A Season for Second Chances(9)

Sally leaned across the table, grasped Annie by the shoulders, and then let go, throwing her arms up into the air with a flourish as if she were batting away a hornet.

“There!” said Sally. “I hereby remove all feelings of failure associated with your husband’s roaming penis.”

Sally dusted her hands off over the side of the table, ceremonially removing any remnants of blame.

“Right!” she said. “Gone. What’s next?”

Annie gawped. It was the strangest thing, but she actually did feel as though an invisible weight had indeed been removed.

“You’re amazing!” said Annie.

“Far from it,” said Sally. “I’m just aware of the things I don’t have control over. One of them is my legs, the other is people’s behavior.”

“You should do public speaking,” said Annie.

They ordered more drinks and some olives and bread to share; Annie, never normally one to miss a meal, realized she hadn’t had dinner and was beginning to feel the effects of the house wine.

“So, are we talking classic ‘shotgun wedding’ here?” asked Sally, spearing an olive with a cocktail stick.

“Pretty much,” said Annie. “I had to have my dress let out three times before the wedding and, even then, I looked like I was smuggling two bear cubs under my gown. Twins,” she said as way of an explanation.

“How old were you?”

“Seventeen,” said Annie.

“Wow!” said Sally. “Married at seventeen! How very twentieth century of you.”

“What about you?” asked Annie.

“I was twenty-five the first time,” Sally replied. “He was thirty. We had a good run, until he started an affair with his podiatrist, silly sod. Joe, my eldest, was five when we divorced. And then I met Pete on a single parents’ holiday in Corfu. It was all a bit of a whirlwind: marry in haste, repent at leisure, that sort of thing. And then along came Susan.”

“Were you always bisexual?” asked Annie. “Oh my God, I’m so sorry, that’s such a personal question. It must be the wine, I promise I’m not usually so blunt. Just forget I asked that.”

Sally laughed.

“Susan likes to say that she turned me,” said Sally, raising one eyebrow. “But with hindsight I think I probably was bi. We just didn’t have a name for it back then. Joe says we sound like an inclusive reading book for primary schools: Sally and Susan Love Each Other Very Much.”

When the bell went for last orders, Sally ordered a taxi and Annie ordered a grilled cheese sandwich and a packet of crisps to take back to her room. The women swapped phone numbers, and Sally made Annie promise to tell her how she got on with the viewing.

Annie had just settled into bed when her phone pinged with the sound of an e-mail.


Dear Ms. Sharpe,

My name is John Granger. I am Mrs. Mari Chandler’s nephew.

My aunt has asked me to send you directions of how to get to Saltwater Nook, which I shall detail below.

Should you decide to take up the residency agreement, I think it only fair to stress that this is a short-term arrangement. The building is being sold in the new year, and your lease will not be extended. This is not a sitting tenancy, and you will be expected to move out by the date provided at the time of sale.

I would ask in the meantime that you treat your guardianship of my aunt’s property with due respect. I will undertake random spot checks of the property during the winter to ensure that the building is being reasonably maintained. Any action that is deemed to be in breach of this agreement will result in immediate termination of your tenancy.

I thank you in advance for your understanding in this matter.

Kind regards,

John Granger

Annie bristled. Even allowing for the fact that cadence could be tricky to interpret in writing, this e-mail felt rude. Who on earth did John Granger think he was? Who did he think she was? Some sort of serial squatter? She read the directions he had promised at the bottom of the e-mail and somehow even they contrived to irk her. How someone could make at the roundabout take the second exit sound like he was telling you to kiss his arse, Annie couldn’t fathom, but John Granger had managed it. Annie huffed as she reached out to turn off the lamp. “Sitting tenant indeed!” she blustered, and pulled the duvet roughly over her head.





Chapter 8



It was a bright morning and the air was charged with the woody scent of the changing season. Harvest was full upon the land and the leaves on the trees mirrored the colors of ripening squashes and pumpkins.

Annie drove out of the West Kent bustle, through the leafy Weald, with its miles of orchards and converted oast houses, toward the coast. She had never lived close to the sea, and the idea of it felt like an adventure.

She began to get glimpses of the ocean to her right: snatches of brilliant azure peeping between mossy hilltops. Annie followed the signs and found herself, at last, driving through the quaint little village of Willow Bay. Whitewashed cottages with wisteria climbing the walls and wildflower gardens, crisped at the edges by the sun, swayed in the sea breeze. There were two pubs directly opposite one another, the Sunken Willow and the Captain’s Bounty, and both had that look of charming decrepitude on the outside that promised a good home-cooked Sunday roast within. The thatched roof of the Captain’s Bounty drooped significantly on one side, and the wall beneath it looked as if it had been partially swallowed by the flower bed. And the Sunken Willow, Annie thought, was most probably only held upright by the thick mass of dark green ivy that smothered three sides of the building.