One Hot Summer: A heartwarming summer read from the author of One Day in December. Kat French
‘It came to me yesterday after you left.’
Niamh frowned. ‘I only cancelled your newspapers, Alice, not your whole life. Have you had a knock on the head?’
‘I’m serious, Niamh. I thought about it all day yesterday and it might just work.’
It was more of an economy with the truth than an actual lie. She hadn’t thought of it yesterday, she’d thought of it at about four o’ clock that morning as she’d peeled her cheek from the dining table and made her way blearily up to bed. Her dreams had been full of the Airstream, muddled and messed up, but they’d sown the seed of a more plausible idea that had gripped her from the moment she’d properly woken up.
Pluto dropped his ball at Niamh’s feet and she picked it up and hurled it across the grass. ‘You’re going to have to spell this out. I’m not seeing how you moving into the caravan will help.’
‘Because if I live in the caravan, I can rent the house out to someone else to pay the mortgage.’
Niamh paused. ‘Are you allowed to do that?’
A frown creased Alice’s brow. ‘Why wouldn’t I be?’
‘I don’t know … I just thought there were rules around that sort of stuff.’
Alice chewed her lip. ‘Then I’ll get it sorted so I can. I mean it, Niamh. This is the only way I can think of not to let Borne Manor go completely, or at least until I’m ready to leave on my own terms, rather than because of Felicity bloody Shaw.’
Niamh fell silent for a moment and then reached down and felt around on the ground behind the bench. When she straightened she held a half-empty bottle of rum in her hand, the emergency supply they kept there for extra cold winter mornings or moments of dire need. Moving from the grandeur and luxury of Borne Manor into a caravan that probably wasn’t even watertight definitely fell into the latter category. Tipping a good snifter into each of their coffee mugs, she clanked her cup against Alice’s.
‘Let’s drink these then and go and view your new home.’
‘It’s … it’s …’ Niamh paused, stepping into the caravan behind Alice ten minutes later. It had taken almost five minutes to prise the door open, and the first thing that hit them was the pungent smell of damp when a hard tug had finally wrenched it from its seal.
‘It’s kind of cute?’ Alice finished for her, seeing the same battered wooden interior as Niamh, though through more rose-tinted glasses. ‘Let’s open the windows, get rid of the damp smell. It’ll be fine once it’s aired.’
‘You think?’ Niamh’s gaze swept from the lumpy double bed at one end of the caravan to the threadbare seating at the other, taking in the tatty kitchenette and holey lino on the way. ‘Is there a bathroom?’
Alice stepped along the central aisle and they both reached for a wall to steady themselves as the caravan lurched downwards at one end.
‘Oops! Legs must need putting down.’ Alice smiled nervously. ‘The bathroom’s in there,’ she added, waving an expansive hand towards a slim door beside the bed. ‘There’s a loo and everything.’
She looked back over her shoulder at her friend’s doubtful expression. ‘Don’t pull that face. Work with me here, I need your vision. You’re an artist; can’t you see it as a blank canvas ready to be made gorgeous?’ She ran her hand over the faded wooden kitchen cupboard. ‘A rub down here, a lick of varnish there … some pretty curtains maybe?’
Alice watched Niamh study the interior, silently willing her to see beyond the shabbiness. Slowly, her friend began to nod.
‘Yes? You see it?’ Alice took Niamh’s fledgling encouragement and ran with it. ‘I looked on the net today, you should see some of the vintage Airstream makeovers I’ve found. It might be a bit of an ugly duckling now, but it’s got potential, and that’s the main thing, isn’t it?’ Alice needed Niamh to share her vision; not least because she couldn’t sew so much as a button on while Niamh could operate her state of the art sewing machine with her eyes closed.
‘It’s an old girl, but she’s got good bone structure, so just maybe,’ Niamh said, ever cautious.
Alice nodded. ‘She’s Greta bloody Garbo!’
‘Steady on. Let’s start at Dot Cotton and work our way up.’
Suitably sobered, Alice ran through the basics she could remember from the eBay seller she’d bought it from. ‘Everything works. The water, gas, electrics, everything should be fine once it’s had a spruce up.’
‘Heating?’ Niamh pulled the sleeves of her jumper over her fingers as she spoke.
Alice nodded again, even though she couldn’t precisely remember the heating being mentioned. ‘I’ll be snug as a bug.’
‘A bed bug, probably,’ Niamh said, casting a glance over the tired-looking mattress. Alice followed suit and then breathed in deeply.
‘I’ll just bring my mattress topper down from the house. It’ll be fine.’
They both turned as Pluto appeared in the doorway, a heavy breathing thud of paws as he dropped his damp ball on the grubby floor and rolled his good eye at them hopefully.
‘Not on Alice’s new carpet, Plute!’ Niamh scolded, earning herself a nudge in the ribs for her sarcasm as they headed out of the caravan and back to normality. It didn’t escape Alice’s notice that it was a degree or two warmer outside than it was inside the caravan, despite the early morning frost. She made a mental note to order the highest possible tog-rated quilt later. Was arctic-tog even a thing? Dithering as they crunched back over the lawns towards the house, she really hoped so.
‘Are you sure this is the place?’ Robinson Duff frowned out of the passenger window of the taxi as it slowed to a halt outside Borne Manor. Set well back from the road along a sweeping drive, the house was nothing like Robinson’s sister had led him to believe. She’d used words like modern and cutting edge, he distinctly remembered their telephone conversation when she’d raved about having found him the perfect place on the internet.
This place wasn’t modern. As soon as he was settled they’d be having another conversation, one that began with something distinctly like ‘why the hell have you posted me out to Middle Earth for six months? What do you think I am, a fucking hobbit?’
Lounging splendidly in the watery afternoon sunshine, it was cute on a grand scale, the kind of house you might see on the English Tourism website alongside rolling green countryside and adverts for Shakespeare.
Robinson didn’t do cute. Jesus, the mellow stone walls were practically pink, and was that wisteria winding its way around the huge, old, wooden front door? It made him think of fairy stories and afternoon tea, not usual or welcome thoughts for a man more accustomed to packed stadiums and the technicalities of a recording studio. Who the hell lived in a place like this? Goldilocks, maybe?
‘This is definitely you,’ the driver confirmed, glancing at the satnav app on his iPhone clipped to the dashboard. ‘I’ll get your bags out of the boot, shall I?’
Robinson unhooked his seatbelt with a resigned sigh. ‘Looks that way.’
Inside Borne Manor, Alice paced barefoot across the cool flagstones of the square entrance hall. She’d fallen for the house as soon as she’d first set foot on those flagstones, picturing the grand stone fireplace alive with flames in winter and a cheery jug of flowers on the central table in springtime. The sound of car doors slamming had her heart bumping around behind her ribs. The new tenant must have arrived. Her heart didn’t know whether to soar or sink.
One of the benefits of being with Brad had been access to decent legal advice,