Suddenly That Summer

by Lizzie Byron

Genres: Small Town & Rural; Women's Fiction

Synopsis

Sometimes, you have to go far from home to find your way back.

Nora is about to turn twenty-seven and things couldn't be better. She's just told her boss exactly what she thinks of him after being offered her dream job and is looking forward to a summer of old friends and new adventures.

But when Nora discovers that there's been a mistake and they've given her dream job to someone else, her future - and summer - suddenly isn't looking so bright. So, when she's given the opportunity to escape to idyllic Pidwell, she doesn't hesitate.

It was just supposed to be a distraction while she looks for something else, but could this be the summer that she finds everything she's looking for right there in Pidwell?

Release date: April 21, 2022

Publisher: Hodder & Stoughton

Print pages: 400

Sample

Chapter 1

There’s something about London in May, Nora always says.

Every year, there’s a day before the softness of spring surrenders to the urgency of summer. A day when she finally feels the turn that London has been struggling towards since March, when the clocks go forward and the city begins to shuffle off the cold coil of winter.

Until then, it seems to take forever. After the glow of Christmas and the promise of the new year comes the reality of winter with its months of dim, dragging days and dark, dark nights. Months of runny noses and stiff fingers. Months of porridge for breakfast and soup for dinner and, for a while, it feels like it will be that way for ever. That the days will always be too short and the nights too long and Nora will never remember what it’s like to feel the sun on the back of her neck or to spend a Sunday afternoon sitting in the park with her friends.

But then – finally – spring arrives and everything begins to feel brand new. Colour returns. Even in London. The real London, anyway. The London Nora knows, with its 24-hour off-licences and tower blocks and narrow, grubby canals that the tourists don’t deem worthy of Instagram. Drifts of daffodils appear in the parks and the trees fill out, their bare branches disappearing under the weight of new leaves and clouds of blossom.

Then Nora and her friends start to linger outside the pub, promising they’ll only stay for one more. There are tables outside the cafés again and they dare speak of holidays and barbecues and picnics: outside no longer something to avoid, rather to embrace.

That’s why May is her favourite month. Not just because it’s her birthday tomorrow, but because of those first few perfect days when the sun is bright, but not burning, and you can feel your bones thawing. Soon it will be June, and the park benches will be too hot to sit on, the beer gardens too hot to stand in, and just right will become too much.

Not today, though.

Today is the first perfect day of the year.

What makes it even more perfect is that her boss, Roland, is out for most of it. She has no idea what he’s doing, but she’s sure he’ll come back to the gallery later, drunk on gin, to regale her with stories about people she doesn’t know doing things she doesn’t care about.

Until then, she has a few hours of peace. One of the best things about the gallery is that it’s appointment only and there isn’t another until three o’clock, so Nora slips out for lunch. The sudden sunshine is such a surprise that she didn’t think to grab her sunglasses when she left the house this morning, so she buys a cheap pair from the corner shop, gets a falafel wrap and her first iced coffee of the year, then heads to Mark Street Gardens.

She walks the long way to Mark Street Gardens in an effort to avoid the building site on the corner of Curtain Road after that builder shouted, ‘Hey, chocolate queen!’ when she passed yesterday. He seemed so genuinely bemused that she didn’t stop and ask him to climb down from the scaffolding and take her right there in the street that she couldn’t help but ask herself if that approach has worked for him in the past.

Maybe it has.

Gardens is a grand word for what is essentially a narrow patch of grass, and a few benches, but it’s exactly ten minutes’ walk from the gallery, ten minutes from the hair salon her friend Luce works in, and ten minutes from her brother Ben’s flat. So, as underwhelming as it is, Mark Street Gardens has become their spot to have lunch, when the weather allows. Or, when it’s not sunny, somewhere to meet and bicker over where they’re going that evening, even if they almost always end up in the pub across the road.

It’s the nearest patch of grass, so Nora isn’t surprised when she gets there to find it full. All the benches are taken so Nora claims a spot under one of the trees, kicks off her heels, shrugs off her leather jacket, then sits on the grass with her legs stretched out in the hope that it will discourage anyone from sitting near her.

She’s tempted to tuck into her falafel wrap, but sips her iced coffee and checks her email. When she sees that she has one from Carol Talley at the Tate, her heart hurls itself against her ribs and she says a little prayer to whoever the god of jobs is before she opens it.

Nora reads it, then lets out a squeal. When she looks up, Luce is sauntering towards her and it’s all she can do not to jump up and run over to her. Of all the people she wants to see at this moment, it’s Luce Nicolaou.

They met in the queue outside Chick ’N’ Sours on Kingsland Road three years ago and, after a passionate discussion over what they were going to order, have been inseparable ever since. Her brother, Ben, always says he doesn’t know how they’re friends, given how different they are. And he’s right. They seem to exist in exact opposition to one another. Where Luce is tiny and fierce, Nora is tall and quiet. Considerate, Luce calls her, which, Nora knows, is a kind way of saying that she has a horrible habit of overthinking everything.

The funny thing is, Nora’s family thinks she’s this flighty, fickle free spirit and, compared to them, she is, she supposes. After all, her mother teaches economics at LSE, her father works for PricewaterhouseCoopers and her brother is training to be a doctor, so they have no idea where she came from. Compared to Luce, though, she isn’t a free spirit at all. Brave, relentlessly restless Luce, who is a hairdresser today (and makes sure that she emphasises today when she tells people) but two years ago she was a graphic designer, and when she and Nora met, she was in a band. Now she wants to be a tattoo artist, and she will be because Luce’s philosophy is that you have to try everything. You don’t need to master it or even be good at it, you just have to try, and if you don’t enjoy it, try something else.

Nora wishes she could be more like that, but such is her need to be good at everything that she won’t even try unless she knows she’s going to succeed. Like the job at the Tate. She would never have bowed to the pressure from Luce and Ben to apply if she hadn’t known she was abundantly, almost excessively, qualified for it.

It’s better to have not tried and not failed, that’s what Nora says.

But every now and then, she feels a wild, uncontainable urge to tell Roland to shove his job. To move out and see what happens, sleep on Luce’s sofa if she has to. To risk it all to find out if she can have something more.

That’s why she loves Luce: she reminds her that it doesn’t matter that she’s twenty-seven tomorrow and she doesn’t have it figured out yet. The joy is in trying. So how could Nora not love her? Even if, by her own admission, Luce is pure Shoreditch trash. Like now. She’s wearing a pair of yellow tartan cropped trousers, Vans and an Aaliyah T-shirt.

And her hair.

That’s the only thing they truly have in common: their hair. Shoulder length, curly and unruly. Except Luce’s is a different colour from when Nora last saw her. Yesterday it was macaron pink and today it’s dirty lavender. That, paired with the tartan trousers-Vans-Aaliyah-T-shirt combo, makes Nora look positively demure in her leopard- print shirt dress.

‘Loving the purple,’ she tells Luce, as she approaches.

‘Thanks.’ She dips her head and shakes her curls. ‘I just did it.’

‘What colour are we calling this?’

‘I was thinking space grey.’

‘How about Vulcan Violet?’

‘Vulcan Violet.’ She plonks herself on the grass in front of Nora. ‘Love it.’ She nods, putting the paper bag she’s carrying between them. ‘I’m stealing that.’

‘What can I say? I’m a wordsmith.’

Luce nods at Nora’s phone, which is still in her hand. ‘Why so happy, wordsmith?’

‘What?’ She tries to stop smiling, but can’t.

‘Come on. Spill, Armstrong.’

‘Well,’ Nora says, with a wistful sigh, her nose in the air, ‘I was just sitting here thinking about how I won’t have to put up with Roland much longer.’

Luce looks confused as she reaches into the paper bag and pulls out a bottle of orange juice. She opens it and, as she’s taking a sip, her face lights up.

She points the bottle at Nora. ‘You got the job at the Tate!’

‘I got the job at the Tate!’

Luce sends an arc of orange juice flying across the grass as she throws her arms around Nora. It narrowly misses a couple who are clearly in the middle of an argument. Luckily, they’re too distracted to notice.

‘Hey. Why we hugging?’

Luce lets go of Nora and they look up to find Ben standing over them.

She raises the now half-empty bottle to him. ‘Nora got the job at the Tate!’

‘No way!’ He looks genuinely thrilled. ‘Well done, sis. I knew you’d get it!’

She clambers to her feet to give him a huge, swaying hug. When they step back, Luce tugs at the hem of Nora’s dress with a grin. ‘You can finally tell Roland to suck it!’

‘Yeah, maybe don’t use those words,’ Ben says, arching an eyebrow at Nora as she sits down. ‘But can I be there when you do it? He’ll have a stroke.’

‘You have to go full Jerry Maguire!’ Luce tells her, with a wicked grin.

‘Yes!’ Ben rubs his hands together. ‘Make him cry. I hope he cries.’

‘The best bit is,’ Luce realises, ‘this means you can finally move in with me!’ She throws out her arms, her grin noticeably more cheesy.

Ben nods. ‘I think Mum and Dad will be more thrilled about that than anything.’

Nora glares at him, but Luce squeezes her arm until she looks at her. ‘Listen. I’ve fallen in love with this flat in a converted factory on Nile Street. We can barely afford it. Like, barely. But we don’t need to eat, right? Or go out. Or use hot water and electricity.’

‘Yeah, who needs hot water and electricity?’ Ben mutters.

‘It’ll be like Friends!’ Luce squeezes Nora’s arm again. ‘Except, you know, just the two of us. And we’ll have to keep the door locked because it’s Hackney.’

‘Two stabbings last night.’ Ben points at Luce, then holds up two fingers at Nora while he shoulders off his bag and sits on the grass with them. ‘Two.’

‘Wait,’ Luce says, gesturing at his bag. ‘Are you going to the gym?’

‘Just been.’

‘Didn’t you get off night shift?’

He scratches his temple. ‘Yeah, but I’m too wired. I had to burn off some energy or I’ll never sleep. I don’t even know if it’s worth it now, though. I’ll only get a few hours’ before Nora’s birthday dinner later so I might finish the paper I’m reading on zebrafish. Did you know . . .’ he stops to take the sports bottle out of the pocket of his gym bag ‘. . . that translucent zebrafish can regrow their own tissue and repair wounds? Like, they can repair their own hearts.’ He gestures at his chest. ‘So if we can work out how they do that, the medical ramifications are staggering. We could achieve scar-free healing within a generation.’ He takes a chug of water, and when he looks up, they’re both staring at him. ‘What?’

Nora sighs theatrically. ‘I love you, little bro, but you’re such a nerd.’

‘Hi, I’m Ben,’ Luce says, putting on his deep voice. ‘I just finished a ninety-two-hour shift in A and E, saving lives, and after I’ve been to the gym to work on my abs, I’m going home to discover how to achieve scar-free healing in the few hours before my sister’s birthday dinner. After that, I’ll probably rescue a cat from a tree and cure world hunger.’

‘I do have a cure for world hunger, actually,’ he tells them, as he unzips his bag and pulls out a small cardboard box. ‘It involves rich people paying their taxes and employers providing a wage their workers can actually live on.’

Luce rolls her eyes at Nora. ‘And now he’s eating salad.’

‘What?’ Ben looks down at the cardboard box with a frown. ‘I like salad.’

‘You don’t win friends with salad,’ Nora sings, with a shoulder-shimmy.

‘You don’t win friends with salad,’ Luce joins in, unwrapping her panini.

Ben just stabs at a cherry tomato with a wooden fork.

‘You win, okay?’ Nora tells him, as she opens her falafel wrap. ‘You’re perfect.’

‘I am certainly not perfect.’

‘You are! You know you are! I love you, but being your big sister sucks sometimes.’

‘What?’ He looks horrified. ‘Why?’

‘You’re the Golden Boy! You went to Oxford. You’re training to be a doctor. You’re marrying your fellow Oxford-educated girlfriend next year. You’re the Guyanese Dream.’

‘I am not.’

‘You are! I’m a year older than you and I’m still single.’ She counts off each thing on her fingers. ‘Still living at home. Still a gallery assistant getting Roland’s matcha lattes for twenty-two thousand pounds a year. So, the least you can do is admit that you’d rather have that.’ She stops to point at Luce’s panini then at his salad. ‘Than that.’

‘What? It has sourdough croûtons.’

Before Nora can scream, Luce says, ‘First of all, who cares if you’re single? Just because Dr Kale here is engaged doesn’t mean you have to be. Second of all, may I remind you that you have a first from Central Saint Martins, one of the best art schools in the world. And you’re not going to be a gallery assistant for much longer, are you? By the end of today, you’ll be telling Roland where to stick his matcha lattes and, pretty soon, you’ll be moving in with me and you won’t be living at home any more. So there,’ she says, with a satisfied nod.

‘She’s right, you know.’ Ben points his fork at Nora. ‘You’re killing it. Redchurch is one the coolest galleries in London because of you. You spend your evenings and weekends going to exhibitions and trawling Instagram, finding new artists and putting them under Roland’s nose so he can swan about, taking the credit and accepting all the adulation for launching their careers. You love art and you make other people love it too. The Tate are lucky to have you. You’re going to show those kids that they can make and be art as well.’

Nora’s cheeks flush. She’s so overwhelmed that all she can do is kick him.

He kicks her back and returns to his salad. ‘So, come on,’ he says, biting into a piece of grilled chicken. ‘Read us the email from the Tate.’

Nora grins as she opens it again, shivering as she reads, ‘“It was a pleasure meeting you yesterday and hearing your ideas. You were far and away the strongest candidate.”’

‘The strongest candidate, you know!’ Ben interrupts.

‘With the best hair!’ Luce is quick to point out.

But, then, she’s biased: she gave Nora a deep condition before her interview.

‘“Your experience working at Redchurch Gallery,”’ Nora continues, ‘“combined with your passion for inclusivity and making sure all children, whatever their background, have an opportunity to explore and express their creativity as well as to see themselves in the art that surrounds them is exactly in line with what we’re trying to do with our schools programme.”’

That’s greeted by a chorus of cheers and ‘I told you you’d smash it!’ from Luce.

Nora reads out the rest of the email: ‘“I think you will be a valuable and much-needed addition to the team so I am putting your name forward as my recommendation for this role at our senior management team meeting later today.”’

That’s enough to make Ben and Luce abandon their lunch to clap furiously as Luce leans over and hugs her so tightly that a falafel pops out of Nora’s wrap.

‘What else did she say?’ Luce asks, when she sits back again.

‘Just that the meeting is at two and she’ll be in touch after that.’

‘Do you know when they want you to start?’ Luce asks, pulling a string of cheese from her panini. ‘Do you have to give Roland notice or can you just walk out? I say just walk out.’

‘She’s not walking out. She’s not doing anything until she’s signed a contract,’ Ben says. When he raises his eyebrows at Nora, he’s never looked more like their mother. ‘I know you’re dying to tell Roland to suck it, but don’t say a word until you have something in writing.’

She draws a cross on her chest with her finger. ‘I won’t, I promise.’

Chapter 2

‘Mummy, please, I’m not going to be late for my own birthday dinner,’ Nora reassures her, as she stops on the pavement outside the gallery. ‘I’ll get the fast train.’

She’s trying to temper her tone, but her mother’s timing, as always, is impeccable. It’s a minute to three so their next appointment is about to arrive. Mercifully, she can see through the glass door of the gallery that Roland isn’t back yet, but if their client arrives now – while she’s on the phone to her mother – he’ll be furious if he finds out.

‘Please do, Nora,’ her mother says, clearly unconvinced. ‘Mark and James are here and—’

‘They’re there already?’

‘Yes,’ her mother says, in a way that lets Nora know she’s noticed her switch from surly to delighted at the mere mention of her uncles.

‘Are they back back? That’s it, right? They’re not going back to Cornwall?’

‘As far as I’m aware. Mark’s in the kitchen now.’

‘What’s he making?’

‘I have no idea, but it smells divine.’

Nora does an excited shimmy. ‘Definitely not going to be late now.’

‘Oh, so you’ll be on time for your uncles, huh?’ Jennifer says, then blows three quick kisses to her daughter down the phone and warns her not to miss the fast train.

When she sweeps into the gallery, she catches herself grinning at the thought of announcing over dinner that she’s got the job at the Tate.

As soon as the door closes behind her and the sound of Redchurch Street softens to a hum, she lets go of a breath. Bliss, she thinks, her shoulders lowering. No more bored-looking influencers posing for photos in front of the graffiti-smeared shutters of the fondue place on the corner. No more bicycles or buggies or Deliveroo scooters buzzing back and forth.

Just silence.

As much as she hates Roland, she doesn’t hate this place.

Now she thinks about it, it’s the only reason she’s put up with him for the last four years. One day she’ll have a place like this but, for now, she’s content to love this one as though it were her own. She adjusts the canvases when she comes in each morning and arranges for the walls to be repainted between exhibitions and for the parquet floors to be buffed until the dots of red wine disappear. Roland may be the face of Redchurch, but Nora is the heart. She’s the one who remembers the clients’ names and makes sure there’s space for as many artists as possible, not just Roland’s friends. So, despite his enviable reputation, her brother’s right: she’s a big part of the reason he has that reputation.

She takes off her sunglasses and glances around. She knows her parents don’t get why she loves this place so much but, sometimes, she wishes they did. It’s not that they don’t see the beauty – and joy – of the gallery, it’s that they still don’t quite understand what she does. They know she wants a gallery of her own one day, but they don’t get why she spent three years at Central Saint Martin’s to sell other people’s art.

Her brother’s career choice they understand. Ben’s going to be a doctor. That makes sense to them. And they know, as Roland keeps telling her, she needs to learn the ropes, but it’s been four years and she’s still getting him coffee and picking up his dry cleaning.

Not for much longer, though, she thinks, with a shiver of excitement.

‘Hey, Nor,’ Charlie says, without looking up from his phone.

He’s exactly where she left him, still stretched out on the battered black leather chesterfield by the window, his head on one arm of it, his ankles crossed neatly on the other.

Nora has what she politely describes as an uneasy relationship with Charlie. He’s a nice guy. He’s even quieter than Nora – almost monosyllabic – until he starts talking about something he loves. The pair of them often get into long, spirited discussions about the snobbery around street art or how unfair it is that Georgia O’Keeffe’s sister, Ida, a brilliant artist herself, could never quite step out from under her older sister’s shadow.

So, when Nora is feeling generous, she’ll confess to quite liking Charlie. Most of the time, she’s not feeling generous. Which isn’t Charlie’s fault, she concedes. But after telling Nora since she started at Redchurch that she needed to learn the ropes before he could promote her to a dealer, Roland hired Charlie six months ago.

That stung but, she assumed, Charlie had more experience – and clients – than her. So, when this twenty-one-year-old strolled into the gallery a week later and Roland told her he’d just graduated from the Slade, Nora was confounded.

Until she discovered that he was Roland’s best friend’s son.

She should have left then. Again, that isn’t Charlie’s fault, but she still can’t help resenting him. Even if he’s utterly oblivious to it. But Charlie is utterly oblivious to most things. If Roland is a triple espresso, then Charlie is constantly on the verge of falling asleep.

‘Hey, Charlie,’ she says coolly, as she heads over to her desk.

She glances down at her phone to find a voicemail from Carol at the Tate. How did I miss that? She curses, under her breath, then curses again when she realises that Carol must have called while she was talking to her mother.

This is it, she thinks, suddenly so excited she feels lightheaded. This is it.

But before Nora can call Carol back, Roland barrels in with his arm slung across the shoulders of a painfully cool Shoreditch type, who looks as if he could be one of Charlie’s friends. They’re dressed almost the same. Black skinny jeans, grey at the knees. Black suede Chelsea boots. Except where Charlie is wearing a white shirt buttoned to the neck, this guy is wearing a white T-shirt under a baggy, open-weave black jumper, the sleeves tugged up to the elbows to reveal tattoos on each forearm and a silver ring on each finger.

Shoreditch Deluxe. That’s what Luce calls Charlie. She’d probably call this guy that as well because it’s all a bit too carefully curated. His jeans are Acne and his boots are Saint Laurent and his long hair is pulled up into a topknot that is just the right side of untidy.

Roland punches the guy’s shoulder. ‘Look who I just found at the bar at the Ace!’

He always does this and it’s excruciating. There’s an air of possessive pride about the way Roland is holding onto the guy, his eyes bright and his li. . .