Jenny Oliver - The Summerhouse by the Sea - The best selling perfect feel-good summer beach read!

‘Have fun,’ Claire said brightly as she stood back.

‘I’d have more fun with my laptop,’ said Max, cheeky this time.

Claire swiped his hair.

‘I love you,’ she said as they both went round to their respective sides of the car, and Rory wondered how much of it was for him.

CHAPTER 11

The café was almost unrecognisable in the morning. Ava had woken early, the air humming with oppressive heat and the sound of car horns, street sweeping and bells ringing. From the window she could see the café tables full of people, hear the scraping of chairs, see the hands waving in greeting. A completely opposite atmosphere to the previous evening.

Showered and dressed in denim shorts and a white T-shirt, she tried to do her make-up and sort out the kink in her hair, but the gradual pooling of heat in the room got the better of her and she left the house, rubbing the line in her cheek from the pillow and trying to ruffle up her hair. As she went to shut the front door she caught a last glimpse of her indent on the living room sofa cushions where she’d slept, and remembered waking at three o’clock in the pitch-dark morning. She had felt exactly as Tom had suggested she might. Spooked and afraid, absence filling the space with the same intensity as the heat. She had felt the same unease as she had at her grandmother’s funeral. That of having a life not quite lived right. But lying there she found herself perplexed as to what one did with a second chance. She was still Ava, just Ava in Spain. The problem was that she had taken herself with her on her adventure. Afraid still of her aloneness. Afraid of everyone pairing off and moving on. Afraid that her closest next of kin was Rory. Who was right this minute ringing, presumably to have a go at her for coming back to Spain. She looked at his name flashing on her phone screen and made the instant decision to silence the call. Remembering that she’d had the courage to defy him by coming out here, and the unfamiliar frisson of power that decision had given her, was enough to make her shut the door on the view of her night and go and find out why Café Estrella was suddenly doing such a roaring trade.

The air outside was still as glass. Electric fans whirred on the bar, ineffectual against the mirage of heat. Ava took a table in the shade of the ripped awning. The café was less packed than she’d thought when looking down from the window, but there were definitely more bums on seats. All of them pensioners’ bums, dressed in polyester trousers, drip-dry powder-blue skirts and opaque tights, brown tweed slacks and polished black lace-up shoes. She recognised faces from the funeral. There was knitting. There was chatter. The sound of newspaper pages turning. The scents of warm bread, cigar smoke and strong coffee merged with the salty sea air. Everyone, it seemed, over the age of seventy-five descended on Café Estrella for breakfast.

As she was staring intrigued at the colourful array of customers, a figure plonked itself down in the seat opposite.

‘Hello.’ Thomas King pulled off his sunglasses.

‘Er, hello,’ Ava said, surprised at his arrival.

He looked terrible.

She surreptitiously ran her hand through her hair all the same, still under the spell of wanting to impress simply because he’d been famous.

‘I had the worst night’s sleep I’ve had in years,’ he said, reaching forwards to toy with the menu, tapping the laminated corner on the table. ‘You kept me awake.’

Ava almost snorted. ‘Me?’

‘Yes.’ He tried to catch the waiter’s eye. ‘God I need a coffee. You need a coffee?’ He turned back to Ava who said, ‘Yes,’ still unsure what he was doing at her table. Tom signalled to the waiter then sat back, rubbing his neck as he thought about what to say. ‘I think that maybe yesterday I wasn’t quite as supportive as I could have been.’

She raised a brow.

Tom shook his head. ‘And I don’t think Val would have been impressed.’

‘No,’ she said.

‘No,’ he agreed. ‘She’d have killed me. I felt pretty bad. All night. That’s what kept me up. I think she was haunting me,’ he said, his expression giving the sense of a smile just lurking below the surface. ‘So. Well . . .’ He held his arms wide. ‘Sorry.’

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