Christmas at the Gin Shack. Catherine Miller

beach huts after the antics of that day. It was probably Paul or Mark and they would have chucked everything back in so they could catch up with everyone else as they waited for news.

      Olive readjusted the space so everything was back as it should be.

      ‘You coming in?’ Veronica asked.

      There was a nip in the air that day. The sea would be bracing and take the wind out of their lungs. After hearing Tony struggle to breathe so recently, Olive wasn’t sure she should be subjecting herself to those kinds of conditions. This past couple of weeks had aged her and she didn’t like to think by how much. Her shoulders still ached from the force of pressing on Tony’s ribcage.

      The words “I’m not sure” nearly left Olive’s lips, but then she stopped herself. Didn’t the fragility of life prove that she should be grasping at every opportunity with both hands? Whatever doubts she had, she put aside. Skinny-dipping was on the cards, even if the temperature might see her nipples drop off. It wasn’t like she had much use for them these days anyway.

      Grabbing towels from the drawer (it was way too cold to endure the walk back without one ready), she was once again left feeling as though things were out of place.

      The towels were folded, not rolled. Olive always rolled the towels. Somehow they fitted more neatly into the draw when they were stacked that way. But for some very peculiar reason, they were folded. Maybe Olive was losing her marbles. Maybe the cracks were starting to appear. Maybe she’d always folded them and her brain was playing strange tricks on her.

      It was easy to recall the reason why she’d ended up agreeing to move into the Oakley West Retirement Quarters. It was because of the day she couldn’t remember what a teabag was after a mini stroke. Fortunately, the effects of that hadn’t been lasting. The moment she’d lost all sense of herself was fleeting.

      But now all her rolled towels were folded, maybe this was the start of it? Maybe this feeling of being out of kilter wasn’t about Tony being poorly. Maybe she was as well. Because the towels hadn’t been out when he’d become sick, so it wasn’t like she was able to blame Mark or Paul for shoving them back any which way. No, this was a world where she definitely rolled her towels. She’d done it that way for as long as she could remember, but now there was doubt in her head. Perhaps she’d changed how she did things along the way and her brain had forgotten to take note. Whatever it was, it was bizarre and it strengthened the sense of the world being out of kilter. The sooner Tony was back the better. If she told her son, he’d have her up for some kind of psychiatric evaluation. Tony would help her reason what was going on. She needed him back for the world to be in sync again.

      Olive ignored the problem and picked two large towels out and joined Veronica on the shoreline. Her friend had already stripped off and was merrily having a swim. Taking off her pink fleece and pulling her yellow maxi dress over her head, Olive practically jogged into the sea to get the hit from the cold over and done with.

      They are towels, Olive told herself. Ordinary towels. It really didn’t matter how they were folded. But then again, it really did, when something so silly was making her lose her sense of what was right and what was left.

      Dipping her head back to let her hair get wet, Olive floated for a moment, letting the waves rock her in whichever direction they chose. She didn’t normally. The flash of nudity way too much for any sensitive soul. But today was different. Because, yes, everything was out of kilter. She just had to hope it was more a case of getting out of the wrong side of bed, rather than anything actually being wrong.

Chapter Six

      For the next few days, Olive wasn’t able to shake that feeling off. She went about her routine as usual. Always awake early, she would usually spend the first part of the morning reading in the early-morning light from her gorgeous seaview bay window. She would have preferred to do this at her beach hut like she always had, but she had to confess to being less hardened to the colder weather conditions than she once had been. She’d then head downstairs for breakfast where she would be joined by Veronica and Randy. She almost always opted for the cooked breakfast. She wasn’t at a point in life where she need ever worry about the consequences of black pudding and bacon fat. Instead, she enjoyed it with a relish that only came without thinking about consequence. It was a nice point of life to be at.

      Normally, these days, if she wasn’t interested in the morning activities on offer (and however useful knitting might be, she didn’t have any kind of urge to perfect it at eighty-four), she would head to the Gin Shack. It wasn’t open at that time of day, but Tony would be there getting organised. At least three or four times a week, Olive would head there of a morning to enjoy the morning papers and a coffee with her friend. It kept her brain ticking over far more than the activities programme managed to, and it let the lovebirds have some time to themselves.

      It must have been not seeing Tony that was making her feel out of sync. Because even though days at the beach hut were glorious, they weren’t the same when she didn’t get chance to catch up with friends now they were so busy making sure the Gin Shack remained open while Tony was absent.

      After realising Tony’s absence was part of the problem, Olive arranged for another hospital visit. This time she braved the journey alone with a taxi to the hospital. He was no longer on high dependency and Esme was hopeful he was near to being discharged. Olive wasn’t a fan of hospitals, and she’d been fortunate not to have many dealings with the place. It was well signposted, so navigating the labyrinth of corridors wasn’t as complicated as it could have been.

      When Olive arrived at his bed space, Tony wasn’t there. Typical that, even though Esme had let him know to expect her, he’d been carted off to another part of the hospital for some test or X-ray or something.

      ‘Hello there.’

      The familiar voice made Olive jump out of her skin as she turned round to be met by Tony’s large frame. ‘You’re not supposed to try and give me a heart attack. We’ve had quite enough of them between us. I didn’t think you’d be up and about yet?’ Tony looked as fit as a fiddle. Like nothing had happened. It seemed life had saved up all its miracles for the later years of Olive’s life and it really was about time.

      ‘There’s no rest here. They like you up and about as soon as possible. I hadn’t realised I’d been feeling unwell before. I had a few crushing pains in my chest, but I’d put it down to lifting and carrying heavy boxes. I feel like a new man.’ Tony led them over to his bed space and took a seat on his bed, allowing Olive the chair. ‘How are you doing?’

      ‘I think I’m losing my marbles.’ At least with Tony she was able to be frank. If she’d told Richard this, he would have been marching his mother to the doctor before she had chance to explain.

      ‘I could have told you that… but what makes you say so?’

      Olive tapped Tony’s knee in mock admonishment. ‘I know I’ve always had a screw loose, but there’s no need to be cheeky. I had a genuine moment of wondering if my mind was starting to go.’ She was at an age where it was commonplace for people to start losing their grip on the depths of reality. It wouldn’t be so surprising if her memory was starting to contain blanks.

      ‘Go on.’

      Tony was always such a comfort to talk to, Olive didn’t worry about sharing her darkest fears with him. ‘This is going to sound stupid, but I couldn’t remember if I rolled or folded my towels. I swear I’ve always rolled them when I put them away at the beach hut, but the other day, when I went there, they were all folded. And for a moment, I couldn’t work out if it was something I’d done and maybe I’d never rolled them and my mind was playing tricks on me.’ It did sound silly talking about it.

      ‘You do always roll them. I’ve borrowed one off you enough times to be able to tell you that. So, you folded them by accident?’

      Tony didn’t have any wires or drains hanging from him now and looked so extraordinarily like nothing had happened that Olive wasn’t sure she would ever stop staring at