Just For the Summer

by Judy Astley

  ‘Jess, keep an eye on your brothers please, while I help Jack,’ she said, passing the buck.

  ‘Are they really that stupid or is it just a cleverly calculated method of getting their own way, do you think?’ she asked Jack as she helped turn over a few kebabs.

  ‘Probably take after Eliot,’ Jack said, watching the two little boys fighting to get away from Miranda and Jessica. ‘He’s an awkward bugger to deal with as well.’

  ‘Oh I don’t know,’ Clare said, defensively, reaching in through the kitchen window for a bottle of wine on the draining board. ‘He’s the intelligent one. And Liz is the one who knows how to get what she wants.’

  Conversation did not sparkle over supper. Clare, thinking about Miranda’s dash for the phone box, kept having to stop herself asking if the bladder problem was getting any better today. Amy and Harriet bickered over the chicken wings, each claiming it wasn’t fair, the other one had too many of them.

  Andrew, Clare noticed with interest, pushed Milo quite roughly out of the way so that he could sit next to Jessica at the big round garden table. Taking plates into the kitchen later, Clare said to Jack: ‘Did you notice the way Andrew was looking at Jess? Obviously has quite a crush.’

  ‘I’m not surprised. If I was his age I probably would have too,’ Jack said, opening a second bottle of Chardonnay.

  ‘I wonder if he wants to talk about it?’ Clare mused as she scraped plates. ‘I don’t suppose he would be able to confide in Celia.’

  ‘Shouldn’t think so, Clare. Don’t forget, boys of that age are horribly embarrassable, I should leave him alone with his thoughts.’

  Clare felt she’d been warned off and went to sulk on the terrace with a glass of wine. I should be drinking mineral water, she thought, in case I have to jump in the creek after one of those boys. She went and looked down into the murky water, but the tide was going safely down and she wouldn’t have to swim.

  The teenagers disappeared in a rowing boat, leaving the younger children to play hide and seek in the garden. Clare peered with interest at the families she could see having a lateish supper in uncurtained rooms round the village. It was Friday night, visitors had settled in and the second wave was arriving –the weekend commuters who arrived in dusty suits, taxied from the airport at Newquay for two days of a different kind of executive stress. Wives who had slopped around their holiday homes all week with no make-up and cheese sandwiches in bed with the children, suddenly had to iron a skirt and find a proper pair of shoes to compete with the smart city women their husbands had been sharing their weekdays with.

  ‘I’m glad we don’t have to spend our summers like that,’ Jack said, sliding on to the bench next to Clare and watching the lawyer across the creek pay off his taxi driver and haul his weekend case into his house. ‘There’ll be tears by Sunday,’ he went on.

  Clare giggled. ‘That’s because they have to fit a whole holiday into two days. Frantic rounds of beach picnics, French cricket with the kids, drinks with the neighbours, people round for supper. Poor sod probably wants to sleep and lie around reading the sort of book Eliot writes.’

  ‘Just shows how lucky we are,’ Jack ventured, wondering, perhaps correctly for once if this was the moment he should suggest moving away from London. He took a deep breath. ‘You know Clare, I was thinking, what we could do is …’

  It was really quite a dramatic splash. Jack was still halfway through his sentence as Clare stumbled down the creek steps in the twilight and jumped into the water. It wasn’t deep, but the thrashing child had gone right under and was ploughing about helplessly in the mud.

  ‘It’s OK, I’ve got you,’ Clare yelled, grabbing Amy by her dungarees.

  ‘It’s their fault, they dared me!’ roared Amy, howling muddy tears of fright and pointing at the satisfied faces of the Lynch twins peering down over the wall. ‘They said I had to walk along the wall with my eyes shut!’

  ‘You should have cheated,’ Harriet, older and wiser said scornfully.

  Eliot, arriving at that moment from his cool, brief dinner (so brief, due to the lack of stimulating conversation between himself and Liz, that he calculated he had spent money at the rate of £2 per minute), at the Parrot restaurant, thought he had never seen Clare looking so delectable. Her eyes were blazing with relief and anger, her hair was wild and matted and her soaking dress was caught up under the clutched child, showing a tempting lot of squeezable thigh. Liz stood coldly shimmering next to him, still as unruffled as when she had, earlier that evening, finally completed her hour-long stint at the bathroom mirror. Eliot wanted to roll on Clare and get mucky. Clare, for once, didn’t even register his presence at all.

  ‘Is it one of mine?’ Liz enquired without much interest, and being careful not to rush closely to get a look, because of the mud.

  ‘No,’ Clare said, ‘It’s Amy, apparently because of a silly dare made by your two.’

  ‘Oh well, no harm done,’ Liz said complacently, relieved that she would not be the one having to hose down the filthy child. Then she smiled benignly, ‘But you know, Clare, I’m really surprised you don’t insist they wear life jackets near the water, like mine. They soon get used to it, don’t you boys?’

  EIGHT

  ‘I’M A TERRIBLE mother. The one thing I’m supposed to be good at and I’m terrible. Even Liz, who couldn’t take proper care of a hamster, knows I’m useless.’ Clare, straight from a bad night’s sleep, was immediately into picking at the evening before.

  Jack sighed and rolled over into a vague wakefulness.

  ‘No you’re not,’ he tried, on auto-pilot, to reassure her. ’It was just one of those accidents.’

  ‘There’s no excuse Jack, she could have drowned.’

  ‘No she couldn’t, we were there weren’t we?’

  Jack hadn’t even opened his eyes yet. Clare had agonized all the same things the night before, going over a range of safety options from barbed wire fences to banning the children from the garden. But another one she came up with was selling the house. Jack could feel, through the sheet, the vibrations of her twitching fingers, picking tensely at the frayed edge of the tatty patchwork quilt. He wanted to wake up enough to get out of bed and escape to make a reviving cup of tea before Clare’s morose thoughts moved on, inevitably, to Miranda.

  Clare was wide awake, staring critically round the bedroom for more signs of failure to blame on herself. Her big calico work-bag was on the window ledge, over-flowing with neglected knitting yarns, reproaching her for weeks of non-creativity. Threads were trailing, tangling on the moth-eaten rug. The brass on the bed was getting tarnished, and the soft butter-cream paint on the walls was flaking and had an age-acquired greeny-grey tinge to it.

  I don’t take care of this house properly, Clare lamented. Not like the other one. In Barnes she would have lovingly mended the rug, polished and sealed the brass and rag-rolled the walls with a carefully thought-out mix of unexpected colours. At home she had paint in her bedroom that had been expensively distressed – a similar effect here in Cornwall, worn by time and not by decorators, was merely paint that looked bloody miserable.

  ‘I think we should repaint this room,’ Clare said to Jack as he tried to sneak out of bed.

  ‘Oh, yes, good idea. What colour do you fancy?’ Jack asked, encouragingly. The more of herself Clare put into a house, the more reluctant she would be to part with it. Clare, who unknown to Jack was starting to think of attracting potential purchasers, said, ‘Oh, something fairly inoffensive. Cream again, possibly, or pale green.’ At home, she and everyone else she knew chose their paints from the limited sludgy range issued by the National Trust, or the Georgian Society, or from Coles. Expensive experts were hired to apply translucent layers of flat oil paint. Many a south west London front door was peeling because of householders’ refusal to compromise their good taste and overcome a horror of hard-wearing gloss paint. Clare reached across to the calico bag and started pulling out skeins of silky yarn.

  ‘And the kit
chen. I just hate the kitchen, all that grubby stained wood,’ she said, rummaging through the wools and silks. ‘I’m going to paint those louvred doors. What do you think of these pinks, all together? I can do the louvre bits this pale shade, and the bits round the edge darker, and pick out the drawers in a third shade?’ Clare shuffled the dusty pink shades on the bed. Jack was impressed, he made plans to take her out that night, take advantage of her enthusiasm and put his master-plan to her.

  ‘You can get the paints mixed at that place in Truro,’ he said. ‘Or do you want to order it from London?’

  ‘No, Truro will do,’ Clare said, smiling at the view of the creek, ‘I don’t want any of that arty farty precious stuff, just plain old easy-peasy vinyl matt.’

  In a much-improved mood, she climbed out of bed and wandered downstairs to be a good mother, prepare a nourishing breakfast for her children and ban them from the creek wall.

  Andrew was lying in his small bed, thinking about Jessica. In fantasy his hand slowly stroked her thigh, pushing her dress up past the magical line where her tan met pale creamy skin. Andrew watched her pleasured smile, her small teeth biting her bottom lip … then he sat up and looked around the room. Where were they going to do all this? It couldn’t possibly be here, it was a small boy’s room. He still had curtains with aeroplane patterns on them. There was a collection of old teddies and pandas, balsa wood planes hung on dusty string from the ceiling. There was nothing to indicate the personality of a Playboy Man, not even a token poster of Kim Basinger. On the wall instead there was a collection of souvenir youth hostel badges, framed by himself, inexpertly, from a kit, photos of himself fishing with his father, sailing trophies. It was a room full of hobbies. Also it was too light, for Celia believed in putting the highest possible wattage of light bulb into any lamp, in case of eye strain.

  Andrew wondered about the chances of buying an orange light bulb in the village store. There was not much hope. And anyway he hadn’t even asked her yet. He got out of bed and opened the window, suspecting that the room had the aroma of old sock and airfix glue. Not exactly seductive. And then there were the sheets, he’d have to change them and then Celia would wonder why. It was so complicated. And the bed was so small, so narrow. How could he and Jessica roll around in ecstasy when they were in danger of crashing to the floor? If only he had a huge sheepskin rug.

  What about his parents’ bed? Andrew rushed into their room to look. It was so … parental. He might get instant impotence because of the sheer sacrilege. Jessica would know what to do, Andrew decided. Lost in his fantasy he thought he would let her seduce him on the sofa. She must have done it hundreds of times.

  But now it was 8.30 in the morning and he hadn’t even asked her. He slopped down to the kitchen in his wool checked dressing gown, which was getting too short. He wished he was on a tropical terrace eating muesli, wearing one of those bright towelling robes advertised in special offers in colour supplements. He wondered if Celia would buy him one. Men wearing them looked virile and exercised, photographed with rowing machines and blonde clean wives.

  Andrew was munching cornflakes outside the back door when the phone rang. It was Milo.

  ‘Can I come out with you later for a sail on your Laser?’ Milo asked.

  Andrew said he could, and knowing that the Gods in charge of teenage boys send opportunities like this only very rarely, he asked Milo if Jessica was there, could he speak to her.

  He’d done it. He couldn’t believe it. She said she’d love to come. Andrew could not finish the cornflakes. He did excited little dances in the kitchen, chewed his fingers, giggled like a small child. He rushed upstairs, and checked he’d got plenty of shampoo, aftershave, deodorant, mouthwash to disinfect away any smell of the human about himself, rushed back downstairs to clear up the kitchen and then raced back upstairs, too aroused to wait thirty-six hours for Jessica. Locking himself in the bathroom, (well you never knew) he very quickly and cheerfully ruined one of his mother’s best silk Hermes scarves.

  ‘Why did he ask to speak to me?’ Jessica wondered to Milo. ‘He could just as easily have asked you, then I wouldn’t have had to trail up from the pool.’

  ‘Why? What did he want?’

  ‘He asked me to go round to his cottage tonight. Don’t forget his parents are away, he must be planning a party and probably wants me to invite the others. He’s a bit shy.’

  ‘Good,’ said Milo, ‘I’ll get some drinks from the Mariners. What time does he want us?’

  ‘He said about eight. He probably thought you’d forget if he asked you. His sort of family usually do expect women to do the organizing. How many shall we invite?’

  ‘Oh everyone we can think of, there’s plenty of room and we can overflow into the garden.’

  ‘Do you think Celia and Archie know about it? It doesn’t seem very likely somehow,’ Jessica said.

  ‘He must be breaking the parental bonds at last. We must make sure he has a good time.’

  Milo strolled idly into the village towards the boatyard to invite everyone he could find to the party that Andrew didn’t know he was having. He ambled along slowly, calculating in his head how much beer he would need to order from the Mariners and wondering how many bar staff there were as Jessica had told him to invite them all. She had said, ‘There’s nothing worse than a party with not enough people, it’s even more embarrassing than not enough drink.’

  Milo found Steve sitting on the harbour steps waiting for hire-boat customers and sketching the gulls as they dive-bombed the beach, scavenging after crisps and bits of mouldy sandwich. The summer boatyard workers had lost their city pallor and Milo noticed a tanned boy with white-blond hair pulling a dinghy into its place on the pontoon, reminding him of Oliver at school. Milo was staring absent-mindedly, reminiscing fondly, and the boy noticed, smiling at him and coming towards him up the steps.

  Milo started gabbling nervously to Steve about boats, anxious that the boy had read his thoughts, but instead as he approached he just said, ’Hello, I met your sister on the beach just now and she invited me to a party.’ The boy was grinning cheerfully. ’Couldn’t believe my luck, sort of thing you dream about! Is she with anyone?’

  ‘Well she’s with us, with the family,’ Milo said, not understanding.

  ‘No, I mean is she going out with anyone around here, you know?’

  ‘Er, no, I don’t think so,’ Milo said, rather disappointed that a potential object of his own affection should be interested only in his little sister.

  ‘Well maybe I’ll get lucky then,’ the boy said, with a conspiratorial smile.

  ‘Yes, who knows?’ Milo said, making an effort, joining in but thinking, God, is this Men’s Talk? About his sister? He thought briefly of all those things he didn’t want to do to girls, the things that other boys did want to do. Girls were sticky, with damp, hidden unknown places. He didn’t want to be in them. He didn’t want to think of anyone being in Jessica’s either.

  Andrew searched through the dusty cupboard under the stairs, peering into the dark for his father’s special occasion wine rack, full of investment bottles, collectors’ items. He groped past the sailing equipment, the boots and life jackets and started pulling out bottles, looking for one with an impressive label. He thought he’d better take two, just to be certain to get Jessica and himself nicely relaxed. One bottle might seem rather mean, and he didn’t want the embarrassment of having to rootle around in this cupboard with Jessica watching from the sofa. He put a couple of the priceless bottles into the fridge to chill and wondered how he would ever be able to afford to replace them. He knew how much they were worth because his father was always reading Hugh Johnson’s wine guide out loud over dinner, and Andrew, from his fourteenth birthday had to sample the wines with due respect and reverence. Steallng wine, Andrew thought, was probably the greatest sin he could commit in this family, probably worse than fornicating in the parental bed.

  Clare, walking in through the open kitchen door, caught sight of the
bottles before Andrew got the fridge door shut and grinned at him:

  ‘Having a party?’ she said in a matey sort of way, pointing to the fridge.

  Andrew leaned on the fridge door, protectively and felt a blush seeping through his body. He shifted his feet about nervously.

  ‘Er, just someone might be sort of coming round later.’

  ‘Oh good,’ Clare said breezily. ‘I was going to invite you round to supper again, but if you’ve got other plans …’

  She waited, smiled and leaned comfortably against one of Celia’s polished oak dining chairs, ready to be told what Andrew was up to. But Andrew didn’t know this game, because he hadn’t played it before. What was supposed to happen was that he should make Clare a cup of coffee, and while occupied with cups and milk and sugar and spoons, he should be saying things like, ‘Well the thing is, all I can make is mackerel pate and I think it might be a bit iffy for the breath, so what else can I do? And do you think she’ll mind frozen pizza?’ That had been the sort of thing Miranda and her friends, gathered cheerily round the kitchen table in London used to ask her. She felt a sudden nostalgia for Miranda’s pre-recluse days. All that advice and reassurance she had been needed for, the confidence she had always tried to inspire that she would give fair comment without damning judgement. She’d always tried hard to be on their side. How carefully she’d dealt with Miranda and her friends and their anxious questions, like ‘My mum thinks thigh boots are really tarty, but don’t you think they look OK if you’ve got the legs?’

  How tactfully she’d been able to point out that thigh boots severely and boringly limited the range of clothes you could wear with them, instead of telling the whole truth which was that anyone of 5′ 2″ with legs like a sparrow would look horribly as if they were trying on their dad’s fishing waders.

  ‘Oh well, I’ll leave you to it,’ Clare said to the uncommunicative Andrew. ‘But if you need any help with food or anything, just pop round.’

  Jack had been very lucky, getting tickets for the Minack theatre that night without having to go and queue for them.