The Summer We Ran Away: From the author of uplifting women’s fiction and bestsellers, like The Summerhouse by the Sea, comes the best holiday read of 2020!

by Jenny Oliver

  Christ, she thought, Marcia would have a field day with that.

  ‘Urgh, I’ve walked through a spider’s web!’ Ahead of them, Martin did a little dance trying to rid himself of a possible arachnid.

  Lovejoy chuckled. Then he accidentally caught Amber’s eye, and immediately stopped smiling.

  Martin kept swiping at invisible spiders. Lovejoy dropped a pace behind. Julia was at the back. The path turned to grey rocks that they clambered over to get to an earthy clearing. The tangy sharpness of the pine now mixed heavy with the salt of the sea. Through the tree branches were lapping waves and ahead of them a set of steps down to the beach.

  ‘Here we go,’ said Martin, leading the way. ‘Plage Rouge.’

  The beach was clear blue water and white sand. A tiny arc of white beach huts with shutters and red roofs. The lighthouse watched through the trees.

  Amber saw Billy immediately. Right out at sea by the rocks, on a paddleboard. His back to them, with waifish blonde Pandora. She’d recognise him anywhere. Her heart squeezed.

  The only other people on the beach were a family all set up with picnic rug and umbrella. There were loads of kids in trunks and frilly swimsuits and a frazzled-looking woman in a kaftan who was trying to grab them and rub lotion into their miniature limbs, while a man with a long ponytail ignored them as he tried to meditate, legs crossed, eyes closed.

  Once they hit the sand, the others didn’t seem to know what to do. Julia and Martin stood looking a bit awkward, Lovejoy immediately hung back and let Amber lead the charge.

  Billy hadn’t seen them.

  Amber took her shoes off and started to walk across the sand towards him. She was maybe two metres away when the meditating man opened his eyes and said, ‘Amber Beddington! Well look at you.’

  She narrowed her eyes to study the man, his long dyed-black hair, his rimless glasses, his trendy deep-V-necked T-shirt and natty thin scarf looped round his neck. He even had the rosary on. ‘Richard?’

  He stood up. ‘Amber!’ he said, arm outstretched. Smile showing a row of capped teeth and an unmoving, botoxed forehead.

  ‘You look exactly the same,’ she said, because she couldn’t think of anything else to say. And he did almost look the same, embarrassingly so.

  He absorbed the compliment with a satisfied, ‘Thanks.’ Then said, ‘I believe I have something of yours,’ gesturing out towards the water.

  They both turned to look at Billy, laughing and splashing with Pandora.

  ‘Yes,’ she said. ‘I’m sorry about that. Him turning up like that, it must have been a shock.’

  Richard said. ‘It was a bit of a shock to be honest, yes.’

  The others, Martin, Julia and Lovejoy, had sidled closer.

  Richard waved a hand in greeting. Then he gestured, almost as an afterthought, to the woman in the kaftan trying to lotion-up the kids. ‘This is my wife, Wendy.’

  Amber raised a hand. The frazzled-looking woman smiled.

  Richard went on, ‘Billy emailed and told me he wanted to do an interview on Thin Air.’ He laughed. ‘Appealed to my ego, embarrassingly. I do get some requests nowadays. There was talk of us doing one of those concerts, you know, “Back to the Nineties” but I’d rather do something more serious.’

  Amber smiled. As he spoke, she took in his set-up, the wife scurrying round doing all the work, while Richard seemed to float off in a world of his own. She thought about when she’d met him, all those years ago, how alone she’d been, how desperate she’d been for love. She wondered if she had been desperate enough to stay with him and end up like poor, harassed Wendy on the tartan picnic rug. Amber remembered the morning she’d woken up in Richard’s trailer alone, only to step outside and find him lying on the patch of grass next to where they were parked, a willowy new groupie wrapped tight around him. They had both looked up when Amber opened the trailer door, then unceremoniously got back to it. That had marked the end of Amber’s stint as his number one fan. She suddenly thanked God for, rather than abjectly resented, that willowy new groupie.

  On the beach, Richard turned to look at Amber. ‘He’s not mine, Amber.’

  ‘He might be,’ she said.

  Richard shook his head. ‘No he can’t be. I can’t have children, unfortunately.’

  Amber frowned. ‘What about all these?’ she pointed to the swarming mass of small kids dotted about them.

  ‘Adopted, all of them. Wendy’s a saint.’

  Wendy, on the rug, rolled her eyes.

  ‘I haven’t told him – Billy,’ Richard continued. ‘Couldn’t bring myself to. Didn’t want to hurt his feelings.’ He shaded his eyes to look out at the paddle-boarders. ‘Oh, I think they’ve seen us.’

  Amber turned to look at Billy, paddling faster now into shore.

  At that point, Lovejoy stepped forward. ‘Can I just clarify, did you just say, he couldn’t be yours?’

  Richard peered over his glasses at Lovejoy. ‘I did indeed.’

  Lovejoy swallowed. He tried to speak but no words came out. Amber watched as he struggled to process what had been said. She watched as he took a step back, then another. Billy was getting closer. Amber frowned. Lovejoy turned away. She was about to say something, call him back, but then Billy’s paddleboard hit the shore. ‘Mum! What are you doing here?’

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  Lovejoy had stopped at the bottom on the beach steps, one hand on the bannister, head hung low, eyes focused on the sandy wooden slats. Amber kept half on eye on him to check that he wasn’t about to scarper. In front of her, Richard stood, awkward. Like he didn’t deal well with difficult situations. Amber knew he wasn’t going to be the one to tell Billy he wasn’t his father. The same as once he hadn’t been the one to tell Amber she was no longer his girlfriend.

  Billy was standing, awkward, unsure, wearing the boardshorts Amber had bought him last summer. Behind his skinny white back and slightly pink shoulders, the sun glinted on the calm ripples of the sea.

  No one was moving.

  Pandora was tying her white-blonde hair into a bun right on top of her head. She wore a retro blue and white striped bikini comprising of waist-high shorts and a buttoned-up-the-front bra top. Her sunglasses were shaped like red hearts.

  ‘We need to talk, Billy,’ said Amber.

  Billy glanced from her to Richard and then to Pandora, who nodded like that was a good idea.

  Billy then looked at Amber, his hair all wet, his expression young and hurt. ‘OK,’ he shrugged and started to walk off down the beach in the direction of the rocks.

  Amber followed. It was boiling hot. The sand burnt her feet. The blue shirt stuck to her skin. Her jeans were too heavy. She had to psych herself up as she walked, this was no time for her own emotions and fears. No wobbling worries about the outcome. This was her son, upset and confused, and she had to do whatever she could to make that better.

  She started to jog to catch up with him. Something she hadn’t been able to do a couple of months ago – she’d have been wheezing to a standstill. It felt good to be free. At the rocks, she caught up with him. He sat down, quiet. Amber had to pause for a second and catch her breath. ‘I’ve given up smoking,’ she panted. ‘Down to one patch a day.’ She pointed to her arm.

  ‘Good,’ said Billy, half pleased, half mad at her.

  Amber sat down, her lung capacity had improved but it was nowhere near perfect. ‘Yeah,’ she breathed, resting on the shiny grey rocks next to a patch of limpets and a rock pool.

  Billy scuffed the sand with his toe.

  Amber felt her heart rate finally regain some normality. She looked up at Billy, shielding her eyes from the sun and said, ‘Billy, Richard’s not your dad.’

  ‘Yes he is.’

  ‘No,’ Amber shook her head, ‘he’s not.’

  Neither of them spoke.

  Billy looked confused.

  Amber chewed on her lip. This was as hard as she imagined it would be. ‘He can’t have kids, Billy. Those are all adopted,’ she s
aid, nodding towards his bouncing brood. ‘He just told me, I didn’t know.’

  Billy stared down at the sand, mulling it over, jaw rigid. The waves rolled gently on the shore. The sun flickered silver on the sea. Finally, he looked at her and asked, ‘Who is then?’

  Amber nodded towards the figure who was standing separate from the others over by the steps and the beach huts, hands on his hips, deep in thought. She crossed her fingers he wasn’t getting ready to flee. ‘Lovejoy,’ she said.

  ‘What?’ Billy frowned. ‘But you said he wasn’t.’

  Amber tipped her head. ‘I know… I just—’ she started. ‘It was all too complicated.’

  Billy stared over at Lovejoy’s figure. Then he hung his head. ‘That’s who I thought it was,’ he said, ‘but I was hoping it wasn’t.’

  Amber looked up surprised. ‘What’s wrong with Lovejoy?’

  ‘Well it’s Lovejoy,’ said Billy, who’d known him since he was a kid. Who’d been around him and his string of various different fake-boobed blondes. Seen as he’d had drinks poured over him and his face slapped. Billy had seen the cliché. He slumped down on the rock next to Amber. ‘It’s, I don’t know… disappointing.’

  ‘No hang on,’ said Amber, suddenly defensive, thinking about the friendship she’d had with Lovejoy, his presence in her life. It was so complex. She had thought him too unreliable and selfish to be a father but, now his integrity was being questioned, it made her think of qualities she liked in him. ‘Lovejoy’s OK. He can be a pain but he has a good heart.’

  Billy made a face.

  Amber looked at where Lovejoy was pacing. ‘He’s fun to be around. He’s a good dealer. He’ll make you laugh.’

  Billy turned his head her way, his hair flopping back again. ‘So if he’s so great, why didn’t you tell me he was my father then?’

  At that Amber realised she’d dug herself into a bit of a hole. ‘Because,’ she said, ‘it’s complicated. At the time you were born, he wouldn’t have been such a good father. And he wasn’t there, and Ned was and he promised he’d give you everything you’d ever need. By the time Lovejoy came back we were settled. We had our life. I didn’t want anything to disturb that. Ned looked after you so well.’ She leant back against the smooth grey rocks. ‘But what I’m saying is just because Lovejoy would have been useless then doesn’t mean he’d be useless now.’ She looked at Billy, his puckered forehead and confusion. ‘You’ve got him at his best,’ she half-laughed.

  Billy snorted. He rested his elbows on his knees and hung his head low. ‘I just can’t really work out what I feel. I love Dad – Ned. And I’m glad he was my dad.’

  Amber nodded.

  Billy looked at her. ‘But it’s like everything’s turned upside down. And you lied all these years,’ he sighed, disappointed.

  Amber nodded, making sure she didn’t turn away, that she held his gaze despite the fact she wanted to stand up and exhale. ‘Yes,’ she said. ‘I did.’

  They were silent for a while. The waves lapped. The sun scorched down. Amber pulled at her blue shirt to fan herself.

  ‘What’s that shirt?’ Billy asked.

  ‘It’s new,’ Amber said. ‘I got arrested and needed to get some stuff after jail.’

  ‘Oh Mum, you didn’t get arrested again?’ Billy rolled his eyes.

  Amber shrugged. ‘It was OK. Nothing I couldn’t handle.’ She looked down at her blue shirt. ‘Do you like it?’

  ‘Yeah it’s cool,’ he said. ‘Colourful.’

  She agreed.

  They were silent again.

  He toyed with the rock pool, dipping his finger in and trailing it through the water.

  Amber crossed her legs and folded her arms, turning slightly his way. ‘Listen, Billy, I can’t sit here and say that I did everything right. Because clearly, I didn’t. But at the time I just wanted to do what I thought was best for you. And Ned was the most reliable of the men I knew then. I knew he’d stick around. And that seemed the most important thing because… I had no one else.’ Amber looked momentarily out at the wide lapping blue sea, then back to Billy’s profile, his attention on the rock pool, his thick, brown salt-crusted hair. ‘I thought I was doing what was best at the time. And I was really young – I was your age. I’d lost my dad, my mum had left, I was a bit of a mess to be honest.’ She paused at the memory of herself. Thought about the moment when she’d thrown up at a Belgian flea market, right in the middle of the main square. Alone after she’d split up with Richard, she was back to doing to what she did best – buying and selling. She’d put the vomiting down to bad mussels for dinner but when she’d been unable to get up in the morning for sickness she’d realised it was more than that. She was sleeping in a car park at the time and had barely enough money for petrol but she’d bought the pregnancy test, taken it in the public loo, then sat for what seemed like hours, staring at the Belgian graffiti, terrified about what to do next. Fortuitously, Ned had sent her a text right at that moment, showing her the picture of the new car he’d just bought with his bonus. And Amber’s brain had clicked into gear. She’d left the public toilets, jumped in the van and driven non-stop to the ferry port, arriving on Ned’s doorstep the next morning, tired, vulnerable and barely able to speak for morning sickness. And he had looked so completely delighted to see her that she had almost burst into tears.

  On the beach, Amber had to swallow down a lump of self-pity before she could speak. ‘But Billy, even if it wasn’t right what I did, I did it because I love you. Everything from the moment you were born, I’ve done because I love you. And, yes, this will take some time to process, and yes you should be really mad at me for a while – or as long as you like – but whatever happens, however you feel,’ she waved a hand, emphatic, ‘I will always love you and I will always be here for you.’

  Billy stared down at the sand.

  Amber leant back against the rock, the smooth stone warm against her shirt.

  Seagulls swooped and dived on the water as little shoals of fish jumped. Further up the beach, Lovejoy was now sitting on the steps of a weather-beaten beach hut, Richard Shepherd was talking to Julia. Martin and Pandora were playing with the little kids while Wendy took a moment to flick through a magazine. The gentle surf rolled onto the sand.

  Then suddenly Lovejoy stood up and started to walk towards them. Amber didn’t know what to do, whether to nudge Billy so he’d notice or wait and let it play out. She felt her heart rate rise as to what he’d say. How mad he would get, how the blame would play out. She watched him walk with eyes narrowed against the sun, messy hair half falling over his eyes, dark stubble on his chin.

  As he approached and his shadow fell over them, Billy looked up.

  Lovejoy gave him a nod. ‘Alright, mate?’

  ‘Yeah,’ said Billy.

  Lovejoy gestured to the rock beside him. ‘Can I sit down?’

  Billy nodded.

  The tiny waves rustled on the sand, churning up shells and tiny pebbles.

  Lovejoy sat down, leaning forward, elbows on his knees, exactly as Billy had been sitting, head low. Then he turned and looked across at Billy, who was picking at a limpet on the rock. ‘Don’t be mad at your mum,’ he said.

  Amber’s eyes widened in shock. Of all the things she expected him to say, that was not one of them.

  Billy didn’t say anything.

  Lovejoy licked his bottom lip, pushed his hair back from his face.

  Amber watched, intrigued as to what he was going to say next.

  ‘Thing is,’ Lovejoy said, ‘we were all deadbeats. All of us, him,’ he nodded at Richard, ‘Me. Half the other guys.’ He exhaled, long and slow. Then he sat up taller. ‘Your mum said to me yesterday that if I’d known about you I wouldn’t have stuck around. And at the time, I was furious. But I’ve had to think about it. And I hate to say – it shames me to say it – but she was right. I wouldn’t have been there. I would have been a shit dad.’ He shook his head. ‘To be honest, I’m pretty terrified now.’


  Amber looked at Lovejoy’s face as she listened. Saw how much older he looked than when they were kids. How much gentler. How much more relaxed.

  Lovejoy twisted round so he was better positioned to look at Billy and the barnacles he was now picking off the limpet. ‘You know they’re alive?’ Lovejoy said about the barnacles.

  Billy stopped picking.

  ‘If you want to look at it another way,’ Lovejoy went on, ‘your mum had to put up with living with boring old Ned for you, that’s the ultimate sacrifice!’ He laughed. Billy didn’t. Amber shook her head, despairing. Lovejoy stopped laughing. ‘Sorry. That wasn’t funny. Ned’s a good bloke. And a great dad. Clearly better than me. I’m nervous.’ Lovejoy paused, rubbed the back of his neck as he thought. ‘I suppose what I’m trying to say, and it’s hard to admit, but I think she might be the least selfish of all of us. And you’re lucky to have her. And I like to think that I’m less of a dick than I was back then. Although I’ve possibly just proved that’s not the case. Sorry.’ He exhaled. Shook his head like he was an idiot. Then he said, ‘Billy, what I can say, is there is no other kid I would be more proud to find out was mine, God’s honest truth.’

  Amber found herself welling up. She couldn’t believe it. She had to turn away and surreptitiously dab at her eyes.

  Billy looked at Lovejoy momentarily, assessing.

  Lovejoy took a deep breath before he added, ‘Maybe when we get home I can take you for a drink and we can see how it goes from there. Hang out, you know. Only if you want.’

  All eyes were on Billy.

  Amber said, ‘You want that, Billy?’

  At first he didn’t do anything and Amber thought it was all a lost cause. Then very softly, he nodded. ‘Yeah,’ he said to Lovejoy. ‘Yeah OK.’ Then he looked across at Amber and said, ‘Will you come too?’

  She half-smiled in absolute relief. ‘Yes,’ she said, putting her hand over her son’s where it rested on the rock. ‘Absolutely.’

  Then she looked up and found Lovejoy watching, the bright blue sea and cloudless sky behind him. ‘Thanks,’ she mouthed and he gave a quiet nod in return.