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Chapter 10
This morning Annabelle was taking the children to the beach, and she was really looking forward to it, even though it would be vastly different to the beaches she’d spent the last twenty or so years on. This one was a British beach – a completely different bucket of sand to the ones she was used to.
Whenever Annabelle remembered days on the beach when she was a child, it usually involved her parents trying to balance fold-up deckchairs on the ever-shifting pebbles of Brighton beach, often still wearing their coats, whilst she ran back and forth to the water. Blue with cold and shivering fit to burst, they would dry her off and warm her up, then she’d do it all over again.
There had been some gloriously hot days, of course, but when they occurred so many people flocked to the beach that her parents tended to stay away, though when Annabelle was older, she used to lie out on a towel with her friends, all of them wearing the skimpiest of bikinis, to watch the world go by.
Those were the days… young, carefree, with the future sprawling ahead of them like an unexplored city, none of them knowing what direction fate might take them in, but all of them convinced that it had to be better than going to school and living at home under their parents’ watchful eyes.
Huh! Look at her now: she was once again living with her parents, and they nagged just as much as they’d done when she was a child. At least, her mum did, although her dad wasn’t so bad. She loved them to bits, but she needed her own space. As soon as she’d sorted herself out with paid employment, she’d find somewhere to live, she vowed.
Annabelle took a couple of towels out of a bag and flicked them expertly, so they drifted down onto the sand, then she held onto Beverley’s arm as her aunt lowered herself slowly onto one of them. Pepe staked a claim on the other.
Ron dropped his rucksack next to the towels. ‘I’ve brought a couple more to dry the kids off,’ he said, ‘and both the flasks are in there as well, along with some cold drinks.’
‘Marvellous.’ Annabelle smiled at him, before quickly turning her attention to the children. Izzie was on her knees, making a hole by scooping out handfuls of sand, and the two boys were dancing on their toes, eager to be off for the promised rockpool expedition.
‘Come on, Ron,’ Sam urged, making swinging motions with his net. He bobbed it onto Jake’s head and Jake returned the favour.
‘Careful with those, you’ll have someone’s eye out,’ Beverley cautioned, wrapping her hand firmly around Pepe’s leash. ‘Pass me the flask with the tea in, will you, lovey? I’m parched.’
Annabelle undid Ron’s rucksack and brought out the two flasks. ‘Do you want a drink before you go?’ she asked him.
‘I’d better not. This lot might lynch me if I keep them waiting any longer.’
She watched him round up the children and her gaze followed him as he led them across the sand towards the recently exposed rocks. The tide was going out, and even in the few minutes since she’d laid out the towels, more people had ventured onto the sand. So far, most of them were clustered near the lifeguard station and the slipway, because that was where the sand was the driest, but Ron had aimed for a damper patch to the left of it, nearer to the rocks, and that was where Annabelle, Beverley, and Pepe now sat.
‘It’s going to be hot again today,’ Beverley declared, as Annabelle poured them both a cup of tea. ‘I hope you’ve brought plenty of sunscreen.’
‘I have, and spare clothes and hats.’ She was used to being beach ready, and so were her children.
Jake and Izzie, after checking that they were indeed going rock pooling as promised, had lathered themselves in Factor 30, and had plonked hats on their heads. Jake had encouraged Sam to do the same, although Kate had also made sure her son had creamed up before she left. She was dropping Portia off at the stables, then she and Ellis were having a spa day. Kate had begged Annabelle to come with them, saying that Ron was perfectly capable of supervising the younger ones, and Brett and his mother would be back from golf by lunchtime, so Brett would take over childminding duties, but Annabelle had refused. Not because she didn’t trust Ron to look after her children (despite knowing him for less than two days, she did) or that she wouldn’t enjoy a spa day (she would), but she couldn’t justify the expense. She might be living rent free with her parents who didn’t expect her to contribute anything to the bills, and she might still have some dollars left in her bank account – her final wages from her employer, plus a bit she’d saved up for their trip to the UK – but she was acutely conscious that she needed to be careful with money. Paying for the kids to go on the rides last night had made her wince, and she was aware that Jake was desperate to go surfing. In fact, there were several wetsuit-clad people already playing in the waves, boards at the ready.
‘Didn’t you want to go to the spa?’ Beverley asked, reading her mind. She sipped her tea and smacked her lips. ‘Ah, that’s the ticket,’ she sighed.
‘Not really.’
‘If it’s because of Ron, you can trust him with the kids. Whatever your mother has said about him, you should take with a pinch of salt. You can tell her from me that he’s not after my money.’ Beverley barked out a laugh. ‘He knows I haven’t bloody got any!’
‘I didn’t think he was,’ Annabelle replied, mildly. She could see Ron and the children on the rocks, Ron holding a hand out to help Izzie now and again. Occasionally a faint shout reached her as one or the other of them spotted something lurking in the depths of a pool.
‘He’s a good man,’ Beverley continued, following Annabelle’s gaze. ‘He’s brilliant with Sam. I wish Brett had come to the beach with us this morning – he’d be better off spending more time with the boy. And it might have done Helen more good if she’d gone with Kate to the spa.’
‘I’m not sure Kate would have been too happy, though,’ Annabelle said with a wry grin. ‘If I’m not mistaken there seems to be a bit of an atmosphere between them.’
‘Helen’s a right cow,’ Beverley said cheerfully. ‘She played me at my own game all right. One all,’ she crowed, as though she was calling out a football score. ‘I didn’t expect her to do that.’
‘You were a bit upset last night, but you appear to be OK about it now,’ Annabelle replied tentatively.
‘Don’t worry, I’ll get her back. I’m good at biding my time. Anyway, if we don’t play nice Brett may very well tell us to sling our hooks. It wouldn’t be the first time.’
‘Oh?’ Despite not wanting to take sides and feeling that she should probably keep an open mind, Annabelle couldn’t help being curious.
Beverley shook the dregs of tea out of her plastic cup and set it to one side. ‘You know that I usually go to your mum’s for Christmas?’
Annabelle nodded.
‘Well, last year she and your dad went out to visit you, so I decided I wouldn’t spend Christmas on my own – I’d go to Kate and Brett’s. The problem was, Helen always goes to them for Christmas, and she wasn’t pleased that I was there, too. We had a bit of a tussle over rooms, because Kate’s only got the one spare bedroom, and Ellis and Portia were being right little madams and showing off about having to share to free up another room. There was some argy-bargy and tempers got frayed. Season of goodwill, my peachy arse! Pepe didn’t help, either – he stole a leg of lamb that was meant for our evening meal, and he peed on Brett’s shoes. Oh, and he did a whoopsie on the carpet in Kate’s bedroom.’ Beverley bit her lip and pulled a face. ‘You were a naughty boy, weren’t you?’ Pepe pricked his ears but didn’t look up – he was quite happy snoozing in the sun, curled up next to his mistress.
