The Summer Without You

by Karen Swan

  Ro’s eyes flitted over to her as she buttered the toast. ‘Listen, is anything the matter between you and Greg?’

  ‘What? No. Why would you say that?’

  Ro shrugged. ‘You just seem a little . . . jumpy around each other, that’s all. It’s a shame because you seemed to get on like a house on fire last Saturday night.’ There was a silence and Ro looked up. ‘What?’

  ‘Did your hair just move?’

  ‘What?’ Ro laughed.

  ‘I’m serious. I swear . . . I swear it just moved of its own accord. Have you checked it recently for hibernating animals?’

  Ro couldn’t help but grin. They were back to the serum conversation again. Diversion as distraction? Oh well, she knew intimacy couldn’t be forced. ‘Personally, I like the dormice. They create little hotspots on my head.’

  ‘Ew, gross!’ Bobbi cried, almost gagging, making Ro laugh harder as she handed her a plate and fork, and pushed over the pancakes.

  Bobbi took one with a conspiratorial look and began eating with almost rabid hunger – safe in the knowledge that Greg wasn’t there to see.

  Ro was sitting on the bed, trying to get a flimsy green travel comb through her hair, when her mobile rang. She lunged for it, ever hopeful, her face falling as she saw the caller ID.

  ‘Oh, hi, Florence,’ she said, trying to mask her disappointment. ‘How are you?’

  She hoped Florence wasn’t ringing for an update on the campaign. She had nothing to show her but 500 images of sand dunes taken in different lights and with different birds on them. No images, no ideas. If she didn’t hit on something soon, she was going to have to pay back the advance and seriously consider buying a flight home with what money she had left.

  ‘I’m sorry to disturb you so early on a Saturday, but I’ve just had a call, and, well, I wondered whether you might be able to help.’

  Ro’s hands dropped to her sides as she heard the fluster in the older woman’s usually calm voice. ‘Of course. Anything. What’s up?’

  ‘It’s my great friend Nan Beckett. Her daughter’s getting married today, but she’s just had a call from a hospital in Boston. Their photographer was involved in an auto accident on his way down here early this morning. He’s got a broken leg and is scheduled for surgery later today. I know it’s a terrible imposition, but I didn’t know who else to—’

  ‘Of course I’ll do it,’ Ro interrupted, immediately walking over to her wardrobe and pulling out her trusty black work suit. She sniffed it and decided it could cope with one more outing, so long as she walked through a cloud of Febreze before she left. ‘They can’t possibly go ahead without a photographer. Where is it, and when?’

  ‘Oh, you are a diamond! The service is at St Luke’s Episcopal, just next to the windmill. The reception’s at the Maidstone afterwards. Wait till I tell them – they’ll be so thrilled.’

  ‘Do they want some prep shots of the bride too? Shall I go to the house beforehand?’ she asked, clamping the phone between her shoulder and ear as she stepped into her trousers.

  Downstairs, she heard the front door slam – could no one ever shut a door quietly in this house? – and hoped it was Hump back from his chivalrous errand.

  ‘Oh, would you? They’re at West Meadows, Further Lane. The service is at twelve thirty, so they’re beginning to get ready now, but they’re in a terrible panic. Poor Lauren, it’s the last thing she should be worrying about on her wedding day.’

  ‘Well, tell her to wait for me. I’m on my way now.’

  ‘Perfect. I’ll see you there myself shortly.’

  Ro hastily half buttoned up her white shirt and grabbed her jacket from the bed as she flung open the bedroom door and found Hump trudging wearily up the stairs. He was pale beneath his tan, and from the looks of things, hadn’t slept last night.

  ‘Hump! Thank God it’s you. I need to ask a massive favour,’ she said, wriggling into the jacket and just about popping the buttons off her shirt.

  Hump recoiled, particularly at the stress she placed on ‘massive’. ‘I was just going back to bed.’

  ‘No! Not yet. Please can you drop me at a house on Further Lane – via the studio?’ She stuffed her foot into one of her Converse trainers and began tying the laces. ‘I can’t get over there with all my kit on the bike. Please. Pretty please.’ She placed her hands in a prayer position and bent her knees for extra supplication. She figured she could tell him the rest when they got there.

  A telltale ringing started up on the chest of drawers behind her.

  What? No!

  Hump eyed his bed from the stairs and sighed. He turned on the spot and started traipsing downstairs again. ‘Fine. But let’s go now. I’m so tired I’m seeing double.’

  ‘OK,’ Ro said slowly, her eyes and attention diverted to the laptop on the chest of drawers that had ‘Matt calling’ emblazoned in green letters across the screen. No! ‘I’ll just—’

  She rammed her foot into the other trainer and hobbled across the room, tripping on the laces and falling heavily onto the wooden floor.

  ‘Jeez! Why are you so noisy? What are you doing up there?’ Hump shouted upstairs. ‘Come on, Ro. Now!’

  She heard the scrape of his keys being lifted off the hall table and looked up at the screen. A gurgle of distress came from her throat – she had an absent boyfriend, panicking bride and exhausted sexed-out housemate all needing her now.

  Why now? Why couldn’t he have called even three minutes earlier? She got up and lunged for the laptop. If she could just say ‘hi’ . . . She caught sight of herself in the mirror as she passed and stopped dead – the green comb was still stuck in her hair. ‘Bloody hell!’ she spluttered, trying to tug it out.

  ‘Big Foot!’ Hump shouted, as it came free, along with several hundred of her hairs. She rubbed her head, swearing under her breath. ‘I mean it! I need to sleep!’

  ‘Urgh, I’m coming! I’m coming!’ she shouted, looking at the screen, out of reach and out of time. She ran back across the room and closed the door behind her. With a slam.

  Eight hours later, she found Hump slumped on the balustrade outside the bar.

  ‘I owe you big time,’ she said, patting his shoulder gratefully.

  ‘Yes, you do.’

  ‘Here. Drink this.’

  Hump stared back at her with the look of the half-dead as he massaged a foot. ‘Thanks, but I never drink when I’m working. There’s a direct correlation between a blurry head and blurry pictures,’ he said piously, echoing the words she spoke when she first met him.

  ‘Drink it. That’s an order from your boss.’

  He took the bottle of beer and downed it in one, earning himself a foamy moustache and smacking his lips in appreciation. ‘Any more orders you’d like me to follow?’ he asked, hopeful there were more where that had come from.

  ‘Sadly not. There’s still the dancing to get through,’ she said, patting his arm. ‘We’ve got an hour off, though.’

  The wedding breakfast was in full swing and she was grateful for the break. She leaned against him as they looked out at the ocean. The beach was all but empty now, just a few remaining dog-walkers and joggers catching the last of the light. At the foot of the dunes, a group of university students were digging a trench in the sand and lighting a fire, its grey smoke finger poking into the perfect uniformity of the violet sky.

  ‘What are they doing?’ she asked, watching a group of the girls staggering back up the beach, carrying several buckets between them.

  ‘Clam bake.’

  Ro tutted at him, resting her head on his shoulder. She was exhausted too, although rather more used to being on her feet for twelve hours at a stretch than her poor, shattered housemate, who was too big-hearted to turn down requests for favours. ‘That’s one of those obscure American things that English people hear about but have no idea whatsoever what they actually are – like sophomores and freshmen and sororities. I mean, we did create the language. We should get jurisdiction on these things, you kno
w.’

  Hump chuckled, the vibrations ticklish against her cheek. ‘We can have one tomorrow night if you like – before Bobbi and Greg go back.’

  ‘Hmm.’ She wasn’t sure that was a great idea. Bobbi seemed intent on spiting Greg at any opportunity – and that was assuming Greg could be surgically separated from the Southampton crew, anyway.

  She shifted position, looking down at the video camera in Hump’s hands. ‘So how much footage did you get?’ she asked, pressing some buttons. ‘Oh, seven and a half hours. Pretty good. We should definitely be able to put something together from that.’ She squeezed his arm. ‘You have no idea how grateful I am to you for helping me out. I know you’re exhausted.’

  ‘Don’t worry – this is gonna cost you. It’s breakfast in bed for me for a week.’

  ‘Deal.’

  A curl of laughter behind them made her turn and she looked into the honeyed glow of the clubhouse bar, where the regular guests were every bit as groomed as the wedding party.

  ‘It’s nice here,’ she murmured.

  ‘Nice?’ Hump looked down at her, thoroughly bemused.

  ‘What? What’s wrong with that?’

  ‘The Maidstone is one of the most exclusive clubs on the East Coast of America. It’s so exclusive you have to be a member just to access the website.’

  ‘Oh.’ She shrugged, nonplussed. ‘And how do you become a member?’

  Hump paused for a moment. ‘You know that saying “If you have to ask the price, you can’t afford it”? Well, it’s like that for membership here: if you have to ask how to join, you’re not in the club.’

  ‘Right,’ Ro said, slightly lost. ‘So are you a member, then?’

  ‘My family is. I don’t really bother with it. Not my scene,’ he said, kicking up a foot to show off his signature yellow flip-flops, which had only been permitted here today as a one-off after Florence had hurriedly explained the pre-wedding crisis to the general manager.

  ‘Mmm, me neither,’ she said, slumping against him again, worn out.

  He held up her hand, noticing for the first time it was empty. ‘Haven’t you had a drink?’

  ‘No. I never drink when I’m working,’ she replied automatically.

  ‘Screw that,’ Hump said, pushing himself to standing. ‘I don’t think you realize how hyperactive you are with that camera to your face. You’re like a boxer sparring, all that fancy footwork and dodging and ducking. Gin and tonic coming up.’

  She sighed gratefully. Maybe a drink would pep her up. She was still dejected to have missed Matt’s call earlier. Of all the crummy luck . . . ‘That would be great.’

  He walked slowly inside and she lifted her camera, scrolling through the images on the display – she’d taken over 800 shots today.

  She was at the 250 mark when a creak on the boards made her look up. The camera dropped from her hands and swung round her neck on just the strap.

  ‘Are you kidding? First the hardware store, then my studio – twice – last night and now here? You’re following me!’

  Long Story stopped walking – seemingly as surprised as she – and turned slightly to show her the golf bag on his shoulder. ‘Actually, I was just coming in for a drink . . .’ An expression flitted over his face, as though he was going to say something but then thought better of it. ‘But I can leave if you’d prefer.’

  Ro narrowed her eyes suspiciously – why was he deferring to her? He hadn’t left the party last night, and he’d only left the studio after she threw him out. Why now? And then it came to her – it was this place, with its snooty rules. He was probably worried she was going to make a scene; you doubtless got thrown out of clubs like this for things like that. She looked into the clubhouse. Hump was standing by the bar, chatting to a group of people dressed for cocktails and seemingly oblivious to how incongruous he looked among them in his jeans and surf T-shirt. At least he was in earshot.

  ‘It’s fine,’ she mumbled. ‘I don’t care whether you’re in there or not.’

  She looked back down at the camera, trying to appear busy, but his feet – in her peripheral vision – didn’t move.

  After a few moments, she looked up again. ‘What?’ she demanded, disconcerted to find his eyes steady upon her.

  ‘I just thought that seeing as we appear to keep bumping into each other, perhaps we should try to clear the air properly, once and for all.’

  ‘No.’ She looked down again.

  ‘No?’

  ‘That’s what I said.’

  ‘So you want to keep up this hostility every time we meet?’

  ‘Trust me, we’re never going to meet again,’ she quipped, borrowing one of Bobbi’s sarcastic smiles.

  He shifted position, heaving the bag back on his shoulder. ‘There must be something I can do to make amends.’

  ‘A long walk off a short jetty would be a start—’ She stopped. She realized there was something. But . . . no, no. She wouldn’t give him the satisfaction of being able to make it up to her. After the humiliation on the beach, she was rather enjoying watching him wriggle on her hook now.

  ‘What?’ he asked, reading her expression.

  ‘Nothing.’

  ‘No, I saw – your face. You thought of something. Tell me.’

  She stared back at him, but it was hard to keep her eyes on his, to keep the aggression in her gaze. Standing here, so polite and acquiescent, it was hard to believe he was the same man who’d manhandled her so brusquely. And the idea that had flitted through her mind – it was a good one. ‘Fine. There is something you could do.’

  ‘OK.’ He planted his feet squarely like he expected her to start wrestling him.

  ‘The images you made me delete on the beach.’

  It was his turn to look wary. ‘Yes.’

  ‘I want your permission to use them.’

  ‘What? But how? You deleted them. I watched you.’

  ‘Yes, I did delete them, but from the camera, not the memory. I retrieved them when I returned to my studio.’

  ‘You . . .’ He stared at her for a long moment and a tremor of anger and confusion pulsed through his voice. ‘Listen, I want you to know that I am sincere when I say I want to make things up to you, but I cannot let you use those images.’ His voice had changed, taking on that thin, strained quality she remembered from the beach.

  ‘They’d be for a good cause, a local cause,’ she said quickly. ‘And besides, no one can or would be able to tell that they’re your children in the photo, if that’s what you’re worried about.’

  Ten days’ immersion in the extraordinary wealth that was seemingly everywhere out here had shown her that with wealth came paranoia; Bobbi had told her some of the kids at the summer camps had security guards. ‘You saw the pictures yourself. They could be cardboard cut-outs for all anyone knows.’

  He shook his head. ‘I can’t. I wish I could help you on this, but—’

  ‘You owe me. What you did overstepped the mark and we both know it.’ She crossed her arms and a defiant look came into her eyes. ‘How do you think the management here would view the incident if I told them one of their members had behaved in that way?’

  His reaction wasn’t what she expected. He looked like he was almost going to laugh. ‘So you’re going to blackmail me?’

  ‘No. I’m simply asking you to consider my request. I’m asking you to come down to my studio and look at the picture properly for yourself. Then, if you still don’t want me to use it, I’ll . . . I’ll respect your wishes.’

  He was silent. ‘It doesn’t look like I’ve got much choice,’ he said finally.

  ‘Ten o’clock tomorrow suit you?’ she asked briskly, determined not to feel badly. She’d never blackmailed someone before.

  ‘Eight thirty. I have plans.’

  ‘Fine. Eight thirty.’ Damn, that was an early start for a Sunday – especially after a long day like this had been.

  He turned on his heel, walking away from her, away from the clubhouse.

&n
bsp; ‘Hey,’ she called after him. ‘Aren’t you going to have that drink?’

  When he looked back at her, his eyes were cold. ‘No.’

  Chapter Thirteen

  She overslept, waking as she should have been arriving at the studio, and careering around the bedroom in such a loud panic that Bobbi banged hard on the wall. By the time she arrived at the studio, twelve minutes later – a new personal best; it had taken twenty when she’d first arrived – wearing a pair of Matt’s chinos and a white shirt over her red swimming costume, her cheeks were as rosy as if she’d jogged on the beach, her hair vertical.

  She pulled up on her bike, breathless, swinging one leg over the crossbar and freewheeling across the Square path. She could see him sitting on the steps outside her studio, his arms resting on his knees, his hands clasped and head bowed. Her approach was silent, so that she saw him before he saw her, and she was struck by the figure he cut. If they hadn’t met under such unpleasant circumstances, she would have found it hard to believe that he was even capable of such aggression.

  But they hadn’t. And he was. She had to keep reminding herself of that.

  He heard the sound of her bike chain as she was just metres away and he looked up, springing to his feet as he watched her hop off the lower pedal and grab her padlock from her backpack.

  ‘Morning.’ It was a polite greeting, rather than a friendly one.

  Ro nodded and locked up her bike.

  ‘Sorry I’m late,’ she mumbled, refusing to look directly at him as she jogged up the steps and put her key in the lock.

  ‘It’s fine.’

  She looked back at him as she put her shoulder to the door and opened it. He had an air of fatigue about him, down to having small kids, no doubt. She noticed his jeans and faded blue sweatshirt. They were supposed to look lived in but actually only looked expensive.

  Dumping her bag down on the counter, she crossed the floor, pulling up the white linen blinds at the windows. Sunlight streamed in, spotting the floor with bright white rectangles. She noticed the hydrangea looked a little wilted on the centre table and she automatically refreshed it with water from the small copper can she kept beside the flowerpot.