‘Come on—you know you’ve got a thing about him.’
‘I know, but—’
‘And we haven’t seen him for ages.’
Ruth shrugged and turned away. ‘Wait—he’s with someone.’
‘Who?’
‘He’s talking to someone.’
As Vicky continued to stare, the gradient of the field, which sloped gently downwards, seemed suddenly much steeper. The next minute she grabbed hold instinctively of one of the raspberry canes as the entire field lurched out from under her feet.
She’d never had such an intense or sudden attack of vertigo before.
‘Vick?’ Ruth said, turning to her, worried. ‘What happened? You looked like you were about to black out.’
‘Vertigo—I just took some Valium.’
‘What colour?’
‘Blue.’
‘How many?’
‘Two—like, 20mg or something. Don’t look at me like that.’ Vicky broke off. ‘It’s Saskia!’
‘What?’
‘The person Mr Sutton’s talking to—it’s Saskia.’
Still high, Saskia drifted down between the rows of netted redcurrant bushes able to feel every crevice and ridge beneath the thin soles of the sandals she’d bought at a market in the south of France. Mel and Tony were pre-divorce friends of her father’s. Richard Greaves had known Mel since university and the Greaves stayed in their villa at St Julien most Julys. During the first week, before Ruth arrived, Mel drove Saskia to the local market—a girls only trip—and for a whole two hours she’d tried to be Saskia’s mother, then she got bored with the idea and moved onto something else. Before she got bored she bought Saskia the sandals she was now wearing—had worn all summer, in fact—and a bracelet made of bottle tops that African immigrants were selling on blankets, which Ruth had admired when they picked her up from the airport in Montpellier. Saskia had been so pleased to see her she’d almost given it to her before changing her mind and deciding to keep it.
A plane passed overhead. She watched its shadow move solidly over the ground and redcurrant bushes, her eyes following it as it ran over the rows—until she saw Mr Sutton. Was that Mr Sutton from school—picking redcurrants just like her, approximately five rows away? She wasn’t convinced it was. Saskia believed in UFOs; she believed in ghosts, parallel universes and monsters like the Yeti that evolution had stranded, and sometimes she got confused and saw things out of the corner of her eye that never quite materialised when she really concentrated.
No—Mr Sutton was definitely there. He was waving at her.
Saskia didn’t wave back, she just carried on staring.
He hesitated then made his way over to her row.
‘Hey,’ he said, pleased to see her. Saskia was one of a handful of pupils going on to study art at degree level, and he kept this coterie of girls close.
Saskia finally emerged from what her grandmother used to refer to as one of her ‘brown studies’—lapses of attention that had induced her mother to have her tested for epilepsy as a child—and smiled back at Mr Sutton.
He was wearing shorts and a yellow polo shirt. The effect was stodgy and preppy and just not him at all. Her dad wore polo shirts; they’d been bought for him by his ex-wife, who was also Saskia’s mother, because he never knew what to wear when he wasn’t wearing a suit. Now her mother was dressing a different man, and although her dad made an effort—post-divorce—not to wear the polo shirts, he also made the mistake of not throwing them away. He came across them when he was looking for something to decorate in and after that they once more became fixtures in his casual wardrobe even though they were covered in paint stains and smelt of white spirit.
For this reason, although she didn’t know it, Saskia had always associated polo shirts with helplessness, and seeing Mr Sutton wearing a yellow one confused her because he’d never struck her as helpless before. It was like somebody had got to him before he could get to himself, and it made her feel sorry for him.
He must have read something of what she was thinking in her eyes then because he paused, suddenly awkward. ‘What are you picking?’
‘Redcurrants.’
He held up his punnet. ‘Me too.’
She nodded, gesturing to the redcurrant field they were standing in the middle of. ‘Yeah—’
‘I can’t believe I just said that.’
She nodded again. ‘Yeah—’
He laughed. ‘So—how’s it going?’
‘Fine. How’s your summer been?’
He had no idea how his summer had been. ‘I went to South Africa.’
She didn’t ask him who he went with—if anybody. ‘How was it?’
‘I can’t remember.’
Saskia laughed.
He twisted his neck like it might be stiff. ‘What about you? What have you been up to all summer?’
‘I went to the south of France with my dad.’
‘Get any painting done?’
She shook her head. ‘I had some ideas—made a few sketches.’
‘I’d like to see them.’
She nodded, aware that she had no intention of showing him the sketches she made after seeing Tony and Mel in the kitchen that night when she’d got up for some water. ‘We were staying with some friends of dad’s,’ she blurted out, trying to distract herself from the memory of Mel bent over the marble kitchen surface, her breasts pushed into a pile, her hands gripping the edge of it, and Tony behind her. It had looked fierce and ugly with about as much choreography involved as taking a crap, and now she was scared of the whole thing. ‘They had a pool and stuff.’
‘Sounds great.’
‘Yeah—the first couple of weeks were, then my dad and his friend Tony sort of remembered that they never really got on and that my dad’s always fancied his wife.’ Saskia heard herself saying it and couldn’t believe she was saying it, but couldn’t stop herself. ‘And Tony, who’s been holed up in paradise for about two years too long, was like drunk the whole time and then dad got drunk and then they started rowing.’ She paused for breath, horrified. She hadn’t told anybody this—not even Ruth, who’d actually been there—so why was she telling Mr Sutton in the middle of a field of redcurrants?
He was staring at her, about to say something when suddenly there was a woman standing next to him wearing black wraparound sunglasses that made her look like a beetle. She’d appeared from nowhere, had her hand on his arm, and was smiling at them both.
Behind the glasses, Saskia recognised Ms Webster who’d taught her Physics in Year 9. For a moment she wondered what on earth Ms Webster—who also coached the Burwood Girls’ Netball A Team—was doing at Martha’s Farm as well. Then she realised: Ms Webster was here because Mr Sutton was here; Ms Webster was here with Mr Sutton.
He’d been to South Africa with Ms Webster. They’d lain on the beach together, swam in the sea together, and had sex in a hotel—and other places—together. Now the yellow polo shirt—Ms Webster was wearing the same one—made sense.
‘Typical,’