CHAPTER 14

Conceived In A Beach Hut

 

 

‘It’s been every night since then, Hal. Every night in the early hours she’s woken up. On Sunday, she had the dream about drowning again. On Monday, she dreamt she saw the body of a young man washed up on the beach and last night she saw the Maiden walking away down the yard, beckoning to her to follow. Sometimes she shouts out. Most of the time it’s just noise, but sometimes there are words. “Let me go,” she shouted last night.’

They were walking down the beach together, away from Old Rawscar. The beach began beyond the harbour wall and stretched for half a mile or more along the bay, wide golden sand and high cliffs, and at the far end of the bay where a little beck in a green valley met the sea, was the sailing club. It was Wednesday afternoon, which was Cass’s afternoon off, and today she had arranged to meet Hal to talk to him about Anna. She thought it best they should meet away from the cottage; she didn’t want Anna to know she was meeting Hal. They had an hour or so before it would be properly dark; time enough to walk along the beach before the tide came in, and then back along the clifftop path when they got to the other end of the sandy bay where the sailing club was. Other than a couple of dog walkers heading back to the village the long sandy bay was deserted and a brisk, cold wind blew off the sea with the smell of the sea mixed with the scent of snow.

‘And you think it’s all in her imagination?’

‘I’m sure it is. But there’s something behind it all. Something big that is making her unhappy, but I don’t know what it is. She won’t tell me, and I can’t help her unless I know.’ She looked at Hal hopefully, wondering if he would then volunteer the whole story, but he simply thrust his hands into the pocket of his thick walking jacket and looked straight ahead.

‘But she won’t tell you.’

He spoke as if he knew it from experience. Would he tell her Anna’s secret?

They were walking with the wind behind them; she saw how it whipped his hair into his face. He was keeping an eye on the sea, which was coming in more quickly than Cass had expected, blown by the north-east wind. But with Hal, who knew the tides and the weather, she felt safe.

‘I just want to help her, Hal, I promised you I’d try to be her friend, but I feel so useless; she keeps shutting me out and I don’t understand why.’

He stopped walking and turned towards her.

‘You want me to tell you about her?’ There was a note of challenge in his voice, as if he was daring her to say yes. Cass didn’t run away from challenges.

‘I do, Hal.’ They faced each other, and she tried to read his expression. ‘Why is Anna’s father so angry with her? What has she done?’

She waited, watching him. He looked away at the horizon and thought for a moment.

‘Look, we’d better keep walking, the tide’s coming in faster than usual with the wind behind it and we’ve still got a way to go until we get to the sailing club and the steps up to the cliff-top.’

He set off at quite a fast pace, Cass had to speed up to keep up with him, but at least the exercise was keeping her warm. She was already fitter than she used to be from all the walking up and down the path from the car park to the village. After a few more strides, Hal made up his mind and began to speak.

‘Anna was a wild child as a teenager. Loved being out - parties, drinking, festivals probably a few pills - didn’t go down well with her parents, let’s just say. They didn’t understand her, or know how to deal with her. She was a late baby, they were much older than the parents of her friends, I mean, her Dad was already over fifty when she was born – they were out of touch.’

Cass listened silently and let him continue as he strode along with purpose.

‘She’s always been damaged, I suppose. Always different, always very needy. Just wanted to be loved.’

‘Not uncommon.’

‘No, not uncommon,’ he echoed, looking straight ahead, eyes fixed on the end of the bay. They were nearly at the sailing club now; she could see the clubhouse in amongst the scrub in the little valley that came down from the cliffs to the beach. ‘But something happened. A big argument. That was when I was living down in London for a while, after Rob died, so I wasn’t here. There was a big fight after her mother had that accident.’

‘Did it have something to do with the accident?’

‘Anna didn’t speak to her mother for seven years, and now she’s dead. And her father still won’t speak to her, even though they live in the same village. He tells everyone that she is dead to him. He won’t even look at her if they pass in the street.

Cass suppressed a shiver. ’Neither of them has ever tried to sort it out?’

‘Anna tried a few times. Even when she came back a few months ago, before her mother died, she went up there and tried to speak to them. She knew her mother was dying and she just wanted to say goodbye. Her father told her that she wasn’t wanted and that she should never try and speak to her mother again. So she didn’t, and her mother died. She’s not been right since then.’

‘It sounds as if her father has been very unreasonable. Imagine, your own daughter …’ Her own father would never have behaved as Charles had done.

‘Unreasonable isn’t the word. A bit of a bastard is more like it!’ Hal said. Cass couldn’t help but silently agree with him.

 

They had reached the sailing club now, and were walking past the little cluster of beach huts that were used by the sailors in the summer. Not a moment too soon, because the sea behind them had already reached the foot of the cliffs in the middle of the bay where the beach was at its narrowest. Cass turned to see the spray already crashing up against the cliffs behind them, waves whipped up by the wind. Then all at once it became obvious that they were not going to climb the steps behind the sailing club up to the cliff top, because the steps were no longer there.

The stream, coming down the little valley from the cliff top had at some point recently brought down the steps that ran beside it, probably in the same storm that had washed away the vicarage, and instead of a winding path, there was a sheer drop of about twenty-five metres with a waterfall tumbling down it. For a moment they looked at each other.

‘Can we make it back along the beach? We could wade through the bit along under the cliff?’ Cass suggested.

‘No. No way!’ Hal’s reaction was instant and strong. ‘You don’t ever go into the sea in weather like this.’

‘But it’s not that deep yet - look if we hurry we won’t even get that wet!’ She began to head back in that direction ‘Come on, Hal!’

He spun round and grabbed her arm, pulling her back. He held her firmly - very firmly. There was no way she was going back along the beach.

‘Stop it! Didn’t you hear me? No! We don’t go into the water.’

He had gone pale and his eyes looked darker than usual in the fading light. ‘And don’t give me any of that “God will protect you” crap, because he won’t.’ He sounded angry with her.

‘I wasn’t going to …’ she stuttered, suddenly chilled right through and a little bit scared. ‘But if we can’t go back and we can’t get up the path, then we’re stuck here until the tide goes down again. And that won’t be for ages!’

Hal let go of her arm to consult his watch. ‘It won’t be that long. About two hours it’ll be clear.’

‘But it’ll be dark by then.’

‘We’ll manage. We’ve both got lights on our phones.’

‘Will there be anyone at the sailing club? Can we get in there to keep warm?’

‘On a Wednesday night in December? With the cliff path closed? Not a chance. It’ll be all locked up.’ He looked up towards the old wooden clubhouse, its seaward windows shuttered against the weather.

‘I guess we could shelter on the veranda; that would be better than nothing.’ The clubhouse had a long veranda along the eastern side, perfect for a drink overlooking the bay in August, not so perfect for sheltering from a north-east wind in December.

‘We can do better than that. Follow me.’ He spoke curtly, and she followed obediently. Hal knew what he was doing.

The beach huts clustered round the sailing club were very different from the smart, multi-coloured rows that could be seen on the promenades at the other nearby resorts. These were old-fashioned sheds, tucked into the valley, higgledy-piggledy on either side of the stream, and all painted green so that they blended into the scrub. Each one was different, each one looked home-made, as no doubt they were, the only way to bring the wood here to build them was by boat or along the beach. Hal led the way to one of the larger huts at the edge of the group. Its paint was peeling in places, it had a porch at the front and its windows were shuttered for the winter like the sailing club. Hal reached up to the roof of the porch and brought down a key from a tiny hidden corner.

‘It’s Dad’s hut,’ he told her. ‘It’ll be warmer in here than outside. If we’re lucky there might even be a camping stove. I’ll go and take down the shutters so we’ve got some light.’

She could hear him moving the bars from the shutters over the two windows, and as he opened each one, the remains of the evening light allowed her to see the inside of the hut. Against one wall there was a wide bench seat with faded cushions, which smelt of cold and felt damp when she sat down. On the other wall, a table with a camping stove and a washing up bowl formed what passed for a kitchen, a small blue-painted cupboard stood beside it. The walls and floor were white, making it feel more spacious – and colder – than it actually was.

Hal came back in and rummaged in the cupboard. There was a battery powered lantern, but when Hal tried it the battery was dead. He found a bottle of camping gas, shook it, and attached it to the stove; at least that worked.

‘Enough for a cup of tea. Lucky I’ve got a bottle of water.’

He pulled an almost full bottle out of his coat pocket. ‘The tea bags won’t be great, they’ve probably been here since the summer and there’s no milk. But it’ll be hot, get you warmed through.’

‘Thanks, Hal.’

‘Not a problem.’

He made them both a small mug of dark, hot tea. Cass wrapped her hands gratefully around it.

‘So, this is your beach hut?’

‘Our family’s had this hut since way back,’ he replied. ‘Used to belong to my Grandad. My Dad likes to tell everyone that he was conceived in here – probably on that very bed that you’re sitting on right now!’ He winked at her. Cass grinned back, feeling more at ease now he was joking again. At least, she hoped he was joking.

‘And do you think he was?’

‘Possibly. They used to live out here in the summer in the forties and fifties, rented out their house to tourists for the summer holidays.’

‘I see!’

He had put away the gas bottle again, and sat down beside her on the bench seat - or bed. She was on her own with Hal in a beach hut, in the dusk, sitting on the bed with him only inches away from her. Suddenly she didn’t know where to look.

‘I don’t come here these days. Me and my brother used to use it a lot in the summer when we were younger. The love shack, we used to call it back then. We used to -’ he stopped abruptly. ‘But it was a long time ago and you don’t want to hear about that.’

There was an awkward pause for a moment as Cass could imagine exactly what Hal and his brother had probably got up to at the beach hut.

‘So,’ she said turning back towards him, speaking brightly, changing the subject. ‘Why don’t you tell me about yourself? Or why don’t you tell me about your brother Rob, I’d love to know more about him. He must have been a very brave young man.’

In the half light of the dying afternoon, Hal’s face turned grey as the sea.