‘It concerns Harry Drew.’ Her eyebrows gave a little shrug.
She looked so serious that he asked, ‘I feel as if this is going to concern something more significant than one of his pranks.’
‘I don’t think it’s a prank unless he’s an amazing actor.’ She frowned thoughtfully. ‘I’ve got their permission to tell you, hoping that you might be able to help, but Harry’s adamant he doesn’t want his dad to know. I know it’s horrible when someone tries to get you to swear secrecy before you know what’s going on but if I promise he hasn’t done anything wrong, will you?’
‘Swear secrecy or help?’ he asked, wanting to be clear before he committed.
‘The former to start with but the latter would be great,’ she answered frankly. Her hood blew up behind her head and she pushed it back.
He nodded. ‘OK.’ He couldn’t somehow imagine Clancy putting him in the position unless she was pretty sure he was safe to commit.
‘Well.’ Clancy clasped her hands between her knees. ‘Apparently Jordy isn’t very understanding with anybody whose sexual orientation is other than his own.’
‘Ah.’ Aaron felt a clunk of misgiving in his midriff. He could only think of one way this conversation was going to go now and it would explain a lot. The exclusive friendship. The way they dropped off the radar. Their sometimes silent communication. Harry’s attitude to going to uni. ‘Harry and Rory?’ he asked slowly.
Relief flashed across Clancy’s face. ‘You’d guessed?’
‘Not until you mentioned sexual orientation. Jordy being a bit of a dinosaur in that direction and the way Harry and Rory are always together suddenly made a new kind of sense. Wow.’ He sat silently, trying to assimilate the information and project its likely consequences.
Clancy gave him the gist of a conversation she’d had with the boys and Aaron listened intently. ‘If Jordy’s pressuring Harry to go away to uni and live in such a way that he can’t share accommodation, then I’d imagine he has suspicions,’ he said at the end. ‘He’s trying to separate them. He probably thinks it’s a phase Harry will grow out of if he suddenly has a feast of girls around him.’
Clancy looked doubtful. ‘If that’s how he thinks then I can see why Harry’s reluctant to tell him.’
‘Yeah.’ Aaron reflected for a bit longer, then sighed. ‘Thanks. I’ll have a think about it and talk to Harry. See if we can work anything out. Poor kid. Jordy can be overbearing and rigid and nobody’s ever “come out” to the village, so far as I know.’
‘It would be a solution if they both got jobs and moved away together,’ Clancy mused. ‘But Rory’s fixed on Harry going to uni and not wasting his potential. Isn’t life hard?’ Clancy reached out and ran her fingers over the neck of the guitar, following the curve that would spend a lot of time resting in the soft part of its eventual owner’s left hand.
Aaron watched her fingertip trace its contours and an entirely inappropriate image filtered into his mind. If he wasn’t careful, life wasn’t going to be the only thing that was hard. He made his mind switch tracks. ‘I’ll talk to Harry and Rory. See if I can come up with anything to help.’
Clancy removed her hand from the guitar and became brisk. ‘Another thing I wanted to talk to you about is the videos from Keelmarsh House.’ She foraged in the bag she’d left at her feet and brought out a thin Mac laptop. ‘I’ve made them into several clips. I thought that I could hook up to your Wi-Fi and share them with you.’
‘That would be great.’ Aaron put away the guitar and they spent the next hour at the kitchen table looking at what she’d done, her apologising for only knowing the basics of video editing.
‘It looks incredibly professional to me,’ he admitted. ‘Really amazing.’
‘I had an idea for your website headers.’ She leaned over to his laptop and pulled up his website. ‘Do you know if you can have animated headers? Because, look, we could flip the clip of you walking up the path and put it together with the clip of me wandering up the same path and it would draw the eye to a central point.’
‘I can’t do anything clever,’ he owned up. But he signed in to his admin area and soon she was engrossed in trying to bring to fruition what she’d envisaged, tutting and looking up on Google things that were like a foreign language to him. By the time she’d finished he had an eye-catching, soft-focus, slow-motion active header and she’d earned herself a big glass of wine.
‘Moving on to my last reason for being here,’ she said, sipping the wine and reaching once more into her bag. ‘Here’s the up-to-date printout of our bookings till the end of September.’ She unfolded the A4 sheets, which were now covered in blocks of red, green and orange to denote that the holiday cottages were almost completely full.
He reached out and took them, brushing fingers with her, her skin warm and soft. ‘This is a bumper summer. You’ve probably increased the income by fifty per cent from last year. Thank you very much.’
She grinned, looking pleased. ‘I used my social media channels to talk about the cottages too, so that’s created some interest and I got a lot of shares. I think maybe later we ought to start pushing October half-term holiday as somewhere families can get away from it all. To bring in people from the end of September till then I thought about tweaking the website copy to mention birdwatching and the salt marshes. I don’t know anything about those things,’ she added contemplatively. ‘But I’m sure I could glean enough from Google to write the copy.’
‘So you’re extending the season too? You’re amazing.’ He smiled and for several seconds their gazes locked. Aaron experienced that thing again where he seemed to lose control of his own actions. As if an unseen force was controlling him he turned his head and touched his lips to hers. Her lips parted and he began to stroke her tongue with his, loving the sweet smoothness and the prickling of awareness, the desire that seemed to cover every inch of his skin.
Then common sense poked its scabby hand between them, reminding Aaron of everything he’d decided about leaving Clancy alone, and he ended the kiss.
He looked into her face as he drew away, reading regret in her eyes and maybe a smidgen of hurt.
Her lips parted and she said exactly what he’d been expecting, sooner or later. ‘I’m going back to London tomorrow.’
Chapter Fourteen
Clancy realised she’d spoken unguardedly when Aaron’s arms dropped away from her.
‘Ah,’ he said, unsmiling. ‘Hence today’s meeting. These are your handover notes.’ He tapped the printout she’d brought him.
‘I’m only going until Friday!’ she put in quickly, her heartbeat beginning to thud heavy and deep at his froideur. ‘I’ll be back for changeover day on Saturday.’
‘Of course.’ But the warmth had gone from his eyes.
‘It’s time I talked to Asila, Tracey, Monty and Will.’ At the same time, she didn’t actually want to see Will, which was tricky.
She knew she was being cowardly but the prospect of seeing him frightened her. She’d thought of it over and over during her clifftop walks. He’d done everything he could to make her fall out of love with him and their old relationship seemed to have taken on the unreal quality of having happened to another person but … what if she saw him and some remnants of her old feelings came flooding back? She’d despise herself for not remembering the all-encompassing betrayal that had shrivelled her heart a few short months ago.
Her thoughts circled endlessly around the way everything had come to a head within IsVid. More than once she’d been on the verge of letting things ride for another month, or till the end of summer, or the end of the year.
But, in her heart, she knew that the funds that had arrived in her bank account over the past ten or eleven weeks tied her to the past. She needed to move into her future.
What she’d done had to be undone, but it was going to be unpleasantly like walking over a minefield – and she’d laid the mines herself.
‘I’ll be back on Friday,’ she repeated now, pe
rhaps to emphasise this to herself. ‘Apart from anything, there’s a Parish Meeting in the evening and the chair, Megan, has asked if I’ll say something about broadband so it can be officially minuted.’
He nodded, closing his laptop. ‘It would certainly be helpful if you could tear yourself away from the bright lights to do the rest of the summer.’
She tilted her head. His reaction wasn’t what it had been in her imagination. ‘What happens at the end of the summer?’ She was curious about his views because she’d begun to give the occasional thought to autumn and winter herself. If she stayed in Nelson’s Bar then she needed to think about the future. She was enjoying being the caretaker at Roundhouse Row for now but suspected it might not fulfil her long term.
‘Autumn and winter,’ he replied with a smile that didn’t light his eyes. ‘Autumn can be great but winter’s pretty bleak in Nelson’s Bar, when the headland’s enveloped in mist or deluged with rain. We’re having such a great summer that winter will seem all the worse in comparison.’
Clancy’s mouth went dry. She rose to her feet and shoved her laptop into her bag. ‘Amazing so many people live in Nelson’s Bar at all,’ she said softly. ‘You’d think that they’d choose to live somewhere more hospitable. Why do you stay?’
A long silence. Aaron gazed out of the kitchen window with a distant stare. ‘I belong here.’
She drifted towards the door, her bag hard across her chest like a shield. ‘What do you think happens to people who haven’t lived all of their life in one spot, who feel they don’t belong anywhere? Do they just keep moving from place to place? Forever? Or do they find somewhere they like and feel wanted, and call it home?’
Clancy didn’t wait to see his reaction. She gave Nelson’s turned-over ears a rub and let herself out into the late afternoon that smelled of salt and the honeysuckle climbing a trellis on the cottage wall. She didn’t pause to admire the sea today but continued steadily out of the garden and onto the lane where sunflowers had grown tall enough in the sunshine to gaze over garden walls.
On Monday morning Clancy packed a small case and threw it in the boot of the BMW, still determined to tie up the ends of her old life, even though she got an unpleasant twirl in the pit of her stomach whenever she thought of it. Tracey had said she could sleep in her spare room, but Clancy had opted for a hotel. It would be neutral territory, and if Tracey hadn’t got rid of Clancy’s wedding dress yet then it would definitely be creepy to sleep in the same room as it.
She was touched when Dilys and Ernie came out to say goodbye.
Dilys gave her a hug and a fruitcake. ‘Drive safely, duck.’
Ernie stood back, looking glum. ‘Can’t we have a slice? Her fruitcake’s delicious.’
Clancy suddenly wanted to spend another half hour in the village. ‘Shall we have a cup of tea too?’ She’d built in plenty of dawdling time on the journey.
The cuppa and cake seemed to cheer them all up and Clancy wrapped up the depleted cake, waved to Dilys and Ernie as they vanished back into their respective homes, and made a second attempt to leave.
This time she was delayed by the sight of a male figure loitering by her car, silhouetted by the sun. For an instant her heart tingled, but then she saw how youthful the figure was and realised it was Harry. Like looking for the other magpie, she glanced about and spotted Rory sitting on the grass verge with a couple of backpacks. He got up and dusted off his shorts when he saw Clancy, his gaze fixed on her apprehensively.
‘Hi, guys!’ She expected they’d come to ask whether she’d talked to Aaron for them yet and she could spare another few minutes to reassure them that she had.
Harry, hands in pockets, shuffled closer. ‘Aaron said you’re going to London. Will you give us a lift?’
With a sudden rush of foreboding, Clancy glanced at the backpacks again. ‘I’m not coming back till Friday.’
‘That’s OK,’ Harry shot out.
Clancy gazed at Harry and Rory. Then at the backpacks, which, now she examined them properly, looked to be bursting at the seams. ‘You’re not running away, are you?’ she asked in rising alarm.
Across the road, Rory fidgeted, as if not completely happy with how things were going down.
Harry turned a dull red, his eyes emitting sparks. ‘We’re eighteen. Adults. If we choose to go to London then it’s nobody else’s business.’
Slowly, Clancy nodded. ‘I suppose that’s true, so I’ll put the question another way. Do your families know you’re going?’
Impatiently, Harry turned on his heel. ‘C’mon,’ he said to Rory, marching over and grabbing one of the backpacks. ‘We’ll walk to the main road and see how far we can hitch. It’s summer – we can camp out if we don’t get there tonight.’
‘Hang on.’ Clancy tried to sound as if her heart wasn’t trotting in alarm at this development. ‘You talked to Aaron yesterday, did you?’
Harry gave a jerky nod.
‘What did he say? Does he know that you’re going to London? And whether you’re coming back?’ Clancy tried to imagine Aaron being told a second time that someone was going to London, and whether he’d been as icy over the boys’ plans as he had with hers.
It was Rory who answered. ‘He talked to us about our options. Moving away together was one of them.’
‘But like this?’ Clancy pressed, pushing back her hair as a car blew past them down the lane and both boys raised an acknowledging hand at the driver.
‘Look, we’ll be all right. We’ll hitch,’ Harry said, as if being seen by the driver of the car had unsettled him. ‘Sorry to ask. We’re not your problem.’
Rory, obviously taking his cue, slid his arms into the straps of his backpack and hefted it onto his shoulders. He looked miserable. Harry looked pugnacious.
Clancy sighed. ‘Come on. At least I can get you there safely.’ And she beeped open her car, watching matching smiles break over Harry and Rory’s faces while she fought a hollow feeling that she’d just complicated an already complicated week.
She used the journey to chat to Harry and Rory about their – sketchy, it turned out – plans. When they stopped for a comfort break, Clancy lingered in the ladies’ long enough to ring Aaron and leave messages on his answering machine and his voicemail. ‘It’s Clancy. Harry and Rory were going to hitch to London so I decided it would be the lesser of two evils if I took them. They’re making a big deal out of being eighteen and able to go where they want but they’re babies in terms of worldliness. They’ve got just over a hundred pounds between them, which might get them into a hostel for a night or two I suppose, but they haven’t got a clue where to find one. I don’t know if I’ve done the right thing but it’s obviously safer for them to be with me than hitching. Ring me when you can, please.’ She had absolutely no idea of her next step if he didn’t. Or even if he did.
Next, deciding that she could stand the financial hit, she rang the hotel where she was staying in Muswell Hill to see if she could book Harry and Rory a room, only to discover that owing to extra publicity around a big event at Alexandra Palace, the hotel was now full. She was reluctant to stash two eighteen-year-olds with, she surmised, limited street smarts, in some other hotel. The only way she’d have to keep in touch with them was a cheap pay-as-you-go phone that belonged to Rory. Smart phones weren’t something Nelson’s Bar parents prioritised as their kids had to leave the village to use them.
Once they were again bowling along towards the M11 she said, ‘Thing is, I’m supposed to be meeting someone at six.’ The ‘someone’ was Will, as she’d decided that settling things with him was easier (slightly) than settling the business concerns and she’d feel better once it was no longer hanging over her. Then a solution to the lads’ accommodation issue flashed into her mind, somewhere they’d have someone around and it wouldn’t involve her shelling out hundreds of pounds.
‘But on the plus side,’ she went on, grinning, ‘I’ve just thought of somewhere to get you a bed for a couple of nights.’
; ‘Ace!’ breathed Harry.
‘Awesome,’ crowed Rory.
When Aaron got home and saw the red eye of the answering machine winking at him from the kitchen wall he ignored it. He didn’t want to talk. He’d left his mobile at home today deliberately. Fuck everybody. ‘Except you,’ he said to Nelson, who’d flopped on the cool tiled floor after a sniff around the garden, where the late afternoon sunlight was gilding the edges of the acer leaves. Nelson waved his tail then put his nose on his paws and closed his eyes.
Aaron was tired, hot and fed up. All day he’d laboured in the kind of intense July sunshine that exhausted you if you were one of the tourists carpeting the beaches, let alone working in its full glare. His thoughts of Clancy had created a heaviness in his chest almost as great as the York stone he was hauling about to create a rockery for a couple of early retirees who’d bought a house in Old Hunstanton. They’d gone on and on about how lovely their life was on the East Coast compared to London, and actually he hadn’t wanted to think of London. He wanted to think of Clancy there even less. He’d imagined her putting on her gorgeous city-girl persona and simply returning to her old life, thinking of the village with amused disbelief that she’d ever gone there.
Would she email him and un-appoint herself as caretaker just as readily as she’d appointed herself? The rocks got heavier, the sun hotter. He kept visualising that moody website header she’d created for him, their two figures walking on converging paths. Maybe she should have arranged them so they walked away from each other instead.
His iciness yesterday … He recognised that he’d been protecting himself, but had it been worth it? Not worth it? Strong? Weak? Intelligent? The stupidest step any clumsy man had ever taken concerning a beautiful, clever, vulnerable woman?
Yeah, that, probably.
It wasn’t until he’d showered and eaten dinner in front of the TV that good sense reasserted itself and he listened to his messages.
The first was from the lady he’d worked for at Titchwell saying she’d given his number to a friend who wanted her garden terracing too.
A Summer to Remember Page 14