One Secret Summer (48 page)

If she’d expected sympathy from Aaron that evening, she was sorely mistaken. ‘So what?’ was his response.

Julia stood in the kitchen and gaped, open-mouthed, at him. ‘So
what
?’ she repeated, her voice rising of its own accord.

‘Who gives a shit what George Forrester thinks? He’s a little turd.’

‘I do.’

‘Why?’

‘Because it’s not true!’ she protested. ‘I’d never use your … my …
our
contacts to get ahead,’ she stammered. ‘Besides, what contacts do we have?’

‘Oh, come
on
, Julia.’ Aaron rolled his eyes at her. ‘Diana spoke at the Beijing conference. She was one of the keynote speakers. It’s
not a coincidence, you know.’

‘This has nothing to do with Diana,’ Julia said angrily, unable to keep the sharpness from her voice. ‘Not everything’s about
you and your bloody family—’ She stopped herself just in time. They glared at each other. Then she turned round and quickly
left the room. Aaron in pompous mode could be – and was
frequently – unbearable. And she didn’t feel like having an argument. Not tonight. Lately, she and Aaron had been having a
few too many arguments. Small things, minor disagreements; nothing that resulted in anything other than a slight cooling towards
each other for the day or so it took to regain equilibrium. Aaron wasn’t the type to shout or have things out. Withdrawal
was his preferred method of conflict resolution; something which, much as it infuriated Julia, seemed impossible to change.
For someone who had spent most of her working life seeking to improve conflicts, Julia thought to herself grimly, Diana had
done a spectacularly bad job with her own sons.

She walked into the bedroom and sat down on the edge of the bed. She kicked off her shoes and lay back, tracing the pattern
of the embroidered duvet cover with her hand. There was an angry tightness in her chest that refused to quit. And yet underneath
it, below the surface of her irritation with Aaron and her colleagues, was a bubbling sense of excitement, of something new
and potentially life-changing coming into play. It had been a while since she’d felt so alive, she suddenly thought to herself.
The Fifth International World Conference on Women. Just saying the name out loud brought on a rush of pleasurable anticipation
of the kind she hadn’t felt in a while. She lay there in the slowly darkening room, listening with half an ear to the muted
sound of the television coming through the walls and the faint, stuttering sounds of traffic along the main road, thinking
about the challenges that had suddenly presented themselves, seemingly out of the blue.

DIANA

London, May 2000

Diana put down the phone and had to bite down hard on the temptation to scream. She looked at her face in the mirror. There
was an angry vertical line between her eyebrows; the result of the five-minute phone call she’d just had. She reached up a
finger and tried to smooth it away. She felt the beginnings of a headache coming on. She gave a short, mirthless laugh. It
was absurd! Aaron had phoned looking for a bit of sympathy, but she’d given him short shrift and had wound up with a pain
between her own ears instead. Julia was going to Maputo, to the Fifth International World Conference on Women … and
she
, Diana Pryce, QC, founder of Libertas, board member of half a dozen prestigious charities whose names she couldn’t always
remember, keynote speaker at Beijing, the Fourth International World Conference on Women … was not? She was ‘too expensive,
unfortunately’, the young woman from UNIFEM had told her earlier in the week. Too
expensive
? She’d waived her speaker fee, naturally. But if they thought she was about to fly to Mozambique in economy class and stay
in some crappy little hotel next to the airport … they ought to think again. Well, clearly, they had – and as a result, Julia
Burrows, her daughter-in-law, was going …
and she was not
. She couldn’t believe it.

‘Is … is she actually speaking?’ she had forced herself to ask.

‘Yeah … one of the plenary sessions. Some report on what they’ve been doing in the family unit. Why aren’t you going?’

‘I … I’m too busy. I’ve got so much on at the moment … I just can’t take that sort of time off.’

‘It’s only five days. She leaves on Monday morning and she’s back by Saturday.’

‘Well, I’ve got far too much on at the moment,’ Diana snapped. ‘These conferences are a complete waste of time—’

‘That’s not what you said about Beijing,’ Aaron interrupted her. ‘You said—’

‘I’m well aware of what I said,’ Diana said shortly. ‘That was then. Look, I’ve got to go. Someone’s waiting to see me.’

‘But I wanted to talk to you about—’

‘Some other time, I’m afraid.’ And she’d put the phone down without another word. She turned away from the mirror and walked
upstairs to her study. She closed the door and leaned against it, breathing deeply. A niggling worry had lodged itself somewhere
in her gut. Was she … ? She hesitated, afraid to even
think
it to herself. No, she had to. Was she past it? Was she out of touch? Seen as too old, not current enough? She was fifty-four,
for crying out loud, not sixty-four. At the peak of her faculties and her career. She’d done so much, but there was still
so much more to do. She was one of the youngest Queen’s Counsels in chambers. Christ, Douglas Haller-Lane was in his eighties
and still going strong. She was one of the very few women in her position in the UK – a force to be reckoned with, respected
and often feared. How
dare
UNIFEM write her out of the script? She crossed the carpeted room to her desk and sat down. She ran her hands across its
gleaming, polished surface. How many hours had she spent at this very desk penning the arguments and judgements that had catapulted
her to such early fame? She looked around the study at the rows of books, the paintings, the beautiful
objets
that she’d brought back from the places she’d been … everything carefully, tastefully arranged. She brought her hands up
to her cheeks and was shocked to find them wet. She wiped them hurriedly, furtively. Harvey was downstairs in the kitchen;
the last thing she wanted was for him to come upon her crying. She opened one of the drawers and pulled out a notebook. It
was Harvey’s sixtieth birthday party in a few weeks. She paused for a second to look down on the garden. Spring had been late
in arriving; the trees had only just lost their bare, unfettered air and the garden was thrumming
with new life. In Mougins, where they would have the party, summer would already be there. Mougins in June. She swallowed
suddenly. It would be the first time she’d been back there in June for over thirty years.

She turned her attention quickly back to the birthday party. Would Josh come? It would be his birthday in a few weeks’ time,
too. She desperately hoped so. It had been years since they’d all been together down there. Eight members of their immediate
family; a nice round number. She put her pen down again and stared at the names. There was one person missing. When was the
last time she’d seen him? At Rafe’s wedding, of course. He’d shown up, unannounced. Just as he always did. And the time before
that? She put a hand to her cheek again – burning hot, as always, when she thought about him. She struggled to turn her mind
elsewhere, but it was no use. Mougins in June. In that way that only memory can move back and forth in time and place, she
was there again, the summer she turned sixteen, reliving it as if for the first time.

He was the first man she’d ever seen naked, and the thought of him even after all these years was enough to make her catch
her breath. Back then, as now, there was something splendidly indolent about Rufus, the way his body was so carelessly and
beautifully put together. She lay beside him that first morning when everyone had disappeared and traced her name across his
chest with her fingertips. She wasn’t afraid; on the contrary. Rufus was leading her in the way he’d always done: carefully,
intently. He slipped her clothing off, piece by piece, until she was lying beside him in only her thin cotton panties. He
teased the waistband a little, producing sweet rills of feeling, her whole body being turned over and over like the light,
empty shells in the clear water down on the beaches at Cannes and Juan-les-Pins. He took them off and his hand moved down
to stroke her, softly at first, preparing her for something that she knew about but had never experienced. The feeling inside
her intensified until she thought she might just pass out with the sheer pleasure
of it all. Her breath quickened to keep pace with his and then he moved on top of her. She was amazed at the way her whole
body arched to meet his, as if it belonged to someone else. She kept her eyes open the whole time, as if she didn’t want to
miss a single second of it; all she could remember of the extraordinary pain when he pushed his way inside her was the frown
of utter concentration on his face and the depthless black of his eyes, now half-closed, only half-seeing. The Rufus who hung
supported by his arms above her bore no resemblance to the Rufus she knew. Something inside her turned, dissolved. She belonged
to him now. Now and always.

NIELA

London, May 2000

There was a pile of unopened letters lying on the floor. Niela dragged her small suitcase in behind her, kicked them out of
the way and shut the door. She leaned against it for a moment. It was just after eight in the morning; she’d landed at dawn
and already the day felt as though it should be over. She’d just spent three weeks in Amman on assignment and was glad to
be home. Home. She gave a small, rueful smile. In the past year, she and Josh had spent a total of two months in the tiny
flat off Goldhawk Road. At this very moment, Josh was somewhere in southern Africa, finishing up construction of a camp that
should have been completed three months ago but for the rains. What was it he’d said when he managed to get through to her
on the phone the other night? He couldn’t remember what it felt like to be dry. She left her case in the hallway and walked
through into the living room. It was exactly as she’d left it almost a month ago. Everything was neat and tidy; chairs pushed
in to the table,
all the surfaces wiped clean. There was a thin film of dust on the dining table. She brushed a finger lightly across it as
she walked past. In an hour’s time she would unpack, but for now, a coffee and a shower, though not in that order.

By noon she’d squared away the last of her belongings, sorted out the laundry and dry-cleaning and made herself a small salad
for lunch. She carried her plate over to the couch and sat down, idly sorting through the mail as she ate. There was an invitation
card amongst the bills and circulars. She slid a finger underneath the flap – it was from Diana. It was Harvey’s birthday
in a few weeks’ time. She and Josh were cordially invited to celebrate it with them at 11, Chemin du Fassum, Mougins, on 14th
June. She raised her eyebrows. Mougins. She’d never been. She turned the thick, heavy card over in her hand. She wondered
whether Josh would go. It would be his birthday shortly afterwards – would he want to spend it with them? As much as she understood
his aversion to the place, there was a part of her that was curious to see it. And although she’d never much cared for Diana,
on the few occasions she’d met Harvey, she liked him very much indeed. It was his birthday; it was only right and proper that
they should all attend. She made a mental note to tell Josh so. It would take time to bring him round, she knew. She finished
the rest of her salad and switched on the news. It always took her a few hours to unwind from the cycle of arrival and departure
that had once been Josh’s terrain, and was now, for better or for worse, hers as well.

MADDY

London, May 2000

Maddy’s hand hovered over the telephone. Twice she dialled the number, and twice she hung up before she heard the first ring.
Her palms were sweating; ridiculous, really. She couldn’t have said why she’d suddenly decided to ring Julia, now after all
these years. It was something Rafe had said the other night – ‘You don’t make much of an effort. I don’t blame her.’ She’d
been stung by his words but afterwards wondered if there wasn’t a grain of truth in them. She’d always been afraid of Julia,
but once or twice there’d been a tiny spark of something other than the habitual expression of bored uninterest on her face
that made her stop and think. Perhaps Rafe was right: she hadn’t made much of an effort beyond their meetings at Diana’s on
Sundays … perhaps it was time to change that.

On the third attempt, steeling herself, she waited until the line was answered. And then it was too late. ‘Julia? Hi, it’s
Maddy. Hi … I hope … I’m not disturbing you, am I? Oh, good. Um, I was just wondering … if you’re not too busy, that is …
well, what I was thinking was …’ She swallowed nervously, and then it all came out in a rush. ‘Would you like to have a drink
sometime? Or lunch? Or maybe a coffee, if you’re too busy, or we could even have dinner, or not, if you prefer, or—’ She stopped.
Julia had said something. She’d been so busy anticipating her refusal that she’d ceased listening. ‘Sorry? Oh, you
would
? Oh, that’s great. That’s terrific. That’s—’ She stopped herself again, just in time. ‘Wh … when would suit you? Saturday?
This Saturday? Lunch? That would be lovely. I’ll … I’ll give you a ring in the morning. We can go somewhere near you, if you
like? No? OK, well, I’ll think of somewhere. See you on Saturday, then.’ She put down the phone and didn’t know whether to
laugh or cry.

The flat was quiet. She wandered into the living room. Darcy was at her thrice-weekly playgroup. Maddy had been sceptical
of the idea at first – she didn’t work, she was at home all day long … why should she drop her child off three times a week
to be in the care of others? But Rafe insisted; Diana was behind it, Maddy was sure of it. But she lacked the will to argue.
Deep down, she was partly relieved. The problem was less to do with Darcy than it was with her. After three years, she still
had no real friends in London to speak of. A few wives of colleagues of Rafe’s; Marie, the hairdresser she’d been going to
for a couple of years; one or two mothers from Darcy’s playschool group whom she met every other week for coffee, but she
hadn’t made a single good friend, at least not in the way Sandy had been. She missed her like hell. It was that that had propelled
her to make the phone call that morning. Reaching out to Julia was an act of desperation. She thought she’d seen something
in Julia’s eyes at the last lunch that hinted at something
slightly
less frosty,
marginally
more welcoming than usual, or so she hoped. Well, only one way to find out, and that was exactly what she’d done. Rafe found
the whole thing amusingly silly. ‘Just give her a ring,’ he’d said the night before, exaggeratedly patient. ‘After all, what’s
the worst that can happen? She’ll say no, that’s all.’