Chapter 5
It was well past lunchtime when April’s stomach started to growl so loudly she could hear it over the portable radio. She straightened up, her vest top and denim shorts splattered with paint, and admired her handiwork. She was systematically painting the outside of the chalets to brighten them up, and had decided to paint each one a different colour. She wanted them to look like beach huts, all jaunty colours and themed chalets. At present they looked rather like the remnants of a concentration camp, instead of somewhere that people would love to holiday at.
April knew that in this business, word of mouth and repeat custom were paramount, and made all the difference. She had sunk every penny she had into this place, and the pitiful amount she had left in her personal bank account needed to last long enough to cover the repairs and get the place up and running. She needed to live cheap and make the most of the money in her new business account. She needed this place to be what it once was, what she remembered as a girl, and not only that, it had to be better. It had to work, because otherwise she would … well, she didn’t even want to think about that. After everything she had been through, she refused to go home with her tail between her legs. She had no home anymore. This patch of Cornish land was her hill, and if she had to die on it, so be it.
Placing the lid on the paint pot she was using, this one being a gorgeous mint-green colour, she took her brushes and went to head home. A voice called out to her. Martha.
‘You shouldn’t just rinse those brushes you know. It’s best if you get them cleaned properly. That cheap outdoor paint tends to dry into horrible little globules on the budget brushes.’
April looked down at her brushes, then walked over to Martha. She was sitting outside the front of her chalet, in an egg-shaped chair. A sketch board and a few pencils sat next to a pitcher of lemonade on a side table next to her.
‘What would you recommend, Martha?’ April held out her brushes and Martha reached for them. Turning to her side, she lifted a small bin and unceremoniously dumped the brushes straight into it, slapping her hands together for effect.
‘That,’ she said bluntly, tossing her head towards the bin behind her. ‘Buy new brushes and get better paint. That chalet you started looks like a huge ball of snot. Lemonade?’
April took a deep breath, winded by the sheer number of putdowns that Martha had expelled with pure finesse, and found herself nodding yes. Martha kissed her teeth and stood up, rubbing at her knee.
‘I’ll get a glass. The pitcher in the fridge is colder.’
April’s sneaker-clad feet stood just outside the threshold, toes a half inch away from entering the chalet. Martha glanced back and rolled her eyes, making the little half moon glasses sitting on the end of her nose lift and drop back down.
‘I suppose technically it’s your property, so do come in.’
April checked the bottom of her feet for any stray paint flecks before walking in.
‘Wow,’ was all she could say. It was as if she had stepped into another world. The inside of the chalet was unrecognisable from the others on the park. Here, art hung on every available wall space, on the cushion covers, even the rug was a rug hook version of ‘The Scream’, and it spanned the hallway area, making the whole place colourful. April’s eyes were on stalks. She just couldn’t take it all in fast enough. ‘Did you do all this?’
Even Martha smiled now.
‘I did, for the most part. Cillian is a dab hand with a hammer, he helped when he could.’
April was still scanning the room, trying and failing to be polite and not look around the place like she was an eager burglar.
‘Well, it’s beautiful,’ she breathed eventually. Her gaze fell on a photo frame near a large flat-screen television that sat on a whitewashed wood dresser. A wedding photo, black and white, of a young man in a suit, and a tall determined-looking woman in white at the side of him. Martha saw her looking, but neither spoke a word.
Martha pulled a large glass pitcher out of her fridge, pouring two glasses out and filling them with ice.
‘It’s homemade, but I don’t like it too sweet,’ she warned as she passed April a glass. April lifted the glass to her lips and waited for a tangy taste on her tongue, but it was beautiful. She hadn’t realised how thirsty she was. She’d drained half the glass without even trying. Martha held out the jug and refilled her glass. Pointing to the outside chair, she started to walk back outside.
‘I have a recliner, in the corner. Just pull it out.’
April did as she was asked, and soon the pair were sitting like old friends, looking out at the park, drinking their lemonade. They were sitting like old friends, of course, but that was where the similarity ended. Martha was sitting rather dourly, looking at April as though she was looking for a label.
‘Something wrong, Martha?’ April asked.
‘Why did you come here?’ Martha countered at the speed of light. ‘Why did you buy this place?’
‘It’s an investment opportunity,’ she trotted out, as she had to ninety-nine per cent of the people back home. ‘I wanted a challenge, a change of pace.’ Martha snorted, and April’s eyes widened.
‘Did you get that from one of those daytime programmes? It sounds like a script.’
It is a script, April agreed silently. That’s exactly what it is. It hides my pain.
‘Nothing of
