The Wind Off the Sea

by Charlotte Bingham

  Peter looked at his client with renewed anxiety, only to find with relief that Waldo Astley was still smiling and was now holding out a hand to be shaken on the deal.

  ‘Mr Astley sir—’

  ‘If you’re not going to take it, Peter, then I shall leave it. That is my final offer, so take it or leave it.’

  ‘But, but it isn’t right, Mr Astley. It isn’t right at all.’

  ‘So, tell me what’s so wrong about it, will you?’

  ‘You’re paying me too much.’

  ‘Isn’t that my business?’ Waldo laughed good-humouredly.

  ‘I know – yes, I’m sure you’re right, sir – but the point is—’

  ‘The point is, my dear fellow, you have told me what you want for the car and I have told you what I am prepared to pay for the car. Is that not how car dealers do business with their customers? Is not that the way you do business? You name your price, I name mine, and we agree a sum. So all we are waiting for here is for you to agree the sum.’

  ‘I’m not sure I can, really I’m not.’

  ‘Then you will never do well in life. If you refuse this, you will always do badly.’

  ‘I don’t see why,’ Peter replied stubbornly.

  ‘Because that is the way of the world. This is your last chance, friend. My offer stays valid for one more minute – after that I won’t even pay you a penny for the car. But if you accept my offer, I promise you I shall make it doubly worth your while.’

  ‘But you haven’t even seen the car, sir. It isn’t as if you know the model either. You’ll be buying something blind – something you’ll be paying miles over the odds for – something whose value you can never hope to recover.’

  ‘Thirty seconds,’ Waldo merely replied, looking at his watch.

  ‘I think I must be dreaming.’

  Waldo continued counting. ‘Twenty-five, four, three, two—’

  ‘Yes, all right, I agree!’ Peter suddenly yelled, startling those drinking near their corner table. At which Waldo put his head back and, removing his cigar from his mouth, roared with laughter.

  ‘My dear fellow! For one awful minute I thought you weren’t going to make it!’

  ‘You wanted me to agree?’

  ‘Of course I wanted you to agree! What kind of game did you think I was playing? Now – when we have finished our drinks you can take me and show me the car, which I imagine you already have locked up in that garage of yours – and provided it is as good as you describe I shall pay you cash, there and then.’

  ‘It’s actually better than I say it is, Mr Astley.’

  ‘I’m very glad to hear it.’

  ‘You have no idea, sir, what this money will mean to us. To Mrs Sykes and me.’

  ‘Of course I don’t,’ Waldo replied with a smile. ‘I have absolutely no idea at all.’

  ‘That was a stupid thing to say, sir. Sorry.’

  ‘You will be able to do everything you had been hoping to do except maybe a few years sooner. And when you throw another five hundred into the kitty—’

  ‘Another five hundred, Mr Astley? But why?’

  ‘Because we’re going to join forces.’ Waldo smiled, but this time the smile was for himself, as he remembered Rusty the night he and Gloria had caught her in Gloria’s house, and the state she was in both then and particularly afterwards.

  ‘Astley and Sykes. I like the sound of that, Peter,’ Waldo said. ‘How about you? Astley and Sykes. Who knows – it might even become a hallmark of quality.’

  The look on Peter Sykes’s face was one that Waldo wished that he could have captured on a camera. But, then again, like so much in life, perhaps it would be even better left as a glorious memory.

  Chapter Six

  By now a spring that had brought floods to the country to compound the misery of a terrible winter had turned just as dramatically to a baking hot summer, bringing with it yet another change of mood for the bewildered population. Naturally, just as first the heat waves were welcomed by a people still recovering from the vicissitudes of the coldest weather any of them could remember, by the time the end of April had arrived, people were in two minds as to which had been worse, the bitter cold or the universal damp.

  Then all of a sudden, just as everyone thought their misery could grow no deeper, out came the sun, and along came clear blue skies and blessed warmth. The warmth was what everyone wanted, sun enough to dry the ground out and to be able to throw open windows and air houses full of condensation, mould and dampness. Everywhere people spring-cleaned, washing and hanging out their nets and their curtains, beating their carpets over the washing lines with sturdy bamboo paddles, turning articles of furniture out onto front or back lawns to dry out in the rays of the long forgotten sun as if they were grazing animals being put out to grass. As the population spring-cleaned postmen began to whistle again, as did dustmen and delivery boys, while incoming swallows swooped and soared in their perpetual quest for food, and larks hovered high above fields full of burgeoning crops. Now a mood of sudden optimism was everywhere, for at long, long last it seemed that perhaps the bad times were over and the sudden change of weather presaged the start of the new age of which everyone had been dreaming.

  Then the warmth turned into a sweltering heat wave, bringing with it soaring temperatures unrelieved by any cooling winds. Cities and towns became unbearably hot and every weekend there was a mass exodus in coaches and trains to the beaches, where a stupefied population sat in deck chairs on the burning sands trying to find relief from the scorching sun. Without their realising it, their escape to the seaside brought with it if anything worse conditions, the relentless sun beating off the water and on to the sweltering figures stretched out on sand and pebbles. Naturally it did not help that most of those who sat in serried ranks along every available foot of beach remained partially dressed, the men in their trousers and shirts with only a foot or so of trouser leg rolled up, the women in cotton dresses with large cheap hats flopping over their reddening faces and stockings rolled down over their sunburned knees, while children in knitted woollen bathing trunks hopped in and out of a tepid sea, avoiding swarms of vicious little crabs that floated inwards in search of sustenance, or bruised their feet on the inevitable shingle that seemed to constitute any decent stretch of beach.

  Added to which there was no ice, and few households could boast a refrigerator, so there were no cold drinks to assuage the raging thirsts that a scorching sun reflecting off a shining sea engenders. There were no cold drinks on sticks and ice cream was at a premium, if you were lucky enough to be able to find any. Halfway through what was turning out to be the hottest summer on record, with people roasting at work and scorching at play, most of the population found themselves wishing the skies would cloud over and the April rains would return once more. Life now seemed, once again, to be a series of tortures, with no relief in sight.

  The heat in London was certainly proving too much for John Tate, whose appointed annual holiday came round just in time to provide him with a welcome escape.

  ‘One more day and I thought I would expire,’ John told a barefoot Loopy as she fetched him from the station in the old family car, which was still like an oven, even though his mother had all the windows open.

  ‘You’re one of the lucky ones, sweetie. Imagine what it’s like for people who can’t get away. Your father says you can fry eggs on the London pavements.’

  John settled himself into the seat beside his mother. All the way home in the stifling train he seemed to have been able to smell the sea and see the beloved view from his bedroom window. He could almost feel the cold stone of the conservatory floor, followed by the cool of the grass, the shingle of the beach, and finally the pleasure of the sea bathing his dripping body, so much was he longing to get to Shelborne, throw off his work clothes and head for heaven.

  After he had enjoyed his first swim and returned home to bath and change, John sat for a while at his bedroom window in his silk dressing gown, enjoying the slight
breeze that had got up and was blowing in off the sea as the tide reached full. It was a perfect evening and Bexham was looking its best, the mouth of the estuary beginning to fill with sailing boats waiting to run in home to their moorings on the tidal water, and small commercial traffic also arriving with the turn of the tide, which would still be full enough for them to sail into the busy little harbour by the time they reached it. Lovers strolled along the path that ran parallel to the estuary, or sat with their arms around each other on benches and seats placed on mounds to provide the best view of the surrounding landscape.

  Seeing the couples dallying, John felt vaguely restless, wishing that he too was part of a couple, one of a pair of lovers walking in the evening sunlight and holding hands by the sea, strolling happily into a future where they would live together in perfect harmony. So attractive was the prospect before him that for a moment he considered changing his job – giving up London to return to his roots, to buy a little cottage in or near Bexham where the two of them – once he found a suitable partner – could start their married life while he made his way up the ladder of some local firm. He was good at what he did, a good businessman, particularly when it came to understanding money, and given the lack of any serious opposition to his talents in the neighbourhood he knew that it wouldn’t be long before he had risen to the top of the tree. The only trouble with this daydream was the fact that as yet he had not met anyone he could possibly consider taking as a wife. Truth to tell he had never enjoyed a full relationship with a member of the opposite sex and had only once ever fallen in love, and that was with Judy, his brother’s wife, the wife of a man they both thought was dead. Walter’s return had proved that particular belief to be wrong, but by that time John had already scotched the notion that Judy felt anything for him except friendship.

  So John had been as thrilled as the rest of his family at his brother’s return; yet as time went by he found himself becoming first jealous of his brother, then resentful. He deliberately distanced himself from both Walter and Judy, emotionally and physically, coming home as little as he could, and, when he did, avoiding their company whenever possible. Eventually he came to the realisation that he had a duty to shake himself free of his heartbreak, and after making an immense effort to be more friendly and sociable he really believed and hoped he had now closed the gap.

  So this sunny summer evening as he sat enjoying his favourite view, he found to his satisfaction that he felt truly content, so much so that he actually found himself smiling as he saw Judy arm in arm with Walter as they walked out of the house and into the garden, pre-dinner drinks in hand. For a while he watched them unnoticed, observing how they seemed easy in each other’s company, walking side by side, with Walter doing most of the talking and Judy the listening, the sea breeze blowing her dark hair, her old but carefully preserved silk evening skirt blowing back towards the house, showing off tanned legs, high heels, and a slim figure. Walter was some lucky fellow, but he need not be the only one, because the way John felt he too could be some lucky fellow one day. Finally he leaned over the balcony and called down to his brother and sister-in-law. They turned and called back to him to hurry up and get dressed and come down and join them, which after another wave John went inside to do, singing happily as he went, for some unknown reason now utterly convinced that the bad, black days were over and the bluebird of happiness was just about to land in his heart.

  The next day dawned even hotter than the one it had succeeded. In fact by ten o’clock it was so hot that all Mattie Eastcott wanted to do was flop out in the deep cool of the house with some iced tea and a good book. But Max was on holiday from kindergarten, and each day, regardless of the heat, he demanded to be taken to his favourite beach round the corner from the mouth of the estuary. Before the war Lionel had sensibly bought a beach hut on the edge of a nearby perfect golden strand, and now, instead of offering shelter from prevailing winds and rain, as was more usual in England, it was affording the Eastcotts welcome shade and respite from scorching sunshine.

  Every day Lionel would arrive with a lunch for the three of them that he had carefully prepared himself and put into his treasured dark blue leather picnic case, perfectly packed with boxes and bottles, cups, saucers, plates and cutlery, and of course food. Tomato or egg sandwiches in greaseproof paper, an undressed salad of lettuce, radish and beetroot all picked from the garden, and a big Thermos of nearly cold homemade lemonade. By lunchtime even Max was feeling the heat and was glad to sit inside the beach hut to nibble at his sandwiches and bat at the ever persistent wasps with the fly-swat his grandfather never forgot to bring with him, or watch gleefully as they drowned in a bottle full of watered down honey.

  Later, when the sun had moved off its zenith, Mattie would take Max down to the sea for his second long paddle. Another game with his beach ball followed before they paddled off the heat in the sea once again and returned to the beach hut for tea, brewed on a Primus stove and accompanied by slices of Mattie’s homemade fruit cake.

  Every day followed the same ritual, Mattie carefully covering her little boy’s head from the scorching heat of the sun and his body with Nivea Cream. Unsurprisingly within a week of constant exposure to sun and sea they were both as brown as berries. Mattie in particular was privately delighted with the colour of her now fashionable tan, which set off her eyes and hair better than ever. Day by day she and Max grew darker and darker, until Lionel started to refer to them as his little Red Indians and would make whooping sounds when he joined them on the beach for lunch.

  ‘Daddy, do stop, you’re shocking the people in the next-door hut,’ Mattie would mutter, but her father refused to take any notice. As far as he was concerned he had bought a beach hut and if he wanted to yodel, sing, or make Red Indian noises such as he had heard on cowboy films, that was his business.

  Mattie started to lay out the picnic, not bothering to cover herself with her towelling beach top, because even that seemed too heavy for the stifling heat.

  ‘You would honestly think that there would be some sort of breeze coming off the sea, wouldn’t you? But no, the air is as still as a graveyard.’

  She shook up a bottle of ginger beer for Max, and sat him well into the shade of the beach hut. Strolling past their hut, stopping every now and then to admire the sea view, walked couple after couple, some with children, some without. Normally Mattie never noticed, but today for some reason as she sat back down on her father’s travel rug it seemed to her that every person who passed was one of a couple. For a second she contemplated the idea of what it must be like, to be part of a pair, to be part of someone else. It seemed unimaginable. To have someone else to whom she could talk at the end of the day, laughing over what had happened on the beach, regaling him with tales of her father’s yodelling in his beach hut and embarrassing her and all those around him, of how Max’s attempts at swimming in his water wings were coming on, about how many shrimps they’d caught, about everything and anything really – just to have someone to talk to would be unimaginable.

  That was what being one of a pair meant. It meant you could share everything in a way you couldn’t share your thoughts with an old man or a young boy. You could love them, but you couldn’t share your thoughts with them, because they were at a different stage from you. It was as if they were all waiting at a bus stop, and Lionel was posted way ahead of her, and Max way behind, so when the bus came along Lionel would catch it long before her, and Max long after.

  ‘These hardboiled eggs are a bit overdone, Daddy.’

  ‘Not for my taste they’re not. Don’t like them anything except nice and floury inside and nice and hard on the outside.’

  Mattie sighed and raised her eyes to heaven. They didn’t even share a taste in hardboiled eggs.

  John had got up late, breakfasted late, and was downstairs late. As he walked into the conservatory where Loopy was busy painting he was so late up he actually felt guilty, the way he did when he was late for church, or for some important date, instead o
f just being on holiday, when after all a chap had every right to do what he liked.

  ‘Gwen’s done you up a picnic lunch, it’s by the door!’ Loopy called back without turning round to where John was still standing by the door. Her smock was covered in oils and her hair caught up in a scarf and tied on the top of her head, as if she were working in a factory. ‘Sandwiches, hardboiled eggs, and a bottle of cider.’

  ‘Then God bless, Gwen.’

  ‘God bless Gwen, I’ll say. How she puts up with us all, I don’t know.’

  Picking up the picnic basket John laughed and strolled off down to the beach without giving Loopy’s new painting a second glance. He was dying for a dip. He couldn’t wait to feel the cold water closing over him. Once again the day was already boiling, and he had seen all too little of it. Behind his back Loopy shook her head a little sadly and mixed herself a new pot of turpentine and linseed oil.

  John strolled along the beach to the family beach hut, dark glasses on, towel rolled up under his arm, swimming shorts under his yachting trousers, unable to think what a lucky chap he was to be on a beach while the rest of the world was toiling in London. He had just undone the hut door and hung up his towel when he heard quite a commotion coming from nearby.

  ‘Is anything the matter?’ he said, arriving at the scene of the disturbance. ‘Can I help?’

  ‘It’s all right, it’s nothing,’ the pretty young woman called, finally glancing up at his precipitous arrival. ‘It’s just my son. First of all it was his beach ball – and now he’s been stung by a wasp.’

  ‘It hurts!’ the child was yelling, holding the side of his arm. ‘It really, really hurts!’

  ‘I have some blue bags,’ John told her, about to disappear back to his hut. ‘I always carry blue bags this time of year, for this very reason!’