‘If you put it exactly like that, I suppose I can see why you’re miffed,’ she allowed at length, smoothing the fabric of her trousers. ‘I just felt that it would be hypocritical of me to sit there without saying anything.’
‘About?’ He was bewildered.
Yvonne sighed, meeting his eyes with the kind of expression he was used to seeing when he’d transgressed in some way. ‘I’ve tried not to interfere but Genevieve’s a lovely girl and we’ve known her a long time. I suppose I let her colour my judgement. You’re my son and I shouldn’t have. It’s just that it all seems a bit two-faced to me.’
Aaron shook his head. ‘This conversation’s like plaiting jam. What are you talking about?’
His mum’s gaze darted away again. She pushed back her hair. By the end of the day it always defied whatever styling product she’d used to tame it and hung defiantly in her eyes. ‘I met Genevieve in the village. You know we always got on well so she invited me for coffee. She told me Alice had asked her about Lee and she said she hoped I wasn’t too worried “now Clancy’s asked Alice back”. I didn’t realise that Clancy had asked Alice to come back and when I saw her tonight, with Lee having been so quiet and sad since Alice turned up like a bad penny, I had trouble biting my tongue. I thought it was best I leave before I say something I’d regret.’
Aaron, who’d listened to this with mounting disbelief, kept calm only with an effort. ‘Clancy did not invite Alice back and her turning up out of the blue, complete with a husband and her usual blithe disregard for anybody’s wellbeing but her own, has put Clancy in a seriously uncomfortable position. Gen sounds as if she’s making mischief! Both of you seem to be conveniently disregarding the fact that the house belongs to Alice as much as to me – though I sometimes wonder whether buying Lee out of the property to allow him to start again was really doing him the massive favour I thought at the time.’
A silence stretched out. Yvonne’s eyes began to turn pink. ‘Then I should say I’m sorry,’ she said in a small voice. ‘I shouldn’t have taken Genevieve’s word for it.’ She turned a beseeching gaze on him. ‘But do understand, Aaron. It’s hard to stand back and do nothing when a situation might affect your son.’
Aaron made his voice soft because, although annoyed, he knew she was misguided and impetuous rather than mean or stupid. Her heart was soft and he could imagine Genevieve finding it just too tempting to utilise that to put in a bad word for Clancy. ‘You have two sons.’ When Yvonne’s lip trembled he sighed, reaching out to lay his hand over her soft-skinned one. ‘I understand you feel protective of Lee. I’ve been overprotective of him myself but you have to remember that Clancy is not the enemy here! If you decide to be offhand with the woman I’m seeing then I’m going to be deeply disappointed.’
At the sound of the kitchen door opening behind him he stood up, assuming it would be Lee coming home and seeing that as his cue to leave. ‘I didn’t want to believe young Harry when he said that the only way to have the relationship you want is to move away from this village, but right now I can see what he means.’
From behind him, Jordy’s voice suddenly rang out, dangerous and deep. ‘What do you mean about Harry? What relationship? You obviously know something I don’t.’
Aaron’s head swivelled so quickly that he almost cricked his neck. Lee had let himself into the kitchen all right, but he had Jordy in tow.
Thinking fast, Aaron gave a credibly impatient shrug. ‘Why do you always sound so suspicious of him? It’s what you’ve been saying yourself, isn’t it? He needs to get out of the village and go to uni. Meet new people.’
‘I suppose so,’ Jordy said slowly, his eyes fixing narrowly on Aaron as if not a hundred per cent convinced.
But then Lee, looking a bit unfocused, clapped Jordy on the shoulder and mumbled goodnight, and Jordy fell silent until they’d heard his uncertain footsteps mount the stairs. Then he said, ‘Lee came looking for beer. He looked like he’d had plenty so I thought I’d better see him back.’ He’d assumed the slightly worried expression Aaron realised had become the norm for them all when talking about Lee.
Yvonne rubbed her forehead as if it ached. ‘Thanks, Jordy.’
Aaron echoed the thanks and said his goodnights, giving his mum the kind of hug that he hoped told her he loved her, then took Nelson for ten minutes on the clifftops, breathing a sigh of relief that the awkward moment with Jordy had passed. For a horrible moment there, he’d thought he’d outed Harry.
Chapter Twenty-One
Over the next couple of weeks, Clancy began to wonder whether someone had messed with the clocks. The August days seemed to pass so slowly – especially any time she spent in the vicinity of Hugo, who seemed glued to the Roundhouse sofa, his chief activities there being TV-watching, snoring and farting.
Alice seemed to be quite liking life back in Nelson’s Bar, a situation Clancy would not have anticipated when Alice fled her own wedding day, or at any point in the intervening six years, though she had lived in the village for three years before that, as she reminded Clancy. Now, Alice skipped from the house regularly, walking the cliffs, she said, or driving the motorhome somewhere with Genevieve, with whom Alice seemed to have easily renewed her old friendship. The majority of these outings seemed not to involve Hugo.
When Clancy mentioned these expeditions to Aaron he furrowed his brow and responded, ‘Hell. I hope Lee isn’t missing at the same time,’ which made Clancy wish she hadn’t said anything. It was annoying that the Alice–Lee situation was a spectre between Clancy and Aaron, and she once again wished Alice hadn’t come back to upset things. Should she feel guilty about that?
Her own relationship with her cousin was hard to categorise. At times they chatted with the affection she remembered, but they were unfortunately overshadowed by longer periods where Clancy’s chief emotion was exasperation. Had Alice always been quite so blithe about the needs of others? Though she routinely stigmatised her husband as ‘a pain in the arse’, Alice dealt with his selfish, parasitical ways by pretending there was no problem. She certainly didn’t seem prepared to remonstrate with him when he continued to help himself to Clancy’s food and drink.
In the end, repressing a desire to ask Alice what on earth she’d ever seen in Hugo, Clancy gave up any hope of that boundary being respected and suggested an arrangement whereby Clancy ordered grocery deliveries for them all using Aaron’s broadband and Alice gave Clancy money to cover their share.
Aaron had invited Clancy to use his broadband whenever she wished, so, to give her an excuse to be out of the Roundhouse as much as possible, and to Megan’s delight, Clancy took on the creation of the Nelson’s Bar website as well as to make good Friday’s promise to Kaz and Oli to do some research about funding. August had turned wet, raining off Aaron’s gardening for almost a week, so he helped with information and ideas for the website. Sometimes he worked on a telecaster-style guitar he was making in his workshop and she moved her laptop in there to chat while they both worked.
Then they’d end up wrapped around each other, their respective projects ignored.
Clancy got a splinter in her buttock from sex on his workbench. It was worth it. When they were alone, everything was fun and/or hot, they laughed and loved together. His cottage became the haven that the Roundhouse had initially been to Clancy.
But even inside Aaron’s four walls, real life began to intrude.
‘Mum and Dad have invited us to go out to lunch with them,’ Aaron said after taking a phone call one Sunday in mid-August.
As sunshine had returned to the north Norfolk coast that very morning, Clancy had gone outside to watch the sea and give him privacy during the call. Now she felt guilty that her stomach shrank at the thought of being included in a family outing. ‘Both of us?’ she asked extra-brightly so he wouldn’t be able to read her misgivings.
‘That’s right.’ He slid his arm around her and cosied up to nibble at her neck. It hadn’t taken him long to work out that she was one large nerve-tre
mbling erogenous zone from tips of her ears to the crook of her neck. ‘I think we could view it as an olive branch.’
His casual manner didn’t fool Clancy, though she would have loved to concentrate on what he was doing with his mouth rather than decoding the thread of tension in his voice. ‘Then we should certainly accept.’ Her voice became brighter still.
He stopped nibbling and stroked her cheek with a fingertip instead. ‘It’ll be fine. You all got on together before the wedding-that-never-was. If my family has been touchy with your family since then, I apologise on behalf of us all. But if you all avoid each other it leaves me in a tricky spot.’
She touched her lips to his hand, instantly wanting to ease him out of said tricky spot. ‘I’ll go back to the Roundhouse and shower and change.’ She’d taken extreme care not to try and move any of her possessions into Aaron’s cottage. It was his space. He’d been clear enough to Genevieve about that and Clancy was all too aware how it felt to have the possessions of others thrust upon you.
As it turned out, the Sunday lunch experience wasn’t too bad. Clancy picked Aaron up in her bright blue BMW and they met Fergus and Yvonne in a pub garden in Old Hunstanton. If Fergus and Aaron were the ones to keep the early conversation going, Yvonne and Clancy did relax a little after a while and join in.
They talked about Aaron’s work, then Yvonne contributed some funny things Daisy had said and Fergus recounted a story about a stag do at the hotel where he worked. The groom’s surname was Smurfit so his mates had painted him blue. Clancy told them about the website she was making for the village, then Yvonne wondered aloud whether Lee would buy his own place in the village when his money came through from his house in Northamptonshire.
Clancy didn’t mind everyone not mentioning Alice. It was less stressful that way.
When lunch was over, Aaron agreed to stop in at De Silva House and help Fergus move things around in Aunt Norma’s annexe – hoping to abandon her crutches and plaster soon and move on to sticks – because she’d bought a new reclining chair to watch TV from and Lee was already out with Daisy. Clancy happily offered to take Nelson for a run. Aaron’s parents were important in his life and it gave her a warm feeling that he was the kind of son who’d willingly give a hand, but that didn’t mean she felt the need to overstay her time in their company.
After stopping in to change into jeans and a cardigan, she fetched Nelson and set off along the clifftop, the wind making Clancy’s hair writhe around her head. She tried to imagine what Nelson’s Bar would be like in winter, with grey skies and a roiling sea. The wind would probably feel as if it was trying to snatch you off the cliff. She even let herself imagine that she would still be living in the village then.
‘Clancy!’
Her daydreams interrupted, she turned to see Harry and Rory running towards her from the direction of the village. ‘Hiya!’ she called. ‘How’s everything going?’
Harry pulled a face. ‘Dad’s gone a bit weird again. Always seems to be on my back about something. Get a summer job, get prepared for uni, go out more, stay in more …’
‘Get a girlfriend,’ Rory contributed, and they looked at each other and burst out laughing.
Glad to see them again, Clancy invited them to join her for cake and a drink at an empty table outside the B&B. They crossed the grass and ordered from one of the plastic menu cards. Nelson had a slurp from the water bowl left out for dogs then settled himself beneath the table, an ear and eyebrow cocked as he nosed around for stray particles of food. Clancy munched her way through chocolate cake, Harry coconut and Rory lemon drizzle.
Kaz came to their table to clear their empty plates. ‘Haven’t seen you for a while!’ she said to Clancy, her skin crinkling around her eyes as she smiled. ‘I wanted to tell you that we’re making progress! Informally, the planning people see no problems, though we haven’t done the formal bit yet. I don’t know about the finance though. The bank only seems to want to lend to people who don’t need to borrow. We’ve got an application in but I’m not holding my breath.’ She laughed, though it sounded forced. ‘Thing is, we’d really like to start the building in November, and be all ready for next spring.’ Kaz balanced her tray on one hand so she could cross the fingers of the other. ‘These outside tables are OK in a good summer but not too popular when the cold weather comes.’
Clancy agreed. ‘The B&B needs an equivalent indoor space where villagers and tourists could be fed and watered.’
Kaz’s attention was taken by customers at another table and Harry and Rory soon went on their way too, thanking Clancy for the snack and patting Nelson’s shaggy back before they left.
Clancy sat on, pondering whether Alice and Hugo might find a Norfolk winter bleak and bugger off in their motorhome to Morocco or Timbuktu. She couldn’t count on it. After October, her caretaking responsibilities at Roundhouse Row would be minor too, though it was apparent from the records that she might expect the occasional walker or birdwatcher booking.
Would she want to be a caretaker forever?
Probably not, though she didn’t miss the buzz of working at IsVid as she’d assumed she would. She didn’t miss the stress and the long hours either. The feeling was growing inside her that she should seriously consider rooting herself in Nelson’s Bar, this tiny windswept village up on the headland with its stripy chalk cliffs. She was going to have a chunk of money. What she wanted was something absorbing and worthwhile to do with it. Something that would attach her to Nelson’s Bar.
Contemplatively, her eyes followed Kaz as she emerged from the B&B with a fresh tray crowded with tea and scones and delivered them to a table nearby. Impulsively, she stopped her as she passed on her way back inside. ‘I’ve done some research for you about funding, if you’re interested in hearing it.’
Kaz promptly sat down opposite Clancy. ‘Yes,’ she said simply.
‘Right.’ Clancy gathered her thoughts. ‘Leaving aside traditional bank borrowing, which you’re already investigating yourself, there are lenders who specialise in lending to rural businesses. They might be more approachable but they’re no more affordable.’
‘Oh,’ sighed Kaz, gazing down at the table top. ‘What about that crowdfunding thing you mentioned at the Parish Meeting? I googled it myself but it seemed more to do with causes and charities than business.’
‘There’s definitely organisations where people invest to lend to businesses exactly like yours,’ Clancy hastened to assure her. ‘It’s all done online and it’s perfectly reputable. It can be cheaper than traditional borrowing too, but your most likely investors come from your community. And you might have to give investors a slice of the business. And a campaign takes up to three months.’
‘Our community didn’t seem that keen on helping at the meeting,’ Kaz pointed out. ‘The whole thing sounds airy-fairy. Oli wasn’t at all keen when I told him what I’d read.’
Clancy took a deep breath to steady herself, recognising that this might be a life-defining moment and not wanting to miss the chance. ‘Have you thought about taking a partner in, instead of borrowing the money? A single investor?’
Kaz’s eyebrows shot up. ‘We haven’t, but only because we wouldn’t know where to start. I don’t think there would be enough profit for a sleeping partner. It would have to be someone who’d want to shoulder some work. Like who?’
Another breath, even deeper, then Clancy blurted, ‘Like me.’
Slowly, Kaz raised enormous eyes to her. ‘Are you serious?’
Clancy felt excitement bubbling inside her. ‘Absolutely, yes! It would be a big commitment and there would be a lot to discuss but I’m being bought out of the business I used to be part of in London and I’m looking for something else. I could do all your marketing as well as play a role in the day-to-day running.’ She barrelled on, suggesting aspects to her role, then, collecting herself as she realised Kaz was wide-eyed and stumped for words. ‘Talk to Oli. It would be a massive step for you guys. Just let me know if you want to open the
conversation.’
Kaz’s face blazed with a sudden grin. ‘I’m pretty sure he’ll want to! We’d be bonkers not to. Oh, blimey, Clancy, you could save us! Give me a few days to discuss it with Oli, then I’ll come back to you.’
Clancy beamed. ‘And it could be stupendous for me if I love the B&B even half as much as you do!’ She left a little later after a further, excited outpouring of ideas from both her and Kaz. Nelson pranced on his lead in joy that the walk had resumed while Clancy’s mind whirred. Had she really just taken a step towards buying into Nelson’s Bar? It didn’t fit with her citified life since uni. But it felt great. Her heart soared right up into the blue summer sky.
Nelson’s Bar could be her home.
Aaron had been back for a while when Clancy returned to his house. Nelson greeted him, then yawned and went to bed. ‘Did you take him for an especially long walk?’ Aaron opened his arms to receive Clancy, who showed more enthusiasm in her greeting.
In fact, her eyes were sparkling. ‘We went twice around the cliffs and down and up Zig-zag Path too,’ she admitted. ‘I needed to blow off steam.’ She fairly hummed with nervous excitement. ‘I haven’t done anything that can’t be undone. And I don’t want you to think I’m taking anything for granted about you and me. And if things didn’t work out, I’d try really hard not to make you feel guilty.’
He dropped a kiss on her forehead. ‘I haven’t the first idea what you’re talking about.’
Her eyes searched his. She took a deep breath then burst out, ‘I might be buying into the B&B.’
Surprise washed through him. ‘Are you serious?’
She laughed, shifting from foot to foot as if unable to keep still. ‘Exactly what Kaz said!’ Then she danced away to make coffee. ‘I’d work alongside Kaz and Oli to some extent. Though I’m wondering if it could be part time and I’d take on some kind of other work online,’ she went on, forgetting to switch the kettle on. ‘The idea kept coming into my mind all the time I was looking into funding for Kaz and Oli. I thought out their ideal investor and then I realised … well, it was me! I love it here and Kaz and Oli need capital to expand, but then I began to wonder if you’d feel a bit … hunted.’
A Summer to Remember Page 24