‘But I thought we
were
certain,’ she points out. ‘I seem to remember you saying, “Let’s do it, tell Maisie we want to go ahead.
”
’ She looks at him expectantly, baffled by this new
development. ‘And now you’re completely backtracking,’ she adds. ‘I don’t know what the hell’s going on with you, Rob
.’
For some reason, Kerry is finding it hard to breathe. Aware that in just a few minutes she’ll be required to be all perky and smiley in front of hordes of mothers at the sandcastle competition, she exhales fiercely and starts to cross the road.
‘I’ve just been mulling things over,’ Rob says, hurrying to keep up with her.
‘Well, I don’t see how we can afford to run two homes – not with your job being so precarious and me just starting freelancing. We’ve got to buy Maisie’s place sometime. We can’t expect to live rent-free forever.’
Rob presses his lips together as they reach a group of shiny blonde teenage girls dressed in skimpy shorts and Abercrombie sweatshirts, talking in loud, braying voices.
‘Anyway, when you say you want a “base”,’ Kerry adds as they make their way along the seafront, ‘do you mean a shag pad?’
‘Of course I don’t mean that. For God’s sake, that’s ridiculous.’
‘So why would you need it, unless this thing with Nadine—’
‘There’s no
thing
,’ he snaps. ‘I thought I’d finally managed to get that across to you …’
She glares at him, wishing she wasn’t obliged to spend another moment in his company. ‘Why d’you want to keep the house, then?’
‘I’m just trying to think practically,’ he mutters. ‘It
is
quite a schlep every day …’
Kerry throws him a baffled look. ‘But you said you’d be fine with the train, and you can always stay over with Simon or Phil if there’s something on after work …’
‘I … I just think,’ Rob starts, ‘maybe we’re being a bit hasty in selling it. It all feels a bit sudden, that’s all. Maybe we’d be better renting it out instead?’
‘I wish you’d have the courage to admit you’re having cold feet about moving,’ she replies bitterly.
‘No, I’m not. I just think … this might be a more sensible option, for us not to burn our bridges, you know? You’ve said yourself how you haven’t managed to make any friends yet, and I was thinking, perhaps that’s why last Saturday happened. I’m not making excuses, but maybe I’m not quite ready to make a complete break, and that’s why I went out and drank too much and crashed out at Nadine’s like a fucking idiot. Maybe it’s just been building up and I needed to let it all out …’
‘
What
did you need to let out?’ Kerry barks. ‘Your sperm?’
The woman in the creperie kiosk stares at them, brandishing her spatula in mid-air.
‘I can’t talk to you when you’re being like this,’ Rob hisses, quickening his pace. ‘That’s really going to help us settle in around here, isn’t it, shouting about sperm in public?’
‘Well,
you
obviously don’t want to settle in, so what does it matter?’
‘Kerry, listen to me.’ He grabs her arm and they stop and glare at each other. ‘Just forget what I said about the house. Let’s accept the offer – I’ll ring the agent first thing on Monday, okay? And once I’ve done that, can we please just forget this whole thing?’
She focuses hard on his handsome face, which looks as tired and stressed today as it had during the early parenting years when sleep was snatched in hour-long segments. Kerry inhales, feeling her anger fading slightly and deciding she has to get over this. Rob is far too prim and proper for a one-night stand; in all their years together, she has never seen him even flirting with anyone. As for the house cleaning incident –
Cif-gate
, as she and Anita have named it – Nadine is probably nurturing some mild, Daddy-type crush on Rob, and insisted on tagging along. A woman would have to strip naked and launch herself, missile-like, at Rob for him to realise she found him attractive. ‘Come on,’ she says coolly, shrugging away his hand. ‘They’ll all be waiting for us at the beach.’
Spotting his parents treading gingerly between the sand constructions, Freddie leaps up and waves frantically.
‘It got run over!’ he yells.
‘What did?’ Kerry hurries towards Anita and the children.
Anita pulls a wry smile. ‘Well, Sand Island looked great until a dog ran right across the top of it.’
‘Oh
no
.’ Kerry frowns at the collapsed mound, its toothpick flags scattered everywhere. Daniel, Anita’s youngest, has burst into tears, and Anita pulls him onto her lap.
‘I’m sure it doesn’t matter,’ Kerry tries to console him. ‘The judges probably looked at the sandcastles before the dog came—’
‘No they didn’t,’ Freddie thunders.
‘Dogs shouldn’t be running about loose on the beach,’ Rob declares.
‘Oh, I’m sure it wasn’t deliberate,’ Anita explains. ‘Some guy was chasing it, it must have got loose …’
‘Then it was his responsibility to keep it under control,’ Rob huffs as Kerry and Anita exchange glances.
‘My mummy won’t let us have a dog,’ Freddie bleats loudly to anyone within earshot.
Sitting beside Kerry on Anita’s tartan rug, Rob takes Kerry’s hand in his and squeezes it. ‘Quite right, Mummy,’ he whispers with a smile.
The tinkle of a brass bell from the judges’ table calls everyone to attention.
‘After that unfortunate little incident,’ announces an elderly lady, her gold-rimmed glasses glinting in the weak sunshine, ‘it’s time to announce the winners of the annual Shorling sandcastle competition. Everyone ready?’
‘Yeah!’ Freddie yells. Kerry removes her hand from Rob’s slightly clammy grasp.
‘Okay. It’s been a tough decision but, in third place, I’m delighted to announce … Team Tyler-Jones for their fabulous Hogwarts!’
‘Boring,’ chime Freddie and Anita’s boy Jacob.
‘Shush, Freddie,’ Rob hisses.
The judge tinkles her bell again. ‘Second prize … Team Marshall’s amazing Eiffel Tower!’
‘Show-offs,’ Anita whispers with a grin. ‘Their dad did the whole thing anyway, barking orders at his children like Hitler in a yachting cap.’
Kerry snorts with laughter, sensing the tensions of the past, miserable week starting to drift away, despite the fact that Freddie appears to be the only child here in a tracksuit.
‘And first prize … Team Crawly-Jones and their amazing replica of the Sagrada Família …’
Mia’s face droops. ‘What’s a Farm-ear?’
‘Just some old church,’ Kerry murmurs.
‘I wouldn’t quite put it that way,’ guffaws the yachting cap man. ‘I think you’ll find it’s Gaudi’s architectural masterpiece although, granted, there’s been controversy over the more contemporary aspects of the restoration …’ He smiles smugly and pops a shiny black olive into his mouth.
‘Has there really?’ Kerry asks, feigning wonderment as the woman at the judges’ table calls the assembled crowd to attention.
‘Everyone?’ she calls out. ‘We just had a quick chat among ourselves and decided to award a very special prize to the team who put in so much effort, only to have it all destroyed …’
Mia and Freddie gawp at their mother expectantly.
‘… Team Tambini-McCoy with their treasure island – at least that’s what we
think
it was before the unfortunate event – so if the children would like to come forward …’ All six surge towards the judges’ table, their rowdiness garnering the odd look of disdain as they return, delighted, with their booty.
Admittedly it’s just an ice cream token each, but Rob is dispatched to the old-fashioned red and white striped kiosk with the children dancing around him as if they’ve scooped a major prize.
Anita stretches out her slender honey-tanned legs on the blanket. ‘So …?’ she says when Rob is out of earshot. ‘How did it go?’
Kerry pulls off her canvas plimsoles and digs her toes into the warm sand. ‘Okay, I guess. He’s still adamant that nothing happened.’
‘Which is feasible …’
‘Yes.’
The small pause is filled with the blur of children playing, and there’s a palpable sense of relief among the kids now the competition is over. Kerry glances at her oldest friend, the one who made all those summers in Shorling so special, and to whom she’d write excitable letters in multi-coloured felt tips during the long months until her next stay at Aunt Maisie’s. When Kerry turned seventeen, her parents had been filled with a new sense of adventure, perhaps relieved that they no longer felt obliged to take their only child back to Shorling every summer. Her father bought an ugly beige campervan – nothing so stylish as a VW camper – and he and her mum took to trundling around France while Kerry started holidaying with friends. The year it had happened – the motorway crash just south of Bordeaux – Kerry and Anita had been in a rowdy resort in Crete. As the red sports car had cut up the campervan, and Kerry’s dad had braked suddenly, veering into the forest below, Kerry and Anita were probably downing fierce cocktails in the Banana Moon bar. What if Anita hadn’t suggested the trip, and Kerry had gone on holiday with her parents instead? She still plays the ‘what if?’ game occasionally.
‘Kerry?’ Anita says gently.
‘Uh-huh?’
She indicates the small crowd clamouring around the ice cream kiosk. ‘Look at poor Rob. The kids are probably confusing the hell out of him. Imagine, having to remember
six
ice cream flavours all at once.’ They laugh as, surrounded by children, he throws up his hands in mock surrender. ‘You do believe him, don’t you?’ Anita adds.
Kerry nods. ‘Yes, I suppose I do. I’ve only been here a month, but maybe I’ve already lost touch with the real world, you know? I mean, the fact that people make friends in the office and go out after work. It’s all perfectly normal, isn’t it? You socialise with the other teachers …’
‘Yes, of course I do.’
‘Though you don’t have sleepovers.’
‘Er, no.’ Anita gives her a wry smile. ‘No one would dare. You wouldn’t believe what staffroom gossip is like.’
Kerry chuckles. ‘It’s different for Rob. He’s had an awful time since his new editor arrived, and I think he just had to let off a bit of steam.’
‘We all need to do that sometimes,’ Anita says.
Rob and the children are heading back towards them now, the two girls charging ahead of the pack.
‘I still can’t believe what I did to him, though,’ Kerry says, shaking her head.
‘God, I know,’ Anita laughs. ‘What a bloody great waste of a cake.’
Jack’s might be thronging on a Friday night, but on a rainy Monday evening at the start of October it’s an entirely different story. Nadine, who’s been pleasant enough since Rob spent the night at her place, had hung around in the office after everyone else had left.
‘Not like you to work late,’ Rob had remarked, which had come out sounding ruder than he’d intended.
‘Are you implying I’m a slacker?’ she’d responded with an arch of her brow.
‘Of course not,’ he’d replied quickly, before adding, ‘You okay, Nadine? You seem a bit fed-up today.’ She didn’t seem to be working, at least not on anything obvious. She was just sitting at her desk, rearranging her novelty pens with the fluorescent gonks on their ends and flicking idly through the latest issue of
Mr Jones
. Then she’d closed the magazine, and her eyes had met his across the office.
‘Um, actually I’m
not
okay, Rob,’ she’d said. ‘D’you have time for a quick drink?’
So here they are – even Nadine is a member of Jack’s, it transpires – with Rob waiting to be served in the basement bar. At a quarter to seven, they are the only customers in the place. Apart from Theresa with her clipboard on the door, there’s no sign of any staff either.
Standing at the elegant, curved bar, Rob glances back at their table and wills someone to materialise and serve him. He’s only planning to stay for a quick one, just to be nice; he’ll hear her woes (she really does look miserable now, all pale and hunched in the corner) then get home sharpish. In fact he isn’t entirely comfortable about being in a drinking establishment with Nadine at all, not after last time. He’s managed to smooth things over with Kerry by the skin of his teeth. He’s accepted the Ramsays’ offer on the house and, after making an utter arse of himself, now feels ready to embrace that new life on the coast.
Ah, there are signs of life from the nether regions of Jack’s. From a back room emerges the stunning red-head who’d presented him with his birthday cake, and he waits for her to recognise him.
‘Yeah?’ she says blankly.
‘Er, a Kronenbourg and a tomato juice please.’ Weird drink, a tomato juice. No pleasure in it as far as he can work out. It probably has negligible calories, though, which is clearly high on Nadine’s agenda. Come to think of it, he isn’t entirely sure she actually eats. Maybe she gleans her nutrition from the garnishes in drinks.
‘Here you go.’ The red-head places the drinks on the bar – Nadine’s has a sliver of celery stuck in it – and takes his money without thanks or any hint of being human. Perhaps she’s an android, Rob reflects as he carries the drinks back to the table. Or maybe there’s a secret rule that over-thirties aren’t supposed to be in here.
‘So,’ he says, taking the seat opposite Nadine.
She pulls a tight smile.
‘Everything all right?’
‘Like I said, not really.’ She twizzles the straw in her drink.
‘Er … is it something to do with Eddy?’
‘What?’ She looks aghast.
‘I mean …’ Rob scratches his chin, relieved that the red-head has disappeared into the back room again. ‘I just wondered if it was something to do with work, if you were worried about—’
‘I’m not
worried
, Rob,’ she says sharply.
‘Oh! Well, that’s good. You shouldn’t be. I know you’re only the editorial assistant but—’
‘
Only
the editorial assistant?’ she repeats.
Shit, this is hard work. He’d give anything to be down in Shorling now, snuggled up with Kerry and the kids, watching a movie together.