Indian Summer

by Marcia Willett

  Mungo is getting breakfast ready and she studies him appreciatively. Tanned and muscular in his jeans and white shirt, his fading fair hair sun-bleached, he looks almost youthful.

  He wishes her good morning and, passing behind him, she gives him a very quick kiss somewhere behind his left ear.

  ‘I shall take you out for coffee,’ she tells him. ‘Perhaps lunch. The Dandelion Café. What d’you think?’

  ‘That will be very nice,’ he answers almost primly. ‘And I suppose you’ve been out in the lane again in your dressing gown?’

  ‘Mopsa’s fault,’ she says. ‘Anyway, we only saw young Andy on his quad bike. He won’t care. I’m going to get dressed ready for our jaunt.’

  Making toast, putting the marmalade – Camilla’s home-made – on the table, Mungo wonders why the café at Haytor has been chosen for their tête-à-tête. He guesses that Kit is having difficulty coming to the point and he feels almost nervous. After all, they’ve exchanged many secrets over the years; what can be so special about this one? He puts Mopsa’s breakfast – a handful of dried food and a few biscuits – into her bowl and gives her fresh water.

  ‘I hope I’m ready for this,’ he murmurs, ruffling Mopsa’s ears, but she is too busy with her breakfast to pay attention to him.

  Someone else, apart from young Andy Judd on his quad bike, has seen Kit in the lane. In the little cottage further down Joe, standing at his bedroom window high up under the eaves, can just glimpse her though he cannot see what it is she is carrying. In her long gown, with the little dog running ahead, he thinks she looks like someone in a story; a princess or a witch, perhaps, but not a bad one. He notices that she walks very slowly, raising both her hands to her lips as if she is drinking. Sometimes she stands quite still. When the quad bike comes she jumps quickly to one side and the little dog comes running back to her.

  After she disappears from sight Joe remains at the window. He and Mummy and Dora have been at the cottage for just six days and he is still deciding whether or not he likes it. Dora’s too young to know – she’s just a baby – but Mummy loves it.

  ‘It’s great, isn’t it, Joe?’ she says, really excited. ‘There’s so much to do here. You can ride your bike in the lane and we can go for walks on the moor.’

  He has an odd feeling when she gets like this; as if she’s playing a game, not being quite real. Sometimes he plays the game, too, because he loves her, but sometimes it frightens him, especially now that Daddy isn’t around. Joe misses him; he says so.

  ‘Daddy has to go away,’ she says. ‘You know he does, Joe. He’s a doctor. He has to go away to where the fighting is so that he can look after anyone who needs him.’

  And of course he knows that but there’s something different about her. Once she would have said, ‘I know, darling. I miss him too,’ but just lately she doesn’t want to talk much about Daddy. Joe had listened to them arguing about moving to the cottage.

  ‘Why don’t you wait till I come back?’ Daddy asked. ‘Why decide to do this now?’

  ‘Because I don’t want to wait,’ Mummy answered. ‘It’s terrific luck to get the cottage, and it’s only because Mum says that Camilla is getting fed up with holiday lets and is trying it on a long let. It’s an experiment. We’re going to be guinea pigs.’ She laughed at Joe, who was sitting on the floor with his Lego. ‘Do you like the idea of being a guinea pig?’

  He didn’t understand what she meant but he could see that she was trying to jolly Daddy along so he laughed too because he hated seeing him upset. But suddenly Daddy looked more cheerful.

  ‘Well, Camilla will keep an eye on you,’ he said.

  ‘What d’you mean?’ Mummy wasn’t laughing now. She frowned – and he shrugged.

  ‘I just like to know you’ve got a friend around when I’m a long way off, that’s all.’

  ‘I’ve got plenty of my own friends, thanks,’ she said, a bit snappy, not smiling. ‘I don’t need my mother’s friends, too.’

  And then Dora started howling and Mummy rushed out, and he and Daddy were left alone. He looked as if he were a long way off, seeing something Joe couldn’t see, so he got up and perched on his knee.

  ‘Don’t you like the cottage?’ he asked, taking Daddy’s hand in his and bending the long strong fingers round his own.

  ‘I haven’t seen it yet,’ he answered, but he looked sad so that Joe put both arms round his neck and hugged him really hard, and Daddy hugged him too.

  Remembering it now, thinking of Daddy a long way away, Joe feels like he might cry but then Dora really does cry, screaming for attention, so he goes out of his room and down the steep stairs to comfort her. Mummy comes out of her room as he reaches the landing. There are only two bedrooms on this floor, which is why he is up in the little room at the top of the house. He likes it, though, being so high up. Mummy is pushing her mobile phone into the pocket of her flowered slouchy pyjamas; she’s all smiley as if she’s excited about something and Joe feels anxious though he doesn’t know why.

  ‘Did she wake you up?’ she asks him. ‘What a horror she is.’

  They go into Dora’s bedroom and Mummy whisks Dora up out of her cot and swings around with her high above her head. Dora begins to chuckle and he laughs too and it’s fun.

  ‘Shall we go up on the moor today?’ Mummy asks, laying Dora down on her changing mat and beginning to change her nappy. ‘We’ll set out early before it gets too hot.’

  She looks at him and her eyes are bright, as if it’s a birthday or Christmas, and it’s like she’s thinking about something else, not him or Dora, and the little worm of worry wriggles up again.

  ‘Where shall we go?’ he asks. He picks up one of Dora’s toys – a pink plush cat – and dangles it over her face. She reaches for it but he keeps it just beyond her grasp. ‘Can I climb on the rocks and have an ice cream?’

  ‘I don’t see why not.’ Mummy picks Dora up, cuddles her.

  Dora shouts, stretching her chubby hands for the toy, and he makes it dance up Mummy’s arm before he gives it to her. He trails down the stairs behind them, thinking of the lady in the lane with the little dog. As they go into the kitchen, Mummy’s phone bleeps. She sits Dora in her highchair and takes the mobile from her pocket. Although she turns slightly away he can see that she’s smiling secretly as she taps an answer to the text. He wants to interrupt, to distract her.

  ‘I saw a witch this morning in the lane,’ he says loudly. ‘She was wearing a long dress and she had a dog with her.’

  She continues to tap, and to smile, and, ‘Did you, darling?’ she says brightly. ‘How exciting,’ but he knows that she’s not really listening to him.

  ‘It’s so lovely to have littlies around again,’ Camilla is saying to Archie as they eat breakfast. ‘Joe is such a dear little fellow and Dora is going to be a real character. Emma will have her hands full with that one.’

  Archie pours another cup of tea from his big blue teapot. Kit brought him the teapot from London. It’s a Whittard teapot with its own special tea-strainer inside, which can be removed so that his tea can remain in the pot without getting too strong. Archie likes two and sometimes three cups of tea at breakfast and he is touched by Kit’s thoughtfulness.

  Boz and Sammy lie by the open kitchen door, their eyes on Archie as he finishes his toast. After breakfast he will take them for a walk. They are too well-trained to nag but they are alert to his every movement. Noses on paws, eyes swivelling, eyebrows twitching, they watch for the moment when he’ll push back his chair and say: ‘Well, time to get the dogs out.’

  ‘Rob’s told me that he’s a bit worried that Emma will be lonely without the other service wives around,’ Camilla says. ‘But I’ve promised to keep an eye on them all while he’s away.’

  Archie has been only partially listening. As usual his mind is marshalling the pressing tasks that need to be done – mowing, fencing, redecorating – rather than on their new tenant. Now he considers Emma: she is a pretty young woman, rather fun and ve
ry friendly. His two daughters-in-law are capable, busy, confident career girls, and, on occasions, they rather unnerve him. He knows that his old-fashioned tendencies to stand up when women come into the room, to open doors for them, can be misconstrued as patronizing, and this makes him slightly nervous with the younger generation, but Archie feels very much at ease with Emma.

  He took the dogs with him on that first visit when he went to meet her and the children at the cottage, where Camilla was showing them around. He introduced Sammy and Boz and was pleased to see Joe’s face break into smiles of delight. It was clear that he considered having the dogs as neighbours was an extra bonus. In Archie’s experience, dogs always help to break the ice, cause a diversion and offer a talking point. He liked the small, solemn boy, Joe, and was amused by Dora with her passionate, greedy approach to life. When they came for a second viewing, bringing Rob this time, Archie was rather touched by the way small Joe held his father’s hand, towing him from room to room, anxious that he should like the cottage, watching his reactions anxiously. Once again the dogs removed any tension. Rob asked if, as tenants, they’d be allowed to have a dog at the cottage, and Emma said it was one of the reasons she’d wanted to be in the country.

  ‘I thought we might get those toys down from the barn loft,’ Camilla is saying. ‘The tractor and the little bicycle. Joe’s just the right age for them. Dora’s a bit young for any of them yet.’

  ‘She’s a good screamer,’ he observes.

  ‘I don’t recollect Emma being like that,’ Camilla remembers. ‘She was a rather quiet, gentle child. She’s loving it here, though, isn’t she? She’s such a positive girl. It can’t be easy with Rob away in Afghanistan but she is so cheerful and brave.’

  ‘Mmm.’ Archie doesn’t agree or disagree. He drinks his tea and thinks about Emma and how he thought she was a tad excitable when they all came up for tea the day after they’d moved into the cottage; not quite like a girl who’s just said goodbye to her husband for three months. He wonders if it might simply be her way of coping with Rob’s absence. After all, it must be very difficult to deal with the separation, knowing Rob might be in danger, having to cope with two small children. Emma is probably just trying to keep her spirits up for the sake of her little boy as well as for herself.

  Archie remembers how Joe greeted the dogs as if they were old friends. He sat himself down between them and suffered their enthusiastic face-washing whilst Dora shrieked and flolloped about in Emma’s arms, and Emma shouted above Dora’s noise that she and Joe loved the cottage and that everything was utterly amazing. He watched Joe with his arms round the dogs’ necks and wondered at his expression of long-suffering, of patience, as he looked up at his mother and sister. It was a surprisingly adult expression and Archie’s heart was slightly wrung by it. He wondered how much Joe missed his father and if he was as happy in his new home as Emma was implying.

  ‘Come on, old chap,’ he said. ‘Let’s take the dogs out for a walk while tea’s being made, shall we?’

  And Joe scrambled up gratefully as if glad to be away from the noisy busy scene.

  ‘Joe’s a nice little fellow,’ Archie says, finishing his tea. ‘I’ll get the toys down after I’ve taken the dogs for their walk. I want to get them out before it gets too hot.’

  ‘I was wondering whether to invite Emma to supper with Kit,’ says Camilla, gathering plates, putting the lid on the marmalade. ‘The children could go into the bunk beds in the old nursery.’

  ‘No, I don’t think we should,’ Archie says rather too quickly. He’s looking forward to an uncomplicated evening. ‘Not quite fair on Kit, is it? She and Emma don’t know each other, after all, and the children might not settle.’

  ‘Perhaps not,’ agrees Camilla, though reluctantly. She loves a bit of a party. ‘You could be right. Perhaps another time when they’ve got to know each other. I must introduce Emma to Mungo and then have a lunch or supper for all of them together.’

  ‘That’s it,’ he says, relieved. ‘Good idea.’

  ‘I wish I could persuade James to come along. He works so hard I’m sure one little supper wouldn’t be too distracting.’

  ‘Leave him alone, he’s working,’ says Archie, who finds James just the least bit self-centred and boring, always banging on about his book. He pushes back his chair. ‘Time to get the dogs out.’

  Bozzy and Sam are already up and out of the door, feathery tails waving, eyes bright with expectation. Archie walks across the yard, up through the steep mossy garden, to the moor’s edge. The dogs squeeze beneath the stile and race out on to the open moor. Archie climbs the wooden steps, pausing to glance around, checking that there is no stock near at hand. Below the stony scrawl and scribble of the high tor a dark crimson tide of bell heather spills across the steep slopes, washing around rough chunks of granite, pouring down towards the stream. As he follows the ancient ridges, those centuries-old sheep paths that wind around the side of the hill, he breathes in the honey-scented air. The sun is hot on his bare head and he raises his arms to shield his eyes as he turns to look far westward where the glitter and dazzle of seawater rims the edge of the world.

  Below him a movement catches his eye. A small car travels along the lane, past the smithy and the cottages, heading towards the farmhouse. There have been Judds at Home Farm ever since Archie can remember. Billy and his brother, Philip, live there together; both widowed, keeping each other company with an old Welsh collie. They are a part of this small community, thinks Archie, just as he and Camilla and Mungo are – and now Emma and Joe and Dora. But for how long can he hold things together, keep on meeting the bills from such a small income? There is so much to do; so much to paint; so much dilapidation. Then there is the farm. If Philip and Billy were to decide to carry out some much-needed repairs where would he find the landlord’s share of the cost?

  At least, now the cottage is being let on a six-month tenancy, there is a regular rent coming in, but it’s not enough to hold back the slowly rising tide of damp and rot that threatens the house. There are solutions, of course: sell up and downsize is the obvious one, but Camilla throws a wobbly each time he mentions it. And, of course, he’d hate to leave this valley, his home, this small community. He wills his mind to a more cheerful prospect: Kit is coming to supper; they’ll have a day on the river. Archie turns back to the path, whistling for the dogs, and continues his walk.

  CHAPTER THREE

  FROM THE KITCHEN window Philip Judd watches his cousin Mags climbing out of her car. He doesn’t go out to meet her; she knows her way around. He stands, hands resting on the Belfast sink, waiting for her to come in. Ferret, he calls her to himself. Ferret-woman: sandy and twitchy-nosed and quick. She glances round the yard, up at the house, assessing, calculating, as if she’s planning to buy it. He snorts derisively. She’d like that; she’d like to be part of the set-up here, part of the family, friend to Archie and Camilla and Sir Mungo. She always calls him that: Sir Mungo. Nobody else does.

  ‘He’s really famous,’ she says, like they never see a newspaper or watch the television. Yet part of her is pleased that he and Billy call him Mungo; shows they’re friends. She boasts about it to her little group of women friends. The Coven, he calls them.

  ‘They’d love to meet him,’ she says wistfully, as if Mungo’s open to visitors like all those National Trust places they’re always going to, but he blocks her attempts to muscle in on their friendship. All his life he and his older brother, Billy, have blocked her when they could. From a small child up she was a troublemaker. She’d tell tales, go whining to their mum or hers: ‘The boys won’t let me see the baby chicks … ride on the tractor …’ but the adults took no notice and he and Billy didn’t care. The age gap gave them seniority, power.

  She’s thrilled to get that ferrety snout round the door now poor old Billy’s given her the chance. They had to show they had proper care before they’d let him home from hospital after his stroke, and cousin Mags was the obvious answer. She jumped on it quic
k as a stoat on a rabbit. He’s grateful, of course. She’s been cleaning and cooking and sorting Billy out a treat. She trained as a nurse, which means Billy can be at home instead of being cared for by strangers. He’ll put up with Mags for a few weeks for that. Billy looked out for him when they were young. After their mother died their father lost heart with the farm. When he became a rep for an agricultural machinery company, and then had to move nearer to Bristol, it was Billy who persuaded Archie’s father that he and Philip could manage the farm. Along with their little logging business and some gardening work they’d survived and kept their home. It’s worth having Mags around to make sure Billy’s safe and comfortable.

  ‘Morning, Philip,’ she says, putting the cold-box on the kitchen table. She unloads pies and jellies and soup, all guaranteed to tempt the invalid appetite, and stacks them into the fridge. ‘Something to be going on with. How’s the patient?’

  ‘He’s fine. Had a good night. He’ll be having some physio this afternoon.’ Philip watches her moving things about, reordering the shelves. He’ll change it all back later. Given the chance she’d take over; she’d be moving in. His Joanie would have had a fit.

  ‘Give her an inch and she takes a mile,’ Joanie used to say. ‘Keep her out of my kitchen.’

  Well, Joanie’s gone now and he must fend for himself, and for Billy.

  ‘Tea’s made,’ he says. ‘Want a cup?’

  ‘I’ll see to Billy first.’ She picks up her bag purposefully, almost triumphantly: she is about to perform her good deed for the day. ‘He was a bit mazed yesterday when he woke up from his nap. Away with the fairies. Talking about the old days and Sir Mungo and Isobel Trent and I don’t know what else. He kept saying: “He’s still here,” and laughing fit to bust. I said, “Of course he is, dear, he lives just down the lane,” but he was in a world of his own back in the past somewhere. “He walked all over her,” he said. “Now we walk all over him.” And then he goes quiet and won’t say another word.’