‘If only,’ Martha said with a mock-groan.
‘True. But if you ask me – which I know you’re not – you are far, far prettier than his, um, latest squeeze.’
‘Well, thank you, kind sir,’ Martha said, unable to stop a smile creeping to the corners of her mouth. ‘I’ll take that as a compliment.’
‘Please do.’
Martha felt her smile widen.
‘That’s better. Cliché alert – you’re even prettier when you smile.’
‘Thank you again, kind sir.’ Martha laughed. ‘I know I’ve not done enough of it lately. But I’ll need to go now. My coffee’s gone cold and…’
‘I could make you another,’ Hugh said. He gave Martha a big grin, the strength of it rippling the skin beside his eyes. ‘I’m in dire need of a coffee myself after my run. Stay right there,’ he went on, wagging a finger playfully at her. ‘I’ll be right back.’
Before Martha could find breath to reply, Hugh had loped and limped his way back up the steps.
Martha considered simply getting up and going back to her own chalet, because although she didn’t think Hugh was a controlling sort of man in any way, she didn’t know him well enough to really judge. And it had felt as though it was an order he’d issued just now.
But she stayed. She was safe enough here on a public beach and, as far as she could tell, Hugh didn’t have a camera of any sort with him. She folded up the newspaper and put it underneath her beach towel and waited.
Hugh was soon back. He’d put two mugs of black coffee, a small jug of milk, some tubes of sugar and a packet of Hobnobs on a tray.
‘Could you hang on to that while I sit back down?’ he asked. ‘Only I get a bit of a balance issue now and then from the leg and I wouldn’t want to shower you with it.’
‘Of course,’ Martha said, reaching up to take the tray.
Hugh sat back down and took the tray from her.
‘How do you take your poison?’
‘Black, no sugar, thanks,’ Martha said.
‘Ah,’ Hugh said, ‘we have the same impeccable taste in coffee.’
‘Indeed we do,’ Martha said, accepting her coffee and holding it to her in both hands. How civilised this was, just yards from their chalets, nothing between them and the horizon except shell-strewn sand and some strings of seaweed left by the tide.
‘I hope you don’t mind,’ Hugh said, ‘but I’ve brought my phone. I don’t take it with me when I’m out running in case it falls out of my pocket.’ He placed the tray on the sand beside him and took out a top-of-the-range phone from the pocket of his shorts. ‘So many interesting things in the sand to take photographs of.’
Martha heard her own sharp intake of breath, like a gunshot in her ears. Of course, people took pictures with phones as well as cameras, and phones could be so slim and so easy to hide. A shiver of unease wriggled between her shoulder blades.
‘But no photos of you. Promise,’ Hugh said. ‘I think I could work out where your thought processes were going there!’
‘More than likely.’ Martha laughed nervously. She sipped at her coffee – very good coffee she was pleased and surprised to note. But she wanted the focus off her for the moment, so she asked: ‘What sort of photographs do you take? And sell, presumably?’
‘How long have you got?’
‘Until I’ve finished this coffee?’ Martha quipped – gosh, how good that felt, to make a joke.
‘Right. Well. Best drink slowly! I do wildlife photography and sell it to book publishers and magazines. Newspapers. I take landscape photographs for the same outlets. Both here and abroad for all of that. Most of that is commissioned but I also sell to photo-banks and agencies, and I have no jurisdiction over where those photos go. When cash flow has been stagnant I’ve done engagement parties, weddings – both in the UK and exotic beach locations, local theatre productions, that sort of thing. Enough to be going on with?’
‘Yes. Thank you,’ Martha said. She had a feeling she knew what sort of photographs Hugh might take that went to photo-banks and agencies over which he didn’t have, as he’d said, jurisdiction: photos of celebrities being where they ought not to have been, and with people they ought not to have been with. But it was only a feeling – she had no proof.
‘And do you know something, Martha?’ Hugh went on. ‘I’ve had all-expenses-paid trips to Bali and Bondi Beach, various Greek Island beaches and countless places in Spain, and it’s always puzzled me as to why people bother to go all that way when we have perfectly lovely beaches in this country. I mean, look at this one.’
Martha looked. Indeed it did look magnificent with the sun shining, the sea, as she looked out towards Torquay at one side of the bay and Brixham at the other, appeared as though someone had scattered a million diamonds over it. Seagulls dipped and dived on the thermals and a cormorant dived for fish, then reappeared a few seconds later some way from where it had gone down.
‘On a day like today, yes,’ Martha said. ‘I suppose people go abroad for the guaranteed sunshine.’
‘Ah!’ Hugh said. ‘Not always guaranteed, I’m afraid. A friend’s wedding I covered in Bali was rained off completely – monsoon didn’t come into it! I could set up some wonderful shots here. The bride, barefoot, with her skirt hoisted to her knees, dipping a toe in to test the water for a paddle, with the groom holding her firmly by the waist, his trousers rolled up over his calves, so she doesn’t stumble.’
Goodness, what a romantic, Martha thought. Was there a significant woman in his life, she wondered, but wasn’t going to ask. They were only ships passing in the night here, weren’t they? Hugh was healing and she was, too, in a way.
‘I say,’ Hugh said, scooping up a handful of sand and shells and letting the sand sift through his fingers. ‘Could I borrow a corner of your towel to photograph these? The stripes are sharp and the navy against the white of the shells will be a perfect backdrop.’
‘Be my guest,’ Martha said, and edged a little further away as Hugh moved towards her, making space for his photoshoot.
‘What I’ll do,’ Hugh said, ‘is lay the shells in a line down the navy stripes. See, some of them have little swirls of long-discarded egg cases encrusted on them. And this one has got a frond of seaweed so firmly attached to it it’s going to take more than my strength to pull it off.’
‘It’s like a hat,’ Martha said. ‘Or a fascinator.’
‘Exactly that. And this one is so perfect it’s like one half of a pigeon’s egg. And just as delicate.’ Hugh handed the shell to Martha, placing it gently on her palm when she held out her hand to take it.
‘Exquisite,’ Martha said. And it was. She knew beaches were always covered in shells from which the living beings had long gone, but she’d never stopped to examine any of them in detail as Hugh was now.
She watched, in silence, as Hugh took photograph after photograph, so absorbed in what he was doing now that he didn’t speak either. For Martha it was a comfortable silence.
‘I’ll photoshop them later,’ Hugh said, holding his phone towards Martha. ‘But you get the gist.’
Martha was surprised to find Hugh had taken at least twenty photos of the shells against the backdrop of her beach towel. They were all of the same thing and yet they all looked different.
‘I’d buy a card – a postcard or birthday card – with any one of these on it,’ she said.
‘Now, there’s a