In the Summertime (13 page)

‘Andrew, you look
exactly
the same as you did all those summers ago!’ she said, stepping back to get a proper look. He seemed taller than she remembered. He must have shot up by a few more fast inches between being seventeen and fully adult. He still looked as if his mother dressed him, too, as he was wearing a navy blazer with brass buttons, the sort his own father had worn, and she guessed it was more M&S than Paul Smith.

‘You look … um … just like
you
,’ he managed to say at last, smiling shyly and showing the perfect teeth that had taken eighteen months of painful brace-wearing to achieve. ‘And this is …’ He ushered the boy forward but the woman with them stepped in front and got in first, holding out a plump hand to Miranda.

‘I’m Geraldine. Please don’t call me Gerry,’ she said, smiling but clearly not joking. She had the over-posh voice of a headmistress who had once met and much admired a fierce duchess. ‘So kind of you to have us all here like this. And you on holiday as well. It looks as though it’s been lot of work for you.’ She sniffed at the air and frowned. ‘Of course, barbecues aren’t ideal. Shockingly carcinogenic; did you know that? They should be made illegal if you want my opinion.’ She was peering past Miranda to where the food was set up ready to cook and the salads were out on the long table, still under cling-film to keep the bugs off. Her eyes narrowed as she gazed. What was she doing, Miranda wondered. Calculating portion sizes from across the pool?

‘Not such hard work really; it’s just simple stuff,’ Miranda said, deciding she’d avoid the issue of barbecue safety. ‘When we came back to the village I never imagined for a minute I’d find old friends here. It’s all pretty exciting. Now – drinks? Can I get you some wine? And I’ll introduce you to my crew.’

‘I’ll sort some drinks for everyone,’ Harriet volunteered, steering the teenagers in the direction of the table and telling them in a bossy aunt voice not even to think about alcohol. Lola was scowling at this but moving close to Bo. Andrew was gazing at Harriet and her long brown legs in a wide-eyed way Miranda recognized from years before. She
caught Jess’s eye and they both giggled, remembering.

Luckily the young ones seemed already to be circling in that unsure way animals do before deciding whether they can trust each other. They’d find something to say eventually, and as Harriet handed out Cokes they started to look a bit more comfortable. Freddie, son of Andrew, was eyeing Silva and looking as if there was something he desperately wanted to say. Miranda hoped he’d find the words soon, as he looked as if he might collapse from shyness. Eventually she overheard him blurt out, ‘You were in that shop.’

Silva said, ‘Yeah. I remember.’ Then both of them stared at the pool and went embarrassed and silent. All would be well, Miranda thought as she put bowls of bread on the table, all would be well in time.

Geraldine drifted across to have a closer look at the food while Andrew was meeting Harriet, Bo and Silva. She didn’t seem, Miranda thought, interested in any of the humans.

‘I hope there are no nuts in the salads,’ Geraldine barked. She picked up a fork, peeled back a piece of cling-film and prodded at Harriet’s couscous. ‘Freddie reacts to nuts.’

‘No I don’t,’ he grunted, going pink.

‘You do.’

‘Once. I choked on a peanut. Own fault. Not an allergy. And it was once,’ he said to Bo, who nodded sympathetically.

‘Shall I get you a plate?’ Harriet asked Geraldine, looking miffed at having her cuisine questioned.

‘Not yet. But you’ll understand I did have to check.’

‘You only have to ask,’ Clare told her.

Miranda poked at the barbecue coals again to see if they were hot enough. She hadn’t planned to start cooking immediately because she wanted them all to take time to catch up and get to know each other a bit. Mingling, circulating, all the words that she associated with the kind of very grown-up parties her parents’ generation had had, not the more casual suppers she and her own friends back home liked. Now she thought it seemed best to get it all under way. With plenty of food and drink on the go, perhaps they’d loosen up a bit, especially the teen boys who were doing that half-hunched thing with hands in pockets and shoulders rounded as if trying to protect their bodies.

‘You OK with this?’ Jess half-whispered. ‘What do you think of the terrifying Geraldine?’

‘Terrifying’s about right. I thought she was going to plunge a fat fist into Harrie’s salad. Why? And what’s she doing with poor Andrew? How did that ever happen? She embarrassed that sweet boy!’

‘She’s not doing a lot, that I found out this afternoon. They aren’t married or even together; they just somehow produced Freddie. My guess is it was an accident, possibly even a one-off. Or one-
orf
as Geraldine would say.’

‘I just can’t imagine …’

‘I know. And I’m trying really, really hard not to.’

They laughed. Miranda gave Jess a quick hug. ‘I’m so glad you’re here. I thought so much about you and us all before we came down here. Now it seems kind of
meant
.’

‘Have you seen Steve?’ Jess asked, giving her a beady look.

‘Um – briefly. He brought the prawns up from the shop. He looks, y’know, quite good. He looks very well, I mean.’

‘You’ve gone pink.’

‘I so have
not
. It’s the sun,’ Miranda said. ‘We were only kids at the time, don’t forget. Just a long-ago holiday fling. Come on, you can help me with the barbie. Let’s get these people fed. Bo, could you light the citrus candles, please? They’ll fend off the mosquitoes.’ She should probably have bought dozens of them. One tiny bite and Geraldine would probably be round accusing her of giving her malaria.

‘I like your hair. Suits you all fluffed up.’ A compliment was about the last thing Silva expected to hear from Lola and she looked at her for a moment, half expecting there to be a ‘but’ to follow.

‘Thanks,’ she said after a few moments, realizing that Lola seemed to mean it.

‘Which shop did you see Freddie in?’ Lola went on. ‘I heard him say earlier that he’d seen you.’

‘Across at St Piran. The surf place. He was in there with his dad.’ She immediately felt tense at the thought of Jules whipping the changing room curtain back. At the risk of being teased ever after, she told Lola about it, laughing about being caught in her Hello Kitty knickers.

‘That’ll be why Freddie keeps looking at you. He’s seeing through your clothes to your underwear, in hope. Oh, and the Jules boy, I know him. He fancies himself more than he fancies anyone else so I wouldn’t bother having any ideas about him.’

Silva laughed. ‘I don’t think about him at all,’ she said, crossing her fingers in case the god of teenage lies sent her a thunderbolt.

‘Good. You’re way too young anyway,’ Lola said, turning her attention to her food. Silva chewed on a piece of garlic bread and wondered if she’d been warned off. If so, she felt quite flattered that Lola, who must be about fifteen, would think Silva was potential competition at two whole years younger.

‘I was sorry to hear about Jack,’ Eliot said to Clare a bit later. He was sitting next to her at the grown-ups’ end of the long table.

‘Thank you,’ Clare said, then added, ‘Sorry, I always think that sounds such a ridiculous response. I don’t know why people always say “thank you” when someone says they’re sorry about a death. I mean, what are they being thankful for?’

Eliot smiled. ‘Sure, you know, it’s just a tradition, isn’t it? The ritual of acknowledging the passing. And besides, I
am
sorry he’s gone. He was a top bloke. I liked him. I would have liked to see him here again.’

‘Ah, but if he was still alive we wouldn’t be here. We’ve come back to …’ She hesitated and took a deep breath, determined not to get all tearful here at the table and embarrass herself and Eliot. ‘We came to scatter his ashes on the sea. He loved it here, and that was what he wanted. I think he couldn’t quite bear to come back once we’d sold the cottage, even though that had been his idea in the first place.’

To her surprise, beneath the table Eliot took her hand and squeezed it tight. ‘So that’s why you’re here in my old house,’ he said, looking dolefully at her. ‘And there was me thinking you’d come to seek me out after all this time.’

‘Well
you’re
in
my
house!’ she said, laughing at his face full of pretend disappointment and feeling grateful to him for lifting her mood. ‘And I had no idea you’d be here. Though …’ and she squeezed his hand in return, ‘I am glad you are. You’re looking in great nick.’

‘Better than you expected, you mean!’ he chuckled. ‘Don’t be shy of saying it, now. It’s the truth. And I look better than I deserve considering I was drinking myself to the grave. I cut the whiskey. There was one episode too far when I fell down the steps getting off a plane in Dublin.’

‘But you haven’t given up drinking completely,’ she said, watching as he picked up his wine glass.

‘No. Just the amber glory. I stopped it before it stopped me. I had my lifetime’s allocation all in a few short years, but it’s over. I like a glass or two of wine, the odd beer, and I don’t smoke any more. Unlike some.’ He nodded across the table to where Geraldine was pulling a pack of cigarettes and a lighter out of her bag. She put them on the table and looked around.

‘Freddie –
not
the bread!’ she called along to the far end where he and the other young ones were sitting together. ‘You know how you bloat!’

To their credit, none of his companions so much as sniggered. Silva even gave Geraldine one of her moodiest glares.

‘Hey, give him a break!’ Jess said. ‘It’s only a bit of garlic bread. How much can it hurt? He can’t be allergic or he wouldn’t touch it, would he?’

‘I do
know
my son,’ Geraldine told her firmly. ‘And it’s just as well I’m here. I knew I wouldn’t be able to trust Andrew to have him to stay here on his own as he wanted. It’s a bit of an experiment and
not
one that’s likely to work if he doesn’t keep a closer eye on the boy.’

‘How old is he?’ Harriet asked.

‘How old?’ She looked across at Andrew, who looked alarmed. ‘About thirty-seven, I think. Why do you ask? I doubt he’s
your
type.’ She looked Harriet up and down with disapproval.

Harriet giggled. ‘I meant Freddie.’

‘Oh, he’s nearly sixteen. A dangerous age for a boy. If they’re going to drift to the bad, that’ll be the age they start. You have to keep a
very close eye
. By which I mean …’ she gave a stern look down to the far end of the table where Bo was using his fingers to feed a prawn into Lola’s mouth, which was prettily upturned like a kitten accepting a treat, ‘you have to keep a very close eye on
who they mix with
.’ She picked up her cigarettes and lighter and said to Miranda, ‘Do excuse me. I’ll just go and find the facilities.’

‘Through the top terrace doors, into the hallway and behind the stairs,’ Miranda called after her. Geraldine didn’t reply and Miranda guessed she’d prefer not to have been told, so she could have a good nosy around the house.

‘I hardly dare ask this, Andrew,’ Miranda turned to him, ‘but I just wondered about your parents. Are they … all right?’

‘Depends what you call all right,’ he said, looking pensive. ‘Mum got into computers down at the library and went off to live with someone she’d found online that she used to know at school. Dad’s well enough, still mad on golf, but he’s joined a sort of holiday club and keeps going off to Spain for months at a time with a load of old women who fuss over him.’

‘Wow! Go Celia! Who’d have seen that one coming?’ Eliot, across from them, was chuckling delightedly.
‘So what’s he like, this bloke she’s shacked up with?’

‘He’s a woman actually,’ Andrew said. ‘Quite nice. She rides a Harley-Davidson and she’s got every single Elvis record
ever
.’

‘So you’re OK about that?’ Clare asked. ‘That’s good.’ She tried to picture prim Celia, who must be at least seventy-five now, on the back of a Harley, wearing biker leathers. Celia had collected china cats, always wore Jaeger and would faint if anyone swore in her hearing. Clare, failing quite a lot with the imagined transformation, extended her vision to one of Celia and her partner pulling up at the Ace Café on the North Circular for strong tea and a full-on fry-up breakfast, but it was barely possible. Celia had been a scones (pronounced to rhyme with stones) and crustless cucumber sandwich woman through and through.

‘Oh, yes. But they want to sell the cottage here, which is why I’m down. I need to see what the local market is like, get a feel for the prices at ground level.’ He blushed. ‘It’s what I do, you see. Estate agent.’

Geraldine returned from the loo and stamped across the terrace towards the table. ‘I see you’ve got a microwave in that kitchen,’ she announced. ‘I wouldn’t have one if you paid me. It’s like having a nuclear waste dump in your home.’ She settled herself at the table and lit a cigarette.

‘We’re only renting the place for three weeks,’ Clare
reminded her. ‘We can hardly start taking the kitchen apart.’

‘I’d want a refund, for the danger,’ Geraldine said, adding, ‘You don’t mind if I smoke, do you? I don’t see anyone still eating.’

‘Er … well …’ Clare glared at her. ‘Maybe not at the table?’

‘Oh, we’re out of doors. It’ll disperse.’ Geraldine inhaled deeply.

Suddenly through the dusk there was flash from a camera and Harriet jumped up so fast she knocked her chair over. She screamed and flung a pink napkin over her face. ‘No photographs! Get OUT!’ she shrieked. Miranda got up quickly and moved towards the culprit, who was aiming his phone at the table, ready to take another shot.

‘What the hell are you doing? Who are you?’ Miranda demanded.

‘Harrie, babe? Come on, be nice now,’ the young man said, pushing past Miranda.

‘Oh my God, it’s Pablo Palmer!’ Freddie said. ‘Pablo Palmer,
here
!’

‘Who? Who is this young man?’ Geraldine demanded crossly.

‘A footballer. Scumbag. Harriet’s ex,’ Silva told her.

Geraldine’s eyes lit up with interest. ‘Oh really? Golly, how delightfully vulgar.’