Kitabı oku: «A Summer to Remember»

Contents

Cover

Title Page

Copyright

Dedication

Prologue

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Chapter Eleven

Chapter Twelve

Chapter Thirteen

Chapter Fourteen

Chapter Fifteen

Chapter Sixteen

Chapter Seventeen

Chapter Eighteen

Chapter Nineteen

Chapter Twenty

Chapter Twenty-One

Chapter Twenty-Two

Chapter Twenty-Three

Chapter Twenty-Four

Chapter Twenty-Five

Chapter Twenty-Six

Chapter Twenty-Seven

Chapter Twenty-Eight

Epilogue

Acknowledgements

Keep Reading …

About the Author

About the Publisher

Prologue
Six years ago

At the front of Thornham church, best man Aaron stood beside his bridegroom brother, Lee, who gently vibrated with nerves. The church organist floated background music onto the still summer air above the congregation, the vicar looked thoughtful, and they all awaited the bride, Alice.

Lee was welcome to high-maintenance Princess Alice, spoiled to death by her long-widowed mother, Sally, Aaron thought. Personally, he preferred her down-to-earth, brightly intelligent cousin Clancy, the only bridesmaid Alice had wanted. To joke Lee out of his obvious state of nerves he leaned in close to murmur, ‘I hope all the stories about the best man and bridesmaid are true, by the way.’

Lee managed a smile. ‘Your tongue’s been hanging out since last weekend.’

‘Guilty.’ Aaron had been in a constant state of awareness since Clancy had hopped out of her car, one that looked too red and sporty for the tiny Norfolk village of Nelson’s Bar.

‘Alice and Clancy’s mums are identical twins.’ Lee moved the conversation to his favourite subject: Alice. ‘It’s why the girls look more like sisters than cousins.’

It was true that they shared chestnut hair and green eyes, but, as Aaron was quick to point out, ‘They’re really different personalities.’ He and Clancy had been flirting all week, sharing jokes about the pre-wedding hoopla, and after last night’s rehearsal dinner hosted by Aaron’s parents at De Silva House, the flirting had culminated in a long, deep, hot kiss in the dark reaches of the garden. Her body, wedged against his, had driven him crazy as she nibbled along his jawline. Then Lee had come looking for him with some annoying best-man task – there seemed to be thousands – and Clancy had made a silent-scream face, before whispering, ‘Tomorrow. After the wedding.’

Aaron could not wait for this wedding to be over …

A stir at the back of the church and the vicar in his white robes stepped forward expectantly. Finally! Aaron turned, his gaze filled with the sight of Clancy Moss walking up the aisle towards him, her dress of muted green flowing around her like water.

He began to smile … until, beside him, Lee made a strangled noise of distress. Then Aaron realised that everything about the picture Clancy made was wrong. She scurried instead of taking stately, bridesmaid steps. There was no bouquet. No bride. And no answering smile as she arrived breathlessly in front of the vicar.

She glanced at Aaron, before laying her hand on his brother’s arm, her voice shaking with emotion. ‘I’m sorry, Lee. I can’t find Alice. Her mum had left for the church and Alice and I both went to our rooms for last-minute things but … when I looked for her, her wedding dress was back on its hanger. And her car was gone.’

Aaron swung around to look at his brother.

And Lee crumbled right before his eyes.

Chapter One
Now

Clancy had driven for three hours and it felt like someone else’s hands on the steering wheel. Someone dream-driving her BMW away from London and the apartment in Chalk Farm she’d shared with Will. She hadn’t paused for a cup of coffee or a comfort break, not wanting to leave the car unattended. It was stuffed with her possessions and she’d lost so much she just couldn’t lose anything else.

Now she took a left from the A149 at the sign for Nelson’s Bar, which might sound like a pub but was named for Horatio, Lord Nelson, born along the coast in Burnham Thorpe. The bar of land on which the village stood bisected the salt marshes as it thrust out to sea.

The car purred through a belt of pinewood, the land rising like a ski slope until she burst out into sunlight, feeling for an instant as if all she could see was blue sky. Then the road plunged and cornered between two hedgerows. And she was there.

She drew up at the side of Long Lane and switched off the engine. Silence. Through a smeared windscreen she gazed at the homes peeping at her over hedges clothed in early summer green.

Nelson’s Bar. She’d been here only once before, for the week of Alice’s wedding – or not-wedding, as it turned out – but Roundhouse Row was just as she remembered it. Alice and Lee had lived in number one, the Roundhouse itself, a cylinder of white and red chalk stone with an occasional accent of flint, wearing its conical terracotta roof like a hat with windows.

Clancy climbed from the car and stretched. The salt-scented breeze filled her lungs so easily that it was as if a giant rubber band had dropped from around her chest.

She clicked open the garden gate and fished out the Roundhouse key. It turned smoothly and her footsteps echoed on worn red quarry tiles as she stepped inside the enclosed porch and then through the inner door. She paused to take in the ground floor, its central staircase cradled by hefty oak beams and posts.

Almost as the front door clunked shut behind her she caught the opening of the door in the opposite wall. ‘Hello?’ called a man’s voice, and Aaron De Silva rounded the stairs, dark curls longer than she remembered and tousled around his face, the line of his jaw shaded more heavily with stubble, T-shirt and jeans speckled with grass clippings.

Six-plus years shrank to nothing.

He stopped short. ‘Clancy?’ He sounded stunned.

Silent seconds passed and Clancy was aware of more between them than the empty floor space. One fevered kiss. One blazing row. Years of carefully polite emails.

Aaron blinked. ‘Am I supposed to understand what’s going on? Your last email said you had someone for the caretaker job. Did you feel the need to escort her here personally?’ He glanced behind her, as if expecting to see another person.

She had to strangle a laugh at his almost comical expression of dismay. ‘No.’ She made her voice firm. ‘Because I’m taking the job myself. I need a change of scene.’

His dark brows snapped together. ‘You?’ There was nothing comical about his expression now. It was more … horrified.

The urge to laugh vanished. Instead, Clancy suddenly felt clammy and unsteady. She blinked to clear her vision. Maybe her earlier dream-like sensations had been something to do with a failure to eat today. And possibly yesterday. She swallowed and her voice sank to a whisper. ‘Sorry. I should have checked with you.’ She tried to think of somewhere else she could go but her thoughts refused to co-operate. She’d found herself struggling with decisions recently. That’s what the others at IsVid had said, Monty, Asila, Tracey – even Will. It was the shock. She wasn’t functioning, they’d told her in varying degrees of kindness when she’d risen in the middle of a meeting with a client and gone home. In Monty’s opinion it had constituted ‘a breakdown’ and he’d wanted her to get psychiatric help.

Enraged, she’d snapped a refusal. ‘I simply recognised the reaching of a personal limit. I’ve emailed the client and apologised. They understand.’

‘And what did you think you were doing when you sent out that newsletter making your personal relationship with Will public? It made us a laughing stock,’ Monty had thundered on.

Clancy had hardly been able to believe her ears. ‘Don’t you think what Will did and your shitty, callous reaction was more to the point? I know IsVid is important to you, Monty, but don’t I deserve any support?’

Asila and Tracey had tried to cut across Monty’s reply, beginning a gentler conversation about whether Clancy should take time out. She closed her eyes, remembering how Monty had brushed them aside with, ‘Frankly, I’m not sure how we can go on working together after your chaotic reaction to what’s happened, Clancy.’

As the others had fallen silent Clancy had gasped, ‘You want me to leave?’ Will had stood by, looking haunted, but hadn’t contradicted Monty. And neither had Asila or Tracey, though their eyes had filled with compassion. The scene had grown ugly with rage and pain, and Clancy had stormed home. Except that it was no longer home. It was an apartment she’d shared for three years with Will and where she’d spent untold hours planning the wedding they’d now never have with its colour theme of grey and duck-egg blue. She’d already agreed to move out.

Then Aaron’s email had arrived on her phone with a ting!

Clancy,

Did you get my message about the caretaker at the cottages? In case it went astray:

Evelyn, who’s lived at the Roundhouse in exchange for administering the two tenanted cottages and servicing the three holiday lets has left suddenly and we need to fill her position.

Shall I advertise?

Aaron

The relief had been astronomical. Without questioning the wisdom of her impulsive action, the fact that she’d parted from Aaron on bad terms and had never been back to Nelson’s Bar, her reply had flown from her typing fingers.

I know someone who wants the job with the accommodation, which will save you the bother of advertising. She’ll arrive tomorrow.

Clancy

For the past six years, since Alice had jilted Lee and Aaron had bought Lee out of the property, she’d looked after Alice’s half of Roundhouse Row with a tiny fragment of her capabilities. A part-time caretaking job would be a breeze; a summer in Norfolk would help her heal. She’d wilfully ignored Aaron’s astounded reply: TOMORROW??? What about references??? Or me being able to chat with this person? And, later, Clancy! Please reply! She’d put her phone on ‘do not disturb’ in case he broke the tacit agreement of only communicating via email, and rang.

And that’s how she’d ended up sitting amongst boxes last night, packing recklessly for a low-effort life change and a place to lick her wounds. She’d been able to look into Will’s mortified face and say with manufactured indifference, ‘I have somewhere to go. You needn’t worry.’ She’d handed him the white leather file emblazoned with September Wedding in silver. ‘You’ll find everything in here that you need to cancel our wedding. It’s only fair that you take responsibility as you’re the one to find someone new.’ Then she’d completed her packing with the images of wedding dresses and morning suits swimming in the tears in her eyes, remembering, now she was about to return to Nelson’s Bar, Alice’s wedding day.

Clancy was getting an agonising taste of what Lee must have felt. Surely Alice couldn’t truly have imagined Lee’s pain at being left at the altar like that? Or she would have arranged some gentler way of withdrawing from the marriage.

Now, with Lee’s brother Aaron looking on, she swallowed convulsively against empty-stomach nausea. The fluttering in her ears grew louder and cold sweat gathered on her face. Ever the pragmatist, she murmured, ‘I think I should sit down.’

And she did. The room rushed past her and the floor flew up to hit her, hard.

She heard Aaron exclaim, then a warm hand guided her head down towards her knees and his voice seemed to come from far away. ‘Are you ill?’

Politely, she replied, ‘I’m OK. I just missed breakfast.’ Cautiously, she eased away from him and lifted her head. The room only spun slightly. And that might have been because she’d been suddenly engulfed in the memory of the last time Aaron had touched her. It hadn’t occurred to her that he’d still affect her.

‘How about you come and sit on the bench outside for some fresh air,’ he suggested gruffly. ‘I brought coffee stuff. I’ll make some.’

‘Perfect, thank you.’ She managed to roll to her knees and then to her feet, aware of him hovering at her elbow as she struggled across to the back door and out to a black-painted bench on the edge of the circular patio. Vaguely, she took in a cardboard box half full of weeds and a spade and fork lying on the grass beside a dog bowl of water. A mower waited on a half-cut lawn speckled with daisies, the scent of new-mown grass increasing her nausea. She lowered herself until the wooden slats felt firm beneath her as a big, dark grey dog jumped up from a sun-splashed patch of lawn, beating his tail and holding his head awkwardly cocked as he regarded her.

‘Oh, bless, he only has one eye!’ she said, automatically extending her hand to be sniffed.

‘He’s a rescue. I took him because I could call him Nelson and he’d fit right in here. Will you be all right for two minutes?’ Aaron was already stepping away.

She nodded carefully and the myriad colours of the garden made her vision spin like a colour wheel. Shutting her eyes helped, especially when Nelson lodged his head on her leg as if in comfort, and when Aaron returned she was able to half-open her eyes again.

‘Here,’ he murmured, proffering a mug of milky coffee and a cereal bar.

Shakily, she took them. ‘Thank you.’

Clancy sipped and nibbled her way through the small repast, Aaron beside her in not-very-companionable silence.

Aaron had seated himself so he could observe Clancy until her coffee cup was empty and Nelson was nosing the wrapper from the cereal bar on the lawn. The breeze stirred her streaky chestnut fringe and flipped the ends of her hair from her shoulders. What had happened to her? She looked like a pale echo of the sleek, beautiful, mythical creature who’d once flashed into his life and out again.

He’d never apologised for the things he’d said – shouted – when Alice had all but destroyed his brother. He’d been too taken up with Lee, who’d stopped eating, acting, at only twenty-eight years old, as if his life was over.

‘I’m surprised you want to move here,’ he said, trying to focus on the present. ‘Nelson’s Bar’s a far cry from London. I can’t imagine wanting to live in a city, the sky only showing between the huge buildings you spend your life in, breathing stale air and looking out of windows that don’t open, but it’s what you’re used to.’

She shrugged.

‘The caretaker’s job involves changing beds and cleaning up after guests,’ he persisted. Then, though he knew because she’d once told him all about it, eyes shining with enthusiasm, and it was in her email sign-off, he asked, ‘What is it you usually do?’

Her lips barely moved. ‘All the hard shit.’

‘Oh.’ Odd answer. ‘I thought it was film making.’

A robin flew down to perch on the handle of his spade and tilt its head to inspect them before flitting off again. Clancy watched it go. ‘IsVid provides video content and video-based services. Websites. YouTube. Raw footage. Editing. Effects. Five of us built it up. The others are the creatives and the people people. I excel at what nobody else wants to do, like writing privacy policies and terms and conditions for us and our clients, working on their internet safety, adhering to law and legislation, writing agreements and contracts.’

‘Oh,’ he repeated. ‘That does sound like hard shit.’

‘There were compensations, like money and satisfaction. But I’ve left the agency. Or I’m taking time out.’ Then she added, ‘But nobody expects me back.’

He managed not to say ‘oh’, this time. ‘OK,’ he said instead, as Clancy wasn’t showing any immediate signs of turning tail for London. ‘As you know, numbers two and three Roundhouse Row have long-term tenants, Dilys and Ernie. For them the caretaker acts as agent to the landlord – arranging maintenance and checking the rent arrives, paying whatever bills the landlord’s responsible for and negotiating any rent rises. Numbers four, five and six, the holiday cottages, can be let out for any number of nights from two up. The caretaker changes bed linen and towels and does the laundry, cleans the houses and does the gardens.’

‘Why don’t you do the garden? You’re a gardener.’ She’d turned to look at him, her head tilted much as the inquisitive robin’s had been.

‘Because I work full time for my landscape gardening business.’ He knew she knew that. It was as if making the polite enquiries of strangers would erase the night they’d got hot and heavy.

Her turn to reply, ‘Oh.’ She scooped back her hair as the breeze tried to blow it into her face and she turned her gaze to the circular flower beds he’d been working on. Alice had thought it amusing to create as many circles in and around her circular house as possible. Even the garden shed was circular because Lee, besotted, had made it for her. ‘You’re doing this garden now,’ Clancy pointed out.

‘Because Evelyn found a boyfriend and hightailed it to live with him in Wales.’ He went on with the caretaker’s job description. ‘You’d also handle bookings. A lot come through a tourism website; they ring you with the details. A few come directly by post or phone. You sort out guests’ gripes, answer questions, solve problems and basically do whatever comes up. I’m afraid that if you’re at home, tenants and guests consider you on duty. Evelyn left the book inside the Roundhouse. I’ll show it to you.’

‘Book?’

‘The one with bookings in.’ It was a fat, dog-eared volume Evelyn had kept up-to-date and in which she’d left copious notes for her successor.

‘You make bookings in an actual book?’ She almost smiled. ‘There’s no booking software?’

Slowly, he relaxed. This was it. Her sticking point. The indisputable fact he could share with her in good conscience and let it send her back to the city. He stretched his legs and crossed them at the ankle. ‘No booking software. The village is an internet “not spot” with ancient phone lines and poor-to-non-existent mobile signal. Look,’ he said, feeling magnanimous now he realised there was no way a city girl used to being permanently plugged in could exist in an environment where information technology was rendered virtually – ha, ha – useless. ‘I suppose being involved with the cottages peripherally hasn’t given you a clear picture of life in Nelson’s Bar.’

He encompassed the row of cottages joined to the Roundhouse with a wave of his arm. ‘The rental cottages are the only real holiday homes in the entire village, though there is a B&B, which has a bar about six feet by six and, outside, a few tables with umbrellas. We have no church, no shop, no pub or coffee shop. The Norfolk Coast Path bypasses us and although north Norfolk is popular with walkers, most don’t tackle the hill climb to get up here.’ He sat back, giving her the opportunity to hum and haw, to backtrack on her intention to live in the back of beyond.

But then Clancy’s breath left her in a long, slow, peaceful sigh. ‘Sounds perfect,’ she said.

Chapter Two

Clancy knew her answer had surprised Aaron from the way his brows clicked down over his eyes. ‘Seriously?’ he asked stiffly. From within the Roundhouse, a phone began to ring and he rose from the bench, disappearing indoors to answer it. Then he reappeared. ‘That was my girlfriend. She knew I was working here and I’m late to meet her.’ He paused, checking his watch. ‘I’ll come back in a couple of hours. We need to finish this conversation.’

‘Fine.’ Clancy wondered whether he was expecting her to think twice in his absence.

She watched him pack the garden tools into the shed and click his fingers to his enormous dog. Every word Aaron had spoken had increased Clancy’s belief that Nelson’s Bar was exactly what she needed. He might as well have said, ‘Here’s a quiet, safe backwater where you can get your head straight. The job’s a doddle for someone with organisational skills.’

Clancy Moss, however temporarily exhausted, thrived on challenges, and the ability to adapt had been bred into her. With engineers for parents, she’d been brought up in Belize, various parts of Africa, Dubai, Hong Kong … sometimes in company compounds or city apartments but also in remote villages. She’d attended company schools, boarding school, local schools and international schools. She’d even, at times, attended Alice’s school, and had loved the feeling of having a settled home with Alice and Aunt Sally while her parents vanished into a part of Africa considered unsuitable for their daughter. Boarding school and its dull routines and restrictions came a poor second to sharing escapades with Alice and being spoiled by her aunt.

Once she’d come to the UK for uni she’d tried to re-create that feeling of belonging. She’d thought she’d found it with Will but now … Now she’d been pushed into the painful break from Will and her colleagues – she wasn’t sure whether it was still logical to call them friends – she needed to regroup.

OK, so, food first. Just to confirm what Aaron had said, she took out her phone. No service. So she’d just drive to Hunstanton and find a supermarket. Then she’d—

‘Yoohoo!’ came a creaky female voice. ‘Do you mind if I come into the garden? Hope not, because I’m in.’ The voice trembled a laugh.

Surprised into rising and facing the direction the voice had come from, Clancy had to grab the back of the bench as her head swam anew. A short, rotund woman with a dandelion clock of white hair and a sweet smile shuffled around the house. ‘Are you are our new Evelyn? I’m Dilys, from number two. I thought I’d say hello.’ By now Dilys was standing in front of Clancy, daisy-strewn wellies peeping from beneath a rose-splashed skirt. Her eyebrows bobbed enquiringly.

‘I’m taking the caretaker’s job, yes.’ It was impossible not to return Dilys’s smile; it was so twinkly and warm. ‘I was just wondering where I could find a supermarket. Or furniture shops. Aaron had to rush off before he could tell me.’ She supposed she was lucky that she had money in the bank but she hadn’t really bargained for the hassle of furnishing the Roundhouse when she decided to launch herself towards Nelson’s Bar.

Dilys’s grey eyes twinkled as she turned and let herself down stiffly onto the bench beside Clancy. ‘Furniture? I expect he’ll just bring the other stuff back. They stored it up at De Silva House – Aaron’s parents’ place – because Evelyn had her own.’

Clancy suppressed a wriggle of hurt that Aaron hadn’t mentioned something that, clearly, would make her life easier. Evidently, he didn’t want her here. So what? She’d been unwanted by people much closer and more important to her than Aaron De Silva. Her ex-fiancé and work colleagues, for example. And with her parents it had always only been fifty-fifty.

She shoved those negative thoughts away with a bright, ‘Was it Alice and Lee’s furniture? I’m Alice’s cousin, Clancy.’

Dilys beamed. ‘Her cousin! How is Alice? I never hear from her.’

‘I think she’s OK,’ Clancy answered carefully. After jilting Lee, Alice had made no bones about preferring to be invisible to anyone at Nelson’s Bar and had wheedled unashamedly to get Clancy to represent Alice’s interest in Roundhouse Row. ‘I’m on the move all the time anyway and you’re so good at stuff. Don’t make me interact with judgy big bro Aaron, puhleeeeease, Clancee.’ Clancy had sighed and said yes. People often said yes to Alice. Maybe it was because she just seemed to expect it, but also it was her pretty smile, the swish of her stylishly cut hair, or the way she had of linking arms as if to demonstrate how much she liked you.

And, wherever Clancy had been in the world, Alice had always sent letters, cards, messages, demands to know where Clancy was and what she was doing, requests for postcards or photos or to know when Clancy was going to come and live with them again. Whatever Alice’s faults, she and Clancy had a bond.

These days it was Alice’s travelling the bond had to survive, rather than Clancy’s. The only time they’d seen each other in the last six years was when Aunt Sally had died suddenly four years ago. Alice had reappeared for the funeral, white-faced and red-eyed over the loss of her mother. Then she’d sold the family home in Warwickshire and vanished again, her travel fund firmly bolstered by her inheritance.

None of this needed to be shared with Clancy’s new neighbour, so she just said, ‘Dilys, could you point me at a supermarket, please? I need supplies.’

Dilys’s face shifted its wrinkles into a delighted grin. ‘Can I show you instead? I don’t drive any more so it’s a boon for me to get a ride into Hunstanton. Tell you what,’ she swept on. ‘How about I trade you lunch? I’ve made vegetable soup and I was just about to have some.’

Warmth stole into Clancy’s heart at such a friendly offer. ‘What a brilliant trade. Thank you.’

She followed her to the next-door cottage, assailed by a deliciously oniony fragrance as Dilys opened the door. ‘Welcome to number two,’ she said. ‘It’s not as big as the Roundhouse but it’s been my home since I’ve been on my own. Take a seat at the table, lovie, and I’ll dish up.’

It seemed only seconds before Clancy was dipping chunks of bread into thick vegetable soup and sipping tea, looking around her. Dilys’s kitchen was full of … stuff. Heaps of fabric and wool teetered, jars of buttons or bowls of beads glowed with colour.

‘I’m a crafter,’ Dilys explained, following Clancy’s gaze. ‘Whatever I see or find I make into something else. It used to drive my poor husband mad. Still, it doesn’t concern him, not now he’s gone.’

‘I’m sorry,’ Clancy said automatically.

‘I still see him of course,’ Dilys continued, slurping up a soup-sodden square of bread.

Clancy paused. ‘Oh?’ She considered herself far too down-to-earth to believe in the supernatural but Dilys sounded so confident that she asked, ‘Where?’

Dilys put down her spoon in her empty bowl with a sigh of satisfaction. ‘In the garden. He lives next door.’ She burst out laughing.

Clancy laughed too, laying down her spoon, though she’d eaten only half her lunch. ‘I thought you meant he was a ghost!’

‘Not him.’ Dilys was still grinning. ‘We can’t share a house but we can’t do without each other completely.’

Finishing the industrial-strength tea and feeling ten times better for food inside her and the hand of friendship Dilys seemed to have no hesitation in extending, Clancy went out to empty her car boot ready for their shopping.

They set off for the supermarket, Dilys exclaiming over the comfort of the car’s leather interior. Clancy was instantly plunged into a host of memories of Will helping her choose the car less than a year ago. It had been a symbol of the success of IsVid and now she was glad she’d chosen to spend the money that way rather than doing something sensible like paying a chunk off the mortgage. Resolutely, she shoved the thought away. ‘I forgot to look how big the freezer at the Roundhouse is.’ She slowed the car as she turned right onto the A149 and immediately came up behind a car towing a caravan.

‘There’s a good, capacious freezer,’ pronounced Dilys. ‘Capacious was the answer to the nine-letter word puzzle in the paper yesterday.’

Clancy tried not to be distracted by the energetic pinging of the phone in her pocket now they’d left the village and, presumably, picked up a signal. ‘Are you a puzzler? I like Sudoku and crosswords.’ They passed the rest of the journey amicably chatting about why cryptic crosswords were so much more fun than the ‘easy’ counterparts, which neither of them actually found easy, until they reached Hunstanton, where, entranced by the dancing blue sea on their right, Clancy had to concentrate to follow Dilys’s directions past the formal gardens and through the busy traffic to the centre of town.

When she’d parked at Tesco’s, she stole a quick look at the alerts now showing on the screen of her phone: Tracey and Asila both asking if she was OK. After a moment’s deliberation, she tucked the phone away again because she didn’t know how to reply. Was she OK? She could’ve said, Fine except for my relationship ending and my co-directors wanting me out of the business, but as they were two of those directors it would be a) aggressive b) whiney c) pointless. It would be more fruitful to devote her time to providing herself with what she needed in order to be OK.

As well as filling a trolley with food and household items, she discovered that seaside supermarkets sold things like wetsuits for children, buckets and spades … and airbeds. Just in case Aaron truly intended leaving her without a bed for the night, she bought a lilac-coloured one for less than a tenner and Dilys offered to lend her a duvet. She hadn’t wanted to bring constant reminders of Will in the form of things they’d shared so new bedclothes would be on her shopping list once she had a permanent bed sorted.

It was late afternoon when they arrived back at the Roundhouse. Clancy helped Dilys into number two with her shopping and collected in return a single duvet in a bold, bright patchwork cover, then carried her own purchases indoors to join the bags and boxes she’d brought from London.

She halted. London was no longer her home.

The echoing emptiness of the Roundhouse seemed to catch her suddenly beneath the breastbone, the only sounds her own breathing and muted birdsong outdoors. ‘You can do this,’ she told herself aloud. ‘This is not the first time you’ve moved house and begun again.’ So she set to, dividing the shopping between fridge, freezer and cupboards. Kitchen units had been fitted along a section of the curved wall and into an island unit too. As she worked, she wished she’d asked Aaron exactly when he’d be back. Dilys probably had his landline number but there was no reply when Clancy popped out to knock on her door.

OK. Back to the Roundhouse. She walked a slow circle around the ground floor, remembering how Alice and Lee had set the space out in segments: sofas, a coffee table and footstools beside the panelling screen; then a circular dining table with chairs, and the space beneath the stairs filled with oak and glass cabinets built by Lee.

Next, she trod up the wooden staircase to the three wedge-shaped bedrooms and two bathrooms on the first floor. All three bedrooms were carpeted so it felt less echoey. In the master bedroom she stood on tiptoe to catch glimpses of a hazy blue-grey sea between trees and houses. Woolly white clouds dotted a paintbox-blue sky. Nelson’s Bar was high above the waves on its headland but she remembered Alice showing her the way down to a small beach.

She turned to survey the master bedroom without much enthusiasm. It had been Alice and Lee’s. Across the landing, the second bedroom’s view was of the lane and the house across the road. She turned and strode up the next flight of stairs to the loft, where she’d slept on her only visit, opening the door with a teeny-tiny – but welcome – sense of familiarity.

The space she walked into was conical with room to stand straight only in the middle or by the window dormers. Beyond the rooftops, she could see the sea from one window and the pinewoods from the other. She stood for a long time, gazing over the village. Gardens and trees between the houses. The peaceful sound of seagulls and the occasional car engine.

The sun lit the room, danced on the distant sea and warmed her heart.

Feeling something approaching enthusiasm, she ran downstairs for the airbed and duvet. By the time the bed was inflated she was red-faced and puffing, but she smiled as she cast the patchwork quilt over it.

Her temporary bed in her new room and new home. So there was no real furniture! Nobody who really knew her would think she’d be put off by a little thing like that.

Chapter Three

In the morning, Aaron’s conscience prodded him awake ridiculously early, considering it was Sunday.

He hadn’t meant to leave Clancy Moss alone in an unfurnished house yesterday.

He’d met Genevieve at his end-terrace flint cottage in Potato Hall Row on the edge of the village near the cliffs, and found her worrying aloud about where to go while builders repaired her own cottage. It was a tricky subject. He was all too aware that she was fishing to move in with him and he was beginning to resent it. They might have been together for a year or so but he liked his life in Nelson’s Bar as it was. He was content with his own company, creating gardens, soil between his fingers, the scent of grass on the air, blossom in spring, crinkling leaves and the promise of frost when autumn came. Nature’s glorious, ever-changing landscape. OK, he didn’t have much of a relationship history – serial monogamy interspersed with happy singledom – maybe his brother’s public dumping had had something to do with that.

But that was his choice.

As it happened, while he’d been trying hard not to tackle the issue of where Genevieve was going to spend the months the builder needed to underpin her house, Aaron’s mum Yvonne had telephoned. ‘Aunt Norma’s broken her ankle on a day trip to King’s Lynn, and bumped her head. She’s got to stay in hospital overnight. Your dad’s on shift at the hotel—’

Knowing his mother’s car control in times of stress, Aaron immediately offered, ‘I’ll drive you.’ His great-aunt had looked after him and Lee a lot when they were little so Yvonne could work. He’d apologised to Genevieve and was soon driving his mother out of the village, noticing the absence of Clancy’s car outside the Roundhouse and sparing a moment to wonder whether she’d decided to head home to London already.

He had little opportunity to examine his reaction to that possibility during the hassly fifty-minute journey as Yvonne alternately worried aloud about her aunt and reproved him for the disreputable interior of his double-cab pickup, littered with notes, plans of gardens and empty crisp packets.

Once at the Queen Elizabeth Hospital, they found Aunt Norma had concussion. Queasy and quiet, she looked unlike her usual noisy, feisty self. Yvonne croaked, ‘Oh, Auntie! You poor thing!’ and became quite tearful.

They stayed on, requesting information of nurses and buying Aunt Norma magazines from the hospital shop. Her normally bright eyes were closed against queasiness and she didn’t tease anyone or ask awkward questions, so they knew she had to be feeling pretty rubbish.

Finally, after she’d fallen asleep, Aaron and Yvonne went out into a dark and breezy evening. Yvonne was inclined to sniff and Aaron gave her a reassuring hug before they got into his truck, her loose curls blowing into his face.

It wasn’t until he was nosing his pickup into the mad traffic on the huge roundabout on the outskirts of King’s Lynn that Clancy Moss returned to the forefront of his mind with an uncomfortable jolt. He should have made some effort to check whether she’d definitely left. He had the landline number of the house but the clock on the dash of his truck read 22:47 – too late to ring.

When, eventually, he’d driven his yawning mother past the Roundhouse, the place was in darkness, but the smart blue BMW was once again parked outside the front gate. He drove on, feeling like a git. Spending a night in an empty house couldn’t be comfortable.

As he was feeling no better about himself this morning, he let Nelson out into the garden, pausing to enjoy the view of the glittering, restless sea and wonder why anyone would live anywhere other than Nelson’s Bar, then passed half an hour strumming one of his favourite guitars on the garden bench. It always put his soul at peace.

When it was nine o’clock, mindful that yesterday Clancy hadn’t seemed to be looking after herself, he stuffed four cereal bars in his pockets, called Nelson and snicked on his lead, then stepped out into the early summer sunshine. He strode past the rest of Potato Hall Row, mainly flint cottages edged with red brick. Nelson’s feathery tail waved as the king-sized canine sniffed hedges and gateposts. They made their way down the curve of Long Lane to the Roundhouse.

The scent of clipped privet was strong on the air as he passed 3 Roundhouse Row where Ernie could be seen sweeping up hedge trimmings. ‘Aaron!’ Ernie hailed him at max volume. ‘Do we have a new Evelyn? Dilys says we have but nobody’s told me.’ He waved towards the blue BMW parked in the lane and leaned on the broom handle, shaggy grey eyebrows knitting above the bridge of his nose.

Aaron met Ernie’s scowl with a smile. There was no point trading Ernie grump for grump. He couldn’t help but attack every subject like a threat any more than Aunt Norma could help tripping on uneven pavements. ‘Possibly,’ he replied.

Ernie revolved on the spot as Aaron attempted to carry on by. ‘And she’s Alice’s cousin? Come to represent the family interests, has she?’

Aaron shrugged, managing to sidestep Ernie on the second attempt. ‘Hard to say. Hedge is looking great, Ernie.’ Ernie was instantly distracted, beaming with pride as he patted his manicured privet, and Aaron escaped. Dilys must have met Clancy, which was like telling the whole village, and Aunt Norma had the same knitting and sewing mates. It was no doubt only because she was in hospital that he hadn’t already received an indignant phone call about a member of Alice’s family living in the Roundhouse.

He broke into a jog, determined to pass Dilys’s cottage without being collared again but, thankfully, her red gingham curtains were drawn and he was able to slip through the gate to the Roundhouse.

It was no use checking for drawn curtains there as every window was presently bare. His conscience gave him another prod. He gave the outer front door a gentle knock. If she was upstairs asleep – on what? – she would be unlikely to be disturbed by it and—

A brisk rattle, then the porch door swung open and Clancy stood in the opening wearing jeans and a T-shirt. Her chestnut hair fell poker-straight and glossy to her shoulders, the fringe framing those direct green eyes.

‘Oh, good, it’s you,’ she said, beckoning him in. The smell of coffee and the red mug and bowl he could see in the sink as he followed her suggested she’d had breakfast. ‘I’ve found the bookings book in a kitchen drawer,’ she began as she strode ahead. ‘Can I get access to the Roundhouse Row bank account? Or do I come through you to check payments received? Evelyn’s notes don’t cover that.’ By now she’d reached the place on the kitchen island where the bookings book and a few piles of paper were all neatly arranged. She glanced down at the big dog beside Aaron. ‘Morning, Nelson.’

Nelson waved his tail. Evidently, he didn’t know her well enough to perform his greeting dance.

‘But first—’ Aaron broke in, taken aback to realise the dreary, droopy ghost Clancy he’d met yesterday had vanished, leaving in its place a Clancy much more like the sparky woman he remembered.

‘“But first” let’s get the Roundhouse furniture out of storage?’ she finished for him, her honeyed tones belying her steely expression. ‘It’s high on my list, but not high on yours, evidently, as you didn’t bother coming back yesterday, regardless of whether I had anything to sleep on.’

Aaron felt a smile tug at his mouth. He didn’t want it to, but something amused him about her obvious satisfaction in possessing knowledge he’d failed to share. ‘But first,’ he repeated firmly, ‘I need to apologise for abandoning you yesterday. There was a small family emergency.’ He explained about Aunt Norma.

Instantly, concern filled Clancy’s eyes. ‘Your family comes first, of course. I can manage on an airbed for another couple of nights if necessary.’

An airbed. He caught his mouth this time before it grinned at her resourcefulness. ‘I’m relieved you didn’t have to sleep on the floor. Can we sit down for a few minutes?’

She looked ostentatiously around the space about them, still devoid of furniture. ‘On what?’

This time he didn’t trouble to hide his smile, not minding points being scored over him when it was done with such elegance. ‘The garden bench worked perfectly yesterday.’

He led the way out, letting Nelson off to sniff around. Clancy sat down and waited for him to begin, apparently content to watch a blackbird hopping about a gnarly apple tree as if choosing the perfect perch from which to sing.

‘I’m glad you feel that family comes first,’ he began carefully, joining her on the bench, ‘because I don’t think you being here’s a good thing.’

Her hair swung around her face as she turned to regard him, the sun picking out glittering flecks of gold in her eyes. ‘Why’s that?’

‘Leaving aside the fact that I don’t think you realise what it’s like living in such a tiny, out-of-the-way place as Nelson’s Bar, you have to consider my family.’

She tilted her head. ‘Why’s that?’ she repeated.

Aaron began to feel less amused. It might be better – for her as well as him – if he was more direct. ‘Lee was nearly destroyed by Alice. He was heartsick for so long that we were afraid for him. As you know, Alice agreed that I could buy his half of the Roundhouse and Roundhouse Row to enable him to move away and make a new start, but he’s living in the village again and you’ll be a reminder.’ He paused, then went on, feeling she might as well know the truth. ‘To give you an idea of the level of antipathy in my family, they refer to Alice as “Awful Alice”.’ He sat forward, leaning his elbows on his thighs, giving her a level look. ‘There’s resentment, Clancy.’

Clancy leaned forward to prop her elbows on her thighs and give him a level look of her own. ‘You may be your brother’s keeper, but I’m afraid I’m not my cousin’s.’

‘I didn’t say I was Lee’s keeper,’ he interrupted, stung.

Clancy overrode him in the same level but firm voice. ‘What Awful Alice did was nothing to do with me, which I’m sure Lee’s mature enough to realise.’

He decided to become yet more direct. ‘Personally, I thought of your cousin as Princess Alice, not too worried about what anybody else wanted, expecting her wishes to be paramount even when she was crying for the moon.’ He ignored the way her eyes widened at this candid appraisal. ‘Even if you’re not like that, I’m pretty confident Lee would prefer you to consider his feelings in this and return to your life in London. And – friendly warning – he won’t be alone in that.’

Her gaze didn’t waver, though she made a tiny movement, as if somewhere deep inside she flinched. ‘You’re mixing up opinion with fact. Anyway, I can’t go back. Lee’s not the only one things have gone wrong for. My fiancé – ex, now – has got someone else, Renée, who I suspect he’s moving into our apartment pretty much as we speak. I’m being shoved out of the business I worked long and hard to help build so, as well as having nowhere to live, I have no job. I represent Alice’s interests and therefore I appoint myself as caretaker.’

Her voice softened. ‘I think Alice will want me to have the job. She and I – there’s a special relationship. I haven’t seen her for a while, but that doesn’t matter. That’s how it’s always been because my parents towed me around the world or they put me in boarding school or left me with Alice and Aunt Sally, when, despite your assessment of her character, she shared her home, her life, her friends and even her mother with me without hesitation. Now I’m based in the UK and she’s the one travelling I’m pretty certain she’d support my wish to come to Nelson’s Bar. But we can ask her, if you like.’ Her expression clouded. ‘I’m genuinely sorry you don’t want me here, and I can see you might think that with my history I should be inured to just cheerfully packing up and shoving off somewhere where I’m less of an inconvenience. But I need a new home, at least for now. And this is it.’ Her voice wavered and she clamped her lips shut on the end of the sentence.

In the silence, the blackbird began to sing beautifully fluting notes. Nelson lifted his head as if searching for the source of the sound with his one eye.

Aaron stared at Clancy, shaken to his plummeting core. He should have recognised the trouble he’d seen in her eyes yesterday. He’d watched Lee battling similar heart-wrenching grief. Now he understood why she had arrived looking so ill, why abandoning her in an empty house hadn’t made her turn tail. Clancy was in a mess. And, judging from the way her fingers were folded around each other so hard that her knuckles were white, her composure was only a very thin skin deep.

Aaron had never been able to kick people while they were down and rarely refused to give help where it was needed – leaving aside the current uncomfortable situation with Genevieve. Nelson was only one in a succession of badly off animals he’d adopted at one time or another. He dragged up a breath from the pit of his lungs and let it out in a gusty sigh. ‘OK. I’ll get my truck. We’ll fetch the furniture.’

A noisy swallow, then she replied, simply, ‘Thank you. May I walk along with you?’

‘Of course,’ he muttered.

She locked up the Roundhouse with city-dweller punctiliousness. They began up Long Lane through the dappled sunlight created by laburnum trees, the last of their yellow blossoms floating down around them. They headed into the village before swinging towards the north side of the headland. May was mild this year and the sunshine stroked Aaron’s skin with warm hands. ‘I live further up the lane in Potato Hall Row,’ he volunteered. Having made the decision not to hurl further impediments in Clancy’s way – though he wasn’t particularly looking forward to the little chat he’d soon need to have with his family – he went on: ‘Long Lane loops right around this side of the village as far as the B&B and The Green, towards the furthest point of the headland. Then Marshview Road takes over and comes back round.’ He swept his arm in a long U-shape.

Clancy’s hair blew in a sudden gust of wind and she smiled faintly, as if enjoying the freshness of the air. ‘Alice took me around the village a couple of times when I was here before but I don’t remember much. Do your parents live somewhere near here?’

‘Frenchmen’s Way. This turning we’re coming up to.’

Neither of them said anything about the shared kiss in his parents’ garden one night, a long time ago, as they passed the opening to Frenchmen’s Way. Long Lane continued to bear right and slope upwards. Clancy strode out beside him. ‘Are your parents going to mind me being with you to pick up the furniture? Or Lee? Perhaps, to follow the alliterative style of Awful Alice,’ she went on ruminatively, ‘they’ll call me Crappy Clancy.’

‘They won’t be there,’ he admitted frankly, at the same time wishing he hadn’t told her about the Awful Alice thing. ‘Dad’s at work and Lee’s taken Mum shopping before my great-aunt comes home. Aunt Norma lives in an annexe at De Silva House.’

‘That’s nice.’ Clancy sounded genuinely touched at this sign of family love. ‘Oh, look! Those flint cottages are so pretty.’

‘That’s Potato Hall Row,’ he answered. ‘Mine’s the furthest one, the one with the workshop attached.’

She nodded absently. ‘How have you and I emailed so regularly if there’s no internet in the village?’

He was thrown by the sudden question and was sure, from the way she watched him out of the corner of her eye, that he was meant to be. ‘I have satellite broadband.’

‘Ah,’ she said, raising her eyebrows. ‘So the thing about no internet was fake news. How about no pub, no shop …?’

‘There is no pub or shop,’ he said defensively, though he wasn’t sure whether she was teasing him or was actually annoyed. ‘There are a few places in the village with satellite broadband, but you can’t get it everywhere because of the conservation area, listed buildings, and even preservation orders on trees that block the signal.’

‘Oh. I see the issue.’ She frowned. ‘As one of the owners of Roundhouse Row, couldn’t you share your internet access with the caretaker?’

‘I could,’ he admitted. ‘Evelyn wasn’t keen on learning to do things online so it didn’t come up. So many people ask to hook up with it that I suppose I’ve become wary of reaching my data limit before the end of the month. People are always asking to “just borrow” my connection. I change my password a lot.

‘Here’s the truck,’ he added unnecessarily as he stopped beside the big silver pickup with De Silva Landscaping on the side. He beeped it open.

‘But,’ Clancy began again. She was interrupted by Genevieve suddenly rounding the side of his house, waving energetically, the breeze making her long blonde hair wave too. Nelson yanked at his lead so Aaron let him bound over to fling himself at her, not sure how he felt about Gen’s unscheduled appearance. It was new and not particularly welcome for her to hang around him so much. Before she’d tried to solve her housing issue by moving their relationship up a level, she’d been a warm, fun, independent girlfriend who’d seemed as content as Aaron to include a relationship in her life but not make it the be-all and end-all.