[Escape 01.0] Escape for the Summer

by Ruth Saberton

  Angel groaned. She was used to Gemma’s cooking frenzies and the destruction to the kitchen that followed. Angel was generally fine with all of that because Gemma was a fantastic cook and her cakes were to die for, but this wasn’t the point of being in Rock! The whole purpose of their visit had been to make a fresh start. For Gemma this meant going on a serious diet and losing a good couple of stone. That she was baking already, and only within a few hours of arrival, was a very bad sign indeed.

  “Angel! You made me jump!” Gemma gasped, spinning round and placing a hand against her ample chest. There was a smudge of flour across the bridge of her nose and her thick golden curls were piled up on the top of her head and secured with a rubber band. The telltale glimmer of sugar around her mouth suggested that, as always, Gemma had been sampling her cooking. “Wow,” she added when she took in Angel’s new attire. “You look amazing! Where on earth did you get those clothes?”

  “Long story,” Angel told her, plopping herself down on the couch and leaping back up when a spring skewered her bottom. “Ouch!”

  “Oh yeah, watch that seat,” Gemma said apologetically. “It’s a bit knackered.”

  “So’s my bum now,” said Angel. Sitting down gingerly, she curled her long legs underneath her. “Gem, what’s going on here? I thought you were going to diet?”

  “I am,” said Gemma, with her back to Angel as she returned her full attention to carefully positioning strawberries on the top of her masterpiece.

  Angel raised her perfectly plucked eyebrows. Talk about being in denial! “So what’s with the cake?”

  Gemma turned round. Her face was bright with excitement. “This isn’t for me! It’s for Callum South.”

  Angel stared at her. “Callum South? But isn’t he supposed to be on a major health kick?”

  Gemma nodded. “Yes, but it’s making him miserable. What he really wants is cake, and lots of it.”

  “Have you been drinking?”

  Gemma laughed. “Only Diet Coke, I promise. You’re not going to believe this, but I have had the craziest afternoon.”

  As she continued to decorate the cake Gemma told Angel all about her meeting with Cal. With every detail that passed her friend’s lips, Angel felt more excited. What were the odds of this meeting happening? She could hardly believe Gemma’s good luck. As far as Angel was concerned, this was even more proof that their summer adventure had been an inspired move.

  “We’ll have to track him down,” she said firmly. “Once we know where he lives you can take the cake over. If he likes grub as much as he seems to, there’s no way he’ll resist a cake like that. You’ll be made!”

  “I already know where he’s staying.” Cake completed, Gemma stood back and admired her handiwork. “One of the ladies in the bakery told me. They had no idea who he was, can you believe it, but they did know that he was staying in that big glass place off the Rock Road. Do you know the one I mean?”

  Angel nodded. A brand new architect-designed pile, all ceiling-to-floor windows with breathtaking views of the estuary, it was pretty hard to miss.

  “I thought I’d pop over tomorrow and apologise,” Gemma explained. “At least then I’ll have done my best to make up for knocking him flying. Then I’ll give him the cake as a thank you. But enough of me, what on earth have you been up to?”

  Angel smiled. “Pour us both a glass of wine and I’ll tell you all about it.”

  So Gemma ignored the washing-up, stowed her cake in a brand new Tupperware box and fetched a bottle of white from the fridge. It was passably cold and soon they were busy working their way through it while Angel told Gemma all about her day. Gemma’s face was a study in disbelief.

  “Honestly, there’s one rule for the beautiful people, who fall on their feet at every turn, and another for the rest of us, who keep tripping up!” she said, when Angel finally came to the end of her story.

  Angel laughed. “Tripping Cal up is probably the best thing you could have done! At least now you’ve had an introduction.”

  Gemma wasn’t convinced. “Even if he hates me?”

  “Of course he doesn’t hate you,” said Angel. At least, she hoped he didn’t, because that would seriously bugger up Gemma’s chances of reality TV stardom. “Anyway, at least you’ve made an impression.”

  “Even if it’s a bad one?” Gemma looked doubtful.

  “At least he knows you exist,” said Angel firmly. In her book it was always a good thing to be noticed. Going undetected was her worst nightmare. “That’s the first hurdle over. Now you’ve figured out that cake is the way to Cal’s heart it’ll all be plain sailing!”

  “I hope so,” Gemma said. If not, she could kiss goodbye to her agent and her career.

  “Now all we need to do is get Andi sorted,” Angel concluded. “Which may be easier said than done.”

  There was a sudden flare of brightness as full-beam headlights swept up to the caravan, illuminating every inch of tired lino and faded upholstery. A car door slammed and the murmur of voices broke the stillness. Pulling aside a grimy net curtain, Gemma peered outside. Then she turned back to Angel, her eyes wide with surprise.

  “Sorting Andi may well be easier than you think,” she said.

  Angel stared at her. “Really?”

  Gemma nodded excitedly. “Really. You won’t believe this, Angel, but your sister has just rocked up and she’s not alone. She’s with one of the hottest guys I’ve ever seen!”

  Chapter 17

  When Andi woke up the next morning it took her a few moments to work out where she was. A beam of bright sunshine sliced through faded yellow cheesecloth curtains and filled the room with lemony light, while a breeze sweet with summer grass kissed her cheeks. The incessant rumble of city traffic she was used to had been replaced with the cry of gulls, and for a split second she was thirteen again and tucked up in her attic bedroom at Ocean View with days and days of school holidays ahead of her. The leaping of her heart when she realised that she really was in Rock – and that Tom, London and the whole hideous mess had been left behind – was on a par with that start-of-the-summer joy.

  Andi stretched luxuriously in her narrow bunk, bathing in the sunshine like a cat and loving the cool breeze that swept in beneath the curtains. Although the mattress was hard and the covers a little on the damp side, her sleep had been sweet and heavy, as though the salty air had drugged her. As she stretched and yawned she realised that this was the first night for a while that she hadn’t woken up with her heart rate doing a tango. Getting away had been the right thing to do. Andi just hoped that this was the start of her being able to sort her life out.

  Across the small room a shape huddled under the blankets muttered and sighed to itself: Angel was fast asleep and, Andi knew from experience, dead to the world for hours yet. Checking her watch she saw that it was only half past six. Still, the day outside was far too beautiful to waste in bed. With a feeling of excitement fizzing inside her like shaken-up Coke, she grabbed her clothes from the neat pile by her bed and headed for the bathroom.

  She might as well have been trying to shower in a wardrobe, and the water was just a half‐hearted lukewarm trickle, but in spite of that Andi soon felt refreshed and ready for anything the day had to offer. Dressed in cut-off denims and a green vest top, and with a coffee in hand, she perched on the caravan step and raised her face to the sunshine. Although early, it was already warm and the sky was deep blue and brimming with the promise of a hot day. Andi sipped her drink and enjoyed the birdsong. Honestly, she couldn’t believe their luck in finding such a tranquil spot. It had been pitch black when Jonty had dropped her back at the caravan and, once the girls had finished interrogating her about him, she’d almost passed out from exhaustion. She certainly hadn’t been able to explore her surroundings. Now that the sun was up and the other two were still sound asleep it was a different matter.

  The caravan was certainly past its best but the setting for it couldn’t have been more idyllic. Tucked away behind a tumbledow
n farmhouse, it sat in an overgrown meadow brimming with daisies and buttercups, and sheltered from the wind by a small orchard of gnarled ancient apple trees. At the end of the meadow, fields of wheat and barley rolled gently down towards the town, edged with a ribbon of blue where the estuary met the sea. Andi drank her coffee and listened to the chirruping of a little wren and the trembling call of a wood pigeon. Her pulse slowed. A more private and healing spot she couldn’t imagine. Gemma had done them proud.

  Fetching her phone from inside and an apple to keep her suddenly ravenous hunger pangs at bay, Andi settled back onto the step and began using the organiser to list all the things she needed to do. Angel always laughed at her for making lists, calling her anal and a control freak, but Andi liked to be organised. Lately the only things she’d had any control of had been her endless lists (Ten ways to kill Tom/Things I need to do/Ways I can make some money), so Andi felt she could be forgiven for hanging onto them. Hey, if she were a superhero she would probably be List Girl! Today’s list involved finding somewhere with Wi-Fi so that she could email Simon Rothwell her resumé; next was a visit to the bank to see if her redundancy money had been paid in. Jonty had suggested meeting up for a coffee later on if she was free but Andi wasn’t sure. He was a nice guy and she knew that he was just being friendly, but to be honest at the moment she just wanted to be by herself. She needed to sort herself out.

  Andi paused from her typing and stared out to sea. Yesterday had certainly been crazy, that was for sure. Much as she was thrilled with the idea of having found a potential job, she wasn’t counting any unhatched chickens just yet – and so she added visit the job centre to her list of tasks. Unlike Angel, who seemed to have fallen yet again on her well-pedicured feet and claimed to have more beauty work than she could handle (and new designer clothes to boot), Andi was cautious by nature. She guessed a psychologist would probably say her trust issues were down to her father walking out on the very day they discovered her mother had cancer. Maybe so. And maybe Angel was constantly searching for a replacement father figure who would protect her? Cod psychology made Andi’s head hurt and it was far too nice a day to dwell on the past. She’d gone against all her instincts and trusted Tom and look where that had got her. From now on, Andi was determined that she was only going to trust herself. However genuine and helpful Jonty seemed, he was still a man and therefore programmed to let women down. If the job with Simon came off, then brilliant. If it didn’t… well, she was an independent woman and had taken her future into her own hands. She was going to be like that Beyoncé song!

  Angel hadn’t been at all impressed once she’d learned that Jonty wasn’t a holidaying millionaire but merely the brother-in-law who lived in the pool house and did some chores in return for his rent. All interest had vanished quicker than their bottle of Chardonnay.

  “You spent all afternoon with a guy who tinkers with boats and mows lawns?” she’d wailed. “Ands! You didn’t need to come to Rock for that: you could have done it in Clapham!”

  “There aren’t many lawns in Clapham,” Gemma had said helpfully, but Angel had quelled her with a look.

  “We’re here to make a new start,” she’d continued slowly, as though explaining this to the local village idiot, a post for which Andi was actually starting to feel well qualified. “That means making the most of all the opportunities that come our way. Babes, thanks to Wanker Tom you’re brassic. If you’re going to hook up with a guy, couldn’t you at least find a rich one? It’s not as though there’s a shortage here.”

  Andi had felt herself colour. God, she hated being a redhead sometimes.

  “I haven’t hooked up with anyone,” she’d said hotly. “It was just a coffee and a chat. It was nice just to talk to somebody who doesn’t know all the ins and outs of what’s happened.”

  Talking to her new friend had been fun and uncomplicated. There had been no sleazy overtones and definitely no agenda. Jonty had just been lovely company, nothing more and nothing less, and she’d certainly not thought anything more of it. Besides, he was getting over a broken relationship too and had probably sensed her not interested vibes.

  “It wouldn’t matter if you did hook up with him,” Gemma had argued, scraping up the remains of the whipping cream with a spoon and dolloping it in her coffee. “Rich or poor, who gives a toss? He was gorgeous.”

  Angel had looked as though she was about to weep with despair.

  “Will you drag yourself out of Mills and flipping Boon, the pair of you?” she’d groaned.

  Unable to take another lecture from her sister, Andi had made her excuses and retired to bed. There she’d spent a cramped hour unpacking her bag and trying to squeeze the few clothes she did have into the tiny wardrobe. Then she’d climbed into her narrow bed, pulled the chilly sheets up to her ears and tried to ignore Gemma and Angel discussing Project TV Show. Although the walls were little more than cardboard, the Cornish air had done its job and she’d quickly and mercifully dropped off.

  The sun was climbing higher in the sky now and there were sounds of life coming from inside the caravan. Andi threw the dregs of her coffee onto the grass and ventured back inside. It was time to get going, she decided, and start ticking off some of the items on her list.

  The time for sitting back and just letting things happen to her was over.

  Chapter 18

  Angel was not overly thrilled to be dragged into Wadebridge on such a sunny day. She’d planned to have a shower and then plaster herself in fake tan before slipping on her Victoria Beckham jeans and Chloé top and wandering into town – once the tan was dry, obviously, and that total bore John Humphrys had stopped jabbering on. Why her sister insisted on listening to him when there was Radio One on offer Angel had simply no idea, but then Andi was weird like that. It was like the fuss she’d made because Angel had spent her sister’s FT money on Heat magazine. Why would anyone want to read the FT? There were no celebs in it at all, unless you counted Richard Branson – and even he was a bit past it for Angel’s taste.

  While she’d lain in bed listening to Andi and Gemma chatting, she’d screwed up her eyes to block out that annoying sunlight and had run through her mental itinerary. Today’s plan was simple: find some money – she’d already sent her father a text begging for funds – and have lunch somewhere kick-ass. Then in the afternoon she’d go for a run and this evening she’d hit the bars with Gemma. Vanya wanted a manicure at some point too, which would mean popping up to the enormous house overlooking Daymer Bay that Vanya and Vassilly were renting for the summer. Busy, busy, busy! She really ought to get up and think about straightening her hair. Angel hadn’t even been in Cornwall for twenty-four hours yet, but already the damp air was playing havoc with her hair and it was starting to curl. She’d better find a Boots ASAP and pick up some Frizz Ease before she ended up looking like her sister.

  So, it was only her pressing need for styling products that had persuaded Angel to deviate from today’s plan and take the bus with Andi to Wadebridge. The bus! Angel had almost died with horror. What if somebody saw her getting on? That would undo all the good work she’d achieved yesterday in approximately thirty seconds flat. She may as well just go round wearing a sign that read Poor! She’d tried her hardest to persuade Gemma to drive them to town, but for once Gemma was proving impossible to talk round; when even the suggestion of a cream tea somewhere had failed to persuade her friend, Angel had known she was doomed. For some reason Gemma was off her food – which was unheard of – and determined to stomp around Rock with her cake. Although in principle Angel approved of the whole Callum South plan, she wasn’t one-hundred percent convinced that giving him a cake was the smartest move (the guy was filming a weight-loss show after all), but Gemma wasn’t having any of it.

  “You should have seen his face when he left his food behind,” she’d said when Angel had mentioned this. “Honestly, the guy was devastated. I just know a cake is exactly what he needs to cheer him up.”

  Angel had opened her mouth to
suggest that Gemma’s food issues were starting to affect her brain and that the last thing a dieting celeb needed was a ginormous cream sponge – particularly when pictures of him looking fat had only just been splashed across the red tops. However, the look of fervent determination on Gemma’s face stopped Angel in her tracks. Gemma was generally more pliable than Blu Tack, but once she set her mind on something there was no changing it. She’d no more listen to Angel than her sister would swap hanging out with odd-job men for spending time with multimillionaires.

  Honestly, Angel had thought in despair as the bus had trundled into Wadebridge, there was absolutely no hope for either Andi or Gemma; they both seemed totally set on sabotaging their chances. She’d pulled her baseball cap down over her face, pushed her shades up her nose and sighed. It was time to face the harsh reality: it was all down to her. The other two just didn’t have a clue. Look at Andi, for example: she was ridiculously pleased to be on a bus and kept trying hard to point out the views along the way. Anyone would have thought she’d never seen the sea before. Didn’t Andi realise that if anyone saw Angel on public transport it was game over? She glanced across at her sister, who was chatting away to an elderly woman, and groaned. Of course Andi didn’t realise and even if she had, she wouldn’t care. Her sister simply didn’t get it. Well, if Andi was happy to hook up with odd-job men and grannies then that was her lookout, but as far as Angel was concerned there had to be more to life.