Petras leans forward.
‘Take care, lady,’ he urges her.
‘Lottie,’ she reminds him. ‘And you take care too, Petras,’ she says, giving the builders one last sweeping look.
21
Marcus wanders along the coast road, trying to stay well away from the hotel. He wished to put as much distance between himself and Olivia’s kids as possible earlier. The last thing he wanted was to be embroiled in a conversation with Bella, especially with her mother present.
He keeps to the cooler side of the road where the slim pavement is still in shade as it hugs the holiday cottages and B & Bs. Each property is painted a different pastel colour; blue, pink, lemon, pistachio. Perhaps there should be a special range of paint in B&Q named Seaside Cottage and he sniggers inwardly at the clichéd confection of it all.
Lifting a hand to his forehead, he feels he is sweating. He’s not sure whether it’s the heat of the day, already building to a seasonal high, or the vodka he drank last night with Bella, seeping out of his dehydrated skin. He had to do a cheeky line before breakfast just to make it down on time to meet Tobias in the foyer.
He’s not sure how he feels about staying here for the next few days and in the same hotel as well. It makes him feel cooped up, penned in, claustrophobic. To be so close to all the Woolfs. At their beck and call, in so many different ways. If it isn’t Olivia messaging him at all times of the day and night about her new business venture, how she is planning their rosy future down here together, it’s the daughter, Bella, pestering him for another late-night hook-up. And that’s without the added stress of Tobias insisting he’s on site the whole day.
What really irritates him, though, is the fact that Tobias is rushing the project. The guy has no idea how difficult it is to get a good finish with such cheap labour costs. And now he’s cutting back on the schedule as well. Marcus doesn’t do rough and ready and when it comes to this build he really wants it to be perfect, no matter how long it takes. He wonders if there’s a way he could delay the renovation a little. Just until the summer season is over and Tobias is back in London and out of his hair. That way he could complete things to his own standards without that hot-headed idiot breathing down his neck.
He turns the corner and begins the steep climb up and out of the bay towards the house. His shirt is already drenched in sweat and he’s regretting the several black coffees earlier. Nipping into the local minimart, he buys a large bottle of water. Back outside, he takes a long pull on the drink and feels its coldness snaking itself down within his body. He even cups his hands to splash a little over his face and neck. Better, he thinks, and continues the upward march towards the building site.
He considers the scaffolding, clinging to the exterior of the house, visible now on the crest of the hill. How Tobias had mentioned that he wanted to have it taken down as soon as possible, once the roof was finished. Marcus is not entirely sure, but he thinks there are still one or two jobs to do up there. It might be the excuse he’s looking for.
And then his mind flits back to the previous evening, how he and Bella had sat out there, watching the night sky, exchanging secrets – well, only hers actually. The thing is, she’s not a bad kid really. Neither of them are, which is a miracle given the parents and their upbringing. It just goes to show: all the money, privilege and expensive schooling in the world doesn’t make you happy. Though it certainly helps.
He falters at the memory of Bella dropping to her knees suddenly in front of him, undoing his belt before he even had chance to know what was happening. How desperate forrecognition, affection must that girl be to do such a thing with a relative stranger? In that moment she had seemed so young, so naive and yet when they were up on the roof discussing her parents she had talked with such a tragic cynicism. She had seemed old beyond her years. But then she had looked up at him with those doe eyes – just like her mother’s – smiled at him with that sulky mouth. Even without the vodka, it would have made his head spin. But he must be careful. He can’t let anything like that take place between them again. It doesn’t matter how cute she is, the fact he’s only just met her. At the end of the day, she’s Tobias’s daughter. Which means she’s also his half-sister.
22
Tobias peers out of one of the upper windows of the house, overlooking the back garden. He can see that the woman staying next door has returned with her husband and son; the proverbial thorn in his side. He had received an email from the landlord of their Airbnb the other day, politely requesting that they be as considerate as possible to holiday guests during peak season and asking that they try to keep the disturbance to a minimum out of courtesy for the local community.
He had quickly fired off a terse reply informing the landlord that they were quite within their rights to carry out planned building works, for which they had gained permission from the council. Okay, so they had recently contravened the rules a little at the weekend. But he has no intention of slowing down the build for anyone. Even if it is very nearly September. He can’t wait for the bank holiday fireworks on Saturday night, by which time this lot will have slung their hook.
Squinting further, he continues to watch the woman. What’s she called again? Lottie? That’s right, and her husband, Tim. Jenkins is the name. He’d looked them up online and found them both on LinkedIn. A charity worker and a teacher, respectively. God, he can feel his lip curling at the thought. The pair of them are clearly the worst kind of left-leaning liberal snowflakes, spouting the usual woke nonsense you hear these days. As he observes Lottie talking to the new chap who’s just joined the build, he nods to himself, fully vindicated. Point proven.
Apparently, Bill was telling him, there had been a bit of a kerfuffle when she had blown her lid and thrown one of the lads’ gadgets into the road, just because she didn’t like the sound of the music they were playing. Clearly batshit. And yet, here she is, all smiles and chatty with Johnny Foreigner when she can hardly bring herself to be civil to the locals. Guardian-reading fishwife, he thinks with a shake of his head. He is about to bang on the window when she says her goodbyes and moves off into the house. Good. His men have got a job to do, after all, and he’s not paying them to stand around exchanging pleasantries.
He turns back to the interior of the house. Finally, they seem to be making some real progress. True to his word, Bill has got the local electrician in and he’s been working away tirelessly to get the first fix in place. Marcus should really be here though to check that everything is going in the right place, power points at the right height and so on. Although it’s a relief that they’re not quite as constrained as they used to be pre-Brexit, when they’d be tied up in knots by EU safety regulations. But things still need to be done to the right legal standards, of course. Give or take.
Looking around him, sighing in exasperation, it is as if he expects Marcus to appear, as though he might conjure him through sheer strength of will. Why is no one as dedicated, as invested in anything, as he is? One minute the man is moaning about budgets and finishes, the next he’s hanging about at the hotel slurping coffee in the sunshine with Olivia. Still, he supposes they do need to go through their frilly bits together. He knows how much Livvy enjoys that side of things too; very much her area of interest, not his.
He is just about to seek out Bill, wherever he is, when something on the floor catches his eye. It would be easy to miss amongst the dust and detritus that litters the boards, but for a spot of colour. It is a cigarette end, a recent fag butt. He crouches down and picks it up, holding it between thumb and forefinger, like a specimen. Christ alive, he thinks. Whatever next?Of all the idiotic, stupid … He is determined to march straight down to the garden and demand to know which of the silly sods has been smoking on site when he realises, on closer inspection, that the brown filter tip has a trace of pink greasy lip gloss on it.
Tobias feels his shoulders sag in disappointment. He has a pretty good idea whose this is. Despite what the rest of his family says, he’s not as oblivious as they all presume. He’s known for quite some time now that Bella smokes, though she thinks he hasn’t a clue. And even he has noticed the way her lips always look stuck up with that gloop she wears; part of her trademark look. He’d even wondered if she hadn’t had something done to them. Apparently girls inject themselves with all sorts of things these days.
But technically she’s an adult now, perfectly able to make her own decisions, no matter how questionable. And when she’s away at university, he and Liv have no idea what she’s doing (or with whom). So, he just plays along and turns a blind eye to keep the peace. Okay, so she’s a bit of a daddy’s girl, he admits. He lets her get away with a touch more than he should sometimes. But how can he resist? He sees a lot of himself, when he was young, in her. The same spirit, the same pluck; he can’t help admiring it, taking pride in it even.
And Lord knows, he was no innocent in his youth. When he thinks of the antics he and the boys used to get up to after a long day on the trading floor. The office was a free-for-all at times. Everything on expenses. Things were a bit freer, looser back then too. It was the Nineties and there was none of this ‘me too’ business. Anyone wearing a skirt was usually there to provide the following: coffee and decoration. Parties at work were encouraged; drunken debauchery, old-fashioned tomfoolery. It was fun. It was a different time, as they say.
His attention is brought back to the moment as he regards the cigarette end anew. But this is different. He is not angry with Belle for smoking. As vices go, it’s not the worst. But whyon earth would she be here, on site? Presumably after hours. Few people have access to the property once it’s closed and locked up for the night. Unless one of this lot has forgotten to secure the place properly. Things can get a bit slapdash on a build, especially an empty shell like this, but there are still some expensive tools, valuable materials left around.
It’s not good enough, he decides, his anger rising. And it’s not the first time he’s wondered whether he shouldn’t have installed some kind of security surveillance, especially when he can’t always be down here keeping a watch on things. He curses himself. Always too trusting. And such things seemed like an unnecessary expense when they were already trying to cut down on costs. But still. It’s not too late. He’s heard about some cameras that can be quickly and easily set up these days, motion-triggered, quite affordable, they even record in full colour at night-time. And all controllable from your own mobile phone. He puts the tab end in his pocket, like a detective collecting evidence. That settles it, then. From now on, he’s going to be keeping a much closer eye on everyone.
23
Olivia checks her phone to see if Bella has been in touch. She reads a text from her daughter, telling her that she’s booked them in for facials as well as a pedicure each because ‘Your feet are not it, Mum’.
She looks down at her toes; dry and creased in their sandals. It’s true, they are looking a bit ropey. She often goes barefoot, always has since she was a child. She likes to think it’s the free spirit in her. Though it does mean her soles are like leather these days. Maybe she could do with a bit of a tidy up, she concedes, conscious of Marcus’s levels of metrosexual grooming. Taking another look at the message, she responds with a thumbs-up emoji and notes that she still has a bit of time before the first spa appointment.
So she takes a detour via the seafront and true to form, slips off her sandals and walks along the beach, luxuriating in the feel of the wet sand between her toes, the suck and drag, the prints she is leaving behind her. As she walks, she spots Drew further out, playing in the surf with some other lads about his age or maybe a little older. They have the even all-over tan and lived-in look of locals who have grown up round here. Elaborate tattoos adorn their arms and calves, peeping out from underneath sun-bleached T-shirts and surf shorts. Their hair is either worn longer and tied back in salt-encrusted dreadlocks or shaved close to their heads. Olivia imagines she might even recognise one of them as a ‘Taco Lad’ who served her takeaway the other day.
