The Darkest Summer Read online

  His attention unnerved me. He had the smallest eyes I’d ever seen on a grown person, but they seemed to bore right through me. I was a little unsure how I should react. ‘Thank you.’

  ‘You’re an actress?’ He puffed on a short, fat cigar, removing it to reveal how wet it was at one end and waved it in the air.

  I was flattered that he could tell just by looking at me.

  ‘You’re pretty. And tall. But can you act?’

  I nodded, my previous confidence vanishing.

  ‘And you want me to find you work?’

  ‘Yes, please,’ I said, a little less sure about how much I actually wanted his help. I spotted Hazel and Alice watching my conversation with great interest. Maybe Gerald wasn’t such a bad person to be introduced to, after all. I forced a smile, wishing to appear a little friendlier, and less afraid.

  ‘I think I might be able to do that.’ He took out his wallet and withdrew a business card. Handing it to me, he said, ‘Here’s the address for my office, be there at ten o’clock sharp on Monday. We’ll have a chat. See what I can do for you.’

  ‘Thank you,’ I said breathlessly.

  Delighted, I couldn’t help standing a little taller, confident that I’d just experienced the moment I’d been hoping for all my life. It was. Meeting Vince did change my life, just not in the way I’d expected.

  Chapter Six

  2018 – Oakwold, New Forest

  Sera

  After a few unproductive hours in my studio in Southampton, I arrived back at the house. It was another sweltering day and I had stopped off at my favourite bakery to buy a box of fresh cakes. The heat was so intense that everyone felt drained and lacking in energy, so a sugary treat would help all of us.

  I had spent the morning struggling after yet another exhausted, fretful sleep wondering what had happened to Dee and her family to make them disappear. The last time I saw them it had been to deliver a letter from my mother. Had she said something to make them leave? Today, I hoped to finally discover what really happened to them.

  Checking the kitchen wall clock yet again, I ground fresh coffee beans and set them to percolate on the range. I tried not to get too excited and pottered about the house, finally giving up and sitting to wait for Leo’s arrival.

  I glanced at the clock. What if he changed his mind and wasn’t ready to speak to someone from his past? I stood up and wiped down the worktops; then, when he hadn’t arrived by two-thirty, I washed the kitchen floor to keep busy, wondering if he was coming.

  The doorbell rang just before three; my heart pounded as I hurried to answer it. Could he really be on the other side of that door? Was I about to discover what had happened to my best friend and her family all those years before? I’d imagined this moment many times since their disappearance that hot summer night when Dee and I were barely twelve. Although I wasn’t going to see her today, at least I might learn where she was now and how I could contact her.

  I turned the brass handle and pulled back the front door. There he was, smiling back at me. I wasn’t sure who was more delighted to see the other.

  ‘Come on in,’ I said, my voice wavering. I waited for him to enter the bright hallway.

  He walked in, stopping at the base of the staircase and gazed around the room and up towards the landing.

  ‘I remember coming here with Dee a few times and you two would always make me go and play in the back garden. You never let me join in with whatever you were doing.’

  I walked past him towards the kitchen, laughing at the memory. ‘That was because we were practically teenagers and always talking about boys. You were what, nine?’ He nodded. ‘We didn’t want you spying on us and reporting back to your mum.’

  ‘Hah, you think she would have noticed?’

  I pictured Hazel, her mind elsewhere whenever she was harvesting her crop of lavender. She seemed perpetually happy as she picked the scented purple flowers, the hem of her colourful flowing skirt tucked into the elastic waistband and a wicker basket by her feet slowly filling up, singing as she worked. Later, she placed the stems into oil-filled bottles, or plaited hearts with the longer stems to sell on her occasional market stall in the village.

  ‘True, we could pretty much do whatever we liked at her farm,’ I said, happy to be able to reminisce about those blissful days. In my mind it was always a hot summer’s day. ‘As long as we didn’t overstep the mark when it came to pinching the odd tot of whatever cocktail someone had made, or sneaking off with a suspicious-looking cigarette.’ I hesitated. ‘She was besotted with Jack, wasn’t she? Always trying to please him. I suppose they eventually married?’

  I thought I noticed his smile slip slightly.

  ‘They never did,’ Leo considered. ‘Jack was okay, but I think he got tired of the constant stream of people visiting the farm.’

  ‘It was a bit full-on, sometimes, wasn’t it?’ If she wasn’t trying out a new idea to make money, Hazel was entertaining her eccentric friends.

  ‘It was.’ He hesitated. ‘Have you been there at all?’ He glanced out of the window. ‘To the farm?’

  I picked up the coffee percolator and pointed at it. Leo nodded.

  ‘As it happens, yes,’ I said, pouring us both a mug.

  He seemed surprised by this, though I wasn’t sure why. I had lived here most of my life and the farm was only down the road. I indicated the plates and napkins and told him all about Henri and the fire burning down the barn.

  He groaned. ‘Hell, that must have been frightening.’

  ‘It was, but I mostly felt very sorry for Henri. He’s new to the town and a little, um, reserved. The people around here haven’t really taken to him.’

  ‘Because he’s interesting, you mean?’

  I laughed, choking on the mouthful of coffee I’d half swallowed. ‘Stop it. There’s nothing wrong with the people around here. Anyway, neither of our mums are from here and they didn’t find it hard to settle in.’

  He pondered my comment for a moment. ‘We don’t really know that, though, do we?’

  ‘No, we don’t.’ I hadn’t considered how little I knew about Mum’s early years here when I was tiny.

  ‘They had kids,’ Leo continued, breaking my reverie. ‘Us being born and brought up here and attending the local schools would have helped them fit in. He’s a stranger with no connections, I guess.’

  That was true. ‘I’m not sure why they have such an issue with him.’

  Leo stared at me for a moment. ‘We were always slight outsiders, probably because our mothers were quite different in their own ways to the other local mums.’

  My mum was always flitting here and there, either going to auditions in London or filming her latest bit parts somewhere. I think the people around here were slightly in awe of her lifestyle. At least Hazel, despite her barely concealed ambitions to be a professional singer, had fewer airs about her and tended to make friends a little more easily.

  ‘Our mums had their own odd ways,’ I reflected. ‘No matter how much they tried not to stick out from the other locals, they never quite fitted in properly, which is probably why people thought we were different.’ And, I mused, probably also why the three of us gravitated towards each other.

  ‘Our mums were entertainment for the locals, I always thought.’

  I smiled, recalling Hazel’s battered Land Rover with coloured beads strung along the inside of the back windows. ‘They were probably too stunned by your mother’s antics to find the right words to criticise any of us.’

  Leo laughed. ‘You’re probably right. And as for your friend, Henri, is it?’ I nodded. ‘You say he’s quite reserved, maybe they take that as being secretive and untrustworthy.’

  I could see his point. I hadn’t picked up any bad vibes from Henri, but Mum certainly had. Unwilling to dwell on any negativity about the farmer, I pushed the plate of cakes towards him. ‘Please take one.’

  ‘They look delicious. I’ve missed eating these. Are they from that local bakery we al
ways used to go to?’

  ‘They are,’ I said, watching him choose a chocolate-covered choux bun and eat half of it before asking the one question I’d been dying to put to him. ‘So, Dee, is she well?’

  He looked up at me, wiping the sides of his mouth with the napkin before lowering his gaze and staring silently at the table.

  ‘She’s okay,’ he added eventually.

  He didn’t sound that convincing. ‘Has something happened to her?’

  He seemed to be gathering his thoughts and then looked me in the eye. ‘To be honest, she’s had a rough time of it.’ I waited for him to continue, not daring to put him off elaborating further. ‘In fact, I’m rather concerned about her, Sera.’

  ‘Why?’ I asked, trying not panic. ‘Is there anything I can do to help?’

  He shook his head. ‘No,’ he hesitated. ‘I couldn’t ask you. I’ve only just met up with you again, and you haven’t seen Dee for years.’

  ‘If there’s something I can do for her, please promise me you’ll let me know.’

  He looked so sad. Once again, he seemed like a small boy with a mountain of trouble weighing him down. He’d always been a worrier, but then it had been about his mother’s latest boyfriend, lack of money, or an unwanted guest who was refusing to leave their farm.

  ‘I’d want to, Leo. Promise me.’

  He sighed. ‘Thanks. I’ll bear that in mind. Now,’ he said, pointing at the cakes, ‘all right if I take a second one of these?’

  ‘Of course,’ I said, irritated that he was changing the subject so soon. ‘Help yourself.’

  I could see my questioning was making him uncomfortable. ‘Be careful, though, you don’t want to make yourself sick,’ I teased, trying to raise the sudden dip in the atmosphere.

  He pulled a face at me. ‘I was what, seven, when I ate all my mother’s Black Forest gateau?’

  I laughed at the memory of how furious Hazel had been to discover that not only had Leo eaten most of her boyfriend Jack’s birthday cake, but that he’d then gone upstairs and thrown up all over his freshly made bed. ‘I didn’t think she’d ever forgive you for that incident.’

  He shook his head and grimaced. ‘Nor me.’

  ‘I was always envious of you and Dee growing up at the farm with your colourful mum and her floaty friends,’ I said.

  ‘Floaty?’ he asked, confused. ‘That’s a good way to describe them. Most of them were off their faces on something they’d smoked.’

  It had all seemed so lyrical to me, as if their farm was in an invisible bubble. ‘It was their long flowing skirts and scarves I adored. My mum always wanted me to dress conservatively. She was all sleek hair, tailored clothes and primary colours, but I craved Dee’s wardrobe.’ I smiled, warmed at the memory. ‘Hazel was always reinventing herself,’ I said, thinking back to the vivacious woman I’d hoped to emulate when I grew up. One day she was a bleached blonde glamorous singer, the next rushing off to an ashram somewhere deep in the French countryside leaving Dee and Leo with whichever boyfriend was living at the farm at that time. ‘Jack calmed her down a bit, don’t you think?’

  Leo drank some of his coffee while he contemplated my comment. ‘I suppose he did. He certainly lasted longer than most of her boyfriends.’

  I took a sip of my coffee, relishing the hot, rich liquid. ‘You can’t say we had dull childhoods, though, can you?’

  ‘A little normality would have been a treat sometimes.’

  I agreed. Sitting here with Leo and reminiscing made me aware how different my childhood seemed from an adult’s point of view. My past had always been a bit of a mystery to me. Mum would never discuss where she grew up, despite my pleading. All she’d once said was that she’d spent her childhood planning her escape from her home town. I learnt not to press her from an early age. I began to think her airs were probably put on a bit as I got older and mixed with different kinds of people.

  ‘I wish our mothers had been better friends.’ It had been a relief that she hadn’t minded Dee and Leo, but despite her being a pretty good actress she could never fail to show her loathing of Hazel whenever I mistakenly mentioned her name. ‘Do you think she was jealous of Hazel’s carefree ways?’ I asked.

  ‘Maybe.’ A key rattled in the front door and Leo turned instantly to face the hallway. ‘Could that be your mum?’

  ‘Probably. She’ll be amazed to see you here.’

  The rapid tapping of her heels click-clacked on the tiled flooring as she neared. I waited, anticipating her look of astonishment when she spotted who was with me. I wasn’t disappointed. Her initial expression was one of delight to find me talking to a man at the table; she was always nagging me to start dating again, irritated when I tried to insist that I was perfectly happy by myself. Then my mother stepped further into the kitchen. She squinted, realisation slowly dawning as Leo turned around to her, a smile on his tanned face.

  ‘Leo, is that you?’ she asked, raising a perfectly threaded eyebrow.

  He stood up and gave her a brief hug. ‘Hello, Maureen. You still look the same.’

  ‘I don’t, but it’s very kind of you to fib,’ she said, smoothing down her immaculate hair. ‘I think I need a cup of tea, Sera,’ she said, sitting down at the end of the table, all the time staring in disbelief at him. ‘You look so different.’

  ‘Mum, we’d find it odd if he hadn’t grown up at all.’ I poured hot water into the teapot and added a few spoons of tea leaves, before placing the pot in front of her on the table. It was only when I turned back from taking a cup and saucer from the dresser that I realised she looked troubled. I decided to ask her why later, after he’d left.

  After an awkward silence, she asked, ‘How are Hazel and Dee? Are they well?’

  ‘Mum’s living in a village in a remote part of Wales. She helps run a donkey sanctuary with her boyfriend.’

  ‘That doesn’t surprise me for some reason.’ Taking the silver strainer from the table and placing it on the rim of her cup, she concentrated on pouring her tea, forgetting to leave the teapot to stand for her usual requisite two minutes. ‘There was so much gossip when you disappeared all those years ago, no one knew what had happened to any of you. There was even talk of dredging the pool in the woods at the back of your old farm.’

  He shuddered slightly. ‘I always assumed us leaving like that must have been the most exciting event to happen here for years.’ He didn’t smile at his own attempt at humour. ‘It was a strange time for us, too,’ he added quietly.

  I took a breath, eager to discover more. ‘Can you let me have a phone number for Hazel? I’d love to call her for a chat.’

  ‘She uses the sanctuary office phone in an emergency, but I don’t think I have the number with me,’ he said, shaking his head.

  He glanced down at his watch. ‘Hell, is that the time? I should go; I was supposed to meet someone ten minutes ago.’ He got to his feet. ‘It was good to see you, Mimi.’

  She nodded and gave him a sad smile. ‘Will you come and see us again, or will you be disappearing for another fifteen years?’

  I still hadn’t found out what had happened to Dee and wanted to be sure I’d see him at least once more. ‘I’ll see you out,’ I said, giving Mum a pointed glare as I passed her. She didn’t seem at all bothered that she’d been rude. It was very unlike her and I couldn’t help wondering if seeing him here brought back her concern for me and the devastation I’d felt after his family had disappeared.

  I accompanied him along the hallway, both of us walking to the door in silence. He opened it, stopping and turning once outside.

  ‘It really was wonderful seeing you again, Sera.’

  ‘But you haven’t told me where you’re living, or why you’re here.’

  He gave me a kiss on the cheek and smiled. ‘I live in London, but I’ve been staying with Dee in France. She lives near Dinard. I spent a few weeks helping her sort a few things with her cottage, but I had to come back to the UK for work,’ he explained.

 
Unsatisfied with his answer and determined not to let him go without trying to find out more about Dee, I placed a hand on his right arm. ‘Will you give me her contact details, so I can get in touch with her?’

  He shook his head. ‘She doesn’t have a mobile and I’m not sure she’d want me to give out her landline right now.’ He considered his next words. ‘Tell you what, I’ll speak to her. I can put her in touch with you, if you like?’

  I hid my concern that she wouldn’t call me. ‘Okay.’ I was aware that I didn’t have any choice in the matter. ‘Please tell her I can’t wait to catch up with her.’ I reached out and took one of my business cards from the hall table, handing it to him. ‘Here are my numbers and an email address. I’ll wait to hear from you, or Dee.’

  He took the card and read it before lowering his head and kissing me on both cheeks. ‘It really is very good to see you again. I promise I’ll be in touch soon.’

  I watched him walk down the steps to the pavement and out of my life, once again. Aware he hadn’t offered to give me his contact details either, I hoped he was a man of his word. I sighed, closed the door, and returned to the kitchen.

  ‘What was all that about?’ I asked, unable to stop myself.

  Mum looked up, her perfectly made-up face seeming older than it had this morning. ‘I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to be rude. It was a shock seeing him here after so long. I never thought we’d see them again.’

  ‘Nor did I.’

  Feeling mean for being harsh, I sat down and told her all about spotting Leo that morning on my way to the studio.

  ‘It was the weirdest thing. He looks so different, but I still sensed it was him, for some reason. Don’t you think that’s strange, like it was meant to be?’ She didn’t reply. ‘He told me this is the first time he’s been back since they left in 2003.’

  ‘Serendipity,’ she murmured almost to herself. ‘At least we know he’s still alive.’

  She stared at her cup thoughtfully for a while and I watched, noticing a softness in her demeanour for the first time. I wondered again why there had been such antagonism between her and Hazel. Mum didn’t make friends easily, but she didn’t fall out with people either.