I tear off the veil and run out onto the street after him. But he is gone into the night.
3
KENT
The Broadgate lidowas once fabulous. An incredible art deco building curved to mimic the bow of a ship overlooks a pool and a set of surf-beaten stairs that snake down a short, white cliff to the sea. The stone-and-concrete-clad facade looks sun-bleached white against the blue sky, reminiscent of something more at home in Mykonos and the Aegean Sea when the weather is just right. But the chalky white cliff face, rising right out of the sea, and tufts of green grasses below it make it feel distinctly southern English.
The pool overlooks a bay where seventy-three brightly colored beach huts sit like shards of rock candy along a promenade leading all the way to the only real night spot, the Star and Anchor pub, at the other headland.
The lido was built in the 1930s to draw the crowds away from Brighton and Ramsgate, but then the pool was swiftly shut during the Second World War and didn’t reopen until the late fifties. Itnever really lived up to its potential and was now a crumbling relic of the past, almost too fragile to transform.Almost.To me, it was like the pearl in the oyster of this postcard-perfect town.
I push open the double doors, yawning from my late flight back from Hungary, the uncomfortable airport hotel bed, the early-morning train to Broadgate, and finally, the cab from the train station straight to work. The wheels of my suitcase make a loud grinding noise on the original black-and-white terrazzo tiled floor. I look up as I always do, at the huge and elaborate rounded roof, with the stained-glass circular center. It may not be the biggest lido on the English coast, but its original features are the best.
Today, though, I barely take notice. I’m floating on clouds because I cannot stop thinking about Joe. I’ve been reliving each moment of the night before in my head, my stomach fluttering deliciously, and I can’t wait to tell another human.
As I approach the front desk, the fumes from the freshly chlorinated pool hit my nose first, then my eyes, followed by the lingering scent of stale sweat on plastic. Like the red stain of tomato soup on an old Tupperware container, this stench is permanent.
“You really notice it when you’ve been away,” I say to Samira, screwing my nose up.
“Hi, Mara,” Samira says, not looking up from her phone, “how was the trip, then?”
Samira is our receptionist, which involves taking money from, on average, fifty-two people a day, most of whom are discounted pensioners at one pound a dip. She is also indifferent toward me, since I had repeatedly turned down her offers to hang out when I’d first arrived. It wasn’ther. It was me. I was not someone who made friends easily or readily anymore, and after a while, she stopped asking. But last week, Venus entered Cancer and I amembracing a period of compassion, empathy, and love for my fellow humans.
“It was truly incredible, Samira,” I reply, smiling broadly.
That gets her attention.
“Budapest?” she says. “I always thought of Budapest as a sort of I’ve-done-everywhere-else destination. Like Finland. Or North Wales.”
“Oh no,” I say, “it’s very cool. The Paris of the East.”
“Is it, though?” she asks, her lip curling slightly, before she looks back at her phone.
I push the metal revolving gates and they turn with a heavythunk, and then I make my way up the round staircase that snakes upward into our office space.
“Good morning, Nina!” says Gerry Walker, who joins me on the stairs but doesn’t offer to help with my suitcase. Gerry is the general manager of the lido and three other council-owned properties in Broadgate and its surrounds. He is here at least one day a week, though, much to the irritation of the rest of us.
“Mara,” I mutter to myself, tired of correcting him.
“Senior memberships are up zero point three percent,” he says, slicking his thinning blond hair back. He adjusts his tie and then looks at me as if he’s waiting for a response, activating a large, beaming, denture-filled smile. Gerry is the kind of man you feel is always one mouse click away from accidently exposing himself on a Zoom call.
“Oh really?” I reply as I lug my case up the final step and stop for a moment’s rest, in the hope he leaves. Gerry gives me these little nuggets of so-called good news on occasion, since, as a bookkeeper, I’m the one who sees the (hardly any) money that comes into and goes out of this place. I’m also the one who questions theanomalies in the books. He knows I know there is something amiss. And I know he knows I know. But I’ve long since stopped commenting on the crisis. A zero-point-three percent increase in memberships wouldn’t even fund a fix for the broken art deco tiles in the ladies’ changing room.
“That’s great news, Gerry,” I say, forcing a smile and dragging my case off toward my desk.
When I was interviewed for the job as bookkeeper, Lynn, the duty manager, oversold the potential. I dreamed I would be part of the lido’s transformation, arriving here with a bag full of energy and optimistic ideas. Fresh paint jobs, an alcohol license for events and functions, a Great Gatsby–style fundraising ball, a terrace café with sweeping views of the coast. But now I have fallen into line with everyone else who works here. Apathy and disillusion have firmly set in.
My desk sits next to the big windows overlooking the pool, its gleaming turquoise water rippling over white tiles, so inviting, so calm, compared to the dark and wild ocean it overlooks. The view is quite something. If a soul needed lifting, it could surely be done watching the greater black-backed gulls dive for fish behind the cresting waves on a warm summer’s day.
“Hi, Lynn,” I say as I slide into my desk.
Lynn is not just the duty manager, if anyone asks; she also oversees the local graffiti task force, the Mocha Mamas summer-fun playgroup, and the staff social club, among several other local community groups she’s always encouraging me to join. She’s broad and tall, with pink cheeks and short burgundy hair, and wears the same navy blue blazer every day. On her lapel, an ever-growing collection of pins—a St. George’s Cross flag,Girl Boss, a raised solidarity fist,Top Totty, and a pride rainbow.
“Hey, Mara,” she replies, unable to resist a brief glance at her watch. “You look happy as a clam. Nice weekend away, then?”
“Yes,” I say, and then I take a deep breath. I could tell Lynn. She would do. “I met someone.”
“You met someone?” she says. “Properly, though? Not one of these people on an app? You can never be sure of them. Could be a codfish. Could be anything these days. He’s not Hungarian, is he?” To this she screws up her nose, and then with a flash of self-awareness insists, “You can’t have a long-distance relationship, and we’ve left the EU now. I’m just thinking practically here.”
