Summer at Shell Cottage

by Lucy Diamond

  The only thing was, now he felt more of a fool than ever for spending so long lying to everyone when, as it turned out, there hadn’t been any need. So how could he put things right?

  Chapter Thirty-Six

  Having stumbled upon a friendly little beach café down in Hamstone, Harriet had never been more grateful to sink into a chair outside on the big open terrace, and tuck into a full English breakfast and two delicious cups of coffee. So much for heartbreak making you skinny and tragic – well, not in Harriet’s book, it didn’t. She had probably put on half a stone already since Robert’s bombshell last night, and there would only be more comfort eating to come. She’d gone up two whole dress sizes after Simon walked out. The bastard.

  Still, sitting here in the new-washed morning, seeing the sea rushing hypnotically in and out just metres away, she was actually starting to feel vaguely human again, for the first time all day. There was something about leaning back in the early sunshine, having polished off a huge breakfast, and watching the surfer dudes in their wetsuits leap acrobatically through the waves, that cheered a woman right up. Especially the bare-chested surfer dudes with their sculpted muscles and taut thighs. Mmm. Good work, lads, she thought appreciatively. Good show.

  The man from the café came out just then and collected up her breakfast plate. ‘Can I get you anything else?’ he asked.

  Harriet was positively stuffed but then again, she had just been royally shafted by her formerly beloved husband and was therefore entitled to have anything she damn well wanted. Besides, she had always found that pastries were very helpful when it came to absorbing hurt feelings. ‘Well … I wouldn’t mind another coffee, please,’ she said. ‘And did I spy some almond croissants at the counter in there?’

  ‘You did indeed. Shall I bring one out with your coffee?’

  ‘Yes please.’ And then, because she didn’t want him to think she was always this greedy, added, ‘I am on holiday.’

  ‘Absolutely! You’re on holiday and it’s a glorious morning to sit and admire the view. I’ll be right back.’

  Harriet blushed as he walked away, wondering if there was an undertone to his words about admiring the view. Had he noticed her watching the surfers like some saddo middle-aged pervert? She picked up her phone and cupped a hand around the screen to shade it from the sun. She would ring Gabbi for a chat, she decided, to prove to the café man that she did actually have a life other than perving over surfers.

  Ahh. And then again, maybe she wouldn’t, she realized, peering at the screen. There didn’t seem to be any signal.

  ‘The reception’s terrible around here,’ a male voice said just then, and Harriet looked up, her eyes popping out on stalks because one of the surfers was striding up the café steps, his wetsuit stripped down to his waist, tousled shoulder-length hair dripping onto his hunky bare chest.

  ‘Oh,’ she said, flustered. (Bloody hell. He was fit as a butcher’s dog, as Gabbi would say. Was this some kind of celestial reward sent by the Betrayed Wife Goddess?) ‘Right. Thanks.’

  ‘It comes and goes,’ he went on, grabbing a towel that had been left hung over the terrace railing. ‘Sometimes if you stand on a table, jump up and stretch your arm out and … Nah, I’m joking.’ He grinned and towelled his hair and face, and Harriet had to try very hard not to gaze up and down his bod while his eyes were covered.

  She looked out to sea instead. ‘Nice day for it,’ she said, tilting her head to indicate the surf. Then she blushed violently, aware of the innuendo in her words. What was wrong with her? Heartbreak was turning her into a sleazeball as well as an eating machine. But he was smiling back at her, periwinkle-blue eyes twinkling naughtily, and she found herself giggling. Oh well. She needed cheering up right now, and she was far too old for him anyway. He was never going to take her cheesy lines seriously. ‘Sorry. That came out wrong,’ she added. ‘Don’t take any notice of me.’

  He raised an eyebrow. He really was very handsome, it had to be said. ‘It’s always a nice day for it, if you ask me,’ he replied, in such a flirtatious manner that she giggled again, as if she were twenty years younger. (She felt twenty years younger all of a sudden. The sun had gone to her head or something.)

  The café man emerged just then with a fresh pot of coffee, a sugar-dusted croissant and a folded copy of the Guardian under one arm. ‘Just in case you wanted something to read,’ he said, setting it down on the table in front of Harriet. ‘Morning, Joe. Coming in for a coffee?’

  Surf hunk Joe looked from the café man to Harriet and then back to the café man. ‘I might stay out here for one, mate, if that’s all right with you. Don’t want to go dripping on your floor or anything, do I?’

  The café man looked disbelieving but didn’t comment on this display of apparent consideration for his floor. ‘Coming right up.’

  ‘Mind if I join you?’ Joe asked, sliding into the seat opposite Harriet before she had a chance to say no. Like she was going to anyway.

  ‘Of course not,’ she said, trying to sound cool, although inside she felt positively fluttery. She racked her brain for something witty and clever to say – what? what? – but then her phone had to go and choose that moment to detect a faint bar of signal and rang, like the attention-seeking little git it was. She decided to ignore it. A fiver said it would be Robert anyway, with a plaintive Where-are-you?-Can-we-talk? call and she certainly didn’t want to engage in one of those right now. Let him stew. Let him agonize. Let him think a bit more about what a complete and utter twat he had been. She would contact him, when she was good and ready thank you very much – although that could be a while, now that the Goddess of Betrayed Women was rewarding her in such a glorious and unexpected way.

  ‘Buzz off,’ she muttered to her phone, shoving it deep in her bag without even bothering to look at the caller. She kicked the bag further away from her – Do not ruddy well disturb – and then sat up a little straighter in her chair in the hope of disguising her pot belly. ‘So,’ she said, flashing her most dazzling smile at Joe. ‘Tell me about surfing.’

  Thank you, universe, she thought, half an hour or so later, when Joe had scoffed a huge brown-sauce-smothered breakfast and she’d put away not one but two almond croissants and her third coffee. I owe you big time for that act of mercy. Sod her belly, tight as a drum, forcing its way unprettily over the waistband of her shorts. Sod the vague feeling of seediness that she was sitting here, a married woman, flirting with a handsome stranger. The seedy feeling was worth it, as was every last calorie, for the brief, fabulous pinch of time when she’d forgotten all about Robert – and every other living human being for that matter – whilst chatting and laughing with this god of a man, bronzed and honed, and mere inches across the table from her.

  So what that nothing would ever happen with him? So what that she knew she’d eventually have to peel herself away and return to her trouble-riddled real world? It was bliss, sheer bliss, to flirt and banter in the sunshine by the beach. Exactly what she needed to make her feel human again.

  ‘How come you’re down here all by yourself, anyway?’ he asked her once their plates had been taken away, and she’d (reluctantly) requested the bill.

  Ahh. And there was reality knocking against the window: time’s up. How she wished she could reply with something romantic and thrilling – that she was making a fresh start down by the seaside, that destiny had brought her here, some other made-up tosh. Instead she sighed a little and traced the spilled sugar crystals around the table with her index finger.

  ‘Had a row. It was either come down here or hurl myself off the nearest cliff.’ Oh God, that sounded melodramatic. She didn’t even mean it, either. Like she’d ever do anything so rash when she had Molly to care for. ‘I’m joking,’ she said quickly. ‘Well. About the cliff thing, not about the row.’

  A row,’ he repeated. Ahh, right. Is that who keeps ringing your phone, then?’

  ‘My phone?’

  ‘Yeah, it’s been vibrating against my foot every now
and then through your bag. We must be having a good reception morning for once.’ His mouth twitched. ‘That’s if it is your phone that’s vibrating, of course.’

  She laughed at the smutty glint in his eye but hauled her bag back towards her all the same. God, Robert must be getting desperate if that was him, making so many calls. It was Robert, wasn’t it? She had a flash of panic that something was wrong with Molly, that she’d been rushed to hospital while Harriet had been lounging around here, ogling the local talent. She delved into the bag. ‘It’s probably just – ’ she began as her fingers closed around the phone. It buzzed almost immediately with a new text and she leaned over the screen to examine it.

  Three missed calls from Freya. Freya? Maybe it was some awful medical thing. The text was from her too and Harriet read it – then leapt to her feet in alarm. Oh my God. Molly. She thought she might throw up.

  ‘I’ve got to go,’ she said.

  Come quickly. Ennisbridge Hotel. I think Molly’s in trouble.

  Words guaranteed to stab through any mother’s heart with so much fear, angst and guilt; it was a wonder that Harriet actually made it back into her car. Her hands shook violently as she turned the key in the ignition, and she thought for a moment she might not be up to the job. Wished, for a second, that Robert was there to drive them both instead, to reassure her that everything was going to be okay.

  No. Don’t think that. She could manage fine without him. And now was not the time to be thinking about him anyway. Deep breaths, Harriet. Control yourself: Do not crash the car. She had to keep her cool and get herself over to Ennisbridge right this minute, without crumbling or crying or freaking out.

  But it was difficult after hearing Freya’s anxious voicemail messages one after the other, saying that she’d overheard Molly making arrangements with some boyfriend or other – and worse, that she was on her way to meet him in a hotel. Right now! A hotel! While her back was turned! While Mother of the Year Harriet had been flirting idiotically with a twenty-something surf hunk over almond croissants.

  Christ, Harriet, you stupid wazzock. Priorities, for God’s sake. What were you thinking? How could this have happened?

  Scorching along the road, she beeped anyone who dared dawdle along in front of her, overtaking recklessly, cutting up other drivers at junctions. Someone gave her two fingers, someone else flashed their lights reprovingly at her but she couldn’t have cared less. Sorry, love. Bore off. You are nothing to me but six feet of machinery between me and my precious daughter. Possibly between me and my daughter’s virginity. So take your flashing lights and bloody well stuff them up your arse, all right?

  Shit. Shit, Molly. What the hell? Where had this come from? Why didn’t Harriet even have a clue about this boy? And since when did Molly go all secretive on her, and live this double life? Harriet would not have believed someone if they’d said Molly had a boyfriend. No. She actually would have laughed at the suggestion. Molly? Bless her, but no. She was far too naive. Way too innocent. She still had a cuddly bunny rabbit in her bed, for heaven’s sake! She still put her hair up in bunches sometimes! She was a girl, not a woman. And that was fine. Why should any teenage girl feel they had to rush these things, if they weren’t ready?

  Oh Molly. She wished she’d thought to just ring her before leaping into the car and heading off. Her phone was back in her bag in the footwell, but she was driving too fast and furiously to start leaning over to try and fish it out now. Wait for me, love, she thought desperately. Just hang on. I’m coming. Don’t do anything daft. Please!

  Who was this boy, anyway? Who the hell was he, booking hotel rooms and arranging things on the sly? Wait till she got her hands on him, that was all Harriet had to say. Freya’s last message had assured her that she was heading down to Ennisbridge, in order to give this lad ‘a flea in his ear’ and make sure Molly was okay. Well, Harriet would give him a lot more than that if she caught up with him. She would be so ferocious that his skin would blister. If he thought he could try it on with her fifteen-year-old daughter, then he jolly well had another think coming.

  If she could get there in time, that was. If! Still six miles from Ennisbridge and now she was stuck behind a sodding tractor on a single-track bit of road. Harriet thumped the steering wheel and yelled every last expletive she could think of at the chugging, trundling farm vehicle. Why had she come all the way down to Hamstone anyway? She should not have left Molly on her own in the house. Her mother instincts should have been better; she should have known somehow, a sensor in her head, the daughter radar picking up signals … Oh, where was that sodding ‘Rewind’ button when you needed it?

  She just had to hope there was still time. What if she was already too late?

  Chapter Thirty-Seven

  Hurry up! I’m in reception, eagerly awaiting your arrival … Ben texted as Molly hurried along the prom, and she felt her legs turn weak and watery at the promise of him there, in the flesh and so close, waiting for her. Drumming his fingers, perhaps, glancing up hopefully every time the door swung open …

  Oh my God. And then there it was, the hotel, less than twenty metres up on the left: a large white-painted building on the corner, just as Ben had described it. She thudded to a stop, fighting the feeling of disappointment that their romantic rendezvous point actually looked more like a big old house than the glitzy hotel Molly had pictured in her mind. A seagull was pecking at some dropped chips on the pavement outside and there were grubby net curtains at the windows. Oh, so what? she told herself. Big deal! She wasn’t a snob. It could be a bus shelter or a cow barn and she’d still be excited to see Ben there.

  Excited if slightly terrified, mind, but whatever. She’d got this far and she wasn’t a bottler. It couldn’t hurt that much, surely, otherwise nobody would ever bother doing it twice. And she did love him, didn’t she? She certainly didn’t want him to go off with anyone else. Let’s do this.

  Molly hadn’t ever stayed in a hotel before. A few bed and breakfast places with Mum and Robert, a youth hostel on a school trip to Wales, a campsite with Mum in a leaky tent back when they were skint. She had imagined that hotels would be full of butlers and maids, chandeliers and silver cutlery, kind of like in Downton Abbey, only on a larger scale. When Ben had told her they were booked into a hotel, she’d envisaged a vast crisp bed, a massive TV and room service arriving under those big silver domed covers … Maybe the Ennisbridge Hotel wasn’t going to be quite so posh, though, she thought, stepping cautiously through the propped-open front door. She found herself in a small, poky hallway with an empty desk and chair in front of her. Ring for service said a small card propped against an old-fashioned bell. What, seriously? Molly wanted to giggle at the idea of her standing there ringing a bell. Yeah, right. Like that was going to happen. Now, where was Ben?

  There were rooms leading off to the right and left of the hall, and she poked her head around the one on the right. It was a rather fussy-looking lounge with dusty velvet sofas, a huge sprawling fern in one corner and a bookcase full of peeling hardbacks that probably hadn’t been read by a single person for at least fifty years. But that was all irrelevant because there, too, was Ben – Ben! – unfolding his long legs and standing up.

  ‘You made it,’ he said with a grin.

  Her heart gave an enormous flip. ‘I made it,’ she said. And then – yes! – just like in her dreams, he was walking across to greet her, and then grabbing her in the most enormous smoochy kiss, and it was all just so blissfully romantic and beautiful. His hands roamed up her body and her breath felt shallow in her throat. Oh my God. This was it. They were here together, in Devon, in a hotel. This was really happening!

  ‘You look beautiful,’ he said, touching her face. ‘Oh, Molly. You’re amazing.’

  She could feel herself blushing, her whole body one huge blush, suffused with the heat of her blood. It felt weird seeing him, and not being in school uniform, almost like a dream, being in this musty-smelling hotel together, miles from London. ‘Thank you,’ she ma
naged to say, her legs trembling.

  ‘Just relax,’ he said, his voice low and whispery. ‘We’re going to have fun together. Loads of fun. Shall we go up to our room?’

  Molly gulped. Our room. All of a sudden, her feet felt heavy as if she might not be able to drag them across the carpet. But she could hardly back out now, could she? Not when he’d come all the way down to Devon to see her. She swallowed, trying to act cool rather than the bag of nerves that she really was. ‘Sure,’ she said. ‘Although … Maybe we could …’ She cast her eye around hurriedly, wanting to delay their departure. Just for a few minutes until she felt ready and brave. She saw a half-drunk glass of Coke on a side table, where Ben had been sitting. ‘I wouldn’t mind a drink,’ she said tentatively.

  He placed one hand over her breast and squeezed it, slowly and deliberately, his eyes on her face the entire time. ‘We’ll order up room service,’ he told her, and pulled out a key from his pocket. ‘Shall we?’

  This was it. Now or never. Her lips parted to reply but her mouth was so dry. ‘I …’

  And then in the next moment, there was another voice in the room. ‘Hey! Oh no, you don’t, pal. Get your hands off her this minute. Now!’

  Molly swung round and – holy fuck – there behind them was Aunty Freya, like a pantomime genie appearing from out of nowhere. What? For real? Molly wondered if she might be dreaming for a second but no, it was definitely Freya, her hair wilder and corkscrewier than ever, striding forward with her handbag so purposefully that Molly actually thought she was about to wallop Ben with it.

  ‘Er …’ Molly stammered in alarm, as she and Ben unclinched themselves. Talk about a passion-killer. This was a passion-annihilator. What the … ?

  Ben, meanwhile, stared from Molly to Freya. ‘Who the hell are you?’ he asked Freya, then rounded furiously on Molly. ‘Is this a joke? I told you not to tell anyone.’