Summer With My Sister (36 page)

What should she wear? Most of her clothes were still boxed up in her parents’ garage, but she’d brought a few nice things with her to Clare’s, on the off-chance she’d get to wear them again. Her red sparkly Karen Millen dress, maybe? No. It was too over-the-top for anywhere round here. She’d last worn that at the office Christmas party last year, when she’d got completely hammered on tequilas.

How about the vintage-style peacock-blue dress with a full Fifties skirt? She had some great heels that went perfectly with it, but again, it was perhaps too much. What if Jay appeared looking as scruffy as he had done both times she’d seen him so far? She’d feel completely overdressed.

Rummage, rummage . . . what else did she have? It was like sorting through someone else’s collection of clothes, it had been so long since she’d worn anything pretty. There was the dusky pink Jigsaw maxi-dress that she’d worn to the Summer Ball last year . . . No. It was too long for her and she didn’t want to go stumbling arse-over-tit tonight, thank you.

‘Wow, are these all yours, Aunty Polly?’ came Leila’s voice just then. She was standing in the doorway, eyes wide at the sight of her aunt surrounded by so many colourful clothes.

‘Yes, I’m trying to decide what to wear tonight,’ Polly replied. ‘Come and help me.’

Leila picked her way across the floor. Alex’s bedroom looked unrecognizable now, with designer outfits draped all over his alien duvet and across the threadbare carpet, like an Aladdin’s cave of eveningwear. ‘Whoa, I like this colour,’ she said, picking up a deep-purple silk blouse with a long, looping bow at the neck. ‘Dunno about that ribbony bit, though. Too girly. Nah.’ She began sorting through a pile of dresses. ‘Don’t you have any trousers?’ she asked. ‘Or shorts?’

‘Ye-e-e-s,’ Polly replied. ‘But I was thinking a dress or skirt might be smarter.’ She cocked her head to look at her niece, who looked distinctly unimpressed at this answer. ‘You’re not a fan of dressing up, are you? I can tell.’

‘Ugh,’ Leila said. ‘I hate dresses and skirts. You can’t do gymnastics properly in a skirt, everyone can see your knickers.’ Then she looked pained, as if a thought had just struck her. ‘I mean, well . . . like, sometimes people have sent me really nice dresses for my birthday and that . . .’

Aha. ‘Leila,’ Polly said. ‘Remind me: did
I
send you a dress for your last birthday?’

Leila nodded, eyes down as if she was worried she’d just put her foot right in it.

‘Was it really really horrible?’ Polly asked. ‘It’s okay, you can tell me.’

Leila caught her aunt’s amused eye and nodded again. ‘It was
frilly
,’ she said with a shudder. No other words were needed.

Polly felt a pang of guilt that she’d never bothered to find out if her niece would actually
like
a horrible, frilly dress, before blithely telling Jake, her former assistant, to order her one. How rubbish was that? She hadn’t had a clue, just as she’d known nothing about Alex, Clare, her parents even. She’d shunned them all, when they’d turned out to be the nicest people you could want to know. The years she’d spent cut adrift seemed a horrible waste of time all of a sudden. ‘I promise I’ll never buy you another stupid frilly dress ever again, okay?’ she said, with a catch in her voice. ‘Not unless you ask for one.’

‘Well, that is
never
going to happen,’ Leila said confidently. Then she grinned. ‘I’d really like a hamster, though . . .’

Polly laughed and gave her a hug. ‘Would you now,’ she said. She sat back on her heels, surveying the mass of clothes once more, then pulled out a crumpled mint-green shift dress from the bottom of one of the cases, which still had the price tag in the back. Two hundred quid it had cost in Selfridges – and that was the sale price. When she thought how hard she’d worked to earn a measly sixty pounds from the pub that week, it made her want to throttle her former spendaholic self.

‘Hmmm, I like the colour,’ Leila said generously. ‘But you couldn’t wear it with jeans, could you?’

‘No, you couldn’t wear it with jeans,’ Polly agreed sagely. ‘But do you know what?’ she went on, ‘I’ve worn nothing
but
jeans lately. I’m really sick of jeans. So I think this will do the trick for tonight.’ Bubbles of excitement began popping inside her as she got to her feet. ‘To the ironing board, and don’t spare the horses!’

At eight o’clock there was a knock on the door and Polly felt besieged with nerves. She’d showered and shaved her legs. She’d ironed the dress and zipped herself into it. She’d dug out a simple silver necklace and a pair of high-heeled sandals and had pivoted uncertainly in front of the mirror in the full outfit, with both Leila and Clare assuring her that the ensemble worked, even without jeans. Then she’d blow-dried her hair, made up her face and spritzed herself with some of Clare’s perfume. She felt
great
.

‘Hi,’ she said answering the door to Jay. ‘I’ll just grab my bag.’

He’d scrubbed up pretty well too, it had to be said. Gone was the stubble, gone were the tatty clothes and Converse. Instead he was wearing dark jeans and a short-sleeved red shirt. Something about his tanned, muscular arms covered in dark hair gave her goose-bumps. Memory Lane was becoming a more appealing destination by the minute.

‘Oh,’ came Leila’s disgruntled voice from behind her just then. ‘Aunty Polly, you’re not going out with
him
, are you?’

‘He’s in Mum’s bad books,’ Alex said with relish. He and Leila were both perched on the stairs in their pyjamas, looking thoroughly delighted by the prospect of a soap opera unfolding before their eyes. ‘She said . . .’

‘Yes, all right, you two,’ Clare said, hearing their voices and bustling through the hallway. ‘That’s ancient history now. Jay and I sorted the whole thing out ages ago.’

‘But you said you were going to kill him,’ Alex said.

‘Chloe in my class is
still
going on about it,’ Leila said, folding her arms across her chest.

Polly looked from their stern, disapproving faces to Jay’s uncomfortable expression, feeling as if she’d missed something.

‘I can explain everything,’ he said, as much to the children as to Polly. Then he addressed them directly. ‘Did your mum
really
say she was going to kill me?’

‘Too right I did,’ Clare said. ‘But anyway. Don’t let us hold you up. Come on, kids, let’s go and brush your teeth. Have a good time, Polly, but don’t buy any second-hand goods from this man, whatever you do. Bye!’

Chapter Twenty

Polly’s mouth fell open as she stared up the stairs after them. ‘What the hell,’ she murmured, turning back to Jay, ‘was all that about?’

Jay held up his hands. ‘A completely legitimate misunderstanding,’ he said. ‘I swear! Come on, let’s get out of here, before the reinforcements turn up; I’ll explain in the car. You look great, by the way.’

‘Thanks. You’re not looking bad yourself. Proper shoes and everything – I’m flattered.’ She snatched up her handbag, then shut the door behind her, feeling jittery. It was just a
drink
, she reminded herself. Just a drink and a chat, nothing else on the agenda. But all the same, her and Jay, out on the town together again? Who would have predicted
that
?

Her phone beeped and she checked the text surreptitiously as she walked down the front path.
Have fun + see you 2moro. I won’t wait up! C x

Not waiting up? They were only going for a drink, for goodness’ sake.

Ha-ha
, she texted back quickly.
Prob back by 9, having driven each other mental x

‘Everything all right?’ Jay asked. He was waiting in the road by a battered old Land Rover, with mud liberally sprayed across its lower half. Cinderella’s golden coach it was not.

‘Yeah, sure,’ she said. She raised an eyebrow. ‘Borrowed this from one of the farmers, did you?’

He put a protective hand on the bonnet. ‘Oi. This is a classic, thank you very much.’

A classic old wreck
, she was about to scoff, but stopped herself, noticing the hurt look on his face. Oops. ‘It’s lovely,’ she said demurely instead.

He laughed. ‘You hate it, don’t you? Not your style at all. I should have brought the company Beamer along instead, just for you. Then again, I don’t want to get drunk and plough it into a hedge.’

She clapped a hand over her mouth, remembering him doing just that with his dad’s Toyota, three days after he’d passed his driving test. ‘Oh my God! I’d forgotten about that. Very naughty. Weren’t you grounded for about a year?’

‘It felt like it at the time.’ He opened the passenger door for her and walked around to the driver’s seat. ‘He’s just about forgiven me now.’

She clambered inside and fumbled with her seatbelt, suddenly conscious of the small, contained space they were now in. She could smell his spicy aftershave and the distinct pong of wet dog coming from an old red blanket in the back. ‘I hope your driving’s a bit better these days,’ she teased. She felt safer taking the piss out of him than actually talking about anything serious.

‘Nah, still crap,’ he said, starting the engine. ‘You’re literally taking your life in your hands now, you know. You all right with that?’

‘Well, I used to work in the risk industry,’ she told him archly. ‘I’ve never been scared to take a gamble.’

‘That’s lucky then,’ he said accelerating away. ‘Because tonight feels like one of those nights when anything could happen.’

She didn’t know what to make of that. ‘Oh yeah?’ she said breezily. ‘I knew I should have worn wellies.’

‘There’s a spare scuba-diving set in the boot,’ he said. ‘And I took the liberty of packing a tent.’

She laughed. She was starting to feel a bit giddy. ‘Where
are
we going?’ she said. ‘Don’t tell me it’s The Green Man in Amberley, otherwise I might have to perform an emergency stop and get out of this old banger. I mean, out of your extremely nice car.’

‘Damn,’ he said. ‘I’ll just cancel that booking I made for the table for two near the skittles alley, then . . .’ He glanced sideways at her, then back at the road. ‘Not really,’ he went on. ‘Actually, I’m a bit pubbed out, if you know what I mean. I spend half my time driving round them, it feels like a busman’s holiday when I go there in the evening as well.’

‘Fair enough,’ she said. ‘So . . . ?’

‘So I’ve had a better idea,’ he said mysteriously. ‘You didn’t seem all that thrilled about being back in the countryside when we met in the meadow that day, so I thought I’d remind you just what a gorgeous place Hampshire is.’

Oh. What did that mean? Were they going on some kind of hideous evening hike? Polly’s heart sank as she looked down at her shoes. Her gorgeous high-heeled shoes, which were totally impractical when it came to countryside walks of any description. ‘Er . . .
should
I have worn wellies?’ she hazarded.

A smile twitched at his lips. ‘You’ll be all right,’ he said, as they left the village behind.

They talked about trivia for twenty minutes or so, including, at last, an explanation of Leila’s reaction to Jay at the front door earlier. ‘I swear on my life I didn’t know the bike was nicked,’ he said, thumping the steering wheel for emphasis. ‘I swear! I got it from a mate’s brother. I thought he was a decent bloke – honest. I felt so shitty when Clare harangued me about it the next day. Right in the middle of the street, as well.’

‘Oh dear,’ Polly said, trying not to laugh. ‘She can be quite ferocious, can’t she, when she’s in a bad mood.’

‘Tell me about it,’ he said, and groaned. ‘That kid of hers – Leila, is it? She’s never going to let me forget it, is she?’

‘Never,’ Polly replied confidently.

Jay indicated to turn off the main road. ‘Not far now.’

Polly frowned, trying to orient herself. They were driving along a dirt track through woodland, with a swollen, bosomy hill straight ahead. ‘I think I’ve been here before,’ she said, scrolling through her brain, trying to locate the memory.

‘You have,’ he said, then slowed and steered into a small deserted car park. ‘Don’t you remember?’ He cut the engine and Polly could hear the wind rustling through the leafy trees all around them.