Summer at Shell Cottage

by Lucy Diamond

  ‘Not quite,’ Robert replied. ‘Freya and Vic are spending tonight away together. I said I’d babysit. Then Dex suggested a camp-out, and the next thing I knew …’ He spread his hands, pulling a comic expression. ‘Here we are. We’re going to forage for our dinner out here and everything. That’s all right with you lot, isn’t it? Nice juicy slug on the barbecue? A few crunchy spiders if you’re lucky.’

  Libby stopped dead. ‘You are joking, aren’t you, Uncle Rob? I’m not eating a slug.’

  ‘I will!’ Teddy said immediately.

  ‘Of course he’s joking,’ Dexter said, although there was definitely less of his usual bravado on display as he looked at his uncle. ‘Aren’t you?’

  ‘Oh, am I? We’ll see,’ Robert said airily, resuming his tent assembly.

  ‘Slug attack!’ Teddy yelled, launching himself at his brother with a blood-curdling war cry and a tent peg that went perilously close to Dexter’s windpipe. Robert, of course, didn’t notice anything as he slotted two silver rods together, peered at them with a frown, then pulled them apart again, and it was left to Harriet to step in as the voice of responsibility.

  ‘Er, guys, be careful, all right?’ she warned. ‘I don’t want your mum and dad coming back in the morning to discover there have been some gruesome tent peg injuries.’

  Robert’s head popped up at once. ‘Oi! Put those down. I told you five minutes ago to leave them alone. Why don’t you go and find some sleeping bags? Bring down your pillows too and your teddy collection, Dex.’

  Libby giggled and Dexter looked affronted as they vanished. Molly knelt down and examined some of the poles with an authoritative air. ‘Robert, you’ve got the wrong bits here,’ she told him. ‘When I did Duke of Edinburgh, we had tents just like this so I know exactly how it should all go. Now, where’s the main pole?’

  Harriet felt like a spare part as her daughter and Robert bent their heads over the pile of tent components so she slipped away into the kitchen where Olivia was pouring hot water into a teapot. ‘Harriet! There you are. I was just making tea, would you like some?’

  There was something different about her motherin-law, Harriet noticed as she sat at the table and accepted a cup of tea, and an elaborately decorated fairy cake with a half a ton of acid-bright sprinkles wedged into buttercream icing. ‘Thank you,’ she said. ‘I hear Freya and Vic have taken off for the night. Have they gone anywhere nice?’

  ‘They’re staying at a hotel in Chillington. I think they …’ She hesitated. ‘I think they’ve had a difficult time recently. Haven’t we all?’

  Harriet gave a small smile. Hadn’t they all indeed? ‘We have rather been through the mill this summer,’ she agreed. ‘How are you feeling now?’ She held her breath, unused to asking her motherin-law directly personal questions. There was a regal air about Olivia that Harriet had always found kind of intimidating; it was like asking the queen how she was doing. But today she seemed willing to talk.

  ‘I’m all right, actually, thank you. I wasn’t sure I’d ever hear myself say those words again, but …’ She shrugged. ‘I’m getting there, taking it day by day. And of course, I have plenty left to live for. Having you all around me this summer has helped enormously in reminding me of that.’ Her eyes, still so clear and luminous despite her age, became thoughtful. ‘It’s not an easy business, though, is it, being a wife? As you know yourself. These Tarrant men are wont to giving us nasty surprises now and then.’

  Harriet nodded. ‘That’s one way of putting it.’

  ‘I’m very sorry, my dear. That Robert chose to do such a thing, I mean. To deceive all of us in such an astonishing way must have been particularly hard on you.’ She paused, sipping her tea. ‘Of course, it’s none of my business and I am absolutely not taking sides, but I know he feels very badly about it. A lie that spiralled out of hand.’

  ‘Yes.’ And the next lie, and the next lie, and the next. The party and the lunches and the trip to America – so many spirals, she had quite lost count. Still, bitching about a man to his mum was never going to help things, fact.

  Neither of them spoke for a moment. ‘I went to see Katie today,’ Olivia said, out of the blue.

  ‘Wow. Gosh, Olivia. That was brave,’ Harriet replied, feeling a new respect for her motherin-law. ‘What did she say? How did it go?’

  ‘I think we were both surprised by how … how unremarkable it was,’ Olivia replied. ‘We were civil, we acknowledged each other as women loved by the same man; we somehow managed not to come to blows over him.’ She picked up a fairy cake and turned it upside down, ridding it of at least fifty sprinkles that rained into her tea plate. ‘I invited her and Leo here for the barbecue on Friday night.’

  Harriet’s mouth fell open. ‘Wow,’ she said again. ‘Goodness. How incredibly magnanimous of you.’ If Robert had had a secret affair and a love child, she wasn’t sure she’d be quite so generous-spirited in the circumstances. Once when Simon’s bit on the side had dared call him on the landline, Harriet had hurled abuse into the receiver, screeching like a fishwife on steroids until she was pink in the face. Invite the other woman to a barbecue? She would have been more likely to push her face straight into the hot coals.

  Olivia looked pleased by the remark. ‘Yes, I thought so too,’ she said. ‘It’s taken me this long to be able to turn the other cheek, though. At the start of the holiday, I was ready to go for her with my claws out.’ She stretched out her long elegant fingers and they both studied them for a moment. ‘Anyway, the point I’m edging towards is that I hadn’t realized until then how good it was going to feel forgiving her. How much lighter I felt afterwards.’ She tilted her head, considering her words. ‘It’s not as if I don’t care about what happened. I do. I thought the world had ended for a while. But what good does being angry do, really? It only gives you wrinkles at the end of the day, and goodness knows I’ve enough of those already.’

  ‘Oh, Olivia, stop right there. You are the most unwrinkled, beautiful, elegant—’

  Olivia batted away the compliments. ‘I can live with my wrinkles,’ she said. ‘But I don’t want to live the rest of my life with bitterness, looking back and feeling consumed by fury. I want to look forward. What’s done is done. She apologized, I accepted, that’s that.’

  Harriet pursed her lips. She knew what her motherin-law was hinting at. But Alec was dead, and therefore it was impossible for him to reoffend. Robert, meanwhile, was very much alive, although possibly newly maimed, if the clatter of metal and volley of swearing from the garden was anything to go by. If she did forgive Robert, as she knew Olivia was urging her to do, then what was to stop him going and doing it all over again, some other lie, some other betrayal? Wouldn’t it be safer just to cut her ties and walk away?

  Chapter Forty-Six

  Victor had definitely scored some major brownie points today, Freya thought as she pushed open the door and stepped into their bedroom. Their bedroom, by the way, that just so happened to be in the swankiest and most gorgeous hotel she had ever set foot in. The bed was huge, its frame made from chunky slabs of honey-coloured wood. There was a roll-top bath and a walk-in shower in the bathroom, plus luxury toiletries and thick fluffy dressing gowns. There were French windows that opened onto a small wrought-iron balcony overlooking the sea. In short, she reckoned she could pretty much live in this room quite happily for some considerable time without feeling the need to re-engage with the rest of the world. ‘Whoa,’ she breathed, dropping her overnight bag to the floor. ‘This is gorgeous, Vic. Thank you.’

  Victor put his arm around her. ‘You deserve it,’ he said. ‘I’m sorry I haven’t been a very good husband lately. This is me trying to make it up to you. This is me opening my eyes and realizing what’s been right in front of me the whole time.’ He held her tight against him. ‘I’m sorry.’

  ‘Oh, Vic.’ She felt herself go limp against him, grateful for his solidity. How good it was to lean on someone and let them take your weight. It made her realize just how rigidly she
’d been holding herself upright all this time. Must cope. Must keep going. Must not show weakness. Well, bugger that for a waste of time. That plan had been about as successful as the square wheel. ‘I’m not sure I’ve been the best wife either,’ she said shakily. ‘Or the best mum. Or daughter. Or GP.’

  He stroked her hair, smoothing it back from her face. ‘You’re too hard on yourself, love,’ he said. ‘Did nobody ever tell you that? You’re doing fine. Everyone else thinks you’re doing an amazing job of all those things.’

  She had found herself dreaming of her midnight plunge into the sea on a few occasions lately – her brain flashing up vivid snatches of memory that frightened her every time: the blackness of the water, the seabed vanishing beneath her feet, the weight of her clothes dragging her down. There had been a single terrible moment when she had just wanted to sink below the surface, let the sea take her down, allow the water to pour into her lungs … until a second later she’d felt Vic’s strong hands beneath her armpits and he’d hauled her unceremoniously onto the sand. It wasn’t what she would call ‘doing fine’, personally.

  ‘Freya? I’m serious. You’ve had a hard time. Anyone would have struggled. And if I hadn’t had my own head rammed up my arse recently, I would have noticed and been there for you earlier. If you’re going to blame anyone, you can blame me, not you. All right?’

  Her head was still pressed against his shoulder. ‘All right.’

  She felt his grip tighten. ‘You and the children are what matters most. You are my top priorities, okay? And from now on, I’m going to pay more attention to you all,’ he said gruffly. ‘That’s a promise, Freya. We’ll get a decent babysitter sorted so that we can go out together more as a couple. We’ll get a cleaner too, so you don’t end up doing it all. Hell, let’s hire in a full set of staff – chauffeur, butler, the works – while we’re at it.’

  She laughed. ‘Sounds good to me.’

  ‘And Robert’s offered to have the kids for a weekend soon – brave, foolish man – so that we can go away somewhere too, just the two of us.’ He let go and looked into her eyes. ‘I want to make this work, Freya. I want us to get back to where we used to be. Having a laugh. Spending proper time together. Sneaking off to posh hotels like this one …’

  ‘Me too,’ she said with a watery smile. ‘Absolutely.’ She thought of all the nights she’d spent curled up on her own in the living room, seeing off a bottle of red wine while she waited for him to come home. All the times she’d put the children to bed alone, feeling resentful, while he was at some gala evening or other being lauded yet again for his heroics. Being a hero was just as much about putting out the bins and reading the children a bedtime story in Freya’s eyes. ‘And I’m going to stop bottling things up,’ she added. ‘It’s taken me this long to realize that competitive coping is not remotely noble or impressive – it’s actually just a bit tragic and the shortcut to a nervous breakdown.’ She tried to laugh to show that she was only joking but it was difficult with the lump in her throat.

  ‘Good call,’ he said, squeezing her hand. ‘The other thing is, I’m going to knock the drink on the head too. We’ll keep the house dry for a while, be teetotallers together. Less temptation for you, less of a beer gut for me.’

  ‘Oh, Vic.’ He so didn’t have a beer gut. This was all for her benefit and she knew it. The moment they had walked into this room, she’d thought with a pang of how, had things been different, they’d have been popping open champagne and getting sozzled together at this point. She was touched that he was willing to make such a sacrifice. ‘That’s so lovely of you. Really supportive. Are you sure?’

  ‘One hundred per cent. It’s the least I can do. We’re a team, aren’t we?’

  ‘We are most definitely a team.’ God, she loved him for this. She absolutely loved him. It was as if the fog had lifted, and they’d remembered who they were again – Freya and Victor, the very same people who’d fallen in love at a French pizzeria all those years ago. A good team.

  ‘But in the meantime,’ he went on, ‘here we are, just the two of us, all alone.’ He grinned, the dimple flashing in his left cheek, and his hand slid lower down her back, to rest on her bottom. ‘I don’t suppose you’ve got any … ideas … about how we might fill our time away have you?’

  She grinned back, happier than she had been all summer, and tucked a thumb into the back pocket of his jeans. ‘It’s funny you should ask me that because I do have one or two, now you mention it …’ She leaned up to kiss him full on the mouth and then their hands were all over each other’s bodies and the very posh bedroom was suddenly filled with flying clothes and laughter. They collapsed together onto the enormous bed with a deliciously wanton sense of abandon, reminding Freya of those first heady days back in France.

  Mmm-mmm, she thought joyfully, as he tossed her knickers over his shoulder. Now this was exactly what holidays were all about …

  Chapter Forty-Seven

  Back at Shell Cottage, there was something of a carnival atmosphere – or a festival, even – with the three tents now standing upright in the garden. Teddy was so excited about camping out that he was capering about in pyjamas already, even though they’d only just had dinner, and usually you had to practically crowbar him up to bed of an evening. He and Libby had stuffed their tent full of blankets and pillows, soft toys and cushions, as well as an elaborate trap to catch any bears that happened to be strolling by. Meanwhile, Dexter was red-faced and exuberant following three energetic badminton matches with Robert, and was demanding more, despite Robert lying on the grass with the racquet on his face, pretending to be dead from exhaustion.

  He was a good man, Harriet thought, watching through the kitchen window as he lay there, putting up with Libby arranging the shuttlecocks in a pattern on his legs for at least twenty seconds before leaping up and roaring in pretend rage, sending her racing away shrieking. He was a nice, funny, good man. But …

  She sighed, turning away to distract herself with the washing-up, rather than thinking too hard about the ‘but’. Did every man have to have a ‘but’? Was that part of the deal when you married someone? To be fair, she probably had a few herself.

  Well, I do love Harriet but she’s a bloody nightmare first thing in the morning, she imagined Robert saying to a marriage counsellor. True enough.

  Harriet’s great but she is the messiest woman ever to walk this earth. Well, yeah, okay, he’d have a point. She’d own up to that one too.

  Harriet is a loyal wife but she does have a bad habit of flirting with handsome surfers ten years younger than her. She flushed, squirting in washing-up liquid and running the hot tap. All right, all right. Nobody was perfect, were they? Definitely not her. Not Robert either. Maybe everyone had their ‘but’ points. Maybe that was just part of being human.

  She plunged her hands into the water and turned her attention to the lasagne dish from dinner, which had burned-on melted cheese encrusted around the edge. Sometimes it was easier not to think at all, she decided, submerging it beneath the suds and scrubbing with renewed vigour.

  Robert was keeping his distance, that much was evident, politely waiting for her to decide she wanted to talk. If she wanted to talk, that was. In the meantime, Olivia had dabbed on some bright lipstick and gone off to meet Gloria – ‘After all my good deeds today I need a drink,’ she had declared cheerfully. ‘Don’t wait up!’ – and Molly had vanished up to the attic for a very intense Skype session with Chloe. (Or so Harriet hoped. It was all she could do not to go and spy through the keyhole in case her daughter had latched on to Inappropriate Man Numero Duo by now. Please, no. There were only so many new grey hairs a woman could acquire in one single summer holiday.)

  Harriet sat and read a magazine for a while, then dried and put away all the washing-up, padded back to the living room, switched on the television and flicked through every single channel – rubbish, the lot of them – before switching it off again.

  She poured herself a glass of wine and glanced out o
f the window to see that the children’s tents were zipped shut, and that Robert was lying with his head sticking out of his, reading a book. Surely the children hadn’t actually gone to sleep already? It was only just past eight o’clock.

  She hesitated, her hand on a second wine glass, wondering whether or not to venture outside, whether or not she could face a conversation with him now. He must have sensed her watching, though, because in the next moment, he looked up and saw her at the window.

  Busted. She felt she had no choice but to hold up the empty glass and wine bottle with a questioning expression, at which he put his thumb up and grinned, turning the book face down on the grass in a way that suggested he was done with reading for the time being.

  Right. So it looked as if they were going to talk now, after all. Dramatic chords boomed in her head and she gave herself a quick pep talk. Be strong. Be calm. No shouting in front of the children. No weakness in the face of sad-puppy eyes.

  Once outside, it quickly became apparent that the children were definitely not asleep. Harriet smiled to hear the hysterical whoops of mirth exploding from the far tent. ‘What’s going on in there, then?’ she asked, sitting down cross-legged on the grass and passing Robert his wine.

  Robert sat up, lifting his glass in mock salute. ‘They’re having their midnight feast now,’ he explained, ‘so they can brush their teeth again afterwards. Very sensible really. Dentists everywhere would approve.’

  Harriet remembered similarly early ‘midnight feasts’ that Molly and her friends had had on sleepovers when they just couldn’t hold out any longer. ‘Sweet,’ she said.

  ‘Yeah. I am turning a blind eye to the fact that they sneaked the cake tin in there, by the way. I suspect there will be many rainbow sprinkles and crumbs in sleeping bags tonight, not to mention a few diabolical sugar hangovers in the morning.’

  Harriet gave another brief smile, but allowed the conversation to peter out. Now that they were here, she was no longer sure what she wanted to say to him. The air was warm and soft, the golden-blue sky seeming to fold around them in a benevolent, protective way. She found herself wishing they didn’t have to have any difficult conversations at all; that they could simply pretend it had never happened and be Harriet and Rob again. But his face had already lost its smile, his mouth was twisting in an awkward grimace and she could tell he was gearing up to apologize all over again.