The Beach Hut

by Veronica Henry

‘No, I’m not unhappy . . .’

  ‘Then what?’

  Her tears were falling thick and fast now.

  ‘I don’t know. Maybe I do need . . . help. Professional help.’

  ‘You don’t think I’m going to fork out for you to go to The Priory, do you?’ he snarled. ‘You just need to get a grip.’

  ‘I will. I will . . .’ She could feel snot starting to bubble out of her nose. He looked at her in disgust as she wiped it away with the back of her hand.

  ‘In fact, just get out. I don’t think I can even bear you in the same house at the moment.’

  ‘You’re kicking me out?’

  ‘We’ve both got some thinking to do.’

  ‘What about the children?’

  ‘What about the children? I’ll take them to school, as you obviously can’t. And I’m perfectly capable of cooking them supper. Just leave a list of their weekend commitments—’

  ‘You’re serious.’

  ‘Never more so.’

  ‘Where do I go?’

  ‘I don’t know. But I suggest somewhere without a mini-bar, or a compliant friend.’

  Fiona felt herself crumpling. She flicked a glance at the fridge.

  Tim looked at her, a sardonic grin twisting his mouth.

  ‘Glass of dry white wine, dear?’

  Suddenly she felt angry. It was all very well him being so judgemental after the event, but if he’d realised she had such a problem, why hadn’t he done anything about it?

  She drew herself up, mustering as much dignity as she could.

  ‘OK. If that’s the way you want it. I’ll go down to Everdene for a few days. See if I can . . . work it all out.’

  ‘Please do, Fiona. Because quite frankly, I can’t see a way forward the way things are.’

  Tim and his brothers shared the hut at Everdene between them. They’d bought it ten years ago, in an attempt to recreate for their own children the idyllic summers they had spent on the beach. Only it had become a source of friction, none of them being able to agree on when they should be allowed to use it, or how much money should be spent on maintaining it. Fiona knew it had lain empty and unloved all winter, but they would all be fighting come the warm weather and the school holidays. In the meantime, it was hers for the taking. The ideal refuge for a woman who needed to take stock of her life.

  She caught the train down to Everdene the next morning. Tim took the children to school, leaving her to take a taxi to the station having flung a few things into a suitcase. He showed no sign of backtracking on what he had said the night before. If anything he was more thin-lipped and ungiving. She’d hugged the kids, told them she had to go away for a short while, and they had been heartbreakingly understanding, if a little puzzled. Fiona never went away from home.

  Nor could she remember the last time she’d been on any sort of public transport. She sat on the train watching people file past her on their way to the buffet car, coming back with paper bags that belched out the scent of toasted bacon buns. They would sell wine in the buffet. Of course they would. Unbelievably, it had been nearly twenty-four hours since her last drink. She looked around her, at the teenage girl frantically texting with a half-smile on her lips, the businesswoman pecking at her laptop, the man on the phone to his hapless estate agent, giving him a rollicking and not caring who heard. None of them was gasping for a drink.

  She couldn’t fall at the first fence. She had to at least arrive at her destination sober. She could do this, of course she could. She sat and flicked through the magazine she had bought at the station, and found herself pleasantly distracted by the articles and the fashion, picking out dresses and shoes for herself.

  An hour and a half later, she struggled off the train and out onto the station forecourt and into a taxi.

  ‘Everdene Beach, please.’

  She thought about asking the driver to stop at Marks and Spencer. She needed food, after all, a few nice nibbles to keep body and soul together over the next few days. But deep down, she knew if she went into M&S she would head straight for the wine section, pop herself in a couple of bottles. It was better to avoid temptation.

  As the taxi rumbled over the cobbles of the station forecourt and pulled out onto the road that led to Everdene, she put her head back and shut her eyes wearily. She couldn’t run away from it for ever. She had to look into the black hole. It was the black hole she tried to keep filling, but that always came unplugged and emptied itself, leaving her with a gaping jagged rawness inside.

  Her childhood home had been a silent, joyless place, its windows blind with closed curtains, low-watt bulbs throwing sinister shadows. Her mother didn’t like light. It triggered her headaches. So the three of them, Fiona and her mother and father, moved through a crepuscular twilit world, Fiona always blinking when she came out of the front door into what she thought of as the real world.

  Her father did his best to keep things together. On top of his already stressful job as a civil engineer, he tried to run the house, keep an eye on Fiona’s progress at school and monitor his wife’s mental health-a test of his nerves as much as hers. Whenever he left the house, he felt a sense of dread. He could never be sure what he was going to come back to. Euphoria, with every item of her wardrobe scattered around the bedroom, music blasting, make-up smeared all over her face. Or despair, which meant an ominous silence, a vacant stare. He never knew which was worse.

  Food was simply a fuel, a necessity, never a source of pleasure or enjoyment. At eleven, Fiona took over the catering, unable to bear the unpalatable and unimaginative stodge her father served up. Her repertoire wasn’t terribly gourmet, but at least her macaroni cheese had proper cheddar in it, not just a packet sauce that tasted of sick. Neither of her parents was particularly interested in what she cooked, but at least she could take a modicum of pleasure from what she ate if she made it herself.

  Her mother was beautiful, with large sad eyes and a dark bob that always seemed to be perfect although Fiona had never known her go to the hairdresser. She was tall, with painfully thin arms and legs, her knobbly wrists sticking out of the end of the jumpers she wrapped herself in, because she felt the cold terribly. She drifted around the house aimlessly, usually silent, sometimes watching television, mostly sleeping. Although sometimes she would come into Fiona’s bedroom and interrogate her about her life, words spilling out of her in a chaotic jumble. Then she would clap her hand over her mouth as if she was trying to shove the words back in where they had come from. Fiona preferred it when she was silent. Silence she could handle.

  Her desperate father tried to make it all up to her. Every now and then he would drive her to London, dropping her off at the big Top Shop in Oxford Circus, telling her she could have whatever she wanted. He would turn up an hour or two later with his cheque book, never quibbling at the amount she had spent. Her friends were green with envy, but she would have swapped all the shoes and dresses in the world for just one day of normality, when the air wasn’t thick with portent.

  The third time her mother tried to kill herself, her father decided enough was enough and sent Fiona to boarding school. She was fourteen.

  ‘It’s no life for you, stuck here. It’s too much responsibility. You should be with girls your own age, having fun, listening to records, putting on make-up.’

  The school he chose wasn’t a particularly posh or grand one. Fiona was a willing student, but not particularly able. Information seemed to trickle out of her head, as if it could find no reason to stay in there, so she was spectacularly bad at exams. Ambleside wasn’t bothered about exam results, just an ability to pay, and was therefore stuffed with girls whose parents were clearly happy to pay anything to get them off their hands.

  It should have been hard arriving as a new girl into a school with friendships that had been long established, but Fiona settled in surprisingly easily. Despite her troubled home life, she was a sunny-natured, confident girl, and she quickly found herself popular. In fact, her arrival rather upset the statu
s quo.

  Her year had long been ruled by Tracey Pike. Tracey, it was generally agreed, was as common as muck, but her father was very, very rich. And what she lacked in intellectual prowess she made up for in charisma. She was loud-mouthed and large-breasted, with a cloud of black curls and a low boredom threshold. She ruled the fifth year with a rod of iron, dictating what everyone should wear, what they should listen to, who was in and who was out, playing people off against each other.

  Fiona quickly worked out that she needed Tracey as an ally in order to survive. She didn’t fear her in the least - what on earth could Tracey do to hurt her? By facing up to her she got Tracey onside. Soon she was able to dissuade Tracey from her more extreme ideas and ill-disguised bullying. This gave Fiona an almost heroic status amongst the other girls, who had suffered Tracey’s tyranny for years. Frankly, after a manic-depressive mother, Tracey was a piece of cake, though Fiona suspected that Tracey was simply biding her time, awaiting the opportune moment to overthrow the pretender to her throne. She didn’t trust her one bit.

  The showdown came one Saturday afternoon. The problem with Ambleside was there was nothing to do at the weekends. A relentless drizzle was falling, leaving a school full of pupils sluggish and dopey with boredom.

  A group of girls made toast on the landing outside the dormitory. Eating was their only distraction. They huddled round the toaster with a loaf of sliced white bread, waiting impatiently. A slab of butter stolen from the kitchen gradually became studded with crumbs.

  ‘Bet you can’t walk from one end of the banister to the other,’ Tracey said to Lindsay, a thickset creature who had often been at the mercy of her cruel tongue.

  Lindsay looked trapped. If she bottled out she would look like the loser that Tracey had always taken her for. If she took the challenge, this was the ideal opportunity for her to prove herself. Her eyes darted from one onlooker to the next, desperately hoping for someone to tell Tracey not to be ridiculous. They were on the fourth floor. If you looked over the banister you could see down four flights of stone steps to the reception hall below.

  ‘It’s only about eight foot. Just like walking on the balance beam in the gym.’

  Tracey was smirking. She was out for blood today. They’d lost at netball, of which she was captain, and the evening stretched ahead of them with nothing to do. Watching Lindsay squirm was her idea of entertainment.

  ‘Leave it, Tracey.’ Fiona stuck her knife in the Marmite and began to spread it.

  ‘No,’ said Lindsay. ‘I’ll do it.’

  There was a horrified silence.

  ‘You don’t have to,’ said Fiona, taking a bite of her toast.

  ‘Course she doesn’t,’ said Tracey. ‘She’ll just prove she’s a spineless wimp.’

  ‘I can do it,’ Lindsay insisted. ‘Like you say, it’s only like the balance beam. How hard can it be?’

  Several pairs of eyes surveyed her doubtfully. Lindsay was no gymnast. She was hardly light on her feet, had no sense of balance.

  Fiona put her toast down and stepped forward.

  ‘I’ll do it first, if you like,’ she offered. ‘Prove it’s easy.’

  She recognised the delicacy of the situation. If she pulled rank and told Tracey to back off, Lindsay was going to come out of it badly. This was her chance to prove herself once and for all, and get some respect. But Fiona wanted to show her a bit of solidarity. If she took the fear out of the dare, then maybe Lindsay could manage it without mishap.

  She could feel Tracey’s eyes on her as she scrambled onto the banister. Tracey knew the power axis had subtly shifted towards Fiona, and that everyone was praying Lindsay would prove herself.

  Fiona knew she could do it. She used the wall to steady herself while she adjusted her balance. She looked firmly ahead to the newel post at the end. Barely seven feet. Of course, it was harder than the balance beam in the gym, because the banister wasn’t flat, but slightly domed, and the wood was more slippery, slick with furniture polish.

  She held her arms out and walked, slowly, deliberately. When she got to the end she leant down and one of the other girls held her hands so she could jump.

  ‘There,’ said Tracey triumphantly to Lindsay. ‘Easy. Your turn now.’

  The rest of the girls looked at each other awkwardly. It was all very well Fiona doing it, but Lindsay was a different matter. They watched as she assessed her challenge.

  She clambered on using a chair. She clung onto the wall longer than Fiona had, edging her feet round. Scarcely anyone breathed. Fiona began to chew on her thumbnail. It had been easy, she couldn’t deny that, but if Lindsay did lose her balance she wouldn’t have a chance. She cast a glance at Tracey, whose eyes were gleaming with relish. She was enjoying every second of Lindsay’s discomfort. What turned someone into such a sadist?

  Lindsay began to walk. No one spoke as she planted one slightly pudgy foot in front of the other, arms stretched out. For a moment she seemed as graceful as Fiona had been, sure and confident.

  Halfway across, she hesitated. There was a collective gasp as she began to sway. Lindsay shut her eyes for a moment, then opened them and carried on, but she seemed to have lost her nerve. Her eyes grew wide as her panic built. She was three-quarters of the way across. Fiona could sense her terror. Instinctively, she put her hand out so Lindsay could grab it, so she could help her down.

  ‘No!’ Lindsay flinched away from her, not wanting her help, wanting to prove she could rise to the challenge. And in that moment, she lost her balance completely. One moment she was there, the next she was falling. All that could be heard was the sound of her body hitting the railings.

  There was a moment of silence while all the girls looked at each other then rushed to look over the banisters. Four floors down Lindsay’s figure looked tiny and still. One girl began to scream. Another bolted for the head of the stairs, about to run for help, but Tracey blocked her path and looked over at Fiona.

  ‘You killed her,’ she said. ‘You got up there and showed her it could be done. She couldn’t back down after that. And if you hadn’t put your hand out, she’d never have fallen. You killed her.’

  Fiona stepped back.

  ‘No,’ she said. ‘It was your dare.’

  Tracey looked round at the rest of the girls, who were frozen in fear.

  ‘None of you stopped her, did you? You were all happy to watch.’

  The realisation that they were all to blame, that they were all complicit, swept through the assembled girls. Two began to weep.

  ‘It’s OK,’ Tracey assured them, taking control. ‘We say we found her up there. We say we tried to stop her, but she wouldn’t come down. If we all stick to our story, then none of us gets into trouble.’

  She looked from one to another, her eyes boring into each individual. They all nodded. No one dared disagree. They were all too frightened of an investigation, and of being blamed. It would be all too easy for Tracey to point the finger. She was more than capable of implicating someone else to save her own skin.

  From the ground floor, the sound of hysteria rose up through the stairwell.

  The school did their best to cover up what they billed as a tragic accident. They held a simple but beautiful memorial service in the chapel, and Tracey, as the leading light of the speech and drama department, read a poem that left no one dry-eyed. The incident was never mentioned again amongst those who had been party to it.

  And now Fiona wondered just how many of them thought back to it, and how often. She had never stopped blaming herself. She should have stepped in straight away and put a stop to the dare. She should never have tried to help Lindsay to stand up to Tracey. And she shouldn’t have unnerved her by holding out her hand. She was culpable three times over. The memory haunted her day and night - the vision of Lindsay’s poor body being battered by the railings on the way down, the hard, cold stone of the floor at the bottom. She could never share her guilt with anyone, but eventually she learnt to live with it. It was her punishment, her
penance, and she would have to bear it for the rest of her life.

  It was when she had her own children, however, that it became too much to bear. Now she fully understood the impact Lindsay’s death must have had on those who loved her, the terrible, awful grief of a parent who had lost a child. The horror built up inside her, and she lived in constant fear that somebody, one day, would do the same to one of her children. That justice would be done for Lindsay.

  Over time, she began to realise that drink made it better. That a little glass of something dulled the pain, blotted out the gnawing rat-bite of her conscience. It was a wonderful solution. So, so easy. She worked out the perfect amount to keep the memories at bay, a blissful state of semi-oblivion.

  Of course, she couldn’t control the dose for ever. Sometimes it took more to blot things out. And sometimes she wanted complete oblivion, angry that she was forced to live her life like this, resentful that she was living a lie, so she drank herself into a stupor. It was so hard, keeping the secret.

  She wasn’t going to do it any more. As she unlocked the key to the hut, she looked around her. She wanted to come to this beach with her kids and enjoy its simple pleasures. She didn’t want to be held hostage by a bottle of wine. Time and again she had sat in her deckchair watching the children play, wondering if anyone would notice if she hoicked a bottle out of the cool-box. She longed to be free of the tyranny, and sit there making sandcastles, not noticing what the time was or even being aware that it had passed. She wanted to be happy.

  She knew how to track down Tracey Pike. She had followed her progress carefully since leaving school, via an elaborate combination of the old school newsletter and Friends Reunited. Tracey wasn’t the type to keep quiet about her achievements. She was a hugely successful businesswoman, with three flashy boutiques in North London. Fiona had their numbers in her diary. When she phoned the second one and asked for Tracey, she was told to hold the line.

  ‘Tracey Pike.’ Her harsh tones sent a shiver down Fiona’s spine.