Escape for the Summer by Ruth Saberton Page A

several bags flew off the parcel shelf and walloped Andi on the head.
    “Ouch!” she gasped. There was something really hard in that fake Louis Vuitton holdall. There was probably a dent in her skull now. Maybe she had concussion too? She could hear a really weird buzzing sound…
    “Gemma! Don’t look at the sea! Look where you’re going!” cried Angel, her hands over her eyes. “We’ve got all summer to look at the view!”
    “Oops! Sorry!” giggled Gemma. She ground the gears; the Beetle kangarooed forwards and another bag smacked Andi on the head.
    “I can hear buzzing,” Andi said, wrestling the holdall back into position. “Either I have a head injury or else your electric toothbrush has been set off.”
    Gemma chuckled. She caught Andi’s eye in the rear-view mirror and winked.
    “I hate to break it to you, but that is not my toothbrush !”
    Andi recoiled from the bag as though scalded while her sister and her best friend cackled with mirth. She felt about a hundred and ninety. She was thrilled to be back in Cornwall, and the moment they had crossed the Tamar her stomach had pancake-flipped with excitement – but for the life of her she just couldn’t summon up the exuberance and energy that fizzed from the other two. Andi supposed this was hardly surprising. She’d just broken up with her long-term boyfriend, and although she wasn’t breaking her heart over him she was bound to be a bit flat.
    Andi had never seriously intended to join the girls on their westerly pilgrimage to find sunshine, fame and millionaires. It had been a wonderful slice of escapism for a few hours on that blackest of black Mondays to listen to Gemma and Angel planning their summer and how they would be bound to find Callum South in one of the cafés or maybe running along the water’s edge. As the white wine had flowed and the pain of the day had begun to blur around the edges, Andi had almost believed that she too would be journeying westwards and spending the summer by the ocean. In her mind’s eye she’d seen herself wearing frayed denim cut-offs and deck shoes, her hair caught up in a simple knot at the nape of her neck; she’d be sitting on the edge of the pontoon, bare legs dangling as she watched the flotilla of boats bobbing on the estuary. She had almost felt the warm sunshine on her skin and heard the slap of waves against hulls. But of course reality was different. Deep in her heart Andi had known that she would have to wake up the next day, take two Alka-Seltzers and then deal with the car crash of her life. She’d ended up moving in with Gemma and Angel because she’d shortly afterwards discovered that landlords didn’t take “my cheating bastard boyfriend stole all my money” as a valid reason for not being able to pay the rent.
    Living with the girls had certainly been an education. Slugs roamed free in the kitchen, dirty plates festered in the sink and all Andi could find in the fridge was nail varnish and rotting veg. When she lay on the sofa at night, alternating between sobbing over her finances and worrying about Tom’s threats, she could practically hear the listeria and E. coli having a chat from the sticky work surfaces. After a week with the girls Andi felt as though she needed to bathe in disinfectant and dreaded to think what they’d do to a caravan. Public Health would probably condemn it after a week. But she didn’t have a choice.
    Andi had no money and no job. Tom had been given access to her banking details, so the bank wasn’t obliged to compensate her – and there was no hope of ever seeing a penny back from him. It was a truth universally acknowledged, that a young woman in possession of sod all must be in want of a place to live. Andi couldn’t afford the Balham/Clapham flat, Tom had nicked her cardboard box on his exit, and so she had ended up on the sofa at Angel and Gemma’s place. A bed of nails would have been more comfortable, but at least she’d had somewhere to go