A Girl Called Summer Read online

  A Girl Called Summer

  BY LUCY LORD

  For my brother, Nick, with love and thanks

  Contents

  Title Page

  Dedication

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Eight months later . . .

  Acknowledgements

  Check out Lucy’s short stories!

  About the Author

  Also by Lucy Lord

  Copyright

  About the Publisher

  She had thought of him as a brother, once.

  She’d grown up on the beach an only child, happy and free with loving hippy parents. She rarely wore shoes, and her overriding memories were of sunshine, kind faces and cheerful voices – laughing, or singing along to her dad’s acoustic guitar. Swimming in the sea, even in mid-winter, during storms and clean, cold sun, was as natural to her as breathing.

  He was three years older – eight to her five when he turned up on the beach, motherless, but not an orphan. He always looked after her during the storms, racing her to safety, or carrying her in his skinny arms to shelter under the rocks if the rain became too heavy.

  She had loved him for as long as she could remember, so it was only natural, when he started to look more like a man than a boy, that her young emotions had been stirred still further.

  She’d hated his first girlfriend – a dark-haired, dark-eyed girl who looked so different to her. It always seemed as though they were mocking her, as she tried to run after them across the sand, always several steps behind, despite her legs, which everybody said were long for her age.

  When she was fifteen, he started to look at her differently. She could still remember how tender he was the night he had given her what she’d been aching for. Naturally, it was on the beach.

  For nearly a year they were as happy as young lovers could be. Kissing, hidden behind sandy dunes, laughing till they could laugh no more, the exquisite sun bathing their exquisite bodies in heat, and light, and lust. They were perfect for each other; everybody said so.

  Until that dark, ugly night when her innocence was shattered for ever.

  Chapter 1

  ‘Are we completely bloody insane?’ asked Bella, as the jeep lurched along the uneven dirt track that led to their new home. It was pitch-black outside, and raining, the downpour so heavy that the water bounced right off the jeep’s roof, sounding inside like a volley of gunfire.

  ‘Bit late to start thinking about that.’ Andy smiled at her, and took one hand off the steering wheel to give her knee a reassuring squeeze.

  Bella looked anxiously over her shoulder to the back seat, where their daughter, Daisy, was sleeping soundly, utterly oblivious to the noise and bumpiness of the journey. Her heart swelled with love as she gazed at the perfect, untroubled little face, and she smiled too. Daisy had just turned one, and her birthday-cum-farewell-to-England party, a pretty riotous affair, had been the last time they’d seen all their London friends. Had it only been a week ago?

  ‘See?’ said Andy. ‘Daisy’s completely unfazed by it all. Stop worrying – everything’s going to be fine.’

  ‘Daisy’s not fazed by anything.’ Bella smiled again. ‘And I’m not fazed, really, either. But it would have been nice not to have been arriving in the dark. Bloody MonAir.’ The plan had been to arrive shortly before sunset, but their flight from Gatwick had been delayed by four hours. ‘And bloody rain. This is meant to be Ibiza!’ It came out as a wail. ‘This is what we emigrated to escape from!’

  ‘It’s April, Belles. It’s a freak storm. It’ll pass. Now come on, old thing, where’s your sense of adventure? This is the beginning of a whole new chapter in our lives. It’s meant to be exciting.’

  ‘Less of the old, please! But yeah – sorry. It is exciting.’ Bella used to be up for anything, but the responsibilities of motherhood had somewhat tamed her sense of adventure – which was probably just as well, considering some of the things she’d got up to in the past. ‘I can’t wait to see Ca’n Pedro again.’

  Ca’n Pedro was the four-hundred-year-old finca that Andy and Bella had first laid eyes on the previous summer, their first holiday with little Daisy as a newborn. It was set in incredibly picturesque surroundings, in the middle of nowhere, and they had fallen in love with it immediately. Such was its state of disrepair that when they’d idly asked a local estate agent how much she thought it was worth, the price had been so low that they’d realized they could actually afford to buy it if they sold Bella’s tiny Notting Hill flat, which had soared in value in the years she’d lived there, and was far too small for a couple with a baby. There was even some money left over to do the finca up themselves (apart from the kitchen and bathrooms – for all their attributes, neither Andy nor Bella could claim much knowledge of plumbing).

  And so what had been the germ of an idea, conceived excitedly over a long, lazy lunch on a beach, had now become reality.

  Gulp.

  Eventually they drew to a halt, the jeep’s headlights the only illumination for miles around.

  ‘Well, here we are then,’ said Bella. The ancient finca looked less romantic than daunting and terrifyingly remote in the darkness and pounding rain. ‘Our new home.’

  ‘Our new home,’ Andy repeated. ‘Right then, I’ll go and open up, put some lights on, and then you can bring Daisy in.’

  ‘God, I’m glad we got the rewiring done in advance. Imagine turning up on a night like this with no electricity.’

  ‘That would have been grim.’ Andy smiled. ‘OK, I’ll make a run for it. I’ve got the torch, but can you keep the car’s lights on until I’m in?’

  Bella watched as he ran towards the heavy wood front door, jacket pulled up over his tousled head of dark hair to protect him from the rain, and put one of the keys that Carmen the estate agent had left them at the airport into the lock. After three attempts, he found the right one. As he opened the door, he turned back and waved at her, grinning, before disappearing into the house.

  Bella waited, properly excited now at the prospect of seeing their new home’s interior again. She vividly recalled the ancient wooden beams, flagstone floors and whitewashed (if distinctly grubby) walls that more than made up for the dilapidated old kitchen and bathrooms that hadn’t been updated since the Seventies.

  And she waited.

  Just as she was getting slightly worried, Andy emerged into the beam of the headlights, and ran back towards the car. Bella leaned over to let him in. He was panting and soaked already.

  ‘Well?’

  ‘I can’t get any of the lights to work. I don’t know – maybe there’s a central switch somewhere . . .’

  ‘. . . or maybe the storm’s buggered up the electricity?’

  ‘Good point.’

  ‘Shit.’

  They both stared at the dark old house, which was looking more spooky by the second.

  ‘Well, we’ve got the torch,’ said Andy, and Bella nodded. It wasn’t the end of the world, but it wasn’t exactly how she’d envisaged their first night in their new home. ‘Shall we br
ave it, then? Get Daisy tucked up, go to bed and sort it all out in the morning?’

  ‘As long as the bed’s been delivered . . .’ They’d had the pretty wrought-iron French antique shipped over weeks ago, but you never knew.

  ‘Carmen did tell us it had.’

  ‘Carmen also told us the electricity’d been sorted.’

  They looked at one another.

  ‘Only one way to find out.’

  ‘OK, let’s go for it.’

  *

  Bella sat in the dark as she waited for Andy to return with the rest of Daisy’s stuff, and anything else that might make their first night a bit more comfortable. He had offered to leave her the torch, but she’d said no. Sitting with your baby in the dark wasn’t as bad as negotiating your way up unfamiliar and slippery stone steps, encumbered with nappies, bottles and the rest of the gubbins, with bugger-all illumination. They couldn’t keep the jeep’s lights on all night.

  Their bed had arrived, thank God. And thank God, thought Bella, that her daughter was such a heavy-sleeping little angel. Like mother, like daughter, she supposed (angel bit aside). The only sounds in the creepy darkness were Daisy’s steady snuffling breath from her carrycot, and the rain still pounding down outside. Bella longed to pick her up and cuddle her, to smell her sweet powdery baby smell, but knew she shouldn’t break her blissful slumber.

  Despite everything she’d read (and been told by her own mother), she hadn’t believed it was possible to love another creature so much. From the minute the slimy, wriggly little thing had been put in her arms, the previous agonizing twenty-four hours all-but-forgotten, her life had changed for ever. She knew she was biased, but Daisy was an enchanting little girl, with an extraordinarily sunny disposition. She rarely cried, preferring to observe things solemnly through her enormous brown eyes, until something made her gurgle with spontaneous giggles.

  What with the bonus of Andy being a pretty good approximation of a hands-on father (he had his moments, but then, he was a man), and now their move to Ibiza, her favourite place in the whole world, Bella felt exceptionally lucky.

  Darkness, shmarkness. Rain, shmain!

  She had her baby, her man and their new home, and that was all that mattered. Though it was starting to get a tad chilly. Daisy seemed comfortable enough, wrapped up snugly in her fleecy layers, but Bella wished she’d thought to wear something warmer than the optimistic ensemble of sundress and flip-flops she’d thrown on back in London that morning.

  The sound of Andy’s familiar tread up the stairs was accompanied by the glimmer of torchlight. He entered the room, and dumped three heavy bags on the floor.

  ‘Hello, you.’

  ‘Hello, you, too.’ Bella smiled. ‘What’s in the other cases?’

  ‘Sheets, blankets – it’s a bit chilly, isn’t it?’

  Bella nodded, trying not to shiver. Andy pulled a tartan blanket out of one of the bags and wrapped it around her shoulders. She kissed him gratefully.

  ‘And this!’ Triumphantly, he produced a bottle of duty-free Cava and a couple of plastic glasses from one of the bags. ‘Got to toast our new home.’

  ‘Of course!’

  ‘Our new home,’ said Andy as he poured the cheap fizz.

  ‘Our new home.’ And they clinked their plastic cups, smiling happily in the torchlight.

  *

  The following morning, Bella opened the shutters that led out onto the stone balcony outside their bedroom and gazed, slightly dazed, at the sunshine flooding in. The overgrown garden had thrilled them when they’d visited the previous summer, but now, in spring, and sparkling from last night’s downpour, its beauty was overwhelming.

  Lush bougainvillea climbed all the way up to the balcony on her left, its purply pink flowers clashing vividly with the cornflower-blue sky. She would probably paint the shutters to match the sky, Bella thought excitedly as she observed their peeling state of grey. The decent-sized pool, empty now, and mouldy, was surrounded by orange, lemon and almond trees, the citrus already starting to bear fruit, the almond in full bridal blossom. A few palms thrust their spiky heads skywards, and a couple of gnarled and silvery old olive trees stood guard, the patriarchs of the arboreal clan. Scarlet poppies grew wild in the undergrowth, and even from here she could smell the rosemary, lavender and thyme creeping their way up the hill the other side of the pool. If she stretched far enough to peer around the side of the house, she could make out the glittering deep blue sea, over a few acres of densely populated pine forest.

  ‘Andy, come and look,’ she whispered, trying not to wake Daisy. But when she glanced over at their daughter, she saw that her eyes were starting to open, the long lashes that had been brushing her cheeks now starlike as they blinked into life. ‘You can come and look too, darling,’ she said quietly, lifting her up and kissing her, before carrying her out onto the balcony.

  ‘Wow,’ said Andy, walking up behind them. He put his arms around Bella’s waist and kissed the top of her head, leaning over her shoulder to kiss the top of Daisy’s silky blonde head too.

  They stood in silence for a few more seconds, breathing it all in.

  ‘Well, I think we made the right decision,’ said Andy eventually.

  Bella laughed.

  ‘I think so too. What d’you reckon, Daisy? Did Mummy and Daddy make the right decision? Do you think we’re all going to be happy here?’

  Daisy gurgled, a cheerful grin lighting up her little round face.

  *

  Andy had driven into San Carlos, their nearest village, for breakfast provisions, so Bella was giving Daisy a tour of the finca. They’d do a proper supermarket shop later that day.

  They still hadn’t been able to work out how to turn the electricity on, and had left several messages with Carmen, but she hadn’t got back to them yet. Unable to face a cold shower, Bella had struggled into an old denim miniskirt that used to hang off her hips, and a baggy T-shirt that she hoped hid the remnants of baby weight around her middle. She’d managed to lose most of it, but that final half-stone was proving a bugger to shift. She’d washed her armpits and tied her long dark hair up into a ponytail, but was still feeling pretty grubby and travel-soiled. Never mind, the electricity (and her flab) would be sorted soon enough, she thought optimistically as she carried Daisy into the room opposite their bedroom.

  The finca was laid out simply over two floors, with four rooms on top, two facing each other either side of a fairly wide corridor.

  ‘So this is going to be your nursery. Quite a big room for a very little girl, isn’t it? But it means that when you get bigger it can carry on being your bedroom.’

  Bella walked across the room to the large window and fumbled with the shutters with her left hand, balancing Daisy on her hip with her right. ‘And look – you’ve got a proper sea-view, which is more than you can say for Mummy and Daddy. Although Mummy and Daddy have got the balcony, and the garden view, so they can’t really complain.’

  I am rambling, she thought. Does everyone speak to their baby like this, or am I losing the plot?

  ‘Anyway, I was thinking yellow-and-white gingham curtains in here, which will go with your yellow cot, and look lovely against all your Beatrix Potter stuff. You can always go for pink when you’re old enough to choose, but for the moment Mummy’s taste goes.’

  They continued into the room next door.

  ‘This is the spare room. Now, I know Daddy wants to keep everything traditional, and I’m with him on that – the sleek, minimalist thingy may be cool, but it’s not for us. However . . .’ Daisy looked up at her expectantly. ‘When our famous friends come visiting from Hollywood, it needs to be a little bit funky, so I was thinking this room could have a bit of a colonial vibe, with an overhead fan, rattan furniture and some great big yuccas – which means I’ll be able to smuggle in some animal print in the form of cushions and maybe even a couple of throws. What do you think of that, then, my angel? Isn’t Mummy clever?’

  Bella tickled Daisy under her chin u
ntil they were both helpless with giggles.

  ‘OK, so this is the bathroom. And it needs a lot of work. But I suppose that’s fairly obvious, isn’t it?’

  Mother and daughter gazed at the shabby avocado green fitted bathroom suite, complete with leaky showerhead and mildew on the walls. ‘I imagine it was very trendy at the time, but I’m afraid it’s all got to go.’

  Daisy nodded solemnly.

  ‘Someone else is going to come in and take all this out – it’s not something Mummy or Daddy should even think about attempting – and we’re going to replace it with a freestanding Victorian claw-footed bath, a proper, thundering power shower in that corner over there, creamy white tiles, like the ones you get on the Paris metro, and an old wooden wardrobe filled with lavender-scented linen and lovely fluffy towels. That should impress our groovy Hollywood friends, shouldn’t it, my darling?’

  It occurred to Bella that she was perhaps obsessing a little too much about impressing her stratospherically successful old mates – but hey. There was nothing wrong with wanting to make your house as nice as you possibly could, was there?

  Bella shifted Daisy to her left hip, so she could clutch the wrought-iron bannister as they descended the steep spiral stone steps that led to the ground floor.

  ‘We’re going to have to be careful of these stairs once you start walking, aren’t we? In fact, I don’t think I’ll be able to let you out of my sight for a minute. Oh—’

  Bella finally shut up as she turned right into the kitchen.

  The ground floor was divided into two large spaces – the kitchen, and what would eventually be their sitting room, via a large archway. There was another, smaller room leading off the sitting room, which they planned to turn into a downstairs loo and wet room.

  The kitchen was an extremely good size, but other than that had few redeeming features. Doors were hanging off hinges on the plastic units that had clearly been installed in the Seventies – or possibly even the Sixties. Orange and brown wallpaper peeled off one of the old stone walls, the cooker had two electric hobs, and the tiny fridge had given up the ghost a long time ago, judging by the dodgy-looking spiral wires, springing from all angles and leading nowhere.