We are thrilled to share an exclusive extract from Sunday Times bestselling author Louise Candlish’s brand new scorching summer thriller, Our Holiday.
1
Robbie
Monday 28 August, 7 p.m.
This is going to sound completely mad, but a house is falling off the cliff. I mean, seriously, right in front of my eyes. It’s up on the headland on Pine Ridge Road, the highest residential spot in town – the highest prices, too. Exclusive, swanky, famous Pine Ridge Road, because if you didn’t know it before this summer, you definitely will now and that’s partly down to yours truly (‘Robbie Jevons is the South Coast’s rock star of Zoomer activism’ – the Guardian, no less). So anyway. This house is literally sliding out from behind a tall green hedge and heading for the cliff edge, and the crazy thing is I’m the only one who seems to be seeing it! I’m on my own in the dunes behind the stage, the beach to my left, village to my right, the headland a way off but in my direct line of sight. Everyone else has their backs to it as they watch the band – a thousand people or more, all with these blissed-out looks on their faces like they’re in the presence of, I don’t know, Harry Styles or someone, not some random act from Weymouth doing old rock covers. ‘Smoke on the Water’? I mean, come on. But no. Houses don’t move. They don’t slide. I’ve smoked a bit of weed and had a few beers, so maybe I’m hallucinating. (I’m kind of dazed from other activities too, but we won’t go into that.) To test myself, I look away, focus on a couple at the edge of the crowd. He’s knee-deep in the sea, strong as a tree, the tattoos on his pecs gleaming like alligator skin; she’s sitting on his shoulders, thighs clamping his neck, arms swaying from side to side to the music. I don’t think I know them, but we’re all mixed in together, locals and blow-ins and day trippers. Today, like the message on the placard abandoned at my feet, ‘NO HUMAN IS TABOO’. On the count of ten, I look up again and fuck me if the front of the house isn’t right over the cliff edge now, like one of those cantilevered balconies on the side of a block of flats. And it’s definitely real: one storey, wood-clad and slate-roofed, a row of windows shining gold in the dipping sun. Right behind it, visible through the hedge: a splint of bright yellow. I get to my feet and stagger down the dune and along the beach to where Shannon’s dancing at the side of the stage. ‘Fire in the sky,’ she chants, all loose-limbed and dreamy, and she reaches out to take my hand. ‘Robster! Where’ve you been?’
‘Look,’ I shout through the ear-splitting guitars. ‘Look what’s happening up there!’ She swivels and follows my gaze, not knowing what she’s seeing at first. But then the house jerks forward again and she reacts: ‘What the fuck? We need to get help. Find one of the marshals or police!’
But it’s too late for that. By the time they reach it, it’ll be dust. At that exact moment the song ends and through the applause we start to hear it: a demonic scraping and rumbling, plus the unmistakable throb of something mechanical. As everyone twists to look, the singer’s voice comes over the sound system: ‘Shit, what’s going on up there? Can someone try to . . .?’
He runs out of words. And into the first pure silence of the day – maybe of the summer – the house tips off the cliff and smashes into the sea.
2
Charlotte
Earlier in August
It never got old, the first glimpse of heather as you exited the toll ferry. That blurred ribbon of mauve between the blond of the beach and the bottle green of the pine ridge beyond. Busy admiring the way the hues had mellowed since her last visit, Charlotte failed to notice a figure step from the verge and hurl red liquid over their windscreen.
‘What the hell!’ Perry braked and pulled sharply to the side of the road, causing Mango, their fox-red Labrador, to spring to attention in the boot. They climbed out, raising their sunglasses to get a clearer look at the culprit, a wiry young male now scurrying, bucket in hand, towards his cohorts gathered near the toll booth.
‘Bloody better not be paint,’ Perry said, a flush spreading under his garden tan towards his hairline.
‘It’s soup, I think.’ She extended a finger to touch it. It was disquietingly warm, almost body temperature. ‘Or pizza sauce, maybe. It’s quite thick. Passata.’
‘Passata? Are they eco-warriors or something? Like those cretins who threw custard over the Rembrandt?’
‘I think they’re the Not Just for August crew.’ Charlotte craned for a better look at the group, most of whom were either masked or obscured by the signs they brandished, signs with slogans like ‘HOLIDAY HOMES KILL COMMUNITIES!’, ‘GO BACK SUMMER PEOPLE!’ and – yep, there it was – ‘#NJFA!’
‘Hey! Stop!’ Perry cried, as an approaching Volvo received the same treatment, the liquid splashing into the driver’s open window and provoking a furious roar. An old Ford Focus had been allowed to pass without interference, Charlotte saw, even though the tell-tale paraphernalia of the second-home owner was visible through its rear window (no one took a garden hose or an electric drill to a holiday rental), which suggested a grading system that lacked nuance. Energized by Perry’s challenge, the group swarmed closer to chant directly into his face:
‘Local homes for local people! Local homes for local people!’
‘Get off the road!’ he yelled.
‘Go back to London!’
‘Fuck you!’ Perry ducked past them for the toll booth. He was not a tall man and his heft was more marked from behind, arms jerking back and forth as he strode. Further back, car horns blared at the delay, upsetting Mango, and Charlotte opened the boot to calm her before locating a roll of kitchen towel and removing enough of the gloop to facilitate a safe onward progress. She nodded good-naturedly at a hovering protester who’d become separated from the pack and raised his placard like a shield.
‘“Second Home Scum”,’ she read. ‘That’s not very welcoming, is it?’
There’d been opposition to holiday homes in one form or another throughout the fifteen years they’d owned Cliff View, but until recently it had been a low-key, fringe affair. Questions raised at council meetings; the occasional march along Old Beach Road and up Bird Lane, where the village’s most photogenic cottages were situated; features in the Voice highlighting the unfairness of key workers living in caravans while Nimbys blocked plans for new housing estates. A presence, certainly, but it was not what you’d call a campaign. Not coordinated, not militant, as it was now. Not immediately associated with a single group. She had to admit that as rebrands went, this was an impressive one. Perry came stomping back, sweating.
‘The guy’s called the police. Wants us to hang around till they get here.’ Charlotte pulled a face.
‘They’ll be ages. Why don’t I ring them on Monday and they can just log it then?’
‘If they even bother. Probably just give the little brats a pat on the back.’
With a resettling of sunglasses and a clunking of doors, they pulled away again. During the entire episode Charlotte’s heart rate had not altered. It would have been different had they been travelling at seventy when the attack took place, but as it was, no real harm had been done. And, just minutes away, Cliff View,
and her beloved Nook, where this evening they’d drink rosé on the veranda and watch the neon sky dissolve into inky darkness. Then, in the month ahead, dips in the limpid waters of the Old Beach; snoozes in the pine-scented shade; walks with Mango on mirrored sands; and her tax consultancy work shrunk to a single client managed from the kitchen table. Oh, and Benedict arriving in a few hours’ time, the first time they’d seen their son in six weeks. Pine Ridge paradise, basically.
‘Wait, it’s the first of August, isn’t it?’ she remembered. Given the name of the protest group, it was no wonder they were out in force. Taken the day off from jobs that in all probability serviced the very people they’d come to harass. Had they begun as soon as the ferry service got underway, at 7 a.m.? If so, their antics would be all over social media by now.
‘We obviously chose the wrong day to arrive.’
‘Yes, unless they’re going to do this every day for the entire month,’ Perry said. He applied the wipers to dislodge more tomato smears. ‘And they call us scum.’
*
Surprise, surprise, there were NJFA daubings on their whitepainted front wall – in dripping red for a nice crime-scene effect – and she took photos to submit to the police website, where they would no doubt languish unseen for all eternity. At least the walls of the house itself were untouched. Cliff View
was one of four original clifftop properties built from local grey limestone and slate and easily the best placed, with one aspect to Old Beach and one to open water. It was the largest too, the three smaller ones belonging to – and unlikely to be released any time soon by – two other couples from London and one from Winchester. In between these originals was a collection of one-offs built as and when land from gardens had been sold off, including their direct neighbour, Villa Pino, a Sandbanks-lite edifice owned by Tim and Madeline of Twickenham. Thanks to their sensible decision to install railings rather than a wall, they tended to escape the vandals’ paintbrush. Leaving Perry to unload the car, she took Mango for a little tour, reacquainting herself with the many period features: flagstone flooring, vaulted ceilings, huge inglenook fireplace. Their cleaner (Charlotte had always employed locals rather than using the Housekeepers agency in Poole that most holiday home owners favoured) had been in to run the hoover around and make the beds, which meant her only job was to slide up the sashes to let in the sea air.
It was divine today. Fresh and salty, almost astringent. Curative. Next, she headed out back to check on the Nook. Just a few feet from the public footpath and defended only by a low wooden fence, their summerhouse was far more vulnerable to vandalism than the main house, not to mention more exposed to a potential audience; walkers passed frequently along the mile-long path that linked Old Beach to Little Bay and the area’s best hotel, The Needles. It was, everyone agreed, a treasure. Its eight windows and stable door were glazed with antique leaded panes and the lines of the slate roof designed to echo those of the main cottage. Both the cladding and veranda were painted the colour of summer cloud.
She’d see pictures of it sometimes on social media, hashtagged #dreamhouse or #costalcrib, but she wasn’t possessive of its image. If you were on public view, you had to expect to share. Peering through the glass, she saw that the bed had been made up in here too, even though it was unlikely to be used this trip. Their only guests were Benedict and his new girlfriend, who’d be sleeping in the main house. She stood for a moment on the deck, positioning herself so that all she could see was sea and sky, stainless, limitless. Like this, you could imagine yourself in a wartime vignette, looking out across the blue and contemplating the horrors in France. Thinking yourself – knowing yourself – to be one of the lucky ones.
It certainly put the passata into perspective.
*
‘You stay here,’ she told Mango, closing the gate on her and taking the steps down to the beach, a somewhat hair-raising shortcut to the old part of the village that Perry predicted would soon be closed by the health and safety brigade. No sign of trouble on the sands, only the familiar rows of buttercup-yellow loungers and umbrellas for hire, a patchwork of towels and throws for everyone else. Parents smearing lotion on toddlers’ faces while twenty-somethings toasted inked skin (could you still get cancer on skin tattooed with dragons?) and others queued for the Aperol spritzes and locally churned gelato served from attractive wooden counters. What else? Beach tennis, volleyball, that new ball game involving a mini
trampoline. A cluster of smiley people in life jackets being briefed at the water’s edge before a paddleboard lesson. Not an activist in sight. She was queuing at the deli on Old Beach Road when Amy
messaged.
You’ve landed! Just saw Perry with his paintbrush LMK
when you’re free to play.
‘Free to play’ meant free to invite us over – or at least that was how it had been at Easter, Amy and Linus’s first proper visit to their new retreat, a ramshackle bungalow unsuitable for even the most casual hosting. Neighbours in London – Charlotte and Amy had met almost a decade ago at the newfangled hot yoga studio on Lordship Lane that they’d both tried and quickly abandoned for the unheated original – and now here in Pine Ridge, they were going to be seeing more of each other than they did their own families. But, as Charlotte pointed out to Perry, you chose your friends, didn’t you? She searched the shelves in vain for NoLo options for Perry, who no longer drank, and hoped he’d remembered to bring his
own stocks of Lucky Saint from London. She imagined him ranting to Amy about the ferry shenanigans. The Shaws had travelled down at the weekend – when it was still July – and likely been spared the mayhem, which was ironic because you had to assume they were part of the influx that had inspired the NJFA to up their game in the first place. Like other city folk, they’d only been reassessing their priorities when they’d bought a second home, reshaping their work-life balance following the Covid lockdown,
but from down here it had looked suspiciously like they’d taken advantage of suffering. It looked cruel.
‘Can I help?’ said the girl at the till, who had fine gold-red hair and a distinctively English high colour. Did she share her fellow locals’ anger? She looked so placid. A tag on her apron bore the name Shannon.
‘Hi Shannon. Are you new?’
‘Been here nearly a year,’ the girl said, her tone bright but impersonal.
‘Ah. Well, it looks like it’s going to be amazing weather for the next few weeks, doesn’t it? Have you got any of that crab dip with the samphire? I couldn’t see it in the chiller.’
‘We’re sold out. We’ve got the mackerel and horseradish, though?’
‘I’m not so keen on that. Not to worry.’ The girl scanned her items.
‘That’s £45.43.’
For a couple of dips and a box of cheese straws! Charlotte tapped her card with a grudging respect. For a community that harboured so many anti-wealth fanatics, there was some seriously good business sense on show.
*
‘They’re putting in a summerhouse,’ Perry said. ‘Disruption will be minimal.’
Charlotte dumped the shopping inside and took a seat next to him at the terrace table.
‘Amy and Linus? Is that still hot?’ She helped herself to coffee from the French press, even though she normally cut the caffeine at noon. It was Le Creuset, Marseille Blue, one of the items she associated so strongly with Pine Ridge she could experience an almost erotic sensory lurch if she came upon it in John Lewis.
‘It’s a flat-pack number that goes up in a few hours. If they can get it delivered quickly, they might even sleep in it this trip, she said – or let the kids. Huck’s got a French exchange student coming and one of their bedrooms has still got a boarded-up window, apparently.’
‘Linus hasn’t got a clue about DIY,’ Charlotte said. ‘Maybe you could help him out?’
‘Maybe.’ Perry was rather less keen on Linus than he was Amy, the two being on opposite sides of the current South London controversy involving Low Traffic Neighbourhoods and equally
resistant to compromise. Other rivalries were at play too, Charlotte knew, with Linus’s cycle insurance business taking off at exactly the same time as Perry had semi-retired, which was just the kind of hierarchical rupture Perry struggled with.
‘Look, she sent me a pic.’ Perry passed her his phone.
‘Well, that looks familiar,’ Charlotte said, studying the chalet style edifice with its wraparound veranda and sloping slate roof.
‘I know. Wait for this: she’s going to call it the Niche. Imitation is the sincerest form of flattery, I suppose.’
Charlotte was untroubled by this. Eight years older than Amy, she had been happy with the tone set early and naturally in their warm, frank friendship. She shared her wisdom and Amy received it – it would be churlish to resent her acting on it. In any case, the Shaws’ new garden room could not be exactly like theirs because the Nook was a vintage treasure, a one-off salvaged from an estate in Sussex and restored by specialist craftsmen. Perry’s and her phones now pinged in unison and they tended to their notifications like surgeons on call. Hers was a new message from Amy saying much the same as the first.
‘What time shall I say to come over?’ she said and Perry looked up, startled.
‘Who?’
‘Amy and Linus, of course.’ She cocked her head, intrigued.
‘Why, who’s your text from?’
He pocketed his phone, holding her gaze in that unyielding, almost brazen way he did when he lied.
‘No one,’ he said.
Our Holiday by Louise Candlish is out 4th July.
