Nothing to Lose (2 page)

Yes? Jasmine’s voice was dangerously calm. ‘Go on.’

Well, nothing, of course, I mean . . .’

John Bestley was still speaking. Jasmine stared at the handkerchief, damp and twisted in her hands. She didn’t need Andrew to draw the comparison between her petite, blonde, designer-dressed mother and her dark, plump, untidy self. Yvonne had always seemed rather shocked that her only daughter had the brown eyes, the clumsiness, and the overwhelming desire to please of a capering Labrador puppy. And Jasmine herself knew that she was as far removed from being anyone’s top totty as it was possible to get. But the thought of Andrew’s smarmy car salesmen friends leering over Yvonne was still stomach-churningly appalling.

John cleared his throat. ‘
To my three dear friends, Allan Lovelock, Roger Foster and Peg Dunstable, I leave the sum of twenty thousand pounds each.
’

Andrew let out a low whistle.

‘Bloody hell!’ Yvonne stopped clutching her husband and, rocking on her stilettos, clutched at the bar instead. ‘This is ridiculous! That money should go to Philip! The will’s invalid!’

‘On the contrary,’ John said smoothly, beaming at Peg, Roger and Allan, who looked about as poleaxed as Yvonne, ‘the will is perfectly legal. Now, please, no more interruptions. The last legacies are fairly brief.’

Jasmine was silent. Sixty thousand pounds! Where the hell had Benny got that sort of money? He’d always lived so frugally, he must have been squirrelling it away for ever. Still, no one deserved it more than Allan, Peg and Roger – they’d been true friends for many, many years.

‘
To my granddaughter, Jasmine Clegg
,’ John Bestley’s voice softened as he motioned his head towards her, ‘
I leave all my love. She has been the best pal a man could have, and it has been both a privilege and a pleasure to share her life for twenty-eight years . . .
’

This time Jasmine couldn’t stop the tears. They fell soundlessly, the sobs rocking her body. Andrew patted her clumsily.

‘
To her I wish health, good fortune and, above all, lifelong happiness. I would hope that she will always have the strength to follow her own path in life without hindrance from others. She will understand. I also leave her the residue of my estate –
’

‘Christ,’ Andrew sighed. ‘A council house full of secondhand furniture.’

John Bestley adjusted his glasses and looked directly at Jasmine. ‘Would you like to see me privately at the office to go through the specifics, my dear?’

Jasmine sniffed into the hankie and shook her head. It didn’t matter. She’d find a home for Benny’s bits and pieces somewhere. It was time she looked for a place to rent, anyway. She couldn’t go on living with her parents for ever. It was some scant comfort that her grandfather’s possessions could one day furnish her own little flat.

‘Very well,’ John cleared his throat. ‘
I also leave Jasmine Clegg the residue of my estate in its entirety: my furniture and all my personal possessions for her to do with as she pleases. I also leave her my beach hut –
’

Jasmine caught her breath. The beach hut! She’d almost forgotten that Benny and her grandmother had actually owned the sea-front chalet where she’d spent most of her childhood summer days. It had been her bolt hole all her life. Oh, that was wonderful . . .

‘Council’s intending to bulldoze them, so I’ve been told,’ Andrew said, looking disappointed. ‘You won’t get much for it.’

John coughed. ‘
Also to my granddaughter, Jasmine Clegg, I bequeath fifty thousand pounds.
’

‘Fifty grand!’ Andrew had perked up. He kissed her cheek. ‘Wow, Jas! That’s amazing! You could invest it in the dealership – become a partner.’

Jasmine’s mouth dropped open. She wasn’t listening to Andrew. She didn’t dare to look at her parents. She worked some saliva into her mouth. She couldn’t take this in. There had to be some mistake. ‘Er – John . . . maybe I should come and see you. I mean . . .’

‘Whatever you think best, my dear.’ John’s voice was avuncular. ‘We’ll make an appointment later. And there’s just one more thing.’ He looked down at the papers in front of him. ‘
To Jasmine Clegg I leave my business. I know she loves it as much as I do. I have had the licence transferred to her name to come into effect six weeks after my death.
’

‘Business? What business?’ Andrew looked quizzical, then his eyes widened in horror. ‘Jesus Christ! He doesn’t mean . . . ?’

Jasmine started to laugh. Her parents were gaping at her across the bar. Roger, Allan and Peg were all beaming.

John Bestley gathered the pages of the will together tidily. ‘Congratulations, my dear. You are now the proud proprietor of Benny Clegg – the Punters Friend.’

Jasmine, not knowing whether to laugh or cry now, was slightly disturbed to find she was doing both.

Benny had left her his bookmaker’s pitch at Ampney Crucis Greyhound Stadium.

‘And just what do you intend to do with this?’

Jasmine sat down heavily, puffing from her exertions, and surveyed both her best friend, Clara, and the Victorian chiffonier, with grave doubt. ‘Goodness knows. I thought it’d sort of slot in.’

‘It’d sort of slot in,’ Clara said, ‘to the mansion it was designed for. It was a tight squeeze in Benny’s front room. It is never – never, ever – going to fit into a beach hut.’

It was a month after the funeral. June had come to Dorset, bringing with it fine weather and the first rush of holidaymakers. The beach hut, one in a row of two dozen perfect 1920s specimens, had a wooden slatted veranda, two main rooms, a minuscule bathroom, a kitchenette comprising two sockets and a gas ring, net curtains, and a line for hanging up wet bathing costumes; and, like its neighbours, was painted in sugared-almond colours. The huts stood in proud defiance along the Ampney Crucis sea front; with the skewwhiff wooden steps down to the sands in front of them, and the undulating gradient of the cliffs behind.

Jasmine had already transferred most of Benny’s furniture into the beach hut. The chiffonier was the last to go. Clara, in one of her rare moments either not at work or in the gym, had been co-opted in as heaver-and-shover-in-chief. The chiffonier’s move had taken far longer than Jasmine had anticipated, and they now had an interested audience of small children in shorts.

Scrambling to her feet, Jasmine once again grabbed a corner of the chiffonier. For a few minutes they seemed to be making some headway, then Clara dropped her end of the enormous cabinet with a groan.

‘There! That’s it! I’ve broken a fingernail! Andrew should be helping you with this. I can’t believe he’s let you do the house clearance on your own.’

‘I wasn’t on my own,’ Jasmine panted, tugging futilely at the immovable object. ‘Roger and Allan and Peg helped.’

‘Get real! They’re all eighty at least!’

‘No they’re not. And anyway, they helped me with respect and sympathy, and didn’t mind me crying all the time. Andrew would have mocked.’

‘Yeah, he probably would, the bastard. But still, Allan and Roger must be pensionable by now, and Peg Dunstable is away with the fairies.’

‘She is not!’ Jasmine giggled. ‘Just because she thinks she’s Doris Day doesn’t mean that she hasn’t got all her marbles. She’s a very astute businesswoman, she’s just got a bit of a fixation – ’

Clara picked at the flaking nail. ‘You are so naive, Jas, do you know that? Peg Dunstable is totally barking. God you’ll make a right team.’

‘Yes, we probably will. Now forget your manicure and my sanity and lift your end.’

They lifted and pushed, but the chiffonier was still wedged at an angle across the veranda. Clara, again examining the damaged fingernail, leaned against the cabinet with a sigh. ‘What we need is a strategy – and the help of a couple of rugby teams. Why couldn’t you have got yourself engaged to a man with biceps, instead of . . . ?’

‘Go on, you can say it. You’ve said it often enough. A smarmy showroom-bound wimp like Andrew.’

Clara disliked Andrew even more than Benny had, if that were possible. Jasmine, who had known Andrew ever since schooldays, and who had had no previous serious boyfriend, had been engaged to him for the last three years. They’d sort of drifted into it, sort of stuck together, and certainly Jasmine had never considered ending it. So what if it wasn’t a Grand Passion? Neither of them had expected that, had they? It was safe, it was familiar, and both sets of parents approved.

She grimaced. Her parents would never, ever approve of anything she did again . . .

Philip and Yvonne had been incandescent since the day of the funeral. The rows in their five-bedroomed mock Tudor detached had raged for weeks. They had culminated in Jasmine, for the first time in her life, leaving home. Silently, she’d packed her suitcase and decamped to the beach hut. Andrew had joined in on the parental front at this point, and told her that there was no way she could live, like some down-and-out, in a dilapidated chalet that was due for demolition.

Fired by a fierce determination that she hadn’t even known she possessed, Jasmine had told him to mind his own business, and had also evaded both her father’s and Andrew’s insistence that she must invest her nest egg wisely – either in Andrew’s car dealership or Philip’s portfolio – and had deposited her inheritance in her building society account.

She had a feeling she hadn’t heard the last of the matter.

‘Tell you what.’ Jasmine fanned herself with the flapping hem of her T-shirt. ‘Shall we abandon this for a bit and go to the Crumpled Horn?’

Clara shook her head. ‘We will not. We’ll finish the job first.’

‘God, you’re so bloody focused.’

Clara looked smug. ‘Which is why I’m Sales Director of Makings Paper, while you’re – well, God knows what you are.’

‘I’m a bookie.’ Jasmine grinned at her. ‘Or at least I will be as soon as I’ve had a few lessons.’

Clara gave her a withering look, and once again applied her shoulder to the cluster of carved beechnuts dangling from the chiffonier’s corner. ‘And have you told your parents and the squirmy Andrew that you’ve jacked your job in yet?’

‘Hell, no. They’re still getting over Grandpa’s legacies and the fact that I’ve left home. Telling them that I’m no longer inputting boring figures on to boring computers in the boring accounts department at Watertite Windows would possibly be a scrap of information too far at the moment. Hey – I think we’ve done it! It moved!’

With a lot of scraping and cursing and a shriek from Clara as another fingernail splintered, the chiffonier was finally heaved into place. Sweaty, grimy, and triumphant, Jasmine surveyed it with pleasure.

‘Doesn’t it look lovely? Oh, thanks, Clara – you’re a real pal.’

‘I’m mad and so are you. Look, Jasmine, you do know you don’t have to live here, don’t you? My flat is huge, and it’d be really fun to share and – ’

‘And I’d drive you crazy by filling it with clutter and making a mess and knocking things over. ’ Jasmine said, thinking of Clara’s pristine minimalism with a shudder. ‘No, thanks so much, it’s really kind of you – but I don’t think even our rock-solid friendship would survive being together twenty-four hours a day. Anyway, I love this hut.’

Clara grinned. ‘Rather you than me then – but the offer stands should things get desperate. Right, so now you can stay here and play house while I go and get a takeout from the pub. Any preference in crisp flavour?’

‘Not cheese and onion. They make me cry.’

Clara gave her a swift hug. ‘Poor thing. Is it still awful?’

‘Yup. It’s getting a bit better, though. I usually only cry at night now.’

‘I should have been here for the funeral.’

‘You couldn’t help being in Guatemala.’

‘Guadeloupe. And it was naff timing for a holiday. I can’t bear to think of you having to cope with it all on your own.’

‘Well, I did, so maybe it was a good thing that you weren’t here. Mum and Dad and Andrew were useless, so I had to just get on with it. Anyway, could we not talk about it any more, please?’

‘Yeah, sure. Sorry. So, it’s a pint of Old Ampney and a packet of smoky bacon?’

‘Make it half a pint. I want to keep a clear head. I’m going to meet Peg at the greyhound stadium later for my initiation.’

‘Bloody hell!’ Clara forced her way through the inquisitive audience of children who were now three-deep on the veranda. ‘She’ll have you doing sugar-sweet smiles and singing “The Deadwood Stage” complete with whip noises and thigh slapping. I know – I’ve seen her do it in Sainsbury’s. I’d better make it a treble whisky at least.’

Laughing, Jasmine watched Clara disappear towards the prom road and the Crumpled Horn, and then looked proudly at the chiffonier now firmly wedged at the back of the hut. The place was possibly a mite overcrowded, but at least she now had everything she needed to call it home. It’d be fine for the summer months. The winter, with the notorious Dorset gales swooshing in from the English Channel, coupled with plunging temperatures, could be another matter altogether, but she’d deal with that when it arose. Right now, she thought, as she delved into one of the dozens of cardboard boxes she’d brought from her grandfather’s house, she was relishing her newfound independence.

‘Bugger off!’ Clara, balancing a tray of beer and crisps, climbed back on to the veranda and glared at the children. The show’s over. Go and watch Punch and Judy. Although, on second thoughts, this is probably funnier.’

‘There!’ Jasmine stood back to admire her handiwork. The chiffonier was now adorned with various pieces of her inheritance – two Staffordshire highwayman figurines, a walnut carriage clock which had stopped five years before, and a pair of slightly verdigrised brass candlesticks. She’d also added her grandparents’ wedding photograph in a silver frame. ‘How does that look?’

‘Like it belongs in a mausoleum.’ Clara shook her head. ‘You can’t be serious about this, Jas, can you?’

‘Deadly serious. Never more serious about anything in my life. Now, where’s the beer?’

Ampney Crucis Greyhound Stadium was possibly a bit of an overstatement. An oval sand track surrounded by dirty and disintegrating white railings, enclosed by three tiers of rickety stands, with a snack bar at one end and a Portaloo at the other, it probably wasn’t anyone’s idea of a good night out at the dogs. However, Jasmine, who had grown up there, standing on a box beside Benny as he set prices, took bets, and hopefully didn’t pay out too much too often, absolutely adored it.