The Beach Hut by Veronica Henry Read Free Book Online Page B

her, and she pushed it away.
    She wasn’t going to think about it. She wasn’t going to wonder what life she might have had if she had never met him. The happiness she might have been allowed to feel. She was going to pick up the pieces of what was left of her life, and make the most of it. Between Terence and Graham, they had managed to destroy her. But she had her children and her grandchildren, and they hadn’t managed to destroy her love for them. This was going to be her summer.
    Eventually she reached the station and found a taxi, which put her down at the top of Everdene beach. She climbed out, weary from her journey but as ever exhilarated by the view and the sea air. She filled her lungs and stepped out across the sands until she reached the hut.
    Inside it was reassuringly familiar. It had hardly changed since the day her father had bought it. There were new curtains at the window - nautical blue and white - and a new cooker and fridge. It smelt the same, slightly damp, slightly tangy. There were the same board games and paperbacks, the same chipped mugs and plates.
    The fridge door was shut and she went to open it, worried that mould would have built up inside. She was surprised to find it was on, and inside she found milk, cheese, eggs and bacon. Further investigation revealed a loaf of bread, a box of tea and a packet of chocolate digestives in the cupboard.
    It could only have been Roy. He was the only one with a key.
    She felt a flicker of warmth leap up inside her, just as if she had held a match to the pilot light on the little cooker. How wonderful to be thought of.
    As she unpacked her things, she looked forward to the weeks ahead. The little hut would be cramped, filled with a succession of her offspring and their offspring, a complicated timetable of comings and goings that depended on work, school, university, exam results, holidays abroad, social engagements. She wouldn’t bother trying to keep up, she never did. She took each day as it came. Catered for whoever was there. Fitted in round their madcap plans.
    They would all be there for this weekend, for the opening. And she’d have to tell them. It would break her heart, if she let it. There was nothing she could do. She couldn’t afford to keep it going. And she knew none of them would be able to buy it from her - they had too many financial commitments between them already. Anyway, it was probably best to make a clean break. She would give each of them a little money from the sale, to put towards a holiday. Small consolation, but it was the best she could do, given the circumstances.
    She sat down later that evening to draft an advert. She’d get her grandson Harry to do it on his laptop and get it printed out in the town nearby. She wouldn’t need to market it hard-a copy through each of the other beach-hut doors, a few pinned up in the village. Word would get round, offers would come in.
    By the end of the summer, the deal would be done . . .

2
    SEASHELLS
    I t was astonishing how easy it was to lie.
    Only, strictly speaking, she wasn’t lying. She really was going down to Everdene to kit out the beach hut for the summer. She really was going to stop at IKEA in Bristol and stock up on melamine mugs with spots on, and new rugs, and a coffee table and a big bag of tea lights and some lanterns and a couple of bean-bag chairs. And then scrub out the hut until it gleamed, rearrange the furniture, put up some new pictures, make up the bunks with fresh linen - all for the first set of holiday-makers who were due to arrive the week after. It was two days’ work at least.
    So she wasn’t actually lying. Only by omission. Although every time she thought about it she went hot under the arms and panicked. Her hand hovered over her mobile incessantly. She could cancel any time, she knew that. It was up to her. She was in control of the situation.
    The problem was she wasn’t in control of herself.
    Incipient infidelity was a curious thing. It made