Our Holiday by Louise Candlish

Author:Louise Candlish [Candlish, Louise]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: HarperCollinsPublishers
Published: 2024-09-15T00:00:00+00:00

36

Beattie

She gathered up her bag, beach blankets and towel and stepped out onto the deck of the Niche.

‘Mind, darling!’ her mum cried out. ‘The paint’s wet!’

‘Like, obviously,’ Beattie said, irritated. ‘You’re literally painting right now.’

She didn’t have a problem with her mum redoing the exterior so quickly – she was obsessed and crazy and it kept her attention off Beattie – but it did mean she hadn’t been able to invite Tate round, which had led to a last-minute scramble for an alternative location. She’d wondered about the Nook – Benedict had told her where the spare key was, in a weird super-discreet way that made Beattie think Tabitha must have told him about Tate – but when she wandered down to the Tuckers’ she found that was being painted as well, by Perry.

‘Come to lend a hand?’ he’d asked her.

Seriously, it was like the oldsters had no idea what a holiday was.

Luckily Tate had had a suggestion: the old pillbox on the far side of the Meadow, which she very much hoped wasn’t going to smell of pee.

‘Aren’t you going the wrong way for the beach?’ her mum called after her.

‘I’m going to sit in the Meadow for a bit. Do some reading.’

‘Have you got sunscreen on? It’s deceptively breezy along there.’

‘I don’t burn,’ Beattie said.

‘It doesn’t mean you won’t damage your skin. You’ll regret it later.’

‘That’s like your motto, Mum. You’ll regret it later.’

Her mum looked hurt and Beattie felt briefly guilty. She needed to go or she risked Tate coming along too closely behind her and her mum noticing. She might put two and two together and make four for once.

‘Don’t forget you’re having my pedicure at The Needles. Three o’clock. There’s no way I’ll be finished here in time.’

‘Okay.’ Now she felt even more guilty.

‘If they ask, you’re eighteen.’

A few minutes later, she arrived at the pillbox, a grey concrete thing clinging to the cliff edge, with a horizontal lookout slit. There was no door and so when Tate arrived, they had sex standing up just inside. He kept craning his neck to the side every so often to check the gap for hikers, which was weird and distracting and she was relieved when it was over and they could just sit on her blankets and chat.

‘Can you smell something funny?’ she said.

‘Like what?’

‘Like bodies. But not, you know, ours?’

‘It’s always smelled like this,’ he said wrinkling his nose, which made him look cute and boyish. ‘Must’ve been thousands of people hooking up in here over the years. Shooting up, sometimes, as well.’

‘That’s so grim.’ A slant of sunlight fell through the slit onto their bare feet and noticing her chipped toenails, she had an unwelcome thought. ‘I’ve got a pedicure at The Needles after this – you don’t think it will be Ellie doing it, do you?’

At their family’s last drinks with the Tuckers, before the dads had fallen out, Charlotte had mentioned how the girl who’d done her facial that day had been moaning about her boyfriend never being around and it had to have been Ellie.

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