The Beach Hut Next Door

by Veronica Henry

  Once he’d dropped off Rachel’s stuff, he started to head back to the hut. He remembered their excitement the day they’d decided to buy it. They’d spent a lazy bank holiday on the beach, picnicking and sunbathing and swimming, and on the way back to the car they’d seen the For Sale sign in the window. Rachel had sighed, ‘If only.’ By the time they got to the car, Tim had done the maths. ‘Why not?’

  They’d never actually vocalized it, but of course the purchase had been a long-term one, and each of them had envisaged family holidays there in the future. Now, for Tim at least, that vision was crushed.

  He trudged back along the crescent of sand. The tide was right in, and the crowds had moved accordingly, shifting their picnic blankets and UV tents as far in as they could go. Although the sun was high in the sky, Tim felt a grey bleakness close in on him. Most people would give their right arm to have the summer ahead of them to enjoy Everdene, but it filled Tim with a sense of dread. Maybe he would just sub-let it; it would be easy enough. And better than being reminded of his broken dream every weekend …

  He tried to snap himself out of his doleur by drinking in the sparkling sea, thinking about the early morning surfing he could do; the mates he could ask down over the next few weeks. He stood outside the door for a moment: it was propped open to let in what little breeze there was. The huts always baked in the afternoon sun, and he could smell the heat of the bare wood.

  Rachel had made a pile of sandwiches, pulled open a bag of Kettle chips and flipped him open a beer. They sat next to each other on the steps, as they had so many times over the years, and ate in silence, each pretending that it was simply too hot to talk.

  Afterwards, they sat on the sagging corduroy sofa – the one the turquoise velvet bargain had replaced – with their feet on the coffee table Tim had made out of old wine-boxes, and went through the to-do list. The felt on the roof needed replacing. Tim got out his iPad to check out workmen who might be able to do it. As he searched, he realized that Rachel had fallen asleep.

  He barely dared breathe as he didn’t want to wake her. As she fell deeper into slumber, she sank into him until her head was on his chest. It was an unbearably familiar pose, the one they’d always ended up in on a Friday night in front of the television, after a hard week’s work and a bottle of wine. Rachel would pass out after the first half hour of whatever movie they had decided to watch, and Tim would curl himself round her, protectively, watching it until the bitter end. And would then have to tell her what had happened, when she woke up in indignation as the credits rolled.

  He wanted to put a hand on her stomach. He wanted to see if he could feel the baby. He knew it wouldn’t be big enough yet, but he felt sure he would be able to detect some sort of energy pulsing inside her. But he fought the urge, even though he knew she would be so deeply asleep she wouldn’t notice. It was too invasive. Creepy. And Tim didn’t want to be a creep. Or jealous. Or over-interested. He wanted to run away from the whole situation. He had no idea how to deal with it. Not least because he didn’t really know very much about the guy Rachel was seeing, who was presumably the father. They didn’t touch upon their personal lives when they met. Well, they didn’t touch on hers. Tim didn’t have one. Or at least he felt as if he didn’t. There was nothing personal about his existence.

  He couldn’t even remember Rachel’s boyfriend’s name. They weren’t married, he knew that. She very sweetly made a huge effort not to mention him, and made sure he wasn’t there when Tim turned up. Tim supposed his name didn’t much matter; only his sperm count.

  He grimaced. Self-pity again. It really was time he got over himself. But as he sat there, her head warm and heavy on him, he realized this was as intimate as he had been with anyone since the divorce. Sure, he’d had sex. But he hadn’t had someone melt into him like Rachel was right now – someone who was so comfortable being near him that it felt as if they were as one …

  Rachel stirred, then woke. She looked up at him, confused, that same end-of-movie face he remembered. What happened? she was thinking. But nothing had happened.

  ‘You were out for the count,’ Tim told her.

  She sat up and wiped at her mouth, anxious she might have dribbled. ‘I’m sorry, I’m just so tired,’ she said, then looked straight at him. ‘I’m pregnant.’

  ‘I know.’

  ‘I’m sorry.’

  ‘Jesus.’ Tim looked pained. ‘Don’t be sorry. It’s great. Congratulations. I’m really pleased for you. Really.’

  ‘Oh shit.’ She put her face in her hands and dissolved into tears. ‘I’m sorry. I’m all over the place. It doesn’t take much to make me cry. Oh God.’

  She leaned against him again. He stroked her hair away from her face, the little fine strands that had stuck to her forehead in the heat. He willed her not to say any more. He didn’t want to go through it all again, the fault thing, the blame thing.

  He imagined a tiny boy with Rachel’s white-blonde hair and caramel skin. A tiny boy with laughing eyes and white teeth, patting his mother’s cheek. He felt a terrible creak inside him that he guessed was his heart breaking. Yet he was still alive. He was still breathing, in and out. He could still feel her head on his chest. He wondered if she’d heard the noise?

  He patted her. ‘It’s OK, Rach. It’s cool. I’m cool with it. It’s what I want for you.’

  ‘Really?’ She sat up, her face blotchy with heat and tears. ‘I didn’t know how to tell you.’

  ‘I’m really happy for you.’ Tim looked into her eyes. ‘It’s wonderful.’

  She sniffed and nodded.

  ‘Listen,’ he said. ‘I’ve been thinking. The beach hut – I’ve kind of grown out of it. It doesn’t fit into my life any more.’

  ‘Oh.’ She looked shocked.

  ‘There’s too many memories. I need to broaden my horizons. Move on.’

  Her face creased with anxiety, and he itched to smooth out the fine lines on her forehead. ‘I can’t afford to buy you out, Tim. Not with the baby and everything … We’ll have to sell it.’

  ‘No, no – that’s not what I meant.’ Tim realized she’d misunderstood. ‘I want you to have my half.’

  ‘What?’

  He threw his hands out in an expansive gesture. ‘It should be yours. For you and the baby. To grow up in and have fun in.’ He wasn’t going to mention brothers and sisters, but already he could imagine them. Wonderful Rachel, with her tow-headed brood, calm and kind and funny and—

  ‘Don’t be silly,’ she interrupted his thoughts. ‘We can still share. Maybe we could move the dates round in the school holidays when it comes to it, but otherwise …’

  ‘No. I don’t want to be here any more. I want you to have it.’

  It was true.

  ‘That’s crazy. It must be worth a fortune. You can’t just throw away your half.’

  ‘Rach, I’m not poor. I’m earning a good wage and I’ve got no one else to spend it on.’

  She stared at him, swallowing hard. ‘Wow.’

  ‘It would give me enormous pleasure to know that it was yours. Honestly. I wouldn’t do it if I didn’t feel it was the right thing to do.’

  It would be too painful, to carry on sharing it with her and her new little family.

  And actually, maybe this was exactly what he needed to do and should have done ages ago. Cut the ties. Maybe then he could move on, instead of being reminded when he saw her, every six months …

  Just how very much he still loved her.

  ‘I think you should think about it,’ she said. ‘It’s a huge decision.’

  ‘I’ll spend August here,’ he said. ‘Then I’ll hand it over to you in September. I’ll get my lawyer to sign it over to you.’

  She put her hands up to her face. She was making a terrible choking sound. He tried to smile.

  ‘It was supposed to make you happy. Not cry.’


  She screwed her eyes tight shut and nodded. ‘I know. But …’

  He didn’t want her to say anything. If she did, he would cry too. And it was as if she knew that it was all getting too much for him, because she suddenly pulled herself together, looked at her watch, re-did her ponytail again.

  ‘I’d better go. I want to beat the weekend traffic …’ She moved away from him, looking for the things she needed. Her car keys. Her big wicker bag with the gingham lining. He knew without looking what was in it. Her battered Filofax because she still loved writing things down. A paperback – something thoughtful and thought-provoking. A tube of rose-scented hand cream because her hands were always dry. Her camera. A hair-brush with half a dozen hair ties wrapped around the handle. A bandana. A tiny rattan box full of worry dolls they’d bought in a museum in New York – he couldn’t remember which one now, but she’d loved them and kept them with her.

  Would he ever know anyone else so well?

  He kissed her goodbye, not quite letting his cheek brush hers. Moments later she was gone, and he watched her walk across the sand, carrying her flip-flops in one hand, her back straight, still walking with grace. He imagined she would still be graceful at full term. He imagined her in a year’s time, walking with the baby over one shoulder, confident and resplendent in her motherhood, talking to it gently while she did something, always so unflappable, always so mindful.

  Stop it, Tim, he told himself.

  He walked back inside the hut. There was still a dent in the sofa cushions where the two of them had been sitting. He patted them back into shape until there was no trace. Then he picked up his iPad and began to compile an invitation list from his email contacts. Including, he decided without hesitation, the cute girl who ran the deli up the road from him. She flirted with him when he bought his cheese on a Saturday morning. Not in an obvious way, but she always had something new for him to taste, and she’d wrap him up a tiny sliver in waxy brown paper for him to take away and try at home, and she recommended wine to drink with it. He didn’t have her email but he looked up the deli website and found the info address.

  No one but him need know that this was to be a farewell party; the last one he would throw at the beach hut before it became Rachel’s for ever. He would make it a party never to be forgotten. The party to end all parties. He selected an icon of a palm tree from his Clip Art file and created a border, then began to fill in the words.

  BEACH PARTY AT EVERDENE SANDS.

  THE SUMMER STARTS HERE

  My life, he thought, starts here.

  KIKI

  So prison, it turned out, wasn’t like it was on the telly: like an episode of Bad Girls or Orange is the New Black. No script or camera could ever capture the tedium, the boredom or the fear. Not so much the fear of what might happen inside – Kiki was used to being in care, after all, and prison wasn’t so different – but the fear that the experience might change you for good; that you would never be the same again. That you would lose hope, and that any good inside you might be snuffed out, and that you would be destined for a lifetime of recidivism, in and out of trouble and court and prison, in an endless, mind-numbing loop of utter uselessness, shunned by society, never able to get ahead and become respectable. Let alone respected.

  So when she found herself surrounded by a cluster of people from the local council, the tourist board, the various arts charities that had funded the project and a photographer from the local newspaper – the great and the good of Everdene – Kiki couldn’t quite believe it. As she took the key to the beach hut and put it in the lock, smiling for the camera, she wondered if they really had any idea of how far she had come to get here? Of course, it was a good story, and she was happy for them to use it in their PR, but seeing it in black and white and actually living it were two different things. And, of course, the true story had been glossed over and given plenty of spin so it just read as if she had been unlucky; that getting caught had been a one-off, a momentary aberration because she had fallen under the influence of someone charismatic and evil who had made her do Bad Things.

  ‘So – tell us how you feel about your new role?’ The reporter who’d been sent to cover the story smiled at her winningly. ‘I mean, it’s a dream come true, isn’t it?’

  ‘It is,’ agreed Kiki. ‘I can’t believe how lucky I am to be spending the summer here. And I’m so grateful to all the bodies who made it possible. And I’m really looking forward to giving people the opportunity to paint while they are down here. Anyone can pick up a brush and create something beautiful. You just need confidence. And inspiration. And what could be more inspiring than this?’

  She threw her arm out, taking in the wide expanse of Everdene Sands. The bay was looking particularly stunning, as if it knew it was going to be splashed all over the papers and had made the blue of the sea more blue, and the pink of the sand more pink, and the few clouds in the sky whiter than white.

  Kiki smiled as the photographer got the money shot: Kiki opening the door of the beach hut, where she was going to be artist-in-residence for the whole summer, encouraging visitors to unleash their creativity. At the same time, Kiki was being commissioned to paint a body of work to be exhibited during the winter months, all designed to raise the profile of Everdene as a holiday destination.

  She still couldn’t believe she had been chosen. There had been hundreds of applicants. After all, who wouldn’t want to spend the summer in a beach hut sploshing paint about? So the competition had been fierce. The application process had involved submitting a portfolio of work, supported by an artist’s statement, and then a round of rigorous interviews.

  Kiki had decided that the only way she was going to get through was by being up front and honest; not trying to dress herself up as someone with something deep and meaningful to say. In the end, her story had said it all. Art had, without wishing to sound melodramatic or pretentious, saved her from the gutter. She was quite upfront about that.

  ‘If it wasn’t for the painting classes in prison,’ she told the journalist. ‘I’d still be up to no good. I know I would. But it unlocked something inside me. It gave me hope. And—’ she searched for the right word – ‘passion. Passion for something other than the next high.’

  The journalist nodded solemnly, as if she understood, but Kiki knew she had no real comprehension of what it was like or how far Kiki had really come. People loved to think they were down with the dark side but they didn’t have a clue. Being born to a heroin addict and being taken into care at three days old was not a good start in life. Playing musical foster homes was even more traumatic and unsettling, especially when your spoilt and over-privileged mother was battling to get you back while trying to conquer her addiction. Kiki had been bounced from luxury back into care for the first twelve years of her life, as her mother desperately tried and failed to get straight for the sake of her child. She had eventually lost the battle when Kiki was thirteen, overdosing very quietly and suddenly after five months of being clean. Her devastated parents had washed their hands of the whole messy situation. They didn’t want to be reminded of the fact they had somehow failed their beautiful daughter. It was far easier to banish her most visible mistake. They had hurriedly handed Kiki back to Social Services. Kiki had gone from the funeral back into care in her best dress.

  It was inevitable, therefore, that she had fallen into the same black hole as her mum. Drugs had filled that hole, of course they had, and the world she had ended up in made it only too easy to lead a life of scoring, using, dealing and all the concomitant crime. She thrived on chaos and drama underpinned with violence, manipulated by men who saw a pretty and vulnerable girl who could be used and abused. And to find she had a use had given her a purpose. She had been a naive but willing victim, wild and rebellious, not really caring what happened to her, because she knew only too well that anything good could be taken away overnight, that just when you thought everything was going to be OK yo
ur world could be turned upside down. Going down for a crime she hadn’t masterminded, by the time it happened, was an inevitability she accepted. An occupational hazard.

  Now, as she stood on the beach, smiling for the camera, glowing in the warmth of the sun, she knew at long last that she trusted herself; that she was in control of her destiny. No one could destroy her now, or bring her down with them.

  ‘What do you think?’ the photographer thrust his camera at her to preview the pictures he’d taken. She still couldn’t believe what she saw. Not a skinny, mangy creature with matted extensions and peeling false nails dressed in minimal denim and high heels, but a glowing creature in a Hawaiian dress, her hair braided in hundreds of tiny plaits piled on top of her head, her skin smooth, her eyes, once dead, as bright as the light that bounced off the sea. She looked, she realized, happy. Something she had once had no experience of. She hadn’t recognized the feeling when it had crept up on her: a lightness, a warmth, a tingle that was not drug-induced and that didn’t fade once the hit had worn off.

  She almost hadn’t gone to the workshop that afternoon. The prison often put on talks from visitors they thought would inspire the inmates. Why would she want to go and see some famous artist bang on about painting? It would have no bearing on her life either inside prison or out of it. But something about the poster drew her in. Sebastian Turner, one-time bad boy of the British art scene, had spoken to her somehow. The photo on his poster showed both vulnerability and defiance, and something deep inside Kiki connected with that bravado. She wondered what he was hiding. So much that after a nondescript lunch of something vaguely orange floating about in a beige sauce, she found her way to the art room.