The Gin Shack on the Beach. Catherine Miller

       Chapter One

      Most days, there was nothing in the world more comforting than swinging open the beach-hut doors, thermos in hand, breathing in the sweet seaweed breeze of Westbrook Bay. This was Olive Turner’s sanctuary. Her place of restoration. Of being at one. A place to fart loudly where no one else could hear.

      No one was ever here as early as Olive. The other beach-hut owners, people who’d become her friends over the years, were not early birds like her. The only other human being she’d ever spotted here at six in the morning was a lady similar in age to her whom she watched with guarded respect every week as she went for her swim in the sea. There was something about it that was equal parts admirable and crackers. Who did that? Although there weren’t many eighty-four-year-olds about who were unable to sleep in their own homes for all the ghosts walking around those familiar rooms. Here, by the beach, watching life go idly by, was her preference.

      Which was why today was different. It was why every beach-hut owner in Olive’s row was going to break the mould and meet her here at eight-thirty. Because if there was one thing she wasn’t going to give up, it was her shabby-chic, duck-egg-blue, sanity-sparing beach hut.

      Giving up her house wasn’t going to be the hardship she might have imagined. With a home, one should have foundations, a connection to the bricks and mortar that told the story of a lifetime. But whatever roots had been there for them as a family had died many years before. What had happened had been enough to shatter any sense of belonging. It was also enough to shatter the people left behind. And recent events meant she’d had a knock to her confidence. Living alone didn’t have the same appeal it once had.

      Olive decided to continue her morning routine as usual. Nobody would arrive for at least the next couple of hours. She folded out her garden chair so it faced the rising sun. Even though it was July there was still a nip in the air at this time of the morning, so she grabbed her blanket from the ottoman inside the beach hut. The chink of glass as she hauled it out reminded her she’d need to replace it before anyone arrived. The last thing she needed was her son finding her stash of bespoke gins, giving him an even more valid reason to deprive her of the beach hut. A little alcohol never hurt anyone, although the same couldn’t be said for too much.

      This wasn’t about that, though. This was about keeping some form of independence. She might be older than she once was and there might have been that one incident, but there was nothing wrong with her marbles or her constitution and she wasn’t going to let her son boss her about without a fight.

      It was why she was glad she would have her friends here in her corner. If there was one thing guaranteed with Richard, it was that he wouldn’t like a show. It had been a strange and terrible thing to witness the relationship with her son go so sour over the years. It was as if neither of them had ever adjusted to the changed dimensions, even after all this time. She didn’t want to resent him, but it had been hard, watching him become so seemingly unfeeling when it didn’t need to be like that.

      As she settled down in the chair with her blanket, she poured a cuppa from her thermos. She would forgo an extra slug of something to help shield against the early cold. She needed her head to be as clear as possible. Richard, every inch a lawyer, would put his argument across so eloquently it would be hard to argue with. And there was a huge part of her that was so sad she was being put in a position where she needed to disagree with him.

      She understood why. Anyone who’d been through what they had would be altered. He’d used it to his advantage. He’d become successful on the back of the anger he carried. It was no wonder his dotty old mother was a burden when he had a firm up in London to manage. He wasn’t the kind of person who could come running when her boiler broke and she wasn’t one hundred per cent sure who to contact without being totally ripped off. He wasn’t able to pop by when a family of pigeons somehow took up residence in the shed and Olive wasn’t agile enough to sort it out. And she’d not wanted to trouble him on the occasions when she should have.

      The problem was it was always a number. He’d get hold of a phone number and get someone to sort it. A stranger. Someone she didn’t know. She wasn’t keen on inviting strangers into her home. Richard had literally gone apeshit when he’d visited to find she was practically keeping the pigeons as pets. Well, it had seemed unnecessarily mean when the pest-control guy had come round. She’d wanted the RSPCA to come and give them a home. Somewhere more suitable. Olive had turned pest-control man away and started buying bird feed instead. It was part of her caring nature. She’d spent her whole life providing for others. Up until her retirement she’d worked as an auxiliary nurse in the local hospice. She knew how cruel the end of life could be and she certainly wasn’t going to be responsible for ending anyone’s. Not even a pigeon’s.

      After the last gulp of tea, Olive let out a rip-roaring burp unapologetically. Pigeon-gate was what had started her on this road to the Oakley West Retirement Quarters. A place to live out her golden years in comfort. It was happening because Richard thought she was losing her marbles. That she was just a few steps away from leaving the gas cooker on… and kaboom, the house would be gone.

      It wasn’t like that at all. Her marbles were firmly in place. It was just, these days, she didn’t give two hoots what anyone thought, her son included. The only person she planned to please these days was Olive Turner. But however much she wanted to deny it, there was this creeping realisation that time was no longer on her side. It had taken one moment for this news to be delivered to her with startling acuity. She’d been making tea at the time. Such a simple everyday task: fill the kettle, flick it on, teabag into the mug, milk, wait for it to boil, pour the hot water in. A series of tasks so familiar they barely needed thought. It had been once she’d sourced the teabag that it started to go wrong. In a heartbeat she no longer recognised the object in her hand. It was alien. A flying saucer in all the wrong colours.