A Girl Called Summer Read online

  ‘God, yes! The last few months in England, I became completely addicted to it, getting myself thoroughly over-excited about our move here! I’ve read your column. It’s fab!’ Bella knew she was beginning to gush again, but she couldn’t help it. She felt completely starstruck by this beautiful, clever, friendly girl. ‘So how did you get such a fantastic job?’

  ‘Ah.’ Summer gave a slightly embarrassed smile. ‘Pure nepotism, I’m afraid. The old editor was a friend of my dad’s and he took a chance on me. That was a few years back though – there’s a new editor now.’ Something changed slightly in her tone of voice. ‘Anyway, I’m glad he did – it was a great break, and I love writing about food.’

  ‘I love reading about it. And eating it.’ Bella grimaced. ‘I felt sooo out of shape during your mother’s class. How do those bloody women stay so skinny?’

  ‘They don’t eat. At all. Stupid stupid stooopid. As long as you eat good fresh food and take plenty of exercise, there’s no need to starve yourself.’

  As Summer wiped a stray strand of blonde hair back from her glowing golden face, Bella thought that she couldn’t have been a better advertisement for her words. Mind you, being childless, twenty-five-ish, and possessed of excellent Scandinavian genes probably helped too.

  *

  Summer was driving her little Fiat back to Ibiza Town, still pondering the David situation, when a cluster of green spears, just off the side of the road, caught her eye.

  She checked her rear-view mirror to make sure that no other cars were on her tail, and pulled in, taking her iPhone out of her handbag as she did so. She snapped several photos of the wild asparagus, before picking a handful and putting them onto the passenger seat.

  ‘You, my babies, will be both my lunch and my next post,’ she said in Swedish, as she revved the Fiat into action once more.

  The view from Summer’s flat, right at the top of Dalt Vila, the oldest bit of Ibiza Town, was, in its own way, as spectacular as the one from her childhood home. From here she could see, over slanting rooftops and higgledy-piggledy backstreets, all the way down to the vast array of boats in the harbour. On an exceptionally clear day she could see all the way to Formentera.

  It was starting to get hot already, so Summer took her Mac out onto her little stone balcony, and uploaded the pictures of the wild asparagus that grew by the road.

  This is what makes Ibiza special, she typed. As much as Pacha, or Space, or even Playa Las Salinas. I found this wild asparagus less than an hour ago, growing freely by the road from San Carlos to Santa Eulalia. It’s probably best simply steamed or chargrilled and served with melted butter and plenty of black pepper, but you can be a little more creative. For example . . .’

  Summer was interrupted by David, who’d let himself in and climbed the stairs up to her balcony. He was looking at her with that irritating puppy-dog expression he’d been adopting of late.

  ‘Hey, Dave.’ She tried to brush him off. ‘I’m filing some copy.’

  ‘Fuck your copy.’

  ‘Wow, very professional attitude.’ Summer turned back to her Mac. ‘For my editor.’

  ‘Fuck your copy, because I want to fuck you.’ David put his short, hairy arms around Summer’s waist and started to kiss the side of her neck. Feeling her weakening, he reached around to touch her between her legs. His thick fingers knew exactly what they were doing, and soon she was lying, naked and prone, on the sun-warmed stone terrace.

  ‘Oh yes, baby, lie there like that and let me look at your beautiful body.’ David, her editor on Island Life, gave her clitoris a gentle lick. Despite herself, Summer gave a soft moan of pleasure.

  ‘Dave, you can’t do this to me, it’s not fair . . .’

  ‘What’s not fair, honey? You want it, and I want it . . .’ He started to go down on her again, his stubbly beard rubbing against her as he thrust three fingers inside her.

  Summer gave in and went with it, enjoying every moment of his mouth on her, his tongue lapping at her, his fingers probing ever deeper inside her. She had a very pragmatic, Swedish attitude towards sex. If it gave her pleasure and hurt nobody, then – why not?

  ‘Oh God,’ she moaned, more loudly now, as she felt the first waves of orgasm washing over her. David was relentless, pushing his hand into her even more deeply, never taking his mouth from her bucking body as she moved helplessly against him, again and again and again. When he was satisfied he’d milked the last drop of pleasure from her, he looked up at her flushed, sweaty face and smiled.

  Summer smiled back, all her misgivings about the situation temporarily forgotten. ‘That was great,’ she said (well, credit where it was due). Seeing the bulge in his jeans, she sat up and started to undo his belt buckle, pushing him gently to the floor. His hard-on was enormous – his large, thick cock was out of proportion to the rest of his body – and Summer gasped as she lowered herself down onto it. David reached up to stroke her beautifully shaped breasts, the pinky-brown nipples already hard and sensitive to his touch.

  ‘Fuck me, Summer. Fuck me hard.’

  So she did. She rode him and rode him in the morning sun, increasing her tempo until he too was crying out, calling her name over and over. As soon as she felt him starting to pump inside her, she was overcome by a second, intensely powerful orgasm, before collapsing, damp and utterly spent, on top of his hairy body.

  Oh shit, I’ve done it again.

  When David had taken the place of her dad’s friend as editor on Island Life, Summer had found herself weirdly attracted to him. The Jewish New Yorker was clever – probably smarter than anybody she’d met in her life – and even though he was shorter than her, and actually old enough, at forty-seven, to be her dad, she had been unable to resist his charm, wit, and – as she was soon to discover – amazing ability in the sack. The intensity of those dark, intelligent brown eyes as they’d roamed over her face and body, the first night he’d taken her out to dinner (ostensibly to congratulate her on a particularly good piece she’d written about paellas) had won her over completely.

  ‘So, babe . . .’ David stroked her face with a stubby finger. ‘When are we going to go public? We’re so good together.’

  ‘We can’t. OK?’ Summer kissed his hairy chest to soften the blow. ‘Fucking my boss is not cool.’

  ‘Cool enough for you to do it, though?’ David’s voice was angry. It wasn’t as if either of them was married, or even in relationships with other people. ‘I don’t get you. You act like you don’t give a fuck about me, but I make you come, I make you laugh, I . . .’

  Oh Jesus, he wasn’t about to start crying, was he?

  Summer had experienced this all too many times before. She loved sex, and her wanton abandonment to it gave the impression that she loved the men with whom she was having it. But they always got so clingy. One of the boys in Barcelona had left his girlfriend for her, when she hadn’t even been aware that he’d had a girlfriend. There was no way she’d knowingly take another woman’s man to bed. Again, it was the Swedish pragmatism that had led her to this conclusion – it wasn’t worth the hassle. Why ruin somebody else’s relationship when there were plenty of single people in the world?

  Sometimes she wondered if there was something fundamentally wrong with her; why else would this sense of suffocation creep over her whenever a lover got too keen? She was fond of them, of course, but she’d never met anybody she felt a reciprocal passion for. Apart from Jorge, but that had been a long time ago – and it certainly hadn’t been worth it.

  Her thoughts returned to David, who appeared to have worked himself up into quite a state.

  ‘I guess you think I’m not good enough for you. I’m just some dumb Jewish schmuck, old enough to be your dad. Why would a beautiful young girl like you want to be associated with me?’

  The self-pity was worse than the anger – and definitely more of a turn-off. Summer tried to be kind.

  ‘Oh, Dave, it’s not that, of course it’s not.’ And it wasn’t – not really. Summer sat up an
d wrapped her arms around her knees, gazing out at the view down to the harbour. David was right – there wasn’t any reason for them not to make their relationship public. It wasn’t as if anybody could accuse her of sleeping her way to the top – her position on Island Life had been secure well before David had joined the company. In fact, probably more secure than it was now, which was one of the things worrying her. She didn’t think he’d use his power over her to make life difficult if she didn’t comply with his wishes.

  But he could. And she didn’t like it one bit.

  Chapter 5

  ‘Shhh darling, it’s OK,’ said Bella, rocking Daisy in her arms and wishing that somebody had given her lessons in how to be a mother. ‘Shhh, darling, shhh.’ She felt so bloody ineffectual on these rare occasions.

  Daisy had been so little trouble ever since she was born that Bella realized she’d become a tad blasé about motherhood. She was no use whatsoever when her angel refused to sleep for more than half an hour a time, for the entire night. It was now mid-afternoon and mother and daughter had been awake, with intermittent naps, for over thirty-six hours.

  ‘Maybe we’ll feel better if we go and have a walk around our lovely garden,’ said Bella optimistically. Daisy’s response was an even louder wail.

  ‘OK then, maybe it’ll make me feel better if we go and have a walk around our lovely garden,’ added Bella, trying to sound firm. Her voice crumbled before she got to the end of the sentence, but she managed to carry her daughter outside, halfway around the empty pool, where Andy had set up a couple of sunloungers, side by side.

  She sat down on one of them, leaning back against the headrest with a weary sigh, pulling Daisy to her chest and stroking her silky blonde hair, continuing to murmur ‘Shhh, sweetheart, shhh.’

  Through the incessant wailing, Bella’s phone beeped and buzzed from one of the many pockets in the old combat-style miniskirt she was wearing with a faded black T-shirt.

  ‘Oooh, maybe it’s Daddy,’ she said, her heart leaping, as it always did, at the prospect of a text from Andy. Or, indeed, at any contact with the outside world. Andy had driven off in the jeep that morning on a round of meetings with banks, IT people, the water man and others who were meant to make their life at the finca more comfortable.

  She shifted Daisy into the crook of her left arm and pulled out her phone.

  ‘It’s from Poppy, darling, isn’t that nice?’ she said to Daisy, who continued to sob, albeit at a slightly lower volume. She opened the message.

  Fantastic news, Belles, we’re definitely coming to see you this summer! So exciting, it’ll be just like the old days. Sa Trinxa, Pacha, DC-10 . . . I’m shooting Coachella next week, which should be a laugh, but nothing beats Ibiza for full-on hedonism, right? Loads of love to Andy and my beautiful god-daughter, Pops xxx

  Bella gave a disbelieving snort. Poppy was on another planet sometimes. Full-on hedonism? DC-10, the club that only started after all the other clubs had finished? Did she seriously think life carried on completely unchanged once you had a child? And as for the way she so casually mentioned that she was ‘shooting Coachella’ – Bella had been dying to go to Coachella ever since she’d first read about it in Grazia, several years ago. Glastonbury in the desert, with guaranteed sunshine and hot and cold running celebs . . .

  For a minute or two she let her mind drift back to the wild times of her past. The Glastonbury she’d shagged Ben had been a particularly good one. It had all ended in tears, of course, was bound to, but she had fond memories of that debauched, sun-drenched long weekend – and it was lucky they were all friends again. It could still have been horribly awkward, but Ben had Natalia, she had Andy, Poppy had Damian, and everything had worked out for the best.

  Now she’d started though, she found she couldn’t stop, and soon she was reminiscing about the Ibiza of her past, the ridiculous things they had got up to, the absolute freedom of it all . . .

  The time she’d nearly shagged the Manumission dwarf until he put her off by boasting too much about past conquests . . . the time somebody pinched her dress when she was bonking that fit American in the loos at Pacha and she had to spend the rest of the night clad only in a towel . . . She gave a slightly guilty giggle – God, she’d been a slapper, back in the day – that turned into a wistful sigh.

  Suddenly she realized that Daisy had stopped crying and was looking up at her with big, enquiring eyes.

  ‘Sorry, darling, Mummy’s just being silly. We’ve all got to grow up some time, haven’t we, and you are, without a doubt, the best thing that’s ever happened to me.’

  She rained butterfly kisses all over Daisy’s petal-soft little face until her daughter was gurgling with happy giggles. Bella gazed up at the cloudless blue sky, then over at the ancient finca, at the vivid bougainvillea climbing the whitewashed walls, the charming wooden shutters that she’d started painting to match the sky, and began to laugh too.

  What a bloody idiot she was being! Her life was idyllic, and having the freedom to nearly shag a dwarf really wasn’t comparable, on any level.

  Upside down on the sunlounger next to her, her phone started to ring.

  ‘That’ll be Daddy,’ she said happily, giving Daisy one last kiss before picking up the phone again and turning it over to look at the screen. But no.

  ‘Summer, how lovely to hear from you. How are you?’

  ‘Hey, Bella, I’m fine, thanks. Listen, I’m down at the Art Resort with Mom – do you fancy joining us for a drink? Maybe you could bring some of your paintings and we’ll think about displaying them in the gallery?’

  ‘God, I can’t tell you how much I’d love to.’ Bella sighed. ‘But I’m stranded. Andy’s taken the car and won’t be back for hours.’

  ‘Shame,’ said Summer. ‘Never mind, there will always be other days. I have that list of useful phone numbers for you, too – would you like me to email them over?’

  ‘That’s really sweet of you, thanks,’ smiled Bella, as Daisy started to cry again. ‘Bugger, I’d better go. Daisy’s not a happy bunny today. But thanks so much for the invite – please bear me in mind next time.’

  ‘Of course. See you soon.’

  ‘See you.’

  As she put the phone down and Daisy’s crying got louder, Bella started to cry too. She couldn’t help it – she knew she should be counting her blessings, but she was so tired, and it would have been great to have a drink and a chat with Summer and her mother – especially a chat about her paintings. She couldn’t remember the last time she’d thought of herself as an artist.

  ‘Hola, Bella!’ somebody shouted through the wrought-iron gates at the bottom of the garden.

  ‘Hola, Jorge,’ Bella shouted back, hastily and disgustingly wiping her sodden face on the back of her arm. ‘The gate’s open – come in!’ Much as she liked the casual way people seemed to pop round to say hello in Ibiza – something that had never happened in all her years living in London – there were times when being caught off-guard wasn’t so great.

  Jorge sauntered across the garden, ludicrously handsome in tight white jeans and a fluorescent pink T-shirt with cutaway armholes and ‘Blue Marlin Ibiza’ written in slick capitals across his broad chest. Rather than looking camp, the pink simply served to emphasize his caramel tan, pink lips and startlingly virile masculinity.

  As he got closer to Bella and Daisy, the smile on his face was replaced by a look of concern.

  ‘Hey hey, what’s the matter?’ he asked, sitting down at Bella’s feet on the sunlounger. Bella threw her legs over the edge and shifted up to make room for him. In response, he put a well-muscled arm around her shoulder and started to tickle Daisy under the chin with his other hand.

  At his ministrations, both mother and daughter gradually stopped crying.

  ‘Do you want to talk about it?’ he asked gently.

  ‘Oh no, it’s nothing, I’m just being silly. I’m probably over-tired – Daisy hardly slept a wink last night – then Summer invited me to go and have a
drink and a chat about displaying some of my paintings at the Art Resort, only I can’t go because Andy’s got the car, and I suddenly felt . . . well, trapped, I guess.’

  She laughed slightly shamefacedly and looked up at him through dripping eyelashes. ‘I told you I was being silly.’

  ‘Non, non, I understand perfectly. You miss having the freedom, yes?’ Something in the way he said it made Bella wonder if he guessed the nature of her recent reminiscences.

  ‘Well, sort of, yes, I . . .’

  ‘Pero no es problemo,’ Jorge smiled. ‘I can give you a lift. I have some errands I must make near the Art Resort anyway. Then I pick you up, and give you a lift back in – what – one hour? Two hours?’

  ‘Could you really? Are you sure it would be no trouble?’

  ‘No trouble at all. You go and fetch whatever you need – I would like to see your paintings, very much – and I shall look after Daisy. Go go go!’ he added, shooing her towards the finca.

  Her canvases were stored flat in a couple of old suitcases in the guest room, and now she quickly rifled through them, picking out ten that she thought would be most suited to the Art Resort, and transferring them to a smaller, lighter zip-up holdall. Then she nipped next door into her bedroom to check her reflection in the small unframed mirror she had propped up on top of a chest of drawers.

  Jesus Christ, she looked horrendous, her eyes red-rimmed from crying and puffy from lack of sleep, her face blotchy, hair lank and greasy in its habitual ponytail. The faded black T-shirt did absolutely nothing for her complexion, and after a moment’s thought she swapped it for a white vest top, which also necessitated a change of bra. After shaking her hair out of its ponytail, spraying on some dry shampoo, mussing it up with her fingers and retying it, she studied herself in the mirror and grinned reluctantly. At least her cleavage drew attention away from her face.

  When she walked back outside, Jorge was sitting with Daisy grinning happily on his lap. He let out a low whistle and kissed his fingertips.

  ‘Wow, what a transformation. Que bella, Bella!’ Bella tried to ignore the happy warm feeling suffusing her at the compliment. ‘You have everything you need? Everything Daisy needs?’