A Summer Reunion

by Fanny Blake

Genres: Marriage & Divorce; Later in Life Romance

Synopsis

Amy, Anne, Kate and Jane were best friends at school. But now, as they approach their sixtieth birthdays, their lives have taken them in different directions. Successful, dissatisfied, seeking something different in equal measure, they know that life is not always easy.

So when Amy invites the other three to her beautiful villa in Majorca for a long celebratory reunion weekend, each of them is drawn by curiosity... and each has a reason for wanting to get away from home for a while.

Against the backdrop of the stunning Mallorcan hills, the four friends will look back over their lives — the choices they made, the families they have built — and they'll reassess what is important to them and whether now is the time to grasp those second chances, or whether this reunion will change everything...

Release date: June 13, 2019

Publisher: Orion Publishing Group

Print pages: 320

Sample

1

I still remember that morning, the morning my life changed irrevocably and not for the first time. I had driven to Monkton Combe where I went for a long walk, one of my ‘inspiration hunts’ as my husband Rob calls them. Sometimes, removing myself from the demands of my interior design business and the internet gives me the distance I need to find inspiration for a new collection or solve any work problems. The business can be stressful, and I feel the pressure to keep the designs fresh, the turnover up and the staff happy. I set up Amy Green, my first interiors shop, about thirty years ago and since then we’ve gone from strength to strength, opening shops in three other cities and selling my fabrics through department stores throughout the country. Of course, the biggest change has come through the internet, so our thriving online shop sells fabric and our products throughout the world.

When I got back to the house, I made some coffee and settled with my laptop in the sitting room, trying not to let my usual guilt from having been away from the business for a few hours take hold. Silly, really. As silly as biting down on an aching tooth.

As soon as I logged into my inbox, I could see that Kerry, our marketing director, had emailed me repeatedly, her messages all flagged as high priority. I was immediately on alert. Since she enjoyed being in control, she usually kept communication to the bare minimum while I was out of the office. She liked proving she could cope without me.

I opened the most recent one.

Amy! Where are you? For God’s sake get in touch when you get this.

I quickly checked back to her first email and started from the beginning of the thread. She must have sent it the previous evening.

The accountants have found a discrepancy of almost £200,000.

I had to pause and read the sentence again. That was impossible. Rob looked after the financial side of things for me and would never let a figure like that go unnoticed. All the same, I felt a nasty shiver of unease.

They’re investigating several accounts that we’ve paid money into that I don’t recognise. Need your help urgently!’

I trusted everyone who worked for me implicitly so I was sure it was some kind of error. However, I knew Kerry well enough to know that she wouldn’t go anywhere until this was straightened out. She would blame herself if anything went wrong on her watch.

I skyped her and she picked up immediately. Seeing her tidy office was oddly reassuring. She was a woman who believed in delegation and a clear desk if a business was to be run efficiently. I did my best to set the same example, but had never succeeded in quite the same way. She looked more harassed than I’d ever seen her; her hair, usually neatly pinned up, hung messily around her face. She looked exhausted, though relieved to see me.

‘Amy! Thank God! I’ve been trying to get hold of you all day. I know you switch off when you’re working from home but I’ve been going out of my mind.’

‘Tell me what’s happened.’

She pushed her hair back off her face. ‘I got a call from the accountants. I explained you and Rob were away, so they told me we’re missing around two hundred thousand pounds and asked if I could explain it. Someone’s been transferring money to themselves but recording it as payments to suppliers.’

‘Who would do that?’ No one I employed would. ‘Who could do that?’ I stopped. Only three of us were signatories to the company accounts. If neither Kerry nor I had requested those transfers, that left one person. Rob.

I was only too aware that business had being going through a bit of a dip. I’d been meaning to sit down with Rob to discuss new strategies but he’d been away a lot recently and we’d delayed the discussion. At that moment he was in France, at one of those trade fairs that I hated so much.

‘There’s no point hating them,’ he’d say. ‘It’s new business. Don’t you want new business?’ Sometimes he frowned, sometimes he kissed me. ‘Even if you don’t, I do. For us both.’

‘There must be an explanation.’ I tried to hide my concern from Kerry, because revealing any kind of discord between Rob and me would affect staff morale. We had to show a solid front at all times.

Her raised eyebrows were sufficient comment. ‘Do you check the accounts yourself?’

‘Not recently. I’ve left that all to him.’ How stupid I sounded. Amy Green was my business, for God’s sake. How could I not have involved myself in every aspect? Because I believed in giving people responsibilities and letting them have their heads, and because I trusted Rob. ‘If Rob’s done this, he must have had a reason.’

‘I hope so. Have you spoken to him? He’s not been answering either.’

‘I’ll call him now. Leave it with me. There’s nothing more you can do.’ I hung up and called Rob.

He picked up immediately. ‘Darling. What’s up?’ Those languid public school tones always made my stomach turn over. They belonged to a world very different from the one I knew when I was growing up.

‘Kerry’s been trying to get hold of us all morning. The accountants are saying our figures are out of synch.’ I didn’t imagine his sharp intake of breath. ‘Any idea what’s going on?’

His silence told me he did have, and that I wasn’t going to like it.

‘Ah … yes.’ He paused. ‘Perhaps we shouldn’t do this over the phone.’ His voice didn’t sound quite right.

‘Do what over the phone?’

‘I’ll be a back in a couple of days.’

‘But this is urgent. We need to sort this out now.’ I was alarmed. ‘The fair finished today.’

He lowered his voice so I could barely hear him. ‘There are one or two things that I need to finish off here first. I’ll be home as soon as I can.’

‘What’s going on, Rob?’ Panic washed through me. A distance had been growing between us over the last I-don’t-know-how-long but I’d put that down to the pressures of work.

In the background, I heard a door slam and a woman’s voice that was disconcertingly familiar, although I didn’t immediately put two and two together. ‘Coffee, Rob? We haven’t got long.’

‘Who’s that?’ I asked. ‘Where are you?’ He’d told me he was staying in a hotel that was so cheap and cheerful it wouldn’t impinge on the company’s balance sheet.

‘A friend.’

I knew my husband well enough to know that there was something he wasn’t telling me. ‘Who? What’s going on?’

‘I can’t explain now.’

‘Where are you?’ I insisted.

‘Look, Amy. This isn’t a conversation that I want to have over the phone. I’ll be back for a few days.’

‘For a few days?’ I repeated, helpless. ‘Where are you going after that?’

‘I’ll explain then.’

When he ended the call, I realised I should have pushed him harder for an explanation.

Of course I should have done but the truth was, I didn’t want to hear.

That voice had driven everything else out of my head. Just hearing her was enough to make me doubt him. I’m not a jealous person. Really, I’m not. But Rob hadn’t always been the most faithful of husbands. We’d got over his last affair (a hotel receipt in a jacket pocket was the only clichéd clue required) with apologies, counselling and determination on both sides.

I had convinced myself we had been devoted to each other since then. Though for both of us, Amy Green came a close second, because the business gave us the life we both wanted. But there was something else niggling at me that I couldn’t quite get a hold of. I ran through our conversation again, trying to read between the lines. If he had been defrauding the company – and I couldn’t accept that – what did he need the money for? He had everything he needed. When I had set up the company with his help thirty-odd years ago, we’d agreed that I’d stick to the creative side of things and remove myself from the financial. It wasn’t that I was unable, but he knew what he was doing, and it was a fair division of labour that suited us and let us play to our strengths.

I typed Kerry a quick email.

He’s not picking up for me either. I’ll be in touch as soon as I’ve heard from him. Try not to worry. I’m sure he’ll have a good reason. Ax

I hesitated before pressing send. This would be the first time I had lied to her. The business had always benefited from our honesty with one another, although I was plagued by sudden doubt. In any event, I thought it was better not to worry her further by reporting an inconclusive conversation. I knew Rob better than he imagined. Something wasn’t right.

I opened a new email and began to type.

Rob, you didn’t answer my question about the accounts. Why so evasive? Kerry and I are worried about this money. I’m sure there must be an explanation but we need you to share it with us.

Was that too passive aggressive? I was never sure.

Who was that with you? Did I recognise her voice?

I hoped I hadn’t but that might nudge him into telling me.

I know you’re busy and it’s not a good idea to catch you on the hop, but if you could email ASAP and explain all before you’re back, it would go down well at this end! Looking forward to having you back.

I wasn’t. Not really.



It took him two days to come home. Two days during which he never got in touch and I reassured myself frantically that he wasn’t guilty of … what? Fraud? Stealing? Having an affair?

Which was the worst? I wasn’t sure. All of the possibilities hurt.

I heard the front door closing and the sound of him dumping his bag in the hall.

‘I’m in the kitchen,’ I called. I was ready. If he had been stealing from the company, no excuse would do. At the same time, I couldn’t believe he was guilty, and I wanted him to say so. But if not him, who else could it be?

He stood in the open doorway looking hesitant but also unexpectedly determined. His dark hair was showing signs of silver around his temples and his face was unusually pale. His hand moved to the back of his neck. That’s when I knew something was definitely wrong. I had seen him make that gesture numerous times over the years, always prefacing a difficult conversation.

‘This is so hard.’ His hand didn’t move. ‘I don’t know how to say it …’

I suspected that was an understatement. ‘Then you’d better come and sit down.’ My heart was racing.

We pulled out a bar stool each and sat facing each other round a corner of the kitchen island. Behind his head, the large hand of the skeleton station clock tick-tocked the minutes as they passed. Between us, a bunch of bright red, orange and yellow ranunculi flowered in an earthenware vase.

‘I’m not going to make excuses, I’m just going to come clean.’

Nothing coming after that sentence was going to be good.

‘What’s going on? I thought everything was OK between us.’ I don’t know why I said that. Because I wanted it to be true, I suppose.

‘Come on, Amy. You know as well as I do that things haven’t been right for ages. When did we last have sex?’ He paused. ‘Think about it.’

He waited for me to deflect that arrow. But I couldn’t.

Rushing. Snatched meals. Late nights. When had we last spoken to each other properly? Made love?

‘Exactly. So this shouldn’t come as too much of a shock to you.’

‘You’re having an affair.’ A pat on the back for perception, though I was feeling sick with apprehension. I studied the veins in the quartz worktop, my finger tracing one of them.

‘Yes. I’m sorry, but Morag and I want to move to Edinburgh with the kids and start a business together.’

‘Morag!’ I twisted in my seat. ‘You can’t mean it?’

He had the grace to look away. ‘I do.’

‘Morag who I hired to do our publicity?’ He nodded as if I was an imbecile – which at this moment I felt I was. I had so much wanted that voice not to have been hers. ‘The Morag who has a vile ex-husband, three children and is my friend?’

We’d invited them to spend that first Christmas with us when she had nowhere else to celebrate. She was often in our house for supper or weekend brunch while her kids went to her ex. We had gone on mad shopping trips together, spent hours dissecting the business, the new ranges and the staff we did and didn’t need. And all that time, I had never once suspected that she and Rob …

‘For how long?’

‘Nearly two years now.’

Two years! What a blinkered, trusting idiot I’d been.

‘And the money? Tell me you haven’t been stealing from the business, too.’ I was reeling, unable to get a purchase, but I had to sort this out for everyone else’s sake, too.

That got to him and something like shame crossed his features. ‘I thought I’d be able to pay it back before anything was noticed.’

‘But why? What do you need it for?’ Perhaps he would tell me this was all a terrible joke.

He took a deep breath. ‘We’re setting up our own interiors business and needed it for the start-up costs.’

I was so shocked, I could barely take in what he was saying. ‘But why you didn’t get a loan or go to an investment company?’

‘I was going to, but the ideal premises came up and we had to move fast. I thought I’d have time to pay the money back before anything was noticed.’ He shrugged. ‘But either way, let’s face it, it’s the least you owe me.’

‘What does that mean?’ I was punch drunk from one shock after another. They were setting up in competition!

‘I’ve worked for you for years and you’ve never given me so much as a share in the company.’

‘You’ve never asked.’

‘More fool me.’

‘I didn’t know that was what you wanted. We agreed that it was my company and I should retain ownership of it. I thought you were happy with that.’

‘We’re soulmates,’ Rob had once said to me. ‘We’ll beat the world together, whatever it throws at us.’

I had been crazy in love then. ‘Promise me we’ll never not talk. Never hide anything. Never be dishonest with one another.’

He promised.

But now, apart from wrecking our marriage, he was torpedoing our business, too.

‘What are you going to do?’ He swept his hand through his hair.

I looked into those eyes that I thought I knew so well but there was no reaction. However, I had him in the palm of my hand.

‘Am I going to report you to the police? Is that what you mean?’

He nodded. ‘But you don’t have to.’ Desperation had crept into his voice. ‘I’ll pay you back. I can’t do it all at once but I can do it.’

My anger and hurt were indescribable but, despite everything, I didn’t want to be responsible for him going to prison. ‘Then do that.’ I hesitated. ‘If you haven’t repaid it in full within one month, I’m going to the police.’

‘You wouldn’t.’

‘Don’t push me too far.’ However devastated I might feel, I hadn’t lost my reason. ‘I’ll do whatever’s necessary. I won’t let you ruin my business.’

‘That’s impossible. We’ve spent some and some of it’s already committed. I don’t know how we’ll be able to. I was going to suggest—’

‘No!’

He flinched: a man used to getting his way in negotiations. ‘No?’ As if he couldn’t believe I was contradicting him.

‘You’d better go home and discuss it with Morag.’ I had to get him out of there before I broke down. I didn’t want him to see the tears that were stinging my eyes. ‘That’s my only offer.’

He thought for a moment. Then: ‘Very well.’ He reached out across the table. ‘Perhaps we can be friends again when this blows over.’

I ignored his hand and got to my feet. ‘Can you hear yourself, Rob?’ I didn’t want his apologies and self-justification and meaningless hopes for the future. ‘I think you should get out now. Take what you need and we’ll sort out the rest later.’ I didn’t want him in the house any longer than necessary.

‘I’m sorry.’ He hovered, as if he wasn’t quite sure, despite what he’d said.

‘Out. Now.’

I watched his retreating figure. ‘I’ll get that money back,’ I called after him. ‘I’m not letting Amy Green go. Not after all those years.’

After he left, the tears started. And they didn’t stop for days.



Now, I could not stop Rob and the business parading through my head as I veered between disbelief, hurt and fury. The pain was all-consuming. I thought about taking myself to our house in Mallorca, although the idea of being on my own there was unbearable.

Once, when I was much younger, I survived what seemed a life-changing turn of events. Although it was over forty years ago, I still remember what led to my expulsion from St Catherine’s School for Girls quite clearly. The art teacher’s word against mine. His missing watch found in my desk. I hadn’t a hope.

At the time, I thought my life was over; the ambitions I had to be a doctor scattered, my parents’ faith in me shaken. But I was wrong. My life hadn’t been over at all, though I ended up having a different career to the one I’d imagined for myself. I survived. But now I found my life was falling apart again, I looked back once more, and I found myself wondering if there was anything I could learn from what happened then that might help me now?

Of our gang of four – Linda, Kate, and Jane and me – I was pretty sure one of them had set me up by planting that watch, and I had a fair idea of who it might have been. But I could never prove it. Despite that, prompted by Kate, three of us had started to keep in touch sporadically, Christmas cards, round robins and the odd phone call, so I knew the barest bones of their lives and Kate relayed snippets of Jane’s. Recently she had suggested we all meet up but none of us had done anything about it.

Through my distress, an idea stuck in my mind. While Kerry and I were in limbo as we waited for Rob to pay back what he owed, I could take my mind off the present by sorting out what had really happened in my past. I appreciated the symmetry of that. That’s when I decided to take the initiative and act on Kate’s suggestion. I would suggest a small reunion. None of them knew Rob, so my personal life could be as off-limits as I made it, and their company would distract me.

This year the four of us were all going to have a milestone birthday – that merited something special, didn’t it? A long weekend away, for example. So why didn’t I take them to Mallorca with me? The house was standing empty, just a budget airline flight away with all expenses paid (by me, quite happily) when we got there.

This was utter madness. Why on earth should the four of us want to spend a weekend in each other’s company after so many years of managing quite happily without? On the other hand, I’d be offering a cheap weekend in a beautiful spot with sunshine, an infinity pool, to-die-for scenery and great food (even the King of Spain was said to frequent one of the excellent nearby restaurants) all laid on. Besides, what was four or five days in the great scheme of things? How terrible could they be?

2

Coming in from work, Linda went straight to the fridge, stepping over the post that lay on the mat as she went. There wouldn’t be anything interesting. Never was. Later, wine in hand, she went back to pick up the envelopes, only because it seemed wickedly lazy to leave them lying in situ. Among the mail-order catalogues, a bill and her monthly copy of Which? was a thick white envelope addressed in handwriting she couldn’t place. She took it to the sitting-room table and slit it open with a paperknife once given to her by someone. She unfolded the sheet of paper inside and stared at the blur of words. Unable to decipher it, she reached for the reading glasses she pretended not to need.

Come to Mallorca for a long weekend!

We can stay in our house and could catch up at last with no interruptions. What do you think? If you like the idea, I’d suggest we go next month when the weather’s lovely and the island is less crowded. I’m asking Kate and Jane too.

I hope you’ll all be able to come

Love

Amy x

Linda frowned, piecing together some memories. Jane once had a habit of snapping her fingers behind people’s backs, if she remembered rightly. And she had pinched a mascara of hers when she thought Linda wasn’t looking. At least she had given it back with an apology.

It was always the small details which stuck in Linda’s mind.

She read Amy’s invitation again, noting the expensive notepaper. What an extraordinary suggestion. The last thing she wanted to do was remember that time in her life any more than a Christmas card or round robin might prompt. But she couldn’t resist pulling her atlas from the shelf and opening it at a map of Spain. Sasha, fat and tortoiseshell, immediately jumped up and stretched herself out right across the Balearics so the sun fell directly on her. She extended a front leg and began cleaning herself, her purr a familiar engine.

‘Get off. I’m looking at that.’ Linda lifted her up and put her gently on the floor. ‘Go and do something useful.’

Sasha considered her for a moment before jumping straight back up onto the table and settling herself on the atlas again.

This time Linda removed her to her lap where she stroked her until Sasha’s purr was at full throttle. ‘Mallorca. What do you think, Sasha? You’d have to go into a cattery, and I don’t know if you’d like that.’

She took a sip of her wine. ‘Mike and I once talked about going to Mallorca for a long weekend when his wife was visiting her parents.’ She made a point of not using her name. ‘Remember? But then her plans fell through, so we never did. He should have been braver.’ She thought for a moment. ‘But how could he have been? And anyway, it was all talk, I see that now.’

Sasha stared at her.

‘But if he had been, my life might be so different.’

She put her elbows on the table and her head in her hands.

Was she turning into a mad old cat lady?

The thought was enough to make her want to phone Mike. She scanned the contacts on her mobile.

Stop. No. The last time she’d called him, he’d suggested in that kind voice he put on when he was dismissing an argument from a colleague that it wasn’t a good idea to phone him at home. Now he’d retired, his wife wouldn’t understand why Linda would be calling him. She had never suspected a thing over the ten or so years of their affair, but they had always had the pretext of work as an excuse. With the funding for his project withdrawn, Linda had eventually been relocated to the enquiries desk, which was a very different and much less enjoyable role, and he had taken early retirement.

She loved him. Still, after everything. And hated him too.

But mostly she missed him. She also missed their work together on the Tom Florence Collection – a unique compilation of local recipes and culinary records. If only the sponsoring restaurant hadn’t gone belly up. The Robin Hood Library was an emptier place without him. Her life was emptier. She felt disoriented without his reassuring presence there. He had always been the one she had been able to rely on for support and advice when she was floundering. Without him she had no one at her back.

Her colleagues wanted change. They had kowtowed to Mike while he worked there as Head of Collections, but now he had left, his replacement, Simon, was bent on modernising the systems and making cuts. There was a rumour going round that the University HR department was going to be looking for candidates for voluntary redundancy. What would she say if asked? That she would prefer a cataloguing role to answering endless queries on the desk? That was what Mike had originally hired her to do, after all, and it was where her skills lay. But if she ever quoted Mike, there was a certain amount of eye-rolling, as if he was old wood that should have been cut out long ago. She too.

She was aware that the others whispered behind her back, speculating about their relationship, questioning whether she was pulling her weight. That last was outrageous, when she looked back and thought about everything she had brought to the job. The Tom Florence collection was respected nationwide. Michelin-starred chef Florence had funded the project to collect recipes from all the local communities with 1 per cent of his restaurant’s profits, and she had been brought in just as it started. She stood up, tipping Sasha to the floor, and went through to the kitchen to refill her glass.

Mike.

She’d met him when he’d been a rare books librarian and had taken her under his wing. He’d introduced her to cataloguing before she went off to Aberystwyth where she’d got her MA in Librarianship, specialising in special collections. After several blissful years working in the London Library, he had written to her.

I’ve secured funding for a new project and we’re looking for a cataloguer. You’d be perfect. We’re advertising very soon, but I hope you’ll apply.

That letter had changed her life. She had got the job and they’d worked together ever since. Over time, as they collaborated on the Florence collection, their relationship changed. She had only experienced that kind of electrical charge once before. Long ago. Mike was married with children and the shine on his marriage was wearing thin, or so he led her to believe. All such a cliché – but she hadn’t seen that then.

At first she had tried to avoid him but he’d seek her out, ask her about her work, but also about the other librarians. Gradually she became his unofficial spy without even realising. When something needed to be discussed with no danger of being overheard, they started going out for lunch or having a quick drink after work. She remembered Veneziano, the little Italian restaurant that had become their favourite, with a pang. Now de. . .