Page 23 of The Love Game

‘We’re on the front of the local paper!’

Violet met Keris and Barty in the Lido lobby on Monday morning, after a quiet weekend of reading and mooching around the apartment.

She’d read the sci-fi novel from her grandmother’s bedside table, and resisted reading more of her diary even though she was desperate to.

Instead she’d emptied out the kitchen cupboards and delighted in Monica’s eclectic taste in crockery and cookware.

She’d clearly not been troubled by the idea of a matching dinner service, there wasn’t even one plate or cup that matched another.

It appealed to Violet’s artistic sensibilities, and to her sentimental side, too.

It pleased her to imagine her grandmother hunting down the random pieces in charity shops and vintage market stalls, or perhaps picking up a cup or bowl to remind her of a holiday or special place.

She baked a cake too, another thing she used to enjoy but never seemed to find the time for recently.

But leafing through Monica’s old, well-used orange cookbook, she’d found a recipe speckled with chocolate and decorated with childish blue-crayoned hearts around the page.

Clearly a well-loved recipe, and once she’d baked it, Violet understood why.

Who knew you could add old-fashioned milkshake powder to a sponge recipe?

She’d had to dig around a couple of supermarkets to find the old-style powder still for sale, but it was worth the effort – the resulting cake was delicately pink and strawberry-sweet, topped with chocolate icing; the kind of cake a child would love.

Would her mum remember it, she’d wondered, eating a huge slice for breakfast on Sunday morning.

‘We’re in the paper?’ she said, handing Barty a small Tupperware box holding a slice of cake. ‘I made a cake,’ she said. ‘Thought you might like a slice.’

Barty lifted the lid to peep, and his eyes lit up. ‘Did you really make this?’

Violet nodded, pleased with herself as he sniffed the box and closed his eyes, smiling.

‘Takes me back, that does,’ he said, then opened his eyes and unexpectedly kissed her on the cheek.

‘None for me then?’ Keris said, her mouth downturned for comedy.

‘I ate it all,’ Violet said. ‘Breakfast, lunch and dinner.’

‘You’re not even joking, are you?’

Vi shook her head, trying not to laugh.

‘I hope you break out in a plague of cake-related spots,’ Keris grumbled, handing her the newspaper. ‘Look at this though.’

Violet scanned the headline. ‘Pier opens again after forty years!’ Nothing too worrisome there.

There were several shots of the pier, one black and white from the pier’s yesteryears, another that looked to be from the seventies and one of Cal and Beau struggling through the open gates carrying her sewing machine with Lucy trying to offer direction.

She looked closer at the image from the seventies.

‘That’s my grandmother,’ she said, bringing it closer to her face.

Monica was standing proudly outside the pier, one of quite a few people in the busy seaside image.

She wasn’t looking at the camera; in fact she didn’t look as if she knew the shot was being taken.

She had one hand on the sea wall, laughing up into the face of a man beside her.

His face was turned slightly away from the camera so you couldn’t see him clearly, but even from that angle it clearly wasn’t her Grandpa Henry. Oh God. Was this the mysterious T?

‘Is it?’ Keris said, leaning over to peer at the picture. ‘Bloody hell, Violet! You’re her double!’

Violet couldn’t take her eyes from the grainy image. ‘I know.’ Holding the paper towards Barty, she frowned. ‘Do you know who that is with her, Barty?’

She passed him the newspaper, and he obligingly took it and peered at it for a moment. ‘I’m not wearing my specs so I couldn’t be sure darling, but it looks like your grandfather to me.’

Vi sighed. ‘You think? His hair wasn’t that dark, I don’t think.’

Barty looked nonplussed. ‘Cameras back then weren’t as sophisticated as today. Could just be a trick of the light.’

Taking the paper back, she studied it again. ‘Maybe you’re right.’ Belatedly, she felt that she’d spoken out of turn to question Monica, especially to someone old enough to remember her grandparents.

‘Thought I’d walk over there with you, see what you’re all up to,’ Barty said. ‘I might be able to stick my oar in, as they say.’ He winked, always the joker.

Violet scanned the rest of the article and then laid the paper down on the hall table. She’d look at it more closely again later.

‘I’ve got someone coming to see about fitting a fancy coffee machine just inside the birdcage tomorrow,’ Violet said a week or two later, pouring Barty a coffee from the Thermos she’d found underneath the sink back at the Lido.

‘Thought people might like to come and sit on the benches and look at the sea for a while.’

They were sitting half way along the pier on one of the ten benches set into the ironwork side-barrier. Barty smiled, his eyes on the horizon.

‘It’s been a long time since people have been able to come and go on this pier.

I didn’t realise how much I’d missed it until now.

’ He sipped his coffee. ‘I ran up and down here as a kid, and I shared my first kiss with Elizabeth Robertson a few benches that way.’ He jerked his head towards the birdcage. ‘Scandalous it was. Older woman.’

‘Really?’ Vi’s eyebrows lifted towards her hairline.

Barty nodded. ‘She was fourteen. I was twelve.’

Vi laughed softly, imagining how it must feel to have lived your whole life in such a small community, for your every memory to be woven around a place and its people.

‘You must love it here to have never been tempted away,’ she said.

He sighed, heavily enough to indicate that she’d hit a nerve. ‘Oh, I was tempted. Once or twice I came close, but then I met Florence and had a reason to stay.’

Violet knew from Keris that Barty had lost his wife Florence about a decade previously.

‘Did you come here to the pier together?’ she asked, hoping that they had.

He drained his coffee, standing up. ‘Stories for another day,’ he smiled. ‘I should get on. Hot yoga this morning at the parish hall.’

Violet found she wasn’t surprised. Zumba, ballroom dancing, yoga … Please let me be like Barty when I’m old , she thought. Please let me be here in Swallow Beach, a beloved resident rather than an outsider.

‘Okay?’ Cal asked, as she walked past his room when she headed back inside.

She paused. ‘Yeah. Just chatting to Barty about his life here.’

‘He’s probably one of the oldest long-term residents here now,’ Cal said. ‘My mother’s coming up a close second, though.’

His mention of Mayoress Gladys Dearheart made her heart sink.

‘Any more rumbles about the compulsory purchase order?’ she asked, crossing her fingers that he said no.

‘Well, she’s planning to come over here tomorrow to see what’s happening,’ he said, grimacing. ‘Sorry, she only texted a few minutes ago to tell me. I can’t really say no, given that the pier is open again now.’

‘Great,’ Vi sighed. ‘I might make myself scarce.’

‘No, don’t,’ Cal said. ‘If you run, she’ll catch the scent of fear and chase harder.’

What an odd opinion to hold of your own mother, Violet thought but didn’t say.

Had Gladys been a terribly harsh mother to her son?

Violet could well imagine that there had been strict rules in the Dearheart household, and almost see a wild-haired younger Cal rebelling every chance he got.

He’d probably been quite a handful; there must have been some colourful rows in their household when he hit his teenage years.

‘What time is she coming?’

‘Eleven,’ Cal said. ‘Which means eleven. Not five to or five past. Eleven on the nose.’

Violet felt her insides shrivel up a little. ‘Okay. I’ll tell everyone else. Be here with our game faces on.’

At just before ten o’clock the following morning, Violet was hard at work in her studio, immersed in finishing off the third of the military showgirl outfits.

Holding the corset up in front of her eyes told her there was something not quite right about it but she couldn’t quite work out what it was.

‘Looks fabulous,’ Keris said, coming in to see what she was up to. ‘Make me one in green? I reckon I’d kill it down the ballroom in that.’

‘The ballroom?’ All Violet knew about the ballroom so far was that Barty went to tea dances there. Surely Keris wasn’t planning to head down there to waltz with the local octogenarians dressed like Lola the headless showgirl?

‘Yeah,’ Keris said. ‘They have things on there sometimes in the summer. You know, Robbie tribute acts, that kind of thing. We should go.’

Violet nodded, distracted. ‘There’s something not quite right about this,’ she said, looking at the corset again. ‘Can you see?’

They stood together and stared at it.

‘I’m not sure,’ Keris said. ‘Is it fractionally longer on that side than this?’

Vi bit her lip. ‘I’m sure I measured it correctly.’

‘Shall I try it on?’

Violet looked up at Keris and found her eyes sparkling with excitement. She really wanted to try the corset on.

‘Um, okay,’ she said. It would actually help to see how the corset looked and moved on a real body. ‘You’re sure?’

‘God, yes!’ Keris closed the door quickly and unceremoniously whipped her T-shirt over her head. ‘Do you want me to take my bra off?’

Outside Violet’s door at that very moment, Melvin and Linda stood staring at each other, agog.

They’d arrived a few seconds earlier and decided to come and let Violet know they were in for the morning to set up their consulting room.

Finding Violet’s door closed, poised to knock, they distinctly heard Keris moan, ‘God, yes! Do you want me to take my bra off?’ so they thought better of knocking and tiptoed back to make a start on their room instead.

‘Jesus God! I bloody love this,’ Keris said, standing barefoot in the middle of Violet’s room wearing the red feather and rhinestone corset and her black denim mini.

‘I was kidding earlier when I said make me one. I’m deadly serious now.

I’ll pay, Violet. Whatever it costs. I’ve never felt sexier in my entire bloody life. ’

‘Violet? Have you seen Keris anywhere?’

Cal tapped the door and opened it without waiting to be called in, and then stood there with his mouth open.

‘Bloody hell,’ he said. ‘What are you two doing in here? Playing dress-up?’

‘Did you want something?’ Violet asked.

He looked for a second as if he genuinely couldn’t remember.

‘Oh. Yes, Beau needs to know where Keris wants him to put the display cage she asked him to make for the shop. We’ve just carted it out of his unit and he’s waiting for you to tell him where to put it.’

Keris frowned. ‘Er, I’m not sure. I’ll come and look.’

‘Like that?’ Cal said, dubious.

Keris looked down at the corset laughing, her boobs frothing over the top of it. ‘Why not? It’s not as if I’m not covered up. Besides, I love it. I might make it my new uniform, really give people something to talk about.’

They trailed through the birdcage to the shop at the front and found Beau sitting on the new cage chatting to Melvin and Linda about the fetish scene.

‘Ah, there you all ar—’ Beau stood up and looked at them, and then he opened his eyes wider than should have been strictly anatomically possible.

Violet preened, secretly thrilled that her corset was clearly having an effect on everyone who saw it.

It helped that Keris wore it well; confident and sassy with hourglass curves and generous boobs.

‘What?’ Keris said, pretending she had no clue what was wrong with the big American. ‘Did you want me for something?’

‘Shut your mouth Beau, you’re going to catch flies,’ Violet said.

‘Beau here was just filling us in on the different styles of cages he makes,’ Melvin said, as if he hadn’t even noticed the fact that Keris was wearing anything out of the ordinary.

‘Where do you want me to put it?’ Beau said, looking somewhere over Keris’s shoulder rather than in the eye.

Keris put her hands on her hips and surveyed the entrance space of the birdcage. ‘Over there, I think?’

‘I’m thinking of having the coffee machine put there,’ Violet interjected.

Keris fell silent, thinking. ‘Here then?’ she said, gesturing to a spot on the other side of the entrance doors. ‘I want it to have impact when people come in, really showcase Beau’s workmanship.’

Vi didn’t miss the twin spots of colour that had appeared above Beau’s beard.

‘Okey dokey,’ he muttered. ‘Let’s move this baby. Cal, give me a hand to lift it?’

The two men lifted it between them, snagging Beau’s T-shirt with a loud rip. He put it down again sharpish and looked down; his T-shirt looked as if he moonlighted as the Hulk.

‘Jeez,’ he muttered. ‘I liked this one.’

Resigned, he picked up his end of the cage again and then shuffled it across into place.

‘Careful, the door’s swinging open,’ Violet said, too late because the ornate key Beau had fashioned for the lock fell out.

‘Grab that, will you?’ Beau puffed, as he and Cal positioned the heavy cage down by the doors.

Violet lunged for it but it skittered away across the boards of the pier.

Terrified it was going to go down between the wooden slats into the sea below, she crawled quickly across towards the cage.

The key had gone through the bars, so she opened the door and crawled in, reaching for it carefully in case it fell.

‘Don’t let it fall,’ Beau said, squatting down, rubbing his beard.

Vi got her fingertips to it, and as feared, the ornate black jailer’s key slid out of reach between the boards.

‘Shit,’ she muttered, peering down the gap. ‘I’m terrified it’s going to fall through. Have you got a hook or something? It needs something delicate to go through the pattern, my fingers will knock it out.’

Cal disappeared in search of something suitable, leaving Violet on all fours in the cage, Keris bending over her in the feather corset.

And that was the precise moment Lady Mayoress Gladys Dearheart chose to walk through the door, a cameraman with her from the local paper snapping away with furious delight.