A Summer Reunion Read online

  And now he had thrown it all back in my face. Our marriage too.

  We had weathered that time when I had an affair with Lenny, a short-lived and terrible mistake with one of our suppliers who reminded me of Steve McQueen. Rob and I hadn’t been getting along and when the opportunity presented itself … He had strayed too when he met Fran, a woman we met at a dinner party. She was recently divorced and was an example to us all: exuberant, flirty and fun. ‘I’m not letting any man get me down,’ she said to me. ‘At least he’s not going to see it if he does.’ I should take a lesson. There may have been others since then, I’ve no idea.

  We worked all night and all day when we were setting up the business. In a way Amy Green and the staff who worked for us took the place of any family we might have had. We certainly gave them all the hours we could. When we weren’t with them, we were thinking up new ideas, new lines, new ways of expanding our market. God, it was exciting and exhausting and everything in between. And now he was throwing all of it away and threatening what we’d built as a result.

  I picked up my tiny pink flamingo watering can and watered the pot plants on my windowsill.

  Outside the sun was high in the sky. As I was wondering where the others could have got to, I received a text from Jane.

  We’re going to drive down to Deià. Back later this pm. OK?

  Good. That gave me a little bit more time to steady myself. This wasn’t something I wanted to share with them.

  I quickly tapped back, Of course.

  I left my office and wandered round the house, my hand drifting to things that reminded me of Rob. So much of what was there we had collected together. The fabrics were all my designs from the Moroccan inspired geometrics in the living room, to the parrots in the downstairs loo and the flower silhouettes in the pool room. All of them told me a story about where we were in our relationship when they were made. Of course, there have many others before or since, some we reissue and some let fade into oblivion. The Moroccan patterns I made when Ca’n Amy was almost done up, and we went to Marrakesh for a long weekend. The parrots were part of the first tropical collection I designed after we expanded from our first two shops in Bath and Bristol and branched out in Cheltenham and it looked as if business was going to boom. We celebrated by going to the Caribbean for a week. The flowers I designed the year Rob had his fling with Fran. They’re pretty, monochromatic against a pale grey background, but they remind me of how bleak I felt at the time. And that in turn reminded me that I’d felt the world was ending before and I’d got through it. I had to hang on to that memory if I could.

  Thinking back to those few days with Linda, Kate and Jane, I suppose I was still in some kind of shock, even though Rob had dropped his bombshell weeks before. I kept telling myself that I had to hold it together so I didn’t spoil the weekend for the others. But there were many more factors than just me at work of course. They each had their own reasons for wanting to get away, but coming here hadn’t been a way to escape them. They had brought their problems with them. I don’t know why any of us ever thought such a reunion would be anything other than a terrible idea that would unsettle us all.

  I went out to pick some tomatoes in the wired-off enclosure round the side of the house. The vegetable garden might be small but the plants were laden with fruit and gave off that wonderful sharp grassy smell. As I put the tomatoes in the basket I’d brought out with me, I was aware of someone standing outside the enclosure. I turned to find Linda standing watching me, her face expressionless.

  ‘It is him,’ she said. Just that.

  To my astonishment, a couple of tears ran down her face. ‘Sorry.’ She wiped them away.

  I left the enclosure, tying the gate on place with the frayed string. ‘What’s happened?’

  She pulled herself together. ‘Long story. I thought I’d got over it. Turns out not as much as I’d imagined.’

  ‘Over what? You didn’t fancy him as well? But it was years ago.’ That couldn’t be the reason she was so upset.

  ‘I know. Silly of me.’ She dug the toe of her sandal into the earth and twisted it back and forth.

  ‘Jane found out why the name change.’ This was something we all should know.

  She looked up. ‘Which was?’

  As we walked back to the terrace together, I told her the story, all the while wondering what had happened. I couldn’t remember her ever having hinted that she had a thing for him. I almost wanted to laugh. Kate was the only one of us who had emerged unscathed. And here we all were over forty years later discovering the truth about our art teacher for the first time and how all three of us had been affected by it.

  Linda’s reaction to the story of his arrest and imprisonment was hard to read. She stared at the mountains, lost in thought. Then … ‘I’ve thought he was many things but I never thought he’d go for someone under age; though why not, I don’t know.’

  ‘What things are you talking about?’ I had no idea what she was getting at. From where we were, we could hear Dan splashing up and down the pool. He must have gone straight there when they got back, leaving us to talk. Occasionally his sensitivity took me by surprise. ‘You did believe what he did to me, didn’t you?

  ‘Actually, I didn’t, not at the time.’ She turned to look at me, her brown eyes sad.

  ‘But why not?’ I’d always assumed she had been quietly on my side. ‘I thought we were best friends.’

  ‘We were, but I was far too wrapped up in him to believe he would ever be capable of behaving like that. Sex for grades.’ She shook her head. ‘I had no idea.’

  ‘What do you mean “wrapped up in him”?’ Not her too.

  She hesitated, rubbing the palm of her hand as if it was going to provide the answers. ‘I suppose you might as well know. None of it really matters now.’

  ‘None of what? And it obviously does matter. You’re upset.’ We walked to the terrace and sat at the table. I put the tomatoes in the shade of a sago palm.

  She managed a short laugh. ‘I was having an affair with him, and none of you knew.’

  I was stunned. ‘You were having an affair? With him?’ It was inconceivable. How could she have been? We were all four friends and knew everything that went on each other’s lives. We played together, talked about the boys we fancied together, revised together, argued together, made up together. She couldn’t have had an affair without one of us registering it.

  ‘I really was. It began at the beginning of our final year and went on into that first fabulous summer holiday when we were free after the exams.’

  I didn’t bother to remind her that summer hadn’t been like that for me at all. I had disappeared to London to stay with Dan, angry, rebellious but with my tail between my legs. ‘But you never said a thing.’ How wrapped up in ourselves we must have been not to have noticed.

  ‘I was head over heels in love with him – or I thought I was – and didn’t want anything to spoil it. I knew it was wrong and we’d both get into terrible trouble if we were found out, and it was easy to keep a secret once A levels were over because you weren’t around and Jane’s parents took her and Kate off to Greece to celebrate the end of school.’

  I remembered how my invitation on that holiday hadn’t been so much withdrawn as dropped like a hot stone. Not that Jane’s parents would ever have much wanted me to go away with them. I would only have been invited on Jane’s insistence, and the moment things blew up with Mr Wilson, that was when everything went wrong.

  ‘Until then, I just kept quiet. It was quite fun watching everyone getting their knickers in a twist over him, all the time knowing I was the one he had chosen.’

  I winced as I remembered his hand on my thigh again. ‘So what happened?’ I was mesmerised, unable to believe what I was hearing.

  ‘We had a couple of almost blissful months – no more snatched moments out of the classroom, but time I could spend wi
th him in his flat, quite the little homemaker. I chose not see him pushing me away.’ She sounded bitter now. ‘We didn’t go out much in case we were seen but I didn’t care. I was convinced it was only a matter of time, that he would get one of the jobs he was going to apply for and we’d go wherever he was employed together.’

  ‘You were going to live with him? But what about your degree?’ I was having difficulty getting my head round all this.

  ‘He said I should go to Edinburgh, as planned, that we’d be together in the holidays. In my heart I knew that wasn’t really what he wanted.’ The smile she gave me was so sad. ‘But if you don’t want to see the cracks, you don’t. God! I was so young.’

  ‘Tell me about it.’ I understood exactly what she was talking about. I had ignored the widening cracks in my marriage in the same way. ‘So what happened?’

  ‘I’d been in Edinburgh for a few weeks when I discovered I was pregnant.’

  I couldn’t speak. So I was far from alone in having my life changed by that man. But Linda had never come to find me to share our misfortunes, so I had never known. When I came back to York from London, no one wanted to know. I assumed she’d be the same so I never looked her up. That came later, thanks to Kate. We sat in silence for a moment, the sheep bells tolling in the distance somewhere, the breeze rustling the leaves of the big old carob tree by the wall.

  ‘And then?’ I asked as gently as I could but I needed to know the answer.

  ‘It turned out to be an ectopic pregnancy that ruptured.’

  Even I, without any experience of pregnancy and the risks, knew how serious that could be.

  ‘So I had to have a hysterectomy. Days after my eighteenth birday.’ She let that sit there for us both to consider.

  To think of the fuss I’d made over my expulsion. What had happened to me was nothing compared to this. My life had been easy compared to Linda’s whose was irreparably damaged. Not only had he broken her heart, left her to deal with the pregnancy on her own, she had been left unable to have children. This was so very much more serious.

  ‘I had no idea.’

  ‘Of course you didn’t. I kept that secret too. One or two people in Edinburgh knew but I hadn’t been there long enough to make many friends. That came later. I didn’t want anyone at home to know in case it got back to my aunt. And anyway, although I was bereft when he abandoned me, and could have done with an old friend, I felt a fool. How could I have been so stupid? I thought you’d all laugh at me. But I was young, naïve and I believed everything he said. When I heard what had happened to you, I refused to admit to myself it could be true. But I should have known. I should have seen what happened to me coming.’

  ‘How could you?’

  ‘And now I’ve seen him again for the first time since then.’

  I listened, intent on her story of visiting the gallery with Dan.

  ‘So now he knows. And, weirdly, I feel so much better having it out in the open.’ Her face lightened. ‘I didn’t even feel it was a weight until I confronted him and then realised something had lifted from me. Just as I feel telling you after keeping it buttoned up for years.’

  ‘How have you coped?’ I tried to put myself into her shoes, but it was impossible to imagine.

  ‘The hardest thing of all was coming to terms with the fact that I’d never be a mum. Having that choice taken away became more significant the older I got.’

  She sounded so sad that I wanted to hug her but felt she might not welcome that, so sat quite still, letting her talk.

  ‘It was fine until I got to that age when my friends were having families and I could never ever be one of them. I never met a man who didn’t want a family at some point, so I never married. As a result, I tended to keep myself to myself more and more. I was friends with Mike for years before we slept together. At one point after that I even believed we might live together but by then we were too old to have children and anyway he had his own. Then, in the end, he plumped for his wife, his children and his grandchildren. And that, of course, is the other thing: I’ll never be a grandparent either.’ Her grief was painful to see.

  I couldn’t help thinking how Rob and I had made that decision not to have children together. We had been in a café overlooking a Devon beach, watching the sea roll in.

  ‘I can’t imagine how we’ll have time for children and all this,’ he had said.

  ‘I don’t want them at all,’ I finally admitted. This was something I had thought long and hard about. I didn’t feel that rush of affection or love or envy when with other people’s kids. ‘I must’ve missed out on that maternal gene.’ I looked at him nervously, waiting for him react. I was so scared he would think I was unnatural, that he would run a mile.

  Instead his face relaxed and he smiled. ‘That’s a relief. We’re on the same page then. Unfortunately we’ll have to have a life that involves long sybaritic holidays; going out whenever we want to until as late as we like; doing exactly what we want. We’ll have more money so we can live in beautiful places, own beautiful things.’

  The relief I felt was unimaginable. It turned out we wanted to throw all our energies into the business and, when we weren’t working, to enjoy the fruits of our labour. We watched our friends with their children, and heard how much they envied us, our lifestyle. The decision was right for us. But if we hadn’t had the luxury of choice … perhaps it would have been different. Perhaps in the end Rob was feeling something of what Linda was saying, and I wasn’t enough for him any more.

  I gave her feeble smile and got one in return. ‘I think we need a drink. It’s a bit early, but …’

  ‘A drink would be just right. It’s been a helluva a day.’

  As I got to my feet, there was a knock on the terrace door. Between us, we must have left the front door open, and someone had let themselves in and walked through the house.

  ‘Can I come in?’ A man’s voice.

  We turned together.

  And there, leaning against the doorpost, cigarette between his fingers, cane tapping against his deck shoes, straw hat cocked on his head as if he didn’t have a care in the world, was none other than Jack Walsh himself.

  22

  Linda froze. She hadn’t expected to see Jack again. But Amy showed greater presence of mind by getting up as if she was going to welcome their visitor. Whatever she was feeling, she kept to herself.

  ‘I think we definitely need that drink now,’ Amy said, instead of a welcome. ‘Linda, can you give me a hand?’

  ‘Can I sit down?’ he asked. He pointed towards the chairs with his cane.

  ‘No,’ she replied. ‘Wait right there until we’re ready to talk to you.’

  Linda followed her into the kitchen, admiring Amy’s self-control and chutzpah. ‘I suggested he saw you to apologise but I didn’t think he would.’

  ‘If that’s why he’s here.’ Amy got a bottle of gin from the cupboard. ‘I think we need something strong. There’s tonic in the fridge. How dare he just walk in here with no warning?’

  For the first time, Linda noticed how tired Amy looked. Despite the effort she made with her appearance, she couldn’t hide those shadows under her eyes. As she got out a couple of limes and sliced them on the cracked chopping board she asked: ‘What do you want to do? Shall we send him away or listen to what he has to say?’

  Linda thought as she got two bottles of tonic and put them on the tray. This man had blighted both their lives in different ways. This might be their last chance to say what they had always wanted. ‘We should listen. We’ve both waited years for this.’

  Amy considered, nodding, her lips pressed hard together. ‘Okay. We’ll do it together. All for one and one for all. Right?’

  Their old schoolgirl mantra had never meant more than it did at that moment. Although this trip had thrown up far more than any of them could have anticipated, Linda felt sure this r
enewed friendship would last.

  They emerged together, Amy carrying the tray; Linda, bowls of pistachios and olives. The heat of the early evening wrapped itself round them. From the terrace, Linda could see Dan, covered in a hippy throw studded with tiny mirrors that glittered in the sun, asleep in the shade beyond the pool, quite unaware of what was going on at the house.

  ‘Come and sit down.’ Amy showed Jack to the table where he took a seat with his back to the view, letting the two of them sit opposite him, as if they were on an interviewing panel.

  ‘You’ve done well for yourself,’ he said as Amy poured the drinks.

  ‘I don’t imagine that’s why you’ve come.’ She slid his gin across the table with such force that it slopped over the edge of the glass. ‘Perhaps you’d better tell us why you have.’

  Her self-control was impressive.

  ‘I’ve come to apologise.’ He held his hands in supplication before removing his hat and putting it on the table.

  Amy looked at it with such distaste that he moved it to his knee. ‘To which of us?’ she said.

  Jack looked taken aback, as if he hadn’t considered the two of them would have confided in each other so soon. ‘Both.’

  ‘Forty-three years too late, I’d say.’ Amy was not going to give an inch.

  Linda realised she had nothing more to say to him so sat silent watching the two of them square up to each other, waiting for this to be over. If the Sóller valley split open and swallowed her, she’d be happy.

  ‘I know. I should have been braver.’ He moved his head from side to side, considering. ‘I should have done all sorts of things.’

  ‘Or not.’ Linda spoke at last. The release of having her own secret in the open made her braver.