Page 51 of A Summer Scandal

‘Okay,’ he said, drawing the word out as he pulled his keys and his phone from the back pocket of his jeans.

‘I’ll just go and … you know … do things,’ Violet said, nodding towards the door.

‘No rush,’ he said, casual. Light. ‘Just friends having scrambled eggs.’

‘And a movie,’ she nodded.

He touched his fingers to his forehead, a tiny salute, then turned and headed for his door.

‘Come over whenever you’re ready,’ he said, then disappeared inside.

Cal listened for Violet’s door to close, and then opened his again and took the stairs two at a time. He needed to buy eggs and wine and popcorn.

In her own apartment, Violet picked up the mail and made a much needed cup of tea, flicking open a hand-addressed envelope as she reached for a mug. An electrician’s business card fell onto the work surface, and the brief letter asked her to keep the sender in mind if she ever needed any work done. Vi folded it and slid it in the kitchen drawer with the menus and other business flyers. She admired anyone enterprising enough to run a small business and always tried to employ them where she could, hoping for cosmic karma to inch her closer to her long-held dream of providing costumes for the Moulin Rouge.

Picking up her cuppa, she wandered through to the bedroom to drink it in the armchair looking out over the bay. It seemed forever since she’d sat there just that morning watching the sun come up. It was after eight thirty in the evening now and the day was fading, the sun low and gold over the sea. It was an ever changing view; Vi wondered what it would be like in winter, tried to imagine this sun-bleached scene blanketed in snow instead. It wasn’t easy; Swallow Beach seemed to be the kind of place that existed only for summertime. Or maybe it was more that Violet saw her stay there as only temporary after all, her Amish Rumspringa summer. Picking up her grandmother’s diary from the small round table beside the chair, she began to read the entry from May 27th, exactly forty years previously.

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

I’m meeting T tonight. Henry has taken Della to visit his mother for the weekend – he didn’t ask me to go and I didn’t push it, because in truth I wanted the time alone. It’s not my fault that Doris doesn’t like me. I could try harder I expect, buy her some leather gloves or a hat, but I don’t think anyone would ever be good enough for her darling son so I’ve given up.

I’m praying for the strength to say no to T, we both know it’s wrong but we’re powerless. It’s as inevitable as the tide.

Violet sipped her tea and closed the diary, laying it in her lap with her hand resting on the cover. Her grandmother shouldn’t have written this down. Had Grandpa Henry ever read it? Had he found out about the mysterious T? God, had she met him herself today on the pier? She cast her mind back over the day as best she could but it was a blur of faces and memories, no one leapt out at her as especially odd. Beyond Gladys, of course – and Hortensia Deville too, for that matter. Maybe she’d ask Cal about her, see if he could shed any light.

Gathering her things together for the most unlikely of slumber parties, she let herself out of her apartment and headed across the landing.

‘Hello neighbour,’ Cal said, opening the door. ‘Come in.’

Vi smiled and followed him inside, glimpsing the room that used to be his workroom through the open door and pausing to exclaim how much bigger the place seemed now he’d reclaimed it as living space again. He nodded, chatting about his redecoration plans as he led her through to the living room. Vi nodded in the right places, accepting the glass of wine he poured for her and trying to feel relaxed and grown up instead of nervous and slightly hysterical. He’d changed already into old faded jeans and a T-shirt, and his hair was still slightly damp from the shower. He looked at home, barefoot with a bottle of beer in his hand.

‘You go and grab a shower,’ he said, when they both lapsed into silence.

‘You’re sure you don’t mind?’ she said, because it felt slightly weird now she was here.

‘Honestly, go for it,’ he said. ‘I’ll go and crack a few eggs.’

There was very little Vi could think to say to that, so she did as he’d suggested and headed for the bathroom.

Cal’s place was different in every way to Violet’s. Sleek lines and dark wood, white tiles and ink-blue towels, and not a gilt loo-roll holder or mermaid in sight. It was masculine, but calmingly so, quite Zen-like in comparison to Violet’s glitzy glam pad. Locking the door, she stood still for a moment. It was a bit odd stripping naked in Cal’s home, even if the door was bolted – she’d checked it twice to make sure.

Telling herself to just think of it like going to the communal shower block on a campsite rather than intimately as Cal’s bathroom, she stepped out of her clothes and under the shower. Five minutes later, she wondered why she’d ever contemplated saying no. It was absolute bliss letting the powerful jets rain down on her skin, and joyful to wash and condition her hair without bending forwards over her grandmother’s small, shell-shaped bathroom sink. She’d brought her favourite lotions and potions with her, and by the time she stepped out of the bathroom again in her PJs with a towel around her hair, she was a relaxed and rejuvenated woman.

‘You have quite the PJ collection,’ Cal said, glancing up from the armchair when she walked through into the lamp-lit living room. He had the newspaper spread out on his crossed knee and glass of red wine in his hand, a man at one with his surroundings. There was a jolting intimacy to the situation, him relaxing, her fresh from the shower, a couple about to eat a casual dinner and catch a movie.

It didn’t escape Violet’s notice that she felt strangely peaceful here with Cal; the bathroom Zen filtered all the way through his well-kept home and seemed to seep from the man himself too, tonight. Over in her own apartment she was surrounded by theatre and colour, and by memories and diaries and watchful mermaids. She loved it, but she hadn’t realised until that very moment how difficult it was for her to relax amongst all of that visual and emotional noise. Here, there was quiet. Here, there was space. And here there was a man raising his eyebrows at her favourite slouch-wear, which just happened to be super-soft grey jersey-knit leggings with a matching top dotted with pale blue stars.

She’d ummed and ahhed over underwear, because who normally wears underwear with their PJs? But then, who normally wears their PJs to dinner with their neighbour? So she’d erred on the side of yes, you should most definitely wear knickers and a bra in company, especially when your PJs aren’t remotely baggy and it would be glaringly obvious that your boobs were swinging free and unfettered. That would probably be seen as suggestive.

‘It’s not a slumber party unless you’re in PJs,’ she said, looking pointedly at his jeans and T-shirt.

He glanced down, and then back up. ‘I don’t own any pyjamas.’

Ahh!

‘Oh,’ she said, looking at the ceiling and trying not to imagine him sleeping naked.

‘I could always …?’ he gestured down at his outfit, half laughing.

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