Summer at Hollyhock House

by Cathy Bussey

  ‘It sort of has to get worse before it can get better,’ Faith said, ‘but have a little faith.’

  ‘I’ll have a little Faith with my tea,’ Minel said. ‘Come over to the house. Sara’s coming over for a catch-up.’

  ‘Have you noticed anything about Sara?’ Faith asked as she and Minel headed up to the house after she’d given the puppy a brief but very splashy wash.

  ‘How do you mean?’

  ‘She seems a bit down,’ Faith said.

  ‘She’s probably just tired,’ Minel offered as she swept a fresh pile of clutter off the table and gestured to Faith to sit down.

  ‘Maybe,’ Faith agreed. ‘I wondered if she was having problems with Tony. She reminded me of myself a bit —’ she pulled a guilty face — ‘when I was in the doldrums with Rob.’

  ‘They’ve been together a long time,’ Minel pointed out. ‘One doesn’t exactly sit and gush about one’s lover’s finer points when you’ve been together for nearly ten years and have to listen to them on the toilet every morning.’ She giggled. ‘I probably sound the same about Paul, but it doesn’t mean I don’t still love him.’ She looked at Faith kindly. ‘I know you must still be hurting about Rob, sweetheart, but please don’t do that thing of assuming all men are the same.’

  Faith flinched. ‘I don’t still do that.’ She remembered only too well the long evenings she’d spent after too much wine discussing the failings of men with her long-suffering friends, so heartbroken after her Rik’s betrayal that she’d tarred his entire gender with the same brush.

  Minel put a cup of tea in front of Faith and sat down opposite her.

  ‘I was actually going to ask you,’ she said, ‘if you’d noticed anything similar about Rik.’

  So it’s not just me, Faith thought with relief. He is acting weird, with all this blankness and irritability and general get-lost vibes. She’d only seen him once today, and her hope that yesterday might have mollified him a bit had been well and truly dashed when he’d been more abrasive than ever.

  ‘It’s hard to say.’ She blew absently on her tea. ‘I haven’t seen Rik in years so I’m not the best person to judge but he definitely seems to have changed quite a bit.’

  ‘It’s not so much that he’s changed,’ Minel said. ‘More that he’s reverted. He reminds me of how he was after I left home.’

  ‘How was he?’ Faith asked, madly curious to find out how Rik had handled the entire situation after she’d left. She’d been completely incapable of asking Minel about him and on the odd occasion her friend had mentioned him it was to complain about him being in some horrendous teenage strop which she had deduced must be about a girl.

  ‘Oh, he was a nightmare,’ Minel sighed. ‘So angry, and obviously really hurt about whatever it was that went down. He barely said a word to any of us, just spent all his time crashing around the place, slamming doors and chucking bikes around at that quarry and coming back all covered in cuts and bruises and going to parties and getting into fights. Tackle was the only one who would put up with him — no wonder he was so devoted to that bloody dog. And Jason,’ she added. ‘They were inseparable, even more so than before.’

  That’s odd, Faith thought, that Jason would forgive Rik so easily. But male friendships were a law unto themselves, perhaps to Rik’s closest male friend it really was ‘bros before hos’, or whatever ghastly expression they would have used back then.

  ‘Then he went to college,’ Minel was saying, ‘and he seemed to calm down a bit and he was much more bearable when he came home. But he doesn’t come back much. I was hoping,’ she said wistfully, ‘that being back here for the summer might help us all get to know each other again.’

  ‘Not working out quite how you expected?’

  Minel shook her head. ‘I actually think,’ she pondered, ‘that you not being around much after I went to college didn’t help his mood. Not that I blame you,’ she said hastily. ‘You only really hung out with him because of me and after I left, you weren’t exactly going to come back just to listen to him moaning about girls and watch him pulverise himself on some stupid bike.’

  ‘No,’ Faith said darkly. ‘I was not.’

  ‘Although for a while we did all think something might happen between you two.’ Minel giggled and Faith tried to ignore the sudden heaviness in her gut. ‘Everybody knew he had a huge crush on you. We were all placing bets on when you would finally get around to crossing that line, especially after that horrendous display at my birthday party…’

  Faith had nurtured the vain hope they’d all have forgotten about Minel’s 18th by now.

  ‘I don’t really remember much about that party,’ she lied. ‘It was so long ago.’

  ‘It was,’ Minel agreed, ‘but are you sure you didn’t end up getting bit too drunk and gropey with Rik?’

  ‘No!’ The word was out of Faith’s mouth too quickly and far too emphatically.

  Minel held up her hands. ‘OK. Whatever. I mean, you did say you didn’t remember much…’

  ‘I would have remembered that,’ Faith said grimly. Oh hurry up, Sara, she thought, come and save me from this excruciating conversation.

  As if by magic, the kitchen door opened. Faith heaved a sigh of relief, then the breath caught in her throat as she saw the person who had come in was Rik.

  He scowled in her general direction and nodded at Minel.

  ‘We were talking about my 18th birthday party,’ she announced gleefully.

  ‘What about it?’ He really did look completely blank. That’s his default expression now, Faith thought.

  ‘Don’t you remember?’ Minel teased.

  Faith stared at the table and wondered if anybody would notice if she slipped silently under it. Where was that puppy when she needed him? She’d take a dog biting and/or humping her ankle over this torture any day.

  ‘All I remember,’ Rik said, ‘is waking up with the worst hangover of my life, covered in sweat with Jason spooning me.’ Faith’s lips twitched involuntarily and she opened her mouth to say something then remembered the context of the conversation and slammed it shut again.

  Sara came in. Oh thank god, Faith thought, but Minel was relentless.

  ‘Do you remember my 18th birthday party, Sar?’

  ‘Oh Christ.’ Sara looked long-suffering. ‘You’re not going to start on at me about getting off with Paul again, are you? It was a joke,’ she intoned wearily. ‘And no, I didn’t enjoy it and no, he didn’t try anything on with me afterwards, and no, I don’t consider him unfinished business.’

  ‘I remember that,’ Faith said, seizing on a possible diversion. She giggled. ‘That really was disgusting. You looked like you were eating each other alive.’

  It was Minel’s turn to scowl.

  ‘And you, Min,’ Faith went on eagerly, ‘and — what was his name again?’

  ‘Gabe,’ Sara chipped in and Faith dissolved into peals of giggles — ‘weren’t you so drunk you had to stop snogging him to be sick on his shoes?’

  Minel groaned with mortification and Faith chortled merrily, accompanied by Sara who seemed to have perked up quite considerably. ‘Poor guy,’ she gasped.

  ‘It was his tongue,’ Minel wailed. ‘It was like a washing machine. Round and round and round.’ She grimaced and put her hands over her eyes.

  ‘Not even you puking all over him put him off,’ Rik said and Faith noticed that his face had also lightened considerably. ‘Every time he stayed over with you I had to shove socks in my ears. To think I was pleased when Mum and Dad said we could move into that cottage,’ he sighed. ‘I didn’t realise I would have to listen to a herd of elephants in the room next to me.’

  ‘Wildebeest,’ Faith corrected him, remembering the term he’d used at the time.

  ‘Yes, wildebeest,’ Rik agreed, and he banged the table emphatically, making Minel jump. ‘Thundering away. Galloping.’

  ‘Stampeding,’ Faith offered.

  Minel screeched in protest. Sara cackled.

  ‘I
don’t know what you were doing in there,’ Rik said, ‘but with the benefit of hindsight and some actual experience to draw on, let me tell you, you were doing it all wrong.’

  ‘We need to change the subject,’ Minel protested. ‘Before Paul comes in.’

  ‘Rik,’ Faith said, seizing the chance to get at least one of her questions answered while he seemed to have temporarily forgotten his animosity towards her. ‘What happened to Tackle?’

  ‘Didn’t Minel tell you?’

  ‘Tackle wasn’t really that big a part of my life,’ Minel said, also sounding relieved at the subject change.

  ‘He died,’ Rik said. ‘A couple of years ago.’

  ‘Oh.’ Faith looked at him with genuine empathy. ‘I’m so sorry.’

  Rik shrugged. ‘He didn’t suffer.’

  ‘But you must have been upset?’

  He nodded. ‘A bit. In a way it was a relief because I would have hated to have to watch him shuffle around into his dotage. His heart just gave up one day. It had taken all the excitement it could handle, I guess. But it did feel a bit like the end of an era and he was my last link with —’ He stopped abruptly.

  With me, she thought. That dog was his last link with me. Rik’s eyes had gone very soulful and the blank expression had been replaced with something infinitely more poignant.

  I hurt him, she realised. That’s why he’s angry.

  He did miss me.

  Her chest tightened. The silence hung in the room, Minel and Sara were both temporarily muted. Maybe they can feel it, Faith thought. Whatever is in this room with us, it’s threatening to swallow all of us whole. We’re all dumbstruck by our mutual sadness, even if none of us really know what the other is carrying around with them.

  ‘Did you think about getting another dog?’ she managed eventually.

  Rik shook his head. ‘I didn’t actually take Tackle with me when I left home,’ he said. ‘I thought about it, but technically he wasn’t mine and it didn’t seem fair on him. Hollyhocks was the only home he had.’

  I know how that feels, Faith thought. Tackle wasn’t the only stray Hollyhocks took in.

  He wasn’t the only one who fell hopelessly in love with you.

  The new puppy wandered into the kitchen, his tiny tail wagging frantically at the sight of his beloved. He shot over to Faith and collapsed at her feet, sighing happily and closing his ferocious yellow eyes.

  ‘This little guy,’ she nodded at the puppy at her feet, ‘reminds me of him.’

  ‘Me too,’ Rik said. ‘It’s almost spooky. He’s got the same facial expressions and everything. When I saw you,’ he went on slowly, ‘holding him on the drive, for a moment I actually thought the corporeal ghost of Tackle had just materialised right in front of me.’

  ‘He needs a name,’ Faith said, looking down at the puppy again because the unexpected openness of Rik’s face coupled with the news of Tackle’s passing was drawing such a deep mourning from her she wasn’t entirely sure she wasn’t going to burst into tears there and then. ‘I doubt Minel would go for Tackle 2.’

  Minel snorted derisively. ‘Absolutely not.’

  ‘Grandson of Tackle,’ Rik said dramatically.

  ‘Bit of a mouthful,’ Faith said dubiously. ‘GT.’

  Rik nodded. ‘I like it.’

  ‘Do I get any say in this?’ Minel demanded. ‘I can’t have a dog called GT.’

  At the sound of his new name, the puppy looked up.

  ‘That’s settled then,’ Faith said. ‘Plus you’ve had him for weeks and spectacularly failed to name him.’

  ‘It’s not even a name! It’s just initials.’

  ‘Initials are huge right now,’ Rik said. ‘We chuck them around all over the place up on silicone roundabout.’

  Faith sniggered at his affected tones. ‘You need glasses to pull off the hipster vibe, Rikki.’

  The endearment was out of her mouth before she could stop herself. She waited for Rik to shut down instantly, to turn away, make his excuses and leave. For his eyes to drift away to that point in the middle-distance. And as she watched they did drift, but over her, not lingering or assessing but just noticing, as if he had only just realised for the first time that she was even there at all.

  Silence had once again engulfed the room.

  Say something, she commanded herself. Anything. And whatever you do, don’t take the fact he finally seems to have at least noticed you without prejudice as an open invitation to just gawp.

  But her eyes had done exactly that and they wandered over Rik’s face, noting that he mustn’t have shaved in a while and the darkness of his jaw made him look older and gave him more of a feral than a hipster edge. But there was no concealing the boldness and beauty of his features which in rare repose looked like they had been carved out of stone. That was why he looks so radiant when he smiles, she thought wistfully, not that I’ve actually seen him smile since I got here, but it was always that contrast, the way his smile floods his face with light and animation. He was wearing a faded grey t-shirt and his shorts were a little loose and had slipped down so she could see the waistband of his pants. Why, she pondered, was it currently the trend for men to flash their underwear and more pertinently, why did all those infernal teenagers look completely ridiculous wandering around with the waistband of their fake Calvin’s on show but Rik somehow managed to make it look both like it had happened by accident, and the hottest thing on the planet?

  Although actually, she conceded, even as a teenager Rik had pretty much constantly had the waist of his pants on show. Even back then she’d found her eyes, and then eventually her hands, irresistibly drawn to his hips and stomach, trailing her fingers over them and feeling him tremble, listening to those excited strangled noises he would be unable to stop himself from making, watching his eyes getting darker in his face as his pupils expanded.

  ‘Do I have something on my shorts?’ Rik asked pointedly.

  Faith started and tore her eyes away. What was she playing at, mentally undressing him in front of Minel and Sara? Heat rose in her cheeks and she looked down at the puppy again, but she could feel Rik’s eyes boring into the top of her head and she blushed harder than ever.

  ‘No,’ she squawked. ‘I was just thinking about — um.’

  ‘Yes?’ Sara prompted, sensing mischief.

  Faith gulped. ‘What were we talking about earlier?’ Something neutral and non-incriminating, she was sure of it, because there had been that momentary flash of a familiar rapport with Rik before she’d got all carried away and started staring at his crotch.

  Minel chipped in eagerly. ‘My 18th birthday party.’

  ‘Yes,’ Faith said, then she remembered and added quickly, ‘I mean no, not that —’ But Minel seemed to have been reminded of whatever point she’d been trying to make before she, too, had become side-tracked. ‘I was talking,’ Minel went on happily, ‘about that disgraceful display you two put on.’ She looked reprovingly at Rik. ‘That you —’ she pointed accusingly at Faith — ‘claim you can’t even remember.’

  Sara cackled again. ‘Oh I remember that. Disgraceful,’ she agreed, ‘much worse than me and Paul.’

  ‘What display?’ Rik was back to blank.

  ‘Oh, don’t tell me you don’t remember either,’ Minel sighed. ‘You remembered me and Gabe, and so did you.’ She looked at Faith again. ‘And Sara and Paul so I don’t see why you wouldn’t also recall your part in that debauched little gathering.’

  ‘I only remembered Sara and Paul because you went on about it for about six months afterwards,’ Faith said. ‘And you being sick on Gabe because who could forget that?’

  ‘Gabe, hopefully,’ Rik said drily and Faith smiled despite herself. Maybe I should admit that I do remember, she thought. Get rid of that gigantic elephant in the room, laugh about it like it’s ancient history and meant nothing, and maybe once it’s out in the open and we both admit to it we might be less stilted and tense around each other — and we might not have any more moments l
ike that one just then, she added grimly — and then eventually we might actually get round to talking about the real issue at hand here.

  ‘But I don’t know what you two are talking about,’ Rik carried on and Faith felt her bravado melt away at the conviction in his voice. ‘I vaguely remember something about a hose pipe, but that’s basically it.’

  His memory, she thought, is very selective these days.

  ‘Oh come on,’ Minel exclaimed. ‘You don’t remember practically devouring each other in front of all of us?’

  Faith forced herself to look surprised. ‘What?’

  ‘During the Spin the Bottle game,’ Sara said patiently. ‘You and Rik? Not ringing any bells?’

  Faith shook her head. ‘None at all. Are you sure that wasn’t with somebody else?’ Aha, she thought. Here’s an opening I can take. She turned to Rik and steeled herself to say the dreaded name. ‘Didn’t you end up with Sophie Barnes that night?’

  He shrugged. ‘Can’t say I remember that either.’

  Sophie Barnes, Faith thought furiously, is anything but forgettable.

  ‘Why do I know that name?’ Minel mused. ‘Who’s Sophie Barnes?’

  ‘She went out with Jason for a few months,’ Rik said.

  A few months? Faith frowned. So Jason must have carried on going out with Sophie even though — or maybe, she thought, maybe he didn’t know. Maybe he never found out and that was the real reason he seemed so willing to forgive Rik. Because he didn’t realise there was anything to forgive in the first place.

  ‘Sophie Barnes!’ Minel snapped her fingers. ‘Of course. Huge boobs. But I thought,’ she frowned. ‘I thought she was going out with you?’ She turned to Rik.

  He shook his head. ‘No.’

  ‘She was,’ Minel insisted. ‘She stayed here a few times — I heard you, god, talk about a herd of wildebeest, you are in no position to judge me.’ She folded her arms sternly.