Julia Williams - Midsummer Magic

‘You’re not wrong there,’ said Peter. ‘This bunch is no better than the last lot. I worry about the future for you kids, I really do.’

‘It could be worse, at least we’re not Italy,’ said Ant, provoking a hearty laugh from Peter which made Harry feel like punching a wall. He’d never made Peter laugh like that once, not in all the months he’d been coming here.

In truth, while Harry had grown very fond of Nicola, Peter terrified him. A self-made millionaire who’d used Nicola’s money to make one fortune in the dot com bubble, which had enabled him not only to buy this house, but a pied-à-terre in London, a villa in Spain, and another fortune in the technological boom of more recent times. And he appeared to be recessionproof, living evidence that money made more money.

Harry, who came from a more modest background and was quite happy to be earning what he regarded as a reasonable income in a job he enjoyed, was totally baffled when Peter started on about stocks and shares, and even more so when Ant joined in. How the hell did Ant even know all this stuff? It wasn’t even as if he was any good at maths.

Gloomily, Harry sat between them as Ant quizzed Peter ever more heavily about the future of the economy, then Josie and Nicola joined them and went into frenzies about menus, venues, and other things which he felt were insignificant. When he’d impulsively asked Josie to marry him last October, he hadn’t foreseen this. There seemed to be no end to the minutiae that had to be planned for a wedding. All he wanted to do was go into a wood somewhere and plight his troth with his lady love, like in some kind of mediaeval knight’s tale. He loved Josie, she loved him. All the rest was frippery. But she clearly didn’t see it like that …

‘You’ll never guess who’s staying in the village?’ Nicola said gleefully as they sat down to a huge lunch on the vast patio by the pool. Josie had tried to stop her, told her they’d be just as happy to head to the pub for lunch (she could see Harry and Ant were already getting twitchy), but her mother was unstoppable. Nicola was the perfect matriarch. She’d been made to mother a huge family, and it had been a source of unending disappointment to her that she had only been able to have one child. She made up for it by feeding anyone who came within a mile of the house. Josie felt sure Nicola kidnapped people from the highways and byways when she wasn’t there.

‘It makes me feel useful,’ her mother had once confided in her daughter. Josie tried not to feel irritated that her mother could only see one way of being useful, and bit her lip so as not to retort, well go and do something properly useful if you feel at a loose end. It exasperated her that her mother seemed to be so happy with so little, having given up on any career aspirations long before Josie was born. Her own father had been wealthy in his own right and Nicola had never been expected to work. When she met Peter who even then was on the up, she devoted herself to being a full-time wife and mother. She wouldn’t even work with Dad, saying the figures were beyond her. It was exasperating. But it wasn’t in Josie’s nature to quarrel, and she didn’t want to hurt her mum’s feelings, so she said nothing.

‘No, who?’ said Josie, laughing as her dad rolled his eyes.

‘Only Tatiana Okeby,’ said Nicola triumphantly.

She was met with a stunning silence and blank looks.

‘Er. Tatiana who?’ said Diana.

‘Tatiana Okeby. You must know her. Sail for the Sun ?’

‘Nope, not ringing any bells,’ said Harry.

‘Sandy Kane, tart with a heart. Who went through abortion, rape, several husbands, and sailed off into the sunset, never to be seen again? How can you not remember Sail for the Sun ?’

‘Might be a bit before our time, Mum,’ said Josie.

‘What, none of you ever saw Sail for the Sun ?’ Nicola looked baffled. ‘I could have sworn we watched it together, Josie.’

‘Did we? I don’t remember. When?’

‘Let me see … It must have been around 1983, I suppose,’ said Nicola. ‘Tatiana Okeby was tipped to appear as Auberon Fanshawe’s assistant on Freddie Puck’s Illusions show, but she quit to play Cassandra instead. She and Auberon used to have a bit of a thing.’

‘Now, Illusions I do remember,’ said Harry. ‘It was awesome.’

‘Do you remember the trick they did with the lighted candle?’ said Ant. ‘You know the one where Auberon’s assistant lit the candle and he made it disappear. I still can’t work out how they did that.’

‘Oh, I remember that! It was brilliant!’ Di burst in, then reddened when she realised she’d agreed with something Ant had said.

‘Well, that aside,’ said Nicola, ‘I’m very excited. Tatiana Okeby’s staying in that new place with the yurts near the open-air theatre, and the rumour is she’s going to be playing Titania in this summer’s production of A Midsummer Night’s Dream . I was telling Josie earlier, the theatre has been a bit down in the doldrums in the last few years, and they’re thinking of hiring it out for weddings.’

‘What, you two getting married in a theatre?’ said Diana, ‘what about a church wedding?’

‘That’s so passé,’ said Josie, nonchalantly. ‘I want our wedding to be different. To be the one everyone will be talking about for years to come. I think the theatre’s the perfect venue. And in the evening it will be brilliant for entertainment: jugglers, acrobats, magicians, that kind of thing. Won’t it, Harry?’

Harry didn’t appear to be paying any attention, and she had to kick him under the table before he mumbled, ‘Oh, yes, great,’ rather unconvincingly.

‘Wow,’ Diana seemed slightly stunned. ‘Sounds amazing.’

Josie checked to make sure Di wasn’t being sarcastic, but she seemed genuine.

‘Anyway,’ Nicola continued, ‘if we could get someone of Tatiana Okeby’s calibre playing at the theatre, it could help put us back on the map.’

‘Now, that I would like to see,’ said Josie. ‘The open-air theatre is so special. Isn’t it, Harry?’

‘Oh, er, yes,’ said Harry, looking a little guilty. He’d been deep in conversation with Ant about the many and varied delights of Illusions, and Josie wasn’t entirely sure he’d heard her. She wondered whether it had been a good idea to bring Ant along this weekend. Especially as there was clearly something weird going on with him and Di. She’d been dying to find out what was going on there, but hadn’t had a moment alone with Diana since they’d arrived. She hoped whatever it was wouldn’t spoil the atmosphere of the weekend, especially as she didn’t trust Ant not to make trouble. He’d never been a good influence on Harry in her eyes, and so far this weekend seemed intent on dragging him away from anything to do with the wedding. She’d already caught them muttering about going for a pint. The only reason she’d let Harry bring him along was because he’d been so worried about spending the weekend with her parents, and she’d wanted Harry to have some moral support. There was a point to Di coming. They were going searching for hers and Di’s dresses tomorrow, and although the boys were getting fitted for their suits, Ant didn’t really need to be here. She hoped he wasn’t going to ruin everything …

‘Does anyone fancy a walk?’ Diana said after lunch. She was getting fed up with Ant, who kept sending her significant looks across the table. The last thing she wanted to do was to have deep meaningful chats with him. What was done was done. She’d long ago consigned him to her past, and wasn’t at all interested in having him in her future. She was hoping that he’d be more interested in going to the pub, then she and Josie could at least have a girlie chat. It felt like ages since they’d had any time on their own together, and Diana missed her friend more than she’d thought she would.