A Summer to Remember. Sue Moorcroft
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on its hanger. And her car was gone.’
Aaron swung around to look at his brother.
And Lee crumbled right before his eyes.
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