Life's A Beach Read online

  Life’s A Beach

  Portia MacIntosh

  For my husband Joe & my amazing family

  Contents

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  Chapter 32

  Chapter 33

  Chapter 34

  Chapter 35

  Chapter 36

  Chapter 37

  Chapter 38

  Acknowledgments

  More from Portia MacIntosh

  About the Author

  About Boldwood Books

  1

  Your wedding day is easily supposed to be one of the happiest days of your life – but if you want to make absolutely sure it is, you can always spend £2,500 on a horse-drawn Cinderella-style carriage.

  ‘It’s top of the range,’ the hotel wedding coordinator assures me. ‘It’s a gorgeous ivory fairy-tale pumpkin carriage, with a stunning white upholstery interior – it even has a little crown on top. It’s always in incredibly high demand.’

  ‘It sounds beautiful,’ I reply.

  ‘If you do decide to have your wedding here, we can make arrangements to suit your big day – whether you want picking up from home, taking to the church, or here if you would prefer one of our non-religious ceremonies, which I highly recommend. Churches can be so drab. Of course, there is an additional cost per mile, but we can get down to things like that later. Shall we head inside?’

  Annette is the wedding coordinator at The Chadwick Hotel in York. We’re currently standing outside the five-star hotel, admiring the Grade II-listed building from the gravel pathway that leads up to it.

  It’s a gorgeously warm sunny day. The kind where you can comfortably get away with wearing a strappy sundress, but not quite hot enough to leave you looking a mess – a few degrees hotter than this and my long, straight blonde hair would be half frizzy, half stuck to the sides of my face hair instead. Today is just perfect though, so it’s sundresses, sandals, straight hair and smear-free make-up.

  ‘Yes,’ I reply excitedly. ‘Let’s do it.’

  ‘So, the hotel has actually been open for more than a century. As you can see, it boasts an ornate terracotta façade, typical of high Victorian architecture, and the stone cupola makes for a stunning backdrop for outside photos.’

  I smile and nod because, if I’m being honest, I have no idea what any of that means. It is a gorgeous old building though, surrounded by large gardens full of flowers, huge ponds with grand fountains at their heart, and trees in all directions. It’s hard to believe we’re so close to the city, and impossible not to get carried away, thinking about pulling up in front of the huge doors, having my photo taken with my dad, and then coming back out here after tying the knot to take gigabytes worth of photos with my future husband and everyone we love.

  ‘Beautiful,’ I say simply. There’s just no other word for it.

  Once inside the large lobby, Annette picks up a wedding pack that’s waiting for me at reception, before leading me past the grand wooden staircase that sits in the centre of the room. I marvel at the spectacular light that hangs at the centre of the atrium, a large double drum chandelier suspended high above, captivating me so powerfully I nearly bump into a hotel employee coming the other way.

  ‘Oh my gosh, I’m so sorry,’ I blurt. ‘I was mesmerised.’

  ‘No worries,’ he says with a laugh.

  Annette laughs gently.

  ‘You’d be surprised how often that happens,’ she reassures me. ‘Come, let me show you the function room.’

  ‘The function room’ sounds like a rather bland concept. Well, many places have a function room, from restaurants to town halls, so the only real expectation I have is space for tables. But this function room surely deserves a grander title, because it is everything. It’s maybe three times the height of a regular room, with enormous arch-shaped windows that flood the place with the most beautiful natural light.

  ‘Ah, Lady Penelope, I see the windows have caught your eye,’ she says before she laughs to herself quietly. ‘Do people ever call you Lady Penelope?’

  Only all the time, that’s why I usually go by my nickname, Peach. Otherwise I get Lady Penelope from Thunderbirds or Penelope Pitstop from Wacky Races. I thought I was in the clear by the time I reached uni but then that movie called Penelope (about the girl with the pig snout) came out, and one lad caught on and teased me about it. I never thought I’d reach my thirties and still be dealing with it.

  ‘You’re the first,’ I reply, hovering in the middle ground between a polite lie and raging sarcasm.

  ‘That’s so funny,’ she says. ‘Anyway, the windows, if I just push a few buttons…’

  Annette taps her tablet screen a few times before blackout blinds descend, plunging us into darkness, but only for a split second before the ceiling comes to life with delicate little fairy lights, like a dark night sky full of twinkling stars. A few more illuminate the ivory tulle curtains that adorn the walls in different colours.

  ‘Disco mode,’ she says with a smile. ‘For the evening party. We recommend our in-house DJ, who previously had a residency at… Gosh, one of those hip holiday destinations, I’m certainly not cool enough to know what it was. I do hear he’s very good though, so you can request him for an additional cost.’

  ‘Oh wow,’ I say, still staring up at the ceiling. It’s about all I can say, with my mouth hanging open like this.

  I’ve visited a lot of wedding venues recently, but this one is by far the most beautiful. It’s just a cut above the rest.

  ‘If you want to take a peep at your brochure,’ she suggests. ‘We can look at packages, see what works for you. Let’s take a seat at one of the tables.’

  The packages are named Silver, Gold and Platinum. That’s why this place is a cut above the rest, because they don’t even have a lowly ‘Bronze’ package, and they don’t actually have their prices in the brochure – that’s when you know something is expensive.

  ‘We can cater to all dietary requirements,’ she says. ‘And we’re quite flexible. For an additional fee.’

  She keeps saying ‘for an additional fee’, and I can see this wedding getting more and more expensive by the moment.

  ‘You were thinking sixty guests for the wedding breakfast and one hundred in the evening?’ she double-checks.

  ‘That’s right,’ I reply.

  ‘That’s not a problem. Over the page you’ll find our prosecco packages—’ Annette wrinkles her nose with disgust ‘—but most of our guests opt for champagne – for an additional fee,’ she adds. ‘But it’s totally worth rejigging the budget for.’

  ‘Money isn’t going to be an issue,’ I say casually. ‘You only do this sort of thing once, right?’

  ‘That’s the plan,’ she replies with a smile. ‘I’d be lying if I said I hadn’t had some repeat customers though.’

  Annette drifts somewhere else for a few seconds, somewhere darker than planning my wedding. I imagine she’s thinking about couples who have been and gone and been aga
in. Annette looks so effortlessly classy, and her make-up is absolutely perfect. Somehow, even though her eyes deceive the rest of her face, it’s the flawless make-up that manages to keep her looking both professional and happy. Her eyes eventually snap back to me, and her smile finds its way to her face again. I imagine it is kind of depressing being the man behind the curtain, making the big day happen. But someone has to arrange for the swan shit to be cleaned up, I guess. Yes, for an additional fee, there was the option to hire swans for something that wasn’t entirely clear.

  ‘Speaking of happy couples, where is the groom? Has he left all the planning to you?’ she asks, in a sort of friendly way, like she’s just making conversation. I doubt she actually wants to know.

  ‘Matthew has work,’ I reply. ‘He works such long hours, so I’m doing all of the preliminary work.’

  ‘That’s very sweet of you,’ she says. ‘I’ll bet he knows he’s got himself a good one.’

  ‘I hope so,’ I say with a smile.

  ‘Do your families get along well?’ Annette asks.

  ‘For the most part,’ I reply.

  Annette nods knowingly.

  ‘Because we here at The Chadwick understand families can be hard work – never mind when you try to merge two of them – and with all the champagne our happy couples usually purchase, there might well be certain individuals that are best suited, shall we say, out of each other’s eyeline,’ she explains. ‘Our seating planners work with you to decide where everyone should be. We also have temporary pillars – in keeping with the decor of the room, of course, that we can place to prevent people from seeing each other.’

  ‘Oh, that sounds fantastic,’ I reply. ‘Our uncles tend to butt heads about Brexit anytime we put them in the same room, so that sounds like just what we need.’

  ‘Perfect,’ she replies. ‘Would you like to see the honeymoon suite?’

  ‘Yes, please,’ I reply. ‘Is it included in the packages?’

  ‘Only in the Platinum package, otherwise this does run an additional cost, but I’m sure you’ll agree it’s worth it. Please, do follow me,’ she instructs, leading me out of the function room.

  ‘So, are you keeping your name, or are you going to be Mrs Hemsworth?’ Annette asks, making polite conversation while we’re in the lift.

  ‘I’d really like to be Mrs Hemsworth,’ I reply.

  ‘I am a firm believer in taking the man’s name,’ she says approvingly. ‘Penelope Hemsworth – that sounds beautiful.’

  It really does.

  ‘Here we are, the honeymoon suite,’ Annette announces as she opens the door.

  Wow, the honeymoon suite is bigger than my flat. A large four-poster bed is the centrepiece of the room. At the foot of it, a freestanding bath is just crying out for me to climb in and relax. Not right now, obviously – I don’t think Annette would be all that impressed if I did. The room is somehow traditional but modern. Classic but clean – everything looks brand new, even the antiques.

  ‘This is just… Wow,’ I say.

  ‘We get that a lot,’ Annette replies. ‘At present it isn’t set up for guests, but when it is, we fill the room with champagne, fresh fruit, chocolates, et cetera. And, of course, the finest products for the bath, with big, fresh, fluffy robes to cuddle up in. Our happy couples never want to leave the room, but it’s because of the facilities, not each other.’

  I laugh, because I’m pretty sure she’s joking, but her face suggests a real pride in her work that makes me think this could be true.

  I walk over to the large windows to see what kind of view the room boasts.

  ‘Excuse me,’ Annette says, stepping in front of me.

  The windows aren’t windows at all, they’re doors. Doors that open out onto a private terrace with vistas stretching across the grounds. This just keeps getting better and better.

  I take a deep breath, sucking in the summer air, savouring the smell of the flowers and the heat of the stone wall that surrounds the terrace.

  ‘So, do you think you can see yourself getting married here, future Mrs Hemsworth?’ Annette asks hopefully.

  ‘I can,’ I reply. ‘I really can.’

  Everything here is just perfect – beyond perfect. It makes all the other venues I’ve visited look positively crap in comparison. It just has it all. The setting, the room, the menu – this room! God, this room. Now that I’m in it, I don’t want to leave.

  Yep, this really is the perfect place to get married. So it’s a shame I’m not actually getting married.

  ‘Perfect,’ she replies. ‘Well, allow me to give you a copy of our prices to peruse at your leisure. You’ll find they’re quite competitive.’

  Eeesh. The only way these prices would be competitive is if they were put forward for a competition to find the most expensive wedding venue.

  ‘That’s great,’ I say. ‘I’ll take this to Matthew, see what he thinks of it all. I’m sure he’ll be as charmed as I am.’

  ‘Let’s hope so,’ Annette replies. ‘If not, I’m sure you can twist his arm. By the size of that rock on your finger, I think he might just do anything to make you happy.’

  Ah, yes, my super fake engagement ring, given to me by my entirely fictional fiancé Matthew Hemsworth (but actually bought for myself from ASOS), and yes, I did name him after Matthew McConaughey and Chris Hemsworth because, come on, that man would certainly be marriage material.

  I say goodbye to Annette, promising to call, even though I know I won’t.

  I do jobs like this all the time, I don’t know why it’s left me feeling so blue today. Ah, well, at least I’ve found the perfect venue, should I ever want to get married – and at least I know to start saving, like, yesterday, to ever stand a chance of tying the knot in a venue like this. But, to be honest, I’ve been single for so long now that finding a man feels just as likely as finding the fortune to pay for this place.

  Don’t give up the day job, Peach. At least I get to play at getting married, even if I don’t actually get to do it.

  2

  Growing up in a town on the outskirts of York, I’d always dreamed of living in the centre. Then, when I landed my dream job and the commute started to get on my nerves, it made sense to leave the family home and find somewhere of my own.

  Well, I say on my own – it’s 2021 and I’m a millennial. We’re the generation who can’t afford deposits or to have babies. They say it’s because we’re frittering our wages on brunch and latte macchiatos – like forking out for eggs benedict multiple times a month is why none of us have any savings, and not because we have to pay rent. But don’t get me started.

  Luckily, I managed to find a flat-share, but not just any old flat: one located on York’s most famous street – The Shambles. Like something fresh out of a movie, the long, narrow medieval lane is lined with overhanging timber-framed buildings, some of which date back as far as the fourteenth century. With its quirky shops and its resemblance to Diagon Alley, the street is a tourist hotspot. You get to the front door down a tiny snickelway, which I love. It feels so hidden away. I could never afford a place like that on my own, but thankfully, when a friend of a friend was looking for someone to share a place with, I got in touch.

  It was all going so well until recently, when my flatmate decided she was moving to London to live with her boyfriend. Great news for her. Terrible news for me.

  Our overlord – sorry, I mean our landlord – was on my case, right away, asking if I had someone to take her place, or would I be paying the other half of the rent too? The latter was unfortunately off the table, but so was the former, it turned out, when I started trying to find someone to rent the other room. So our landlord put the flat back on the market, which meant it was only a matter of time before someone rented it from under me. Amazingly though, he hasn’t had any takers yet, and with only days to spare I have managed to find someone – my amazing sister, Di – to move in with me. As soon as we sign the paperwork, the place is ours for another twelve months. Obviou
sly I’m delighted because my only other option would have been to move back in with Mum and Dad again, and no one wants to move back home, do they?

  I worried about my parents when I moved out originally. Di did too. Well, with both of their children moving out in the same week, you would think that would have had some sort of impact. I’d heard all about empty nest syndrome, and with Mum especially being the typical mother-hen type, I thought it would hit her the hardest.

  I don’t know what I was thinking. There’s no empty nest – they couldn’t get rid of the nest fast enough. The week Di and I moved out, my mum took over Di’s room to make a sewing workshop, and my dad commandeered my room to give himself an office. I don’t begrudge my parents taking back rooms in their own house, I just didn’t expect them to do it the week we left, and to seem so over the moon about it. In a roundabout way, it’s a good thing. I was worried they would be upset, and they weren’t, so that’s good, but they were genuinely happy to see us go so that they could start the next phase of their lives.

  Still, at least they let me come back for dinner, but it doesn’t come without its strings.

  This desk, here in my childhood bedroom, is the only thing left that is mine.

  I twirl in my old desk chair before pulling out the handle on the side so that I can bob backwards and forwards in it. Back when I was studying, when presented with a frustrating problem or when I was stressing about anything (I do love to stress) I would do this to try and relax – not unlike a rocking chair, but a sort of sad millennial version, preparing me for a lifetime of stressing in desk chairs. Funny, that I would do this to relax, because that first tip back of the chair always takes me be surprise, making me feel like the whole thing is going to fall backward, my life flashing before my eyes. But every time, I live to see another day.