A hand wrapped around my arm. Heart thudding, I turned to find Sarah looking at me, worry etched in her high, pale forehead. ‘Isla?’
An enormous pressure was building within my chest. ‘I … I just … need to go.’
‘Okay,’ she told me. ‘Okay.’
I spun round, crossed the living room and raced along the hallway, bursting out of the back door. A blast of cool air hit me, and I ran with my head down, my red pumps flashing along the damp pavement in quick bursts of colour, like a heartbeat.
Some time later, I found myself at the quay, my dress stuck to the small of my back, my breath coming hard. I gripped the metal railing, sucking in the salt-tinged air.
The beach huts sat quietly on the distant sandbank, a comforting presence with their pastel-light colours cutting through the grey, rolling sky. When the harbour ferry arrived, I didn’t pause to think about the guests abandoned in my home, or worry that Sarah would be left to lock up; I simply climbed aboard.
Within minutes, I was standing on the shoreline of the sandbank before a grey, restless sea. Tears ran down my face, dripping from my chin into the neckline of my dress. I had no coat, not even a cardigan, and I could feel the cold beginning to seep into my bones as I hugged my arms around myself, shivering into my sobs. When the first drops of rain began to fall, I stood firm thinking I could outlast them – that I would dance in the face of the cold, of the rain, my grief burning like heat inside me – but after a few minutes, the dark romance of the idea waned, and I hurried for cover beneath the pitched wooden roof of a beach hut.
Sheltering from the rain, I noticed a handwritten advert was tacked to the window, the blue ink faded: Beach hut for sale.
I stepped back, considering the hut. It had once been painted a brilliant blue, but the paint had peeled and flaked over the years. In places the wood had rotted, and the deck I was standing on had moulded in the corners, long fingers of dune grass reaching up beneath the planks.
There was a small gap at the base of the blinds, and I pressed my face against the damp glass, peering in. Through the dimness, I could see the deckchairs, a barbecue and a windbreak cluttering the small space. A sun-bleached sofa bed was piled with a rabble of patterned cushions. Above it was a driftwood shelf that had been emptied of the previous owner’s belongings, hardened candlewax pooled in two spots. At the back of the hut there was a small kitchen area with an ancient gas oven and a two-ringed hob. An old wooden spice rack was tacked to the wall, and an array of mugs hung from hooks below it. The mismatch of colours and patterns reminded me of my mother’s bungalow – and I wanted it.
I wanted that beach hut more than I’d ever wanted anything.
I could picture it: the hut would be a place to retreat to; somewhere I could rebuild myself; a place where I could watch the weather moving across the horizon and begin to make fresh memories.
As I stood on the deck of that old hut with the roar of the sea at my ear and the fresh breath of salt air on my skin, the sandbank seemed to stretch around me, holding me tightly, anchoring me.
Back then, I had been certain that buying the beach hut was the right decision. I used the money from the sale of my mother’s bungalow, though everyone had told me I was mad. Keep the inheritance in brick-built property – not a beach hut! But I was nineteen. I didn’t want mortgage repayments, council tax bills, or responsibility. I wanted the sea. I wanted space. I wanted to do something for myself.
Summers I’d live in the beach hut. Winters I’d rent one of the cheap holiday lets that always stood empty in the winter months.
It was a plan. It was the best I could do.
‘Go for it!’ Sarah had said to me as we ate Chinese takeaway sitting on the floor of my mother’s bungalow, surrounded by boxes marked for charity shops. ‘That’s what your mother would have told you to do, isn’t it?’
I nodded because she was right.
I remember how Sarah had put down her plate and slung her arm around my shoulder, pulling me in close. ‘The beach hut will be a fresh start, Isla. It’s going to change everything.’
Sarah was right about that, too.
DAY ONE, 6 P.M.
I pour a large glass of wine and drink it watching the clock on the hut wall. Alone in the beach hut, the ticks seem to sharpen the silence. Still no Jacob. The panic is growing louder and louder, like an insistent guest who won’t be silenced.
My phone beeps with a message. I snatch it from the kitchen side, stabbing at the screen – but it’s just a text from a friend about her upcoming fortieth. I don’t bother reading the full message. Instead I check the call log on my mobile and see I’ve rung Jacob a dozen times today – and each time I’ve been greeted by the same recorded message telling me I can’t be connected.
I gulp back my wine, then pour a second glass, reminding myself to drink it more slowly.
All day I’ve been hoping that Jacob will roll in at any moment – but it’s six o’clock now. I try to breathe slowly, but a rising tide of fear is building in my chest as I look at the facts: I haven’t seen or heard from Jacob in almost twenty-four hours. He didn’t stay at Luke’s hut after the party, and he didn’t stay with Caz, either. There’s no possibility that he could have gone back to our family home since it’s rented out for the summer. So where the hell is he?
A movement on the shoreline captures my attention. I narrow my gaze, focusing on the figure. I recognize the long, loping strides, the slight roundness of the shoulders: Isaac. He must sense my gaze on him because his stride abruptly falters and he turns to face this direction. He’s too far away to make out his expression, but I know he is watching me. Watching this hut.
I swallow, turning away.
I give myself a moment, then I pick up my mobile and call Nick.
He answers to a rush of noise and I guess he’s in the car with the windows down.
‘You driving?’
‘Yes. Only just left Bristol.’
I hear the electric whine of the windows being closed. ‘It went on that long?’
‘Yeah,’ he says, and I can’t tell whether his tone suggests it was a good pitch or not.
I picture him in his shirt and tie, his jacket thrown across the back seat. He’ll have undone his top button and pushed up his sleeves. He’ll park near the quay, then catch the ferry to the sandbank. He loves the unusual commute, tells me it’s his wind-down time in the evenings – allows him to shake off the day. When I see him striding across the beach in his shirt and tie – everyone else in flip-flops and cotton shorts – I feel a swell of pride that he’s mine.
For three months of the summer, we rent out our house and move into the beach hut. We used to go back and forth between the house and hut, but for the past couple of summers we’ve stayed solely on the sandbank. It’s a huge amount of work having to clear out the wardrobes and cupboards of our home, and lock away our possessions in the garage. Jacob thinks we do it so we can spend more time at the beach, but the truth is, we need the money.
I know Nick will be expecting me to ask how his pitch went, but I need to tell him about Jacob first. ‘Listen, it’s probably nothing, but I haven’t seen Jacob since last night.’ My words sound more clipped than I’d intended.