The Summerhouse by the Sea

by Jenny Oliver

  Max looked a little sheepish, then said, ‘Because everyone was there.’ Ava glanced at the clock, it was nine o’clock already. ‘But no one’s seen him,’ Max carried on. ‘He hasn’t been for a run because his trainers are still here. He’s gone.’

  ‘OK,’ said Ava. ‘OK, we need a plan. Let me get dressed and we’ll go and get something to eat and talk to everyone about where he might be and what we do in this situation. Yes?’ she said, looking at Max, who nodded back solemnly.

  She thought about the beginning of the holiday, when she could barely be responsible in the face of her brother’s authority, and felt quite proud of herself.

  ‘How was your party?’ she called from the bathroom as she got dressed.

  ‘Good.’ There was a pause. ‘A girl called Talia kissed me.’

  ‘Go, Max!’ Ava shouted, picturing herself fleeing from Tom’s boat and cringing with embarrassment at the prospect of seeing him.

  ‘Yeah, except I really like Selena,’ Max said.

  Ava laughed. ‘You little stud.’ She ruffled his hair as she came out into the corridor and grabbed her keys. It made her think that Tom was probably already on to the next one too. An idea that brought less relief than she’d hoped.

  The café was a hive of activity when they arrived. The wind had dropped completely and the air hummed thick with heat. Gabriela and Rosa were holding court. A new energy around them like a halo. Less stooped, less old. Rosa’s churros queue already snaked out on to the pavement. The walrus-moustache man, who Ava had now learnt was called Gael, was helping dollop thick, glistening chocolate into little pots for dipping, Rosa tipping piping hot churros on to plates quicker than he could keep up.

  Flora appeared, whisking past Ava with a tray of pastries. ‘You’ve lost Rory?’

  ‘Seem to have done,’ Ava said.

  She did a quick scan of the beach and her gaze landed on Tom, sitting out the front, sipping espresso and watching the women go by. Ava rolled her eyes at the cliché of it and looked away. Concentrated on Max’s little hand in her own. But when she sneaked another glance she realised it was she who was the cliché. Tom had been reading a book, which he had now laid on the table and was coming over in their direction.

  ‘I hear you can’t find Rory,’ he said.

  Ava shook her head. Nothing mentioned about the previous evening.

  ‘Have you tried calling?’ Tom asked.

  She hadn’t. She hadn’t even brought her phone down with her. She’d turned it off after the WhatsApp debacle and put it in a drawer in the kitchen, officially detoxing.

  ‘I’ll go and get it’ she said, and dashed back to the house.

  Standing in the living room with her phone in her hand, she felt strange having the outside world so readily accessible. There were fifty-eight emails from work, Hugo panicking and then emailing back to say that he’d sorted it and not to worry. She felt less pleased than she thought she would that he was finding it hard. On Instagram there were thirty-two likes of her croissant picture and a question about whether one of her friends would like it as a holiday destination. On Facebook there were reams of shared news articles, Monday blues gifs, and interestingly a picture of her ex Jonathon with what looked like a new girlfriend. Mind distracted from Rory for a second, she clicked on the photo. Very pretty. Exactly the kind of person Jonathon should be with. A sweet, kind, smiley person who – she clicked on her profile – worked at a zoo and got into the spirit of things with his rugby friends. And it wasn’t that Ava was jealous, because this was a lovely thing to have happened, almost a relief, it was that he had moved on. While she was seemingly in exactly the same place, mentally if not geographically. Still running.

  She looked back at the photo. Jonathon taking the selfie of the two of them as they grinned up at the screen, Twickenham stadium behind them. And that was when she saw that her brother had liked it.

  Rory Fisher was online.

  Ava ran back to the café, breathless by the time she arrived. She held up her phone to Tom. ‘He’s somewhere with a computer,’ she said, hand on her chest as she got her breath back.

  Ten minutes later they were pulling up in Tom’s Jeep outside a grotty looking internet café in the backstreets of the main town.

  ‘Gig-A-Bites,’ Ava said, looking up at the half-lit flashing sign. The words ‘INTERNET 24 HOURS’ were written on an A4 sheet of paper and sellotaped to the window next to a guy having a fag on the step. She peered in the door. There was her brother. Wearing what looked like his white pyjama T-shirt and jeans, his hair greasy, his neck slumped forwards as he sat, nose close to the screen.

  Ava looked down at Max who had come to the window to stand next to her, his eyes all concern. ‘He’s had a breakdown,’ he said.

  But Ava shook her head. ‘No, I don’t think he has.’ She pushed the door open. Rory didn’t move. The two guys behind the counter looked up. ‘I think maybe he’s just had a relapse,’ she said, trying to sound as confident as she could.

  Ava walked up to her brother slowly, like one might an injured animal. Worried that Rory might roar. She pulled over the broken swivel chair from the computer next to his.

  ‘Rory,’ Ava said softly.

  ‘Oh Jesus, you gave me the fright of my life.’ He spun round, startled.

  Ava felt a little foolish for being so tentative. ‘What are you doing here?’ she asked.

  Rory turned to the screen where his Twitter feed was cascading in front of him. ‘Look, it’s all gone,’ he said. ‘All of it. Not a #VileRory in sight. They’ve moved on. That was it. Done.’

  Ava looked at the screen. All the #SwanLovesGoose stuff was back to being cute shots of the pair snuggled up in their Tesco trolley.

  ‘And the little bugger’s gone and laid an egg.’ Rory sighed, then rubbed his face as if trying to keep himself awake.

  ‘Well, it’s good that it’s gone,’ Ava said, glancing back at Max and Tom, watching. ‘Isn’t it?’

  ‘It’s still killed my career,’ Rory said, rubbing tired eyes. ‘That was all it took. And strangely it’s almost a relief. Who’d have thought that?’ He laughed. ‘You know, I remember Claire reading an article in the Telegraph about families upping sticks and heading off on grown-up gap years together. I thought it was complete and utter bullshit. No one’s going to quit a perfectly good job for a long holiday, are they? It was just for people who’d been booted out and couldn’t get another job. But now, as someone who has, indeed, been booted out, I fear maybe there is more to life. I don’t know. I feel like I’ve completely and utterly ballsed it all up. Everything. I’m so tired,’ he added, hands pressed into his eyes. ‘And I can’t see a way out.’

  The guys behind the counter were leaning forwards, one of them talking rapidly in Spanish. Ava wondered if he was translating. She imagined they were doing some whizzy search of Rory’s internet history already, piecing together a little story for themselves.

  Ava took a breath, tried to think of how best to handle this. ‘Well maybe you don’t have to see a way out. Maybe you have to look at each different bit and sort them out separately. I don’t know, Rory. Maybe the Twitter thing was a good thing, maybe it gave you a shove to realise what you value most. You need to focus on the important bits, and that’s you and Max and Claire.’

  Behind her she could see Tom trying to coax Max away to play pinball, but he wasn’t having it. He was staying put, listening.

  Ava rolled her lips together, thinking. Looking from scrawny Max with his worried little freckle-covered face back to completely knackered-looking Rory. Then she said, ‘You know, Rory, the other day I realised that I’d never seen you as a lone parent before. Until now. Until this holiday. And I know you think you’re just like Dad, but you’re not. You’re lovely. You’re a lovely dad. He was lovely and everything, but in a different way. He was more right-brained,’ she said, taking a risk because she had no idea which side meant which.

  Rory immediately corrected her, even in his moment of crisis. ‘Le
ft-brained,’ he said. ‘Dad was left-brained. Logical. Rational.’

  Ava rolled her eyes. ‘Yes, exactly. And as you have just demonstrated, you are that as well. But you’re also a really right-brained parent, I think, because I’m not a hundred per cent sure what being right-brained means, but I’m going with that it means you’re a natural at it, you’re kind and you do what is emotionally right. You think about him in your actions. I’ve seen it, Rory. Take the film as an example. That was going to be your thing, your challenge, and you gave it to Max. You let him do it because he wanted to and we all know that it’s going to be all wobbly and everyone’s heads will have been cut off – sorry, Max – but I think that will make it even lovelier.’

  Rory snorted a laugh. Max giggled.

  ‘I’ve watched you, Rory, and you’re so lovely with him. Honestly. You haven’t blown this. There’s still time.’

  She saw his shoulders drop as he exhaled. He looked down at the floor, his forehead resting on the heel of his hand.

  Ava didn’t know what else to say.

  Then Max put his little hand forwards and, clutching Rory’s shoulder, said, ‘I think you’re the best dad in the world.’

  And that was it. Rory crumbled. ‘You do?’ he said, trying to hold it together as he looked up at his son. ‘I know I haven’t been as good as I should be. So honestly, I won’t mind if you don’t really think that. I won’t mind either way.’

  Max frowned, a bit puzzled by the comeback. Ava thwacked Rory on the leg. ‘He just said you were the best dad in the whole world, for God’s sake. Give him a hug, you idiot.’

  Rory took hold of Max by the shoulders and squeezed him into a giant hug, surreptitiously trying to wipe away any moisture from his eyes behind Max’s back.

  The guys at the counter got bored and went back to their screens.

  Then Rory opened his eyes and saw Tom. ‘Oh God. Hi, Tom. Sorry you’ve had to witness my idiocy again.’

  ‘Seriously, it’s fine. Totally fine.’ Tom took a step back, embarrassed that he was intruding in this family moment.

  ‘Come on,’ Rory said, standing up slowly like a robot learning to walk, but still managing to resume his natural command. Max gripping his hand. ‘Let’s get as far away from here as possible.’

  Ava stood up. Tom went over and held the door open.

  ‘Did you see Jonathon’s got a new girlfriend,’ Rory said to Ava as they stepped outside. ‘That’s good isn’t it? A relief.’

  ‘Yes,’ she said, pulling on her sunglasses, unable to believe he could still be quite so Rory, even on the verge of meltdown.

  Outside the gloom of the internet café, the sky was a sheet of blue, not a cloud in sight. The green of the orange-tree leaves and the pink of the bougainvillea framed against it like a painting.

  Max and Rory walked ahead, Rory’s legs creaky and stiff, his hand clutching Max’s like he might never let go.

  Tom lagged back next to Ava, his knuckles grazing hers as they walked through the square, past the bubbling of a fountain tiled white and blue and kids playing football on the sandy path.

  ‘That was good,’ Tom said. ‘You did that well.’

  She turned to look at him, surprised by the compliment, and just caught his eye before he went back to looking straight ahead, almost as if he’d said nothing. ‘Thanks,’ she said to his profile, quietly proud.

  CHAPTER 28

  To lighten the mood, Flora was throwing what she had endearingly termed a ‘painting party’.

  Gabriela, Rosa and all the other grannies were armed with rollers, headscarves and yellow rubber gloves. Ava had always wondered who it was that bought the flowery polyester housecoats for sale at Spanish markets, and now she knew; in front of her was a sea of lurid drip-dry floral. Gael, who was always so impeccable in his suit, was currently up a ladder in jeans and a checked shirt, pencil behind his ear, drilling a hole for a new shelf with Igor.

  They’d had another great day of service. People popping in from the beach, intrigued by the wafting scents of garlic frying, their eyes caught by the plates of prawns with long, curling whiskers and sizzling fritters of tiny shrimps. The man with the fish van was now delivering a full order of only the best catch of the day, on pain of his mother’s approval. The guys from Nino’s had been seen watching suspiciously from their doorway.

  And Flora was flourishing with each bill paid and each meal eaten. Hair a little more bouncy, skin a little brighter, even a new bra to make the boobs as bedazzling as they once were. The dishes served were hers, and Café Estrella was no longer the enemy.

  ‘But it can’t look like this,’ she’d said, waving a hand at the dark blue cave-like walls, the huge bull’s head graffiti, the ugly bare interior.

  Max was there with the camera, teaching his new BFF, Emilio, how it worked. They were swapping it between the two of them and Ava watched Rory as Emilio filmed the floor rather than Flora, his expression one of fondness rather than flinching annoyance. When he glanced over and caught her looking he did an embarrassed half-shrug, as if trying to excuse his softness. Ava pretended she hadn’t seen anything.

  Flora was standing in front of everyone holding up a mood board she had made. There were images of little white Spanish villas, orange trees lining the river in Seville, colourful courtyards dotted with terracotta pots, a decaying wrought-iron staircase, the Moorish tiles of the Alhambra, a flamenco dancer in a pink spotty dress. ‘This is the effect I’m going for,’ said Flora, who’d clearly put a lot of work into her board, all the little pictures carefully trimmed and neatly Pritt-sticked.

  ‘Yes, yes, very nice,’ said Gabriela, dismissive, eager to put her roller to use. ‘Are we starting?’

  ‘Yes, Gabriela,’ Flora sighed, resigned now to this new force in her life. Propping up her beautiful mood board on the bar, she allocated jobs.

  Ava was given the outside wall to paint, currently on her own. ‘I’m going to need some help, Flora,’ she said when everyone got down to work. ‘It’s a huge wall!’

  ‘Don’t worry, darling,’ Flora said, unfolding giant, billowing dust-sheets, ‘more help’s on its way.’

  At that point, Everardo pulled up in his van and Ava found herself intrigued at the prospect of spending an evening painting a wall with the beautifully ugly baker, his imposing stoop quite mesmerising as he stalked over to where Flora was taping the dust-sheets to the floor.

  But to Ava’s disappointment Flora said, ‘You’re with me, darling,’ and ushered Everardo into the kitchen, where Flora had given herself the task of painting over the giant bull’s head stencil that her ex had commissioned. ‘Don’t worry, Ava honey, you just get started,’ she added, wafting Ava outside into the dusk, only the string of half-blown outdoor bulbs for company.

  Ava stood staring at the dirty, weather-beaten wall. A vast expanse punctuated with two huge double doors. She dipped her brush into the white matt emulsion, watched the thick paint drip into the pot, and made her first gloriously, glaringly white mark.

  And the next. And the next.

  The brush-stroke monotony, up and down, allowed her mind to drift to thoughts of Rory’s meltdown, her own running from Tom, Rory’s admission that he wished he’d come with her to New York, Val having to persuade their mother to see them, and pausing finally on her mother’s affair with Syd.

  It was something she hadn’t really allowed herself to acknowledge since they’d found the letters. Something she hadn’t really allowed to change the way she thought about and remembered her past. The affair existed as something in the background, like the Hoover going when the TV was on. An annoyance to tune out.

  But it wasn’t something in the background. It was something that would have impacted the day-to-day narrative in which she’d existed, without her knowing.

  It occurred to her that she and Val had never been to her mother’s house in New York when they had visited. That she must have been living with Syd. She wondered whose choice it was that she met Ava and Val at The Plaza. Wa
s it her mother, loving the subterfuge still – her secret private life – or Syd’s, uninterested in her life before him? In Leonard’s children.

  ‘So if I come and paint next to you, are you going to run away?’ Tom’s voice broke her train of thought and she realised she’d been standing still, brush paused on the small square of wall that she’d painted.

  She watched him approach, all calm and cool in old black jeans and a navy T-shirt. Earlier, he’d dropped them off home after the internet café and left them to it, despite Rory’s protests that he should come in for a coffee, clearly feeling like a spare part. Things between him and Ava just a little awkward.

  ‘No,’ she said. ‘I won’t run away.’

  He picked up a spare brush and started to paint near one set of huge French doors.

  Ava went back to the patch she’d already started.

  Neither of them spoke until Tom said, ‘Well I searched my bathroom last night for reasons that might have made you leave, and the best I could come up with were the little spots of mould in the grouting. They’re now on my to-do list.’

  Ava looked away to hide her smile.

  ‘I mean, come on,’ he said, ‘there was nothing in there, right?’

  She shook her head. ‘No, there was nothing in the bathroom.’

  ‘Right. Good. OK.’ He nodded to himself, mystery half-resolved.

  They worked in silence again for a while, Ava trying to stop herself from glancing to her left at his profile. The chatter from inside the café like caged birds as the old ladies painted the walls and scrubbed the skirting board. Overhead the last of the sun scraped the top of the treeline, haloing light in radar stripes. The waves rolled gently behind them on the beach.

  ‘So, er . . .’ Tom said, distracted, edging his brush along the line of one of the big doors. ‘Are you going to tell me why you did leave?’

  ‘No.’

  He laughed and carried on with what he was doing.

  Ava painted some more. Then she found herself saying, ‘Rory and I found all these letters from my mum to her producer. A guy, Syd, who she was apparently having an affair with.’