In the Summertime (23 page)

Miranda laughed. ‘Mum, I tried that about two years ago. But after I got a guy who told me on day one that he liked to dress up like a toddler and another who stared at my feet all the time and then said he wanted to lick them, I kind of gave up. And before you say anything, no I haven’t been tempted to repeat the exercise.’

Clare opened her mouth as if she were about to speak, then changed her mind. She adjusted a couple of forks on the table instead and then fetched the plates. Miranda took the dish of risotto to the table and looked at her mother’s thoughtful face. She’d been about to say, Miranda was sure, that none of them were getting any younger. And even if she hadn’t, the thought was crisscrossing Miranda’s own mind like idiots playing chicken on a busy A-road.

‘By the way, I’m going to the pub for an hour with Jess
and Andrew later. Would you like to come too?’ She could have worded that better; it sounded insultingly after-thoughtish. She hadn’t meant it to.

‘No thank you, darling, you go.’ Clare smiled, looking a bit watery around the eyes. ‘There’s a programme about Vivienne Westwood on TV and I’d really like to see it. Have a good time.’

Andrew felt too much like his seventeen-year-old self, and he tried to keep a lid on his excitement as he ate the seared tuna with pink fir apple potatoes that Geraldine had cooked for the three of them. He didn’t want her to quash his happiness. ‘Proper healthy food, nothing mucked about,’ she’d said as she plonked the plates firmly on the table. Why did she always sound as though she was handing out a telling off? How did Freddie put up with it, Andrew wondered. Not that she directed it Freddie’s way. All discontent was aimed at Andrew, as if he couldn’t possibly have managed to exist, feed, clothe and house himself perfectly adequately since that brief encounter at the long-ago wedding party. Still, it surely wasn’t for long. She couldn’t hang about with them for ever. But all the same, so much for ‘just a few days, to make sure Freddie was settled’.

But tonight, later, Andrew would be out of the house without her. Jessica had agreed to go out with him for a drink at the pub. OK, Miranda was coming too and it
wasn’t like an actual date, but he was going to call next door like a proper escort, walk with Jess over the creek and through the village and be
out
with her. He couldn’t wait. And she needed looking after. Sitting beside him on the bench in her garden with tea, she’d briefly told him about her illness and how happy she was to have her hair growing back. He liked it as it was, actually. It was starting to curl at the ends and reminded him of one of those pretty poodle-cross dogs. She didn’t give a lot away, and certainly no surgical details, but one thing had made him feel for her, when she’d told him she no longer felt quite whole any more. How he’d longed to put his arms round her and gather her close to him. One day, he told himself. Maybe one day soon.

The night air was still and heavy and it was warm enough to sit at a table outside by the river. Miranda didn’t intend to be out long because she wanted Jess and Andrew to stay on together without her. If she couldn’t have a romance, she didn’t want to get in the way of a possible one for somebody else. It was still just about light as she walked down the lane from the house, and she remembered the times she’d been in the village years ago around midsummer day and it had seemed as if it didn’t quite get dark at all sometimes. Even at ten thirty at night there’d been a silvery glow in the sky on the horizon in late June, and she and Jess, with Milo, Andrew and the boys from the pub and the
boatyard, used to sit on the beach with beers and a driftwood fire, their eyes developing perfect night vision. She stopped on the wooden bridge by the creek to watch a pair of swans dipping their heads in and out of the water into the reeds beneath. Now they really
did
mate for life, she thought, remembering what Steve had said about lobsters. Maybe these two were actually descended from the ones that had cruised the creek so scarily in the dark when she and Steve had been coming back from the beach in his little boat.

She heard a car engine and looked up, just in time to see a small black convertible turn off the road by the shop and vanish up the hill. Two people were in it, the passenger a blonde woman. Looked like she’d guessed right then, Miranda thought as she walked off the bridge, past the leering gnome in the phone box and on towards the pub.

The other two were already there, sitting together on the same side of a wooden bench at a table on the riverside terrace. One quick drink, Miranda decided, then she’d go. Because these two certainly looked like a proper dating couple even though the chances were they were only talking about something mundane like the ever-escalating local council tax. Fairy lights were hanging between the four tall Cornish palms, and the air smelled of the sea and of the night-scented stocks that grew between the petunias in the hanging baskets. Small children, out for a holiday supper treat with their
families, were starting to drift towards sleep, drooping on laps, leaning against dads and ignoring melting bowls of ice-cream which mothers, with the excuse that they hated to see it go to waste, would pick at delicately in tiny self-deceiving teaspoonfuls till it was all magically gone.

‘Last time we were all here together we were too young to be served,’ Miranda commented as she sat down opposite the other two.

‘It never seemed to bother that Australian barmaid,’ Jessica said. ‘She never asked for ID.’

Andrew looked a bit fidgety and stood up, saying, ‘On which, I’ll get some drinks in. Do we want wine by the bottle or something else by glasses?’

‘White wine?’ Jess suggested, looking up at him. Miranda watched him gazing down at her, looking as if he’d forgotten what the question was. He’d always liked Jess, she remembered. How funny that these things from what was pretty much childhood still lurked. If she’d have been kinder to Steve back then perhaps he’d have wanted to see her again now. Just stop it, she told her brain. It’s just summertime randiness. It will pass.

Andrew went up the steps to the bar and Jess turned to Miranda. ‘I shouldn’t have mentioned the barmaid,’ she whispered, giggling. ‘Do you remember? He had sex with her at that party after the regatta, up against a tree by the sailing club.’

‘God, yes. The fireworks started and everybody saw.
Jeez! What a lot of mad old secrets we have in this place.’

Jess looked at her closely. ‘What’s up, Miranda? You look a bit miz. Is it the Jack thing? When are you going to scatter the ashes?’

‘No, it’s not that. Though we have to get on with sorting it. We just need to borrow a big enough boat. I’d quite like it to be one big enough to have a bit of a celebration on. Some champagne and cake, to make it a good send-off.’

‘You should ask Steve. He’s got exactly the boat. Thirty-seven-foot six-berth cruiser. Well, six at a push.’ She pointed across the water. ‘See that one with the blue stripe? That’s his.’

‘Wow, nice. Also, you’re right: perfect. But, you know … it’s Steve.’

‘What about him? You’re OK with him, aren’t you? Have you seen him since your lunch in St Ives?’

‘No. He’s – well, he’s out somewhere. With someone. Tonight.’

‘Oh. Are you sure? He might be out on deliveries or something.’

‘No, I think he’s gone somewhere with Cheryl.’

‘
Cheryl?
’ Jessica said, ‘Are you sure? Cheryl from the shop?’

‘I think so.’ Miranda wavered. ‘I mean, I think I just saw them in his car when I was on my way down. Also, I saw her earlier and she was very excited about some date she’d got tonight. I put two and two together, is all.’

Jess laughed. ‘I’m only guessing, but I’d say your maths might be a bit out. I mean, I know they’re old friends and that, but …’ At that moment Andrew came back with wine and glasses. Behind him, puffing a bit from the effort of having walked round from the house, was Geraldine, clutching a pint of lager. Andrew mouthed ‘sorry’ at them as he approached and looked mightily put out.

‘I could see you all from the house so I thought I’d join you. Budge up,’ Geraldine demanded, glaring at Miranda. ‘Make room for a small one.’ Jessica spluttered into her wine.

‘Try to sip it slowly, dear,’ Geraldine told her. ‘Cheap wine can give you terrible heartburn.’

‘It wasn’t that cheap,’ Andrew said.

‘There’s nothing at any price on a country pub wine list that could count as “not cheap”,’ Geraldine told him. ‘Now, Andrew, while Freddie’s not with us, what are we going to do about this regatta malarkey? What’s all this about building a raft for a race?’

‘Village tradition,’ Jessica told her. ‘It’s fancy dress and it’s just a fun thing. It’s the last event in the regatta and everyone tends to fall in.’

‘Well, quite. That’s precisely what we don’t want. Not with his chest. Andrew, you’ll have to tell him not to do it.’

‘Why me? And anyway, no, I’m not going to do that,’ Andrew said. ‘How do you think he’d feel? He’s not a baby.’

‘How do you think he’ll feel with pneumonia and … and dysentery?’ Geraldine countered.

‘But he goes sailing and surfing and he swims in the sea,’ Miranda pointed out.

‘Yes, but he’s good at sailing and he doesn’t fall in. And the sea is different. It’s … moving about all the time, keeping itself fresh. But up here by the creek,’ Geraldine waved an arm in the general direction of the water, ‘it’s not healthy. It’s
captive water
. It’s sure to be full of sewage and … stuff. I mean, please don’t tell me the outfall from the toilets here doesn’t end up
out there
.’

‘They have a septic tank,’ Jessica told her. ‘Like all the houses here.’

Geraldine shuddered, actually shaking all over like a wet dog, and Miranda watched fascinated as her breasts wobbled like a half-set pudding. ‘You don’t get that kind of thing in Esher,’ she said, ‘thank goodness. I’ll have to think very carefully about letting Freddie come here again, now I know what there is just yards away from the back door. Honestly, Andrew, does everyone down here live like something from Dickensian times?’

‘Yes.’ Andrew and Jess said it at the same time and turned to each other, laughing. Miranda felt delighted at the sight of them bonding together against the dreaded Geraldine. She really was a nightmare, and yet between the two of them, albeit separately, she and Andrew had somehow raised the very lovely Freddie.

‘Freddie likes it here,’ Andrew said firmly. ‘And
anyway, maybe we can have this conversation another time?’

Even Geraldine went quiet at that. The silence was filled with the sound of distant music and revelry from further along the coast.

‘Kids partying on the beach again,’ Jessica said, looking across the water. ‘They come out with the dark like bats and hang about in the dunes with vodka.’

Geraldine frowned again. ‘That’s something else you don’t get in …’

‘I bet you do, apart from the dunes, obviously,’ Miranda said. ‘Teens always congregate together everywhere for fun. It’s natural. But anyway,’ she finished her glass of wine and stood up, ‘I’d better get back to my two, make sure they’re not trashing the place. Er, Geraldine, why don’t you walk back with me?’

Geraldine looked up, surprised. ‘What for? You’re not scared of the dark, are you?’

‘No, of course not. I just wanted to ask you about … er … allergies?’

Geraldine was up off the bench faster than Miranda would have thought possible. ‘Really? Right, well there’s not much I can’t tell you. Come along then, chop chop …’ she said, gathering up her bag and walking away from the table without a backward glance at the other two. ‘What did you want to know?’

Miranda looked back at the others and waved. ‘See you tomorrow, maybe?’

‘Definitely,’ Jess said. ‘And,’ she hissed loudly after her, ‘thank you!’

By the morning the wind had got up and rain was threatening. Miranda remembered that Steve had said there was stormy weather on the way. Was it too fanciful to imagine he had some mystical seafarer’s instinct for reading the weather, or did he simply look at the forecast on his iPhone like everyone else? Her own phone app prophesied thunder and lightning for the next day when she was off to London. The paper and the radio said gales. She called the local cab company and booked a taxi to take her to Redruth station in time to get the nine fifteen train and started thinking about what to take with her and what to wear to the meeting, which was to be at one of the airport hotels. It would feel odd to wear something madly smart and proper heels after all this time of drifting around the village in flip-flops, shorts and T-shirts. And she’d have to flip her mind into work mode as well as her clothes. What she really needed was Harriet, who was a clothes genius, having had all the practice of putting together the perfect smart-yet-not-overdone outfits for her TV show for the last two years.

Thinking now would be a good moment, before the children came back from their surf lesson and started whining about the weather and about what they should do with their day, Miranda went up to Harriet’s room
and knocked on the door. She realized almost immediately that there’d be no reply. Funny, she thought, how you could pretty much tell when there was someone there or not without having to look. It was like the afternoons back at home when she’d go into the house from her studio workroom in the garden and call up the stairs to see if Silva and Bo were back from school yet. Often she’d shout a name but know perfectly well at the moment she did that there’d be no reply. Was it something to do with disturbed air, maybe? Did the atmospheric molecules settle to stillness when no one was there to break through them? She turned the handle of Harriet’s door and went in. ‘Are you here, Harrie?’ she called softly, but the bed was still made. Wow, she thought. So much for Duncan taking things slowly. And then her next thought, the one she’d already had the day before: please let it be Duncan.

Back downstairs again, Miranda cleared clean crockery from the dishwasher and switched the kettle on just as Clare came into the kitchen, fresh from her early swim in the sea, hair tangled and salty and her face glowing from the exercise. ‘It’s getting quite a swell out there and the orange flags are up,’ she said. ‘I didn’t dare go out as far as the island. But the surfers are loving it. The children’s lesson was cancelled, though.’