A Summer to Remember

by Sue Moorcroft

  Daisy jumped up from the kitchen table. ‘Uncle Aaron! We’s painting, ’cos Daddy had today off!’ she yelled, displaying painty hands and a piece of paper bearing a colourful collection of swirls and smudges.

  Lee grinned from the other chair, looking less excited by the painting treat. ‘I missed the start of a job erecting a conservatory so I’ve taken today and Monday,’ he said. Then he nodded in the direction of the wooden-armed chair in the corner. ‘Uncle Jordy’s here too, but he doesn’t want to paint, does he, Daisy?’

  Aaron hadn’t noticed Jordy, huddled in the corner, his hair in need of washing, new lines delineating the contours of his face.

  Daisy sent Jordy a reproachful look. ‘But painting’s fun, Uncle Jordy.’

  Jordy uncoiled himself from the chair. ‘That’s why I’ve left it to you, Daisy. I want you to have all the fun.’ He glanced at Aaron. ‘I was hoping to have a chat with Uncle Aaron.’

  Aaron suppressed a sigh. Seriously? He wanted to think, to work things out, to find out where Clancy was now. But Jordy looked as haggard as if he hadn’t slept for days. So, ‘’Course,’ Aaron said. ‘Let’s go into the sitting room.’ He dropped a hand on Lee’s shoulder as he passed, glad to see his brother looking OK. In fact, of all the three men, for once it was probably Lee who looked most at peace.

  Once in the sitting room, Aaron closed the door. He and Jordy dropped into chairs at angles to each other. ‘What’s up?’ Aaron asked.

  Jordy rubbed a hand over his eyes. ‘Did you see Harry?’ Aaron had already told him he’d be driving to London today, in case Jordy had wanted to give him a message for his son. He hadn’t.

  ‘No, mate. Anabelle took them off yesterday. Clancy saw her. They were all OK then.’ He hoped Jordy hadn’t assumed Aaron was somehow going to bundle Harry – with or without Rory – into his truck before he came home. For all the deep affection he had for Harry, Clancy had been Aaron’s focus today.

  ‘Shit.’ Jordy rubbed his hair this time as a change from his eyes. ‘I don’t know what I can do.’

  Aaron thought hard. His mind was tired but no one with any decency could sit opposite the tortured countenance of Jordy and feel no sympathy. ‘I suppose you could rethink your approach,’ he said, eventually. ‘Shouting and hollering hasn’t made Harry un-gay or out of love with Rory. It hasn’t made Anabelle want to see things out with you.’

  With a muffled sound, Jordy hid his eyes. ‘I’ve screwed up. But I’m frightened. Life could be hard on Harry. You hear so much about gay-bashing and hate. I couldn’t stand to think of him hurt. Beaten up.’

  Aaron watched sombrely as Jordy disintegrated into tears. ‘Was that why you were so crappy about Harry’s feelings for Rory? You’re frightened that being gay will bring him into contact with hate crimes?’ He’d assumed Jordy’s stance had sprung from blind prejudice.

  With a huge sniff and blow, Jordy nodded. ‘I don’t want that for him.’

  Aaron reordered his thoughts. ‘Well. Maybe you could tell this to Harry? Because I don’t think he knows. I take your point but there must be advice for how to manage the kind of horribleness you’re talking about. The lads met with a youth worker in London – maybe someone like that could provide guidance?’ He added gently, ‘He can’t choose who he is and he can’t help who he loves, Jord. And if you love Anabelle … well, if you love someone you’re mad to let her leave you if she loves you back. That’s all I can say. Want a beer?’

  Jordy nodded, wiping his tears roughly on his sleeve. ‘’Bout time you offered.’

  When the beers were drunk, Jordy left by the seldom-used front door so Lee and Daisy wouldn’t see his red eyes. Aaron sat on alone for a while, his own words echoing in his head. If you love someone then you’re mad to let her leave you if she loves you back. If. If …

  After a while, he got Nelson and the lead. Daisy instantly jumped off her chair. ‘Are you taking Nelson for a walk, Uncle Aaron? Can I come?’

  Aaron smiled at the little girl. ‘Not this time, sweetheart. Sorry. I have to have a talk with Granny on my own.’

  ‘Awwwwww, pleeeeeeeease,’ Daisy wheedled, her face slackening with grief that her favourite – and only – uncle wasn’t going to be wound around her little finger on this occasion.

  Lee came to Aaron’s rescue. ‘I think we should offer to take Nelson for a walk and leave Uncle Aaron and Granny to talk.’ He glanced at Aaron. ‘Is that OK?’

  Daisy was instantly distracted. ‘Oh-kay!’

  Aaron felt a flood of warmth. ‘I’d appreciate it.’ He was acutely aware that Lee had barely mentioned Alice leaving her husband and the village, or whether Lee knew where she was. But what happened next was Lee’s decision, not Aaron’s. Aaron had been overprotective-slash-interfering for too long. It wasn’t until others began to interfere in his life that he realised how frustrating and undermining it could be.

  A few minutes later, Aaron was facing his parents across their kitchen table. It took resolve, because he knew there was no way he was going to be able to say what he had to without causing them dismay, but he began by explaining how Clancy had begun to feel unwelcome in the village. ‘She told me something important – that home isn’t always a place,’ he went on. ‘Harry’s going to make his home with Rory and that’s all he needs, even if it means leaving everything he knows in Nelson’s Bar when both he and Rory have lived all their lives in this village, like me. So I’ve come to explain to you that, although I have no idea what the future will look like, I want to be with Clancy. Nelson’s Bar has always been important to me but now … I might leave the village.’ He patted his mum’s hand, because he knew she’d take it hardest.

  ‘Where will you go?’ Yvonne looked stunned.

  ‘Good question.’ He raked his fingers through his hair. ‘If she decides she has to be in London, maybe I can make roof gardens for people there.’ Aaron shoved away an image of himself working with the fumes rising all around him from the nose-to-tail London traffic.

  ‘But you’ll be like Crocodile Dundee trying to live in New York!’ Yvonne protested.

  Aaron gave a wry smile at his mother’s words because Crocodile Dundee had been a favourite film when Lee and Aaron had been little, but it was an uncomfortably evocative analogy. ‘When two people from different backgrounds want to get together, someone has to change. It might have to be me, that’s all. It would get us out from under Genevieve’s eye. I’m not OK with what she’s been doing.’ He gave an outline of what that seemed to be.

  Fergus drew in his breath sharply. ‘That’s not on.’

  Yvonne thrust her fingers into her hair, making it stand on end. ‘Genevieve did that? I can hardly believe it.’ A guilty look stole into her eyes. She hesitated. ‘I suppose she’s said one or two things to me too … Oh dear. I don’t think I’ve made Clancy feel very welcome.’

  Aaron hated to hurt his mother but there was no point dissembling. ‘It would be great if you could make more of an effort,’ he agreed.

  ‘Leave that with us,’ Fergus said firmly. ‘If she’s important to you then she’s important to us.’

  Aaron left a very quiet mother behind him, though he got a reassuring smile from his dad.

  When he arrived home, he forced himself not to ring the Roundhouse. Clancy had said she’d ring him so he should respect that. He checked his answering machine. Only a message from Mrs Edge awaited, asking why he hadn’t come to get her water feature going. Guiltily, he rang back and asked if he could come now, in the last of the daylight, pleading a ‘bit of an emergency’ had taken him out of Norfolk today.

  Rather than turn the truck in the lane he followed the curve of Long Lane until he could turn into the other end of Droody Road.

  Just before he made that turn, he saw the figures of Lee and Daisy with Nelson crossing the clifftop towards Zig-zag Path.

  And Alice.

  He slammed his foot on the brake.

  Then, smothering a sigh, hoping Alice wouldn’t play football with Lee’s hear
t this time, he drove on. Whatever did happen, he resolved not to interfere. It was between Lee and Alice.

  As he drove out of the village, Clancy’s bright blue BMW was outside the Roundhouse, and his heart lifted to see it.

  She hadn’t gone anywhere yet.

  Clancy’s car might be outside the Roundhouse but Clancy herself was in the B&B, facing Kaz and Oli across their lounge, in the worn but private quarters of the B&B. It had a view over the rooftops and trees of the village and she supposed they reserved the sea views for the guest bedrooms.

  On the sofa opposite Clancy’s chair, Kaz was fidgeting and Oli frowning.

  ‘I just want you to know the story of why I came to Nelson’s Bar,’ Clancy began. Though it was a story she hoped she could one day leave completely behind, she didn’t see why she had to put up with Genevieve’s snide version being received as the truth. As she told them about her fiancé getting caught with his trousers down and the following rancour with her colleagues, she watched Oli’s eyebrows shoot up and Kaz look embarrassed and shame-faced.

  ‘I’m very sorry to hear all this,’ Oli said tentatively, when she’d finished. ‘But is there a reason you’re telling us?’

  Clancy nodded and looked at Kaz.

  Kaz began to wring her hands. ‘Genevieve made it sound … quite different.’

  ‘I know. That’s why I wanted to set the record straight,’ Clancy said softly.

  Oli turned to his wife. ‘I’m bewildered! What’s been going on?’

  Slowly, having to sniff quite hard at times, Kaz explained. ‘Clancy offered to invest in the B&B. But then Genevieve made it sound as if Clancy was really bad news so … I told her we didn’t want to go ahead.’ Then she looked at Clancy and choked, ‘I’m so sorry.’

  Oli shoved back his thinning hair. ‘You turned down an investor without consulting me?’ he thundered.

  A tear leaked from the corner of Kaz’s eye. ‘I realised after that I should have asked Clancy herself about what had happened. But when I went to the Roundhouse the man who answered the door said she’d gone back to London.’

  After glaring at his wife for several silent seconds, Oli turned back to Clancy. ‘I don’t suppose you want to pick up the conversation with us again now, do you?’

  Clancy rose. ‘I’m not sure,’ she said as kindly as she could, considering. ‘I can’t see it happening now but I am still thinking about what to do next.’ Then, seeing Oli’s shoulders slump in disappointment, she said, ‘I did gather a lot of information about funding, though, so I’ll send that to you.’

  After listening to further apologies from Kaz, Clancy returned to the Roundhouse.

  Simply ignoring Hugo as she thought about the B&B and wondered whether she should have listened to Oli a little more, she occupied herself with laundry, cleaning down the kitchen and making herself a sandwich.

  Some of the shock of what Genevieve, and possibly Alice, had done in putting in a bad word for her with Kaz, wore off as she worked. She paused, sandwich in hand, to realise on a wave of dismay that by reacting as she had, making Aaron leave her alone, she’d actually let Genevieve come between them.

  The last thing Clancy cleaned was herself, standing for ages under the hot shower, washing with her favourite jasmine shower gel and wondering why she felt so hoppity-skip about ringing Aaron.

  When she’d first seen him at the hospital this morning she’d been so shocked she’d forgotten to kiss him. Was that why he’d been odd all day, looking as if he had things to say but not saying them? Being distracted and absent as they walked around the streets of Chalk Farm?

  She dried her hair, then hearing Hugo moving around in his bedroom on the floor below, she took the opportunity to skip downstairs to the landline and dial Aaron’s number, feeling as if her heart was vibrating at the back of her throat.

  She got his answering machine. Sod it. She didn’t leave a message because she couldn’t say, ‘I don’t really know what’s happening. But whatever it is, I want to find some way to be with you.’ That wasn’t the sort of thing you said to someone’s machine. You said it when you were face to face with the person and could see their expression and read their reaction in their eyes.

  When Aaron finally got back to Nelson’s Bar that night, it was as the passenger in the front of a breakdown vehicle, his truck having expired suddenly on him on the way back from completing the work for Mrs Edge. He’d waited more than two hours for the tow vehicle to take his truck to the garage at Brancaster and then deliver him home.

  The Roundhouse had been all in darkness as they passed, otherwise he would have asked the breakdown mechanic to drop him there.

  He thanked the driver and went indoors, surprised to see Lee downstairs watching TV, looking dragged down and exhausted.

  Cautiously, Aaron said, ‘You OK?’

  Lee’s smile was pained. ‘I saw Alice.’

  ‘Oh?’ Aaron said, as if he didn’t know.

  Lee shrugged. ‘We’ve been talking a bit recently. I’ve been trying to understand all the passion I had for her, I suppose, but tonight I finally admitted to myself that she’s not the woman I remember being in love with. I don’t mean the way she’s wearing her hair or the hippy-dippy clothes. She’s just …’ He shrugged and shook his head as if searching for words. ‘She’s got no depth. No conception of what other people feel. My rose-tinted glasses must have been pretty powerful if she was always like that. She asked if we could try again but I said it wouldn’t work.’

  Relief made Aaron’s knees go funny. ‘That must have been tough,’ he said, thinking of all the years that Lee had wasted pining for Alice, sunk into depression and anxiety.

  ‘Yep.’ Lee turned back to the TV. ‘At least it’s made me feel ready to move on with my life. I’ll start looking for somewhere for Daisy and me to live in Hunstanton soon.’

  ‘That’s great.’ As Lee seemed to have said all he was going to, Aaron went to check his answering machine. One hang-up and when he checked, it had come from the Roundhouse’s number. His heart lurched but there was nothing he could do at this time of night, so he went to bed.

  Chapter Twenty-Eight

  Saturday. Again. Changeover day sure came around quickly.

  Clancy would rather have taken a walk along the cliffs to calm her fizzing thoughts. She tried to ring Aaron, but frustratingly, got the busy signal. As she stood there glaring at the handset, the front door of the Roundhouse opened and someone walked in.

  ‘Alice!’ Clancy gasped, her call, for the moment, forgotten.

  Alice stood just inside the door, her many plaits swaying around her tattooed shoulders and the straps of a floaty summer dress. ‘I’m sorry,’ she said gravely. ‘I’ve come to make amends.’

  Clancy stood still. It would be too, too easy to just accept whatever olive branch Alice held out, to forgive and forget. To carry on exactly as before. Although a lot of her ire had subsided, she still felt as if Alice had punched her in the face. In fact, she thought she’d rather have received a punch in the face than a stab in the back. ‘How?’

  ‘Just leave it to me. Hugo upstairs? I’ll start with him.’ Alice gave Clancy a quick hug, though Clancy stood unresponsive, then she ran upstairs.

  Clancy hovered. She’d tugged on cropped jeans and an old T-shirt, ready to set to as soon as the first guest drove away, but now she wasn’t sure she should leave.

  After fifteen minutes, during which she heard raised voices but not what was said, Clancy’s patience was rewarded by the sound of footsteps on the stairs. Hugo came down first, carting along a well-stuffed holdall and treating Clancy to a filthy look as he passed.

  Alice was on his heels. ‘Hugo needs to make a phone call,’ she said to Clancy, still in the solemn tone she’d used when she arrived.

  Clancy nodded. By the way they both stood gazing at her, privacy was required. ‘OK, I’ll begin changeover day.’ With a last look at Alice, who was looking unusually serious, Clancy made for the door.

  ‘I’ll
come and find you soon,’ Alice called after her.

  Clancy slipped off to number four, clutching her cleaning materials and cloths, flung open windows and began stripping beds. She was shaking duvets into clean covers when she glanced out of the window and halted. Down in the lane, Hugo could be seen ferrying a substantial segment of what had gone to make up Possession Mountain into a heap by the front gate.

  Fumbling her way through making up the beds, Clancy was unable to take her eyes off the scene unfolding outside as a taxi appeared. Alice, arms folded, looked on as Hugo heaved his bags into it. Then the taxi turned in the lane and drove away.

  Alice turned as if to make for the cottages, pausing to have a word with Dilys and Ernie, who had appeared like pop-up dolls. The three conferred, Ernie gesticulating, Dilys with hands on hips, Alice nodding apologetically. Finally, she must have persuaded them back indoors as she set off again towards the holiday homes.

  Realising that Alice wouldn’t know which cottage she was in, Clancy ran down and opened the door of number four.

  Alice dimpled when she saw her, stepping over the threshold and closing the door behind her. ‘I think I’ve got rid of him but it would be sensible to change the locks.’ Her eyes were hopeful.

  Clancy folded her arms. ‘How? What have you done?’

  ‘Hugo’s mum is an MP,’ Alice said casually, though her eyes sparkled. ‘Her seat’s tenuous at the moment and she can’t afford for any hint of scandal like, say—’ she puffed out her cheeks in an elaborate show of thinking hard ‘—a son hitting the skids financially, and it coming out that she’d withdrawn financial support. So she promised to bring Hugo to heel by supporting him again if he left the Roundhouse. And I promised not to get any journalists I happen to know to investigate Hugo to see what skeletons he’s left in cupboards as he travelled the world.’

  ‘Alice!’ Clancy breathed. ‘That’s blackmail.’ And who would have thought blackmail could leave one feeling so relieved?