The Little Kiosk By The Sea: A Perfect Summer Beach Read. Jennifer Bohnet

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СКАЧАТЬ mean there’s no longer a Govenor Holdsworth in charge out at the castle? I was hoping for an invite to stay there.’

      ‘You wouldn’t be very comfortable if you did – Windsor Castle it’s not.’

      ‘Shame. Good job I booked into The Royal for a week or two then. See you later.’

      By the time Sabine helped Owen and Peter to cast off that afternoon, the boat was three quarters full and she watched it depart, pleased the first of the season’s sailings was so full.

      As the Queen of the River began to make its way upstream, Sabine started to close up the kiosk. Life for the next few months would be ruled by the tide table and the need to open the kiosk every day to take advance bookings. Today, though, it was early enough in the season, with few people around, she could close up and go home for an hour or two before the boat returned and she had to be on hand to help the passengers disembark.

      A chilly March breeze was blowing off the river and Sabine was glad of her fleece as she made for her cottage halfway up Crowthers Hill, one of the old roads leading out of town into the back country.

      The house in Above Town she and Dave had bought together as a newly married couple had been too full of memories for both her and Peter to stay there happily without Dave. Far better to have a new start in a different house – one that she and Peter could build into a home, so twelve years ago she’d bought the cottage when Dave’s insurance money had eventually turned up.

      Johnnie and Annie helped with getting the place habitable – it had been empty for two years and took weeks of hard work from the three of them to make it habitable – and she and Peter had lived there ever since.

      Johnnie alone was responsible for the attic conversion three years ago. Sabine had watched in despair as her lovely, kind, compassionate brother all but followed his wife into an early grave. Finding him, bottle in hand, wandering around town at two o’clock one afternoon barely able to stand, she threatened him with dire consequences if he didn’t stop.

      ‘Did you see me doing this when I lost Dave? No. It’s hard but you’ve just got to get on with it.’

      ‘You had Peter,’ he’d muttered. ‘Perhaps if we’d had a child I’d have something to live for.’

      ‘You think it was easier because I had a child? Dream on. It was harder. A constant reminder of what I’d lost. He needed to grieve too. You’ve still got a lot of life to live so don’t give me that bullshit about not having anything to live for. I’m still here loving you and so is Peter.’

      Shouting and yelling at him to get a grip hadn’t made any difference so, in the end, Sabine had taken action the only way she knew – she gave Johnnie something practical to do. Not daring to think about him drinking when he was away on a trip, she cancelled all his yachting work for six months. Then she bullied him into doing her attic conversion, insisting he moved in with her while he did it. That way she could monitor his alcohol, keep an eye on him and feed him regular meals.

      Nine hard months it took, but at the end he’d hammered and sawn his way out of his grief and Sabine had a studio in the attic with a view of the river. More important, Johnnie was on his way back to living life. These days he lived mostly on board his boat despite still owning the cottage he and Annie had bought tucked away in the old part of town.

      Lack of exercise over winter meant she was panting by the time she pushed her key into the front-door lock. Still, the summer routine of walking into town and being on her feet for most of the day would soon have her fit again.

      After organising supper for her and Johnnie – Peter was out with his girlfriend tonight – she made a mug of coffee and went upstairs to her studio. Her favourite place in the house.

      Pressing a button on the CD player, Sabine sank down onto the settee and let the relaxing sounds of her favourite Miles Davis recording wash over her. Missy, her old tabby cat, immediately left the comfort of her basket in the alcove and sprang onto her lap.

      A light and airy room courtesy of the dormer window she’d fought hard to get planning permission for, the room was exactly as she’d dreamed. A comfy two-seater settee with creamy loose covers over it and its feather-filled cushions, a bookcase down one wall holding her collection of art and teach yourself books, a wooden cabinet whose drawers and shelves held her paints, paper and other arty stuff as well as a combined radio and cd player. A small cane coffee table standing on a scarlet scatter rug on the wooden floorboards, polished and varnished to the nth degree by Johnnie, added a splash of colour to the room. An easel with her latest painting on it stood to one side of the dormer window and a few framed family photos were pinned to the ceiling beam that ran the width of the house. A small wood-burner on the side wall kept the room cosy in winter. Stacks of finished paintings were lined up wherever there was wall space.

      Tristan at Churchside Gallery had offered to hang half a dozen or so of her paintings in a local artists’ exhibition he was planning for May. For the last few months she’d been working on getting enough to sell over the season and to have some different ones to offer Tristan. It would be the first time her work had ever been hung in a proper gallery. Tristan had asked her to do some larger paintings of the river, ‘romanticise the scene’, he’d said. ‘People can’t get enough of pictures like that. An old boat or two is good – go for a nostalgic feel.’

      Sabine had enjoyed painting the larger scenes and, as she’d grown more confident, she’d painted a couple of bright abstract ones, not knowing how Tristan would receive them. If he didn’t want them, she’d give one to Johnnie and one to Owen.

      Absently, Sabine stroked Missy. Normally in March she was full of energy and looking forward to the season. This year though, all the talk of the kiosk closing had un-settled her. Making her question what the future might hold. And, if she were honest, made her feel old. Which was ridiculous. She still had plenty of years ahead of her. It was just a question of deciding how she was going to live them.

      After all, her life so far had failed to be anything spectacular so that was unlikely to change. The one chance she’d had to change things had come at a wrong moment in her life. Now it was too late. The opportunity gone for ever. Owen, at least, had never given up on her. Owen, apart from Johnnie, was the one person Sabine knew she could call in any emergency and know he’d be there for her. He would have made a wonderful father, she knew, from seeing him with Peter – she’d even deprived him of that. Had never married anyone else. If only he’d met someone else, the pressure would have been off her, but no. Owen had proved steadfast in his love for her. Sabine remembered with gratitude Owen ‘being there’ for her and Peter through the years. He was a good man, still quite fit in his individual rugged way.

      Sometimes, in the studio late at night when she felt lonely and vulnerable, she fantasised about accepting his proposal. Mrs Sabine Hutchinson had a good ring to it, but resolutely she always pushed the thought away. It wouldn’t be fair to Owen.

      Back down on the quay an hour later, she waited as the Queen of the River, with Peter at the helm, gently draw up alongside the pontoon.

      Owen followed the last of the passengers up the pontoon gangway, leaving Peter and the other crew member to take the boat out to its mooring in the middle of the river.

      ‘You got time for a quick drink?’ he asked. ‘Something we need to talk about.’

      ‘Sounds serious,’ Sabine said, her heart sinking. The beginning of the summer was not a good time for Owen to need to talk. ‘Why not talk here?’

      Owen СКАЧАТЬ