Page 15 of The Love Game

‘I admit that I’m not exactly sure what I’m going to do with the pier yet, but—’

‘Exactly! No clue!’ Gladys barked, derisory, throwing her hands out in an I rest my case gesture.

‘But I do want to have the pier open again, if that’s possible,’ Vi said. ‘Make it vibrant to honour my gran’s memory.’

Gladys rolled her eyes. ‘By all accounts your grandmother was quite avant-garde, Violet Spencer, and I don’t mean that as a compliment.’

‘What?’ Vi’s voice shot up, properly annoyed now. ‘You didn’t even know my grandmother, how dare you speak ill of her!’

‘Young lady, the Lido has housed artists and hippies since the 1960s, and it appears that you’re keeping its disreputable tradition alive and kicking with your …’ Gladys’s lips turned down in distaste, ‘dancing.’

Keris stood up beside Violet. ‘Now hang on, Glad—’

‘Oh, don’t you “hang on” me, Keris Harwood, what with you sending out unmentionables in the post!’

Violet looked at Keris, confused, and Barty got to his feet too.

‘I’ll have to ask you not to take that offensive tone, Glad.’

There was a gentle authoritativeness to his voice that seemed to have the desired effect; Gladys looked suitably rebuked and held her tongue, settling for a rattle of her mayoral chains.

‘I for one am gladdened by Violet’s presence in Swallow Beach.’ Barty addressed the people rather than the Lady Mayoress. ‘I’m sure that once she’s found her feet in our community, she’ll be brimming with exciting new ideas for the pier.’

‘Strip club,’ Gladys muttered, earning herself a few frowns from around the room.

‘Did someone say strip club? Count me in.’

Everyone turned around at the sound of a new voice in the room, and Cal strolled down the aisle and dropped into the empty seat beside Violet.

‘What did I miss?’ he asked, looking innocently towards the Mayoress.

Gladys turned puce. ‘You know full well that your presence is unhelpful here, Calvin. Please leave immediately. I’m sure your friends can join you in The Swallow when we’re done.’

Cal smiled genially but stayed exactly where he was. For a second the Mayoress looked as if she might thunder down the aisle, ceremonial chains swinging, and drag Cal out of the parish hall by his unruly dark hair.

‘What did I miss?’ he asked, when Gladys finally stopped eyeballing him like a bull about to be released.

‘The Mayoress hates me,’ Vi whispered. ‘She thinks the Lido is a beacon for disreputables, and that I’m going to turn the pier into a brothel, or something equally unsavoury.’

‘Figures,’ Cal muttered. ‘She’s always been keen to jump to the worst conclusion.’

‘You know her well then?’

‘Just a bit.’ He flicked his eyes to the ceiling and blew out. ‘She’s my mother.’

Violet stared at him, hoping he was going to crack into a smile to let on that he was kidding. He didn’t; instead, Keris leaned forward across Vi and hissed, ‘I know she’s your mother, but she’s getting right on my bloody tits, Cal.’

‘No apology needed,’ he said. ‘She has that effect on everyone. Me included, most of the time.’

They listened as the Mayoress laboured through the speech she’d prepared, doggedly determined to read the whole thing out regardless, putting forward her case for applying for a compulsory purchase order to return the pier to public ownership – under her own expert guidance, naturally.

Violet listened in fraught silence, her jaw clamped tight in case she let out a long string of expletives.

Gladys appeared to expect a round of applause as she reached the end of the speech, throwing her arms out and almost bowing as her motley crowd stared at her, taken aback by the fact that she’d adapted Winston Churchill’s ‘Fight them on the beaches’ speech in a frankly alarming way, claiming she was ready to ‘fight on Swallow Beaches’ in a way that came over as both sabre-rattling and nonsensical.

‘Reminded me of Putin for a second there,’ Barty said mildly as they stood to leave. ‘Despotic.’

‘Pub?’ Keris suggested.

Cal nodded. ‘I’ll catch you up.’

Violet watched him disappear through the same door as Gladys, obviously keen for a private word with his mother.

‘I take it they don’t see eye to eye?’

Keris laughed. ‘Understatement of the century.’

‘Chalk and cheese,’ Barty said. ‘Although he was the apple of her eye when he was knee-high. Shame, really, how families change.’

Violet sighed, aware that the comment could equally be applied to her own family.

She’d thought them to be fairly dull with no skeletons in the cupboard, yet all the time Swallow Beach had been sitting silently in there without her even knowing about its existence.

The vintage apartment, silent and empty save for the monthly cleaner.

The beautiful pier, mothballed and unwalked on by anyone but the safety inspectors in all of those years.

The Mayoress was right about one thing: it was time for Swallow Beach Pier to come back to life.

‘Rum,’ Cal said, laying his hand on Barty’s shoulder as he placed a drink down on the table in front of the senior statesman of the Lido.

It was a more than healthy measure in a tumbler engraved with a B; it was fast becoming clear to Vi that, as much as Barty belonged to Swallow Beach, Swallow Beach belonged to him.

Revived by a large glass of red, she turned to Keris beside her. ‘What was all that about you sending unmentionables in the post?’

‘Terribly racy,’ Barty said. ‘Shamed, I am.’ He grinned and raised his glass to his granddaughter.

Keris picked up her gin and tonic. ‘I run a mail order lingerie business.’

‘Do you really?’ Vi said, taken aback. ‘How did you end up doing that?’

‘By accident, really.’

‘The accidental knicker-seller,’ Cal said, putting his pint down. ‘That’s the name of her online store.’

‘It’s not, is it?’ Vi said, looking from one to the other.

Keris rolled her eyes. ‘Shut up, Dearheart.’ She chucked a beermat and Cal caught it, laughing.

‘I lived in London for a while,’ Keris said. ‘Ended up working in one of those high-end lingerie stores and sort of fell in love with it all.’

‘And now you sell underwear from home?’

‘For the moment,’ Keris said. ‘Until I can open my own shop.’

Violet started to laugh. ‘Your mum wasn’t that far off the mark after all, Cal,’ she said, finally relaxing thanks to the wine and the company. ‘We are a sordid bunch in the Lido, what with you and your floggers and Keris and her saucy knickers.’

‘And you and Lola too now,’ Cal said. ‘You’ve definitely lowered the tone.’

‘Lola?’ Keris looked at Violet, startled. ‘Do you have a daughter?’

Vi almost spluttered on her wine. ‘God, no. No! Lola’s the dressmaker’s dummy in my apartment.’

‘She’s a showgirl,’ Cal threw in. ‘I met her this afternoon, quite the looker.’

‘She doesn’t even have a head,’ Violet pointed out.

Barty and Cal exchanged a knowing glance, and Keris shook her head at Vi. ‘Ignore them, Violet. It works forme.’

Their conversation rolled on around her, easing her troubles, making her laugh with stories about the town and its people.

‘Glad kills me how she calls everyone by their full name all the time,’ Keris said. ‘It’s like she’s calling the register.’

‘She always fancied herself as a headmistress,’ Cal said. ‘Mayoress is as close as it gets.’

‘ Lady Mayoress,’ Barty corrected with a benign smile, a good way through his second triple rum. ‘I quite like a powerful woman,’ he mused, as an afterthought almost to himself.

Keris covered her face with her hands. ‘Make him stop, Vi.’

Barty knocked his drink back and reached for his fedora from the empty stool beside him. ‘I’ll go one better. Leave you whippersnappers in peace.’

Cal stood up even though his pint was fresh on the table. ‘I’ll walk back with you,’ he said.

Barty batted the air. ‘You’ll do no such thing,’ he said. ‘I’m a man in my prime.’

Keris smiled at Cal, who picked up Barty’s coat and held it open for him. ‘You’re twice the man I’ll ever be, Barty. Let me, you know I’m only doing it to look good for the ladies.’

Barty didn’t argue further. ‘Don’t let anyone drink his beer,’ he said, nodding towards Cal’s glass. ‘He’ll be back in five minutes. We’ll jog.’

They watched the two men leave, laughing about something as they moved out of earshot.

‘He’s pretty special,’ Keris said, her eyes lingering on the door.

‘Hmm. Is there anything …’ Vi said, tentative despite the wine. ‘You know, are you two …?’

Keris frowned, and then laughed. ‘I meant my grandpa,’ she said. ‘Did you think I meant Cal?’

Vi half nodded, a little embarrassed. ‘You two seem close.’

Spearing the lemon in her gin with her cocktail umbrella, Keris nodded. ‘Everyone’s close to Cal.’

‘I’m not sure I get what you mean,’ Vi said.

Keris screwed up her nose, as if thinking how to put it.

‘He’s a funny one. We dated a few times, years ago.’ She rolled her eyes. ‘Disaster, but you know how most of the time you date someone, it doesn’t work out, and you never speak to them again if you can help it?’

Vi nodded. Her experience with men was pretty limited, but she couldn’t imagine ever being besties with Simon after they went their separate ways.

‘It’s not like that with Cal,’ Keris said. ‘And I don’t mean just me. He doesn’t kiss and tell, and women can’t seem to decide if they want to be his mother, his lover or his sister. I ended up in the sister camp, but either way everyone ends up still loving him.’

Vi frowned, perplexed. Calvin Dearheart was probably the best-looking man she’d ever seen in the flesh.

‘I’m surprised no one’s snapped him up by now, though,’ she said, then wished she hadn’t because it made her sound interested, which she wasn’t.

‘Oh, someone did.’ Keris nodded. ‘He’s married.’