Christmas at Lilac Cottage: (#1 White Cliff Bay)

by Martin, Holly

  ‘I had an interesting conversation with someone in town…’

  Penny groaned. ‘I’m so so sorry. I don’t know how it all started. It just snowballed out of control. They all know, everyone does. Apparently it’s the most exciting thing that’s happened in White Cliff Bay for years. I was the subject of a book club meeting for Christ’s sake. There was a plan hatched. I had no idea. And then I went to buy a toothbrush and they just happened to be next to the condom section. And I did look at them, but not for us, just because I was intrigued to see there were so many different types. The next thing Suzanna comes over and she starts talking to me about them and said that you needed extra-large and that it was best to have a range for our first time. I was mortified, but she wouldn’t let me leave without taking some. Then Maggie took me to have my hair done and look at it, I look like an eighties porn star, it’s huge and all I wanted was a trim. Before I could escape, Christine from the beauty place turns up and escorted me back to the salon, I told her that I didn’t want anything but she wouldn’t listen to my rebuttals and quite frankly she scares me, the next thing she is ripping hair from almost every single part of my body, my eyebrows, my legs, my bikini line, honestly I’m as bald as a coot down there now and it’s chilly, believe me. And as I left, Monica from Silk & Lace was already waiting for me and whisked me off to her shop and persuaded me to buy some sexy lingerie. I’ve never bought sexy lingerie in my life and I now have two pairs of lacy pants with matching bras and tiny little rosebuds on them and a pair of black satin shorts that barely cover my bum embroidered with silver snowflakes and some kind of matching camisole top. Look.’

  She pulled the short and top combo out of a paper bag and put it on the table.

  ‘It’s the tiniest, flimsiest piece of underwear I’ve ever seen, and I’d be way too embarrassed to ever wear anything like this. But it didn’t stop there, I was forced to buy a dress with a slit right up the side, ridiculous high-heel shoes, a perfume that’s supposed to bring men to their knees. I didn’t want any of that stuff, I swear, I went into town for lunch and a new toothbrush, that’s all. And now the whole town thinks we’re going to have this night of passion and we’ve only kissed a few times and Daisy will probably find out and I’m so sorry if they’ve all been teasing you about it today,’ she said, clearly out of breath from her sudden outburst.

  Henry stared at her shock. He wanted to laugh, get angry and hug her all at the same time. He didn’t know if he would ever get used to this level of nosiness but Penny had lived here her entire life and she was still clearly upset by it. His eyes cast down to the flimsy underwear on the table and he picked the top up, fingering the material. God, to see her in this would be a dream come true. Even if he had promised her that he wouldn’t take it any further than a kiss, he would quite gladly cancel their date and spend the whole night holding her and kissing her in this underwear.

  He looked up. She was waiting for him to freak out too, thinking he had been subjected to all of this when in fact no one had said a word to him. Although, come to think of it, he had noticed a few looks, smiles and winks but he’d just put it down to the oddness of the town. He had to reassure her that he hadn’t been harassed like she was, but that wasn’t going to make her feel better about her near hysterical outburst.

  Finally he cleared his throat. ‘I was going to say that I spoke to someone in town today who had bought some of my handmade furniture years ago and he says it’s still his favourite piece in his house.’

  Penny paled.

  ‘You didn’t know I bought condoms or sexy lingerie?’

  Henry shook his head.

  Penny flushed, her pale cheeks going bright red. ‘Oh god.’

  She sank to the bench and put her head in her hands, clearly not wanting to look at him.

  He smiled. The easiest thing for her would be to laugh it off.

  ‘Where are the condoms?’

  She pointed to a bag.

  ‘I better take care of those, wouldn’t want Daisy to see them.’ She peered through her fingers at him as he looked in the bag. ‘Wow, you bought a lot.’

  ‘I didn’t, the pharmacist just gave them all to me for free, she just filled the whole bag up, she was so excited that I was going to have sex after all this time and I didn’t have the heart to say we wouldn’t be.’

  He nodded, trying to suppress a smile, but then he saw the twitches of a smile on her face too and he let out a loud laugh which had her smile turning into a grin.

  ‘I better go and get ready for our big date then. I’ll pick you up at seven.’ He moved to walk towards the door. ‘Oh honey, wear the sexy snowflake set tonight for me. It’ll make it much more fun when we’re in bed later.’

  ‘Ha, you wish. I’m going to wear my oldest, most grey, holey pair, that’ll teach you for teasing me.’

  He shrugged. ‘That works too.’

  She smiled and he closed the door between them. Tonight was going to be fun, regardless how it ended.

  * * *

  Penny nervously waited in the kitchen for Henry to come and collect her. She had managed to calm her hair down and pulled it into a loose side plait. She had worn the thigh-splitting dress but only because the only other items of clothes in her wardrobe were jeans and hoodies or a smart trouser suit which looked like she was ready for an interview. Part of her wanted to cancel the date because she didn’t want to be subject to her whole dinner being under the watchful eye of the entire town. But if they were going to do this on a regular basis then they had to get the first time out the way and hopefully everyone would treat them normally after that.

  It was still fifteen minutes till seven o’clock and she was trying to read a book, but the words weren’t going in. Suddenly there was a soft knock on the connecting door and Henry walked in.

  ‘Sorry, I couldn’t wait to see you.’

  Her stomach lurched at the sight of him. Dressed in a silvery grey suit and a white shirt that was open at the neck, he was a magnificent sight.

  ‘If you’re ready to go, we can leave now,’ Henry said, when she had no words to fill the silence.

  She quickly lurched to her feet, unsteady on her ridiculously high heels and the dress that was split to the thigh fell open. She was completely overdressed and she suddenly wanted to sprint upstairs and change back into her favourite jeans again. She quickly pulled the dress straight, cursing that she hadn’t gone for the trouser suit instead; the last thing she wanted was for people to be staring at her legs all night. But when she looked up at Henry, her fussing hands stilled. There was a complete and utter hunger in his eyes. Chris had never looked at her like that – at best he’d looked at her with a fondness, someone he quite liked spending time with. She’d had never been looked at as if she was about to be eaten. Her confidence soared, her doubts lay forgotten.

  Henry moved towards her and grabbed her coat off the back of the chair, wrapping it round her shoulders and helping her to put it on.

  He moved round the front and sweetly did the buttons up for her.

  ‘I am quite capable of putting my own coat on,’ she laughed.

  ‘In all honesty, I had to cover you up or I really don’t think we’d be leaving the house this evening.’

  She smiled and leaned up to kiss him, pulling on the lapels of his jacket. His arms wrapped round her in the biggest of hugs so she was so close to him there was no gap at all. God, she wanted more than this kiss, she wanted everything, to feel his skin next to hers, to taste every inch of his flesh. She had never had desires like this before, never wanted anyone with such a primal need before.

  He pulled back. ‘That’s not helping us leave either. Come on, we can continue this when we get back. Maybe we skip the starters and the dessert, grab a quick McDonald’s and come straight back here.’

  ‘That sounds good.’

  He escorted her out, opening his car door for her like the perfect gentleman.

  ‘I need to ask a favour actually,’ Penny said.

 
; ‘Of course, anything.’

  ‘Well, it’s your fault so you can’t really say no. I had a phone call from Josh earlier, it seems he broke his wrist when you threw him to the floor.’

  Henry paled. ‘Oh god, no. Now I feel awful. I need to go over and apologise properly.’

  ‘Well, you shouldn’t feel too bad, you did do it with the best intentions, but going over there is not a good move. His mum is the most terrifying woman I have ever met. Josh told her he slipped on some ice and I really think she doesn’t need to know the truth. She’s a lawyer and I wouldn’t be surprised if she managed to slap some criminal charges or lawsuit on you for abusing her son. If you feel really guilty buy him a new computer game for his Xbox and I’m sure he will love you forever. But he will be out of action for several weeks and that provides me with a bit of a problem. I pay him to come and help me lift and move the ice blocks and carvings and I can’t do that alone. Looks like you might have a new job for the next few weeks.’

  ‘You want to use me for my body?’

  ‘Something like that.’

  ‘And pay me for it? I feel so dirty and cheap.’

  ‘You won’t be paid for it, I’m still paying Josh whilst he’s off sick and I’m not paying you too. You can do it out of guilt or the goodness of your heart, but I will cook you and Daisy dinner occasionally so be grateful for that.’

  ‘I don’t mind helping you, but I do feel really bad about Josh.’

  ‘He’s fine. His mum is spoiling him rotten and he’s enjoying the attention. He’ll be completely fine in a few weeks.’

  Henry drove down the bumpy drive but, instead of turning left to go towards the town, he turned right to take them away from White Cliff Bay. He caught her questioning gaze.

  ‘I thought our first date should be just the two of us, not half of White Cliff Bay watching us like animals in the zoo.’

  ‘Oh thank god, it would have been unbearable if we had gone into town but, you know, everyone will be very disappointed that we are a no-show.’

  ‘They’ll probably just think that we’re decided to stay in and have hot, passionate sex instead.’

  Penny laughed. ‘What are we going to do if Daisy hears all these rumours?’

  ‘I don’t know, laugh it off, deny all knowledge. She knows we are going out tonight so we can just tell her the town have jumped to the wrong conclusion. As much as the town like to poke their noses in, I can’t see anyone going up to a sixteen-year-old girl and saying, “Hey, did your dad get laid last night? Did you hear the bed squeaking? Do you know if he used the extra-large condoms or not?” I’d hope they’d have a bit more discretion than that.’

  ‘I hope so too. I don’t want to do anything to upset her. I really like her and she adores you.’

  ‘Ha, she tolerates me.’

  ‘You’re her entire world.’

  ‘I’m insanely over-protective and it drives her mad. Of course, I let her go out on her own, but it doesn’t stop me worrying until she gets back home.’

  ‘That’s understandable. I don’t suppose that feeling will ever go away. So you had her from when she was three months old? I know you said that her mum’s parents wanted to put her up for adoption.’

  ‘They did, but I begged them not to. They didn’t really know what to do with her when she was born – they didn’t want to raise her themselves and I think they hoped that Tina would fall in love with her and raise her properly, but she couldn’t have cared less. I think they felt guilty about putting her up for adoption and my parents fought against it too. They brought her to stay with me quite frequently and one weekend they conveniently forgot to pick her back up again. I fell in love with her so quickly, so hard, that there was never a question of sending her somewhere else. My parents helped a lot and so did Anna – she absolutely adored Daisy too, we all did – but the night feeds, the dirty nappies, that was all down to me.’

  ‘I admire you so much for that, so many sixteen-year-old boys would never have made that choice.’

  ‘It was hard work, of course it was, but there was never a choice, she was my daughter.’

  Penny watched him negotiate the roads and felt her heart fill with love for him.

  ‘It must have affected your life though, the things that you wanted to do – travel, go to university – they would have been unattainable.’

  ‘I had no idea what I wanted to do with my life at the age of sixteen, there were no plans that she got in the way of. I just wanted to provide for her and give her the best life possible. I lived with my parents until I was twenty-four, which gave me a tiny bit of freedom. I was always good with my hands, always enjoyed making things, so I would have probably got a job doing that anyway. I don’t regret having her, not for one second. She’s the best thing that ever happened to me.’

  ‘So you’ve always been a carpenter?’

  ‘Yes, making furniture, chairs, tables, chests. I worked in a small furniture shop for a while. I love the process, something that starts out as a little sketch on a piece of paper and with care and hard work it turns into a beautiful chest or a chair. How you finish the piece is crucial as well, whether the piece looks like faded driftwood or polished oak, the handles and hinges, the curves of the furniture. I loved it so much I started making my own stuff. I had a website and sold it online. I did well out of it. The White Cliff Bay Furniture Company approached me.’

  ‘Wow, they must have been very impressed with what they saw.’

  Henry nodded. ‘Edward has one of my chests in his office. I saw it there the other day and I wonder if that was the thing that flagged me up to them. I’m going to keep making some of my own furniture as a little side line. If the job falls flat, I’ll still have my own stuff to fall back on. The thing that worries me working at White Cliff Bay is not having the freedom to be able to design the pieces I want. But maybe I’ll have to forgo that for financial job security.’

  Henry turned down a little side road that led to a tiny cove. Penny frowned in confusion. There was nothing down here apart from the cove; there were no shops, toilets and especially not anywhere to eat.

  ‘I think you might have taken a wrong turn,’ Penny said.

  ‘What’s this, the outsider knows something the local doesn’t?’ Henry said.

  He parked the car along the road near the path that led down to the beach. Surprisingly there were lots of other cars there too.

  He got out and took her hand, leading her to the steps that curled down to the sand. It was well lit, with little lanterns sending puddles of light down the stairs and across a small wooden path that led across the beach towards the caves. She carefully picked her way down the stairs in her stupid high heels and onto the wooden path. The tide was in but it didn’t reach all the way to the back of the beach, leaving a good twenty metres of sand untouched.

  ‘I used to play here when I was a child, in the caves, but I haven’t been down here for years,’ Penny said, still wondering where they were going.

  Henry helped her up a few stone steps into the cave and she followed him down a well-lit tunnel, but as she rounded the corner into what had been a large cavern, she stopped in shock. There was a tiny lake in the middle of the cavern and dotted around the edges were about twenty tables lit up by lanterns and candles, the lights sparkling off the water like fireflies.

  ‘Henry, it’s beautiful, how long has this been here?’

  ‘About two weeks, according to Anna. She and Steve came here last week.’

  One of the waiters came over and Henry gave them his name and they ushered him to a table.

  Penny looked around. In the darkness of the cave, the lights looked like orbs of gold, shimmering over the water. There were tall plants dotted between the tables along with outdoor heaters, lending a certain amount of privacy to the diners and giving it a slight Mediterranean feel, too.

  ‘The menu is limited, a lot of it is barbequed or they have a large pizza oven, but apparently the food is amazing.’

  Penn
y reached across the table and took his hand. ‘Thank you for bringing me here, it’s just wonderful.’

  ‘I wanted something special for our first date and then I remembered Anna talking about this place.’

  Penny smiled at the trouble he had taken to do something nice for her. ‘It feels so secret, like no one knows it’s here.’

  ‘Secret place, secret meetings, I bet everyone here is having an affair.’

  She laughed and looked around. At the next table was a young man in a very expensive suit sitting opposite a blonde with a very short skirt.

  ‘I think he is a CEO of a big corporate company and that’s his assistant that he is shagging behind his wife’s back,’ Penny said.

  Henry glanced over and nodded. ‘And look at that couple, she’s old enough to be his mum. I bet she’s sleeping with her daughter’s husband.’

  Penny looked over and laughed. ‘That’s Mary Buttercoombe and her son, Simon. So probably not sleeping together. White Cliff Bay may seem like an odd little town but I don’t think incest is on our list of hobbies.’

  ‘Ah, OK, what about those two?’

  Penny glanced over at a slightly round man, dressed in leather with a long ginger beard and a bald head, sitting opposite a woman in a sweet flowery dress. ‘They met online and this is their first date.’

  The waitress came over to them. She was impossibly tall with a long curtain of blonde hair that was flicked over one shoulder. She had inexplicably large breasts. Henry glanced up at her, suppressed a smile and returned to looking at his menu.

  They gave their drinks order and she left.

  ‘What’s made you laugh?’

  ‘I was just thinking, if we are creating life stories for all the people in here, I think she is a secret porn star.’

  Penny laughed. ‘I must admit you’re not anything like what I first thought, when I met you.’

  ‘What did you think of me when we first met?’

  ‘That you were grumpy, moody, inappropriate because you were flirting with me when I thought you were married and sexy as hell.’