A Summer Reunion Page 9

  As the evening went on, Linda began to emerge from her shell. Keeping her glass topped up seemed to help. The more she told us of her long affair with Mike the more my heart went out to her. What a waste of a life spent waiting on one man’s whim. He sounded a total shit but Linda simply didn’t see it like that.

  ‘Everyone in the library loved him.’ She looked round the table as if challenging us to contradict her. ‘He was so good at his job, and getting what he wanted from people. The collection wouldn’t have been anything without his contacts. And he loved me,’ she said, staring into the middle distance, as she raised her glass again.

  ‘Perhaps he did,’ said Jane. ‘But people change and start seeing each other in a different way. That’s life. It’s certainly what I’ve found.’

  I noticed Kate look sharply in her direction before helping herself to some more fruit salad. ‘It’s not the same for everyone,’ she said.

  Something had obviously happened between them while they were out. They had returned from their walk full of Brendan, Sheila and Jove but that wasn’t it. I had caught Kate looking at Jane a couple of times almost as if she didn’t recognise her. I was puzzling over what could have gone on between them, but meeting the neighbours was preparation for the party the following evening. I was used to Brendan and Sheila but they were something of an acquired taste. She was ridiculous about that ratty little dog that she loved so much while poor old Brendan would kill for other female company – and I can’t say I entirely blame him. Sheila could be very, shall we say, severe.

  ‘We’ve been invited to a party tomorrow night,’ I said, pleased to see that at least Jane and Kate looked happy at the prospect. ‘Our neighbour, William Amos, is throwing one for an artist who’s having an exhibition on the island. If you’d rather not go, that’s fine of course,’ I added. ‘But I’ll have to put in an appearance.’

  ‘Of course we’ll keep you company. All for one and one for all,’ Kate said, quoting our childhood mantra. ‘I don’t think I’ve ever met a real live artist before.’

  ‘He may not be much of one.’ I didn’t want too much hanging on William and Fleur’s party. ‘I don’t know his work at all.’

  ‘Does William live here full-time?’ Linda had moved on from Mike, thank goodness.

  ‘He’s a pianist,’ I explained. ‘He gives recitals all over the world.’

  ‘I’ve heard of him,’ said Jane. ‘Will he play tomorrow?’

  ‘I shouldn’t think so. That would rather take away from his protégé, don’t you think?’

  ‘I suppose.’ Jane looked thoughtful. ‘You were good at art, weren’t you?’ She stopped as if she hadn’t meant to say that.

  ‘So were you,’ I said, wondering where this would lead.

  ‘I used to love our art classes. Not that I’ve done any painting since.’

  ‘For one reason only,’ said Kate. ‘Mr Wilson.’

  My heart started thumping faster. Was this the moment?

  ‘Oh yes! I’d forgotten about him.’ Jane started playing with the wax that had dripped from the candle onto the table.

  ‘You can’t have. You fancied him like mad.’ Kate winked at Linda and me.

  ‘I did not.’ Jane dropped a little ball of wax on to her plate.

  She didn’t look at me. Only Linda glanced across at me, anxious, but I pretended not to notice. I wasn’t ready for a confrontation quite yet – if that was what it was going to be.

  ‘I thought you had a thing for my brother?’ I couldn’t resist throwing that one in. All of them had found excuses to come with me if I ever mentioned Dan was meeting me after school. He never took any notice of them, though. He barely took much of me.

  That made Jane look up, her eyebrows arched in sceptical denial. ‘I don’t think so.’

  ‘Wasn’t that me?’ Kate laughed. ‘I’d got over it by the time we were in the sixth though.’

  ‘Good to know.’ A familiar voice broke in. I leaped to my feet.

  ‘Dan! What are you doing here?’

  My brother was standing at the door of the house, looking every inch his unkempt hippy self – yes, still. At least he had pulled his hair back into a tiny ponytail at the nape of his neck. Unlike most men his age – now sixty-three – Dan had never settled down in any conventional way. He had earned enough from working as a carpenter and other odd-jobbing to enable to him to lead the sort of peripatetic life I couldn’t imagine.

  ‘I thought you were coming next week.’

  ‘Did you?’ He came to the table and kissed me on both cheeks. ‘Is that what I said?’

  ‘Yes, in your last email. I’ve got friends here,’ I said as if that wasn’t obvious, but I was glad to see him. ‘You remember Linda, Jane and Kate from school?

  ‘Of course.’ I don’t think he did for a second, but his words had the desired effect. As he turned his attention to them, I could sense the girls’ interest. His tanned arms were covered with golden hairs, his right wrist banded with two red thread bracelets that were so faded they’d obviously been there for weeks. His flip-flops had seen better days but his shorts and white cotton collarless shirt, sleeves rolled up, were quite presentable. He wore a small Indian fabric purse on a string around his neck.

  ‘What is this? A reunion?’ He said each of their names as he shook their hands, one by one, his eyes concentrating on each face: a technique that he’d picked up somewhere that clearly never let him down.

  ‘Yes,’ said Jane. I could see that even she was thrown off her stride. ‘Just the four of us. We were inseparable then.’

  ‘I remember.’ Of course he didn’t.

  ‘So why are you here?’ I insisted.

  The girls were transfixed and he knew it. ‘We finished the yoga platform sooner than we expected. I’d spent long enough in Goa so I thought I’d come here and see if there was any work to tide me over.’

  ‘Of course you did,’ I said as if it was the most natural thing in the world. I loved my gentle, mildly eccentric older brother. I was used to him turning up and leaving whenever the mood and work took him. I didn’t care that he hadn’t made the sort of success out of his life that others value, and understood that, to him, I was a reliable (and cheap) port in a storm. My success had served us both well and I’d been able to bail him out of financial scrapes countless times, although that role was wearing a little thin. To me, he was the big brother I always wanted. And to be honest, I was enjoying Kate’s face in particular, which was all shades of embarrassment. ‘Come and sit down.’

  ‘No, you’re all right. It’s been a long journey so I think I’ll hit the sack. Which room am I in, A?’

  ‘You’ll have to take the pool house.’ Jane was in the bedroom he usually had but I certainly wasn’t going to boot her out. Instead he was getting the one that we didn’t like using because it was too far from the house and smelled of damp whatever we did to try to get rid of it.

  He didn’t demur. ‘Great. I’m heading there right now.’

  ‘Don’t you want something to eat? A drink?’

  ‘I had something in the village on the way up, so I’ll leave you to it.’ He went back inside, then reappeared with a small backpack and the battered leather carryall that I gave him years ago that went everywhere with him. ‘We’ll catch up tomorrow.’ And with that, he walked towards the pool house, turning with a grin. ‘Now no midnight bathing and waking me up.’

  ‘As if,’ said Jane, smiling.

  ‘Oh God, I’m mortified.’ Kate put her head in her hands.

  ‘Don’t be,’ I said. ‘He was lucky you were being nice about him. There are plenty of other women wouldn’t be these days.’

  ‘Do you remember the time we were cornered on a roundabout in the local rec by that gang of boys who wouldn’t let us off without a kiss or a feel? We must have been about thirteen.’

  I laughed. ‘We kept on
spinning so they couldn’t get on but then we were too dizzy to get off?’

  ‘And because you were late home, Dan was sent out looking for you.’

  ‘Ah, my hero brother. The threat of a punch and a few choice words, and they scarpered. If he hadn’t turned up, we’d still be there!’

  ‘I hero-worshipped him after that.’ Kate was blushing.

  ‘And once word went round I was Dan Green’s little sister and you were my friend we were given an invisible cloak of protection.’

  ‘Did he ever get married?’ Kate apparently couldn’t believe that my dear brother hadn’t been snapped up, but she didn’t know what he was like. A commitment phobe from birth, but how would any of them know that? They had only seen my parents’ marriage from the outside so had no idea of the arguments and fights that had made us the people we were.

  ‘No wife. But kids,’ I added. ‘Three at the last count, but there may be more he doesn’t know about.’ I smiled to show that was meant as a family joke. ‘Or that I don’t.’

  ‘Wow!’ said Kate, wide-eyed and possibly disapproving, I couldn’t tell.

  Linda was pouring herself another glass of wine. A shame she didn’t have the same appreciation for the food that she’d picked her way through earlier. Where the other two had lashed into it, voicing their appreciation, Linda had picked out the mussels and put them on the side of her plate, and made a face as if hating shelling the prawns. But she was nervous. I got that. I was pretty nervous myself whenever I thought further ahead than the next minute. How was I going to keep them entertained? How would I broach the subject to find out what I wanted to know without ruining the weekend? For some reason I didn’t feel I could just ask, though that would have been by far the most straightforward approach. This was harder than I’d foreseen. But I had time. It could wait.

  ‘What would you like to do tomorrow? We can either laze about here or there’s the Saturday morning market in Sóller. We passed the town on our way up here, remember? Or we can explore somewhere else, go to the beach or just go for a walk. Your call.’

  ‘I love a market,’ said Jane, sitting up, interested.

  ‘I’d like that too,’ said Linda.

  ‘We could walk down before it gets too hot and then my feckless brother can come and get us later.’ After all, what else had he to do?

  ‘Would you mind if I stayed here?’ Kate looked anxious. ‘It’s just that I’d love one full day of doing absolutely nothing. We don’t have to stay together all the time, do we?’

  ‘Of course not. Whatever you like.’ I was pleased she felt able to ask.

  ‘I’ll drive you down if it’s the walk that’s putting you off,’ said Jane.

  ‘It’s not.’ Kate’s unexpected earrings swung as she turned her head. ‘But as a farmer’s wife, I’ve been to more markets than you’ve had hot dinners. Trust me.’

  ‘It’s not just fruit and veg,’ I said, not wanting her to feel done out of anything. ‘There’s jewellery, clothes, craft stuff – all that sort of thing. And Sóller itself is special.’ But I wasn’t going to force her. I’ve always thought the whole point of Ca’n Amy was to be able to do what you wanted there. We came to decompress and I wanted others to, as well – even my colleagues when they came to work here. But we did get better results here. I truly believed that.

  We would see.

  ‘That’s a shame.’ Linda stopped looking out at the mountains where house lights glowed in the distance. Fireflies danced closer by. The distant beat of music reached us from further along the mountainside. ‘Shouldn’t we do something together?’

  ‘I can always drive down to meet you once you’ve exhausted the market. But having a couple of hours on my own being at no one’s beck and call is my idea of heaven.’

  ‘Then that’s what you must do.’ Although having Kate there made being with Jane easier. I guessed Jane wanted shielding from us, too, although I couldn’t think why. I was beginning to remember that was the case when we were at school. Even within the short time we’d been back together, snatches of memory were surfacing that I didn’t particularly welcome, like the time she asked the others over to her house for a sleepover – but not me. I’d realised something was up by the way she and the others would break apart in the playground, looking secretive, when I approached. But I didn’t find out until after the weekend when they all came in with fake tattoos on their arms, talking about the midnight feast I hadn’t shared and the ghost stories that hadn’t frightened the shit out of me. I was crushed. Or that time when she was picking the players for her football team and I was left till last, and everyone was giggling. And yet, I never gave up wanting to be part of her circle. Why not?

  Because being part of it and, when things were going well, having her light shine on me, gave me the best feeling in the world. I could remember that too. She made us feel important, lifting me out of the world I came from and showing me the promise of something else. She was funny, generous, clever and the teachers all adored her. When she hooked her arm in mine as we walked to the sports field or picked me first or laughed at something I said, everyone else looked at me as if I mattered. Until I discovered I didn’t matter at all.

  What I’d told Kate about what happened after my expulsion can’t have been news to her. I was the talk of the school for a while. I look back as if I’m watching another person have that life. Perhaps I should have fought back more but I had tried and failed. My parents had been so proud of my plans to study medicine, and they were desperately upset when it all went wrong. Although I took my A levels at the comp, my grades were hopeless because I hadn’t bothered trying. I caved in when I should have fought back.

  After that I was a lost cause, and my friends were warned off me. I was angry and alone. And by the time I’d regained my confidence, my life had already gone down a different path. When I thought about it, yes, I was angry that my original ambitions had been sidelined. And here was Jane in the profession I’d dreamed of. I resented that, but there was an edge to her that I didn’t remember there being before. I couldn’t help feeling something else was going on.

  ‘How’s work?’ I asked. ‘I’m fascinated to know what you do day to day?’

  ‘I see cancer patients, decide on their treatment and keep tabs on their progress,’ she said, but didn’t elaborate further.

  I was puzzled: why so abrupt? Why didn’t she want to talk about something so worthwhile that she must feel passionately about? But if she didn’t want to, I wouldn’t make her. Perhaps we were all keeping some of the truth about ourselves from the others. Perhaps they, like me, wanted to present their best face to the world and escape from whatever they had left behind. I certainly didn’t want them thinking my life was less than perfect.

  10

  Walking through Fornalutx, the village below Amy’s house, Linda felt herself relax for the first time since she’d arrived on the island. Looking around her as they walked down the main road running through the village, she saw narrow cobbled streets and stairways lined by tall, sandy stone buildings with green shutters closed against the heat. Outside front doors, plants spilled from their pots. Although it was early, there were already several tourists wandering about with cameras at the ready. She would come back later to explore.

  Amy led them into a little bakery full of groceries, refrigerated drinks and bottles of wine. To the right was a glass counter where all sorts of pastries were on display. On the wall behind, baskets held loaves of fresh bread. The smell of them hung over everything. ‘We’ll get coffee in Sóller but these ensaimadas,’ Amy pointed through the glass counter, ‘are a speciality of the island. They’ll keep us going till we get there. You’ve got to try one.’ An exchange in fluent Spanish resulted in them each walking away with a soft round pastry coiled like a sleeping snake and covered in icing sugar, held in a scrap of paper. ‘Don’t even think of the calories. We’re walking.’

 
‘And sweating,’ said Jane, removing her hat and wiping her forehead with the palm of her hand. ‘What about stopping for a drink?’

  Amy pulled four bottles of water from her backpack and shared them round. ‘There. I thought of that.’

  Jane looked displeased but didn’t say anything. She had never been one for being told what to do, even now when Amy was just trying to give them a good time. Linda wouldn’t have minded stopping for a coffee herself and tried to catch Jane’s eye. Despite her resolutions, she’d drunk too much the evening before and spent a disturbed night worrying about a lecturer whom she had helped a couple of weeks earlier. She had given him umpteen suggestions of where he might look to find more information about cookery in the nineteenth century, but in the middle of the night, two more had come to her. She had emailed a colleague immediately to pass the info on. That would irritate them because they would never go to so much trouble, but that thoroughness came from her years at the London Library and working under Mike. And now she needed a shot of caffeine to give her a kick start.

  Linda was sorry Kate hadn’t come because she made everything easier when Jane and Amy were circling each other as if waiting for the real fight to begin. That last year at school held a lot that no one was facing up to. Linda had the opportunity to go over old ground too, but that part of her life and the shame that went with it was so buttoned up inside her that she couldn’t imagine ever letting it go. What had happened was part of her now and had done much to shape who she had become.