The Beach Hut (16 page)

Philip was swirling his Calvados round in his glass now, obviously gearing up for a change of tack.

‘You know I’ve always admired you, Chrissie.’

‘Well, you’ve hidden it well.’

‘We’re both winners, you and me. We’ve got a lot in common.’

‘Have we?’

‘Drive. Ambition. A need to accomplish.’

‘Possibly,’ Chrissie conceded, although in Philip’s case his drive was all about feeding his ego. She could imagine him swanning about the campus, fantasising about his students falling in love with him, preening himself in the mirror before every tutorial to make sure his tie was tied just loosely enough, his hair was just tousled enough, to ensure maximum adoration.

‘Come on. You can’t say you don’t feel a connection.’ He put his cigar in his right hand, the hand that was holding his glass, then reached out and touched her waist.

‘Er, no, I don’t, Phil. There’s no love lost between us. Never has been.’ She knew he hated being called Phil.

‘Yes, but it’s just a cover, isn’t it?’

He was stroking her hips, edging his hand up towards her breasts.

‘Touch my tits, and it might be the last thing you do.’

He gave a little moue and moved his hand away. He put his head to one side and looked into her eyes.

‘What are we going to do?’

‘About what?’

‘If Mum sells the hut, we won’t be seeing each other. I don’t know if I can live with that, Chrissie. Our little summers together keep me going.’

‘I thought you and Serena were very happy?’

He flicked the ash off his cigar.

‘Oh, we poddle along on the surface. But there’s no passion.’ He gave her a look that was supposed to be searing. ‘In fact, I can’t remember the last time we had sex.’

‘God, how awful. And you a red-blooded male. That must be a terrible trial. Unless you have . . . other arrangements?’

Again that irritating smile. Then he moved in closer and slid his arm around her.

‘I could certainly
make
other arrangements.’

Chrissie wriggled out of his grasp with an exasperated sigh. She wasn’t going to slap him. He didn’t merit that much attention.

‘Phil - why don’t you drop the pretence and just come straight out with it? You want me to buy the hut.’

To his credit, he didn’t miss a beat.

‘You know it’s the only decent thing to do. None of us mere mortals can afford it.’ He smouldered at her again. ‘And maybe you and I could come down here alone one weekend. Necessary maintenance.’

‘Is that what you call it?’ Chrissie couldn’t help smiling. God, he was arrogant beyond belief. ‘Sorry, but all my cash is tied up. I couldn’t buy it even if I wanted to.’

He scowled. He was clearly trying to figure out if she was lying. Chrissie stubbed out her cigarette. She wasn’t going to stay around to listen to any more of his lecherous nonsense. What an unbelievably deluded twat. Had that been a gamble on his part, or was he really vain enough to think she fancied him?

 

Serena approached her the next morning on the beach. They were sitting outside the hut on the deckchairs, surrounded by magazines and bottles of suntan lotion, keeping half an eye on the children. Except for Spike, who was Adrian’s responsibility, they were all old enough to roam the beach on their own and not have their parents hovering over them, but Chrissie always liked to have her three in her eye-line.

It was a dazzling day, a clear blue sky, the surf high enough for bodyboarding but not alarming, a gentle breeze. Serena stretched her legs, wiggled her toes and sighed.

‘I’m going to miss this place.’

‘We all are,’ Chrissie agreed. ‘But we should think ourselves lucky that we had it at all.’

‘It seems such a shame, just to let it go like that.’

‘Jane will do well out of it. Look at it that way.’

Serena was studying her nails. Chrissie could see her brain ticking away under her blond fringe, wondering how to play it.

‘I was thinking . . . maybe we should club together, all of us? Keep it in the family.’

Chrissie tried hard not to show her irritation - what was this obsession with the family? She put on a puzzled expression. She was going to make Serena work hard for this.

‘How would that work, exactly?’

‘Well - split it between the three boys. It would only be forty thousand each. That’s not so hard to find.’

‘Well, it definitely would be for Adrian. And we’re certainly stretched on our mortgage. I don’t know about you two . . .’

Serena’s baby-blue eyes clouded over.

‘But I thought . . . I thought . . . you were quite well off?’ She looked down, her cheeks high with colour. ‘I was thinking . . . perhaps we could borrow the money . . . from you?’

Chrissie surveyed her sister-in-law. She felt sorry for her, chained to Philip. She didn’t think Serena had much of a life. She was pretty much just there to serve her husband, the great academic. He clearly hadn’t married Serena for her brains, but her soft, kittenish beauty. He didn’t want an equal, he wanted someone he could control, so he could please himself. And Serena was a willing enough servant, as far as Chrissie could make out. If Philip said jump, she asked how high? Not a dissimilar relationship to Jane and Graham, she mused. The bully and the doormat.

‘Look, Serena. I don’t know where everyone’s got this idea that I’m loaded. I own a couple of launderettes. A hundred and twenty thousand is a lot of pound coins. I’m sorry, but I can’t afford to bankroll this one—’

‘We’d pay you back! With interest.’

Chrissie shook her head.

‘Apart from anything, I don’t want to invest forty thousand pounds in this hut.’

‘But we’ve always had such happy times here.’

Chrissie looked at her quizzically. What made Serena happy, she wondered? Probably having her husband here, by the sea, where she knew he couldn’t shag his students. What a miserable existence. Chrissie, however, was not responsible for the state of Serena’s marriage. She picked up her magazine.

‘Sorry,’ she said, giving no further explanation. She didn’t have to explain anything to her sister-in-law.

 

Adrian was a different matter entirely.

On the second night of the birthday weekend, the middle generation all piled up to Tallulah’s nightclub while Jane looked after the children. Tallulah’s had been in Everdene since the dawn of time. It was dark and seedy, with sticky floors and the loudest, most brilliant music. The resident DJ seemed to have the knack of exactly judging his audience’s mood - every track was a surprise, a gem, a memory. None of the Miltons ever went to a nightclub any other time of the year, but this had become a tradition. They let their hair down and danced the night away. The Milton men were all surprisingly good dancers, exhibitionist Chrissie was often told she should have been a pole-dancer, and given enough to drink Serena got into the groove in a dreamy, detached sort of a way. They ruled the dance floor between them, swapping partners, swapping styles, finding an energy that eluded them on a daily basis. They would all suffer the next day, but they needn’t do anything but doze on the beach.

As Chrissie swirled under the mirror ball, she had just the tiniest pang of regret that this would be the last time they did this. Careful, she told herself, you’re getting sentimental.

Adrian touched her on the elbow and indicated he was going outside. For a spliff, she guessed. None of the others touched the stuff but she didn’t mind it from time to time, so she went out to be companionable. They stood in a little courtyard at the back of the club, listening to the pound of the bass through the walls.

‘I guess this is the last time we’ll all come here,’ she remarked, drawing hard on the joint and enjoying the fuzziness it gave her. Adrian took it back off her with a sigh.

‘I feel like such a fucking loser,’ he told her. ‘The Shack’s the closest thing Spike’s got to a family home. And I can’t do anything about it.’

Chrissie frowned.

‘What about your place? Isn’t that home? And Donna’s?’

‘They’re not homes. They’re houses. Spike lives for coming here in the summer with all his cousins. He has a shit time most of the year, you know. Donna’s . . . a nightmare. Not just to me.’

Donna was Adrian’s ex-girlfriend, and Spike’s mother. She’d got pregnant by Adrian six years ago, just before they split up, and had almost refused to let Adrian have anything to do with the little boy whatsoever. She was a monster, highly strung, self-centred, manipulative, unreliable . . . Chrissie had only met her once and loathed her on sight. She moved the goalposts constantly and used Spike as a weapon to get what she wanted from Adrian - mostly money. But as Adrian didn’t have much, she threw tantrums and made empty threats, mostly involving emigrating to Australia, and every time she did this Adrian was gutted, despairing.

He was, however, his own worst enemy. If David got the looks and Philip the brains, then Adrian got the talent. He was a breathtakingly gifted cabinetmaker, could coax the most exquisite pieces of furniture out of the most unassuming piece of wood, yet he couldn’t motivate or organise himself to run a business. Instead, he took work as a jobbing carpenter, and even though his workmanship was far beyond that of a normal chippie, he usually ended up getting sacked as he frequently failed to turn up on the job. He had no sense of urgency, didn’t seem to understand that when people took him on they expected things finished in a reasonable time frame. As a result, he was as poor as a church mouse, which didn’t seem to bother him because he wasn’t a material person. But having a small child meant he at least had to provide a roof over Spike’s head, when he was allowed access. In the end, Chrissie knew, Jane and Graham had bought him a tiny flat, something which had caused much ill-feeling amongst the others at the time.

His mother’s announcement had shocked him, however. It almost seemed to galvanise him.

‘I’m going to have to seriously get my shit together,’ he told Chrissie. ‘I can’t let The Shack go, for Spike’s sake. He adores all his cousins. They’re like his brothers and sisters. He lives for the summer, so he can spend time with them. If this place goes, then that’s it for him.’

‘So what are you going to do?’

‘Take out a mortgage on the flat, I guess,’ he said. ‘Mum and Dad bought it outright, when they were financially secure. I’ve got enough equity.’

‘But what about the repayments?’ asked Chrissie, ever practical. ‘You’ve got to meet the payments. And you don’t have a regular salary.’

‘Well, I’ll have to get one.’ Adrian fiddled with the black leather and silver bangle on his wrist. ‘All this has made me realise, Spike’s the only one that matters in all this. Mum’ll be all right. You lot will be all right. You’ve all got each other. Without The Shack, Donna calls all the shots. She’s happy for him to be here all summer while she pisses it up with her mates. But I can’t keep him cooped up in the flat.’

Chrissie leant back against the cool of the wall. Her head was slightly woozy, pleasantly so. Adrian’s words had touched her. His determination to do well by his son had touched her even more. His bony, angular face and his deep-set eyes had looked so intense. She hadn’t really looked at the situation from the point of view of Spike. Adrian was right. His cousins were like his brothers and sisters. He trailed quite happily in their wake all summer, and they looked after him without complaint, for he was a game little boy who never moaned.

How could she condemn Spike to summers with his awful mother, or stuck in Adrian’s flat like a battery chicken? He needed sunshine, sand, freedom, fresh air, laughter.

‘Look,’ she said. ‘There’s a chance I might be able to swing something. Serena suggested we buy it between us. Maybe I could work something out . . .’

Adrian looked at her, surprised.

‘I didn’t mean . . .’

‘I know you didn’t.’

He put his arms around her. They were very close. They touched foreheads.

‘You’re amazing. You know that?’ he told her.

‘Don’t say that. I haven’t done anything yet.’

But she felt a little glow inside, a sense that perhaps she was going to do something good, and change someone’s life for the better. Spike was all of their responsibility, because Adrian was . . . well, Adrian.

 

They stumbled back into the club arm in arm, slightly stoned, the music a shock to their system. Chrissie indicated that she was going to get a drink, and disentangled herself from Adrian’s arm. At the bar, she turned to see if anyone else wanted a drink. And what she saw made her heart skip a beat.

Through the seething mass of bodies, Adrian gave a discreet thumbs-up sign to Serena. Serena gave him one of her kitten smiles in return. Chrissie felt a knife through her heart as she watched them move through the crowds towards each other.

Jesus, how could she not have noticed it? She could see the body language now!Butter-wouldn’t-melt Serena and little-boy-lost Adrian. She watched as they took each other by the hand and made their way to the dance floor, their eye contact a little too lingering for brother- and sister-in-law, their fingers laced a little too tightly.

Chrissie felt sick. She staggered her way to the toilets, a heaving mêlée of young girls swapping lipsticks and God knows what else. She pushed to the front of the queue and grabbed the first cubicle to come free, to squawks of indignation.

She wasn’t actually sick, but she stood with her head between her legs, deep breathing. Bastard. She had felt genuine concern for Adrian. He’d made a total fool of her. She’d bought his sob story, believed his determination. She wondered how they had planned to approach her, if it had been Serena’s idea to play the Spike card. Everyone knew she had a soft spot for the little boy. How could you not? He was innocence itself. How long had they been having an affair, she wondered? What was their long-term plan? Was Serena going to leave Philip? She wouldn’t blame her.