Summer on the River

by Marcia Willett

As he turns round to look up at the Merchant’s House he hears the ring of the doorbell.

  ‘Might be Ben,’ calls Evie. ‘I suggested he came over to say hello.’

  And it is Ben, coming in through the great light-washed spaces all dappled with sunshine, looking so like TDF that Claude almost wants to weep.

  ‘Ben.’ Their hands meet in a strong warm clasp. ‘Good to see you.’

  Claude remembers what Evie has told him and can’t quite think what to say. Each conversational gambit seems loaded with what might cause Ben embarrassment.

  ‘Great to see you back,’ says Ben. He is calm; no stress here. ‘Did Evie tell you that Charlie’s coming down for regatta?’

  ‘She did. And I told her that I think they’re out of order still using the house as if it’s theirs.’

  Ben bursts out laughing and Evie, arriving with the tray of coffee, shakes her head at Claude.

  ‘Not that it’s any of his business,’ she says to Ben. ‘I’ve told him, it’s a family house.’

  Claude grunts his disapproval, sits down at the wooden table.

  ‘And,’ adds Evie, filling his mug with coffee, passing it to him, ‘you will be polite to Ange. This is not a subject for negotiation.’

  Claude makes a face. ‘I can’t get on with her. Makes me feel I’m back at school.’

  ‘Ange is all right,’ says Ben tolerantly. ‘She just needs to be in control. It’s only for a weekend, after all, and I’ve had a text from Charlie saying that the friends can’t come after all. I think he and Ange are going on down to Ange’s mother in Polzeath. The girls are there already.’

  In the face of Ben’s good humour Claude’s irascibility fades. It was the same with TDF, his calm optimism defusing Claude’s wrathful outbursts. He sips his coffee, accepts a pain au chocolat and relaxes, stretching in the warm sunshine.

  ‘God, it’s good to be here,’ he says.

  Suddenly he feels immensely tired. The early start, the journey, and then this magic place always have this effect, as if his taut strings have been cut. In a moment he’ll go out and walk around the town and his energy will surge back, but just now it’s utter bliss to sit here at the river’s edge with Evie and Ben drinking coffee in the sun.

  CHAPTER THREE

  ‘HE’S LOOKING GOOD, isn’t he?’ says Ben as Claude goes striding away, down the hill and into the town.

  He’s very fond of Claude. He and Charlie regard him as a kind of uncle but without the constraints that are bound up in the relationship with someone who is actually a blood relative. Claude wouldn’t dream of remonstrating with them or giving them advice but there is a comfortable familiarity, a sense of security, in his company. It’s much the same with Evie. Ben knows that Charlie doesn’t in the least regard her as his stepmother but there is a close, easy relationship between them that he, Ben, has benefited from almost as much as Charlie has.

  He and Charlie are good mates. His own mother died when he was fifteen and Charlie’s mum always made sure that Ben was included: invited to parties and at Christmas, taken to Dartmouth for nearly all of his holidays. His own father was a photojournalist, living on the edge but happy, and he bore no grudge that Charlie’s father – the darling fellow – had inherited a thriving wine import business, the Merchant’s House, a house in Kensington and all the comfort that went with it.

  ‘It would have been wasted on me,’ he’d say. ‘I’m no businessman. Our side of the family was always artistic. And anyway, TDF is always ready to help out if the chips are really down.’

  Ben has inherited his father’s artistic talent. He is well known for his work in the glossy ‘gardens and interiors’ magazines, but he has never earned enough to pay the mortgage on the kind of house Kirsty aspires to and, once Laura was born, the need to contribute became even more critical. Recently he’s borrowed from Charlie so as to update some of his photographic equipment.

  ‘For God’s sake don’t tell Ange,’ Charlie said. ‘We’ll sort it out somehow.’

  Well, now it seems that some of his one-third share of the flat in London – not very much once the huge mortgage is paid off – will belong to Charlie. Thank God for Evie and the Merchant’s House, a regular trickle of photo-shoots, and his new project. He loves a new project.

  Ben glances at Evie and sees that she is watching him.

  ‘So what’s the plan?’ she asks cheerfully.

  It is his theory that she can read his mind as easily as the screen of her laptop, and he grins at her.

  ‘I’ve got a few new outlets lined up for the cards. Some art shops and galleries I haven’t tried yet. I imagine you won’t want to come along? Not with Claude here.’

  Sometimes she goes with him for the ride when he visits the bookshops and galleries that are beginning to display his cards. She chats with the booksellers who know her very well, though it is five years now since she’s had a book published.

  ‘All written out,’ she says, when they press her to produce a new one. ‘Nothing left to say.’

  Ben doesn’t believe it. Maybe she’s exhausted the Civil War as a subject but he feels that Evie still has something to say.

  ‘No, I shan’t come today,’ she answers. ‘But good luck.’

  He nods. ‘See you later.’

  By lunchtime he is at Stokeley Farm Shop. The shop is busy but he checks the card displays and sees only one of his cards remaining: Start Point Lighthouse taken from one of his own photographs. Ben is seized with a thrill of pleasure. He has some more packs in his bag just in case and he is confident that he’ll be able to persuade them to take more. It’s too busy just at the moment to make his number so he orders an Americano and flops down on the long grey cord-covered sofa that faces the big open glass doors on to the patio area where people are sitting in the sunshine. He loves it here in the farm shop café, with its high pine roof and big pizza oven. The café is almost empty and he relaxes, leaning back against the red cord cushions, aware of this new and very odd sensation of extreme wellbeing shot through with moments of terrible sadness.

  It was a huge shock when Kirsty told him that their marriage was over, though it had been limping along for quite some time. The real shock, of course, was that she’d found someone else; a man she’d known from childhood, and then at university in London, who caught up with her on Friends Reunited. Ben suffers a brief stab of jealousy at the thought of this man who knows Kirsty from way back. He feels a fool that she’s been cheating on him for the last year.

  He stretches out his legs, remembering those early years and how happy they were. Kirsty stayed in London after university and she and Ben met at a party and fell in love. She was working in IT with an American company; his own career was just beginning to take shape and he’d been lucky enough to land a big commission that might well have inflated Kirsty’s hopes. They rented a small garden flat in Chiswick, which they were able to buy with the help of Kirsty’s parents when Laura arrived. Twenty-two years on they were still there. He can’t quite remember at what point money worries, the cares of parenthood, the simple daily grind, began to wear down that early passionate love. He is aware, however, that after Laura went off to university there was an emptiness, a lack of purpose. Perhaps she was the glue of familiar necessity still holding them together: without her there was a kind of pointlessness to the daily round. Kirsty began to go regularly to Edinburgh to see her parents – or that was the story – whilst he took more and more assignments that brought him down into the West Country where he loved to be.

  He’s always been happy to spend time alone. Only then is he most truly himself, free for a while from the responsibility for other people who rely upon him. His innate sense of guilt makes it impossible to relax completely whilst anyone who has a claim upon him is within his orbit.

  Intertwined with his great love for Kirsty and Laura was always this anxiety that he might fail them, which – however hard he tried to rationalize it – coloured his relationships with them. Neither of them could possibly hav
e guessed at the sense of deep peace that engulfed him whenever he climbed into his car to go on an assignment that required him to be away from home alone for a few precious days. These brief respites enabled him to return refreshed, ready to resume his duties as husband and father. Because he worked so much at home he was able to look after Laura when she was small, to take her to and fetch her from school, to attend plays and sports days, and they formed a strong, close bond.

  As he sits waiting for his coffee he remembers their last meeting. He picked her up from the train in Totnes and drove her back to the Merchant’s House. It was an odd journey, neither of them quite ready to discuss what was uppermost in their minds. Instead, they talked about her plan to go backpacking and then work in Switzerland as a chalet-girl, but all the while he could sense Laura’s tension as she sat beside him. She pushed back her short dark hair with quick, nervous fingers, or clenched her hands between her long legs clad in denim jeans.

  Once they were inside, in the hall, she dropped her bag on the floor and let out a huge sigh of relief.

  ‘I love this place,’ she said, looking around. ‘It always feels so welcoming. I’m glad you’re here, Dad.’

  ‘So am I,’ he said cheerfully. ‘I don’t know why it feels like home but it does. All those summer holidays here with Charlie when we were kids, I suppose, though I spent just as much time with him in London. Dartmouth is very special to me.’

  They looked at one another, smiling, and then her expression changed and he held out his arms and she rushed into them, pushing her head into his shoulder.

  ‘Mum’s explained things,’ she said, muffled. ‘She’s told me about Iain. It was a real shock, I can tell you. How are you with that?’

  She leaned back and looked up at him woefully, her brown eyes anxious, full of tears, and he held her tightly for a moment longer and then let her go.

  ‘Let’s have a drink,’ he said, leading the way into the kitchen. ‘Coffee? Tea? Something stronger?’

  ‘Do you have a fruit tea?’ she asked. ‘I’ve got some in my bag if you haven’t.’

  ‘Hang on.’ He swung open a cupboard door and took out a cardboard carton. ‘There you are. Take your pick.’

  She chose one, dropped the teabag into a mug, and asked hopefully, ‘Any honey?’

  Just for a moment he was transported back in time: honey toast, honey sandwiches – Laura had always loved honey. He reached down the jar from the shelf and pushed it across, gave her a spoon, and then led the way through the arch into the breakfast room. They sat together at the big table and he wondered how to frame his words so that they might lessen her hurt.

  ‘I think your mum and I had been drifting for a while,’ he said at last. ‘You’d probably noticed that. It’s sad but it happens.’

  ‘Mmm,’ she said, stirring the honey into her tea, not looking at him. ‘I’d seen that you were each kind of doing your own thing. You’d got a bit semi-detached.’ She looks up at him, disbelief in her eyes. ‘But, I mean, another man? I can hardly believe it. Actually it was a bit embarrassing when she told me. All excited like she was a teenager or something and expecting me to be pleased about it. I think Mum’s being very selfish, actually. Like it’s only her life that’s important and that’s it. Marriage over. End of. What about us? What about you? Just suddenly given your marching orders because she’s met someone else?’

  Ben could see then how very easy it would be to engage Laura’s sympathy, to draw on the partisanship that exists between them. Her love for him and her disapproval of her mother, the hurt she has caused her daughter, could so easily bring Laura on to his side. He could play the martyr, show his wounds, and allow her to comfort him. Or he could be noble, brave, and win her admiration. He hadn’t realized how dangerous such a situation could be or how hard it was not to manipulate it to his own advantage.

  ‘I think we could both see the end coming,’ he said gently. ‘But we hadn’t bothered to do anything about it. You could say that it’s a good thing to make us face up to it rather than just drift endlessly on. You’re right about us becoming semi-detached, but I’m OK with it, sweetheart, as long you can handle it, too. It’s just as tough for you.’

  ‘I’m very sad about it. Of course I am,’ she said miserably. ‘I don’t quite know how it works any more. OK, I’m not a kid and I know that these last few years, since I went to uni, you and mum have spent quite a lot of time apart. But it’s broken us up, hasn’t it? We don’t have a home together any more. Obviously Mum will be OK. She’ll be going back to Edinburgh once the flat sells, to a new life. She’s got this new flat, new man, as well as Granny and Grandpa not far away. What about us?’

  ‘You’ve always got a home with me here. You know that, sweetheart.’

  She nods, still slightly tearful. ‘Actually, Mum’s got a small spare room in her flat she’s said I can use, and Granny’s keeping some of my stuff in store, but anyway I shall be abroad for the best part of a year with my chalet job. Then I’m hoping to go to teacher-training college.’

  ‘Well then, I’m sure we shall work it out between us. And don’t be too tough on your mum. She and I were very happy, she worked hard to keep us going, and we all had some really good times. It hasn’t been all jam for her, you know, and I don’t grudge her another chance. Yes, Iain came as a shock, and he’s wounded my pride, but I’ll get over it. You’re an adult now, Laura. You’re up and running and doing so well that I will admit that I’m enjoying myself doing my own thing. And I love it here.’

  His cool assessment calmed her.

  ‘As long as you’re OK,’ she said, still slightly doubtfully but wanting to be convinced. ‘And you’ve got Evie across the road.’

  ‘I have indeed. She’s invited us over to supper later so you can tell her how you’re doing and all about this chalet job.’

  Now, as his coffee arrives and he smiles a thank you, draws in his long legs and sits up straighter, he is aware of being watched. A small girl is standing at the open doors staring intently at him. In her hand she holds a lead, at the end of which is a black Labrador.

  ‘No, Otto,’ the child says firmly to the dog. ‘You’re not allowed in. Stop pulling.’

  The dog sits down suddenly, floppy ears pricked forward as he watches someone inside, and Ben glances at the counter to see what has attracted its attention. A woman is standing there with her back to him. Between choosing and ordering she glances out at the girl and the dog and smiles encouragingly. Ben assesses that she’s probably early forties; thick blond hair wound into a casual knot, pretty profile, a long flowery skirt. The order completed, she goes outside, taking Otto’s lead and leading them towards a table under an umbrella.

  The child breaks away from them and comes back; waiting at the door, staring at Ben with an eager wistfulness that puzzles him. He smiles at her but makes no effort to encourage her. From the shop behind him another woman appears carrying a canvas bag full of groceries and vegetables. She stops, bending to speak to the child, who still looks at Ben. The woman glances round; her expression changing from a smiling motherly tenderness to irritation. She gives Ben an almost apologetic little smile, seizes the child’s hand and marches her away to the blonde woman and the dog, who wait for them at the table under the umbrella.

  It’s an odd little scene and Ben finishes his coffee watching them, glad that none of them is his responsibility, enjoying the luxury of being alone.

  Jemima Spencer puts the bowl of water, always available for visiting dogs, beside the table for Otto and sits down again with her friend Miranda beneath the umbrella. Maisie has taken a piece of cake and is sitting under the table with Otto, who watches each bite with close attention.

  ‘Maisie’s driving me mad,’ mutters Miranda, ‘and now Dave’s dumped me. Honestly, Mimes, I am feeling completely bloody.’

  Jemima waits, sipping her coffee: it’s always a mistake to rush in where Miranda is concerned. If she is sympathetic Miranda will feel she is being patronized; if she is bracin
g, then Miranda will be aggrieved. It’s best simply to allow her to talk and get it out of her system. She met Miranda through a mutual friend, who has since moved away, and they’ve grown much closer with the friend’s departure but, just lately, Miranda has become rather needy; rather demanding. Nevertheless, Jemima has grown fond of her and of small Maisie. She respects Miranda’s commitment to her nursing work at the hospital, and she continues to attempt to support them with her friendship. She shifts so that she can concentrate, so that Miranda knows she has her whole attention.

  ‘Of course, he and Maisie simply didn’t hit it off. I thought she might be pleased now that she’s got so fixated on this idea about her father turning up out of the blue. I wonder if I was right to tell her that he simply abandoned me when I told him I was pregnant. Did you see how she was staring at that poor chap in there? He looked rather nice, actually. Anyway, poor Dave simply couldn’t cope …’

  Jemima makes encouraging and sympathetic noises as the drama unfolds. There have been several Daves in the six years since Maisie’s father left but privately she wonders if it’s Miranda’s tendency to cling that frightens them off rather than Maisie’s behaviour. Miranda clings to her mother, to Maisie, to Jemima – and, when she meets a man that she really likes, she tends to come on a bit too strong too quickly. There is a neediness that is off-putting, combined with the slightly claustrophobic world that she has built around the two of them, which Maisie is beginning to challenge. Of course, Miranda’s nursing work keeps her busy, but her social life suffers because she is working shifts at the hospital, finding child-care for Maisie, running their home and suffering an ongoing exhaustion from juggling all these aspects of her life.

  ‘Did you really like him?’ Jemima asks gently. ‘Are you really gutted? I didn’t feel you were absolutely, you know, in love with him.’

  ‘Well, I wasn’t,’ says Miranda, rather discontentedly. ‘But it’s just nice to have a man around, isn’t it? Someone you can rely on for a change. And it might have developed into something more …’