Summer at Tiffany's (22 page)

Kelly's amused expression changed as she took in Cassie's pallor. ‘Oh Jeez, please tell me Suzy told you.'

Cassie didn't reply and Kelly groaned, dropping her face into her hands and shaking her head lightly. When she looked up, her eyes were wary. ‘I'm going to kill her. She said she was going to tell you.'

‘Tell me what?'

There was a long silence as Kelly struggled to find a way of softening the words she had to say. ‘I knew you were taking it too well. I knew it,' she muttered to herself before taking a deep breath. ‘Look, there's no easy way to tell you this. They're getting married in two weeks.'

Cassie felt the room rock. Her heart beat uncontrollably. ‘How did Suze know, anyway?' Her mind went into overdrive. Why hadn't Gil told Cassie, his own ex-wife? He'd told Suzy but not her? It made no sense.

And then it did. Cassie groaned, closing her eyes. ‘Oh God, it was in
The Times
,' she muttered.

‘Cass, I'm so sorry,' Kelly said. It was her turn to sound tentative now as Cassie slumped back into the sofa.

Of course it had been in
The Times
. The union of Lady Louisa Arbuthnott and Gilpin Mathieson, two of the smartest families in Edinburgh, was never going to have passed unannounced.

‘Cass, I'm sorry.' Kelly's voice was quiet. ‘I thought . . .' Her voice faded to silence as she watched Cassie stare into nothingness, the past and the future becoming tangled in a messy knot.

Cassie came to, like she'd been slapped, and inhaled sharply. She looked back at the screen. ‘Hey, what do I care? I don't! That ship sailed a long time ago.' Cassie's voice was flat, her free arm waving listlessly as vague punctuation to her words.

‘OK.'

‘They deserve each other.'

‘Yeah.'

‘I couldn't care less.'

Kelly paused. ‘Right.'

They were both quiet. Cassie took a sip of her drink. Then another, swallowing loudly and smacking her lips together.

Kelly knew better than to offer platitudes.

‘Well, it's certainly heartening to see that Gil's got none of my misapprehensions about marrying again,' Cassie said finally – and sarcastically – giving a massive shrug. ‘I guess I really must be making this remarriage lark into a bigger deal than it needs to be.'

‘No you're not.'

‘Aren't I? Everyone else can walk straight back into marriage – why not me?'

‘Because you're being wise, prudent. You had a bad experience and you've learned from it. Why
would
you just rush straight back in again? That's the very definition of idiocy. The guy's an idiot.'

Cassie shook her head with a stubborn expression. ‘I'm over-thinking things.'

‘Cass—'

She sat forward with sudden intensity. ‘Do you know what? I reckon I should follow his example.' Cassie threw her arms up in the air. ‘Yeah. Why the hell not? Sod it, I'm just going to go with my gut. I'm going to trust my instincts.'

Kelly brightened. She, too, was a fighter. ‘Which are?'

There was a momentary silence as Cassie swallowed, deflating slowly, before falling back into the cushions like she'd been thrown into them. ‘Damned if I know.'

Cassie sat in the back seat, watching
The Tale of Peter Rabbit
on Velvet's DVD monitor as Suzy swore at the slow drivers in front and Archie passed round the sandwiches. They had decided on the scenic route, hoping to point out Stonehenge to Velvet as they passed, but she was already asleep by then and Cassie was too engrossed in the film to look up.

By the time she did, they had passed through the small, winding valleys of Somerset, over the cow-dotted fields of Devon and were coming into the vast, domed moorlands of Cornwall, which sloped down to the sea in the distance. Everywhere she looked, ancient dry-stone walls ran ahead and around them like lines of mice, the now-familiar sight of white wind turbines revolving slowly in the breeze. Some tumbledown ruins were all that remained of the historic tin mines Cornwall had been so famed for in centuries past, and they drove through tiny villages where old-fashioned petrol pumps had long since been boarded up. In spite of the big sky above them, Cassie had a feeling of the walls of the world closing in.

‘I can't believe you've never been down here before,' Suzy said, catching Cassie's eye in the rear-view mirror.

Cassie shrugged. ‘I guess you don't know what you don't know. I was always back in Hong Kong for the summer holidays.'

‘Henry and I used to spend our entire summers down here. We'd be as wild as weasels by the time we had to go back to school. Mum never saw us from sunup to sundown.' She shook her head. ‘I can't begin to imagine being that relaxed with Velvy now.'

‘Different times,' Archie murmured, trying to retune the radio to anything other than static. ‘God, are we by the coast or actually in the middle of the Atlantic?'

‘Get used to it, babe. There's practically no mobile signal down here either, and I've left all the laptops and iPads at home. Cass has too, so don't think you can steal hers,' she said quickly as she saw Archie's look of absolute horror. ‘The office won't be able to get hold of you even if they want to. Ha!' Suzy chuckled triumphantly. ‘You. Shall. Not. Work.'

‘Dear God, woman, what if they need to—'

‘They won't! I've told your boss that if he even thinks about contacting you in the next month, I will have him tried for attempted manslaughter.'

Archie dropped his head in his hands.

They had turned off the A303 now and the roads were becoming significantly narrower, bosky hedgerows looming overhead at seven, even eight feet high, with multicoloured and scented profusions of wild garlic, giant daisies, elderflower and honeysuckle.

They drove through Delabole – home to the world-famous black slate – a smile spreading on Cassie's lips as she saw a group of white-clad morris dancers sitting in the garden of a pub and enjoying a beer, their batons on the grass by their feet, the bells at their knees hanging silent for the moment.

‘So when's Gem coming down?' Cassie asked, catching a glimpse of the sea as they passed the signs for Port Isaac.

‘Germ? She's already there,' Suzy said in a sulky voice. ‘They went the morning after the party, would you believe it? Lord's been pining for saltwater apparently, poor dolphin.'

‘Gem. And Laird,' Archie said in mild rebuke. ‘Behave.'

Suzy's eyes met Cassie's again in the mirror. ‘Honestly, me and my big mouth,' she muttered. ‘Why did I even mention we were coming down here? She never would have thought about it if I hadn't said. She hasn't been down here since I don't know when.'

‘I don't understand why you're so stressed about it. Gem's not so bad, just a little wired,' Archie said calmly. ‘And Laird's really very interesting.'

‘I'm stressed because Mum's stressed,' Suzy replied hotly. ‘She thinks Gem's making a huge mistake, and now I've got to help her organize a wedding for a marriage that none of us believes in,
as well as
look after you.'

‘
I
am fine,' Archie said, leaning over to squeeze Suzy's knee. ‘Just chill. Otherwise you'll be the one who needs looking after.'

Suzy harrumphed. ‘Oh great. So I need looking after, and you do, Cass too. At this rate, Velvet's going to be in charge.'

Cassie looked across at the sleeping toddler, her rosebud mouth parted, her eyelids flickering lightly as she dreamed. She resisted the urge to stroke her cheek and risk waking her.

‘Pah. Don't include me in your mass collapse. I am officially A-OK,' Cassie declared, giving a thumbs-up gesture in the mirror that fooled no one. If she'd been left reeling by the manner of Henry's departure, she had been flattened by Gil's news, and her puffy, deadened eyes and white skin told an entirely different story of sleepless nights and lack of appetite, which had seen Suzy commandeer the situation once and for all and ring Zara herself to clear Cassie's work diary for the next fortnight.

They turned off towards Rock, noticing a marked upturn in the smartness of the houses as they drew nearer. Even 1960s bungalows – the kiss of death anywhere else in the country – had been revamped with New England-style clapboarding in cool greens and Scandinavian greys, smart teak gates blocking off Chelsea tractors and only the wild flowers growing out of the old stone walls giving any indication of the bucolic wildness that surrounded them.

Cassie pressed her nose almost to the glass as they passed a small ribbon of shops – a butcher's, deli, fish shop, bakery and some boutiques. Slightly further on, there was the post office, newsagent, hairdresser's and an estate agent's, lots of signs for local galleries and a turn-off to a small cove.

They took a right turn at the top of a hill and swept out of the village again, driving beside fields banked high above them with long grasses that bent low as the wind danced on their heads. The lane was impossibly narrow here, single-vehicle access only, with just a few passing places, and they had to wait several minutes as a decorator's van coming in the opposite direction led a charge of cars and camper vans making their way back from the beach, surfboards strapped to the roofs.

‘Come on, come on,' Suzy said impatiently under her breath, her fingers tapping on the steering wheel, pulling out quickly before a Land Rover she could see at the back decided to tack on to the end. Which it did.

‘Uh, Suze,' Cassie said as the two vehicles headed towards each other, the other driver – a blonde in designer shades – looking every bit as determined as Suzy that she wouldn't be the one reversing all the way back.

‘
No problemo
,' Suzy said, just as they were practically within kissing distance of the other car's bumper. Suzy gave a triumphant smile – and the bird – to the blonde, swinging the car left into a sweeping driveway that led to the only two properties, seemingly, on the entire lane. ‘Home sweet home.'

Cassie blinked as they passed two signs for ‘Butterbox Farm' and ‘Snapdragons'.

‘Is this it?' she asked, peering at a modest whitewashed 1950s house, situated just inside the gates to the right. There was a large tarmacked driveway and two cars parked outside – a dented metallic-blue Renault Clio and a sleek black Jeep.

‘Nope. That's Snapdragons. That's where Gem and Laird are staying.'

‘Why are they in there and not Butterbox?' Archie frowned, before taking a look at Suzy's too-innocent expression as they continued up the drive. ‘Oh God, what did you say to her?'

‘Nothing! I simply pointed out that we have a very young child with us and . . . you know, if they value sleep . . .'

‘Suzy! Velvet's been sleeping through the night since she was three months!'

‘I know, but she's a child – there are never any guarantees, are there? And Gem and Laird are still practically teenagers themselves. I bet they sleep till noon and go to bed at dawn. It just wasn't practical to think that we could all sleep under the same roof for a summer.'

‘You are a nightmare,' Archie sighed, as Cassie tried to suppress a smile.

‘Plus I pointed out to her you could keel over at any moment. This isn't just a whimsical holiday by the sea for us, you know. We are here for the very serious business of convalescence. You need your rest.'

Archie twisted back in his seat to face Cassie. ‘Are you going to deal with her or shall I?'

Cassie laughed as they drove through a second, grander set of gates with carved stone pineapples sitting atop the pillars. ‘Oh, cool,' she breathed, taking stock of a much larger white house with more windows than she could count. It wasn't that old – maybe 1930s – or even that pretty, but it sat diagonally in its plot, the rear aspect facing west over fields where dairy herds grazed and down to the sea – Cassie guessed it would be a ten-minute walk, tops, to the beach. Nestled in a nook, between the fields and the beach, she could just make out the tip of a small church steeple.

‘Oh, Suze, it's gorgeous,' Cassie said admiringly, undoing her seat belt and hopping out of the car to get a better look. The breeze lifted her hair off her neck immediately and she turned her face to the sky, instinctively wondering if Henry could feel it too – but no, she realized, in the next breath. He was in the southern hemisphere on the southern oceans. His sky was black right now.

‘Leave the bags, Arch,' Suzy said, as he wandered round to the boot. ‘I'll get them. You take Velvet in and open up.'

‘You'll be peeing standing up next,' he grumbled, taking the keys off her and hoisting their drowsy daughter into his arms.

Suzy watched him walk off, her face tense. ‘He's going to be a terrible patient,' she said in an uncharacteristically small voice and seemingly to herself, before remembering Cassie standing beside her. ‘And Henry buggering off to God knows where hasn't helped,' she said more loudly. ‘Arch has been in a bad mood since he left. My brother's sense of timing is just classic. Classic.'

‘Mmmm,' Cassie said, leaning into the boot and hauling out the heaviest bag as a distraction. There had still been no contact between them since he'd gone: no texts when he'd been in Sydney, and mobiles wouldn't work, of course, on the open seas. ‘Well, we're four days down already. Only eighty-two to go,' Cassie said lightly.

‘That's the spirit,' Suzy said, slapping her heartily on the back, so that Cassie almost fell head first into the car boot.

They trooped into the house together, Cassie's eyes wide as she took in the winding staircase, which covered three walls, the old stripped pine floors that needed to be re-oiled. The furniture was modest – armchairs and sofas with loose bleached linen covers in the sitting room, spoke-wheel wooden chairs and a refectory table in the kitchen – and the linings of the backs of the royal-blue velvet curtains in the sitting room were practically decayed from decades of enduring the blaze of the setting sun.