A Summer to Remember. Sue Moorcroft

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СКАЧАТЬ beds he’d been working on. Alice had thought it amusing to create as many circles in and around her circular house as possible. Even the garden shed was circular because Lee, besotted, had made it for her. ‘You’re doing this garden now,’ Clancy pointed out.

      ‘Because Evelyn found a boyfriend and hightailed it to live with him in Wales.’ He went on with the caretaker’s job description. ‘You’d also handle bookings. A lot come through a tourism website; they ring you with the details. A few come directly by post or phone. You sort out guests’ gripes, answer questions, solve problems and basically do whatever comes up. I’m afraid that if you’re at home, tenants and guests consider you on duty. Evelyn left the book inside the Roundhouse. I’ll show it to you.’

      ‘Book?’

      ‘The one with bookings in.’ It was a fat, dog-eared volume Evelyn had kept up-to-date and in which she’d left copious notes for her successor.

      ‘You make bookings in an actual book?’ She almost smiled. ‘There’s no booking software?’

      Slowly, he relaxed. This was it. Her sticking point. The indisputable fact he could share with her in good conscience and let it send her back to the city. He stretched his legs and crossed them at the ankle. ‘No booking software. The village is an internet “not spot” with ancient phone lines and poor-to-non-existent mobile signal. Look,’ he said, feeling magnanimous now he realised there was no way a city girl used to being permanently plugged in could exist in an environment where information technology was rendered virtually – ha, ha – useless. ‘I suppose being involved with the cottages peripherally hasn’t given you a clear picture of life in Nelson’s Bar.’

      He encompassed the row of cottages joined to the Roundhouse with a wave of his arm. ‘The rental cottages are the only real holiday homes in the entire village, though there is a B&B, which has a bar about six feet by six and, outside, a few tables with umbrellas. We have no church, no shop, no pub or coffee shop. The Norfolk Coast Path bypasses us and although north Norfolk is popular with walkers, most don’t tackle the hill climb to get up here.’ He sat back, giving her the opportunity to hum and haw, to backtrack on her intention to live in the back of beyond.

      But then Clancy’s breath left her in a long, slow, peaceful sigh. ‘Sounds perfect,’ she said.

       Chapter Two

      Clancy knew her answer had surprised Aaron from the way his brows clicked down over his eyes. ‘Seriously?’ he asked stiffly. From within the Roundhouse, a phone began to ring and he rose from the bench, disappearing indoors to answer it. Then he reappeared. ‘That was my girlfriend. She knew I was working here and I’m late to meet her.’ He paused, checking his watch. ‘I’ll come back in a couple of hours. We need to finish this conversation.’

      ‘Fine.’ Clancy wondered whether he was expecting her to think twice in his absence.

      She watched him pack the garden tools into the shed and click his fingers to his enormous dog. Every word Aaron had spoken had increased Clancy’s belief that Nelson’s Bar was exactly what she needed. He might as well have said, ‘Here’s a quiet, safe backwater where you can get your head straight. The job’s a doddle for someone with organisational skills.’

      Clancy Moss, however temporarily exhausted, thrived on challenges, and the ability to adapt had been bred into her. With engineers for parents, she’d been brought up in Belize, various parts of Africa, Dubai, Hong Kong … sometimes in company compounds or city apartments but also in remote villages. She’d attended company schools, boarding school, local schools and international schools. She’d even, at times, attended Alice’s school, and had loved the feeling of having a settled home with Alice and Aunt Sally while her parents vanished into a part of Africa considered unsuitable for their daughter. Boarding school and its dull routines and restrictions came a poor second to sharing escapades with Alice and being spoiled by her aunt.

      Once she’d come to the UK for uni she’d tried to re-create that feeling of belonging. She’d thought she’d found it with Will but now … Now she’d been pushed into the painful break from Will and her colleagues – she wasn’t sure whether it was still logical to call them friends – she needed to regroup.

      OK, so, food first. Just to confirm what Aaron had said, she took out her phone. No service. So she’d just drive to Hunstanton and find a supermarket. Then she’d—

      ‘Yoohoo!’ came a creaky female voice. ‘Do you mind if I come into the garden? Hope not, because I’m in.’ The voice trembled a laugh.

      Surprised into rising and facing the direction the voice had come from, Clancy had to grab the back of the bench as her head swam anew. A short, rotund woman with a dandelion clock of white hair and a sweet smile shuffled around the house. ‘Are you are our new Evelyn? I’m Dilys, from number two. I thought I’d say hello.’ By now Dilys was standing in front of Clancy, daisy-strewn wellies peeping from beneath a rose-splashed skirt. Her eyebrows bobbed enquiringly.

      ‘I’m taking the caretaker’s job, yes.’ It was impossible not to return Dilys’s smile; it was so twinkly and warm. ‘I was just wondering where I could find a supermarket. Or furniture shops. Aaron had to rush off before he could tell me.’ She supposed she was lucky that she had money in the bank but she hadn’t really bargained for the hassle of furnishing the Roundhouse when she decided to launch herself towards Nelson’s Bar.

      Dilys’s grey eyes twinkled as she turned and let herself down stiffly onto the bench beside Clancy. ‘Furniture? I expect he’ll just bring the other stuff back. They stored it up at De Silva House – Aaron’s parents’ place – because Evelyn had her own.’

      Clancy suppressed a wriggle of hurt that Aaron hadn’t mentioned something that, clearly, would make her life easier. Evidently, he didn’t want her here. So what? She’d been unwanted by people much closer and more important to her than Aaron De Silva. Her ex-fiancé and work colleagues, for example. And with her parents it had always only been fifty-fifty.

      She shoved those negative thoughts away with a bright, ‘Was it Alice and Lee’s furniture? I’m Alice’s cousin, Clancy.’

      Dilys beamed. ‘Her cousin! How is Alice? I never hear from her.’

      ‘I think she’s OK,’ Clancy answered carefully. After jilting Lee, Alice had made no bones about preferring to be invisible to anyone at Nelson’s Bar and had wheedled unashamedly to get Clancy to represent Alice’s interest in Roundhouse Row. ‘I’m on the move all the time anyway and you’re so good at stuff. Don’t make me interact with judgy big bro Aaron, puhleeeeease, Clancee.’ Clancy had sighed and said yes. People often said yes to Alice. Maybe it was because she just seemed to expect it, but also it was her pretty smile, the swish of her stylishly cut hair, or the way she had of linking arms as if to demonstrate how much she liked you.

      And, wherever Clancy had been in the world, Alice had always sent letters, cards, messages, demands to know where Clancy was and what she was doing, requests for postcards or photos or to know when Clancy was going to come and live with them again. Whatever Alice’s faults, she and Clancy had a bond.

      These days it was Alice’s travelling the bond had to survive, rather than Clancy’s. The only time they’d seen each other in the last six years was when Aunt Sally had died suddenly four years ago. Alice had reappeared for the funeral, white-faced and red-eyed over the loss of her mother. Then she’d sold the family home in Warwickshire and vanished again, her travel fund firmly bolstered СКАЧАТЬ