Page 66 of A Summer Scandal

‘Ah, come off it, Glad. You boycotted their wedding.’

That was news. Vi decided that she’d had enough; her fuse was growing shorter every day lately.

‘Did you come for anything specific, Gladys, or just to stir trouble?’

Keris looked at Vi, wide-eyed at her uncharacteristic bluntness, and Gladys turned slowly to look at her too.

‘I came to officially inform you that in light of the imminent threat to civil order,’ she tapped Beau’s leaflet, ‘I’m filing the compulsory purchase order application with the authorities this afternoon on grounds of gross public indecency.’

‘It’s an awards ceremony,’ Vi sighed.

‘With live sex. This is Swallow Beach, not Amsterdam.’

The Lady Mayoress snatched up her clipboard and huffed out, elbowing Keris out of the way as she went. Violet didn’t follow her. Gladys wasn’t interested in listening to the truth; she’d spotted an angle she thought might work to turn the locals against the pier and she was going to run with it as far and as fast as she could.

‘No fire-eaters. Absolutelynofire-eaters, Beau, I mean it.’

Beau put his hands up and laughed, clearly enjoying winding Violet up. They were having an impromptu lunch meeting in the sunshine on the pier; Keris had just returned from a sandwich run and they were all making the most of the afternoon sunshine.

So far Beau had suggested synchronised divers off the edge of the pier, a naked contortionist and now a troupe of fire-eaters he knew from Kent. Violet knew that he was winding her up after she’d taken him to task over his flyer, but she was struggling to laugh it off because Gladys wasn’t without local influence or importance.

‘I’m just kidding,’ Beau said. ‘It’ll be a classy affair, I promise.’

‘Like that Tom Cruise movie,’ Lucy said, unwrapping her chicken salad.

‘Cocktail?’ Violet guessed.

Lucy shook her head. ‘No, the one with masks and spanking.’

‘You could be the official photographer for the evening, Luce,’ Beau said, offering her half of his Kit-Kat. It hadn’t escaped Vi’s notice that Beau and Lucy were developing quite a close friendship, and Charlie seemed to have a bit of a hero-worship thing going on for the American too. He hung out in Beau’s workshop more than his mum’s whenever he came by the pier after school lately, his big infectious teenage laugh carrying around the birdcage like a breath of fresh air.

‘There better not be masks and spanking, I mean it Beau.’

‘Chill out Vi,’ he said, shoulder-bumping her. ‘Cal’s mother’s all hot air.’

‘You didn’t say that when she chained the gates together,’ Vi said.

‘Or when she set up a one-woman picket line on open day,’ Keris said, lying back on her elbows and turning her face up to the sun. ‘Who needs Portugal when we have days like this one.’

It was a reference to the fact that Cal was in Portugal, with Ursula of course. They’d been there for a week now; a bolt of fury streaked through Vi’s body at the thought of them rekindling their love in the sunshine. Would he make love to her in the sea? A tiny part of Vi’s heart turned black at the thought of it.

Was this how it felt to be in an affair with a married man? Forever fantasising about what he was doing, if he was happy, if he and his wife were at that very moment hanging from the chandeliers. It was a deeply unsettling state to be in. Violet couldn’t even imagine how much harder it had been for her grandmother with the added complication of her own marriage as well as her lover’s, not to mention the fact that she had a child in the mix to think of. Vi could only imagine that T must have been one hell of a guy to be worth all of that risk.

Up on the beach they could see the day unfolding; families with young children paddling, older couples reading the paper, serious sun-worshippers grabbing a few rays. Lucy raised the camera that was always present around her neck and fired off a few shots; it looked like a quintessentially English seaside postcard.

None of them saw the lone figure watching them, the incoming danger.

CHAPTER TWENTY

There was only one funeral directors in Swallow Beach. The old doorbell chimed as Vi pushed the door open on Garland and Sons a couple of mornings later, and a short, balding guy in his thirties appeared behind the desk. He favoured her with a small smile, welcoming and suitably sympathetic, clearly an expression he’d perfected across the years.

‘Can I help you?’

Vi swallowed, unsure if he could. ‘I’ve come about my grandmother.’

‘Ah,’ he said. ‘Has she passed away recently?’

‘Well, no, not exactly,’ Vi said, biting the inside of her lip. ‘She died in 1978.’

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