‘You’re gorgeous,’ he said, and she felt warm inside. It was, she realised, a long time since anyone had been nice to her.
Someone came over with a tray full of flaming sambucas. They pressed one on Fiona, who knocked it back to rousing cheers. Then another. Then another. She slid off her seat.
‘Must go to the loo,’ she slurred.
She weaved her way through the crowds to the toilets, every now and then having to grab onto someone to steady herself, but they didn’t seem to mind. Everyone in here was happy. She was happy.
She flopped onto the loo seat and rested her head against the wall of the cubicle. Bloody Tim. Who the hell was he to judge her?
It took her quite some time to wriggle out of her jeans for a wee and then get them done back up again, but she managed it. She peered in the speckled mirror over the sink, fluffing up her hair with her fingers, then went to get her lipstick out of her bag. Shit, she’d left her bag in the bar. Never mind - this wasn’t the sort of place people nicked your stuff. It wasn’t London.
She went back out to find it. It was on the floor where she’d left it, thank God. She bent down to pick it up, lost her balance.
Liam reached out an arm and she took it gratefully.
‘I think I should . . . go home,’ she told him.
‘Do you live far?’
‘I’ve got one of the beach huts. On the . . . beach.’ She gestured outside vaguely.
‘Very nice.’
Her head was really spinning now. She held on to his arm more tightly.
‘You want me to walk you back?’ he asked.
She nodded. She barely heard the accompanying cheers and wolf whistles from his mates as they walked out together.
‘Don’t listen to them,’ Liam smiled at her. ‘They’re just jealous. Come on. Let’s get you back.’
They walked past the groom, who was sitting on a chair with the brunette astride him. Liam pointed a warning finger at him, and he just shrugged sheepishly.
‘Last night of freedom,’ Fiona reminded Liam. ‘Don’t spoil his fun.’
The walk back to the hut seemed endless. The sand was hard to walk over, especially when you’d had too much to drink, so Fiona kicked off her shoes. The sand was freezing. She arrived at the door, fished about in her handbag.
‘Thanks,’ she said, smiling up at Liam.
‘Aren’t you going to let me come in?’
‘Well . . .’ She was startled. It hadn’t occurred to her that he might want to come in, but of course he did. Why else had he walked her back? Not just to be a gentleman.
‘Come on. Let me have a look. I’ve always wanted to see what these places were like. See how the other half lives.’
‘They’re nothing special.’
‘They should be. There’s one for sale up the top. Over a hundred grand they want for it. For a bloody shed!’
Fiona felt guilty. She’d always rather taken the hut for granted, but she supposed they were lucky. It was a special place. She stood to one side and let him through. She flicked on the lights, illuminating the interior. He closed the door behind her and pulled her to him.
‘Come here,’ he said softly, and she realised he had absolutely no interest in looking at the hut at all. What an idiot. She should have just slipped out of the Ship Aground without saying goodbye. She was too drunk to remonstrate, too drunk to argue. He began to kiss her.
It was nice. It was really, really nice. To have someone holding her, and stroking her hair, and kissing her. She melted into him, almost purring.
‘Let me get out of this stupid costume,’ he mumbled, and she began to laugh. What a ridiculous situation, a woman of her age snogging a man in a fairy outfit . . .
She woke up frozen to the marrow. The door of the beach hut was flapping open. Her hip bones felt bruised. Her mouth felt bruised. She was naked.
Oh my God, she thought. I’ve been raped.
She tried to track her thoughts back. She remembered Tracey, her conversation with Tim, going to the Ship Aground . . . On the floor was a piece of tinsel. She remembered it, wrapped around a tousled blond head. Liam? Liam.
Then she remembered laughing, wrapping the tinsel round him. Afterwards, when they were lying on the bed . . .
Rape? Of course it wasn’t rape. She had taken him willingly back to the hut. There were a million witnesses. She had kissed him, she’d wanted him to love her. It had felt good, to hear him tell her how wonderful she was. To lie in someone’s arms, laughing. Not to have someone looking at you with distaste, their eyes cold, turning their back on you in bed.
She sat up, shivering violently, the horror of what she had done hitting her. She had got so drunk she had gone out and pulled a man. Then slept with him. She felt hot with shame. She got to her feet. She needed to brush her teeth. She scrubbed and scrubbed, washing away all traces of his saliva. It was five o’clock in the morning.
She sat in a chair with a duvet wrapped around her and watched the dawn break. She needed help. She needed a priest. She needed bloody exterminating. What use was she to anyone? She was a terrible wife, an even worse mother. They’d all be better off without her.
Would it never go away? Were the events of that afternoon going to hound her into an early grave? Or was there a way out? She wasn’t a bad person. She truly wasn’t. She never thought ill of anyone, or did them any deliberate harm. She didn’t deserve this never-ending punishment.
She wiped away a tear with the back of her hand, but they kept falling thick and fast until she was sobbing. Eventually she couldn’t cry any more. She put her hands to her face, breathing deeply to calm herself.
This was, she realised, rock bottom. In the space of a week she had written off her car, slept with a stranger, probably lost her husband, and possibly her children too. She couldn’t sink any lower. She had had everything, and now she was looking at a future so bleak she didn’t know what to do next. Where did she go from here? She certainly couldn’t stay in the hut - the other brothers would be queuing up to use it before long. Where would she live? What would she live on? Tim had mentioned a flat. How did she go about getting one? Would he pay for it? He’d probably consider it money well spent, just to see the back of her.
And then it occurred to her. He was her husband. He had to take some responsibility for the state of their marriage. It was all very well laying the blame at her feet, but he had just stood by and let the car crash, literal and metaphorical, happen. He had to help her.
But first she had to ask for it.
He must have spent years wondering what he’d done to deserve a drunk for a wife. How could he know the reason, when she’d never told him?
If she told him, he had to help her. Wasn’t that what marriage was about? For better, for worse? And you couldn’t get much worse than what she had done. It was her only hope. If he told her to go to the police, then so be it. Never mind Tracey. This wasn’t about Tracey - she could look after herself. This was about Fiona salvaging what she could from the wreckage.
She sat back for a moment, debating the wisdom of her decision. What did she have to lose? He couldn’t, after all, think any less of her than he did at the moment. She got to her feet slowly. She felt almost as if she was in a trance. She could see a silver thread of hope. She had to hold onto it.
She rummaged for her phone, pulled it out, dialled home. It was only half six, but she didn’t care.
He answered on the third ring. He sounded alert, concerned.
‘Hello?’
She closed her eyes. For a moment she was looking down over the banisters again, down on that little body that lay so still. Maybe, just maybe, with a bit of help, the next time she looked the body wouldn’t be there.
‘Tim? It’s me. I need your help. I need to tell you something. I just . . . need you to listen . . .’
4
OCEAN VIEW
Well, hoo-bloody-rah and amen to that, thought Chrissie Milton when she heard the news. She felt like kicking off her s
hoes and running across the sand waving her arms in the air. She didn’t, of course. She assumed a serious air and murmured commiserations. Honestly, anyone would have thought someone else had died, the way everyone was going on. At the end of the day, it was just a bloody beach hut. A glorified shed you’d only pay five hundred quid for in B&Q, quite frankly. OK, so there was the view - everyone always banged on about the view - but it wasn’t worth over a hundred grand, not of anyone’s money. And definitely not hers.
It was the first Milton gathering of the summer. Jane’s birthday, the annual bash that kicked off the Everdene season, when all the clan gathered, wherever they were, and celebrated with a champagne picnic on the beach followed by dinner at Martine’s, Everdene’s finest, and only, French restaurant. Today’s celebration was the first family gathering since that dreadful funeral, when the truth had come out about the mess Jane’s husband had left her in. Chrissie was the only one who hadn’t been surprised. You only had to look at Graham Milton to know he was playing both ends against the middle and wasn’t clever enough to pull it off. Chrissie had had his card marked from day one, which was why he’d never liked her. Well, one of the reasons. Not that she gave a stuff what he thought. And it certainly didn’t matter now he was six foot under.
There were thirteen of them on the beach altogether. Jane and her three sons, David, Philip and Adrian. Chrissie, who was David’s wife, and the fragrant Serena, who was Philip’s. And the six grandchildren, from eighteen-year-old Harry to dear little Spike, who was just six. After they’d all gathered round and toasted Jane’s birthday, she made the announcement about having to sell The Shack.
‘It breaks my heart to do it,’ she told them. ‘The Shack has been the glue that has held this family together over the years. But needs must . . .’
Chrissie rolled her eyes. Glue? The hut had been the scene of more arguments than she cared to remember. The Miltons couldn’t get together without some sort of a drama or crisis. There was always an imagined slight or injustice to set the cat amongst the pigeons. Graham Milton had been an out-and-out bully, playing his sons off against each other and openly enjoying the resulting chaos. And Jane spoilt them all to death, with no idea that she was constantly pandering to their whims. Between the two of them they controlled every decision their sons made. Chrissie thought it was totally unhealthy. What sort of a man let his parents dictate to him like that? It accounted for most of the friction between her and David. She mocked him for referring to his parents so incessantly. She loved her own parents, but she didn’t feel the need for their approval or their input at every turn. She was an independent woman with her own mind, which was now becoming an issue, because the balance of power had altered dramatically between them.
Chrissie had always been a bright spark. Not academically - not at all, she had barely scraped five GCSEs - but she could talk the talk, spot an opportunity at fifty paces, add up a row of figures in her head and charm the pants off anyone. As soon as she left school she went into sales. She could sell anything from vacuum-cleaner bags to diamond rings - it didn’t matter what it was, she had the patter. She made good money and she spent it - on a nice flat, a nippy motor, sexy clothes and hot holidays. She worked hard and she played hard.
She was playing very hard indeed when she met David at the races. The Hennessy Gold Cup at Newbury. She was in a private box, courtesy of the company she was working for-a day out, no expense spared, for all the sales team who had outstripped their targets. Chrissie was in her element, in a tight-fitting bright pink jacket and skirt and towering heels, drinking champagne on someone’s else’s account, living the high life. David was in the adjoining box, the guest of a wealthy client of his boss. They met on the balcony, watching the favourite romp home, only a dark blue rope separating them.
She thought he was the most beautiful man she had ever seen. And he was - tall, with dark hair that fell into his green eyes and a sprinkling of freckles that made him look cute, but not effete. They sat on the balcony sharing a bottle of champagne, then another, and then he had kissed her over the rope. The biting November wind made her shiver, and he wrapped his cashmere overcoat around her, pulling her into him and she felt, for the first time in her life, cared for. Until then she had been Miss Independent, scorning every attempt at chivalry - not that much chivalry came her way, in her world - but somehow David was different. Of course, she knew he was in a class above her. You only had to look at the sober, tweedy suits of the crowd he was with, their careless confidence and their cut-glass accents, whereas her crew were flashy, loud-mouthed, didn’t really know how to behave, waving fistfuls of cash around and drinking straight out of their bottles of Veuve Clicquot.
They went straight from the races to dinner. He phoned ahead and booked a table at The Vineyard, a stunning hotel just outside Newbury. Stylish, discreet, the walls were smothered in breathtaking original art, the food was sublime, the wine superlative, but David and Chrissie could have been in Burger King for all the notice they took of their surroundings. They couldn’t keep their eyes off each other. It was a natural progression for him to see if there was a room available.
She saw the look of horror on Graham Milton’s face when David brought her home for the first time to meet his parents. Yet with typical bourgeois middle-class hypocrisy, he couldn’t keep his eyes off her breasts. Just how long would you last, she wondered to herself, if you put your cock between my tits? Two bloody seconds. She deliberately dropped cream on her cleavage while she was eating her sweet - or pud, as Jane called it. She looked her future father-in-law straight in the eye and slowly, deliberately, wiped it off and licked her finger. She would have put her life savings on him having a massive erection under the white linen tablecloth.
She wasn’t going to let Graham Milton let her feel inferior. She was brassy, she knew that. Her bright blond hair was shamelessly dyed, she wore clothes that were too tight, skirts that were too short, heels that were too high, exposed too much of her chest. She drank too much, she was loud, she was opinionated, she swore, she smoked. But she knew how to live. She knew the difference between right and wrong. And she was a success. More of a success than David, though she would never have pointed it out. David was a yes-man. He worked for a friend of his father; he was a salaried hack who had got as far as he was ever going to go and seemed happy to accept that. Whereas Chrissie wanted the earth, the moon and the stars - but she wasn’t going to pretend to be someone else to get it.
No matter how hard the Miltons tried to make her feel uncomfortable, presumably so she would leave their son alone and go and find another victim, Chrissie stuck to her roots and her guns. And when David proposed, and they set the wedding date, she was able to celebrate in true style just who she was, and there was nothing the snooty Miltons could do about it. She went out of her way to make the wedding as far from what they wanted as possible; conspicuous consumption all done in the worst possible taste, from the ceiling full of helium balloons and the DJ playing ‘The Macarena’, to six miniature bridesmaids in gold satin and a stretch limo. Of course she could have chosen a country-house hotel, had the poached salmon and a single matron of honour in a tasteful dress, but if she had gone down that road it was her relatives who would have been made to feel uncomfortable, and she was buggered if that was going to happen.
From day one, it was an unspoken war between her and the Milton-in-laws, as she called them. She certainly couldn’t call on David to defend her, not openly. He basically wanted a nice time, and not too much responsibility, and no confrontation. He was spineless, she soon realised. He didn’t have the power of his own convictions. Chrissie wanted a nice time, too, but she realised that it didn’t just fall into your lap like it had his. Her dad hadn’t called in a favour from a friend because she’d muffed her exams and couldn’t get into university. She’d fought her own battles from day one.
She had her babies three in row - Jack, Emma and Hannah - and it was while she was still on maternity leave that she had the light-bul
b moment which was hopefully going to give them the life they both aspired to. Chrissie was ambitious, but she knew that motherhood and sales were mutually exclusive. If you were on a sales team, the hours were punishing, and the paperwork that had to be done in the evening was even more punishing, so while she was at home with the babies she looked around for a solution. It wasn’t long before she spotted a launderette for sale in the local paper. She shot round there immediately, the youngest two in a double buggy and Jack tagging along behind, taking a pile of dirty washing as cover, and watched the comings and goings. It was run down, half the machines were out of order; it was grimy and soulless. But it had potential as a little goldmine.
She went to the bank, produced a deposit from her own savings and negotiated a loan on the basis of a business plan she bashed out on the home computer. Then she contacted the owner of the launderette and offered him a laughable price, cash, no questions asked. Instinct told her he was in a tight financial spot, and she was right. Two months later she had the keys.
She turned it round in an instant. Bright blue and white paint, new machines, music in the background, comfy chairs, a drinks machine. By the end of the year, the launderette was in profit and she was scouring the papers for suitable premises for the next one. Then she expanded into dry-cleaning - more upmarket, but equally profitable. She was the Queen of Clean. And even though it was hard work keeping on top of all of it, she was her own boss, and every penny she made went into her own pocket. She made a quiet fortune. She was making twice as much in a year as David. Not that she ever shoved it down his throat or flashed it around. She treated the family to a luxury BMW estate and herself to a zippy little Audi TT, then reinvested the rest in two more properties. She kept the extent of her success very quiet, because she knew what the Miltons were like. They loved to speculate and ruminate, and somehow her success would be used against her, another source of disapproval, as if it wasn’t ladylike for a woman to make money. And she didn’t want to demean David - she still loved him, for his easy grace and charm, his obliging nature, his skills as a father. Even if they didn’t always see eye to eye - occasionally the imbalance got to him, and he would lash out, but their rows didn’t last long. Deep down he worshipped her, loved her for all the reasons the rest of the Miltons looked down on her, and that made her love him all the more. But an imbalanced marriage is always a difficult one.
The Beach Hut Page 11
