Page 44 of A Summer Scandal

You asleep, mermaid girl?

She lay in the dark, reading and re-reading his words. No. Not yet. You? She smiled softly as she sent it.

Don’t let today upset you. It won’t make any difference in the grand scheme of things.

Vi sighed, finding it hard not to feel the weight of the day on her bones. Just feeling a bit rubbish about things tonight she sent.

He didn’t reply for a few minutes. In fact he didn’t reply at all – he tapped on her door lightly, just loud enough to hear. Violet looked down at her PJs, a bit panicked.

‘Hang on,’ she whisper-shouted. ‘I’m coming.’

Opening her door a minute later, she found him barefoot in jeans and a T-shirt.

‘Special delivery,’ he said, holding something out to her. ‘I made it for you to say sorry for my mother being a right real pain in the bloody arse.’

She looked down at the delicate ribbon of leather in his hand. Heather-grey, set with five tiny seashells interspersed along its length.

‘Oh my God,’ she whispered. ‘Cal …’ He didn’t know of course. He didn’t understand how spookily reminiscent this was of Monica’s diary. ‘It’s so pretty.’

Stepping back, she opened her door a little wider. ‘Come in for a while?’

He looked once behind him towards his door, and then made up his mind and followed her into her hallway.

Violet led him through to the lounge. ‘Coffee?’ she said. ‘Or I have some brandy.’

He nodded, standing in the bay window. ‘Brandy.’

She poured them a couple of good measures, and then sank down on the sofa with one leg curled underneath her. She’d pulled her hair up hastily into a band on the way to answer the door, and her black, wide-necked pineapple-print top kept sliding off her shoulder.

‘Thanks,’ he said, coming to sit on the sofa beside her, accepting the tumbler she held out.

The brandy scorched her throat, deep rich heat that helped calm her nerves. ‘Thank you for the bracelet,’ she said, looking down at it on her wrist. It really was lovely.

‘It was the closest shade to violet I could find in my stock,’ he said, almost bashful.

His thoughtfulness touched her. ‘You don’t need to apologise for your mum,’ she said. ‘It’s not your fault, and I didn’t do myself any favours,’ she sighed, regretting that growl for the hundredth time.

‘I thought growling was inspired, in the circumstances,’ Cal laughed softly. ‘You surprised me.’

‘I surprised myself,’ she said, a tiny smile hovering on her lips for the first time since it happened. ‘God,’ she said, louder, covering her face with her hands. ‘What a complete farce!’

And then, finally, she saw the lighter side. Her shoulders started to shake, and Cal looked down and pushed his hand through his hair, laughing.

‘My mother called me several times afterwards,’ he said. ‘Ordering me to pick up my ball and come home because I’m grounded, or words to that effect.’

‘And will you?’

He rolled his eyes. ‘What do you think I said?’

‘I think you probably tried to be diplomatic?’

Cal sighed. ‘There is very little point in trying to be diplomatic with my mother,’ he said. ‘I’ve learned over the years that it’s best to be direct to the point of bluntness.’

‘I don’t want to make things difficult for you,’ she said.

He nodded. ‘Shesurewants to make things difficult for you.’

‘Yeah, I got that. We did kind of play into her hands today, to be honest.’

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