Rosie Thomas 3-Book Collection: Moon Island, Sunrise, Follies. Rosie Thomas

her breath catching in her throat May pulled harder. The door suddenly sprang open and she gave a muffled croak of surprise. Without looking back she fled down the stairs and through the screen doors on to the deck. There was an old woman in the garden of the next-door house. She had been bending over a clump of tall blue flowers, but she saw May and stood up, straight-backed, watching her with uncomfortable intentness. Even at this distance May didn’t like it. She ducked her head and ran down the sandy path, rough grass whipping at her ankles.

      John looked up from his book. ‘Sun cream,’ he called after her as she raced by.

      ‘Ivy’ll have some.’

      She wanted to get to Ivy. Without thinking, May ran down to the beach. She could see her sister in her bikini, standing gracefully, her weight all balanced on one long leg and angled hip. She was raking back her hair with her fingers and talking to some boys.

      When May panted up to her she half-turned, startled, and smiled. ‘This is my sister, May.’

      The three boys were standing in a dazzled semi-circle. Of course Ivy drew them like moths with no thought but to incinerate themselves in her flame.

      ‘This is Lucas, May. And … um …’ She didn’t try to conceal the fact that she hadn’t remembered the names of the others.

      ‘Joel. And Kevin.’

      The middle one fell over himself to supply the information. Ivy gave him a small, considered smile and he blushed. Joel was about sixteen and Kevin a year or so younger. They looked just like the two hundred boys May knew in school in New York, who all wanted to date the same twenty skinny girls. Lucas was different. He was older, perhaps even as old as twenty. He had beige-blond hair pulled back in a pony-tail, a slippery golden tan and a lovers’ knot tattooed on his left bicep. May realised that she was openly staring at him and felt dull colour rising in her face as she dragged her eyes away.

      ‘Your sister?’ Lucas said in amusement.

      May stood with her arms folded across her chest, numbly exposed in her stupid red-and-white swimsuit, feeling the sun hot on the top of her head. ‘Have you got the sun cream?’ she demanded of Ivy. She had forgotten the eeriness of the house. It was time to retreat from all these pairs of eyes. There were two women sitting on rugs only a few yards away and John was strolling across the sand with his hands in the pockets of his khaki shorts.

      ‘Sure.’ Ivy produced a tube from her straw bag. ‘Want me to rub some on your shoulders?’

      ‘No thanks,’ May snapped. She took the cream and marched away.

      ‘And this is my dad,’ she heard Ivy saying.

      ‘Hi. I’m John Duhane.’

      Marian was already on her feet, on her way to greet the newcomer.

      ‘I’m so pleased someone has taken the Bennisons’ place. I couldn’t bear to think of it sitting empty, with all that sadness trapped inside it. Are the young women your daughters? They’ll make the house laugh again, I know they will.’

      John hadn’t yet told Ivy and May about the death of the Bennison girl. It had seemed the last of too many negatives about the whole trip, but now he knew that he should have done so.

      For the moment Ivy’s attention was fully occupied by the blond boy. The two of them had already begun to wander away, the younger brothers in attendance.

      Marian Beam introduced Leonie, whose arms were full of baby. ‘This is Ashton and that’s Sidonie asleep on the rug.’

      ‘They’re beautiful,’ John said dutifully. But it was the babies’ mother who held his interest. She had a narrow, brown-skinned face and dark eyes, which met his briefly and slid away. She was pretty in a boyish way, but what struck him about her was the way her face looked tucked in, as if she was used to concealing things.

      Marian was saying, ‘There’s plenty of company here for your girls. I’ve got eleven grandchildren altogether, from Lucas down to Ashton, and they all come to spend the summers with me. Is your wife here with you?’

      ‘I’m a widower.’

      And he saw the mother look at him over the baby’s sun-hat. ‘You’re here on your own with them?’ Marian protested. ‘I call that plain heroic.’

      ‘Or plain foolish,’ John answered and was rewarded by another veiled glance from the daughter-in-law.

      ‘You must come over and join us whenever you feel like it. How about tonight? My daughter Karyn is here with her partner and Leonie’s husband is here too …’

      Ah, John thought. Of course.

      ‘Unfortunately the other two boys and their families won’t be getting here until later, and you must meet them then.’

      ‘Perhaps not this evening,’ John said. ‘We should settle in up there first. We only arrived in the middle of the storm last night.’

      He looked beyond the frayed brim of Marian’s hat to the Captain’s House. It stood at a slightly different angle from the others, seeming to turn aside from them and away from the full assault of the sea and wind. He could imagine that a seafarer had built it, a man who had had enough of the weather and the elements, but still couldn’t quite leave them behind. May had been standing on the lower deck looking down at them, but now she had disappeared.

      Marian was insistent. ‘Tomorrow, what about that? Come over and have a meal with us tomorrow evening.’

      ‘Thank you, we’d like to.’

      ‘That’s settled then.’

      Evidently Marian Beam was a woman who knew what she wanted and insisted on getting it.

      The garden between the sea wall and the deck was not really a garden at all, more a strip of grass and sand, which had been decorated in places with big rounded beach stones and low bushes. May prowled aimlessly around the limits of the area, turning back when she came to the fence painted in faded blue that separated the garden from the one next door. Orange, scarlet and ginger flowers growing on the other side spilled over the fence, making a little oasis of brilliance.

      May followed a stony path down the side of the house. There was an outside shower behind a screen, a big evergreen tree with a dilapidated hammock slung from the branches, a coiled-up hosepipe, which stopped her short for a second with its resemblance to a snake. When she recovered her breath and stepped forward again she immediately knew that someone was watching her. She peered behind her and up into the branches of the tree, to the little screened windows in the side of the house. There was no one to see. A cold breath fanned the nape of her neck, even though the day had turned hot.

      She turned her head slowly.

      The old woman she had seen before was standing on the other side of the fence, half hidden by the green leaves of her garden. ‘I didn’t mean to startle you,’ she said.

      ‘You didn’t.’ May was relieved. ‘I saw you before.’

      The woman held up a big pair of shears to show May. ‘I’m doing some pruning. Turner’s supposed to come and see to it but he doesn’t always have time to do everything. Turner’s my gardener. My mother loved this garden and I try to look after it for her sake. I suppose it’s a kind of memorial.’

      The woman really was quite old, so her mother must have died long ago. May liked the idea of her daughter keeping up the garden in her memory. She wished that she had something like it to do. Sometimes she and Ivy talked about their mother, but not very often nowadays. And John hardly ever even mentioned her. He just expected them to accept Suzanne or some other girlfriend instead.

      ‘I like your garden. It’s pretty.’

      ‘Thank you. I saw you looking at the Japanese garden the Bennisons did out the front. What did you think of that?’

      ‘Japanese? I thought it looked like someone had dumped a whole lot of stones and left the rest