The Beach Hut

  Table of Contents

  Title Page

  Copyright Page

  Dedication

  Chapter 1 - THE SHACK

  Chapter 2 - SEASHELLS

  Chapter 3 - BLUE LAGOON

  Chapter 4 - OCEAN VIEW

  Chapter 5 - SANDCASTLES

  Chapter 6 - BEACHCOMBERS

  Chapter 7 - DRIFTWOOD

  Chapter 8 - SURF’S UP

  Chapter 9 - MAKING WAVES

  Chapter 10 - PERFECT STORM

  Chapter 11 - HARBOUR LIGHTS

  Chapter 12 - THE ROCKPOOL

  Chapter 13 - FLOTSAM AND JETSAM

  Chapter 14 - THE LOVE SHACK

  Special extra material

  Praise for Veronica Henry

  ‘Warm and brilliantly written’

  Heat

  ‘Veronica Henry writes like a dream’

  Jill Mansell

  ‘All the essential ingredients for a delightful romp’

  Daily Express

  ‘Plenty of sex, scandal and shenanigans’

  Hello!

  ‘A riotous summer romp’

  Closer

  ‘The new Jilly Cooper’

  Woman’s Own

  ‘You’ll be engrossed’

  Elle

  Veronica Henry has worked as a scriptwriter for The Archers, Heartbeat and Holby City amongst many others. Veronica lives with her husband and three sons in North Devon. Visit her website at www.veronicahenry.co.uk.

  By Veronica Henry

  Wild Oats

  An Eligible Bachelor

  Love on the Rocks

  Marriage and Other Games

  The Beach Hut

  THE HONEYCOTE NOVELS

  Honeycote

  Making Hay

  Just a Family Affair

  The Beach Hut

  VERONICA HENRY

  Orion

  www.orionbooks.co.uk

  An Orion Books ebook

  First published in Great Britain in 2010 by Orion Books This ebook first published in 2010 by Orion Books

  © Veronica Henry 2010

  The right of Veronica Henry to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted in accordance with the

  Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.

  All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted in any form or by any means, without the prior permission in writing of the publisher, nor to be otherwise circulated in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published without a similar condition, including this condition, being imposed on the subsequent purchaser.

  All the characters in this book are fictitious, and any resemblance to actual persons living or dead is purely coincidental.

  ‘You Really Got Me’ by Ray Davies © 1964 Edward Kassner Music Co Ltd for the world. Used by permission. All rights reserved.

  A CIP catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.

  eISBN : 978 1 4091 1561 8

  This ebook produced by Jouve, France

  The Orion Publishing Group Ltd

  Orion House

  5 Upper Saint Martin’s Lane

  London, WC2H 9EA

  An Hachette UK company

  www.orionbooks.co.uk

  To my beach boys

  FOR SALE

  A rare opportunity to purchase a beach hut on the spectacular Everdene Sands, North Devon.

  ‘The Shack’ has been in the same family for fifty years, and was the first to be built on this renowned stretch of golden coastline.

  ‘The Shack’ benefits from a rare licence to be licence to occupied ten months of the year, as well as lighting, electricity and running water.

  20’ × 20’, it has four bunks, a small kitchen and spacious living area, veranda with stunning views

  Offers invited

  Contact the owner, Mrs Jane Milton, or the estate office

  1

  THE SHACK

  A light breeze ruffled the steel-blue ocean. The sun, growing ever bolder as the season progressed, was determined not to be intimidated by the clouds that had hovered earlier. They had rather reluctantly drifted away an hour ago, threatening to be back as they left, like playground bullies, but in the meantime the beach was bathed in light and warmth. The chill gradually came off the sands. Lundy Island sat squat and determined on the horizon, looking as if it might cast off any moment and float its way across the Atlantic.

  Roy Mason emerged from his shed at the head of the beach, hands curled round the second mug of tea of the day. The first had been just before he left his tiny stone cottage high up in one of the winding streets that made up the village of Everdene. If he could have had a pound for every time someone stuck a note through his door asking if he wanted to sell, he would have been able to afford one of the new-build split-level homes that were being built on the top road. The developer’s sign proudly boasted that all of phase one had been sold. There might be a housing slump in the rest of the country, but not here. Not when the air smelled sweeter than any fabric conditioner, the surrounding hills were soft and rolling and studded with the fluffiest white sheep, and the view took your breath away. Roy had never tired of it, in all his years. Not that he’d ever seen much else. His mug, by dint of a large red heart, might proclaim that he loved New York, but he’d never been, and nor did he want to go. His daughter had brought it back when she’d been Christmas shopping. Roy didn’t begrudge her the experience, but he didn’t want to share it.

  He drained the last of the sugary tea, put down the mug and collected up his tools. Proper tools, with wooden handles that had moulded themselves to fit his hands over the years, smooth and solid beneath his fingers, not like the lightweight plastic efforts they sold now that snapped and bent and buckled as soon as you put them to task. It was all about cost-cutting these days. Shaving down the margins. There was no pride.

  To Roy’s mind, there was no point in doing something unless you gave it your best. He never cut corners. He did things properly, the old-fashioned way. Someone had sent a flyer round once, undercutting his prices, and a few of the owners had been tempted. The lad might have been cut-rate, but he was also cack-handed and ham-fisted. Roy had watched him trying to hang a new door. It was comical. He felt sorry for him, he was only trying to make a living, but he hadn’t a bloody clue. In the end, he’d given up, gone off up country, and Roy had picked up with the old customers where he’d left off, no hard feelings, nothing said. He wasn’t one to bear a grudge.

  He’d been the unofficial caretaker for the beach huts since they first went up. His father had built them for the estate, and Roy had been his gofer, the fetcher and carrier. Twelve to start with, but they had gone like hot cakes, and gradually the line grew until it had doubled, then tripled, until it reached as far as the line of rocks that created a natural stopping point. And now he was kept on by most of the owners, to do maintenance and repairs, to check for damage and break-ins over the winter.

  Some owners were tight and only paid for their hut to be repainted once every three or four years. A false economy. The wind and rain that swept through over the winter, sand-blasting the wooden slats, was unforgiving; the wood needed protection. Some owners kept their huts plain; others saw it as an excuse to express their personality and chose garish colours that somehow worked in the seaside setting, a fairground riot of reds and greens and pinks and oranges. Some of them had their own names: ‘Oysters’; ‘Atlantic View’; ‘Valhalla’. Nothing sparklingly original, but it added to the sense that this was a community, that each hut was a home from home.

  Roy loved the lack of logic, the crazy mismatched line that marched down the length of the beach. He knew each one of them, their idiosyncra
sies, their histories, who had owned them over the years. Each time one of them was sold, he was unsurprised by the astronomical prices they fetched. It was the same all over the country, if you were to believe the Sunday supplements, and these huts were a cut above the rest, being big enough to sleep in if you didn’t mind bunk-beds and a howling wind. They were still pretty basic, but there was electricity and running water, and at night the fronts twinkled with fairy lights. Despite the lack of luxury, people still flocked to buy them. There was a waiting list in the estate office. All Roy hoped when a hut changed hands was that the new incumbents would treat their hut with respect and obey the unwritten rules of the beach.

  He had applied the last lick of paint, oiled the last lock, replaced the last piece of flapping roof felt. The huts were pristine, ready for the season to begin. Soon the beach would be alive with the special sounds of summer. The shouts and squeals of children frolicking in the surf. The thwack of tennis balls against cricket bats. The smell of burning charcoal and roasting meat. The thrum of the coastguard’s helicopter as it passed by on its patrol, swooping low over the sands and then shooting up into the sky, off to the next cove.

  He spent the morning fixing a new price list to the side of his shed. Roy still worked for the estate as well, maintaining the huts they owned and organising their letting, and renting out windbreaks and deckchairs. At night, he took people out fishing for sea bass. It satisfied the inner Hemingway in them, mostly the men. There was something about fishing that bonded men. Women never took to it in the same way - they were always slightly mystified by the attraction, if they ever ventured out. He could see they were bored. They would much rather buy their bass from the converted ice-cream van that drove along the coast road every evening, selling lobster and crab.

  His mobile rang in the pocket of his shorts. Another reason for the popularity of this beach-a good phone signal for all those BlackBerry-toting career people who needed to keep in touch with the office. Roy didn’t see the point. It wasn’t a holiday, if your employers could keep tabs on you, or if you could keep tabs on yours. But that seemed to be the way of the world.

  It was Jane Milton. Her warm voice danced down the line and his stomach gave a little squeeze of pleasure. He liked Jane. She always paid her bill on time, never expected things to be done yesterday. She spoke to him as an equal, not like some of the buggers.

  ‘Roy. It’s Jane. I’m in London with a friend at the moment - how’s the weather down there?’

  ‘Set fair for the week, I should say.’ He had no idea if it was. The weather here had a mind of its own. But that was what she wanted to hear, so that was what he told her.

  ‘Marvellous. I’ll be back down this afternoon. The rabble won’t be arriving until the weekend, so I’ll get a couple of days’ peace and quiet. Many people down yet?’

  ‘Just the regulars.’

  He could see a few hardy surfers in the water, which still had an icy chill. It took till September to warm up.

  ‘Good.’

  He heard a slight tension in her voice.

  ‘Everything all right?’

  She sighed.

  ‘This is going to be the last summer, Roy. I’ve hung on as long as I can, given the circumstances, but I’m going to have to sell.’

  His eyes picked out the Milton hut. A tasteful light blue, with a veranda. He didn’t reply for a moment, as was his way. Roy was thoughtful, never felt the need to respond immediately. He liked to take his time. He remembered her telling him she hadn’t got a bean to live on. That she was selling her house. Downsizing, she’d called it, but she pronounced the word with as much distaste as if she was saying dogging. If she was selling the hut too, then things must be really bad.

  ‘I’m sorry to hear that.’ Roy spoke eventually. ‘You’ll have no shortage of buyers, if that’s any consolation. I get people asking me all the time if there’s any for sale.’

  ‘Well, I’m not going to sell to any old person. And definitely not that dreadful man who badgers me every summer. He can go to the bottom of the list.’

  Roy chuckled. He knew the bloke. The one who phoned him up imperiously asking him to fill the fridge with stuff from Tesco, expected him to pump up his children’s inflatable dinghies. He was a caretaker, not a bloody butler. He didn’t mind doing that sort of stuff for anyone else, mind. It was just the way the bloke asked. Of course he would want the Miltons’ hut. He was an Alpha male, he only wanted the best.

  ‘I’ll open the hut up for you. Give it an airing.’

  ‘See you later, for a cup of tea.’

  Jane was resolutely cheerful. She had only wavered for a moment. He had heard the catch in her voice, the hint of anger at having been left in such a terrible financial mess when her husband had keeled over on the platform at Paddington. The hut had been hers, left to her by her mother. Graham Milton hadn’t been able to take that with him when he shuffled off this mortal coil.

  Roy had been disgusted when Jane told him the details. It was a disgrace, to leave your wife in poverty like that. There had been no pensions, no life insurance, no cash, and a huge mortgage on their Georgian rectory to pay off and no endowment to cover it. Graham Milton might have been a financial advisor, but he obviously didn’t heed his own advice. He probably thought he was being clever, cashing in all their assets, making investments that he thought were going to make him rich quick. Only the gamble had backfired. Instead of coming clean, he had desperately tried to plug the gaps, but got himself deeper and deeper into debt. It was the stress of keeping it all quiet that had killed him, everyone agreed. And poor Jane, totally oblivious until the solicitor and the accountant had broken the news to her, widowed and penniless overnight.

  For all Graham Milton’s airs and graces - and he’d had a few, not like his wife - he wasn’t a gentleman, not in Roy’s book.

  He hung up. The call had unsettled him. He wasn’t usually sentimental, but Jane Milton selling up was like the end of an era. She had the plum hut, the best pitch at the top of the beach, the first one to be built. People would be falling over themselves to buy that one. He could imagine the article in the Telegraph already: on the market for the first time in fifty years . . .

  He remembered clearly the day she’d arrived. She’d been Jane Lowe then, of course. She’d fluttered over the beach in her polka-dot dress, her legs long and bare, her brother and sister scampering behind. He knew as soon as he set eyes on her that a girl like her would never take a boy like him seriously. He’d left school at fourteen, didn’t play tennis, his parents didn’t even own their own house, let alone have money left over to buy a beach hut.

  Roy told himself to not even try. He didn’t want to set himself up for humiliation. She was bound to have a boyfriend already, called Gregory, or Martin, who would turn up in a Triumph Spitfire and cricket flannels to whisk her off for gin and tonics at the golf club. All Roy had was a bike. He could hardly stick her on the crossbar and pedal her down to the local pub.

  There had been one summer, the summer they were both seventeen, when they’d started to get quite close. He’d been selling ice creams, and she used to come and talk to him in the kiosk, because he had a wireless. They’d listen to the latest hits, discussing their merits, and sometimes she would dance, and he’d long to have the nerve to dance along with her, but he was far too self-conscious. Not like Jane, who didn’t care what anyone thought, swaying and twirling and clicking her fingers. Once, she’d grabbed his hand and tried to make him dance too, and he thought he might die, of a combination of embarrassment and the thrill of her touching him.

  ‘Loosen up, Roy,’ she laughed at him. ‘Dancing’s good for you. It’s wonderful!’

  Thank God another customer had arrived at that moment, and he tore himself away and busied himself serving a 99, concentrating as the stream of sweet ice cream oozed its way into the cone until he cut it off with a practised flick of the wrist. And then Jane’s mother had waved from the hut, indicating lunch was ready, and Jane had ski
ttered off, dancing her way across the sands.

  His chance had gone.

  And then she’d got that job, disappearing up to the house on the cliff. After that, he’d never really seen her, except for that one night, the night he couldn’t really think about even now without a huge twinge of regret, an overwhelming longing for what might have been, even though it could never have been. Not in a million years. And then she was gone, up to London, until years later she came back as Mrs Milton, by which time it was far, far too late, of course, because by then he was married to Marie.

  Roy sighed. Even now, if he narrowed his eyes a little bit, to block out the telephone mast on the hill in the distance, and pretended it was the Beatles on the radio instead of Take That, nothing much had changed. The horizon never altered, the sea was the same, he could still be there . . .

  The Lowe children were sick with excitement when their father bought the first hut on Everdene beach. They had been watching them go up for the past six months, whenever their parents brought them to the beach at the weekends or in the holidays. When their father had presented them with a big key, with a brown label attached emblazoned with the number one, they had been puzzled. Then Robert had screamed, ‘A hut! He’s bought a hut!’ and they had raced over the sand to be the first, all arriving at once, crowding round the door.