Page 36 of A Summer Scandal

‘And like you said, it was only a kiss, barely anything.’

‘I’ve pretty much wiped it from my mind already.’

She nodded. ‘It wasn’t as hideous as feared though.’

Cal didn’t know whether to nod or shake his head. ‘Not hideous at all. Rather pleasant, all things considered.’

‘Quite,’ she said. ‘Well, I’m glad we got that sorted.’

‘Me too.’

Fiddling with her keys, Violet scuffed the toe of her boot against the floor.

‘I should, you know … go inside. Stuff to do.’

‘Yes,’ Cal said. ‘I’m pretty busy, so …’

They looked at each other for a couple of beats, and then Violet turned away and disappeared inside her apartment with a decisive slam of the door.

Cal leaned his head against his own doorframe and looked at the now empty hallway.

‘Well, that wasn’t awkward at all, was it?’ he murmured into the silence.

He was starting to wonder if it had been easier when he’d been the only resident of the top floor. He’d lied just now when he said it had been a rather pleasant kiss. It hadn’t been pleasant. It had been like no other kiss he’d ever known, and he’d kissed a lot of women.

Maybe it had been just been a strange amalgamation of setting, wine, a girl he shouldn’t kiss … that old ‘forbidden fruit tastes sweeter’ baloney. He’d never actively triednotto kiss someone he found attractive before; the novelty had grown old fast. Would it be so wrong? Everything in his rational head said yes. He’d made a decent life for himself in recent years. He’d built his business up from scratch, and he’d picked himself up off the floor after Ursula left. He didn’t get involved in the mess of relationships these days, for one really simple reason. He still loved his wife.

Bathed and fed, Violet climbed into bed surrounded by the paperwork from her father’s solicitor. Her parents hadn’t been at all keen on the idea of her running the pier as a business, it felt far too much like a permanent plan, but nonetheless her dad had made sure that she was properly insured, because that was just the kind of man he was. In some ways he was a lot like Simon, super-reliable and steady as a rock, qualities Violet had a new appreciation for now that her life was so all over the place.

Around the bedroom, mermaids watched as she shuffled the papers in search of her pen. They looked suitably unimpressed with her choice of bedroom activity, so much so that she rolled her eyes at the nearest one.

‘Have you stolen my pen to save me from having to do this?’ she said, looking at the impassive face of the bare-breasted mermaid perched on her rock. Leaning over the edge of the bed in search of it, Violet peered underneath and couldn’t see anything.

‘Bugger,’ she muttered, sliding the bedside drawer open, even though she knew it would be pointless, because any pen in there would be forty years old and dried up anyway. Feeling tentatively inside, Violet found nothing of practical use, although lots of interest. Aside from the living room sideboard, she’d tried not to mooch too much in the cupboards and drawers because it somehow felt intrusive – which was ridiculous because it was all hers now and she needed to find out how to make a home of it. She still thought of it very much as her grandmother’s place. Oddly, never really as her grandfather’s – she thought of it only as Monica’s, probably because her grandmother’s heart was stamped in every painted wall or quirky furniture choice.

So this time, she let herself look through the bedside drawer. Horn-rimmed reading glasses lay on top of a yellowing paperback, something sci-fi by the looks of it. Violet set them on top of the bedside table and looked at what lay beneath it. A hair comb, silver with paste jewels in cornflower blue and peridot green. Scattered bobby pins. A slim silver tube of moisturiser, long since empty. Nothing of monetary value, but precious to Violet because it was like looking through a window into the past. She’d wait for a special day and wear the hair comb somewhere nice; maybe she’d ask Barty to take her to one of his tea dances at Swallow Beach ballroom. And, at the back, a pretty silk headscarf printed with cherries. She lifted it out, delighted, and found that it had been used as a makeshift wrapper around a book. Or rather, around a small, sky-blue leather diary, year stamped in gold as 1978.

Violet stared at it, gasping softly when she realised the significance. Monica died in 1978. She sat completely still on the edge of the bed, the diary clutched in her hands, all thoughts of dull paperwork chased from her mind. Should she read it? Part of her shouted,No, you absolutely shouldnotread it, it’s private and personal. And because it was both of those things, she battled with the other side of her that desperately wanted to know her grandmother better.

If Monica had written inside the diary, which she probably had, given that it had been carefully wrapped and put to the back of her bedside table, then this was gold dust. A chance to learn about her grandmother from the one person who really understood – Monica herself. She’d just flick through and see if there was anything in there. That’s all.

So she did, fanning the tissue-thin pages quickly. Crap. It was filled with entries, and not just ‘dental appointment’ or ‘parents’ evening’. Pages and pages of close-knit, sloping writing, all in the same vivid teal-blue ink, as if Monica had a special pen set aside just for diary entries.

Try as she might, Violet wasn’t able to resist peeking – she lifted the cover to January 1st and read the first entry, then closed it gently because she couldn’t see through her own tears. The entry itself wasn’t anything terribly out of the ordinary, but the woman who’d written it jumped out of the page to her so clearly it was as if she was perched beside her on the bed. Her grandmother wrote of the overnight snow that blanketed the beach, and how she and Della had walked into town that morning in the new matching red wellington boots Henry had given them for Christmas, and of how terribly she missed her own mother. Violet didn’t know anything really about her great-grandma, but she sure understood what it was like to want your mum. She understood, because right then she’d love nothing more than to curl up on the sofa and watch a movie with Della, a cup of tea on the table and a box of chocolates open between them.

Sighing hard, she lay back on the pillows and clicked out the lights. It had been a long and confusing sort of day; if her fairy godmother had appeared and offered her a pair of ruby slippers, she’d have gladly clicked her heels and said, ‘There’s no place like home.’

‘Good to see you again, Violet.’ Beau Hamilton stood and pumped Violet’s hand as soon as she walked into The Swallow on Tuesday evening. He was probably around forty, all shaggy hair and crinkly blue eyes. He somehow reminded Violet of an adventurer, someone you might see on TV reporting from the North Pole with ice crystals in his beard. She shook his hand, then introduced him to Keris and Lucy who’d just filed in behind her.

This was the first official meeting of all of the new occupants of the pier, and like all the best meetings, it was being held in the pub.

‘Melvin and Linda can’t make it,’ Cal said, returning from the bar with full beer glasses balanced in his hands. ‘I ran into Mel earlier and he asked me to pass on their apologies.’

‘That’s a shame,’ Vi said, although actually it was probably a bit of a godsend for their inaugural meeting, because fabulous as Melvin and Linda were, they could be pretty overwhelming. Taking a seat at the table between Keris and Lucy, she pulled a folder from her bag and laid it on the table.

‘I got a bottle of white,’ Cal said, placing it down with some glasses. ‘I can change it if you want something else?’

Violet appreciated the effort. ‘No, that’s fab, thank you.’ She glanced quickly at Lucy, who nodded, and at Keris, who cracked the lid on the bottle and shot Cal a thank you smile.

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