A Girl Called Summer Read online

  ‘What do you think?’ Bella indicated the mountain of baby essentials she had lugged outside and they both laughed.

  ‘OK then, let’s go. Vamos a la playa!’

  *

  ‘God, this is heavenly.’ Bella took a sip of white wine and gazed out at the waves lapping the shore. Ambient chill-out music wafted out from inside the Art Resort to where she and Summer were sitting under a rainbow-striped parasol at one of the whitewashed wooden tables set up in the sand. Daisy was at long last sleeping soundly in her buggy and all seemed right with the world. ‘I was going a bit stir crazy, stuck on my own in the finca with a screaming baby – even though it’s a beautiful finca, and I love my screaming baby more than life itself. That doesn’t sound too horribly selfish, does it?’

  ‘Of course it doesn’t. You’ve gotta get out from time to time.’

  ‘Thanks so much for thinking of me. And thank God for Jorge, too,’ Bella added, smiling at the thought of him.

  ‘Oh, I’m sure he had something else to do around here,’ said Summer with a dismissive wave of her hand. ‘Jorge would never put himself out for somebody unless there was something in it for him.’

  Bella looked at her curiously, but decided to leave it for the moment. No point in arguing when Summer had been so incredibly kind and helpful, compiling that long list of useful emails and phone numbers and talking Bella through each of them. They had also been through her paintings, and Summer and Britta had deemed them all worthy of hanging in the gallery, which was enormously gratifying. Now Britta had gone to do some work on her computer – ‘the business can never be left to take care of itself,’ she had said with a wry smile as she went inside to her office – leaving her daughter and Bella to bond.

  ‘And you must tell Andy to make sure his phone is charged if he’s going to abandon you and Daisy all day, taking the car with him,’ Summer added sternly. Andy’s phone had gone straight to voicemail every time Bella had tried to call him from Jorge’s car, and she’d had to conclude that his battery had gone. ‘What if there had been an emergency?’

  ‘Yes, you’re right,’ said Bella, starting to feel slightly angry now she thought about it. What if there had been an emergency? ‘He’ll be feeling the edge of my tongue when he gets back,’ she added, like a comedy battleaxe or fishwife; something pre-feminist from a Fifties black-and-white movie.

  ‘Awww, don’t be too harsh on him. He’s only a man.’

  ‘True. And he’s my man, and I love him to bits.’ She looked over at the radiant blonde sitting opposite her. ‘What about you, Summer? Is there a man in your life?’

  ‘Nobody.’ Summer pulled a sad face, too ashamed to tell her new friend about David.

  ‘But you’re so beautiful! I can hardly believe it. I suppose, when you look like you do, you learn to be awfully choosy.’

  Summer had to bite back her laughter, still thinking of David.

  ‘I wouldn’t say that. I don’t know. Sometimes I wonder if there’s something wrong with me. I don’t believe I’ve ever been in love, not properly.’

  ‘Not even with Jorge?’ Bella teased, then stopped when she saw the look on Summer’s face. ‘Oh, sorry, I . . .’

  ‘Jorge was a long time ago.’ It was clear that that was all she had to say on the matter. Then she smiled again. ‘It’s weird, though. The keener they get, the more I go off them. Is that normal?’

  ‘I’ve no idea.’ Bella laughed. ‘I’m certainly no expert on relationships.’

  ‘Well, you seem to have a pretty good one with Andy.’

  ‘True.’ Bella gave a happy sigh as she looked out at the tranquil bay, feeling the spring sunshine warm on her shoulders.

  ‘But what about before? Were you ever “in love”, the way it’s shown in books and movies?’ Summer persisted, suddenly desperate to know. Despite being generally well liked, she had few female friends, and had always found it hard to get close to people. But it felt natural, somehow, to confide in Bella.

  ‘I thought I was, once.’ Bella leaned forward conspiratorially, glad to be able to share this bit of gossip – she might be a boring old mother now, but she had at least gone out with a film star, back in the dark ages of her past. ‘You know the actor Ben Jones?’

  ‘Ben Jones?’ Summer furrowed her lovely brow. ‘The Ben Jones? Gorgeous blond movie star Ben Jones?’

  ‘The very same. It was years ago, before he was famous – well, he was starting to be a little bit famous – and still living in London . . .’

  ‘No way!’ said Summer. ‘Wow, that’s so cool. So what happened?’

  ‘I walked in on him in bed with . . .’ Bella had been about to say ‘my best friend’, but Poppy would be in Ibiza over the summer and she didn’t want to give Summer a bad impression of her before she’d even met her. It had taken a lot to forgive Poppy, but there were mitigating circumstances, her remorse was total and it had been water under the bridge ever since Bella had fallen in love with Andy. ‘. . . somebody else.’

  ‘Shit. Every woman’s worst nightmare.’

  ‘Yup,’ said Bella. ‘Without a doubt one of the most awful moments of my life.’

  ‘So how did you meet him?’

  ‘We’d been friends for ages, but I’d always thought he was way out of my league. I was slimmer then, though . . .’

  ‘Oh, Bella, enough about your weight,’ laughed Summer. ‘You look great.’

  ‘Thanks,’ Bella smiled, feeling the waistband of her miniskirt digging into her flesh and not believing a word of it. ‘Anyway, we first kissed at Glastonbury – God, it was good . . .’ She shut her eyes and breathed in the smell of the sea, lulled back into the memory by the rhythmic sound of the waves licking the shore, the late afternoon sun now seeping deep into her bones.

  ‘And?’

  ‘And the rest!’ Bella opened her eyes and giggled guiltily, feeling disloyal to Andy. ‘I never was one for playing hard to get. And then – well, we were an item for a while . . .’

  ‘So what was it like, being in love with somebody almost famous?’

  Bella paused to think. Summer was so sweet and open that she wanted to give her a proper answer.

  ‘To start with, it was incredible,’ she said, remembering the absolute ecstasy she’d felt at the knowledge that Ben Jones, of all people, felt the same way about her as she did about him. Well, kind of. Then she remembered all those evenings spent home alone, waiting for him to come back from drinks with models after shoots, the permanent anxiety gnawing away at her, the feeling that she could never quite trust him.

  ‘And then, to be honest, it was shit,’ she added, and both girls burst out laughing.

  *

  ‘Hi, honey, I’m home!’ shouted Andy, pushing open the finca’s heavy wooden front door. He couldn’t wait to see Bella and Daisy, and was furious with himself for not noticing his phone battery had been so low. He normally charged it overnight as a matter of course, and he and Bella liked to stay in touch with hourly texts on days they were forced to be apart.

  ‘Bella!’ he called, more loudly this time. ‘I’m home!’

  She was probably putting Daisy to bed, he thought, bounding up the spiral stone staircase and bursting into the sunny little nursery, his arms outstretched to give her a hug. Seeing no sign of them, he frowned. They must be in the garden, although surely it was past Daisy’s bedtime now?

  It might not have been all that easy for Bella to get her to settle, of course. Andy guiltily remembered turning over and going back to sleep, several times, after being woken by Daisy’s crying during the night, leaving Bella to deal with it. His own justification that he had to be up early for the first of today’s many meetings rang slightly hollowly in his ears now, and he vowed to be a more hands-on father if tonight was another sleepless one.

  ‘Bella! Daisy!’ he called as he walked out through the French windows, starting to worry ever so slightly. Why wasn’t Bella responding?

  Once he’d searched the whole garden, his long legs making shor
t work of the luscious, overgrown grounds, he was out of his mind with fear. Where were they? Even though it wasn’t far to San Carlos, their nearest village, probably a half-hour walk at the most, it was a half-hour walk down a steep winding road around whose corners cars screeched with foolish haste. Not a walk any mother pushing a buggy would consider attempting in a million years.

  Automatically he reached into his pocket for his phone, before remembering that it was out of juice. They hadn’t got around to sorting out a landline yet. Damn, shit and bugger. He rushed inside to plug it into the charger, his mind spinning. Now, think logically. Somebody must have given them a lift somewhere. A woman and a baby couldn’t simply disappear into thin air. But if that were the case, why hadn’t she left him a note?

  Worry now having settled into his stomach in a tight knot, he opened the front door again and looked out at the beautiful rural landscape in despair. Where were they? At that moment, to his immense relief, he heard a car rumbling up the steep dirt track of their drive. But his joy at seeing Bella, chatting and joking about something in the passenger seat, as the convertible BMW ground to a halt, turned to anger as soon as he saw who was driving the car.

  ‘Bella, where the hell have you been? I’ve been out of my mind with worry.’

  ‘Shhh, darling, Daisy’s finally got to sleep, and we don’t want to wake her. Thanks so much for the lift, I’d have been lost without you,’ she added, kissing Jorge on both cheeks before leaning over to open the car door. But Jorge was too quick for her, gallantly getting out first, walking round to open her door for her, then reaching into the back to unfasten Daisy’s car-seat.

  ‘Here, let me take Daisy,’ said Andy. ‘Thanks,’ he added as an afterthought, attempting a tight smile.

  ‘De nada.’ Jorge smiled. ‘I merely came to the rescue of a damsel in distress.’ At this both he and Bella started laughing, which irritated Andy for reasons he couldn’t possibly start to explain.

  ‘So where have you been?’ Andy asked, more quietly this time, as he walked back inside, carrying Daisy.

  ‘At the Art Resort, with Summer. They’ve agreed to hang some of my paintings in the gallery, and Summer’s put together a list of useful contacts for us. Isn’t that sweet of her?’

  ‘Yes, very,’ Andy was forced to concur. ‘But you could have left me a note or something. I’ve been worried shitless.’

  ‘I thought I’d be able to tell you, but your phone’s been dead all afternoon. By the time I realized that, we were halfway to the Art Resort and it was too late to leave you a note. Anyway, I thought I’d be back before you. I guess I was having such a lovely time that the hours just flew by,’ she said, facing him defiantly, knowing that these words would annoy him.

  Looking at her, it dawned on Andy that he hadn’t seen Bella look so animated and – yes, sexy – for some time. She’d caught the sun, her nose spattered with freckles, cheeks flushed pink. Her eyes sparkled, and several strands of hair that had come loose from her ponytail in the open-topped car journey now fell seductively around her face.

  ‘Since Daisy’s finally got to sleep,’ he said, ‘how about we put her to bed, then make the most of having a bit of time to ourselves?

  ‘I think,’ responded Bella, smiling, ‘that’s the best idea you’ve had in ages.’

  Chapter 6

  ‘How bloody amazing is this?’ Poppy grinned at Damian from the passenger seat of his convertible vintage Mercedes as she cracked open another beer and gestured around at the spectacular Southern Californian scenery. The car was snaking its way through winding roads, overlooked by vast mountains the exact shade of Burnt Sienna that Poppy had had in her paintbox as a child. Desert palms stood ramrod straight in the searing late afternoon sun – no breeze here to ruffle their fronds – and spiky cacti dotted the scrubby landscape in a pleasingly Sergio Leone manner. She whistled the theme of The Good, the Bad and the Ugly to emphasize her point.

  ‘Pretty bloody amazing.’ Damian smiled back at his wife, who was dressed for Coachella in tiny denim cut-offs, a tie-dye bikini top, Stetson and heart-shaped Lolita shades. ‘Oh fuck it, I’m sure I can risk a beer – we’re nearly there now.’

  ‘I’d say a beer was mandatory,’ said Poppy, leaning over to reach the coolbox on the back seat. ‘Your patience, thus far, has been that of a saint!’ She was on her fourth already. She cracked open Damian’s and handed it to him.

  ‘Thanks, gorgeous.’ Damian took a swig. ‘I have to say, I’m looking forward to this – and we can be pretty sure it’s not likely to rain.’

  ‘I know.’ Poppy gazed out again at the mountains and palms and cacti. ‘It makes all our past Glastonbury excitement look a bit pathetic, doesn’t it?’

  ‘No! Come on, Pops, we had some incredible times – even if we were knee-deep in mud and shivering to death.’

  ‘You’re selling it well. But yeah, of course we had some incredible times.’ Poppy looked over her shades and smiled at Damian. ‘Remember that night in the Green Fields . . .?’

  ‘I’ll never forget it.’ Damian smiled back fondly, remembering. ‘SHIT!’

  They had rounded another bend, and the previously open road stretched out before them with the worst traffic either of them had ever seen. As they got closer, it became apparent that everyone was en route to Coachella. Cars backed up against rainbow-painted camper vans, myriad genres of music pounded from thousands of iPod speakers and you could almost taste the excitement in the air.

  ‘Oh God, I’ve got to get some pre-festival footage,’ said Poppy, taking out her phone to video the scene. She was meeting the crew at Coachella itself, but as the Merc drew almost to a halt behind a Jeep full of giggling, stoned twenty-somethings, she realized she might have a bit of TV gold on her hands.

  ‘Hey, guys – how’d you like to be on TV?’ she shouted over at them.

  ‘Dude, you don’t shoot TV shows on your phone,’ drawled a boy with a goatee and a woolly hat pulled down low over his ears. He must have been absolutely sweltering. ‘D’you think we’re like dweebs?’

  ‘Not at all,’ smiled Poppy. ‘My crew’s waiting for me at the festival but I think our techie people should be able to get something off my phone footage, even if it is a bit grainy. It’ll add to the atmosphere.’ She continued to smile brightly and Damian looked at her admiringly. His wife was nothing if not persistent, and extremely good at her job.

  ‘Omigod, I recognize you!’ yelled one of the girls, who was wearing a denim waistcoat over a floral maxidress, her dark brown hair hanging to her shoulders in hippy-ish plaits. ‘You’re Poppy Wallace! She’s not shitting us, guys. We’re going to be on MTV!’

  ‘Something like that, yeah.’ Poppy smiled again. ‘So you’re happy for me to video you?’

  ‘Uh-huh!’

  ‘Sure thing.’

  ‘Fuck, yeah!’

  All the jeep’s passengers had now turned, waving and giggling madly, to face Poppy. She knelt up on her seat to get a better angle.

  ‘So have you come far today?’

  ‘University of Berkeley,’ they chorused, with much whooping and cheering.

  ‘And is this your first Coachella?’

  *

  A few hundred metres down the road Filthy Meadows surveyed the scene from the air-conditioned luxury of his enormous tour bus.

  ‘Told you we should have taken the jet,’ said Grizz through a haze of dope smoke. The roadie was one of Filthy’s oldest friends, a giant of a man whose thick black beard and multiple tattoos belied his gentle nature.

  ‘I kinda like it,’ said Filth. ‘Old school. Those kids are having a great time.’ He gestured out through the tinted windows. Roaches were being passed from car to car, new friendships forged, flirtatious banter exchanged under the blazing desert sun. ‘Wish I could be part of it really.’

  ‘Bored with our company already?’ Grizz took a swig of bourbon and grinned. The other two occupants of the bus were Len, Filthy’s manager, a small bespectacled man who was currently engro
ssed in a battered old paperback of Moby Dick, and Sam the driver, not a fellow renowned for his witty banter.

  Filthy laughed. ‘How could I be bored with you three? No, I just wanna get down with the kids. Hey . . .’ His eyes lit up. ‘I’m havin’ an idea . . .’

  Grizz looked at him warily. Filthy’s ‘ideas’ were invariably hare-brained and distinctly impractical.

  ‘Shoot.’

  ‘Amp me up, Grizz, I’m goin’ up top.’

  *

  Poppy’s questions were drowned out by a sudden loud cheer from the cars and vans a little further up the highway from them.

  ‘What is it? What’s going on?’

  The Chinese whispers finally reached the jeep, and the girl with the maxidress and plaits excitedly shouted to Poppy,

  ‘It’s Filthy Meadows! Look, up there, standing on top of his tour bus. It looks like he’s gonna play something . . .’

  And on cue, the first chords rang out across the desert.

  Poppy stood up in the seat of the convertible to get a better view.

  ‘Careful, Pops,’ said Damian.

  ‘Don’t worry, darling, I’ve a phenomenal sense of balance.’ Poppy grinned. ‘Oh, look at Filth! Isn’t he a legend?’

  Filthy was giving it his all on top of the tour bus, treating his fans to an impromptu gig that they’d never forget. Poppy and Damian were edging nearer now, as their lane of traffic was moving ever so slightly more than the one the tour bus was stuck in, and Poppy trained her video phone on the gyrating bare-chested, leather-jean-clad figure as he screamed out the chorus of one of his greatest hits. All the festival-bound hipsters and hippies screamed along with him.

  Soon the Mercedes had drawn up next to the tour van, the traffic in both lanes at a complete standstill now.

  ‘Filth!’ yelled Poppy, waving wildly at him from behind her video phone. ‘Over here! It’s Poppy! Poppy Wallace!’

  ‘Poppy?’ Filthy broke off mid-song to smile at her. Poppy had been able to wind him around her little finger ever since Jack had first introduced them a couple of years ago at an awards after-party. ‘Fuck, man, you look hot!’ He winked. ‘Hey, you filming for your TV show?’