Seven Months of Summer by Saskia Sarginson

Author:Saskia Sarginson [Sarginson, Saskia]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Little, Brown Book Group
Published: 2023-01-19T00:00:00+00:00

31

Summer

Outside Loretta’s cornflower blue cottage, two figures stand together. Summer puts up a hand to shield her eyes from the sun and realises it’s Dad and Loretta. They seem to be talking. Good, she thinks. They got off to a bad start, but hopefully they’re getting on better now. Except there’s something about their body language that alerts her to trouble – Dad’s shoulders are up, his chin poking out, and Loretta is gesturing too much.

Summer hurries to interrupt, smooth things over if necessary. She arrives, panting slightly.

‘Ah, there she is,’ Loretta swings towards her.

‘Everything okay?’

‘Of course,’ Dad says, not meeting her gaze. ‘I was just heading home.’

Loretta’s cheeks are flushed. Summer hopes Dad hasn’t been rude. Both she and Loretta watch him walk in the direction of the white cottage.

‘Are you … okay?’ Summer checks.

‘Yes, yes,’ Loretta seems flustered. ‘Now then,’ she changes the subject. ‘We should get going.’ She nods towards the camera bag at Summer’s hips. ‘Hopefully, you’ll get some good shots today.’

A couple of families have set up camp by the sea’s edge, with windbreaks and picnic blankets. A little boy is walking backwards, holding onto the string of a kite: a brightly coloured plastic bird hovers above him, the wind making the wings rustle and snap.

Loretta glares. ‘They’re trampling all over the vegetated shingle.’ She frowns, ‘It’s extremely rare and delicate.’

Summer looks at sea kale, their thick rubbery leaves like bouquets of giant green roses, the feathery grasses, long and yellow, seed heads a blur of delicate colours. She’s not sure how anything grows in the barren shingle. ‘It’s a shame if they get damaged,’ she agrees. ‘But at the same time, it’s so beautiful here. You can’t blame people for coming.’

Loretta looks unconvinced. They walk along the river wall, between fields of grazing sheep on one side, and on the other, shingle sloping down to the sea. Loretta stops every now and then to lift the binoculars to her face. Sometimes she hands them to her. ‘Just there,’ she’ll say softly, guiding the glasses to the right place. ‘Can you see that? It’s a marsh harrier.’

Loretta keeps up a surprisingly fast pace, stopping suddenly when she sees an interesting bird. Summer has to concentrate to avoid breaking an ankle on the rough, tussocky ground.

‘Avocets,’ Loretta whispers. ‘They hadn’t been sighted here for a hundred years. They came back in 1947, when the marshes were flooded to defend against the Germans.’

Summer follows the flight of the little birds through her camera, framing them against the gleam of water. Marsh and reed beds stretch away as far as she can see, a flat and watery landscape. The narrow river is empty of sails; Loretta explains that it’s shallow and difficult for boats to navigate. She grabs her arm. ‘A seal,’ she says. She points out the shiny head ducking under and then coming up again. Summer peers through the lens of her camera, and the creature pops up in her sights, giving her a close-up of its cat-like, whiskery face.

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