In the Summertime (20 page)

He pulled out a chair and sat across the table from her. ‘You haven’t tried it yet. It might be dreck.’

She took a small bite. ‘No, it’s divine. I promise.’

‘I’m more of a shortbread man myself,’ he said. She wondered what he wanted.

‘Pablo’s a git,’ he announced abruptly, startling her. ‘He treats women like shit but he did really like Harriet.
She’s the only one he’s ever actually let move into his place. Not that it stopped him …’

‘Right. But if he liked her, why not make more effort to keep her?’

‘Because he’s an idiot. You’ve got to understand, he’s living the dream. All that clubbing and stuff. He’s like a kid in a sweetshop.’

‘I heard the sweetshop’s closed down, for him,’ Miranda pointed out. ‘Surely you can’t do world class sport and serious partying at the same time?’

‘No, well, when your role model is the legend of George Best … But I think he’s learned. For now. It’s just …’ the waitress came back, bringing tea and scones for Duncan. ‘They read your mind here,’ he said, laughing. ‘Well, almost.’

‘It’s just what?’ Miranda prompted him, hoping he wasn’t going to plead Pablo’s case for another chance with Harriet.

‘Well, I heard she’s been suspended from her job because of the bad publicity, and that’s all wrong. What her boyfriend does isn’t her fault.’

‘Well, we all know that. And I think – I hope – it’s
ex
-boyfriend,’ Miranda said, starting to feel irritated. ‘But there’s not a lot we can do about it.’

‘I know some people at the network,’ he said. ‘I could put in a word.’

‘Oh could you?’ Miranda could feel irritation building. What did this have to do with him? They
didn’t even know him, though of course maybe Harriet did. ‘So why aren’t you having this conversation with Harriet? She is a grown-up.’

‘Well, that’s my point. Pablo isn’t. He’s still hanging around here, talking about making some grand gesture, waiting to come up with some big scheme that will get her running back to him, but in private he’s first to admit it’s really all about trying to claw back some kudos from the management. If the press see a reformed character – and he’s aiming straight at the glossy gossip mags – he’s halfway to getting back in favour and sponsored for some big girl’s blouse of an advertising deal like aftershave and sunglasses and so on. That’s where all the big money is. But he’s no use for an adult woman yet. He’s been a footballer since he was fourteen; had to be the good boy through the years when most kids get to let off all their steam so right now he’s got to get stuff out of his system, and if he doesn’t come through it and get back into the team – which he should because he’s got a genius left foot – I don’t want to see him taking your sister down with him.’

Some cogs started turning in Miranda’s brain. ‘It’s very sweet of you to worry about her.’

He shrugged and looked a bit pink. ‘Aye, well. She’s a lovely lassie and she’s good at her job. We get a lot of free afternoons so I’ve seen her on the box. And off it too. Footballers go out in crowds, you know. I was at most places she and Pablo went.’

‘So you’re another player?’ Miranda didn’t know much about football but he seemed older than others she’d seen Bo watching on TV. She couldn’t help noticing he had a lovely athletic shape though – strong wide shoulders, glimpses of serious muscle power under the short sleeves of his white T-shirt.

‘Goalkeeper.’ He grinned at her. ‘We’re rare beasts so they tend to hang on to us. We peak later than the kids who do all the running around so with luck we get a longer career.’

‘You like Harriet.’ She didn’t mean it to sound like an accusation and wouldn’t have been surprised if his reaction had been to deny it.

He looked her straight in the eyes for a long moment, then took a deep breath. ‘I do,’ he said. ‘And I’ll be honest, it cut me up to see her coming in here today. I know she’s not with Pablo now because he’s gone off out in the car some place. Was she here wanting to see him?’

‘She was here wanting a manicure,’ Miranda told him. The bikini wax would be too much information.

‘Oh, right!’ He smiled so dazzlingly that she worried she’d actually told him he was in with a chance. But then behind him, emerging from the comparative gloom of the hotel interior, Harriet could be seen picking her careful way through to the garden, with her hands held up and fingers stretched out.

‘Manda – look at this colour! Isn’t it divine? Oh!
Duncan!’ She stopped both talking and walking and stood framed beneath an arch of roses, looking at Duncan, who got up and gave her a brief kiss on the cheek. She kept her fingers well out of range.

‘Hello, Harriet. How are you?’

‘Er, fine. Lovely to see you. So you’re still here then?’ Miranda could see Harriet’s eyes flickering past him, scanning all around.

‘Yes, I’m still here, babysitting the idiot.’

‘He so
is
an idiot,’ she said, sitting down in the chair Duncan had pulled out for her and managing to break off and eat a chunk of Miranda’s cake using her index finger and thumb like pincers.

‘They match your eyes,’ Duncan commented, pointing to her greeny-blue iridescent nails.

‘You like?’ she asked, posing with her fingers resting just beneath her mouth.

‘I do like,’ he told her softly, leaning forward towards her. Miranda, feeling suddenly like a gooseberry, gathered up her bag and her magazine and decided to make herself scarce.

‘I’ll . . er … maybe just go to the loo,’ she told Harriet. ‘Or, tell you what, if you want to stay here for a bit and talk, I expect …’ She thought vaguely of taxis, the unlikelihood that there’d be one within a twenty-mile radius. And yet here was this lovely man who clearly liked Harriet
a lot
. She’d drive back herself and fetch her if necessary.

‘I can drop Harriet back,’ Duncan told her. ‘I’ve rented a hire car from Truro.’

‘You don’t mind, do you, Manda? Duncan and I can have a bit of a catch-up.’

‘No – I don’t mind at all,’ Miranda said. ‘Would you like to come over for supper, Duncan?’ She glanced at Harriet, wondering if she’d gone too far. But Duncan looked at Harriet for the right answer and she was smiling encouragingly

‘Er – that’s kind of you, thanks. I’d love to,’ he said. Miranda left them to it. She just hoped a great fit hulk like Duncan could survive a cobbled-together pasta dish and some salad. He had the look of someone who devoured the best part of a large animal on a daily basis.

Clare felt guiltily sure this was something she shouldn’t be doing, but it had been nagging at her since the undertaker, with his professionally unctuous face on, had handed over the urn. She had to have a look inside, see what the final manifestation of Jack actually was before she consigned him to the sea. This would be the last ever contact with something that was still physically
him
, however remote from the reality of alive-Jack. She’d never seen human ashes before. Her father had been buried in a churchyard full of gloomy yew trees and her mother was alive and well and playing bridge on a daily basis up in Stockton-on-Tees.

She took the urn out of the wardrobe and put it on
the table beside her bed. The whole thing was quite heavy, which had surprised her the first time she’d held it as Jack had faded almost to a shadow in his last months. What must the ashes of a big overweight giant of a man weigh? She knew they had urns of different sizes depending on body weight, but even then, did they only give you enough of what they cringingly called your Loved One to fill the pot, leaving traces of them in the ashy oven to mingle with those of others from the same day? It was hard enough to sweep out every bit from a domestic fireplace, let alone an industrial-size furnace.

No one was home or Clare wouldn’t have felt able to do this. She didn’t want any of the children (of either generation) walking in and finding her investigating the contents of the urn, even though really there was no reason why she shouldn’t open it. They’d think she’d gone mad. Perhaps she had.

Carefully, she turned the lid, half expecting it to prove impossible to shift, like the top on a new jar of marmalade. If it did stick, you could hardly jam it in a doorframe and give it a twist. Nor did she fancy running a boiling kettle of water over it to loosen it. If the water got in you could end up with a clayish mud that would have to be prised out with a knife. The thought made her feel quite sick. Poor Jack. This was no way to be thinking about him.

The lid loosened easily enough but Clare hesitated
before taking it completely off, slightly scared about what was in there. Crazy, she thought; after all, she’d be scattering Jack on the sea in less than ten days’ time. She’d certainly be seeing the ashes then, so why not now? She didn’t immediately look as she took the lid off and put it on the table beside the urn. Then she took a deep breath, leaned forward and peered inside, her eyes half closed. Just ash. Powdery, pale grey ash, as if he’d been no more than a log fire. She felt a bit disappointed at the sight of it. Jack had hated the colour grey, whether it was clothing or sky. On a gloomy day he’d once looked at the miserably pallid clouds and asked her why God had so little imagination as to make them such a watery, nothing colour.

The sound of a car whizzing up the gravel startled Clare. In a heart-pounding rush to get the lid back on, she knocked the urn and it tipped over, the contents spilling all over the wooden floor.

‘Nooo!’ she wailed, hesitating to scoop up the mess with her fingers. She ran to the door in a panic, hurtling down the stairs and colliding with Miranda who was just coming in.

‘Mum! What’s the matter?’

Clare was shaking, running to the utility room and searching for a dustpan, howling, ‘He’s on the floor! He’s all over the place!’

‘Who is? What?’ Miranda hauled her back into the kitchen and sat her in a chair. ‘Tell me what’s happened.’

‘I was just looking. Just looking … I don’t know why. I just had to,’ Clare gasped. ‘And now he’s spilled! I’ve done … damage! It’s got to be a thousand years’ bad luck at the very least.’

Miranda switched the kettle on, took mugs and tea bags from the cupboard and said, ‘Look, whatever it is it can’t be that terrible. Where is … whatever it is?’

Clare pointed upwards. ‘Jack.’

‘I’ll go and look,’ Miranda said.

Clare said in a shaky voice, ‘Some of him has gone down the floorboards, in the cracks. He’ll be here for ever. In the house. He didn’t want to be in a house.’

Miranda poured the boiling water into the mugs and, grasping at last what Clare meant, quietly went into the utility room and fetched the dustpan and brush she now realized Clare had been looking for.

‘You will sort it, Miranda, won’t you?’ Clare put her face in her palms.

‘Yes. I’ll sort it. I’m sure it’ll be fine.’ And it would be, though she felt a bit sick.

‘Thank you. I’m so lucky I can always rely on you,’ Clare said.

Miranda crept up the stairs feeling the weight of her mother’s recently acquired dependence. But oh, how sad for Clare, she thought as she tiptoed nervously into the bedroom and saw the upturned urn and the swath of ash across the floor. Tenderly she swept it into the dustpan, wishing she’d washed it first in honour of her
much-loved stepfather. And yet … she felt a strange compulsion to laugh. Jack would have found this funny. If he could only come back right now he’d be the first, after a drink or two, to be sitting at a social supper telling this story against himself. ‘All over the bloody floor,’ he’d say, giggling with a schoolboy’s hilarity. ‘Like the cat’s upended litter tray.’

With enormous care, Miranda managed to get the ashes back into the urn. There was still a pale smudge across the wood, as if someone had dropped grubby talcum powder. She went into the bathroom and looked for something to wipe it clean as she didn’t want any traces left visible to upset Clare. She couldn’t use a flannel – it would have to be loo paper. She ripped a few sheets off and moistened them, then went and wiped the remains of powdery Jack from the floor. But a couple of steps back towards the bathroom she stopped, the paper soggy and greyish in her hand. She couldn’t flush him down the toilet like a dead goldfish; it would just be too wrong. She sat on the bed for a moment, wondering what to do. It was weird; she felt she’d gone through this before. And of course she had. She’d had the same dilemma twenty years before, hiding clotted blood in her mum’s little pink soap box and wondering what on earth to do with it that didn’t involve the insult of being consigned to the rubbish bin. In the end, she and Jessica had sent the soap box’s contents out to sea, sellotaped into a clam shell. She’d cried then, watching
the shell drifting on the shoreline. And she found she was crying now as she took tissues from the box beside the bed and wrapped them round the gritty piece of loo paper. She would bury this tiny powdery trace of Jack, she decided, tears falling down her face, bury it in the garden, by herself and with no fuss.

Miranda hadn’t heard anything from Steve and was a bit stunned by how much she minded this. She was more than a tad out of practice at this fancying someone lark, and also it seemed mad when less than two weeks ago she’d given him just those occasional summertime thoughts over all the years. But there it was. She’d got a big fat crush on him all over again. It was probably to do with the lobster thing. Who couldn’t love (OK, deeply fancy) a man who’d not only
believed
that stuff but actually let it make a difference to how he worked? She now found she was picking up her phone and putting it down again like an obsessed teenager and minded that too – she should be more grown up than this. She’d sent a text and thanked him for the St Ives lunch and he’d replied saying it had been a pleasure but had said nothing about meeting up again. Not even a hint. But then why would he?
She couldn’t expect to waltz back into the village and be the centre of his world all over again. Maybe that one meeting was all there would be to it: curiosity on both sides satisfied, and in not much more than another week she’d be on her way back to London and he’d continue his life with (she presumed) Cheryl and forget about her for another twenty years. Or for ever, even. The thought that she might not see him again, possibly ever, made her feel more unhappy than she’d have thought possible, but as it had fallen on her to be family cheerleader she kept her thoughts hidden and her face brightly smiling. Having Harriet beaming like a cream-filled cat over breakfast didn’t exactly help and when everyone else was out of the kitchen in the morning she intended to tackle her about Duncan. The two of them hadn’t turned up for supper the night before after all. Harriet had called at the last minute and said there’d been a change of plan, adding vaguely that she’d be ‘late’ and not to wait for her.