Just For the Summer Read Online Free Page A

plonk would do, surely, or something fizzy. Although, she thought as she looked sideways at Eliot, some of us seemed to need an awful lot of Scotch these days. Then there were the beds., Liz wondered how Jeannie always managed to put the wrong duvet covers on. Surely she could tell which colours had been chosen to go with which rooms? Did she do it on purpose? The garden lights needed checking too and the swimming pool. The gardener could never believe that anyone would want to go to the expense of heating a pool to over 80 degrees. Too much like getting into a hot bath, might as well take the soap in there with you. Eliot complained too that it was tepid, but Liz didn’t want him to have a heart attack diving into cold water and his many over-indulgences made it fairly likely. Liz was too young to be a widow,even a rich one, and besides, she thought callously, nobody invites lone women to dinner parties.
    Liz watched the hedgerows reaching out their scratchy branches to attack Eliot’s precious new car. He was silent and preoccupied just now, but she knew how furious he’d be when he saw the damage later on. Then she would remind him yet again that there were lots of nice wide roads in the South of France, they didn’t have to come here. She wished she could still rely on him to do what she used to think were ‘men’s things’ around the house, but he was usually too irritable to be asked and she had promised to leave him alone to work on his new book. It was, after all, how the money, such a comforting lot of it, was earned.

THREE
    THE TEMPORARY RESIDENTS brought with them to Cornwall more than their luggage. Along with all the expensive sports equipment, boating paraphernalia and such they packed their little snobberies, the means by which to reassure each other that they may be roughing it in a village, but they certainly knew what was what.
    ‘At the shop today,’ Liz was saying, ‘I asked for walnut oil and they actually had it, isn’t that marvellous? A few years ago you couldn’t even get a decent extra-virgin olive, now there’s all sorts. Just like home.’
    ‘Well I suppose the foodie culture had to get here eventually,’ Clare said. ‘I brought some beers, I thought the boys might like some.’
    The village was now full. The summer residents were re-establishing their flimsy part-time friendships with people they lived only a few miles from in London but only socialized with on holiday.
    Clare had spent a long time getting ready for Liz and Eliot’s annual start-the-holiday barbecue, and Miranda had been banging on the bathroom door, impatient to get at her make-up. Clare, looking in the mirror had caught Miranda staring at her in astonishment.
    ‘Mum, you don’t need to dress up, you never usually do here.’
    ‘Makes a nice change,’ Clare had mumbled, caught without an excuse. Miranda squeezed past her, reaching across to the window ledge for her make-up bag.
    ‘It’s not your colour you know,’ she had said to her mother, inspecting Clare’s green-painted eyes in the mirror. Clare had picked up a black and gold scarf, wondering if it would be going just too far over the top to tie it round her hair. It would look good against the black linen dress. Or at least it would if she was going to a formal dinner party.
    ‘What, the green? I always wear it, it matches my eyes,’ she said to Miranda, still deciding about the scarf.
    ‘Too stark, now you’re getting a tan. You should be wearing grey or bronze.’ Well, Miranda thought, she couldn’t let the poor old thing go out like that. ‘This is all the wrong way round,’ Clare said. ‘How come my daughter knows more how I should look than I do?’
    ‘Anyway,’ Miranda continued, ‘Why are you all dressed up?’
    Clare closed her eyes to wipe off the green goo, ‘WellI’m just looking forward to seeing Liz again, it’s been so long.’
    Miranda’s eyes were wide and incredulous: ‘But you always said she was a dumb broad, with