Sun, Sand And Sea

The beach hut was special to me, and I could think of no better place to get away from it all . . .

THE call came through one morning as I was getting ready for work. I didn’t recognise the number and I was in a hurry, but I answered it.

“Is that Kirsty Harrison?” a brisk voice asked. “Yes,” I replied.

“This is Norma Simms from the beach hut group.”

It took me a moment. Why would someone be calling about a beach hut?

“It’s about number forty-one,” she pressed. “I’m sorry, I don’t . . .” Then it hit me. We were still in the process of sorting things out after Gran’s death a month ago.

I don’t think any of us had given a thought to the beach hut. To be honest, it was the last thing on anyone’s mind.

“No,” she said. “I’m sorry. I should have offered my condolences.

“I was so sorry to hear about Jilly. She was very popular here.”

Her voice thickened and she cleared her throat. “Thank you,” I whispered. “Jilly gave us your number a couple of years ago and said we should call if there were any issues.” “Did she?”

I didn’t know whether to feel flattered or dismayed that Gran had done that. Normally Mum sorted everything out.

I didn’t even know that Gran still had it. She must have been paying fees to the council and insurance for the past few years, but I couldn’t remember the last time any of us had even been there.

“She’s been renting it out,” Norma went on. “She allowed it to be used free of charge by charities in the summer.”

“I didn’t know that.” “Oh, yes. She was always very generous. She’s done that for as long as I’ve known her – even before your grandfather died.

“We have a waiting list of people wanting to buy if you wanted to sell.”

“I’m just on my way to work,” I explained. “Is it OK if I call you later, Norma?

“I’ll need to speak to the rest of the family before making any decisions.”

“That would be lovely, thank you. And again, we are so sorry for your loss.”

I got to work, but couldn’t stop thinking about Gran and the beach hut.

We’d often go to stay with my grandparents at weekends or during the holidays.

Sometimes Mum and Dad would stay, too, but usually it was just my brother and me.

My friends said it wasn’t a proper holiday, but it always felt like one to us.

We’d go down on the first really good day of the year, usually in April or May.

Dad always parked at the end of the seafront and we’d hurry on with an assortment of bags and boxes.

Dad had his toolbox and Mum a box full of cleaning stuff. My brother and I would carry food and Gran would bring the drinks.

I smiled as I remembered the way Gran unlocked it and threw open the door.

“Welcome to summer!” she’d cry. “Come on in!”

She wasn’t just talking to us. She was talking to the sunshine and fresh sea air.

My grandparents had owned the beach hut since Mum was a child. Gran said that it was their only extravagance.

Even though it was only a 20-minute walk from their house, she said she left her troubles behind during the walk and felt as if she was getting away from it all once she got there.

While my brother and I searched the rock pools for little crabs and tiddlers, Dad would fix anything that needed fixing, while Mum and Gran gave the beach hut a good spring clean.

Every year, Gran strung bunting inside.

It was ancient stuff from when she and Grandad first bought the place, but to me the blue and yellow triangles were the sign that summer was coming. “Are you OK, Kirsty?” I jumped. For a moment I felt disorientated.

I’d imagined I was back in the beach hut with the smell of sea and sand, a brisk breeze ruffling the sea and the bunting fluttering.

I was surprised to find myself sitting at a desk with a screen in front of me.

I looked up at my boss, Martin, through a haze of tears and quickly wiped them away.

“I’m fine,” I lied.

He pulled a chair over to my desk and sat down.

“No, you’re not,” he said. “It’s not long since you lost your grandmother.”

“I took several days off at the time. I can’t take more.”

“Grief doesn’t work like that. It hits you when you least expect it.

“Sometimes something triggers it, other times it comes out of the blue.

“Occasionally it’s best to carry on and work through it, but sometimes you have to let it in and deal with it.”

When I looked at him, his expression said he was waiting for me to talk.

I still hadn’t figured out how I was going to bring up the subject of the beach hut with my mum.

Gran’s death had hit her harder than anyone, and I knew if thinking about those happy times had affected me so deeply, it was going to be far worse for Mum.

“I had a call before I came to work,” I said, and before I knew it I was telling Martin about the beach hut and all its memories.

“Would you like to go there? Now, I mean.” “No,” I said.

But someone would have to eventually and I wasn’t sure Mum could cope.

It wouldn’t be fair to burden my brother with it.

He wasn’t just a hardworking doctor, but his wife had just had their first baby. He had enough on his plate.

“Come on, Kirsty. Sign off and divert your e-mails to Angela.”

“No. I can’t.”

“We can,” he said. “I’ll drive you.”

“It’s too far. It would take an hour to get there.” He shrugged. “We’re not busy. Come on. I could do with getting away from it all for a while.”

“I’ve never been here before,” Martin said as he parked in the car park.

As soon as we stepped out of the car, the wind took my breath away and I could already taste the salt.

I’d called Norma and arranged to meet her. She was sitting in her own beach hut further along the row from Gran’s.

“Just let me know when you decide what to do,” she said, her eyes sympathetic. “We all loved Jilly.”

She handed a key to me. “There’s no hurry,” she said. “I’ll be here all day.”

She smiled and rubbed my arm. I found the gesture curiously comforting.

“This is it,” I said as we stopped outside number forty-one.

The beach huts were all painted differently. Gran’s was striped green, yellow and red.

“It looks like a stick of rock,” Martin remarked.

“Gran loved bright colours.”

“I think it’s lovely,” Martin said as I opened it up.

The familiar smell that wafted out when I opened the door took my breath away just as the wind had done when we arrived.

It was the smell of my childhood, of happy memories – of Gran.

I opened up two folding chairs and we sat inside, sheltering from the wind, but able to watch the gulls skimming across the waves.

“I’ve never been in a beach hut before,” Martin confessed.

“Then you’ve never lived.” I laughed.

“I didn’t know your gran,” Martin began, “but I know the owner of this colourful refuge wouldn’t want you to stop laughing.”

“I don’t know why I came here. I can’t make any decisions about the beach hut. It’s up to Mum.”

“Then don’t make your last memories of this place unhappy ones,” he said. “Shall we go on the beach?”

I thought he was crazy, but the childhood me would have been straight on to the beach, wind or no wind.

“You can show me those rock pools you told me about,” he added.

We squatted beside small pools which were tiny oceans of stillness in the raging wind.

I gently moved a small rock with my finger and a little crab scuttled out, looking up at us.

How terrifying we must seem to something so tiny, yet it raised its little claws as if it could fight us off.

“Don’t worry, little crab,” I reassured it. “We won’t hurt you.”

I remembered taking my bucket to show Gran once.

I had caught several little crabs to show her and she said I had to return them all to their own pools.

“I can’t remember which ones they came from,” I protested, and she looked at me over the top of her glasses.

“I don’t expect it will matter this once, but imagine how you’d feel if some giant came along and took you from your home. How frightened those little creatures must be.”

It was the nearest she ever came to telling me off.

Things were different when the tide was in and we caught bigger crabs on our lines.

They had nippers that

The familiar smell when I opened the door took my breath away

could deliver a nasty pinch if you weren’t careful, but we always returned them to the sea within minutes, often catching the same ones over and over again.

My brother used to give them names.

“I’ve caught Barnacle Bert again,” he’d shout as he pulled in his line.

When we’d finished, we’d drop all our leftover bacon bits into the water for the crabs to eat, but the gulls used to swoop in as soon as we moved away.

I found myself telling Martin all of this and more.

We washed our hands under one of the taps that served the beach huts and returned to the shelter.

“I should call my dad,” I said. “He can talk to Mum. He’ll know the right things to say.”

“I’ll leave you to it,” Martin told me.

“What are you doing there?” Dad asked when I told him, so I explained about Norma’s call.

“I’ll speak to your mother, but I know she’ll want to sell it. She never liked going there.” “Didn’t she?”

“She said it was a tie, having to go and clean it all up every year, and she hated that muddy car park and days at the beach. We thought your gran sold it years ago.”

I found myself

smiling. Mum could be bossy and Gran’s eyes would glaze over and she’d nod and agree with her and Mum would think she’d won.

I remembered Mum moaning about sand in the car and how hard it was to get it out of the carpets while Dad did his best to vacuum.

When I got home from a stay with Gran, Mum would hustle me off for a bath to get rid of the sea smell, even if I’d already showered at Gran’s.

“When she was a child, your mum used to wish they could go on proper holidays,” Dad told me.

“But your gran always said they had everything they could possibly need at the beach hut.”

I hadn’t realised that. I knew that Mum loved to travel, but I didn’t know she felt as if she’d missed out as a child.

To me, holidays with Gran were proper holidays and I never wished for anything else.

Dad said he’d call me back in 10 minutes.

“Mum says to tell Norma the beach hut is for sale,” he said. “Do you mind sorting that out, love?”

I wandered along the row of beach huts and found Martin sitting with Norma, drinking coffee.

“Come and join us,” Norma said cheerfully, and Martin opened a folding chair for me while Norma made another coffee.

Gran used to say that the only piece of real estate she’d ever owned was the beach hut.

It was no castle or country pile, but it was hers and she loved it.

“As I told you, there is a waiting list of people wanting to buy,” Norma remarked. “It won’t take long. If you’re sure?”

“It’s Mum’s decision,” I said. “I’d buy it myself if I could afford it.

“My only stipulation would be that whoever buys it still allows it to be used by charities for some weeks.”

“Of course.” Norma smiled. “That’s what Jilly would want.”

“It’s better to let it go,” I went on. “Even if I bought it, I don’t think I’d be able to use it without feeling sad. Too many memories.”

“Do you realise we haven’t eaten all day?” Martin said as we headed for home. “Shall we stop for dinner?”

“My treat,” I declared. “As a thank-you for coming with me today.”

“I’ve enjoyed it,” he said. I’d worked for Martin for three years and we’d always got on well, but apart from the staff Christmas meal every year, we’d never socialised.

I felt I’d really got to know him better during our day at the beach.

“It was great to get away from it all,” he added. “Even if the circumstances are sad.

“Look, Kirsty, this probably isn’t the right time, but I’d like to see you again outside work.”

“I’d like that.” I grinned. “I’d completely understand if you said no,” he went on quickly. “It wouldn’t change anything.”

“I didn’t say no.” I found myself smiling again and I thought how much Gran would have liked Martin.

I’d told her about him and she always said she liked the sound of him.

“You could do worse than marry the boss,” she’d said.

“It’s what I did. Your grandad was my boss at the town hall when I first met him.”

But, of course, I never even considered the idea of marrying the boss.

His face broke into a huge smile.

I knew I was probably being silly. If things didn’t work out I could find myself having to change jobs, but Gran always used to say it was worth taking a chance.

We put the beach hut up for sale, including all the contents, but after two months Norma called.

“It’s your stipulation about the charity use,” she explained. “The interested parties want access to it all the time.

“To be fair, most people buy them for friends and family to use whenever they want to.

“It’s one of the joys of a beach hut, just having it there for when you fancy a day at the beach.”

I told Martin about the call during our lunch break. Seeing him socially had worked better than either of us could have hoped.

Perhaps it was because we were friends before, but us being together felt so right and I could talk to him about anything.

“Mum’s getting impatient,” I said. “She wants me to drop the charity stipulation and just get rid of it.”

He nodded thoughtfully. “Give it a couple more weeks,” he suggested. “You never know.”

And he was right. Within two weeks an offer had been made and the new owner was happy for the charitable use to continue.

“You’re not too sad, are you?” Martin asked me.

“It’s like letting the last piece of Gran go,” I admitted.

“No, it’s not,” he said. “She’ll always be in your heart, and the beach hut will always be part of your memories.

“You’d forgotten about it until Norma called, hadn’t you?”

“You’re right. I’m being silly.”

“One day another family will go to the beach hut and enjoy days at the seaside just like you did.”

The thought cheered me up. He was right.

It was there to be used and enjoyed and I knew that people who owned beach huts loved them and took care of them.

I never dreamed that the family could be mine.

I had no idea that Martin was the person who had bought the beach hut.

He didn’t tell me until after we were married and our first child was toddling.

Mum knew, of course, but had kept it to herself on condition that Martin never invited her to it!

Martin packed up the car one day and took me there. I’d never told him how much I regretted not being able to buy it.

I didn’t say a word about how I yearned to go there, but he must have known that one day I would.

He unlocked the beach hut and, as he opened the door, the familiar smell rushed out.

Inside, everything was the same as it always was. He’d even been down a few days earlier to hang the bunting and give the place a clean.

“You’ve rented it?” I said, not daring to hope.

“I bought it,” he said. “All those years ago.

“I’ve been renting it out and letting charities use it, just waiting for the right time to bring you back.”

It was a beautiful day and lots of other families had opened up their huts.

Windbreakers were set up and children headed for the beach with buckets and spades. The atmosphere was exactly as I remembered it, warm and welcoming.

We took Joe’s hands and walked down to the sand. It was his first trip to the beach and his little face lit up.

I had such wonderful memories here and we were about to make more for Joe and for us.

I looked back at the striped beach hut and, for a moment, I thought I saw Gran sitting on a folding chair in front of it.

My heart lifted when I realised I could now think of Gran without sadness, remembering instead her happy smile and warm laughter. One day I’d pass those memories on to Joe and any other children we might have.

“Ready?” Martin asked and I nodded.

We lifted Joe off the ground and he squealed with laughter as we ran to the sea and dipped his toes into the cool water, just like Gran used to do with me.

I knew in that moment Gran would always be a part of this place.

We might not be able to see her, but she lived on in the sparkling sea and the excited laughter of her great-grandson. And always in my heart. ■