The Beach Hut Read Free Page B

place.’
    ‘But he hasn’t even met me yet,’ Jane protested, getting up nevertheless. ‘How does he know he wants me?’
    ‘Darling, I told him you’d been trained by Miss Grimshire. And that you’d got a distinction—’
    ‘Merit. I only got a merit,’ Jane corrected her. Her mother was prone to exaggeration.
    Prue flapped away her objection.
    ‘He’s hardly going to be spoilt for choice for typists down here. He seemed quite happy. In fact, he said as long as you were quiet and kept yourself to yourself . . .’
    Jane was already at the sink, washing the dust and sand from her hands and face, doing rapid calculations. By the end of the summer she should have over thirty pounds left to take up to London when she went to look for a job. There certainly wasn’t going to be anything to spend it on down here. Thirty pounds! What heaven, what bliss!
     
    Half an hour later, with her mother’s grudging approval as to her appearance, she walked halfway down the beach, and then took the steep path up through the dunes that led to the back road which served the houses where Mr Shaw lived. The marram grass slapped at her legs as she walked, and the sand insinuated its way into her sandals. She took them off and emptied them out before she walked up the drive. She wondered what he would be like to work for. She imagined a little old man with spectacles and a woolly jumper, a little bit absent-minded, but essentially quite kind. She would have to bring him tea, which he would forget to drink. And eventually she would tidy his office for him, thereby transforming his life, and he would be awfully grateful. Miss Grimshire talked a lot about how to manage your employer. It was best if you went about organising them without them noticing you were doing it. An efficient secretary could make her own and her boss’s life so much easier, if she knew the little tricks.
    She had arrived at the front door. There wasn’t a bell that she could see, so she rapped her knuckles as hard as she could on the wood. There was no answer, so she tried again.
    And again.
    Jane reckoned that after three knocks either there was nobody in or the person inside didn’t want to answer, and so she turned to go, relieved but at the same time not entirely thrilled at the prospect of going to sit on the beach again for another day. At least a tedious typing job would have given her money—
    The door was jerked open.
    ‘What?’ came a bark.
    Jane turned to see a wild-haired, bare torso-ed man. He was over six foot and as brown as a berry, wearing a pair of baggy khaki shorts, nothing on his feet. He had dark curls that were swept back off his face, and eyes that looked as if they had been burnt into his face with a branding iron - dark, deep-set.
    He didn’t look pleased to see her. She felt tempted just to run and avoid any sort of confrontation, but he could probably catch up with her in two strides.
    ‘Hello,’ said Jane brightly. ‘I’m Jane Lowe.’
    He looked at her with annoyance.
    ‘Who?’
    ‘Your typist?’ She corrected herself. ‘The typist.’ She wasn’t his typist, exclusively. ‘My mother spoke to you.’
    ‘Oh yes.’ He still looked annoyed, but he stood to one side to let her in.
    ‘Were you not expecting me?’
    He gave a small sigh of annoyance and made a dismissive gesture with his hand.
    ‘I suppose so.’
    Jane felt as if she was a huge inconvenience, like someone who had come to read the meter. She followed him into the house, through a cool dark hallway and into the living room.
    She had seen the house so often from the outside. They walked past it whenever they went to the best rock pools at the far end of the beach - it loomed rather menacingly over the sands, the signs at the bottom of the garden warning ‘Private Property - Keep Out’ in red letters. It was strange, now being inside. The living room was vast, the floor made from polished wood, and the entire wall overlooking the sea was made of windows.