Last Guests of the Season

by Sue Gee

  ‘I knew you the minute I saw you. What are you doing here?’

  ‘Much the same as you, I imagine.’ Frances dropped the Virago paperback into her shoulderbag; Claire saw a thin silver wedding ring. ‘God, I was miles away.’

  ‘You were never exactly present,’ said Claire, as the queue moved forward. ‘It’s very nice to see you.’

  ‘And you.’ Frances had reached the top of the queue; she leaned forward into the trolley, taking out boxes of cereal and eggs, loading them on to the belt behind Next Customer Please: Claire found herself being squeezed out of the aisle, and stepped back.

  ‘Have you got time for a coffee?’

  ‘Why not?’ said Frances, smiling. She was neatly putting all the frozen stuff together. Late spring sunshine streamed through the plate-glass window and touched her hair. ‘I’ll wait for you outside.’

  Outside, Claire found she had a parking ticket. She ripped it off the windscreen and flung it into the car. ‘Damn.’

  ‘You are on a double yellow line,’ said Frances, her hand on her trolley.

  ‘And where are you?’

  ‘In the car park.’

  ‘Of course.’ Claire opened the boot and heaved in carrier bags. ‘So am I, usually. I just thought I’d risk it for once. Well, what shall we do? Are you living round here? I can’t believe it.’

  ‘Muswell Hill. I’ve got the day off, and I had to come down here to pick up some papers from someone – to do with my son’s school, not interesting.’ She waved a hand dismissively; a passerby banged into the trolley and rubbed her arm. ‘Sorry,’ said Frances, pulling it back. ‘I’m usually working,’ she said.

  ‘Doing what?’ Claire stuffed in the last carrier bag and closed the boot.

  ‘I work for a publisher – it’s a little company set up a few years ago. We’re in Covent Garden. I run the editorial department.’

  ‘Do you now? That sounds rather grand.’

  ‘It does, but it isn’t. The editorial department is me and an army of freelancers, some of whom are quietly efficient and many of whom are useless. I pick up the pieces.’ She smiled. ‘Actually, I like it, I’ve been there since Tom was two. The books are rather good on the whole, and I like small companies.’ She was pulling the trolley away from the car. ‘More of this later, perhaps.’

  ‘Yes,’ said Claire. ‘Come back for coffee. Just tell me one thing – did you marry Simon Blair?’

  ‘Who?’

  ‘The tutor – don’t you remember? You came to that party with him?’

  ‘Oh, him. Marry him? Marry Simon Blair?’ Someone else banged into her; she was beginning to sound impatient.

  Claire said quickly: ‘Okay, let’s go, yes? We’re only just off the hill.’ She gave the address and directions. ‘See you in a few minutes.’

  ‘Fine.’ And Frances turned, manoeuvring the trolley through the shoppers to the car park as Claire drove away.

  At home, she pushed past the bikes in the hall and unpacked the shopping. She put the kettle on and stood at the back door, next to the crowded cork board where Jack’s paintings and drawings were pinned up with school notices; she looked out over the garden, and waited for the doorbell. How extraordinary, after all this time, to bump into Frances again.

  It was a beautiful morning, dewy and fresh: shadows from the trellis fell across the grass and a blackbird was singing its heart out in the pear tree. Claire, usually in a hurry, with people and children in and out of the house all the time, rarely had time for reflection. She thought now, in an unexpected rush of feeling, a moment of deep, domestic contentment: I have everything I ever wanted in my life, everything anyone could ever wish for. Unusually, a tiny sensation of doubt and uncertainty touched the moment like a stain: is it right for anyone to have so much? Isn’t something bound to be taken away? And then the doorbell rang, and she hurried to answer it, finding Frances on the doorstep holding out a bunch of exquisite pink and white tulips, smiling again.

  Claire took the tulips and kissed her. ‘Come in,’ she said. ‘It’s lovely to see you.’

  Chapter Two

  The room was silent and still. Claire, her head on Robert’s chest, lay listening to the lazy creak of the swing-seat from the terrace below, and from below that the enquiring voices of hens, scratching through the dry grass under the lemon trees. She could hear from the landing the sound of Guida, who must have let herself in, ironing the sheets from the previous visitors – bang of the iron on the metal stand, hiss and puff of steam, warm smell of cotton, dried in the open air. Heaven. There were two weeks ahead of this – the river, the mountains, the hot, unbroken sky – and then the house would be shut up for the autumn and winter, for they were the last guests of the season, and she was glad. They would close the doors on their two weeks and seal them, the house their house, undisturbed by strangers coming after. She closed her eyes again, feeling her hair warm on her cheek, not wanting to move.

  Beside her, Robert stirred, lifting an arm, yawning. ‘What’s the time?’

  Claire peered across at the travel clock. ‘Nearly half-past four.’

  ‘Wait for it,’ he said, and they waited, and heard from across the valley the single chime of the half-hour. ‘Very good. Nice sleep?’

  ‘Very.’ She stretched, and rolled away, on to her back. ‘You?’

  ‘Mmm.’ He yawned again, and scratched his head. ‘I suppose we ought to do something.’

  Claire drew up bare feet beneath the black and white skirt. ‘Go on then.’

  ‘In a minute.’

  They lay watching the sun stream through the gaps in the shutters.

  ‘Glad to be back?’ asked Robert.

  ‘It’s even better than I remembered.’

  ‘Think it’s going to be all right? With them?’

  ‘Yes,’ she said. ‘I think so.’

  ‘Not sure.’

  ‘We can’t be sure,’ she said, ‘can we? Going on holiday with people you’ve had supper with a couple of times and asked on impulse is hardly the same as going with lifelong friends, is it? Anyway, I think it’s a challenge.’

  Robert groaned. ‘I told you – I don’t want to be challenged on holiday. I want to have a nice time.’

  ‘We will.’ She turned to look up at him. ‘We’ve done this one, Robert, we’ve discussed it all.’

  ‘Good. In that case I’ll get some tea, shall I?’

  She patted his stomach. ‘You’re so good.’

  ‘I know.’ He swung his legs off the bed, moving stiffly across the room to the balcony window, opening the shutters, stepping outside on to the balcony for a look. Claire shut her eyes against the sudden brightness, listening.

  ‘Hello, Jess.’

  ‘Hi, Dad.’

  ‘All right?’

  ‘Fine.’ The swing-seat swung back and forth, sandalled feet brushed the tiles.

  ‘Anyone else about?’

  ‘Dunno.’

  ‘What’s she doing?’ Claire asked.

  ‘Not a lot.’ Robert came back inside; Claire shaded her eyes, looking at a dazzle of black window frames imprinted on his face. He swung the shutters to again, and bent to retrieve his shoes from one of the heaps on the floor. ‘Right then.’ He slipped them on, sitting on the edge of the bed, and stood up. ‘I’ll give you a shout.’

  ‘Remember how long the kettle takes.’ The stove was run on fitful Calor gas, stored below the house in enormous cylinders. ‘Don’t fill it too full.’

  ‘I won’t.’ He moved towards the door; there was a creak from outside it. ‘Ah. Noises off.’

  Claire turned to see Jack in T-shirt and crumpled shorts, his face flushed from sleep. She stretched out a hand: he let the door click to behind him and padded across the floorboards, stepping over the mess.

  ‘Had a good rest?’

  He nodded, clambering on to the rumpled bed, and she put her arm round him. ‘Tom still asleep?’

  Jack shook his head.

  ‘What’s he doing?’

  �
�Dunno, he’s not there. I’m thirsty.’

  ‘Tea and drinks coming up,’ said Robert, his hand on the doorknob. ‘I expect I’ll find Tom on my travels.’

  ‘I expect he’s with Frances,’ said Claire, as he went out. The door swung to, and she lay back against the pillows with Jack. They could hear Robert going down the corridor to the landing, stopping to have limited words with Guida in phrase-book Portuguese.

  Jack picked at the bedspread, tugging at a loose white thread. ‘I wish I was sleeping in here.’

  Claire moved his hand. ‘Don’t, you’ll make a hole. You’re only just across the landing.’

  ‘I know, but –’

  ‘What? You’re getting on all right with Tom, aren’t you?’

  ‘Yes, but –’

  ‘But what?’

  He frowned. ‘This is our place.’

  ‘It isn’t, Jack, it belongs to a family in England. We’re only renting it.’

  ‘I know. But you know what I mean.’

  ‘Yes,’ she said, ‘I do. But we’re sharing it with very nice people, and we couldn’t afford to come here without them, and I don’t want any fuss.’ His fingers wavered towards the loose thread again, and she dropped her hand on his in a pounce, making him laugh. ‘Don’t pull it, please.’

  He turned, and burrowed his face in her breasts, still laughing. ‘Want a drink.’

  ‘And stop that, too,’ she said, kissing his dark hair. ‘Shall I test you on your Portuguese? So you can talk to Guida?’

  He raised his head, pulling dreadful faces.

  ‘Come on, it’s not that bad. What’s hello?’

  ‘Olla.’

  ‘Ola, like Coca-Cola, remember? What about thank you?’

  His hand lay across her breasts, casually intimate; he tapped his fingers, trying to remember.

  ‘Obrigado.’

  ‘Well done. That’s if you can say it to a man, like the man in the village shop, yes? But if you say it to Guida, or any woman, it’s obrigada, remember?’

  Jack shook his head; he was fingering one of the little buttons on her shirt.

  ‘It changes depending if it’s masculine or feminine,’ explained Claire, wondering why she continually went on like this to the children, who were largely indifferent. No one had ever explained anything to her when she was little. ‘If it’s a boy or a girl. Remember in France, when you were six? La fille for Jessica, and le garçon for you.’

  Jack had succeeded in undoing the button; his fingers slipped inside.

  ‘I wish,’ he said thoughtfully, ‘that I was a girl.’

  Robert found Tom sitting outside the kitchen door, at the top of the stone steps leading down to the garden. The whole house was raised above this circle of scrubby grass and bare earth, flowerless but full of fruit trees – peach, lemon, grapefruit, lime. There were one or two outbuildings, with greyed wooden doors half off their hinges; when they came here the first time, Jessica and Jack and the Hobbs children had spent rainy afternoons in the one next to the house, by the hen run. They’d kept caterpillars in there, furry and thick as fingers, and beetles, shining coppery-black, picked up on the upper path leading to the swimming pool, or rescued from the pool itself, more of a deep tank than anything, twelve by six or so and set in baking concrete.

  ‘No one in the water without a grown-up nearby, okay?’ Robert had said to the children this morning, showing round the new arrivals. ‘Just to be on the safe side.’ He led them away, past the concealing bushes, back along the path where table and chairs were set invitingly beneath cascading vines, and down to the garden again. Tom had looked into the outbuilding, last year’s natural history museum, seen only broken furniture and dust and come out again, uninterested; he saw the hens in their run and hurried towards them, calling, ‘Hello, sweeties, hello! Come on, come on!’

  ‘Hens aren’t sweet,’ said Jack, who had followed them.

  Tom ignored him, squatting down in the dusty earth in front of the netting. Behind him, the hens – pullets, Robert supposed cocked their heads at him and stepped forward, murmuring. They had bare, featherless necks, and some of them had bare patches on their chests too; they were small and brown and scraggy, and when Tom put his fingers in through the netting they ran towards them eagerly, lifting grubby yellow legs.

  He looked up at Robert. ‘Have you got any food?’

  ‘I expect we can find something,’ he said. ‘But Guida lets them out later – you’ll see them scratching round for grubs and things.’

  ‘Wick-ed!’

  Oliver, watching with his hands in his pockets, said: ‘I shouldn’t put your fingers in too far, Tom.’

  ‘It’s all right, they’re only hungry.’ Tom wriggled his fingers in further. ‘Poor things.’

  From deep inside the house the bell rang, and then Jessica came out through the kitchen and stood calling them.

  ‘Lunch!’

  ‘Okay,’ called Robert. ‘We’re coming.’ He led the others back, and they climbed the steps. Above them, damp white sheets hung in the sun on long lines next to an enormous green-tiled water tank, whose copper tap was left on always, so that whenever you came out of the house you heard the sound of running water beneath the vines. The dazzling sheets were painted now with dense blue shadows: from the vines, and from the bushes at the top of the next flight of steps, leading up to the iron gate, and the hot mountain road.

  Frances, coming up behind the others, last, stopped to look at this whiteness, this blueness, this miracle of light and shade and foreignness, which seemed for a dizzying moment to hold the promise of healing everything, and she shut her eyes. She could look at it for ever; it was almost too much to look upon. Then, from inside the house, came a yell, and running footsteps, and Tom, who had been first inside, came hurtling out from the darkness of the kitchen, bellowing.

  ‘Hey …’ She moved towards him, holding out her hand. ‘What’s happened?’

  ‘I banged my arm.’ He clutched it, just beneath the shoulder, hopping up and down.

  ‘How?’

  ‘On the bathroom door, on the catch.’ Tears of pain and fury spurted as if from a geyser. ‘Bloody catch!’

  ‘Stop that!’ snapped Frances. ‘Now let’s have a look.’ She moved to take his hand off his arm and he snatched it away.

  ‘It’s no use getting angry, it hurts!’

  ‘Don’t shout! I just want to see, that’s all –’

  Movement in the doorway: Robert, concerned and kind.

  ‘Sorry, Tom, that catch is a bugger, isn’t it? You okay?’

  Tom, transfixed at being treated like one of Robert’s mates, stopped crying immediately. ‘Yes, thanks.’

  ‘I was trying to have a look …’ said Frances, as if she had to justify herself for something.

  ‘Want to show us, Tom?’

  Tom sniffed, wiping his eyes with the bad arm; Frances saw a long red weal.

  ‘We’d better put something on that,’ she said. ‘No wonder you were crying.’

  He shook his head. ‘It’s okay.’

  ‘But –’

  ‘I said it’s okay, Frances.’ He ran his nose along the other arm and stamped through to the kitchen. ‘I’m starving. I’m starving!’ They heard him running across the patched sticky lino and down the wooden passage. Frances looked at Robert and shook her head.

  ‘He’s tired.’

  ‘Of course he is. You must be too.’

  ‘Not too bad.’ She followed him into the house, and along to the dining-room, where the others were waiting.

  This first meal all together had been fractionally strained, after such a beginning, at least for the first few minutes, but a couple of glasses of wine had everyone unwinding; then they all went upstairs to collapse.

  And Robert now, coming down to the kitchen, found that the door to the steps was open, with a patch of sun lying across the floor, and went to have a look outside. Tom was sitting next to a scrawny, dull-furred grey and white cat, talking to it quietly, encouragingly
.

  ‘There you are, you eat it all up. Is that better?’ Beside him was a plate of chicken – remains from last night’s supper: quite a few remains, which Robert had last seen in the fridge. The cat ate slowly, with difficulty; at the sound of his footsteps it stopped, and looked up, apprehensive, ears flat. Tom turned round.

  ‘Isn’t she beautiful?’

  ‘I – yes,’ said Robert, ‘but I’m not really sure she should be having that chicken.’

  ‘But she was starving, I could hear her, outside the door. She was crying.’

  ‘Oh. Well … perhaps another time we’d better find some scraps. D’you think?’

  ‘Okay.’ He turned back to the cat again, and she resumed eating, cautiously, looking up with wary yellow eyes. Robert moved back inside and put the kettle on, dropping the spent match into a white saucer. Through the open door he could hear Tom making noises, a blend of back-of-the-throat Donald Duck and a pursing and smacking of the lips; he tried to remember if Jack used to be quite so audible all the time, and didn’t think so. The room smelled faintly of Calor gas, and the kettle began to heat up; when he’d put everything on the tray, with a packet of biscuits from the village shop, he went to the door again, leaning on the frame. Tom was stroking the cat as she crunched on gristle, his hand running along her back to a thin, unhealthy tail.

  ‘I’ve adopted her,’ he told Robert.

  ‘That’s kind. Be a bit careful touching her, though, won’t you?’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘Well … she looks as if she’s got a lot of germs and fleas and things.’

  ‘All cats get fleas sometimes.’

  ‘Yes, but you know animals here aren’t used to being petted – people don’t feel quite the same about them as we do. She might scratch, or bite, and it could be a bit nasty.’

  ‘She won’t scratch me,’ said Tom firmly.

  ‘Well, just be a bit careful, that’s all. How’s the arm?’

  ‘What? Oh, fine. Where’s Jack?’

  ‘He’s upstairs with Claire – they’re coming down for tea in a minute. Do you want to go and tell your parents? We’re going to have it out on the terrace.’

  ‘No, I want to stay here with the cat.’