by Jenny Oliver
But then Ruben caught her eye and said, ‘Reckon your dad would tell you a chunk of that would be enough to start a new business with.’
Olive frowned back at the mottled gold. She imagined her dad watching them find it. Chuffed with his final hiding place. It occurred to her then that he would be as gutted as she was by the way things turned out. But, she realised, how proud – maybe even relieved – he would be that he had left them with this glinting treasure and all its possibilities.
Dolly plucked the gold from her hand, weighing it up with giddy excitement.
Olive looked at Ruben, ‘Thanks,’ she said, and he said, ‘You’re welcome,’ knowing her too well, even after all this time, to have to say, ‘What for?’
Chapter Twenty-Six
The various cars were all packed. Everyone had said their goodbyes. Ruben and Zadie were staying on till Zadie’s mum came to pick her up. Fox and Dolly were entrusted with the gold and were heading off on a road trip to get it valued and sold.
Aunt Marge and Olive were about to head off in their respective vehicles when Aunt Marge said, ‘How about one last turn of the estate?’ And Olive said, ‘All right.’
It was a clear, bright day. Not too hot, not too cold. Marge was dressed in leopard-print Gucci leggings and a red diamanté T-shirt. ‘I think I’ll spend my cut of the gold on a cruise. What do you think?’
Olive said, ‘I think you’d get bored on a cruise.’
Aunt Marge thought for a second, her arm linked through Olive’s. ‘Yes, you might be right. Maybe I’ll go to Vegas. Blow it all on slot machines and bag myself a beefcake, like Dolly.’ She guffawed.
The lawn was almost emerald in the sunlight. The sea in the distance a swathe of turquoise.
Marge said, ‘So what about you and Ruben, then?’
Olive could feel her aunt’s beady, gossipy gaze. ‘Oh nothing,’ she said. ‘I think we’ve got enough to deal with at the moment.’
Marge blew out a breath like a horse. ‘Fiddlesticks.’
‘I’m serious.’
They paused together at the top of the slope that led down to the potting shed and the polytunnels. Terence, the groundsman, was cleaning his Land Rover. He looked up when he saw someone watching and waved. Marge waved back. ‘At last,’ she said under her breath. ‘That’s who I’m here for.’
‘What do you mean?’ said Olive. ‘I thought you came for us?’
Marge said, ‘Well I did. But he’s always been such a dish – and ever since his widower status came up on Facebook a couple of years ago, I’ve been dying to get back here. Got to take it when you can get it, don’t you?’ she sniggered. Then she shouted down at Terence, ‘Terence! How are you? Marge King, remember me? Do you want to make me a cup of tea?’
He seemed a little taken aback, then did a thumbs-up.
Marge clapped gleefully. ‘Excellent. Put the kettle on, I’ll be right there!’
Olive looked across at her aunt, her satisfied grin and her red hair glowing in the sunlight. ‘Thank you, by the way,’ she said.
Marge’s forehead creased. ‘Whatever for?’
‘For everything. For the chat the other day. For taking us in. For putting up with us. For shopping Dolly to the police.’ Marge rolled her eyes at that memory. ‘You had a life of your own and you didn’t have to take us in. And we didn’t make it easy for you, I know that. So thank you.’
‘Oh, tush,’ Marge gave her a little bash on the arm, ‘Seriously, don’t think too highly of me, I am only here for the hunky gardener.’ She tried to make light of it, but Olive could see the flush of pride on her face at the unexpected recognition.
‘Well thanks anyway,’ Olive said, reaching over to give her a hug round the shoulders.
Marge gripped tight to Olive’s hand and gave it a squeeze. Then before she went to get her cup of tea with Terence, she turned and, holding Olive’s cheeks between her hands, said, ‘You can’t control life, Olive darling. You just have to live it. No one knows what the future holds so you must grasp every opportunity. Look at me, I live every day as if it’s my last and I’m fabulous.’ She spread her arms wide and declared, ‘The world is chaos. Olive King is not going to change that.’ Then she trotted off down the hill, a massive grin on her face.
Olive left Marge and started to walk back to her car. The fox darted across her path into the undergrowth. A hawk hovered in the distance. She strolled without thinking, her mind on autopilot, aware of every twist and turn like muscle memory. But obviously her memory wasn’t quite as good as she thought because she took a wrong turn somewhere and ended up by the lake and the Diana fountain. Ahead of her was the Big House. She walked on, past the statue, in the direction of the house, then stopped abruptly.
She took a step back so she could see Diana’s face and suddenly saw herself clinging onto the statue, dripping wet in just her underwear.
She stood for what seemed like hours. Time morphing around her. She felt Marge’s hand on her cheek. She saw Dolly throwing her arms round Fox. She saw Zadie calling down to Ruben in the crevice of the rock. She saw her dad gleefully planting clues with an old sea dog in the Hope and Anchor. She saw her mother in the living room, dancing to Christmas music with a crown of ivy in her hair and a wide white-toothed grin on her face.
She remembered the feeling inside her when Ruben said, ‘I did love you.’ The free-falling terror of excitement.
She leant on the edge of the lake and looked down at her reflection – her hair loose from its ponytail, her face a little freckled from the sun, her shoulders lightly tanned.
‘I thought you’d gone?’
She looked up to see Ruben walking towards her, wearing blue jeans and a T-shirt, hair still wet from the shower.
‘No,’ she said.
He paused at the other side of the water. ‘What are you doing?’ he asked, dark brows drawn together, inquiring.
‘Thinking,’ she said, standing up, tucking her hair behind her ear, looking across at him over the water. Feeling sixteen. Gauche and faux-confident.
She saw his eyes narrow slightly, thick, dark lashes. She saw his expression change ever so slightly as if something might be dawning on him. Something that may or may not be true. ‘What are you thinking about?’ he asked, almost wary, possibly allowing himself to hope as he started to walk towards her round the lake.
Olive felt herself trying but failing to hold in a smile as she skirted the stone wall to close the gap. When she got within touching distance of him, her heart thrumming with possibility, she said, ‘I’m thinking that maybe now might be exactly our time.’
Acknowledgements
Thanks go, as always, to my editor Kate Mills for her brilliant ability and determination to ensure books are always the best they can be. Thanks also to Melanie Hayes who worked on One Lucky Summer with such enthusiasm and a fantastic editorial eye. The whole team at HQ – Editorial, Design, Production, Marketing & PR, Sales – have worked so hard through a really difficult year and I thank and admire them for it. And of course, thanks go to my fab agent, Rebecca Ritchie. Lastly, thank you to all the readers who will hopefully take a well-earned break and enjoy a book in the sunshine.
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Chapter One
It was the start of the bank holiday weekend and the air was abuzz with Lexi and Hamish Warrington’s summer party. Music was already drifting over the street to announce the lavish annual event.
The weather was steaming. Clouds had been holding in the heat like a pressure cooker for days. Everyone with their own theory on when it might break, whispering about who was using their hose even though there was a ban. On Thursday’s bin night all the blue recycling crates up the street were full of Dyson fan boxes and paddling pool packaging.
Across the road at number nine Cedar
Lane, Julia Fletcher was busy icing fifty-five vanilla cupcakes, baked at Lexi Warrington’s behest, before the party started. There was white frosting and white sugar stars everywhere to fit with this year’s white-hot theme. Last year it had been unicorns. Lexi had dyed her hair like a rainbow and worn a tail which Julia, who had moved in last autumn, only knew because she’d found the picture on Instagram.
The party was all anyone had been talking about for months. Lexi had sent a save the date to the Cedar Lane WhatsApp group in mid-January when there was still frost on the pavements: Guys, so sick of this weather!! Only thing keeping me sane is SUMMER PARTY–yay!! Lxxx Everyone marking it in the diary months in advance so the date wouldn’t be double-booked.
Now the party was due to start in half an hour and Julia was nowhere near ready. There was icing everywhere. The crappy oven had burnt half the cakes and under-baked the other half. There was a wasp buzzing furiously against the window. Inside the house it was like an oven. The red-brick Victorian houses on Lexi’s side of the street kept naturally cool, whereas the pebble-dashed post-war terraced houses on Julia’s side were built with walls as thin as bible pages so they heated up like furnaces in the summer and turned to ice in winter.
Julia’s husband, Charlie, strolled casually into the kitchen. ‘God, I love a bank holiday,’ he sighed, the relief of the extra day off lifting his whole being as if at all other times he wore the job he hated heavy on his shoulders. He’d been for a cycle already that morning and changed out of his sweaty cycling kit into an old pair of turquoise shorts and a green T-shirt. ‘Does Lexi know you’ve gone to this much effort?’ he asked, watching Julia frantically trying to finish the cakes.
Julia looked up, pushing her hair out her eyes with the back of her hand, she was not in the mood for chat. The mid-morning almost tropical heat was making the frosting curdle. ‘Try this,’ she said, handing him one of the cupcakes that had caught in the oven. ‘Can you tell it’s burnt?’
Charlie examined the little cake, then popped it into his mouth whole. ‘Nice,’ he said, voice muffled with cake, nodding with approval.
Julia wasn’t so sure and took a bite of one herself. It definitely tasted burnt, but there wasn’t time to do anything about it now. If she covered them with enough silver balls and sugared white stars, hopefully no one would notice.
Charlie might very well be shaking his head at Julia’s clear distress re the cakes, but the thing about Lexi Warrington was that she made you want to impress her. She was Queen Bee of the road with the perfect house and the perfect children – little blonde twin girls. Everyone loved Lexi. She had a buoyancy. A story to tell for every situation, an emoji reply for every one of the hundred Instagram comments she receives, an effortlessly understated outfit for every barbecue or Cedar Lane WhatsApp group drinks.
Since moving in, Lexi had taken Julia under her wing – inviting her round for a coffee and to do yoga in the living room, including her in the cocktail nights with the girls – and because of that, Julia didn’t mind doing things for her, like making the cakes or, as was Lexi’s current bugbear, helping campaign against the new Sainsbury’s planned for development at the end of the street: Julia, you’re in marketing aren’t you? Could you knock up a good template letter of complaint for the whole street to use? Thanks, sweetie! L xxx
Julia wasn’t stupid, she knew that in some ways Lexi was using her – she made you feel special so you’d do things for her – but it didn’t matter. That was the thing about Lexi, there was something magnetic about her, something powerful. She made you want to do things for her.
Charlie had gone over to the window to let the wasp out and was now standing by the kitchen table that was stacked high with paint charts, decorating catalogues and tile samples, leafing through the mess to find something. ‘Do we need all this stuff?’ he asked, gesturing to the decorating paraphernalia.
Julia shook her head. ‘I have no idea. Probably not.’ Renovations on their property had somewhat stalled recently with the depletion of their bank balance.
Charlie said, ‘Do you know where my seed catalogue is?’ nosing his way through the stack.
Julia looked over at him in disbelief. How could Charlie be thinking about seeds when they were about to head out to the party of the year? She checked the time on the oven clock. ‘Oh God, it starts soon. Shit, I haven’t even got changed. You’ve got to get changed.’
‘I am changed,’ Charlie said without looking up. ‘I think my tomatoes might have blight,’ he mused, nudging paint charts out of the way with his finger to find the seed catalogue, ‘but I’m pretty sure I ordered Mountain Magic which are blight-resistant.’
Julia paused her icing, wondering if she could somehow subtly ask him to please not talk solely about his vegetable patch while they were at the party, but she knew if she did that then she’d offend him because it was his current pride and joy and they’d have a row. But really, no one wanted to talk about tomatoes. Especially no one at Lexi and Hamish’s.
She iced the last cupcake. ‘Charlie, you can’t go wearing that,’ she said, gesturing to his turquoise and green colour combination. ‘It’s a white-hot theme. You need to wear white. Haven’t you got a white shirt?’
‘I hate white shirts. I look stupid in white,’ he said, ‘like I’m going to school.’
‘You don’t,’ Julia replied. He did. But she didn’t want him to stand out in his green T-shirt. She wanted them to blend seamlessly in. Julia had been immersed in Lexi’s all-consuming outfit planning for weeks and as a result had found herself panic scrolling for outfits during work meetings, shopping in her lunch break and scouring Pinterest for good hair ideas, all especially for today.
She looked over at Charlie, trying to ignore the mess on the table and the cracked bare plaster wall behind him. ‘You must have a white T-shirt, surely? Don’t you have a polo shirt?’
‘It’s really old.’ Charlie came over to the kitchen counter, picking an apple from the fruit bowl and taking a bite. ‘This is fine,’ he said, pulling at his T-shirt. ‘Honestly, I just want to relax this weekend.’
Julia sprinkled tiny white sugar stars all over the cakes. ‘Please, Charlie, please go and put the polo shirt on. For me.’
Charlie sighed. ‘OK, fine, whatever.’ Munching on his apple, he skulked out of the room.
‘And you need your swimming trunks!’ Julia called after him. ‘They’ve hired a hot tub.’
From the hallway Charlie shouted back, ‘There is absolutely no way I am taking my top off at this party.’
Julia went back to her cakes, pincering silver balls into the centre of each one. It was hypocritical of her to roll her eyes at Charlie because he was just reflecting back her own insecurities. She wasn’t thrilled at the idea of being in just her swimming costume at the party either, but she didn’t want to be that couple. Hamish and Lexi wouldn’t have any qualms about stripping off; they’d probably get naked given half the chance.
Julia’s phone beeped on the kitchen counter. It was a WhatsApp from her work friend Meryl. She reached over with icing-covered hands to read it.
Meryl: Had any more Hot Hamish fantasies?
Oh God. Julia leant over the counter to see that Charlie was definitely no longer around, her heart racing.
On Thursday night, Julia had gone for after-work drinks to celebrate Meryl’s new job in Hong Kong. A bit pissed on countless glasses of Pinot Grigio Blush in the boiling sunshine, and sad that Meryl was off on a new adventure, Julia had admitted to the fact that, over the last few weeks, she’d been having erotic dreams about Lexi’s husband, Hamish Warrington. Julia had never had erotic dreams before. Even the fact she used the word erotic suggested to her that this was not her normal territory. As she’d told Meryl, dimly aware of her uninhibited insobriety, ‘I’m not an erotic sex-dream person. I have quiet, nice sex. I can’t even believe I’ve said the word sex so many times in this conversation, I’ve never talked about sex this much in my life.’
Meryl, who talked
about sex a lot, had guffawed. Congratulated her even for this unexpected candidness. Then insisted on seeing Hamish’s Instagram page which was all pictures of him with his top off; six-foot-two, washboard-stomached, dirty-blond hair, on holiday in the Maldives or sweating through a HIIT workout. Meryl had highly approved and the sex-dream conversation had segued into Meryl disappearing down a Hamish Warrington Instagram wormhole.
Later that night Meryl had WhatsApped Julia with a drunken diagnosis:
I think the problem is that you’re trapped in normality. On paper you have everything but maybe you’re feeling constrained by convention. Your bored brain is seeking excitement, Mx P.S. Never let me drink Blush again
Julia had pondered the notion. When she and Charlie had bought the house on Cedar Lane last year it had all seemed very exciting. Charlie’s granny had died and left him enough money, along with their savings, to make up the deposit. They had attained what had been deemed unattainable, a rung on the housing ladder. Even her parents had been impressed. Julia had splodged each wall with Farrow & Ball tester pots and made a Pinterest board for every room. She had dreams of pale grey Scandinavian kitchen cupboards, high stools and a snazzy hot water tap.
But now, after spending out on a new boiler, a new bathroom because the shower leaked, having the Asbestolux all over the top floor removed, and experiencing the nauseous horror of being told they needed a new roof that they couldn’t afford and paying to patch it up instead, they were at a cash flow standstill. They were having to hold out on further renovations till they could afford them. The Farrow & Ball paint had been immediately downgraded to Homebase own-brand, but even that was sidelined when it was revealed the bedroom wall needed replastering. It meant they were living in depressingly wallpaper-stripped rooms with orange swirly carpet throughout and a half-torn down kitchen with bare plaster walls. They had sucked every last pound of their savings and interest-free credit. Their joint income was now spreadsheeted and accounted for for the next three years, including adjustments for possible interest rate rises and a freeze on bonuses, so that with every eight to ten months came the possibility of decorating a room, bar any further disasters. Charlie had weighted the spreadsheet to include a baby next year but, looking at the figures, possibly the year after would be better financially.
