Free Last Guests of the Season by Sue Gee Page A

had been unquestionably still a child, almost a little girl. The Hobbs boys had been here, the elder the same age as she: the four of them had, on the whole, played companionably, and there had been little sense that Jess, as a girl, was set apart. This year was different, and changes which in everyday life at home Claire had been barely aware of seemed here, in a new summer, to be dramatic. Jess was taller, leaner – that is to say, she had lost most of her puppy fat – but there were already indications that her outline would change again, that she would gradually fill out, and have, like Claire, a noticeable bottom and heavy breast’s. This time next year she would have begun to cross the threshold; now, with her clear soft skin and thick mane of hair she was still this side of it, but only just. And the distance between her and the boys was great. Of course – why should she want to walk with them? Yet she couldn’t hang around the grown-ups all the time. I should have foreseen this, Claire thought, I should have arranged for a friend. But that would have introduced another element into what had already felt like quite enough: coming here with people they barely knew. She said nothing, but put her arm round her daughter’s shoulders – briefly, because Jessica, so unlike Jack, was becoming undemonstrative.
    Out of the canopy of vines the heat struck them again: that, and the dizzying whirr of the cicadas, the dance of butterflies in and out of the long straight rows of whiskery maize.
    â€˜We’ve got one!’ came Tom’s voice. ‘Look!’ He emerged from one of the rows, his hands cupped. ‘It’s tiny.’ He came up to them slowly, stepping over the cracked and stony earth; he carefully opened his hands and they gathered round, admiring. The grasshopper, a bright, beautiful green, sat motionless.
    â€˜Oh, he’s lovely,’ said Jess.
    â€˜He came into my hands as easy as anything.’ Tom carefully enclosed him once again. ‘There’s lots, come and see.’
    They followed him across rough ground.
    â€˜He’s just like Gerald Durrell,’ said Claire to Frances, and even as she said it, thought: is Gerald Durrell who Frances and Oliver would have chosen?
    Irrigation ditches criss-crossed the field, the thick red earth piled up alongside, caked hard, bordered by strings of vines. They found Jack squatting on his heels, looking intently into shallow water, the nets flung down on the earth; they went across to him, sandals crunching on last year’s stubble between this year’s crop.
    â€˜Sssh!’ he said. ‘There’s another.’
    They crept, like explorers, beginning to sweat, the air filled with cicadas. Little brown birds flitted in and out of the maize, and an enormous grasshopper leapt, suddenly, across their path.
    â€˜Wow!’ said Tom. ‘Did you see that? I’m going to get him.’ He moved forward quickly, jerkily, his hands still cupped, tripped on a protruding stone and went flying. ‘Ow, ow!’
    The first grasshopper, released, leapt away, at once invisible, and Tom, bare limbs scratched by the sharp dry stalks, sat up rubbing his shin. ‘Ow!’
    Jack looked up, cross. ‘You idiot – now he’s gone.’
    â€˜Shut up!’ said Tom. ‘You wouldn’t like it, there’s stones here, how would you like it, having a great stone bang into you? Ow!’
    â€˜All right,’ said Frances, bending over him. ‘All right, never mind.’ She tried to rub his leg, but he pulled it away.
    â€˜What do you mean, never mind?’
    â€˜Oh, for God’s sake –’ She stood up, shaking her head. ‘Please can we go to the river?’ And she set off, not looking back, a slender blue and stone figure against the browning maize.
    â€˜Oh, dear,’ said Robert.
    Oliver pulled Tom to his feet.
    â€˜Is there going to be any more fuss