The Dead Summer

by Helen Moorhouse

  Albie has given her a small gold ring with a single ruby set on top of the band. She says it’s not an engagement ring, but as good as. Needless to say, while Marion is now a street angel, she is still the house devil she always was. She loves to wave her ring in my face and flaunt her romance at me, knowing that my heart is broken for the love that she spoiled on me. She still does unexpected things as well. For instance, once she just flung out her hand and hit me on my temple with the ring and made me bleed. She never apologised, as always, just said I was lucky to still have my eye and it’s all I deserve having brought shame on us by seeing Robert behind her back. I don’t know if she loves Albie as I love, loved, Robert. He is a funny looking fellow, skinny with sandy hair slicked back with brilliantine as it is curly. He is ten years older than Marion, pale with beady green eyes but she talks of him as if he were James Dean!

  He went to Cambridge and I am unsure now what he does, other than that he is very rich indeed which is what I think Marion loves more than poor Albie himself. She will not allow me to meet him of course, although at least he knows I exist. She has told him we are orphans under the wardship of Mr Mountford, which is a risky strategy as Mr Mountford is his brother’s father-in-law, but so far Marion remains undiscovered.

  I am happy for her – it would be selfish of me to be any other way and if one of us at least makes our fortune then that is at least a blessing in itself. She has used her relationship with Albie to be even more horrible to Henry though, if that is possible. He is only three, a little fellow for his age and slow to speak because every time he opens his mouth to talk she shouts at him to shut up. The poor little boy is terrified of her, and has taken to hiding behind my skirts if she so much as walks into a room where he is. This infuriates her more than ever and she has taken to grabbing his little head at the temples on either side and lifting him by it while he screams and wriggles to be free. I am terrified that she will break his neck and I have to run to try to hold up his legs, as though he were being hanged. If she manages to get him up by his head she swings him from side to side and he screams even louder because all the while she is shouting in his face to shut up, and telling him that he is nothing but a bastard and it’s his fault that we live here in the countryside, alone.

  She screams at him every time she sees him, that he killed his grandmother, that he will be the ruination of us and that if Albie ever sees him or hears him that she will kill him stone dead with her bare hands. Poor Henry can scarce understand what she is saying but she would spend all of her days and nights frightening him if she could. She has clearly told him that when she marries Albie she will not take him to live with her in her new big house but leave him here in Eyrie Farm with me.

  That does not make me entirely unhappy because I know I can keep Henry safe. On the other hand it makes me a prisoner for life because who will want a girl with a small child? Who will believe that he is my sister’s child and that the shame of his birth wasn’t all down to me? Next year he will be due to start school and I am worried already what to do. Should I try to teach him myself at home? Or do as Mrs Collins has suggested and up and leave Eyrie Farm and go somewhere that no one knows us and live a life of pretence, wearing a wedding ring and telling people that I am a widow and that Henry is my son?

  The thought of the future, if I am to be Henry’s carer, make me nervous and worried. Our fiscal situation is precarious. Obviously Daddy doesn’t send us our allowance any more as he has nothing left, so I am glad that I have squirreled some money away from the amounts that he used to send. I have also started to take in some sewing and repairs, using Mrs Collins as a ‘front’ as they say in the pictures! That earns me a few shillings and I try to hide as much of that as I can from Marion who is a huge drain on our resources with her new lifestyle.

  By some miracle, Mr Mountford lets us stay in Eyrie Farm. After my romance with Robert was discovered I was sure that it was curtains then and we would be out on the streets of England, homeless and destitute, but it seems that Marion has some special hold over Mr Mountford and we still have a roof over our heads, so I suppose I must be thankful to her, whatever she has done. I know that I haven’t enough money saved to start a new life elsewhere though, and if Marion leaves to marry Albie then where does that leave me and Henry? As with Robert, I try to put it to the back of my mind, but as another year is closed for me on another St Brigid’s Day and my twentieth birthday, the worry creeps more and more to the forefront of my mind.

  Pray to God that He will look after us, Caroline. I haven’t been the best servant to Him but if ever there was a soul who needed His help, it is I.

  Your friend,

  Lily

  Chapter 29

  Martha found Will rifling through the kitchen cupboards and then crossing to the fridge and rummaging through there. He turned his head when he saw her.

  “Do you ever eat anything?” he said.

  Martha smiled. “Sorry, it’s all a bit Mother Hubbard at the moment – I haven’t had a chance to do a proper shop with . . . everything. Unless you’d like me to defrost some puréed sweet potato for you? I’m sure I’ve some with broccoli in it somewhere?”

  “Mmm . . . sounds delicious!” said Will, making a face at Ruby. “Actually, I think we’re okay.” He took a jar of pesto from the fridge.

  “Oh, let me,” said Martha, realising that he intended to cook.

  He put his hands up to stop her. “Not at all, I insist! You hungry?”

  Martha was starving. She had eaten nothing since half a bowl of fruit in the hotel that morning and she realised that it was now approaching six o’clock.

  “Actually I’m ravenous,” she said and smiled. No one had cooked for her in a long time – ‘chick stuff’, Dan had called cooking. It didn’t stop him barbequing in front of guests though. And taking the credit when Martha was the one who had spent hours making salads and marinades.

  Martha kept jumping up to help Will as he cooked but he commanded her to sit down so often and so fiercely that she eventually obeyed and sat at the kitchen table, half an eye on the cooking and half on Ruby who was fascinated with a plastic bowl that Will had given her.

  Will beavered around the kitchen, opening a packet of pasta, chopping olives and cherry tomatoes and toasting stale ciabatta bread in the oven which he slathered with garlic butter that he had mixed himself. Fifteen minutes later he served Martha a steaming bowl of pasta and a plate of crispy bread.

  “For madam,” he said, “a serving of my finest linguine with basil pesto.” He swooped the dish down in front of her with a flourish. “Or as I like to call it – Lin-greeny.”

  Martha burst out laughing. The joke wasn’t that funny but it was so long since anyone had said anything that stupid and lighthearted to her that she couldn’t stop herself. Will beamed, thinking his joke was hilarious, and retreated to the worktop to serve his own food, chuckling to himself. The sight of him, so proud at his own ridiculous wordplay, made Martha laugh even harder and she had to calm herself down before she could eat a bite.

  Will was still chuffed with himself as he plonked a huge glass of red wine down in front of her. “You like my joke?” he said in a stupid accent and set her off again.

  She composed herself with a long sigh and took a mouthful of food. “Not so much,” she replied. “But, genuinely, I’m enjoying the company and being cooked for is a real novelty for me.” She wound more pasta around her fork, skewered a piece of olive and popped the lot in her mouth.

  It was the normality she was enjoying, she realised. She had usually been tense in this house on her own, even without knowing it sometimes, but she felt relaxed with Will here and with Gabriel’s encouraging words still in the back of her mind. Suddenly, the incongruity of the situation hit her – she had earlier been reassured by someone telling her that dead people had jobs and here she was sitting in a house that was apparently full of ghosts, rigged throughout with cameras and microphones. And yet she was enjoying pasta and
a joke. Shouldn’t this be more . . . momentous, she thought. More serious? More solemn?

  A small twinge of panic hit her and she pushed all thoughts from her mind. Deal with it later, she thought. She remembered that Sue used to address her as ‘The Procrastinator’ after they had seen Terminator in college. She was right. Martha was queen of blocking out stuff she didn’t want to think about and for once she was glad of the skill. She took a gulp of wine to wash down some food which had lodged in her throat. She gave a small cough and shifted in her seat.

  “Are you not having wine?” she asked Will, noticing the glass of water in front of him.

  He shook his head, his mouth full. A tiny piece of pasta jutted out from the corner of his mouth, as though waiting until there was room for it to fit in. Will reached up with his hand and pushed it in, like a child might. Martha found the gesture endearing and smiled.

  “Not tonight, ta,” he said. “I have to keep a clear head for later.”

  Martha pushed her own glass away. “Then I’d better not either.”

  Will gently pushed it back toward her. “I don’t want to say that you might need it but . . . well . . . you might need it. Dutch courage.” He grinned almost sympathetically.

  Again, Martha coughed and looked around her nervously, her earlier burst of courage waning.

  Will saw the shadow that crossed her face. “So,” he said, scooping up more food. “Am I allowed to ask for Martha Armstrong in a nutshell?” He instantly furrowed his brows and looked puzzled. “That didn’t sound right, did it?”

  Martha smiled. “Not really,” she replied with a grin. “Not much to tell – born in a small town, parents ran a pub, Mum died when I was young so Dad brought me up – hence very awkward adolescence with exceptionally bad clothes. That was followed by the slightly Goth phase in school . . .”

  Will’s eyes widened. “You were a Goth?”

  Martha rolled her eyes in embarrassment. “A very half-hearted one! I think it was because I hadn’t a clue how to be a proper teenager and let’s face it – it solved the bad-clothes problem. I think I liked the whole clearly defined group thing as well – I had something to belong to, something I could be sure of almost. It only lasted six months anyway and then I just reverted to relatively dull and boring. I think I had a lucky escape – could have died from hairspray poisoning otherwise.” She paused for a bite of bread. “Studied journalism in college – I met Sue there. Thought it was a good choice because I’m good at writing but that’s only ten per cent of being a journalist – unfortunately I was absolutely crap at the other ninety per cent of stuff like asking people awkward questions and getting within a ten-mile radius of conflict. I didn’t do a very good job at it. Sue, on the other hand, is brilliant. Not only does she have the balls, but her mind works in a totally different way to most people’s and she thinks of the most brilliant questions. One time she was interviewing Pierce Brosnan –”

  Will coughed to interrupt her. “Martha Armstrong in a nutshell, please – not Sue Brice, nice and all as she is!”

  Martha giggled. “Sue Brice – yes, remember that name! You’ll be seeing lots of it in the future, believe you me! Anyway, I ended up becoming an advertising copywriter in the long run and met my husband – well, ex-husband – Dan, while working in an agency. He was a sales rep who worked his way up to Chief Account Director, and I slogged away coming up with captions and concepts for ten years.” Martha paused for a mouthful of wine and more pasta. “Loving the Lin-greeny by the way,” she grinned.

  Will smiled back. “Would I know any of your advertising work then?”

  Martha thought for a moment. “Do you remember the Albert Hitchcock commercials for ketchup?”

  It was Will’s turn to think. “Oh yes! The guy in the tank top who looked like he was getting attacked by birds and it was all dramatic and everything and then the camera pulls out and it turns out it’s just one sparrow and it’s done its business on his head?”

  Martha nodded. “There was a series of them based on Alfred Hitchcock’s movies – Psycho, Strangers on a Train – and at the end of each poor Albert Hitchcock would turn sideways . . .”

  “And the outline of his profile would appear – like on the TV show!”

  Martha nodded. “That’s right – looking nothing like Alfred Hitchcock but the music was similar and then the tagline would come in: ‘The Real One’s Better’. Simple, really.”

  Will looked at her in amazement. “That was you? My God – those commercials are classics! They’ve been in those Top 100 Commercial Countdowns for years!”

  “Number seventy-eight,” grinned Martha, embarrassed but flushed at the unexpected praise.

  Will raised his eyebrows at Ruby who was turning a small Humpty Dumpty over and over in her hands. “Your mother’s a genius, Ruby-Doo!” Ruby looked at him quizzically and then beamed, delighted with the attention, like her mother. Will turned back. “So, how did an award-winning advertising copywriter end up in the back end of nowhere by herself?”

  “Well, for starters, the ads never won any awards, Fact Fans!” said Martha.

  Will looked shocked but continued to eat, expectantly watching Martha for the rest of the story.

  “The whole advertising thing wasn’t as satisfying or as exciting as people seem to think – you bust your guts coming up with a concept that you think a client will love and that’s right for their brand and then they positively hate it and want to do something really banal and rubbish. You’re just torn all the time between your creativity and trying to make the money guys happy, and then the sales guys are on your back all the time because their commission depends on you coming up with something amazing in thirty seconds flat – oh, it could just all be very stressful a lot of the time.”

  “But surely you must have been really well-respected after Albert Hitchcock?”

  Martha shook her head. “Where I worked, the creatives are always the underlings. All a successful commercial does is raise the bar higher. They actually used me to sell the agency for a while – the sales execs used to wheel me out at meetings like a Victorian Freak to try to win accounts. Dan even had a line where he introduced me as ‘The Bird Behind Hitchcock’ – it was funny three times max but it wore very thin after a thousand outings! To be honest, we were married by then so I was ‘My wife! The Bird Behind Hitchcock!’”

  Will grimaced and shook his head.

  “I was getting really sick of the job at that stage,” she went on. “I mean, people were expecting me to come up with stuff that was exactly right for them at the drop of a hat and I couldn’t do that – I mean it’s not like being an electrician or a plumber for example. Go in, see problem, search mental skill bank and toolbox and job done. There’s only a finite number of things that can go wrong so electricians and plumbers have a pretty good chance of getting things right – and people love them! I bloody wish I was an electrician or a plumber!”

  “You’d look rubbish in overalls,” said Will, smiling.

  Martha smiled back. “Good point. Anyway, my heart just wasn’t in advertising any more – the constant expectation just put me under pressure I couldn’t live up to and I’ve always wanted to be a writer – children’s books – so I had a plan all formulated. I wanted to resign and have Dan support me for a little while to see if I could make a go of it at writing. Bear in mind we were absolutely loaded at this stage. Dan was on a massive salary – and all his bonuses were going into a special savings account for the future – or so I thought.”

  They had finished eating and Will had pushed his chair back and stretched his legs. “So he didn’t have the savings?”

  Martha sipped her wine and shook her head. “He had the savings alright – it’s just that they were for a different future than the one I had planned. I got pregnant around then so I decided to stay in work for a while until I had the baby, save up as much as we could, it was all rosy in the garden. I was just about to have Ruby when I found out that Dan’s fu
ture was with one of the other account directors. He’d been seeing her for a couple of years apparently – they had this whole life set up together. So that was the end of that. We split up, I had Ruby and we sold our house and with my share I decided to just do what I wanted to do and this is it.” Martha indicated the house around her. “A total break away, new life, new career – I just needed to get away from things in London.”

  “Was it a messy divorce?” asked Will sympathetically.

  “The divorce itself wasn’t. But the mess was in my head – and my heart, to be honest. Realising that he’d been cheating on me for years, that he had this whole other life with this woman. All the business trips, golfing holidays abroad – he was essentially living two lives. Of course you torture yourself – picturing them together – ugh! And all that money. I’m not materialistic but we had worked so hard and saved so hard and I just had this vision of the future . . . I don’t even want to think about it!”

  Will shook his head. “What about Ruby then?” He bent down to pick her up and sat her on his knee, wrapping his arms around her and snuggling into her face.

  Martha watched these gestures of affection from a man she’d known for what – two or three days? It hit her that Ruby’s own father had never done that.

  “He’s seen her once,” she smirked, coldly. “Came to the hospital after she was born. Sue held my hand during the birth actually. Drew the line at holding my leg though! Dan waded in when Ruby was a day old with an enormous teddy bear and tried to come over all fatherly and hold her up to the window – do you know that scene in Only Fools and Horses when Del Boy has Damien for the first time? Yeah – Dan tried to do that, showing her the lights of the city, blithering on about destiny. I just bloody lost it when he started mouthing off about ‘bearing his name’ and I chucked him out – and his bloody giant bear with him. I was quite proud of myself, actually!”