Last Guests of the Season

by Sue Gee

  They walked past a stone wall covered in blackberry brambles.

  ‘Why?’ she asked Oliver. ‘Would you like to go to a service?’

  ‘Perhaps. Might be interesting, don’t you think?’

  ‘I suppose so – I imagine it’s much like most rural Catholicism, though, don’t you? Overblown, full of incense and ignorance –’ She stopped, suddenly embarrassed. ‘You’re not Catholic, are you?’

  ‘Lapsed,’ he said, looking at her in amusement. ‘It’s all right, please don’t worry. You don’t go to church in London?’

  ‘No, never.’ None of their friends went to church. ‘Do you?’

  ‘Sometimes. More out of nostalgia than anything else, I suppose. I take Tom occasionally – part of his education.’

  They had reached the bottom of the hill, where the street divided: a great wooden barn stood at the corner, set on stilts in a spacious yard, and three small grubby children in oversized clothes were taking turns with a makeshift go-cart, rattling over the concrete. They stopped and waved, calling.

  ‘Bom dia, bom dial’

  One of the children, a little boy, wore glasses; Claire remembered him from last year. She saw Robert and the others pause by the gate and smile; the children ran towards them and Tom began to climb the bars. Frances put out a restraining arm; he hung over the top bar, grinning, as Claire and Oliver came up.

  Robert turned to them. ‘Oliver – I was just telling Frances, this is a threshing barn, for the maize. When it’s dry, they bring it in and beat it over a hollow manger: you’ll hear them. Then they sweep up the grains from the floor. We went to watch them last year, didn’t we, Jess?’

  Jess nodded, running her sandalled foot up and down in the dust.

  ‘And you wrote about it at school, didn’t you?’ Claire said encouragingly.

  ‘Mmm.’ She went on scuffing.

  ‘Did you?’ said Oliver. ‘That sounds interesting.’ She looked up at him, and they smiled at each other. ‘It’s rather magnificent,’ he went on, turning to the barn again. ‘Must be a good two hundred years old?’

  ‘Easily,’ said Robert. ‘Most of the houses in the village are older than that.’

  They stood gazing at it: the trailing vines overhanging the flight of worn stone steps to the doors, the weather-beaten wood, with its peeling black paint. High on the rooftop, pigeons cooed. Frances put her hand on Tom’s arm again as he made to clamber over; he shook her off.

  ‘I want to have a go in that cart thing.’

  ‘I want to go to the river,’ said Jack. ‘Come on. It’s hot.’

  ‘Yes, let’s go,’ said Claire. ‘You’ll like it down there, Tom. Are you a good swimmer?’

  ‘I’ve done my ten metres.’ He clambered down again, reluctantly.

  ‘I’ve done my fifty,’ said Jack.

  ‘So?’ Tom flushed. ‘So? What’s so great about doing fifty?’

  ‘Well, it’s better than ten, isn’t it?’

  ‘I’m sure,’ said Robert, moving between them, ‘that by the end of the fortnight you’ll be both be doing a hundred. But the river’s a bit deep in places, and it goes down quite suddenly, doesn’t it, Jack, so you’d better be careful, okay?’

  ‘You didn’t mention that,’ said Frances.

  ‘Well, most of it’s pretty shallow. Has he brought armbands?’

  ‘I’m not wearing armbands,’ said Tom.

  ‘Oh, yes you are,’ said Oliver.

  Frances said carefully, ‘Let’s discuss it when we get there.’

  Jack said, ‘I haven’t worn armbands since I was in reception,’ and Tom reached out and shoved at him.

  ‘Shut up!’

  ‘You shut up,’ said Jack, recoiling, rubbing his arm.

  ‘No, you shut up.’ And Tom lunged towards him again, red in the face.

  ‘Tom!’ said Oliver and Frances together, and Oliver moved swiftly over and grabbed him. ‘Stop that at once, do you hear?’

  ‘Get off me.’ Tom tried to wrench away, but he couldn’t. He stood panting, like an enraged bull, fighting back tears.

  ‘Baby,’ said Jack.

  ‘Okay, okay.’ Clare moved towards him, brushing past Jess. ‘Jack, will you stop teasing.’ She held out her hand. ‘Walk with me, please. Come on, we’re all getting hot and bothered, we’ll feel better as soon as we get to the river.’ She was aware of the children in the yard behind them, hanging over the gate, fascinated. She gave them a cheery wave, and took Jack firmly by the hand. ‘Let’s go.’

  ‘Sorry about that,’ said Oliver.

  ‘Please. It was Jack’s fault.’

  ‘No, it wasn’t,’ said Jack.

  They went on their way, Claire and Jack in front, Robert and Jessica behind, Oliver, Frances and Tom bringing up the rear in silence, looking about them.

  The front doors of the houses on either side of the narrow street were almost all raised up above ground level, entered, like the barn, by flights of stone steps. A few of them had roof terraces, or tiny gardens; most had balconies, shaded with vines, hung with washing above pots of geraniums. From hard straight chairs in doorways hung with plastic strip curtains, women smiled down at them. They wore print overalls, and showed gaps in their teeth when they answered Robert’s greetings.

  ‘Bom dia!’

  Men in their fifties and early sixties leaned in doorways on frames, and walked stiffly over the cobbles on sticks.

  ‘You see,’ Robert said to Oliver, ‘the effect of a lifetime’s labour in the fields.’ He winked at Tom, trying to cheer him up, but Tom, like Frances, it seemed, had long since stopped listening, and there was no returning wink.

  ‘Indeed,’ said Oliver. ‘Did you write about that in your project, Jessica?’

  ‘About what?’

  ‘All these workers old before their time.’ He nodded towards a man in a doorway, leaning on a frame as he surveyed the morning.

  Jessica shook her head. ‘I don’t think so.’

  ‘I shouldn’t think she did,’ said Robert, ‘she was only eleven.’

  ‘Dad …’ said Jessica, flushing. He patted her arm affectionately. ‘Only trying to help.’

  They were passing the last few houses in the street: ahead, walled on one side, an earthen path, soft and broad, dappled with sunlight, ran towards the fields beneath a dense canopy of vines. Heavy clusters of milky green and cloudy purple grapes hung down; the air was warm, languid, caressing and seductive; from the fields beyond came the hot buzz of cicadas. And entering this shady, tranquil haven the group relaxed, walking slowly.

  ‘I’d forgotten,’ said Robert, stretching. ‘I really had forgotten.’

  ‘But this is perfect,’ said Frances, smiling at him. ‘How can we thank you for inviting us to such a place?’

  ‘Wait till you see the river,’ said Claire. She gave Jack’s hand a squeeze. ‘Be nice to Tom,’ she said under her breath.

  ‘Okay.’ He let go of her, and went over to Tom, who had stopped and was working on the wall with a stick, digging out loose cement with slow concentration.

  ‘There’s grasshoppers in the fields.’

  Tom looked up. ‘Where?’

  ‘Everywhere – there’s masses. You can catch them in the fishing nets sometimes.’ He turned, and began to move off again; Tom followed. Together, with upright nets, they walked towards the fields, and Claire lifted her camera and took them: two straight backs, one slender, one sturdy, two floppy sunhats, moving out of the shade and on to the hot open path.

  ‘Why don’t you join them?’ she said to Jess, lowering the camera again.

  Jess shook her head. ‘They’re better on their own. Anyway, I don’t want to.’

  Claire looked at her. This time last year Jess, at eleven, had been unquestionably still a child, almost a little girl. The Hobbs boys had been here, the elder the same age as she: the four of them had, on the whole, played companionably, and there had been little sense that Jess, as a girl, was set apart. This year was different, and changes which
in everyday life at home Claire had been barely aware of seemed here, in a new summer, to be dramatic. Jess was taller, leaner – that is to say, she had lost most of her puppy fat – but there were already indications that her outline would change again, that she would gradually fill out, and have, like Claire, a noticeable bottom and heavy breast’s. This time next year she would have begun to cross the threshold; now, with her clear soft skin and thick mane of hair she was still this side of it, but only just. And the distance between her and the boys was great. Of course – why should she want to walk with them? Yet she couldn’t hang around the grown-ups all the time. I should have foreseen this, Claire thought, I should have arranged for a friend. But that would have introduced another element into what had already felt like quite enough: coming here with people they barely knew. She said nothing, but put her arm round her daughter’s shoulders – briefly, because Jessica, so unlike Jack, was becoming undemonstrative.

  Out of the canopy of vines the heat struck them again: that, and the dizzying whirr of the cicadas, the dance of butterflies in and out of the long straight rows of whiskery maize.

  ‘We’ve got one!’ came Tom’s voice. ‘Look!’ He emerged from one of the rows, his hands cupped. ‘It’s tiny.’ He came up to them slowly, stepping over the cracked and stony earth; he carefully opened his hands and they gathered round, admiring. The grasshopper, a bright, beautiful green, sat motionless.

  ‘Oh, he’s lovely,’ said Jess.

  ‘He came into my hands as easy as anything.’ Tom carefully enclosed him once again. ‘There’s lots, come and see.’

  They followed him across rough ground.

  ‘He’s just like Gerald Durrell,’ said Claire to Frances, and even as she said it, thought: is Gerald Durrell who Frances and Oliver would have chosen?

  Irrigation ditches criss-crossed the field, the thick red earth piled up alongside, caked hard, bordered by strings of vines. They found Jack squatting on his heels, looking intently into shallow water, the nets flung down on the earth; they went across to him, sandals crunching on last year’s stubble between this year’s crop.

  ‘Sssh!’ he said. ‘There’s another.’

  They crept, like explorers, beginning to sweat, the air filled with cicadas. Little brown birds flitted in and out of the maize, and an enormous grasshopper leapt, suddenly, across their path.

  ‘Wow!’ said Tom. ‘Did you see that? I’m going to get him.’ He moved forward quickly, jerkily, his hands still cupped, tripped on a protruding stone and went flying. ‘Ow, ow!’

  The first grasshopper, released, leapt away, at once invisible, and Tom, bare limbs scratched by the sharp dry stalks, sat up rubbing his shin. ‘Ow!’

  Jack looked up, cross. ‘You idiot – now he’s gone.’

  ‘Shut up!’ said Tom. ‘You wouldn’t like it, there’s stones here, how would you like it, having a great stone bang into you? Ow!’

  ‘All right,’ said Frances, bending over him. ‘All right, never mind.’ She tried to rub his leg, but he pulled it away.

  ‘What do you mean, never mind?’

  ‘Oh, for God’s sake –’ She stood up, shaking her head. ‘Please can we go to the river?’ And she set off, not looking back, a slender blue and stone figure against the browning maize.

  ‘Oh, dear,’ said Robert.

  Oliver pulled Tom to his feet.

  ‘Is there going to be any more fuss today?’ he demanded.

  ‘I –’ Tom faltered.

  ‘Is there?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Look at me.’

  Robert and Claire exchanged glances; Tom, his face scarlet, looked at his father and then away, across the shimmering field.

  ‘All right,’ said Oliver. ‘Now, you follow your mother and apologise, and I don’t want to have another word of nonsense or cheek out of you for the rest of the day. Is that clear?’

  ‘Yes.’ Tom’s voice was barely audible, thick with tears.

  ‘Go on, then.’

  He set off ahead of them, stumbling a little as he tried to catch up with Frances, rubbing his face, the fishing net abandoned. Robert bent to retrieve it; there was a silence.

  ‘Well,’ said Oliver stiffly, ‘it seems I must spend the day apologising for Tom’s behaviour.’

  Robert shook his head; he and Claire, almost in the same breath, made noises: children … family life … just settling in …

  Oliver shook his head, unsmiling. ‘There are times …’

  ‘There are always times,’ said Claire. ‘Come on, Jack, leave the ditch now.’ She held out her hand. ‘And bring your net, okay?’

  He came, dragging it behind him, bumping over the stubble. They set off, she with the children, and Robert, in neutral male gear, explaining to Oliver that the ditches related not only to irrigation but to inheritance: as each parent died, the piece of land was redivided among the children, the family portions, over the generations, thus growing ever smaller. Oliver nodded, apparently listening, swinging the bag. In the middle of the field Tom had caught up with Frances; they were walking side by side.

  And at last they came to a low stone wall, screened by trees and dusty blackberry bushes, with a gap. Their feet sank into warm grey sand, and before them was the river: broad, peaceful, cool. It flowed between this field and the one on the opposite bank, where thick stooks of hay stood drying; it flowed beneath a great outcrop of pine-clad cliff. In patches of gleaming light and deep shade it made a sweeping curve down from their right, and moved towards rocky shallows far down on their left, where shining dragonflies hovered and darted in the sun; it curled round the side of the mountain and disappeared.

  ‘At last.’

  ‘Thank God.’

  ‘Hurray!’

  Later, no doubt, teenagers and older children from the village would appear; for now, they had it all to themselves. The children raced to the water’s edge, pulling their clothes off, and Jessica, quicker and more graceful than the boys, emerged from her shorts and T-shirt in a smooth green swimsuit, pushing back her hair.

  ‘You look nice,’ said Oliver.

  She smiled at him, and waded in; stopped by the sudden cold, she stood there, the water just above her knees, and was taunted by the boys, who were ready now and raced in, shrieking.

  Robert swam like a dog, steady and purposeful, making an effort; his round white shoulders and head of thinning hair pushed in a determined breaststroke towards the rocks beneath the cliff on the far side. Jess, a strong swimmer, kept pace beside him. For Tom’s sake, the boys had been instructed to stay in their depth, Jack pulling faces which his parents affected not to notice. He and Tom were out of the water now, digging a trench.

  Claire, who had had a brief, satisfying dip, and now wanted nothing so much as to feel off duty for a bit, sat dripping in ruched Liberty print, beneath her sunhat, her arms round her knees, absently watching them. Oliver had taken off his cotton jacket and said he’d swim in a little while; he had wandered off along the bank, downriver, taking his book, which Claire, squinting, saw was the Collected Poems of Larkin. How nice. How nice to be able to disappear to a shady spot with wry reflections on sexual and surburban loneliness, leaving your child to the care of others.

  And meanwhile Frances, in a blue-grey swimsuit, had walked quickly into the water, struck out and begun to swim gracefully upriver, away from everyone. Claire followed the small fair head, the pale arms lifting and falling in a crawl, and then, after a while, the change to a smooth, unhurried breaststroke, moving into the broadest part of the river, shaded by the trees on the far side. Branches brought down in a winter gale had become lodged in the middle of the water, anchored by rocks beneath the surface, making an island: Frances swam towards it, further than Claire had ever reached, and then round, and beyond, following the curve of the river, until she was out of sight.

  Claire raised a mental eyebrow. She had not known Frances to be such a strong swimmer; nor had she reckoned on being left in charge of Tom without so much as a by-your-leav
e. She contemplated the boys, amicably absorbed, as she was sure they would remain while close to water; she waved to Robert and Jess, who had clambered out on to the rocks beneath the cliff and were warming themselves in the sun, which beat upon their wet, hatless heads.

  ‘Don’t stay up there too long,’ she called.

  ‘We won’t.’

  ‘Did you put sun cream on?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Well, be careful, then.’

  ‘We will. Isn’t it lovely?’

  ‘Lovely,’ said Claire. Tomorrow, when they brought the dinghy, they could run a ferry service for hats and other requirements. She lay down on her stomach, stretching out on the towel, reaching for P. D. James. Small striped beetles, chocolate and coffee, like humbugs, trundled over mountains of sand and boulders of dark twigs; she turned the pages, brushing off grains of sand, yawning a little. It was hot, even by the water, even beneath the trees; she closed her eyes for a moment and the voices of the boys and the distant sound of the church bell reverberated in sleepy ripples. She yawned again, resting her head on her arms.

  And was woken by Frances, greeting the boys, dropping quietly down nearby, dripping wet, shivering. She wrapped herself in a towel and sat drying herself. Her hair clung to her head in damp strands; she looked not much older than Jessica. Claire, floating up from sleep, regarded her from beneath her sunhat, and patted the sand in greeting.

  ‘You’re frozen.’

  Frances turned to look at her. ‘I overdid it – it was wonderful, but I didn’t realise how the cold seeps into you. I’ve never swum in a river before.’

  ‘You did very well, then. How far did you go?’

  ‘Oh, way beyond the island. It became quite hypnotic after a while, I really lost myself for a few minutes – I can’t remember the last time that happened. Anyway, you’re right, I’m frozen.’ She drew the towel closer round her shoulders and looked down at Claire, smiling. ‘Unlike you – you look warm as toast.’

  ‘I am.’ Claire stretched, raising her head, and her hat fell off. ‘Too hot,’ she said, retrieving it. ‘Where is everyone?’