Читать книгу A Summer to Remember - Sue Moorcroft - Страница 7

Clancy had driven for three hours and it felt like someone else’s hands on the steering wheel. Someone dream-driving her BMW away from London and the apartment in Chalk Farm she’d shared with Will. She hadn’t paused for a cup of coffee or a comfort break, not wanting to leave the car unattended. It was stuffed with her possessions and she’d lost so much she just couldn’t lose anything else.

Now she took a left from the A149 at the sign for Nelson’s Bar, which might sound like a pub but was named for Horatio, Lord Nelson, born along the coast in Burnham Thorpe. The bar of land on which the village stood bisected the salt marshes as it thrust out to sea.

The car purred through a belt of pinewood, the land rising like a ski slope until she burst out into sunlight, feeling for an instant as if all she could see was blue sky. Then the road plunged and cornered between two hedgerows. And she was there.

She drew up at the side of Long Lane and switched off the engine. Silence. Through a smeared windscreen she gazed at the homes peeping at her over hedges clothed in early summer green.

Nelson’s Bar. She’d been here only once before, for the week of Alice’s wedding – or not-wedding, as it turned out – but Roundhouse Row was just as she remembered it. Alice and Lee had lived in number one, the Roundhouse itself, a cylinder of white and red chalk stone with an occasional accent of flint, wearing its conical terracotta roof like a hat with windows.

Clancy climbed from the car and stretched. The salt-scented breeze filled her lungs so easily that it was as if a giant rubber band had dropped from around her chest.

She clicked open the garden gate and fished out the Roundhouse key. It turned smoothly and her footsteps echoed on worn red quarry tiles as she stepped inside the enclosed porch and then through the inner door. She paused to take in the ground floor, its central staircase cradled by hefty oak beams and posts.

Almost as the front door clunked shut behind her she caught the opening of the door in the opposite wall. ‘Hello?’ called a man’s voice, and Aaron De Silva rounded the stairs, dark curls longer than she remembered and tousled around his face, the line of his jaw shaded more heavily with stubble, T-shirt and jeans speckled with grass clippings.

Six-plus years shrank to nothing.

He stopped short. ‘Clancy?’ He sounded stunned.

Silent seconds passed and Clancy was aware of more between them than the empty floor space. One fevered kiss. One blazing row. Years of carefully polite emails.

Aaron blinked. ‘Am I supposed to understand what’s going on? Your last email said you had someone for the caretaker job. Did you feel the need to escort her here personally?’ He glanced behind her, as if expecting to see another person.

She had to strangle a laugh at his almost comical expression of dismay. ‘No.’ She made her voice firm. ‘Because I’m taking the job myself. I need a change of scene.’

His dark brows snapped together. ‘You?’ There was nothing comical about his expression now. It was more … horrified.

The urge to laugh vanished. Instead, Clancy suddenly felt clammy and unsteady. She blinked to clear her vision. Maybe her earlier dream-like sensations had been something to do with a failure to eat today. And possibly yesterday. She swallowed and her voice sank to a whisper. ‘Sorry. I should have checked with you.’ She tried to think of somewhere else she could go but her thoughts refused to co-operate. She’d found herself struggling with decisions recently. That’s what the others at IsVid had said, Monty, Asila, Tracey – even Will. It was the shock. She wasn’t functioning, they’d told her in varying degrees of kindness when she’d risen in the middle of a meeting with a client and gone home. In Monty’s opinion it had constituted ‘a breakdown’ and he’d wanted her to get psychiatric help.

Enraged, she’d snapped a refusal. ‘I simply recognised the reaching of a personal limit. I’ve emailed the client and apologised. They understand.’

‘And what did you think you were doing when you sent out that newsletter making your personal relationship with Will public? It made us a laughing stock,’ Monty had thundered on.

Clancy had hardly been able to believe her ears. ‘Don’t you think what Will did and your shitty, callous reaction was more to the point? I know IsVid is important to you, Monty, but don’t I deserve any support?’

Asila and Tracey had tried to cut across Monty’s reply, beginning a gentler conversation about whether Clancy should take time out. She closed her eyes, remembering how Monty had brushed them aside with, ‘Frankly, I’m not sure how we can go on working together after your chaotic reaction to what’s happened, Clancy.’

As the others had fallen silent Clancy had gasped, ‘You want me to leave?’ Will had stood by, looking haunted, but hadn’t contradicted Monty. And neither had Asila or Tracey, though their eyes had filled with compassion. The scene had grown ugly with rage and pain, and Clancy had stormed home. Except that it was no longer home. It was an apartment she’d shared for three years with Will and where she’d spent untold hours planning the wedding they’d now never have with its colour theme of grey and duck-egg blue. She’d already agreed to move out.

Then Aaron’s email had arrived on her phone with a ting!

Clancy,

Did you get my message about the caretaker at the cottages? In case it went astray:

Evelyn, who’s lived at the Roundhouse in exchange for administering the two tenanted cottages and servicing the three holiday lets has left suddenly and we need to fill her position.

Shall I advertise?

Aaron

The relief had been astronomical. Without questioning the wisdom of her impulsive action, the fact that she’d parted from Aaron on bad terms and had never been back to Nelson’s Bar, her reply had flown from her typing fingers.

I know someone who wants the job with the accommodation, which will save you the bother of advertising. She’ll arrive tomorrow.

Clancy

For the past six years, since Alice had jilted Lee and Aaron had bought Lee out of the property, she’d looked after Alice’s half of Roundhouse Row with a tiny fragment of her capabilities. A part-time caretaking job would be a breeze; a summer in Norfolk would help her heal. She’d wilfully ignored Aaron’s astounded reply: TOMORROW??? What about references??? Or me being able to chat with this person? And, later, Clancy! Please reply! She’d put her phone on ‘do not disturb’ in case he broke the tacit agreement of only communicating via email, and rang.

And that’s how she’d ended up sitting amongst boxes last night, packing recklessly for a low-effort life change and a place to lick her wounds. She’d been able to look into Will’s mortified face and say with manufactured indifference, ‘I have somewhere to go. You needn’t worry.’ She’d handed him the white leather file emblazoned with September Wedding in silver. ‘You’ll find everything in here that you need to cancel our wedding. It’s only fair that you take responsibility as you’re the one to find someone new.’ Then she’d completed her packing with the images of wedding dresses and morning suits swimming in the tears in her eyes, remembering, now she was about to return to Nelson’s Bar, Alice’s wedding day.

Clancy was getting an agonising taste of what Lee must have felt. Surely Alice couldn’t truly have imagined Lee’s pain at being left at the altar like that? Or she would have arranged some gentler way of withdrawing from the marriage.

Now, with Lee’s brother Aaron looking on, she swallowed convulsively against empty-stomach nausea. The fluttering in her ears grew louder and cold sweat gathered on her face. Ever the pragmatist, she murmured, ‘I think I should sit down.’

And she did. The room rushed past her and the floor flew up to hit her, hard.

She heard Aaron exclaim, then a warm hand guided her head down towards her knees and his voice seemed to come from far away. ‘Are you ill?’

Politely, she replied, ‘I’m OK. I just missed breakfast.’ Cautiously, she eased away from him and lifted her head. The room only spun slightly. And that might have been because she’d been suddenly engulfed in the memory of the last time Aaron had touched her. It hadn’t occurred to her that he’d still affect her.

‘How about you come and sit on the bench outside for some fresh air,’ he suggested gruffly. ‘I brought coffee stuff. I’ll make some.’

‘Perfect, thank you.’ She managed to roll to her knees and then to her feet, aware of him hovering at her elbow as she struggled across to the back door and out to a black-painted bench on the edge of the circular patio. Vaguely, she took in a cardboard box half full of weeds and a spade and fork lying on the grass beside a dog bowl of water. A mower waited on a half-cut lawn speckled with daisies, the scent of new-mown grass increasing her nausea. She lowered herself until the wooden slats felt firm beneath her as a big, dark grey dog jumped up from a sun-splashed patch of lawn, beating his tail and holding his head awkwardly cocked as he regarded her.

‘Oh, bless, he only has one eye!’ she said, automatically extending her hand to be sniffed.

‘He’s a rescue. I took him because I could call him Nelson and he’d fit right in here. Will you be all right for two minutes?’ Aaron was already stepping away.

She nodded carefully and the myriad colours of the garden made her vision spin like a colour wheel. Shutting her eyes helped, especially when Nelson lodged his head on her leg as if in comfort, and when Aaron returned she was able to half-open her eyes again.

‘Here,’ he murmured, proffering a mug of milky coffee and a cereal bar.

Shakily, she took them. ‘Thank you.’

Clancy sipped and nibbled her way through the small repast, Aaron beside her in not-very-companionable silence.

Aaron had seated himself so he could observe Clancy until her coffee cup was empty and Nelson was nosing the wrapper from the cereal bar on the lawn. The breeze stirred her streaky chestnut fringe and flipped the ends of her hair from her shoulders. What had happened to her? She looked like a pale echo of the sleek, beautiful, mythical creature who’d once flashed into his life and out again.

He’d never apologised for the things he’d said – shouted – when Alice had all but destroyed his brother. He’d been too taken up with Lee, who’d stopped eating, acting, at only twenty-eight years old, as if his life was over.

‘I’m surprised you want to move here,’ he said, trying to focus on the present. ‘Nelson’s Bar’s a far cry from London. I can’t imagine wanting to live in a city, the sky only showing between the huge buildings you spend your life in, breathing stale air and looking out of windows that don’t open, but it’s what you’re used to.’

She shrugged.

‘The caretaker’s job involves changing beds and cleaning up after guests,’ he persisted. Then, though he knew because she’d once told him all about it, eyes shining with enthusiasm, and it was in her email sign-off, he asked, ‘What is it you usually do?’

Her lips barely moved. ‘All the hard shit.’

‘Oh.’ Odd answer. ‘I thought it was film making.’

A robin flew down to perch on the handle of his spade and tilt its head to inspect them before flitting off again. Clancy watched it go. ‘IsVid provides video content and video-based services. Websites. YouTube. Raw footage. Editing. Effects. Five of us built it up. The others are the creatives and the people people. I excel at what nobody else wants to do, like writing privacy policies and terms and conditions for us and our clients, working on their internet safety, adhering to law and legislation, writing agreements and contracts.’

‘Oh,’ he repeated. ‘That does sound like hard shit.’

‘There were compensations, like money and satisfaction. But I’ve left the agency. Or I’m taking time out.’ Then she added, ‘But nobody expects me back.’

He managed not to say ‘oh’, this time. ‘OK,’ he said instead, as Clancy wasn’t showing any immediate signs of turning tail for London. ‘As you know, numbers two and three Roundhouse Row have long-term tenants, Dilys and Ernie. For them the caretaker acts as agent to the landlord – arranging maintenance and checking the rent arrives, paying whatever bills the landlord’s responsible for and negotiating any rent rises. Numbers four, five and six, the holiday cottages, can be let out for any number of nights from two up. The caretaker changes bed linen and towels and does the laundry, cleans the houses and does the gardens.’

‘Why don’t you do the garden? You’re a gardener.’ She’d turned to look at him, her head tilted much as the inquisitive robin’s had been.

‘Because I work full time for my landscape gardening business.’ He knew she knew that. It was as if making the polite enquiries of strangers would erase the night they’d got hot and heavy.

Her turn to reply, ‘Oh.’ She scooped back her hair as the breeze tried to blow it into her face and she turned her gaze to the circular flower beds he’d been working on. Alice had thought it amusing to create as many circles in and around her circular house as possible. Even the garden shed was circular because Lee, besotted, had made it for her. ‘You’re doing this garden now,’ Clancy pointed out.

‘Because Evelyn found a boyfriend and hightailed it to live with him in Wales.’ He went on with the caretaker’s job description. ‘You’d also handle bookings. A lot come through a tourism website; they ring you with the details. A few come directly by post or phone. You sort out guests’ gripes, answer questions, solve problems and basically do whatever comes up. I’m afraid that if you’re at home, tenants and guests consider you on duty. Evelyn left the book inside the Roundhouse. I’ll show it to you.’

‘Book?’

‘The one with bookings in.’ It was a fat, dog-eared volume Evelyn had kept up-to-date and in which she’d left copious notes for her successor.

‘You make bookings in an actual book?’ She almost smiled. ‘There’s no booking software?’

Slowly, he relaxed. This was it. Her sticking point. The indisputable fact he could share with her in good conscience and let it send her back to the city. He stretched his legs and crossed them at the ankle. ‘No booking software. The village is an internet “not spot” with ancient phone lines and poor-to-non-existent mobile signal. Look,’ he said, feeling magnanimous now he realised there was no way a city girl used to being permanently plugged in could exist in an environment where information technology was rendered virtually – ha, ha – useless. ‘I suppose being involved with the cottages peripherally hasn’t given you a clear picture of life in Nelson’s Bar.’

He encompassed the row of cottages joined to the Roundhouse with a wave of his arm. ‘The rental cottages are the only real holiday homes in the entire village, though there is a B&B, which has a bar about six feet by six and, outside, a few tables with umbrellas. We have no church, no shop, no pub or coffee shop. The Norfolk Coast Path bypasses us and although north Norfolk is popular with walkers, most don’t tackle the hill climb to get up here.’ He sat back, giving her the opportunity to hum and haw, to backtrack on her intention to live in the back of beyond.

But then Clancy’s breath left her in a long, slow, peaceful sigh. ‘Sounds perfect,’ she said.