Summer at Shell Cottage (21 page)

He would not tell Mum, he had vowed, slinking into his bedroom and shutting the door.
He hoped Dad wouldn’t be too cross next time he saw him.
But then he’d forgotten all about the
phone call because Max sent him a message on his iPod –
Mum says you can come over to play
– and Leo was so keen to see Poppy again, that he’d dashed downstairs
at once.

But now it came back to him.
The choking sound Dad had made, the thump as if he was falling to the ground.
As if he was having a heart attack in his own home.
Everyone knew you could have a
heart attack if you were really, really angry, didn’t they?
‘Don’t have a heart attack, love,’ Mum had said sarcastically just the other day, when a driver had beeped and
shouted at her for not indicating to turn right at the traffic lights or something.

Two plus two.
Two plus two.
Leo had phoned up when he wasn’t supposed to – he had broken the rule – and Dad had been so furious with him that he’d had a heart attack and
died.
How did you get this number?
You mustn’t ring this number again!

Dad had died, and it was Leo’s fault.
Two plus two made four, and that was a fact.

Leo lay back on his bed, feeling sick with shame and fear.
He thought of the policeman who’d come in to talk at school last term, how he’d impressed on them that bad people always
got caught and thrown in jail.
‘Trust me, guys, you don’t want to end up in there,’ the policeman had said sternly, shaking his head.

Leo didn’t want to go to jail.
He didn’t want to leave Mum.
But what would she say when he told her?
She would hate him for the rest of her life!

His stomach twisted.
He couldn’t remember ever feeling so awful.
He could never tell Mum.
He could never tell anyone.

He gave a sob of anguish, and then, because he didn’t want Mum to hear him, he pulled the pillow over his head.
‘I’m sorry, Dad,’ he said, his voice cracking on the
words.
‘I’m so, so sorry.’

‘Morning!
And how are we today?
Here – thought you might like these.
Fresh from the allotment an hour or so ago and proper delicious too.
Shall I put a brew on,
then?
Oh.’
Gloria paused for breath.
‘Are you all right?’

In the maelstrom of torment of the evening before, Olivia had somehow forgotten about Gloria, her unorthodox new cleaner.
Yet here she was, thrusting a Tupperware box brimful of scarlet
strawberries into Olivia’s hands, taking two steps into the hallway then stopping dead to look suspiciously at her.

Olivia, clutching the strawberry box and gaping like a grounded fish, became conscious of two things at the same time: firstly, that she was still wearing her nightie, had no make-up on, and
unbrushed hair.
And secondly, that Gloria did not seem particularly au fait with the concept of discretion, and it would probably be all round the village by the afternoon that Olivia Tarrant was
having a nervous breakdown.
She wished fervently that she hadn’t answered the door in the first place but the house was empty and Gloria had pressed her finger on the bell for such a long
time, shouting, ‘Cooeee?
Anyone in?’
through the letterbox, that Olivia couldn’t bear it a second longer.

In contrast to Olivia’s dowdy night attire, Gloria looked ready for anything, wearing a faded denim jacket slung over a cerise-pink sundress.
She had a vivid streak of turquoise eyeshadow
shimmering on each eyelid and parrot-feather earrings swinging from her ears.
She was gazing closely at Olivia with those toffee-coloured eyes, clearly wondering why this well-spoken woman
(‘posh’ she probably called her) was still undressed at eleven o’clock in the morning.

‘Thank you,’ Olivia forced herself to say.
‘I’m fine.
How kind of you, these look delicious.’
Alec had loved strawberries, she found herself thinking, then was
pierced by a sudden memory springing unbidden to mind: of being newly-weds and lying on a picnic blanket in a cornfield, feeding each other plump, juicy strawberries under a cloudless blue sky,
bare legs companionably entwined.
Had he fed strawberries to Katie, too?
Placed them on her lips and watched her small white teeth bite through the flesh?

Stop.
Just stop.
‘Let me make you a cup of tea,’ she said briskly, walking ahead into the kitchen, trying not to think about how dreadful her bed-hair must look from behind.
Olivia Tarrant, just pull yourself together, for goodness’ sake.
She thought of her mother: a woman who, until her dying day, had always been fully made-up and perfumed, a woman who
would have refused, even if faced with a firing squad, to allow any person outside the family to ever glimpse her in nightwear.
She was a woman who’d lived through falling bombs, rationing,
poverty and her beloved brother dying on a battlefield in Normandy.
She wouldn’t have caved in to misery like Olivia; she’d have kept her head up, her powder dry, and come out
fighting.

Olivia found herself standing a little straighter, spine stiffened.
‘I thought perhaps you could tackle the bedrooms and upstairs bathrooms today,’ she said to Gloria, with a new,
resilient so-what-if-I-
am
-in-my-nightie?
set to her shoulders.
‘You’ll have to take us as you find us, I’m afraid – the children are rather messy but they
are
on holiday, so we don’t feel we can be too strict with them.’

She was getting out the tea things when Gloria touched her on the arm.
‘Look, love, tell me to mind my own business but .
.
.
are you sure you’re all right?
Only .
.
.’
Her
voice trailed away, uncharacteristically uncertain.

Never explain, never apologize
, Olivia reminded herself.
And never, ever, show weakness.
‘I’m fine,’ she replied.
‘Do you take sugar?’

The shower must have been piped straight from a spring of magical healing water that morning, because when Olivia emerged from its drenching, she felt miraculously better, as
if her dreadful night’s sleep was but a distant memory.
She smoothed scented body lotion into her skin and dressed in a crisp white blouse with short sleeves and a broderie anglaise trim,
teamed with a cream linen skirt.
Then she blow-dried her hair for the first time since she’d arrived in Devon so that it fell into a neat silvery bob, and carefully applied mascara and a
touch of lip gloss.
There.
The old Olivia was back, in the mirror at least, if not quite in spirit.

The question now was what to do with the rest of the day.
She’d vaguely heard voices and doors earlier that morning, and remembered Robert saying something about a kayaking trip.
Libby had
tapped tentatively at her bedroom door at one point – ‘Granny.
Granny?’
– and Olivia, aware that she hadn’t been the most doting grandmother of late, had opened her
mouth to reply when she heard Freya hissing that they shouldn’t disturb her, that they should leave her to sleep.
Soon afterwards, the front door banged shut and then she’d heard one
car drive away, followed by the other.
They were long gone now, wherever they were.

The house already smelled of fresh air, hot hoover and cleaning spray as Olivia made her way downstairs, her hand sliding lightly down the old wooden banister.
A montage of images turned in her
mind: of all the times she’d walked up and down this staircase over the decades, first as a young bride with pink cheeks and a shy smile, and then through all the stages of wife, mother,
granny, and now, finally, old widow.
She remembered tinsel threaded through the wooden struts of this staircase during the Christmases when the children were tiny then lengths of ivy and white
fairy lights as her taste grew more refined.
She had carried drowsy babies up and down these stairs, soft, warm heads lolling against her shoulder.
She had herded sandy toddlers up to the bath,
wincing at the debris left in their wake, and stood at the bottom, hands on hips, calling up during the teenage years that it was eleven o’clock and a glorious day Freya and Robert absolutely
had to get up right
now
, otherwise she was coming up there to drag them out!
(Kind of ironic, when she was the one emerging bedraggled and unkempt this morning at eleven o’clock, but
never mind.
That was the circle of life, she supposed.)

Olivia wandered out into the garden, feeling at a loss for what to do with herself.
All dressed up and nowhere to go, she thought, slipping into her deckchair again and folding her hands in her
lap.
She didn’t feel like reading or swimming or walking today; she couldn’t face tackling the garden or baking anything for afternoon tea.
She certainly wasn’t about to start
wading through Alec’s final manuscript for his editor, as she’d half promised.
Why should she do him any favours now?

She leaned back, feeling every single minute of her years: the permanent ache in her lower back, the click of her knees and, when her gaze fell to them, the liver spots on her hands.
I’m getting old
, she thought.
Sixty next year and before she knew it, she’d have turned into one of those bitter, shrewish old biddies, telling children off in the street and
writing letters of complaint in green ink to the local newspaper.
The sort of woman that the rest of society ignores, barging past in a hurry too busy to notice.

She glared up at the sky.
And it’ll be your fault, Alec.
It’s you who’s driven me to this.
Are you happy now?

She must have dozed off again because it seemed like no time had passed until she became dimly aware of the scent of Marlboro and that citrus-scented perfume Gloria seemed to
favour.
‘Mrs T?
Olivia?
I’m off now.
All done.’

Olivia opened her eyes blearily to see Gloria before her, cat-eye sunglasses on even though the sky was quite overcast.
She sat up a little straighter (not easy in a deckchair), feeling
self-conscious to have been caught napping in the middle of the day.
Gloria must think she was such a feeble old thing.
‘Thank you,’ she said, realizing that her knees had splayed
outwards while she dozed, and pulling them tightly together.
She gave a little nod, meaning
You are now dismissed
but Gloria didn’t budge.

‘I was just wondering .
.
.
Well.
We haven’t actually talked about money yet.’

‘Oh.
Yes.
You’re right.
Sorry about that.’
She tried to remember what they’d paid Katie but Alec had always taken care of that.
Payment in kind
, she thought,
flushing.
‘Er .
.
.’

Gloria named a figure that she received for another cleaning job with a questioning shrug.
It was considerably less than Olivia paid the domestic help agency for Maria, her Filipino girl, so she
nodded.
‘Fine.
No problem.
If you could come to us Monday, Wednesday and Friday for a few hours each time, that would be marvellous.
Nine thirty in the morning?’
She would make sure she
was up and presentable next time, she vowed.

Gloria was still hovering.
‘So .
.
.
about the money, then .
.
.’
she said expectantly.

‘Ahh.
You want paying now?
Right.’
She had brought her handbag outside with her – you couldn’t be too careful these days – and dipped a hand in to find her purse.
‘Here,’ she said, counting out the notes.
‘Thank you.’

‘Thank
you
.’
Gloria tucked the money into a small silver purse which had sequins falling off one corner.
‘Well, I’ll be off then.’
She hesitated.
‘Left you on your own, did they?
The family?’

Olivia shrugged.
‘They’ve gone out in boats, I think.
I was .
.
.
tired.’

Gloria pushed her sunglasses off her nose and up into her hair.
‘Got any plans?
I was going to go for a bit of a spin, spend some of my hard-earned wages.’
She held up the purse then
shoved it into her jacket pocket.
‘Come with me if you like.’

The suggestion was so unexpected, Olivia found herself floundering for a polite way to say no.
‘Well .
.
.’

‘You ever been to the Lobster Pot on Ennisbridge beach?
Only opened a month ago and they do the best lobster burgers you’ve ever tasted.’
She kissed the tips of her fingers
theatrically.
‘The owner’s a mate of mine, he’ll give us a discount if we ask nicely.’

Olivia was partial to lobster although she couldn’t remember ever trying a lobster
burger.
It was just the sort of thing Alec would have turned his nose up at, she thought .
.
.
which promptly made her mind up.
‘Yes, all right,’ she said.
Why not?
She had nothing else lined up to while away the hours.
She levered herself up from the chair, feeling an unfamiliar
thump of excitement at her own daring.
‘Let’s go.’

Not five minutes into the journey through the winding lanes of south Devon and Olivia was fearing for her life.
Gloria was a wild and reckless driver, careering round blind
corners without turning a hair let alone changing down a gear, loud music blaring all the while.
What a way to end her life this would be, Olivia thought despairingly as Gloria stamped on the brake
to make an emergency stop when they flew round another bend to find a trundling tractor in their path.
What would the children say if they received a visit from a policeman later that day –
Very sorry to inform you .
.
.
passenger in a silver Mini, driven by a lunatic, slammed into a tree when the driver lost control, both died at the scene .
.
.

‘You okay, there?
You’ve gone very quiet,’ Gloria bellowed over the racket.
(Even calling the noise ‘music’ was stretching things in Olivia’s mind.)

The fear must have been naked in her passenger’s eyes because Gloria abruptly switched off the stereo – thank goodness – and took her foot off the accelerator a fraction.
‘It’s my driving, isn’t it?’
she chuckled.
‘Sorry, love.
Do you want me to stop?
You look as if you’re about to chunder.’