In the Summertime (10 page)

‘Hell yes, how mad is that? OK, you’re on! What shall I bring? A couple of salads or something?’

‘Excellent. I’ll get things that can go on skewers because that’s really easy, and I’ll marinade them first in something or other. Prawns and chicken and stuff. Or is Lola vegetarian?’

‘No. Well she wasn’t yesterday, anyway. Today, who knows?’

It would mean another trip to that damn shop, Miranda realized as she locked up the house. She only hoped that if she put on sunglasses and a hat, scary Cheryl wouldn’t recognize her.

Silva knew she was lucky in that unlike so many at her school, who were always finding bits of themselves to complain about, she quite liked her body and didn’t at all mind being seen in her bikini, the bottom part of which was even smaller than the stupid childish knickers the surf-god boy had copped a look at in the changing room. She tried not to think about that little episode as it made her insides go tight with embarrassment. Ridiculous to feel like that, she knew. They were only
pants
. But in a bikini, on a beach, you’d kind of given permission for people to see you. Surprising someone at a private moment in a curtained cubicle was just plain
rude
. That blond boy would probably be out there among the surfers currently bobbing like seals on the wave break out in the bay. She wondered if he’d remember her if she saw him in the sea. Probably not. She wasn’t sure if she minded that or not. Why was life so confusing? Did you get it all sorted by eighteen? Harriet was twenty-eight and a like
totes
mess so maybe not.

The family settled high up the beach, making a camp on the lower slopes of the soft dunes. Clare had stridden ahead, surveyed the beach and chosen the spot, keen on its access to the café. There was also a surf shack close by where the lifeguards had their base, with a board outside advertising wetsuit hire and lessons.

‘Do you two want to learn how to surf?’ Miranda
asked Silva and Bo, who had pitched their beach mats at a bit of a distance from the rest of them. She could understand that. She did the same at their age.

‘Maybe,’ Bo said, looking back at the rail of wetsuits for rent that were hanging from a rail outside the surf shack. ‘I mean, how hard can it be? It’s only like skateboarding but on water.’

‘Bloody hard,’ Harriet told him. ‘Years of practice is what you need just to be able to stand up on a board.’

‘Don’t put him off.’ Clare looked up from her book, ‘The young don’t get nearly enough exercise. It’ll do him good.’

Bo huffed a bit and plugged his headphones in, lay down on his mat and closed his eyes. He was still wearing a T-shirt and long baggy shorts and had a fringy scarf round his neck. The bodyboard lay beside him on the sand and didn’t look as though it was going to be getting wet any time soon.

‘Nice one, Harrie,’ Miranda murmured to her sister. ‘It’ll give him something to do. And it’s not as if he and his mates haven’t spent years hurtling down the streets on skateboards. It’s what counts for serious sporting activity in the smarter suburbs. That and trying to blag cans of Stella from the corner shop.’

‘I’ll do surfing,’ Silva said. ‘I’ll be good at it.’

‘OK, I’ll pay for the lessons, for both of you. You just go and book it. And have you got plenty of high-factor sun cream on, Silva? Do you want me to do your back?’

‘Got loads on, Mum. Like, chill. If I spray on any more I’ll look like a fish finger if I get sand on me.’ Silva turned over on to her front and settled to sunbathe with one arm round the pink crocodile.

Miranda looked round at them all, feeling like a mother hen checking on her chicks. Harriet had made a kind of nest in the sand and was cosied into it, reading her Kindle. She was wearing a little pink hat and white-framed sunglasses and her already (fake?) tanned body was glistening with factor 30. So she’s relaxed at last, Miranda thought, with the same feeling of relief she remembered from the long nights of trying to get her babies off to sleep. Even Clare looked peaceful, her brow unfurrowed and her eyes not full of ready tears, leaning against a rock with the crossword from the day before, looking out to sea. Miranda wanted to ask her about the ashes and when (and how) they were going to deal with them, but yet again this didn’t seem to be the moment. You couldn’t exactly start discussing something so potentially painful when everyone was chilling on a beach full of happy people relishing the sun. It would completely wreck the mood and she’d be the one who copped the blame.

She tried to settle to reading her book but kept being distracted by thoughts of Steve. In theory, it was ridiculous to be completely fine about seeing Andrew again after all these years and yet to feel terrified of running into Steve. But of course it was different. She
hadn’t had sex with Andrew. She hadn’t been brutally callous about chucking him, hadn’t laughed in his face when he’d hoped she was serious about him, or treated him like some holiday flirtation she’d used when she was bored and he was convenient and then discarded without a backward glance once her usual friends showed up. She wasn’t proud of herself for any of that. What a spoilt, snobby little horror she must have been at sixteen. And he’d been a very lovely boy. What could have been more romantic than rowing her to moonlit beaches with a bottle of wine and peaches from his family’s tree? She hoped he’d found someone thoroughly lovely and forgotten all about her. And the village might be small but he was working and hardly likely to be trailing around it with the holidaymakers. With luck, she wouldn’t bump into him again, but the thought that he
could
be round any corner, that she could come face to face with him at almost any time in the shop or the pub, upped her heart rate from sheer apprehension. She distracted herself by resorting to thinking about work, to the date in her diary three weeks from now when she’d be meeting a team from a Europe-wide chain of upmarket boutique hotels who wanted an exclusive range of designs for fabrics for blinds and cushion covers. The designs and some samples were ready with a range of colour-ways; spreadsheets with all the costings were done and in theory it was a done deal. It was just a matter of whether the
buyers liked the final details. It could only take one silly intern making a flippant comment, saying the bluebell pattern looked like seahorses or something equally irrelevant and the whole thing might collapse. No pressure then. No matter that this project made the difference between whether she had a major chunk of income for the next few years or not. No, no pressure at all.

It was barely half an hour later that Harriet became bored and fidgety, taking off her hat and then fussing with her wind-blown hair.

‘It’s a bit cold when the breeze strikes up,’ she grumbled. ‘I think I’ll go back to the house and sit by the pool. I haven’t got the newspapers yet, either. I need to go to the shop before they sell out.’

‘You can’t wait till after we’ve all had some lunch? I thought we’d get some hot dogs or something from the café,’ Clare said. ‘I’m hoping they do crab sandwiches too. They always used to.’ She squinted across to the board outside the café but the writing was all curly and fancy and couldn’t be easily read from a distance.

Harriet shuddered. ‘Sorry, Mum. That would be a total carb overload for me. I just couldn’t. Tell you what, though, I could get a load of food for tonight. Didn’t you say you wanted prawns, Miranda? I could get them at the village shop, and I’ll marinade some chicken as well. Have you got any couscous? That would be easy, with lemon and loads of coriander and parsley. I saw
some herbs growing in pots on the terrace up by the kitchen. The house owners will never know if we use them.’

‘That would be great. Thanks, Harriet,’ Miranda said, feeling almost tearfully grateful for the unexpected offer of help. ‘And,’ she added, wondering if she should even mention it, ‘I do hope there’s nothing in the papers, Harrie. Whatever Pablo did, it’s not your fault.’

‘Oh, I expect they’ll find
something
.’ Harriet sighed and collected her belongings together, crammed her hat back on and hid her eyes behind her sunglasses again. ‘When both members of the couple are well known, they like to spin it out. I should know. Or at least, I should
have
known.’ She gave Miranda a sad little half-smile, waved to the rest of them and started walking back up the beach, her head well down.

‘She’ll walk into someone, staring at the ground like that,’ Clare said, watching her middle child going up the village path on espadrilles that had a serious heel. ‘Is she actually properly famous? I’ve been so out of touch with things the last year or so, I haven’t a clue about my own daughter’s career. I’ll make more effort from now on.’

‘She co-presents something regional, a middle of the afternoon TV show about local interest things, but I expect she’s hoping for a sofa spot on a national breakfast show any time soon,’ Miranda told her. ‘But I don’t think she’s troubled
Heat
magazine yet. Or at least she
hadn’t till the footballer. I’ll ask her tonight about the job thing. Right now, I just feel sorry for her. I don’t think she’s only upset about losing Pablo.’

‘I’m sorry for her too. But she needs to keep it in perspective. She’s only twenty-eight – she’s got years to meet someone who’s right for her. She mustn’t let this one rotten apple poison her life,’ Clare said, flipping over the page in her book rather forcefully. Miranda took a deep, calming breath. Competitive misery between Clare and Harriet – was that going to be the pattern from now on? Please not.

Silva, on her raffia beach mat, had drifted sleepily into a reverie in which the inflatable crocodile was wearing a black swimsuit, the regulation sort they had for swimming at school. She shifted her head slightly and actually found herself opening an eye to check the big plastic toy in case it wasn’t actually a dream. A shadow fell across her face and she squinted up at her brother.

‘Silv? You coming to the shack with me to book the lessons?’ Bo pulled his headphones out of his ears and looked out to sea where the surfers were still lying on their boards. The sea was fairly calm just then, not giving enough waves for good rides. He looked down at Silva and laughed. ‘Oh my
God
! You should see your back and your legs! Didn’t you put like
any
stuff on you?’

‘Course I did. I sprayed it everywhere. Like, y’know,
where I could reach. Maybe I missed a teeny bit?’ Silva tried to squint round and shrieked at the sight of her thighs. ‘Nooo! I look like someone’s painted me bright red!’ she squealed, pulling a towel over herself and hiding under it.

‘Yeah, and you’ve got a white stripe down your back where your hair was lying.’ Bo wasn’t helping, almost doubled over with laughter.

‘I need to get in the sea. I’m so hot.’ She fanned her face with her hand and scrambled to her feet.

‘In the actual freezing sea? Wow, that’ll sting!’ Bo teased cheerily. ‘Good luck with that.’

‘Shut
up
, bruv!’ Silva’s face was thunderous as she picked up the crocodile and ran down to the sea’s edge, pounding as fast as she could past families camped behind wind-breaks and children playing beach cricket so she didn’t have to risk seeing people pointing at her scarlet and white striped body and laughing at her.

Annoyingly, Bo had been completely right. The first splashes on her feet and ankles told her the sea was close to icy. She felt a big stab of envy for Willow in Florida who would almost definitely be lying
right now
on a big stylish surfboard, trailing her hand in warm water, with turtles floating about in the clear blue below her. No wonder almost everyone in the sea here was wearing a full-on wetsuit; only the stupid holiday crowd had to brave the chill in just swimwear and
skin
. A big wave washed over her legs and Silva caught her breath.
But if she didn’t want to hear Bo jeering ‘Told you so’ she had to get right into the sea so she pushed the crocodile in front of her and launched herself at it, gasping as another wave swooshed right over it and soaked her scorched thighs.

The crocodile wasn’t easy to manoeuvre. Ahead of her Silva could see very small children being helped by parents to ride on blow-up lilos and sharks and dolphins and getting giddy with laughter, whereas here she was looking hopeless and inelegant trying to get on top of the crocodile and floundering around. The idea had been to lie on it, paddle out a little way and then ride back on the soft waves that broke on the shore, but it wasn’t that easy. At last, she managed to grab the thing and push herself aboard and wallow for a bit on the water. She felt a sudden moment of panic, not knowing whether the tide was going out or coming in. Suppose she was washed out to sea, really fast? You read about people. There were stories every year where the lifeboat rescuers said how stupid someone had been, letting their child drift miles out on a beach toy. She could easily be out of her depth already and she turned to look back to see if the beach lifeguard had noticed her. The twisting movement dislodged her from the crocodile and she fell off into deep water and turned to swim back to the shore, furious with herself for being so shaken. When her feet hit the gritty seabed she staggered upright and breathed properly at last.
Ridiculous, she thought: she was a really good swimmer, always in the school team, with life-saving qualifications too. She’d have been fine; it was just English sea was so
wavy
. Now she’d lost the crocodile and her mum would be cross because it belonged with the house, not to her. She stood for a while, squinting out at the sparkling sea, wondering where the stupid toy had gone.

‘Hey, don’t forget your little friend.’ A boy’s voice beside her sounded teasing. A surfer stood beside her, his arm round the upright crocodile as if it were a human he could lean on. ‘Oh, it’s you!’ he said. ‘Hello Kitty!’ He looked down at her bottom and grinned.

Oh lordy, the pants boy from the shop. And here she was all red-stripy and shaken and her hair all seawater-mussed-up. Great.

‘Say thank you nicely to me for rescuing your mate here,’ he said.

‘Thank you,’ she muttered, staring at her feet and holding out her hand for the crocodile.