In the Summertime (5 page)

‘Aagh! Look at this mess,’ Miranda said, beginning to cram the mass of dirty crockery and sticky knives from the worktop into the dishwasher. ‘Why do people always drop by at a point of maximum messiness? Come on, Silva, move your body.’

‘Why?’

‘Because …’ Too late. ‘Oh, hi!’ Miranda said, putting on a social smile as Clare came in ahead of the other two. ‘Good swim?’

‘Glorious. But look who I just found in the garden!’ She turned and pulled Jessica into the room.

‘Hello, Miranda. Been a long time. How are you?’

‘Oh my God!’ Miranda’s hand went to her mouth. ‘Jess! How amazing – I thought I sort of knew you last night, but it was all too quick. And I thought, no, it couldn’t be.’ She could feel tears pricking at her eyes. Jessica came forward and hugged her gently. Miranda sniffed and smiled.

‘Come on, girls, let’s leave these two to chat,’ Clare said to Lola and Silva, who were scowling at each other across the kitchen. She chivvied them outside to the terrace. ‘They’ve got twenty years of catching up to do.’

‘Is it me or is this
totally
weird?’ Miranda said to Jessica as she switched on the kettle to make coffee. ‘I mean, we’re here in
your
house, you and me, but where did twenty years go? Or at least now you’re in it I think of it as yours, like from before. I expect to see Liz coming through the door telling us off for treading sand all over the floor.’

‘Ha! She so would. Not that she’s around now – she and Dad got divorced ages ago and she’s happy in Hampstead where there are
proper streets
. It is completely bizarre, you’re right, cos there’s me living in
your
old house,’ Jessica said, prowling the kitchen, stroking her fingers along the back of one of the Ghost chairs. ‘Mad, isn’t it? Who’d ever have thought it would be like this, back when we were sixteen? Or even that we wouldn’t see each other again after that summer?’ She went to the window and gazed out at the view down the
creek to the sea. Miranda watched her, quickly taking in how slim Jess was now, even though she’d been quite a curvy girl and had once said she was sure she was going to end up massive. She still seemed to like wearing several layers of tops at the same time, today a little floppy purple vest over a long pink T-shirt. She’d always had something on or in her hair, too – either mad colour, chopped-out gelled ends, bits of beaded ribbon or scarves like this one, with ends trailing down on her shoulders.

‘So how long are you down here for?’ Miranda asked, wishing she could think of something less banal to ask. But she had rather been put on the spot. ‘Or do you live here full time?’ Here they were making polite conversation like strangers. But then for twenty years they
had
been strangers. And even before that they’d only been holiday friends: in child terms, just by-chance playmates, really. Close for those intense few weeks each year before home life, the routines of school and friends absorbed them again. Jess now was pacing restlessly by the terrace doors, looking down towards the pool where her daughter was sitting on the diving board dangling her feet in the pool. Miranda could see Bo perched on the end of a sun lounger, his body hunched over his knees and his hair wet. He must have got out of bed and showered in absolute record time, which had to be all down to the magnetic power of a pretty girl. There was no sign of Silva. Was either of those two making an
effort to talk? She hoped so, but she wouldn’t be surprised if Bo were sitting in contented silence, staring into space.

‘We live here all the time. Been about a year now. Since …’ Jessica suddenly stopped both talking and pacing, then said, ‘Oh, but hey, look, why don’t we do what we always used to do on the first day of the holidays?’ She turned back to Miranda, smiling brightly. ‘We should go down to our beach and catch up properly there. It would feel, y’know, more
us
. Even though it’s all different, I sort of think of this as a parental house, for proper grown-ups.’

Miranda was about to pour the coffee and looked up, surprised. ‘Oh, really? OK. You mean, go back and sit on our old rocks? At least
they
won’t have changed, moved away or anything. I know – I’ll do coffee in a flask and we can have it there.’ She started opening cupboards. ‘There must be one here somewhere. I’m sure it was on the list. Ah – here.’ She pulled it down from a high shelf and looked at the design of stylized pink and purple pansies on it. ‘Oh, and it’s one of mine. D’you know, I actually designed this; well, not the actual flask, y’know, just the flowery bits.’ She grinned shyly at Jessica as she rinsed it with boiling water, wishing she hadn’t sounded as if she were showing off. ‘I never thought I’d end up making a career out of prettying up kitchen kit. When you’re a kid you just don’t have any idea how life will turn out, do you?’

‘No.’ Jessica looked sad for a moment. ‘No, you’re right. You don’t see any further than the next set of exams and whatever’s happening on Saturday night. I quite miss that amazing lack of responsibility. If I’d only realized how fantastic it was. But then, I suppose everyone thinks that at some point. Nice pattern, though, Manda; you always were arty. Genes, I expect.’

‘My mum used to live here, in the summers. Did you know that? So it’s like more my house than yours,’ Lola told Bo as she perched on the end of the diving board and splashed her feet in the water. Silva watched her from inside the little pool house where she’d discovered a fridge that contained cans of Coke, and noticed how Lola fluffed out her long russety curls with her fingers and Bo leaned further forward towards her. Silva took out three cans (secretly giving Lola’s a crafty hard shakeup first) and walked across to hand theirs to the other two.

‘It’s so not your house.’ Silva wasn’t having any of this. ‘But I didn’t even know your mum knew mine. Why isn’t she still living here, then?’

‘Her folks sold it. Granddad’s last wife didn’t like Cornwall. She always wore heels and she needed a blow-dry and a manicure every couple of days, Mum said. Doesn’t really go with country life.’ Lola opened her can and gave Silva a look when the brown liquid fizzed out and dripped into the pool. Bo’s didn’t.

Silva smiled back at her rival, acknowledging the canny recognition of a war-declaration, and secretly sympathized with this unknown woman. She had long-term ambitions of her own to become high maintenance.

‘Granddad likes it, though. He’s coming down here tonight to stay with us. He’s Eliot Lynch and he wrote loads of books and got really rich so he doesn’t bother writing now because he doesn’t need to.’ She sipped her Coke and waited for Bo to say something that made it clear he was impressed.

‘Bo doesn’t read much,’ Silva said, when nothing but silence was forthcoming.

‘Does he like boats?’ Lola asked her. ‘I’ve got one. I’ll take you out on it. We can go across to St Piran and go down the long beach to do surfing or wha’ever.’ Silva was about to accept, deciding that for the sake of entertainment and something to do she would concede that Lola might be better than three weeks with her near-silent brother, when she realized Lola wasn’t actually inviting her. OK then; game on, she thought, taking her old T-shirt off. She skipped neatly along the diving board past Lola and leapt with maximum splash into the pool.

The path from the back of the boatyard to Miranda and Jessica’s old favourite beach looked just as it had twenty years before. As then, no one else was bothering with
the tricky little hidden route to this particular stretch of sand, which was only accessible at shore-level during the very lowest tides. Holidaymakers rarely seemed to want to walk more than a few yards from the car park with small children, wind-breaks, beach mats and heavy cool-boxes of food and drink. That had meant it had always felt like
theirs
, apart from the occasional party who dragged a boat up the sand, cooked a swift barbecue while nervously watching the tide and then vanished again in a panic of ebbing water and outboard-threatening rocks. Nettles still grew thick and tall each side of the track, waiting to savage bare legs. Tree roots surfaced in the same old places, lurking to trip the inattentive walker, but Miranda’s feet seemed to have some memory of them stashed away and she walked nimbly, easily avoiding the hazards. The path meandered steeply uphill (had Miranda always been this short of breath by the top? And had the sheer drop to the shore always looked this scary?) then down the sandy dunes and rock to the sea’s edge. Alongside the sailing club, the little marina had been extended with new pontoons, and the ferry boat that went across to the extended resort of St Piran on the far side of the estuary was larger and smarter than the one Miranda remembered. Steve had manned the old one single-handedly and she wondered at what point he’d given it up and what he’d moved on to do. She could see it being loaded with passengers. The operation needed
two people now – one to drive and another to supervise and take fares – and there was a ramp from the back of it down to the sand for easy access. Trippers didn’t have to scramble in and out over its side any more which was just as well, as there’d be complaints about that sort of thing these days. Health and Safety would be grumbling about provision for wheelchairs and buggies, the generally infirm and those of a mind to take legal action in the event of a sprained ankle.

‘Do you remember that lovely Paul who used to work in the boatyard?’ Jessica was saying as they rounded the sandy point and came to the bit where they had to start picking their way over rocks to get to their favourite spot.

‘I do. He was going to uni to do a degree in Peace Studies or something, wasn’t he?’

‘That’s the one. I see his name in the
Guardian
sometimes. He’s …’ Jessica stopped in the middle of the path and laughed. ‘He’s a war correspondent.’

‘Oh, the irony!’ Miranda said. ‘Or at least it sounds like one. Maybe it’s not.’

‘No, I suppose not, really. Reporting it doesn’t have to mean you agree with it. Don’t suppose any of them are exactly thrilled to be in a war zone. It just seemed funny, that’s all. I had very nice sex with him over on the island one night. He’d nicked some rich bloke’s Riva for the evening to take me out in. He told me it was the boat equivalent of picking me up in a Ferrari.’

‘Smooth talker then. And you never said. I thought we told each other stuff back then?’

‘No, well, sorry. I could have told you, thinking about it. But then the moment passed. I was scared Andrew would find out. I know I never fancied him or anything but he was like a puppy around me at the time and I didn’t want to hurt his feelings.’

‘Considerate of you,’ Miranda teased. ‘Oh, God, sorry, that sounds bad. No, you were actually. You could keep a secret. You kept mine. I’d have kept yours.’

‘I know. Well, I do now. Sorry.’

Miranda concentrated now on not slipping on the damp stone. She was sure she and the others used to skip across these rocks without a thought for falling over, but now it all seemed alarmingly hazardous and she tried to avoid the slimy green weed that had been left by the tide clinging to the wet-black surfaces of the granite. Pools between the stones swished with tiny transparent freshwater prawns and little trapped fish, waiting for freedom on the next high tide or to be caught in the nets of small children.

She felt strangely nervous, as if this trek to the rocks was leading up to something important rather than being a fun re-enactment of one of their adolescent rituals. Was it five or even six years in a row, or even more, that their group had met each summer (and some holiday breaks in between too)? Must be about that long that she and Jess, Jess’s brother Milo and their
neighbour Andrew, the slightly gauche only child of seemingly ancient parents Celia and Archie, had come down to sit on these sun-warmed stones in the sunny early evenings to chat about nothing and everything.

‘This is the place, isn’t it?’ Jessica looked puffed as she crumpled her body down on to the dry top of a rock in the shelter of the craggy cliff and reached up to tighten the silky Paisley scarf that hid her hair. She offered the newspaper she was still carrying to Miranda, who refused it and sat on her own rock, pretty sure it was dry enough.

‘Lucky this is all still here,’ Jessica said. ‘You think this sort of solid rock stuff is for ever but then you get surprises. I couldn’t get down to Pentreath beach after Easter because of a rock fall. And even at Kynance there’s a heap of rocks at the bottom of the steps that didn’t use to be there. I always tell Lola not to hang about close to the cliff face. I can see it becoming some kind of phobia in my old age.’

Miranda squinted out at the sea. The sun was bright and the water shimmered and dazzled and the little island looked deceptively close in the sunlight. She remembered swimming out to it and feeling a flash of panic yards from its shore that she wasn’t going to make it. Jess’s brother Milo had swum up alongside her, realizing she was scared, and she’d got there and back again safely enough, but never again had she tried it at high tide when there was so much deep water to cross.

For a few moments there was silence between the two women. Miranda wanted to fill it immediately with questions that would cover all the missing years, but she realized that just wasn’t possible because, well, where to start? Instead she poured coffee and handed a cup to Jessica.

‘You look just the same,’ Jess said quietly, looking at Miranda intently. ‘You’ve got two children and yet you’re still all little and lovely and your hair hasn’t darkened with age at all. It still looks like a piece of a barley field.’

Self-conscious under Jess’s gaze, Miranda put her hand up to her head. ‘It’s thicker, maybe a bit coarser, I think. Or perhaps that’s because I have it shorter now. My mother always says that anything below shoulder-length on a woman over thirty is a bit desperate.’ She laughed. ‘I think she’s talking about years ago, though. Mid-thirties is about the new twenty-two now, isn’t it?’

‘Maybe. But I hope that doesn’t mean Lola’s going to be a stroppy teen for the next ten years.’ She groaned. ‘Are yours like that? All charm one second, vile and moody the next?’

‘Silva’s just coming up to fourteen but she’s certainly heading that way, yes. Bo is … well, he doesn’t say a lot. Sometimes I wonder what he
is
like. If he doesn’t come out of the brooding silence soon, I won’t know a thing about him by the time he’s twenty.’ She felt quite gloomy at the thought. ‘This is surreal. Here we are,
haven’t met since we were sixteen and we’re talking about our
own
teenage children.
So
mad.’