Summer at Hollyhock House

by Cathy Bussey

  If my mother could see this, she thought, she’d go absolutely ballistic. She’d tell me you can’t trust boys, that if you let a boy take your clothes off you’re giving him the green light to do whatever he wants, it’s like she doesn’t realise there’s so many possibilities, so much you can do together without having sex.

  ‘What are you going to do next year?’ Rik asked. ‘About university?’

  Faith still didn’t know. ‘I want to go to horticultural college,’ she said, ‘and my mother wants me to go to a real university and get a proper degree, and every time we talk about it we end up arguing so I’m kind of avoiding the issue.’

  ‘You should just go to college,’ he said instantly. ‘Who cares what your mum wants you to do? It’s not her life.’

  ‘I know,’ she said, ‘but as she keeps pointing out, she and my dad will be funding me, or helping fund me, at least.’ She grimaced. ‘And she might have a point that mowing lawns and weeding isn’t exactly well-paid.’

  ‘There’s loads of ways to make money gardening,’ Rik countered. ‘And even if you don’t, you can always do something else on the side, or go back to university later on.’

  Those were the exact points Faith had made continually and repeatedly to her mother, but for some reason now she was playing devil’s advocate herself. ‘Or I could study English and find a decent job and do the gardening on the side,’ she said, echoing her mother’s arguments. ‘I don’t know. What are you going to do?’

  ‘I’m going to study graphic design and then go travelling and then get a job where I can do both at the same time.’

  ‘I want to go travelling,’ she said. ‘But I can’t see how I could ever afford it, especially as I’m going to have to get myself into a lifetime’s worth of debt just to get a degree in order to allow me to get a job that pays me enough to pay it all off by the time I’m seventy.’

  ‘You can work at uni, and during the holidays,’ he said. ‘We both can, we can save up and go together. For a year at least.’

  Her heart soared. A year. A whole year of dossing around with Rik, riding bikes and having adventures and swimming in the sea and discovering new places together. Meeting new people and speaking haltingly in foreign languages, giggling at each other’s awful pronunciation, and getting into scrapes and bailing each other out and looking after each other when they got food poisoning from dodgy street vendors. Camping under the stars and staying in grotty hostels and overnight train journeys across continents sharing a tiny cabin and listening to the miles roar past under the all-encompassing cover of speed and darkness, knowing they would be somewhere completely different when the sun finally rose again.

  And all without anybody hanging over her shoulder nagging her about — well, everything under the sun. She couldn’t think of anything she wanted to do more.

  ‘It’s a pain that you’re a year below me,’ she said. ‘I’ll have to wait around for you, I suppose.’

  ‘That’ll make a change,’ Rik said. ‘I’ve done all the waiting so far. I had to wait for years just to get to first base with you.’

  Faith kissed him. ‘But now you get to do that all the time. And you get to go to second base with me too, and,’ she dropped her voice dramatically, ‘third.’

  ‘It was worth waiting for,’ Rik said.

  She put her head on his chest. The bright, golden light streaming in through the patio doors was bouncing off his skin and the air around them was very still, entirely content to just be.

  ‘I should probably tell you,’ she said slowly, ‘my parents are going away this weekend. All weekend.’

  Rik sat up. ‘And leaving you home alone?’

  She nodded. ‘All by myself.’

  ‘That won’t do,’ Rik said. ‘All kinds of undesirable types might come knocking. I’m surprised your parents are actually leaving you alone.’

  ‘So am I,’ she said. ‘But I’ve persuaded them not to pack me off to my aunt’s house in London for the weekend by promising religiously — literally, actually, my mother made me swear on the Bible — to keep myself out of trouble and to ask Minel if she can come and keep me company.’

  ‘Oh, she’ll be busy,’ Rik said, ‘trying to pull Paul, now she’s dumped Gabe at last.’

  ‘Has she?’

  Rik nodded. ‘Over the phone. Lame or what? But let’s not talk about her.’ He stroked her hair reflectively. ‘So what do you want to do this weekend then? Can I come and keep you company instead? I would love to stay the night with you,’ he said dreamily. ‘And see how beautiful you look in the morning.’

  All right, she thought determinedly. Time for that conversation.

  ‘Have you ever, um,’ she felt suddenly awkward, because part of her didn’t want to know the answer in case it was the wrong one. ‘Have you ever done that before?’

  ‘Done what?’

  ‘The sex.’ She giggled slightly.

  Rik shifted a little and Faith held her breath, hoping desperately he would say — ‘No.’

  ‘Oh good,’ she said delightedly. ‘I haven’t either.’

  Rik looked highly relieved.

  ‘I probably could have,’ he said, ‘if I had wanted to.’

  Faith held up her hand. ‘I don’t need to hear it.’ She scowled at the thought of Rik with anybody else. ‘I’m just glad you didn’t.’

  ‘I am too,’ he said quickly, sensing he was walking a fine line. ‘I always wanted it to be with you.’

  Faith nodded. ‘That’s right,’ she said vehemently. ‘That’s how it should be.’

  Chapter 16

  After their night out in London Faith had fully intended to keep away from Rik to work herself up for the inevitable uncomfortable conversation, but Monday was so sunny and the air was so full of enchantment, and Rik so obviously happy to see her, that she couldn’t face it. One more day, she promised herself. One more day in this weird limbo we seem to have arrived at, in which we are behaving like long-lost friends who are gravitating towards one another and becoming closer and more attuned, just as we did for years before we crossed the line.

  ‘Paul will be down on you like his tonnes of bricks if you keep sneaking over here,’ she said when Rik turned up to visit her yet again.

  ‘Tonnes and tonnes and tonnes,’ he agreed. ‘We’re up to our eyes in them over there. Come on. Lunch time.’

  They rode out onto ‘the big road’ and Faith wondered if the time was right to suggest the quarry, but no, she still wasn’t ready for that. Rik took her further out than before, up and around and down and up again, but when they got back she was amazed to notice they had still only been an hour.

  ‘I must be getting stronger,’ she said delightedly.

  ‘You are,’ Rik said. ‘Compared to how slowly you crawled along when you got here.’ He smiled cheekily. Faith’s heart failed. I just adore him, she thought. It’s going to kill me to let him go again, when all this is over.

  After they had finished up Rik fell into step next to her as she headed up to the house to say goodbye to Minel and GT. ‘Stay for dinner,’ Minel offered. ‘Sara will be round in a bit.’ Faith helped her knock up a lasagne and salad and giggled as GT kept trying, and failing, to leap up onto the side to steal food from her hand. ‘I need to train him,’ she sighed.

  GT brought over a length of rope and begged Rik into playing tug-of-war. Faith watched him with the puppy. He’d be amazing with kids, she thought. We’d have great kids, me and him.

  ‘You are going to neuter GT?’ Faith said to Minel.

  ‘Of course.’ Minel looked affronted. ‘Completely irresponsible, having a dog like him carousing around. He’ll be worse than that infernal Tackle.’

  ‘The neighbours did try to restrain him once,’ Rik said. ‘They bought an electric fence that you bury around the parameters of your land and fitted him with this awful collar, that gave him an electric shock every time he crossed it.’ He giggled infectiously. ‘Tackle did not care. He would jump over the fence, lie down twitchi
ng for a while until the shock had passed, and then just get up and go.’

  ‘I felt a bit like Tackle as a kid,’ Faith said. She caught Rik’s eye and flushed. ‘A weird combination of left to run wild, and pegged in by an invisible fence.’ To be fair she and Tackle had also shared a mutual desire to be as close to Rik as possible and a fondness for humping his leg, but she wasn’t saying that one out loud.

  ‘When we have kids,’ Paul said, ‘they won’t be allowed to run wild and get up to all sorts of mischief.’ He tapped the table emphatically. ‘They’ll do as they’re bloody well told.’

  ‘Slave driver,’ Faith said, but she felt pleased Paul was discussing children so openly, without any of the usual loaded tension. ‘You were the worst of all of us,’ she said, ‘you great hypocrite. You led all of us astray, especially Minel.’

  Paul laughed. ‘Fair point,’ he said.

  ‘When we have kids they’ll run wild around this place just like we did,’ Minel said to Paul firmly. ‘We all turned out OK. Just think,’ she said, her face radiant, ‘one day there’ll be a whole bunch of them running around here, exhausting us poor parents, probably trashing that lovely summerhouse we’re building for them like we trashed the hay barn. A new generation.’ She looked wistful and hopeful, and Faith reached out and squeezed her shoulder, too moved to speak. That is what we’re building here, she thought. A legacy, a gift for a new generation, and I’m a part of it.

  Sara wandered in full of smiles and hellos. Faith was about to pull her aside and ask for the latest news on Tony, because Sara had seemed far more upbeat lately, but then she clocked Minel and Paul exchanging a glance and her heart skipped several beats.

  ‘Now we’re all here, we’ve got something to tell you,’ Minel said, taking Paul’s hand.

  Faith caught her breath. Could it be?

  ‘I’m pregnant,’ Minel said, and she burst into tears.

  Faith flung her arms around her and felt Sara wrap her arms around the pair of them. A few tears escaped from her own eyes. ‘Oh Min,’ she said. ‘You wonderful woman. You miracle worker.’

  Rik and Paul exchanged a high five. ‘I did a bit too,’ Paul pointed out, and Faith giggled and turned to him. ‘Congratulations,’ she said, and he held out his arms and she squeezed him and blinked back more tears.

  ‘How far gone are you?’ Sara looked misty-eyed too.

  ‘Not very,’ Minel said. ‘Just a few weeks. I only took a test this morning. I felt a bit off and thought it must be my period but then I realised I’d thought that when I felt rough last week too. And sure enough. I’m pregnant. I’m actually pregnant,’ she said again, ‘I can’t believe it.’

  ‘How are you feeling?’ Rik asked. ‘Sick as a dog yet?’

  ‘Fine, so far,’ Minel said. ‘A bit tired and bloated, but other than that, I feel great. I almost wish I did feel sick,’ she said a little anxiously, ‘because that might make it more real.’

  They sat down to eat, talking nineteen to the dozen about the baby and Faith felt a lifting in her chest as she realised here, again, was a part of the legacy of Hollyhocks to which she belonged. The day the new generation began, she was here, sitting around this very table, having dinner with her best friends and the man she wished she was creating her own new generation with.

  Everything was so lovely and happy it was even more of a wrench for Faith the next day when she knew she had to talk to Rik. Lucinda mustn’t have said anything yet, because he was upbeat as ever, but she knew it wouldn’t be long and she couldn’t have him hearing it from her first. When he showed up with his bike at lunchtime she shook her head. ‘Let’s just stay here and eat the vegetable garden instead.’

  Rik wavered, then nodded. ‘OK. What have you got in there?’

  ‘Let’s see. Oh look,’ Faith noted delightedly. ‘The raspberries are going bananas.’ She examined the canes which were top-heavy and laden with fruits that had turned from a pale green to deep red practically overnight. She rummaged around underneath and unearthed a few stray strawberry plants that were similarly heavy with fruit. ‘It’s like a fruit salad down here,’ she said, picking one of the strawberries and examining it closely. She bounced it in her hand gleefully, then ate it. ‘Not for you,’ she said to GT.

  He sniffed at the canes and lifted his leg disdainfully.

  ‘For Christ’s sake, you horror.’ Faith shoved him away gently.

  She ripped a few fruits off the canes and handed them to Rik, then picked a few more for herself and sat down with him. GT lay down too and stretched his body out, his little hind legs splayed inelegantly like a spatchcocked chicken.

  Rik threw a raspberry in the air and caught it in his mouth. ‘Anything else in there?’ he nodded at the canes.

  ‘There’s tomatoes, and baby cucumbers, if you fancy a salad?’

  She picked a few of each and they ate them contentedly. ‘Don’t you think it’s amazing,’ she said wonderingly, ‘that all of this came from practically nothing? A few seeds, soil, a bit of water and air and you can grow enough to sustain you. It’s like this place wants to nurture us,’ she said, sweeping her hand around. ‘To fuel us, give us some of itself because it knows we want to nurture it in return…’ Rik smiled indulgently and she thought she’d better stop waxing lyrical with her flights of fancy because last time she’d done that it had landed her in a bit of trouble, which she was now going to have to address.

  In the distance somebody fired up a lawn mower. The smell of freshly-cut grass drifted over. Rik’s face looked very open, his eyes gentle and content, and she felt her breath catch in her throat.

  Tell him now, she urged herself. You can’t just work it into a conversation about vegetables. Just tell him straight.

  ‘Rik, look,’ she said. ‘I have to talk to you.’

  ‘We’re talking right now, aren’t we?’ He smiled easily.

  She took a deep breath. ‘I overheard you telling Jason that you hadn’t told Lucinda about you and me. Other than that we were friends.’

  ‘Yeah,’ Rik said thoughtfully. ‘Might make it a bit awkward for her, and for you. I mean, it was ages ago, but still.’ He smiled again, apparently unconcerned.

  ‘About that,’ she said. ‘I think — I mean, I may have, dropped you in it a bit.’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘She came over to chat last Monday,’ Faith said miserably, ‘and asked if it was weird for me having her around, and I said of course not, and then she said,’ she gulped.

  Rik’s eyes had darkened. ‘What did she say?’

  ‘She said she knew about you and I — said you’d told her, she knew we had been, that we were,’ she still didn’t really know how to describe it. She’d never called him her boyfriend, they hadn’t used those words with one another, but to all intents and purposes. ‘She referred to you as my ex, said it sounded like our relationship hadn’t been sibling-like, she seemed to know,’ she bit her lip, ‘and I did try to fend her off, I didn’t say anything, just said we were friends and cycled a lot but then she sort of — got me.’

  ‘Got you how?’

  ‘Oh, got me rambling on about this place,’ Faith sighed, ‘my usual stuff, flower analogies all over the place. I told her I always thought this place was a bit magical, and she seemed to know what I meant, we had quite a nice chat actually and then she brought it back to you and me and all I said was that it hadn’t lasted long, but I suppose for her that must have been confirmation.’

  Rik looked furious, and Faith quailed.

  ‘I’m so sorry,’ she wailed. ‘I feel awful. I’ve landed you right in it, she’s going to be annoyed that you weren’t straight with her, it’s all my fault, I should have just kept my trap shut. Too easily distracted,’ she said vehemently, ‘with my vague hippy theories, idiot that I am. I’m so sorry. I hate to think that I’ve got you into trouble. I knew straight away,’ she acknowledged, ‘that I’d said something I shouldn’t. I could just feel it, you know, all prickly and like my hackles were up. If y
ou want, I can talk to her.’

  ‘Don’t be ridiculous,’ he said indignantly. ‘What was she doing, pumping you like that? If she wanted to know if anything had ever gone on with us, why didn’t she just ask me?’

  ‘I assumed she did ask,’ Faith said slowly.

  ‘She asked if we were close and I said yes, we were very close once but I hadn’t seen you in years. She didn’t ask any more. If she’d asked me directly, of course I would have told her.’ He looked more incensed than ever. ‘God, I feel like — I feel like I’ve got something to hide, and I haven’t. We were young, we didn’t do anything wrong, neither of us should feel bad about that.’

  ‘Well, I do a bit,’ Faith said, and he looked at her irritably and she added quickly, ‘but only because it turns out I treated you really awfully.’

  There was a long, loaded silence. Faith wanted to ask him what he was thinking, but Rik in turn seemed to expect something more from her and he waited, letting the air hang between them, punctuated only by the faint hum of a bee, until she couldn’t stand it any more.

  ‘I’m so sorry,’ she said, ‘that I didn’t give you a chance to tell me the truth.’

  He sighed. ‘I am too. I still don’t know why you didn’t.’

  ‘I was in a pretty bad place, after my dad had the affair. My mum was so vicious,’ she winced. ‘So adamant that men weren’t to be trusted, that they would let you down, they were all the same. I’d had two weeks of that pretty much nonstop and then I saw you and it was just,’ she closed her eyes tightly. ‘It was just the final nail in the “all men are bastards” coffin.’

  His eyes were a little less gentle. ‘If we’d only just met each other, I could understand it but we were friends, best friends,’ he sighed heavily. ‘And I really was so in love with you. I couldn’t even remember a time when I wasn’t in love with you.’