A Summer to Remember. Sue Moorcroft

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СКАЧАТЬ parents’ home. It was as if someone had arranged for her to be permanently in the wrong. Will began an affair with Renée; Clancy was asked to leave IsVid. Alice did a runner on her wedding day? Clancy should be kept at arm’s length.

      Dilys seemed unaware of the undercurrents. ‘We need the internet. We need to be able to order groceries to come to our houses, and do our banking without having to go into Hunny.’ She clapped Clancy on the shoulder. ‘This girl, she knows all about it. She should tell everyone.’

      Aaron looked anywhere but at Clancy. ‘Um … you could always give the information to me to be shared with the meeting.’

      It was so obvious he hoped Clancy would go for that option that she nodded. ‘OK. As it happens, I have a little understanding of the problem of connectivity in rural areas because I once worked with a rural charity client.’ She drew a breath and delivered a rapid stream of facts about the need for affordable, fast broadband for working from home, networking, advertising, education and socialising. ‘Unfortunately, the commercial reality is that big providers are not necessarily interested in small communities,’ she ended. ‘Good luck.’

      Then she deposited Dilys and Ernie’s shopping on their respective doorsteps; returned for her own bags, offered the three still standing in the lane a goodbye smile and sailed indoors.

      It was after a couple of hours of hanging curtains that Clancy realised she was short of curtain hooks. Knowing she’d bought plenty, she trotted out to check her car boot. Sure enough, two packs had found their way into a corner and she had to move to the offside of the vehicle and stretch in to reclaim them.

      She’d just straightened up when a white van rounded the bend and came flying up the lane, forcing her to leap out of its way. She dropped the packs in the dust in her fright. As she retrieved them, muttering under her breath, she heard the sound of the van halting and a door opening and closing.

      ‘Sorry,’ came a male voice. ‘I took the bend too quickly.’

      Clancy met the man’s awkward gaze with a sense of shock.

      ‘Clancy,’ he murmured, when she remained speechless, ‘I thought it was you.’

      His hair was lighter and straighter than Aaron’s and his face less animated but Clancy knew him too. She looked into his eyes – also lighter than Aaron’s – and was shocked. He looked so weary, and more like five years older than his brother than two years younger. ‘Hello, Lee. I’m glad to see you.’ She would have been gladder to see him with the boyish grin he used to wear.

      His smile looked to be an effort. ‘But perhaps not at such speed? I’m late for a thing at my parents’ house but I didn’t mean to mow you down.’

      ‘Don’t worry, you missed.’

      An awkward pause, Clancy absorbing the fact that she’d said she was glad to see Lee but he hadn’t returned the compliment. In fact, he was regarding her in the way a child might regard a spoonful of medicine – unpleasant but unavoidable.

      She decided to try a gentle tackle on the elephant in the lane. ‘I hope me being around doesn’t bring back bad memories. I just … needed somewhere to go.’

      He looked struck as he digested this. ‘I suppose I did the same.’ Then he patted her shoulder awkwardly, returned to his vehicle and drove away.

      She returned to the Roundhouse thinking sombrely that life just beat some people up. She’d continue to fight against becoming one of them.

      The summer sky had taken on a navy blue hue between box hedges and chalk cottages when Aaron arrived, unannounced, at Clancy’s door, Nelson sporting a doggy grin, at his side.

      ‘Got a minute to chat?’ Aaron asked, by way of greeting.

      Conscious that he owned half the building she was living in and so, presumably, didn’t really need to ask, she decided to be civilised and invite him in for coffee. ‘Good meeting?’ she asked politely, as she took down mugs. They’d been Alice’s and were plain white with Royal Doulton on the bottom. Alice was nothing if not aspirational.

      Aaron had helped himself to a seat at the kitchen table, dark eyes on her as she tried to remember how to work her new coffee machine. ‘I suppose so,’ he answered. ‘The usual stuff: the school in Thornham closed in the eighties – that always gets an airing – so we need young couples to stay in the village and increase the population. We should have a village hall but no one knows how to come up with the money. Kaz at the B&B wants more tourism and is worried about the future of the business. Obviously, wanting Roundhouse Row to be as full as possible, I agreed with her, not least because the B&B is in our literature as somewhere our guests might get a meal, but some villagers huffed and puffed about not wanting Nelson’s Bar “overrun with tourists”.’

      ‘Three holiday rentals and one B&B won’t attract enough tourists to “overrun” will they?’ In view of her current occupation, Clancy felt an affinity with Kaz and Oli. Kaz had seemed very nice if – understandably, it seemed – a little preoccupied with business.

      ‘Unlikely,’ Aaron agreed drily. ‘And those same people want the B&B there when they fancy lunch on the lawn or somewhere local for friends and relatives to stay. Ernie says the B&B needs a bigger bar so more than five people can get in at a time – nobody disagreed with that one. And, as you knew she would, Dilys took the position that Nelson’s Bar needs the internet and Ernie boomed out that the internet’s full of viruses and crooks.’

      The coffee machine hissed and began to emit the unmistakeable coffee-is-nigh fragrance. Clancy gave him the first cup – with a splash in a saucer for Nelson – and popped in a coffee pod for the second. ‘The B&B seems a big part of the village.’

      He gave a short laugh. ‘It would certainly be a worry if it came under threat. I had a chat with Kaz and Oli afterwards, trying to remember all the points about rural communities that you’d fired at me. Anyway,’ he went on, before she could ask more, ‘I’ve come to apologise. And explain.’ He’d propped his chin on his fist.

      ‘Go on then,’ she said, intrigued. The second coffee ready, she scooped it up and joined him at the table.

      He ran a fingertip moodily around the rim of his mug. ‘I’m not impressed with myself. I deliberately made you feel unwelcome to go to the meeting.’

      ‘I got that.’

      He closed his eyes for a moment. ‘Which makes it worse. I’m sure it felt personal but, really, it wasn’t.’

      ‘It was because of Lee,’ she supplied.

      The dark eyes flicked open, looking wary. ‘Yes. You probably think I’m way exceeding my protectiveness but—’

      ‘I’ve seen him,’ she put in, remembering the fragility in Lee’s eyes. ‘He stopped to say hello.’ She told Aaron about the meeting, adding, ‘I couldn’t get over the change in him. He looks a genuinely troubled soul. I have to admit that at first I was stung that you so obviously wanted to keep me away from De Silva House and impatient if Lee was still rotting inside about what Alice did, but he looks so … beaten.’

      Aaron’s shoulders relaxed a notch. ‘Thank you for saying that but it proves how misguided I was to try and protect him, when he chose to meet the issue head-on.’ He inhaled the steam of his coffee before taking an appreciative swig. ‘I’m guilty of excessive big-brotherliness СКАЧАТЬ