At that moment Celeste stepped out, saw her, and stopped. The Moroccan woman pressed her lips together and for a moment Dimity thought she saw irritation flash across her face, before a sort of resignation, and then a smile.
“Mitzy. And before the kettle has even boiled,” she said, taking Dimity by her upper arms and kissing her on both cheeks. “How are you? How is your mother?”
“You’re so late,” Dimity mumbled in response, and Celeste shot her a quizzical look.
“Well, we did think about not coming this year. We thought about taking a house in Italy instead, or perhaps Scotland. But the girls wanted the beach, and Charles has been working very hard, and left it too late to organize anything else, so… here we are.” She did not invite Dimity in, did not offer her tea. “We probably won’t stay the whole summer. It depends on the weather.” Just then, Charles appeared from the car with a bag in each hand, and Dimity whirled around to face him.
“Mitzy! How are you, dear girl? Come to see Delphine already, have you?” He bustled past her, pausing to brush her cheek with a fleeting kiss as he carried on up the stairs with the luggage. Dimity shut her eyes and pressed her hand to the place on her face where his lips had touched. The kiss sent a bolt of sheer pleasure to the pit of her stomach. When she opened her eyes, Celeste was watching her carefully, and something measuring, something vaguely like suspicion, crossed her face. Dimity blushed, and though she tried to think of something to say, her mouth and her head remained empty.
“Well,” Celeste said eventually. “The girls have gone straight down to the beach. Delphine has a friend to stay this first week. Why don’t you run down and see them?”
Dimity did as she was bid, but it was obvious at once that things wouldn’t be the same, not with Delphine’s friend to make their trio a foursome. The girl’s name was Mary. She had pale blond hair set in a very grown-up wave, and blue eyes that sparkled with amusement as they took in Dimity’s ragged clothes and bare feet. Mary looked at her in the same way as the other youngsters in the village, and in spite of Delphine’s warm greeting, Dimity felt at once that she was not wanted. Mary had on a blouse of soft raspberry silk, which fluttered in the breeze. Mary had jewelry that sparkled, and a touch of paint on her lips.
“Hello, Mitzy!” Élodie called, as she cartwheeled around them on the sand. “Look at Mary’s bracelet-isn’t it just the prettiest thing?” Smiling haughtily, Mary held out her wrist, and Dimity agreed that it was a pretty bracelet. She caught Delphine’s eye, and saw her friend’s cheeks coloring, saw her fidget uncomfortably. In front of Mary, Delphine did not want to be the kind of girl who picked from hedgerows or learned the Dorset names for things. In front of Mary, she wanted to be the kind of girl who might marry a film star. Inventing some errand, Dimity backed away, and as she turned she heard the blond girl say, in a supercilious tone:
“Oh dear, do you think I frightened her? Do you think she’s ever seen a charm bracelet before?”
“Don’t be unkind,” Delphine chided her, but without much heat.
“Daddy said she’s never left this village in her whole life. Can you imagine how boring that must be?” said Élodie.
“Élodie, stop showing off,” Delphine snapped at her sister. Dimity fled, and heard no more.
The girls gave each other a wide berth that week, and though Dimity burned with impatience, and longed to visit Littlecombe, she felt too cowed and angry after Celeste’s cool welcome and without Delphine to visit. But she spotted the three girls on the beach and in the village, and more than once down at Southern Farm, flirting with Christopher Brock, the farmer’s son. Mary twirled her hair around her fingertips and postured and simpered at him like an idiot, but it was Delphine who seemed to be able to flummox him with a word, or a glance. Whenever she spoke to him, he hung his head, smiling shyly, and once Dimity was close enough to see the blush infusing his cheeks. Delphine’s friend laughed like a jay when she saw, and tried not to show how much she minded, but Dimity smiled secretly to see her swallow her pride over it.
When eight days had passed, Dimity began to consider visiting again, since Mary ought to have left. She was in the privy one afternoon, surrounded by the sweet, pungent stink of the pit and the buzzing of insects, tearing up squares of newspaper to hang on the hook and arranging branches of elder to discourage the flies, when she heard Valentina shout through the back door. She had been dreaming about the indoor plumbing at Littlecombe, with the cistern high up on the wall and a brass chain to flush it by, and soft rolls of toilet paper. No rough wooden seat or festering slurry underneath. No checking under the lid for the fat brown spiders that hid there to startle the unwary. Valentina shouted again.
“What, Ma?” Dimity called, letting the privy door slam shut behind her as she crossed the cluttered backyard. To her surprise, Élodie and Delphine appeared around the side of the cottage, looking around curiously. Dimity stopped in her tracks. “What are you doing here?” she said, horrified. The girls stopped; Delphine smiled uncertainly.
“We came to find you…” she said. “I… we… hadn’t seen you for a while. Up at the house, I mean. I thought you might go foraging with me again?” Dimity was puzzled by this, since they both knew why she had not visited-it had turned out that Dimity was a fall-back friend, a friend to be had when no better alternative was around. She felt a flare of resentment towards Delphine.
“I’m too busy. I’m not on a summer holiday, you know-I must help my mother and do my work, same as I ever did.”
“Yes, of course. But-”
“I suppose it’s a bit boring for you, now Mary’s gone,” she said.
“Oh, yes. It really is,” said Élodie. Dimity looked at the youngest girl, with her pretty, petulant face. But there was no rancor in it, no sneer. It was a simple statement of fact, laden with misunderstanding. Delphine blushed and looked stricken.
“I didn’t mean to throw you over! Honestly not. It was just a bit difficult with Mary here-I had to entertain her, you see. I was the hostess, and she rather wanted us all to herself. You do understand, don’t you?” she said. Dimity felt her heart soften, but she wasn’t quite ready to forgive her. “It was only a week,” Delphine went on. “She’s gone off home now, and we have the whole rest of the summer.”
Dimity considered this apology, and wasn’t sure how to respond. It was one of the first she had ever had, from anybody. Élodie sighed and put her hands in her pockets, swinging her hips side to side impatiently.
“Can’t we go inside for tea?” she asked. “Will your mother have made any? She seemed in rather a bad mood.”
“That’s just how she is,” Dimity told her shortly. Sometime during the past two years the pretense of Valentina being a warm and caring mother had evaporated. She didn’t bother to explain how absurd an idea it was that she could invite them in, have them sit down inside The Watch to a tea that Valentina had prepared. It was pure fiction.
“Is that your loo?” said Delphine, after the silence had begun to stretch. Delphine sounded cheerful and curious, and Dimity felt a wave of heat rise through her. The heat of humiliation, and anger.
“Yes, it is.” Her voice was half choked. It stinks in the summer and it’s freezing in the winter, and there are spiders and flies, and the newsprint leaves ink on your skin when you wipe, and there is no neat flush and splash of clean water to whisk away your foul doings-they sit there beneath you in a heap, steaming, for you and all who come after you to see. This is the bloody privy. This is my bloody life. This is no summer holiday. But she did not say any of that.