Summer's Awakening

by Anne Weale

  Afterwards Summer wondered if, by herself, she could have pulled Emily through the horrible bout of dyspnoea. The child was pale, with beads of sweat on her forehead. All at once, on a warm sunny morning, her skin was both cold and clammy. She was gasping for air, the skin round her neck sucked in with the effort of breathing.

  It was James who convinced her she could survive the attack. Completely calm, he emanated quiet confidence.

  Because it was evidently something in the garden which had triggered the attack, the first thing to do was to get her away from the irritant. As she couldn't walk when she was wheezing without increasing her distress, James picked her up and carried her back to the car, talking reassuringly as he did so.

  'You drive, will you, Summer? The keys are in my right-hand pocket. I'll sit behind with Emily. There'll be a pharmacy in town where we can get an inhaler.'

  At the wheel of an unfamiliar car, with Emily gasping for breath behind her, Summer forced herself to be, outwardly, as calm as James. To drive too fast, she realised, would only increase Emily's fear. They had to get to a pharmacy as quickly as possible but not with a reckless haste which might cause an accident.

  Fortunately, the Edison house was only a mile out of town, and it wasn't hard to find a pharmacy.

  She jumped out and went swiftly in. Interrupting a customer who was talking to the pharmacist, she said, 'Excuse me, there's a child having a bad attack of asthma in the car outside. We need a bronchodilator in a pressurised inhaler—quickly.'

  A few minutes later the worst was over.

  Her eyes closed, her lips pursed round the mouthpiece of an inhaler similar to her English one, Emily was beginning to relax, her terror subsiding as the drug opened her narrowed airways.

  'She may like a glass of water—asthmatics often feel thirsty after an attack,' the pharmacist said to Summer, as they re-entered his premises.

  When, having paid for the inhaler, she returned to the car with the water, Emily was lying back with her head on her uncle's shoulder.

  It was obvious that, but for her tan, her face would have been ashen. She looked exhausted. But when Summer offered her the water she sat up and drank it thirstily.

  'Thank you.' She gave back the glass, her voice a hoarse croak. Suddenly her lower lip trembled. 'I was so frightened,' she whispered, and began to cry.

  James drew her into his arms, looking down at her curly head—she was hiding her face against his chest—with a strange expression on his face.

  'Poor old Freckles... it wasn't very nice for you. Never mind: it's all over now, and whatever it was which set you off is probably something quite rare which you won't come across very often.'

  Her throat tight with tears of sympathy, Summer watched him comforting the child, his voice unexpectedly tender, his long fingers gently stroking her mop of red curls.

  It was then that her mind acknowledged what her heart had known since his second kiss. She had fallen in love with him; and that complex process had not begun a few nights ago in the library at Baile del Sol, but months ago in the library at Cranmere.

  From the moment when he had swept open the double doors and their eyes had met for the first time, she had known that here was the personification of the man of her day-dreams. No longer a figment of make-believe, he had become real flesh and blood. That was why it had wounded her so terribly to overhear his derogatory comments about her to Dr Dyer.

  Since then almost everything she had learnt about him had affirmed that it wasn't merely a physical attraction but that, in many other ways, he matched up to her ideal.

  Deep down, she had even accepted those lacerating remarks he had made on the Grand Staircase. He had been speaking the truth. Why should a man who respected his body have felt anything but contempt for a girl who was wrecking hers? How would she have felt about him had he turned out to be an alcoholic or a drug addict? Exactly the same as he had felt about her then.

  Even her furious indignation at being kissed in the swimming pool she could see now for what it had been—a piece of self-deception. What had really upset her that night had been that he had reappeared before she was ready for him; before she had completed the programme of self-improvement at the end of which she had hoped to stun him with her glamour.

  Now, watching him wipe the tears from his niece's cheeks with a clean white handkerchief, she was pierced by a sharp pang of longing to change places with Emily and reel his strong arm round her own shoulders.

  When Emily was feeling better, he said, 'We'll go back to Sarasota and have a quiet lunch at home. The Hamiltons will understand if I call and explain. We can go see them some other time.'

  Although she had been looking forward to the lunch party at Naples, Emily didn't protest at this change of plan. Clearly the unexpected and severe attack of her former malady had taken a great deal out of her.

  Later in the day Summer seized the first opportunity to speak to him privately to say, 'I know what you must be thinking—that it was incredibly careless of me to let Emily go out for the day without her puffer. You don't have to reprimand me—I already feel terrible about it.

  'I wasn't intending to reprimand you,' he answered. 'Emily isn't a small child, too young to be responsible for her own welfare. From now on it will be up to her to make sure she always has an inhaler with her. But as it's so long since she had an attack, and she's clearly much fitter and healthier than she was in England, it was natural for both of you to feel she had probably outgrown her asthma.'

  His leniency surprised her. She had expected a blistering dressing-down, even the threat of dismissal. She had been worrying about it all the way back from Fort Myers.

  'I think we should try to find out the cause of today's attack,' he went on. 'It's possible now, by means of blood tests, to check people's sensitivity to a much wider range of allergens than by the old skin-prick test. Today's experience suggests that Emily's atopic. About ten per cent of people are severely atopic and have the kind of immediate reaction she had at the Edison place this morning. As soon as we get to New York we'll get an allergy specialist to look at her. We'll fly from Tampa tomorrow. You won't need to pack much, but you'll want warmer clothes in New York. You can buy them at Altman's on Thursday.'

  With these casual instructions, he uprooted them for the second time.

  But this time she didn't mind. She had been happier in Florida than at any time since the loss of her parents. But she was looking forward to experiencing what was said to be one of the most exciting cities in the world, and she hoped that in New York they might see more of him than they had during their time in Sarasota.

  It was strange to remember that only a short while ago she had felt she could never forgive him for those scathing things he had said about her, and that she would derive great satisfaction from having him want her, and rejecting him.

  But hurt pride and vengeful feelings had no place in her heart now that she knew she loved him. To win his love—and it still seemed about as unlikely as going to the moon—had suddenly become her dearest wish.

  PART III: MANHATTAN, NANTUCKET ISLAND

  Summer and Emily were lying on the floor in Emily's bedroom, their pointed toes touching the carpet behind their heads in a position called The Plough, when there was a tap at the door.

  Assuming it must be Victoria, and wondering why the Spanish maid was interrupting their pre-dinner work-out, Summer left it to Emily to call out, 'Come in.'

  When an amused male voice said, 'A very neat pair of backsides,' her feet swept in a rapid arc from the floor behind her to the floor in front of her.

  It wasn't Victoria. It was James. How typical of him to catch her with her bottom stuck up in the air and a hole in her exercise tights.

  'James!' With a shout of delight, Emily sprang up from the floor and rushed to embrace him.

  In her two years in America, she had grown several inches but not filled out very much. Now almost sixteen years old, she looked, in her pale blue leotard and darker blue leg warm
ers, like a young, gracile ballerina.

  As his niece flung her arms round his neck, Summer rose and went to the music centre to switch off the tape of the half-hour exercise programme they did together most evenings when in New York.

  It was now more than a year since she had reached her permanent goal weight and, after eight weeks on Maintenance, achieved Lifetime Membership of Weight Watchers. As long as she stayed within two pounds of her goal weight, and attended one meeting a month, that meeting was free of charge.

  But although she was now a slim girl with a small waist and slender legs, she was never quite convinced that this would always be her shape. The fear of regressing lurked at the back of her mind. She knew that many reformed fat people did revert. Their own cells conspired against them to replace the lost flesh.

  Whenever James re-entered their lives the spectre of her obesity came with him. He remembered her as she had been and perhaps he always would.

  Although since their first trip to New York they had made a number of journeys about the world with him, they hadn't seen anything like as much of him as she had once hoped. He was absent from their lives far more often than he was present. Long-distance telephone calls, amusing postcards and unexpected presents kept Emily happy when he was not there. But by checking through her pocket diary, Summer had once worked out that in the six months preceding the date of her check he had spent only sixteen days with them.

  Although, inwardly, she was delighted to see him, her greeting was cooler than Emily's.

  'Hello, James. How are you? she said politely, shaking hands with him.

  His brown hand closed over hers and his tawny eyes made a comprehensive assessment of the figure inside the black leotard and black footless exercise tights.

  The disappearance of her superfluous flesh had revealed an unexpectedly fine-boned and well-proportioned frame. As his swift up and down scrutiny included her small, round breasts clearly outlined by the clinging stretch-fabric of the leotard, and the contours of her hips and thighs, she felt her pulse quicken and found herself imagining what it would be like if he stretched out his hand and ran it slowly down her body from shoulder to hip. But her face revealed nothing of the sensual reactions he stirred in her.

  'I'm well—and you are five pounds too thin,' he informed her.

  'In your opinion,' she said equably.

  'Why are you back a week sooner than you thought you would be, James?' Emily broke in.

  For the past twelve months she had been growing her red hair which was now shoulder-length, although at the moment it was tied back with a ribbon in a curly pony-tail.

  'Aren't you pleased to see me?' he asked teasingly.

  Still standing close to him, she linked her arm with his and beamed lovingly up at him. 'Of course. Everything's twice as much fun when you're with us.'

  'I was going to spend this week in San Francisco on my way back from Japan, but I changed my plans,' he explained, looking down at his niece with an expression reserved for her.

  More than one person, observing the affection between them, had mistaken them for father and daughter. It was a bond strengthened by Emily's passionate interest in computers. When they were alone together, or with only Summer present, much of their conversation was in the esoteric jargon of computer buffs. Sometimes, at the end of a meal, they would apologise to her for spending the whole time engrossed in a discussion in which she couldn't take part. But they knew that she didn't mind being excluded from these conversations because she had an absorbing interest of her own. Often, thinking about it, she would become oblivious to her surroundings.

  'Summer's in one of her trances,' Emily would say, passing a hand back and forth in front of her tutor's face to rouse her from her abstraction.

  Wherever he travelled, James invariably returned with a present for his niece and something which Summer could use in what was at present a hobby but she hoped might become a profession.

  'While I was in Japan I was given some beads. They're in my briefcase. Come and have a look at them,' he said to her.

  They went with him down the hall to his bedroom where Victoria's husband, José, who combined the duties of butler and valet, was unpacking his employer's suitcase.

  James unlocked his black leather briefcase and took out a box like a small-ish cigar box. He put it on top of a chest of drawers with a lamp on it, opened the hinged lid and removed a piece of protective wadding.

  Arranged in rows on another piece of wadding—and clearly the box contained several similar layers under the top one—an array of small pearls gleamed in the light from the lamp. They were not ordinary pearls. All were irregular in shape, and their colours ranged from pale bronze to the iridescent grey of a pigeon's neck feathers.

  'D'you think you can incorporate these in one of your designs?' he asked.

  Before Summer could answer, Emily said, 'Why are they such funny shapes and colours? Are they rejects?'

  'No, they're a special kind of pearl. They're called Biwa pearls after Lake Biwa which is where they were first made. They're cultured in mussels, not oysters, and at first they weren't popular because of their odd shapes.'

  'But now they're in fashion,' said Summer, who had seen twisted skeins of the pearls in the windows of fashionable jewellers on Fifth Avenue. 'They're too valuable for me to use. Why don't you have them made into a necklace for Emily to wear when she's older?'

  'She'll have all the Lancaster jewels. These were a gift which I have no use for. You're welcome to them. But you may not find them inspiring,' he said, closing the box and handing it to her.

  'I'm sure I shall. They're beautiful. Thank you.'

  'And a little something for you, Freckles,' he said, producing a much smaller box.

  'Oh... what a darling little thing,' his niece exclaimed, when she found that his present for her was a tiny curly-tailed pug dog carved out of ivory. 'But why has he got this hole in him?'

  'Because it's a netsuke which, in the days before Japanese dress became Westernised, was a toggle which helped to secure an inro to the girdle of a kimono. A kimono has no pockets. Anything a Japanese wanted to carry about with him, such as tobacco or medicine, was kept in a pouch called an inro. I thought if you put a cord through that netsuke you could wear it as a pendant or a belt.'

  'You find the most super presents. I love him. Thank you.' She reached up to kiss his lean cheek.

  He said, 'I'm going to take a shower now. Are you both eating at home tonight?'

  'Yes, and I've a splendid idea which I'm dying to discuss with you.'

  'I'll be all ears, as soon as I've changed.' He glanced at Summer. 'No date tonight?'

  'Not tonight.'

  Once again he appraised her slim figure, reminding her of his arbitrary remark that she was now underweight.

  Conscious that however long she worked for him, she would never be at ease with him, she returned to the hall.

  Emily, following her, said, 'Hold my little dog in your hand. Doesn't he have a nice smooth feel?'

  Summer turned the netsuke in her palm, deriving the same tactile pleasure from it which the younger girl had felt. Outside Emily's door she handed it back and went on to her own room.

  As she put the box of pearls on her desk, she wondered why James had said he had no use for them. Did that mean that his long-running affair with Loretta Fox, a divorcee of his own age who ran a contemporary art gallery, had come to an end? Was he, for the time being, without a woman in his life? Or was it merely that Loretta wasn't the type to wear Biwa pearls?

  Summer had never seen her, but she had been coming across allusions to their association in newspapers and magazines for the past eighteen months. Even Emily was aware of her existence, although James kept his domestic life and his amorous life in strictly separate compartments.

  His relationship with Ms Fox, as she styled herself, was not unlike that of a nineteenth-century man and his mistress. Obviously he saw her frequently when he was in New York, but in his household her name wa
s never mentioned; she might not have existed.

  Summer felt that, had she been Ms Fox, she would have resented being treated like a courtesan; never invited to his apartment, never introduced to his niece. But although one columnist had referred to her as an ardent feminist, apparently she accepted her exclusion from the other side of James's private life. Perhaps she was in love with him and her principles weren't proof against her feelings for him.

  Summer's own love-life was as negative as it had been two years earlier. She had dated a number of men but none of them had succeeded in kindling a response to compare with her feelings towards James.

  Feeling sure those emotions would never be requited, she had done her best to succumb to other men's charm but so far without success. To some extent this was because of the interrupted nature of her friendships with the opposite sex. No sooner had they begun to flourish than she was whisked away to live somewhere else. Two or three months later she would return to find her date now involved with someone else.

  In the course of these abortive relationships she had learnt how to handle men who tried to rush her into bed. Not all of them did. After two decades of increasing permissiveness, the 'Eighties were seeing a swing away from hedonistic attitudes.

  Most of the men she had dated—intelligent men in their late twenties—were not solely bent on a roll in the hay. They would have liked to make love to her. However, if she were not willing they weren't going to drop her on that account. She had other things to offer her men-friends. She had always been capable of talking and listening intelligently. Now, after two years of dedicated self-improvement, she was a girl who turned heads wherever she went. Not only because of her shapely size eight figure, but because of the style she had acquired.

  She dressed well, but without much regard for being in vogue unless she happened to like whatever was currently the mode. Inexpensive copies of fad fashions didn't appeal to her. She preferred one luxurious silk shirt to several polyester dresses. There were not many clothes in her wardrobe, but they were all carefully chosen and kept in meticulous order so that she was never panicked by James's sudden decisions to take them to Florence or Montreal.