Read Summer on the River for Free Online Page A

their home and suffering an ongoing exhaustion from juggling all these aspects of her life.
    â€˜Did you really like him?’ Jemima asks gently. ‘Are you really gutted? I didn’t feel you were absolutely, you know, in love with him.’
    â€˜Well, I wasn’t,’ says Miranda, rather discontentedly. ‘But it’s just nice to have a man around, isn’t it? Someone you can rely on for a change. And it might have developed into something more …’
    Jemima listens, glad that she’s contented with her own single state, with her job as a manager in the holiday-let company she’s worked with for twelve years now; with her little team who clean the cottages and carry out the changeovers between visitors. She loves her work, and her tiny cottage at Torcross, and dear old Otto sitting with Maisie under the table. Her own love life is rather hit and miss but that’s much more to do with her reluctance to commit. She prefers to love them and leave them.
    She relaxes a little, just a little, so that Miranda doesn’t notice. It’s warm and comfortable beneath the umbrella, the little garden centre is filled with rows of plants and shrubs and flowers, and there is a delicious hot scent of earth and blossoms. If she screws up her eyes and peers in through the big glass doors she can just see the tall dark man sitting on the sofa, legs outstretched. She can’t see him properly but he looks at ease there by himself: comfortable and relaxed.
    She wonders if he is watching them, if he were in the least put out by Maisie’s intent regard. Of course it’s difficult for Miranda now that Maisie is convinced that her father will come back to find them. Jemima feels sorry for her friend and wonders how she can help her, apart from the occasional stints she puts in looking after Maisie when Miranda is working and her mother can’t cope.
    She and Maisie and Otto get on very well together and Jemima enjoys those sleepovers. The child brings another dimension to her life so that there’s a different dynamic in her little cottage when Maisie is present.
    Miranda sighs as if she is aware that Jemima’s attention has been distracted.
    â€˜And then there’s Mum,’ she says, ‘going on about the boys in Australia. Did I tell you she’s suggesting that we go out for Christmas? It’s rather a tempting thought, actually. It’s just so expensive.’
    Jemima nods sympathetically. She knows that they all miss Miranda’s brothers, who both live with their families in Melbourne. They miss the regular contact, and especially now that both wives have had babies within the last few months.
    â€˜It would be wonderful,’ Jemima says encouragingly. ‘Fantastic for Maisie. Worth every penny, I should say. You might meet someone rather nice out there and it would give Maisie something else to think about.’
    Miranda looks more cheerful, she sits up straighter, and Jemima breathes a silent sigh of relief. The awkward moment has passed. They collect their belongings, and Otto and Maisie, and make their way back to the car park. Jemima gives a last glance through the big glass doors but the tall dark man is no longer there.
    Miranda follows behind Jemima, envious of her friend’s placidity. Nothing seems to faze Jemima: she is so independent, so self-sufficient. She has no idea what it is like to know fear, to have the sole responsibility of a child. At the same time, Miranda knows, if she’s honest, she only has herself to blame. She let herself get pregnant thinking it was the way to make Maisie’s father commit after a long relationship that never seemed to be quite as secure as she longed for it to be. She needed to feel sure of him; to bind him to her. Well, that certainly backfired. She was left to manage alone, with all the pain and humiliation of rejection – and, in due course, with Maisie. No one will know how much she longs