Copyright Oggbashan May 2021
The author asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work.
This is a work of fiction. The events described here are imaginary; the settings and characters are fictitious and are not intended to represent specific places or living persons.
My beach front house was built during the 1930s depression by a local building family for the parents and owners. It provided jobs for the workers when other projects stalled.
It is an Art Deco house with a flat roof that can be used as a patio. It is set behind the sea wall and promenade. But the part I like best is the so-called beach hut just behind the promenade wall.
The house was built above a raised area for garaging cars because there was always the possibility that a ground floor would flood. The main living room, large kitchen/diner and family bathroom are on the floor above and the four bedrooms, three now with ensuites, are on the top floor. There is a lift from the garage level right up to the roof and all the electrics for the lift are sited at the living room floor level.
The promenade was thirty feet wide beyond the end of my garden but unusually the council only owned the seaward fifteen feet. The rest either belonged to the beach front properties like mine, or to beach hut owners.
In 1953 the floods had overtopped the promenade and flowed into the adjacent properties. The garage level had been flooded four feet deep but the then owners had moved their two cars hours before to park on higher ground. The house, and more importantly, its electrics were unharmed.
But the beach hut, sited just behind the promenade, had been completely destroyed. It had been a large wooden hut on a raised concrete base under which was a boat store. The concrete had been level with the promenade. After 1953 the then local council had installed a curved wave deflecting wall about three feet high but because that wall was on private land, the landowners had to pay. The council had negotiated a low cost and provided loans for those who couldn't afford a capital payment.
The builders who owned my house had won the contract and they did a good sound job.
But they changed the base of what had been their beach hut. They removed the original boat store and rebuilt a larger platform at the height of the top of the new sea wall. On the seaward side they provided wide steps leading up to the base, leaving spaces either side for a couple of benches.
The new beach hut was much more substantial, concrete and brick built, matching the Art Deco style of the house, with a twelve foot wide wooden decking in front, half covered with a projecting roof. The hut itself was much larger with a sitting room in front with French doors, a double bedroom, a smaller single bedroom, a shower room with toilet and a small kitchen. At the rear was a ramp and steps leading down to the sunken garden.
The father died in the 1970s and by the 1980s the mother was disabled and wheelchair bound. She moved into the beach hut as a granny annexe but it wasn't ideal because the shower room was too small to be used with a wheelchair. The single bedroom was converted into a disabled toilet. But there was another problem. When they built the ramp at the back they hadn't appreciated that it was really too steep for a wheelchair and three large men had to propel the mother up the slope. A longer and less steep ramp might have been possible but that would have taken up too much of the small garden so the family just made do.
In the late 1990s I decided to take semi-retirement from the City-based stockbroking company of which I was a director and senior manager. I hadn't been an active trader for years, leaving that to the younger staff while I did all the administration. Unusually our company employed more women than most similar companies and found them an asset. They were inclined to take fewer risks than the men. The profits might be lower than they could be, but the company was very sound.
I remained a non-executive director and a major shareholder. I could work from home but I found that wasn't enough to occupy me. I was friends with the eldest son of the local building company. Over a pint one night he admitted his company was in trouble. Housebuilding work had slowed and unless something happened soon, he might have to wind the company up just because they were short on cash reserves.
One thing led to another and I bought the company. But what was more important to me, was I also bought the beach front house I had coveted for years. It cost less than my former inland mansion with acres of land, stabling etc, and the purchase price of the company didn't really dent my cash reserves. The sale of my old house raised three times the purchase price of the beach front house.
Once I owned it, my extended family decided that visiting grandparents by the beach was popular. My wife used the fourth and smallest bedroom. I moved into the beach hut's double bedroom for most of the summer. I had made a corner of the living room into my home office with fast broadband and used it as the company office for the building company although I didn't have to do much work. I had kept the eldest son as the manager and all his family members as employees. With my financial reserves the company was easily able to survive until work picked up again.
Today, a February Friday, I was feeling lonely and slightly depressed. My wife had died of a stroke six months ago, depriving me of my life's partner and best friend. I had been to visit my eldest son's family at Christmas but I had felt like the skeleton at the feast. None of the family would visit me until the end of the school term.
It had been a dry day but with a keen wind off the sea. Although dog walkers had passed, they had been hurrying and had just given me a brief wave, not stopping for a coffee as some of them usually did.
About half an hour ago the sun had come out and I had walked out on my veranda for a few minutes. The sun as about to set so I put on a coat and went out again. I was surprised to see someone sitting on a bench despite the cold wind. I went down the steps to the promenade to see who it was.
I recognised her. She was Helen Reynolds, née Gault, the daughter of my family friends, beach hut owners who had moved away when Helen's father retired three years ago. Helen was a woman in her early fifties. My wife and I had been guests at her wedding a decade ago to George. Both had been divorced from their first partners because neither could have children.
Helen had a large suitcase beside her which must have been awkward to bring along the promenade.
"Hello, Helen," I said. "How are you?"
"Buggered! Stuffed! In the shit!" She said forcefully.
"How so?" I asked.
"Malcolm, have you got a spare key to my parents' beach hut?" She asked.
I am the Secretary of the Beach Hut Owners Association. I keep duplicate keys in case any beach hut gets vandalised.
"Probably. Why? Lost yours?"
"I couldn't find it in time before..." Helen started crying.
"Come in and have a hot drink. It is too cold to be out here."
I had to help her to heave the suitcase up the steps.
"Coffee? Or tea, or soup?"
"Soup would be good, Malcolm."
I didn't make Helen a cup of soup but a thick soup from a can. She seemed to appreciate it more than she should.
"So, Helen, why are you 'buggered'?" I asked again.
"I'm homeless, Malcolm, and unless I can get into my parents' beach hut I have nowhere to shelter."
"But you aren't supposed to sleep in a beach hut, except ones like mine," I said.
"I know. But the council can't help. As a single woman I have no priority. Even the homeless shelter can't offer anything until Monday and then only a perhaps, possibly, maybe..."
"But you're not single..." I said before I could stop myself.
"I am now, as of today. George has left me and gone back to his parents and I am well rid of him. He dropped me deep in the shit. We were evicted today and I didn't know that was coming. He had been hiding all the threatening letters from me. George had scarpered before I got up, leaving me a note and the pile of official notices. The bailiffs came at eight am, just as I was about to leave for work. George had cleaned out our joint bank account and it is overdrawn beyond its agreed limit. I have about two pounds in loose change and that's it. Oh, and this suitcase with my clothes and personal things the bailiffs let me keep. If you have a spare key to the beach hut at least I'll have a roof over my head tonight and can see what can be done on Monday but how? My mobile phone is dead because the direct debit failed. The council offices and the homeless hostel are a bus ride away, a bus ride I can't afford."
"What about your parents?"
"They started a cruise yesterday. They won't be back for three weeks and even if I had a key to their house, I can't get there. It is one hundred miles away."
I could see Helen was about to start crying again. I just opened my arms and let her sob against my shoulder for a few minutes. I was very aware that I had an attractive woman in my arms. I thought George had been very stupid. He should have worked with Helen to solve their problems, not hidden them and then abandoned her.
"When did you last eat?" I asked.
"Cereal at breakfast, and then your soup."
"Where have you been all day?"
"Sitting in the Council offices hoping for help which didn't come. I used too much of what little money I had travelling to and back."
"OK, For a start, we'll feed you. How about a takeaway?"
