The Beach Hut Next Door Read online

  Someone once said Vince’s eyes spoke more than he did.

  He felt his phone buzz in his pocket. He thought about ignoring it. Now they were on their way, there was nothing much he could do if it was Chris either grovelling or demanding a lift from wherever it was he’d ended up.

  Curiosity got the better of him and he pulled out his phone.

  It wasn’t Chris. It was his mate, Murphy. He often phoned at this time, when he stopped off for his morning latte and almond croissant in Chiswick High Street. Their worlds, which had once been the same, were now a universe apart.

  ‘Vince. It’s Murph, man. Meet me in Everdene tonight.’

  ‘On a Monday? At this time of year?’ Vince was puzzled.

  ‘I’ve had a tip-off. I’ve got a proposition for you.’

  ‘Why does that make my heart sink?’

  ‘Come on – where’s your entrepreneurial spirit?’

  ‘I’m a fisherman, Murph. Not Alan Sugar.’

  ‘Don’t give me that. You haven’t kept that business going without having your head screwed on. Most people would have gone under by now. Come on – six o’clock in the Ship Aground. You know you want to.’

  Vince smiled to himself.

  Murphy could talk anyone into anything. It was part of his charm. He was so utterly plausible and convincing. A born salesman. Even Vince, who was by nature cautious, even cynical, could already feel himself beguiled by Murphy’s enthusiasm, just as he had been at school.

  They were Tawcombe boys, the two of them. They spent their youth bunking off school, kicking around the harbour or grabbing the bus to Everdene or Mariscombe, the nearest beaches, where they’d spend the day surfing then finish off by building a campfire. They’d been carefree times, thought Vince. Neither of them had had a thought for the future and what it might bring.

  Of course, Vince’s future had already been mapped out for him. He’d known from birth that he would join his father in the fishing business. It was unspoken. There was simply no point in him thinking about going to college or having any other kind of career. He was born to it. It was as simple as that.

  His acceptance of his fate had driven Murphy insane: he saw it as lack of ambition. Murphy couldn’t wait to get out and see the big wide world. His mum and dad weren’t indigenous to Tawcombe like Vince’s. They’d moved down from Birmingham after the IRA pub bombings, when there was a wave of anti-Irish sentiment in the city and it all got too much for them. They’d bought the run-down café by the bus station, where Vince had bought his bacon roll that morning, thinking it would be a better life for them and their five children, and it was. Murphy had been a fat, laughing baby in a pram who became a fixture in the café, spoiled and cossetted by every customer who walked through the door.

  His name was Sean, but everyone called him by his last name, because it suited him better. And he and Vince had been firm friends since the day they first met at primary school, where Murphy made a profit selling blackjacks he’d stolen from one of the jars behind the counter at the café, and Vince tried to buy the lot off him in return for a ride on his BMX.

  Vince had admired Murphy’s entrepreneurial spirit even then. And Murphy had admired Vince’s quiet practicality; his skill with tools and engines and knives and knots; his knowledge of wildlife and the sea. And, as they grew older, his magnetic pull where women were concerned. Murphy was no slouch in the looks department, with his close-cropped black curls and his green eyes and his Celtic freckles, but there was something about Vince that women found irresistible. Maybe it was Vince’s total self-containment and his apparent lack of interest? Murphy could never feign that as long as he lived. He was borderline obsessed with women and could never disguise it. He just couldn’t help himself. He still couldn’t. Even now, when the two of them went out to the Ship Aground in Everdene, Murphy would be chatting up girls until closing time, even though he was happily married with two daughters of his own. Vince wondered how many times he had picked up the pieces over the years. Or calmed some sobbing female who had been the victim of one of Murphy’s flirtatious overtures. Not that they ever came to anything. If he’d been a girl, Murphy would have been called a prick-tease.

  ‘You can’t play with people for your own amusement,’ Vince told him repeatedly. ‘Or to feed that bloody ego of yours. And it’s not fair on Anna.’

  Anna. Vince’s heart always missed a beat whenever he thought of her. Vince didn’t think he had ever met anyone as serene and beautiful and calm. With her silver-blonde hair and her milk-white skin, she was as pale as moonlight, her eyes large and lambent in her face.

  Anna was a piano teacher. She gave lessons on the baby grand in the bay window of their living room in Chiswick. She was booked solidly, with an endless waiting list. Mothers and fathers fought between themselves to bring their darling ones to her lessons, and were so entranced by Anna they often found long-dead ambition rekindling and a sudden burning desire to play Chopin or Debussy.

  Vince loved the Murphy house. It was filled with music and candlelight and laughter. Everything was pale and beautiful, like Anna. Bleached wood, voile curtains, lace tablecloths. He imagined heaven a bit like this. Murphy himself was the only thing that didn’t seem to fit there. Even their daughters were mini versions of Anna, drifting like moonbeams around the house, pensive and other-worldly. Amongst the three of them, Murphy crackled with pent-up energy, restless and wired. But then, Vince told himself, opposites attract. He himself, with his calm introspection, was probably too like Anna to capture her interest. She just laughed at Murphy, who she called Smurph and never took too seriously.

  Their symbiosis intrigued him, and he wondered if there was a girl somewhere for him who would balance him out in the way Anna balanced out Murphy. He was never short of offers, but no one intrigued him the way she did. Although he suspected that together they would sink into nothingness. There would be no traction, no momentum. They would drift.

  Whenever he went to visit them, he didn’t want to leave.

  ‘You should come and live up here for a while,’ Murphy had told him a few years ago. ‘Everyone should live in London at some point in their life.’

  ‘And do what?’ asked Vince. ‘Not much call for a lobster fisherman in Chiswick.’

  That was back in the day, when he could have left if he’d really wanted to. Now, he reflected, as the boat chugged out into open water and he steered it towards Lundy, towards the deep, cold water where their bounty lurked, he had no chance. His life had certainty and rhythm, but no hope of escape.

  Though maybe whatever it was Murphy was going to propose would provide a distraction at the very least. After all, his last great idea had been a stroke of genius. Murphy, who had his finger on some mysterious pulse that gave him the heads-up on everything from VIP Glastonbury tickets to shares that defied all trading records, had been offered two beach huts, side by side, on Everdene Sands, for a steal. And being a friend, he’d offered Vince one, instead of selling it on at a substantial profit. Vince was eternally grateful that he had given him the opportunity, not because the huts were now worth double, but because his hut had provided him with the sanctuary he needed. It was an escape, a refuge, a home from home; somewhere he could forget the past and his responsibilities.

  So he wasn’t going to ignore whatever Murphy had up his sleeve.

  ‘Six o’clock it is,’ he said, and hung up.Vince didn’t waste words. Besides, once the boat had rounded the promontory, they would lose signal. He would be incommunicado for the rest of the day.

  At six that night, showered and dressed in faded jeans and a soft grey sweatshirt, an olive-green beanie pulled down over his damp hair, Vince strolled into the Ship Aground. Murphy was perched on a high stool at the bar. His uniform was much the same, only his sweatshirt was Abercrombie & Fitch and his beanie was cashmere. Had it been the height of summer, the two of them would have attracted infinite female i
nterest, but the bar sported only a smattering of drinkers. The pub stayed resolutely open throughout the winter for the sake of the locals, who would otherwise have nowhere to meet or drink. The owner didn’t mind that he rarely met his overheads over the hibernal months. He more than made up for it in summer.

  The two friends clasped hands as Vince took the stool next to Murphy.

  ‘How’s it going?’

  ‘It’s good,’ said Murphy. ‘But it’s going to get better. You know Marianne’s?’

  ‘The restaurant?’

  ‘She’s had enough. She’s shutting down. She’s given me first refusal on the lease.’

  Marianne’s was a rather tired French restaurant that had been in Everdene for as long as anyone could remember. Its eponymous owner was a legend, but an ageing one. Come every winter she threatened to close and move back to France. Only this time, it seemed she meant it.

  ‘Have you taken it?’

  ‘Too right. Leases like that don’t come up round here very often. And I’ve got a plan.’

  ‘Course you have.’ Vince smiled. When did his friend not have a plan? It was one of the things he loved best about him.

  Murphy slid the elastic band off a rolled-up set of drawings.

  ‘This, my friend, is the venture we have been waiting for.’

  He spread out the paper, which was smothered in sketches and scribbles and mathematical equations – the inner workings of Murphy’s mind; a tangle of hieroglyphics and images that Vince had learned to decipher over the years.

  ‘We strip the building out completely. Take it right back to the bare walls. Re-plaster; wallop it out. Then, we put in an open-plan kitchen separated from the restaurant by a zinc counter. Out the front we have rubber flooring and long tables with benches and stainless steel shelving. All very industrial chic.’

  ‘OK.’ Vince nodded. He could totally visualize it. ‘But I’m not sure where I come in.

  ‘Ah. That’s the beauty of it. The USP.’

  ‘Really?’ Vince had never seen himself as a restaurateur.

  Murphy grinned. ‘We’re just going to serve seafood. Lobster, crab, mussels and prawns. With skinny fries on the side. That’s it. Red or white wine, no choice. Big baskets of home-made bread to dip in extra virgin olive oil while you wait for your catch to be cooked.’ Murphy sat back and smiled. ‘Simple. Are you in? Fifty-fifty.’

  ‘You want me to invest?’

  ‘Vince – I’m in total awe of what you do. You know that. I love that your business has been handed down, and it’s traditional and sustainable and all that shit. But I think you need to – pardon the pun – widen your net. Take a chance. Get out of your comfort zone.’

  ‘Hey. Listen. I’ve been out of my comfort zone. I still am. It’s not that great.’

  Murphy looked a little shamefaced. ‘No, I realize that. I didn’t mean that kind of out-of-your-comfort- zone. I meant something stimulating. And profitable!’

  He leaned across the table. His eyes were shining, green and glassy as the marbles they used to roll on the pavement. ‘Vince, I wouldn’t ask you if this wasn’t a winner. And if I didn’t think you were the right guy. I have other people who would invest. I think this project is perfect for you. You get to supply the main ingredients. The publicity will be great, because it has that artisan, hands-on, handed-down-through-the-generations story behind it that the press all slaver over.’

  Vince looked at Murphy, trying to assess how objective his pitch really was. Yeah, they were mates. Yes, it was a good match. But he knew Murphy knew he still had money, even after the improvements they had made. Money he hadn’t touched because he considered it blood money: his father’s insurance payout. It sat festering in his current account. He couldn’t even be bothered to put it in a high-interest account, even though the manager at the bank kept pestering him to move it.

  As if he could read his thoughts, Murphy grinned. ‘This isn’t because I know you’ve got the cash. It’s because ever since the day I clocked you in that schoolyard and you tried to do a deal with me on those blackjacks, I’ve wanted to do business with you. But I’ve had to wait nearly thirty years for the right project to come along.’

  Murphy unrolled another piece of paper. On it was a logo: The Lobster Shack, and a lobster motif, in bright coral on turquoise. It was perfect.

  Vince took a swig from his glass because he knew that silence was the killer when you were doing a deal, and that the less he said the more Murphy would say, and he wanted it all out there before he shook hands on it.

  ‘Everdene belongs to us, Vince. It always has done and it always will. And I want people to flock here because of us. I want people to plan a weekend around this place. I want a waiting list as long as your arm. Customers being turned away on a Saturday night. I know that will happen. It’s all there. It’s all to play for. But I don’t want to do it without you. There’s no point in doing it without you.’

  Vince could feel in his bones that it was a good idea. It was just the sort of joint Everdene needed: relaxed, casual, buzzy. A foodie haven that wasn’t pretentious but had all the buzzwords. And if they didn’t do it, someone else would move in. Murphy was right. Everdene belonged to them.

  ‘Why the hell not?’ he said, and held out his hand for Murphy to shake.

  ‘Right decision,’ Murphy pumped his hand hard. ‘Man, we are going to clean up.’

  As he left the Ship Aground, Vince decided to sleep in the hut that night. Murphy was driving back up to Chiswick, and Vince knew if he went back home to Tawcombe he would be straight on a downer. Either Chris would be there, and he would find his state depressing, or he wouldn’t, and Vince would worry until he heard the door go. He still wasn’t sure at what point Chris’s drinking had turned from normal laddish over-indulgence to dysfunctional; nor did he know what to do about it. Nothing he said seemed to make a difference: threats, concern, ultimatums. They all went unheeded.

  It was cold and dark and windy on the beach, but Vince didn’t care. Once inside the hut, he snapped on the side lamps and lit the wood-burner – it would warm the place up quickly. Soon it was surprisingly cosy, while the wind whipped itself into a frenzy outside. Sometimes it blew so hard he worried the entire hut would blow away, but after half an hour it was as warm as toast inside and Vince snuggled into his bunk, wrapping himself up in a nest of blankets. The wind had died down, and all he could hear was the relentless sea pounding the sand.

  The sea. They had such a conflicted relationship. It provided everything he had. It was his daily life. But it had taken away the one person he had looked up to and admired. Every day he looked out at the water and cursed it. Yet they were inextricably bound. He couldn’t imagine life without it.

  And tonight it was the sound of the sea that soothed him to sleep. Vince was excited by his new venture with Murphy, but there was a crack in the plan he couldn’t hide from: a little worm of a flaw that he also knew was part of what had attracted him to the venture. It would inevitably bring him into contact with Anna, and he knew he would spend his days and nights wondering if and when he would next see her. And when he did, it would be the sweet torture it always was.

  Anna. His curse. His obsession. His infatuation. As he lay there, he finally admitted to himself that she was the only thing that mattered to him. He was addicted to the possibility of her and there was nothing he could do about it.

  JENNA

  Jenna had never wanted anything quite so much in her entire life.

  The want took her by the throat; it felt tight, like a silken rope. She swallowed, aware that she shouldn’t show too much interest. She knew the rules of negotiation.

  She walked carefully around the object of her desire. It was tatty and unloved, but she could immediately visualize it brought to life. Next to her, she could smell Weasel’s signature scent of Bell’s and Embassy mingled with the sweat of anticipati
on. He was watching her every reaction, sucking on the last inch of his cigarette, his beady eyes narrowed.

  They were in his lock-up, an old warehouse on the harbour at Tawcombe. She was astonished by the amount of clutter: boxes of trainers, surfboards, crates of booze, car parts, a row of decapitated shop dummies. God only knew where it had all come from or where it was headed. The key with Weasel was not to ask questions. Or, at least, only to ask the questions that were pertinent to your particular deal.

  ‘Hold on.’ Weasel chucked his cigarette on the floor without bothering to put it out, and climbed inside the van. Jenna watched him through the sliding window, above which was written ‘Go on – you know you want to’ in brown cursive writing. To the right of the window was an ancient menu with faded photographs of lurid, additive-encrusted ice creams.

  Weasel pressed a button by the dashboard and ‘Greensleeves’ played out, slightly discordant and jangly and incredibly loud in the confines of the warehouse. It was the clincher.

  Weasel gave a proud smile, like a toddler who has done something particularly clever for its adoring mother.

  Jenna nodded, indicating defeat.

  ‘How much?’

  ‘To you, darling – fifteen hundred.’

  ‘There’s no MOT. Or tax.’

  ‘Exactly. If there was, you’d be looking at twice that. Take it to my mate and it’ll sail through. Guaranteed.’

  Jenna wondered, if that was the case, why Weasel hadn’t organized it for himself and got the higher price, but she didn’t ask.

  Weasel was the Arthur Daley of Tawcombe. Which was saying something, because Tawcombe wasn’t short of people trying to swindle you. Somehow, though, Weasel was the top dog. Jenna spent most of her life trying to avoid him and his ilk these days, but this was just too tempting.

  Weasel had come looking for her, because he knew she would want it, and he was right.

  ‘I fort of you,’ he told her, ‘as soon as I saw it. You were the Ice-Cream Girl, after all.’