Indian Summer

by Marcia Willett

  I did another recce around the little local towns this morning. Ashburton and Buckfastleigh. Little grey-stone moorland towns that, at first sight, are so attractive that I can’t quite see my unsavoury characters inhabiting them. The other problem is their smallness. You can use big department stores to set scenes in and get away with it, like I did in Gloucester, but it’s much more difficult in these very small shops where you’d know everyone by name after the first few weeks and I’d probably be done for slander or libel or whatever!! I shall have to be a bit more subtle. Of course there’s Exeter just a few miles away, and Plymouth to the west, but I’m very much drawn to these smaller places. As I was telling you at the weekend I’ve rather fallen in love with Totnes and the surprising mix of characters you see in the town. There’s a good, relaxed vibe but something edgy, too, which makes it possible to allow my story to take place there. I just know that this is going to be my breakthrough book, Sal. I shall put Totnes on the map!! But not this valley! Nothing could ever happen here except the peaceful predictability of ages past stretching through another millennium. Great for working, though. What I really love is not having any timetables to work to, no homework to mark or lessons to plan. I feel a bit selfish being able to do this while you’re working hard, Sal, but it’ll be worth it when I’m at number one in the bestseller lists. I know you were worried that I’d stay in bed till midday but actually I get up quite early. I’m really enjoying just being out and about, soaking up the atmosphere and watching people, and then drafting out the novel in the evening. Which is what I’m about to do now. I’ve got a few new ideas, Sal, so I shall get down to some work. Hope it’s quiet on the ward!

  Lots of love J xx

  An hour later he switches off his laptop and wanders out through the open door. The small front gardens, separated by a stone wall, are a tangle of fuchsia bushes and he leans on the wooden gate relishing the darkness and the silence. Out in the lane the shadows are black and dense beneath the ash trees, though there is still the faint gleam of gold where buttercups grow in the ditch. A bat flittering close to his head startles him and he lets out a smothered cry, ducking and beating it away, just as a brighter light shines out suddenly from an upstairs room next door. A shadow detaches itself from the darkness under the trees and James peers at it, the gate creaking under his weight, wondering if it is Sir Mungo taking a last walk with his little dog. There is no sound, the shadows merge again, and presently he hears the sound of a car engine starting up, growing fainter and dwindling away.

  CHAPTER TWO

  WHEN KIT AWAKES in the morning she knows exactly where she is. There is no confusion between waking and sleeping: she is instantly alert to the pattern of the leaves of the tree outside the open window and the warmth of Mopsa curled behind her knees.

  ‘She always deserts me when you’re here,’ Mungo said.

  ‘That’s because she knows my need is greater than yours,’ she answered.

  She reaches a hand down to stroke the rough warm coat, and Mopsa stirs and grumbles in her sleep. Kit sighs with the pleasure of being here with Mopsa and Mungo, knowing that Archie and Camilla and the dogs are just along the lane. Though she lives and works alone she needs these networks that support her. Her own family live barely fifteen miles away from the smithy: her twin brother, Hal, and his wife, Fliss, live at The Keep, which has been the family home for generations of Chadwicks. There are three generations still living at The Keep – there were four, until their mother died last year – and Kit loves the continuity, the sense of homecoming whenever she returns.

  With Mungo, however, there is a different dynamic: she is not a sister, cousin, aunt or daughter. He is a mate, an old chum; no judgements are made, no standards required except the crucial one of loyalty. They sympathize with each other’s weaknesses, rejoice in their respective strengths, commiserate when vicissitude strikes.

  She saw him first years and years ago when she was working at the Old Vic in Bristol during her school holidays, running errands, making coffee, checking props. Oh, how she loved it: the sense of family, of seeing a new production building; Val May directing with such energy and inspiration. Watching from the back of the tiny auditorium, she was stage-struck; star-struck; in love with the whole young cast of actors.

  When, years later, she was invited to provide some props for a play Mungo was directing, and she was introduced to him, she reminded him of that season in rep in Bristol and his face lit up with the memory of it.

  ‘Richard Pasco as Henry V,’ he said at once.

  ‘Oh, yes!’ she cried. ‘I was totally in love with him. And with Michael Jayston. Both at once.’

  ‘Oh, sweetie, me too,’ he answered with such a heartfelt expression that they both burst out laughing.

  ‘I felt so proud,’ she told him, ‘when you became really famous. I used to go round telling everyone I knew you. Just on the strength of making you an occasional cup of coffee or finding you a lost prop. I was very lowly.’

  ‘So was I,’ he said. ‘Understudying, getting all the tiny parts. But it was a wonderful time being in rep. Let me introduce you to Izzy. I just know you’ll get on so well.’

  Izzy greeted her as if she was already an old friend; there was an immediate rapport. They were two single women, unconventional and creative, with a similar line in humour and experience. Mungo encouraged them, drew them closer, orchestrated a dazzling evening. Kit could hardly believe her luck: she was talking, laughing, drinking with Sir Mungo Kerslake and Dame Isobel Trent as if she had known them for ever.

  So it began. They took her to their hearts, invited her to first nights, Sunday lunch parties, and, in turn, she introduced them to her friends and family. It was a delightful coincidence that the smithy should be only a few miles from The Keep. A supper party was arranged so that Camilla and Archie could meet Fliss and Hal, and so the bonds were strengthened even more.

  Izzy took a particular interest in Kit’s work. She relished a day out with Kit, going to an auction, to a reclamation yard; finding an unexpected bargain or choosing a particular object for a client. They had fun together; protected each other from occasional bouts of loneliness, joked about their mutual married friends’ combined mission to propel them into a similar state of marital bliss. As she grew to know Izzy better, Kit began to see the bravery behind the laughter; the pain beneath the jollity. Later, she was able to support Mungo in his attempt to conceal Izzy’s lapses from her fans and from the media. The drinking became more difficult to conceal; the suicidal depths of her depression impossible to alleviate. Her death was tragic but, in the end, almost a relief to all three of them.

  Kit misses her terribly but Mungo remains one of her dearest friends. It was wonderful, last evening, to arrive to such a welcome, to a delicious supper, to a comfortable exchange of news, of gossip; to discuss everything and everybody – except Jake.

  ‘I don’t want to talk tonight,’ she said at once. ‘Not tonight. The timing’s got to be right, Mungo.’ And he understood just as she knew he would; no irritation or impatience, just a calm acceptance. She didn’t want to pick apart her affair with Jake all amongst the coffee cups and empty wine glasses and burned-out candles as if he were simply another item of gossip. Jake is far too important for that.

  Kit pushes aside the duvet and sits on the edge of the bed. On the wall are four small watercolours by an almost unknown Suffolk artist that she found for Mungo in a gallery in Aldeburgh. She remembers that journey: the joy of her discovery of this artist, a shy, private woman with whom she still communicates by email. The watery evocation of marsh and estuary is so delicate, the pale tints so beautiful, that Kit can almost hear the lonely cry of the curlew. It was her first commission from Mungo but there had been others since: the old French farmhouse table in the kitchen; the hand-painted blinds for the dormer windows in the barn. One of her great joys is to travel to out-of-town salerooms and exhibitions in search of the unusual; to stay in a pub, meet the local people.

  Kit is l
onging for a mug of coffee. The makings are all there on the oak chest but she feels a need to be outside, breathing the fresh air, experiencing a connection with the natural world. Mopsa raises her head, watching her with bright intelligent eyes. She jumps off the bed and runs to the door, tail wagging. Kit stands up, seizes her dressing gown from the chair and thrusts her feet into her sandals. She opens the door quietly and follows Mopsa down the stairs and into the kitchen. There is no sign of Mungo, though the kettle is hot to the touch, which means that he is awake. She pushes it back on the hotplate to boil and lets Mopsa out into the courtyard. Then she pulls on the dressing gown, makes coffee and takes the mug outside. How quiet it is, how warm. Honeysuckle loops and tangles over the high stone wall; red valerian and crowns of pink and white feverfew cling in its crevices. A tiny wren works the cobbles, flittering up to the wall and continuing its hunt for food amongst the stones.

  Mopsa is at the gate. She whines impatiently and Kit opens it gently, quietly, and they go out together into the lane. Kit strolls slowly, the coffee mug clasped in both hands. She pauses to sip, to breathe deeply, to watch a rabbit long-legging it into the tall faded grasses in the ditch. Mopsa, busy with a scent, sees the flick of the scut out of the corner of her eye and is after the rabbit in a dash and a scatter of dry earth and tiny stones. Kit watches sympathetically as Mopsa scrapes and scrabbles at the hole down which the rabbit has vanished. She sips her coffee, wondering how she might begin her conversation about Jake with Mungo. She’s mentioned him but never in great detail; it’s still impossible, even after all these years, to talk lightly about Jake.

  As she tries a few opening gambits she feels foolish. How to explain a love affair that drifted on for years, that was neglected occasionally in favour of new experiences, that she took so much for granted? For twelve years Jake was a part of her life. He proposed to her at intervals but she never took him too seriously. Jacques Villon: she nicknamed him Jake the Rake because he loved women. As well as being lovers they were such good friends that she feared they’d become too used to each other for it to be the real thing: how awful if she were to marry him and then fall madly in love with someone else. And then, when she realized how much she loved him, how much she had to lose, it was too late.

  Wandering behind Mopsa in the lane, she remembers the shock when the depth of her love for Jake revealed itself. Suddenly she simply couldn’t imagine life without him.

  She went to his flat to see him. He’d been away in France on family business; his matriarchal paternal grandmother had died suddenly and there had been lots to sort out, loose ends to tie up. His father was dead and a great deal was now falling on Jake’s shoulders. The Villons were a clannish family, staunch Roman Catholics, and even Jake had been under his grandmother’s thumb. He’d also been extraordinarily fond of her.

  ‘Was it hell?’ Kit asked sympathetically. She’d met Jake’s grandmother once at a family gathering but it had not proved an overwhelming success. ‘I’m so sorry, honey. You’ll miss her, won’t you?’

  Jake nodded, made an attempt at a smile and sighed instead, pushing his hands through his hair. Kit saw that there were a few grey hairs amongst the black and she felt a twinge of terror. The years had fled by so fast and she’d wasted so many of them. She opened her mouth to tell him so but he was already speaking.

  ‘I’m moving to Paris,’ he was saying abruptly. ‘I’ve arranged a transfer with the bank. There’s so much to look after and Uncle Jean-Claude is too old to take it all on.’

  She stared at him. In his dark city suit, white shirt, sober tie, he looked frighteningly adult; not the familiar Jake of student days but a mature man with responsibilities and worries.

  Kit thought: he’s not far off forty. Nearly middle-aged. Thank God I realized before it was too late. Paris will be fun. I’ll learn the language properly, settle down, have darling French babies. He’s hating the thought of leaving, I can see that.

  She said, ‘Well, I can understand that. You’re the only male of your generation, aren’t you? You can’t just abandon them.’

  He looked at her then, eyebrows lifted quizzically, and she guessed that he was surprised that she should respond in such a calm manner. With an inner twist of bitterness, she realized that he would expect her to be far less adult; to protest or make light of it, refusing to take it seriously. Her heart gave a twinge of compassion, imagining his feelings at the thought of the separation that surely lay ahead.

  ‘No, I can’t just abandon them,’ he agreed heavily, turning away, dragging off his jacket. ‘But it’ll be a hell of a wrench.’

  She guessed at the reason for his misery: she had refused him so often that it was unlikely she would change her mind now that he was returning permanently to France. Her calm manner could also have been interpreted as indifference.

  ‘Oh, Jake,’ she said quickly, ‘it will be, I can see that. You’ll be leaving so many friends and memories here. But do you think that I could come with you?’

  She waited for his look of joy, the straightening of his shoulders, the outstretched arms, knowing he would not misunderstand or play games with her. This was far too important … He was staring at her in disbelief.

  ‘I love you, you see,’ she said, rushing on, trying to remove all the past pain of rejection. ‘I realized when you were away. I always have, I can see that now. It’s taken me too long to grow up. Oh, honey, I missed you so much.’

  Jake sat down abruptly on the arm of the sofa, fists between his knees. He closed his eyes for a moment and she came to kneel behind him on the cushions, her cheek against his shoulder.

  ‘I can’t believe this,’ he said quietly. ‘No. Wait. It’s no good, Kit. It’s too late.’

  She kneeled up abruptly, fear in her heart. ‘What d’you mean? Oh, Jake, it doesn’t matter about going back to France. I don’t mind. It’ll be fun.’

  ‘Wait!’ he shouted. ‘Shut up, Kit! It’s too late. I told you. I’m engaged to be married. She is a cousin of mine. Madeleine …’

  In the silence that followed, the name seemed to drift, echoing on the air. He’d said it in the French way, with the middle vowel ignored, lyrical, romantic. In Kit’s mind an image rose: a young girl with a sweet, gentle face and long red-brown hair, smiling adoringly at Jake. She’d been charming to Kit, the guest in her grandmother’s house, but her attention had been all for Jake.

  Kit straightened up, still kneeling on the sofa, her brain too stupid, too shocked to take it in properly.

  ‘I remember her,’ she murmured – and her heart ached in her breast.

  ‘Gran’mère always wanted us to marry. Madeleine’s father was a second cousin to my father and they were great friends. But there was always you, Kit, until last time. Not now, for the funeral, but back in the summer. You remember you didn’t want to come? You were too busy with Mark and your new job.’ He shrugged. ‘I felt we’d come to the end somehow, that you were in love with him. You were moving on. I was pretty low and Madeleine was so sweet, so loving. Can you imagine how comforting that was? How boosting to the ego? Pathetic, isn’t it?’ he said savagely. ‘Well, she was there and I took full advantage of her.’ He put his head in his hands. ‘I am very fond of her,’ he muttered desperately.

  ‘But does that mean that you have to marry her?’ She tried to keep her voice level, despite her very real terror. ‘I can understand everything you’ve said. But to marry her, Jake? Is it fair, anyway, if you don’t truly love her? I don’t mean to sound so prosy but—’

  ‘She’s pregnant,’ he said flatly. ‘Three months. She wasn’t going to tell me, but after the funeral it was all too emotional for words and she wasn’t very well, poor girl. I think I guessed, anyway. She was so nervous and brittle, so unlike her usual self. She admitted it in the end and, well, it didn’t seem to matter too much, after all. I never guessed that you’d …’ He raised his joined fists and drove them down on the arm of the sofa. ‘For Christ’s sake, Kit!’ he shouted. ‘Why now? Why bloody now? When
it’s too late. Twelve bloody years and you’re three months too late.’

  A quad bike swings round the bend in the lane and Kit clutches her coffee mug and calls out to Mopsa, who comes to her at once. The driver raises his hand and Kit waves back. If he’s noticed that she is in her dressing gown he gives no sign of it. She turns back towards the smithy, thinking of how she might tell Mungo about Jake; about that meeting, brief and magical, after his marriage to Madeleine; about the letter telling her that Madeleine has died.

  She decides that she won’t tell him at the smithy where Camilla or Archie might suddenly appear. No, she will take him for a drive. Mungo likes to be driven, to be taken somewhere for coffee or tea: Totnes, perhaps? Ashburton? As they go into the kitchen she has an idea. The Dandelion Café at Haytor is just the place. They can sit on the sofa and have a long, intimate talk.