One Lucky Summer Page 16

  There was a pause where Olive seemed to presume the conversation was over.

  But Ruben didn’t think it was done. She’d been on her high horse last night about his potential failings at fatherhood and he felt justifiably high-horsed now in return. She was being so petty. ‘Don’t you think, maybe …’ he proffered, feeling his heart rate rise in what was possibly a fear of reprisal but he refused to kowtow, him and Olive had always told it to each other straight, ‘it’s you that’s being a bit childish?’

  Olive turned from the sink to glare at him.

  Ruben stared back. Unwavering. He could tell from her expression that it was a long time since she’d been challenged. He could see all the colours of her furious eyes. The flick of her lashes as she tried to harden her stare. Inside he wanted to smile – it was like one of their showdowns as kids. The adrenaline was addictive but he just kept on looking, calm and composed, holding her steady, watching every tiny flicker of her face. She looked really pretty when she was annoyed.

  Then suddenly Zadie came skipping inside. ‘That was my mum; she’s having a great time on her honeymoon. They’ve swum with dolphins. Can you believe it? I swam with dolphins once but they were like really far away.’

  Ruben kept one eye on Olive, watched as she wiped her hands angrily on a tea towel. He could feel his heart thumping.

  Zadie was still talking as Olive swept past him, with clearly the best comeback she could rustle up in the time. ‘Why don’t you just focus on your daughter?’

  ‘Will do, Olive. Will do.’ Ruben grinned.

  Chapter Fifteen

  The morning sky was white like a fluffy roll of cotton wool. Seagulls snoozed on the ice-flat sea in the distance. The park was still. A kite hung limp in the branches of a horse chestnut.

  ‘You seem tense, Dolly,’ said Fox as he strode alongside her.

  ‘She’s so righteous!’ Dolly stomped through the lush grass, past grazing deer and sprawling ferns. ‘Always acting like some pseudo-parent, going on about how I’ve never grown up. I’m a grown-up, look at me, grown up!’ Dolly turned to Fox outraged as she gestured to her adult self.

  ‘Did you ever feel like a parent?’ asked Fox, walking next to her, feet sinking into the thick grass, a trail of deep dewy footprints behind them.

  ‘Don’t start all that on me. It’s not going to work. “Do you feel this, you seem that.” I’m on to you, Mason. None of your hostage negotiator stuff on me, got it?’

  Fox smiled under his breath. ‘I don’t know what you’re talking about.’

  ‘I don’t know what you’re talking about,’ Dolly mimicked. ‘Don’t act the innocent with me.’

  Fox didn’t reply, just kept his annoying half-smile on his face. Dolly looked ahead at the landscape and tried not to think about anything to do with her mum and dad. Many years ago, she had perfected the ability to shut her thoughts down completely. Through a dogged determination to conquer meditation, she could now turn her mind into a simple canvas of blue. Nothing else but blue. Like the sea. But it wasn’t working right now. ‘And no,’ she huffed, ‘I never felt like a parent. I felt like a child.’

  Fox didn’t say anything.

  Above them, the sun was working hard to peek through the shredded clouds.

  ‘Olive had everything she wanted,’ said Dolly, still on the warpath.

  Tiny birds darted in and out of the bushes.

  ‘Did she?’ questioned Fox.

  ‘Yeah.’ Dolly tied her hair up with her good hand, twisting it angrily into some semblance of a ponytail. ‘She had everything!’

  They walked a little further. Hands behind his back, Fox mused, ‘Do you think maybe she had everything you wanted?’

  Dolly glared at him. ‘What’s that supposed to mean?’

  Out on the horizon, fishing boats were coming in after a night at sea. The sunlight catching on the rigging and the tinfoil sea.

  Fox turned away so his gaze was fixed on the boats. ‘Well, she had the guy – Ruben. She had the upper hand in terms of your relationship purely from her age.’ Fox shielded his eyes from the growing glare of the sun to get a better view of the fishermen. ‘And I’m assuming – based on the school of thought that she was the parent figure – clearly everyone in the family listened to her. So she had authority, which is always enviable.’

  Fox looked back in Dolly’s direction.

  It was her turn not to say anything. To consider instead what had been said.

  Fox took a chance and said into the silence, ‘You can be jealous of someone, Dolly, and still empathise with them.’

  ‘Shut up, I’m not jealous!’

  ‘Right you are,’ said Fox.

  Dolly could sense he was biding his time now. Storing away details.

  What was so annoying was the initial meeting with Ruben de Lacy had left Dolly punching the air inside. She’d kept her face straight, she’d played it cool, she’d even managed a little aloof flirtation. The long-awaited face to face with Ruben had gone even better than her wildest fantasies. She had done it. She had wowed him. She had him eating from the palm of her hand. She’d felt high as a kite. Dear God, it had been a miracle. Then bloody Fox saunters up with her sling and Olive does what Olive does best, which was tell her off.

  ‘So where are we going?’ Fox asked.

  ‘Trevellyn Bay,’ said Dolly. ‘It’s round the headland. When the tide’s out there’s miles of rockpools. We used to go there as kids.’

  ‘And you know the way?’

  ‘’Course I know the way!’

  Fox got his smashed phone out of his pocket and tried to load Google Maps. ‘No signal, damn it.’

  ‘Honestly, I know the way,’ Dolly laughed.

  ‘Dolly, I don’t want to be rude but your navigation skills so far haven’t been much to write home about,’ he replied without looking up.

  ‘What?’ She sucked in her cheeks. ‘Well, I was going to let you try my phone but now I won’t.’

  He gave her a withering glance. ‘You’ve just claimed that you’re not a child.’

  Dolly turned away, chastened.

  It was hot. The sun was getting higher, brilliant ketchup rays cascading the horizon. Sweat was trickling down her back. They came to a fork in the path. One way led through the woods and the other snaked up towards heather-strewn rocks.

  Dolly said, ‘It’s that way,’ pointing at the rockier terrain.

  ‘You’re sure?’ said Fox.

  Dolly rolled her eyes. ‘Of course.’

  They hiked on. Higher and higher into the wild landscape. The rising limestone rocks. The pink heather. The patchwork grass. The yellow gorse. In the distance, the sea bashed roughly at the headland. Stretched dark and blue out to the horizon. ‘Is this still Willoughby Park?’ asked Fox.

  ‘Oh yeah. It’s Willoughby Park for miles.’ There was moorland as far as the eye could see. Gorse bushes and intermittent stone tors. ‘I’m thirsty,’ said Dolly, pausing to get her bearings.

  Fox wiped his brow. ‘Me too.’

  ‘Don’t you have any water? I thought you were always prepared.’

  ‘I am but you rushed me out of the house.’

  They walked for another half an hour or so.

  Dolly said, ‘We need those sticks that tell us where water is.’

  ‘Divining?’ Fox asked.

  ‘Yes!’ she replied, sweat trickling down her temples. ‘Exactly. Don’t they teach you that in the Marines?’

  Fox chuckled. ‘Considering we were amphibious troops, there wasn’t much call for it.’

  Dolly yawned. She was thirsty and hot and still bristling from her run-in with Olive. There was no shade. And what had seemed like a short hop to the top of the hill was taking a deceptively long time. ‘What do the monks do when they’re really thirsty?’

  ‘Well, I think in this situation they would advise positivity. Believe that you will find what you are looking for and you will,’ Fox replied, his own T-shirt soaked with sweat that he’d wiped from hi
s brow.

  Dolly nodded. Then she said, ‘I’m just collecting saliva in my mouth and drinking it.’

  Fox laughed. ‘Nice.’

  Under different circumstances the view ahead of them would have been idyllic. Rocky outcrops up the tumbling hill. Grass as green as emeralds. Tufts of yellow gorse and a row of trees bent almost double against harsh winter winds. But to Dolly it was looking very unfamiliar. She paused, glanced around to get her bearings. She couldn’t see the house any more. Nor could she see the sea.

  Fox paused too. ‘All right?’ he asked.

  Dolly winced. ‘Yeah.’

  Fox said, ‘What?’

  ‘I think I might be a bit lost.’ The sun looked less beautiful, the landscape less picturesque. Now it looked hot and barren and exempt of shade.

  ‘Oh, you’re kidding?’ Fox smacked his forehead. ‘I knew not to trust your directions.’

  Dolly was about to defend herself when Fox bent down to touch a pile of earth. ‘Molehills,’ he said.

  ‘So?’

  ‘Moles prefer ground that’s damp. More malleable. Means there’s water near here.’

  ‘Are you making this up?’ Dolly asked, eyes narrowed with disbelief.

  Fox shook his head, deadly serious. ‘No!’

  Dolly wasn’t sure whether to believe him. They trekked on. Fox taking the lead. The hillside terrain was harder than it looked. Uneven and dotted with old grass-covered molehills that jarred the ankle. Ahead of her, Fox looked like he was starting to limp slightly again.

  The sun was merciless. It felt like a cricket bat thwacking her further towards the ground. Searing her skin while the grass itched her ankles.

  ‘I can’t believe this is happening to us, again,’ Fox said. ‘Everything I do with you goes wrong.’

  Dolly raised a brow. ‘Everything I do with you more like!’

  ‘No,’ he wasn’t having any of it. ‘I’m sensing you’re definitely the weakest link here.’

  Dolly shook her head, eyes reprimanding. ‘I don’t think your Buddhist monk would approve of that accusation.’

  Fox ran his hand over his super short hair and sighed. ‘No, you’re right.’ Then he bowed slightly and said, ‘I’m sorry.’

  Dolly laughed again. ‘You don’t have to bow to me.’

  Then suddenly Fox stopped short, still half bent over. ‘Oh Christ,’ he muttered.

  ‘What?’ Dolly said.

  There was clear panic in his voice as he hissed, ‘Don’t move. It’s a snake.’ He sounded almost like he might be hyperventilating.

  Dolly said. ‘Is it poisonous?’

  ‘I’ve got no idea,’ he snapped, really trying to calm his breath. ‘It’s a snake. That’s enough, isn’t it?’ His neck had gone blotchy red.

  Dolly frowned. He was getting awfully ruffled for someone usually so calm. She peered round him to look at the killer beast that had provoked such a reaction in the unflappable Fox Mason. Curled up, basking in the sun, completely uninterested in the pair of them, was a grass snake, the kind Dolly used to catch in a bucket and take home to study.

  But, she assumed from Fox’s general quivering demeanour, he didn’t know that. Dolly grinned to herself. ‘Oh God,’ she said, voice low.

  ‘What?’ Fox turned his head, his pupils the size of pennies.

  ‘Stop! Don’t move,’ Dolly ordered, feigning serious calm. Two could play at his all-knowing smugness.

  ‘Is it poisonous?’ he whispered, face pale.

  ‘Very,’ said Dolly, trying really hard to stay serious when he was frozen in terror next to her. ‘You need to put your hands on your head and walk away very slowly.’

  Fox started to lift his arms. Then he paused. ‘Why do I need to put my hands on my head?’

  Dolly felt her straight face give way. ‘Just for my amusement,’ she laughed, then bashed him on the shoulder and said, ‘It’s a bloody grass snake. Totally harmless, and it’s fast asleep!’

  Fox blew out a breath, his shoulders slumping. ‘Dolly!’

  She laughed again, steering him away in the opposite direction of the snoozing reptile. For the first time since she’d met him, Fox allowed himself to be led.

  ‘Don’t laugh,’ he hissed. ‘That wasn’t funny.’

  ‘I’m not laughing.’ The laugh escaped through her nose. ‘It was funny for me.’

  Fox shook his head, face still drained of colour.

  Dolly walked them back and then across and up in the direction of the rocky outcrops at the prow of the hill.

  Once they were a good twenty metres away from the snake, Fox gave himself a shake and with his hands on his knees as he took calming breaths, said, ‘The one thing I’m really scared of is snakes.’

  Dolly tried to hold in her smile but couldn’t. ‘So I gathered.’

  Fox clocked her expression. ‘I’m glad my fear gives you such entertainment.’

  ‘It really does,’ she said, laughing freely now, stomping on through the thickening grasses, her feet getting stuck in boggy earth. ‘Best thing to have happened all day.’

  Fox huffed, unable to muster a comeback. Then he looked at Dolly, his face exhausted from the adrenaline come-down. ‘That was more excitement than I can take.’

  ‘You should lighten up,’ said Dolly. ‘Then these things won’t have such an effect.’

  The climb was arduous. Steep and slippery, rocks tumbling under their feet. At one point, Dolly lost her balance and slid a foot or so down, only to be caught by Fox, reaching to grab her good arm. ‘Thanks,’ she said.

  ‘Don’t mention it.’ They carried on up. Fox looked back over his shoulder. ‘Do you mind if I ask why you and your sister don’t seem to get along?’

  To her surprise, Dolly found she didn’t mind. She was still tickled at having brought Fox down a peg or two with the snake, which in turn made confiding in him not such an abhorrent idea, as if through witnessing his vulnerability they felt more like equals.

  ‘We weren’t always like that,’ she said.

  ‘No?’

  ‘No. She used to really take care of me. Would always be there. We bickered, you know, like sisters do and she was always ahead of me, but if things went wrong, I knew I could go to Olive.’

  Fox didn’t say anything.

  Dolly said, ‘You can say it, you know.’

  ‘Say what?’

  ‘Like a parent.’

  ‘I wasn’t going to say that, Dolly. I was going to say that it’s sad that it’s changed.’

  ‘Yes.’ Dolly paused, surprisingly wistful at the memory, almost choked. She put her hand on her chest. ‘God, I’m thirsty.’

  ‘Keep talking and you’ll forget about it,’ Fox said without looking back.

  ‘Is that some hostage trick?’ she asked.

  ‘No, it’s a desperately thirsty and quite interested trick,’ he replied.

  She thought they were nearing the top of the hill but it was like a mirage; it just got further away the more they walked.

  ‘You said she took care of you. What were your parents doing?’ Fox asked.

  ‘My dad was away a lot. He was an explorer.’

  ‘Wow.’

  ‘Yeah.’

  ‘Did he take you exploring?’

  ‘He took Olive,’ said Dolly. ‘I was too young.’ She could picture it, watching them setting off from her bedroom window. Jealous and frustrated. To make up for it, her mum had taken her off on little adventures. They’d play games in the woods, collect tadpoles, bake biscuits and eat them on colourful rugs in the caves on the beach. Just making sure this little person had the best time they could growing up. Trying to counter any unhappiness.

  It wasn’t lost on Dolly how much her mum would have loved this hunt for the clue. The freedom of the climb. The beauty of the sun in vermillion lines like a starburst. The fresh smell of ozone.

  There was no person Dolly adored more than her mum. She sometimes went into the department stores just to smell the perfume she used to wear at the fragrance co
unter. Would stand eyes closed, inhaling, while the sales assistant asked her if she needed any help.

  ‘And your mum?’ asked Fox.

  ‘My mum was …’ Dolly didn’t quite know how to describe her. In Dolly’s head she was like an ethereal figure strolling through bracken, deer feeding from her outstretched hand.

  Walking in silence, birds swooping in black murmurations, Dolly found herself remembering the moment when Ruben’s dad and her dad were bellowing at each other like rutting stags. Her mother broken and discarded on the ground. Dolly remembered holding her tight under her arm and lifting her with Olive to guide her back through the woods to the house, gently. Silently.

  She had wanted to remove her from the crude insults and the implications. She didn’t want her sullied and degraded by Lord de Lacy. She didn’t want her foolish and deceitful and at his mercy. They had settled her vacant-eyed mother on the chair in the sitting room and for a split-second what was real wasn’t real. And who her mother was wasn’t her mother. But then the moment had vanished when she had looked up and said with such soft sadness, ‘What have I done?’ And Dolly had crouched down and rested her arm round her mum’s shoulders and together they had sat for five minutes, maybe half an hour. Until the chaos blew in and their dad stormed out and Aunt Marge took them away.

  The memory made Dolly have to shut her eyes for a second. To pull herself together.

  ‘You all right?’ Fox asked.

  ‘Yeah fine,’ Dolly said, eyes flying open, embarrassed that he’d caught her lost in a moment.

  ‘I was just thinking that I hadn’t felt thirsty since you started talking,’ Fox said to Dolly’s relief, choosing not to push it.

  ‘Admit it,’ she replied, ‘it’s my spit trick, isn’t it?’

  He laughed, deep and rumbling.

  They walked some more. Almost reached in the crest of the hill.

  ‘How old were you when you moved?’

  ‘Fourteen,’ said Dolly. ‘I was very young though. Very naïve.’ She laughed at the memory of herself.

  They walked on. Fox checked his phone as they got higher but there was still no signal.

  Dolly thought about those first few weeks in Aunt Marge’s house. How much her mum hated it. How she’d walk around saying how dark it was. Flinging open curtains – ‘There’s never enough light,’ she’d cry with despair. And then there was the call to say her dad had died. Swallowed up by the rapids. And her mum got even worse; schlepped around in a pair of purple leggings and a shapeless cream cardigan for an hour a day until she didn’t get up at all.