Indian Summer Page 6

  He pulled back her chair, helping her into her jacket, barely touching her, but his proximity was disturbing, exciting. She suspected that each would be waiting for the other to give way and she feared that it would not be Jake.

  This time Kit remains silent for so long that Mungo speaks at last.

  ‘And did you?’ he asks.

  She shakes her head. ‘It never happened. One of his little girls fell ill and he flew back to Paris before either of us could weaken.’

  ‘And did you stay in touch after that?’

  ‘I wanted to but he wouldn’t. I would have taken anything he could have given me but he refused. Only a birthday card every year. He never forgot.’

  ‘And now,’ says Mungo shrewdly, ‘with Madeleine dead he would like to come back into your life and you’re feeling just a tad resentful about it.’

  She looks at him and begins to laugh. ‘That’s exactly it. Irrational, isn’t it?’

  ‘But very human. You don’t want to give the impression that you’ve been sitting around waiting for him all these years.’ A pause. ‘Have you?’

  ‘Nobody ever measured up,’ she answers sadly. ‘Once or twice I thought it might be the real thing.’

  ‘Yes,’ Mungo says feelingly. ‘We all remember those moments.’

  She begins to laugh. ‘I feel such a fool, Mungo. Why can’t I be grown-up and adult like everyone else?’

  ‘Oh, don’t, sweetie. You’re so much more fun than everyone else. So now I want to hear properly about Jake. Not just the storyline. I want details. You’ve always been such a dark horse about him. We need some coffee and a good natter.’

  Kit puts the car into gear. ‘I still love him but I don’t want to make it too easy. And anyway, it’s a huge thing. It could be a complete disaster. I don’t know how to start.’

  ‘You haven’t answered his letter?’

  ‘Not yet. I might let you read it. Just to be sure I’m not reading more into it than there is.’

  ‘Only if you’re absolutely certain. First things first. No more secrecy. I need to know all about Jake.’

  CHAPTER FOUR

  THE CAFÉ IS busy with a party of walkers who are occupying several tables. They look happy and healthy in their shorts and boots; calling to one another, joking and laughing. Mungo leads the way down the steps into the bar. It is quieter here, only one family at a corner table, and he leaves Kit to settle Mopsa on her rug on the sofa while he goes to order the coffee.

  He is glad to have a moment to reflect on all that Kit has told him. He is rather surprised to find that he feels quite jealous of this Jake: that he might come suddenly into their lives and change the relationship that he, Mungo, shares with Kit. He adores Kit – and he wants her to be happy, of course he does – but how could it possibly be the same with a third person? No more intimate suppers and lazy mornings planning the day ahead. No more curling up on the sofa together to watch an old film on a wet Sunday afternoon. No more jaunts in the car. The old truism: three’s a crowd. He knows that he has the power to affect Kit’s decision. Like Izzy before her, Kit is unsure of herself when it comes to relationships and he can see how he might direct the way forward to his own advantage. Even as he stands there waiting, in his head he is writing the dialogue that might influence Kit. Guiltily he is aware that his Machiavellian tendencies – which made him such a good director, he reminds himself – are coming to the fore just as they did with the Awful Michael and he feels the old sizzle of excitement: a gut-clenching challenge.

  He turns to survey the scene and his attention is immediately gripped by a couple standing together talking. Perhaps it is because he is already hyped up that the director in him responds to them at once. They stand close, but not too close, and he can see that the man is barely able to restrain himself from touching the girl. This is good theatre and something he liked to use in love scenes to raise the tension. ‘Don’t touch each other,’ he’d shout. ‘Make us see that you want to but don’t do it!’ The man leans towards the girl, talking very quietly, very intensely, and she listens, arms crossed tightly across her breast, her eyes shut. Her body language shows that she is resisting him – but only just. She’s a pretty girl with short, very dark hair, denim shorts and a halter top. He’s attractive, too. He has a lean, taut look in his faded jeans and cotton shirt: very tanned, tough.

  Mungo watches, fascinated. Not lovers, he thinks. Not yet. But they want to be. His eyes flick to the table beside them. A baby is asleep in a little carrying chair. Her rosy face is peaceful, starfish hands outstretched; a soft toy, a pink plush cat, rests on her chest. At the table a little boy is sitting, drinking a milkshake through a straw. He might be four or five years old, his face is very serious; beneath the table his legs dangle, ankles crossed, feet swinging. The man and the woman stand slightly behind him but the little boy is not aware of them: he is watching Kit.

  Mungo orders coffee, two Americanos, and goes to sit beside her on the long leather sofa. She sits gazing at nothing in particular and he sees that her thoughts are all inwards; she is still thinking about Jake. He is consumed with curiosity to know more of this man about whom she has always been so cagey; this Jake, who was the love of her life but who left her. Even Izzy could never persuade Kit to talk much about Jake. It’s as if he is still too important to be discussed lightly. Mungo gives her a little friendly nudge.

  ‘Come on then,’ he says. ‘New readers start here. Tell me all about Jake.’

  Joe drinks his milkshake slowly, savouring it, making it last. He was amazed to see the lady from the lane, who looked like a witch or a princess, come walking in with her little dog. In her jeans and long loose shirt she doesn’t look like a witch or a princess but he knows it’s the same lady and the same dog. The dog is a rather untidy person, with big dark round eyes, and he watches as it is lifted on to a rug on the sofa, where it turns round and round as if it is making a nest before it settles down. He wonders what the dog’s name is and he looks again at the lady who seems to be in a dream, not noticing anything but sitting stroking the little dog and staring at nothing.

  He glances up at Mummy, who is saying goodbye to Marcus, who is Daddy’s friend. He’d been out walking on Haytor, too. Mummy put Dora in a sling on her back and they walked right up to the top where you could see for miles and miles. He was climbing the rocks when Mummy called out, ‘Oh, look. There’s Marcus.’ She went down a little way to meet him and they stood talking together until he shouted: ‘Look at me!’ and they turned and waved at him standing on the rock.

  ‘Well done,’ Marcus shouted back to him, and he felt pleased and proud of himself, balancing on the high rock.

  Then they all walked down to the car park together and Marcus said, ‘What about a nice cold drink? I bet a milkshake would go down well after that climb.’ So they’d come in to this café. Dora was asleep but Marcus bought him a milkshake and told him about the zoo at Sparkwell where there is a lion and a bear.

  ‘Perhaps we should go?’ Mummy said. She was all bright and sparkly and excited about going to the zoo. ‘Dora would like to see the bear.’

  ‘So would I,’ he said at once. ‘I’d like to see the bear.’

  Then, when Marcus said he must be going and stood up, Mummy got up as well very quickly.

  ‘Oh, by the way,’ she said, and they moved slightly aside and began to talk, but he couldn’t hear what they were saying and just then the lady and the dog came in.

  Now he reaches out and tugs Mummy’s top and she turns quickly and smiles at him but not as if she’s really seeing him, and as she turns back to Marcus he has the old anxious feeling again. So he joggles Dora’s chair and she wakes up and starts to grizzle and Mummy says goodbye to Marcus and hurries round to comfort her.

  ‘I was just asking Marcus if he’d like to come to the zoo with us,’ Mummy says. ‘You’d like that, wouldn’t you, Joe? It would be more fun.’

  And he doesn’t know quite what to say because it might be more fun. He’d be able
to do more things with Marcus there, like when Daddy’s home, but at the same time he feels that there’s something wrong.

  ‘I don’t know.’ He makes his face a bit sulky, a bit sad, because that always makes Mummy more ready to do what he wants.

  But now she looks a bit sulky and a bit sad too, and she says, ‘Well, we’ll see,’ rather crossly, so he says, ‘It would be nice if Marcus comes too,’ and she beams at him like she’s really happy again, which makes him feel better.

  He wants to stop talking about Marcus and the zoo, so he says: ‘I saw that lady over there in the lane this morning with her little dog. I thought she was a witch or a princess …’

  Mummy turns quickly to stare at the lady and she looks almost frightened.

  ‘What’s the matter?’ he asks anxiously. ‘She isn’t really a witch, is she?’

  ‘No, no, of course not,’ Mummy says. ‘I was just wondering who she is, if she really was in the lane.’

  ‘It was her,’ he insists. ‘It was very early and she was drinking something.’

  ‘Well, we’d better go home.’ Mummy gets her things together and picks Dora up, but she keeps her back to the lady and doesn’t look at her again.

  Mungo watches them go out. Although he’s fascinated by Kit’s word-picture of Jake he’s kept an eye on the little group. He sees the man leave and the small boy point at Kit and the woman’s quick, anxious glance round at them. He files these things away whilst he listens to Kit and tries to discover what it is she really wants. Does she really want Jake back, with all the disruption that would cause, or does she simply want to talk about the possibility without having any intention of doing anything about it? It is of some interest that her first reaction on receiving the letter was to flee.

  ‘You’d better read the letter,’ Kit is saying, ‘just in case I’m getting the wrong end of the stick.’

  ‘Is that likely?’ he asks. ‘I’m happy to read it as long as you don’t regret it afterwards. It’s such a personal thing, isn’t it?’

  He can’t help but think of Izzy. Like Kit with Jake, Izzy never really got over Ralph. She bounced from one disastrous love affair to the next, always looking for The One who might replace Ralph, who would carry her away to live happily ever after. Mungo watched over her, protected her, promoted her career so that her adoring public never knew the truth of it all. He’d never get away with it now: not with today’s media. Back then he was amongst the great and the good; able to pull strings and get the right people on his side. And, anyway, everyone loved Izzy: she was one of the first ‘national treasures’. It was as if there were a great web of conspiracy flung out to save her from herself: the ultimate romantic. Was he really Svengali to her Trilby? He can still remember standing in the wings listening to her singing ‘Send in the Clowns’ with the tears pouring down his cheeks.

  ‘Don’t ever leave me, darling,’ she’d say to him. ‘I can’t imagine ever managing without you.’

  She began to drink too much and her work suffered, and even then he tried to protect her, shoring her up in small, sustainable but very important little cameo parts, escorting her in public, making sure she had the right medical care. Ralph’s abandonment was the first step on that downward slope: Ralph, and then the secret agonizing premature birth of his stillborn child. The child was to have been the means of reconciliation; the magnet to draw Ralph back.

  ‘Someone must know where he is,’ she’d say. ‘He can’t hide for ever,’ and Mungo remained silent, still trying to protect her, wondering in the last resort if he could claim the child publicly as his own. Nobody would have been surprised – in fact, their adoring public would have been delighted – and part of him also longed for Ralph’s child. Meanwhile it must be kept secret, but oh, the anguish and the tears. And then she miscarried, all alone in her London flat, one cold March morning. She had a name ready for the baby if it should be a boy: Simon. It was Ralph’s second name.

  Afterwards, she watched other mothers and their babies with such longing, with such intensity, that Mungo feared for her reason. He persuaded her to go abroad, to Venice for a short holiday with another actor friend, and gradually aroused her interest in a new production of Sheridan’s The Rivals. He believed that Izzy would do well as Lydia Languish and encouraged her to audition for the part. Slowly she recovered, grew stronger, but she didn’t forget Simon. ‘He’d be two … five … starting school …’ She pondered on whether he would have looked like Ralph, still hoping that one day he would return. It required such patience to keep her focused, hold her steady, but soon it became clear that those sealed-in emotions for Ralph, her unused store of mother-love for his child, were beginning to distil into her work and touch it with genius.

  With difficulty Mungo wrenches his attention back to Kit.

  ‘I just don’t want people rolling their eyes and thinking “Here she goes again,” or stuff like that,’ she is saying. ‘I can just hear my dear brother on the subject, though he was very fond of Jake. I want time to really think about it. This is just between you and me, Mungo. I need a breathing space.’

  ‘Fine,’ he says. ‘That’s fine. So Jake doesn’t know where you are?’

  She shakes her head. ‘No idea. I could be abroad on holiday, for all he knows. There’s no way he could tell whether I’ve even had the letter yet.’

  ‘Well, I’ll read it if you want me to, sweetie.’

  ‘Not here, though.’ She picks up the cup and drinks her coffee. ‘I feel really weird after talking like that about Jake. It’s funny how you remember things you haven’t thought about for years.’

  ‘Yes,’ Mungo says sadly, still thinking about Izzy. She slipped away from him suddenly, light as a breath, now here, now gone. First Ralph, then the child, and then Izzy. He’s lost them all.

  ‘Shall we give Mopsa a little walk?’ asks Kit. ‘Do you think she’d make it up to the tor?’

  ‘She might, sweetie, but I’m not sure I would. It’s very hot out there.’

  Kit laughs. ‘Let’s give it a go. Then we’ll come back and I’ll buy you lunch.’

  His spirits rise a little; Kit can always cheer him up. Outside he glances around but there is no sign of the little family. Odd that they’ve captured his imagination: the intense young man, the small boy pointing at Kit, and the girl’s last hasty, worried glance. He longs to know their story, to create one around them, but Mopsa is tugging on her lead, anxious for the freedom of the moor, Kit seizes his arm and they all set out together in the bright sunshine.

  CHAPTER FIVE

  A WARM, STILL evening; the scent of the cut grass drifts and mixes with honeysuckle and meadowsweet and the moon is just visible in the pale sky. Swallows swoop and wheel in and out of the barn where their babies wait eagerly for those nourishing beakfuls of food, stoking up for the long journey ahead.

  Camilla, setting the table on the veranda outside the kitchen door, pauses to watch them. She’ll miss them when they go, despite the mess they make on her washing. She likes the way that the young from earlier broods are all helping to feed these last nestlings; a family at work together. Her sons and their families have been here during the summer; separately, overlapping, singly, in groups; the summer has been full of visitors – and she loves it. She loves to cook and nurture and entertain. Now she misses them just as she will miss the swallows. As the grandchildren grow older, and their lives grow busier with their own friends, visits to the valley aren’t the great treat they once were. They are outgrowing the toys and demanding more sophisticated entertainment, but at least the two eldest cousins, Ollie and Luke, love sailing, Annabel adores cooking, and Lucy can practise her flute without neighbours complaining.

  Camilla lights the candles in their prettily painted glass bowls. This veranda, with its slate floor, fluted stone pillars and glass roof, is perfect for summer evening entertaining. It looks out across the sloping lawn to the Horse Brook, slipping its shining way through the trees, and it is Camilla’s favourite summer place. Even in the
rain she will sit here planning: menus, spring bulbs, a present for a grandchild.

  The candles flicker and gleam as the daylight begins to fade; the moon grows brighter in the east. Camilla’s thoughts dwell briefly on her supper: roasted tomato, basil and parmesan quiche, beetroot salad with rocket for colour, a honey-roast ham. A jug of Pimm’s is in the fridge with several bottles of rosé and bowls of raspberries and meringues.

  She can hear voices. Mungo and Kit are with Archie in the hall and she hurries in to meet them. Tall, thin, elegant Archie is stooped in an embrace with Kit, who stands on tiptoe to hug him, and Camilla smiles at the sight of them. How different Mungo and Archie are, in almost every way possible. Serious, responsible Archie, working in his father’s law practice in Exeter from the moment he left university: imaginative, emotional Mungo, risking parental disapproval and security to follow his star. She loves Mungo’s gay friends and his girlfriends and, because nothing seems to get too serious for too long, her relationship with him has never been strained. He beams at her, opening his arms for a hug.

  ‘Are we on the veranda, Millie?’ he asks. ‘Oh, good. A perfect evening for it.’

  ‘Come and have a drink,’ she says. ‘How are you, Kit?’

  She senses that Kit is a tad stressed; a little bit tense.

  ‘It’s great to be here,’ Kit says, kissing her. ‘London is an oven.’

  Camilla takes the Pimm’s from the fridge. ‘I hope you don’t have to go dashing back?’

  Kit shakes her head. ‘I work very part time these days and anyway everything’s gone dead. People rushing away, hoping the hot weather will last. This late heat wave has taken everyone by surprise. So what’s new? How’s the family?’

  Camilla pours her a glass of Pimm’s. ‘They’ve all come down during the holidays and it’s been wonderful. I’m just rather sad to see all the children growing so fast. I do so love them when they’re small. Actually, we’ve let the cottage on a short-hold tenancy to a nice little family, did Mungo tell you? Not that he’s met them yet. Emma is the daughter of a friend of mine and her husband is an MO in the Royal Marines. He’s just gone back to Afghanistan for three months. She’s got two little ones, which is such fun. I thought of inviting her to supper but Archie wasn’t too keen. I think he wanted you all to himself.’