In the Summertime (27 page)

She was trying on a strappy black linen dress in Whistles when her phone rang. Her heart lurched a bit as she had a sudden horrible fear that it would be Steve, cancelling, but instead it was Dan.

‘I spoke to Silva. She said you’re back in Chiswick for a day or two,’ he said, his ever-smooth tones purring down the phone at her. If an old-fashioned patrician voice was ever a useful thing to add to a CV then he’d have had plenty of lucrative work over the years.

‘Only for a meeting tomorrow. Is there a problem?’

‘Well, I could have gone down and taken over the childcare and had a few days by the sea if I’d known.’

‘Dan, they don’t need childcare. And besides, it’s for
less than forty-eight hours. I’m going back tomorrow, plus Mum and Harriet are with them and they’ve got friends to hang out with. They’re fine.’

She was overdoing it, she realized. She sat on the little gilt chair in the changing room and wondered about a cardigan to put over the dress. It wouldn’t be so warm later, but there were several in her drawer. She couldn’t justify buying something else, not really.

‘Oh well, as you’re here, do you still have my old Black and Decker stuff? Mother wants some shelves up and seems to think I can do them. I did tell her that just because I’m a man it doesn’t mean I’m automatically good with power tools but she said something weird about not being born with an iron in her hand. Most odd.’ He sounded as if he truly didn’t understand.

Miranda laughed. ‘Wow, she’s discovering her inner feminist at last. There’s a thing. Good on her! And yes, the drill thing and all its bits are in the shed. When do you want them?’ This could be awkward; she hoped he wasn’t going to say ‘Right now’.

‘In the morning? I could stop by around ten?’

‘OK, but please make it earlier if you can, or if not then between two and five. I have to be at a meeting at twelve, and in the morning I’ll need some time to get ready and rev up for it and everything.’

‘Do your hair and file your nails, you mean,’ he said, sounding grumpily pompous.

‘What I do pays the mortgage,’ she said, sadly aware
that he wouldn’t get the implied irony of the missing words, which were ‘which is more than you ever did’.

‘Whatever you say. Right then, ya? See you anon. Will let you know re actual time, probably p.m. though.’

Silva and Bo were staying at Lola’s for supper and Clare was all set to have a sandwich in front of the television, for once able to watch her choice of programmes without someone else coming in and either asking to change channels or plonking themselves on the sofa with a huge discontented sigh if there was something on they didn’t like. But there was a knock on the door and Clare found Eliot on the doorstep.

‘Have you eaten yet and if not do you think you’d do an old man a favour and come out with him?’ The evening was chilly and still windy and his hair blew about round his face as he stood waiting for her answer.

‘Hello, Eliot. Come on in, and no I haven’t. I wasn’t going to bother with much, but well, yes, it would be lovely.’ Was he asking her out? He seemed to be. Clare felt rather delighted. This was like being young again. Or was it? Maybe it was just two people at a bit of a loose end, needing a little free time away from the exuberant young.

‘It’s fine. I just thought it would be fun, you know. And Jess’s house is full of
da yoof
and they’re not exactly a quiet bunch. I thought we could escape by ourselves, get a bit of peace. Is the sailing club bar OK for you? Do
you think they still do chicken in a basket in those baskets that were really just polystyrene? Or is that too hideous a thought?’

‘Sailing club is fine. Come in and hang on in the kitchen for me while I tidy myself up a bit.’

‘You look fine as you are to me,’ Eliot said, following her into the house.

‘Yes, but not to me,’ she told him. ‘I’ll come back down probably looking exactly the same but feeling different. Just give me a minute.’

Clare went up to her room and whizzed around the bathroom, brushing teeth, applying scent and some eyeshadow and then coming out and changing her top for her pink cashmere jumper. She looked at her face in the mirror as she brushed her hair and remembered how she used to feel so sexy in Eliot’s presence, all those years ago. He’d been one of those men who really
looked
at a woman and had been quite openly appreciative of curvy breasts and bottoms without being pushy or offensive. He was just … natural. She was thinner now, curves gone sharp. Grief had taken her appetite and she’d eaten only the tiniest portions of any meal for months, feeling mildly queasy at the thought of a plate full of food. But now, tonight, she actually felt properly hungry for once. She went back down the stairs and Eliot, hearing her, came out to meet her in the hallway.

‘Come on, let’s go. And let’s sneak past Jess’s house so they don’t see us running away,’ he whispered, taking
her hand. ‘We don’t want them trailing after us and asking what we’re up to.’

She laughed, enjoying the feel of his rough skin on her fingers as he kept hold of her all the way down the lane and past the big heap of sawdust where the poor tree had been cut up. When they got to the hedge beside Creek Cottage he drew her into the shadows, and with a feeling of both terror and excitement she thought for a moment he was going to kiss her, just as he’d twice so thrillingly done in the past. She was surprised by how much she’d like that to happen again. Maybe Jack was up there after all, giving his blessing.

‘Shh,’ he said, his eyes sparkling. ‘We have to scurry past like the SAS so they don’t see us. They’ll only want to tag along.’ So no kiss then, but that was fine. Eliot pulled her along fast until they were actually running past the cottage before they slowed, seeing the sailing club just up ahead, beyond Andrew’s cottage.

‘So where are you two scuttling off to?’ boomed the voice of Geraldine from an upstairs window. Smoke from a cigarette billowed out beside her head and Clare thought she looked weirdly like a badly placed gargoyle. Unfair really, as she had rather a pretty, round face, but in the half-light and with the smoke it was all a bit surreal.

‘We’re eloping,’ Eliot called up cheerfully. ‘Don’t try to follow us – you’ll never catch up.’

‘Good God, man, at your age?’

‘It’s the very best time to do it,’ Eliot called back. ‘You wait. You don’t know what you’re missing.’ He squeezed Clare’s hand and pulled her to him. ‘She’s only jealous. And if she’s not, she should be.’ He chuckled. ‘I mean, come on now, chicken in the basket – who
wouldn’t
be jealous?’

‘They know you here,’ Steve said as the maître d’ gave him and Miranda a corner table by the window and several of the waiting staff said a cheery hello to Miranda. ‘Guess you’re a regular, then. You and yer fancy London ways,’ he added, going back to his mock Cornish accent.

‘Only because it’s just round the corner. My local. And top food.’

‘Hey, you don’t have to justify yourself to me,’ he said, laughing at her.

‘Good,’ she said. ‘So don’t you tease me or I’ll tell you that you smell of your fish van and you won’t know if I mean it or not.’

‘God, I hope I don’t, he said, sniffing at the cuff of his white linen shirt. ‘I ran the flat shower almost dry, I was in there so long.’

In honour of this date, Miranda wondered, or did he
do that every time he delivered fish? The second was the more likely option.

‘I shouldn’t have brought the van tonight,’ he said. ‘The scent of mackerel has probably escaped. But there was nowhere to park near the flat and Gus has run out of visitor parking vouchers.’

‘You don’t have even the tiniest aroma of mackerel,’ she reassured him, thinking how good it would feel to get close enough to make absolutely sure of that. ‘And you can leave it outside my house for the night if you like and get a cab back, so you can have a drink,’ she offered.

He looked at her in a rather speculative way and she felt a bit uncomfortable. It was only a bit of road space she was offering, nothing else, though that odd mild lust that in Cornwall she’d assumed was about hot weather was somewhere in the mix. Perhaps he could tell. Maybe some men really were attuned to the scent of hormones in women.

‘OK, I’ll leave the van,’ he decided. ‘Shall we look at the wine list or start with some champagne? Celebrate your new contract tomorrow.’

Miranda shook her head. ‘No. That would be bad luck. I know it’s all in the bag really,’ she crossed her fingers and touched the wooden table in case, ‘but I don’t want to jinx it.’

‘Let’s have some anyway then, just to celebrate … I don’t know, being here and meeting up again and all that. Being alive, even.’

‘OK, then let’s,’ she agreed, catching his enthusiastic mood. He didn’t seem to be pining for Cheryl, exactly. This wasn’t looking like a duty date.

But as soon as they’d ordered both drink and food, Miranda had to ask him something. ‘Steve, I need to ask a favour. And yes, I know, another one. Today you were a total hero and I hate to do this, but I need to ask for more help and this time it’s not just for me.’

‘If it’s a lift home, I guess I could hang on for you tomorrow if you like,’ he said, leaning forward and smiling.

‘No, it’s not that. It’s … Oh look, the drinks.’ The waitress arrived with a bottle of champagne and glasses and took her time opening the bottle, getting Steve to taste it and dealing with napkins and an ice bucket.

‘Here’s to you, for tomorrow.’ Steve said, chinking his glass against Miranda’s. ‘Now what was it you wanted to ask?’

‘It’s about your boat.’

‘The old Cornish crabber or the Moody?’

‘Er, the white one with the blue stripe,’ she said, feeling a bit ignorant.

‘That’ll be the Moody. What about it? Do you want to go out on it?’

‘Well, yes. Look, say no if you want, but much of the reason we all rocked up in the village again is to scatter Jack’s ashes on the estuary. He loved it here and he’d asked Mum to make sure that’s what would happen. It’s
just – Mum really didn’t want to rent some boat with a total stranger on board. She’d had this idea we could just hire something and take it out ourselves but it seems we can’t these days.’

‘No. Well … you can still
buy
a boat and drive it away as a total ignorant twat on the water, but not rent. So you’d like me to be the designated driver?’

Miranda felt uncomfortable. ‘Um … well, if you have time, or … but say no if you’d prefer not to.’

‘It’s fine. I’ll do it. But why me?’

‘Oh, you know.’ Miranda’s discomfort increased. She didn’t want to remind him of how uncaring she’d been back in the day. ‘Because of your mother, really. She looked after our house for all that time and it kind of makes you … well, part of us, I suppose.’ She ran out of steam a bit and gulped her champagne too fast and coughed.

‘A bit like extended family? Or the ever useful hired hand?’ Steve asked. She looked at him carefully, wondering if he was being sarcastic. His mother Jeannie had been their cleaner, probably underpaid and overworked.

‘Just as a friend,’ she said, taking a chance.

He considered for a moment, then smiled. ‘I’m sorry. Yes, of course I’ll do it. I feel rather honoured, to be truthful. It’s a responsibility, isn’t it? Carrying out someone’s last wishes. And it’s a lot more civilized than the old-fashioned local fishermen’s funerals. Not that they do it nowadays.’

‘What do you mean?’

Steve looked a bit shifty. ‘Well, funerals cost a lot. Let’s just say that use of an undertaker isn’t enshrined in law and fishing people don’t like to waste their cash.’

‘So it can be a do-it-yourself thing? I’ve seen a programme about that. Bit gruesome, I thought, doing everything hands-on and just buying a coffin.’

‘Not if you nail old Mr Fisherman into some heavy box you’ve cobbled together yourselves and take him out on the tide with the fleet,’ he said. ‘Illegal, obviously, but used to be the tradition.’

‘They do things differently in Cornwall then,’ she said, wondering if it was time to get on to something more cheery. ‘But thanks so much for saying yes, Steve. Will you have time next week? Maybe Friday?’

‘Wednesday would be better if that’s OK with you all. They’ll start moving boats around to get them out of the way for the regatta on Thursday.’

‘OK, let’s go for Wednesday then. I think Mum wants to make it a bit of a celebration, with cake and wine. Is that all right too?’

‘Only if you let me have some,’ he said.

She found she’d somehow reached across and taken his hand. ‘You’re part of it. You knew him. So I think that’s a yes, don’t you?’ She let go, thinking perhaps she’d gone too far, and the food arrived. He hadn’t exactly pulled his hand away, though. If she’d had anything other than just a fun evening and dinner in
mind, Miranda might have felt mildly encouraged.

Andrew was in the garden, lurking behind the big camellia that his father had planted many years ago. They were unwieldy things if you let them get out of hand, he thought, working out how much it must have grown in inches per year and wondering if he really wanted to keep it. It would be criminal, he supposed, to cut it down, but it flowered too early, one of the first blooms of the year, and even down here by the water where it was mild a few rays of sun on near-freezing dew and the flowers became tinged with brown and spoiled so the effect ended up like tiny pink party dresses trodden through mud.

He felt a bit cold, though he was wearing a cashmere hoodie that his mother’s girlfriend had sent him for his birthday. He liked the girlfriend – she had such an eager take on life and had transformed his mother Celia from a prim woman who would barely venture further than the library without getting in a tizz to someone who thought a European hotel with more than one star was for wimps. Good on her, he thought. She had, after all, become an inspiration.

Because the purpose of the lurking was to see when the brood from Jessica’s took off, as they sometimes did, to hang about on the beach. They wouldn’t be gone for long. Geraldine had no idea that Freddie had been to the beach at all at night and there’d be ructions if she
found out, but Andrew was happy to keep his son’s secret in the interests of the boy’s having a normal life. Not only would she worry about the company he was keeping (mostly from the up-country top private schools, if she did but know it) but she’d worry about him slipping on a damp, weedy rock in the dark and breaking his neck, or putting an unwary hand on seagull crap and dying of psittacosis. He knew that Silva and Bo would be out only for a short while too, not staying till it all got raucous and the dope and vodka started up.