Just For the Summer (28 page)

So it's going to be boys, Eliot thought sadly, pouring himself another large brandy. Whose fault would Liz say that was, he wondered, and did wife number one know?

Andrew was embarrassed. His parents liked to arrive at parties early ‘in case we want to stay just a little while' Celia explained, as if she had to put in exactly two and a half hours and wanted to get them over and done with. Andrew felt like their prize little boy, being shown off at the sailing club for not quite winning the largest trophy of the afternoon, and all because he had been Honest.

‘We brought him up to be Honest,' Celia kept saying, as if nobody else did that any more. People kept saying ‘never mind' about the race, and Andrew had to pretend that he didn't. He scowled and kicked at the balcony rail and wished he were one of the village boys larking about in the car park throwing lager cans at each other and exploding crisp packets behind startled girls. His father bought him half a pint of lager, in a generously man to man gesture, but the barmaid had absent mindedly put lime in it and Andrew would have poured it into the creek if he could have been sure of getting another one that night. He stood shuffling on the edge of his parents' conversation with the Commodore, forgotten and bored and waiting for Jessica, with a pessimistic feeling that here too he was about to blow his last opportunity.

Miranda waved up to Andrew as she walked through the car park with Clare and Jack. She too noticed the boys in the car park, one of them was Steve. He leaned against his motor bike and smiled gently at her, just a small acknowledgement. So he hadn't told anyone
either, she thought. It might all never have happened. She didn't feel anything for him, just perhaps a little natural rancour that he obviously didn't feel anything either. She saw him walk into the bar with a girl not much older than herself, maybe seventeen or eighteen or so, tight short skirt, high heels, sharp laughter. They'd probably be married by the time Miranda next came to the village. While they brought up their children, Miranda would still be a schoolgirl. She'd be a lot more careful next time, that much she'd learned.

In the sailing club Clare offered Miranda some wine, as it was their last night. How they could drink again when they'd been drinking all afternoon was beyond Miranda and she refused, going off outside to the balcony to cheer up Andrew.

At least the drizzle had stopped, people were spreading out, wandering round both inside and outside the clubhouse wondering which social group to join. The regular members swaggered around, shouting loud greetings to their friends, taking up a lot of space. Teenagers who looked as if they would rather be somewhere more fashionable on a Saturday night were misbehaving down on the pontoon, yelling across the creek to friends, kicking aimlessly at moored tenders, jumping in and out of rubber dinghies. The retired couples from the hillside had come down for an evening of sherry and gentle conversation about golf and gardens. They settled themselves into the best chairs on the balcony, from which
they had no intention of moving. If they got up to go to the loo, or the bar, they quietly urged the person next to them to ‘keep my place' as if well aware that this was really rather unacceptable but excusable on the grounds of age.

Villagers hung around in little family groups, talking and drinking cheerfully, celebrating the end of the season and looking forward to a bit of peace. They talked of the nights drawing in, huddled into pastel cardigans over floral frocks, congratulated each other on the good weather that had made it a profitable year. The fishermen in unaccustomed suits shifted their feet uncomfortably and took refuge from the noisy middle-classes in the rather warm beer and leathery sausage rolls.

The second-homers, who never went out without a pre-party drink inside them, arrived in cheerful mood, all except for Eliot. He was fuming quietly about the Commodore and wondering if Milo ought to be spoken to. Milo should perhaps be warned to stay on the right side of what was legal. Eliot did not of course care whether Milo stayed on the right side of the Commodore.

The little children were excited. The Lynch twins pleaded to be allowed to show off, rowing their rubber dinghies in the creek. Liz wavered but Clare said it was getting too dark, they hadn't got their life jackets and sensible things like that. What she really meant was that Amy and Harriet would follow them and she didn't want the hassle of having to go and keep an eye on them.

‘I think you should all stay where we can see you,' she said to her daughters. ‘Then there's no danger of you getting into any more trouble.'

‘I think we're being forgiven,' Clare whispered to Jack as the lady from the post office said a quiet hallo.

‘Possibly,' said Jack, ‘but I feel it's a slow process.'

‘And you're the one who thought we could live here!' Clare teased, laughing at him.

Liz was standing with her hands over her ears, exaggeratedly protecting them from the music which was faltering in bursts from the speakers set up in the trees.

‘If it rains again someone will get electrocuted,' she said. ‘God it's cold. I wish someone would light the bonfire.'

‘That's supposed to be the highlight of the evening,' Jack said. ‘There'll be fireworks at 9 p.m., it says on the regatta programme.'

‘You get fireworks at any old party these days,' Clare complained. ‘I want to go on associating them with treacle toffee and the smell of November.'

‘They didn't used to let Christmas start till after bonfire night either,' said Archie, who had extricated himself from the golfers on the balcony in order to stand close to Liz and her intoxicating perfume. ‘Now it's in the shops as soon as we get back to Surrey.'

‘I always feel sorry for the children in July,' Liz said. ‘By the time the school holidays start there're those awful “Back to School” notices in all the shops and we're all
supposed to rush out and buy geometry sets and woolly socks for them.'

‘They spell “school” wrong as often as not,' Jack complained gloomily. ‘How are kids supposed to take learning to spell seriously if it's obvious that grown-ups getaway with jokey little numbers like s-k-o-o-l?'

‘Where are they by the way?' Liz wondered, refilling her glass from one of the several bottles on their table. ‘I haven't seen them for a while.'

‘As long as they keep away from the fireworks and the river I don't really mind where they are,' said Eliot, ‘but if you're worried I'll go and look.'

He could have casually said, ‘Are you coming with me Clare?' and I'd have wandered off with him to look for my own kids in all apparent innocence, Clare thought. The highlight of her holiday this year was destined to be no more than that uncomfortable and absurd grope in her kitchen, watched by hawk-eyed Celia. She was glad now that it hadn't been any more than that, it was enough that it could have been more. There was plenty of thrill in that. She moved closer to Jack and teenager-like, held his hand.

Liz was still peering into the dark for the children.

‘I can see them, they're down there by the bonfire,' Liz said. ‘Let's just pray they haven't nicked a box of matches between them.'

‘No they're fine,' Celia said, ‘they're with the village children.'

You could tell which were the local children, Jack thought, they were the ones who had dressed up for the party. The little girls wore neat dresses with sashes, frilled white socks, proper shoes. The boys wore trousers that they had been told to keep clean, and if they wore trainers they were clean ones. Jack could imagine the little boys persuading, cunningly manipulating their mothers: ‘you wouldn't want me to muck up my new school shoes would you?'

‘Trust the kids to start getting friendly with the local children just as we're about to go home,' Clare said. ‘They'll have to start all over again with them next holidays.' Or perhaps they won't she thought, suddenly excited that she didn't know where they'd be next year.

‘It's only because there are no more holiday-makers to terrorize,' Liz said, observing her own two in filthy old jeans, tee-shirts that Jeannie would soon be using for dusters, shoes that weren't good enough for the jumble. Only the rich, she knew, could afford to be so badly dressed.

‘I hate this kind of party,' Jessica was saying to Milo as they strolled down the lane towards the sailing club. ‘No-one knows who the party is aimed at, there's always a disco that no-one will dance to because all their parents are around and watching, and there's all the old grannies looking out for a bit of debauchery to talk about.'

‘And all the little kids are a pain because they are up
too late and their parents are too drunk to care,' added Milo. ‘And when it's really late the disco starts on with a few sixties hits and they all get up and leap around to Honky Tonk Women.'

‘And make total fools of themselves,' Jessica laughed.

‘We'll just ignore them, we always do,' Milo said, ‘Are you going to be specially nice to poor old Andrew tonight?'

‘Because of the race, or because of his persistence?'

‘Both.'

‘How nice do I have to be? I rather thought I might be “nice” to Paul from the boatyard. He's been persistent too.'

‘But Paul won't be here next year. Andrew will.'

‘Exactly,' Jessica said. ‘Perhaps he'll improve with time, like wine.'

Andrew pretended he hadn't been watching Jessica arriving. When she and Milo approached he just grunted hello, as if he hadn't really been gazing at her bare midriff slinking along the road. He clutched his hand tightly into his pocket to stop it sliding involuntarily under her cut-off tee-shirt. There wasn't much skirt either. Perhaps fourteen inches or so of pink lycra, and a lot more inches of warm brown thigh.

‘Want a drink?' he offered, thinking a walk to the bar would at least give his body an alternative outlet for its energy. If he could walk. He and Milo crossed the floor of the bar together, Andrew's confusion disguised by the flashing lights of the disco. Jessica had been right,
Milo noticed, the dance floor was empty, the DJ playing records for his own amusement and looking quite happy. Round the walls sat the elderly ladies in hand-knitted cardigans, trying to hold conversations against the noise and shouting to each other. Excited children ran across the floor, skidding on spilt beer and sending glasses and walking sticks crashing to the ground.

Andrew bought drinks and Milo disappeared with his through the door out to the car park. Outside on the balcony there was still Jessica. Andrew could see her as he walked across the bar. She was talking to someone, Miranda he thought he could see. But when he got there it was Miranda and that Paul. Paul who never, as far as Andrew could tell, had trouble with finding something to say, or an out-of-control erection. All Andrew could do was be polite. He turned back to the bar and went to get more drinks.

‘Nights are drawing in,' Archie was saying, rubbing his hands together in a gesture that reminded Clare of boy scouts starting a fire. She doubted that Archie was hot-blooded enough to burst into flames.

‘I'm sure they're about to light the bonfire,' she said. ‘I do hope so,' Liz said, ‘I'm freezing,' she shivered in her cashmere sweater and turned to Eliot for a warming hug. Clare felt disturbed. She'd never seen Eliot touch Liz with affection before, and rather stupidly assumed that he didn't. He actually loves her, she realized.

‘We could always go inside,' Celia suggested.

‘Too noisy,' said Archie. ‘And besides, we won't have many more nights this year we can enjoy being outside like this, might as well make the most of it.' The Commodore appeared out of the gloomy twilight next to Eliot.

‘Your son, did you speak to him?' The others looked up with interest.

‘No I didn't. Why don't you, if you're so keen on moral lectures?'

‘Because he's in the car park with my son, that's why,' fumed the Commodore.

‘Well you know where to find him then don't you?' Eliot said, snuggling back into Liz's collar, nuzzling the soft wool.

‘Find who? Me?' Milo said, his soft tread unheard as he joined his family. ‘This man wants to speak to you about morals,' Eliot said, dangerously quiet.

‘Oh really?' said Milo, cheerfully. ‘Oh well before you do perhaps I can give you this. It's for Simon, he wanted to borrow it, you don't mind taking it for him do you? I'm just going up to have a drink with my sister,' and Milo wandered off leaving the Commodore holding a copy of
The Birds of Britain and Europe
.

Eliot hissed at the Commodore ‘You don't mind, of course do you “old chap”?' The man backed away, he wasn't known for his aggression, but Eliot was. As he backed, the Commodore's foot slipped on the wet
grass, and the rest of his body followed it, like slow motion in the greying light, down into the mud-filled creek. A few yards away in the twilight the soft knowing laughter of Milo could be heard, back towards the clubhouse. No-one would be able to say Eliot had pushed.

God these people, Celia thought, what on earth was going on. She'd be glad to be back in Surrey where people knew how to behave.

‘I think it's time to light the bonfire now,' Archie called in his best rallying voice, taking charge. ‘Someone go and tell all those in the clubhouse to grab a sausage roll and come outside or they'll miss the fireworks.'

It was just as Archie lit a match that Clare noticed the small children standing at a safer than usual distance, giggling and pointing. As Archie bent to light the fire she heard one of the fishermen say ‘What happened to that other box of rockets?' But it was too late.

At least they'd placed them carefully, and upright, so they didn't kill or maim anyone. There were many shrieks from old ladies, squeals of delight from all the children and groans of despair from all the parents. As the fire took hold, rocket after rocket whooshed and whizzed with terrifying unpredictability heavenwards, showering sparks and slivers of light all over the river.