The Summerhouse by the Sea

by Jenny Oliver

  ‘It’s not actually a word,’ said Max, ‘it’s an acronym.’

  ‘There you go.’ Rory raised his hand as if that were the case in point. ‘I’ve been earning money so you know words like acronym. Please don’t put ketchup on that risotto.’

  Max squirted red sauce all over the remaining rice. Rory drank his tea to stop himself from saying anything, his fingers itching to get back to his phone and the Eskimo-snow director’s Twitter announcement.

  ‘At least he’s eating it,’ Claire said, in an attempt to keep the peace, having another spoonful from the pan herself before taking it to the sink to wash up.

  Rory stood up, surreptitiously swiping his phone into his pocket so he could go into the living room, check Twitter, and leave the pair of them to their tomato ketchup. But as he started to walk towards the door he paused, a thought suddenly occurring to him. ‘You don’t happen to know where Ava’s staying, do you?’ he asked.

  ‘Yeah, at your gran’s, I spoke to her earlier. She popped by the office actually to pick up the spare key for her flat – she’s rented it to an airbnb tenant while she’s away. That’s a good idea, isn’t it?’

  ‘She did what?’ Rory felt his jaw drop in disbelief.

  Claire was filling the sink with hot water, distracted, not really listening. ‘Rented her flat to airbnb. I’d like to live in Spain for the summer, wouldn’t you? The beach, the sea, fresh figs, and little coffees and tapas. It’d be amazing. Imagine that rather than having to go upstairs to write a stupid, pointless presentation for a job interview I shouldn’t be having because they should be promoting me rather than interviewing me.’

  Rory had completely forgotten about Claire’s impending job interview. ‘It’ll be fine. If it’s got your name on it, you’ll get it,’ he said. ‘Now tell me about Ava.’

  Claire raised a brow at him. ‘I will get it, Rory, I would just like to be rewarded for the work I’ve done rather than humiliated by being pitted against people massively junior to me whose only qualifications seem to be their social media followings.’

  If he wasn’t so furious at his sister’s blatant disregard, he would have reminded Claire that he’d told her a year ago to work on her social media presence, but Claire’s attention had drifted back to the idea of a summer in Spain. ‘Do you remember when we sat at Café Estrella till nearly sunrise drinking that orange Spanish drink? What was it called?’

  ‘Licor 43,’ Rory said quickly. ‘I said she couldn’t go.’

  Claire was still daydreaming. ‘Shall we quit our jobs and go and live in Spain?’

  ‘No,’ Rory shook his head. ‘You’re not listening. I told her she couldn’t go.’

  Claire made a face. ‘Why?’

  ‘Don’t look at me like that. Because we’ve got to sell the house. I can’t just sit on a chunk of inheritance while my sister fannies about doing flamenco or whatever it is she wants to do. And knowing her, she’ll go for a week, get bored and come back again. Look at what happened to poor Jonathon. I thought maybe the bash on the head might have made her see sense when he picked her up from the hospital.’

  ‘Oh God, Rory, you can’t force someone to be with someone they don’t want to be with. Just because you thought they were right for each other, doesn’t mean she had to.’ Claire rolled her eyes then turned away from him towards the sink and started washing up. ‘Can you dry?’

  Rory hated drying up, he couldn’t see the point, but Claire was holding a tea towel out for him and it wasn’t worth an argument. ‘OK,’ he said, reaching for the cloth. ‘And there’s nothing wrong with Jonathon. He’s a perfectly decent bloke, she was just being too picky. Sometimes you just need to fix on a path through life and get on with it. It worked for us.’

  He knew immediately that he’d said the wrong thing. Claire washed the dish she was holding very slowly. She started to say something then stopped herself.

  Rory waited. He swallowed. He dried the saucepan, wishing he could suck the words back into his mouth.

  Max, sensing something was about to kick off, picked his plate up from the table, squeezed between them to put it next to the sink, then disappeared with his laptop.

  ‘Look, I didn’t mean it quite like that. I just meant . . .’ Rory paused. What had he meant? To all intents and purposes, they had had to just plough on with a course in life. They had been twenty-one. Claire had been pregnant. Of course they were going to get married.

  Claire was still focused on the now very clean dish.

  ‘Anyway,’ Rory ran a hand frustratedly through his hair, trying to divert the subject away from his faux pas, ‘we’ve got to sell Gran’s house. It’s the only answer. My life is stressful enough without knowing there’s a veritable goldmine sitting across the Channel that could pay off a whack of our mortgage. Have you seen that area? It’s not a sleepy little village any more. Even the bloody hipsters have moved in. I saw them with their beards and their trendy restaurants. You know a place is up and coming when there are lime green single-speed bikes chained to the lampposts.’

  ‘We have enough money, Rory.’

  ‘We could have more.’

  ‘Everyone could have more. We do OK.’

  ‘Claire, if you saw how much money goes out of my account every month to pay for all this, you’d be saying sell the Spanish place as well, believe me.’

  She put the dish down on the draining board. ‘I know how much money goes out, Rory, because the same percentage goes out of mine. You don’t earn that much more than me.’

  ‘I didn’t mean it like that,’ Rory sighed, shaking his head, his tone implying he couldn’t say anything right. Then, after a pause, as they silently washed and dried, he started to feel a little hard done by. He knew he shouldn’t say anything else, but as the feeling grew he found himself unable not to, and added, ‘I think actually it’s fair to say that I do earn quite a lot more than you.’

  Claire smacked a saucepan down on the counter and turned around. ‘Are you serious?’

  ‘Yes,’ he said. Then, a little less certain, ‘I think so.’

  ‘Oh my God. You are so frustrating. Why say it? Why do you always have to have the last word? Does it ever occur to you why you earn so much more? Because you got to trot off around the globe to build your career while I stayed here to bring up our child. I was basically your live-in babysitter, Rory. And I’m well aware that it was a choice that I made, but it would be nice if you could recognise it every now and then.’ Claire exhaled, rubbed her forehead, forgetting she had rubber gloves on, and then had to wipe the suds away with her sleeve. ‘I don’t earn as much as you, Rory, one because my industry doesn’t pay as much, but two because it took me twice as long to get where I am because I had a child to look after. Our child. And maybe, if you paid me the amount that childcare costs these days, I would have as much money as you.’

  ‘I don’t want to have an argument, Claire.’

  ‘That’s such an infuriating answer.’ She put her hands on the sides of the sink and looked up at the ceiling in exasperation. ‘Who wants to have an argument? If you don’t want an argument, why say it in the first place?’

  Rory was starting to feel out of his depth. He wanted it to end, but the stubborn feeling that his point hadn’t yet been recognised made him soldier on. ‘Because the fact is, the majority of the money worries in this family fall on my shoulders.’

  ‘Oh my God!’ Claire’s cheeks had flushed red with annoyance.

  Rory’s phone buzzed. He put his hand into his pocket.

  ‘Don’t you dare get your phone out.’

  Rory stopped, but when he found he didn’t want to let go of the phone in his pocket he was suddenly reminded of the dirty old comforter Max had had as a baby.

  Claire sighed. ‘Sometimes it would be really nice not to have to compete for your attention with that thing.’

  He could see frustrated tears start to build in her eyes. He knew how annoyed she’d be that she was crying. He wanted to call a little pause, to reac
h out and touch her arm or something, but equally he couldn’t back down. He felt like pointing out that everyone wants time alone in a relationship and he chose to spend his on his phone – would she prefer it if he started getting the newspaper delivered like his father and disappearing off to read that every evening?

  The thought that the Eskimo-snow director’s announcement would have been made on Twitter by now flitted into his mind.

  Again Claire started to say something but then stopped, shook her head, as if it were all pointless. ‘Well, as far as I know, we’re not destitute. I think we have enough money for your sister, who nearly died last week, to spend a summer by the beach in Spain. Don’t you?’ She moved away from the sink, pulling her rubber gloves off, and walked over to the fridge to get the white wine. As she poured herself a glass she looked up at Rory and said, ‘I know you work hard, but not everything is about money. I think sometimes you treat us like we work for you. But we’re your family. You can’t just bulldoze over people, because one day they’ll stop suddenly and realise that they are just “ploughing forward on a fixed path in life”.’ She raised her brows as she repeated his words. Rory looked down at the floor. ‘If you can’t see the problem in you saying no to Ava then you’re not the person I thought you were.’ She left the kitchen and disappeared into the hallway, clearly unable to be in the same room as him.

  Rory exhaled. He shut his eyes for a second then reached into his pocket and got his phone out. He didn’t want to think about anything that had just happened. He wanted to ignore it all, read the text that had come through, focus back on a world he understood: his BAFTA nemesis’s project reveal and the all-consuming race for the top prize.

  But at the foot of the stairs Claire paused and turned. ‘You need to make sure Max has done his homework,’ she said, her eyes widening in surprise when she saw his phone. ‘You know, Rory, I wonder sometimes if it were between me and that sodding phone, who would win.’

  ‘I got a text.’

  ‘What does it say?’ she asked, coming back towards him.

  Rory opened it, then said, a little sheepish, ‘My parcel will be delivered tomorrow between ten and twelve.’ Then he paused, his mouth curving up into a half-smile. ‘Will you be in?’

  ‘You’ve got some nerve, Rory,’ she said, shaking her head. ‘Don’t give me that look. Don’t think you can get away with it with that look.’

  ‘You love that look,’ he said. Knowing he’d got her now. It would all be alright.

  She glanced down at the rug, straightening the tassels with her foot, to pretend she wasn’t smiling, but he could see that she was. ‘You need to make sure Max gets off that computer and does his homework.’

  ‘Aye aye, Captain.’

  She shook her head. ‘You’re really annoying.’

  ‘And that’s why you love me.’ He stepped forwards, about to put his arms around her but his phone rang. ‘Oh God, this is work, I have to take it.’

  Claire looked up, completely dumbfounded. ‘Don’t you dare take it.’

  ‘I have to take it.’ Pressing Answer, he said, ‘Hello, hi, yeah, Bruce, what’s happened? What? How?’

  But before he could say any more he felt the phone plucked from his fingers. He tried to tighten his grip but he’d realised too late and could only scrabble for the shiny surface. ‘What the hell? Claire, what are you doing? Hang on, Bruce,’ he shouted.

  With the aim of the county netballer that she had been until they’d had Max, Claire took a few paces backwards and hurled his phone into the downstairs toilet.

  ‘What the hell have you just done?’ Rory ran into the bathroom to see his mid-contract iPhone sitting at the base of the loo. He had his sleeve rolled up and his arm in the water before he could even tune into her reply.

  ‘I’m trying to make you look at me, for Christ’s sake. I’m trying to make you exist right now with me and with Max. You’re never here any more, Rory. You’re never present. It’s like you’re always distracted. And Max is growing up and this bit is meant to be easier. Our life should be getting more fun but it’s not. It feels like it’s getting worse. I don’t want you to feel like you’re stuck with us, with this life. Because to me it’s precious. It’s all I have.’

  ‘I didn’t say I was stuck with you,’ he said, distracted, hauling the dripping iPhone out of the toilet, trying to get it to switch on, vaguely seeing an expression on her face and a tremor in her hands he hadn’t seen before, and feeling in the pit of his stomach that this was serious, that the ground beneath him wasn’t as stable as he’d presumed it to be, but the call from Bruce was, in that moment, more serious. ‘I’ve got to get a phone!’ Chucking the useless iPhone on top of the loo, he moved Claire to one side, hands on her shoulders.

  She pushed him away with a stunned, ‘What are you doing?’

  Rory wasn’t listening. ‘Max!’ he shouted. ‘Max, give me your laptop!’ He barged into the living room and commandeered the whizzy new laptop that he had no idea how to use. Rory was an Apple man – all the touch-screen shenanigans on Windows 10 was out of his jurisdiction. He handed it back. ‘Get me on Twitter.’ When Max paused he shouted, ‘Now!’

  Max did as he was told.

  And there it was.

  BREAKING: Rory Fisher to eat #SwanLovesGoose for Sunday dinner!

  CHAPTER 7

  The little village of Mariposa was exactly as Ava remembered it as a kid. A hidden treasure at the bottom of a winding path off the main road, it was a curl of golden sandy beach and turquoise sea. Houses lined the coast like Neapolitan ice cream: pink sandwiched between vanilla and chocolate, tall to the sky, their shuttered windows like eyes staring out to the bright blue of the Mediterranean. Ava wheeled her bag past the Café Estrella, keeper of so many of her family memories, its terracotta roof tiles speckled with moss, the awning a little wonky, tables spilling out on to a cracked concrete terrace, the sun radiating from the pavement in tentacles. As she’d walked down the slope to the tiny beach town she’d passed a new restaurant, Nino’s, heaving with lunch trade. In comparison, Café Estrella looked worryingly closed.

  She paused to look back at the bustling restaurant, wondering for a second about the change, but then found her gaze distracted by the familiar view ahead of her – postcard perfect and etched on her brain for imaginary visits on cold winter days. The pale glinting sea receding to dark navy and melting into ice-blue sky. White fishing boats like gulls bobbing on the water. A line of yellow buoys marking a path for the watersports speedboat. Swimmers diving off orange pedalos, while sunbathers basked on golden sand. Blue and white sunshades with matching loungers. Dripping lollies, barking dogs, the rat-a-tat of bat and ball. The hiss of the shower. The gentle curl of the waves. The birds stalking up and down in the sand.

  She pulled her bag further along the path and shielded her eyes to get her first glimpse of her grandmother’s house across the square, the small white villa visible through a rusting black wrought-iron fence. Behind it, like pastel footsteps, more ice cream houses climbed the hill. Their arched windows, geranium-strewn terraces and zigzags of washing lines leading the eye up and up till it reached a large house at the top – stone-coloured brick, shaded by huge sweeping pines, their branches like blackened clouds – and then across from that to the rows and rows of vines that marked the hillside like lines on paper.

  Down on the beach, the air smelled of the orange trees in pots around Café Estrella, their leaves shiny as plastic, and the drunken fig that had crushed the wall and lay draped half across the path, its ripening fruit sweetening the air with a perfume so heady, so addictive that the more Ava inhaled the more she needed, as if all the breaths in the world wouldn’t satisfy the craving. Light-headed from all the sniffing, she bounced her case across the cobbles of the square in the direction of the rusty black gates. On the wall above the letterbox was a bell with a little light and the words Valentina Brown (Mrs).

  She couldn’t quite believe she was here.

  She had wavered
slightly when she’d touched down in the UK. Wondered whether to back track and relegate the whole idea to a conversation topic about how her big bad brother had denied her this chance of a lifetime. She had actually half-presumed that her boss Peregrine would be the one to put the kybosh on it – unable to manage without her – but instead he’d been nothing but supportive, waffling on about her loyalty to the company. He could think of nothing more worthwhile than taking a break to find oneself and wished he had done it himself at her age. He and their intern – a dashing young up-start, Hugo, the incredibly self-assured son of Peregrine’s best friend – would hold the fort in her absence. If she was honest, she’d been a little put out by Peregrine’s blasé belief that the company could manage perfectly well without her, secretly wishing herself indispensable. But he clearly wasn’t worried, coming back from lunch with a travel diary, still in the Paperchase bag with the receipt, as a parting gift to seal the deal.

  So here she was, unzipping the pocket in her bag for the key, still on the familiar little black bull keyring, a miniature version of the huge cut-outs that loomed high above the roadside on her taxi journey from the airport, reminding her that this was Spain.

  She looked across at the Café Estrella. In the darkness a TV flickered. Two old men played chess on a table in the shade. The blackboards were tired and smudged. There was no one there that she recognised. The waiter was drying the cups, his glance flicking between the TV and his few customers. She remembered nights when they’d danced on the tables.

  She turned the key in the iron gate lock and walked up the dusty path, past the bougainvillea trailing unchecked over the fence and the pots of plump green succulents. Her fingers were shaking slightly and at the front door she fumbled the key, dropping it on the threshold. Bending down to pick it up she saw the shells. Pressed into the cement by her and Val: Our Summerhouse. She paused and rubbed one of the little shells with her thumb before taking a deep breath, picking up the keys and going inside.