All Aboard

by Cressida McLaughlin

  Summer refreshed their coffees and, instead of sitting at one of the tables, indicated for Mason to follow her. She went through the kitchen and into the cabin. She gently adjusted Latte’s position on the sofa, trying not to wake her, and sat down. Mason sat next to her, and Archie lay on the floor at his feet, his head on his front paws, his large brown eyes looking up at them.

  ‘You’ve done a great job in here,’ Mason said, appraising the snug space.

  ‘Is it like yours?’ Summer still hadn’t followed up on his offer to go aboard The Sandpiper and look at some of his photos.

  ‘Similar, but I’ve got a bit more space due to not also having to fit a café in. Come round, whenever you want.’

  ‘I’d like that,’ Summer said. She held his gaze, and then looked away. ‘With the carvings, I wonder if it’s someone who knew my mum, who was a regular customer, and who’s passed by and seen that the café is busy again.’

  Mason put his coffee on the side table and turned towards her, resting his arm on the back of the sofa. ‘I remember your mum,’ he said softly.

  ‘You do? But I thought you only came here in November?’

  ‘But I’ve been on the water for five years. I’ve never stayed very long in one place before, and I’ve passed through Willowbeck lots of times. You’re not the first Freeman I’ve got coffee from.’ He gave her a gentle smile, his eyes searching hers, as if unsure how she would react to the news. ‘I remember her constant energy, how she always had a kind word or a joke to share with everyone. Nobody got treated like just another customer. She remembered names, stories she’d shared with people.’

  Summer swallowed and nodded, wishing that she could grab hold of Mason and experience his memories, remember her mum without the taint of guilt and sadness that always accompanied her own. ‘You look nice in your glasses,’ she heard herself saying instead.

  Mason gawped. ‘T-thanks, I think. Sorry, if you don’t want to talk about her I completely understand.’

  ‘It’s not that,’ Summer said. ‘Sorry. I get flustered, and then my words misbehave. I was thinking about Mum, and what came out was …’ She gestured to his glasses. ‘But I’m glad you met her. I’m glad lots of people met her, because it means the life that she lived, or at least the memories of it, will stay on in other people. She won’t be forgotten.’

  ‘I see a lot of her in you,’ Mason said.

  Summer looked for any signs that he was just pandering to her, but his expression was serious. ‘I don’t share jokes with everyone,’ she said. ‘And I certainly can’t remember everyone’s name.’

  ‘No, but you’re always kind and attentive, and I know you’ve got a fun side. I think it just needs a bit of coaxing. You’ve had a rough year.’ Mason took a sip of his coffee, looking at her over the rim. She could see he was thinking, weighing things up. ‘And I think you feel guilty.’

  Summer’s mouth started to dry out, and the sensation continued through her body, everything seeming to freeze and solidify, like water turning to ice. ‘What?’ It came out as a whisper.

  ‘I’m not trying to put you on the spot,’ he said, ‘but there’s just something, something you’re trying to run from. I don’t know if it has anything to do with Jenny and Dennis, but I want you to know, Summer, that I can help.’ He leaned forward and took her hand, the gesture so surprising that Summer felt she could barely breathe. ‘I know what it feels like to—’

  ‘Summer! Summer, where are you?’ Summer flinched, the banging coming from the window behind her, and Mason let go of her hand. She turned and tried to unlatch the window, and Latte woke up and started yelping, high and anxious. Archie jumped on the sofa, and Mason gathered both the dogs into his arms.

  ‘What is it? What’s wrong, Valerie?’ She opened the window, and saw that Valerie was crouched down on the towpath, her face red, her eyes wet with emotion. ‘Oh God, Valerie, come in. I’ll open the door.’

  She moved to get up, but Valerie shook her head. ‘No,’ she said, ‘don’t get up on my account.’

  ‘But I want to help.’

  ‘Then you should have told me the truth from the beginning.’

  ‘What truth?’

  ‘That you don’t believe anything I do has an ounce of credibility. That I trick vulnerable people for my own personal gain.’

  Summer’s mind started to whirr. ‘But I don’t—’

  ‘Do you have any idea how much that hurts me? That Maddy’s daughter, the daughter of my best friend, really believes that I’m fraudulent, that I’m that kind of person?’

  ‘I don’t think—’

  ‘I thought we were friends. I thought we looked out for each other.’ Valerie had her hand on the edge of the window, supporting herself.

  ‘We do,’ Summer said, ‘of course we do. I haven’t forgotten, for even a second, everything you’ve done for me.’

  ‘And this is how you repay me? Bitching about me behind my back? I knew you found it difficult when I mentioned Maddy, how she’s watching over you, but I had no idea how far it went.’

  ‘Valerie,’ Summer said, her heart racing, ‘I have never, for one second thought that you tricked people, that’s just not true. Come in and let me get you a coffee, and we can—’

  ‘I don’t want to talk to you, Summer. Not now. I’m beginning to wish I hadn’t asked you to come back. Maybe it would have been better if Maddy’s café closed down. It could have been a fresh start for everyone.’

  ‘You don’t mean that,’ Summer said, but Valerie pushed herself up from the towpath and strode towards her own boat. Summer leaned out of the window, startling a young couple who were passing with a bag of bread ready to feed the ducks. ‘Valerie, please!’ But Valerie stepped on to Moonshine without a backward glance.

  Summer slunk inside and closed the window. ‘Shit. Shit, shit, shit!’

  She put her elbows on her knees, her face in her hands. She thought back to the previous day, to Jenny interrupting her while she was talking to Ross. What better way to cause discord with the café than to get Summer’s few friends in Willowbeck to turn against her? Jenny must have heard her talking, and then twisted her words beyond recognition. ‘I should have known this would happen.’

  She felt Mason’s hand on her shoulder, the warmth of it through her light cotton top. ‘Who told her?’

  ‘Jenny,’ Summer said. ‘But none of that’s true. I’m sceptical, but I don’t think Valerie’s a fraud. I was talking to Ross about Valerie yesterday, and Jenny interrupted us. She must have overheard and decided to use it against me. What am I going to do?’ She looked up at him, reluctant to sit up fully and relinquish the warmth of his hand.

  ‘Be honest,’ Mason said. ‘Tell Valerie that Jenny twisted your words, and that you don’t feel that way. I know she doesn’t want to hear it now, but she’ll calm down, and you can make her listen to you.’ He smiled at her, rubbed her shoulder. ‘How often does Ross come over?’

  ‘Ross?’ Summer repeated. ‘Oh, not very often. He runs an art supplies shop that I use, and he’s just … he’s been a good friend the last few months. But Cambridge isn’t round the corner, and he’s got his own life to lead.’

  Mason nodded slowly. ‘Good friends?’

  Summer gave him a quick smile. ‘Quite good friends. He has a habit of …’ She wondered how to explain, without being unkind to Ross. ‘He’s quite protective of me, which I suppose is understandable because he was there when I was at my lowest, but I’m doing OK, all things considered.’

  ‘Right,’ Mason said. ‘Friends. That’s good to know.’

  If he turned his mega-watt grin on her now, Summer knew she would be helpless. She waited for it, holding her breath, wondering what it would be like to have his lips against hers, when Latte jumped off his lap and launched herself at Summer’s top, yelping for all she was worth. ‘What is it?’ she sighed. Latte continued to yelp and paw, a frenzied bundle of white fur. Mason lifted their coffee cups out of the way and took them back to the kitchen.
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  ‘You’re going?’

  ‘I’ve got an article to finish,’ he called. He stuck his head back round the doorway. ‘Come out with me, to the reserve. Now the weather’s improving, there’s so much to see. You’ll find the photos much more interesting if you’ve taken some of them yourself.’

  ‘When?’

  ‘Let me check the forecast, but some time in the next couple of days. We could go early and watch the sun come up.’

  Summer’s insides fluttered as she struggled to hold on to Latte. ‘Sounds lovely.’

  ‘I’ll let you know. And talk to Valerie.’

  She nodded, then listened to him walk back through the café and close the door behind him.

  ‘Latte,’ she said. ‘Why did you have to interrupt us then?’ Latte yipped, jumped off Summer’s lap and ran into the kitchen. ‘Oh, food,’ she said. ‘How did I fail to guess?’ As she took out the pouches of dog food, holding them out in front of Latte so she could choose a flavour in an entirely pointless ritual that Summer still liked to go through, she started rehearsing what she would say to Valerie. She hoped the older woman would believe her, and wondered what Jenny could have said to her in the first place to convince her that Summer had really said those words.

  Summer woke up the next day with a sense of purpose. It was a new month, and Mason had given her hope. Hope that she could fix things with Valerie, hope that maybe, the truth – as simple as it was – could work with Jenny too. After all, she hadn’t done anything wrong, but she’d been damned by association. And Mason had invited her to go to the reserve with him, he wanted to share one of his passions with her. She dressed in black leggings, tan boots and a long, dark purple jumper, and tied her hair back from her face. She put on a short leather jacket, clipped Latte on to her lead, and left the boat. She could talk to Valerie and still be open by nine thirty.

  The sun was bright and sharp, as if it was shining through crystal, and Summer squinted as she made her way down the towpath towards Moonshine. Her palms were sweaty, her chest tight with anticipation, but Valerie’s heart was kind, she had to listen to her. She knocked loudly, but there was no answer. She gave it a few moments and then tried again. Was she too early? Was Valerie having an uncharacteristic lie-in, or did she know it was Summer at the door? Frustrated, her adrenaline fading, she started walking slowly down the towpath, Latte bounding at her feet, happy to be finally getting on with their walk.

  When she returned, Valerie’s boat was still dark, and there was still no response when Summer knocked. She sighed and dawdled the last few feet to her boat, waving at a narrowboat that drifted slowly past. ‘Bacon sandwiches today, love?’ the heavily bearded man called.

  Summer realized she’d served him before, and that she knew his name. “Hi, Barry – they’ll be ready in about twenty minutes.”

  ‘Great, I’ll moor up.’ He gave her the thumbs up, and Summer watched him manoeuvre towards one of the short-term moorings.

  Latte tugged on her lead and Summer turned away from the river, and almost straight into Jenny. The older woman had her hair down, a black coat with a fake-fur collar over a long, cream skirt, and looked altogether softer than she had the last time Summer had seen her. Summer almost relaxed.

  ‘Jenny—’

  ‘This isn’t going to work.’

  Summer stared at her. ‘What isn’t?’ she asked, even though she already knew.

  ‘You being here, running her café. We’re never going to get on, and so it’s not going to work.’

  ‘But we could try—’

  ‘No. I will never forget what your mother did to me, to my marriage. I can forgive Dennis, and I know that he’s sorry. He’s making it up to me. But your mother, what she did, the way she worked on him, manipulated him into cheating on me, I can never forgive her.’

  Summer closed her eyes. ‘But I’m not her,’ she said. The words felt like betrayal, but really, how could she stick up for her? She didn’t believe her mum had manipulated Dennis, she knew that he had felt the same about Maddy as she did about him, but the rest of it was true.

  ‘You’re in her café,’ Jenny continued, ‘running it as she did. And you must have known.’

  Summer swallowed, nodded, felt the tears pricking at her eyes. ‘I did,’ she said, ‘towards the end. But it wasn’t my place, it wasn’t my secret.’

  ‘You should have told me.’

  Summer shook her head. ‘I know what they were doing was wrong, but I loved my mum. I would never have betrayed her trust to tell you.’

  ‘But you didn’t approve of what they were doing.’

  ‘No,’ Summer said, swallowing again and again as the lump stuck in her throat. ‘No I didn’t.’

  ‘So you can appreciate how I feel. You can see why you have to go, to leave me and Dennis alone. We were fine until you came back.’

  ‘The café was still here.’

  ‘Barely. It was dying a slow and satisfying death.’ Jenny folded her arms.

  ‘Please, Jenny.’ But Summer was running out of words.

  This was the confrontation that, above all others, she didn’t want to have. The one about how her beautiful, beloved, charismatic mother had had an affair with Dennis, and ruined Jenny’s life − and then her own − because of it. She’d looked up to her mother more than anyone else, but she had never been able to come to terms with what she’d done. It had been a friction between them the last few months of Maddy’s life, it had been tearing Summer apart until it came to a head one day last June. It was a day that Summer couldn’t think about without going cold.

  ‘Please Jenny,’ she said again, ‘can’t we exist side by side like this? Life’s too short to fight.’

  ‘You know I’m right,’ Jenny said, her voice calm. ‘You know neither of us can feel peace while we’re both here. I think it’s why you stayed away all those months, and why I’m not the only one you’re fighting with. I overheard you and Valerie last night – it’s because the memories are too painful. And why struggle on here when you could make a fresh life, somewhere else?’

  ‘You’re responsible for the misunderstanding with Valerie,’ Summer said.

  ‘I don’t know what you’re talking about.’ Jenny shook her head. ‘You’re losing it, Summer. Just admit it.’

  Summer tried to think straight past the memories that were crowding back in, and Jenny took the opportunity to deliver the final blow.

  ‘Dennis doesn’t want you here, I don’t, and if you’re fighting with Valerie too, what is there to stay for? Why don’t you go somewhere you’re wanted? If that place exists.’

  ‘Because I—’ But Jenny was already leaving, walking in the direction of the pub’s car park.

  Summer picked Latte up and held her close, burying her nose in her puppy’s warm fur. She blinked and tried to still her trembling hands. ‘Bacon,’ she murmured, ‘I need bacon, don’t I?’

  She walked slowly in the direction of the butcher’s, and saw Norman sitting on his deck, a fishing rod in the water. ‘S’right,’ he said as Summer walked past.

  ‘Sorry?’

  Norman nodded his head in the direction of the pub. ‘Her.’

  ‘What do you mean? Right about what?’

  ‘Fightin’. S’not good for the soul. I’ve done enough to last me a lifetime. You too. Don’t fight wi’ people. Stay away from the fightin’.’

  Summer looked at him, his eyes meeting hers beneath the bushy eyebrows, the peak of his cap. Fighting was the cause of so much upset in her life, but was she entirely responsible? Was she going around seeking confrontation? She’d never thought of herself that way. She shook her head and forced a smile. ‘Do you want a bacon sandwich?’

  ‘If you’re offerin’.’

  ‘I am.’

  She stocked up on bacon, and took it back to the café. Climbing on to the deck, the toe of her boot kicked something. She crouched, picked the object up and held it to the light. It was another wooden carving, this one more intricate than the rest. It
was a familiar object, a distinctive shape, but it took her a moment to place it. It was a jester’s hat, with its spikes and baubles on the end. How did this connect to the others? Was someone saying that her being here, in Willowbeck, was a joke?

  She made the bacon sandwiches, put cakes out and warmed up the water in the coffee machine, going through the motions. Mason didn’t come to see her, Valerie stayed away, she served Barry and took a bacon roll to Norman, but her mind was elsewhere. She found herself staring at the Elvis quote she’d put on the blackboard the previous evening, inspired by Mason: ‘Truth is like the sun. You can shut it out for a time, but it ain’t goin’ away’. Summer believed in the magic of words, that by taking something out of your head and writing it down, you gave it power. It was why she loved being a sign-writer, why she made the effort to write rhymes and slogans on her blackboards alongside her menu. She read the quote through again. It rang truer than ever now.

  She had been shutting out the truth for so long. The truth of her mother’s affair, and what had happened the previous June. She had thought, by coming back, she could confront everything and start again. But the anger was still there, and Summer knew she hadn’t confronted the one thing that was stopping her from moving forward – what she’d done on the day her mother had died.

  Maybe Jenny was right. Maybe she couldn’t have a fresh start in Willowbeck, maybe it was too steeped in the past. But she lived on a boat. Why did she have to stay here, why couldn’t she be successful with The Canal Boat Café somewhere else, where nobody knew her or Maddy or their history?

  As the day progressed, the idea lodged itself in her mind, and she mulled it over, thinking through the pros and cons. Without Valerie’s support, and with Jenny and Dennis against her, even Norman wading in on the argument, what did she have to lose? She tried to pretend there was nothing, but every time she thought of Mason’s hand on her shoulder, the look in his eyes, the smile that floored her, she felt the doubt creeping in. But was one dinner at the pub, an offer of a walk, enough to stay for? And their friendship didn’t have to end just because she was somewhere else along the river. He had a boat too. They could stay in touch.