A Summer to Remember

by Victoria Connelly

  A sudden turning of the latch brought a smile to her face but, when the front door opened, she was greeted not by Olivia but by a little boy with a drink carton in his hand and a straw stuck in his mouth.

  ‘Hello!’ Nina smiled. ‘Is Mrs Milton at home?’

  The boy merely looked at her by way of response.

  ‘Can I come in?’ Nina tried, bending down to his height so as not to appear quite so grown-up.

  The little boy opened the door wider, took the straw out of his mouth and burped. Nina blinked in amusement and watched as he turned around and ran down the passage into one of the rooms, leaving her standing alone in the hall with the sound of barking louder than ever.

  It was funny but, being in the hall again, even after so many years, Nina half-expected to see her two dear young boys come running towards her to grab her hands and drag her into the playroom, and was quite disappointed when they didn’t. Instead she’d been faced with one little boy running away from her. Nina wondered whom he belonged to and, looking around, imagined that somebody would be along at any moment. Nobody would have left such a young boy at home on his own with just a mad dog somewhere in the house for company. Perhaps he was Billy’s little boy, or Alex’s? Or maybe even Dominic’s? Who was to say that the Milton boys weren’t all married now with families of their own? Just because her own love life was a disaster, it didn’t mean that the Milton boys weren’t all happily settled. She’d not seen them all for years. Anything could have happened in that time.

  Her eyes scanned the walls absently until they caught sight of something quite extraordinary; a huge painting of a white mansion standing by the most incredible waterfall. It took a few seconds for Nina to register that it was actually The Old Mill House. It was the most amazing painting she’d ever seen. She could feel the energy in the bold brushwork and taste the spray from the wild rush of water.

  ‘Hello?’ A woman’s voice floated down the hall from one of the rooms, breaking Nina’s concentration.

  ‘Hello?’ Nina echoed.

  ‘Hello?’ the woman’s voice came again, before the owner of it actually appeared. ‘Oh! Nina! How wonderful to see you!’ Olivia said, talking in her familiar italics as she walked forward and gave her a hug. Nina was instantly enveloped in a waft of rosy perfume and time seemed to spiral out of all recognition as if a portal to her past had just opened up to her.

  ‘It’s so kind of you to invite me,’ Nina said with a smile as Olivia finally released her.

  ‘Not at all! I was just telling Benji all about you.’

  Nina looked down and saw the burping boy half-hidden by Olivia’s skirt.

  ‘Hello, Benji,’ Nina said, bending down to his level again, but her movement only encouraged him to hide further in the paisley pleats.

  ‘He’s the cleaner’s boy,’ Olivia explained. ‘She’s upstairs tackling a mountain of ironing. She’s much more efficient than I am. I always end up with more creases than when I started when I attempt the ironing, and I once managed to burn an entire cuff off one of Dudley’s Thomas Pink shirts.’ She laughed, and Nina couldn’t help smiling at the confession.

  ‘Come on through and sit down.’ Olivia said, leading the way to the living room at the front of the house, a bright airy room with walls the colour of a summer sky and honey-coloured floorboards. ‘Now, I’ll just release poor Ziggy before he bursts a blood vessel in excitement.’ Olivia took a deep breath. ‘I should warn you, he’s a bit lively and he’ll probably jump up, but he’s very friendly.’

  Before Nina could protest or even ask what exactly Ziggy was, Olivia had left the room and a dreadful scraping and whining could be heard from further along the hallway.

  ‘No – you’ll be nice and calm now, won’t you? Ziggy? Ziggy! Nina – he’s on his waaaay!’ Olivia called. Benji got up from where he’d flopped down on the rug in front of the fireplace and dived behind a chair in the corner of the room as an enormous hairy dog came hurtling in and launched itself at Nina.

  ‘Oh!’ she cried, as the apricot-coloured face pushed itself towards her in instant adoration. ‘Oh!’

  ‘Nina! Are you all right in there?’ Olivia’s voice came from the hallway.

  ‘He’s a bit—’ Nina couldn’t speak because her mouth was full of fur.

  ‘Ziggy – down! DOWN! Oh, why doesn’t he do what I say? I’m having such problems with him.’

  ‘I’ve never seen a dog quite like him,’ Nina said. ‘What is he?’

  ‘One of these Labradoodles,’ Olivia said. ‘He was so cute as a puppy – like a little teddy bear. I didn’t realise he’d grow to be quite so huge!’

  ‘Oh, but he’s wonderful.’

  Olivia smiled. ‘He is. I know. But if only he’d do what he’s told!’

  Nina patted the soft apricot head and smiled at the flappy ears and the lolling tongue. ‘He’s gorgeous!’

  As if knowing he was being admired, Ziggy let out a volley of barks and bounced up on his hind legs again.

  ‘Okay – that’s enough, Ziggy!’ Olivia cried, pulling the dog off Nina and dragging him out of the room.

  Nina brushed herself down and sat on one of the huge sofas and felt herself sinking back into a kingdom of cushions.

  ‘I’ll get us some tea,’ Olivia shouted from the hallway.

  It was only then that Benji emerged, obviously realising that it was safe to come out from behind the chair.

  ‘And how old are you, Benji?’ Nina asked, her voice quiet and non-threatening. He didn’t reply but continued to stare at her in the most unnerving way. ‘I bet you like this house, don’t you?’ Nina continued, undeterred. ‘Especially Prince Caspian?’ she said, pointing to the rocking horse by the window. ‘Isn’t he wonderful? I bet you like riding him?’

  Benji’s small grey eyes stared at her as if she were quite mad.

  Nina looked over at the rocking horse. Poor old Prince Caspian. He didn’t look so regal these days. What was left of his mane looked limp and wiry and, if Benji were indeed to use him as a plaything, he would very soon be completely bald.

  ‘Have you finished your drink?’ she asked, rapidly running out of things to say to the boy, and wishing Olivia would hurry up with the tea things. She’d always adored children, and usually got on well with them, but it seemed that she didn’t have the knack with this particular little boy. Perhaps, she thought, she should just pick up one of the magazines on the table in front and ignore him completely.

  ‘Yes!’ his small voice suddenly piped.

  ‘What?’ she asked in surprise.

  ‘Finish drink.’

  ‘Oh, I see.’

  Conversation completed, he turned around and bombed out of the room to his own soundtrack of an aeroplane.

  ‘Benji!’ Olivia shrieked from the hallway before entering with a small tray. ‘It’s like having the boys all over again with him.’

  Nina smiled. ‘I thought he might actually belong to one of yours.’

  ‘Good gracious, no!’ Olivia gasped as she pushed the magazines off the table and put the tray down. ‘My lot haven’t even got as far as the altar yet.’

  ‘Oh, really?’ For some reason, Nina found this a comfort. It was hard to imagine any of the boys grown-up and married off, especially Alex and Dominic, whom Nina had always thought of as hers in a maternal sort of way. They had always been her special boys and, as an only child, they’d filled the gap that Sindy dolls couldn’t possibly have filled. It didn’t seem possible that they were handsome young men, ripe for marriage.

  ‘Between you and me, I can’t wait for the right women to take them off my hands,’ Olivia confessed, pouring the tea and offering Nina the milk and sugar. ‘The trouble is, they don’t seem in any rush at all. I mean, Billy’s had his fair share of girlfriends, but he seems more concerned about his career at the moment, and Alex – well – he’s certainly had his share, too, but he never spends long enough with any particular girl for me to think about booking the church.’ Olivia sighed and stared wistfull
y into the sugar bowl.

  ‘And what about Dominic?’ Nina asked, wondering what the youngest son was up to, but finding the image of Dommie as she remembered him – aged nine, in his football kit – hard to shake from her mind.

  ‘Dominic?’ Olivia half laughed, ‘Dominic’s no nearer than his brothers. There’s Faye of course. She’d marry him tomorrow, I’m quite sure of that.’

  ‘Faye?’ Was little Dominic Milton really old enough to have a girlfriend, Nina wondered, and then remembered the young man who’d stared so darkly at her from his car.

  ‘Dominic’s old flame from high school. She’s such a sweetheart. They kind of broke up a few years ago,’ Olivia paused and then whispered, ‘but she’s still a great friend of the family and I think she’s definitely still holding a candle for him. She’s helping me out with the garden here and is working wonders on it. Honestly, she’s such a lovely girl and Dommie really doesn’t deserve her, but he won’t listen to the reasoning of his old mother, will he?’

  Nina sipped her tea and smiled sympathetically.

  ‘And what about you, Nina? Anyone on your horizon?’

  Nina gulped a mouthful of tea a little too quickly and coughed. ‘Er – no. Not at the moment,’ she said.

  ‘But there has been, hasn’t there? A pretty girl like you!’

  Nina blushed, thinking it strange that she should still be thought of as a girl at the ripe age of twenty-eight. ‘There has been,’ she confirmed, not wishing to open up that particular wound, ‘but not anymore.’

  ‘Well, I’m sure there’ll be plenty more,’ Olivia said in the comforting way that other people’s mothers had.

  ‘I’m so glad you came,’ Olivia said, her smile filling her face. She really was a beautiful woman, Nina thought, and absolutely impossible to pin an age on. Nina looked at her shiny red hair in a gloriously thick bob, and the vivid green eyes smiling out of a face that was round in the prettiest sense of the word.

  ‘So, you’re not working at the moment?’ Olivia probed gently.

  ‘N— no,’ Nina replied, suddenly remembering her position in the world; unemployed. She’d almost forgotten. In her delight in being a free, if rather poor, spirit, she’d forgotten that it was actually a weekday and that she should be working. But then, she mused philosophically, it was rather hard to keep track of exactly which day it was when you didn’t have a job to decide it for you.

  ‘Not babysitting?’ Olivia prompted.

  ‘Oh, I haven’t done that for years,’ she said.

  ‘You know, you were the only one the boys would have? Gosh! The trouble we had with them before you arrived on the scene!’ Olivia laughed in remembrance. ‘They were little terrors. How on earth did you manage to tame them?’

  ‘Tame them?’ Nina queried. ‘I don’t think I did anything to tame them.’

  ‘Then you don’t know your own magic!’ Olivia said.

  ‘I really don’t think there was any magic,’ Nina said honestly.

  ‘Ah, I miss those days,’ Olivia confessed. ‘My darling boys. Of course, it wasn’t the same when Billy went off to boarding school. That was the beginning of the end really, but Dudley insisted that it was the right thing to do and Alex and Dommie followed in their turn.’

  ‘But you missed them?’

  ‘Of course!’ Olivia said. ‘I drifted around this big old house like a lost thing, but then I began to fill my days with charities and local functions. Plus, looking after Dudley has always been a full-time occupation.’

  There was a pause and Nina could hear the distant sound of a vacuum cleaner upstairs and the continuing soundtrack of Benji, who had transformed himself from an aeroplane to a train.

  Olivia took a deep breath. ‘And it was secretarial work you said you did, wasn’t it?’

  ‘Yes,’ Nina said, biting her lip, and wondering what Olivia was leading up to. ‘But I’ve done a bit of everything really,’ she added quickly, trying to inject a little bit of colour into a rather bland CV. ‘Receptionist, sales, human resources, civil servant.’ She winced. That sounded anything but colourful. It was downright fickle and foolish; as if she’d never spent enough time mastering anything in particular.

  ‘That’s marvellous!’ Olivia enthused.

  ‘Is it?’ Nina’s eyes widened. Marvellous wasn’t exactly the word she would have chosen for her patchwork career. Dull, tedious, boring, monotonous, and every other word in the thesaurus, but never anything as grandiose as marvellous.

  ‘I have a proposition for you,’ Olivia said enigmatically, leaning forward in an eager manner, ‘and I do hope you’ll say yes.’

  Dominic had almost tripped over in his Wellingtons when he’d seen Nina coming up the driveway, and it had been a stroke of luck that she hadn’t turned to see him standing in the middle of the garden like a scarecrow.

  Somehow, he’d managed to manoeuvre himself to the back of the house without being seen, and had quickly extricated himself from the offensive boots before opening the back door into the kitchen, thinking that, if he was lucky, he’d have time to shower and change into one of Alex’s shirts. His brother, unlike himself, always had racks of immaculate shirts and never noticed if the odd one went AWOL.

  Dominic felt sure that the little scene he’d created in his head was about to be enacted for real. He would walk into the living room with quiet confidence and greet Nina with a firm handshake and a smile that would begin the rest of his life. Goodness, he still couldn’t believe she was here. How many years had it been since he’d last seen her? He’d been so young, but he still remembered that great big crush he’d had on her.

  Dominic took a deep breath to steady his nerves, knowing that he was ready to meet her once again.

  ‘What on earth is that racket?’ Olivia sprung out of her chair in alarm. ‘Benji? What’s the matter?’ She placed her hands around the boy’s scarlet face as he charged into the room and crashed into her legs.

  ‘Dom hit me,’ he wailed, his nose running.

  ‘Dominic?’ Olivia exclaimed. ‘Not on purpose, I’m sure?’

  ‘Hit me,’ the boy repeated, wiping his nose on Olivia’s skirt and putting Nina off her chocolate digestive.

  ‘Dominic?’ Olivia called. ‘Is that you? Come on through.’

  Dominic stood stock-still in the kitchen. It was just his luck that Benji had been playing with the coloured letters on the fridge door. Just his luck that the ‘Q’ had taken flight from a grubby hand and had landed by the back door. And of course it was typical that Benji had gone to rescue the errant letter the minute Dominic had opened the door.

  ‘Dominic? Come and see who’s here,’ his mother’s voice called above Benji’s exaggerated howls and the echoing howls of sympathy that were now coming from Ziggy in the playroom.

  Dominic sighed, tripping over the army of Wellington boots by the back door as he raked his hands through his hair, which he knew was sitting on his head like an overgrown gorse bush. He cleared his throat nervously and noisily. Nina Elliot was really here and she was about to get an eyeful of his best scarecrow impression ever.

  Chapter Six

  ‘Nina – you remember Dominic?’ Olivia smiled enthusiastically as her youngest son entered the room. ‘Dominic, isn’t it lovely to be back in touch with Nina? I ran into her in the supermarket yesterday. What terrific luck and such an amazing coincidence after you spotting her in town the other day, too!’

  Dominic looked at his mother and then at Nina, and a shy smile escaped him as Nina stood up and shook his hand.

  ‘Hello, Dominic,’ she said, noticing how tall he was and how his dark hair fell about his face in disorganised skeins. She looked at his eyes; as dark as conkers. ‘How are you?’ she asked.

  ‘Fine, thank you,’ he said, in his characteristically quiet voice, raised just enough for him to be heard. Nina couldn’t help but smile. She couldn’t believe the transformation from gauche schoolboy into handsome young man. But did he remember her? It had been so long since their last meeti
ng.

  ‘Well, aren’t you going to apologise?’ Olivia said, interrupting Nina’s train of thought.

  ‘Apologise?’ Nina asked, surprised.

  ‘Not you, dear Nina,’ Olivia said.

  ‘What?’ Dominic turned to face his mother.

  ‘For the other day, silly! When you almost ploughed Nina down.’

  ‘Oh! Yes!’ Dominic stumbled, averting his eyes in obvious embarrassment. ‘I, er—’ he looked up hesitantly at Nina, ‘I’m sorry for the other day.’ His eyes widened very slightly. ‘I wasn’t looking where I was going.’

  ‘He shouldn’t be on the roads,’ Olivia butted in again, shaking her head in despair.

  ‘But it was me that wasn’t looking!’ Nina said, perplexed. ‘It’s me who shouldn’t be on the roads, I’m afraid.’

  ‘Nonsense!’ Olivia said in her defence, Benji’s head still hiding in the depths of her now rather damp skirt.

  ‘No, really!’ Nina assured them, ‘My head’s been somewhere else lately and it’s a wonder I haven’t found myself under a car long before now.’ She smiled lightly at Olivia and then at Dominic. ‘So it’s me who should apologise.’ Dominic frowned in confusion. ‘You see, I’d had a bit of a bad day at work and was trying to forget about it all by going to the pub during my lunch hour.’

  ‘But I thought you said you were between jobs?’ Olivia said, her face clouding with a sudden frown.

  ‘I am now, but I was working that day. That was my last day, in fact. My boss and I parted company, so to speak.’ Nina shrugged her shoulders, not really wanting to divulge any more about the whole unfortunate incident.

  ‘Then you are still looking for work?’ Olivia continued. Nina nodded. ‘Good. Then I think I’ve got the solution to all our problems.’

  Dominic looked across at his mother as she caressed Benji’s reddened cheek.

  ‘Why don’t you go and play with Ziggy?’ she said to the boy, turning him around by the shoulders and patting his bottom until he ran out of the room. ‘And why don’t we all sit down?’