A House with a Sea View

I've been away for so long. Some things have changed, some have stayed the same; the ice cream parlour where we used to hang out and try to meet girls is now a Starbucks. The park where I kissed my first girlfriend has been built over with holiday apartments. But it's still recognisably the town where I grew up. The air somehow smells different here; maybe it's just the breeze blowing in from the Channel, or the diffused smell of sausage rolls from the bakery on the High Street where my sister used to work. I don't know, it's just different.

On the promenade above the beach, a seagull mercilessly launches itself again and again at the discarded remains of a bag of chips, while an elderly couple look on and laugh to themselves. It's late springtime; kids aren't quite out of school for the summer yet but already you can sense the beginning of something. A tourist town gradually rousing itself from a winter slumber. Slowly, the shops extend their opening hours into the evening, drinks and ice cream kiosks take down the wooden boards covering their serving hatches. The air is becoming warmer, more welcoming.

Most of all, it's that warm breeze that takes me back. I can't explain it, I'm just suddenly in that summer, almost forty years ago.

----

I've never been known for my patience, but my parents had convinced me to stick with school for longer than I had really wanted to. Back then, this town hadn't been big enough for me; I wanted to see the world. No, maybe "wanted" isn't the right word. It was something more than that, stronger than that. It was a need. Then the Royal Navy sent someone to our school with tales of travel and adventure, and that was it for me; my mind was made up. So, in 1985, at 18 years of age, I left school with more qualifications that I really needed, and promptly enlisted. No-one was surprised, least of all my parents.

But these things take time, and I found myself with a few months to kill before I went off to basic training. I knew that those few months would last an eternity if I just waited, so I set about trying to find a temporary job. If nothing else, I figured I would need some cash to keep fuelling my battered Mark 3 Ford Capri anyway.

The Capri, the first car I ever owned, was yellow with a black roof and a matching stripe running down the sides; my friends had all manner of nicknames for it, but that had never stopped any of them hitching a lift to school with me. Whether that was out of laziness or because Bodie and Doyle had one in The Professionals, I'll never know; it was probably a combination of both factors. In the winter the car's heating system always broke down so that on particularly cold days you could see your breath in the air, and in the summer, it smelled of hot leather and if you wore shorts you would burn the backs of your legs when you sat down. Nevertheless, I loved that car.

A friend's dad ran a landscaping service, so I asked if he had any work going. As it happened, he had a job that his regular guys wouldn't be able to get to quite yet, and the client was getting antsy. I got the feeling it was some high-powered businessman up in London, who had bought a weekend place down here on the coast and wanted the garden cleared. Apparently, it was in a right mess; overgrown to the point of being almost impenetrable. My new boss just wanted me to make a start on it so that he could tell the client that work was underway. The rest of the crew would turn up as soon as they could. I didn't mind the work, or the fact that I would be working alone for the time being, so I told him to count me in. I loaded up the Capri with an armful of gardening tools and said I would start first thing on the Monday.

----

When the day came, the sky was a brilliant blue from first thing in the morning. It was perhaps warmer than ideal for a day's hard labour, but that was fine. I drove out of town and along the coast a couple of miles with the windows down and the car stereo turned up to almost full volume. The Boys of Summer kept me company on the drive; it was the first track on the tape, so it was easy to rewind it and listen to it again and again if I wanted to.

The road up the coast towards the house took me well out of town, to the point where houses were really few and far between. In fact, I was starting to think that I must have driven right past it already. Then, as I looked for a place to turn around, I saw it.

Seeing the house for the first time, the immediate thought that came to mind was to wonder how much money the client must be pulling in to be able to afford this place as a second (Or third? Or fourth?!) home. The idea of being able to buy a house just to spend the occasional weekend in was utterly alien to me at the time. It was a grand old place, fairly neglected, but with sizeable rooms, high ceilings and windows that looked out over a cliff to the quiet pebble beach far below. On one corner of the coast-side of the house was a large room built in the shape of a circle with a squat, conical roof on top of it, itself topped with a metal weathervane in the shape of a sailing ship with three tall masts. The windows of the room had been thrown fully open, and from the street below I thought I could see movement in there.

I parked up and unloaded my tools, taking them through an open side gate and into the back garden. I immediately questioned what I had gotten myself into. Not far from the back wall of the house was a thick, waist-high barricade of nettles, and beyond that was what looked like a jungle of brambles and thorn bushes, hiding a greenhouse with probably not a single pane of glass still intact and a tree growing up through the centre of it. I wondered if I was genuinely expected to even make a dent in clearing this on my own.

I set to work. By this time, I was well into my pre-basic training fitness regime, which mostly consisted of running and swimming. I was in decent shape, but after a couple of hours working on the garden I was in need of a break, and at that point it occurred to me that I hadn't brought anything to drink. There was an outside tap in the garden, but I really didn't think that the water from it would be fit for human consumption.

I downed tools and approached the back door of the house; through the window I could make out a utility room and, beyond that, a fairly sparse-looking kitchen. I tapped on the window a couple of times, then tapped a bit harder when no-one answered. After still not hearing a response, I opened the door and stepped inside.

'Hello?' I called. I could hear a radio playing somewhere in the house, possibly upstairs. My boots were covered in dirt, so I kicked them off just inside the doorway and slowly walked through to the kitchen.

'Hello? Is anybody home?' I called out again. I could see an upturned glass on the draining board next to the sink, but it seemed impolite to help myself, so I walked through the kitchen into the hallway. The sound of the radio now didn't appear to be coming from upstairs, but from the living room at the front of the house. I could see that the door was ajar, so I poked my head around it.

The room was dominated by a large fireplace, tall bay windows and a pile of what I presumed to be furniture, hidden beneath a paint-flecked dustsheet. The radio was perched on the mantlepiece, and Billy Ocean's "Suddenly" was now fading out to be replaced by an instrumental song from Beverley Hills Cop.

In the alcove between the fireplace and the windows, a figure was standing with their back to me, painting the wall with long, vertical strokes in pale yellow. I guessed it was a woman from the scarf tied over their hair, but other than that it would have been difficult to tell, given the shapeless blue boiler suit they were wearing. They were shorter than me, but still perhaps taller than average for a woman, and as they painted, they jiggled enthusiastically in time with the synthesizer sounds coming from the radio.

I tapped twice on the frame of the door and the figure jumped in shock before turning to face me with the paintbrush held out in front of them as if to ward me off. Their face was liberally sprinkled with droplets of paint, as was the pair of goggles they were wearing, and between that and the headscarf it was difficult to make out any of the woman's features from across the room.

'I'm sorry if I surprised you,' I said. 'I'm working on the garden out the back. I was wondering if anyone would mind if I helped myself to a drink of water.'

The figure lowered her arm, suddenly realising that the brush was dripping yellow paint onto the floor. She carefully placed it into a paintpot on the floor beside her.

'No that's fine. I'm sure no-one could object to you having a drink. That garden's pretty wild, huh?'

'No kidding,' I replied. I could feel the woman's eyes on me; they weren't unfriendly, but I certainly felt like I was being evaluated.

'Thanks,' I continued. 'I'll let you get back to it. I'm sure no-one's paying us to stand around chatting.' I gave a little laugh but it sounded horribly false, so I backed out of the room and walked back to the kitchen for that drink.

I felt a little weird for maybe an hour or two after that. It was guilt, I guess. The woman had clearly been enjoying her work, alone and with her music. And I had intruded on that, and somehow spoiled it for her. I decided to steer as clear from her as possible for the rest of the job, however long that may be.

----

The rest of the day passed without incident, but also without much noticeable progress in my clearing of the garden. I drove back into town at lunchtime and grabbed something to eat; returning to the house with some cans of Diet Coke so that I had no reason to go back inside. I worked through until five o'clock, then called it a day. There were still plenty of hours of daylight left, but the fact is that I was absolutely bushed.

The next day was as warm and sunny as the day before, perhaps even a little more so. Driving out to the house, I switched the Don Henley tape out for Bryan Adams' "Reckless". I loved the album, particularly when driving, although found it a bit of a pain that all my favourite tracks were in the middle of the cassette tape.

I worked straight through the first couple of hours and was pleased to feel that I was finally making some headway. I avoided going into the house again, even resorting to heading into the woods a few minutes' walk from the house in order to take a leak when necessary.

Still, on occasion during the morning I had the distinct impression that I was being watched. I couldn't see anyone else around, although I was sure that I did see a curtain move in one of the upstairs windows above me. I had started to wonder if it was a good idea for me to work here alone, if my presence was worrying the woman doing the decorating inside, when she made an appearance at the back door.

The shapeless boiler suit was still there, but other than that, she seemed like a completely different person; at least to look at. The scarf was gone, and her blonde hair was tied back into a loose ponytail. Her face, free of paint but also of make-up, had the healthy tan of someone who spent a lot of time outdoors, which showed up the patch of freckles across the bridge of her nose. It was a really nice face, a beautiful face in fact, and made all the better by the fact that she was smiling at me.

'I thought you might like something more interesting than water,' she said, holding out a glass bottle of Coke. 'I'm afraid it's not very cold; the fridge here doesn't seem to be working quite right.'

I pulled off my gloves and walked over to her. I accepted the bottle while avoiding mentioning to her that I wasn't much of a fan of "proper" Coke.

'Thanks. That's very kind of you.'

I took a swig of Coke as the woman looked out over the garden. Up close, I could see that her eyes were blue with a touch of green, and it occurred to me that I had seen that very same colour this morning on my way to the house. Her eyes were the colour of the sea on a warm summer day in England.

'How's it going out here?' she asked. 'I can't believe that they've sent just you to clear all this lot.'

I wiped a hand across my brow. 'It's hard work, but I'm getting there. All the other lads are on other jobs, but they'll be here soon enough. The boss wanted to have someone make a start just to keep the client off his back, I guess.'

The woman turned back to me, a look of surprise on her face. 'Really?' she asked. 'Do you know the client?'

'No, but I think he's just some city wanker wanting a place down on the coast for the weekends.' I nodded on the woman's direction. 'I guess he didn't want to pay for more than one decorator either.'

She smiled. 'I'm not sure the client wanted to pay for any decorators, really.'

'Tight bastard.' I was really warming to her now, and in truth was trying to show off a little bit, acting older than my 18 years. She was clearly more than a few years older than me; I would have put down as somewhere in her late twenties.

'Hmm,' she murmured. 'Well, I'll let you get back to it. As you said yesterday, the client doesn't pay us to stand around chatting, hmm?'

I watched her walk back into the house. Despite her terrible outfit, I could see that there was a very definite grace to the way she moved. A kind of sway. I found myself wondering what lay beneath the boiler suit.

----

For the rest of that week, she made occasional appearances in the garden while I was working. I learned that her name was Corinne, but beyond that, she seemed reluctant to share any details about herself. Our conversations mainly concerned the work we were doing and speculation about the "tight bastard" we were working for. Despite all this, I began to really like her, to the point that while I was driving home on the Friday evening, I realised that I had a very real and quite serious crush on her. It was a shame she was always wearing that damned boiler suit.

----

On Monday morning, I couldn't wait to get to work. Young as I was, I knew that such enthusiasm for the start of the working week was a rare and beautiful thing, and I wanted to make the most of it. The weather had other ideas. Less than an hour after starting in the garden, the heavy clouds above me finally unleashed the downpour they had been threatening since first thing in the morning. I gave it a few minutes in case it was nothing more than a passing shower, but there was no sign of the rain letting up, so I was about to take refuge in the Capri when one of the downstairs windows opened and Corinne called out to me to come into the house.

In the utility room, I kicked my work boots off and walked through to the kitchen, accompanied by a regular squelching sound from my wet socks on the tiled floor. Corinne pulled the window closed and turned to me. The boiler suit was history. In its place, she was wearing a pair of red satin shorts and a white exercise vest that clung to every inch of her torso. The combined effect was nothing short of magnificent and was undeniably, to that point in my life, the sexiest thing I had ever seen. The shorts showed off her long, tanned legs and the vest highlighted her toned stomach below a pair of breasts so full and perky that it seemed unreal that they should belong to a woman standing in the kitchen of this dilapidated old house. I tried not to stare and failed utterly. Even the obligatory 80s legwarmers and the sweatband around her head somehow looked hot.

'Um. I was in the middle of exercising,' she said, pointing over her shoulder towards the living room. Are you okay to wait in here until the rain clears up?'

'Sure, sure,' I replied, desperately searching for something else to look at.

Corinne gave a slightly awkward smile and left the room; I watched every step she took until she moved out of sight, leaving me standing in the kitchen, in a puddle, with an erection.

I like to think of myself as a nice guy, and that was the same when I was a teenager, give or take the occasional instance of letting my hormones get the better of me. This was definitely one of those instances. I'm not proud of it, but it was so worth it.

I heard music start up in living room and decided to follow Corinne. She had pulled the door almost closed, but there was more than enough of a gap left for me to peek through.

The change in the appearance of the living room was nothing short of revelatory; Corinne had done a brilliant job. At the time though, that barely registered, and certainly not consciously. This is because my attention was entirely on the beautiful woman doing aerobics to the fucking Jane Fonda Workout video playing on the TV in the corner of the room. I'd seen the mother of one of my schoolfriends exercising to that same video with her friends and I can tell you that it had not had the same effect on me.

Corinne was breathtaking. Her tall, lithe figure stretched and swayed through the exercises, accompanied by some awful backing track that (I now know) wouldn't have sounded out of place on a budget porn flick. The effect was compounded by the added touches that Corinne had included in her workout; if Jane had included that much caressing of her body, her video would have had an entirely different audience. Shit, even I probably would have bought a copy.

I loved every single moment of that workout; the sight of this gorgeous woman working her body in that ridiculous skintight outfit will stay with me to my dying day.

All good things come to an end, though, and this one was premature. No, that doesn't mean what you think it means, although it was a close-run thing. No, as I watched Corinne lay on the floor and pull one of her legs up so far that she could almost have kissed her own shin, it suddenly occurred to me that my soaking clothes had left a trail of water from the kitchen to the doorway of the living room. Panicked, I raced back to the kitchen, grabbed a towel and hastily mopped up as much water as I could. I barely managed to throw the towel back onto the kitchen counter before, amid a lot of whooping and hollering from Jane's paid exercise buddies, the workout session ended and Corinne re-emerged in the hallway. I looked out of the window at the sky above, as if attempting to divine the cessation of the ongoing downpour.

'Sorry about that,' Corinne said, picking up my freshly-discarded towel and dabbing the perspiration from her body with it. How I longed to be that towel!

'No, not a problem. Good workout?'

Corinne stared at the towel for a moment, clearly confused about how wet she had made it, before looking back up at me.

'Mmm, yeah, really good thanks.'

I laughed. 'Good job the client didn't make an appearance right then, huh?'

A look of confusion passed across Corinne's face for a moment, before she joined in with my laughter. 'God, yes. I'm sure we can keep this to ourselves, right?'

'Oh yeah, of course,' I replied, enthusiastically. 'Our little secret.'

----

The weather improved remarkably the next day; so much so that I decided to work shirtless through the hottest hours of the day. One cluster of thorn bushes turned out to be one almighty thorn bush, which needed more than the usual amount of effort to uproot. It took me the best part of an hour and a half, by which point I was a sweating, stinking mess. With the job finally completed, I decided that I'd more than earned something to eat. I turned towards the house with the idea of collecting my lunch from the kitchen, to find myself confronted with Corinne's face at the window. I'm not sure which of us was more startled, but I can say with certainty that the surprise on her face was mixed with more than a little guilt. I reached for my t-shirt, but before I could put it on, Corinne had gone.

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