‘We can arrange champagne. And fresh flowers. And chocolates.’
Why not
? thought Harry.
‘All three, please,’ he grinned, imagining dropping rose petals one by one onto her bare skin and pushing truffles into her mouth.
At quarter past eleven, Florence came to find him.
‘Come on,’ she said. ‘The competition starts at midday. We mustn’t be late.’
The sandcastle competition had become an annual ritual for anyone who spent the summer at Everdene. The Miltons always entered, with whichever part of their family was present, though they never won. It had become bigger and bigger over the years - Harry could remember when it was just a few dads and kids with buckets and spades, but now it caused chaos in Everdene, with emergency car parks set up in farmers’ fields to cope with the extra visitors.
They quickly found their pitch, and Florence unpacked her day’s supplies. Harry got the feeling that winning was important to Florence - she was eyeing up the competition with a fervour he didn’t feel.
‘That weird guy over there has won for the past three years,’ she told him, pointing to a bloke on the neighbouring pitch who was obviously not quite the full ticket. ‘I’m going to beat him if it kills me.’
Harry privately thought a sandcastle competition wasn’t really worth dying for, but he didn’t say so.
‘And look,’ she nudged him, pointing. ‘There’s Marky Burns. He’s judging.’
He saw a gleam in her eye that he didn’t like, a gleam that set a shiver of unease shooting through his belly. Marky Burns was the closest thing Everdene had to a local celebrity, a member of a boy-band which had notched up three number ones two years ago. Marky was striding round with a news crew in his wake, looking self-important and, Harry thought, rather a twat. But who was he to judge?
All day he followed Florence’s instructions, running down to the sea for buckets of water to wet the sand and get the right consistency. She’d designed a Sleeping Beauty castle, smothered in roses and briars, and it was quite spectacular. Yet Harry couldn’t help feeling uneasy. She kept checking the progress of the man next door, who was building Neptune’s castle-a definite contender. Harry got the feeling Florence would go and stamp on his work-in-progress given half the chance.
‘Isn’t it just supposed to be a bit of fun?’ he asked her at one point, and earnt himself a steely glare.
At three o’clock the whistle went and all the competitors stopped, grateful for respite, and the judging began. The time went agonisingly slowly, as Marky Burns and the other judges wandered from pitch to pitch, comparing notes. The local DJ wound everyone up and played hideously cheesy beach songs, together with messages from the competition sponsors.
‘It’s all got a bit over the top, don’t you think?’ he asked Florence, but she wasn’t paying attention. She was tracking the judges’ progress, assessing how much time they had spent analysing each entry. Harry wasn’t sure whether to pray for them to win, in which case he could whisk her away to celebrate, or to lose, in which case he could whisk her away to make it up to her. Was a woman more compliant in the throes of triumph or despair? He couldn’t be sure. Nevertheless, the decision was out of his hands. But he smiled to himself as he thought about the little turquoise bedroom that waited for them, and the champagne that would be chilling.
When the judges came to their pitch, Harry stood to one side and let Florence do the talking. He noticed how she addressed Marky Burns over the others, flicking her hair over her shoulder and widening her eyes as she described the concept behind her work.
‘I wanted to do something feminine,’ she explained. ‘Sandcastles are often so masculine, with harsh lines. I wanted to do something soft and curvaceous, something that you want to caress. Something . . . womanly.’
The other judges nodded earnestly. As they turned away, Florence caught Marky Burns’s eye and winked. He smirked back at her. Her message was pretty clear. Harry felt sick. No one else had seen it but him. He looked down at the sand. He might as well just walk away now. But then Florence came up and put her arms round him. She smelt of suntan lotion, and the free ice cream that had been given to them by one of the sponsors. It made him giddy.
‘Hey. You’ve been brilliant. Thank you. And if we win, the champagne’s on me.’
She squeezed him tight. He felt mollified. Maybe her flirtation had been all about the winning and nothing else. He hoped so, but he wasn’t entirely confident. This was a whole new feeling for Harry. He had never felt insecure about a girl before. He’d never felt his stomach burn with panic that the object of his affections was looking elsewhere. He’d never felt his heart lurch with fear. He’d never wanted to stab another man in the back, like he wanted to stab Marky Burns with his stupid mirrored sunglasses and his stupid raffia cowboy hat.
Florence grabbed his hand excitedly.
‘They’ve made up their minds. Look, they’re heading for us.’
They watched as the judges walked slowly towards them, holding the victor’s flag.
‘It could still be the bloke next door,’ said Harry. ‘It’s between him and us.’
‘He won’t win. No way,’ Florence assured him, and she was right.
As Marky Burns plunged the flagpole into the turret of their castle, a thunderous applause struck up, accompanied by cheers and whistles. Harry turned to Florence, ready to give her a congratulatory hug, but she already had her arms around Marky’s neck. The cameras were going crazy, the news crew were zooming in. She was whispering in his ear; he had his hands on her ribs, just under her breasts.
Harry turned away, a bitter taste in his mouth. And as he looked over, he saw the man from the neighbouring plot look disconsolately down at his castle. Only for a moment, but it was enough to make Harry feel a twinge of guilt. By rights, this man should have won. It was clear it was a close-run thing between the two of them, but Florence had managed to tip the balance in her favour by using her wiles. He felt rather ill. A woman came over to the man, taking him by the hand like a small child. Presumably it was his mother; presumably the man was a bit simple. It was wrong. What Florence had done was wrong.
The next moment he found himself knocked flying as Florence hugged him tight.
‘We won, Harry!’ He could feel her heart beating through the thinness of his T-shirt. ‘I couldn’t have done it without you.’
She kissed him on the mouth, and in that moment, all his misgivings floated away. So what if she’d flirted with the judge? That was life, wasn’t it? He felt a wonderful warmth zing through his veins and his head go light as she pulled him forward by the hand to face the cameras.
‘This is Harry,’ she told them. ‘We’ve been friends for absolutely years. And I couldn’t have done it without him.’
He wanted to take her to the room straight away. He told her he had a surprise, but she wouldn’t have it.
‘Everyone’s piling up to the Ship,’ she told him. ‘And there’s going to be free booze.’
By everyone, it was clear she meant Marky Burns and his entourage. And the free booze didn’t seem to extend to Harry. Just Florence, who was drinking Smirnoff Ice as if it was going out of fashion. And holding court to her newly captive audience. Harry stuck it out until he could bear it no longer. Until he saw Marky pin Florence to the wall, one of his long legs in between hers, his hip pushed suggestively up against her pelvis. She was looking up at him, laughing, curling her long hair round her fingers.
She was nothing but a star-fucker. If you could call Marky Burns a star. Which Harry didn’t. He was a has-been from a second-rate boy-band. If he’d been an international superstar, Harry might have understood Florence’s embarrassingly sycophantic behaviour, but he was hard pushed even to remember the name of the band Marky had been in.
The problem was it didn’t make him want her any less.
The room suddenly seemed to close in on him. Too much sun, too much booze. He pushed his way outside, gasping for fresh air. The sound of the bar receded behind him as the door shut. He felt a breeze on his face and thought of the little blue bedroom, waiting, puzzled, the champagne going flat, the roses wilting, the chocolates melting.
He was still holding his bottle of Smirnoff Ice. In a fit of rage, he threw it against the stone wall that separated the front of the pub from the road. As it shattered into pieces he felt shock. He’d never done anything like that in his life. It went against everything, his upbringing, his moral code. Part of him told him to go inside and find a broom to sweep it up before someone was hurt, but he was too drunk. Too drunk and too afraid that if he went back inside he might go and punch Marky Burns right in the middle of his face.
He had to go home. He headed for the beach. Every time the door of the pub opened, he heard music and laughter, taunting him. He imagined Florence kissing Marky Burns. He should be kissing her, right now.
He reached the door of the hut. His grandmother was still up, watching television on the tiny portable. He stumbled in.
‘Darling, are you OK?’ She looked up, concerned.
‘Too much sun,’ he mumbled.
She stood up. ‘Let me get you some water . . .’
‘I’m fine. I just need . . . bed.’
He pushed past her, knowing he was being rude. But if he didn’t, he would either be sick, or cry, or both. He flopped into his bunk, just managing to kick off his shoes, and pulled the covers over his head. He was going to feel like death in the morning.
Death didn’t come close. He wasn’t sure which hurt more, his head or his heart. Being out in the sun all afternoon always gave him sunstroke, he should have remembered that. He rolled over and went back to sleep.
At eleven o’clock, he woke to find his grandmother placing a cool hand on his forehead. She was holding a large glass of water in the other.
‘Darling, I’m not going to ask too much. But you were in a bit of a state last night.’
She held out two tablets and the water. He sat up and swallowed them gratefully, hoping against hope that he hadn’t said anything awful to upset her.
‘I wasn’t . . . rude, was I?’
Jane laughed. ‘No. Not at all.’ She looked at him shrewdly. ‘Florence?’
He just shut his eyes and groaned in reply.
‘Tell me to mind my own business, if you want to. But on the other hand, if you want a shoulder to cry on.’
She was so amazing, his grandmother. She always understood just what you were feeling, and knew just what to say.
‘I didn’t realise it could be so hard,’ he told her. ‘And the weird thing is, I don’t even like her that much. I mean, she’s a show-off. And shallow. And totally me me me. I can see that.’
‘Anyone can see that,’ replied Jane, then told herself Harry wouldn’t want her to judge Florence, just his state of mind. ‘But she’s a very attractive girl. I can understand why you’ve fallen for her. Totally.’
Harry finished his water and lay back on his pillow.
‘Thanks, Gran,’ he managed, and shut his eyes. His head was pounding. ‘I don’t know what to do. Suddenly it’s as if . . . she’s the only thing that matters in my life. How can that be? I mean, I barely know her. Not this Florence, anyway. It’s crazy . . .’
‘That’s love for you,’ Jane told him. ‘Irrational. Obsessional. Uncontrollable. Destructive.’
Harry opened his eyes again. He looked at his grandmother with interest. She was speaking from the heart. And with an uncharacteristic bitterness.
‘You’re not talking about Grandpa, are you?’ he asked. ‘You’re not talking about what he did to you?’
‘No,’ she replied. ‘I’m not. What he did was despicable, but it hasn’t hurt me inside. I was long beyond that by the time he died.’
She reached out and took his hand.
‘I want to tell you a story, Harry. About something that happened to me when I was about your age. Because I don’t want you to go through what I went through. I don’t want you to waste more than a minute of your precious life on someone who doesn’t matter. You are worth so much more than that.’
And so she told him the story she had never shared with anyone before. The story of a young girl and an older man, and a relationship that was never meant to be. And how she had spent her life longing for what might have been, never allowing herself to be happy with someone else, making the wrong choice and probably making other people unhappy into the bargain. If Graham hadn’t made her happy perhaps it was because deep down he knew he was second best, and no one likes being second best.
‘I know it’s not going to make it any easier right this second,’ Jane finished, ‘but think of this as a cautionary tale. No matter how wonderful you might think Florence is now, no matter how happy you think she might make you, don’t let her rule your life.’
Harry managed to sit up.
‘That’s such a terrible story,’ he said, stricken. ‘I had no idea.’
‘Well, of course you didn’t, darling. By the time you came along, I was the world’s leading expert at pretending I was happy. And to tell you the truth, I was happy by then. I don’t know that I was a terribly good mother, but being a grandmother is wonderful. You children have all brought me more joy than anyone deserves, so altogether I’m very lucky.’
She bent down and hugged him.
‘Listen, lecture over. You don’t want to listen to an old woman banging on. If I were you I’d go back to sleep. I’ll make you some lunch when you wake up.’ She gave him a quick kiss. ‘Sleep tight. But think about what I’ve told you.’
Harry watched her go from his bunk. He was in awe. What an amazing story. He’d always admired his grandmother, but he never knew she was harbouring such a torrid secret. He felt desperately sad that she had been so unhappy all her life. And as he drifted off to sleep, he realised that the only way he could make her tragedy less . . . well, tragic, was by learning from her mistake.