‘When you told me about Valerie’s reading, I didn’t want to believe it. You confused me, you made me doubt my own feelings, and now I know that none of it was true, that you made it all up.’
‘I don’t know what you mean.’ Ross ran his fingers up the side of his glass.
‘I spoke to Valerie. She told me that you and Mason were friends, that you chatted about him as if you got on, but I know that’s not true. You’ve never liked him, and then, last time we met, you made out that Valerie had warned you to look out for me, to protect me from this Lothario character. It was obviously Mason.’ She watched while Ross’s lips tightened and his Adam’s apple bobbed as he weighed up what to tell her. ‘I wondered how Valerie could think you and Mason were friends; how Valerie could think Mason was a good person – if that reading had been real.’
‘But she hinted at some of it, so—’
‘No she didn’t. She didn’t say any of it. I asked her.’
Ross looked away, looked back. ‘Summer—’
‘Just tell me the truth! Admit that you made it all up, and then tell me why.’
‘OK! No, none of it was real. Valerie’s reading didn’t say any of that.’
Summer sat back on the bench, feeling the wedge in her chest lessen a little at his confession. ‘You made it all up to put me off Mason?’
Ross looked at her steadily. ‘If you were sure about him, nothing I said could have changed your mind. I was only voicing your existing fears.’
Summer bit back her anger. ‘You made me think he couldn’t be trusted. You used Valerie – you made her think you were friends, but you were just using her to find out anything you could about Mason to turn me against him.’
‘I like Valerie! That’s not true.’
‘Ross, come on. I’ve had enough of this. What about Lothario? I know you got that from Valerie.’
Ross folded his arms on the table. ‘Summer, I care about you. It doesn’t matter where I got the information from. Someone did call Mason a Lothario, didn’t they? So maybe he is.’
‘He’s not.’
‘How can you be so sure, Summer? Do you know him that well?’
Summer squeezed her hands into fists. ‘No! No, I don’t – I’m trying to, but people keep getting in the way! You’ve been keeping tabs on me: first trying to persuade me to sell the boat, then trying to convince me to come back to Willowbeck when I’d left. I know it was you who told Valerie that I thought she was a fraud. Not Jenny at all, but you. My friend. Someone I trusted, someone who has looked after me at my most vulnerable – and now I find out all of this! Ross, do you have any idea how much you’ve hurt me and Valerie?’
Ross stared at the table.
‘How can I ever trust you again?’
‘You stopped coming to my shop,’ Ross said, his voice taking on a whining quality. ‘I missed you, Summer, and I thought that if you gave up the boat, if you didn’t have any friends here, then you’d come back to Cambridge.’
Summer’s anger prickled like ice. ‘So you tried to get me to sell the boat, tried to turn my friends against me, and when I left Willowbeck you came to track me down. And, not content with me moving back here, you tried to turn me against Mason?’ She put her head in her hands. ‘God, Ross. I can’t believe I didn’t see through you sooner. Did you really think I’d change my mind about you? I’ve told you so many times, I don’t want to be anything more than friends.’
‘But we’re so good together,’ Ross said. ‘You have to believe that – you have to realize it. This Mason bloke doesn’t care about you like I do.’
‘How do you know that?’ Summer shot back. ‘You don’t know anything about him. And you know very little about me if you think I’m just going to forgive everything you’ve done. The only thing that wasn’t down to you was the break-in – someone else made me scared enough to want to come back here. I bet you wish you’d thought of that, too. But you planted the seeds, didn’t you? Driving up to treat me to a takeaway, making a point of telling me how unsafe Tivesham was. I bet you were over the moon when your fears were realized.’ She gave him a sharp, humourless smile, but froze when her words, played back to her, seemed like too much of a coincidence.
She looked closely at Ross, her heart pounding. He couldn’t meet her gaze. ‘Ross?’ It came out as a whisper. ‘You didn’t, did you?’
‘Of course not,’ he said, chuckling and then taking a long swig of his pint.
Summer didn’t believe him. Suddenly, she thought he was capable of going that far. He hadn’t blinked at trying to turn everyone Summer cared for against her, so why wouldn’t he take it a step further?
‘Ross? Tell me the truth.’
‘I am!’ he shot back. ‘I wouldn’t do that to you, Summer. I care about you, I wouldn’t try and hurt you like that.’
‘So only by alienating me from my friends, making me doubt my own feelings? You’d hurt me in those ways, but not by breaking into my boat?’
Ross sighed. ‘I was thinking of you, Summer. I looked after you, remember? I know what’s good for you, who’s good for you.’
‘How can you say that?’ She knew she was close to shouting, but she couldn’t help it. ‘How can you claim to know me so well, when you never listen to what I say? You never listen when I tell you I’m fine, or that I don’t want to be more than friends. You turn up here and you manipulate everyone, and it’s not going to work any more. I don’t want to see you again.’
‘Summer, please. I’ll make it up to you.’
‘I don’t think you can,’ she said, looking away. ‘I just want you to go.’
‘Please!’ She felt his fingers touch hers and she pulled her hand away. ‘I’ll do anything, Summer. I’ll apologize to Mason and Valerie, I’ll pay for the damage to your boat, I’ll—’
Summer snapped her head round to face him. ‘Why would you pay for the damage if you weren’t responsible for it?’
Ross shrugged, and hid his mouth behind his pint glass. ‘I just want to help.’
‘Did you do it?’ she asked quietly. ‘Did you break into my boat, to try and scare me into coming back to Willowbeck?’
‘I would do anything for you, Summer, and I knew you weren’t safe there. But you can’t always see it.’
Summer felt splinters dig into her hands as she gripped the edge of the table. For a moment, she couldn’t speak. ‘I was terrified,’ she said eventually. ‘People went after you, the police were called, and there was so much damage.’
‘I’ve said I’ll pay you back. I know it was a bad idea, but I just thought if you came back to Willowbeck—’
‘It’s a criminal offence!’ Summer shouted, and several people at the other tables turned in their direction. Summer leaned forward and lowered her voice, hissing at him. ‘You have no idea how scared I was, how many other people were affected by your stupid actions.’ She remembered crouching on the deck of her boat in the dark, Claire and her friends crowding round her, Jas chasing after him down the towpath. She could picture, perfectly, Mason’s fear and shock when faced with her wrecked café, his reaction making complete sense now Dennis had told her what memories he’d been reliving. She stood suddenly, Latte yipping at her feet.
‘I did care about you, Ross, and I will never forget what you did for me after Mum died. I would always have been your friend, but this, it – I can’t take it in, and I don’t – I don’t know what to think. I want you to leave now.’
‘Summer, please. If we just talk—’ Ross stood as well, his face pale.
‘I don’t want to talk to you now. I can’t.’ She crouched and picked up Latte, turned in the direction of the stage and the roving traders, and then stopped. How could she explain it to them? That someone she had considered a friend had been manipulating her like that and had actually caused the break-in, the damage, and the fear that had at one point made Summer believe she could no longer stay on her boat. Ross had almost got his way. She wanted to tell Valerie that Ross had gone even further than t
hey had thought, but she couldn’t do it yet. She had to get her head round it first.
With the anger and shock making her feel restless and numb at the same time, Summer went back to her boat. She felt threatened by Ross. He thought what he’d done had been harmless, but to Summer it was sinister. He’d made Valerie question their friendship, he’d made her fear the open river, and he’d been trying to turn her against Mason. He hadn’t managed that, but had his actions, his planted fears, worming their way into Summer’s head, inadvertently caused Mason to turn against her?
Summer paced inside her cabin. Latte sat on the sofa, her little head moving side to side, following her owner’s progress. It was a lovely evening; she could hear chatter and laughter filtering through the open window from the pub garden. Her phone beeped, but when she saw the name Ross she deleted the messages instantly. Harry got in touch to check timings for the following day, and Summer was reminded that the festival was starting tomorrow and she needed to prepare.
Grateful for the distraction, she went into the café, giving the tables and counter an extra polish, making sure the crockery and cutlery was clean and close at hand, checking on the cakes and cookies, the macarons and tarts waiting in the fridge. She poured fresh beans into the coffee machine and looked up at the blackboard behind the counter, wondering what to write. But she saw her message to Mason, running in red chalk along the top, and her resolve slipped.
It had been eleven days without any word from him. Not a single call or text, no message to let her know that he was OK – or even to tell her that he never wanted to see her again. Could he really be taking photos of cranes all this time? Summer was kidding herself if she thought that was what was occupying him. She could blame Ross – he certainly wasn’t blameless in all this – but she couldn’t really look further than herself.
She had asked Mason questions, and she hadn’t waited to listen to the answers. She had forced him to drag up the past, and she hadn’t been an outlet for him, hadn’t trusted him enough to let him tell her. He’d been prepared to open up, to tell her about the biggest tragedy anyone could ever face – and she’d shut the door on him.
Summer went back to her cabin, but was unable to settle. She tried reading a book and then watching a film, but she couldn’t concentrate. She even tried working on her present to Mason. The painting of the kingfisher was nearly finished, but the thought that she would never be able to give it to him lowered her spirits even more.
She changed into her summer pyjamas, climbed under the bed covers, and stared at the ceiling for what felt like hours. Eventually, when cold air was slipping in through the window in her berth, and the pub garden was still and silent, Summer climbed out of bed. Latte was asleep at the foot of the bed and she moved quietly so she wouldn’t wake her.
In only her shorts and vest top, Summer took her phone and went onto her bow deck, hoisting herself up onto the roof of her boat. Willowbeck was quiet, pockets of blackness interspersed with the soft, glowing lights on the towpath and a few of the visiting narrowboats. The cold air licked its way around her and, shivering, she lay down on the roof, jolting at how cold it was against her skin. She let her eyes adjust to the glittering star display above her. The moon was a thin, curved slice, the sky almost pitch black, and the stars popped out at her, alone and in clusters, so bright and vibrant that Summer felt she could reach up and touch one.
Her breath lodged in her throat, and goose bumps prickled on her arms and legs. She stared at the stars and let the emotions wash over her: her anger at Ross, her regret over Mason, and her longing to see him again. She thought back to the last time she had been lying on the roof of a boat, and how happy she’d been, and this, combined with the night-time wind and the celestial display, made Summer feel small, and lost. But she had to believe there was still hope.
She looked at her phone and, her pulse beating unhelpfully loudly in her ears, opened her messages. Mason’s name hovered near the top, though it was a while since they had exchanged texts. Eleven days, Summer thought, and not one text.
Lying on the roof looking at the stars, she wrote, but it’s not the same without you. I miss you, and I’m so sorry. Xxx She could have gone on and on, written out her apology in a long, heartfelt essay, but her fingers were trembling too much, and she didn’t know if he was even at the other end of the phone. It would be easy for him to disappear to a different part of the country along the network of rivers and canals, replace his number and sever their ties completely. Summer didn’t want to think that, but like Valerie said, he’d been traumatized. Maybe it was easier for him to start again, to put the pieces back together where nobody knew him – wasn’t that what she’d tried to do when she cruised out of Willowbeck and ended up in Foxburn?
Summer stared at the sky, trying to pick out constellations, wondering which of the orbs far above her were planets and which ones were already gone, just the memory of a star, glinting its final, drawn-out goodbye.
At first she thought she’d imagined the beep. She’d been hearing it so often in her head, the hope of a message from him, that she thought it was just that. But she looked anyway – she couldn’t not – and gasped when she saw the name on the screen. Mason.
She unlocked her phone and opened the message, squeezing her eyes closed and taking a deep breath before she allowed herself to read it.
Not the same place, the message said, but the same stars. I miss you too. M xx
Summer read the message over and over again, until her vision blurred and her toes turned to ice, and the stars slowly moved across the sky. She didn’t know what to reply, didn’t want to bombard him with questions, about where he was or when he was coming back or what he was thinking – whether he hated her or forgave her, or if it really was the cranes that had taken him away.
Blinking the tears out of her eyes, she sent a reply: I hope you sleep well. I’ve been doing a lot of hoping recently. PS, she added, smiling through her tears: The roof of my boat’s filthy. Xx
Chapter 4
The Willowbeck musical festival transformed the picture-perfect village into what felt to Summer like the centre of the world. Before she had a chance to open up, there were people milling about on the towpath, and narrowboats mooring up along the opposite bank of the river, tying their ropes onto the posts positioned at regular intervals along the bank. It was the first day of July, and the weather was fitting, with lots of bare flesh on show even though the sun was a long way off being at its hottest. Summer was pleased, knowing that the weather would have a huge effect on the success of the festival, but she also had very little time, and a small wedge of panic that all her preparations – the baking and cleaning and stocking-up – wouldn’t be nearly enough.
‘I got the last space in the car park,’ Harry said breathlessly as she came into the café carrying a tower of baking tins. ‘This is mad. What time does the music kick off?’
As if on cue, James Bay’s ‘Craving’ started blasting from Water Music.
‘I think the first acts are on the stage at about eleven,’ Summer said, ‘but there’s poetry and dance and all sorts before the bands start. I am so glad to see you, do you think we’ve done enough?’
Harry grinned. She was wearing tiny denim shorts and a bright-pink floaty top, her hair tied away from her face. ‘Of course we have,’ she said, and Summer couldn’t detect a hint of uncertainty.
‘You’re right; we’re as prepared as we can be. Let me help you with those,’ she said, taking most of the tins from her friend, ‘and get us both a shot of caffeine before we let the hordes in.’
‘Caffeine would be good,’ Harry said. ‘You’re a pretty shrewd businesswoman, you know that?’
‘See if you still believe that at the end of the day.’
Summer looked out at the river. The opposite towpath was almost completely obscured by narrowboats, people sitting on their decks enjoying breakfast and soaking up the atmosphere. A gaggle of geese swam up the middle, their necks elongated, heads held
high, as if they were the centre of attention. Summer switched on the coffee machine and got a fresh bottle of milk out of the fridge.
‘Cheers,’ she said, clinking her mug against Harry’s when they were both full of frothy cappuccino. ‘I’ve put an extra shot in each one. I think we’re going to need it.’ She soon discovered that she’d been too modest with the caffeine.
The people kept coming. The tables emptied and new customers took the chairs immediately, the café full of warm and cheerful chatter. A whisper of a breeze drifted through from the hatch where there was a queue that never seemed to diminish, however fast Harry and Summer kept serving. The dishwasher worked on overtime, and the contents of the cake tins and boxes on the kitchen counters and in the fridge were being bought and eaten at a rate that Summer had never seen before. All this against a backdrop of music, first from Claire’s boat and then, as lunchtime approached, from the stage set up at the side of The Black Swan.
The river was thrumming with the boats cruising past and, whenever a space became available, mooring up to see what was happening in the usually quiet village. Summer wondered how the other residents were coping, though she thought Dennis and Jenny would be over the moon and just hoped they’d hired enough extra staff to cope with the influx of people, because all the picnic tables outside were crammed with festivalgoers. She hadn’t seen Valerie, but thought that she probably had a full programme of readings, and she expected Norman was probably hibernating aboard Celeste, looking things up on his iPad.
Summer finally, reluctantly, closed the doors of the café at eight o’clock. The music had grown steadily in volume throughout the day and the current band, which Summer thought sounded like a cross between Of Monsters and Men and Placebo, were making the piles of cups reverberate on the café counter.
‘That was a day and a half,’ Harry said, when Summer brought them each a bottle of lemonade.
‘I don’t know what I would have done without you,’ Summer admitted, pushing open the bow doors and flopping on to the deck seating.
Canal Boat Cafe (4) - Land Ahoy Page 5