The Summer Without You (59 page)

She walked up the porch steps and opened the screen door. ‘I’m home,’ she called, hearing voices in the kitchen.

They fell quiet, only the sound of her feet to be heard on the wooden floor. ‘What?’ she asked, leaning against the doorframe and looking in.

Hump (looking dreadful) and Bobbi stared back at her.

And—

‘Matt!’ she gasped, running over to him, her arms around him before he’d even risen from the chair. He laughed as she buried her face in his neck, tears spilling helplessly
from her as his presence marked the sudden end of the dream, the nightmare, the pause. He was her safety – always had been – and finding him sitting in this kitchen pressed
‘play’ in her again, releasing her from the freeze-frame she’d been stuck in since that windy March day in the park.

He said nothing as she sat on his lap, sobbing, his tanned hands rubbing her back slowly as everyone else discreetly scarpered – Hump, no doubt, to bed. He looked like he’d been up
all night.

‘W-what are you doing here?’ she hiccupped, finally drawing back and looking at him, her hands running tentatively over the dark fuzz that was still too short to flop but could only
bristle beneath her palm.

‘We got to Phnom Penh on Thursday and I visited an internet cafe to pick up emails. There was one from my father saying he’d read an article in the papers about a murder in the
Hamptons – and citing
you
as a witness.’

Ro blinked as she saw the hurt in his eyes, picked up on the glint of bitterness in his words. He had been worried; now he was angry – she had specifically told him everything was
fine.

‘It wasn’t as bad as that makes it sound. I didn’t see it happen,’ she said quickly. ‘And I didn’t lie to you, Matt. It happened after we last talked.’
During, actually, but she shrugged the thought away. It was academic now.

‘But a
murder
, Ro.’ His voice cracked, hoarse, as he shook his head sadly. ‘What the hell have you got yourself into out here?’

There it was again – the suggestion that she’d floundered in his absence, got it wrong, made poor decisions . . . The decision that had felt most true, most right, swam into focus
again and she rose quickly from his lap, walking over to the sink to wash her face, trying to hide the truth he would surely see in her eyes.

‘Would you have told me about last night, or would I have had to find that out on the internet too?’ he asked, watching her back.

She turned off the tap, shaking the droplets off her hands slowly. He knew about Melodie already?

‘Hump was dropped back in a police car,’ he elaborated. ‘I was sitting outside on the steps wondering where the hell you all were. He explained everything.’

‘Oh.’ She turned back to him, stubbing the floor with her toes. She couldn’t find her voice, couldn’t meet his eyes.

Matt waited as she said nothing, his thighs beginning to jig from the frustration that she’d hidden so much, cut him out . . . ‘Well? You find out your friend killed a man, but that
doesn’t warrant letting me know?’

‘Look, we found out
last night
– what did you expect me to do? And what could you have done?’ She saw his expression. ‘What? Don’t look at me like that.
I’m not as helpless as you think. I’ve got my friends. We’ve been getting through it all together, OK?’

‘Oh, they were scalded in a random attack too, were they?’ he asked, the sarcasm out and proud now.

‘Trust me, everyone’s had something going on. Bobbi, Greg, Hump . . .’ Understatement of the century.

They fell quiet, neither of them wanting to argue, both aware it was supposed to be a happy moment. She realized she hadn’t kissed him yet and she looked away again. It wasn’t the
right time now. Or was it that it wasn’t . . . right?

Matt rubbed his face in his hands. ‘Sorry, I . . . I’m shattered; I’ve barely slept in thirty-six hours.’

‘No,’ she sighed, relenting just as quickly. ‘So much has happened and I’m just thrown that you’re here, that’s all.’ She gave a small, dry laugh.
‘After all those weeks counting down the days and suddenly – bam! – here you are, before schedule. Didn’t see
that
coming.’ She shrugged. ‘I just
can’t quite get my head round it yet. Shock. I guess.’

Matt looked around the tatty old 1950s kitchen. ‘It’s nice here,’ he said after a while.

‘Thanks. I love it.’ She nodded, trying to see it through fresh eyes again, but it was impossible. It had become home now, as familiar as a favourite jumper. She watched him taking
it in, trying to imagine the conversations she’d had in here, the hung-over breakfasts, the clamour in the mornings for the last of the marmalade . . .

A thought occurred to her suddenly – she still had two weeks to run on her rental agreement. What happened now? Did Matt expect her to pack up and go home with him? Was he going to stay on
here with her? She knew Hump wouldn’t refuse her request if she asked, but she couldn’t see it – life here with him. It was hers, sweet and precious to her, like a flame
she’d kindled from a spark and that was finally giving out some heat. No, it didn’t fit. His return meant her summer was over. It was time to go back to real life.

She thought of what she was leaving behind, who . . . and a shiver of tears caught her off guard. She turned quickly and filled the kettle, keeping her back to him as she imagined Ted waking to
her text this morning. The very thought of it made her crumple and she knew that alone was proof that it was better this way. She had to go, and the sooner the better.

She blinked the tears out of her eyes and turned. ‘Tea?’

Matt was watching her. ‘I can’t believe how blonde you’ve gone. It suits you. And that haircut . . . How have I never noticed your neck before? I thought I knew all of you,
every last bit.’

She felt herself blush and tried to smile, tucking her hair self-consciously behind one ear.

‘You’ve lost weight too.’

‘Have I?’ She looked down at herself, still in yesterday’s clothes, her feet tanned and bare on the lino floor. She didn’t want his compliments or attentions. She was
scared of the scrutiny, worried he could see . . . sense the betrayal, the real reason she was different.

He got up and walked over to her, lacing his hands behind her back. ‘God, I missed you more than I thought humanly possible.’ He kissed her lightly on the lips, his eyes beginning to
dance. ‘Want to show me your room?’

‘But . . .’ She looked up at him, startled, feeling actual panic trammel through her. ‘I mean . . . what about your tea? You’ve had a long journey.’

‘
Tea?
’ he laughed softly. ‘Trust me, it’s not tea that’s going to make me feel better.’ His hands began skimming up her and she gave a nervous laugh,
wriggling out of his grip and almost running over to the tea caddy.

‘Well, I really need one. Badly,’ she said in the lightest tone she could muster, plunging her hand into the tin of teabags and hiding her face from view. ‘I think . . . I
think last night’s revelations . . .’ She turned back to him, trying to smile. ‘You know?’

Matt stood in the middle of the kitchen, his eyes watching her closely like he was examining her, pinpointing all the microscopic changes in her since they’d last met – not just the
hair and tan and weight loss, the clothes and new muscle tone and good posture that came from a summer of yoga. There was more besides. ‘Ro?’

Something was ringing out like a bell to him, soundless to her. He was guessing it, beginning to suspect, the questions he could feel in his heart starting to spread, like iodine in the blood,
to his head.

‘Let’s go out!’ she blurted.

‘Huh?’

‘Yes, I . . . I want to show you around. We’ll go to the beach and then we can have brunch at Colette’s.’ They could not. She knew she couldn’t stomach a thing, but
she had to get him out of here, stop the questions in their tracks. ‘They do amazing flagels.’

He laughed. ‘What the hell is a flagel?’

‘Trust me,’ she said, grabbing her handbag from the table and pulling him along by the hand, anything to stop the scrutiny. ‘You’re going to love them.’

She sat on the handlebars as Matt pedalled the bright yellow bike, Ro indicating for him when to turn left and right with her arms. She shrieked when he wobbled the bike
deliberately on the lane, laughed when he rang the bell so that it vibrated against her bottom, but she felt like an actress playing a part in a film.

They stopped by Florence’s gates as they passed, picking up the last of the seed bombs sitting in brown paper bags in the barrow. It hadn’t been refreshed today and some of them had
dried out and cracked in the sun, beginning to crumble.

‘They look like truffles,’ Matt said.

‘I know, right?’ Ro smiled as she watched him sniffing one.

He wrinkled his nose, unimpressed. ‘And you’re seriously telling me this little nugget’s going to protect the town from the next hurricane?’ Scepticism hung off his words
like cobwebs.

‘Indirectly. From small acorns . . .’

He heard the piquant note in her voice and relented. ‘Well, if you believe it, so do I.’ And he kissed her on the forehead as they pulled off their shoes and walked onto the sand.
‘So what do we do?’

‘Just throw them into the dunes and wherever they fall, they’ll sprout.’

‘Well, we should probably go along a bit, don’t you think? I bet most people chuck theirs for the first fifty metres and then nothing at all for the rest of the stretch.’

‘OK.’

‘Bloody hell, this beach is long,’ he said after a while, squinting into the sunlight, his feet unsteady in the deep, dry sand.

‘I know.’ She looked out over the water as they walked. The water was meek today, turning onto the beach in gentle roly-polies instead of the usual pounding that smashed the water
like broken glass. The memory of the day Ted had waded into the surf with her – their first touch – swam in front of her eyes, making them fill with tears in an instant, and she looked
away again quickly.

‘D’you want some?’ Matt asked, holding out the bag for her to take a handful of bombs.

‘No, you do it. I’ve thrown plenty of bombs this summer.’

His eyes met hers briefly – quizzically – before he started throwing them, succumbing immediately to the usual male prerogative to throw it like a cricket ball as far as he could.
‘Gotta get them along the back too.’

‘Of course.’

They walked haltingly along, making up for the long, slightly awkward silences with reassuring smiles. They were both tired and overtaken by events. But they were going to have to go back to the
house – and her bedroom – sooner or later.

‘He’s not a pudding, by the way,’ Matt said, reaching for her hand and trying to draw her back into his orbit.

‘Who’s not?’

‘Hump. You called him a pudding.’

‘Did I?’ Ro frowned, unable to remember.

Matt grinned, squeezing her hand in his. ‘I’d have been home a lot sooner if I’d set eyes on him before. You know we spoke on Skype, right? You’d gone out.’

Ro smiled weakly at his light-hearted assumption that it was Hump who was his greatest threat. ‘Uh, yes. He mentioned it.’

She heard the flimsy link chain that kept strangers out of Florence’s garden rattling gently in the breeze just ahead. It was more an appeal to their manners than a strict enforcement of
her rights to privacy, but everyone obliged. Well, apart from one . . . Was it really only last night she’d been standing here by torchlight with Greg and Bobbi, preparing to confront
Brook?

‘It’s just like in the films, isn’t it?’ Matt said, looking at the rickety wooden bridge and platform that protected the dunes from the residents’ historic rights
to access. It lay stretched above the sand like dinosaur claws. ‘Tch, how the other half live, right?’ Matt mused, stopping and staring at the gabled rooftop of Grey Mists. The roof was
pretty much all that could be seen of the house from here.

‘Yeah,’ she nodded. He had no way of knowing it was Florence’s house, and she had no intention of telling him. The name brought too many associations for him – different
ones for her – and she didn’t want the questions to start up again.

He looked up and down the beach. It hadn’t yet filled up for the day, and most people were walking down by the shore.

‘D’you know what? Fuck it, I’m going to be nosy,’ he grinned, scrunching the paper bag tightly in one hand and ducking quickly under the chain.

‘What? No, Matt! You can’t!’

‘Relax – I’m just having a look. No one’s around.’

‘Matt, stop it. Come back here!’ she said, ducking under the chain herself and running after him. But he was already bounding up the spindly wooden steps, two at a time, and cresting
the top of the dunes, the house and garden already now on a level with him. ‘It’s private, Matt, for God’s s—’ She fell silent.

‘Shit, that’s embarrassing,’ Matt said, dipping his chin and turning away as he scratched his head. ‘What are the chances of someone being in the bloody
garden?’

On a Saturday morning in late August? Pretty damn high, actually! She’d have told him that if he’d given her the chance. But she didn’t say a word. She couldn’t. All she
could do was stare back at Ted standing stock-still on the lawn, wearing his trunks and holding a beach ball under his arm. She could guess where the children were from the splashes in the pool
behind him.

‘Come on.’ Matt grabbed her limp hand, pulling her away. ‘Let’s just go.’

But her feet wouldn’t move, she felt as planted as an oak, and she almost tripped as Matt’s strength overrode hers, lurching her onwards suddenly. She turned back as Matt led her
towards the steps, her hand in his. Ted was still watching, the ball bouncing to a stop by his feet now, Ella and Finn running across the grass with orange water pistols as water droplets flew off
them like shaking Labradors – their family of three just as she’d found it and like she’d never been there at all.

The coffees were a hit, the flagels rather less so, and window-shopping was a complete misnomer for the brisk walk past the designer boutiques that Matt could ill afford after
a six-month sabbatical (well, five and a half) from work.