Annie’s Summer by the Sea: The perfect laugh-out-loud romantic comedy

by Liz Eeles

  I apologise while she stomps around the room to demonstrate how totally inappropriate my behaviour is. Then she fiddles with her phone and thrusts it under my nose so I can see recent text messages between her and her mum.

  The last one from Amanda reads:

  Thanks for invite. You being a bridesmaid – really? Cornwall is a long way and invite bit last minute so afraid I won’t make it. Hope it goes well. Send me pic of you in a dress or Poppy and Eugenie will never believe me x

  ‘That’s disappointing, Storm. I only got involved because I wanted you to see your mum but Cornwall is a long way for her to travel.’

  I’m making excuses for Amanda, who’s a right cow for not going out of her way to support her daughter. But I want to make my sister feel better.

  ‘Yeah, I know,’ she says, thrusting her phone back into her jeans pocket. ‘Salt Bay is at the end of the freaking world, but it wouldn’t be any different if you were getting hitched in Hackney. Amanda’s always got other stuff to do because she’s a very busy person. But that’s fine. I didn’t really want her here anyway, as you well know, and we only invited her to be polite.’

  Storm never does anything to be polite, but I nod. ‘We’ll still have a fantastic day.’

  ‘Yeah, but I don’t have to wear some sad dress now you’re wearing that, do I?’

  ‘You can still wear what you like.’

  ‘Cool. And it will be a fantastic day.’ She lowers her chin and mumbles so I can hardly hear what she’s saying. ‘And even though you’re inappropriate, you still do a better job than Amanda.’

  Without warning, she hurls herself into my arms and gives me a huge hug. Which is lovely but there are strawberry lolly stains round her mouth and strawberry juice and cream silk don’t mix. Patting her back, I force myself not to pull away when she squeezes me tight. To misquote Oscar Wilde: to lose one wedding dress may be regarded as a misfortune; to lose two looks like the universe screaming ‘Don’t get married!’

  But I’ll always be here for Storm when her own mother isn’t. I hug her close and breathe a sigh of relief when her mouth brushes my hair and not Alice’s beautiful dress.

  Thirty

  The next few days are a scurry of getting ready for the wedding, which will happen at half past eleven this coming Saturday. The choir are organising everything for the reception which is a huge weight off our minds and they won’t let us get involved. But there’s still a house to clean and a garden to tidy up and lots of last-minute things to sort out.

  I’ve taken the week off work and Josh and I are scrubbing kitchen tiles together – aw, so romantic – when we hear a car pull up and there’s a knock on the front door.

  Leaving Josh scrubbing, I dodge past the bits and pieces piled in the hall that need to go upstairs before Saturday and pull the door open. Immediately, Freya charges at me and clamps her chubby arms around my thighs. She’s wearing yellow shorts and a pink T-shirt and her jet-black hair which reminds me of Josh is tumbling down her back.

  ‘Hello, sweetheart. What on earth are you doing here?’

  ‘Toby’s taking me to the beach,’ she mumbles into my legs, scuffing at the doorstep in her pretty sandals.

  ‘Where is Toby?’

  ‘I’m here.’ My cousin steps into view from behind the rampant honeysuckle that’s growing up the front of the house like a Triffid. His arms are wrapped around a picnic basket – one of those posh wicker ones with leather straps that’s large enough to hold three courses for a dozen people. ‘Sorry to spring it on you but we thought you might like to come to the beach with us.’

  Really? We’ve only communicated by text and email since I agreed to sell the house and now he’s here expecting me to play happy families and go off on a jolly. Two days before my wedding.

  ‘I’m afraid I’m rather busy at the moment.’

  ‘Just for a couple of hours.’

  ‘I don’t think so.’

  ‘Please,’ says Toby quietly. ‘I’d really appreciate it.’

  Freya giggles when I stroke her soft cheek. ‘Why don’t you see if you can find Uncle Josh. He might be in the kitchen.’

  ‘Uncle Josh!’ yells Freya, unfastening herself from my thighs and hurtling through the hallway.

  When she’s disappeared through the kitchen door, I step blinking into the garden. The sun is blazing from a flawless blue sky and everything seems extra bright.

  ‘What’s going on, Toby? You don’t need to come round schmoozing up to me any more because you’ve won and you’re getting the house.’

  ‘It wasn’t a competition and I’m paying you good money for it. Better than anyone else would with a rubbish roof.’ Toby stops, tightens his grip on the picnic hamper and exhales slowly. ‘Look, I could just do with your company and your advice. Oh, here we go.’

  I recognise the sound of Josh’s long stride on the hall tiles before he steps into the garden with Freya following behind

  ‘What’s going on?’

  ‘Good morning to you too, Pasco. I’m hoping Annie will come with Freya and me to the beach. What do you say, Annie?’

  I’m about to say no because there’s a wedding to be organised and a morning on the beach with Toby isn’t my idea of fun. But Freya slips her hand into mine and stares up at me with eyes as dark as coal. ‘Please come with us, Auntie Annie. I’d ’preciate it.’

  ‘I don’t know, Toby. Perrigan Bay will be packed with tourists at this time of year.’

  ‘Which is why we’re not going there, because the last thing I want to do is mix with emmets. We’re going to Salt Bay beach instead.’

  ‘You’re going down the cliff path with a six-year-old and a… is that a hamper?’ snorts Josh. ‘That’s not a good idea, Toby.’

  Hell’s bells, it’s a terrible idea and Toby will totally wet himself if he’s scared of heights. I almost did the first and only time I scrambled down the Path of Doom. Cut into the cliff, the path is utterly terrifying and hardly used these days because it’s become even more treacherous over the last few months. It’s certainly not suitable for a child.

  ‘I have no intention of taking the cliff path, Pasco. I’m not a complete idiot. I’ve paid a local fisherman to take us round to the beach in his rowing boat.’

  ‘We’re going in a boat!’ squeals Freya, jumping up and down on my toes.

  ‘Is Lucy aware that you’re taking Freya out in a boat?’ asks Josh.

  ‘Does your sister know where Freya’s father is taking his own daughter? Yes, she does, thanks very much.’

  ‘And she’s OK with it?’

  ‘She is as long as Annie comes too.’

  Cheers, Lucy. There’s nothing I’d enjoy more than being stuck in a tiny rowing boat with my tricky cousin, a boisterous six-year-old and a hamper the size of a small car.

  When I hesitate, Toby leans forward. ‘You said I should spend more quality time with Freya which is why I’m taking her to the beach I played on as a child. I’m just following your advice.’

  Josh’s arm snakes round my waist and he pulls me into the hall where Toby can’t overhear us.

  ‘Why doesn’t he just keep out of our lives? That man is such a pain in the neck.’

  ‘I know. But he’s our pain in the neck because he’s related to me and to Freya and soon he’ll own this house. So what are we going to do about this beach trip?’

  ‘This ridiculous beach trip.’

  ‘It sounds like he’s got it all planned and I guess it’s quite sweet that he wants Freya to enjoy the beach he went to as a child.’

  Ugh, I so wish I would stop standing up for Toby. It’s becoming a habit – an embarrassing tic that just won’t go away.

  ‘I just don’t trust him to take care of Freya near deep water and, I know it’s a pain, but I’d feel easier if you were with them.’

  ‘I don’t suppose you fancy coming along too?’

  Josh grimaces. ‘I’m not sure that me and Toby marooned on the same patch of wet sand for a couple of hours wo
uld be a good idea. There’s only so long I can resist the urge to punch him in the face.’

  He’s right. Freya doesn’t need to witness her father and uncle having a ruckus round the rock pools. But the thought of being stuck with Toby for hours is grim.

  ‘Pleeeze Auntie Annie,’ calls Freya. She pops her head around the open front door and gives me a gorgeous grin. ‘My bucket’s got princesses on it.’ Toby appears behind her, waving the bright green bucket and a matching spade.

  ‘All right, Toby. I can spare a couple of hours but that’s all.’

  ‘The beach! The beach!’ yells Freya, whirling round in a circle with her arms spread out wide. Toby’s been feeding her sweets if the open packet stuffed into his trouser pocket is anything to go by and she’s high on sugar and E-numbers. Wowzers, this boat trip is going to be fun.

  * * *

  As it turns out, the boat trip is fabulous. Peter Seegrass rows us in his blue boat with a burgundy stripe around the harbour wall that juts into the ocean. The water is smooth as glass near the shore but there’s a swell beyond the sheltering wall and Freya chuckles with delight as the boat bobs up and down. Rowing looks like hard work but Peter whistles in time with the strokes of the oars, completely at ease after a lifetime working on the sea.

  He manoeuvres round the headland, keeping his distance from the waves crashing onto rocks and rows towards the bay. Ahead of us lies a perfect semi-circle of golden sand littered with granite boulders and rock pools. Towering cliffs rise up from the back of the beach and at the side there’s the opening to a deep cave. The beach is totally deserted.

  ‘Here you go, me ’andsomes,’ says Peter in his soft Cornish burr, drawing close to the sand. ‘Hop out here and I’ll be back to collect you before the tide turns and the beach disappears.’

  ‘Make sure that you are.’

  Toby struggles out of the boat with the hamper and carries it further up the sand while Freya and I stand hand in hand waving to Peter as his boat disappears out of sight.

  ‘He’ll be back before long, Freya, so start having fun now,’ barks Toby, who really doesn’t have a clue about being a dad. His trousers are still rolled up to his knees and he made a right old fuss about having to wade the last few metres to shore.

  ‘Whee!’ yells Freya, running full pelt towards a rock pool that’s dripping with brown seaweed. ‘I want to find a mermaid.’

  I join Toby at the back of the beach and we settle down on a thick picnic rug he pulls from the hamper. Then he takes out a red gingham tablecloth which he spreads across the sand and lays out two wine glasses and three china plates.

  The hamper is bulging with packets and boxes and tins and some of them have ‘Fortnum & Mason’ on the side.

  ‘Blimey, Toby, how much food did you bring?’

  ‘There’s no point in starving and I wanted to make it special.’ He spoons out a tub of pâté into a silver-rimmed bowl. ‘Do you like Gorgonzola?’

  ‘I do but it’ll be too strong for Freya. Have you brought anything along that she might like?’

  ‘There’s guacamole and foie gras and shrimps,’ says Toby, holding his glass of wine up to the sun to inspect it. ‘I was hardly going to pack chicken nuggets. She’ll eat hummus, won’t she?’

  ‘Maybe.’ I ferret about in my handbag for a flapjack because Freya is a fussy eater. Sometimes it’s all we can do to get a jam sandwich down her.

  Toby sighs when I pull the flapjack from my bag. ‘Is that what she eats? See, I’m rubbish at this parenting stuff and don’t know why I put myself through it. I’ve been trying for ages and I still get it wrong every time. I’m not parent material.’

  He slams the hamper lid shut and pouts. And in spite of his tidy goatee beard and the furrows on his forehead, he reminds me of an upset child. His lack of parenting skills are really bothering him.

  ‘Don’t be too hard on yourself, Toby. You’re doing the best you can and I’m a sort of stand-in mum for Storm so I know how tricky it can be.’

  ‘Your sister? She’s practically feral. But my efforts with Freya aren’t much better. You insinuated I was trying to buy my way into Freya’s affections and you were right. At work I clinch deals worth hundreds of thousands of pounds without breaking a sweat, but I have no idea how to deal with a six-year-old. It’s rather pathetic.’

  ‘A trip to the beach isn’t pathetic. Sharing with Freya what you did as a child is a lovely way of making joint memories. Look, she’s having a wonderful time.’

  Freya is paddling in a rock pool, happy as Larry, and scooping tiny fish into her bucket.

  ‘But if I can’t even get her food right perhaps I’ve left this whole fatherhood thing too late.’

  I’m tempted to point out it’s entirely his fault that he only got to know Freya a few months ago but that would be mean. And I’m still finding it hard to be mean to Toby even though he’s a git. It’s very annoying.

  ‘Don’t worry, Toby, it’s just food and I’m sure Freya will eat those, um, what are they?’

  ‘Organic oat cakes from the Highlands embedded with salmon flakes,’ he mutters, grabbing one of the cakes and sinking his teeth into it.

  ‘You never know, she might love them. But why is being a good dad so important to you all of a sudden?’

  Toby carefully places the remainder of his oatcake on the gingham cloth. ‘She’s family and I don’t have much family left.’

  ‘So why, if family means so much to you, did you want to bulldoze Tregavara House, which holds so much of our family’s history? Turning it into flats is one thing but destroying it? How could you even contemplate doing that? Alice cared about you and always stood up for you, but she’d be so disappointed in you for this.’

  ‘Oh, lighten up. It was just a passing thought and never likely to get past ridiculous planning regulations, but holiday flats will be a nice little earner if I market them to the right audience. And there’s no need to give me the evil eye. You can sell the house to someone else if you’re so against my plans.’

  ‘Who’s going to agree to a quick sale on a house that needs a whole new roof before the winter? You know you’ve got us over a barrel. Freya’s waving at us.’

  Toby gives his daughter a stiff wave in return and she goes back to searching out mermaids.

  ‘Look, Annie, I do like the house. It holds lots of happy memories for me and I’m well aware of the fact that it’s been in our family for generations. But the fact is I love a good business proposition more and, at the end of the day, it’s just bricks and mortar. I don’t have the same connection to the place as you which is ironic really – I’ve been visiting that house my whole life and you’ve only been there, what, eighteen months or so? Yet you can feel it – that pull to past generations whereas I just don’t get it. I wish I did but I don’t.’

  ‘You feel a connection to the painting Alice left you or you’d have sold it by now.’

  Toby shrugs. ‘Sorry to disappoint you but that’s a business decision too. Some idiot in Scarborough found an undiscovered stash of Van Teels in an attic – dozens of the buggers – so the market’s flooded at the moment. I’m waiting until they’re more scarce and prices go up again. Where’s Freya gone, by the way?’

  He jumps up and scans the beach with his hands on his hips but Freya’s nowhere to be seen. Tiny waves are breaking on the sand but, only a few metres out into deeper water, the current is swirling around two rock-stacks and forming mini whirlpools. Surely Freya wouldn’t have gone into the sea.

  I rush to the water’s edge, panic rising in my throat. Seagulls are white flecks bobbing on the waves but there’s no sign of Freya’s dark head or her pink T-shirt.

  ‘Is she in the cave?’ yells Toby, sprinting for its gaping black mouth.

  I turn and desperately scan the empty beach. We were in charge of a six-year-old girl and we’ve lost her. Our lives are beginning to shift and change course. There will be a ‘before Freya went to the beach’ and an ‘after’.

  Suddenly m
y attention’s caught by a flash of colour on the narrow path that winds up the cliff face. It’s Freya! Icy cold relief zaps through me until I realise how high up she is.

  ‘Toby!’ I shout, and his eyes follow my pointing finger.

  ‘Thank God!’ Toby rushes over, his face ashen and his jaw stretched tight. ‘How the hell did she get up there? It’s almost vertical.’

  ‘She must have scrambled up the path behind us when we weren’t looking.’

  ‘Freya!’ shouts Toby. ‘Come down here now.’

  ‘No, stay there!’ I yell when Freya moves and stones cascade down the cliff-face and bounce off the rocks below. ‘She’s halfway up the cliff already so coming down will be dangerous. I think she’s stuck anyway.’

  High above us, Freya is huddled down on the treacherous path and whimpering.

  ‘Christ, I’m going to have to go up there or she’ll fall off.’ Toby is pacing up and down and sweating. Full-on, shiny-faced, leaky armpits sweating. He’s terrified, poor bloke.

  ‘I can do it. I know you hate heights so I’ll get her.’

  What am I saying? I hate the Path of Doom. In my nightmares I slide down the bumpy track and fall to my death on the hard, jagged rocks. But what the hell – life without Freya wouldn’t be worth living anyway.

  ‘Right, I’m going up.’

  I’m checking that the laces on my trainers are properly fastened when Toby hurtles past me and starts scrabbling up the cliff path on all fours. Stones shower out in all directions as he pulls himself higher.

  ‘Toby, what the hell are you doing?’

  ‘Saving my daughter,’ he yells, backside bobbing up and down in time with his frantic scrabbles. ‘Don’t worry, Freya. Daddy’s coming.’

  Toby might be a whizz at selling art, making money from property and putting all sentiment to one side, but his climbing technique leaves a lot to be desired. He favours fast and frantic rather than slow and steady which means he’s in far more danger of falling right now than Freya. There’s nothing for it; I’m going to have to climb up too.