Summer of Secrets

by Rosie Rushton

‘And I think,’ she added, her voice wobbling, ‘they might have run away.’

  Summer’s father sank into the chair and stared at her, his face draining of colour.

  ‘They?’ he murmured.

  ‘Her and . . .’ Caitlin felt as if she was betraying Summer with every syllable, but faced with the three of them, she had no choice. ‘Her and Alex.’

  ‘Alex? Alex di Matteo? Oh dear God, please no!’

  ‘Alex – damn it! I knew it was him I saw that day . . .’ Ludo gasped.

  Gabriella simply closed her eyes and looked as if she was about to burst into tears.

  ‘Caitlin, you have to tell us everything you know,’ Ludo stressed. ‘Everything.’

  ‘I can’t, I promised––’

  ‘You are a guest in my house!’ Sir Magnus stormed. ‘If you’ve been colluding with my daughter over some harebrained scheme . . .’

  ‘Dad, stop it!’ Ludo burst out. ‘Are you really surprised that whatever Summer’s done, it’s going to be a friend she confides in? Because she sure as hell can’t confide in us. Because we don’t do truth, do we?’

  ‘Ludo––’

  ‘No, listen – what planet are you on? If Summer has run away – and God knows, it’s possible – we’re the ones to blame, not Caitlin. Did you honestly think, Dad, that you could get away with pulling the wool over her eyes forever?’

  ‘Be quiet, Ludo,’ Gabriella cut in, jerking her head in Caitlin’s direction.

  ‘Oh, don’t worry,’ Ludo snapped, his face now scarlet. ‘She knows all about The Abbey. She’s not stupid – and what’s more important, neither is Summer. She’s sixteen, for God’s sake, not some blinkered kid.’

  ‘It’s over and done with,’ Sir Magnus insisted. ‘In the past. Forgotten.’

  ‘Get real, Dad! Who was it that said it’s the secrets we don’t know that hurt us the most? Freddie may choose to drown it all out with drink and substances and God knows what else – oh, you didn’t really think all that energy and buzz was natural, did you? – and of course, you’ve already decided that I had to be the good guy, and keep it all buttoned in – well, stuff that, Dad! I’ve had it up to here with secrets. I’m glad Caitlin found out about The Abbey.’

  ‘Are you telling me that Summer knows about her mother’s illness?’ Sir Magnus gasped.

  ‘Not yet,’ Ludo retorted. ‘But when – if – we find her, don’t think you can bluster and boss and bully this time. She has a right to know. She needs to know.’

  Gabriella nodded slowly.

  ‘Ludo’s got a point,’ she admitted. ‘But right now, finding Summer is the priority. Before it’s too late.’

  ‘And you’ve told us everything?’ Sir Magnus demanded, after Caitlin had described the meeting in the church, the holdall and what she’d heard of the conversation between Alex and Summer.

  ‘Yes,’ she said, nodding. ‘I couldn’t hear everything they said but it was definitely about getting away and she asked Alex to take her with him.’

  ‘But they haven’t seen one another in two years,’ Sir Magnus began.

  ‘If it was Alex I saw in Brighton that evening when I was looking for Summer – well, then, they obviously have seen one another,’ Ludo pointed out.

  Caitlin was about to confirm his suspicions, but thought better of it. Right now, keeping quiet seemed the safest option.

  At that moment, there was an urgent knocking at the back door.

  ‘Summer!’ Gabriella and Ludo cried in unison. Thank God for that, Caitlin thought, as Sir Magnus slid the bolt and opened the door.

  It wasn’t Summer who stepped over the threshold.

  It was Alex.

  And he was alone.

  ‘Is Summer here?’ Alex was panting and beads of perspiration stood out on his forehead. ‘I didn’t mean to upset her . . .’

  ‘What have you done with her? Where is she?’ Caitlin shouted. ‘I should never have believed her – I knew all along you were up to no good and it’s my fault . . .’

  ‘Caitlin, stop.’ Ludo laid a hand on her shoulder. ‘Let Alex speak.’

  ‘And make it quick,’ Sir Magnus ordered. ‘If you know where my daughter is and you don’t tell me, so help me, I’ll have the police on to you . . .’

  ‘Dad! Let the guy speak!’

  Alex swallowed hard and looked Summer’s father in the eye.

  ‘We arranged to meet tonight, right? I’m staying in Vernazza with my gran, and she’s got it into her head that she wants to go to Milan at the weekend and . . .’

  ‘Yes, yes, get on with it!’ stormed Sir Magnus.

  ‘Anyway, we were just chatting and then Summer began talking about us getting engaged soon.’

  ‘Engaged?’ Caitlin thought Sir Magnus was about to have a heart attack on the spot. ‘What a load of juvenile nonsense! You haven’t seen one another in ages.’

  ‘We’ve been seeing each other off and on all year,’ Alex retorted. ‘As often as she could get away,’ he added pointedly.

  ‘You’ve been what? Don’t be so stupid – I’ve made damn sure she’s been in Brighton with me and . . .’

  ‘I’ve been in Brighton too – on a university exchange,’ Alex said, his voice cracking with suppressed emotion. ‘And please will you just let me finish before you say any more?’

  Sir Magnus nodded abruptly, sinking on to one of the bar stools and resting his chin on his hands.

  ‘We played together as kids, right?’ Alex went on, glancing at Ludo who nodded in agreement. ‘When we moved back to the States, I really missed her, so when I got to the UK, it was pretty obvious I was going to get in touch. I even said as much to my dad—’

  ‘And he didn’t have the decency to stop you?’ Sir Magnus blurted out.

  ‘Magnus, for God’s sake, let the boy speak!’ Gabriella shouted.

  ‘Oh, sure he did – that was what set hares running in my head,’ Alex explained. ‘He virtually forbade me to get in touch with any of you. He said . . .’

  He faltered.

  ‘Go on,’ Ludo encouraged him.

  ‘He said that the Tilneys were the past and the past was best left alone.’

  ‘That,’ said Sir Magnus, ‘is probably the most sensible remark to come out of your father’s mouth in a long time.’

  ‘I wish he’d told me the truth then,’ Alex admitted. ‘But he didn’t. Not till I told him I was in love with Summer—’

  ‘Love? What do you kids know of love?’

  ‘Enough to know that when you love someone you can’t keep secrets from them, and that’s what I would have to do. That’s why I hung back. I thought it best if we just took things dead slowly, till I had a chance to talk to you and . . . well, anyway, that’s why tonight, when she talked about getting engaged, I kept trying to change the subject, saying we were too young, she was still at school, all that stuff.’

  ‘So you weren’t going to elope?’ Caitlin burst out.

  ‘Elope? Are you mad?’ Alex eyed her with disdain.

  ‘What happened next?’ Sir Magnus’s voice was shaky as he took a step towards Alex.

  ‘Sum got really tearful and in the end I said it was getting late and she ought to be getting home, and then she went ballistic. She suddenly got it into her head that I wasn’t going to Milan with Gran at all, but going off with some other girl.’

  He paused, eyeing everyone anxiously.

  ‘That’s when I flipped,’ he admitted. ‘I told her that we had no future if she was going to go on and on all the time about her mum. I said that she was dead and we were alive and . . . and then I told her.’

  ‘Told her what? That it was over?’ There was a note of hope in Sir Magnus’s voice.

  ‘No. I told her about my dad and her mum.’

  Oh my God, thought Caitlin. They had an affair.

  ‘After that, she burst into tears and ran off. I chased after her, but I couldn’t find her. I came here, because I had to know she was OK.’

  ‘Well thanks to you she’s not
,’ Sir Magnus stormed. ‘What were you thinking of?’

  ‘Don’t you get it?’ By now Alex was shouting. ‘I felt so guilty – I wanted to come clean with her about all the other stuff. But she ran off before—’

  ‘What other stuff?’ Ludo asked, his jaw working with emotion and his eyes narrowed in what seemed to Caitlin like fear.

  ‘Allo moto, allo moto . . .’

  ‘What on earth is that?’ Gaby asked.

  ‘It’s my mobile,’ Caitlin gasped. ‘I must have left it in my camera bag.’

  She ran over to the coat hooks by the back door and unzipped her bag, grabbing the phone and flipping open the lid.

  ‘Summer?’ Everyone turned to stare at her, relief flooding their faces. ‘Thank God – where are you?’

  She swallowed hard, trying to keep her face expressionless as Summer sobbed and babbled down the phone.

  ‘Yeah, OK – I’ll come. Where are you? Yes, I know. Give me ten minutes. OK, bye.’

  She stuffed the phone back into her bag.

  ‘What the hell do you think you’re doing?’ Sir Magnus demanded. ‘What’s all this “give me ten minutes” nonsense? You should have told her to get back here and—’

  ‘Oh, and you really think that if I’d said you were all waiting to pounce on her, she’d have come running back?’ Caitlin retorted, not caring if she sounded rude. ‘If you must know, she’s not far – she saw the lights on in the house and knew she couldn’t get back unnoticed. She’s in a right state; she’s my friend, and, if you don’t mind, she’s the one that matters right now.’

  Caitlin put her arm round Summer as they squatted on the ground in a grove of olive trees overlooking Casa Vernazza.

  ‘He’s got someone else, I know he has,’ Summer sobbed. ‘He was really horrid about my mum, making out that she’d . . . well, done things I know she’d never, ever have done.’

  She wiped her nose on the back of her hand.

  ‘Then he said . . . oh God, what am I going to do without him? I love him so much – except that right now I hate him, but I thought . . .’

  ‘Come on,’ Caitlin demanded, standing up and pulling Summer to her feet. ‘We’re going home.’

  ‘Oh, like that’s a good plan,’ Summer snapped. ‘The lights are still on – why’s everyone up?’

  ‘Well, you’re not to worry, but Freddie and Izzy had a bit of a prang on the bike,’ Caitlin said. ‘They’re OK – but everyone’s been to the hospital and um – they found out you weren’t in bed.’

  ‘Oh no!’

  ‘It’s OK,’ Caitlin lied. ‘I said you’d probably gone for a stroll to clear your head.’

  That much is true, she thought. It’s just the rest of it that’s going to be tricky to explain away.

  ‘Before we go in,’ Caitlin began tentatively as she and Summer reached the back door, ‘there’s something I should mention . . .’

  The door was flung open and Sir Magnus opened his arms.

  ‘Thank God!’ He enveloped his daughter in a hug, and Caitlin was sure there were tears in his eyes. ‘Don’t you ever, ever put us through anything like that again as long as you live.’

  He grasped her hand and led her into the kitchen. Caitlin followed, holding her breath.

  ‘Alex!’

  Summer dropped her father’s hand, her eyes flitting round the four people in the room. She wheeled round and turned on Caitlin.

  ‘You told them! They went after him . . . You despicable, beastly, hateful—’

  ‘Hang on!’ Alex shouted at her. ‘I came here of my own free will.’

  ‘You did what? How come?’

  ‘Because, you silly, I was worried sick about you.’

  ‘Oh sure, so worried that you’re going off with some other girl; so worried that you had to lie about my mum . . .’

  She checked herself and looked anxiously at her father.

  ‘Listen, Summer, I love you but—’ Alex began.

  ‘Enough!’ Sir Magnus held up a hand. ‘It’s nearly three and we are all shattered. We will sort this mess out in the morning. Alex, your grandmother will be worried . . .’

  ‘No, she won’t,’ he admitted. ‘I said I’d be out all night . . . well, I mean . . . that is, I’d be back late and . . .’

  ‘Right,’ Sir Magnus ordered. ‘Alex, you can sleep in the Garden House – Jamie’s bed’s free because he’s with Izzy. Oh no – I forgot. I’ll have to phone her parents . . .’

  ‘In the morning,’ Gaby said firmly. ‘It’s not as if Izzy is at death’s door.’

  ‘You’re right, as usual.’ Sir Magnus gave Gaby a kiss on her forehead and turned to the others.

  ‘Nine o’clock tomorrow we sort this out – once and for all. Sleep well. And Summer . . .’

  ‘Yeah?’

  ‘I love you.’

  A persistent tapping on her bedroom door woke Caitlin from a fitful sleep.

  ‘Who is it?’

  ‘Ludo.’

  She leaped out of bed and then straight back in again as she realised she was stark naked. Scrabbling under her pillow for her PJs, she ran a hand through her hair, squirted some Eau d’Amour all over her and ran to the door.

  ‘Hi.’ It was, she thought regretfully, extremely hard to look and sound sexy after four hours’ sleep and two nightmares.

  ‘I know it’s early but I’m going for a swim. Will you come? Please? We need to talk.’

  Caitlin didn’t have to be asked twice.

  ‘Who told you about The Abbey?’ Ludo asked as they swam towards the deep end of the pool, away from the house. ‘You can’t just have found it by chance.’

  ‘Yes, I did I just—’

  ‘Caitlin, please. Don’t do this to me.’ Ludo flipped over on to his back and stood up. ‘I need to know the truth – it’s important.’

  ‘Someone said that your mum’s best work was done at The Abbey and I thought – we thought – it was maybe an old ruin,’ Caitlin admitted, because she couldn’t bear to upset him further. ‘But then we got hold of this sketch that she’d done and when I looked on the internet, I found a photo that was identical.’

  ‘Where did you find the sketch?’ Ludo didn’t look at her but merely splashed the water idly with his hand.

  ‘It was given to Summer,’ she replied hesitantly.

  ‘Go on,’ Ludo ordered.

  Caitlin decided that, since any hope she’d ever entertained of being in the bosom of the Tilney family was over, and since Ludo couldn’t give a toss about her, she might as well spill the beans and get it over with. She told him about Lorenzo, the gallery in Vernazza, the picture of the boat . . .

  ‘My God, she did a picture of that?’ Ludo turned to Caitlin, a look of genuine astonishment on his face. ‘She nearly killed herself and Summer that night.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Oh, not deliberately – but she was in one of her manic phases.’

  He paused.

  ‘My mum was bipolar,’ he whispered.

  ‘What’s that?’

  ‘She was a manic depressive,’ he muttered. ‘She was beautiful, talented, could be really lovely – and sometimes she’d be fine for months on end. But it never lasted.’

  He sighed. ‘She was mentally ill, Caitlin. She had delusions, she heard voices. And in the end, it killed her.’

  ‘But Summer never said . . .’

  ‘That’s the whole point,’ Ludo stressed. ‘Summer never had it explained to her. I guess at some level she must have known, certainly as she got older; but she just seemed to blank out all the bad bits. She always seems to concentrate on the good times; she just forgets all those weeks when Mum was at The Abbey; she overlooks the holidays out here when by the end of a month we were actually desperate to go home to the UK so Mum could get more treatment; she forgets how Freddie and I were told to keep her amused, never to say what was wrong with our mother . . .’

  ‘So you knew?’

  ‘Not at first – but, don’t forget, we’re nearly four years o
lder than Summer. By the time we were old enough to start being embarrassed by her odd behaviour, Dad simply said she was ill in her mind and that we must be nice to her and above all, not talk about it to anyone. Ever.’

  ‘Why? I mean, it wasn’t her fault . . .’

  ‘This family don’t talk to one another about deep stuff at the best of times,’ Ludo replied, splashing water on his face. ‘Dad’s the stiff-upper-lip type – image is all. Not washing the dirty linen in public and all that stuff.’

  He sighed wearily.

  ‘They stopped entertaining much – except for Alex’s family and Gaby, of course and no one came round to our place. It’s my guess that Dad was scared Mum would say . . .’

  He rubbed his eyes wearily.

  ‘Say what?’

  ‘Oh – nothing. Just something Dad doesn’t think Freddie or I know about. It’s not important. And to be fair, Dad did his best. See, Mum would ignore us for weeks on end, and I mean ignore – no meals ready, no outings. That’s why we went off to boarding school when we were so young – Dad wanted us to have a semblance of normal life.’

  Caitlin frowned.

  ‘I still don’t get it,’ she admitted. ‘I mean, why didn’t Summer go to boarding school too?’

  ‘Because Summer was the one person that kept Mum together. If Summer was around, she’d hold it together. Just.’

  Caitlin detected the faintest note of jealousy in his voice.

  ‘Oh sure,’ he went on hastily, ‘she still had her moments, like the boat trip . . .’

  ‘And sleeping out in the rain?’

  ‘You heard about that? Summer sure opens up to you.’ There was a note of admiration in Ludo’s voice now.

  ‘I think I get it!’ Caitlin gasped. ‘That’s why Summer thinks it’s all her fault her mum died. That’s why she blames herself.’

  ‘She does what?’

  ‘She says if she hadn’t gone on that trip to America, your mum would still be alive. You know, she could have protected her from your father’s rages, kept her safe, stopped him having the affair with Gaby . . .’

  ‘Bloody hell! Is that what she really thinks?’

  Ludo’s hand slammed the water.

  ‘That does it,’ he burst out. ‘I’m calling time. This farce has gone on long enough.’

  He climbed out of the pool and pushed the foot pedal of the shower.