Escape for the Summer (13 page)

“Nothing very glamorous, I’m afraid,” Jonty told her, pushing his sunglasses back onto his head. His turquoise eyes were bright with enthusiasm. “She’s just a little fibreglass boat, called a Glastron, about fourteen feet long. She’s hardly a gin palace but she’s the perfect size for scooting around the estuary and popping out to sea on a calm day. Or rather she will be once I’ve finished working on her.”

What Andi knew about boats could fit on a postage stamp, and there’d still be room left over. She liked looking at them though. When they’d been in Rock as children her father had spent one summer tearing up and down the estuary on a speedboat, the latest in a long line of intense and short-lived passions. Andi and Angel had loved every adrenalin-filled second and had been bitterly disappointed when Alex sold it.

“Is there a lot to do?” she asked politely. Quite what you did with a boat Andi had no idea. You didn’t really come across that many in Clapham.

He laughed. “You could say that! I found her in a garden where she’d been for about six years. She’d made a lovely container for geraniums. She’s ten years older than me but I figure that with a bit of TLC she’ll be able to return to her former retro glory. I bought her a few years back as a project but work kind of got in the way so she’s just been sitting in a shed, looking more like a plant pot than a boat. I’m lucky Rock in Bloom
haven’t pinched her!”

“So you’re not working?” Andi asked and then could have kicked herself. Who knew better than her about how sensitive an issue this could be? She’d assumed that he was just a bit of a beach bum, spending the summer tinkering with boats and topping up his money with a spot of bar work. His tan suggested that he spent time outside rather than in the office and his clothes weren’t designer garments. Talk about making assumptions. For all she knew Jonty could have been laid off too. Luckily he didn’t seem worried by her question. Instead he was busily dunking digestives into his mug.

“I’m kind of between jobs at the minute,” he said through a mouthful of biscuit, “so I thought I’d finish an old project before I get my teeth into a new one. I’m having some time out and my brother-in-law, the workaholic one I told you about, is letting me crash in the pool house for the summer. I’ll do a few bits and pieces about the place and take the kids out wakeboarding and skiing. Knowing my sister, I’ll probably end up walking the dogs and doing the shopping too! Mel loves to organise everybody.”

“So the doing up the boat will be an escape.” Andi knew all about life with a demanding sibling. She had the empty purse and grey hairs to prove it.

Jonty looked bashful. “Look, you can laugh if you like at this, but having one of these boats has been a dream of mine ever since I saw
Live and Let Die
when I was a kid. Back when Bond was about a bit more than Daniel Craig’s swimming trunks, I watched that speedboat leap out of the river and I knew when I grew up I had to have one. It’s just taken a little longer than I’d imagined.”

“So I’m having coffee with James Bond?”

“This coffee is definitely stirred not shaken,” he joked. “Besides, aren’t all men James Bond in their heads?”

“I’m the last person who could tell you what goes on in a man’s head,” said Andi darkly.

Jonty raised an eyebrow Roger Moore style. “I sense issues?”

“No more than anyone else.” There was no way Andi was going to be drawn into discussing her personal life with a total stranger, even one who was easy to chat to and had bought her an
FT
. To change the subject she said, “So when you’re not being a secret agent, what do you do?”

Jonty shrugged. “It’s very boring to be honest. I used to work in ICT. Real nerdy stuff. I’m not nearly so glam as my brother-in-law. He does all sorts of exciting things. You might have heard of him? Simon Rothwell? Last week he was overseeing the merger of two major television companies, and the last I heard he’d been asked to be the chairman of Mermaid Media.”

Andi was impressed. No wonder Jonty’s brother-in-law had wanted the
Financial Times.
Mermaid Media was huge. Not only did they own television and film companies but they also owned Vidz and Gamz!
–
Britain’s biggest video-games chain store. She’d seen their share prices rocket over the past eighteen months.

“In that case he’d better have this back,” she said, sliding the
Financial Times
back across the picnic table.

“Christ, no!” Jonty looked horrified. “I told you earlier: Mel will go mental if she catches Si working when they’re supposed to be having family time. That’s the whole point of them being down here for the summer. He’s promised her that he’ll take some time out. Anyway, don’t you need it? You seemed really frantic earlier on.”

Earlier on Andi had been frantic. Now with the late afternoon sun warming her face, and with cake filling her stomach, she didn’t feel quite as hysterical. If she was offered some work at the café then that sickening, lurching sense of panic might subside too.

“It’s fine. To be honest it was more habit than anything else. I’m just so used to reading the
FT
for work that it’s become second nature.”

“You’re on holiday. Leave all that behind. There’s more to life than work.”

This was easy for him to say, Andi thought bitterly. Crumbling a piece of cake between her fingers she stole a look at him from behind her fringe. With his golden tan, cinnamon dusting of freckles and sprinkle of dark stubble, Jonty was certainly the typical Rock guy. The town was full of men like him – a bit surfy and a bit boaty. They dropped out and did bits and pieces all summer, cut a dash zooming across the estuary on their waterskis, tinkered with boat engines for some cash in hand, chatted up the tourists in the bars and claimed the dole all winter. No, for guys like Jonty there probably was a lot more to life than work. Right now though Andi couldn’t quite imagine for the life of her what this might be.

“I’m not on holiday exactly,” she said.

Jonty didn’t reply, perhaps sensing that she had more to add. Andi pushed a lock of hair back behind her ear and sighed. Oh sod it, what did it matter? She’d probably never see him again anyway.

“I lost my job,” she explained. “I’m a casualty of the recession, apparently. My sister and her friend are here for the summer so I’ve tagged along. The master plan is that I can get a summer job and buy myself a bit of time. A bit like you, I’m working out what to do next.”

She pushed her plate away and stood up. Suddenly, sitting chatting and scoffing cake seemed like the most ridiculous, indulgent luxury when she had to find work. “In fact, there’s no time like the present, is there? I’m going to go and ask about the vacancy here.”

Jonty reached out and put a hand on her arm. His fingers were strong and suntanned against her own pale skin.

“Christ! Don’t do that! Angie’s a tartar! You’d have an easier time working for Attila the Hun! Honestly, I’m not exaggerating. The last girl who worked here lasted about twenty minutes.”

Andi pulled a face. “Beggars can’t be choosers.”

Jonty’s hand was still on her arm. Awkwardly he removed it.

“Look, tell me to get lost if you like, but you certainly don’t strike me as a beggar and I don’t think slaving over a tea urn is your great calling in life either. There’s got to be something else you can try? What do you usually do, when you’re not drinking coffee with strangers you’ve practically wrestled to the ground for their
FT
?”

Andi laughed in spite of herself.

“That’s more like it,” he said. “Come on, sit down. Chill for a bit. Believe me, that job will still be there tomorrow. Nobody else in Rock would dream of working for Angie. What exactly do you do?”

For a split second she almost told him everything, all about Hart Frozer and Alan and the unfairness of losing her job. Then, luckily, her brain engaged and stopped her tongue in time. There was no way she was blabbing about it all to a total stranger. Besides, Rock was supposed to be her fresh start. Neither was she was admitting to being a qualified accountant, not when Jonty’s brother-in-law was such an eminent one, the Harrods to her Primark of accounting. Hart Frozer
may well have been one of the UK’s premier accountancy consultants but it hardly compared. There was no way she wanted to admit that she’d been fired. However unfair and untrue it was, mud had a nasty way of sticking.

“I’m a bookkeeper,” she said, sinking back onto the bench and pretending to find the splintering tabletop fascinating. “I do a bit of everything really, from accounts to odds and ends for my boss.”

Jonty stared at her thoughtfully. “A bit like a PA?”

Andi liked this idea. She’d been Zoe’s bitch, after all, which was practically the same thing.

“I guess so.”

“A PA who does accounts and who reads the
Financial Times
?” Jonty said slowly. “Andi, this is a bit of a long shot, and it might not come to anything, but would you mind if I mentioned you to Simon?”

Andi was confused. “Mention me to your brother-in-law? Why?”

His brow crinkled thoughtfully. “I just think he might have some work for you.”

“Walking dogs and babysitting?” Andi guessed anything was worth a try. She’d never seen herself as the Mary Poppins type but then again she’d never imagined that she’d be thrown out of Hart Frozer
either.

“I think that’s more what Mel has in mind for
me
!” grinned Jonty. Andi liked the way that laughter lines fanned from his eyes. “No, I was just thinking that you could be the answer to another of my sister’s problems. Remember how I told you that she was fed up with Si working non-stop?”

“If he brought the
FT
home then it was divorce?” she recalled. “I thought that was a joke?”

“It was a bit of an exaggeration maybe, but the truth is that Si does work too hard and Mel’s getting fed up with it. He’s totally up against it with work and family, but I know my sister and when she makes up her mind about something there’s no going back.”

Andi said nothing. There was a twisting, churning sensation in her stomach that felt dangerously like hope.

“Si does lots of work with buyouts and companies going public,” Jonty continued. “He’s in the middle of taking Pasties Drekly
public and he’s going to be really up against it to put the deal to bed and manage to have quality family time. Especially if Mel holds him to his promise. I tell you what; it makes life very difficult when your sister marries your best friend. Divided loyalties hardly covers it. If I agree with Si then Mel will play the blood’s-thicker-than-water card; if I side with her, who will I play
Grand Theft Auto
with?”

“I feel your pain,” Andi deadpanned.

He pulled a face. “You can mock all you like. A man needs his Xbox buddy! Seriously, though, if Si had somebody like you on hand here to help him that would really take the pressure off. He might only need a few days a week but I bet he’d jump at the chance of hiring you. Would it be OK if I mentioned you to him?”

Andi hardly dared to hope it would be OK. If she could get some proper work then she’d be able to save up some money, pay off the huge credit-card debts that Tom had run up in her name and hopefully get her finances back on track.

“Say something?” Jonty urged when she didn’t reply. “I haven’t been too pushy have I? It just seems as though you’ve fallen out of heaven!” He blushed right to the roots of his short dark hair as soon as the words were uttered. “Oh God, sorry. That sounds like a really terrible chat-up line. All I’m trying to say is that I think you could be exactly what Si needs. Would it be all right to take your number and ask him to call you?”

“Of course it would,” Andi said. Her heart was doing an excited lambada against her ribs but she hoped outwardly she looked calm and professional.

“Brilliant!” His face split into a big grin of delight. “In that case I think we should toast a potential future work partnership with a couple more of Angie’s famous bog-standard coffees. What do you say?”

Andi grinned back. Jonty’s enthusiasm was infectious and for the first time in what felt like aeons hope was fizzing throughout her nervous system like lemonade. Maybe, just maybe, Gemma and Angel’s crazy plan wasn’t quite so crazy after all?

“I think it’s a fantastic idea!” she told Jonty.

And it wasn’t just a second coffee she was referring to.

Chapter 13

Angel had been having a lovely afternoon in Padstow. The pretty seaside town was teeming with summer visitors, all intent on making the most of the glorious sunshine while it lasted. Girls in skimpy vests and tiny shorts held hands with their sunburned boyfriends and drifted through the streets while yummy mummies pushed Bugaboo strollers to Rick Stein’s café for afternoon tea. High above the higgledy-piggledy rooftops seagulls wheeled and shrieked in a cloudless blue sky before dive-bombing unsuspecting tourists for their ice creams and pasty crusts.

Angel treated herself to an ice cream, which she ate slowly while dangling her legs over the quayside. Across the shimmering sand and the water ribbon of the Camel Estuary, Rock was only a smudge on the horizon, but the place still made her stomach knot with excitement like the tangled fishing gear piled up alongside the trawlers. The sense of all the possibilities just there for the taking was overwhelming. Whatever was she doing just sitting around eating ice cream? There was so much to do.

Lobbing what was left of her cornet to the squabbling gulls, Angel continued to explore Padstow. It must have been at least ten years since she had last visited. Her mother had adored the town, much preferring Padstow to its more upmarket sister across the water, and had regularly taken both girls across by boat. Andi and Angel had loved exploring the gift shops, but most of all they’d been fascinated by the lobsters on sale at the wet fish shop. Angel smiled to herself as she remembered how they’d loved watching the strange and almost prehistoric creatures floating around their shallow tanks with their claws firmly secured with rubber bands. She’d always wondered whose job it was to try to get those on!