Seven Days in Summer

by Marcia Willett

  ‘I totally love them,’ she said, as they walked together on the beach, stopping to look up at him anxiously lest he should suspect her of cruelty. ‘It’s a compliment. I loved the Brambly Hedge books when I was little and it’s meant in a good way. It’s all so cosy and they are so sweet. Mr and Mrs Apple at the Store Stump.’

  ‘Not Lord and Lady Woodmouse, then?’ he asked, looking down at her quizzically, and they both burst out laughing.

  How wonderful it was to be able to make that kind of remark without the other person looking puzzled and asking, ‘What do you mean?’ Probably he read the books to Matt when he was small, like the twins.

  The thought brings her up short, gives her a little jolt. She doesn’t want to think about Baz like that. He is Baz, and she loves him. How good it will be to be on neutral ground; no longer surrounded by family and well-meaning friends.

  Feeling very slightly deflated, more aware of what might lie ahead, Sofia opens the gate and goes into the garden.

  Dave, hearing the click of the gate-latch, rises at once from the table under the cherry tree, going to meet her, shielding her for this moment from Miles and Annabel, who are sitting with Janet.

  He is aware that something momentous could have happened and that he might need to protect Sofia from the curious stares of their two friends. He can see her expression: triumph, happiness, mingled with a faint anxiety and vulnerability.

  Instinctively he takes her by the arm, smiling at her.

  ‘Miles and Annabel are here,’ he says cheerfully. ‘Did you enjoy your walk?’

  ‘Yes,’ she answers. ‘Yes, oh yes, I did. I came back over the cliff path.’

  She looks confused, peering past him rather anxiously to the little group and he notices that she doesn’t mention either Baz or Liv.

  ‘Well, that’s all good then, isn’t it?’ he says, trying to indicate that nothing else need be said.

  He gives her arm a little squeeze, a little shake. She looks at him with vague eyes and he feels a frisson of anxiety lest she should give herself – and Baz – away.

  ‘Sofia’s been walking over the cliffs,’ he calls to them, still holding her arm, so as to comfort her, or prevent her from falling over. He isn’t sure which, but he knows that something has happened and is determined to protect her. He remembers his own girls, young and vulnerable and in love, and his own sense of helplessness.

  Annabel glances round indifferently, clearly disinterested in anything Sofia might have done, and Dave sighs an internal gasp of relief. Miles is smiling at her and Janet chimes in with some remark about the storm. The moment passes. He pushes Sofia gently on to a chair and sits down again. Janet is looking at him, eyebrows raised, and he gives her a private little nod.

  ‘Well,’ she says cheerfully, ‘I think I ought to be doing something about lunch …’

  Miles and Annabel stand up at once, apologizing for staying so long, thanking her for the coffee, preparing to go.

  ‘See you later,’ calls Janet after them. ‘Don’t forget our barbecue this evening. Come about six-ish.’

  Dave sees them out through the gate and comes back.

  ‘A good walk?’ Janet is saying brightly. ‘Was Liv there? And Baz?’

  Sofia looks up at her. ‘No,’ she says. ‘Well, yes.’

  Janet laughs. ‘Make up your mind.’

  ‘Yes. Sorry. Liv wasn’t there. Baz was.’

  There is a silence. Janet collects cups together; Dave watches Sofia.

  ‘So,’ says Janet at last. ‘Well, then. So that was nice.’

  ‘Yes,’ says Sofia softly. ‘It was. Very nice.’

  Dave and Janet look at each other. Janet rolls her eyes and Dave does a facial shrug: eyebrows up, mouth down.

  ‘And did he mention this evening’s barbecue?’ asks Janet.

  Sofia looks confused, anxious. ‘No,’ she says. ‘No, we didn’t … talk about that.’

  ‘I’m sure you didn’t,’ says Janet drily. ‘But I expect he’ll be here. Liv said she’d give it a miss. Bath-time and all that. Never mind. They can come another time.’

  She piles the things on to a tray and carries them into the cottage. Dave takes another look at Sofia and follows her.

  ‘Away with the fairies,’ he comments, pushing open the kitchen door for Janet, who dumps the tray on the table and gives an exasperated sigh.

  ‘So now what?’

  He shrugs. ‘Who can say? She’s obviously deep in.’

  Janet gives a tiny snort. ‘I might just kill Baz.’

  ‘It’s not his fault,’ says Dave defensively. ‘It takes two, you know.’

  ‘I am beginning to dread this evening,’ Janet says.

  ‘It’ll be fine,’ says Dave, with a confidence he doesn’t feel. ‘She’s not a child. And Baz will …’

  ‘And Baz will what?’ asks Janet sharply, beginning to load the dishwasher.

  ‘Don’t put the cups there,’ he says automatically. ‘Look, let me do that. Baz will know how to behave. Unless they’ve decided …’

  ‘Decided what?’ she cries impatiently, and then both instinctively turn to look at the garden door.

  ‘It’ll be fine,’ says Dave desperately. ‘Baz would never do anything embarrassing. Take my word for it.’

  Sofia comes into the kitchen. She smiles upon them both with radiance and a kind of tenderness as if they are a pair of innocent children.

  ‘I’m just going up to get my phone,’ she says. ‘Is there anything I can do to help?’

  ‘No,’ says Janet. ‘No, you carry on, darling Sofes. Lunch in twenty minutes?’

  Sofia beams at them and disappears up the stairs. Janet and Dave stare at one another.

  ‘How am I going to explain to her mother?’ mutters Janet.

  Baz is still sitting with El when the text arrives.

  ‘Have you remembered that the barbecue at the Store Stump is this evening?’

  He begins to laugh and then sees an earlier text: ‘Counting down, mon ami: dix, neuf, huit …’

  ‘What’s the joke?’ El is asking idly, but Baz seems distracted and doesn’t answer.

  He closes his mobile and puts it away. He looks distracted, very serious, and she watches him curiously. Suddenly he pulls himself together, smiles quickly at her.

  ‘Sorry,’ he says. ‘Are you coming to the barbecue tonight at the Store Stump?’

  ‘At the where?’

  ‘Sorry,’ he says again. He looks amused and embarrassed all at once. ‘Dave and Janet are giving their usual barbecue. You know. Their return match. You usually come, don’t you?’

  ‘Yes,’ she answers. ‘Yes, of course.’

  She thinks about Miles and her heart sinks a little, knowing that she can never quite supply his requirement to share with her.

  ‘Good,’ Baz says. ‘Excellent. Liv won’t be there to give me moral support. And I might need it.’

  ‘You and me both,’ she answers.

  CHAPTER NINETEEN

  OUTSIDE THE CAFÉ, down on the beach at South Milton, Liv sits at one of the wooden tables with the twins opposite and Jenks at her feet. Lunch is finished and the twins are playing one of their complicated games with their favourite toys. They sit astride the bench facing each other while the toys – Pengy and Douggie Doggy – have a conversation.

  Liv is hardly listening, staring out to sea where the white sails of a small yacht are just visible in the bright sunshine. The water dazzles her eyes but she isn’t really aware of the yacht or the shimmer of the sea; she is thinking about Matt and that odd note of relief in his voice. She has been telling herself not to be foolish and neurotic, but so far this isn’t working.

  She’s tried convincing herself that Matt is relieved because Joe is back and is taking on all the administration even if he can’t do front of house. This has got to be a help, and Matt will be very glad of it. But it doesn’t really explain that strange conversation, the urgency with which he had cried ‘I love you’ as if there might be some doubt
about it. As if she needs reassurance to assuage her fear.

  Fear: she remembers a conversation she had quite recently with her mother about fear. It was all to do with Cat and her mother, Angela. Cat had popped into The Place and managed, as usual, to leave an air of uneasiness, of discord, behind her. Liv was telling her mother about it, trying to analyse how it happened, and her mother suddenly decided to share a few secrets. It was a shock to Liv to learn that her father and Angela had been an item, once, back in the day. Until Mum appeared on the scene.

  ‘Angela never forgave me,’ she told Liv, ‘and your father felt guilty about it. She used to play up to him, flirt with him, and Pete used to go along with it because of the guilt. She was so clever, so good at making trouble. Well, you know Cat so I’m sure you can imagine. Do you remember how they used to pop in on their way to Rock when Pete and Martin were at sea? Angela always managed to drop a hint, sow a seed, put me on the back foot. Then another naval wife told me that they were having an affair. She’d seen Pete leaving Angela’s married quarter by taxi early one morning when Martin was away. There was a perfectly reasonable explanation, as it happens, but I didn’t know that and at last I brought it all out in the open with Pete. I suddenly saw how my own fear was causing just as much damage as Angela’s clever trouble-making. I was doing all her work for her by allowing it to come between me and Pete.’

  Now, Liv props her elbows on the table, thinking about this conversation. The twins climb down from their bench and continue their game in the gritty, powdery sand. Liv can feel Jenks moving beside her feet under the table, digging into the sand to find the cooler, damper ground beneath. She moves to accommodate him, feeling his warmth against her bare leg. She is comforted by this contact, though she knows she’s being foolish to feel so vulnerable; to need the comfort. Yet the uneasiness remains. A text pings in and she picks up her mobile: it’s from Andy.

  ‘How are you doing? Thought I’d pop in to see Matt later.’

  Liv smiles with a sense of real relief. It’s as if her twin has picked up her anxious vibes. She answers at once: ‘Great. It will be a nice surprise for him. X.’

  She stares at the text for a moment. There is an implicit message here and she wonders if Andy will pick it up. And what actually is she trying to tell him? Liv hesitates, biting her lip, then presses the send button. She feels anxious, guilty and slightly ashamed, as if she is encouraging Andy to spy on Matt; to take him by surprise. Of course, she could text Matt and tell him that Andy will be popping in sometime, but somehow she doesn’t. She rubs her foot on Jenks’ back and feels his tail beating in response. How comforting dogs are; how uncomplicated. The dance of love has so many steps, so many rhythms. It’s so easy to put a foot wrong, to miss the beat and get out of sync with one another.

  Once again Liv feels a great longing for change; to try something new with Matt. Their dance has become too familiar, too set in routine. She’s always worked in the hospitality industry, in pubs and restaurants, helping friends to set up the holiday complex near Port Isaac. She and Matt might try something like that, or maybe the glamping she’s been mulling over.

  A shadow falls across the table and she glances up. A man is standing there, holding a glass, indicating the spare bench.

  ‘It’s filling up,’ he says. ‘May I share?’

  ‘Yes, of course,’ she answers.

  He sits down, smiles his thanks, but she sees that he is looking at her rather curiously and she is aware of the little pink hearts that the twins have stuck on her arms. She laughs, embarrassed, and starts to pull them off.

  ‘Oh, don’t do that,’ he says. ‘They look rather good. They make a statement.’

  He stretches his legs out, encounters Jenks, pulls them back quickly and looks under the table.

  ‘Aha,’ he says. ‘I see you are well guarded.’

  Liv laughs, liking him. ‘I certainly am. But don’t worry. He doesn’t bite.’

  ‘It’s an amazing place,’ he says, indicating the Beachhouse. ‘You think from first sight that it’s just a simple kind of ice-cream kiosk and yet the food is delicious and people actually book tables inside for lunch.’

  ‘It’s like the Tardis,’ Liv says. ‘Are you on holiday?’

  He tells her how he used to come on holiday here as a child, and camp overnight on the beach, and they fall into an easy conversation. It’s very pleasant to sit in the sun and talk, to relax.

  Flora and Freddie appear; it’s time to go back to the Beach Hut. As she encourages Jenks to his feet and smiles farewell to her companion Liv remembers that tonight is Janet and Dave’s barbecue and she feels faintly relieved that she has an excuse not to go. It would be difficult with the twins, probably overexcited and tired, especially with the rather snooty Annabel, who clearly disapproves of anyone who has any claim on Baz. Briefly Liv wonders if Sofia might give it a miss and come to keep her company and then remembers that Dave and Janet are Sofia’s hosts and it would look rather rude to abandon them at their own barbecue.

  Liv pushes her feet into her espadrilles, wondering when Andy might go to see Matt. Supposing Matt were just to turn up; to arrive at the Beach Hut unannounced? How great that would be. She’s surprised at how much she misses him. After all, they’ve only been apart for six days. She thinks about her mum and wonders how she coped with all that separation with Dad away at sea for weeks at a time.

  ‘Get a grip,’ she admonishes herself. ‘Don’t be so wet.’

  But somehow it doesn’t help.

  Matt sees Catriona enter the bar in that quiet time after lunch but before early drinks are served, and his heart sinks. He wasn’t expecting her back so soon and he braces himself to greet her. His resolve is not shaken and his conversation with Liv has underlined all that is at risk. Catriona’s frail yet potent magic is shattered, but it’s awkward all the same.

  ‘Hi,’ he says, wondering how they can get back on that old jokey footing that was between them before he went to Rock. She’d disarmed him by her grief for her mother and now it’s difficult to know how to move on. He is determined not to lose ground, and he still wonders how and what he will tell Liv about Sunday and lunch at Outlaw’s.

  Catriona is watching him with her familiar secret, amused look, as if she knows exactly what he is thinking.

  ‘Too late for lunch,’ Matt says cheerfully, ‘and too early for supper. It’ll have to be tea again.’

  ‘I had to do some shopping,’ she says, indicating a supermarket carrier bag, ‘so I thought I’d drop by.’

  He stifles an urge to say, ‘Wouldn’t Wadebridge have been closer?’ and nods. ‘So. Tea then?’

  ‘That would be nice.’

  She’s maintaining that faintly wistful, bereaved demeanour that makes it very difficult to be offhand and he longs for the old Catriona; the spiky, quick-tongued Cat that Liv dislikes so much.

  ‘Have you got time to have one with me?’ she asks, with that same orphan-in-the-storm hopefulness, and he has to take a grip on his irritation.

  ‘I’ve just had some coffee,’ he says untruthfully, and sees again that flash of amusement as she acknowledges his lie. ‘But I might be able to sit down for a minute.’

  He leaves her, going into the kitchen, standing still for a moment whilst the few staff on duty look at him curiously.

  ‘A pot of tea,’ he says, ‘and don’t hurry with it.’

  Catriona watches him go. She knows she’s lost him but she can’t quite tell why. Something has happened to make him feel guilty, to warn him off. She wonders what it is. Sunday was so good and she would bet that he hasn’t told Liv about it. She sits quite still, thinking. There isn’t much time. She has to be back in London ready for work on Monday. It’s strange, this desire to smash and destroy; to get her own back for her spoiled childhood and her father’s defection. She has nobody now, and the Bodrugans are still one big happy family.

  Catriona realizes that she is staring at one of the paintings of the street market. Her curiosity distract
s her from her thoughts and she stands up and leans forward to look at the signature again: Maurice Desmoulins. The door opens and somebody comes in from the street. Catriona glances round and does a double take, shocked out of her usual composure.

  ‘Well, well,’ says Andy Bodrugan. ‘Catriona. What brings you here?’

  She recovers herself quickly. Liv’s twin is the very last person she needs right now, though he is looking very handsome with those blond, blue-eyed Bodrugan good looks. Thinking of that brief time she and Andy were an item she wonders if she can revive the fascination she once exercised over him.

  ‘Much the same as you, I imagine,’ she answers lightly, sitting down. ‘I’m at the cottage at Rock and I came in to Truro to do some shopping and see the folks.’

  ‘Except that Liv isn’t here,’ says Andy, sitting down beside her.

  ‘But Matt is,’ she answers, smiling at him. ‘Isn’t that nice? He’s just gone to get me some tea. Where are you staying?’

  ‘With friends at Polzeath. So, we’re almost neighbours.’

  ‘So we are. I’d invite you over but the cottage is in a terrible mess. Mum died earlier this year and Matt’s been helping me clear up.’

  She almost laughs out loud at his expression: dismay, shock, but more than that; almost as if he’d been expecting something – but not this.

  ‘Matt?’ He stares at her, frowning, and she shakes her head at him.

  ‘You sound incredulous, as if you can’t imagine Matt being kind and helpful. He was really sweet so I took him to Outlaw’s for lunch as a reward. Was he expecting you? He didn’t mention it.’

  She’s beginning to enjoy herself now. It’s good to drop Matt well and truly in it whilst watching Andy’s discomfiture. She got very close to him way back, until his family put the boot in, and she’ll never forgive him for ditching her, just like Pete ditched her mum for Julia.

  ‘So here I am,’ she says. ‘Again. It’s been quite fun. Matt’s going to do another little job for me at Rock. I’ve got to get some stuff to the tip.’

  How sweet it is to imply that Matt is at her beck and call, running her errands, dancing to her tune. She is just wondering how much more trouble she can make when the kitchen door opens and Matt comes out with a tray of tea. She watches eagerly, waiting for his look of horror and possibly fear, but to her surprise Matt’s face lights up at the unexpected sight of his brother-in-law. He dumps the tray unceremoniously on the table and embraces Andy, who is now on his feet.