family favourite: now she made it with proper sauce, not out of a jar, and she made her own cheese sauce stringy with mozzarella. The horrors of the afternoon faded even further as she chopped and grated and stirred and sang along to Now That’s What I Call Christmas.