The morning sun is warm and soft on their skin as Lottie, Tim and Josh pick their way along the beach, enjoying the relative peace and quiet before the crowds descend. This has always been Lottie’s favourite part of the day, when everything still feels new and fresh and nothing has had chance to ruin it yet.
She wishes she could let things roll off her like other people do; her friends, her husband. Sometimes she thinks it’s because she cares too much, feels things keenly. Often she wonders how others seem to sleepwalk through their lives without being aware of all the issues, the wrongs, the injustices in the world. Or if they are, they turn a blind eye, safe in the knowledge it will never affect them in their safe, comfortable world. But then, as she and Tim know only too well, speaking out, protesting, doesn’t always end well.
Lottie takes a couple of deep lungfuls of the clean, tangy air and refuses to follow this train of thought any further. She will enjoy this moment, try to be in it fully for once. The tide is out right now and it means that the three of them can potter, shoes and socks in a bag, poking into rock pools, examining sand worms, picking up driftwood and bladderwrack. They only have the odd dog walker for company, a couple of early risers out for their daily constitutional, and of course the omnipresent gulls. Josh’s new trick is to face up to them on the sand, shooing them away, as they regard him warily with beady eyes.
‘No, naughty bird. Go ’way, seagull!’
As the sun creeps higher in the sky and the heat intensifies, the beach begins to fill up while the tide comes in, tempting bathers. A paddleboard lesson is taking place further up the beach and Lottie briefly remembers all the fun activities she and Tim used to do before they became parents.
‘Time to go, I guess,’ she says, turning to her husband and son. Tim has arranged several different shells in a row and as he holds each one up to Josh, he says its name.
‘Razor clam, cockle, whelk …’
Sometimes, she wishes Tim would stop trying to educate their son every second of the day. But then, guilty again, she banishes this disloyal thought.
‘Let’s see if we can have a look at the boats, shall we?’ she says to Josh, trying to offset the predictable protest from her son at leaving.
She and Tim stroll back up the beach, each taking the hand of their child and swinging him between them, as he emits a squeal of happiness each time his feet lift off the ground. It has been a perfect morning, thinks Lottie and she refuses to consider what awaits them back at their holiday let.
As she begins to climb the steps up to the street level, her attention is caught by a familiar figure. It is the woman she saw the other day. The one with the guy who has started working on the renovation next door. Petras, she believes he was called. She watches the woman for a moment. At first glance, all appears normal but then Lottie sees that she is in fact standing in her bra and knickers, not a bikini, and is using the communal shower, the public one provided for beach users. By her feet are a couple of plastic bags tied together. Hastily, she shampoos her hair with a bar of soap and rubs under her arms, looking about her warily. Her skin is so pale, it is almost translucent and the notches of her sternum, her backbone and ribs, stand out prominently. The woman looks up and stares at Lottie defiantly before turning her back and sluicing her face as the timed water jet cuts out again.
They continue to meander slowly back, through the cobbled streets and alleyways. Lottie is distracted, silently listening to Tim and Josh’s inane babble as she considers the foreign couple; who they are, where they came from and how they have found themselves in such desperate straits. Only the rich, gushing voice of Olivia Woolf — she had discovered her full name after another heated conversation with the foreman the other day — breaks through to her consciousness as she spots her further up the street. Why is it so difficult to avoid these people?
Lottie pauses to watch as Olivia steps out of a local shop, one which has been boarded up since they arrived. It looks like it used to be an old fishmonger’s but is now derelict. She is speaking into her phone in her usual high, breathy tones. Her hair is down today and a woven section of colourful silk thread glints in the sunshine. She is wearing a linen jumpsuit and leather sandals, which wind halfway up her calves, her enormous tie-dyed beach bag slung over one shoulder. She’s just a bit of an old hippie really, isn’t she, thinks Lottie. The type who probably had a long gap year in Thailand or India, fully funded by her family, and came back smelling of patchouli while telling everyone that she had truly found herself.
‘I’ve just been taking some measurements,’ Olivia says excitedly. ‘It’s going to be perfect, darling. Especially if you could give me a hand with it at some point. Make sure it’s all on point.’ She laughs into her phone. ‘Okay, well I’ll let you go if you’re busy but let’s talk more when we can get the chance. Kisses.’
Lottie stands, open-mouthed, assessing the situation as she watches Olivia loping off down the road in the direction of her hotel.
‘Did you hear that?’ she says to Tim, catching up to him and Josh.
‘Hear what?’ he says, busily counting out the names and numbers of each cottage and B & B they pass by.
‘That woman again.’
Tim looks confused for a moment and she tries to swallow her impatience. Josh has started whining for an ice cream as he spies the corner shop nearby, pulling on his father’s arm like a chain.
‘Okay, okay,’ she capitulates and Josh gives a cheer of triumph.
Inside the shop, Josh points to the Mr Whippy machine and Tim says ‘one please’ to the owner. It is the nice, chatty woman who Lottie spoke to the other morning and they both smile at each other in recognition.
‘Hello again,’ Jan says, her broad face beaming. ‘Is this your lovely family you were telling me about?’
‘Yes,’ answers Lottie with a smile and turns to Tim. ‘I came in here the other day, after my run.’
He nods absentmindedly as Jan takes a cone and turns towards the soft-serve machine.
‘Sorry, what were you on about before, babe?’ asks Tim as they all watch the soft curl of ice cream as it builds on the wafer. Josh is smacking his lips theatrically.
‘Oh, just that woman. The one who is renovating the place next door to us with her pig of a husband. Didn’t you see her coming out of the old fishmonger’s shop? It sounds like she’s taken it over and is doing it up.’
The ice cream gives a wobble and the shopkeeper curses softly as it slops over the edges.
‘So what?’ says Tim.
‘So, doesn’t it madden you to see people like that buying up the town, monopolising everything?’
Tim shrugs.
