Читать книгу The Summer Theatre by the Sea - Tracy Corbett - Страница 10

Friday, 27 May

Charlotte battled her way out of the loos and queued up for a hot drink, needing something to calm her agitation. It was only ten a.m., but the motorway service station at Leigh Delamere East was full of people heading down to the coast for the May bank holiday weekend. She hadn’t realised quite how busy the roads would be. She’d been driving for three hours, and still had another hundred and twenty miles to go. At this rate, it would be dark before she reached her destination.

Collecting her takeaway cup from the counter, she headed outside, trying to remember what her GP had said about focusing on the positives of her situation, instead of dwelling on the negatives – which wasn’t easy. The grief she’d felt at leaving her old life behind was indescribable. But, much to her surprise, her visit to the GP had been extremely helpful. Far from dismissing her tearful ramblings, he’d listened patiently and had diagnosed a mild anxiety disorder. At first, she’d been reluctant to accept any failing in her mental health, but as he’d spoken about the impact of stress, and its ability to exacerbate physical pain, she’d realised that denying her condition was foolhardy. He’d said battling to keep things ‘just so’ was like clinging hold of a stick under water, the effort of not dropping it was so exhausting that, in the end, you’d drown trying to keep afloat. Sometimes you just had to let the stick sink to the bottom and trust that, eventually, it would float back up to the surface and continue its journey down the river. A nice analogy.

Ethan’s decision to leave was out of her control, he’d said. As was losing her job. The best thing she could do was stop beating herself up for not being able to control everything, try to relax, and take the opportunity of an impromptu holiday.

The spring weather had been steadily improving all week, so a spell at the seaside might improve her spirits. It would be good to spend some time with her family, and it’d been over a year since she’d seen her niece and nephew, so really, this trip was a blessing … even if it had been forced upon her.

She sipped her latte. It didn’t taste great, but it was warm and sweet and gave her energy levels a boost. She managed another few mouthfuls before binning it.

It was hard to believe that, up until a few weeks ago, her life had been going to plan. Her career was flying high, her finances were stable, and the five-year plan for achieving the ‘perfect life’, which she’d drawn up with Ethan, was on schedule. They’d planned that, within the next two years, they’d move to a town house with a good resale value, and they’d up their pension pots with additional contributions. It wasn’t the most dynamic of plans, and perhaps, on reflection, it lacked a certain sense of romance, but it was pragmatic and considered, and it’d been what they’d both wanted. Or at least, what she’d thought they’d both wanted.

Unbuttoning her purple suede jacket, she climbed into her car, gearing herself up for rejoining the M4.

It felt a lot longer than three weeks since Ethan had dropped his bombshell. The initial shock had subsided, but the confusion hadn’t. Why hadn’t she seen it coming? There must have been signs, clues to suggest Ethan wasn’t happy, and yet she’d been oblivious. While she’d been working long hours, carrying out the renovations on the apartment, adhering to their five-year plan, he’d been plotting his relocation to bloody Paris.

How had she got things so wrong?

His words still haunted her, how he’d described their relationship as a ‘business arrangement’. What a cruel thing to say, and unfair too. Not everyone was mushy when it came to romance. It didn’t mean she wasn’t invested, or that she didn’t have feelings. Their relationship was built on the merits of a shared life. It was uncomplicated, straightforward, and if she was honest, a little boring at times, but that was only to be expected after four years … right?

She moved into the fast lane, taking the opportunity of a gap in the traffic to put her foot down, blinking away the latest onslaught of tears threatening to surface.

It wasn’t just breaking up; she was still smarting over losing her job, and struggling to come to terms with how quickly everything had unravelled. One minute she was employee of the month, the next she was being handed her P45. The only chink of light had come when she’d contacted the government’s arbitration service and they’d advised her that she might have a case for unfair dismissal. Determined not to go down without a fight, she’d lodged a claim with the employment tribunal. But until her case was heard, she needed a place to lick her wounds and regroup. And Cornwall was the ideal setting to wait it out.

Previously, the idea of swapping her city life for fish and chips, and endless caravan sites, hadn’t overly appealed. But Cornwall was one of England’s finest tourist attractions, unspoilt and breathtakingly rugged, which was why her sister had moved there, along with their father, when the twins were babies. They’d become disillusioned by the frantic pace and congestion of London, and needed to ‘step off the treadmill’. Whatever the reason, it was still hard not to feel abandoned. Her entire family had relocated four hundred miles away, leaving her behind. And it’d left a wound. A wound aggravated by the strain of a five-hour drive that hampered her ability to visit. But Lauren and her dad couldn’t see that.

Thankfully, for the next forty minutes, the traffic kept moving and she made good progress. Bristol docks came into view, with its vast car park of new vehicles waiting to be shipped abroad, closely followed by the impressive Brunel bridge.

The switch from city to countryside wasn’t immediate, despite the enormous ‘Welcome to Cornwall’ sign. The roads narrowed, the houses shrunk, the air became salty and moist. The earlier mist had burnt away, leaving some semblance of spring-like weather in its wake.

She shifted position, trying to get comfortable and ease the tension in her upper back. She should have removed her jacket when she’d stopped for a comfort break. She twisted her head from side to side, trying to ease the stiffness.

It wasn’t long before the road became a single lane. Her satnav – or rather ‘Posh Joanna’ as she’d named her, due to the fact she sounded uncannily like Joanna Lumley – directed her through numerous towns and villages, each one decreasing in size and signs of civilisation. Posh Joanna estimated her arrival time was still another twenty-nine minutes away. Lauren and her dad really had moved to the sticks.

The narrow road led her through a small market town with a large clock centred in the main square. As she queued at the traffic lights, she studied the sights. The words ‘quaint’ and ‘old-fashioned’ sprung to mind. Interior design jobs in London usually involved wealthy clients spending a fortune recreating the period look. Here, they achieved shabby-chic without even trying.

According to her sister’s directions, they lived in the next town. ‘Ignore your satnav,’ Lauren had said. ‘Or you’ll end up face down in the ford.’ Useful to know, but difficult to adhere to, when simultaneously driving and reading scribbled instructions lying on the passenger seat.

Posh Joanna instructed her to ‘turn around when possible’ – quickly followed by ‘turn left and then immediately left’. This latest direction resulted in her coming face-to-face with a tractor. With no space to pass, she turned sharply onto an unmade lane, vaguely aware of the tractor driver waving in her rear-view mirror as she bumped down the track.

Several things gave cause for alarm. There was nowhere to turn around, the hedgerow either side encroached onto the lane and, ahead of her, the road was submerged under water.

‘Stay on this road for the next mile,’ Posh Joanna said.

‘Oh, don’t be so daft. How can I stay on this road for a mile? Look at it.’ Vaguely aware that Posh Joanna wasn’t able to respond, she slowed to a stop.

Killing the engine, she climbed out of the car, mulling over whether this was in fact just a large puddle, and not the ford her sister had warned her about.

‘If you’re thinking about driving through it, I wouldn’t.’ The sound of a man’s voice was so unexpected that she physically jolted.

The feeling enhanced when she turned around and saw the rather unusual sight of a glamorous woman hugging a tree. Her sparkly dress and blonde beehive hairdo were at odds with her rustic surroundings. She clearly wasn’t the owner of the voice … and then Charlotte looked again. The woman wasn’t hugging the tree – she was handcuffed to it!

‘You couldn’t pass me the key, could you, love?’

Okay, not a woman. A man dressed as a woman. Not surreal at all.

Charlotte looked again. Man or woman, she was stunning: her skin luminescent, even beneath make-up; her eyes a startling shade of blue. Her nails were manicured and painted gold, and her figure was lithe and delicate. She was better turned out than Charlotte, who’d always prided herself in maintaining a well-kept exterior.

The woman smiled, her pink lips parting to reveal pearly-white teeth. ‘The key?’

Right. The key. Charlotte followed her eyeline. ‘Where did you last see it?’

The woman nodded downwards. ‘It landed somewhere over there.’

Charlotte looked around. True enough, lying on the edge of the dirt track was a tiny key. She was about to pick it up when her brain alerted her to the potential safety issues of releasing someone in restraints. ‘Are you a criminal?’

The woman raised an eyebrow. ‘Hardly.’

Charlotte folded her arms across her chest. ‘You’re handcuffed to a tree.’

‘I’m well aware of that.’

‘For my own safety, I’d like to know why before releasing you.’

The woman let out a sigh. ‘Let’s just say, things got a little wild last night. I’m sure you don’t want to hear all the intimate details.’

Charlotte picked up the key. ‘You’re right, I don’t.’ She made her way over to her. ‘Would the person who did this have returned at some point?’

The woman seemed to consider this. ‘Difficult to tell. Maybe.’ She lifted her hands so Charlotte could access the lock. ‘I’m Dusty, by the way.’

Charlotte deliberated whether to engage. ‘Dusty’ was hardly regular. But she didn’t radiate aggression, only vulnerability. ‘Charlotte.’

Dusty smiled. ‘Nice to meet you. Pardon me for saying, but you have cheekbones to die for.’ When Charlotte stopped unlocking, Dusty must have sensed her alarm, because she added, ‘No need to panic. I bat for the other team, if you get my drift.’

Charlotte laughed. Satisfied she wasn’t about to be attacked, she removed the handcuffs.

‘Free at last.’ Dusty rubbed her wrists. ‘How can I ever thank you?’

‘Well, you could direct me to Penmullion. I’m a bit lost.’

‘That I can do.’ Released from the tree, Dusty circled her arms. ‘Reverse back up this lane. When you reach the crossroads, go straight over. You’ll see a sign for the town at the bottom of the hill.’

‘Thanks.’ Charlotte was about to walk away when she added, ‘Can I give you a lift somewhere?’

Dusty smiled. ‘Kind of you, sweetie, but I’m good.’ She kissed her cheek. ‘Thank you for rescuing me. You’re an angel. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I’m in desperate need of a pee.’ She disappeared into the hedgerow.

Cornwall was an odd place, Charlotte decided. If it weren’t for the silver handcuffs lying on the ground, she might have thought she’d hallucinated the whole thing.

Thirty minutes later, having scraped her car trying to reverse back up the narrow lane, she found the town of Penmullion. The view coming over the hill was delightful. In the distance, she could see the sea, the tops of the white cliffs merging into the clouds above. The sharp descent into the town made driving conditions precarious, so she decided to leave sightseeing for another time and focus on arriving in one piece.

Posh Joanna sprang back into life, directing her through the town to where her sister lived, announcing excitedly, ‘You have reached your destination.’ Except there didn’t appear to be any houses along Dobbs Road, only shops.

She pulled over and checked the address. She was definitely in the right place. She got out of the car and rolled her shoulders, trying to shift the ache in her back.

According to the sign hanging above the entrance, number fifteen wasn’t a residential property but the Co-op supermarket. Lauren must live in the flat above. Not exactly what she’d expected.

It took a while to find the entrance. The door was concealed within a set of giant gates leading to the loading area behind. Things became more surreal when she spotted a sign with an arrow directing her up a wrought-iron staircase. Experiencing an instant flood of panic, she walked around to the back of the building, hoping to see a lift. No such luck. She was going to have to climb the staircase, wasn’t she?

The tremors in her legs began long before she took her first step. Her breathing grew shallow, and the dizziness caused black spots to appear in her peripheral vision. The gaps between the steps meant that there was daylight between her and the concrete below. If she’d known where Lauren lived, she might have reconsidered coming to stay. But then she remembered that she had nowhere else to go, and kept climbing, willing herself not to look down, hoping this holiday would prove to be a cure for acrophobia as well as anxiety.

By the time she reached the top, she was shaking. There was a gate, followed by two further steps down onto the rooftop. She looked around. There were large pots filled with flowers, and a table and chairs set up by a swing set. Ahead of her, a green door had the number 15a attached to the front. Trying to slow her breathing, she walked across and knocked on the door. Loud music emanated from inside. After a few minutes of knocking, she gave up and tried phoning Lauren, only to get her voicemail. Her sister probably couldn’t hear above the noise.

She tried the door handle, surprised to find it unlocked. When the door swung open, the music hit her with force, exacerbating the throbbing in her head. She stepped inside the small, dark flat. The hallway opened into the lounge-cum-diner. The walls were covered in mock-wooden cladding, the carpet brown and threadbare. A single bulb hung from the ceiling, shining a dim light on the orange and burgundy sofa. It looked like a set from a 1970s sitcom. But it wasn’t. It was where her sister lived.

She’d imagined Lauren’s life as being like something from Escape to the Country, where people moved to chocolate-box cottages with fishponds and surrounding fields … not dirty dishes in the sink, laundry scattered about the place, and a broken blind hanging from its hinges.

And then she heard voices. The sound of running, screaming and laughter. Her niece appeared first, wearing an electric-blue polyester dress, her long red hair plaited into bunches. Behind her, Freddie danced into the room wearing an equally cheap metallic outfit, his red hair disguised beneath a long white wig. They appeared to be dressed as characters from Frozen. Charlotte wasn’t sure which was more disturbing: their lack of fire-retardant clothing, or witnessing her nephew dressed as Elsa. Maybe cross-dressing was a requisite of living in Cornwall?

When the music cut off, she was about to alert them to her presence when a man wearing a white sheet jumped out from behind the sofa, making her scream. With her heart thumping erratically in her chest, she rounded on the man. At least, she assumed it was a man. ‘Who the hell are you?’

He removed the sheet from his head, revealing a shock of jet-black hair. Definitely a man. He couldn’t be more than late twenties. He was also extremely good-looking. But that was beside the point. He’d frightened the life out of her. ‘I could ask you the same question.’

She was saved from answering when both kids ran at her. ‘Auntie Charlie!’

Amongst hugs and kisses and jumping up and down, she was dragged further into the room. ‘Okay, okay, calm down. I’m pleased to see you too.’

The man ran a hand through his static-ridden hair, easing it back into shape. He looked like a big kid: his blue T-shirt tired and worn, his jeans ripped and low-slung.

She forced her gaze away from his shapely arms. ‘Where’s my sister?’ she asked, her tone pricklier than she’d intended, but she was still reeling from being startled.

His face was flushed, no doubt from the exertion of running. ‘She’s working at the café. I’m keeping the kids occupied until her shift finishes.’

Florence enveloped Charlotte in a hug, her tiny arms gripping her aunt’s waist. ‘Do you want to play Frozen with us, Auntie Charlie?’

Charlotte patted her niece’s head. ‘Not just now, Florence. Maybe later.’

The man extended his hand. ‘I’m Olaf,’ he said, making both kids squeal with laughter.

Charlotte looked at him quizzically. ‘Are you trying to be funny?’

He rolled his eyes. ‘And failing, obviously.’ His hand was still outstretched. ‘Barney.’

She accepted his offer of an introduction, ignoring the warmth in his grip. ‘Thank you for minding the children, but I’ll take it from here.’

He raised an eyebrow. ‘I’d prefer to wait until Lauren gets back.’

She felt herself frown. ‘And I’d prefer it if you left.’ Again, she sounded rude, but she didn’t appreciate the way he was checking her out … at least, she was pretty certain she didn’t.

He let out a low whistle. ‘Are you sure you’re Lauren’s sister?’

Ignoring what she suspected was an insult, she removed herself from Florence’s grasp and unzipped her handbag. ‘How much?’

Barney, or whatever his name was, looked puzzled. ‘I’m sorry?’

She opened her purse. ‘I don’t know what the going rate is for childminding.’

He laughed, but it wasn’t a humorous sound. ‘Are you kidding me?’

Charlotte rubbed her temple. God, her head hurt. She should have stopped off to buy more painkillers. ‘Do I look like someone who kids?’

He shoved his bare feet into a pair of flip-flops. ‘Nope, can’t say that you do.’

She caught a glimpse of Calvin Klein boxers when he hoisted up his jeans.

He beckoned the kids over and gave them a hug. ‘See you soon, trouble-twins.’

‘Not if we see you first, Hubble-trouble,’ the children chorused in unison.

Charlotte couldn’t follow what they were saying. Were they speaking Cornish?

Amongst laughter and play-fighting, the children waved him off, his popularity evident. Hers, she suspected, was still in doubt.

When he was gone, she moved to unbutton her jacket … only to discover it was already unbuttoned. When had she done that?

Straightening her shoulders, she mentally ticked off all the jobs that needed doing in the flat. ‘Good, well, now he’s gone, why don’t we tidy up ready for when Mummy gets home?’

Both children swivelled to look at her, their mouths open, their foreheads creasing into frowns like something from The Exorcist.

What had she said …?