Indian Summer

by Marcia Willett

  ‘Ralph was … versatile,’ he answers. ‘Anyway, much too long ago to be regretting at this late date.’

  ‘He went to the States, didn’t he? I remember Izzy was devastated.’

  Mungo nods. ‘So was I. We were in the middle of rehearsals for Journey’s End and he simply walked out. He was invited to audition for a small film part but I never heard if he got it. By the time the dust settled he’d moved on. “He had softly and silently vanished away – For the Snark was a Boojum, you see.” He was good at the young British gentleman roles but he wasn’t very talented beyond his youth and spectacularly good looks. Sorry. That sounds bitchy, doesn’t it?’

  Camilla frowns, trying to remember. ‘I didn’t care for him much. Rather too pleased with himself.’

  The meadow below the house is being cut and they pause to watch the tractor as it wheels around the edge of the field. Tall grasses fall in golden clouds of pollen and dust; a shimmer of midges hangs and sways in the hot blue air, breaking and reforming in its endless dance. The dogs hurry on towards the house; a pretty, white-painted stone house set amongst camellia bushes and azaleas. The wooden frames of the sash windows are painted dark green to match the front door. Coming upon it here, at the edge of the moor in this wild ancient setting, one might think it like a house in a fairy story.

  Mungo is comforted by its familiarity, glad that Archie and Camilla have been able to keep it much as it was through his and Archie’s childhood. Camilla is watching him.

  ‘Are you OK?’ she asks.

  ‘Yes,’ he answers quickly. ‘Yes, of course,’ and then adds: ‘It was just Kit reminding me that it’s Izzy’s birthday.’

  ‘That’s why you were thinking about Ralph.’ She sounds almost relieved, as if some puzzle has been solved.

  The dogs have disappeared in search of cold water to drink and cool slates to lie upon, and the house is full of sunshine.

  ‘Yes,’ he says. ‘That’s it. Izzy and Ralph,’ and he changes the subject as they go into the house together.

  After Mungo has gone, Camilla goes out to fetch the washing from the line slung between the plum trees in the orchard. In the long grass wasps crawl stickily in the rotten fruit, drunk on the sweet fermenting juice, and down in the woods a pigeon is cooing its lazy summer song. The sheets are hot and crisp and she folds them carefully into the old wicker basket, thinking all the while about Mungo and Ralph and Izzy. If she’s honest she has to admit that she never really liked Izzy all that much: she was too mercurial, too needy. Of course, Archie adored her – and she played up to him.

  ‘Poor little Izzy,’ he’d say affectionately. ‘She’s had it tough, you know. Both parents killed in a car accident. Brought up by a strict old cousin. She’s done jolly well for herself.’

  Camilla had to bite her tongue sometimes; close her lips on a cool rejoinder. Izzy was so thin, so quick, so witty, that she, Camilla, felt ponderous beside her. Pregnant, slung about with small children, she felt it was an unequal contest. Yet those years were such happy ones.

  Camilla folds the last sheet into the basket. She remembers what Mungo said about Ralph and wonders in what way he regrets him. Perhaps he sees Ralph simply as a symbol of their youth. The three of them were inseparable during those early years in rep; and afterwards when Mungo started his own company. Camilla hoists the basket on to her hip and takes it into the utility room. She can’t be bothered to sort out the sheets; it’s too hot. Instead she wanders back outside where the dogs are stretched in the shade, fast asleep.

  It was Kit who named the dogs, litter brothers, when she saw them first as puppies. Camilla remembers how she and Archie argued over names, neither able to hit on the right ones. Then Kit came to stay with Mungo and was told of the dilemma. She walked up with Mungo to see the puppies, curled together in the big dog basket.

  ‘Boswell and Johnson,’ Kit said at once, going to kneel beside them. ‘Bozzy and Sam. Sammy and Boz. The big one’s Bozzy and the little one’s Sam. They are so cute.’

  The names were so right for them that Camilla and Archie couldn’t think why they hadn’t thought of them first.

  ‘It’s a gift,’ Kit said modestly, perching in the dog basket, lifting the warm, sleepy puppies on to her lap. ‘Oh, why wasn’t I born a dog! How simple life would be.’

  Camilla is filled with affection as she remembers the scene; glad that Kit is coming to stay. She’s been such a good friend to Mungo, and the whole family love her.

  ‘She should have been married with children of her own,’ Camilla has said at regular intervals through the years to Mungo, to Archie. ‘I can’t imagine why she hasn’t. She’s so much fun and she’s very attractive.’

  It’s funny, Camilla thinks, that she’s never minded Archie adoring Kit, flirting with her, making jokes. She’s never scented the whiff of danger that was present with Izzy. There was an instability, a vulnerable neediness, about Izzy that has never been there with Kit despite her moments of crisis and sudden crazy whims. She’s managed her interior design company with confidence and flair, and she has good friends. Izzy was always so grateful for attention, for love.

  ‘She’s an actor, Millie,’ Mungo would say. He is the only person to call her Millie; she doesn’t like the nickname from anyone else. ‘That’s what we actors are like. We crave approval. It’s what it’s all about.’

  But Mungo was never like Izzy, thinks Camilla, though Ralph always needed to be the centre of attention, admired, fêted. Perhaps that’s what drew him and Izzy together – and perhaps that was the reason for the break-up of their affair.

  Camilla glances at her watch. Archie should be home soon. She might try to catch him on his mobile and suggest that he picks up a few things for her in Ashburton. It would be nice to make something special if Kit is coming to supper tomorrow.

  Down on his mooring at Stoke Gabriel on the river Dart, Archie watches life on the water. It’s been too hot to take the boat off her mooring, and there’s no breath of wind anyway, but he likes to potter, check things out; to sit here on The Wave, feeling the lift of the tide beneath her keel. Here he can escape the responsibilities that worry at him at home: the cost of repairs to the properties, paying his tax, keeping things running. It’s odd how being just those few yards away from dry land makes such a difference; gives that sense of escape and relaxation. He can hear the whistle of the old steam railway as it trundles through the valley on its way to Kingswear; such an evocative sound bringing memories of his childhood; trips on the paddle steamers coming down to Dartmouth from Totnes; sailing with friends from the naval college when he was older. On the river, out at sea, he feels free, detached from that other self who sees things with such a clear eye: who likes to dot the i’s and cross the t’s.

  ‘Mungo’s been in for tea,’ Camilla says, phoning his mobile, interrupting this idyll, ‘and he was a bit odd. Apparently it’s Izzy’s birthday so I think he was just feeling a bit nostalgic. Oh, and Kit’s coming down later this evening. Isn’t that great? He’ll bring her up for supper tomorrow.’

  Archie agrees that it is great, makes a note of the shopping list, says he’ll be home soon. He continues to feel contented, idle, delighted that Kit will be arriving. His relationship with Kit is uncomplicated and rewarding: she demands nothing from him except his complicity in her eccentricities. She loves to come sailing with him on the river as long as nothing too frightening is likely to happen and she is allowed to be a passenger. It’s no good asking Kit to take the helm or haul on a sheet. She’d be gazing at something on the bank – ‘Is that a heron?’ – or waving at some fellow traveller just at the crucial moment. She likes it best when they moor up in quiet backwaters like Old Mill Creek to make a cup of coffee or tea. Even then he doesn’t totally trust her with the gas – ‘Which tap do I turn, Archie?’ – so she sits in the sun, feeding the ducks with pieces of bread.

  ‘Isn’t it utter heaven?’ she’ll say, taking her mug, beaming up at him. ‘I don’t know why we don’t all live on boats
, do you?’

  Camilla never minds him taking Kit out. ‘It’ll do you good,’ she says. ‘You don’t need me along. Enjoy yourselves.’ She’s never been jealous of his closeness to Kit. Not like with Izzy – Archie makes a little rueful face – but then Izzy was very different. God, he’d lusted after her when they were all young together. She was so gorgeous in a waif-like Audrey Hepburn way and she made him feel tough and protective. He was sure that Camilla never knew how he really felt, and there had never been anything out of order, but he wondered if some feminine intuition made her suspicious. She was always just the tiniest bit on edge when Izzy was around and he had to be very careful to play it cool.

  Izzy’s birthday. She shall grow not old, as we that are left grow old, he thinks rather sentimentally. It’s easy now to remember her as she was way back when they were all young: the trips to Birmingham, when she and Mungo were in rep, or to London, and weekends at the smithy. It was the wretched Ralph who flung the spanner in the works. Archie never much liked Ralph: too good-looking, too smooth. He got poor darling Izzy into a crazy state where she didn’t know whether she was coming or going and then he’d simply walked out on her – on them all – without a backward glance. Izzy was devastated. Of course she became very successful, Mungo made sure of that, but it was as if an era of their lives was suddenly over: their youth had come to an abrupt end.

  Archie empties the dregs of his tea over the side, rather ashamed of his mawkishness. He wonders what happened to Ralph, stands for a moment to salute Izzy on her birthday, then goes below to close down. Maybe Kit will like a little jaunt on the river. The others won’t be interested. Camilla will probably say it’s too hot for her, and it’s no good asking poor old Mungo, who feels sick on the Dartmouth Ferry. Archie shakes his head, amused, thinking of how Mungo was named by their father for Mungo Park: nobody less like the great explorer than his younger brother. At the same time, Mungo was always a naughty child: making up stories, persuading Billy Judd at Home Farm – who was old enough to know better – to join in with his pranks. Their father despaired of Mungo and he, Archie, had been detailed off to look after this troublesome sibling, who broke every rule, frightened the local children with his stories of ghosts and vampires, and encouraged them in his games of make-believe and dressing-up. It was almost a relief to go away to boarding school so as to escape the responsibility. It changed when he was older, met Camilla at a point-to-point and fell in love with her. Camilla adored Mungo from the outset. She thought he was amusing, good value.

  Archie wonders now why he never minded; was never jealous of their close relationship. Was it simply because he knew Mungo was gay and therefore no threat to him? Camilla softened his rather censorious attitude to his younger brother so that he was able to allow his natural affection for Mungo to surface. And then, when their father died and Archie inherited the whole shooting match, he was able to be generous, to give Mungo the old smithy and the support he needed in his early acting career.

  Occasionally his own rather strict moral code is stretched by Mungo’s laid-back approach to life, his ability to turn a blind eye and break the rules, but not just lately. Today on the river, tomorrow Kit coming to supper: life is good. Archie locks the cabin door, climbs into the dinghy, starts up the outboard engine and heads for the shore.

  Mungo waits for Kit. He checks his watch, looks at his preparations for their supper, dashes upstairs to check her bedroom and shower room. All is ready. When the smithy, with its little barn, was converted Mungo decided that the barn should be self-contained, connected to the smithy not just by a door from the kitchen but also with a covered way and its own front door. It would be perfect for his guests with its two double bedrooms, bathroom and a kitchen-sitting-room: to give them a measure of independence so that they could stay up late to watch television or get up early without feeling they were being a nuisance. Anyway, he rather dislikes seeing women in a state of déshabillé: hair all over the place, pale faces, tatty dressing gowns. He prefers a little maquillage, a touch of artifice. Only Izzy, and, later, Kit ever had the privilege of staying with him in the smithy rather than in the barn.

  Izzy simply took it for granted.

  ‘Just in case I have bad dreams, darling,’ she said. ‘You know me!’

  She’d appear unexpectedly at his bedside in the early hours, shivering, and he’d sleepily push the duvet aside and hold out his arms.

  ‘Come on then,’ he’d say. ‘Just for the cuddle,’ and he’d hold her and comfort her until the nightmares passed.

  He guessed that it was losing her parents so suddenly and violently when she was barely nine that caused the nightmares. Her imagination was vivid and the terrible details of the car accident haunted her.

  Very occasionally they’d make love.

  ‘Just to be friendly,’ she’d say, but it wasn’t important to him. It was the companionship, the jokes, the gossip; these were the things he craved. They’d sit with a bottle of wine between them, laughing, shredding reputations or building them, praising or slandering, depending on whom they loved or disliked most.

  ‘Why don’t you invite Ralph down?’ she asked him during those early days of rehearsal for Twelfth Night. ‘He’d love it. You like him, don’t you?’

  ‘So long as he sleeps in the barn.’

  She made a face at him. ‘Don’t you trust me?’

  He shook his head. ‘It’s me I don’t trust, sweetie.’

  She’d sing to him while he prepared supper: ‘I Cain’t Say No’, ‘(When I Marry) Mister Snow’, ‘Why Can’t You Behave?’. He’d hear her lines, give her some tips, encourage her. She’d listen to him sing, show him how to breathe, to project his voice.

  As he waits for Kit he seems to hear Izzy’s voice again: ‘Come away, come away, death; And in sad cypress let me be laid’.

  Hot tears sting his eyes. Mopsa leaps up, begins to bark, and Mungo hears the car engine in the lane. Kit is here. Filled with relief, casting away his sadness, he hurries out to meet her.

  In one of the small farm cottages, further down the lane, James Hatton assembles his supper. Beans on toast, an apple and a mug of coffee. Sally wouldn’t approve but Sally isn’t here. She’s comfortably tucked up in Oxford, in their little house in Jericho, with a glass of wine. Or she might be with friends. Anyway, she’s not here, in this quiet valley surrounded by this wonderfully bucolic silence, and looking in horror at the pile of washing up to be done or at the unmade bed. They came on holiday to this cottage, quite a few years ago now, just after they were married, and loved it so much they returned several times. Perhaps it was those holidays that gave him the ideas for the location for the book that he is now researching. Back then the cottage was charmingly rustic; these days it wouldn’t meet the health and safety regulations. Camilla warned him about it when he telephoned; explained that the cottage had been empty for a year and was about to be renovated but that he was welcome to it for a low rent for a month. He dashed down to see it and couldn’t find much wrong with it. The kitchen and bathroom needed modernizing; so what? It was fine for his simple needs; perfect to get away from the daily round and let his mind roam out into the new novel.

  ‘So long as you’re quite sure,’ Camilla said. ‘No complaints, mind, once you’re in. Loved the book, by the way. I think it was so clever how you mixed up the suspense with the romance and made it all so real. Now, don’t worry, nobody will disturb you. We’ve got a new tenant coming into the other cottage next door – a young military wife with two small children – but we’ll warn her that you like to be left alone. How exciting to think that you’re setting the book around here. We’ll have to be careful, won’t we?’

  He laughed with her. Impossible to imagine anything of great excitement happening to Camilla and Archie, or the two old boys at the farm. Of course, Sir Mungo was a rather different story but even he was well past his glory days. Still laughing, James went back to the house to have a drink with Archie and Camilla, paid a week’s rent in advance, a
nd the deal was done.

  Now, James eats his supper with the door open. Just back from his weekend dash to Oxford, he is readjusting to the silence of the valley: no wail of police sirens, no traffic, no low-level quacking of neighbours’ television or radio. He is beginning his second week at the cottage and he is pleased with his progress. This is his second book – the first one was self-published – and the big hope is that this new one will catch the attention of a London agent or a big publishing house and he’ll become an overnight sensation. He’d like to be able to give up his teaching job at the local comprehensive and write full time; maybe even free up Sally from her nursing work so that they can start a family. He needs a lucky break of some sort, but he’ll get it, he’s sure of it, and at least he can take these few weeks during the summer holidays to check the location and rough out the first draft. He set his first book in Gloucester and it had received quite a lot of local hype. He’d seen, then, the value of using actual places – cafés, pubs, shops – and he was given support by the local bookshop and the local press, so now he’s decided that the West Country tourist trail might bring even better results.

  It was Sally who reminded him of the cottage, of how kind Camilla and Archie had been, and managed to dig out the telephone number. Sal’s a great support; she wants him to succeed and she’s prepared to put up with the separation to make it happen. Sal works hard at the Radcliffe – he glances at his watch, suddenly remembering that she’s on nights this week – in fact she’ll be on her way there now. He’ll send an email instead of phoning her to tell her how the day has gone and she can pick it up later.

  He finishes his beans on toast, cuts the apple into quarters and throws the core out into the hedge. Pushing the plate aside, opening his laptop, he starts to type his email.

  Another good day. Very hot again and lots of tourists but I’m really finding my way around now. Not the new boy any more. I know where to park when the car parks are full, cafés off the tourist beat, etc. The cottage continues to work very well while I’m writing. I really like this big living space and being able to be untidy!! Not like our little box, is it? Nobody bothers me, which is wonderful, but everyone is friendly, they wave when I see them in the lane, etc. I thought we might give a little party at the end and invite them all. Archie and Camilla are very kind. I am tactfully issued invitations for coffee or a drink, and Archie has offered another day on the river. Very useful. So different seeing the land from the water and I think he likes an excuse to get out there. Sir Mungo is at his cottage, back from a week in Scotland with friends, apparently. He shouted a greeting when I drove past, very matey, and I’m tempted to see if he could give me a bit of a leg up. The thing is, I see my stuff definitely as television and he was always a theatre man, apart from those big epic dramas he did back in the sixties and seventies. I imagine he still has contacts, though Camilla says he’s more or less retired now. Next door continues to be quiet, given there are two small children living there. They go to bed quite early and their mother – Emma, did I say her name was? – keeps herself to herself. I suspect that Camilla has warned them that I’m trying to work.