The Summer Without You

by Karen Swan

  He stared at her contemptuously, as though he didn’t believe she could possibly understand. ‘Is it digital?’ His forefinger pointed to the camera.

  ‘What?’ Ro brought both hands to it. ‘Of course it is.’

  ‘Delete the images. I want to see you do it. Right now. In front of me.’

  ‘Or what?’

  ‘Or I’ll destroy the photographs another way.’ His eyes flickered to the thundering surf behind them. Ro got the point quickly.

  ‘That would be criminal damage!’ she shouted, taking another step away from him, her knuckles white as she grasped the camera strap in a death grip.

  ‘And this is an invasion of privacy,’ the man shouted back. ‘Do it now!’ He took a step towards her.

  ‘All right! All right!’ Ro cried, holding up her hand. ‘Jeez! I’ll delete the bloody pictures.’

  ‘All of them.’

  ‘Yes, fine. God! All of them.’

  ‘Now.’ He took another step closer, but his voice was fractionally calmer again, his body language marginally less threatening.

  She stared at him for a moment, then looked down to do as he asked, but the sun was so bright she couldn’t see the images playing on the screen. She turned her back to the sun and bent her head down, brushing her hair forward to shade the screen. She started, disturbed as the man came and stood right by her, actually moving her hair on one side so that he could see the screen too.

  ‘I said I’d do it,’ Ro snapped, but unable to turn her head without her face being centimetres from his.

  ‘And I’m just making sure you do,’ he said, his voice a low growl over her shoulder.

  He smelt of limes and salt, this stranger, his hair tickling her neck as they stood side by side, and she rubbed her neck ostentatiously, tutting and showing her revulsion at his proximity.

  She scrolled back through the images, which were clearly visible now in the shade the two of them were creating. Her heart almost broke as she saw her own work – the photographs were beautiful: the children standing in profile, truly anonymous, as she’d said, perfectly backlit by the early evening sun, their snub noses and rounded tummies, even their long lashes picked out against the glittering bleached water behind them, the dunes rising like mountains in the distance. Ro felt her breath hitch – there was a poignancy to them that was almost tangible. Ambassadors of childhood they certainly were. Little did this fool know he’d ordinarily have to pay £2,500 for the privilege of getting her to photograph his beloved children.

  ‘Delete them,’ the man said beside her ear.

  There were eighteen images and she reluctantly pressed ‘delete’ as she scrolled back through each one. It was such a waste. Even in this light she could tell these photographs were some of her best work – that happy collision of finding the perfect subjects in perfect shooting conditions. But he wasn’t a photographer; he had no idea how difficult it was to marry those two things together, she thought resentfully as each one disappeared into the ether, and all because he was some overprotective parent who didn’t know any better.

  She came to the last image, her finger hovering above the button. The children were holding hands in this picture, the little girl’s dress caught like a sail by the wind. It was the best one of the bunch: she didn’t want to delete it. It was almost unbearably beautiful, and a flash of defiance streaked through her as her finger hovered in mid-air. Could he make her delete it? What legal right did he have to control what she photographed on a public beach? Would he really throw her camera in the water if she refused? She hesitated, quickly assessing her chances against him. He was only a bit older than her – maybe mid-thirties – tall at over six feet, but of slim build, certainly lighter than Matt anyway, and she was used to wrestling him (well, after a fashion). And that was if he caught her. He wouldn’t be expecting her to run, and if she could get a head start, he couldn’t very well chase her down the beach and abandon his kids . . .

  ‘Do it,’ he said more forcefully, as though reading her mind.

  ‘No!’ Ro snapped, her temper quicker than she was – but not quicker than him. In a flash he had grabbed her, scooping her off her feet and cradling her in his arms as he headed furiously towards the water.

  ‘Stop it! Put me down!’ she screamed, shocked and kicking her legs uselessly as he began to wade in, splashing them both. ‘You’re a bloody maniac! You can’t do this!’

  ‘I was very clear,’ he said through gritted teeth as he stepped in deeper, moving towards the waves breaking forcefully just a few metres away.

  Ro threw her arms round his neck, holding on to him like grim death. ‘All right! OK!’ she shrieked, forced to turn her body into his to protect the camera still hanging round her neck from the water frothing around them.

  He stopped walking. ‘Do it,’ he said, his unfamiliar voice reverberating in her ear.

  She pulled away, disgusted to be so close to him, to be held by him like this. ‘I said I would, didn’t I?’ she said furiously, her cheeks red with anger and humiliation.

  ‘You said it before too. I don’t trust you. Do it now before I drop you on your ass right here.’ He was thigh-deep in the water, his navy linen shorts well and truly soaked. If he dropped her here, the camera would be a write-off. His face was just inches from hers, and she could see from the look in his eyes that this was no bluff: he absolutely would do it. With a furious huff, she let go of his neck and opened up the screen again.

  ‘There!’ she said, as the bin icon popped up on the screen, tears stinging her eyes. She’d never felt such rage before – to have a total stranger accost her on the beach like this and threaten to destroy her camera, throw her in the water . . .

  ‘Thank you.’ His voice had changed again. He sounded calm, almost polite, and as though it was normal to wade into the ocean with unwitting passers-by.

  He turned and walked them both back out of the water, setting her down on the sand gently as though he’d just rescued her. Several people had stopped to watch, and the children had come over and were standing in front of them now.

  Ro was trembling and not just from the chill of the water. What the hell had just happened? Was this assault?

  ‘What you doing, Daddy?’ the little girl asked. She looked to be maybe three, four? Blonde bobbed hair, wide blue eyes and wearing a navy and white striped pinafore dress that looked more expensive than anything Ro was wearing – or owned.

  ‘Just playing,’ the man said, his hand smoothing the little girl’s hair. ‘Did it look funny?’

  The girl nodded.

  ‘Me now!’ said the little boy. He was smaller, probably not long out of nappies, his hair dark brown like his father’s.

  ‘Uh-uh. Not in those clothes.’

  Ro felt another surge of anger. Oh! But it was fine to get her soaked, was it? She shook out her khaki cargoes and pulled away Matt’s grey T-shirt, which was now clinging to her skin.

  She looked up to find the man watching her. At least he was even wetter than she was. ‘Well,’ he said quickly, nodding at her, ‘thanks for being a sport.’

  Ro’s jaw dropped. A sport? A bloody sp— She realized he was covering in front of the children and bit her lip, certain she would draw blood. What could she say, anyway? It was done. He’d got what he wanted, even if it had humiliated her in the process. Without a word, she turned and stomped away, back towards the car park, her breath coming in short, angry hiccups. Her Converses were where she had left them in the sand and she sat on the wooden railing to pull them on. In the distance, she could see the man walking away after the children as they ran ahead of him. She saw him turn after a while and look back, and she fell still, hoping he couldn’t make her out at this distance. She was completely shaken up by what had just passed, trying to rewind the events and make sense of them.

  A car horn beeped behind her and she saw Hump leaning out of a bright yellow, long wheel-based Defender with a canvas ragtop. ‘The Hamptons Humper,’ was emblazoned in navy lettering along the si
des.

  ‘Holy shit! What happened to you?’ he laughed, as she trudged over, hands clamped to the camera, her clothes clinging to her. ‘I leave you alone for ten minutes . . .’

  ‘Don’t ask,’ Ro muttered, wiping the bitter tears away with the back of her hand as he leaned over to open the door, and she slid in beside him. ‘It’s a long story.’

  Chapter Five

  ‘So whaddya think?’ Hump asked, his eyes resting on her as Ro turned another circle on the spot, her eyes recording every last detail of the studio. ‘You like?’

  ‘Like? I love!’ she gasped, clasping her hands above her heart. ‘I never dreamed it would be so . . . so adorable!’

  ‘Amagansett is pretty cute, period, but the Square is totally prime. I can’t tell you how lucky I was to get this for a summer let. Right place, right time. Right housemate,’ he added, acknowledging that this opportunity was only theirs because they were sharing the costs together. Ro was just about able to stretch to it after her colossal rent by dipping into what was supposed to be the contingency fund for the cottage back home and crossing her fingers, hoping that the boiler didn’t break down.

  Ro ran to the window and stared out again at the little green. It was set back from the road – the Montauk Highway, which she’d already travelled on and which was the official in-out to the Hamptons – and bordered on three sides by low-lying white clapboarded units. Neat paths connected them all, criss-crossing the spotless grass and mature trees, and there was a tiny bandstand in the middle. Ro and Hump had one of the smallest units, with a smart beach store on their right and a yoga studio on their left as you faced them. Just beyond it was an ice-cream parlour with low-slung shell-backed wooden Adirondack chairs – ubiquitous out here, it seemed – outside, and further round, a vinyl record store and a spa, and finally, opposite, an interiors boutique.

  Ro wrapped her arms around herself happily. It was a shopping destination within a proper community. How could her business do anything but thrive here? There was plenty of free parking on the road and round the back, and the demographic of the users – if the other retailers were anything to go by – would be AB1s, her target customer.

  Hump was opening up one of the many boxes stacked inside the studio. ‘Tada!’ he sang, pulling out a yellow vinyl banner inscribed with ‘The Hamptons Humper’ in navy lettering. She laughed again at the name. Very few people could get away with something quite so outré, but Hump had both semantics and a guileless, winning smile on his side.

  ‘So talk me through this,’ she said, walking back across the room and sitting on one of the boxes, watching as he lovingly unfurled the banner and began threading laces through the eyelets. ‘What’s so entrepreneurial about being a taxi driver?’

  ‘The fact that I’m running for free, for starters.’ He pointed to the edge of the banner near to her foot. ‘Step on that corner, will you, to stop it rolling.’

  Ro did as she was told. ‘I know you’re being deliberately oblique. How can a taxi service be free?’

  He sat back on his heels and looked up at her. ‘As of tomorrow – Memorial Day weekend and the official start of the Hamptons season – only residents can get permits to park at the beach parking lots. Everyone else either has to walk several miles with all their beach stuff or get a mortgage to pay for cabs.’

  ‘It can’t be that bad, surely,’ Ro scoffed.

  ‘How’s sixty dollars to Montauk sound to you?’

  ‘From here, or do you mean New York?’

  ‘Exactly. People have had enough. So this is my idea – I do runs from the Indian Wells, Wiborg, Egypt and Main beaches to and from Main Street every ten minutes. All free.’

  ‘But where’s the profit? For goodness’ sake, where’s the income?’

  ‘Advertising. I’ve had mounts put in for posters in the back of the car. Local businesses get to bid against each other to have their ads and special promotions inside the Humpers. I’ve got a fleet of four Landys – with an option on another two if I decide to expand into the Amagansett beaches – which can take eight passengers at a time, and you can bet your teeth that they’ll all be between eighteen and thirty-five and wondering where to go that night. I’ve estimated for each car to do six runs an hour for ten hours a day, so sixty runs per car with eight passengers each time. That’s four hundred and eighty people per vehicle. Multiply by four of them and you’re looking at nearly two thousand target customers a day. The ads have to change on a daily basis, so the riders get something new to look at. Plus all riders get free entry or a drink voucher or some sort of discount from the winning advertiser, depending on the type of business they’ve got.’ He finished lacing the runner and fastened it with a reef knot. ‘Auctions close at midnight the day before, and I’ve got a deal with the local printer to do short runs for us between six and eight in the morning, getting the posters printed before nine a.m. for the first run that day.’

  ‘Wow.’ Ro nodded, impressed. ‘That really is entrepreneurial thinking.’

  ‘I’ve been coming here my whole life. I know how pissed people get at having to fork out crazy money just to get to and from the beach. This way, we keep visitors happy and they use the local businesses.’

  He shrugged and picked up the banner, carrying it outside. Ro followed after.

  ‘Can you attach that corner to the hook there?’ he asked, doing the same at his end.

  They both stepped back and admired the vivid banner hanging to the left above the door. The colours looked great – nautical, sporty, chic – against the pristine white woodwork.

  ‘Shouldn’t it be centred?’ Ro asked, suppressing a yawn as she pointed to the remaining area. Her long day was catching up with her, the adrenalin from her unpleasant encounter on the beach now all but ebbed away and leaving her with a throbbing fatigue.

  ‘Aha!’ Hump said mysteriously, ducking indoors again and returning with a small box. ‘For you. A welcome present.’

  Ro looked at him quizzically as she took it. Inside was another banner – same dimensions, same font; even the colourway was identical – just reversed – with yellow writing on a navy background: ‘Marmalade Family Media.’

  ‘You wouldn’t give me a name!’ he said, watching as her hands flew to her mouth. ‘I kept asking you.’

  ‘Because I didn’t know. I couldn’t decide!’ she laughed. ‘I can’t believe you did that! That was why you were asking?’

  He caught her eye and she saw he looked nervous. ‘Do you like it?’

  ‘I love it!’ she trilled, jumping on her toes and clapping her hands excitedly.

  ‘Yeah? ’Cos you don’t need to keep it. Far be it for me to be interfering with your business plans. I just thought . . . well, you needed something. Everyone has a sign out here.’

  ‘Hump, it’s great. I could never have thought of such a good name. Come on, help me hang it up.’

  Together, they unfurled it, threading the eyelets with the cord and hanging it from the hooks beside the yellow banner.

  ‘We look good together,’ Hump said, crossing his arms, casting a sly look in her direction.

  Ro laughed, knowing his flirtation was half-hearted and more for appearance’s sake than anything. ‘No. We really don’t.’

  ‘Really, though?’

  ‘Really,’ she grinned, slapping him lightly on the arm.

  ‘Ah well, at least I can say I tried,’ he said, bouncing up the steps. Ro followed after, catching her foot on the top step and tummy-surfing in through the door.

  Hump turned with surprise and burst out laughing at the sight of her, arms outstretched.

  ‘Hey! What is it with you?’ he asked, helping her up. ‘You OK? You are always tripping up.’

  She dusted herself down, her pride bruised again. ‘My left foot is a size bigger than my right, meaning I always catch it.’

  ‘You mean I got a real-life Big Foot lodging with me?’ he laughed, throwing an arm round her shoulders and squeezing affectionately.

  ‘Y
eah, yeah, never heard that one before,’ Ro quipped, but with a smile. She doubted anyone could get cross with Hump.

  The studio was sparsely furnished inside with only a small battered desk, a chair and a laptop in Hump’s ‘corner’. (He had generously given Ro two-thirds of the space, even though they were splitting the rent fifty-fifty. ‘I only need a place to make calls,’ he’d insisted.) There was a long, painted wooden counter and a tall tripod stool in hers.

  ‘I guess I should make a start on these boxes,’ Ro sighed, eyeing the stack wearily. It was only half past seven, but her body was telling her it was past midnight, and she’d been up at dawn for her flight. She’d been on the go for nineteen hours straight, and frankly, those boxes were beginning to look like beds to her.

  ‘You look . . .’ Hump took in her salt-dried clothes and wild hair. ‘You look like you could do with a coffee.’

  Ro’s shoulders slumped. ‘Kill for one.’

  ‘How d’you take it?’

  ‘Just normal.’

  Hump looked at her, baffled. ‘You mean filter, full caff, dash of fat, double-shot espresso?’

  Ro furrowed her brow in return. ‘I think I do.’

  ‘OK. Well, I’m going over to Mary’s Marvellous – thataway.’ He jerked his thumb towards the highway behind him so she could see where he was going. ‘Back in five.’

  Ro took a deep, galvanizing breath – caffeine was coming! – and tore open the first box. Inside was her edit of the best family portraits she’d photographed in London – some in Richmond Park, others Barnes Common, some in a studio she rented, others at people’s homes – and had framed. She had packed twenty-two, unable to be any more ruthless than that.

  She looked around at the long, bare walls – they were certainly big enough to take them all, but she’d need to get some nails and a hammer first thing. She bit her lip excitedly as she saw her favourite one. It was significantly larger than the rest, taken of two young brothers, aged three and eighteen months. Their heads were tilted together and she’d come in so tight on the shot their faces couldn’t be deciphered in isolation but became a composite of everything that babies are: rosy blushed cheeks, gappy milk teeth, shining eyes and lustrous, long lashes. What rendered the image so captivating, though, was the mistake in it – they had been shooting outside and the wind had blown one of her own hairs in front of the lens the very moment she clicked. It was too blurred to be identifiable in itself but lent a dreamy haze to the feeling of the picture. The mother had actually wept when she’d seen it for the first time. (And Ro had learned to tie her hair back in a ponytail. She’d been lucky that time, but . . .)