Summer at Shell Cottage

by Lucy Diamond

  In contrast to Olivia’s dowdy night attire, Gloria looked ready for anything, wearing a faded denim jacket slung over a cerise-pink sundress. She had a vivid streak of turquoise eyeshadow shimmering on each eyelid and parrot-feather earrings swinging from her ears. She was gazing closely at Olivia with those toffee-coloured eyes, clearly wondering why this well-spoken woman (‘posh’ she probably called her) was still undressed at eleven o’clock in the morning.

  ‘Thank you,’ Olivia forced herself to say. ‘I’m fine. How kind of you, these look delicious.’ Alec had loved strawberries, she found herself thinking, then was pierced by a sudden memory springing unbidden to mind: of being newly-weds and lying on a picnic blanket in a cornfield, feeding each other plump, juicy strawberries under a cloudless blue sky, bare legs companionably entwined. Had he fed strawberries to Katie, too? Placed them on her lips and watched her small white teeth bite through the flesh?

  Stop. Just stop. ‘Let me make you a cup of tea,’ she said briskly, walking ahead into the kitchen, trying not to think about how dreadful her bed-hair must look from behind. Olivia Tarrant, just pull yourself together, for goodness’ sake. She thought of her mother: a woman who, until her dying day, had always been fully made-up and perfumed, a woman who would have refused, even if faced with a firing squad, to allow any person outside the family to ever glimpse her in nightwear. She was a woman who’d lived through falling bombs, rationing, poverty and her beloved brother dying on a battlefield in Normandy. She wouldn’t have caved in to misery like Olivia; she’d have kept her head up, her powder dry, and come out fighting.

  Olivia found herself standing a little straighter, spine stiffened. ‘I thought perhaps you could tackle the bedrooms and upstairs bathrooms today,’ she said to Gloria, with a new, resilient so-what-if-I-am-in-my-nightie? set to her shoulders. ‘You’ll have to take us as you find us, I’m afraid – the children are rather messy but they are on holiday, so we don’t feel we can be too strict with them.’

  She was getting out the tea things when Gloria touched her on the arm. ‘Look, love, tell me to mind my own business but … are you sure you’re all right? Only …’ Her voice trailed away, uncharacteristically uncertain.

  Never explain, never apologize, Olivia reminded herself. And never, ever, show weakness. ‘I’m fine,’ she replied. ‘Do you take sugar?’

  The shower must have been piped straight from a spring of magical healing water that morning, because when Olivia emerged from its drenching, she felt miraculously better, as if her dreadful night’s sleep was but a distant memory. She smoothed scented body lotion into her skin and dressed in a crisp white blouse with short sleeves and a broderie anglaise trim, teamed with a cream linen skirt. Then she blow-dried her hair for the first time since she’d arrived in Devon so that it fell into a neat silvery bob, and carefully applied mascara and a touch of lip gloss. There. The old Olivia was back, in the mirror at least, if not quite in spirit.

  The question now was what to do with the rest of the day. She’d vaguely heard voices and doors earlier that morning, and remembered Robert saying something about a kayaking trip. Libby had tapped tentatively at her bedroom door at one point – ‘Granny. Granny?’ – and Olivia, aware that she hadn’t been the most doting grandmother of late, had opened her mouth to reply when she heard Freya hissing that they shouldn’t disturb her, that they should leave her to sleep. Soon afterwards, the front door banged shut and then she’d heard one car drive away, followed by the other. They were long gone now, wherever they were.

  The house already smelled of fresh air, hot hoover and cleaning spray as Olivia made her way downstairs, her hand sliding lightly down the old wooden banister. A montage of images turned in her mind: of all the times she’d walked up and down this staircase over the decades, first as a young bride with pink cheeks and a shy smile, and then through all the stages of wife, mother, granny, and now, finally, old widow. She remembered tinsel threaded through the wooden struts of this staircase during the Christmases when the children were tiny then lengths of ivy and white fairy lights as her taste grew more refined. She had carried drowsy babies up and down these stairs, soft, warm heads lolling against her shoulder. She had herded sandy toddlers up to the bath, wincing at the debris left in their wake, and stood at the bottom, hands on hips, calling up during the teenage years that it was eleven o’clock and a glorious day Freya and Robert absolutely had to get up right now, otherwise she was coming up there to drag them out! (Kind of ironic, when she was the one emerging bedraggled and unkempt this morning at eleven o’clock, but never mind. That was the circle of life, she supposed.)

  Olivia wandered out into the garden, feeling at a loss for what to do with herself. All dressed up and nowhere to go, she thought, slipping into her deckchair again and folding her hands in her lap. She didn’t feel like reading or swimming or walking today; she couldn’t face tackling the garden or baking anything for afternoon tea. She certainly wasn’t about to start wading through Alec’s final manuscript for his editor, as she’d half promised. Why should she do him any favours now?

  She leaned back, feeling every single minute of her years: the permanent ache in her lower back, the click of her knees and, when her gaze fell to them, the liver spots on her hands. I’m getting old, she thought. Sixty next year and before she knew it, she’d have turned into one of those bitter, shrewish old biddies, telling children off in the street and writing letters of complaint in green ink to the local newspaper. The sort of woman that the rest of society ignores, barging past in a hurry too busy to notice.

  She glared up at the sky. And it’ll be your fault, Alec. It’s you who’s driven me to this. Are you happy now?

  She must have dozed off again because it seemed like no time had passed until she became dimly aware of the scent of Marlboro and that citrus-scented perfume Gloria seemed to favour. ‘Mrs T? Olivia? I’m off now. All done.’

  Olivia opened her eyes blearily to see Gloria before her, cat-eye sunglasses on even though the sky was quite overcast. She sat up a little straighter (not easy in a deckchair), feeling self-conscious to have been caught napping in the middle of the day. Gloria must think she was such a feeble old thing. ‘Thank you,’ she said, realizing that her knees had splayed outwards while she dozed, and pulling them tightly together. She gave a little nod, meaning You are now dismissed but Gloria didn’t budge.

  ‘I was just wondering … Well. We haven’t actually talked about money yet.’

  ‘Oh. Yes. You’re right. Sorry about that.’ She tried to remember what they’d paid Katie but Alec had always taken care of that. Payment in kind, she thought, flushing. ‘Er …’

  Gloria named a figure that she received for another cleaning job with a questioning shrug. It was considerably less than Olivia paid the domestic help agency for Maria, her Filipino girl, so she nodded. ‘Fine. No problem. If you could come to us Monday, Wednesday and Friday for a few hours each time, that would be marvellous. Nine thirty in the morning?’ She would make sure she was up and presentable next time, she vowed.

  Gloria was still hovering. ‘So … about the money, then …’ she said expectantly.

  ‘Ahh. You want paying now? Right.’ She had brought her handbag outside with her – you couldn’t be too careful these days – and dipped a hand in to find her purse. ‘Here,’ she said, counting out the notes. ‘Thank you.’

  ‘Thank you.’ Gloria tucked the money into a small silver purse which had sequins falling off one corner. ‘Well, I’ll be off then.’ She hesitated. ‘Left you on your own, did they? The family?’

  Olivia shrugged. ‘They’ve gone out in boats, I think. I was … tired.’

  Gloria pushed her sunglasses off her nose and up into her hair. ‘Got any plans? I was going to go for a bit of a spin, spend some of my hard-earned wages.’ She held up the purse then shoved it into her jacket pocket. ‘Come with me if you like.’

  The suggestion was so unexpected, Olivia found herself floundering for a polite way to say no. ‘Wel
l …’

  ‘You ever been to the Lobster Pot on Ennisbridge beach? Only opened a month ago and they do the best lobster burgers you’ve ever tasted.’ She kissed the tips of her fingers theatrically. ‘The owner’s a mate of mine, he’ll give us a discount if we ask nicely.’

  Olivia was partial to lobster although she couldn’t remember ever trying a lobster burger. It was just the sort of thing Alec would have turned his nose up at, she thought … which promptly made her mind up. ‘Yes, all right,’ she said. Why not? She had nothing else lined up to while away the hours. She levered herself up from the chair, feeling an unfamiliar thump of excitement at her own daring. ‘Let’s go.’

  Not five minutes into the journey through the winding lanes of south Devon and Olivia was fearing for her life. Gloria was a wild and reckless driver, careering round blind corners without turning a hair let alone changing down a gear, loud music blaring all the while. What a way to end her life this would be, Olivia thought despairingly as Gloria stamped on the brake to make an emergency stop when they flew round another bend to find a trundling tractor in their path. What would the children say if they received a visit from a policeman later that day – Very sorry to inform you … passenger in a silver Mini, driven by a lunatic, slammed into a tree when the driver lost control, both died at the scene …

  ‘You okay, there? You’ve gone very quiet,’ Gloria bellowed over the racket. (Even calling the noise ‘music’ was stretching things in Olivia’s mind.)

  The fear must have been naked in her passenger’s eyes because Gloria abruptly switched off the stereo – thank goodness – and took her foot off the accelerator a fraction. ‘It’s my driving, isn’t it?’ she chuckled. ‘Sorry, love. Do you want me to stop? You look as if you’re about to chunder.’

  Olivia had never heard the word ‘chunder’ before but was pretty sure she knew what it meant. She was pretty sure she was close to ‘chundering’ right now too. ‘I’m fine,’ she said through gritted teeth, trying to stop herself from pressing her right foot too obviously against the floor of the car, her reflexive braking reaction.

  ‘Bill always used to call me the Getaway Driver,’ Gloria went on, coasting over the brow of Longdown Hill, her hair flying back in the wind. ‘He said I drove as if I was trying to get away from a bank heist with sacks of money in the boot.’ She hooted with laughter at the memory then gave another sidelong glance at Olivia. ‘Cheeky bastard. He was one of those stickler drivers, you know, braking through the gears and whatnot, letting other people go ahead of him, hands at ten to two on the wheel at all times.’ She flicked on the indicator and turned right down a lane, and Olivia found herself praying that this one would be a little wider than the one they’d just careered along. ‘But opposites attract, right?’

  ‘So they say.’ There was a pause as if Gloria was expecting Olivia to respond with some similar nugget about her own relationship but Olivia had never been in the habit of woman-to-woman confessionals about Alec. Their marriage was their own business, in her opinion, not something to be served up in palatable slices for other people to pick over and devour. She folded her hands in her lap and stared out at the dense green hedgerows, so high in places it felt as if they were speeding through a leafy tunnel. There were worse ways to die than in a fast car on a summer’s day, she supposed. And at least if this was her last day on the planet then the pain she was feeling for Alec would be over.

  They rounded another corner and then the land seemed to drop away, a whole new vista unfolding of a sapphire sea and its crescent of biscuit-coloured sand. ‘I never get tired of this view,’ Gloria said cheerfully as they headed down through the small village of Ennisbridge. ‘Lucky old us, eh? Even on a cloudy day, it’s the business. Right. Here we go, just over on the left. One of those pop-up restaurants. Very fancy. I hope you’re hungry!’

  Olivia’s family hadn’t come to Ennisbridge beach all that often, favouring their own Silver Sands Bay, which was prettier and far more convenient. Ennisbridge was more touristy, with a bus service that brought in day-trippers, and a parade of small hotels, souvenir shops and cafés. And now it was home to the Lobster Pot, an unlovely bunker of a building with white-painted breeze-block walls and a corrugated iron roof. In front of it were set barrels for tables, each with parasols for shade, and stools that had been fashioned out of upturned crates with vinyl seats on top.

  Very fancy, Gloria had said, but the two women clearly had different notions about what ‘fancy’ actually entailed. Thanks to Alec, Olivia had dined at the Ledbury in London and Le Bernardin in New York, neither of which had had a breeze block or an old crate in sight. What on earth had possessed her to say yes to this magical mystery tour? she wondered, as Gloria hurled her car into a parking space and yanked on the handbrake. Maybe moping about back at the house would have been the more sensible option on second thoughts.

  Out of the car, though, Olivia could smell chips and garlic – and yes, definitely lobster – mingled with cigarette smoke, coconut tanning oil and the briny scent of sea. Despite the absence of sun, the air was warm and sultry with a fresh breeze occasionally ruffling in, and the waves made a pleasing rattle-crash as they rolled into the pebbly shore. Ah well, they were here now, Olivia thought, and she was actually quite hungry by this point. She had barely eaten any dinner the night before and had only drunk a single coffee that morning.

  ‘This is nice,’ she said politely, but Gloria was already bustling forward, matily slapping the back of a broad-shouldered guy with salt and pepper hair perched at a table and calling a cheerful hello to the two men working behind the counter of the shack.

  ‘Hey, compadre! How’s the head this morning, eh?’ She turned back to wink at Olivia, then indicated Mr Broad Shoulders, who was wearing a faded green T-shirt and had a copy of some motorbike magazine open in front of him. ‘We had a bit of a session last night, didn’t we? Jägerbombs and karaoke. Lord, it got messy, all right.’ A husky laugh bubbled out of her at the memory. ‘Olivia, this is Mitch, Ennisbridge’s answer to Mick Jagger, last seen rocking out to a mash-up of – what was it? Motörhead and Britney Spears. Hmm. And Mitch, this is Olivia, my new …’ She was about to say ‘boss’, had her lips shaped to speak the word, then seemed to change her mind at the last minute, and said ‘friend’ instead. ‘We’ve come for lunch. Some of us have been working since seven o’clock and are starving.’

  Olivia flushed, first because she hadn’t done a stroke of work in days, and second because Mitch was staring at her curiously and she felt very out of place, the stiff in a Jaeger outfit rather than the cool chick doing Jägerbombs, whatever they might be. ‘Hello,’ she said, conscious of the clipped tone to her voice.

  ‘Hey, Glor,’ Mitch said, slipping off his stool to give her a hug. He was in his late fifties, like the two of them, Olivia guessed, and dwarfed diminutive Gloria by at least a foot. ‘Olivia, nice to meet you,’ he added, turning his smile on her. (He had a lovely face, she found herself thinking in surprise. Craggy and weather-beaten now, he must have been a heartbreaker in his day, with Slavic cheekbones and pale blue eyes that reminded her of the sea on a cool day.) ‘Don’t let Mrs here lead you astray, will you? She’s trouble in a tight dress, this one,’ Mitch said, then grinned and stepped back as Gloria pretended to cuff him. ‘Enjoy your lunch, ladies. I’ve got to head off unfortunately. Those Jägerbombs won’t pay for themselves now, will they?’

  ‘See you soon, handsome,’ Gloria called after him as he strode away and he raised a hand in salute without turning. ‘He’s an artist,’ she explained to Olivia, rather admiringly. ‘Kind of famous around these parts. That’s the life, eh? Party all night then get up at midday for some chips, before sauntering off to your studio to draw. All right for some.’

  Olivia wasn’t sure whether to be disappointed or relieved that Gloria’s friend had left as she settled herself gingerly on one of the stools. In for a penny, in for a pound, she told herself. This was a new experience and certainly better than slumping in a deckc
hair like a past-it geriatric, her brain cells gradually silting up.

  Gloria ordered their food – a burger and chips for her, scallops and chips for Olivia – then spent several minutes leaning over the bar, gossiping with the chef, her behind sticking out as she did so. Olivia turned her gaze upon the beach which, despite the lack of sunshine, was crowded with families and sunbathers, the sea awash with lilos and dinghies and shrieking wave-jumpers holding hands. She smiled at the sight of a group of children nearby who were burying their father in the sand with great gusto. Good times.

  ‘Here we are,’ said Gloria, returning just then with tall glasses of home-made lemonade, clinking with ice and half-slices of lemon.

  ‘Thank you,’ said Olivia, who was both parched and ravenous by now. She sipped the lemonade and found it cool and refreshing, then her gaze was caught by an inky blue mark on Gloria’s upper right arm as her companion shrugged off her jacket. ‘Is that a tattoo?’ she blurted out and immediately felt embarrassed. She must seem such an ingénue to Gloria.

  Gloria looked amused at the question and swung round so that Olivia could see the design in its entirety: a dandelion clock, with a few loose seeds hanging like tiny gossamer parachutes as they floated away up towards her shoulder. Olivia had always written tattoos off much in the way she had breeze-block burger joints: not very classy and (frankly) not very nice. Not the sort of thing that a person like her would ever contemplate. But she found herself having to rethink her prejudices. She had expected to see something tacky and clichéd on Gloria’s arm: a red rose, a skull, perhaps her and her husband’s names entwined in dark lettering, but the artistry of the dandelion clock had taken her by surprise, being fragile, pretty and … yes, even feminine too.