The Summerhouse by the Sea

by Jenny Oliver

  As Ava watched, she heard someone making clicking noises like they were trying to summon a horse. Looking around for the source she saw Gabriela desperately trying to grab her attention. Having keenly observed Ava’s chat with Thomas King thus far, as soon as she caught Ava’s eye, Gabriela started pointing excitedly at Tom’s back and doing a succession of huge dramatic winks.

  Ava rolled her eyes and looked away.

  ‘What’s going on?’ Tom asked, glancing round to catch the tail end of Gabriela’s winking, Rosa beside her grinning like she was at a wedding. ‘Oh, I see,’ he said, lounging back in his chair with a smile.

  Ava felt herself blush against her will.

  ‘I should warn you,’ he said, legs up on the opposite chair, arms crossed over his chest, head tipped back to catch the sun, ‘I don’t really do relationships.’

  ‘Oh my God,’ Ava felt her mouth drop open, incredulous. ‘You’re so unbelievably arrogant. You’re not even my type,’ she said, shaking her head and trying not to laugh as she put the lid back on the box of letters.

  Beside her Tom smiled, satisfied, as if he was everyone’s type.

  CHAPTER 16

  Rory and Flora cooked all afternoon. The haze of smoke that danced in the air was evidence of Flora’s lack of practice and Rory’s novice status. Igor had come in to complain about the burning smell and rescued the frozen spider crab from the out-of-date seafood stash about to be binned. He’d bought it off a fisherman the other week and forgotten to take it home. The crab had been immediately commandeered by Flora.

  Max filmed it all from where he sat on the counter, eating olives straight from the giant tub and sampling the charred garlic courgette. But when his shaggy-haired friend Emilio poked his head through the door, coughing from the smog, and asked if he wanted to go waterskiing, his ambition to be a top director was suddenly put on hold as they raced out together in the direction of the jetty.

  Rory and Flora called it a day when Flora, red as a beetroot, sampled the stinging nettle stock she’d been reducing all day and proclaimed it revolting, tasting like dirty dish water. Rory, who had been struggling to steam the huge frozen spider crab, battling to get all the legs in the pot, had been unable to disagree. It was more than a little disheartening to realise that the sum total of the day’s work was some stringy over-cooked spider crab, burnt courgette fritters and stock that tasted of dirty water.

  It was quite a relief therefore to come home and find Ava sitting on the narrow veranda out the back of their grandmother’s kitchen on a rusted yellow chair, her feet up on the railing, a bottle of what looked like Licor 43 on the table next to her. The sun was just skimming the edge of the hillside and drifting on to the courtyard garden in hazy evening beams. The air was laced with the scent of warm figs and oranges, so heady he could almost reach out and touch it.

  Ava opened one eye and looked behind him. ‘Where’s Max?’ she asked.

  ‘Dinner and a movie with his new best friend. What’s that you’re drinking?’ he asked.

  Ava bent to the floor to pick up the bottle. ‘It appears to be something called Licor 43.’

  ‘Claire and I used to drink that.’

  Ava held up the dusty bottle for him to see.

  ‘How old is it?’ Rory made a face.

  ‘Best before 1999.’

  ‘Excellent,’ he said, ‘pre-millennium.’

  Ava smiled.

  Rory got himself a glass and some ice, then poured a slug of the fluorescent orange liquid.

  ‘Have you texted Claire?’ she asked.

  ‘Just to say we arrived.’

  ‘Don’t you think you should—’ she started, but he cut her off, holding his hand up.

  ‘Honestly, Ava, just leave it.’ He knew he was putting anything more off because he didn’t know what to say. Claire would be looking for some sort of apology but he didn’t quite know yet what he was sorry for.

  They both sat back and looked at the view. Pots of geraniums lined the walls of the house opposite like big, colourful buttons.

  ‘How was the filming?’ she asked.

  ‘Alright. We cooked.’

  Ava rolled her head to look at him. ‘I always forget you like to cook.’

  ‘Yeah,’ said Rory. ‘It was a bit of a balls-up actually. Pretty soul destroying.’

  They sat again in silence. Looking and drinking their bright orange drinks.

  The sun dipped below the hillside leaving a hazy dusk behind. Car doors slammed and outdoor lights flickered. All around them was the gentle roll of the sea and the last buzz of the cicadas.

  ‘Well, look at us,’ Ava said after a while. ‘Never drink together and then twice in a matter of months.’

  ‘When was the last time?’ Rory asked, puzzled.

  ‘The funeral,’ Ava said, slightly exasperated.

  ‘Oh yes.’ He nodded. ‘We should do it more often.’

  ‘Yeah.’ Ava finished her drink. ‘Rory, I have to ask you something.’ She turned to look at him and the expression in her eyes caught him completely off-guard. A flashback to young Ava crying out for reassurance. ‘Mum wasn’t having an affair, was she?’

  Rory downed his luminous orange drink.

  He could feel her waiting. Sometimes Rory wanted to grab her by the shoulders and say, ‘Why do you do this?’ But he knew why. He knew that it was because only he remembered the tough bits. The bits that being three years younger Ava never saw or were kept from her, protected as she was. Lifting his mother up from the kitchen floor as she wept in great hiccupping sobs about her awful life. How trapped she was. How unhappy she was. How she’d been consumed by motherhood. Robbed by motherhood. How she was more than this. That if this was to be her life she wished she was dead. Rory getting tissues. Rory wiping her nose. Rory holding her hand. Their dad quietly swooping in and taking her up to bed. Then an audition or a party invite and she was off out the door, make-up immaculate, heels, dress, hat . . . Ecstatic. Gone.

  Ava said, ‘Rory?’

  His instinct was to say nothing. To gloss over it as they always had. Ava’s way of dealing with their mother was to romanticise her. Look up at her in awe where Rory looked down with anger and pity. But he wondered as he looked at Ava now, big expectant eyes, hair curly like a kid from the sea and salt water, if he’d been saying nothing for too long.

  ‘Yes,’ he said, ‘I think so.’

  ‘Well why didn’t you tell me?’ she said, starting to stand up. ‘Why do you think yes? If you don’t know for sure, why would you think yes?’ She squeezed past the side of the table.

  ‘Where are you going?’ he asked.

  ‘To try and bloody find out,’ she said, stalking inside.

  Rory sat where he was for a moment, alone on the veranda with just the pots of geraniums for company, looking out at the monster shadow cast by the palm tree in the garden.

  He remembered a time when his mother had locked them in the car to go to an audition. They’d sat in the car park for hours, the air gold with autumn, chart hits on the radio, a blanket over the seats for a den. Quite fun at the time. But he’d seen her with him. Seen him tilt her chin up with his fingers, his cigar so close to her hair that he thought it would burn. And he had hated that he’d seen. Hated her desperation.

  Rory stood up with his drink. He walked through to the hall, up the stairs and into his grandmother’s bedroom. Ava was standing in the doorway of the little ante-room. He came to stand next to her and stood there for a moment in silence by her side. Inhaling the scent of mothballs and the dark familiarity of Shalimar. After their mother had left he remembered Ava dowsing herself in the stuff until their dad had convinced her otherwise. The hint of it now was like nicking at a scab, a moth flickering at a light; he could inhale but it would never be quite enough.

  ‘I’m going to start with that box,’ said Ava, pointing to another shoebox of cards and envelopes, her tone businesslike.

  Rory nodded. ‘I’ll take the one next to it,’ he said, feeling suddenly
like he had to do this for Ava. That he had let her down by keeping her out.

  He leant against the wall and started leafing through the box he’d pulled from underneath the clothes rail, a sea of glitter and frosting. The letters were all in different handwriting, all different colours. He read a couple. Rolled his eyes at the effusiveness of fans. Then he came across a signed photograph of his mother, unsent, the sight of it like a sharp blast of air. He tucked it straight back in with the fan letters and put the box back where it had come from.

  ‘Have you looked at these?’ he asked Ava, pushing aside another shoebox at the back, under the coats, so he could put the one in his hand back into place.

  ‘I haven’t looked at anything yet,’ she said, snappily.

  Rory dragged it into the light and flipped the lid. It was more battered than the other box, the seams of the lid torn and the cardboard frayed. Opened more often, handled a lot.

  Rory skimmed the contents. These letters were different to the others. All airmail. White envelopes cuffed with blue and red chevrons. All from New York and addressed to Ms Isabel Fisher. Ms rather than Mrs.

  He opened one, tucking the box under his arm. It wasn’t fan mail. He turned the letter over for a signature.

  The scent of the room seemed stronger, the movement of the fur coats disrupting the mothballs and lingering perfume.

  He turned the letter back over to check the date.

  It had been sent when Rory was three years old.

  ‘What is it?’ Ava asked. She was kneeling on the floor, rooting around at the back of the shelf to see what was there. She’d found more shoeboxes but they just contained shoes.

  He had the overwhelming instinct to lie.

  Instead he handed her the box.

  She picked up the letter that he’d only half-tucked back in.

  ‘Syd?’ she said, looking up at him. ‘As in Syd from New York? The producer guy with the shiny suits and the old Cadillac?’

  Rory nodded. ‘And the cigars.’

  ‘But he was gross,’ she said, confused, as she started to read.

  My darlingest Isabel,

  I suffer without you. My divorce I think might kill me, if I don’t kill her first. Read that as a joke, unless of course she dies, in which case destroy this letter as soon as possible. Sorry, I’m trying to amuse myself. She’s claiming insanity, she needs me. Threatening to do herself in. And she’s going for the money. My lawyer says she’s within her rights. Darling, it seems that if I were to divorce and we were together properly we would be in absolute poverty and I can’t bear the thought of reducing you to this. You deserve more. One day, I promise, I will give you everything you were born for. For the moment, we will have to be more circumspect than ever.

  Ever yours, Syd

  ‘He’s an idiot,’ Ava said, voice thick with distaste. ‘He’s clearly just stringing her along. When was it written?’ She turned the envelope over in her hand and looked at the postmark. ‘Oh my God, it’s the year I was born.’ She looked up at Rory. ‘Shit . . . is he my father?’

  In all of this, Rory had never considered the possibility.

  Ava pressed the heel of her hand to her forehead and almost laughed.

  ‘No,’ he said, immediately. ‘No way.’ He sat down on the floor next to her.

  ‘Oh God, Rory,’ Ava said, half-nervous giggling, half-despairing, fingers pushing into her eyes. ‘This is not what I thought would be in this room.’

  ‘It’s alright,’ Rory said. ‘We’ll read the rest, we’ll work it out.’ It felt suddenly unbelievably important to keep their normality. To keep her normality. In adulthood Ava infuriated him – her lack of direction, her flightiness, her refusal to settle down – because to Rory it felt just like his mother all over again. And this time he wanted someone else to take the mantle of responsibility. He had always loved Ava and wanted rid of her at the same time. But the idea that perhaps she was Syd’s, that perhaps the mantle would pass in a direction he wasn’t prepared for, made it suddenly important to prove the status quo. However annoying he found her, she was still this little kid that he had made laugh and feel safe.

  They sat on the floor, rifling through the letters, their knees pressed together uncomfortably in the tiny space.

  Ava held up an envelope. ‘This one’s from, like, eight years later. How long did this bloody affair go on?’

  My darlingest Isabel,

  I’m counting the days till we can be together properly. Moments with you when I don’t have to glance to one side. There is some justice! Hold tight. Don’t listen to Leonard. He doesn’t understand. I can make you a star! I’ll take you with me to New York. I can put you in the spotlight. I can put you where you were born to be. With me, you will shine, I promise.

  Ever yours, Syd

  ‘Leonard?’ Ava looked up at Rory. ‘As in Dad?’ she said. ‘Dad knew?’

  Rory shrugged. ‘I didn’t know that he knew, but I suppose it doesn’t really surprise me. He’d have put it down to one of her whims.’

  Rory rifled through the letters like a Rolodex, stopping when he recognised the big loopy handwriting, confident in fountain pen, of his father.

  Ava watched as he opened it, the paper thick and mottled brown with age and damp. Half the writing had been blurred, the ink running from a long-ago spill, but the last paragraph was intact.

  ‘Here you go,’ Rory said as he read it out loud.

  Isabel, I’m of the opinion that a person invested with the ability to find interest and adventure in the everyday things of life has a much more enjoyable time than a person who is always seeking to be amused. You are chasing something that does not exist.

  In the end I’m sure you will do as you please, Isabel, you always do, but just remember, there is a family here and it is yours.

  Faithfully,

  Leonard, your husband

  Ava looked at Rory. Rory looked back at her.

  The room seemed to shrink in his mind. This letter hit harder than he had imagined.

  Suddenly they were dolls in the memory of his house, the tiny mother shouting while the tiny father’s voice rumbled deep through the royal blue carpet. Tiny Rory upstairs listening, knowing she wasn’t getting what she wanted. Knowing she didn’t want his father to be as measured as he was. Crossing his fingers as he sat at the top of the stairs, Come on Dad, willing him to make some massive gesture because then everything might be alright.

  Ava was watching him. ‘What’s wrong?’ she asked.

  Rory shook his head. He thought about his own belief in setting a path through life and sticking to it. ‘I’m beginning to see how infuriating rationality can be.’

  Ava laughed. ‘You never say things like that. I’ve never heard you not take his side.’

  Rory exhaled, long and slow, then ran his hand over his face. He suddenly wanted to text Claire.

  He looked at Ava and pointed to his father’s letter. ‘One guy’s offering her everything she ever wanted. The other one’s telling her to find it in everything she doesn’t want. It’s not really a tough choice, is it?’

  ‘She didn’t not want us, Rory.’

  Rory scoffed, like he didn’t want to get into an argument about it.

  ‘She just had a talent that was bigger than us,’ Ava went on, determined.

  ‘No, she had an ego and a vanity that was bigger than us. Look at this,’ he tapped Syd’s letter. ‘She left us for a bloke and what he promised. If it was pure talent she wouldn’t have needed him, would she?’

  Ava didn’t reply. She went back to the letters. ‘We’re meant to be finding out if this idiot’s my dad,’ she said. ‘Remember.’

  Rory went back to his box. They opened envelopes and they read. The room got hotter, the overhead light fizzing on occasion. The sleeve of a fur coat brushed against Rory’s face as he moved and he pushed it away in disgust. The letters droned on. More of Syd’s fawning. Rory’s mind wandered.

  ‘What did you do with the money Dad gave you?’ he aske
d. ‘I was wondering that the other day. I got my Nikes but I couldn’t remember what you got.’

  Ava shook her head. ‘I have no idea. Probably in my piggy bank or something.’

  ‘Ava, there was nothing but buttons in your piggy bank.’

  ‘How do you know?’

  ‘Because I’d check it to see if there was anything I could steal.’

  ‘Shame on you.’

  Neither of them said anything.

  Rory scratched his head.

  Ava took the last letter from her box. ‘Oh, it’s all OK, look at this,’ she said, waving a scrap of paper from an old telephone memo pad. There was a space on the memo to write who had called and at what time, but that had been ignored in favour of the hastily scrawled note. It was dated, like the first letter, from around the time of Ava’s conception. Before Syd’s promises to take their mother to New York, to make her a star. ‘It’s from him. He’s not my father.’

  Darlingest, things here awful. Absolutely no chance of divorce at present. Maybe Leonard’s right, another baby might be the best thing for you right now. Give you something to focus on till we can finally be together. Syd

  ‘That’s good,’ said Ava. ‘I suppose,’ she added, a little more tentative. ‘So I was basically a solution to a broken marriage and a stop-gap in an affair. Lovely.’

  Rory found he didn’t have anything to say. He just looked at her and nodded. They didn’t do things like hug any longer so he gave her a quick tap on the arm.

  When the room became too unbearably hot to sit in any longer, Rory said, ‘Shall we go and have another drink?’

  Ava nodded.

  On the way through to the veranda he dropped back a touch, took his ancient Nokia out of his pocket and typed a message to Claire: Hello.

  Ten minutes later, as they were drinking the last of the Licor 43, his phone vibrated with a message from Claire. He opened it, nervous, fingers shaking slightly. Hello, it said.