Page 18 of The Love Game

‘Beau’s going to come over on Monday to check the place out,’ Cal said, dropping down on the floor beside Violet in the room earmarked as her new studio.

This time next week it would be set up with all of her equipment and stock, but for now it was gloriously empty and pristine, all the better to show off her grandmother’s paint-work on the floor. ‘He’s really keen, space permitting.’

Beau, affectionately known by Violet and Keris as Cage-Guy, was the artisan metal-worker Cal thought would suit the larger of the two empty rooms. As long as he wanted to rent it, that left only one space to fill, the one in the opposite corner to Violet.

They sat with their backs leaning against the wall looking out to sea.

‘It’s like sitting on the edge of the world, isn’t it,’ she said, accepting the bottle for first glug.

Cal had remembered the wine but forgotten the cups, which they both acknowledged was better than the other way around.

He’d remembered to chill it too, Vi noticed, as ice-cold bubbles danced down her throat.

‘Are you pleased with how it’s all coming together?’ he asked, taking the bottle when she held it out.

‘God, yes,’ she said. ‘It’s impacting on my work productivity getting things set up, but can you imagine how fabulous it’s going to be once we’re in?’

‘Worth it,’ he said. ‘I’m looking forward to having my space back at home, it was good timing.’ He frowned and twisted to look at her. ‘I don’t mean your grandpa dying and leaving it to you was good timing, of course.’

She smiled and rolled her eyes. ‘I got that.’

Drinking deeply, she put the bottle down between them. ‘It was good timing for me, too,’ she said. ‘I needed to get away.’

‘And has it helped? Because in my experience, you can’t run away from problems, they have a nasty habit of following you.’

She wondered exactly what he was referring to, but didn’t ask. ‘This one hasn’t. Not yet, anyway,’ she said. ‘I was proposed to, and I said no.’

‘Ouch,’ he murmured, reaching for the wine. ‘Wrong time?’

‘Wrong man, I think,’ she said. ‘I didn’t realise that was the case until he asked me.’

‘Poor guy,’ Cal said.

‘And he doesn’t want to take no for an answer, so has sort of said, “Go and do what you need to do and I’ll wait.”’

‘Ah, fuck.’ Cal shook his head, his elbows on his knees, the bottle in his hand. ‘Is that romantic of him, to you? Or is it stifling?’

Cal’s perceptive question caught her unaware. ‘I guess, if I loved him and was going to be a missionary in some war zone or something for a year, it would be romantic. But seeing as I don’t think I love him anywhere near enough and I’ve come here to run a sex pier, probably not so much.’

He laughed, shaking his head. ‘A sex pier? Is that what you call this in your head?’ He handed her the wine.

‘No, of course not,’ she said, shrugging and half laughing as she took a swig. ‘It’s just that this wasn’t what I’d anticipated when I came here.’

‘I see that.’

They looked out to sea in contemplative silence. Violet could feel the alcohol sliding into her bloodstream too fast; a long day working without stopping to eat would do that.

‘So, besides running away to manage a sex pier, what did you expect to find here?’

He made it sound as if she’d run away to join the circus.

It felt a little like that, in truth. She’d come here in search of excitement, and she’d found that in the shape of mermaids on her bedroom walls and Lola the headless go-go dancer and a hot, disreputable neighbour who made whips for a living.

‘I don’t think I thought very much about what I might find.

I just felt like I needed to get here.’ She couldn’t really articulate what had pulled her so strongly to Swallow Beach.

It wasn’t just about escaping a difficult situation, it was more …

‘A calling, I guess, if that doesn’t sound too fanciful. ’

‘And now you’re here, are you glad you came?’

‘Have you been taking therapist lessons from Linda and Melvin?’

They sat shoulder to shoulder, their heads against the wall, looking at each other.

‘Is that your way of telling me to mind my own?’

She bit her lip. ‘I just don’t know the answers.’

‘Well, I’m glad you’re here,’ he said.

‘You are?’

He grinned. ‘My mother needed someone new to moan about. She’s bored of me.’

Violet remembered Barty’s comment about Cal being the apple of his mother’s eye when he was a little boy.

‘It’s sad that you don’t see eye to eye with her,’ she said.

‘I rely on my mum more than I can tell you.’ Della had been on the phone most days, and even though she pretended not to want to know, she was getting more and more curious about goings-on at Swallow Beach.

‘Don’t you wish things were better between you two? ’

‘Now who’s being the pop psychiatrist?’

She supposed she deserved that.

‘So is this spurned fiancé likely to turn up at some point to throw you over his shoulder and take you home?’

She was too loyal to say anything unkind, but the very idea of Simon charging down here to get her was so outlandish it made Violet sigh. He’d never take the time off work, and besides anything else, it’d throw his dodgy knee out.

‘I think not,’ she said.

Now would be the perfect time to ask Cal about his own experience of marriage; she couldn’t engineer a better inroad into the subject if she tried.

Yet still she didn’t, and if she’d been forced to explain why she’d have had to confess that it was because she didn’t really want to know anything that might make her conscience heavy.

Cal was part of her Swallow Beach summer fairytale complete with a wicked mother; it just didn’t work if he already had his princess, even if she was half way across the globe.

For now, Violet just wanted to drink wine with him and enjoy the moment.

‘The sun’s shining on my name,’ she said, nodding towards the painted rainbow on the floor. The sun had dipped low over the sea, casting a rose-gold glow over the birdcage, gilding the words painted on the boards.

‘I take it you were named after it,’ he said.

She leaned her head against his shoulder. ‘I must have been, although I didn’t know I was until I saw it.’

He whistled. ‘Your mum really didn’t tell you much at all about this place, did she?’ he said, holding the bottle up to see how much they had left. Very little, it appeared.

‘Nothing. You were all a big secret as far as I was concerned.’

She felt rather than saw his laugh. ‘I quite like being your dirty secret.’

She lifted her head. ‘Not dirty. You had your chance the other night and knocked me back, remember.’

It was the first time they’d actually talked about what had happened on the landing at the Lido the previous week.

He drank from the bottle and then handed it over for Violet to finish. ‘You know that’s not true.’

‘Er, yes it is,’ she said. ‘I asked you to kiss me and you said no.’ She tipped the bottle and finished the wine.

‘Do you always have your hair blue?’

She didn’t comment on the fact he’d changed the subject. ‘No. It’s been all colours of the rainbow.’

His eyes shifted to the rainbow on the floor. ‘Blue suits you.’

‘I looked good in pink.’

‘I’ll bet.’

‘I’ve been known to dye my pubic hair to match,’ she said, trying to keep a straight face.

He laughed. ‘Very thorough of you.’

She shrugged. ‘A girl likes to be prepared for anything.’

‘And are you? Prepared for anything?’

‘God, no,’ she said. ‘I wasn’t prepared for any of the things I’ve found out since I came here. I wasn’t prepared for the shock of my grandmother’s apartment, or the protectiveness I feel towards the pier …’ she patted the floor, ‘and I wasn’t prepared for you, either.’

He raised his eyebrows. ‘Go on.’

‘Stop fishing for compliments,’ she said. ‘I won’t lie, Cal. You’ve had a strange effect on me. I think we’re good neighbours and hope we’ll be good friends for a long time, but then whenever we’re together I sort of want all of my clothes to fall off, and that’s a bit of a problem.’

Cal made a choking sound.

‘And to be honest, I’m a bit humiliated. It’s as if you’ve awoken my inner sex goddess and then told her you don’t fancy her.’

‘Fucking hell,’ he said, scrubbing his hand over his jaw.

‘But that’s okay too, because I might just be on the rebound from Simon and projecting onto you. I probably don’t fancy you at all really and our sex would be hideous, so you don’t need to feel bad about it.’

‘Right, that’s enough,’ he said, sudden and exasperated, and then he twisted to face her and slid his hand into her hair until he was cradling her head in his hand.

‘You’ve had a strange effect on me too, Violet.

You turn up here with your blue hair and sea-foam eyes, looking like someone who needs rescuing, then acting like a warrior princess, and I tell myself don’t go there because she’s someone else’s, and because we’re living next door to each other and that would be massively awkward afterwards, and I don’t want to screw it up because I actually like you rather than just want to get you naked.

And then you go and say stuff about your inner sex goddess and all I can think is I want you. ’

They stared at each other, both breathless and giddy from saying too much and drinking too much too fast. She turned to face him too, one hand on the floor holding her upright, unsure what to do with the other until she realised she’d reached out and laid her fingertips on his lips as if to stop any more words coming out.

‘Shall we kiss, just to confirm it’s hideous?’ she whispered, because she’d lost her senses.

He stared at her, his fingers warm and massaging the back of her neck.

‘And then we can just relax because we’ve cleared the air,’ she said. ‘And go back to being platonic friends again.’