The Last Days of Summer: The best feel-good summer read for 2017

Damn.

I was beginning to think that I hadn’t made the best ever first impression on my grandfather’s new assistant.

Chapter Two

Family is who you have left when there’s nothing and nobody else. When the wind blows cold and the waves batter the cliffs, when night falls and darkness seeps in… family is still there.

On A Summer’s Night, by Nathaniel Drury (2015)

When Ellie and I were young, we visited Rosewood every weekend. Then, as now, my parents kept a house in Manchester, to be near the university – a small, untidy, cosy terrace house not far from where many of the students lived. Day to day, a perfectly ordinary existence for the daughters of a professor and a secondary-school drama teacher. But at weekends and holidays, we were spirited away to the magical, mysterious grounds of Rosewood, where there was always something new to discover or explore.

Rosewood was a grand old manor house from the Georgian era, hidden away in the Cheshire countryside behind wrought-iron gates and too many trees. It had been crumbling when Nathaniel and Isabelle bought it, back in the sixties, but slowly they’d invested in it. First, just enough to keep it standing and habitable. Then, as Nathaniel’s career continued to blossom, enough to make it a proper home.

The house’s flat-fronted brick exterior was punctuated by white frame windows betraying the sheer quantity of rooms in the place, and the acres of gardens surrounding it led straight onto the woods. The symmetrical chimneys still puffed smoke, and every room held a new surprise, even now – decorated ceilings, or a hidden door, or a story. Isabelle had redecorated a dozen times since they moved in, but she couldn’t paper over the magic and the history of Rosewood.

It was my favourite place in the world.

From my usual attic bedroom over the main staircase, which had long ago been the servants’ quarters, I could hear everything that went on down below: the sound of feet stomping up the stairs, the laughter floating up from the terrace as my grandfather mixed cocktails for his friends, a couple arguing on the landing.

The Yellow Room was clearly more suitable for guests – situated to the far right of the building, above the back drawing room (rarely used because of the rotting window frames, and the awful draught that blew through every afternoon), away from anything interesting that was going on. It was disconcerting, I found, to be at Rosewood and not know what was happening elsewhere in the house.

But by the time I’d changed into my costume for the evening – Therese’s blue dress and sandals, bright red lipstick and my dark, bobbed hair curled into waves around my face – I felt strangely more like myself again, and almost prepared for the night ahead. Almost.

I wasn’t sure I’d ever feel quite ready to see my sister again, or Greg. But neither could I stay away.

As I made my way down the main staircase into the hall, I could hear the strains of jazz music emanating from the kitchen – a sure sign that my father was cooking. I smiled. Whatever he was making smelled like home to me.

Sticking my head around the kitchen door, I checked to make sure I wouldn’t be interrupting a moment of culinary magic by stopping in to say hello. And if it put off seeing Ellie for a few more moments, well, I wasn’t going to complain.

“That smells good,” I said, slipping through the doorway.

Dad dropped his wooden spoon into the pan and turned, beaming, wiping his hands on his apron even as he stepped towards me for a hug.

“Kia! I’d heard you were home.” He held me close, then stepped back to inspect me, just as Therese had done. “You know I’m not one for formalities, but I believe an RSVP is usual for one of Isabelle’s events…”

“And if I’d received an invitation, I’d have sent one,” I said, as brightly as I could.

“Lost in the post, huh?” Dad asked, but I could tell from his tone that he knew full well it hadn’t been.

“Something like that.” I boosted myself up to sit on the edge of the kitchen table, my feet swinging, as Dad turned back to his bubbling pot. “So, what have I missed around here?”

“The usual. Can you hand me the basil from the windowsill?” Dad held out a hand, and it was as if I’d never been away at all. I smiled to myself for a moment before moving to the window to retrieve the herb. “Nathaniel is writing and won’t tell us what; Isabelle is fretting that he’s really just up there playing solitaire and avoiding her, which he might be. Mum’s latest class musical was Les Misérables, so we’ve been eating garlic and misery for months. Ellie…” He stuttered to a stop. “Well. Ellie and Greg are well. And Caro thinks she’s a fairy. Still. Didn’t you grow out of that sort of thing by ten?”

“I don’t remember,” I said, absently, as I handed him the plant. I was more concerned with what he wasn’t saying about Ellie. “So, Ellie’s okay? I mean, she was?” I didn’t imagine that discovering I’d returned home had filled her with any particular joy.

Dad sighed, and started stripping the basil plant of its leaves with unnecessary force. “As far as I know. I haven’t seen her since we got back from town, but she was happy enough at breakfast.”

I bit my lip. “Do you think—”

“Saskia,” Dad interrupted me. “I don’t know exactly what happened between you and your sister, and that’s fine with me. Because it is between you and Ellie, not the rest of us. And if you’re hiding in here to avoid seeing her…”

“Can’t a girl come and get a ‘welcome home’ from her father these days?”

Dad turned and flashed me a smile. “Of course she can. And, sweetheart, I am so very glad to have you home. I’ve missed you.”

A warm glow spread through me at his words, one that had been missing ever since I left Rosewood two years earlier. “I missed you too.”

“Good. Then maybe you’ll visit a bit more often after you go back to Perth.”

“I will,” I promised, and hoped I wasn’t lying.

“And in the meantime…” He pointed towards the door with a wooden spoon dripping with sauce. “Go say hello to the rest of them. Because it won’t get any easier the longer you put it off, and dinner is nearly ready.”

“Yes, Dad.” I gave him a small smile, and headed for the lounge, the heels of Therese’s sandals clicking on the wooden floor. I paused at the door, and sucked in a deep breath. Dad was right. Might as well get this over and done with.

My mother was mixing some luridly coloured cocktails at the sideboard under the window, while Isabelle critiqued her bartending capabilities from her cream wing-backed chair. Therese, leaning against the gold and cream sofa, was the first to spot me.

“Oh now, there,” Therese said, beaming. “It looks perfect on you. Doesn’t it, Sally?”

My mother turned away from the drinks tray, the multicoloured chiffon scarf around her neck clashing with the cocktails. She smiled, but it seemed a little forced. “Kia, darling, there you are! What a wonderful surprise.” Glass still in hand, she bustled over and wrapped her free arm around my waist. “If only you’d told us you were coming, we’d have collected you from the station.”

“It doesn’t matter,” I told Mum. “I got a taxi easily enough.”

“Yes, so Isabelle said.” Mum glanced briefly over at Isabelle, then smiled at me again, more naturally this time, squeezing my waist with her arm. “It is lovely to have you home, sweetheart.”

“Where’s everyone else?” I asked.

Therese patted the sofa beside her and I went to sit as instructed. “Your grandfather is still writing, or so we are given to understand.” Isabelle made a small, disbelieving noise that, coming from anyone else, would be termed a snort.

“Edward’s gone out to fetch Caroline from the woods,” Therese went on, ignoring Isabelle completely, as was her usual technique for dealing with her sister-in-law. “Greg isn’t home yet and Ellie is…”

“Here.” The voice, soft and familiar, was calm and expressionless, without feeling. But the sound of it made my whole body freeze, just for a moment, waiting for a reaction that never came. I forced myself to turn, to look, to accept whatever truth I found in my sister’s eyes.

And there she was, pale and blonde in a pastel blue skirt and camisole, her fringe framing her face. Biting the inside of my cheek, I searched Ellie’s face for the answers I’d come home to find, but they weren’t there. Her eyes were still as sad as I remembered from the day she left for her honeymoon, but there was nothing else. No hate, no recriminations – but no forgiveness or love either. Nothing.

It was as if I didn’t matter to her any more at all.

And that was more painful than any of the scenarios I’d imagined, when I’d thought of this moment.

“Hello, Kia.” Ellie swept past me with swift but elegant grace, to the drinks cabinet, where Isabelle handed her something pink with lots of ice. Therese passed me her own gin and tonic, since it appeared Isabelle wasn’t about to offer me one, and I gratefully took a gulp. It was stunningly strong.

Two years, and she just said, ‘Hello.’ Like nothing had happened. Like I was a passing acquaintance, holding no importance in her life.

Maybe I didn’t. Maybe I shouldn’t.

But she still mattered to me, and the distance in her eyes cut me deep, even through my costume.

“Ellie…” I started to get to my feet, but Mum stepped between us before I could get any further. Isabelle, for her part, had already dragged Ellie over to the window, murmuring something about table favours.

They had to know, right? If not the details, they knew I’d wronged Ellie. Why else would they be running interference between us?

“Now, Kia,” Mum said, pulling me back down onto the sofa. “Tell me. What are you wearing for the party? Because I’m sure there are still some of your old clothes up in the attic…”

While I was ignoring the question, in favour of trying to eavesdrop on the conversation at the other end of the room, Therese said, “She’s wearing a vintage sage-green frock with silver accents.” She turned to look at me directly, and added, “It’s very beautiful.”

If I’d only known that Therese had such a costume store, I wouldn’t have bothered bringing any of my own clothes.

“Will Nathaniel be coming down for dinner, at least?” I took another sip of gin and tonic. “After all, he’s the one who demanded I be here.” Without him, the house felt disjointed, like a collection of people in a waiting room who didn’t quite know each other well enough to make conversation. Once Nathaniel arrived, I hoped we’d feel more like a family again.

Therese shrugged. “Goodness knows. He’s been working so hard lately we’ve barely seen him.”

Over by the window, Isabelle’s glass slipped from her hand and smashed against the sideboard. Mum rushed over to help Ellie mop up and, content that no one was hurt, I lowered my voice and asked Therese, “What’s he working on?” And why was Isabelle freaking out about it so much?

Therese looked away from Isabelle and back to me, her eyes concerned. “Nobody knows. Maybe he’ll tell you – and I want you straight down to my cottage spilling the beans if he does. I’m ferociously curious.”

Dad appeared in the doorway, and I found myself being thoroughly hugged again. “Because I really did miss you,” he whispered, before letting me go and announcing the imminent arrival of food in the dining room.

If it wasn’t for the intervention campaign my mother and Isabelle were running between Ellie and me, I might almost have felt welcomed home. As it was, Mum ushered me towards the head of the table, just as Isabelle herded Ellie towards the other end. Or possibly, Ellie was herding Isabelle; our grandmother was leaning on Ellie’s arm quite heavily, I noticed.

I found myself sitting beside the empty seat reserved for Nathaniel, with Therese beside me, and I looked up at the doorway at just the wrong moment – just as Greg walked in.

I’d known I wasn’t ready for this moment. But I hadn’t realised how unprepared Greg would be. His eyes met mine and widened, the shock clear. Had no one called to tell him I was here? Surely Mum or Isabelle would have done, if they’d known the whole story? So perhaps they didn’t, after all. Ellie sure as hell wouldn’t have called him. And me being here shouldn’t’ve made the damnedest bit of difference to him.

But from the way he looked at me, I knew it did.

He stumbled, grabbing on to the door frame like he’d had too many of Mum’s cocktails. I held myself very still, tearing my eyes away to stare down at my empty place mat, focusing on keeping my expression neutral, my shoulders straight. Trusting in the red lipstick and an eighty-year-old dress to keep me safe.

“Kia,” Greg said, so I had to look up. His gaze was fixed on me, and I winced. There went any hope of pretending that it was all in the past. That nothing had happened at all. I could feel our whole history in his gaze.

I just hoped the others couldn’t see it, too.

“Hello, Greg,” I said, as coolly as I could. Then I turned my attention back to my place mat, confused. Surely this should hurt more? As much as I hoped I’d moved on, that I was over Greg, I’d loved him once. I’d expected it to cut deep, seeing him again.

As it was, I felt more jealousy that he still had a place at Rosewood, than pain that our romance was over.

“Greg, you’re down here between me and Ellie,” Isabelle said, patting the chair beside her as she eyed me with suspicion. Great. Well, if she hadn’t known what Ellie and I had fallen out over before, she had a pretty good clue now. “We’re sitting boy–girl tonight.”

“But, Grandma,” Caroline said, peeking around Greg, where he was still stalled in the doorway, “there aren’t enough men for that. You always said…”

“Never mind what I said, Caroline,” Isabelle snapped, and turned her attention back to Ellie and to Greg, who’d finally found his way to his seat.

Caroline huffed as she marched into the dining room dressed in what looked like a vintage cream lace dress, presumably one of Therese’s, with a sparkly tiara on top of her light brown hair. The hem of her too-long dress was green with grass stains.

She was followed at a distance by a tired-looking Edward, who slumped into the seat opposite me. Caroline, on the other hand, clambered immediately into the heavy wooden seat on my right: Nathaniel’s chair.

“I was wondering where you’d got to,” I said, tucking her hair behind her ear.

Caro rolled her eyes. “We had to go and get me a dress for the party, even though I said I wanted to wear one from the cottage, and it took ages. Then we were late back, because Dad insisted on going to the supermarket, once he knew you were here, and then you’d gone somewhere, and I didn’t want to miss the fairy wedding in the wood, so I had to throw on my dress and tiara and run down to the toadstool ring.” She pulled a small foot out from under the table to show me her incongruous white trainers. “I didn’t even have time to change my shoes,” she said, mournfully.

I thought that I’d remembered everything about Rosewood and my family, looking back over long nights in Perth. But I’d either forgotten, or never known, that Caroline had such an imagination. I’d certainly never realised before that she was so like me. A fairy wedding in the woods sounded like just the sort of thing I’d have ruined a vintage dress for.

Dad reappeared from the kitchen, a covered casserole dish in his oven-gloved hands, which he deposited in the centre of the table. “Ta-da. Grub’s up.”

It didn’t escape my notice that he’d made Chicken Provençal with thick pasta ribbons and crusty bread – my favourite. Ellie never took to it, mostly because of her irrational fear of olives.

As we all tucked in, conversation was restricted to appreciative noises and requests for condiments. Next to me, Caroline was very carefully removing every single olive from her serving and placing them on the edge of her plate. Edward, almost unconsciously it appeared, was helping himself to the abandoned items and popping them in his mouth in between forkfuls of his own food. I wondered if this was an everyday occurrence between them. Perhaps Edward had actually been hired as a babysitter. It certainly made more sense to me than the idea of him as Nathaniel’s assistant.

“It’s so nice to have all my girls back home together,” Dad said, pouring himself another glass of wine. “It’s been too long.” Ellie didn’t think so, given the nervous way her eyes were flicking between me and Greg. “So, Ellie, Kia, what have you got planned for tomorrow?”

Mum glared at him, and I realised that Dad knew exactly what he was doing: trying to forcibly cram a bridge between Ellie and me.

“I’ve got lots to do for the party,” Ellie said, her voice sweet, and achingly familiar. “It’s going to be a busy day.”

And there, I realised, was my chance to get close to Ellie and start the reconciliation. “I’ll help!”

Ellie looked up with unwelcome surprise, but I kept the smile on my face regardless. Across the table, my mother put down her knife and fork and looked up, smiling equally brightly. “So, Kia, tell us about Scotland!”

I toyed with the last bit of pasta on my plate. “Well, it rains even more than it does here. Other than that…”

“What about work?” Mum pressed. “How’s the newspaper going?”

“It’s fine,” I said, shrugging. It was fine. Predictable, unchallenging and fine. “Busy. You know.”

“You’ve got a new editor,” Therese said helpfully. “Let’s hear some more about him.” She was giving me an opening, I realised. A chance to show everyone – especially Ellie and Greg – that I’d moved on, that I had a new life. But I wasn’t sure telling my family I was having sex with my boss on a regular basis was actually the best way to prove I’d grown up.

“Duncan Fields,” I supplied. “He just moved up from Edinburgh.”

“Brought in from the big city, eh?” Dad said, reaching across Therese for another piece of bread. “Shaking the place up a bit, is he?”

I glanced up at the ceiling. Mostly, Duncan had been shaking cocktails at the bar after work then, later, my bed frame, but I didn’t think that was quite what Dad meant. “Something like that.”

“Well, that could be good for you, I suppose,” Mum said. I resisted the urge to tell Mum that, yes, it was very good for me indeed, thank you. “An office shake-up could mean a promotion for you, after all. Next step on the ladder to the nationals.”

“Mmm, maybe,” I said, in a way I hoped conveyed, ‘but probably not,’ without adding, ‘because Duncan would probably get fired for giving his girlfriend preferential treatment.’ Besides, I wasn’t entirely certain I wanted that London career any more. Some days I wasn’t even sure I wanted to be a reporter.

“Never mind about work,” Isabelle said, pouring herself another glass of wine. “I’m much more interested in your social life. Is there anything at all to do in Perth?”

Since Isabelle had spent most of her life living in the middle of nowhere, Cheshire, I’m not quite sure where she got the idea that outside Rosewood, London and possibly Paris, the world was a social wasteland.

“Plenty,” I said, racking my brain for an example. Lately, most of my evenings were spent in bed with Duncan. “We go out for drinks with the guys from the office most Thursdays. And Sundays my friend Claire and I tend to meet for lunch.” It sounded phenomenally boring, put like that.

“We?” Isabelle asked, suddenly looking a lot more interested in the conversation. “Who’s we?”

Across the table, Edward rolled his eyes at me, as if to say, ‘Well, really. What did you think she was going to pay most attention to?’ I wasn’t sure I liked the way that Edward had slotted so easily into my family’s life.

“Ah… Duncan and I…” I stopped, unsure as to how to continue. As it happened, I needn’t have worried.

“Darling, how lovely!” Mum said, obviously not grasping the implications of ‘he’s my boss’ as quickly as I’d have expected. “I didn’t know you were seeing anybody!”

“You should have invited him to the party,” Isabelle put in, obviously so annoyed to have been deprived of the opportunity to cross-examine a potential new family member, that she’d forgotten she hadn’t actually invited me.

“Well, it’s all still rather new…” I said, wishing I couldn’t feel Greg staring at me. I wanted to explain that it wasn’t serious, that nobody needed to buy a hat or anything. But they all seemed so pleased that I’d found someone, I just couldn’t.

“Does this mean you won’t be home for Christmas again?” Caroline sounded put out. It was nice to know that someone would miss me this year.

“Of course she won’t,” Isabelle said, in a definite manner. “She’ll want to be with Duncan.” Which was a much better reason than, ‘She wouldn’t dare upset her sister by visiting twice in one year.’

“You’ll understand when you have a boyfriend,” Mum said to Caro, and sighed. “Which will probably be in about a fortnight, the rate you’re growing. It’s such a shame they grow up so fast. Christmas isn’t the same without little children around.” She stared wistfully across the table towards Ellie. “It would be so nice to have a baby at Rosewood for Christmas.”

Ellie flinched, and Greg reached for her full wine glass, taking a large gulp. I grabbed my cutlery just a little harder, and was wondering when I’d be able to escape back to the purely aesthetic horrors of the Yellow Room rather than the emotional horror of family dinner, when my grandfather’s deep, dark voice rang out through the room.

“Oh, good God, no. I like my Christmas morning lie-ins, thank you.” Everyone’s attention snapped to the doorway where Nathaniel’s broad form was filling the frame, his familiar orange fisherman’s jumper clashing with the elegant cream and gold of the dining room.

Nathaniel Drury. Literary legend, imposing intellect, household name and always, always, Granddad.

He’d been twenty-one when he published his first novel, and become a literary sensation almost overnight. There are photos of him as a young man on the wall of every fashionable artists’ haunt in London, New York and Paris, and he drank everyone under the table in all of them. He was notorious as a womaniser, and a drunk. Which is why the national presses were so astounded when, a year later, he disappeared from London society for two weeks, only to return with a wife in tow. One Isabelle Yates, local beauty and daughter of the richest man in his home town in North Wales. They bought Rosewood the next year and, well, the rest became our family history.

“What’s for tea?” Nathaniel asked, leaning on the back of Edward’s chair and smiling at me like no one else in the room mattered.

“If you’d come down to dinner at a reasonable time, and wearing appropriate clothes, like the rest of the family, you’d have been able to find out.” Isabelle didn’t look at her husband as she spoke, instead apparently choosing to glare at me. I blinked, and tried to figure out how, exactly, this was my fault. Ellie’s sad eyes at the dinner table and sulky refusal to talk all evening? Absolutely my fault. Nathaniel’s bizarre writerly habits? They’d been around far longer than me.

“We had Chicken Provençal,” Caro told him, oblivious to Isabelle’s temper. “But we’ve eaten it all. It’s Saskia’s favourite, you know.”

“I remember,” Nathaniel said, grinning at me again.

“There might be some leftovers coincidentally keeping warm in the oven,” Dad said, looking up at the ceiling to avoid the moment Isabelle’s glare swung his way. “And some bread in the bread bin.”

“I’ll go and grab it for you,” Edward said, presumably more out of a desire to escape the dining room for a while than because he was trying to expand his servant repertoire from carrying cases. “Anyone else want anything? I’ll bring more wine.” Without waiting for a response, he disappeared through the door and across the hallway to the kitchen.

Watching his long legs stride across the tiled floor, I found myself wondering if his legs really were that long, or if he was just so skinny that he looked taller. Perhaps more slender, than skinny… Skinny implied unattractive, which he wasn’t. At all. More… graceful, I supposed.