She thought she understood how Charles Ryder had once felt, thrust among those gilded Flytes, though the Travers family were neither Catholic nor had a home as stately as Brideshead. Elspeth had read as many books about Oxford as she could before she went up, to familiarise herself with the way of life and prepare herself. Zuleika Dobson, Jude the Obscure – none of them really made her feel comfortable with what she was about to experience, except Gaudy Night by Dorothy L. Sayers, which she’d loved, and had made her feel she was doing the right thing, that it was okay for an ordinary girl to aim high.
The fact that Dickon called her ‘girly’, or ‘bird’, or ‘totty’, proved to her he wasn’t really that keen. She was getting tired of him. He turned the charm on and off like a tap. He was best when he’d just won a match and had only a couple of drinks. Then he was funny and warm – affectionate, even – and she found herself drawn to him. But any more drinks and he became belligerent. His face got red, his voice got louder and she found herself recoiling. As they clambered into his car, she wondered again if this was a good idea. Was it too late to tell him she felt ill?
And then she saw Harry Moore getting out of the Morris to check a tyre. She had played against him once or twice in mixed doubles. You could tell a lot about a person by how they played tennis. He was relaxed, easy, confident. Pulled it out of the bag if he had to, but didn’t get het up if he lost a point. He’d complimented her on her serve. ‘You should join the university team,’ he told her, but she wasn’t cut-throat enough. She knew that.
Knowing he was coming to the hut too reassured her. He didn’t have the frenzied hedonism of the usual Travers set. He wasn’t dull, by any means, but there was a solidity about him that was definitely lacking in Dickon. And he was extremely handsome. He had the sort of face it was a pleasure to rest your eyes on. Russet hair and eyes that crinkled when he laughed and skin that turned pale gold in the sun.
Octavia was needling Harry to get back in the car. ‘We’ll never get there in time!’ It was a miracle they were on the road by seven in the morning, given how much they’d all drunk the night before. Elspeth hadn’t had nearly as much as most of them, but she was still a bit queasy, though she felt more settled knowing Harry was coming to the beach.
Her and Dickon. Octavia and Harry. And Rory Gill and his girlfriend Juliet, the girl Elspeth felt sure Dickon had his eye on and was trying to impress. Juliet was aloof, with very short black hair and a Roman nose, and she chain-smoked.
‘She’s a lady,’ Octavia told her, and it took Elspeth a while to realise she meant a Lady, that it was a title, and she thought that probably explained a lot.
She wasn’t going to tell any of them she had never been to the seaside. She could only imagine their cries of disbelief. She and her mother lived in landlocked Stoke. They had no car. No money for luxuries like a holiday. She wished for a moment that her mum was with her. Not with this crowd, though. Just the two of them. One day, when she’d left university and got a proper job, she would take her mother to a beautiful hotel, with a private bathroom and a dining room overlooking the sea.
She slept for most of the journey. She found Dickon’s driving quite alarming, so she preferred to have her eyes closed. But towards lunchtime he nudged her awake.
‘Look!’ he cried.
They were driving down a steep hill, and at the bottom she could see a vast stretch of sparkling blue water, the sun high in a cloudless sky above. She didn’t know what to say. Her first view of the sea. She knew she would never forget it.
‘Oh,’ was all she could manage. Everything was different here. The light. The air. As if they were one step closer to paradise.
‘My favourite place in the world,’ said Dickon, softly. ‘Nothing seems to matter here.’
She looked at him and thought she saw the glitter of tears in his eyes. Perhaps he wasn’t such a bad person. He obviously felt deeply about this place and she could quite see why. She felt a little overwhelmed herself. Light-headed, light-hearted. The two of them laughed as the car sped down the hill, the wind in their hair.
If the sea was a revelation, the beach hut was a delight. There were just a few of them at the foot of the dunes on Everdene Sands, glorified sheds where families shacked up and stored their things. The one belonging to the Travers family had a rickety veranda at the front and was painted pale green. Inside were a couple of bunk beds, some old chairs, a gas ring and a cupboard with plates and mugs and bowls. It smelled of damp salt.
‘We camp out here every summer,’ Octavia told Elspeth. The others had arrived not long after them. ‘It’s heaven. All we do is swim and read and sleep.’
‘Last one in the sea’s a rotten egg,’ said Dickon, who was peeling off his clothes. Elspeth looked alarmed. He obviously had every intention of going in naked. There was no one else on this part of the beach. She had taken the precaution of buying herself a swimming costume the day before, when she knew they were heading to the coast, but she didn’t want to get changed in front of all the others.
‘There’s no point in being shy,’ Juliet drawled, noticing her discomfort and blowing out a plume of cigarette smoke. ‘This lot strip off at any opportunity.’
Elspeth managed to shimmy into her costume underneath her dress, then raced along the sand to the water’s edge. She stretched out her arms as if to embrace the view, overwhelmed by all the sensations: the sea breeze kissing her skin, the brackish smell of salt in the air, the icy water lapping at her feet. It was glorious, and she yelped with excitement as she waded into the waves, gasping as they leapt up at her. Dickon was already on his back gazing at the sky. Harry bounded in beside her and dived straight under, coming up with his hair slicked back, and Elspeth felt a bit funny when she looked at his lean physique next to Dickon’s pale roundness. Dickon wasn’t fat as such, just … soft. She found herself wondering what firmer flesh might feel like, and had to dive under the water to wash her thoughts away.
Lunch was lavish and too rich. Elspeth looked in doubt at the platter of lobster, not sure it had benefited from being shut up in the car boot for hours on a hot day, but the twins ripped them apart eagerly and served them up with several bottles of white wine. The cake she had brought, a Victoria sponge filled with cream and jam, seemed very plain in comparison, but it disappeared rapidly enough.
By mid-afternoon they were all collapsed on rugs in front of the hut. Octavia rested her head on Harry’s chest, and Elspeth felt a dart of jealousy as sharp as a jellyfish sting. The two of them had exchanged bemused glances once or twice throughout lunch at the air of debauchery and overindulgence and she felt allied with him. When Dickon opened a bottle of champagne to toast their birthday, Harry winked at her almost imperceptibly and she felt her pulse quicken. They were conspirators; the arbiters of good sense and restraint amid the decadent profligacy.
Dickon was running his hand up and down her bare calf, and she felt tense at his touch, especially as she could see he was staring at Juliet behind his sunglasses. Wine emboldened her, and she jumped up.
‘Come on, everyone,’ she cried. ‘Let’s do a human pyramid.’
They all seemed to think this was a brilliant idea.
‘Who goes on the top, though?’ asked Dickon.
‘Not me,’ said Juliet. ‘No fear.’
‘Whoever is lightest, surely?’ said Octavia.
Everyone looked at Elspeth, who despite being the tallest was also the slimmest. ‘I don’t mind,’ she said, wanting to impress Harry with her gameness. She had always been pretty good at gymnastics and had a sense of balance, and the pyramid would only be three people high.
It seemed to take forever to assemble the pyramid, with the three men on all fours at the bottom, then Octavia and Juliet kneeling on top of them. They made a terrible fuss as Elspeth scrambled up, though she tried not to dig her toes in. Eventually she stood on their shoulders, spreading out her arms. Dickon had persuaded someone from the neighbouring hut to take a photograph, and she struggled to maintain he
r balance while they all said ‘cheese’.
Then Dickon, far drunker than the rest, thought it would be funny to rear up like a circus horse, lifting his hands off the ground and pawing the air with a neigh. Octavia and Juliet shrieked and everyone came tumbling down in a big heap. Elspeth tried desperately to keep her balance, but it was impossible. She felt herself toppling, and tried to roll herself up like she’d been taught in gymnastics, but she landed with her leg underneath her and cried out.
‘You idiot,’ Harry said to Dickon, furious. ‘What the hell was that for, you buffoon?’
‘Trust Dickon to ruin it,’ said Octavia. ‘Are you all right, Elspeth?’
‘I’m not sure.’ Elspeth had gone slightly green from too much wine, sun and the pain. ‘It hurts.’
‘Try to move it.’
‘I can’t. Oh. Ow.’ And to her embarrassment, she was sick in the sand. Lobster and cake and champagne.
‘Oh, God,’ said Dickon. ‘I can’t stand puke.’
‘It was your fault,’ said Harry, glaring at him.
‘It was her bloody idea.’ Dickon kicked at the sand to cover the evidence.
Elspeth felt miserable. This wasn’t how she’d intended the caper to turn out. She’d wanted to show off and now she thought she might have broken her ankle. These people were awful, she decided. She longed for home. For her mother. For her own bed. She started to shiver, even though it was still hot in the late afternoon sun.
‘Let me feel,’ said Harry, bending down and taking her ankle in his warm, brown hands. ‘How does it feel? Can you walk on it?’
She tried to put her foot down but she couldn’t bear her own weight. Maybe she should pretend it was all right. The sooner they got back to Oxford, the better.
‘I think I should take you to hospital,’ said Harry, pulling on his shirt. Dickon was in no fit state to play ambulance driver. He was slurring and swaying.
‘I think you’d better.’ Elspeth was near to tears. ‘I’m so sorry to be a nuisance.’
‘It’s not your fault Dickon’s such a clot.’
‘But what if they keep her in? How are we all going to get back, if you take your car?’ protested Octavia.
‘We’ll swap,’ said Harry. ‘You can all go back in the Morris, and I’ll take the Triumph. I can bring Elspeth back to Oxford when she’s been seen to.’
Dickon wasn’t very happy about the car swap, but as the accident had been down to him he had little choice but to hand over his keys. Harry gave his to Juliet, who hadn’t drunk as much as the rest of them. ‘You drive,’ he told her. ‘Whatever you do, don’t let Dickon behind the wheel.’
‘We’ll be here for a while yet. I’ll be fine,’ Juliet promised.
Then Harry bent down and lifted Elspeth into his arms. She protested, but she was never going to get to the car otherwise. He strode across the sand as if she weighed no more than a bag of sugar. She rested her head on his shoulder, feeling giddy, not sure if it was due to the strange turn of events or the heat from his chest.
It took half an hour to get to the hospital, where she was seen quickly. The ankle was just a sprain, and it was bandaged up tightly, and Elspeth was given a pair of crutches to help her walk for the next few days.
Back in the car, she looked at Harry. ‘You’ve been so kind,’ she said. ‘Thank you. Thank you for looking after me.’ She felt tearful, and homesick.
Harry was staring at the road ahead. ‘Well, I don’t think Dickon looks after you.’
‘No,’ said Elspeth. ‘Not really.’
‘You deserve much better.’
‘Maybe.’ Elspeth was dreading getting back to the hut and seeing them. Dickon mooning after Juliet. Juliet fully aware but feigning oblivion.
Harry said nothing, but after a while he held out his left hand, the palm outstretched, and she took it, wordlessly, and held onto it until he needed to change gear. And they carried on holding hands until they got back to the beach to see the Morris had gone.
‘They’ve left already,’ said Elspeth, not in the least bit sorry.
‘What a shame,’ said Harry, and smiled.
The two of them looked out to sea, where the sun was about to kiss the water, shimmering in a blaze of gilded coral.
‘Do you know,’ said Elspeth, ‘I’d never been to the seaside before today.’
Harry put an arm around her shoulder. He didn’t mock her.
‘Well,’ he said, ‘in that case, it seems a pity to leave. Let’s stay for the night. You haven’t lived unless you’ve seen the sun rise over the sea.’
The implications of what he was saying sank in. Elspeth swallowed.
‘What about Octavia?’ she asked in a small voice.
Harry gave a dismissive gesture. ‘There’s nothing much between us. I’m not nearly landed enough for her. Far too ordinary.’
‘You’re not ordinary,’ said Elspeth, fierce, for he wasn’t. ‘Won’t they mind us sleeping in the hut?’
There was a small silence. The sun slipped further over the horizon. The sea was on fire.
‘As a matter of fact,’ said Harry, ‘it’s not their hut. Not any more.’
‘What?’ Elspeth turned to him, surprised.
Harry looked rueful. ‘There’s a lot you don’t know about Dickon. Some of the people he’s in with at Oxford are pretty wild. There’s a lot of gambling. The stakes are high. He’s lost a lot of money.’
‘Oh.’ Elspeth had heard there were clubs who indulged in reckless behaviour. Mostly rich males who behaved exactly as they pleased.
‘I’ve tried time and again to help him stop, but he doesn’t listen,’ said Harry. ‘And he can’t afford to lose money. The twins like to pretend they’re terribly wealthy, but there’s not all that much family money.’ He looked awkward. ‘Anyway, Dickon came to me last week. He asked if I’d buy the hut off him. It’s his, apparently. His granny left it to him.’
‘I can’t believe it,’ said Elspeth. ‘Actually, no – I can believe it. It explains a lot.’ It certainly explained Dickon’s dark mood, on occasion. The times when he was sulky, and barely spoke. She thought it was her; that she had done something wrong.
‘I don’t feel good about it, but if I hadn’t helped him out, he’d be in big trouble. He’d probably be sent down. I told him I’d buy it as long as he stopped gambling. He hasn’t, though.’ Harry shrugged.
‘Goodness.’ Elspeth tried to take it all in. She remembered Dickon looking out at the sea on the drive down, and the tears in his eyes, and realised it all made sense. He knew what he had lost, and he knew it was his own fault. And that was why he had drunk so much. To forget.
‘I don’t suppose he’ll ever stop,’ said Harry. ‘People like him don’t.’
‘What a good friend you are.’
‘Am I, though?’ said Harry. ‘I don’t know that it’s awfully kind of me to steal his girlfriend.’
He turned and looked into her eyes with his warm gaze.
Elspeth remembered how Dickon never seemed able to remember her name. How he always seemed impatient with her. How he spent most of the day staring at Juliet. How he’d been cross when she’d hurt herself. Even crosser when she was sick.
‘I don’t think he likes me very much at all. I don’t think he’ll care.’
There was just the tiniest crescent of sun left.
‘So, shall we stay?’ Harry asked.
They both turned to look at the beach hut. It looked welcoming in the fading light. A little haven.
On the horizon, the last snippet of sun hovered, as if it wanted to hear her answer before it left for the night.
‘Yes,’ said Elspeth, thinking she might never get a chance like this again, a chance to fall asleep in Harry’s arms with the sound of the waves lulling them, and to wake up next to him, and to watch the sun rise again over the sea.
BIRTHDAY BANQUET RECIPES
My birthday is in early August, which means very often people are on holiday when it comes to celebrating. But it doe
s also mean the weather is usually fabulous, so I gather together what friends and family I can for a beach banquet. As it’s my birthday I don’t want to make a load of work for myself, so the answer is an extravagant seafood feast.
For this I go to the harbour, to a little shack on the quayside with tables and chairs outside. Here you can guzzle a plateau de fruits de mer with a bottle of white wine and watch the boats meander in and out under the stern gaze of Verity, the die-cast bronze Hirst statue that stands on the end of the pier.
Or you can take your own bountiful seafood platter home with you. We choose the finest specimens and our eyes are inevitably bigger than our stomachs. We stop for bottles of bone-dry Riesling or rich buttery burgundy to wash down our catch.
The vibrant reds and oranges and pinks and corals and creams spread out on a bed of ice is magnificent. It’s a ceremonial and celebratory centrepiece, and there is a pleasing ritual to it as well, as claws are cracked open and the sweet flesh pulled from the shells. It’s a delicious and messy evening of indulgence, almost decadent, but as it only happens once a year I feel no guilt, only pleasure.
Birthday cocktails
Every good birthday party must start with cocktails, and these are the perfect aperitifs for a summer celebration.
Campari mule
My favourite aperitif is Campari – I love its medicinal sweetness and its incarnadine glow. Campari and soda is my evening go-to, and in winter I love a negroni, but for a summer’s evening this cocktail is a little more refreshing and the bubbles make it perfect to kick off a birthday party.
A Day at the Beach Hut Page 8
