In the summertime, p.7
In the Summertime, page 7
‘I don’t suppose by any remote feckin’ chance you’ll be travelling anywhere near a back-of-beyond place called Chapel Creek, will you?’ He smiled at Miranda, who’d stopped mid-trolley-struggle.
‘Come on, Miranda. Don’t talk to him,’ hissed Harriet. ‘He was drinking on the plane.’
‘And don’t tell me you weren’t,’ Miranda murmured back. ‘I know gin-tears when I see them.’
‘Yeah, and so what? You’d feel the same in my shoes.’ This was probably true. Miranda gave her hand a sympathetic squeeze.
The man was still looking hopeful, still giving them the smile full of Irish charm.
‘I actually know you,’ Miranda said. ‘Aren’t you Eliot Lynch?’
The smile turned into the broadest beam and he laughed. ‘I so am! Jaysus, I haven’t been recognized on the street for a long time now. You’ve made my day, so you have. You’ll be a reader then?’
‘Er …’ How to say without hurting his feelings that yes, she was a voracious reader, but not really of his sex-and-spies genre. ‘I remember you from years ago, over at Chapel Creek. I was friends with Jessica and Milo? Down here in the summers?’
Harriet was scowling, picking at her nails. ‘Can we get going? Please?’
‘I can give you a lift, Eliot. I’ve seen Jess today – she said you were coming. I’m Miranda – do you remember us all?’
Eliot looked at her for a few long seconds, ‘Oh, my Lord. Miranda. Daughter of the lovely Clare and all grown up so pretty. Tell me, is your mam well? I always had a soft spot for her.’
‘She is.’ This wasn’t really the moment to elaborate, Miranda decided; she could tell him about Jack later on the journey. ‘And she’s in Chapel Creek. We’ve rented your old house for a few weeks. Come on,’ she said, as his face showed he was taking this in rather slowly. ‘The car’s this way. Shall we get going?’
‘I’m not going to do this every day,’ Miranda warned everyone the next morning as she bustled around the kitchen cooking a huge late fry-up breakfast for them all. ‘It’s just a one-off treat and a sort of welcome to Harriet. After this you can all fend for yourselves in the mornings. Bo, please will you take knives and forks and stuff out to the terrace table? It’s warm enough to be outside. Has your gran come back from her swim yet? She did say nine thirty.’ And that had been pretty much all she’d said as she was leaving the house by herself when Miranda came down the stairs.
‘Would you like me to come and swim with you?’ Miranda had asked, thinking her mother might like some company, but Clare just gave her a sad little smile, shook her head and closed the door softly behind her. When Miranda had got back the night before, Clare had already gone to bed, so she’d had no chance to tell her about meeting Eliot. Bo and Silva had been curled like cats on opposite sofas, half asleep and watching a film full of old-school car chases. Harriet, pleading emotional exhaustion, had carried just one of her smaller bags upstairs, leaving Miranda to follow with the two heaviest.
‘Pretty room,’ Harriet had commented, getting her phone out and checking for a signal. She went to the window and pulled the curtains firmly shut, then opened one of them the tiniest chink and peered out.
‘Is there something out there?’ Miranda asked, going to take a look. She remembered how bats used to swoop low over the village and she pulled the fabric back a bit.
‘No, don’t! There might be paps,’ Harriet hissed, grabbing the curtains and hauling them tightly shut.
‘Paps?’
‘Paparazzi.’ Harriet went and sat on the bed. ‘You’ve no idea how it’s been since Pablo was all over the press with that … that slag. They hung around outside the flat. I’m sure they followed me to the airport. They could be here.’
Miranda pictured the hedges and lanes of Chapel Creek crammed with photographers with their little ladders and giant lenses, hoping for a glimpse of the Wronged Girlfriend. It was possible, she conceded as she wearily went off to bed. After all, it was August; Cornwall was sunny instead of raining for once and there’d been no big cat sightings or schools of stranded whales yet to bring the newsmen hurtling across the Tamar for a few days of seaside fun. But somehow she thought it wasn’t likely.
‘Gran is back,’ Silva said now. ‘She’s in the sitting room watching the news on TV.’
‘Really?’ That was something Clare had never been known to do at home as she’d always considered watching television before six p.m. to be the ultimate in slovenliness. But then Miranda hadn’t shared a house with her mother for so many years, how would she know how she organized her days now? Maybe she and Jack had got to a point where they started every day with a news round-up followed by a good rage at the Jeremy Kyle Show. She went in to tell her breakfast was on its way and ask her what she’d like. Clare was staring blankly at the TV, where two brightly smiling women on a pink sofa were squealing over-excitedly about elaborate cupcake icing. She switched off as Miranda came in.
‘Mum? I haven’t had a chance to tell you. Last night at the airport we met Jessica’s dad. You remember Eliot Lynch? We gave him a lift – he’s come to stay with Jess for a while.’
‘That’s nice, darling. I don’t suppose he remembered us, though, did he? It was such a long time ago.’
‘Oh, but he did. And he specially asked about you.’ She giggled. ‘He said he’d had a soft spot for you.’
‘That’s sweet of him.’ Clare was smiling and looking a bit pink. ‘Maybe we’ll run into him in the village. He must be ancient by now.’ She sighed. ‘But then none of us are the same.’
‘Actually, he looked in amazingly good condition, considering what he used to be like. Way better than you’d expect. Maybe he’s had work done,’ Miranda suggested, holding the door open for Clare.
‘Cosmetic work? Oh, don’t be silly!’ Clare laughed, sounding almost girlish. ‘He’d be the last person to do that!’ Miranda looked at her, thinking how the years fell away from her mother’s face when she had these odd moments of looking carefree. Perhaps, Miranda thought, these moments would gradually get more frequent and then eventually join up so she could feel properly happy again. Who knew? Clare was far too young to be blighted, to grieve this deeply for the rest of her life. What it must be like to have had someone you loved so, so much. Miranda had loved Dan for several years but, looking back, she couldn’t honestly swear she’d ever had that true soul-mate feeling about him. Would she ever, about anyone? What chance did a mid-thirties divorcée with two teenage children have out there in the dating pond against beautiful, free, twenty-something gorgeousness such as her own sister?
Harriet paced about the kitchen, wearing a pink satin robe and a pair of fluffy tiger slippers, opening and closing the fridge and being generally useless. ‘I hardly slept a minute,’ she said, chewing a nail. Flakes of pink varnish fluttered to the worktop and she flicked them to the floor. Miranda felt mildly annoyed. The rental agency had promised them a cleaner twice a week but there was no need to be carelessly untidy. All the same, so as not to be seen as a nag, she said nothing and carried on turning the mushrooms in the bubbling butter. At least Harriet, in her misery, wasn’t refusing to eat – usually she would be horrified at the idea of a cooked breakfast. ‘The camera hates a porker,’ she’d once said when Miranda had dared suggest she might like a bacon sandwich, as if just one would signal the end of her quest to be the next Kirsty Young. Perhaps it would encourage Clare who, before they came down here, had found it hard to get more than a few tiny mouthfuls of food into her body. Last night’s fish pie had all gone, though, she noticed, though it might have gone into Bo (whose skinny body could still put away a truckload of food every mealtime) or into Toby the greedy cat who hovered in the kitchen as if waiting to trip up anyone carrying food.
Harriet, now sitting at the table and looking droopy, continued with the story of her night. ‘Just when I could feel myself drifting off at last, the birds all woke up and bloody sunlight started to come in.’
‘Oh, naughty sunlight. How very dare it!’ Miranda said, as she laid strips of bacon on the grill pan. ‘I’m sorry you didn’t sleep, though. Maybe a day of fresh country air will help.’
‘Don’t go all Enid Blyton on me, Manda. Don’t forget, I’m broken-hearted.’
‘Shh! Don’t let Mum hear you say that, please. I know you’re hurting now and I’m sorry for you, but try to remember that in your case nobody died.’
‘Sorry.’ Harriet yawned again. ‘But honestly, it’ll take more than some messing about in boats and coast path walks to get my life back on track. What time do the papers come?’
Bo looked up from his iPod. ‘They don’t. You have to go and get them.’
Harriet looked puzzled. ‘What, like from the shop? Don’t they deliver? I need all of them. The tabloids, anyway.’
‘Why?’ Silva asked. ‘Are you like in them? Is it because of your love-rat footballer in night-club drug arrest shock thing?’
‘Silva!’ Miranda warned, turning her face back to the cooking to hide the threat of laughter.
‘I was only …’
‘Well please don’t,’ Harriet told her. ‘You have no idea what it’s like to be at the centre of a huge news story like this. It’s … awful. Just … terrible.’
‘So why do you want to read about it then?’ Silva’s question didn’t seem too unreasonable, if a little abruptly put. Miranda shoved the bacon and tomatoes under the grill and sliced some of the shop’s rather solid (yet four pounds a loaf) bread for toast. For a second, as she sawed at it with the knife, she felt a bond with the northern holidaymaker who’d bemoaned the lack of white sliced.
‘Because, Silva darling, if people are going to talk about you then it’s better to hear what they’re saying rather than just wonder about it. Knowledge is power.’
‘Are they actually talking about you? Isn’t it just the footballer and the drugs and the other girl?’
‘Look – does it matter? My life has been taken apart, that’s the important thing. I’ve come here to get away and to hide. That’s all.’
‘So what does everyone want to do today?’ Miranda asked as they sat down to eat breakfast under the terrace sunshade. She looked at Clare, hoping this would be the cue for her to say something about Jack’s ashes and what exactly she’d decided to do about them. ‘Anybody got anything they really feel like doing?’ No answers were forthcoming. Bo shrugged and put a massive forkful of bacon and mushrooms into his mouth. Silva looked miles away. She tried again. ‘Do you and Bo want to go and see about sailing lessons or something? Or just go off and do your own thing?’
‘Dunno. Maybe,’ Silva said unhelpfully. This was hard work, Miranda thought as she sipped her tea. How on earth did those people who used to work at holiday camps ever get the punters excited about the daily events? Still, at the worst they could all just hang about the house and swim in the pool now and then. Doing nothing here wasn’t exactly a hardship.
‘OK – I’ll just leave you all to make your own minds up,’ she said. ‘Nothing organized. But Mum, if you decide you might like a long walk around the headland and lunch in the next village, I’ll be happy to come with you.’ She couldn’t see Harriet doing more than lying on a lounger down by the pool, pecking at her phone every few minutes and sighing a lot.
‘Another day, Miranda, that’ll be lovely. But today we will all go to the beach,’ Clare declared. ‘There’s nothing more uplifting than being next to the ocean. It puts things into perspective. We will all go together and have a proper family time on the sand, with a flask of tea and a picnic lunch.’
It was an order. There’d be no arguing, it was clear. Also, there was no mention of the ashes. Miranda looked at her, feeling concerned, but only one small tear fell to Clare’s cheek and she quickly dashed that away and started spreading marmalade on a piece of toast. Somehow, Miranda would get her alone later and pin her down about whatever arrangements she had in mind.
‘Yeah, beach! Tan! Sea!’ Well, at least Silva was up for Clare’s decision. ‘And can I take that crocodile from the pool with me? He’d be more fun than a bodyboard. And he’s my new best friend.’ She glared at Bo.
‘I can’t go out in public,’ Harriet stated flatly, gazing out towards the sea.
‘Why on earth not?’ Clare’s voice was sharp. ‘Can’t you do this one thing?’
‘Because people will stare.’ Harriet was giving her a look as if this was so obvious it shouldn’t need saying.
Clare laughed. ‘Oh, don’t be so melodramatic, Harriet! No one’s going to be looking at you.’
‘Oh, thanks, Mum! Don’t forget my entire career was about people looking at me. I was on TV, you know.’ Harriet stood up and stalked off in a big huff back into the house, the effect being more comic than anything else, since she was still wearing the stripy tiger slippers.
Miranda and Clare looked at each other. Clare spoke first ‘Did she say, “was”?’
‘She did. She’s either quit or been fired, hasn’t she?’
‘If it’s about the footballer, that wouldn’t be fair. It’s hardly her fault. You’ll have to ask her, Miranda.’
Yes, Miranda thought with a certain amount of resignation as she collected up plates to take back inside, she rather thought it would be down to her. She’d put it on the list.
SEVEN
The party for the beach took some assembling. Bo found a bodyboard in the utility room and claimed it as his own, much to Silva’s annoyance. She sat on the stairs, blowing more air into the pink crocodile and getting in Harriet’s way as she went up and down to her room and back, changing her clothes twice and eventually coming down with a large basket containing sunscreen, books, her iPad and several changes of shoes. And just when everyone was actually going out of the door, Miranda’s phone rang. ‘You’ll never guess what!’ Jess sounded excited.
‘Hi, Jess – what won’t I guess?’
‘Andrew’s here!’ she squealed, ‘Andrew! I saw him, just now. He’s hardly changed at all. He was doing something to a boat at the end of his garden, with a gawky-looking boy of about fifteen. There was this big woman too, sitting on their old swing-seat with a cigarette.’
‘Really? Wife, do you think? Can’t be his old mum, can it? Celia was as skinny as a stick and thought smoking was a deadly sin.’
Jess giggled. ‘Too right. She’d go ape. I can’t imagine Andrew with an actual wife, can you?’
Miranda couldn’t. Not the old Andrew anyway; not sweet nerdy Andrew who never seemed to fit with his own generation. Was that down to having older and very traditional parents maybe? He’d liked sailing and windsurfing, Mozart and chess. And he’d liked Jessica. But most of typical teen life seemed a mystery to him. If he had a teenage son, she could imagine him being dragged by the lad into Abercrombie and Fitch and, mystified by the pounding music, the half-dark and the barely dressed sales assistants, asking himself: Which new circle of hell is this?
‘Well no, to be honest, I can’t. His mum must have set him up with some nice home counties girl. It can only have been an arranged thing.’
‘Maybe he’s better at being a grown-up than he was at being a teenager, poor boy. I’m going to run next door in a bit and surprise him. Or do you think that’s not a good idea?’ Jess sounded nervously excited.
‘It’s a great idea. I mean, after all, it would be rude not to be friendly to the neighbours, wouldn’t it? I’d love to see him again too. Perhaps I’ll go round later as well, when we get back from the beach.’
‘I suppose a proper grown-up neighbour would take a cake.’ Jess sounded as if she were almost talking to herself now. ‘But he’ll have to make do with a bottle of wine. I don’t really do baking.’
‘Oh, now come on, Jess, unless he’s changed massively, he’ll be so thrilled to see you he won’t mind if you take him a bag of carrots. Hope it goes well and he’s not too terrified to hear we’re both in the village.’
Jessica giggled, sounding like a teenager again. ‘I’ll be gentle with him. Actually, what I really also wanted to say was, thanks for dropping my old dad off last night. He says he’d love to get together with you all again, especially your mum, so would you like to bring her round here tonight for a drink in the garden? Would be fun. We can peer through the hedge and spy on Andrew’s big woman.’
Miranda thought for a moment. ‘It would be good, yes … but hey, as the weather’s so brilliant and there are so many of us, why don’t you bring him and Lola up here for supper? I could barbecue something down by the pool.’
‘Ha – that used to be Dad’s job. Do you remember him wielding a fish-slice and prodding at meat as though it was still half alive and likely to bite him?’ Jessica laughed. ‘OK, that would be great, thanks. What time? Sevenish, while it’s still warm out?’
‘Seven’s fine.’ Miranda had a sudden thought. ‘And if it goes well with Andrew and you don’t completely scare him off, why not invite him and his lot up here too?’
‘Are you serious?’
Miranda wondered for a second if perhaps she was being a bit rash, taking on catering for so many, but then it could be fun for the younger ones and three more guests wouldn’t be any trouble – assuming it was only three and he hadn’t brought down a party of extras. She’d trust Jess on that – if she saw there was going to be a numbers problem she’d be tactful and it would just be drinks. The table down by the pool was massive and simple outdoor food was a lot easier to manage for large numbers than fancy kitchen cooking. After all, nobody expected a gourmet event from a barbecue. ‘Yes, why not? I’m only here for a few weeks – might as well make the most of it. And the son, if that’s what he is, might enjoy meeting up with our kids. It’ll be us all over again, a generation on.’
‘Hell yes, how mad is that? OK, you’re on! What shall I bring? A couple of salads or something?’
‘Excellent. I’ll get things that can go on skewers because that’s really easy, and I’ll marinade them first in something or other. Prawns and chicken and stuff. Or is Lola vegetarian?’
