Summer at Shell Cottage (7 page)

It was the final week of term and the change in atmosphere at Riverdale Academy was palpable.
The exams were over, the Year 11s had left with the usual fanfare and scandal of
prom night, and from her office window Harriet could hear the steady
swish-thock
of Wimbledon-inspired student tennis tournaments on the courts outside.
Three days left to go now, and
everyone had their eyes on Friday afternoon and that glorious, yearned-for ‘School’s out!’
moment when the building would empty one last time, and the classrooms fall silent.
Woohoo!
No students, no paperwork, no infuriating new directives from the government, just six weeks of peace and tranquillity, the chance to close one’s eyes and think about absolutely
nothing for a change, apart from perhaps where the next ice cream or cold beer was coming from.
Bring it ruddy well on.

As the school’s child protection officer, Harriet often had mixed feelings about the end of term.
Much as she was gagging for a holiday herself, she couldn’t help worrying about the
students in her care who led such precarious, chaotic lives.
During term-time, she was their ally amidst the mayhem, the one who had their backs and noticed when things were going downhill.
But who
would keep an eye on Latisha and her family problems over the holidays?
Or Kwame, who’d been sofa-surfing for two months after the latest bust-up with his evangelical mother?
Or Sasha, who
had just confessed to Harriet that she was pregnant at the age of fourteen and scared about having become involved with a horrible gang?
Sometimes she had only just made a breakthrough with a
teenager when the holidays started and it was as if all her patient, careful work had been for nothing.

You had to have boundaries.
You couldn’t carry everyone else’s problems around the whole time.
You had to know when to switch off, close down that compartment in your mind and leave
it at the office – these were fundamental rules of her job.
But it was hard for soft-hearted Harriet to block out the kids in her care, especially when she’d built up some trust.
Their
faces would come to her over the summer and she would wonder with a pang how they were coping, alone in the wilderness of the holidays.
And then, come September, she’d spend the first week or
so practically holding her breath while she did a mental headcount, checking up on her students, counting them all back in again.

Still.
She was tired, weighed down by their problems and heartbreak, by every injustice they faced.
And actually, there were some things she wouldn’t miss about being here and dealing with
stroppy, angry, often rude teenagers day in day out.
Just that morning, Violet Parker had laughed in her face and said, ‘Whoa, Miss, what’s going on with them funky eyebrows, then?
Was
it, like, a bet or summink?
Was you drunk or what?’

Yeah.
A break from the personal comments would be nice.

Meanwhile, Molly and Robert were on good form and looking forward to their upcoming holiday.
There were all sorts of activities laid on for the students at Molly’s school this week,
probably in an attempt to stop the Year 10s bunking off en masse, and today she was going on a trip to Stratford-upon-Avon with the English department.
Harriet had been astonished to hear that her
book-dodging daughter had actually chosen this option, voluntarily, without any kind of bribery, especially as all her friends seemed to have plumped for trips that sounded way more fun – to
the Tate Modern or the Olympic Park.
Secretly, she was thrilled.
Could this be Robert’s good influence rubbing off on his stepdaughter, inspiring her to develop a love of literature?
Miracles
happened, she supposed.

Robert also had a big day today – an important lunch meeting with both his British and American editors in town, at some gastro place called the Marylebone Tavern.
‘We’re going
to wade through the entire manuscript together, chapter by chapter, and discuss how to finesse it,’ he’d told her rather grandly the night before as they snuggled on the sofa in front
of a cop drama on TV.
(Well, he was watching it anyway.
She was distracted by watching him shove handfuls of Kettle Chips into his gob and wishing she had a higher performing metabolism.)

Lucky, lucky Robert, Harriet thought now as she made herself a gritty instant coffee from the last dregs of the jar and waved hello to one of her colleagues across the staff room.
It certainly
seemed to take a lot of eating and drinking to get a book published, in her opinion.
How the other half lived!

‘Will you be coming back after the holidays?’
Alison, one of the teaching assistants, had asked her the other week, only half joking.
‘If my hubby hit the big time, I’d
be tempted to retire and lie around on a chaise longue eating chocolate all day.’

Harriet had laughed, not taking the question seriously, but later that afternoon, when she was told to fuck off (twice) and called a fat nosey bitch on the phone by Lillie Arnold’s
alcoholic mother, she lay her head on the desk, wondering, as she sometimes did, why she bothered.
Maybe it would be easier to turn her back on it all, simply stick two fingers up at Mrs Arnold and
all those other crap, useless parents she came across who seemed hell-bent on ruining their children’s lives.

It was actually quite tempting now she thought about it.
She could become Robert’s glamorous assistant and drive him around to his meetings and parties.
Perhaps in a saucy little uniform
– he’d like that .
.
.

The bell rang just then, signalling the end of break time, and Harriet snapped out of her reverie.
Three days left of term.
She could make it.

Harriet was only due to be in school for the morning that day, with a gruelling afternoon looming, where she and a local police officer had to attend a meeting at the parental
home of one of her students, to discuss the boy’s welfare.
The boy in question had been coming to school late every day, and had recently turned up with bruises and a black eye, and Harriet
had strong suspicions that the bruising was down to his father, a known thug who’d been in trouble with the police before.
The family lived in a flat near Edgware Road, but it was only when
she and the police officer had been knocking on the front door for five minutes that a neighbour stuck her head out of her window and told them the family were away.

Harriet didn’t like the sound of that, but unfortunately there wasn’t much they could do about it now, and so she had to beat a helpless retreat.

Now what?
It wasn’t worth trawling all the way back to school for the last hour, so Harriet wandered towards Marylebone Road, the air sultry and smelling of diesel, deciding that she might
as well seize the chance to pick up a few things for the holiday.
They were due to set off for Devon at the weekend, and in all the end-of-term kerfuffle she’d hardly had a chance to think
about it.

It was going to be a fantastic fortnight away, she had already decided.
With Molly coming up for sixteen in November, Harriet was well aware that this might easily be the last time her daughter
deigned to join them on a family holiday before she had her head turned by the joys of festival trips or mooching about in London all summer with mates instead.
It seemed like five minutes ago that
Molly had been obsessed by making sandcastles and moats, and collecting every last shell on the beach.
Now she was taller than Harriet, and more interested in building a follower base on Instagram
than any sandy constructions.
Where had the years gone?

Molly had been turning her nose up at the prospect of another holiday in Devon with the in-laws, especially when her friends were apparently off to Ibiza and the Greek islands, but Harriet loved
the old-fashioned seaside holiday appeal of Shell Cottage.
The house was beautiful yet homely, the beach was absolutely blissful, and you could go mountain biking or horse riding or hiking and
really switch off and forget about the rest of the world.
Of course, to her daughter, the very thought of ‘switching off’ was anathema, to be greeted with undiluted horror.
Molly was
already stressing about the dodgy Wi-Fi but you couldn’t have everything.

Anyway, Harriet had an ace up her sleeve.
Next summer, when Robert’s book had been published and they hopefully had money pouring in like nobody’s business, they could go somewhere
more glamorous themselves – Tuscany, Florida, Provence, anywhere they fancied, basically.
She’d lure Molly into another holiday by promising her exotic luxury and guaranteed sunshine.
Yes, of course it was shameless bribery.
But if she could squeeze an extra fortnight away with her daughter, before Molly decided she was too sophisticated to be seen dead holidaying with her
embarrassing mother, then bring on the shameless bribery.
It would be worth every penny.

She had reached the chemist now, so walked in and began adding toiletries to her basket: suncream (hey, she was an optimist), insect bite cream (and also a realist), hair conditioner and
aftersun, the shaving gel Robert liked .
.
.

Then a thought struck her.
Wait a minute!
Hadn’t Robert said he was in Marylebone too today?
Her local geography was pretty hazy but the Marylebone Tavern couldn’t be that far from
here, surely.
Maybe his lunch was still going on!
She felt a pulse of excitement at the notion.
She could offer to meet him afterwards for a debrief over coffee, get all the goss about exactly what
the American editor had said.
Robert had mentioned the possibility of an American tour to promote the book, and Harriet was definitely going to invite herself and Molly along for
that,
if
it happened.

Hi love, how did mtg go?
she texted, the basket of toiletries awkwardly balanced on one arm as she typed.
Could meet you for coffee afterwards if you fancy
it?

His reply came two minutes later as she was paying for her purchases at the till.

Sorry, will be a while yet!
Lots to discuss – but going v well.
Xx

Harriet wrinkled her nose in disappointment then stuffed the phone back in her bag and handed over a twenty-pound note to the cashier.
Oh well.
It had been a long shot, she supposed.
With a bit
of luck, that American editor would be drunk by now and promising Robert that yes, of
course
his wife and stepdaughter could join him for the New York leg of the tour .
.
.

She rolled her eyes at her own pipe dream and left the shop.
Now to bump straight back down to earth by seeing if she could hunt down a pair of shorts on the high street which didn’t make
her bottom look too elephantine.
‘This could take a while,’ she murmured to herself as she strode grimly forwards.

After a bruising hour spent wincing at the sight of her unflattering-shorts-wearing reflection in various changing rooms, Harriet decided to abandon the idea and wear long,
leg-hiding skirts all summer instead, whatever the weather.
Even on the beach if she had to.
Never mind that Robert’s sister Freya was sure to be swishing around in floaty chiffon tops and
stylish tea dresses in Devon.
Never mind that Olivia, Robert’s mum, was the most intimidatingly elegant woman ever, even when she’d been swimming in the sea, for heaven’s sake,
somehow remaining luminous and poised when everyone else was soggy and tousled with salt in their hair.
Never mind that Harriet’s only existing shorts were a pair of denim cut-offs which were
getting a bit thin between the thighs now and had a grease mark on one buttock, where she’d accidentally sat on a discarded chip paper at Notting Hill Carnival last year.

To hell with the search for new shorts.
Everything she tried on made her look like a comedy holidaymaker, rather than chic beach goddess.
She just had to hope that Olivia and Freya didn’t
remember the denim cut-offs from last summer and – worse – chose to comment on them.
Goodness, Harriet, they’ve lasted well, haven’t they?
Shorthand for
Goodness, Harriet, buy yourself a new pair of ruddy shorts, will you, for crying out loud?
Those ones are hanging by a thread, you cheapskate.

No.
They weren’t like that, thank God.
And if they did notice, they were both too well mannered to comment anyway.
And besides, Harriet,
she told herself, suddenly cross at her
own self-absorption,
they’ll be far too preoccupied with everything else, i.e.
missing poor dead Alec, to give your fat arse a second glance, for heaven’s sake.
If anyone was
going to be rude about her attire, it would be Molly, who seemed to think Harriet chose each outfit specifically to annoy or embarrass her.