Seven Months of Summer

by Saskia Sarginson

Genres: Women's Fiction

Synopsis

One week to fall in love. Seven months apart. A summer to make it right.
___________

1993. When Kit meets Summer on the backpacking trip of a lifetime, he falls head over heels in love, certain that what they have is much more than just a holiday romance.

On returning home, Kit is confident he'll be able to find the magical girl he met. But when he follows the clues Summer told him about her life, the person he thought he knew doesn't seem to exist.

Heartbroken that she lied to him, and with no way of contacting her, Kit moves to the Suffolk coast for a fresh start. Little does he know that Summer is living just a few miles away - and is incapable of forgetting Kit too.

But as the months pass, Kit and Summer's paths never collide. Their lives move on, and a hazy, sun-drenched summer begins.

By the time they meet, will it be too late to start again?

Release date: January 19, 2023

Publisher: Little, Brown Book Group

Print pages: 90000

Sample

Even before breakfast, the hotel barometer measures eighty-two degrees Fahrenheit. But it’ll take more than the heat to get Summer onto an air-conditioned bus with the rest of the Trojan Tours group. As of this morning, she’s free. No list of tourist sites to visit or schedule to keep to. She sets off alone along a dusty road in Fort Kochi, plaits bouncing over her shoulders, red flip-flops slapping the ground, a rush of joy bubbling inside her chest. This is how she imagined she’d feel, all those months ago when she opened the envelope Dad gave her for her twenty-sixth birthday.

It had been an unassuming rectangle of beige, the kind usually containing dull, official letters. The first thing that fell out was a plane ticket to Madras. Dad laughed, delighted by Summer’s confusion. ‘You deserve it,’ he said. ‘I know how hard things have been – how much you’ve had to give up.’

Summer was booked onto The Majesty of Southern India, by Trojan Tours. Part of the itinerary included visiting two national parks, where elephants, bison, whistling dogs, leopards and tigers lived. She imagined watching a herd of elephants at sunset by a watering hole, her camera to her eye. Perhaps if she was very lucky, she’d spot a solitary tiger.

Emerging out of arrivals in Madras, there’d been a skirmish and clamour of people grasping at her luggage and shouting over each other for her attention, the honking of taxi horns, the stink of burning rubbish and, beyond everything, the velvety ink of the night, deeper and wider than any she’d known before. ‘I’m here,’ she’d whispered, a shock of dusty air blow-torching her lungs, as she’d grabbed the skin on her wrist between finger and thumb, and pinched.

But the national parks had been disappointing. No tigers. No leopards. A glimpse of a tusker behind fronds of green. The tour guide, Tony, hurried them through every attraction, as if they were late for a train. Everybody in the group had a camera, and the sound of clicking erupted whenever the bus stopped. It felt as if they were watching a film, rather than having an experience. Parting ways with Tony and Trojan Tours was the best decision she’d made since arriving.

Fort Kochi seems a laid-back town, full of cafés and groups of young Europeans with guitars on their backs. Houses shimmer in blues and yellows; lush vines sprout against walls in more kinds of green than she’d thought possible. She pauses under a wide-spreading banyan tree. She loves the way that a single street can accommodate a Hindu temple and mosque. That in another heartbeat there will be a white stone Catholic church, and then a Jain temple, where doves rise at the sound of each tolling prayer bell.

She squats in the dust to watch a common langur monkey at the side of the road. It turns its intelligent face to observe her, elegant hands dissecting a rotten mango. She brings the camera up, holds her breath. Light shimmers on the pale sable of the animal’s coat as her finger squeezes the shutter release.

Further down the road, a goat sleeps on the foot pad of a parked scooter. Smiling, she swings her camera up and snaps twice. Tuk-tuks bounce past, tourists crammed onto the back seats.

Stopping to check the map, she realises she’s wandered onto Vasco Da Gama Square. She gazes at the water and the famous Chinese fishing nets. The square is bustling with activity. Stalls sell fish that come straight from the nets, and people gather to barter, slender cats threading in and out of legs, eyes glittering with desire. Summer sniffs the mix of brine, smoke and charred fish, and her mouth waters. Three or four young waiters compete with each other, trying to corral her into a seat at one of the little alfresco cafés. She allows herself to be escorted to an empty table by the least pushy one. Moments later, a plate of catch, hot from the flames, arrives with a glass of lime soda.

She sips her drink, looking around the bustling square. Out of habit, she touches her earrings. Tiny silver hares dangle from her lobes. She takes three postcards from a paper bag and composes one to her best friend Laura: Wish you were here – we’d have so much fun! One to home: Kochi is amazing, pink dust, burning sky – so much to photograph! and then, biting the end of her pen, starts another to Adam. Except she can’t think what to say. He’d loved her. Then, without warning, it was over. He’d slept with another girl. ‘Thing is, I’m not ready to settle down,’ he’d said, and it was as if he’d landed a punch in her heart. ‘I still care about you, Summer, but … we’re too young.’ They’d been together for five years, and he’d let go of her so easily.

She’d bumped into him before leaving for India – that was the problem with living in the same town. At least he hadn’t been with his girlfriend. ‘Send me a postcard,’ he’d said, as if he hadn’t broken her heart. And she’d agreed, just to escape. She taps her pen on the table, frowning. She and Adam split up three years ago. She should be over it by now, and yet, there’s been nobody since him, no one important.

Two stray dogs hover, gazing at her hopefully. One of them has lost half an ear. Summer thinks of the dogs in Cambridge with their designer collars and expensive haircuts and wishes she could scoop up these feral creatures and give them a bath and a proper meal. They pad closer, noses sniffing. She drops pieces of fish on the ground. The dogs pounce. She can see their ribs through their dusty coats. The one missing an ear sidles forwards. She puts her hand out. ‘Go on then, boy,’ she murmurs, ‘take it. You look like you need it more than me.’

The dog snuffles the food from her fingers. ‘What happened to your ear?’ The dog cocks his head, as if he can understand. She strokes his sun-warmed fur. ‘Don’t worry,’ she tells him. ‘You’re still a handsome fellow.’

She snaps a couple of photos of him as he looks up at her, his eyes gentle and hopeful.

‘Oi, you!’ An English voice booms, making her startle. The dog freezes. She looks up as a giant of a man in a Hawaiian shirt, paunch jutting over baggy shorts, strides towards her, mirrored glasses glinting. ‘Don’t feed them!’ He waves his arms. ‘Shoo! Bugger off!’ The dog cowers, crouching by her side, ragged ears flat against his head. The man aims a kick. There’s a sickening thump as his toe finds the dog’s ribs.

‘Stop!’ She’s on her feet, chin up.

The dog disappears into the crowds, tail between his legs.

‘What are you doing!’ Her voice trembles. ‘What’s the matter with you? He wasn’t doing any harm.’

‘Filthy creatures. They should all be shot.’ He shakes his head. ‘People like you, encouraging them …’

‘People like me?’ she says, standing on her toes and broadening her shoulders. ‘You want to shoot me too?’

He makes a twirling motion next to his ear with one pudgy finger and gives a short laugh. ‘Calm down, love.’

‘Don’t tell me to calm down!’ She clenches her hands, fury knotting the words in her throat. ‘How … how would you like it if I kicked you!’ she blurts out.

‘Whoa!’ A tall young man steps between them, arms raised. He turns to the angry man. ‘You should go,’ he tells him in a steady voice. ‘It’s really none of your business if she feeds the dogs.’

‘Are you all right?’ The same voice floats somewhere above her head.

Her heart is racing, adrenaline firing. She’s too upset and angry to talk.

‘Fine,’ she manages, turning away. She scoops up her belongings and walks off, nearly falling over a bucket of iced fish, but rights herself and strides on.

‘You sure?’ she hears him call.

She raises a hand, not looking back.

She stops around a corner, out of sight. Squints against the glare of the street. It replays in her mind: the man’s toe catching the hoop of ribcage; the impact lifting the animal off the ground.

She starts to walk towards the hotel – at least she hopes she’s going in the right direction. The sun is a dazzle of white – a wall of brilliance that confuses her. She can’t remember which is the turning. She keeps moving, on feet swollen with heat; sweat pools between her breasts.

It’s only as she steps into the hotel lobby that she realises she forgot to pay for her lunch.

Kit Appleby watches her leave. She’s obviously upset. She weaves her way unsteadily through the crowd, red trousers fluttering. There’s a moment when she nearly falls; he tenses himself to run and help.

He calls out, ‘You sure?’

She doesn’t turn her head.

When she’s out of sight he returns to his table, glaring at the man in the lurid shirt, who ignores him, inscrutable behind his mirrored glasses. From the waiter’s concerned expression and the owner’s waving arms, he realises that in the kerfuffle the girl’s forgotten to pay her bill; he presses the money for her meal as well as his drink into the waiter’s hand, before he gathers his sketchpad, downs the dregs of his iced coffee, and leaves.

Could he have done something to make her stay? He can’t actually remember what he said now. It happened so fast. He’d been sketching the fishermen, trying to capture the lilt of their bare feet treading bamboo poles. It’s become his habit since arriving in Kochi, to sit at the same café table every morning, eking out a coffee, drawing for an hour or two. There’s so much to see in the square.

As he sits and sketches, strangers come and go from the tables adjacent to his own – tourists from different parts of the world. He likes to try and guess where they’re from before he hears them speak. He noticed her as soon as she sat down. She had an air of quiet calm, a self-contained independence that seemed at odds with her round, freckled cheeks and large eyes. He guessed she was Dutch. Although maybe that was just the blonde plaits. She started to feed the dogs as soon as her meal arrived, sharing it with two scruffy, skinny creatures. Most people ignored them or shooed them away.

It’s not in Kit’s nature to jump into a conflict. He’s happiest with his pencil and sketchpad, sitting on the edges of things. But he had to intervene when that man was suddenly towering over her, shouting, threatening.

He wonders where she’s staying. Fort Kochi is a small place.

He’s wandering down narrow streets with no real idea of where he’s going. He turns into the overgrown garden of the Dutch Palace. There’s a flight of steps webbed in a triangle of shade. He heads straight for it, sitting with his back against a door, pulling his toes into the curve of shadow. He would have liked to have had a chance to draw her before it all kicked off. Quite literally. He opens his sketchpad and idly flicks through, each page filled with memories of places where he’s travelled. There are temples, elephants, women washing clothes at a riverbank. On the first page is a quick portrait made before he left England. He’s caught his mother’s angular features; she’s only forty-eight – but looks years older. He sighs, gazing at the picture. Bitterness lives in her face, carving discontented grooves between mouth and nose, forging a zigzag of worry between her eyebrows.

It was always the same. Life was against her. Nothing was fair. And it all came down to his father. The bastard, she called him. The bloody bastard. Everything that went wrong was his fault. And every time Kit behaved in a way that displeased her, she made the comparison.

The sun has moved. His left leg is no longer in shadow; heat burns his knee as if an iron is pressing on it. He shifts along on the step, inching his way back into the shade. He doesn’t want to think about his mother. He thinks about the blonde stranger instead, and tension melts from his chest. The way she’d stood up to that bully. She must have been half his size, but she’d shown no fear. She’d been a bright blaze of gold – a small warrior – a sword of justice.

He remembers that she’d spoken English. Perhaps she wasn’t Dutch after all. Although the Dutch he’s met on his travels invariably speak English with a flawless accent. He slips a pencil from his pocket, and holding the pad on his lap, he starts to doodle, trying to sketch her from memory, his fingers working to describe the curve of her cheeks, her generous brows, her freckled nose.

She likes exploring the narrow streets, watching people going about their life. But this is her second day in Fort Kochi. She’s trying to decide where to go next; maybe up into the Western Ghats, where there’ll be more animals, more opportunities for photographs.

She clutches her Discman in her hand as she listens to her favourite album, singing along to it. She knows all the lyrics.

A hand descends on her shoulder. The unexpected human touch makes her let out a yelp. She spins around, wrenching her earphones out, and finds herself staring up into a face she recognises.

The guy looks mortified, backing off, hands in the air, ‘Shit, sorry! I didn’t mean to startle you!’

She swallows, her heart still thumping. ‘No. Sorry. Overreaction.’ She manages a smile. ‘I was miles away.’

‘You’re English!’ he says, as if he’s surprised.

She nods.

‘What are you listening to?’ He gestures towards the dangling earpieces and Discman.

She switches it off and puts it in her bag. ‘Kate Rusby.’

‘Who?’ He makes a puzzled expression.

‘She’s a folk singer. It’s a compilation album.’

He raises one eyebrow, ‘Aren’t you too young for that?’

‘Compilation albums?’ She allows her voice an ironic twist. She knows what he means.

‘Folk music.’

Here we go, she thinks. ‘I suppose you’d prefer me to listen to Madonna?’ She takes a breath. ‘Folk music’s timeless. It’s not all long beards and floral skirts.’

‘I should hope not,’ he says with a wicked grin. ‘Nobody with a long beard should wear a floral skirt.’

She refuses to capitulate. ‘You say I’m old-fashioned,’ she scowls, ‘but you think someone with a beard can’t wear a skirt.’

‘It was a joke!’ He throws up his hands. ‘Can we start again? Pretend this conversation never happened?’

He’s very tall. She notices that his T-shirt is on inside out. He runs his hand through his hair, making it stick up. She relents. It’s not his fault that folk music is a sensitive subject.

‘I saw you … the other day …’ he’s saying. ‘You were facing up to that bully who kicked the dog.’

‘It is you. I thought it was.’ She feels guilty for jumping down his throat. ‘Thanks for trying to help.’

The tips of his ears flush. ‘No need to thank me. Think he was secretly terrified of you. I just gave him the excuse he needed to slink away.’

She smiles. Playing down his role in the whole episode makes her like him even better. Especially as she knows she has something else to thank him for too.

‘Did you pay my bill?’ she asks. ‘I went back to apologise, but they said the young Englishman paid for me.’

‘Yeah.’ He rubs his nose. ‘No big deal.’

The heat of the day penetrates her hat. Prickles of sweat make her scalp itch. She’s always really careful about avoiding direct light.

She gestures towards the sky. ‘We should get out of the sun. We … um … we could get an iced coffee or something?’ she suggests. ‘I owe you.’

He’s already nodding. ‘I know a nice place just around the corner.’

The café has a courtyard, and they find a table surrounded by cactus plants in bright pots.

‘It is nice here,’ she says, settling into her seat.

‘Yeah,’ he says, heaping sugar into his glass. ‘Kerala feels different from the rest of India.’

‘Have you been travelling in other parts too, then?’

‘Uh huh.’ He ducks his chin, and his hair flops into his eyes. ‘Been here a while. Started in Delhi, then made my way through Rajasthan and Uttar Pradesh.’

She sips her iced coffee, sneaking glances at this well-travelled, blushing stranger. He has a nice face. Not drop-dead gorgeous, as her friend Laura would say, but open and warm. His eyes, framed with golden lashes, are an unusual colour – tawny is the word that comes to her mind. His mid-brown hair has sun-bleached streaks. Some women pay a fortune to have highlights like that, she thinks. But this guy obviously doesn’t give much attention to his appearance – he’s well over six foot, with broad shoulders and long, lanky limbs that are uncoordinated. He’s already tripped up twice since she met him. His Celtic-fair skin has turned a reddish tan. He’s wearing cut-off shorts to his knees, an old, faded, inside-out T-shirt and flip-flops.

‘I’m Summer,’ she says. ‘Summer Blythe.’ She puts out a hand. His hand swallows hers. Tucked inside his palm, her skin fizzes, as if they’re generating an electric shock between them, and she lets go quickly. His eyes widen, as if he felt it too.

‘Kit Appleby.’

She puts her hands in her lap. ‘So, Kit Appleby, how come you can swan around India like this?’

He clears his throat self-consciously and shifts on his chair. ‘I’d been saving for a car since I was a teenager, but decided to use the money for travelling instead. I’ve been away for,’ he screws up his face, ‘about … eleven months – but I’ve begun to wonder if I should go home … do something with my life.’

‘What are the options?’

‘Study to be a dentist or keep on with being an unemployed and impoverished artist.’

‘Hang on,’ she wrinkles her forehead. ‘A dentist?’

‘Unlikely, I know.’ He takes a sip of his drink, rattling the ice cubes at the bottom of the glass. ‘My mother’s idea, not mine – only in the end, I couldn’t go through with it. Five years of study and a lifetime of looking into people’s mouths?’ He makes a pantomime horror-face. ‘I did a fine art degree. But of course, when I graduated, I wasn’t being paid a fortune for pickling a shark, I was taking dead-end jobs and painting portraits that nobody wanted. One day I thought, what am I doing? I bought a plane ticket and … took off.’

‘If your money’s lasted this long, you must have been saving for a flashy car?’ she says.

‘I am a bit of a classic car nerd, I’m afraid, and I had aspirations for a Ferrari Dino 246 GT …’ He pauses, as if she might comment. But she has no idea what that is. He goes on, ‘I was going to get one that needed restoring. The only way I could ever have afforded it.’ He blinks and looks away. ‘The Ferrari money has lasted me so far – but it’s getting a little thin now. What about you?’ he asks, looking at her again. ‘Have you been travelling long? Are you on an extended adventure, or is this a holiday and you have a job to get back to?’

She sits back in her chair. ‘That’s a lot of questions.’

He raises his large hands in a helpless gesture. ‘Sorry. Only answer the ones you want – or none at all.’

She smiles, ‘It’s okay – I’m not that easily offended.’ She notices that he doesn’t fidget like most people, or stare over her shoulder at his surroundings and other customers. He appears to be giving her his full attention. ‘I’ve been here nearly a week, and I have just over one more left,’ she tells him. ‘I was on one of those guided tours, but it felt like I was going through the motions, ticking things off. I wanted to explore a bit on my own.’

‘A wise decision,’ he says gravely.

Sudden anxiety clutches her heart. ‘The thing is, I … I don’t know when I’ll ever be able to do anything like this again.’ She takes a breath. ‘So … I need to make the most of it.’

They’ve finished their coffees, and she thinks that this is the moment they’ll stand up and go their separate ways. Only, she doesn’t want either of them to go anywhere. It feels as if she’s known him for much longer than the hour they’ve spent in the coffee shop.

She pays the bill, despite him trying to contribute his half, and he pauses as they step out of the café into the glare of the street. ‘Would you … would you like to get something to eat later?’ He pushes his fingers through his hair and glances at his feet. ‘I know a nice place …’

‘Another nice place?’ She smiles, teasing him, and then nods quickly in case he thinks she’s refusing. ‘I’d like that.’

They look at each other, his pupils expanding like ink stains. She has that prickle again, down her spine. It’s as if she’s falling towards him. She blinks and drops her gaze.

‘Where are you staying? I’ll pick you up at seven p.m.’ His voice sounds hoarse. ‘If that’s good for you?’ he adds quickly.

She gives him the name of the hotel and they loiter awkwardly; she thinks he’s as uncertain as her about whether to give a hug or do the air-kissing thing. She steps away without doing either, lifting a hand. He echoes her wave and walks in the opposite direction.

She feels odd, as if she’s unbalanced by leaving him. She shakes her head. How crazy. He’s a stranger. A conversation comes back to her; one she had with Dad years ago after Mum died. How did he know that she was ‘the one’? she’d asked. He’d stared into the distance for a moment, his blue eyes watering, and then he’d turned and said, ‘I just did. Almost immediately, before we’d even spoken. It was a feeling inside me. Very strong. Completely without reason.’ And he’d laughed, ‘Me. A man whose life is built on reason.’

She’d convinced herself that Adam was ‘the one’, but it turned out she’d been wrong. Now she understands how rare that love-at-first-sight thing is – how easy it is to be duped into believing in it and ending up disappointed. Mum and Dad had been lucky. All she knows is that, with Kit, it feels as if she’s met a long-lost best friend. She’d wanted to reach across and take his hand, not just for pleasure, but for the comfort of touching him. She’d had an urge to run her thumb over his big, reddened knuckles, link her fingers with his.

Being here makes her want to take a chance. She feels free for once. All her senses are open and alert to the beauty around her, to the possibilities in every moment. She’s lived under the shadow of death for a long time, but this tall, untidy stranger has helped her out from under it; and even if it’s only for a little while, she wants to know what it’s like to live without limits.

She longs for the evening to come, for the moment when she’ll see him again.

He stops as soon as he gets around the corner, staring up into the Indian sky. He almost expects to see a banner floating inside the iridescent air announcing that he, Kit Appleby, has met Summer Blythe, and she’s agreed to have dinner with him. Trumpets, please!

Shit. Maybe he’s getting ahead of himself. He needs to calm down.

But she likes him, he knows she does. She kept meeting his gaze and holding it. She sat with her body mirroring his. There’s none of the doubt and confusion that sends him into a stomach-dropping rollercoaster of emotions: the up and down of trying-to-play-the-game and second-guess another person. Instead, it’s as if they both share a secret – and without discussing it, they can both tell that the other one understands completely. They know the secret too.

He’s dizzy with his good fortune. This beautiful woman, with her slightly crooked teeth and large, expressive, sea-coloured eyes, this brave woman, who he knows so little about, and yet who he has an instant affinity with, is interested in him.

She’s sitting across from him now, in the open-air restaurant he discovered on his first night here. It’s a family-run place. Chairs sit at drunken angles on an uneven earthen floor. There are bright plastic colanders serving as lampshades, candles on each table, and the cook is busy grilling fresh fish and vegetables on a giant smoking griddle in the corner. On a low stage, a four-piece band dressed in shiny jackets are enthusiastically rendering their own cover of ‘A Horse with No Name’. Under the table, a small dog sleeps on the dirt, curled into a circle. Summer, he notices, has kicked off her shoes; she leans on her elbows smiling at the band. She twirls one of the little silver creatures hanging from her ear. ‘I love it here,’ she says.

‘You haven’t tasted the food yet!’

‘I don’t have to,’ she says. ‘Listen to that music.’ She glances around her. ‘The décor. The dog. I’ve never been anywhere like it!’ She lowers her voice, ‘And we’re nearly the only tourists. Most people here look like locals. That’s a good sign.’

He grins at her pleasure, feeling a glow of satisfaction that she likes his choice of restaurant. He takes a deep breath of night air, laced with delicious cooking smells, and another aroma that might be coming from the dog. But really, he thinks, nothing can spoil this.

‘What do you do?’ he asks. ‘For work, I mean.’

‘What do I do?’ She stares at him for a moment with a nonplussed expression, and he’s just beginning to feel embarrassed about asking such a dull, predictable question, when she clears her throat. ‘Journalism. I … I work for magazines.’

‘Magazines?’

‘Magazines.. . .