The Dream House (20 page)

‘What have we done?’ Kate asked Liz, who was unclicking her seatbelt next to Kate, and checking her reflection in the vanity mirror.

‘Looks like you nicked his space,’ Liz said drily. The other driver threw open his car door and strode round to Kate’s open window. He was a good-looking man of about forty, with a wing of black hair that fell across his high forehead. In his light linen suit he looked overdressed for the beach. He had to stoop to speak to Kate through the window.

‘I don’t mean to be difficult, but I was waiting for that space. I’ve been driving round for several minutes.’

‘I didn’t see you,’ she gasped, eager as ever to make amends, whether or not she was in the wrong. ‘Really I didn’t. I’m so sorry.’

‘Well, you can’t have been looking,’ came the clipped response.

Liz’s eyes lit up. She could never say no to a fight. She leaned forward in her seat and, in a voice that made editorial assistants quake in their fake Jimmy Choos, boomed, ‘You heard what my friend said, she didn’t see you. And, look, we’ve got a carful of children. There’s only yourself. I’m sure there’s plenty of space up the road.’ As the poor man, clearly taken aback, opened his mouth to reply she intoned, ‘And mind what you say in front of the children. You’ll spoil their holiday.’

The wide-eyed children in fact looked as though their holiday was made, but the frustrated man obviously decided that discretion was the better part of valour and retreated with a shrug. His car’s wheels spun in the sand as he swung it into reverse and they all watched as he wove a perilous way backwards out of the car park. Kate realized she was gripping the steering wheel tightly.

‘Sorry,’ said Liz. ‘I was probably a bit hard on him.’

‘The car park is not usually quite this crowded,’ grumbled Kate.

Behind them, the incident already forgotten, the children were scrambling out. Daisy hauled open the rear door and started passing out buckets, spades and beach towels to her eager servants – even Sam was doing what he was told today. Lily, Lottie and Charlie were here and this was the first time they’d all seen each other for a whole four months. Lily and Lottie, willowy blonde twins, had been born a month before Daisy, and lanky Charlie, who took after Laurence, was five weeks younger than Sam.

A familiar black and white spaniel appeared and dived straight into the picnic bag.

‘Bobby, get off the sandwiches!’ shouted Daisy. ‘Mummy, I don’t want the one with dog lick.’

In hot pursuit of Bobby came Joyce, who had driven Laurence and Claire down in her car. The Hutchinsons’ Audi was in the garage with a sick carburettor, and Simon had, as usual, left his old banger at Diss station at the beginning of the week. They had partly chosen Walberswick today because dogs were allowed on the beach in June, which wasn’t so on the even more popular and hygiene-conscious Southwold beach up the coast.

Kate was furious because Simon hadn’t come home last night. Damn him – he’d known about this weekend for months.

‘There’s a pretty tricky project going on here,’ he had said when she’d tracked him down on his mobile earlier that morning. ‘I’ll be on the two o’clock though. See you at home later.’ He rang off.

‘You’d better be there, stranger,’ hissed Kate to the dead receiver. It had taken hell on earth to get their party booked into Southwold’s Crown Hotel restaurant that evening.

Arms full of beach bags, rugs, windbreaks, buckets and spades, they picked their way like a line of refugees over a little bridge, across the mudflats and down to the beach. The tide was coming in, the deep blue of the sea reflecting the deep blue of the sky. A fresh breeze blew and seagulls shrieked. Despite her worries, Kate’s spirit soared.

They struck camp at the base of a sand dune, then after the children had been suncreamed to within an inch of their lives, Joyce asked if she could go and look round the gift shop.

Claire, wearing her usual urban outfit plus sunglasses, refused even to remove her boots. She huddled up on a rug with an Ann Tyler paperback, but deigned to agree that it was a beautiful day and that she was not unenjoying herself.

Liz peeled off her elegant wrap-around dress to reveal a simply cut one-piece costume. It was probably worth hundreds, thought Kate with envy, and Liz wouldn’t have had to pay a penny. Whether the swimsuit would ever meet seawater was another matter.

Laurence, who loved all boyish pleasures, rolled up his jeans and went to supervise Sam and Charlie, who were throwing stones in the water for Bobby to chase. Bobby, being a dog of little brain but much enthusiasm, couldn’t understand where the stones were disappearing to, but played his part with much excited diving and worrying.

Daisy, in pink bikini, followed elegant Lily and Lottie, who were picking their way through the pebbles on dainty feet, looking for shells.

The women talked. Liz moaned about the magazine group’s new chief executive. She was clashing with him over the direction of
Desira,
which he wanted to make less exclusive to broaden the advertising. Then she moved on to the latest nanny and how she’d found her journal – ‘Liz, you didn’t read her private diary!’ – and Kate choked with laughter at Liz’s indignation.

‘Inga complained about my cooking, of all the cheek! All she gives the kids is burgers and fish fingers. And she says I’m mean because I don’t lend her my clothes. Apparently, her last employer gave her the run of her wardrobe. Well, I couldn’t look her in the face after that. She’s going to go as soon as the agency come up with someone suitable.’

On Liz’s interrogation, Claire, who had been quiet up to now, took off her sunglasses and, whirling them round in her hand in agitation, finally let them into the mystery of why she had been so difficult to get hold of. His name was Alex. Yes, he was single; no, he didn’t have any ex-wives or children.

‘Mmm, new rather than second-hand – what’s wrong with him then?’ wondered wicked Liz.

Nothing, apparently. ‘He’s a tenor. With D’Oily Carte. He’s just been working so hard he’s never had time for serious relationships. We met cos I had to photograph him for a programme.’ Claire burrowed in her bag and drew out a folded brochure. Liz snatched it from her and scrutinized it, then handed it to Kate.
Alexander Weinber
g, the programme said,
is a rising young star
. . .

‘He looks gorgeous, Claire,’ Kate said, taking in the handsome Slavic features, the cropped dark hair, the discreet earring. Claire had accentuated the air of Wagnerian moodiness in her photograph. ‘So, how long has this been going on? And why have you been so elusive?’

‘Since March, actually.’ Claire blushed for no apparent reason then looked miserable again.

‘You really like him, don’t you?’ Kate said gently.

Claire nodded. ‘That’s the trouble, though,’ she said, and started throwing pebbles at a large stone three feet away, missing every time. ‘I don’t know how much he likes me. He pours all his energies into his work, you see.’

Like someone else I know, thought Kate, cast down in sudden gloom.

‘I never know when I’m going to see him,’ Claire said. ‘His schedule is so punishing. I never thought I’d let any man run me around like this.’ She laughed, but not with much amusement. ‘I’m only here now because he’s gone to America for three weeks. Sad, aren’t I?’

Liz gave Claire’s shoulder an affectionate rub and thought it time to change the subject. ‘Ted saw Simon for a drink last week.’

‘Oh, he didn’t say. How is Ted?’ Laurence’s puppylike banker brother was always on a search for true love. Unfortunately he would go too deep too quickly and would usually frighten the woman off.

‘Single again, poor Ted. Meredith, that glamorous American you met last year, didn’t last long, then I thought he’d make a go of it with one of the young secretaries, but she decided to go off round the world rather than hitch up with him. Then,’ Liz counted on her fingers, ‘there was Tricia. Met her in a bar – I never asked what sort. She was a real laugh, but turned out she had a string of boyfriends. Just out for a bit of fun with Ted’s money. Last month there was another banker, Aruna. I think they had a one-night stand. He was crazy about her. Kept on sending her huge bouquets. She wasn’t very impressed. In the end she told Human Resources he was harassing her. That really hurt but at least he stopped. Silly Ted. Born a romantic, die a romantic. Laurence doesn’t know what to do with him. Ha, that’s just given me an idea for the magazine. The male Bridget Jones phenomenon. Ted would look great with his big soulful eyes.’

‘Yeah, like Bobby,’ said Claire. ‘Go away, dog,’ she shouted, brushing sand off everything. ‘No, I don’t want your gobby old stone.’

‘Mummy, Mummy, can we have ice creams now?’

‘Later, Sam, after lunch.’

‘Oh, but Charlie and me are hungry
now
.’

‘Yes, but it’s only eleven o’clock. We’ll have lunch in an hour. Have an apple.’

‘Mummy, Mummy, Daisy and us want ice creams.’

‘Ice creams after lunch, Lily. Lunch in an hour. Have an apple,’ recited Liz.

‘Oh, but . . .’

‘Anyone else who mentions ice creams won’t get one at all.’

‘Icecreamsicecreamsicecreamsicecreams.’ They ran off chanting to join Laurence who was making a huge fairytale sandcastle. With its Disney turrets and winding stairs, it was so beautiful that other people’s children were starting to crowd round to watch. He looked over at Liz and gave a mock bow, as if to say, ‘I did it all for you.’ She smiled imperiously at him. Anyone who didn’t know Laurence and Liz well might consider that Liz wore the trousers in their marriage. But Kate knew that Laurence offered calm and reliability. And Liz was so strikingly like Laurence’s mother in height and temperament it was a fact too obvious to mention.

‘How is your mother, Kate?’ Liz asked.

‘Up and down, Dad says.’ Now a normal routine had returned, so had something of Barbara’s depression. At least she was still taking her medication and had kept off the drink since her overdose. ‘I’ll go down again later in the summer, and maybe they’ll come for a visit in the autumn,’ she went on. ‘Who knows, we might have a house of our own for them to stay in by then.’ Kate knew her voice sounded strained.

She lay with her eyes closed, soaking up the sun, while her mind prodded the tight little knot of anxiety she’d been worrying at all morning. It was to do with her conversation with Simon, earlier. She’d suddenly realized something – that she’d had to pussyfoot around him. What would seem to most couples a reasonable demand – that he spend time with her and their children – was clearly becoming unreasonable to him, an annoyance even. She sensed that not only had they now got used to his periods of absence, but that absence had become normality. They were living two separate lives. Her husband was beginning to slip out of her reach.

The morning passed beautifully. The children splashed in the waves. Kate, who loved sea-bathing, swam, while Sam jumped up and down on the beach shouting in anger at her to come back. Joyce returned, finally, having had several coffees in the gift shop after bumping into her friend Hazel.

They all sat on the rugs and ate sandy sandwiches and cake and apples. Then Laurence took the children off to buy ice creams from the van. A flock of sea birds flew across the sun.

When the children ambled back with dripping 99s, Laurence pulled his copy of the
Guardian
out of Liz’s beach bag and asked if anyone would mind if he took the ferry over the harbour to take a nose round the bookshops in Southwold. The ferry was, in fact, a little rowing boat that could take ten people the twenty yards over the fast-flowing river. The harbour was a collection of rusting little craft interspersed with the odd yacht on the far bank. The others said, of course, and they would pick him up outside Southwold church at three thirty.

After he’d gone, the children set up a clamour to go crabbing.

‘Please, Mummy, there’s some children on the bridge and they’ve got lots and lots of crabs in a bucket,’ Sam shouted.

‘I don’t see why not,’ said Kate. ‘There’s a shed at the harbour where we can buy bait and nets.’ She and Joyce collected up the remains of the picnic to put in the car. Claire said she’d stay and look after the rest of their property and read her book.

They bought five shrimping nets at the tiny shop, plus lines with a wood handle at one end and a piece of fatty bacon at the other. Daisy stood watching a group of youths dipping their lines in the river and landing black crabs as big as her hand.

All kitted out, they marched back to the little bridge and the children paid out their lines into the stream.

‘I got one! I got one!’ shrieked Lottie immediately. A tiny grey crab was dropped into one of the buckets.

‘Me! me!’ squeaked Sam, and an even tinier one fell out of the net onto the bridge.

‘Quick, Bobby’ll get it,’ Liz shouted and Kate knelt down and swept it into the pail just in time.

The others had less luck. Charlie could never land any of his. In his excitement he would jiggle the rope and back the crabs would fall. Bobby barked and barked. Once he upset the bucket and crabs went in all directions. Joyce put him on his lead but he just got entangled in everyone’s legs.

‘I’ll take him for a walk up the river,’ she said and dragged him off through the car park.

‘Can we go over to the harbour, Mum?’ asked Daisy. ‘The boys were getting really big ones there.’

The women looked at each other. ‘Well,’ started Kate, ‘we can go and look.’

When they got there, the children started to dip their lines.

‘It’s not very safe,’ breathed Liz. The bank was built up and it was a sheer six feet down to where dark currents swirled.

‘Just for a few minutes. If we keep with the little ones it should be OK,’ said Kate.

‘Quick, the bucket, I’ve got two!’ shouted Daisy. Into the pail they went.

‘Look, Mum, look! I’ve got one,’ shrieked Charlie.

‘Lottie! You’re too close to the edge.’ Liz pulled her back.

One by one, they all caught crabs. It was true, these were much better than the ones at the little bridge. Kate, hoping Sam wouldn’t notice her holding the back of his T-shirt, watched the crabs in the bucket, clambering over one another in their slimy black armour. She shuddered.