The Summer Without You (30 page)

She exhaled loudly in protest. ‘Strictly speaking, you’re not my doctor, Hump.’

He looked at her sternly. ‘Yes, I am. You’re not going out. Not yet.’

‘Well, when, then?’ she demanded, as he rose from the sofa.

‘Not before Saturday at the earliest. Trust me, the very last thing you need is for these to become infected. Just rest, drink water, sleep lots. And don’t argue!’ he bossed,
pointing a finger at her as she was stopped, open-mouthed, from doing exactly that.

Hump wandered back into the kitchen with the depleted first-aid kit, and Ro slumped sulkily back to her reclining position.

‘There’s no food in the fridge,’ he called through.

‘I’ll go out and get some,’ she said quickly.

‘Ha, ha! Nice try, Big Foot. Shall we get a pizza delivery tonight?’

‘S’pose.’

‘We can watch a movie. Of your choosing.’

‘Great. More films,’ she muttered, as she pressed ‘play’ on the remote – she had rigged the home media direct into the TV – freeing Ella from her holding
position of bear-walking across the living room, smiling as her attention was immediately diverted back to her. She was one of those babies who didn’t crawl on their knees but with their bum
in the air, and she was surprisingly fast at it. Hump had made her rewind the tape several times a few days earlier, when he’d walked in on an earlier video of Ella bottom-shuffling –
her knees out, her feet pressed together like a yogi – and traversing the room at great, comical speed without any apparent friction burns. The two of them had got the giggles really badly,
watching it become funnier on every replay, tears streaming down their cheeks until eventually Hump had had to run to the bathroom.

Marina had taken this video, her voice cooing and aahing softly next to the microphone, as Ella circuited the room, heading towards bright plastic toys that were scattered all over the floor and
broke up the interior designer’s carefully conceived scheme.

Ro watched impassively as the camera angle swung up, surprise in Marina’s voice, and Ted came into shot. He was wearing a suit and was pulling off his tie, his eyes fixed on his wife, just
to the left of the screen, it seemed. He winked at her, sharing the private smile that Ro recognized as ‘theirs’ now, his eyes travelling down to her belly – Ro quickly calculated
Marina was seven months pregnant by now and recorded it in her notebook on the cushion beside her.

Ro watched as he looked down at his daughter bombing towards him across the floor, bottom in the air, before clinging on to his trouser leg. He laughed, bending down to pick her up. Ro gasped
– worried – as he threw her high in the air above his head, their eyes locked on each other, Ella gurgling with delight.

The laptop, also sitting on the sofa beside her, began ringing and Ro started in surprise, looking down at the Skype screen she’d needed to see so desperately the day of the attack. It was
Matt. Obviously. He was around now. Finally. He was there; she was here. The stars had aligned again – it was their fortnightly chance to be together again. Only . . .

A peal of giggles made her glance back at the screen. Ted was holding Ella above his head and blowing raspberries on her tummy.

A shot of anger tunnelled through her again as Matt’s photo stayed belligerently on screen, demanding she pick up because he was ready now and everything they did went according to his
rules, right? Her own stubborn streak kicked in. Well, where had he been when she’d needed him? The attack had happened two days ago – the culprit still unidentified – and Matt
knew nothing about any of it. She crossed her arms and looked back determinedly at the TV screen. It was his turn to wait.

The next day, she was still in the same position – cross-legged on the sofa, the notebook now on her lap, the remote in her hand, the house phone ringing laconically on the side table to
her right. She picked it up with an eagerness that betrayed her mounting desperation to talk to someone, see someone,
do
something other than obsessively watch the Connor family videos.

‘Hello?’

‘Yo, Ro.’

‘Hey, Bo.’ Ro smiled down the phone – pleased with her riposte but more pleased to hear her housemate’s voice. Bobbi had been on the Jitney back to Manhattan straight
after her meeting on Tuesday and hadn’t learned of the attack until later that evening, when Hump had rung her while Ro slept upstairs. Several times Ro had overheard Hump in the kitchen on
the phone, updating her on Ro’s progress, and she was touched by Bobbi’s long-distance concern. ‘How are you?’ She sat forward, rearranging the cushions behind her and
getting ready to settle in for a chat.

‘Do you have whites?’ Bobbi demanded, skipping all the usual niceties most people bothered with. She was busy, busy, busy.

Ro, who’d been anticipating ‘Oh my God, how
are
you?’ was so wrong-footed it took a moment for her to respond. ‘White . . . ?’

‘Whites. Tennis whites. Wimbledon whites.’

‘Uh, no. No, didn’t pack those funnily enough. Why?’ She dragged the last word out slowly, suspiciously, trailing it over three octaves.

‘I’ve entered us into the Fourth of July tournament this weekend. Biggest tennis event of the season.’

‘You. Have. Not.’ Ro closed her eyes.

‘What’s up? You said you play tennis. You told Greg that morning—’

‘I told him I
used
to play tennis. Past tense. Long time ago. When the dinosaurs still walked the earth.’

‘And I already got Hump’s approval on it. He says you’ll be fine to play so long as you take your pain meds beforehand and make sure not to get whacked on the arm by a
ball.’

Ro winced at the thought. ‘Ha! A likely story. As if Hump’s going to let me play in some ritzy tennis tournament when I’m not even allowed out of the house. I don’t think
so.’

‘That’s different. He just doesn’t want you going into town until they find the psycho who did it. He says you’re better off at home where the only thing that can hurt
you is his cooking.’

The joke fell flat, outgunned by the shiver already trammelling down Ro’s spine. Bobbi, true to blunt form, had put voice to the fear that neither Ro nor Hump had been able to articulate
all week – that she had been targeted, that someone had deliberately set out to hurt her. Hump had insisted over and over it had been a random attack – he’d repeated it every time
she woke with a short scream as her mind snagged on the twisted sneer, the faceless figure, skin on fire – but he’d clearly said differently to Bobbi.

Ro blinked slowly, blindsided by the thought. The level of hatred that fuelled an act of that sort brought tears to her eyes – what had she done to deserve it? – and she covered the
phone receiver to sniff discreetly, not wanting Bobbi to know that she was so on edge.

‘Well then, if that’s his thinking, why let me play in the tournament? If it’s the biggest tennis event of the summer, there’ll be loads of people there, any one of whom
could be the . . . nutter,’ she mumbled.

‘Nuh. All the eyewitnesses said the guy looked like a tramp – you know, stood out from the crowd. There’s no way he could afford to get in. The security will be insane on
account of the cars and tennis bracelets alone. You’ll be totally safe there.’

Ro looked up to the ceiling. Only in Bobbi’s world could a potential crime not happen because the assailant couldn’t afford the entry ticket. ‘So then, how are
we
supposed to afford it? You know I’m stony broke.’

‘It’s fine – we’re going on a corporate account. One of our clients sponsors it and it’s a prime networking opportunity.’ Bobbi’s voice became muffled
suddenly and Ro could make her out talking to someone in the background. Then she was back. ‘So listen, I actually just rang to say I’ll get you some kit up here and bring it down with
me tonight. Unless I can trust you to go into Lulu Lemon on Main and do it yourself?’

‘What?’ This was Bobbi’s definition of kindness?

‘No, thought not. How you feeling, by the way? Bandages off?’

‘Uh, wel—’

‘Good. Great. Glad to hear it. Gotta go. Meeting in three. Ciao.’

The line clicked dead. Ro felt like someone had just boxed her round the head.

She sat in silence for a moment, before putting her headphones back on and returning to the business of envying the Connors their perfect family life. They had what she wanted – well, once
she’d forgiven Matt for not being here, anyway. She was angry with him now, yes, but once Matt came home and life was back to normal again – this whole crazy experiment just an odd,
slightly eccentric memory that they’d laugh about one day – her life would be like this too. He’d made a promise. There would be no coffee-throwing strangers or guerrilla
gardening or this ever-present urgent need to meditate or medicate herself into a calm state of mind. Her life would be full of the little moments she witnessed on this screen – low-key
family lunches and walks in the park, birthdays and Christmas Days with bright eyes and little hands scrabbling at wrapped presents. She settled into a comfortable position, stretching her legs
long and resting her head on her hand, determined to watch and learn.

‘Hump, I’m just popping out!’ Ro yelled from the drive, her foot already propped on the pedal.

‘What?
Where?
’ she heard Hump’s voice call back from deep inside the house. ‘Ro! Where are you?’

But Ro just wheeled down the steep slope of the drive onto the lane, relishing her freedom again; she couldn’t wait even another hour for Dr Hump to grant her outside access. She thought
she’d go mad if she spent another hour robbed of smelling the salty wind, seeing the pound of the waves, hearing the sunlight skipping over the grass.

Besides, she was feeling bolder now, after a furtive outdoor dash into town earlier – in strict contravention of Hump’s rules – when he had popped over to the office for an
hour’s paperwork.

It had been a muted success and not quite the jubilant escape she’d been anticipating. She’d been astonished by the sheer volume of pedestrians on the pavements for one thing. Bobbi
had been right about the town filling up once the schools were out, and she could scarcely believe the difference in just one week; it was as though she’d come back from a trip to the moon
– every day she’d spent on the sofa equating to a week out here, and it felt like high summer now, with beautiful kids hanging around outside Ralph Lauren and Starbucks, the doors to
BookHampton (the bookstore) and Citarella (the smart deli) opening and closing with a ring of bells, every parking spot taken at Waldbaum’s (the supermarket), every single one of the outside
tables taken at Café Collette, traffic snaking down Main Street, past the windmill and all along the highway towards Amagansett and beyond.

But it wasn’t just the volume of people, the face of the town had changed too, with new shops – ‘pop-ups’, Bobbi had called them – seemingly having opened
overnight. She clocked the distinctive orange of a Hermès boutique and a Michael Kors. The contrast made her realize how sleepy East Hampton had been to this point. Up until now, it had been
like a bear emerging from hibernation, groggy and slow-moving. But now it was like a hive with everyone buzzy and busy, intent and focused. This town was ready to party, and so was she – at
least in theory.

Bobbi’s words, Hump’s theory, hadn’t let her rest, no matter how hard she’d tried to shake them from her head, and they had ignited a rebellious anger in her. She was no
victim. Why
should
she stay holed up in the house, hiding out while she waited for the police to arrest someone on the strength of eyewitness reports and a willing confession? On that basis,
she could spend the rest of the summer locked away.

No. That might have suited her a few weeks ago, but to her surprise, she’d found she wanted to get going again, to resume the new life she’d been building up brick by brick.
Lightning didn’t strike twice, right?

That was what she’d told herself, anyway, as she shuffled through the crowds, her head down and body hunched, her heartbeat louder than the traffic as she scanned for feet getting too
close, moving too fast . . . More than once she had pressed herself to the wall as men and boys in hoodies and caps marched past without even noticing her, leaving her watching after them –
just in case – with big eyes and flaming cheeks; it had been the first indication that her burns would possibly heal faster than her mind.

This, though, this was different. She felt safe in her solitude on the bike, and she pulled out carefully into the new, heavy traffic as music carried in the air like the buzz of mosquitoes,
making cars vibrate and the occupants move their heads in time to the beat, like nodding dogs. Ro cycled slowly along the wide lanes, taking the long way round, enjoying counting the numbers of
Stars and Stripes flags flapping on flagpoles, and the matching bunting strung along the street intersections. She was enthralled. The closest thing Britain had to an equivalent day of national
celebration was a royal jubilee, and those only came every quarter century or so . . .

She felt her spirits rising with every revolution of the wheels, the past week beginning to slip from her shoulders as she basked in the liquid sunlight, her skin soothed by the cool, rippling
breeze, and she realized she was beaming as she flew along, hair out behind her. Hump would be furious with her when she got back, but she knew she was right to do this – and there was
someone who’d be pleased to see her out and about again.

She screeched to a stop in front of Florence’s tall gates five minutes later. ‘Hi!’ She smiled brightly, waving into the intercom, knowing her image was being beamed into the
lofty blue and white kitchen.

‘Ro!’ Florence sounded shocked. ‘C-come in.’

There was a pause before the hydraulics purred behind the cedar timbers and the gates opened. Ro cycled quickly up the drive – out of the saddle – which ran along the length of the
back lawns before sweeping round graciously to the front of the house.

Florence was waiting for her by the front door as Ro freewheeled round happily. She jumped off the bike, dropping it on its side by a flowerbed and jogging over, feeling strong and wanting to
show Florence how well she was again. ‘Florence!’ Her smile faded as she approached. ‘Have you lost weight?’ Even in the course of three days, her friend was noticeably
thinner.