by Simon Brett
“Someone put the fire out,” reiterated Carole. “Someone must’ve –”
Kelvin Southwest raised a hand to silence her and she was duly – though somewhat irritatedly – silent while he completed his notes. Then he looked down at the floorboards and squatted, offering yet more builder’s crack.
He rose to his feet and looked at Carole sternly. “You haven’t been fooling with these floorboards, have you?”
“No, of course I haven’t.”
“Because someone has hammered some new nails into them.”
“Yes, I noticed that. I was going to –”
He raised his hand again and, to Carole’s annoyance, she was again silent.
“I think I know what we should do next,” he announced.
“What?”
His chubby face crinkled again into the expression that he believed to be charming as he said, “I think we should go and have a cup of tea and talk about things, Mrs Seddon. Or may I call you Carole?”
She wanted to say, “Mrs Seddon to you,” but hadn’t quite got the nerve. Instead, she heard herself saying, “Yes, of course, Mr Southwest.”
“My friends call me Kel.”
Well, if you think I’m going to call you Kel you’ve got another think coming, was the thought in Carole’s mind as, to her fury, she said, “Oh, right you are, Kel.”
Kelvin Southwest clearly prided himself on his local knowledge. Assuring Carole that he knew the best tea shop in Smalting, he led her straight to The Copper Kettle on the promenade. She did not think that the guiding hand he occasionally put on her hips was strictly necessary, but he did it in such a way that it could have been accidental. In each instance the contact was so brief that it would have looked excessive for her to have made a fuss.
The flirtatious way with which he greeted the owner and staff of The Copper Kettle showed him to be a regular, and he made such a big deal of the treat he was offering Carole that he could have been taking her to the Savoy Grill.
“Best cup of tea in Smalting,” he assured her. “And the prettiest waitresses,” he added with a wink to one particularly drab specimen. “So, a pot of tea for two then.”
“I’d rather have coffee,” said Carole.
“Oh, very well. How would you like it?” he asked. “A tall skinny latte?”
“Just ordinary coffee, thank you. Black.”
“Right you are.” He favoured the waitress with one of his roguish smiles. “So, beautiful, that’s a pot of tea for one and a black coffee. And would you like something to eat, Carole? Best cakes and pastries in Smalting here, you know.”
“Just the coffee, thank you.”
“Oh. Well, I’ll have one of your Swiss buns, angel cake. Because I’m not sweet enough already,” he simpered to the waitress.
This tiresome little ritual concluded and when the girl went off to get their order, Carole became brisk and businesslike. “Was there some reason why you wanted to talk to me further?”
Kelvin’s face took on an expression of mock hurt. “Does there have to be a reason? Isn’t it enough that I should want to spend time with a beautiful woman?”
Her first instinct was to say that she wasn’t a beautiful woman, but Carole curbed it. She couldn’t face the inevitable blandishments and reassurances that such an assertion would provoke. “So what is it you want to talk to me about?”
He again looked offended by her directness. “Well, of course, about the beach hut. About Quiet Harbour.”
“Yes?”
The order arrived, so Kelvin Southwest broke off for a smirk at the waitress and a ‘Thank you, my lovely’. He then took a large bite from his Swiss bun, whose icing was soft and left a pink frosting on the moustache of his goatee.
“So what about the beach hut?” Carole went on gracelessly.
“Well, the fire damage will have to be repaired.”
“Obviously. And I assume the repairs will be organized by someone from Fether District Council?”
“Not just someone, Carole.” He beamed as he pointed a chubby finger at his chest. “By me. By yours truly, Kelvin Southwest.”
“Oh, well, good. How long do you think it’ll take?”
“I’ll have to get on to the contractors. Depends how busy they are. But with a bit of luck they’ll get it done within the month.”
“Within the month? That’s no good to me. My daughter-in-law and granddaughter are coming to stay with me on Sunday week.”
“Oh dear, oh dear. I suppose I could tell the contractors it was top priority.”
“If you would, I’d be most grateful.”
He shook his head sceptically. “I still doubt if they could do it before Sunday week, though.”
“But that’s the main reason I took over the beach hut from Philly Rose. So that I’d have it for my granddaughter.”
“Well…” Kelvin Southwest stroked his wispy goatee with deliberation. “We are presented with rather a dilemma, aren’t we? And that dilemma is not made easier by the fact that your taking over the rental of Quiet Harbour from Philly Rose was not entirely within the strict rules of Fether District Council for the letting of beach huts.”
“But you told me that –”
He raised a placatory hand. “Don’t worry. It’s down to me to make that kind of decision. The beach huts are really my empire, you know.”
This was said without irony. He really did believe what he was saying. Carole got the feeling that, to his own mind, the most suitable adjectives to describe Kelvin Southwest might include ‘Napoleonic’ and ‘Churchillian’.
“So,” he went on, “if I’ve given my approval of Philly Rose’s transfer of the rental to you, that is a decision by which I will stand.”
“Oh, thank you so much, Mr Southwest.”
“Kel, please, Kel.”
“Very well,” said Carole, hiding her distaste, “Kel.”
He looked at her with an expression of winsome complicity. “As I may have mentioned, I’m a bit of a sucker when there’s a pretty woman involved.”
Carole didn’t know whether he was referring to Philly or to her – or to both of them – so her only reaction was a little nervous giggle.
Enjoying the teasing out of his narrative, Kelvin Southwest put the last piece of his Swiss bun into his mouth and masticated it thoroughly before he went on, “Now I’m a reasonable man, Carole, and when I can I like to help people out – particularly of course when they’re pretty women – and I think I can see a way round your little problem…”
“Oh?”
“Yes, indeed. You scratch my back and I’ll scratch yours.” Carole could only think at that moment of one prospect that appealed to her less than scratching the plump back of Kelvin Southwest. And that was having hers scratched by him.
“You see, Carole, as I said, the beach huts are my empire, and in that empire what I say goes. If I get an applicant for a beach hut who I don’t think to be a suitable tenant – and it does happen more often than you might imagine – then I tell them to get lost. Well, no, I don’t, not in so many words. I tell them that there are sadly no beach huts available, even if there are. So you see, though I’m employed under the broad umbrella of Fether District Council, within my empire I make my own rules.”
He paused, as if expecting some commendation for this statement, and Carole found herself asking rather fatuously, “And why not?”
“So, in the same way, Carole, if I were to decide to offer you the use of another vacant hut here on Smalting Beach while Quiet Harbour is being repaired, well, that could be done…just on my say-so. It would be up to me to make that decision.”
“Good. Well, I mean, if you could see your way to –”
Again he raised a podgy hand and she was deferentially silent. “As I said, I’m always happy to oblige when there’s a pretty woman involved.” Yes, as you said rather a lot of times, thought Carole. “So I think that could be the solution, don’t you?”
“That you give me the use of an empty beach
hut?”
“Yes.”
“Well, that would be very generous of you.”
“I would regard it as the least I could do, Carole. You took over Quiet Harbour from Philly Rose in the belief that you were taking over a perfect working beach hut. You then discovered that it had a hole burned in its floor. Repairing that is within the remit of Fether District Council – or, to be more specific, of me, Kelvin Southwest. It is not your fault that your beach hut has been damaged and you have paid the rental money to Philly Rose in good faith. I would be in dereliction of my duty were I not to attempt to make amends to you.”
We know all that, thought Carole impatiently. Will you please get on with it, you boring little man? “I would, as I say, be very grateful –”
“Leave it with me,” he said magisterially. “I will find you another beach hut here on Smalting Beach. It may not be precisely what I should do, according to the terms of my employment by Fether District Council, but it’s what I’m going to do. Rules are there for the unimaginative foot soldiers of life. For a maverick free spirit like myself, they are there to be broken. And I’m always prepared to break the rules…” He brought out his roguish smile again “…particularly when there’s a pretty woman involved.”
“Well, thank you,” said Carole, thinking that now he had announced what he was going to do, there was nothing to stop him doing it as soon as possible and ending what she was finding a rather awkward tête-à-tête.
But Kelvin Southwest was not yet ready to relinquish his hold on her. He wanted to luxuriate for a while in his magnanimity and her gratitude. So he favoured Carole with tales of other occasions when he’d seen his way to bending Fether District Council’s rules in the matter of beach huts.
Eventually, when her eyes were in serious danger of glazing over, he paused long enough for Carole to ask, “Will you be investigating?”
“Investigating what?” he asked, the wind temporarily taken out of his sails.
“The fire at Quiet Harbour. Will you be trying to find out who was responsible for it?”
“I will try. I will ask around. But without much confidence that I’ll find the answer. I’m sure it was done by some kids after dark. I doubt if there were any witnesses.”
“But it looks as though someone put the fire out before it could do any more damage.”
“Maybe, but I shouldn’t think anyone witnessed that action either.”
“Perhaps not.”
“And while we’re talking of investigation, Carole…” A new beadiness came into his eyes “…you can assure me, can you, that you had nothing to do with the hammering in of the new nails in the floor of Quiet Harbour?”
“Of course I can. Yesterday morning was the first time I’d been in the place.”
“Yes, yes, right you are.” Finally he rose to his feet, saying, “Well, Carole, would you like me to show you your new beach hut?”
“Yes, please…Kel.”
As she rose, he guided her out of The Copper Kettle, again with a proprietary hand on her lower back. He grinned saucily at the waitresses as they left.
“Oh, what about the bill?” asked Carole when they reached the door. “For the tea and coffee.”
Winking at her and then at the waitress who’d served them, Kelvin Southwest said, “Oh, I have an arrangement here. I have an arrangement in a number of places in the area, actually. I do favours for a lot of people and they’re happy to do favours for me…if you know what I mean. As I said, you scratch my back…” Rather than finishing the phrase, he let out a fruity chuckle.
Carole recoiled inwardly. She hated to think what kind of favour Kelvin Southwest might think was his due in exchange for the favour he was doing her.
∨ Bones Under The Beach Hut ∧
Seven
It was the kind of blazing June that got the residents of Fethering talking darkly of global warming. Mind you, every kind of climatic change got the residents of Fethering talking darkly about global warming. A thunderstorm, a heavy fall of snow, a sudden frost, even an unusually high wind, could start a lot of heads shaking in the Crown and Anchor or the local supermarket Allinstore. Like most of the English, the residents of Fethering had always used the weather as a conversational staple. But whereas the fisherman who once peopled the village would look gloomily up at the sky when they discussed it, the current inhabitants, who had just parked their 4×4s, would take on the same gloomy expressions and mention global warming. Not all of them actually believed in it, but they knew that in Fethering mentioning global warming was de rigueur.
The Thursday dawned even brighter than the previous days and Carole decided that she ought to go and investigate her new beach hut. The one to which Kelvin Southwest had given her the key had the name Fowey spelled out in whorls of rope on a board above its doorway. It was in every structural particular identical to Quiet Harbour, but Carole still felt she should check the place out. Her main aim was that, when she introduced Gaby and Lily to the delights of Smalting Beach, she should appear completely relaxed, au fait with the beach hut and its location. Almost an authentic hutter. She had already marked down The Copper Kettle as a good place to fill Lily up with ice creams and fizzy drinks. (She’d never allowed Stephen to have fizzy drinks when he was growing up, but her attitude to her granddaughter was more relaxed. After all, one of the essential clauses in the grandparents’ charter was the right to spoil.)
There was also something new she wanted to introduce to Fowey. In common with Quiet Harbour, the hut only contained two chairs, also director’s chairs, suggesting that perhaps they were equipment supplied by Fether District Council for the original renters. And it had so happened that, driving her Renault past a garden centre the previous day, Carole had seen on display a tiny child-size director’s chair. Its wooden structure was painted pink and the seat and back were made of pink canvas.
The normal reaction of Carole Seddon to such an object would have been to snort while the phrase ‘overpriced rubbish’ formed in her mind, but the existence of Lily was having strange effects on her normal reactions. In the control of an irresistible power, she found herself parking her Renault outside the garden centre, going straight in and buying one of the small pink director’s chairs. It was indeed overpriced, but Carole didn’t let that worry her. She just knew that her granddaughter would love her own personal seat.
On a heady roll, she also found herself going to the Fethering Allinstore and buying a Big Beach Bucket Bag. Inside the red net sack was a big red bucket, which contained a smaller red bucket with crenellated indentations, a blue plastic spade and a selection of brightly coloured sand moulds in the shapes of a fish, a crab, a boat and a star.
Carole didn’t want to risk the danger of Lily seeing these new purchases before they got to Smalting Beach, deciding that their maximum effect would be produced if her granddaughter found them when she entered the beach hut. So they needed to be planted there. Which was another reason for her to pay a visit to Fowey that Thursday morning. Also Gulliver could do with a change from Fethering Beach for his walk.
Just as Carole was about to leave, Jude appeared at the front door of High Tor. In deference to the weather, she only wore one chiffon scarf over her yellow T-shirt and denim skirt. Perched on her blond topknot was a battered straw hat.
“Hi, Carole,” she said. “It’s so hot I’m about to go down to the beach. I’ve knocked together a bit of a picnic. Do you and Gulliver fancy coming?”
“We were just about to go to the beach ourselves. But not Fethering Beach.”
“Oh?”
“Smalting. To check out my substitute beach hut.”
“And follow up on your investigation?” asked Jude teasingly.
“Who knows? Anyway, why don’t you come with us?”
♦
Fowey was not in the same row of beach huts as Quiet Harbour. It was in fact as far away as it could be. The three slightly curved rows of twelve units each were set in a bigger curve, forming a crescent shape, so
that from their director’s chairs outside Fowey Carole and Jude had a perfect view of the damaged hut.
It was, of course, locked shut, as were about half of the others. In front of the remainder, families spread themselves while small children made endless journeys up and down to the water. Like the nearby Fethering Beach, the one at Smalting sloped very gradually, so that at low tide a couple of hundred yards of sand were exposed. When the tide was high, it came up to the bank of shingle that protected the beach huts and the promenade.
Carole and Jude found themselves looking at a perfect English seaside scene, as featured on vintage railway posters; one that hadn’t changed much for the previous fifty or sixty years, except for the ubiquitous mobiles and the white earphone leads of iPods. Another difference from the normal reality of English seaside scenes was that it wasn’t raining.
Thinking back to her own childhood, Carole was also struck by the brightness of the swimwear on display. Her recollection was of a navy woollen bathing costume that clung embarrassingly to her developing figure, that tickled and felt clammy when it got wet. Watching the pubescent girls in tape-thin bikinis cavorting on Smalting Beach made her feel very old.
She wasn’t made to feel younger by the behaviour of her neighbour. As soon as they’d got the director’s chairs out and Carole had settled down to her crossword, Jude proceeded to remove her T-shirt and skirt. What was revealed was a turquoise two-piece costume, which did little to disguise its owner’s generous proportions. Carole, who didn’t carry a spare ounce of weight, still worried about her wobbly bits, but clearly Jude had no such inhibitions. And as ever, in spite of the volumes of flesh exposed, she managed to look good. A couple of passing boys in microscopic Speedos viewed her with considerable interest.
Jude caught Carole’s eye and, as she so often could, seemed to intuit her friend’s thoughts. “If you’ve got it, flaunt it,” she shrugged. “Haven’t you brought a bathing costume with you?”
“No,” replied Carole in a manner that suggested she had been asked something much more offensive. That teenage awkwardness about her body had never quite left her, and now as a post-menopausal woman she felt far too old to start showing it off. She didn’t even really like showing her legs without tights and her chosen beachwear for the day was a pair of grey slacks, a sleeveless white shirt, white socks and blue canvas shoes.
