The Sweetest Thing

by Susan Sallis

  About the Book

  Cornwall, 1960 – and a whole new world for young Connie Vickers as she holidays with her brand-new fiancé William. But a strange encounter with a beautiful blond boy on the beach leads to a terrible tragedy, the consequences of which are to affect Connie and William for the rest of their lives.

  A heartwarming new novel from this bestselling and well-loved author

  Contents

  About the Book

  Title Page

  Dedication

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  About the Author

  Also by Susan Sallis

  Copyright

  The Sweetest Thing

  Susan Sallis

  For Jane and Mike

  with love

  One

  Summer 1960

  CONNIE TURNED THE key on the door of the beach hut, registering the grittiness of sand in the lock, praying it would open. She pulled at the door so that its normal creak crescendoed to a scream of protest. She stepped inside, whipped the damp towel and swimming costume from the hook and threw them out on to the beach; one of the deckchairs followed, its canvas billowing helplessly. Then the beach table made from driftwood. She watched it fall; it did not break.

  Before she could get a grip on the beach mat and paper parasol, a voice said loudly, ‘Hang on, miss! Steady as she goes! If you’ve ’ad a row with the boyfriend don’t take it out on the furniture!’

  The fact that her anger was so obvious and so childish made it melt instantly and left her cold and shivery inside. It had buoyed her up as she left the boarding house and ran down to the cove, and without it she almost collapsed on to the wooden floor of the hut.

  The young lad who looked in as she stood there, rigid, suggested deep breathing. She’d seen him yesterday; he manned the little shop at the foot of the cliff steps and doled out extra deckchairs. It didn’t sound as if he were trying to be quizzical or sarcastic. It sounded as if he had made the driftwood table himself and very recently mended the door of the beach hut too. She felt ashamed of her outburst.

  She turned and looked at him. He was only about seventeen, appeared younger still in his khaki shorts. She supposed that in a year or two he would look just as ridiculous as William looked – as all men looked – in shorts. Such a pity. Perhaps he wouldn’t, though. His eyes were so blue, his hair the colour of straw.

  She said, ‘I’m sorry. I really am.’

  He stopped talking and opened his eyes wide. He said, ‘You’re not going to cry, are you?’

  ‘Of course not. Don’t be absurd. I’m in a temper, that’s all. And I hardly ever get into a temper.’ She felt a tear run down to her chin. He was embarrassed.

  ‘Look . . . I din’t mean nothing. Honest. I’ll set you up.’ He jumped from the concrete shelf which held the beach huts and grabbed the collapsed deckchair. ‘Come and sit down. Come on.’ He leaned up and took her bag from her and put it carefully by the chair, then held out a hand. She stepped down all of six inches. She felt her nose running. If only he was ten years older . . . maybe five . . . she could have talked to him.

  She stumbled into the chair and he made to leave her.

  She said loudly, ‘We’re engaged! I mean, engaged – doesn’t that mean anything?’

  He paused and thought. ‘I guess it means you’re promised to each other.’

  She gulped and nodded. Then said, ‘Are you American?’

  ‘No. Why did you say that?’

  ‘You said . . . I don’t know . . . you said “I guess” and I would’ve said “I suppose” . . . I suppose.’ She glanced up and tried to laugh. ‘I mean, I think. It doesn’t matter.’

  He said, ‘I read a lot of American books. I’m reading something by a guy called Raymond Chandler at the moment.’

  ‘Oh! I like him too. Did you see Humphrey Bogart and—’

  ‘Sure. The Big Sleep.’

  ‘There you go again. Saying sure instead of yes.’ She could talk to him like this because she was older than him; four years, maybe five. And there was something else about him. More than childish innocence. The word ‘simple’ sprang to her mind but it had connotations that did not fit him.

  They both laughed. He said, ‘I’ll get you a cup of coffee.’

  She fished in her handbag. ‘Get two.’ She looked up, suddenly diffident. ‘Unless you’re too busy to stop for coffee?’

  He grinned and his very blue eyes narrowed and twinkled.

  ‘Why do you think I read Raymond Chandler? They don’t trust me with the surfing beach so they gave me this job. Hardly anyone comes here to the cove. I’ve got loads of time.’

  She leaned back in the chair, feeling slightly better. She thought of William flirting with Mrs Heatherington and her long cigarette holder. Cigarette holder indeed. And silk gloves. They were in deepest Cornwall in a heatwave. Connie was wearing the espadrilles her mother had brought back from a holiday in Brittany. Mrs Heatherington’s rather plump legs ended in peep–toed high heels. Connie knew that her mother would classify Mrs Heatherington as common because the toes that were visible sported blood–red enamelled nails, and although Connie would normally have dismissed such a judgement as old–fashioned, now, in view of . . . things, she was not quite so dismissive.

  She lay back in the deckchair and held her bottom lip between her teeth. She told herself she was being oversensitive. In fact – she had to face up to it – she had been her usual stupid self. Ever since William had asked her to marry him she had had stars in her eyes; quite literally she had been unable to see properly. She was ecstatic. This could not be happening to Connie Vickers from the respectable suburb outside Birmingham who was so ordinary she was boring. But – she had heard this countless times from her mother – men did not respect girls who slept with them before the wedding day. And this . . . what was happening now, with William giving all his attention to Mrs Heatherington . . . this was what she had meant.

  Tears were gathering again. She searched for the anger that had ejected her from the lounge of the Blue Seas boarding house and down to the cove. It had gone, probably for good.

  Sounds of bare feet on sandy concrete; she looked up and around. The boy was approaching with steaming cups wobbling precariously on their saucers. She leaned forward, righted the little table and dug its legs into the sand, then reached up.

  ‘This isn’t part of the job description, is it? You’re not a waiter. We come to you.’ She forced a smile as she took the drinks and placed them carefully. He sat on the sand. She said, ‘My name is Connie Vickers. I come from Birmingham.’

  ‘I could tell.’ She flushed. He laughed. ‘Everyone thinks they en’t got no accent. Why? Is Birmingham an awful place?’

  ‘No, of course not. But my mother wouldn’t like to know I had an accent of any kind. Where do you live?’

  ‘Hayle.’ He made it sound like ‘hell’ and she laughed. Encouraged, he went on, ‘There’s Mum and my three sisters. Bit hard up, like, since Dad died.’ She held her breath but he went on smoothly. ‘I wanted a summer job and I ’ad to come down the coast to get it.’

  ‘Good for you!’ She glanced at him above her cup, wondering whether to mention his father. Then said, ‘Are you going to college in the autumn?’

&
nbsp; ‘Naw . . . me? You are joking! I can add up, take away . . . I’m what at my school they call a woodwork boy. Good with me hands, not so good with this!’ He tapped his head.

  She looked at him. ‘I don’t believe that. What about Raymond Chandler?’

  ‘That’s diff’rent. Cain’t do Shakespeare. Cain’t do algebra. Raymond Chandler lays it out simple. Bit like wood . . . specially wood what’s come out of the sea. Driftwood. Weathered and salted and making its own shapes.’ He pointed to the little table with his big toe. ‘That table wouldn’t break that easy. I went with the wood, y’see. Din’t try and force it to do what it din’t want to do. If you do that with anything – anything at all – it dun’t work.’

  ‘No.’ She thought about it. ‘That’s true. That’s why . . . that’s why . . .’ She couldn’t go further. She sipped her coffee, which was delicious, and raised her eyebrows. ‘What’s your name?’

  ‘They call me Egg.’

  She was astonished. ‘Why?’

  ‘’Cos it’s Egbert and Mum dun’t like Bert.’ He wasn’t smiling.

  ‘Listen, can I call you Philip?’

  ‘Call me what you like.’

  She said gently, ‘The thing I’ll remember about you is that you like reading Raymond Chandler. So I won’t forget Philip. Philip Marlowe.’

  ‘Oh.’ He looked at her, his eyes alight. ‘That’s . . . real nice.’

  She laughed. ‘You know, you really do sound like an American. Perhaps you’ll go there one day.’

  ‘I might.’ He drained his mug and put it down, looked at her and then away. ‘My pa was a Yank. Stationed down Devon. Ma worked there in one of they big houses turned into a sort of hostel for the troops. They was going to get married then he got drownded in a landing exercise. She came back to Hayle to have me and she married a boy she sat next to when she were at school. He were kind to me. Real kind. I cain’t very well miss my real pa ’cos I never knew him. But I do miss my dad. I were five when he married Ma. I called him Dad straight off. He died two year past.’

  She stared at his down-bent head. She was ashamed of her temper, her pettiness. She said, ‘Oh Phil. I’m so sorry.’

  He flashed her a smile. ‘That do sound good . . . Anyway, we’re all right. The Pardoes. That’s our name. Dad adopted me so I could be a Pardoe too and not illegal no more. There’s still five of us going strong! Real strong. Mum were nineteen years old when I was born so she’s thirty-five now. Strong as a horse. And Ellie’s just passed her scholarship to go to Truro – she’s a bit skinny but she’ll do all right. And the other two girls . . . daft as brushes but plenty upstairs.’ He tapped his head again, laughing now.

  She asked their names because she did not know what else to say and was suddenly frightened she was going to cry again.

  ‘Denny. Short for Denise. And Barbara. They’re tinkers.’

  ‘And . . . you love them.’

  She was surprised by her pronouncement. Boys didn’t ever admit to loving their sisters. They put up with them. At the very best they were allowed to be the tiniest bit proud of them.

  He said, also surprised, ‘I guess I do. Ellie . . . Ellie is something else. When Dad told me off about something she told me that I would always be his favourite because I was the only son.’

  There was a long silence.

  Connie cleared her throat. ‘My dad died in the war too. But Mother didn’t marry again and I’m an only child.’ He looked up, smiling, really listening, as if something significant was about to be revealed. She blurted, ‘I’m engaged to William Mather. He’s quite a bit older than me and Mother approves of him like mad. He’s a lawyer and I was a filing clerk, then he made me his secretary. I’m not much good at it. He says I’ve got the sort of qualities clients like. He’s very . . . kind.’

  ‘Sounds good.’ He put his head on one side. ‘Except I guess you’ve had a big row.’

  ‘You said that before. I thought it was a joke.’

  He laughed. ‘Mum and Dad were always having rows. He used to shut himself in the shed. Then Mum would give me a plate of stew and tell me to take it down to him and come straight back. And when I did she gave me another plate of stew and told me to go and eat with him.’

  She laughed too. She thought Mrs Pardoe must have been very confident of Mr Pardoe.

  She said suddenly, ‘William is sucking up to one of his clients. I didn’t realize this was a business trip. I thought it was a proper holiday to celebrate us getting engaged. So . . . that was a bit of a shock.’

  She supposed it was also one of the reasons she had clung to him when they said good night so that he got the wrong idea. But she couldn’t tell this boy that she had slept with her fiancé and thereby lost his respect for ever. She wished she could. She had a feeling he would make everything all right again.

  ‘I’d better go back for lunch otherwise he’ll think the worse of me.’ She started to struggle out of the deckchair. ‘Philip –’ she smiled – ‘you’ve been so kind. Thank you for the coffee. Keep reading.’

  He leaped to his feet and helped her upright then dropped her hands, embarrassed. He said, ‘Leave your stuff. Come down this afternoon and have a swim when the tide’s up.’

  ‘He might not want that.’

  ‘I’ll put the stuff in the hut if you don’t turn up. But it’s there waiting for you if you want it.’

  She smiled suddenly. ‘If he won’t come with me I’ll come by myself!’

  He grinned. ‘Good for you. Keep your nerve.’

  She took the sandy steps up the cliff, swinging her bag as if she didn’t have a care in the world. When she got to the top he was standing where she had left him on the sand. She waved. And he waved back.

  ‘Scuse me . . .’ A small girl barged past her waving a bucket, closely followed by another. A young couple brought up the rear carrying folding chairs and a bag bulging with towels.

  The woman said, ‘Do they sell food at the little shop down there, do you know?’

  ‘I think so. We had pasties there yesterday. And I’ve just had coffee.’

  The woman frowned. ‘They won’t do vegetarian food. Maybe cheese sandwiches. It looks ideal. And no one else around.’

  ‘There’s no surf, you see.’

  ‘Even better. The girls can paddle.’

  Connie watched them negotiate the steps with their loads. ‘Philip’ Pardoe came to meet them and helped them down on to the sand. She left them chatting. Of course he would do that sort of thing with everyone. It was his job, after all.

  William was not best pleased.

  ‘It’s not that I mind you doing things on your own! It’s just that I had no idea where you were. You simply left the dining room while I was chatting to Mrs Heatherington and when I went to your room you weren’t there either. I searched high and low—’

  ‘For goodness’ sake, William, don’t keep on! Surely you realized when the beach bag and the key to the hut were both gone—’

  ‘I’d said we would have coffee with Mrs Heatherington so I couldn’t come down to join you. You should have told me, Connie. Then I could have said to Mrs Heatherington that I was going to the beach immediately we’d had—’

  Neither of them had finished a sentence so far. Connie interrupted him again and said in her mother’s sensible voice, ‘I came back here after I’d had my coffee. And here we both are.’

  He was silent for a moment, frowning at her, then quite suddenly he smiled and looked lovely.

  ‘Oh darling. Wasn’t it marvellous? Last night you made me so happy I wanted to sing.’

  She melted immediately. There was no gradual realization that she had misunderstood his preoccupation with Mrs Heatherington, no regret for a wasted morning. She simply melted, right there in front of him.

  She breathed, ‘Oh William.’

  He touched the back of her hand. ‘I love you so much, Connie. You make everything worthwhile again.’

  Unexpectedly she remembered the day she had been interviewed fo
r the job, two years ago. Filing clerk for Arnold Jessup and Son, Family Solicitors.

  Mrs Flowers, who was Mr Jessup’s secretary, had sketched out the position. Mr Jessup’s father had started the practice and had looked after the families in Selly Oak and Kings Norton, and when he died, young Mr Arnold had taken it on, acted for the university several times and made himself quite a reputation. Then Mr Mather had arrived and that was the reason a filing clerk was needed. Mrs Flowers was quite used to doing two jobs, but three was one too many. Connie had made sympathetic noises but thought Mrs Flowers was letting her down gently.

  She had no idea, still did not, that Mrs Flowers liked the noises and she liked the look of Connie too. She was neat and pretty and offered no kind of threat. The previous applicant had been very blonde and very curvaceous. Connie had mouse-brown hair, tea-brown eyes and a schoolgirl figure. Mrs Flowers mentioned hopefully that perhaps she could take on some of Mr Mather’s work too. She expanded on Mr Mather. He had been the youngest officer parachuted into Arnhem; he had survived, but not unscathed.

  And then it had been Mr Jessup’s turn. Connie had been introduced to William when it became obvious that Mr Jessup was going to give her the job. She had looked at him and seen what Mrs Flowers had meant. His eyes were brown too but darker than hers, almost black. Almost haunted. She had wanted so much to help him.

  Perhaps that was why last night had happened. She understood suddenly that she too must take responsibility for last night. She went to him now and wrapped her arms around him. He held her tightly. ‘Don’t be frightened, darling. Did I frighten you?’

  ‘No.’ She wanted to tell him how . . . odd . . . last night had made her feel. As if she no longer belonged to herself.

  He kissed the top of her head and down to her right ear, where one of her short brown curls got into his mouth. He spluttered and laughed a little then whispered into her ear, ‘You are everything that is good and honest in this world, Connie.’

  The sense of responsibility was weighty. She must grow up somehow. She was five and a half feet tall and she consciously lengthened another inch as if to achieve this goodness and honesty. And then realized she never could.