The Summerhouse by the Sea

by Jenny Oliver

  Claire swiped his hair.

  ‘I love you,’ she said as they both went round to their respective sides of the car, and Rory wondered how much of it was for him.

  CHAPTER 11

  The café was almost unrecognisable in the morning. Ava had woken early, the air humming with oppressive heat and the sound of car horns, street sweeping and bells ringing. From the window she could see the café tables full of people, hear the scraping of chairs, see the hands waving in greeting. A completely opposite atmosphere to the previous evening.

  Showered and dressed in denim shorts and a white T-shirt, she tried to do her make-up and sort out the kink in her hair, but the gradual pooling of heat in the room got the better of her and she left the house, rubbing the line in her cheek from the pillow and trying to ruffle up her hair. As she went to shut the front door she caught a last glimpse of her indent on the living room sofa cushions where she’d slept, and remembered waking at three o’clock in the pitch-dark morning. She had felt exactly as Tom had suggested she might. Spooked and afraid, absence filling the space with the same intensity as the heat. She had felt the same unease as she had at her grandmother’s funeral. That of having a life not quite lived right. But lying there she found herself perplexed as to what one did with a second chance. She was still Ava, just Ava in Spain. The problem was that she had taken herself with her on her adventure. Afraid still of her aloneness. Afraid of everyone pairing off and moving on. Afraid that her closest next of kin was Rory. Who was right this minute ringing, presumably to have a go at her for coming back to Spain. She looked at his name flashing on her phone screen and made the instant decision to silence the call. Remembering that she’d had the courage to defy him by coming out here, and the unfamiliar frisson of power that decision had given her, was enough to make her shut the door on the view of her night and go and find out why Café Estrella was suddenly doing such a roaring trade.

  The air outside was still as glass. Electric fans whirred on the bar, ineffectual against the mirage of heat. Ava took a table in the shade of the ripped awning. The café was less packed than she’d thought when looking down from the window, but there were definitely more bums on seats. All of them pensioners’ bums, dressed in polyester trousers, drip-dry powder-blue skirts and opaque tights, brown tweed slacks and polished black lace-up shoes. She recognised faces from the funeral. There was knitting. There was chatter. The sound of newspaper pages turning. The scents of warm bread, cigar smoke and strong coffee merged with the salty sea air. Everyone, it seemed, over the age of seventy-five descended on Café Estrella for breakfast.

  As she was staring intrigued at the colourful array of customers, a figure plonked itself down in the seat opposite.

  ‘Hello.’ Thomas King pulled off his sunglasses.

  ‘Er, hello,’ Ava said, surprised at his arrival.

  He looked terrible.

  She surreptitiously ran her hand through her hair all the same, still under the spell of wanting to impress simply because he’d been famous.

  ‘I had the worst night’s sleep I’ve had in years,’ he said, reaching forwards to toy with the menu, tapping the laminated corner on the table. ‘You kept me awake.’

  Ava almost snorted. ‘Me?’

  ‘Yes.’ He tried to catch the waiter’s eye. ‘God I need a coffee. You need a coffee?’ He turned back to Ava who said, ‘Yes,’ still unsure what he was doing at her table. Tom signalled to the waiter then sat back, rubbing his neck as he thought about what to say. ‘I think that maybe yesterday I wasn’t quite as supportive as I could have been.’

  She raised a brow.

  Tom shook his head. ‘And I don’t think Val would have been impressed.’

  ‘No,’ she said.

  ‘No,’ he agreed. ‘She’d have killed me. I felt pretty bad. All night. That’s what kept me up. I think she was haunting me,’ he said, his expression giving the sense of a smile just lurking below the surface. ‘So. Well . . .’ He held his arms wide. ‘Sorry.’

  ‘That’s OK,’ Ava said, a touch more dismissive than she might normally be, just for the satisfaction of being so casual in the face of what seemed like an act – all doleful eyes and messy hair, like he was still on set somewhere.

  The waiter came over with the coffees, a third of the cup slopped into the saucer, and two pastries, both apricot.

  Tom yawned as he poured the spilt liquid back into the cup. ‘He’s the worst waiter,’ he said, then picked up one of the pastries and took a huge bite.

  Ava glanced around the café, not sure if the second pastry was for her and, even though it was petty, not wanting to give him even the smallest satisfaction of being able to say no if she asked. ‘Who are all these people?’ she said instead, gesturing towards the other customers. The old women knitting and doing the crossword. The wispy-haired men chatting across tables in their Fair Isle socks and woollen tank tops, unfazed by the heat. The newspapers being frowned at, the chess moves being scoffed at, the cards being counted, all with a healthy side order of gossip.

  Tom looked to where she pointed and smiled as he chewed. ‘They come for Everardo,’ he said, cryptically.

  Ava looked around, puzzled. The little café seemed to pulse in the sunshine. ‘Is that a thing?’ she asked. ‘Like Zumba?’

  Tom laughed. ‘No. It’s a person. Everardo. The baker.’ He tilted his head towards the man, head bent over, drinking thick black coffee next to the now-half-empty huge woven bread baskets on the counter. ‘Starts work at four in the morning and comes down here at the end of his shift from town, only person he’ll deliver to is Flora. And he’s the best. Brings her everything, always has, and no one here misses it.’

  ‘Really?’ Ava couldn’t quite believe it. She stared at the tall, unassuming man sipping his drink, his hooked nose and sad, drooping eyes. Then she looked again at all the people and saw this time the plates on their tables. The glossy buns topped with tiny cubes of crystallised sugar, the sticky glazed croissants being dunked into milky coffee, the buttery soft magdalenas the shape of half-avocados resting on saucers. There was warm bread and jam and pan con tomate – thick slices of toasted sourdough rubbed with garlic, drizzled with olive oil and served with little glass jugs of tomato pulp to spread over the bread.

  ‘Why does he only deliver here?’ she asked.

  Flora wafted past in a bright canary-yellow sundress and matching flip flops, carrying a plate of magdalenas for the neighbouring table. She paused with her hand on the back of Ava’s chair and whispered, ‘Because he’s madly in love with me. Oh yes, a hundred percent,’ she nodded conspiratorially. ‘They all are, that’s the trouble, but he’s not my type at all.’

  Ava looked up and caught Tom’s eye as he hid his smile behind the rim of his coffee.

  ‘And do they all stay for lunch?’ Ava asked.

  Flora scoffed, ‘Of course not. Tight old buggers. They go home for lunch. They can cook lunch. But no one can bake like Everardo.’

  ‘Try one,’ said Tom, pushing the plate with the second pastry her way.

  As he did, the sun shone through a crack in the awning, turning the apricot in the centre gold, and Ava took a snap with her phone to post on Instagram. It looked so totally delicious and seemed the perfect innocuous subject with which to showcase the immediate success of her trip to the outside world without having to delve into anything personal. Something that made this real without being too real.

  As she was trying to come up with a caption better than ‘Yum, Yum’, the woman with bright red curly hair, who she recognized from the funeral, put down her knitting and said, ‘Are you photographing your croissant?’, looking perplexed through giant glasses.

  Ava glanced up from her phone, sheepish.

  ‘Why are you doing that? Why is she doing that?’ the woman asked an old man with a huge grey walrus moustache and a pale blue suit and loafers, lacquered walking stick leaning up against his chair. He shrugged and said, ‘I have no idea, Rosa.’

  ‘It’s jus
t for erm . . .’ Ava started, not quite sure how to explain something that would seem completely stupid and inane if said out loud.

  Tom laughed through his nose, his expression a little pitying as he held his coffee cup with both hands and sat back, legs stretched in front of him, crossed at the ankle.

  She was saved from her explanation by a woman to the red-haired woman’s right, her deep, wrinkled, raisin-tanned face also familiar from the funeral, her sparkling jewellery clattering as she pointed Ava’s way and said, ‘You are Val’s, yes?’

  Ava sat up straight and nodded. ‘Yes.’

  The woman studied her, beady eyes narrowed. Under her table was the lame pug dog with the wheeled contraption. ‘In this light you look like your mother.’

  Her red-haired companion exhaled as though she didn’t wholly agree. They were all staring at Ava now.

  The man with the walrus moustache crossed his arms in front of him. ‘Now there was one very fine lady.’

  Ava smiled his way.

  He winked.

  The raisin-tanned woman scoffed. ‘She was a walking pain in the neck.’

  Ava was about to jump to her mother’s defence when she heard the sudden thundering of footsteps and a breathless little voice next to her say, ‘Dad’s-been-Twitter-shamed-and-we’re-all-on-a-digital-detox,’ as Max practically careered into her chair.

  All eyes and ears in the café perked to attention. Ava could see the raisin-tanned woman mouth ‘Twitter shamed?’ at her red-haired friend.

  Ava stood up, completely taken aback by the sight of Max, and, with her hand on his shoulder, looked to where he was pointing. Rory was dragging their cases across the concourse, his short blond hair dirty and flat, skin tired, eyes black. ‘Oh my God,’ she said, her hand over her mouth.

  ‘All got a bit much at home,’ Rory said by way of jokey explanation as he drew level, then added, ‘Hi, Flora.’ And to Tom, ‘Hang on, aren’t you Thomas King?’

  Tom stood up, all casual cool. ‘I am, mate.’

  ‘I thought so.’ Rory was nodding at him as he might a Madame Tussauds’ waxwork he’d recognised without having to read the placard. ‘Ava had a poster of you on her wall when we were growing up.’

  ‘I did not!’ Ava gasped.

  Tom smirked.

  ‘Yes you did,’ said Rory, emphatic. ‘I remember it.’

  ‘I didn’t.’ Ava shook her head, then looking to Tom said, ‘I really didn’t.’

  Rory sighed as if it were all too much. ‘She did, honestly. Trust me. Anyway, here we are,’ he said, slumping down in one of the vacant chairs. ‘I could murder a coffee,’ he added, dragging Ava’s untouched cup towards him.

  ‘I’ll get you a coffee,’ Flora said, while Rory muttered his way through the whole #VileRory saga – ‘I’m being what’s known as shamed on Twitter. I didn’t even know it had a name at the beginning of the week. Now I’m an expert’ – his bravado so cling-film thin that he was having trouble sustaining it.

  Max sat in the other chair and asked, ‘Can I have your croissant, please?’

  Ava nodded, her attention now on her phone and the cascades of #SwanLovesGoose #VileRory tweets. She was gobsmacked. It would have almost been funny if he wasn’t sitting opposite her looking like death warmed up.

  ‘Do you want to know something weird, Aunty Ava?’ Max said, clearly bored by the whole thing, pushing her phone to one side, his mouth full of apricot croissant.

  ‘OK,’ she said, distracted, glancing worriedly at her brother who had slipped into a glassy daze next to her, his eyes focused on the phone that Max had made her put down on the table as she listened to him.

  ‘Well,’ Max started, taking a deep breath, ‘I forgot to pack my toothbrush and on the way here I saw two toothbrushes on the pavement and then, just there on the slope, I saw another one in the road. Don’t you think that’s weird?’

  Ava nodded. ‘That’s weird.’

  ‘I thought so,’ Max agreed. ‘I’m digital detoxing,’ he added. ‘I think it’s making me see more.’

  Tom snorted a laugh. ‘How old are you?’

  ‘I’m ten,’ said Max.

  ‘And you’re digital detoxing?’ said Tom, his tone half-impressed, half-incredulous.

  ‘That’s the world we live in,’ Max said, all serious.

  Rory shrugged at the whole notion of a digital detox. ‘It’s for my benefit. Claire’s way of stopping me being online,’ he said, voice wavering as he tried for indifference.

  Max popped the last of the croissant in his mouth and added, ‘Except he checked on the airport computers at Heathrow and Barcelona. Naughty Daddy!’ he said, giving his dad a look that was, Ava thought, strangely reminiscent of Rory himself.

  Rory sighed, ran a hand through his greasy hair. ‘I’m going down to the beach,’ he said, and standing up, sloped off down to the water’s edge.

  Max was still rabbiting on about detoxing and toothbrushes as Ava glanced at Tom. They’d both seen Rory’s hand as it swiped her phone off the table.

  The sun was unrelenting. Ava fanned herself with a menu. She could sense Rory’s desperation in his every move. Even from behind he looked shattered. Like he hadn’t slept for a month. Damp patches of sweat on his grey T-shirt.

  All the oldies were unashamedly earwigging. Flora came over with a chocolate milk for Max, and they watched Rory as he stood hunched over on the beach, completely ignoring the view as he disappeared into a Twitter wormhole.

  ‘Where’s your phone?’ said Max’s little voice suddenly, as he cut his own monologue short to reach for the chocolate milk and followed their eyes to where Rory was standing.

  Ava winced. ‘Your dad has it.’

  ‘Aunty Ava! That’s not allowed!’ Max looked at her with abject disappointment.

  ‘I know,’ she said. ‘I know, I see now.’

  Tom said, ‘Maybe you need to digital detox too. Help him out.’

  ‘Me?’ Ava said. The idea of it filled her with horror. Her phone was her lifeline. ‘No, I can’t detox.’

  ‘Why not?’

  ‘I need my phone.’

  Tom laughed. ‘No one needs a phone.’

  ‘I do.’

  ‘What, to take pictures of croissants?’ He looked at her. ‘You can’t do it, can you?’

  She scoffed. ‘That’s not going to work. Of course I can do it. If I wanted to.’

  ‘Go on then. Get it back, turn it off, hide it somewhere.’

  ‘No,’ she said, feeling like she was getting backed into a corner. ‘You turn yours off.’

  ‘I don’t have one.’

  ‘Oh of course you don’t.’ Ava rolled her eyes.

  Tom grinned.

  ‘Go on, Aunty Ava,’ said Max. ‘If I can do it, you can.’

  ‘Spoken like a true ten-year-old,’ said Tom.

  Ava thought back to the middle of the night when she’d stared at Instagram photos of her friends at a rained-off barbecue, drinking bottles of beer while squashed under a plastic B&Q gazebo, and wished she was there. When she’d comforted herself with dots on her calendar for the annual Halloween party at Peregrine’s, fireworks on the common with her friends, Midnight Mass at the church near Rory’s, New Year’s lunch at her dad’s house. The constants – signs that normal life would resume.

  One second she’d been lonely, she thought, looking out at the glare of the sun, the next she had too much.

  Rory swore loudly from the shoreline and they all watched him flop to the sand and sit with his head in his hands.

  A new chap arrived with a chess board under his arm and called over to the raisin-tanned woman, but he was shut down with a sharp, ‘Not now,’ while Rosa clicked her knitting needles together furiously as they all stared straight ahead at their new beach cinema.

  Ava felt Max’s warm little hand creep into her own. The feel of it surprised her. Caught her off guard. ‘Do you think my dad’s having a nervous breakdown?’ he asked, huge eyes staring across at her like a goldfish.

&nbs
p; Ava swallowed. It was all very odd, this role reversal. Her brother distracted, dishevelled, unsettled. She suddenly the designated grown-up Max was looking to for help, when she was usually the one making funny faces at him during boring speeches at weddings or Midnight Mass. Rory fit the role of adult so brilliantly that it was almost necessary to rebel, just to add some contrast. He couldn’t have a nervous breakdown. That wasn’t the way the dynamic worked.

  She could feel Tom watching her. She could feel the whole place watching her.

  ‘No,’ she said, squeezing Max’s small hand. ‘No, he’s not having a nervous breakdown. Not if we can help it.’

  Standing up, Max’s hand still in hers, Ava marched across the sand to where Rory was sitting. She looked much more confident than she felt. All the eyes from the café boring into her back. She picked up her phone before Rory’s hand shot out to grab it. ‘I think we could all do with a bit of a digital detox,’ she said. ‘Everyone’s doing it? Aren’t they?’ She looked down at Max. ‘It’s very on-trend.’

  Max giggled.

  Rory sighed.

  She looked down at her phone and felt a pang of desire to quickly WhatsApp Louise with an update – her brother was trending on Twitter for goodness’ sake, that needed discussing – but she turned it off, fully off. Not just on standby.

  Max let go of her hand and went to sit on the sand next to his dad, who barely acknowledged he was there.

  ‘What shall we do now?’ Max asked.

  Rory was staring straight ahead, shattered. He turned to look vacantly at Ava. Two pairs of goldfish eyes on her now. Ava swallowed down a rising sense of panic. This had never happened before.

  ‘Well,’ she said, as brightly as she could. But then found herself lost for what to say next. She was usually great at making things OK, but with Rory it was different, he was always the one who took charge. Everything she thought to offer seemed immediately ridiculous. ‘We could all go back to the Summerhouse, have a cold drink, start packing things up. No, Max, you won’t want to do that. Erm. Go for a walk. Go for a drive. No, I don’t have a car. A cycle. Or we could get the bus into town. Let’s do that, let’s go for some sightseeing.’