The Summerhouse by the Sea

by Jenny Oliver

  Igor loaned Ava his moped to go back to the beach. He was set in for the duration and assured her he’d catch a lift back in the morning. Ava pootled back, completely unable to grasp everyone else’s enthusiasm. It felt like a club to which she’d been refused entry. She wanted to understand it. Going back she felt like a failure, sloping away, admitting defeat.

  She parked the moped in the car park just before the path down to the beach, not wanting to explain her presence to Flora, and nipped unseen along a back road that led her out into the cobbled square and the cocoon of her grandmother’s house.

  Restless and annoyed with herself, she had a shower, washed her hair and dowsed her legs with Afterbite. Then she paced the hallway, the kitchen, the veranda, pausing to sit and drink some water, but then stood up again, seeing in her mind only the people still at the vineyard.

  She felt like her mother. Positioned slightly to the side at family events. Watching. Kept satisfied like a tiger in case she suddenly gnashed. Her drink always topped up. Her chair always in the shade. Her book forgotten: ‘Ava, run and get it, there’s a good girl.’

  Leaving the veranda, Ava walked through the kitchen and up to her grandmother’s bedroom. It was strange how when she’d first arrived, walking in had seemed too nerve-wracking, too emotionally powerful, yet now she just marched through as if it were an airport corridor, a non-descript passageway whose purpose was purely the departure gate.

  She felt her heart start to race as she opened the door to the little ante-room. She hadn’t stepped in since they’d found the letters so was surprised to find a shelf had collapsed, the wooden support snapped. Some of the fallen contents had been haphazardly bundled away, but half of it still lay discarded on the floor like shimmering puddles.

  Ava knelt down and started to organise the mess, folding sequinned couture dresses into a glossy shopping bag, gathering handbags and purses together and sliding them neatly underneath the rail of clothes.

  It was beneath the furs that she found the other box.

  More letters, different handwriting. This scrawl she recognised. The same sparrow-like scratch that was on the writing bureau in the living room, that signed her Christmas cards ‘Valentina Brown. (Grandmother)’.

  The airmail envelopes were blue. They smelt of old books and citrus and juniper cologne. Ava wasn’t sure if she wanted to open them or not. She went downstairs to get a glass of water.

  Glancing out the window at the end of the hall she saw the café in full swing. Flora guffawing delightedly with customers. Everardo gracefully stealth-like in the background serving drinks. Resisting the pull of that familiar reality, she turned and headed back up to the stuffy little room.

  Sitting down, cross-legged on the floor, she took out the first envelope.

  Isabel, sweetheart, we’ve booked our tickets, you have to be there. I specifically told you 3rd – 8th December and you promised you were free. You’re just going to have to tell that Syd to go without you to LA, I’m sure the man can last a weekend without you, and you him! Honestly darling, I’m sure I brought you up with more backbone than this. Tell him you must stay. Poor Ava’s so excited. Please don’t do this.

  And, aside from that, I’m not flying all the way to New York to see the understudy.

  Weather here glorious. Very mild and sea warm. I’ve bought a wonderful new swimming costume.

  All my love

  Mother

  Ava folded her arms across her chest, the letter tight between her fingers. She shut her eyes for a second. She would turn time back and not read it if she could, just to save her younger self the humiliation of having been excited. She lay back on the hard wooden floor and stared up at the bare bulb and cracks in the ceiling, her neck bent up against the unbroken shelf strut. Letting the letter drop to the floor she pulled out the next one.

  Isabel, sweetheart, wonderful news about Carmen – one of my favourites. Congratulations, darling. We will be there!

  Ava and Rory have just been to stay for the summer. Oh, they are such marvellous company. We swam every morning, Rory’s started running at some ungodly hour. He made us take out a pedalo – I warned him of the boring tedium of the pedalo but he refused to listen (wonder where that comes from!) until we were right round the peninsula and they finally got it. Ava managed to convince lovely Lucas from the watersports centre to tow us back. She has all the charm of youth. Had us in stitches later about a cheeky little kiss they had and an orange falling on her head from the tree.

  Isabel, they’re such lovely children. Not so much children any more I know but a lovely pair to have around. Rory bossing us about like he owns the place. Just delightful. I actually cried a little tear when they left.

  A credit to you, sweetheart. You should come back more often (I know, I know, I can’t help myself).

  All my love

  Mother

  Ava sat up. Re-read the letter with the paper really close to her face, felt a bubble of hope teetering inside herself, not quite given the go-ahead to inflate.

  She pulled out another letter. A quick skim. Then another.

  Ava is doing marvellously in Art. Apparently not quite so well at Maths. Her father has got her a tutor but as far as I can tell the woman’s so young that they just gossip about television programmes for half an hour – a girl after my own heart. Rory is straight As but a little too serious on the telephone. I’ve mailed him a joke book.

  Then another.

  I bought Rory a camcorder. Expensive but worth it. His father isn’t going to encourage him. Too many tutors in my opinion. He posted me a film of some squirrels and magpies fighting in the garden. I think he wants to be like that famous man that I’ve forgotten the name of. Battenberg?

  I’ve asked Gabriela. She says David Attenborough. I’d have never got that on my own.

  Did I tell you? Poor Gabriela’s husband died last month, Felipe, remember him? It was terrible. She’s bought a puppy which is most unlike her – said she wanted another heartbeat in the house. I said, get a cat. It’s a ridiculous dog, can’t even breathe properly, face all squished in and ugly as sin.

  Ava has developed a passion for car boot sales. Her father apparently fears for a lot of old junk in the house like Val’s! The cheek of it! I think it’s wonderful.

  Please, Isabel, you have a telephone, use it.

  All my love

  Mother

  They went on like this. All little updates. All casual snippets of Ava and Rory’s lives. Their achievements, their tantrums, the funny little things they’d done or said. Information. Updates.

  The minutiae of life that Ava had never dared bore her mother with. But someone had. Someone had told her. And whether her mother cared or not it didn’t matter. What mattered was that she knew. The information had been logged somewhere in her brain. Forced to take precedence, even for mere minutes, over the things Isabel Fisher had ranked higher in her life.

  Lying on her back, Ava stared up at the dresses. Sequins shimmering like fish scales. Gold lamé winking in the light. Beady eyes of dead fox stoles staring back.

  She sat up and pulled the gold lamé skirt off the hanger. She scrunched the material in her palms, remembered the feeling of the scratchy fabric.

  She was standing in the wings of the theatre. Nine years old. Too old to sing out of tune now. Too old for bobbing dance moves. Hair still curled in little ringlets, cheeks rouged like a doll. Body shaking so violently with nerves that the gold material started flapping and the wooden floorboards creaked.

  ‘I can’t.’

  ‘Get on,’ hissed her mother, pointing to the stage.

  ‘No.’

  ‘You’re embarrassing me.’

  All the assistants hovering in the wings.

  ‘I can’t.’

  The slap. The shock of it making her wet her pants. Standing rigid, paralysed with shame. Cheek stinging. The gold lamé skirt hiding the trickle of pee down her leg, soaking into the white frilly sock.

  ‘Get out there now.
’

  A shove to her back. A wide bright stage. A million eyes staring in the darkness. And Ava standing, wide-eyed, mouth open. Words forgotten. The music starting but no noise would come out.

  She remembered the look in her mother’s eyes as she knelt to give her a great hug on the stage before an assistant came on and ushered Ava away – the venom.

  Now, sitting in that little room, skirt scrunched in her hand, Ava fumed at the idea of her mother being angry with her. The audience weren’t there to see her sing terribly. Why couldn’t they have just said she was ill? That it would be just Isabel Fisher that night? And every night.

  Because . . . why?

  Ava sat up.

  Because her mother didn’t have the courage yet? Because she needed a crutch? First Ava, then Syd. Always someone else making her famous so she never had to stand up and do it on her own.

  Ava had stood in the wings of the theatre for the whole set in her pee-soaked socks, going from gasping tears to red-puffed face, waiting for her mother to finish.

  And when it had ended, backed by the cacophony of applause that proved Ava was no longer necessary, she had bobbed in front of Isabel, reaching for her hand, saying, ‘Mummy, I’m sorry,’ but her mother had marched past without even a look.

  She remembered the agent – ‘Someone take the kid home.’ She remembered being handed from person to person. Left to wait in a chair. Ushered down a corridor. The half-empty rooms, a man’s hand stroking her hair. The nervous fear. The dry cigarette breath. A woman in a headset clicking her fingers. More corridors. The foyer. ‘Wait here.’ Suddenly out front, alone. Black sky. Bustling people. Never daring to ask someone to call her father – he’d be so mad. So mad with their mother. And who had come to her rescue in the end? The infamous Syd, who smelt of coffee and cigars. He’d stuffed a Trebor Extra Strong Mint into her hand, told her a terrible joke and packed her into a taxi. If her mother knew where she’d gone, Ava had no idea. She just sat alone in the cab, wiping away tears with non-absorbent gold lamé, clutching the dusty mint in her hand, all the while despising her previous self for not having had the courage to sing.

  Back in the present, alone in the little room, Ava found herself once again dabbing her eyes with gold lamé. This secret shameful memory. She imagined someone treating little Max the same way and felt a rising fury inside her. Yet she had spent her life trying to simultaneously bury the moment and make up for it.

  She remembered telling her dad when he answered the door that she’d been ill, weaving a whole story about her mother missing the first part of the set to walk with her to the kerbside to hail a cab.

  And of course her mother had never come home again after that night.

  And of course Ava had never told anyone what had happened, too gobbled up with worry for letting her mother down.

  And of course Ava had never realised that she had left them for Syd. Syd of the extra strong mints and the unfunny jokes.

  She balled the gold skirt up in her fist, biting down on the urge to shout out loud, then chucked it into the back of the cupboard and wiped her eyes with her hands. She sat for a bit, looking round at all the stuff, suddenly garish in its splendour, and reached over for the last letter in the box.

  Isabel, sweetheart, you have to rest! This is ridiculous. Your voice is straining because you are tired. You looked worn out the whole time Ava and I were there. You need to calm down and for goodness, sake, stop checking on blasted Syd all the time! One thing I can tell you about men is the tighter you try and hold them the more they struggle. Like fish.

  But when have you ever listened to me?

  Just get some rest. Your voice is too precious to waste on a man.

  All my love

  Mother

  Ava saw herself much older in New York, her mother getting bored and annoyed at The Plaza, calling over the maître d’ to complain about the table, taking a phone call midway through, make-up thick and eyes jittery, refusing to eat anything then standing up and walking away before Ava and her grandmother had even finished the sandwiches. They sat politely waiting for her to come back, both ashamed that she never did, neither speaking of it. Her grandmother fumbling to pay the extortionate bill. Then the two of them walking arm in arm to Central Park zoo, where they stared at the majestic cats restlessly prowling and foolishly romanticised the whole afternoon by nicknaming a beautiful snow leopard Isabel.

  Ava realised she had spent all that time trying to be enough for one person, when another had adored her without her even trying. Had laughed at her jokes, rubbed suntan lotion on her back, prescribed bizarre remedies for her ailments, delighted at her achievements. Had marvelled over the perfect little sandwiches at The Plaza while her mother had waved them away with disdain.

  Someone had loved her, well and truly and completely. Had deemed her enough.

  While the other, by the end, barely deemed her anything.

  CHAPTER 34

  In the suffocating heat of the afternoon sun, Ava stripped all her mother’s dresses from their hangers – velvet with a nipped-in waist, big gold roses, red and ruched, Pan collar, leopard print, turquoise, a green one covered in zebras, the gold lamé skirt – and folded them into a huge paper carrier bag. She walked them downstairs, out through the soupy heat and across the concourse to Café Estrella where Flora was having a coffee at her little table during the pause before evening service.

  ‘I have something for you,’ Ava said.

  Flora looked up. ‘What’s that?’

  Ava put the bag on the floor and opened it.

  Flora peered down, looked back up at Ava, frowning. When Ava stared, resolute, Flora reached down and pulled out the green silk number with the zebras. ‘Is this Versace?’

  Ava nodded.

  Flora held it up against her. The cinched-in waist, the sweetheart neckline, the kick-pleat skirt, all perfect for her figure. She looked cautiously at Ava like a kid on the brink of Christmas Day. ‘Are you serious?’

  Ava nodded. It was weird to see the dresses with someone else. Immediately transforming into Flora from their mother. Suddenly the zebra dress was fun and flouncy rather than slick and showy.

  ‘I really like this one,’ Ava said, reaching into the bag and pulling out a fitted yellow dress with big pockets, buttons down the front and a white Peter Pan collar. ‘It goes with your mood board,’ she said.

  Flora checked the label. Chanel. ‘Ava, this is thousands of pounds’ worth of clothes.’

  ‘I know,’ she said. ‘Just don’t tell Rory they’re worth anything.’

  Flora shook her head. ‘You should sell them,’ she said, picking up the bag and thrusting it in Ava’s direction.

  ‘No,’ Ava said, raising her hands so she couldn’t take it. ‘I don’t want the money. I don’t want someone who can afford them to have them. I want someone who will make good out of them to have them. And you will make good out of them,’ she laughed. ‘If that’s even a phrase.’

  Flora took a moment to look at Ava, her eyes narrowing to see that she was certain, then she held the bag close to her chest and said, ‘I will make good out of them, I promise.’

  ‘Good,’ said Ava, feeling instantly lighter.

  Flora picked the green zebra dress out of the bag again and held it up against herself. ‘I might even wear this on my date,’ she said with a raise of her brows.

  ‘You have a date!’ Ava gasped. ‘With Everardo?’

  ‘With Everardo.’ Flora’s cheeks pinked.

  ‘Oh that’s so exciting. I’m so pleased.’ Ava did a little excited clap.

  ‘Well, it’s just a little date, probably nothing will happen.’

  ‘Or everything might happen,’ Ava replied.

  ‘We’ll see.’ Flora looked a touch more vulnerable as she folded the dress up.

  ‘It’ll be good.’

  ‘And what about you?’ Flora said with a knowing look. ‘You and Tom seem inseparable.’

  Ava waved the comment away. ‘It’s just a holi
day thing.’

  Flora looked surprised. ‘Really?’

  ‘Of course,’ said Ava.

  ‘Does he know that?’ Flora asked, more serious.

  ‘Yes Flora, we both know that,’ Ava said, shifting her weight from foot to foot, suddenly keen to get away. ‘I’m going back to the grapes now.’

  ‘To be honest, I’m quite pleased I managed to get out of it this year.’ Flora shook her head. ‘It’s a bloody nightmare!’

  ‘It is,’ Ava agreed, ‘but I’m determined to enjoy it.’

  Flora laughed. ‘And you say it’s just a holiday fling . . .’

  ‘It is a holiday fling,’ Ava insisted. ‘The grapes are for me.’

  ‘Right,’ said Flora, in a voice that made Ava scrunch up her face even though she knew she was being wound up.

  CHAPTER 35

  At the vineyard it was as though time had stood still. Everyone was still bent over, snipping their little bunches off the vine.

  ‘You’re back?’ Tom stopped the tractor as he met her on the path, wiping the sweat from his face with his T-shirt as he jumped down to stand opposite her.

  ‘Yes,’ Ava said, hands on hips, shoulders back. ‘And I’m going to need a head torch.’

  Tom laughed as he pulled his own torch out of his pocket and chucked it at her. ‘You’re here for the duration?’

  ‘I am indeed.’

  ‘Glad to hear it,’ he said, hauling himself back up into the tractor seat and driving away with a grinning salute.

  Dowsed in mosquito repellent, Val’s wide-brimmed straw hat on her head, huge bottle of water in her hand, Ava stalked determinedly back to her vine. As she walked she felt stronger. Taller, even. She hadn’t expected to feel changed by a few letters but her step was definitely lighter. Her self less doubting, less fearful. Angrier. But in a good way; the best way. An anger that led only to confidence and change. To acceptance.

  Surrounded by bees and the glaring late-afternoon sunshine, she glanced around her at the people chatting, pausing, sipping, looking, laughing, and was suddenly struck by the line in her dad’s letter to her mother: A person invested with the ability to find interest and adventure in the everyday things of life has a much more enjoyable time than a person who is always seeking to be amused.