That Long Lost Summer

by Minna Howard

  ‘How about a fresh ratatouille and some of that delicious looking ham,’ Martha said. ‘Then those fraises des bois. What do you think?’ she asked Flora and Sylvia.

  ‘Yes, lovely.’ Flora remembered when she and Hugo had introduced the girls to these tiny wild strawberries at a market just like this, and Isabel had said they were too tiny and she’d much rather have the ‘normal’ ones they always had. Hugo had laughed and made her taste one. Flora remembered how surprised and delighted Isabel had been at their sweetness. She felt a rush of tears and turned away from Sylvia and Martha, not wanting them to see her sorrow. How happy they had been when their daughters were with them, their little family complete. If only she could stretch out and pull those times back and never let them go.

  She swallowed hard, forcing her mind to concentrate on the colourful stalls and suddenly, there among them, she saw Xavier watching her over a mound of apricots, and she realised that he had seen her distress.

  He bent down to speak to someone beside him and she remembered that he’d gone to the airport to pick up his son. In a moment the two of them were at her side.

  ‘Flora, is it your turn to cook?’ He didn’t wait for her answer before saying. ‘This is Laurie, we passed the market and I thought he’d enjoy it. We’re also on the lookout for an ice cream.’

  ‘Sounds good.’ Flora smiled down at the small boy who was watching her shyly out of his large dark eyes. With his thick brown hair he was a mini version of his father.

  ‘I’m here with Martha and Sylvia,’ she said as the two women joined them, their baskets now full of vegetables and ham wrapped in paper. Martha leaned down to Laurie.

  ‘I’m so glad you’ve come to join us all,’ she said. ‘Did you come in a plane all by yourself?’

  Laurie nodded.

  ‘Well, you’re very brave, but I’m sure you’ll have a lovely time here with your dad.’ She straightened up and explained to Xavier what they’d bought for supper. Sylvia gave Laurie a strawberry and he held it in his hand as if he did not know what to do with it, eyeing his father hopefully.

  ‘I want an ice cream, a chocolate one,’ he said, as if the strawberry was a substitute and he’d been fobbed off.

  ‘And you shall have one, but you can eat the strawberry first,’ Xavier said. ‘Did you say thank you to Sylvia?’

  Flora had no idea what she thought Xavier’s son would be like, but she realised now she’d expected his character to be open and laughing and perhaps rather sophisticated, but this child seemed so young, so fearful. Perhaps he was traumatised by his parents’ separation, or having to come here on a plane all by himself while his mother rushed off to Spain. She longed to hug him to soothe his fears, but of course she couldn’t and while Sylvia and Martha made much of his son, Xavier asked her if she was all right.

  ‘Of course, I’m fine, just the smell of those leeks and onions made my eyes water,’ she said, looking away from him, annoyed that he’d seen her moment of distress.

  ‘Really, you must have extraordinarily sensitive eyes, then, as those veggies are miles away.’ He gently touched her shoulder, before taking Laurie’s hand and leading him away in search of the promised ice cream.

  15

  The shopping party got back to the villa before Hugo had left on his boating trip, which Flora sort of knew would happen, but she hadn’t the guts to stay down in the little town longer and find her own way back after he’d gone. Or indeed be seen hanging aimlessly around with Xavier and questioned as to what she was doing. She wondered if he knew that Hugo was deserting her and what his reaction would be. Anyway, it was getting hot and she’d rather be by the pool or on the beach.

  She was still annoyed with Hugo for making this outlandish plan without consulting her first and she did not relish seeing him happily sauntering off to sail away from her. She dreaded saying goodbye to him, pretending it was no big deal, with the others in the party looking on. She felt like crying out of sheer frustration. It would serve him right, she thought childishly, if she and Xavier leapt into bed together to finally consummate the passion they’d felt for each other all those years ago.

  She helped Sylvia and Martha carry the groceries into the villa and store them away, lingering a little in the cool, dark kitchen to prevent herself from having to listen to Hugo talking about this trip of his. As she came outside again, she saw Xavier by the pool, rubbing suncream on Laurie’s bony little chest. His son was his priority now and she would not disturb that.

  Martha and Sylvia, relieved at having done the shopping, scurried off to change so they could swim. Sylvia went to feed the cat on the way and Flora asked if she could peep in and see her.

  ‘Yes, but you won’t touch the kittens, will you?’ Sylvia said seriously. ‘We don’t want to disturb her.’

  ‘No, of course not, I’d just like to see them.’ Flora followed her down the passage to the airing cupboard.

  ‘The door to the cupboard must have been left open and she slipped in,’ Sylvia said. ‘No one’s come looking for her. I’ve put up a notice in the village to see if she has an owner and so far, there’s been no reaction. I think she’s probably a stray.’ She opened the door quietly and, in a soft voice, began to reassure the cat she was safe but the cat seemed far more interested in the fish and ate it quickly and delicately from a plate just outside in the passage, while her kittens made tiny squeaks of protest at their mother’s absence.

  Sylvia had fixed up a litter tray, which she emptied into a bag while the mother was eating.

  ‘They are so tiny.’ Flora longed to stroke the kittens, though she knew she mustn’t risk upsetting the mother.

  ‘Didi, Tony, Matt and Susie have gone over to Antibes to visit a friend who’s recently had a baby,’ Sylvia told her, as they walked back outside. ‘The rest of us, apart, of course, from your husband,’ she smiled at her, ‘are staying here by the pool, I think.’

  ‘It is lovely here,’ Flora said, wondering what she wanted to do with her day. It was heating up, making her feel lethargic. Although she now had a car, she hadn’t driven on the right-hand side of the road for ages and was slightly nervous of setting out somewhere on her own. For years Hugo had taken the wheel on their trips and she had left him to it.

  Flora was dressed in white knee length shorts and a pale blue floaty top, but if she wanted to swim she’d have to go and fetch her swimsuit from her room and Hugo had just gone there to pack. She didn’t want to be alone with him while he blustered on about his feelings and how he needed to go on this sailing fiasco, so she went over to the pool and sat down on a sunbed next to Xavier, who had set up a little away from the others.

  Alegria was looking stunning in a wisp of a bikini and lying on a sunbed with headphones plugged into her ears. Flora noticed that Ben kept shooting covetous glances at her, though she seemed oblivious of his scrutiny. Not surprisingly it was Xavier she kept in her sights.

  ‘Hello, Laurie.’ Flora smiled at the small boy sitting on the sunbed beside his father. ‘I’m so glad you’re here. You came on the plane all by yourself, that’s amazing.’

  Laurie flushed, looking pleased. ‘They gave me chocolate, and it was all melty.’

  ‘I hope you ate it before it completely melted,’ she said. ‘Are you going to swim?’

  ‘Yes.’ He looked a little apprehensively at his father.

  ‘Off you go, I’m staying here to watch you.’ Xavier gave him a little push towards the pool.

  Flora wondered if he could swim. The pool would be out of his depth at one end and she didn’t want to save any more children from drowning. She waited for Xavier to tell him to keep in the shallow end or even to go in with him, but Xavier turned to her.

  ‘I hear your husband is going off on a boat up the coast. Didn’t you want to go with him?’ He sounded surprised. ‘I thought you loved being on the water.’

  She could feel his eyes on her behind those dark glasses and she did not look his way.

  ‘No, it’s just him and a
mate, well, he doesn’t really know him but he…’ she struggled to think of a good reason for this caprice of Hugo’s and then thought, why should she? ‘He’s missing our daughters – as am I. We have always been four, you see. Our eldest daughter was born a few months after we married, and now they’ve gone to uni in the US I think he finds being just with me rather boring.’

  ‘Well, then he is a misguided fool,’ Xavier said, the strength of his voice surprising her. ‘All children grow up and leave in the end and I suppose it’s not unusual for the parents to find they no longer have anything in common except for child care, but you could do new things together, change your lives.’

  Before she came up with a reply they heard a splash and she jumped up, thinking that Laurie had fallen in. Xavier laughed and put his hand on her arm to restrain her. ‘Don’t worry, he can swim like a fish, I taught him last summer.’

  She stayed standing, watching the boy pounding up the pool right to the deep end and when he got there he waved at his father, before flipping under water and starting back again.

  ‘He’s amazing,’ she said. ‘My girls took ages to learn.’

  ‘It’s imperative to be able to swim,’ Xavier said, taking off his sunglasses and regarding her, his dark eyes tender, a hint of a smile on his lips. ‘So how long will your husband be away?’ His voice was soft, inviting, and she felt a flash of desire which quickly dissipated when she saw Hugo coming out of the villa with a bag over his arm and making straight for them.

  ‘There you are, darling. I’m ready to go. Edmund will be here just after lunch. Did you have a good time at the market?’ He smiled, but she knew he was acting a part. Perhaps one of the guests here had asked him why he was leaving his wife behind to go on this jaunt, and he wanted to pretend she was happy with his plan.

  Xavier said, ‘So this boat you are crewing for, is it for a race, a regatta or something?’

  ‘No, just a friend who wants to go up the coast. He’s just bought the boat and wants to go up towards Italy. We might even go ashore there.’ Hugo’s voice held a touch of defiance, as if he was justifying himself.

  ‘So, this trip was planned before you came?’ Xavier asked, waving to Laurie who’d completed another length.

  Hugo threw Flora a petulant glance, but she would not meet his gaze and wandered over to the pool to watch Laurie.

  ‘No, not really. I just happened to run into Edmund – someone I know – at the Golf club when I went there with Matt.’

  Laurie now jumped out and ran, dripping, towards Xavier, who held out a towel for him. Flora wandered back to join them.

  ‘Well, we’ll all take care of Flora,’ Xavier said, wrapping the towel round his son and hugging him close.

  ‘Thank you,’ Hugo said rather stiffly. Before he could say any more, Flora declared that she was going to fetch her swimming things and hurried off towards the villa. She felt lost and alone, but she wouldn’t let Hugo know, for though she was annoyed that he was leaving her and for imagining he felt more pain at their daughters’ departure than she did, she didn’t want to be with him as he was now.

  She wondered if Hugo would be so keen to leave her here if he knew how deeply she and Xavier had loved each other all those years ago.

  Should she have told him? Would he then have stayed behind? Would she have even wanted him to?

  16

  Xavier saw Flora coming out of the villa and across the lawn to the pool. She had on her bathing suit, a colourful sarong crossed over her breasts and tied at the back of her neck and a large brimmed straw hat with a wreath of fake daises round the crown. She carried a book and a bottle of suncream.

  One advantage of dark glasses was you could watch people without it being too obvious, and he studied her now, thinking that she hadn’t changed much in all the years since they’d last been together in Suffolk by the cold North Sea. It was an extraordinary fluke that they were here now and had met up again in this way. As far as he could see, the others, and more importantly, Hugo, assumed they’d met among the crowd at the Aldeburgh yacht club one summer long ago. It was true, but they’d been far more than friends. They’d been lovers.

  Flora was what he’d heard described as comfortable in her own skin. She seemed to have no idea how attractive she was, not like Alegria who posed and pouted, arranging herself on the sunbed as if for an important photo shoot, one eye cocked to see if anyone – namely men, he supposed – was watching her. She amused him for she had blossomed into a beautiful woman and though she flirted with him he was not interested. He did not want to get involved with someone so young and, if she took after her mother, very high maintenance emotionally.

  Flora settled herself on the sunbed near him, picking up a bright blue towel from the pile Matt put out each day and arranging it carefully, before raising the back of the bed and applying suncream to her body. This she did in a business-like sort of way, unlike Alegria, who’d made it seem almost like foreplay. Xavier felt sorry for her. Alegria had been short of love in her chaotic childhood and now that she was a beautiful woman, she was attracting men. Not all of them would treat her right. Craving love, she might easily confuse it with lust and be let down by unscrupulous men. He worried for her, but he felt he was not the right person to warn her. Susie was probably the person to do it.

  Her suncream done, Flora smiled at Laurie, who was playing with the collection of cars he’d brought with him.

  ‘You’ve got some lovely cars,’ she said admiringly. ‘I especially like that jeep.’

  Laurie flushed with pleasure. ‘Dad bought it from the States,’ he said, shyly, not looking at her.

  ‘It’s great.’ She said, before leaning back on the sunbed and opening her book as if sensing he wanted to get on with his game instead of being interrogated.

  Xavier looked over towards Flora’s husband. Hugo was the only person round the pool fully dressed. He was sitting on the far side, talking to Ben. Dressed in navy Bermuda shorts and a pale blue shirt, he was clearly ready for his friend to come and collect him for this boat trip. He seemed to show little interest in his wife, nor indeed, she in him. They were obviously not happy together.

  Sylvia bought out some bread, cheese and fruit for those who wanted lunch and Hugo and Ben went to help themselves.

  Xavier lay back on the sunbed, tired now, and not hungry. He hadn’t slept well, worrying about Laurie flying here alone.

  Now, they were disturbed by the noise of a vehicle charging into the drive and coming to a screeching halt in the scrub grass at the side of the villa.

  A rather battered campervan shuddered to a halt and a woman of indeterminate age, with bright blonde hair and sun burnt skin the colour of old leather, struggled out. She wore long turquoise shorts and a loose T-shirt, patterned with birds. Seeing them all staring in shocked fascination, she waved cheerfully.

  ‘Hope this is the right place. Villa Emeraude? Come on, Serge. Nous sommes ici.’ Her accent was painfully English.

  A slight, dark haired man with the grace of a dancer appeared from the other side of the van. He smiled nervously at everyone round the pool.

  Xavier realised that he knew them, though he hadn’t seen them for some time. Susie’s Aunt Eadie and her partner, Serge. He jumped up to greet them aware that everyone was watching this scenario with amazement.

  ‘Oh, Xavier, how good to see you.’ Eadie said with relief. ‘We’re in a muddle. Our trip was further than we thought and now the campsite is full, so I just hoped Susie and Matt wouldn’t mind if we stayed here a couple of days. We won’t intrude, we’re completely self-sufficient. Are they here?’ Eadie peered over his shoulder at the people sitting by the pool.

  ‘They’ve gone over to Antibes, to see a friend. They’ll be back this evening,’ Xavier said. ‘Alegria is here.’ He waved at her. Like the rest of them she was a keen spectator to this arrival.

  She got up slowly and beautifully and glided over. ‘Great Aunt Eadie and Serge,’ she said, ‘I haven’t seen you in ages. What
are you doing here? But it’s good to see you,’ she added quickly.

  ‘My, you’ve blossomed into a beauty.’ Eadie gave her a hug. ‘Hasn’t she, Serge?’ Xavier saw that the man was tongue-tied, staring at Alegria in amazement. ‘You were such a nondescript little person, but you’ve turned out beautiful, well done.’ Eadie patted her arm as if Alegria was entirely responsible for her transformation.

  Xavier remembered how Eadie spoke her mind in a way that could be disconcerting to today’s generation.

  ‘Well, don’t mind us, everyone.’ Eadie smiled round at them all. ‘Carry on as you were, we won’t interrupt you further. There’s plenty of room for us here, out of your way.’ She gestured to the patch of grass beside the van. ‘I think you can get your cars out. We’ll put up our tent and leave you in peace. We can’t bear to sleep inside, unless it’s chucking it down, or snowing.’ With a royal wave she turned away and instructed Serge, in a sort of Franglais, to unload the van so they could get themselves settled.

  Alegria lingered by the van. ‘I didn’t know you were coming. Aunt Susie didn’t say.’

  ‘She didn’t know and nor did we. We’re driving around the whole of the south and going on to Italy, but we misjudged the journey. We are about twenty kilometres out, so of course all the campsites were full up,’ Eadie explained.

  ‘Do you need any help with anything?’ Xavier asked. Eadie was no longer young and Serge was fine boned and slight, though younger, perhaps in his fifties. Xavier felt Laurie creep close to him, as if seeking reassurance.

  ‘No, thank you, we’ll set up a brew in a minute. Cup of tea, anyone?’ Eadie smiled round at them. Then catching sight of Laurie, she bent down to his level, saying. ‘Is Xavier your daddy? You look just like him.’ She straightened up and seeing Flora coming over to join them said, ‘His mother?’