Just For the Summer (21 page)

‘Ought to be doing some physical jerks,' Archie said to Andrew. ‘Should have joined the CCF at school, no need for all this equipment, that's for poncey bodybuilders and the like.'

Over the top of his
Telegraph
, from his comfortable seat under the rowan tree, Archie watched Andrew work out with his weights.

‘It's not poncey, Dad, boxers use them, and weightlifters and such.'

‘Perhaps so,' said Archie, ‘But if you want real sport, it should be related to survival, that's how it all came about, being out there in the wild. Pentathlon stuff. Now there's an event, run after your quarry, over the obstacles, throw your spear at it, that sort of thing. Sense of purpose. What's the point of lifting all those weights if you can't do all the running and jumping as well.'

Andrew lifted the twin weights rhythmically up and down. ‘I'm doing my pectorals,' he said, ‘Then when I've speared my wild boar I'll be able to pick it up won't I?'

‘I suppose it's useful for sailing,' Archie conceded, folding
The Telegraph
for the crossword. Andrew did after all have
rather a puny body still. He'd look a lot more manly with a bit of muscle. At least flabbiness didn't run in the family. There was nothing worse: flabby body, flabby mind.

‘Not going out on the water today?' Archie asked.

Andrew straightened up, put down his weights and consulted his instruction book.

‘Milo's gone into Truro and the others are going to help supervise Amy's birthday party over at Clare's. I could ask you the same thing.'

Archie filled in twenty-three across with his fountain pen.

‘Your mother's making buns or something for Clare,' he said. ‘You and I could take the Laser round the point later, look for a mackerel or two if you like.'

He could hardly read what he'd written, the ink spread over the newspaper, however carefully and lightly he wrote. He couldn't bring himself to use a Biro, a gentleman used a proper pen. Inheriting his father's old pen had made him hope for the sharp cryptic brain that had gone along with it, to help with the more difficult crossword clues. Andrew's lips moved as he read the weightlifting instructions, Archie noticed. That brilliant brain of his father's must have got well-diluted by the time it got to Andrew, he thought. Funny too how little actual writing one did these days, he wasn't going to wear out the old Parker just signing his name occasionally and filling in half the clues in
The Daily Telegraph
.

‘Be careful with that icing Miranda,' Clare said. ‘It would be a shame to spoil that dress, it's bound to need dry-cleaning.'

‘It's only cotton Mum,' said Miranda. ‘I've washed it before by hand. And I'm being careful. Did you remember the Smarties?'

‘Two big boxes,' Clare said. ‘And some of those little boxes to put in their going-home bags. They'll be sick to death of them by tomorrow. And there're blue ones, I don't know about those, they look the wrong colour for food.'

Miranda spread the pink icing carefully over the cake, and then licked the spoon.

‘Don't lick it!' Clare shouted.

‘Didn't think you were looking,' grinned Miranda. ‘Anyway who's to know? I'm not infectious.'

‘You know quite well it's unhygienic, and anyway you might have a cold coming.'

‘We should have got some of those cake tins that are letter shaped,' Miranda said. ‘It's only three letters after all and I bet we could have hired them in Truro.'

‘It's quite enough making one cake, let alone three,' Clare said. They moved around the tiny kitchen, organizing their different party contributions. Clare cut pretty circular sandwiches, marmite and apple, cheese and celery, tuna and tomato. They'd probably rather have jam, she thought, but she had to try. Miranda ran her finger round the bottom of the cake
where some of the icing was beginning to trickle on to the plate.

‘Do I put the smarties on now or wait till it sets?' she asked.

‘Wait till it's half set, when it's decided to stop sliding down the cake. otherwise if you make a pattern with them it will be all over the place.' Clare looked at the piles of sandwiches. ‘I wish I knew exactly how many were coming,' she said, ‘They just go round the village dredging up everyone who looks the right age.'

Miranda laughed. ‘I think that's what Milo did with Andrew's party, that Celia said should Never Have Happened.'

Clare laughed too, rinsing knives under the tap. ‘Now I won't hear a word against Celia, she's making buns for the party. Blast there's the phone.' Miranda turned back to the cake and started opening Smartie packets.

‘If it's anyone for me,' she said, ‘please will you tell them I'm not here.'

Anyone must mean Steve, Clare thought, she couldn't possibly not want to speak to Milo or Jess or friends from London. So whatever it is is over, that must be what Jeannie wanted to talk about. But there was obviously nothing to discuss. Good.

Eliot had got to the part in his story where the hero had got to do something erotic with the beautiful spy. He
faced the word processor and the screen stared back at him, daring him to make its controls smoulder with some highly original sexual athletics. Ellot was floundering at this point. This was the bit where he always got stuck, for although he was a man much given to sexual infidelities, and considered himself highly experienced, his tastes were fairly traditional. On a good day, a straightforward bonk was quite adequate, he had found. He rather liked, if he thought about it, red French knickers. Liz had some and he'd always thought them pretty rude. Women who thought about their underwear, not just flinging on the nearest, most practical Marks and Spencer stuff, they must give those underneath bits of their bodies a lot of thought too. Though he wasn't sure if this was true in Liz's case. She thought about her body the whole time, it seemed to him. It was all very highly polished, like a table you were scared to put anything hot on to in case you made rings.

Of course what he really needed to do, Eliot decided, was to go out and look for some inspiration. It was no good looking at Liz, lying out there by the pool with sunblock on her nose and her nipples. He needed to look at more ordinary women, overheated young mothers on beaches, with swimsuit straps falling down, showing those endearing white bits of flesh where the sun couldn't reach. He switched off the word processor.

‘I'm going out for a walk with the dog,' he called out to Liz, ‘Don't want to come do you?'

‘No thanks Eliot. Don't forget you said you'd collect the twins from Clare's, it's Amy's party. About sixish, don't be late.'

‘I won't, in fact I'll be early and then she'll have to give me a drink,' he called cheerfully. He put cigarettes in his pocket and collected a cold beer from the fridge. Might as well have some refreshment down on the beach, it was a long time till 6 p.m. Now Clare, he thought, there was an erotic lady, so constantly anxious, all her feelings up there at the top. Quite a thought, and good for the novel.

‘Where did all these kids come from?' Jack asked, looking around at the gathering in his garden. ‘Who on earth do they all belong to?'

‘Renters' kids of course,' Clare said. ‘Our two go fishing with them, you've seen them. They'll all be gone in a week or two. They all brought presents, isn't that sweet of them?'

They had too, a funny little assortment from the village, which had corresponded most satisfyingly with the list Harriet and Amy had drawn up in the post office. All were unwrapped, just handed over like an entrance. fee from grubby little fingers. The only wrapped gift had come from the Lynch twins, a lavishly packaged painting set wrapped in Pooh Bear paper, inside a Pooh Bear carrier bag, with a Pooh Bear tag and about twelve feet of yellow ribbon (Pooh Bear
coloured, presumably, thought Clare), done up in bows.

‘Liz doesn't worry too much about packaging being a waste of trees then,' Miranda had observed.

‘Never mind,' said Jack, taking her too seriously. ‘We'll make sure it goes in the paper bank.'

The children were all out on the cottage lawn, fighting over the swing. ‘We'll have to start playing games with them soon,' Clare said to Miranda.

Jessica came in from the garden, ‘By the way Clare, there are fourteen of them, in case any go wandering off, I thought you might need to know.'

‘Thanks Jess, but to be honest I don't think it makes much difference seeing I don't even know their names. The tide's out and they can't even fall into the creek. Still it's only for a couple of hours, what can happen.'

Clare went into the sitting room to collect cushions for musical chairs. Miranda drifted around looking elegant but useful, carrying trays of lemonade, bowls of jelly and paper plates to the sheet spread out picnic style under the cherry tree. Little children dashed about shrieking, and Clare came out to look at them anxiously, aware that there was usually one who was shy, couldn't join in, and might even need to be returned to its parents, wherever and whoever they were. This was not like the parties back home, she thought.

‘Do you think they'll eat this stuff?' Jack asked, coming out of the kitchen with a bowl of mixed nuts and dried fruit.

‘All that dried fruit? They'll love it!' Clare said. ‘Ours do, and besides it's much better for them than crisps.'

Miranda and Jessica supervised the games, with such skill and tact that nobody had to fight for prizes, and the children sat down under the tree for tea.

‘See, they are eating it,' Clare said to Jack, watching the children tackle the dried fruits and the wholemeal sandwiches.

‘True, but if you listen carefully,' Jack said as he pulled the cork from a bottle of wine, ‘you can hear the words “Monster Munch” and “bat-crisps”.'

‘Amy's so lucky,' Miranda said to Jessica as they lazed on the wall by the creek. ‘She gets to have her birthday down here. Mine's November and I always have to share it with the street firework party.'

Jessica rolled over on the wall to brown her back. ‘Well think of poor Milo, his is at Christmas, so he only gets half the annual presents, but they are usually rather good to make up for it. Usually better than mine anyway,' Jessica added.

Miranda sucked the sweetness from a stem of clover, ‘You two never seem to be short of anything, if you don't mind me saying,' she said, smiling at Jessica and wondering if she had maybe gone too far.

‘All that sports equipment do you mean?' Jessica laughed and Miranda nodded. ‘Dad's got a thing about it. He says you can't do sports the way they're
supposed to be done unless you've got state of the art equipment, best tennis raquet, newest Nikes, etc. But what he really means is that he can't do them, not us. Having all the right gear is to psych the opposition. And besides he likes shopping. It gets him away from that word processor he's so scared of. He'll do anything not to work.'

Eliot, away from his word processor, was researching on the beach. All the women he looked at seemed to be too shrill, too harrassed for him to get a calm erotic feeling about. The only one he considered vaguely fanciable had seen him sitting on his rock swigging beer from the bottle and noticed his constant staring at her. Startled by his obvious interest, by his lime green linen jacket and old straw hat, she had a quiet word with her husband and they had silently packed up their child, their windbreak, towels and radio and moved to the other end of the beach. Lucky not to have been clobbered by her old man, Eliot thought. Nice tits, shame about the attitude. A truIy erotic lady would have noticed his interest, flaunted her bikinied bottom at him. Still, it was nearly 5 p.m. and probably not too early to call on Clare and Jack. As he strolled back from the beach, Eliot could hear the children's shrieks of excited laughter from Clare's garden, and over the creek a couple of balloons were flying away. Further along he could see Celia weeding her rose bed and
she looked up and waved cheerfully at him. Angular woman, he reminded himself, angular family in fact. Probably not much given to naughtiness, but it could be fun risking a casual grope at a beach barbecue just to see which way the land lay, so to speak.

Clare was carrying plates back to the kitchen when Eliot arrived. Her hair hung in wind-blown wisps around her face and she wore a stained apron over her sundress. Embarrassed by the ancient apron she blushed and grinned at Eliot who said, ‘Here let me carry those for you' and took the plates from her.

‘Thanks,' she said, pushing her hair back out of her eyes. ‘All of it goes in the bin liner in the kitchen. I'm afraid it's a pit in there.'

‘It's a kids' party, of course there's a mess,' Eliot replied.

Clare caught up with him in the kitchen on her next trip into the house, hands full of chicken bones and plastic spoons. God what a mess, she thought, but he didn't seem to be noticing, casually opening one of Jack's bottles of Rioja and pouring them each a conspiratorial glass.

‘Ah but you're lookin' lovely, missus,' Eliot said, in the accent of his ancestors.

‘That must be the most untrue thing you've ever said,' Clare laughed, tipping leftover mixed nuts into the bin (they didn't like them that much, after all).

‘Ah well tis solace you'll be needing,' he said,
putting his arms round her and pushing her against the dresser.

‘Eliot, you're so wicked!' Clare giggled, squirming for a more comfortable position. Eliot took that as an encouraging sign, but she was being pushed against the wet tea towels and she'd get a grubby damp patch on the back of her dress. She wished things like that didn't go through her mind on such occasions.

‘Bejesus then give an old man a kiss,' demanded Eliot and didn't wait for an answer, but started kissing Clare, pushing her more firmly against the wood.