In the Summertime (17 page)

‘… except for our mutual exploitation,’ he said, answering the question for both of them, chortling deeply in the way she remembered he so often did, years ago. Maybe it wouldn’t have been such a gamble to have said it after all, Clare realized as they set off again along the path together. The spaniel gave her one last lingering look and trotted off fast in pursuit of its owners, either disappointed by Clare’s preference for a human companion or pleased to have found someone to hand her over to.

Many of the little beaches far below them were accessible only from the sea. A few were only reachable by paths that would have any vertigo-sufferer clinging to the gorse in wet-palmed panic. They were approaching one of these tracks now, where it turned off from the main path and led down to a beach Clare remembered well.

‘Did you ever go down this one?’ she asked Eliot, pointing to a barely discernible track that seemed to vanish over a sheer edge.

‘Ha, yes! I think that’s the one with the rope for the last ten feet or so? Am I right?’

‘That’s the one. I can’t believe we used to cart a ton of
picnic stuff down there. Oh, the days of being young, fit and adventurous.’

Eliot looked over the edge to where the path zigzagged down. He looked back at her, his eyes gleaming with challenge. ‘Do you think we can still make it down there?’

Clare laughed, ‘Of course we can! Do you want to give it a go?’

‘I’m up for it if you are.’

She didn’t hesitate. What was the worst that could happen? That she went plummeting to a messy death on the rocks below? That would be one fast way to find out for sure whether you got reunited with your beloved in some kind of blissed-up afterlife. But all the splattered bits of body would be horrendous for the rescue people to collect up. She’d make sure she was very careful.

‘OK, let’s do it. It’s not as if it’s slippery from recent rain or anything. And no doubt the health and safety brigade would have closed it down if it were truly dangerous.’

Eliot went ahead on the narrow track and she followed, picking her way carefully on the uneven ground and daring herself every now and then to look down. She felt exhilarated by the danger and the concentration on where her feet should go. No one else was around. It wasn’t one of the better surf beaches so no young board-carriers came scampering past in the
terrifying way they so often did round here, sure-footed as cats.

‘Nearly there,’ Eliot said after a surprisingly short while. He stopped at a point where the path petered right out and a tatty piece of old rope dangled down a near-vertical drop to the shore. ‘I seem to remember it’s a matter of half abseiling and half an ungainly scramble. What do you think? Shall we? There’s always the danger we won’t make it back up the same way, but I’m willing to risk it.’

Clare looked at the deserted stretch of glittering sand beneath them. It reminded her of a beach on the Isles of Scilly, all silvery as if someone had stirred crystals into the sand for fun.

‘Well, we’ve got this far. Can’t bail out now, can we? It’ll be fine,’ she said. ‘Who’s going first?’

‘I will. Then I can catch you if it all goes horribly wrong.’ Eliot took hold of the rope and grinned at her as he started the short but awkward descent. ‘I’m not so good at this,’ he said, looking down to find a foothold. ‘If God had picked me to do his work instead of St Patrick, Ireland would still be overrun with snakes.’ But within a few seconds he was down and Clare took the rope and made it down to the sand, stumbling slightly as she landed. Eliot caught hold of her and for a second she leaned against him, laughing.

The two of them kicked their shoes off and padded down to the water’s edge. The sand was warm
underfoot, crunching and brittle between toes. There wasn’t a soul in sight.

‘Bliss, isn’t it?’ Eliot said as they stood in the shallows, the sea lapping at their feet. Shoals of tiny shrimps could be seen in the clear water.

‘It is,’ Clare agreed. ‘How could we have never been back to this for all those years? I suppose the rest of life and being in other places just got in the way.’ They turned and walked back up the beach and sat together in the sun, leaning against a warm rock.

‘Jack and I came down here and skinny-dipped once,’ she said, remembering also what they’d done when they came out of the sea. Jack had always liked outdoor sex. Would she ever have sex again? Possibly not, realistically thinking. It was the first time she’d thought of it; something else to miss, in time.

‘Did you now?’ Eliot gave her a look, eyebrows raised.

‘Yes. And yes, actually,’ she said, replying to the unspoken question, turning away a little to flick a tear from her cheek.

‘So you have a good memory of here to keep. That’s lucky,’ he said, then laughed. ‘My only one of this beach is hauling a bloody heavy barbecue down here and Liz burning her toe on a spat-out hot coal on the sand. She shrieked like a banshee and said she’d be scarred for life. Oh, and the twins needed to be carried up that rope, like baby monkeys, one at a time on my back. Liz said never again.’ He chuckled. ‘She said that about a lot of things.’

The sun started to move away to the west and shadows fell over the shore. Eliot and Clare waited till the shade covered their rock and Clare reluctantly put her shoes back on.

‘Now for the long climb back to the top,’ she said. ‘Everything ends.’

‘Ah, now don’t be thinking like that. Treasure the moment. It was a good one,’ he said as he handed her the rope.

‘It was. And thank you.’

‘For what? This was a pleasure. I always liked you, you know.’

He steadied her as she made the first step up and clambered towards the path. When she got there and handed the rope back she smiled down at him. ‘And I always liked you too, Eliot.’

‘Ooh er … look at Miranda all dressed up for her date!’ Harriet danced round the pool terrace, waving her mug of coffee dangerously. Miranda ducked out of the way, not keen to risk spillage on to the long white top she was wearing over old jeans and a little skimpy vest that she hoped wasn’t tight enough to show any midriff lard bulges. It had looked all right in the mirror but you could never tell – the light might just have been lucky. The top was a mad, thin cotton asymmetric thing, which would have been hugely expensive if she hadn’t found it on eBay, with a hem that looped up here and there with ties. She’d spent ages fixing it so it looked as if it was randomly put together with no thought at all. It reminded her of Dolly Parton’s adage that it took a lot of money to look this cheap. In Miranda’s case it had taken a lot of effort to look this casual.

‘It’s not a
date
, Harriet. It’s just, y’know … lunch.’

‘Ha – there’s no such thing as “just, y’know, lunch”,’ Harriet said, looking gleeful. ‘I bet you don’t get back here tonight. I bet you
anything
.’

‘Ew, please, not in front of us.’ Silva pulled a face and put her hands over her ears. ‘That’s like my
mum
you’re talking about?’

‘Of course I’ll be back, don’t be ridiculous,’ Miranda said. Feeling flustered and nervous made her more snappy than she meant to be. ‘Harriet’s just being …’

‘Jealous. I’ll admit it. I’m jealous,’ Harriet cut in. ‘I’m the one in need of a man, not you. I’m in massive need of a mercy fu … sorry, I mean a mercy snog. Or something. That bastard Pablo has drained all my confidence away.’

‘Not so’s you’d notice,’ Clare said, glancing up from her book. ‘You seem pretty sparky to me.’

‘I’m hiding my pain,’ Harriet said, pouting. ‘I won’t feel better till I know he’s left the county. He’s
still
at that hotel.’

‘Calling you every minute. Romantic,’ Silva said, doing exaggerated sighing.

Harriet gave her a sharp look. ‘He is,’ she said, glancing at her phone as she habitually did every few minutes. ‘Well … he was. He was texting, anyway. And there are press people hanging about at the hotel too.’ She sat on the diving board, looking a bit thoughtful. Miranda and Clare exchanged glances. They both knew Harriet’s phone had been silent for a good twenty-four
hours, give or take the odd call from girlfriends who were treated to ever more fanciful reports about Pablo’s dramatic arrival at the house. Of Pablo himself there’d been no sign, apart from overheard gossip in the harbour that ‘the druggy footballer’ had been seen whizzing round the country lanes far too fast in a scarlet Ferrari. Harriet made sure she was always wearing full-scale make-up, swearing she always did, but Miranda suspected it was in the hope that the press she’d claimed she dreaded would catch her ‘unawares’ and any photos would remind her TV bosses that she was way too pretty and talented to be dropped permanently from the network.

‘OK – I’ll be off in a sec,’ Miranda said, looking at her watch for about the twentieth time in as many minutes. ‘Are you sure you don’t mind me going out and abandoning you all like this? Will you be all right?’

Clare took off her sunglasses. ‘Miranda, for heaven’s sake just go. You’re on holiday. Go and have a good time. Of course we can fend for ourselves. Don’t be so ridiculous.’

‘That’s you told.’ Harriet giggled at her sister. ‘But she’s right.’

‘Me and Bo are going down to Lola’s. We’re making a raft for the village regatta, with Freddie as well. That’s OK, isn’t it?’ Silva said.

‘Of course it is.’ Miranda gave her a quick goodbye kiss before Silva could duck out of range. ‘Jess and her
brother Milo and Andrew and I used to make rafts too but we never won the raft race – that was always the locals. We thought they probably practised all year. Jess will be able to give you tips on flotation, if she can remember what we used to do. I seem to think it involved old oil drums, but I doubt you can get those now. I suppose huge plastic water containers might work.’ On the lane just past the gate a car horn tooted gently.

‘Ha – that’ll be Steve,’ Harriet said. ‘It’s definitely not Pablo. He’d have made sure the whole village could hear him. Off you go and have a good time, you lucky cow.’

‘Thanks, Harrie. Bye, all. I’ll see you later.’ Miranda fluffed her fingers through her hair and took a quick look all down her long white top, not quite trusting it to be free from sudden seagull poo attack or a juicily squashed fat insect she’d managed to sit on. All seemed well and she went up the steps towards the gate where Steve was waiting for her. What was the etiquette regarding a hello kiss, she wondered, but he stepped back to hold the car door open as she approached so she decided the kiss wasn’t expected. Maybe it wasn’t a Cornwall thing, unlike London where everyone seemed only a heartbeat away from kissing the postman if he did your round more than twice. Steve looked – well, strangely breathtaking, if she was honest. What was it about a sky blue shirt against tanned skin? She wished
she felt less jittery inside. A couple of drops of Rescue Remedy would have been useful, if she’d only thought of it sooner. But then, she hadn’t expected to feel like this. It must be the power of that first-love thing, maybe. A certain consciousness, unmentioned elephant-in-the-room style, that they’d seen an awful lot of each other, quite literally. But heavens, realistically this was only a few hours out with an old friend – what did she expect to happen? The worst would be running out of things to say, but as they had twenty years to cover that shouldn’t really be a problem, unless it ended up as kind of a list, like a CV.

‘Nice car,’ Miranda said, cursing herself for such a feeble comment as she settled into the little black Mercedes. The roof was down and she wondered if it would look prissy to scrabble about in her bag and find a scrunchie to tie back her hair. She decided not to bother. A bit of wind-blown mussing up wouldn’t do it any harm.

‘You like it?’ Steve sounded surprised, ‘Cheryl says it’s a hairdresser’s car and I should get something a bit more blokey.’

So. ‘Cheryl says’. Miranda wasn’t sure how to react to that but it did jolt her a bit. It seemed yet another confirmation that Cheryl was a hugely important part of Steve’s life – maybe he’d wanted to get that little piece of information in early, just in case she had ideas. Which she didn’t. Plus, of course, it wasn’t any of her
business. And not that it mattered. Not that she should care. But even so, they were barely out of the village and she was suddenly feeling bizarrely disappointed and wanting to turn back. Too late now.

‘Not that it’s anything to do with her,’ he went on, giving Miranda the distinct impression that he was back-pedalling, ‘but she does like to have an opinion on everything.’

‘She doesn’t hold back, that’s for sure,’ Miranda said crisply, recalling Cheryl’s instant decision in the village shop that Miranda
had
to be a shoplifter. She glanced at Steve and asked the question that had to be asked. ‘So Cheryl’s a bit special to you then?’

He laughed. ‘Yes, of course! I’ve known her for years,’ he said, which didn’t really do as much explaining about their relationship as Miranda had hoped. It had been the perfect moment to explain that Cheryl was married to his best friend or was actually his cousin or something but instead he was concentrating on the road, which, once past Helston, had become winding and narrow. She was surprised to realize she wasn’t gripping the sides of the seat in terror as she tended to do when being driven in small cars by others. But then she remembered how all those years ago Steve had made her feel completely safe in a small boat too, even at the mouth of the estuary where the real waves of the sea met the more gentle flow of the river and it all
became alarmingly choppy. He’d handled the boat with such calm skill – very much in the way, now she thought about it, he’d handled her nervously inexperienced body.

‘I thought we’d park at Lelant and take the train,’ he said. ‘Is that all right with you? You get a stunning view of the beaches and coastline that you can’t see from anywhere else.’

‘Oh, yes. Great. The only times we went to St Ives before we went by car and parked miles away up a hill and had to walk up a million steps to get back to it later. Amy and Harriet cried with exhaustion and Jack had to carry them, in turns. God, that was years ago. I think it was just before the Tate gallery opened there. Jack – that was my stepfather – talked about going to it the next year but we’d sold the cottage by then.’