Page 60 of A Summer Scandal

Hortensia sighed, leading Vi over to a small round table under the window.

‘Come. Take a seat.’

This wasn’t really going to plan. Violet had hoped that Hortensia would be surprised but not displeased to see her, and that she’d perhaps fancy a chat over tea and biscuits. Instead, Hortensia produced a bottle of gin and a cigarette in a long holder as Vi did as instructed and perched on the chair opposite her.

‘You’ve come because you wish to talk to your grandmother,’ the older woman said, pouring herself a ruinously large gin, raising disappointed eyebrows when Vi declined a glass.

‘Talk to my grandmother?’

Hortensia took a slow drag on her cigarette, then blew a plume of thin smoke in the air.

‘They’ve told you I have the sight, so you’re here to see if I can summon Monica.’

‘What?’ Vi sighed and shook her head. ‘That isn’t even a little bit true. I haven’t been talking about you, except to ask Barty who you were on the open day,’ she said.

‘That old goat,’ Hortensia huffed. ‘Always fancied himself as Hamlet, but he’s wooden as hell; he’d have given Long John Silver’s peg-leg a run for its money.’

She laughed under her breath at her own joke, then drained half of her glass and fixed her eyes on Violet.

‘Your grandmother is standing behind you.’

Vi jumped violently, twisting in her seat and finding nothing behind her but a Chihuahua snoozing on an overstuffed dark rose velvet chaise.

‘You’re hardly going to be able to see her, are you darling? Do try to keep up.’

Vi was beginning to realise that this wasn’t Hortensia’s first gin of the day.

‘And I’m not drunk,’ she said. Reaching for her box of cigarettes, she flipped it open and held it out, looking over Vi’s shoulder. ‘Ciggie, Monica?’

Hortensia pulled the same disappointed face as before as she snapped the lid back down, muttering under her breath.

On the one hand, it was powerfully alluring to think that her gran might be in the room, and a big chunk of Violet wanted to believe it and ask a million questions. But on the other, Hortensia was slurring her words slightly and had her cardigan on inside out, so it was hard to cling onto the idea of her gran’s ghost paying them a timely visit.

‘Are you sure?’ she said, adding a little smile to soften the doubt.

‘Unless I’m seeing double,’ Hortensia said.

That didn’t seem entirely unlikely.

‘She’s worried about you.’ Hortensia screwed her face up as she stared hard behind Vi and fiddled with her hearing aid, making it whistle. ‘Wants you to choose a different path.’

Vi sighed. It was all so generic, and Hortensia had just drained her gin and refilled her glass.

‘A different path? What does that mean?’

‘Who knows,’ Hortensia said, flicking her ash into a plant pot. ‘She’s telling you to check your diary. Always was too enigmatic for her own good, that girl.’

And with that, Hortensia went face down on the table, out for the count.

Vi sighed, and sat listening to the steady tick of the mantle clock. She knew it was fanciful to think her gran had ever been there, but a small part of her brain believed that she was. Hortensia had mentioned a diary after all, even if the context was wrong.

‘Gran?’ she said. ‘Are you here?’

Quite what she’d have done if she’d received any kind of positive sign, she didn’t know. She didn’t of course.

Feeling foolish, she put Hortensia’s cigarette out, moved the tumbler of gin out of harm’s way, and let herself out of the house.

Violet was in danger of turning into a prune. She’d spent every evening that week wallowing in the bath, music loud on her phone so she couldn’t hear any comings and goings out on the landing. She knew enough to know that Ursula was still staying with Cal; she’d glimpsed her blonde head coming and going on the street below. Cal had been working off site and she’d ignored his daily texts, until this morning. He’d asked if they could talk tonight, and she’d finally replied with a terse I’d really rather not in the hope of putting an end to things. Maybe it was because of Monica’s diary, but she was trying to learn from her grandmother’s mistakes and not let her heart be ruled by a married man.

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