Because they trusted him, I told myself. Dad, or Vera, or Mum—one of them must have given Michael a key at some point because they trusted him. It might even have come from Vera’s parents—Vera celebrates her seventy-fifth birthday next year, and I would guess Michael to be ten years older. He might have been living in that cottage, working for Vera’s parents, long before Vera inherited the house. The old village postmaster once told me my great-grandparents threw scandalous parties here during the “fabulous fifties”: naked dancing on the beach, he told me; babies conceived under cloaks around the campfire; eerie singing from the top of the folly. No wonder Summerbourne has never shrugged off its reputation for being a world apart from the rest of the village.
I try to picture Michael Harris watching me drive away from Summerbourne on Monday, shuffling down the lane, letting himself in, climbing the stairs, writing with lipstick on the mirror. I throw off my sheet and head for the shower. It’s beyond ridiculous.
Joel has left me a note on the kitchen table:Eat breakfast.I blast some instant porridge in the microwave and force it down. Then I push my lurking anxieties to the back of my mind and concentrate on scrubbing the kitchen and running the vacuum cleaner around the ground floor. I don’t need to rely on Vera remembering to send in cleaners. I throw open every windowand all of the back doors, and the fresh sea breeze clears the stale air from the house.
Until last month, my solitude at Summerbourne was interrupted regularly by visits from Dad. If Edwin came with him, he and Dad would happily spend a Sunday morning preparing a roast dinner, and if Vera joined us, we would shake out the old red tablecloth and make an event of it. Danny spends the odd week here too, in between overseas volunteering projects; he makes popcorn when I get in from work, and we binge-watch old movies together.
But I rarely have other visitors. Perhaps I don’t feel the same need for friends that other people do. Outside my family, the only person I ever longed to be close to was Joel, and I made a total mess of that. When acquaintances in the village ask me to the pub, or a party, or a barbecue, I make my excuses. I prefer my own company. Today, I try to convince myself, as I count napkins and swipe cobwebs out of corners, that this is the reason for my growing nervousness about Kiara’s impending visit. Not that I’m frightened of what she might say. Not that I’m frightened I might regret ever meeting her.
While I’m peering into the fridge, wondering if the pasta salads are still safe to eat, my phone beeps with a text from Danny:Ok if I bring Brooke along tonight?
As if I don’t have enough to worry about already with Kiara coming tomorrow. Does this mean Danny’s serious about this woman? Has he told her yet that the house will be his one day?
I slam the fridge door shut, empty-handed.Would love to see Brooke sometime, I type,but this weekend not really best time. Hope you agree? S.
Much later he replies:Ok no worries.
Midafternoon, the house is more or less visitor ready when the doorbell rings. A van stands on the drive with the driver’sdoor hanging open,Luckhurst Landscape Gardeningprinted on the side. My surge of adrenaline doesn’t recede. Ralph Luckhurst? What’s he doing here?
“Hi,” he says. He stands a couple of meters back from the step with his hands in his pockets. He’s grown a beard since I last saw him, and its effect in combination with his dark curls is dramatic. He looks so much older, more serious than ever. “Sorry. I promised your gran I’d take a quick look at the back lawn, but I can do it some other time. It’s just, you know, my mum asked me to check you’re okay as well.”
“I’m fine,” I say automatically, staring at him.
He’s like a stranger these days. He was always kind to me when we were children, but his interest in me grew more intense as the years passed. Five years older than me, he used to wait for me outside my sixth form college when I was seventeen, offering to take me to the cinema or out for a drink. I said yes a few times, trying to convince myself I fancied him, trying to take my mind off Joel.
Ralph had been there at the pool party and knew I’d spent the subsequent two years trying to avoid Joel, so when he saw us kissing at Edwin’s graduation party, he assumed that Joel was harassing me and reacted accordingly. Joel left the party with a black eye, too shocked to listen to my drunken apologies. Ralph and I maintained a lopsided friendship for another year, but we drifted apart when I left for university. My romantic life has always been a disaster.
Ralph squints toward the patch of damaged grass when I tell him I’m fine.
“Good,” he says. “My mum said you looked upset the other day, that’s all, but I’m glad you’re fine.” He takes a step back.
Warmth spreads across my cheeks as I picture myself staggering out of the doctor’s office the day before yesterday. Whatmust Helen have thought? And of course, Hayley Pickersgill would have told him about it too. His fiancée. I grip the door handle more firmly, ready to send him on his way.
“I’m really sorry about your dad,” he says then, his voice low, and for a fleeting moment I glimpse Ralph as a teenager again: always ready to help anyone in need despite the constant responsibility of caring for his mother and sister. I was so angry with him after he punched Joel at Edwin’s party that night, but I never doubted it was because he cared about me. He kept checking up on me in the days and weeks afterward, long after Joel had disappeared. I swing the door open wider.
“You might as well look at the lawn now, since you’re here.”
He glances back at his van. “I should have rung first. I can come back at a better time.”
“Please. I haven’t seen you in so long. And I’m going a bit crazy here on my own, to be honest.”
He puffs out a big breath, and his gaze runs over the upstairs windows. “Sure, okay.”
I fill two glasses with cold water from the kitchen tap, and he follows me out to the patio. I settle in a chair and watch him pace out over the lawn, stooping to poke at it a couple of times. When he joins me back on the patio, he’s restless, jiggling his leg as he squints out at the garden.
“It’s bad, isn’t it?” I say, following his gaze. “Not like when Michael Harris used to do it. I wish Vera would get rid of the current gardeners. Would you take it on, if she asked you?”
He clears his throat. “Actually, she thinks I should concentrate on the design side of the business in the long term. But she did cancel their contract a few days ago. That’s why—I’ll get the lawn treated at least, while she finds someone else to take over.”
“Oh.” I nod slowly, determined not to show him how takenaback I am that he knows more about my grandmother’s plans than I do. There’s a note of respect in his voice when he mentions her that makes me feel guilty for not having apologized to her after our argument last week. She’s helped his family a lot over the years, and he’s obviously grateful. “Gran said—didn’t she help find Daisy a job recently, in the village?”
“That’s right. At the baker’s. She loves it.”
“Great,” I say. We sip our drinks and stare out at the garden. I don’t want to ask him about the rest of his life, about Hayley and his wedding plans. I wish I hadn’t invited him to sit down; he could have been on his way by now, reporting back to his mother and my grandmother. Yellow dandelion heads shiver as a breeze strokes the lawn, and an idea occurs to me.
“If someone sprayed normal weed killer on all this”—I gesture to the scene in front of us—“would it kill the grass too?”
“Well, you’ve got to use the right stuff.”
