A Seaside Affair: A heartwarming, gripping read from the Top Ten bestseller

As she checked her emails, the phone rang and she answered it.

‘Hello, Simon. I’m in Trevay with Helen … No, I haven’t seen the paper … The local one? … OK … I’ll get it now … Why? … Oh! What do they expect you to do? … Me? … Let me look at it and then we can talk later … Love you too, bye.’

‘What was that about?’ asked Helen.

‘Something about saving the Pavilions. Let’s get a paper and I’ll buy you a coffee … maybe even a glass of vino.’

*

Piran Ambrose was in his office at the Trevay Museum, hurrying to finish the day’s tasks so that he could get out in his boat and catch the tide for a spot of mackerel fishing. He swore under his breath when the phone on his desk rang, his hand hovering over the receiver indecisively before picking up.

‘Yes.’

‘Piran? It’s me, Simon.’

Piran breathed a sigh of relief. He and the vicar had been friends for many years, supporting each other through some difficult times.

‘Simon! Welcome home, how was the holiday with your maid?’

‘Simply wonderful. Marriage is to be recommended, Piran.’

Piran decided to ignore the obvious implications in this comment. ‘How can I help you, Simon?’

‘It’s the Pavilions – there’s a report in the paper that the council are about to sell the place to a coffee chain. Possibly Café Au Lait.’

‘Good idea. The building is falling apart. It needs money spending on it, or knocking down.’

Simon was shocked. ‘You can’t mean that? You’re our local historian – surely you of all people want to save the old place?’

Piran put one leg up on his desk and tipped his chair back, glancing at the clock on the wall. If he didn’t get a move on he’d miss the tide. ‘It’s an eyesore, Simon. We’re not talking about some Frank Matcham theatre of distinction here. The Pavilions is a fifties, flat-roof, jerry-built dinosaur that hasn’t made any money in decades.’

‘But the Sea Scouts and the WI and … the Trevay Players …’

Piran sniffed with disdain at the mention of the local amateur dramatic company.

‘… and the Arts and Crafts Show, and … er …’

‘Exactly. It’s not exactly a top-drawer venue, is it?’

‘Piran, please. I’ve already had emails from all sorts of people asking me to be on the board of an action committee. I thought you might want to lend us your support, maybe dig out some facts of historical importance.’

Piran scratched his beard and pulled on the gold hoop in his ear. ‘OK. Let me think about it.’

‘I knew you’d help.’

‘Hang on, I haven’t said I’d help. I’ve said I’ll think about it.’

The men rang off, each hoping the other would see sense. Swinging his leg off the desk and springing to his feet, Piran hurried out of his office before the phone had a chance to ring again.

Down in the lobby, Janet, the museum receptionist, was so engrossed in her newspaper that she didn’t look up until he called, ‘Bye, Janet. I’m finished for the day. See you tomorrow.’

‘Piran, sorry I didn’t hear you. I was reading this –’ She held up the front page so he could read the headline:

THE END FOR THE PAVILIONS?

‘I’d be ever so sad to see the old place go. My parents used to take me there every summer to see the big shows. Remember when Morecambe and Wise had a season here? Sold out every night. They were on the same bill as … oh what were they called … The Bachelors, that’s it! Lovely boys, they were. Great music.’

‘Not exactly The Beatles, were they?’ sniffed Piran, unimpressed. ‘Not my thing, Janet, see you tomorrow.’

Janet persisted, ‘But it’s heartbreaking. There’ll be a lot of people with a lot of memories.’

‘It’s a white elephant and an architectural mess.’

Leaving Janet shaking her head in disbelief he stamped out of the door with Jack, his devoted Jack Russell, scampering behind him.

*

Out on the balcony of the Sail Loft, the new wine bar overlooking the inner harbour, Penny was reading the paper too, with Helen squinting over her shoulder at the photos.

‘It’s rather a sweet building, isn’t it?’ she said.

‘If you like the garish fifties Festival of Britain look,’ snorted Penny.

‘That was a great era,’ protested Helen. ‘The war was over. Rationing was coming to an end. Women could wear full skirts and feminine clothes again.’

‘And Trevay built the Pavilions.’ Penny began to read aloud. ‘It says here, “The opening summer season in 1954 ran for twelve weeks. Local man, Walter Irvine, was the first theatre manager. He called in favours from stars he’d worked with before the war, including top comedian Max Miller. Miller, best known for his risqué jokes, topped the bill and made the theatre one of the most successful entertainment venues of its day. It’s hard to imagine that now. The building is succumbing to half a century of Atlantic gales battering it from all sides on its prominent position on the Trevay headland. It is thought that the new owners may be Café Au Lait, the coffee chain well known for buying up buildings of interest and investing multimillions in redevelopment. Could they be the Pavilions’ saviour? Have your say: email your thoughts to … blah blah blah.”’ Penny closed the paper and picked up her glass of wine. ‘Another lost cause for Simon to get involved with.’

Helen chinked her glass with Penny’s. ‘Welcome home!’

They sat without speaking, enjoying their own thoughts and easy in each other’s company. Helen’s eyes wandered up to the headland and the familiar outline of the Pavilions. From this distance it looked rather grand. Onion domes either side of the grand entrance, silvered central cupola above the auditorium and the tall fly tower behind. The building was still painted in its sugared-almond colours of pale blue, pink and yellow, albeit now cracked and faded. It was in a good location, away from the ancient narrow streets of Trevay, with the spectacular backdrop of the Atlantic Ocean behind it. With all that open space it had the benefit of a large car park (now used for car boot sales) and no neighbours to complain about noisy late-night exoduses.

Helen sipped on her chilled glass of wine and shifted her focus back to the harbour. The tide was high but on its way out. She looked along the floating pontoons to the spot where Piran kept his boat tied up. It was still there. He’d better hurry if he was going to catch supper and get back before low tide. Then she saw him; his familiar gait, slightly bow-legged in his faded, shabby jeans, but very attractive. His arms hung loosely by his sides, the wind ruffling his long dark curls, lifting them to reveal the grey at his temples. His hands, nut brown, were pulled from the pockets of his salt-stained fisherman’s smock in order to pick up little Jack and help him into the boat. Helen smiled as Jack went straight to the bow and put his paws up on the ledge, almost like a living figurehead.

‘Look, there’s Piran,’ said Penny.

‘Mmm, I saw him. I wonder what he’ll say about this Pavilions business?’

‘He’ll be all for saving the place, I should think. As the local historian, he’s bound to be part of this action committee Simon was talking about. I’ve a sinking feeling that this campaign is going to be the bane of both our lives if we’re not careful.’

*

‘Hi, honey, I’m hoooome!’ sang Penny as she shut the front door of the vicarage behind her.

‘I’m in the kitchen, Pen.’

‘I hope the kettle’s on.’ Penny walked into her kitchen and had the wind taken out of her sails when she found several familiar, if not entirely welcome, faces round her table.

Penny furrowed her brow slightly at the sight of Audrey Tipton’s determined features peering at her sternly over a teacup.

‘Audrey, Geoff, what an unexpected pleasure!’ Penny oozed, with as much sincerity as she could muster, only to be greeted by a tight-lipped nod from Audrey.

‘Pen, Queenie, Geoff, Audrey and I are debating what, if anything, we can do to save the Pavilions.’

Penny dropped a few teabags into the pot. ‘I guessed as much.’ She nodded her head slowly. A woman of indeterminable age (somewhere between fifty-five and seventy-five was Penny’s best guess) and indomitable disposition, Audrey Tipton was a powerhouse in tweed. She was chairwoman of the Pendruggan village Women’s Institute, the church flower committee and the Village in Bloom committee. Her husband, Geoff, was widely referred to behind his back as Mr Audrey Tipton, due to his total subservience to his wife.

Next to Geoff sat Queenie, owner of the only shop in the village and a gold-medal gossip who couldn’t bear to be left out of anything, which explained her presence at the table.

‘Hello, Queenie!’ Penny stooped to give the friendliest of the faces a kiss, and got a damp whiskery one in return.

‘’Ello, me duck. Coo, you look like you’ve caught the sun. ’Ow was yer second ’oneymoon?’ She gave one of her crackly tobacco-induced laughs and nudged Simon’s elbow. ‘She looks like you gave ’er a proper good time, an’ no mistake!’

Simon turned a deep shade of pink at this, but Penny merely grinned and set about filling the kettle. ‘Don’t you go embarrassing my husband, Queenie. You are a very naughty woman.’

Desperate to steer the conversation away from his personal life and back to the matter in hand, Simon cleared his throat. ‘As I was saying, we’re having a meeting about what can be done to save the Pavilions.’

Audrey Tipton fixed Penny with a challenging stare. ‘You got here at just the right moment. We’ve decided that you are critical to our campaign.’

‘Oh?’ replied Penny coolly.

Audrey was not to be intimidated. ‘Yes. As you move in the world of “celebrities”’ – this was accompanied by an unpleasant little smirk, which her husband dutifully mirrored – ‘you can organise a troupe of actors to come down and put on some sort of event to raise the profile of the campaign.’

‘Ah, I see. Would you like me to phone Judi Dench and David Attenborough now, or shall I wait until tomorrow?’ Penny gave a sweet smile and plonked a plate of HobNobs on the table.

‘This is no laughing matter, Mrs Canter. May I remind you that without the co-operation of this village, your Mr Tibbs Mysteries series would never have got off the ground.’ She turned to her husband and commanded: ‘Geoffrey, pour me a cup of tea.’ Then her icy gaze returned to Penny. ‘If you weren’t the vicar’s wife, the whole exercise would have been doomed to fail.’

Penny gritted her teeth and reminded herself that as the vicar’s wife she had a duty to be civil to parishioners, no matter how trying they might be. ‘Audrey, the series was conceived long before I became the vicar’s wife. There’s more to a successful series than—’

‘That may well be the case,’ Audrey cut her off huffily. ‘But without the goodwill and co-operation of the villagers, you would find it very difficult indeed to do your shooting. I do have some influence, you know,’ she added ominously.

Penny felt anger rise in her. She was vaguely conscious of Simon and Geoff holding their breath, and Queenie leaning forward as if she was hoping Penny would give in to temptation and crown Audrey with the teapot. Instead she set the teapot carefully on the table and enquired in a calm, cool voice, ‘Are you blackmailing me, Mrs Tipton?’

‘Not at all, not at all!’ trilled Mrs Tipton, pushing back her chair and standing up. ‘I’m just stating the facts, that’s all. Come along, Geoffrey, it’s time for your dinner.’

As Audrey swept out regally, her submissive husband trailing in her wake, Penny turned to Simon and threw her hands in the air, ‘Oh the life of a vicar’s wife!’

‘For better or for worse, darling,’ Simon reminded her.

‘Don’t push your luck, sunshine!’ growled Penny.

3

Ollie Pinkerton was feeling good. The gym was buzzing today and his pre-breakfast workout had gone well. He zipped up his jeans, checked his gelled hair in the changing-room mirror and hefted his sports bag onto his shoulder.

Out in the members’ lounge he queued for a skinny mochaccino.

‘Hi, Ollie. What can I get you?’ asked the smiling woman behind the counter.

‘The usual, please, Lou. You still on for tonight’s show?’

It was Lou’s silver wedding anniversary and he had given her a couple of complimentary tickets for The Merry Wives of Windsor at Stratford’s RSC.

‘Oooh, yes. Graeme and I are really looking forward to it. You sure it’s OK?’ Ever so kind of you. We couldn’t afford those prices.’

‘My pleasure.’ Ollie gave her his winning beam of a smile. He hadn’t bothered to tell her that the tickets were comps. ‘We’ll be nicely warmed up for you after this afternoon’s matinee,’ he said, opening his wallet to pay for the coffee.

‘No, no, Ollie. On the house.’

He trousered the five-pound note speedily and thanked her. Just because he was an actor with the Royal Shakespeare Company didn’t mean he was minted.

Collecting his coffee he threaded his way through clusters of tables and chairs to an empty two-seater brown leather sofa in front of a huge television screen showing highlights of a tennis tournament.

On the seat next to him was a copy of the Daily Mail. He flicked through it, only half engaged, until he saw a large photo of himself with a girl who wasn’t his girlfriend. Shit. The headline blared ‘Still Seeing Red, Ollie?’ Shit shit shit.

His phone began to vibrate in his back pocket. He pulled it out, wincing when he saw the caller ID, his pocket rocket rock star girlfriend, ‘Red’.

‘Hi, babe,’ he said, trying to keep his voice neutral. ‘Didn’t expect to hear from you this early. How’s Sydney? How’s the show?’

‘How am I supposed to do a show when my boyfriend is shagging around?’ was Red’s blisteringly chilly response.

‘What are you talking about?’

‘Henrik just showed me the Mail Online.’

Ollie resisted the urge to swear. Red’s smarmy PA seemed to think the best way to ingratiate himself with Red and worm his way into her good books was to make her suspicious of everyone else. Unfortunately, he’d succeeded; Red wouldn’t hear a word against the little creep. When Ollie had been unwise enough to joke that Henrik was more PITA than PA, she’d turned on him, demanding, ‘What the hell’s that supposed to mean?’

‘You know, Pain In The Arse – PITA. It’s a joke.’

‘Another of your stupid public schoolboy jokes, eh? Well, forgive me and my Wolverhampton comprehensive school denseness. Oh no, hang on – I’m not that dense, am I? I’m sixty-seventh on the Sunday Times Rich List, I’m number one in fourteen countries and I have an entourage of eight, including Henrik my PA.’

As a result, Ollie kept his opinion of Henrik’s latest helpful gesture to himself and instead tried to explain, but Red wasn’t listening.

‘I’m going to have to cancel the show tonight,’ she wailed. ‘I can’t go on stage knowing what an unfaithful shit you are.’ She was so loud, he held the phone away from his ear. Noticing people on nearby tables casting curious glances in his direction, he tried to muffle the sounds coming from the earpiece while holding the phone close to his mouth.

‘Red, honey, I love you. It’s just a picture of some girl who saw the show last night and was waiting at the stage door for an autograph. She was with her fiancée. He took the photo.’

‘Oh yeah? Then how come it got into the papers?’

‘I don’t know. Maybe he uploaded it to Twitter or … maybe he sold it. I don’t know, honey. You have to believe me – I don’t even know her name. An autograph, a photo and then it was home to bed, on my own, dreaming of you.’

‘Yeah?’ she snivelled.

‘Yeah.’

‘So, you’d be pleased to see me if I jumped on a plane tonight and came home?’

He felt a tap on his shoulder and looked round. One of the young actresses in the cast of The Merry Wives of Windsor, damp from a swim, was miming a cup of coffee. He shook his head, pointed to the phone and raised his eyebrows in despair. She nodded, pulling the corners of her mouth down comically, and went to the bar.

‘Ollie, are you still there?’ Red’s shrill voice boomed from the earpiece.

‘Yeah, yeah, sorry, there must have been some dropout on the satellite … I missed what you said.’ He hoped she’d forgotten what she had said.

There was a pause while she smothered the mouthpiece and spoke to someone at the other end. He couldn’t catch what she was saying, and was straining to make out the words when her voice suddenly came back loud and clear: ‘You don’t know the pressure I’m under here. There’s thirty-two thousand people out there, and just because they’ve had to wait a bit they’re booing. They don’t know how you’re breaking my heart.’

‘How long have they been waiting?’

‘Not long. Maybe two hours.’

‘You’ve kept them waiting two hours?’

‘No. You’ve kept them waiting two hours by being such a shit to me.’ Someone was calling to her in the background. She muted the phone for a moment, then came back on the line. ‘OK, OK, I have to go. I’ll skype you later. We need to talk.’

‘Yeah, honey.’ He groaned inwardly. ‘I love talking. Now go get ’em, tiger!’

Gemma, his actress friend, thumped down next to him, licking a splash of coffee from her wrist.

‘“Go get ’em, tiger”?’ She arched a sardonic eyebrow. ‘Sooo rock’n’roll.’

‘Oh, Gem, this long-distance, high-profile relationship stuff is not for cissies.’

Gemma took a sip of her cappuccino and wiped the froth from her lips with the tiny paper napkin. ‘Any kind of relationship would do me at the moment.’

‘Look at this.’ He handed her the newspaper.

‘Ah.’ She read the text. ‘Nice photo.’

‘Thank you.’

‘Not you. The mystery girl. She’s very pretty.’

He snatched the paper from her and dropped it on the floor by his feet. ‘You’re not being very helpful.’ They sat and watched the tennis players on the screen for a few moments, then Ollie asked. ‘Are you a jealous person, Gemma?’

‘I haven’t had enough boyfriends to find out. Maybe I haven’t loved anyone enough to care. Don’t you get jealous of Red? All those male groupies hanging outside her hotels and following her around the world?’

‘No.’

‘You don’t love her enough then.’

‘It’s not that. I’m just not the jealous type. She wouldn’t do anything. She doesn’t get the opportunity on tour, anyway. She’s surrounded by her hangers-on and hustled from airport to hotel to stadium to hotel to airport. I’ve seen it. Our first date was at the O2. I went to watch her from the wings.’

‘Great date. Intimate.’

‘Shut up.’

‘Just saying.’

‘Yeah, well anyway, I watched her give her heart and soul to the audience. The way she worked with the band and her dancers, she blew me away. Then the minute she’s sung her last note she takes her bow and runs off stage. Her dresser is waiting with a big warm dressing gown to wrap her in. Her assistant dresser is waiting with a huge towel to wrap round her sweaty hair and then she’s just like, whoosh, straight through a path made for her by Security, past all the backstage crew and out into a blacked-out limo. The band will still be playing. The crowd will still be chanting. The police will have closed the exit roads for a five-minute window to get her out, and in ten minutes she’ll be in her hotel room watching a late-night movie, all on her own.’

‘No wonder she’s bonkers.’

‘It’s tough on her. She’s only twenty-four. She’s been a star for three years, since she blew the world away on the X Factor. The world wants to know everything about her.’

‘And you.’

Ollie’s face clouded over. ‘I hate it.’

‘Lots of actors would give anything to get their profile as high as yours. Why not go with the flow and enjoy the ride?’

‘I don’t want to be famous as a “celebrity boyfriend”. I want my work as an actor to speak for me.’

‘Get over yourself! We’re all a bunch of children dancing in front of our parents: Look at me, Mummy. Look at me!’

Ollie couldn’t help but laugh. ‘OK, perhaps there’s a bit of that. But I still want a private life and a private relationship with my girlfriend, but that’s not likely to happen when there’s a fortune to be made selling photos of us. The irony of it is, while the paps are cashing in, I’m skint.’ Gemma nodded with understanding. You worked for the RSC for kudos, not cash. ‘Red expects me to fly out and join her whenever I have a break, but the transatlantic flights and hotels are cleaning me out.’

‘Have you told her that?’

‘I can’t – she’d offer to pick up the bill, and I don’t want that. I could never be a freeloader.’

Gemma patted his knee. ‘You’re too noble for your own good, that’s your trouble. Want to walk with me back to the theatre?’

‘No, I’ve got some stuff to do.’

‘OK see you later.’

Ollie watched as Gemma made her way to the exit. The ‘stuff’ he had to do – calling in at the dry cleaners for his shirts, stopping by the cashpoint to draw some money – wouldn’t have prevented him walking back to the theatre with her. The real problem was that he couldn’t risk being photographed with Gemma; that would only lead to another row with Red.

Outside, the sun was surprisingly warm and tourists were wandering happily along the Stratford-upon-Avon high street, stopping, with little or no warning, whenever something in a shop window took their fancy. Ollie cursed under his breath as he employed all his navigational skills to avoid tripping over them.

His call with Red had annoyed him. Lately, all his calls with Red annoyed him. She was a great girl. Funny, pretty, great body, talented, never there. It was the never there bit that messed things up. They’d met when she’d come to see him in a fringe production of Joe Orton’s Loot. He’d had the best reviews of his life and it was a game-changer for him. The production was the hottest ticket in town. He’d heard backstage that Red was in the audience; she was already huge in the UK but hadn’t quite gone global. Back then it had just been a matter of dodging the paparazzi, which meant she was still able to enjoy the odd night out.

After the performance, he’d received a sweet handwritten note in red ink on the back of a fag packet:

Fancy dodging the paps with me after the show? Rx

They’d slipped out of a side entrance, just the two of them, and managed to hole up in a tiny bar, blissfully unrecognised, while her minders parked up nearby. She made him laugh, she seemed kind, genuine, in touch with her roots. The connection was instant. She told him about her upbringing in the Midlands, how hard it had been on her family, enduring the constant attention after X Factor. He told her about his father walking out when he was just a kid, how he’d never really fitted in at public school, and how much he wanted to become a good actor. Their lives were different but something really clicked between them that night.

But no sooner had they got together than her star had gone stratospheric.

Ollie was twenty-eight. He loved life. Fifteen months ago he’d had a great social life, but all that had closed down for him. Thanks to Red and her fame. A big fat problem. Did he love her enough to accept it? Was she The One? He knew that she was the most exciting woman he’d ever known … so far … But in the time that he’d known her, she’d changed. The stress of her lifestyle had taken its toll. And the initial excitement of their relationship had been replaced by a kind of prison … That was it, he had lost his freedom … and she was losing herself.

He stopped walking and stared at the swans floating elegantly on the river by the theatre. They were free. Free and wild. One of them got out of the water and waggled up to him, hoping for food.

‘Sorry, mate. Nothing for you.’

He stood still while the large bird pecked fruitlessly at the chewing gum stains on the path, then stood tall, looking at him in disappointment, before giving a shake of its feathers and wandering off forlornly. Ollie saw the tag round one slender black ankle.