Summer at 23 the Strand: A gorgeously feel-good holiday read!

‘I’ll just check your details.’ The clerk behind the desk in the tourist office on the seafront spoke without looking up. Martha, peering out from under the rim of her black straw hat, held her breath. Would the woman detect a lie? A false address? Not a fictitious name as such but not the one the world knew her by? ‘So, that’s Martha Langford? Eighteen Staplethorpe Avenue, Brighton? Right? From one seaside resort to another, eh?’

‘Yes to all that,’ Martha said.

‘Well, you’ll just love it here in Hollacombe, I’m sure. A proper little home from home is how our guests describe Number 23. Here’s the key. You’ll find your chalet is about five hundred yards to your left as you leave this office. One double bedroom, one sitting room with sofabed cum galley kitchen, one loo with basin and shower. All breakages to be paid for. No barbecues on the wooden deck, I’m afraid, because the chalets are wooden. Fire risk, and all that. To be vacated a fortnight from today by 10 a.m. to give the cleaner time to turn it all around before the next occupants. The key with the luggage-label tag on it to be posted through the letterbox here if we’re closed. Any problems—’

‘I’ll sort them,’ Martha interrupted. The last thing she needed was to have to come back here and, possibly, have someone else turn up at Number 23 The Strand to sort out whatever problem she might have. Just standing here, listening to the clerk reciting what she must have recited hundreds of times before, was giving her goose bumps. The sooner she got out of here the better.

‘Of course, this could be the last season this particular chalet is let because it’s up for sale,’ the clerk said as though Martha hadn’t spoken. ‘It’s owned by the local authority at present, as are a couple of others and they need to cut costs, so they’re up for sale too. The others are privately owned by locals who keep them for their own use at weekends and in the school holidays, although some do rent them out to holidaymakers. There’s not been a lot of interest in Number 23 so far but it’s early in the season. Any questions?’ The clerk cocked her head to one side questioningly.

‘Can’t think of any,’ Martha said, perhaps a bit too sharply, which is what happens when one’s nerves are on end. She didn’t want to be rude but she had to go.

Well, Martha thought, as she closed the door of the chalet behind her, what a lovely surprise. She’d glanced at the photos on the website when she’d booked, of course, but she hadn’t studied it in much detail. It was bigger than she’d been expecting – more ski chalet than beach hut, perhaps a bit boutique hotel – and just as the lady in the tourist office had said, a little home from home. And so very clean. A nest. Martha felt the welcome of it wrap around her, warm her. The boarded walls were painted a soft shade of yellow, like vanilla custard, with a frieze of stencilled scallop shells in deep turquoise where the walls met the ceiling. Pretty, cotton curtains with blue and yellow sailboats hung at the windows in the double bedroom and living room. The cream, linen-covered sofabed was piled with large and squashy cushions in various shades of yellow and blue, and two small but matching armchairs had biscuit-coloured fleece throws draped over the arms, for colder days perhaps. The duvet on the double bed, covered in a turquoise, jacquard-style pattern, was thick and sumptuous, and the pillows large, plump and inviting.

‘All very Eastern Seaboard,’ Martha said out loud. ‘I love it.’

Some of the tension she’d been carrying with her was beginning to seep away. Yes, she’d made the right decision coming here. It was as though this chalet had been waiting for her. She patted the duvet, her hand almost disappearing in its sumptuousness.

‘And I could lie down on you right now,’ she laughed, surprising herself with that laugh because she hadn’t laughed for weeks now. But she couldn’t flop down on it just yet. Martha drew her breath in and then let it all out again slowly, her shoulders dropping as she physically relaxed. Yes, it felt good here. It would give her space and time to rethink what she wanted to do with the rest of her life. But first, she just had to do something with her hair.

Martha had never done a home hair dye before. Ever since she’d been eleven years old and at stage school, her naturally blonde hair had always been professionally cut and coloured. And, of course, for filming she’d often worn wigs. It felt strange, but empowering, to be choosing a new hair colour without others calling the shots. So she’d chosen red; a sort of rosehip red with a bit of gloss to it to cover her natural blonde. The basin in the bijou bathroom – small but perfectly appointed the brochure had said, and so it was – looked as though a murder had been committed as Martha rinsed her hair one last time. Now to dry it. And then cut it. She pulled her hair high over her head and, with eyes closed, chopped straight across. When she opened her eyes again she had about eighteen inches of ponytail in her hand. Shaking her head to loosen her hair, she braved the mirror.

Not bad. Not bad at all. Next came the coloured contact lenses. Martha’s eyes were the palest blue, bordering on turquoise, but she reckoned a redhead might have green eyes. So in went the onyx contacts.

‘I hardly recognise myself,’ Martha said, in a Scottish accent, light years away from her true Home Counties way of speaking. But that was the advantage of being an actress. She could become anyone from anywhere. And she had. Many, many, times. From stage work to period TV dramas, through a six-month stint on a ‘soap’, to Hollywood. But there was a downside – over the years so many other people had pulled her strings, as it were. So many that she felt she had almost lost the essence of who she was inside. Almost.

Her agent, Ralph Newcombe, had been furious when she’d decided to turn her back on it all.

‘You cannot be serious!’ he’d raged at her in his office that smelled of whisky and cigarettes, making Martha gag. Or rather making Serena Ross, as she was known to the world, gag. ‘You are making me look an utter fool pulling out of this! I’ve worked my backside off getting you, not the lead role admittedly, but a not insignificant role in a Tom Marchant film. Bets were on that you’d get Best Supporting Actress at the Oscars. And you pull this stunt! I’ll be surprised if you ever work again!’

That night, Martha had gone back to the flat the film company had provided and cried and cried and cried. No need for glycerine on her bottom lashes to bring on the tears. And then she’d called Tom and told him she wouldn’t be coming back to the set. She’d been flattered by his attention, even though she’d known he was married with two small children – as did the rest of the world. Sitting close to him on breaks, sharing a burger or a salad, a frisson of excitement had fizzed through her. His invite to dinner after the day’s filming had been tempting. So she’d gone. Just dinner, he’d said. And it had been. Although if she were honest with herself it wouldn’t have taken much for their feelings to run over – perhaps not this time they had dinner, but definitely the next. Tom had felt it too.

‘Taxi time,’ he’d said, leaning across the table to give her hand a squeeze. ‘The danger hour approacheth. Two people from out of town with hours to fill till morning.’

Tom had even called the taxi for her, walked with her to the door – just a little behind her with a hand in the small of her back. And that’s when she’d been startled by a barrage of camera flashes and saw in rapid fast-forward how it would be if she were to enter a full-blown affair with Tom. She – and he – would be hounded.

Martha, not liking herself very much at that moment for what she’d been on the cusp of, had turned to Tom then.

‘The danger hour is too dangerous for me,’ she’d said. ‘I’m not in the habit of breaking up marriages, despite the magic…’

‘…between us,’ Tom had finished for her.

Martha didn’t think Tom was a serial adulterer, although she was under no illusion that she’d been the first to tempt him. For the two weeks they’d been thrown together, working on Breaking Ice, he’d showered her with gifts, in time-honoured Hollywood style – bespoke perfume and a designer handbag, Italian silk scarves and an amethyst pendant on a fine gold chain. She’d worn that pendant on her first – and last – dinner date with Tom. But she’d known in an instant, the camera flashes almost blinding her, that she hadn’t been in love with him – merely in lust, feelings heightened and enhanced by the place and the setting and the fabulous clothes. There could be many Toms in the future if she stayed here among the beautiful people with money to spend and lavish lifestyles. Was that what she wanted?

And that was when she’d made her decision to end her contract on Breaking Ice and go home, back to the UK. And then… what?

Well, she had a fortnight to work out where her life was going, and a town she didn’t know to explore. In front of her, there was the curve of a bay the colour of faded denim, flat as the proverbial pancake at that moment, and the sun was shining. First she’d need to find a supermarket of sorts to buy food, and maybe a bottle of wine, although she knew it was dangerous – very dangerous – to drink alone. Martha placed her four-inch heels in the cupboard in the bedroom, slid her feet into flip-flops, took a deep breath, and went out.

‘Can I help you with that?’

A man’s voice. A Scottish accent. To answer or not? With one foot on the bottom step of the wooden steps that led up to the deck of 23 The Strand, and her arms full of carrier bags and a lamp she’d picked up in a charity shop, Martha considered her options. If she answered, she’d need to drop the Scottish accent she’d been using for a couple of days and which was becoming second nature now, because this man was likely to ask where in Scotland she came from, and she only knew Edinburgh, Glasgow and Aberdeen, each of which had its own particular accent.

‘I can manage, thanks. Only a few more steps,’ she said. And then the newspaper that had been on top of one of the bags fell to the floor.

The man picked it up, shifting awkwardly as he rebalanced himself.

‘Damned leg,’ he said, rubbing a hip. He looked at the photo and the headline on the front page and then at Martha.

ACTRESS SERENA ROSS QUITS BREAKING ICE

The photo was one taken on the steps of the hotel as Tom had guided her to her taxi. There were, Martha knew, more photos of them both inside, cosied up in the restaurant, because she was wiser now and knew that the man in the corner hadn’t been taking selfies but had been taking photographs of her and Tom.

‘I’ll take that,’ she said. ‘Thanks. The press scraping about in the gutter as per usual, I expect,’ she added, with a nod to the front page of the newspaper.

‘More than likely,’ the man said. ‘Don’t shoot but… Hugh Fraser. Photographer. Currently on sick leave while my leg heals.’

Oh my God! What sort of a photographer, she wanted to know – paparazzi? – but she was afraid to ask. Her hat had slipped back over her head as she struggled with her bags. If he was paparazzi, would he recognise her? She might have changed her hair colour and be wearing coloured lenses, but her mouth was the same shape. Her nose. Her high cheekbones, for which she was known in the world of acting.

‘I’m sorry about your leg,’ she said, acting a calmness she didn’t feel inside, although it was true she was sorry. ‘What happened?’

‘You know how, on TV, when you see photographers following a story in the street and they’re running backwards and taking photos? Have you ever wondered if they fall over?’

Martha gulped. So he was paparazzi? What on earth was she doing keeping him here, engaging him in conversation?

‘Yes, yes, I have.’

‘Well, I did. Right over a low wall. Only it was an urban fox I was trying to film without scaring it off. Compound fracture. Hence my stay here for a couple of weeks to strengthen my muscles now the break’s been sorted. Running on sand is good for that.’

‘Oh!’ Martha said, unable to stop the smile that crept to her lips as a cartoon strip of Hugh running backwards and going over the wall played in her head. ‘Sorry. It’s not funny, I know.’

‘That’s okay. Every one of my colleagues fell about laughing. And you are?’

‘Martha Langford.’

‘I’d shake your hand, Martha Langford, if you had one free for me to shake. How about I come over all macho and carry this newspaper up the steps for you?’

And then he did just that, but carefully and with a bit of a limp, Martha noticed.

Hugh took Martha’s bags and parcels from her as she scrabbled in her pocket for the chalet key.

‘I’m at Number 20.’ He waved the newspaper in the direction of his chalet. ‘Belongs to my parents, actually. Holiday home of sorts. I’d stop with them in their house back in Exeter but Mum would smother me to death with kindness. Much better I fend for myself a bit, get those muscles working again. Keep an eye open for the next big scoop, as it were.’

Martha shivered. She had no intention of being Hugh’s next big scoop.

‘Thanks,’ she said. ‘You know. For your help. Just put my bags on the deck. I can manage now. Things to do. Bye.’

With almost indecent haste she scooped her bags into her arms and grabbed the newspaper from him, pushed the door open with her knee, sidled in behind it and then closed it with a foot.

Hugh seemed like a nice bloke – the sort of bloke she’d be happy to spend time with in normal circumstances, because photographers could be useful to an actress. But her circumstances weren’t normal, were they, if the papers were still carrying stories about her quitting Breaking Ice? And she wasn’t entirely sure she still wanted to be an actress any more anyway. And what was more, she badly needed to get to know herself better before she even thought about making a new relationship with anyone. And could she trust Hugh not to be on his laptop right now letting the world know he knew where Serena Ross was holed up?