The Beach Hut Read Free

wasn’t supposed to leave the college at night, but she and Sandra had found a way of getting out and getting back in again without being noticed. And it wasn’t why her parents were forking out all that money. They wanted her to come out with tip-top typing and shorthand skills so she could have a career. How very enlightened of them. Jane didn’t want a career. She wanted a good time.
    Typically, she had spent seven months at Miss Grimshire’s before she had discovered the real delights of London nightlife. And the final two months, before she left with her certificate (merit and 140 words per minute, despite burning the candle at both ends), had passed in a flash and suddenly she was back in Everdene, leaving her new self behind, a party-loving creature who wasn’t yet fully formed. She wanted bright lights and action and clothes and music and laughter . . .
    Finding herself in this total backwater with no hope of any social life whatsoever had plunged her into gloom. Well, there was a social life, but it involved rounders on the beach or burnt sausages - not drinking brandy and ginger in a tiny club with music throbbing through your body.
    And so she was sulking. Her mother was not best pleased. Her mother was incensed. She wouldn’t stop banging on about her daughter’s new-found lassitude. Prue Lowe didn’t believe in sulking, or lolling, or dozing, or festering - all the things Jane felt inclined to do. Prue was an up-and-at-it sort of person, a doer, an organiser, and she never knew when to leave well alone.
    ‘You can’t just sit in that deckchair moping all holidays, ’ she chided her eldest daughter. ‘Go and get some exercise. Have a walk along the beach.’
    Jane just rolled her eyes and went back to her magazine. She’d read it four times already, but the chances of getting anything up to date in the general shop in Everdene were pretty remote. She was all right if she wanted knitting patterns and foolproof recipes for a sausage plait, but not if she wanted to know what she should be wearing this autumn.
    Not that she had any money to buy the clothes she salivated over.
    The closest she got to having fun was sitting with Roy Mason in the kiosk where he sold ice cream, listening to the radio. She made him turn it up when one of her favourites came on. She tried to get him to dance, but he jumped away from her as if he’d been branded whenever she touched him. Boys in London didn’t jump away from her, far from it. Maybe she just wasn’t Roy’s type? He seemed very keen on Marie, whose mother ran the café at the end of the promenade. Marie worked in there too, and sometimes she came down to the beach with a bacon sandwich for Roy, and Jane made herself scarce. Two’s company, after all.
    The third time Marie had found Jane with Roy, she cornered Jane in the post office.
    ‘You keep away from him,’ she warned, an accusatory finger pointing in Jane’s face.
    ‘Hey,’ replied Jane, holding up her hands to indicate her innocence. ‘We’ve only been talking.’
    Marie shot her a look of pure venom. Jane kept away from Roy after that, not because she was afraid of Marie, but because she didn’t want to cause trouble for Roy. He was nice. He was far too good-looking for Marie, with his dark hair and brown skin and kind eyes. He didn’t know he was good-looking. You could tell that by the way he carried himself. Not cocky and arrogant like some of the boys she’d met, who thought they were God’s gift when they weren’t, far from it. Maybe the city did that to you, made you more confident than you should be. It had certainly made her more confident.
    As the days dragged on, Jane could tell her mother was running out of patience. Prue wasn’t tolerant of people who didn’t fit into her idea of how things should be. Jane was spoiling her fantasy of a happy seaside family holiday. She clearly expected her daughter to be gungho, and take part in the same activities as her younger brother and