Lovely Little Things in Pretty Beach : A magical feel-good romance book to escape with in summer 2021.

by Polly Babbington

  ‘Ahh, well, being a Cavendish is sometimes a bonus in life. I spoke to Lauren at the hotel and she said you two were looking at them in the staff room and you’d told her how you’d always fancied a pair.’

  Lulu nodded and smiled remembering looking at the website with Lauren and laughing. ‘So I did. You crafty thing,’ Lulu said as she pulled off her strappy black ankle-tie sandals and slipped the sparkling shoes onto her feet.

  ‘Wow. They’re gorgeous. I must have tried these on twenty times but never took the plunge and bought them. Thank you so much!’

  Ollie nodded. ‘I know little to nothing about shoes, but they are definitely lovely and they look gorgeous on you,’ he said as Lulu sat back down beside him.

  As Lulu adjusted her position and stared at the shoes, Ollie leaned over and kissed her, moved his hand under the ruffles on her dress, and as Lulu felt his skin and got lost in the kiss, she pushed herself more urgently towards him as all the preparation and feelings and anticipation of the planning and the warm-up to the moment reached a peak.

  Lulu abandoned herself to the moment and right then another clap of thunder banged above them, the heavens opened, and driving rain began to pour down all around them.

  Shrieking with laughter as rain battered the top of the pop-up marquee, Lulu picked up her black shoes and a couple of the pillows when Ollie suddenly swooped her up in his arms, hastily carried her across the lawn, and took her into the house. Hooting and shrieking with the rain soaking through their clothes they made it to the back terrace in a fit of laughter.

  With Mabel sopping wet and trailing in behind them, Lulu dropped the black shoes onto the boot room floor. Ollie stepped into the kitchen, Lulu slipped off the sparkly ballerinas, and as they clattered to the ground Ollie carried Lulu through the house, up the sweeping staircase, and laid her gracefully down on the beautiful emperor-size bed.

  And so began the best night of Lulu’s life.

  36

  Lulu could barely keep the smile off her face as she rode her bike along the promenade and made her way through the laneway and over towards the pier. With the wind in her hair and revelling in the beautiful fresh sea air, life was most definitely on the up.

  It had been a month or so since the marquee event, where all her meticulous planning had gone disastrously pear-shaped because of the rain. However, ending up in her new bed with Ollie for the night had been more than enough to make up for not being under the stars.

  The night with Ollie had taken Lulu to places she had never known existed and in some bizarre twist, it had made her chuckle to herself about all the years with Fenton. The years she was now inadvertently referring to as The Unknowing Years. The years when absolutely everything had always been solely about him.

  Now, with Ollie, Lulu had realised there were very different places to go and had said a million or so private thank-yous that she had been released from Fenton’s grip. Even though at the time she’d thought life as she’d known it was over, now she had been introduced to a whole new place.

  The new bright and shiny world of Ollie Cavendish and life in Pretty Beach had made her old existence with its many holidays, brand new cars, high-tech gadgets and fancy hotels fade away. Even living in two rooms in a very much in need of help house, her life now seemed to shift both up and down a gear simultaneously. It had shifted to somewhere slower, easier and all-around nicer at the same time as being exciting and new. And Lulu wouldn’t turn the clock back to being married to Fenton for anything in the world.

  Lulu locked her bike to the bike rack adjacent to the pier, pulled her new basket from the back, and with the basket over her arm strolled all the way down the promenade until she got to the end.

  Shading her eyes from the bright sunshine, she walked down the steps, found herself a spot on the beach, laid down a pale blue and white striped towel, put on her sunhat, and sat down.

  As she sat there looking out to sea, the waves moving rhythmically in and out, she thought about everything that had happened since the day she had first arrived back in the bay and had driven around looking out over Pretty Beach.

  Since then, her life had completely turned around. She’d had to negotiate all sorts of new challenges from learning the hotel software, to painting kitchen cupboards, to dealing with rats. But most of all, Lulu had negotiated the one thing she hadn’t realised had been missing in her life all along. Lulu had fallen head over heels, in what she could only presume was what other people in the know had always referred to as, ‘real love.’

  Not that there had been a mention of the ‘love’ word in any shape or form. Her relationship with Ollie had been speedy but at the same time easy and comfortable. They’d been together whenever they could since the kiss after the fish and chips. He’d taken her to the lavender farm for afternoon tea, they’d gone on the train up to London for the day, gone for dinner at the Old Bell Hotel, and to the Yacht Club in Newport for a long, boozy lunch.

  Lulu had done exactly what she had told Willow she would do and had thrown all caution to the wind and she was loving the ride. Everything was trundling along nicely and Lulu felt as if someone had looked down on her from above and sprinkled her with a good dosing of hope for the future. Hope that she would not end up being eaten by rats while she slept and that life could be much nicer than it ever had been before.

  After reading her book, laying out a napkin and tucking into her favourite lemon and herb couscous salad Lulu turned over onto her front, took out her phone and video called Ava.

  ‘Hey lovely! How are you?’ Lulu said as the sea glinted in the background behind her and she burst out laughing as Ava answered with her head resting back on a stack of cushions and a white sheet mask plastered all over her face.

  ‘Hi! I’m good. I’ve just finished my packing. Now, I’m primping all the bits that need attention. My greys have been done, my forehead frozen, and I’ve plucked half my face off, hence the mask.’

  ‘Ha! Hilarious! Ooh, I can’t wait to see you. Are you all set now?’

  ‘I am indeed. All I have to do now is get myself to the airport, board the flight, have a few glasses of bubbles, and settle myself down. Bring it on. The next time you speak to me I’ll have left Heathrow and I’ll be gearing up for my first speaking gig.’

  ‘The flight bit sounds lovely. I cannot wait for my stay in the hotel. We’re going to have such a lovely time. We always do.’ Lulu sighed in pleasure.

  ‘Yep. I know, we most certainly are! Sheilagh has booked you a gorgeous suite and you’ve looked over the welcome speech and introduction you’re doing, have you?’

  ‘Indeed I have. I’m all over it like a rash. Good old Sheilagh. One day in another life I will have someone to organise me too,’ Lulu said as she shaded her eyes from the sun as it came back out from behind a cloud.

  ‘It looks lovely there! Look at that sunshine,’ Ava said as she tried to keep her face still in the mask.

  ‘I know! It’s unbelievable. You can’t beat the English seaside on days like this, can you? We’ve had a run of good weather for a few weeks. Long may it last.’

  Ava smiled. ‘Sunshine since the day of the event under the stars?’

  ‘Yep. Pretty much.’ Lulu giggled back.

  ‘How is the man with honey skin?’

  Lulu lowered her voice. ‘Fabulous. Like really fabulous, Ava. I cannot believe this is happening to me.’

  ‘Why not?’ Ava replied.

  ‘Oh, I don’t know. I thought I would be alone down here with just Willow when she gets back and Lottie and the odd few locals I know from the past. I didn’t expect to be with someone. And it’s all just so easy. It’s like he’s always been around.’

  ‘Hmm. I guess it wasn’t really expected, but I’m not surprised. Not at all. You’ve blossomed since Fenton left. I know you couldn’t see it at the time, but I have watched it happen over the last year. That man did you no favours at all and once you were rid of him the old Lulu started to unfurl.’

  ‘Reall
y? How exactly have I blossomed? When I arrived here I felt the opposite. I felt as if I had deflated.’

  ‘Everything about the whole thing has been you blossoming. The determination to make a go of it in the house, the success at the new job, getting Lovely Little Things going again, meeting Ollie…’ Ava trailed off.

  ‘I didn’t have much choice, though,’ Lulu noted a more serious tone to her voice.

  ‘Yeah, you did. You could have taken the easy way out. But you took the scary route. It was like I was observing from the sidelines you living out my mantra, Lulu. A confident, capable, independent woman doing it on her own. You took the bull by the horns on all of it, put your head down and got stuck in after that pig of a husband did what he did. Can you remember the state of that house the day you moved in? Look at you now. You’re like a different person!’

  ‘Oh god. Don’t remind me of all that. I haven’t done that well. I still have nowhere to sit in the evenings, the front of the house is falling off and my fridge is in the garage.’

  ‘And you have a gorgeous kitchen which looks like it just stepped out of a Pinterest post, your own reliable income, a side business and a bedroom most people would chop their right arm off for.’

  Lulu nodded. ‘Maybe you're right. Oh, don’t tell me. Ahh! I get it. You’re going to flash me up on an overhead projector in one of your talks and dissect me as a case study.’ Lulu laughed.

  ‘Yes indeed. You’re already in. Pseudonym and made up location and all. I needed some new content and there it was playing out directly in front of me.’

  ‘Glad to be of assistance.’ Lulu smiled.

  Ava continued, ‘Seriously though. You’re like a whole different person. Fenton was sucking the life out of you one day at a time.’

  ‘Crikey, don’t I know it! When I look at that last year before he left, it was like I was being suffocated. He controlled everything.’

  ‘Yep. Not nice. Thank goodness you’re away from all that. Even though we’ve all seen Fenton, or actually I’m going to refer to him as his real name Darren from now on, plastering his fantastic new life all over Facebook. Everyone knows it’s fake.’

  ‘I thought precisely the same thing! I used to be part of that crap.’

  ‘And now you’re free and have the lovely Ollie by your side.’

  ‘I really think I am. Capable, confident, independent and me.’

  37

  Lulu sat on the outdoor seating in Ollie’s long, narrow back garden and waited for him to finish on the phone. She could hear the waves in the distance and every now and then the sun broke out behind a sky full of white fluffy clouds as she sipped on her tea. Ollie finished the call, came strolling back out into the garden and stood by the table.

  ‘Okay. All ready to go? Done with your tea?’

  ‘I am indeed. Are you sure it’s going to be okay? I feel a bit weird about this. I feel like I’m taking stuff I shouldn’t.’

  ‘Err, yeah. Of course it is! Perks of the job and better than it going to landfill,’ Ollie replied as he picked up Lulu’s mug and she followed him into the kitchen. ‘The last lot of excess furniture went to Lauren in Pettacombe’s grandad. He loved it apparently.’

  They were driving to Pettacombe to pick up two sofas which had come from one of the staff rooms of another Cavendish hotel. A new staff room had been located at the back of the hotel and the sofas hadn’t fit and an email had gone around to the Cavendish group to see if anyone was interested in them.

  Ollie had sent photos to Lulu of the two slipcovered sofas and asked her if she was interested. Lulu had taken one look at the pictures and with the alternative being the fold-up camping chairs which were currently in situ in the sitting room she had jumped at the chance and sent back a very enthusiastic message saying yes please if no one else wanted them. Now, in a rented van, Ollie and Lulu were driving to Pettacombe to pick up the sofas.

  As Lulu climbed into the cab, Ollie turned on Pretty Beach Radio and as he pulled out into the road Lulu stared ahead. It felt lovely to be with him, sitting by his side doing regular old things. It was so different to life with Fenton. Everything with Fenton had been all about show, being seen, displaying all the labels, looking good, spending all the money that she now realised they hadn’t had, doing all the things. Sitting in a rented van next to Ollie on the way to pick up second-hand sofas felt a million miles away from that old fake life.

  Arriving at the hotel, dressed in jeans, white linen shirt, trainers and with her hair scraped back into a ponytail tied with a slim scarf Lulu walked into the back of the hotel while Ollie spoke to Jason the gardener, who was helping him to get the sofas into the back of the van.

  Lulu made her way to the loo and as she came out bumped straight into one of the other receptionists Samantha who Lulu usually worked with at the hotel in Pretty Beach. Samantha kissed Lulu on the cheek and said hello.

  ‘Wow, Lulu. Looking fab. It obviously suits you!’ Samantha said with a huge beaming smile.

  Lulu screwed up her nose and frowned as Samantha lowered her voice. ‘The Cavendish effect suits you very much indeed.’

  Lulu pretended that she didn’t know what Samantha was talking about and laughed. ‘No idea what you mean.’

  Samantha chuckled. ‘You’re positively glowing! I mean, who wouldn’t be glowing when they’re dating Ollie Cavendish. You’ve been the talk of the group. So, what’s it like?’

  Lulu was well aware that the Cavendish Group gossip mill had been in overdrive once it had found out about her and Ollie. So, there was no way she was going to give them anything else to chat about.

  ‘It’s great, thanks. I’m really happy.’

  ‘You do realise you’re the envy of everyone?’ Samantha giggled.

  Lulu didn’t know what to say so just nodded and smiled.

  ‘Talk about a catch! So, the other girlfriend is totally off the scene is she?’ Samantha asked, lowering her voice.

  ‘Err, what do you mean?’ Lulu replied.

  ‘Oh, sorry, that completely came out the wrong way. What an idiot I am. I just meant that Cressida girl he was often seen with. Remember we discussed it? I assume that wasn’t his girlfriend in the end. What was it then? Just friends or something?’

  Lulu stared intently at Samantha’s face. She clearly was not being malicious and seemed genuinely interested. Lulu smiled back and, not replying to Samantha’s question, she changed the subject. ‘Sorry, look, I’m just picking up those sofas. I’ve got to get back. I’ll see you next week. We’re on together on Tuesday, yes?’

  Samantha smiled back and, looking at her watch, continued, ‘Gosh, yes time flies. Yep, see you next week, Lulu. Enjoy the sofas!’

  As Lulu walked away and made her way outside to the waiting van, a tiny little part of her thought about what Samantha had said. Lulu never had quite managed to address the Cressida pictures with Ollie and find out what they meant. She’d just put them to the back of her mind. But, as she stood there watching Ollie and Jason lift the sofas into the van, she remembered how that evening she’d spent hours down a Cavendish family internet rabbit hole, the tea heiress and Ollie Cavendish had looked extremely comfortable together indeed.

  Lulu sat squashed up next to the window in the van as it sped down the motorway and Ollie and Jason chatted about the cricket. Lulu shook her head to banish all thoughts from her mind of what Samantha had mentioned. It was totally ridiculous to even think about what the tea heiress had meant and she wasn’t going to waste any energy on it.

  The new Lulu, the one who could easily carry a casual encounter, was not the Lulu who worried, dissected everything to within an inch of its life and analysed things until she was blue in the face. And anyway, as far as she could see Cressida tea lady was but a thing from the past.

  As they pulled into Seafolly Passage Lulu smiled as Jason exclaimed, ‘What, you live down here, Lulu? Cripes, lucky duck. My wife is desperate to live nearer the sea.’

  ‘I do, yes,’ Lulu replied as the van drove
slowly along the road and pulled up behind Lulu’s Audi.

  Jason peered out the window and looked up at Seafolly House as the shingling swayed in the wind from the first floor. ‘Ooh. Right. Sheesh. Blimey.’

  Lulu started laughing. ‘Yeah, it needs some work. You’re not the only one who reacts like that when they first see my house. I’m getting there though.’

  ‘Wait until you see inside,’ Ollie added. ‘It’s an amazing old house brimming with potential.’

  Jason undid his seatbelt. ‘Any house in Pretty Beach would do me to be quite honest. This must have cost a fortune! Even in this, umm, state.’

  Lulu jumped out of the van. ‘I wouldn’t know. Don’t hate me, but I inherited it. It was my grandma’s. She left it to my sister and I and now it’s mine. My grandma never actually lived in it though, she lived in Mermaids and this place was always rented out.’

  Half an hour later, with the sofas in the centre of the huge sitting room and after giving Jason a guided tour of the house, Lulu, Ollie, and Jason were standing in the sitting room each holding a mug of tea. They looked around at the large room with its high ceilings, intricate fireplace and window seat. As Lulu stood there, she realised how far she had come since that first day when she had opened the front door to the gloomy dark house and had been overwhelmed by the dismal feel and depressing smell.

  The sitting room was far from finished but the mouldy wallpaper was long gone, the broken window pane had been repaired, the fireplace was clean with a swept chimney, and the window seat had been rubbed down ready for its first coat of paint.

  The white primed walls were waiting to be top coated, the floors were dust free and clean, and after a full day of just cleaning the glass on the windows and French doors, the potential in the room was easily seen.

  Jason took a sip of his tea. ‘You’ll have to hope the Cavendish Group has a few more sofas going. These two are lost in here! What a magnificent room this is going to be when it’s done.’