For a moment he thought he saw Clancy near the dodgem cars and prepared to jump down and cross to speak to her. It wasn’t her, but once she was in his mind he took out his mobile phone – no problem with signal in Hunstanton – and sent her a text.
From Evelyn’s notes Clancy understood that Saturdays, as changeover day, would be busy from now on. For now, however, she’d grabbed a table in a café called the Honeybee, a friendly-looking bee depicted buzzing across the top of every menu.
Her inbox had filled up as soon as she’d hooked up with the Wi-Fi and it gave her a strange sensation to see that Tracey, Asila and Monty had all replied to last week’s email.
SO glad you’re OK, said Asila.
Don’t drop out of our lives entirely! pleaded Tracey.
And Good news you’re OK but wtf about no internet???? came from Jon ‘Monty’ Montagu.
Will had replied too. Her heart made a funny little misstep.
Clance,
I HATE how things are between us. I’m gutted I hurt you but once I realised that it wasn’t going to work … well, it wasn’t going to work. I think about you every day and hope that sometime you’ll forgive me.
Clancy swallowed a lump in her throat at this unexpected change in tone. Part of her wanted to reply that, of course, marrying someone when you loved someone else was absolutely wrong and she was moving on with her life.
The other part was tempted to be mean and sarcastic. It would have been a crowded marriage with three of us in it. Or, perhaps, I suppose you think that the nicer you are to me the easier I’ll be on you when it comes to reckoning up the value of my share of the apartment and the business?
Then she read the second paragraph:
I’ve thought long and hard about whether to say this, but … here goes. I don’t think I was the love of your life.
Clancy read the bald statement several times, her heart thumping.
I think when you fall for the love of your life you’ll be grateful that you and I didn’t settle for each other. I hope you don’t hate me for saying it.
For a few minutes, Clancy did think she hated Will. She certainly hated being forced to consider how he’d felt about Renée, that he’d risked everything, put himself in a highly uncomfortable situation, involved others, risked on their behalf … all for the love of his life. She tried to imagine herself ever risking everything for him.
After sipping her coffee and letting her heartbeat subside, she wrote:
I don’t hate you. And then: I’m glad you’re happy. If things hadn’t worked out for you with Renée after all …
She let that comment hang, a not-so-subtle hint that she’d feel worse if the misery he’d put her through had been for nothing. She ended: I’ve found a safe haven. Apart from those who weren’t keen on her because of Alice, she thought, clicking ‘send’ and remembering the suspicious way Aaron’s Aunt Norma had stared at her at the Artisans’ Hall.
She finished her coffee, giving the jumbled feelings about Will time to ease away while she read an email from her parents.
Well, we don’t really know what to say, darling, though we can see why you wanted to get away from the apartment – if you’re sure that leaving Will in possession was wise …? Are you coping with all this OK on your own? One of us could fly back for a visit, if you want.
Clancy, who couldn’t see what good a brief visit would do her, replied bracingly that it was really just a matter of coping with the fallout now. You brought me up to be independent, she added, which couldn’t be disputed.
The email she left till last was from the elusive Alice Nettles herself.
Hey, Clancy, it’s weeks since I heard from you!
Are you seriously living in poky little Nelson’s Bar??? Can’t believe it. London’s much more you, surely? Anyway, it’s fine by me about the caretaker job if you really want it. Maybe you should begin advertising for your replacement straight away though because I can’t see you in the sticks for more than a week. LOL
I LOVE America! There’s always so much to do.
She went on chattering about road trips to iconic places like San Francisco’s Golden Gate Bridge and the Strip in Las Vegas, finishing with, I hope you get on OK with Aaron. Maybe he’s improved with age. (Haha.)
Alice x
In view of Las Vegas being seven hours behind the UK, Clancy gave up her impulse to ring and hear Alice’s voice. She was just thinking of composing a jokey reply that at least by taking the caretaker job she was getting paid for some of the help she gave her cousin, when her phone beeped to announce a text.
It was from Aaron. Are you busy? Thought we might meet for lunch.
It catapulted her back to the present. She glanced at the time on her phone – nearly quarter to one. The café had filled up with chattering customers while she’d been busy mooning over the past and composing emails and now she noticed an empty feeling where her stomach should be. She’d so far occupied a table for half the morning at the Honeybee Café for the price of only two cups of coffee. She replied: Yes, why not? and gave him her location.
While she waited, she found the tourism website used by Roundhouse Row and studied its entry. Aaron arrived ten minutes later, running because summer rain was falling through sunrays struggling between the clouds. He fell in through the door, shaking raindrops from his hair and grinning when he saw her, attracting several looks from women as he crossed the room. ‘Flaming June,’ he said cheerfully, pulling out the other chair. ‘They should be doing good business at the craft fair.’
They chatted desultorily as they made their choices from the menu and a girl in her late teens came to take their order. Then Clancy decided to tell him about hearing from Alice, without passing on the negative comment about Aaron.
As if to demonstrate feeling no more warmly about Alice, he raised his dark eyebrows. ‘Did she ask anything about Lee?’
‘No,’ Clancy was able to say truthfully. ‘I’ve only seen him once anyway, so I wouldn’t have much to tell her.’ She waited for him to try and give her a steer on what she should/shouldn’t say to Alice concerning his brother.
Instead, he said idly, ‘It’s funny to think you’re close. I see a family likeness appearance-wise, but not in personality.’
Clancy sat back to let the waitress lay their table with clean cutlery and cream napkins. Every table was full now and people were coming in out of the rain and looking disappointed. ‘I don’t suppose we are,’ she agreed. ‘But I miss her.’
His gaze found hers. ‘I hadn’t thought of that,’ he said slowly.
‘No, I don’t suppose anybody here does think it.’ She let out a sigh that stirred the edges of her paper napkin. ‘Our lives have taken us in different directions. We talk via email or the phone but it’s not the same. Our mums were the kind of twins who looked identical but were different under the skin – mine went out into the world; hers was a home lover. Alice was always envious of the travelling I’d done—’ She hesitated.
‘So she’s taken every opportunity to travel herself since she did the runaway-bride trick,’ he rejoined drily.
‘It seems so.’ Clancy sat back and smiled at the young waitress who was setting eggs Benedict before her and a bacon sandwich in front of Aaron, then she asked him about Hunstanton because it seemed a safer topic than Alice. He proved to have a fair knowledge of its history.
By the time they’d eaten, the sun was shining again. The pavements outside glistened and the tables began to empty. Aaron didn’t immediately get up to leave. ‘Do you mind if I run something past you, something to do with Genevieve? I don’t want it to be horrible and awkward when we meet. It’s such a small village that we’re bound to trip over each other. I thought it would be easier if that first meeting was public but casual, so we’ve looked each other in the eye and said hello. What do you think?’
Clancy stared outside at people strolling by, the traffic moving slowly. He was being thoughtful, but there was an ache in the pit of her belly. Had Will fe
lt the same when he’d written that email, trying to be kind to the woman who’d wanted to share his life? It was so close to being pitied that her skin crept.
‘I think I’d want to get it over with as easily as possible.’ She shuddered.
The lines of Aaron’s face had begun to relax, but now he frowned. ‘Is this upsetting you?’
She picked up her water glass and put it down again. ‘Not the conversation.’ Just the memory of a humiliation; the end of hers and Will’s relationship had played out excruciatingly publicly.
After another moment, he went on. ‘Friends are coming round tonight for a drink and pizza. I wondered about inviting her.’
Clancy was dubious. ‘So long as you make it obvious that it’s a gathering, not a reconciliation attempt, that might work. But neutral territory would be better.’
‘There isn’t much neutral territory in Nelson’s Bar. There can’t be many people who don’t know one or both of us.’ He fiddled with his napkin, folding it over and ironing in the fold with the side of his fist. ‘Don’t hesitate to tell me to bugger off if I’m overstepping the mark, but I wondered if you’d come too, to make sure Genevieve’s not the only woman. You seem to get on with her OK.’
Clancy mused on his suggestion, quite tempted by the opportunity to meet more of the villagers. She had got on with Genevieve on the couple of occasions they’d met and evenings at the Roundhouse were solitary. She’d been made welcome to share a cup of cocoa with Dilys over a puzzle mag but going to someone’s house and meeting people her own age was more appealing. ‘OK,’ she responded, before she could change her mind.
Aaron looked relieved. ‘Thanks. You know which cottage it is, don’t you? Come round the back because it’s meant to clear up later this afternoon so we’ll probably gather on the patio. Any time after seven-thirty.’
‘That’s a date,’ said Clancy, feeling brighter. ‘I don’t mean a date date, obviously,’ she added hastily.
He gave a rueful smile as he got up. ‘Those certainly wouldn’t be the right circumstances in which to face Gen for the first time.’
They laughed. Aaron went off on his own errands and Clancy turned back to her laptop but the idea of Will pitying her kept swooping around in her head, making it hard to concentrate. Almost as a counterpoint, the realisation that she was now free to date for the first time in over three years kept occurring to her too. Visions shimmered of being taken out to dinner in a pretty summer dress. White tablecloths. Candlelight. Maybe music.
If that happened, she decided, she could email Will and say: You don’t have to worry about me. I’m dating again.
She filed that in her head under ‘not yet’.
Sometime, she’d have to face Will again, and everyone at IsVid too. There were things to be sorted out.
She filed that under ‘not yet’, too.
Chapter Nine
Aaron wasn’t looking forward to ringing Genevieve but she sounded OK when she answered. They exchanged awkward hellos.
He went straight to the point. ‘I’m having a few people round for pizza tonight and wondered if you’d like to come. Clancy’s coming. She doesn’t know many people in the village yet.’
Genevieve took from that more than he’d meant her to, but it worked in his favour. ‘And you don’t want her to be the only girl? I suppose I could. She seems nice.’
‘Great,’ he said, relieved to get it over with so easily, then went up to shower before searching out plates and glasses. His freezer already held a variety of pizzas.
Several of his friends had already arrived by the time Clancy and Genevieve rounded the corner of the house together, including his noisy second cousin Jordy – the father of Harry who Clancy had met at The Leap – and Jordy’s quiet wife, Anabelle. Aaron thought it likely that Genevieve had loitered outside until she saw Clancy coming so she was spared the ordeal of walking in alone. Nelson welcomed both of them on his hind legs, honouring Clancy as a new source of walks and ball games and Genevieve as a long-beloved purveyor of coffee. After greeting Nelson, Genevieve’s unhappy gaze flickered to Aaron. He waited for some pang of regret or hunger as, awkwardly, she offered her cheek to be kissed, but all he felt was a renewed urge to apologise – which was crazy when she’d dumped him.
Clancy’s attention was on the sea that glittered in the evening sunshine. ‘Wow! Look at that view. I hadn’t realised your garden would be so close to the cliff edge. The sea’s almost on your doorstep.’
Silently thanking her for breaking the awkward silence, Aaron made a show of peering out at the waves rolling towards them. ‘If that lot arrives on my doorstep we’re going to have to hope that Noah comes by in his ark.’
‘And this garden! It looks like something from Japan.’ Clancy gazed admiringly at the paving, the delicate-leaved acers in glowing greens and purples and the conifers Aaron controlled with close clipping, the ferns and the hostas. Pebbles and shale kept weeds down and slugs away. The only water was in a stone bowl for the birds but he felt the sea was near enough to qualify as part of the scene.
‘Low maintenance,’ he answered. ‘When you garden all day, you want something easy at home.’
Jordy, who he’d primed to engage Genevieve in conversation if she looked at a loss, roared, ‘Gen! Now you’ve finished with that sad loser, come over here and talk to me and Belly,’ which wasn’t exactly what Aaron had had in mind but did act as an ice-breaker, causing laughter and a reason for Genevieve to move further into the gathering, even if Anabelle winced at her name being mutilated into ‘Belly’.
Genevieve knew everybody, of course, but for Clancy it was different. He drew her into conversation with three brothers he’d known ever since he could remember. Their parents had named them Michael, Nicholas and Richard but they were known universally as Mick, Nick and Rick. Nick was the same age as Aaron, Mick a couple of years older and Rick a couple younger. Compared to Jordy – roaring with laughter at his conversation with Genevieve – Mick, Nick and Rick were quiet and personable. Rick sometimes worked for Aaron when he had a job that needed another pair of hands. Clancy didn’t show any signs of being intimidated by having new names hurled at her. She just smiled and fell easily into conversation.
‘Can I hook up with your satellite Wi-Fi, Aaron?’ Rick demanded, waving his phone. Good-naturedly, Aaron gave him the password, and, as he’d known they would, others whipped out their phones too. He retired to the kitchen to unwrap the pizzas and slide them into the oven. He’d change the password tomorrow or he’d have half the village lurking outside to hook up their devices.
The evening was breezy, as tended to be the case in Nelson’s Bar, perched on its spit of land on the east coast of England, but the sunshine was warm enough to make up for it. They’d eat outside, Aaron decided, then move indoors when the sun went down.
When he stepped into the garden again once the pizzas were cooking, he saw Genevieve and Clancy talking together. Jordy had joined an all-male conversation – a loud one, as most of Jordy’s tended to be – about some TV thriller Aaron hadn’t got into. As he’d only had one small beer, he crossed to the drinks table to get another. It brought him close enough to Genevieve and Clancy to hear their conversation as he helped himself to a bottle and flipped off its lid.
‘Thing is,’ Clancy was saying, ‘that I know my ex is feeling sorry for me.’
Aaron did a smart about turn before he could hear Genevieve’s reply. That absolutely didn’t sound like a conversation he wanted to be part of. He was feeling ridiculously on edge at being around his ex-girlfriend as it was.
In half an hour the pizzas were golden and bubbling. He sliced them up and each plate was fallen upon as soon as he carried it outside. ‘Please don’t feed pizza to the dog!’ he called, knowing Nelson would make ‘staaaaaarving’ faces at everyone.
The pizza vanished and empty beer bottles began to outnumber full ones as the sun sank into the sea in a blaze of glory. Anabelle asked Aaron to play them something on his guitar. He’d left
his acoustic in the sitting room so fetched it and played ‘Duelling Banjoes’ because that’s all anyone ever seemed to ask for. Then he spotted Clancy watching the sunset as if it were a movie, her fascinated gaze fixed on the streaks of deep vermillion. The light made her chestnut hair appear redder and her white jeans look pink. As no one requested another song, Aaron stowed the guitar in the kitchen and moved up to stand at Clancy’s side.
‘I didn’t know you played,’ she commented.
‘A bit,’ he replied. ‘This piece of coast gets some amazing sunsets. If you were on a boat out there the cliffs would look dark red.’
She didn’t remove her gaze from the sky. ‘I can’t believe the colours.’
‘I could take a pic of you with the sunset as the backdrop, if you like.’
She glanced his way as if assessing whether she should be reading anything into the offer, then fished for her phone and handed it to him. ‘Thanks. I can email it to my parents.’
He took several shots, trying to make her laugh to get a natural result, capturing her streaky hair mirroring the fiery reflections in the sea. He’d just tapped in the password to his Wi-Fi into her phone for her when he was surprised at the sound of Lee’s voice. He turned around and, sure enough, there was his brother, looking strained, but smiling.
‘I thought you didn’t have a babysitter?’ Aaron gave his little brother a quick man-hug. He’d been sorry to learn that his parents and Aunt Norma had already made plans for this evening because he’d felt Lee could use a night off.
Lee returned the hug. ‘The folks came home early. Daisy was already asleep so I thought I’d come up to join the party.’ He halted. ‘Hello again, Clancy.’
Aaron turned to follow his line of sight and saw Clancy regarding Lee. She returned his greeting and Lee stepped closer, Clancy looking like a cat prepared to flee, Lee like a dog not sure of his welcome.
A Summer to Remember Page 8