Read Online Summertime by Raffaella Barker - Free Book Online Page A

disastrous consequences. The car splutters and dies in the middle of a dark and deep-looking puddle.
    â€˜You’ve flooded it, Mum,’ says Giles, availing himself of the opportunity to sigh heavily and roll his eyes.
    â€˜We’ll just have to wait until it dries out.’ I am serene. The nine o’clock news has not yet come on to the radio, so we are in good time and can affordto loll around in puddles looking at the geese flocked in the wheat field next to us. The young corn shoots are vibrant green in the sun’s path, but fade to grey where the cloud casts a deep shadow, causing some of the geese to appear celestial and the others to seem drab. Recall reading that it was ancient country practice for goose girls to take flocks behind the threshing machines and to steer them about through the harvested fields of yore, and would rather like to put myself forward for such a picturesque career now. The Beauty and I could work in tandem. Perhaps Simon will employ us this autumn? Musings brought to an untimely halt by horrible roaring in the back. Felix is writhing in agony, his hair twisted around The Beauty’s fists and his chest drummed by her little feet.
    â€˜Ssshh. Let’s see if we can will the car to start,’ I say, in the manner of a playgroup leader. Giles glances witheringly at me, but Felix is silenced, and praise the Lord, the car coughs then hums into action, just as the news pips sound from the radio.
    April 14th
    Have still not found the opportunity to tell Davidthat the wedding is to be held here. All our recent communications have been about communication, as I attempt to lose my email virginity by sending him a message. There are many bad things about trying to get online, but the worst is that as soon as you sit down with the computer, you know that hours and hours of precious time are about to be wasted, mostly on the telephone to the helpline. Have a phobia about reading instruction manuals which makes it impossible for me to understand anything written in them, so am very dependent on computer-literate friends (seem to have none) and the sodding helpline. David is now hardly reachable, as he is at last on set in the rainforest, and I have had email for days now without managing to send or receive anything at all except bad vibes.
    David has become very important, no longer merely a carpenter as he was here and in Bermuda, but a big cheese with hundreds of telephone numbers, none of which have him on the end of them. Most just ring and ring. One or two have David’s voice jumping down the line, impossibly near, but so far away, droning the usual voice-mail apologies. Finally find a number that is answered by a human, but still not David.
    â€˜Hi, this is David Lanyon’s line. May I help you?’ answers a purring Californian voice, belonging to afemale, almost certainly with big lips and skin like cream.
    â€˜Ummmm, yes. I’d like to speak to David, umm, please,’ I stutter, getting off to a feeble start against his Rottweiler secretary.
    â€˜He’s busy, honey, call again sometime,’ she says huskily. I cannot bear to tell her who I am, in case David has not mentioned us at all, and do not wish to reveal to her my email problems. Suddenly wish I had chosen a more appropriate email address than ‘heavenlybody’. Perhaps ‘harassedmother’ or ‘norfolkharridan’ might have been better.
    Manage, with great cunning, to get through to David himself by persuading Felix to ring for me. He has no truck with Big Lips, and tells her firmly, ‘David always wants to speak to me. Why can’t you take the phone to where he is? I want to ask him about the jungle and stuff, anyway.’
    There is a silky silence, which I can hear as I have my head rammed against the receiver next to Felix’s ear, and then Felix grins as David comes on to the line. Felix lounges in the swivel chair by my desk, gazing unseeing at the dancing