"I'm sorry?" He sounded startled.
So I must have said it out loud. Or…
Oh hell, it didn't matter whether I trusted him or not, did it? I didn't trust me.
I tried to say something sensible. "I spent three hours or so repairing the door. I just fell asleep. I'm fine."
He nodded, already turning away. "Great. Then I'll get out of your way."
"Um. Thank you." It wasn't what I wanted to say. I wanted him to stay. I don't know why. "Would you like a drink? I mean, I've got water. And water."
Anton stopped. Looked at the dark clouds and then his watch. "Or if you'd like something warm, we could go to the chippie?"
I had no idea what a chippie was, so this was a good opportunity to acquire new knowledge, equally useful for adding to the Institute's archives or assisting my survival on Earth, if that was my only option.
"I would like that. Thank you."
"Great. I'll lock up next door and we can go."
He pushed off. I tested the paint and wasn't convinced it was dry enough to shut the doors. So I tidied my tools away in a cupboard out of sight and propped both doors very slightly open. There were neat wooden doorstops for the purpose. Like everything else in Forget-me-not, they were beautifully made. And I loved them.
He came back, wearing a waterproof jacket. It was raining quite hard now. He stood on the boardwalk, looking in.
"Ready?"
I went to meet him, pulling on my own jacket. "Yes. As long as it's OK to leave the beach hut open?"
He turned to scan the beach. It was empty, even of dog walkers.
"It's fine. Nobody's going to come this far along the beach on a cold wet evening in the middle of the week. A warm weekend would be different."
I remembered Judith Beaupère's prohibition on wild beach parties and grinned.
He saw it. "What?"
I explained and he laughed. "She's a free spirit. She's been waiting for Flower Power to hit Little Piddling since 1968. Make that, looking forward to it."
I was pleased. "That's what I thought, too." At least I'd got something right.
He took me up the slope past the NO motorbikes!!! notice and turned left down the main street. Then almost at once, he turned into a small door bearing a handwritten notice: "Frying Tonight".
The chippie, I found, meant a narrow cave of a shop with a couple of tables in the window and a tall counter at the far end, with a trough of oil behind it. The air smelled…filling. I may have groaned.
He looked round and his eyes warmed with understanding.
"Hungry?"
I nodded.
"When did you last eat?"
I concentrated. I couldn't remember breakfast, though I had bought a coffee from a van outside the last bus garage. "Maybe yesterday evening."
"Right. You need to eat now. Can we have two cod and chips, please, Chandra?"
The young woman behind the counter smiled at him. "Not yet, you can't, Anton. The fryer isn't up to the right temperature yet. Come back in forty minutes."
I know I groaned that time.
Anton chuckled. "OK. We'll go to the pub and come back then. Bag us the table in the corner, will you?"
"Be glad to."
He led the way again. But the pub wasn't open yet, either. I could have wept. Now that I had remembered I needed food, I was starving.
Anton looked at his watch. "Ten minutes to opening time. Right, turbo tour of Little Piddling."
Our first stop was the pier. It was deserted. We ran along the wooden planks. They bounced and there were one or two gaps where I could see the water rocking below us. It was exciting, but I was glad of the lifebelts positioned at intervals along the railings. Anton ignored both sea and lifesaving notices.
"Please note the theatre. Bit down-at-heel but they do a great panto at Christmas," he said. "This way to the lifeboat." There was a shed at the end of the pier with Lifeboat Station painted in big letters on the door.
It had stopped raining but we'd had to dodge puddles. Now lights were coming on in the twilight. The little town was basically rundown and rather shabby but the lights made it magical. It was like one of the Art Master's Impressionist paintings, I thought, wincing.
"What's wrong?" asked Anton, looking down at me.
I tensed. If he wasn't a telepath, he was acute as hell.
"A sort of memory."
"One that makes you jump and wince? Doesn't sound like a good one."
"Neither good nor bad. Just…gone."
He muttered something about blue, remembered hills.
"I'm sorry?"
"Happy highways where I went and cannot come again."
"Oh!" Yes, that was it. That was it. My throat felt full and there was moisture on my face that had nothing to do with rain or even sea spray.
He put his arm round me and tugged me a bit closer. We stood looking back at the town, like two exiles saying goodbye to land.
He said abruptly, "I came here once when I was a kid. Exchange holiday. It's a good place."
Outside the pub there was a handwritten notice advertising craft beer. I patted it happily. "Ooo lovely."
He groaned. "For God's sake take care with Prime Piddle. It stinks." He opened the door for me. "How do you know about real ale, then?"
"Chap I worked for. Peter Abel."
"Abel? The genius kids man?"
I nodded. "Founder member of the Campaign for Real Ale, and very proud of it." I didn't tear up at the memory this time. It just made me feel warm.
Anton was right about the beer. It smelled like two-day-old rugby socks. The barman turned out to be kind Colin from the DIY shop who welcomed me cheerily.
As, back at the chippie, did Chandra and her quiet husband. They came and sat with us, in the frequent intervals between customers.
In fact, I had a really nice time. Anton was entertaining and had travelled widely. He made us laugh about his student travel in India and hippie days in San Francisco. Places, I suddenly realised, I would now never visit.
"Something wrong?" he said, seeing me droop.
There was no way to explain that would make sense to these kind people.
"Just tired."
"Let's get you home."
Home. It sounded lovely.
I stumbled a couple of times as we headed down the slope to the beach, and Anton took my hand. He also brought out a small torch and lit the footpath in front of us. It made me feel—well—odd.
At Forget-me-not I thanked him for the tour, the meal and his company. But he stopped me before I could close the doors on him.
"What?"
I wondered if he was expecting a good night kiss, which I had heard of but had no further information on. Or wild, exotic sex, given his San Francisco experience. Theoretically I knew more about that, though I couldn't see me flinging my underwear over the door handle, as I'd heard was de rigueur.
In the Institute, physical intimacy consisted of a rapid transfer of energy. It was practised with great secrecy and regarded with disdain by Management. And I didn't know anything about that, either.
In the dark, I couldn't see Anton's expression but I could hear from his voice that he was laughing. "No electricity. You'll fall off that sleeping platform if you don't have a light."
"Oh." On reflection, I saw he had a point. "I didn't think of that."
"I did." Not only laughing but smug. "The torch," he added with a bow worthy of a Cavalier, "is yours. Good night." And he pressed it into my hand and sauntered off under the stars.
I was very cold and nearly asleep on my feet but I stood in the doorway watching him out of sight. I had an uneasy feeling that Anton had read my goodbye anxieties very clearly. And that I had let him win a game I didn't know we were playing.
It was annoying.
I couldn't wait for our next match.
Chapter Eight
It was very cold in Forget-me-not. It would be even colder outside with my telescope. I decided I couldn't face it. I would star
t my lunar observations tomorrow.
I kept all my clothes on, then grabbed all the blankets and the quilt out of the chest and wrapped myself in them like a mummy. By the time I'd done that, I couldn't face climbing the ladder to the sleeping platform, either. So I threw every single cushion I could find onto the floor, as far away from the draughty doors as I could get. They made a nest of sorts. It wasn't all that comfortable but I was beyond noticing. I collapsed into them and slept until morning.
Quite late morning, actually. When I woke, I was very stiff. And there was a great carpet of sunlight on the front half of the beach hut.
I untangled myself and faced the first day of my new, if temporary, life. And soon realised that there were practical matters to be sorted urgently. I couldn't march back to the Jubilee Gardens every morning to go to the loo and wash. They were spotlessly clean but they didn't even have a shower.
I was pondering solutions when I saw Chandra and her husband unloading their van outside the fish and chip shop. She waved. It gave me an idea. I crossed the road…
Twenty minutes later I had negotiated bathroom rental for the month, borrowed Chandra's transistor radio and bought a prawn salad, a coffee and a home-baked cinnamon roll for breakfast-well-lunch.
Not too bad, I thought, pleased with myself. Thrown back on my own resources, I hadn't lost all my problem-solving skills. Or maybe the people of Little Piddling were just kind to incompetent strangers. For, when I got back to Forget-Me-Not, there was a cardboard box on the boardwalk outside, with a note. It was from Judith.
Sorry I missed you last night. Here are some things you might be able to use.
It was heavy. I unlocked the doors and staggered inside with it. But even when I unpacked it, I didn't recognise much, except a small greaseproof packet of shortbread. For the first time, I remembered the Secretary without flinching. In fact, I laughed. Little Piddling was giving me Honoured Visitor treatment in spades.
I shook out last night's bedding and tidied my little home, leaving the doors wide open to the sea air, so I could apply the next coat of paint. By then the sun was directly overhead and it was really warm. So I copied former colleagues and took Funeral in Berlin with Chandra's prawn salad onto the beach and gave myself a proper lunch hour.
It astonished me that anyone could stop reading a novel and go back to work after only an hour. Or even two. I couldn't put it down.
I was still deep in double- and treble-crossings, when a voice above me said, "Good book?"
I looked up. The sun was already beginning to dip towards the horizon. For a moment it turned his remarkable hair to flame. And then I blinked and it was just hair again.
"What is it?" Anton said, looking behind him.
Ah. Very much not a telepath, then.
I pulled a frond of grass to keep my place in the book and closed it. "You startled me."
He squinted at the book cover. "Len Deighton? Good book?"
I considered. "It's terribly exciting. But I really hate the people."
He lowered himself down beside me. "Will you stick with it?"
I stared. "Of course. I have to know what happens. I've just always hated spies. Lying to everybody. Yuck!"
It was a sore point. That was how I ended up in Education and Research. I'd refused to train as a spy, which is what Adaptive Life Forms were originally bred for. The Institute had not been pleased. If they'd cut me loose now, that was probably why.
Anton stared. "Know a lot of spies, do you?"
I made a face. "How would one know?"
He hesitated, then said, "How indeed?"
I remembered Judith's box of mysteries and jumped up. "I'm glad you're here. I need help with something."
Anton came back to Forget-me-not and investigated obligingly. There seemed to be a lot of machinery.
He held one piece up. "That's a foot pump. Is there a Lilo or something?"
I didn't know what a Lilo was and said so.
I'm not sure he believed me. But he said, "An inflatable mattress for paddling out to sea, going too far and calling out the lifeboat." With some bitterness, I thought.
"Inflatable! Of course. There's a sort of rubber envelope on the sleeping platform. I suppose I have to blow it up." I looked at the machine doubtfully.
He ran up the ladder and investigated. "Yes, I can see the valve. Hand the thing up to me, will you?"
I did.
There was a certain amount of muttering and some experimental standing on chairs, then the table. But eventually he found the ideal configuration and Forget-me-not resonated to the sound of pumping. When he was satisfied, he tidied the pump away and said, "That's an awkward space. I'll finish what I've started. Where are the bed clothes?"
I indicated the blankets, still draped over chairs, cooking gently in the sun.
"Yes, but that can't be all. Isn't there a sleeping bag or something?"
Sure enough, they were in the chest, right at the bottom, a depth to which I had been too tired to plunge, or even notice, the night before. Sheets and pillow cases, and, oh joy, a couple of flattened pillows.
"Look," I said, emerging triumphant and just a bit dusty.
But he had found my telescope. I'd had to move it to get at the linen and I'd put it down beside the bookcase. It was still in its carrying case. Anton had opened it to inspect it.
"What on earth did Judith bring you this for?" he asked blankly.
"No, no, that's nothing to do with Judith. It's mine. A telescope. My hobby is astronomy." It was what I'd told the Orwell College governors at my interview. No one had ever queried it.
Nor did Anton, though he looked at me pretty narrowly, as he put it down on the table. With great care, I noticed. But he didn't say anything else, just gathered up the sheets and blankets and ran up the ladder with them.
I heard him whistling, as he thumped about. When he'd finished, he backed to the edge of the platform and swung round to sit on the top step. Then he slid down the ladder, arms and legs splayed, giving a great schoolboy hoot of glee and triumph.
It was infectious. I had to laugh in sympathy.
He stood up and dusted off his hands. "So let's see what else Milly's sent you, then." And started removing other stuff from the cardboard box.
"What? I thought Judith brought all these things?"
"Judith would just be playing postman. That pump for the airbed is pure Milly." He picked up the other bit of machinery. It had reminded me of an archaic chemistry lab, but he patted it as if it were a familiar pet. "Aha. Here's Bert's camping gas stove too. State of the art, that is."
"How does it work?"
"Propane gas. There'll be some somewhere."
"Gas?"
He was picking through the box but looked up and saw me frowning. He laughed softly. "Don't worry. It's basically lighter fuel. Bert won't admit it, but it's standard equipment these days. Boy scouts take them to camp, I'm told."
He might as well have been speaking a foreign language. I nodded.
"Now what's this?" He held up a small wooden box.
I took it from him. Like the blanket chest, it had been beautifully made. I turned it round, marvelling at the tongue-and-groove joints, the almost silky finish of the polished wood. It looked as if had been intended for a jewellery box. Opened, though, it proved to contain tea bags. When I looked more closely, I saw that there were four different types, tied together with different coloured ribbons. Each small parcel had a luggage label attached, with a handwritten inscription. The writing was copperplate, almost Victorian. The blue ribbon was English Breakfast.
"Look." I couldn't say anything else.
The woman who had sent me that home-baked shortbread had also gone to the trouble of sorting out my tea choices: Typhoo, Orange Pekoe and Nettle were also on offer. I felt as if my landlady had wrapped her patchwork quilt round me and given me a hug.
Anton was putting together the portable gas burner but he spared a glance at the contents of the box and smiled. "Milly takes her
tea seriously."
I swallowed hard.
"There should be a kettle in one of the cupboards." He opened one and started to rummage. "Milly usually— Ah, here it is." He held up a shiny silver thing, with a stumpy spout. It had a sort of ski hat contrivance covering the end of the spout. "Kettle. It's a whistler. Scared the living daylights out of me the first time Milly brewed up for breakfast."
He located a bottle of mineral water and poured it into the kettle. Then he picked up the burner, a gas canister and the box of tea and headed outside.
I followed.
Anton was looking for something. "Ah," he said with satisfaction. "Here it is."
Beside Forget-me-not was a small brick-built shelter. I'd assumed it was for the storage of trash. But Anton was putting the burner on top of it, beaming.
"Perfect," he said. "Bert must have built it. See? It's level, out of the wind, just the right size. Now—" He checked to see I was watching. "We insert the canister like this. You don't have to force it. It just slides into position." He took it out again and handed the can to me. "Now you do it."
I did. I've always been a quick study.
"Oh, OK." Did he sound a bit deflated? "Now you turn the knob on the burner. And light your match. Like so."
There was a soft whoosh and the burner produced a steady circle of blue flame. Anton put the kettle on top of it. "Did Milly put in any biscuits, by any chance? I found the longlife milk."
"I'll look."
She had. Of course she had. After yesterday's shortbread, she'd followed up with chocolate chip cookies, possibly also homemade. They were wrapped in pretty blue and white napkins with pictures on them. Milly had sent me a whole packet of those, too. I took him the lot, napkins and all, along with a couple of mugs from the kettle cupboard.
He was wrong to tell me the kettle whistled. It screamed. Which was what it did the moment I turned the corner. I froze. Anton retrieved my burdens and began picking his way through Milly's loving selection of teas.
I knew my eyes were filling and there wasn't a damn thing I could do about it. Damn human bodies.
I tried. I really tried. I managed to say, "How very kind she is."
Beach Hut Surprise: Escape to Little Piddling this summer — six feel-good beach reads to make you smile, or even laugh out loud Page 9
