Bringing the Summer (13 page)

I check my map again: nearly there. My heart's beating fast. Any minute now and I'll see Theo . . .

Saturday morning, the indoor market's busy with shoppers queuing up for old-fashioned butchers' and greengrocers' stalls, florists and shoe shops. I find the Italian café at the opposite end to where I first came in. It's got lime green walls, a black-and-white lino floor, rows of wooden tables. Families and elderly people and – well, all sorts of
normal
people are eating breakfast. What did I expect? Not this.

I push open the door and queue up to order coffee. I've already spotted Theo at a table at the back, reading a book, pretending he hasn't noticed me, or perhaps he really is totally absorbed in the story. The café stinks of frying, hot fat, but I'm hungry so I order a bacon bap and a coffee. I wait for the Polish girl to make the coffee, and take it over with me to Theo's table.

He's wearing his usual black: skinny jeans, a fine woollen jumper, leather boots. Even the book –
Anna Karenina
– has a black cover.

‘I'm reading my way through the great Russians,' he explains as he puts the book away in a battered old satchel and turns his attention to me. ‘So. Freya.'

‘Hello.'

He smooths his too-long fringe from his face and stares at me intently. ‘You look –' he hesitates, choosing his words too carefully – ‘very healthy and wholesome.'

It's not a compliment, I know that, but I'm in too good a mood to take offence. ‘How are you?' I ask. ‘Not at all wholesome, by the look of you.'

‘Fine. Better for having two espressos. Bit of a night.'

He's being his worst, pretentious self, but I don't take much notice. I sip my coffee. The waitress brings over my bacon bap; I squeeze tomato ketchup over the bacon and eat slowly, enjoying every mouthful, just to make a point. ‘Where shall we go after coffee? You said you wanted to take me somewhere?'

‘When you've finished stuffing your face, I'll show you.' He smiles, despite himself.

‘Want some?' I say through an extra big mouthful.

He shakes his head.

A load of students come in and order full English fry-ups at the counter. This place must be trendy in an
ironic
way, I guess. Posh kids pretending to be working class. In my mind, I'm framing images. Shame I haven't brought a camera.

‘Ready then?' Theo pushes his chair back and stands up. He picks up his bag.

I'm not, really, but he clearly wants to leave. I drink my last bit of coffee and put my coat back on.

He leads the way out of the market through a different exit, into a narrow cobbled street. He unlocks his bike. ‘This way.'

I walk with him beside the bike, along a series of narrow streets between high stone walls, past college entrances and more parked bikes, across a broad street at the traffic lights, down another, wider street to the Natural History Museum. He locks up the bike.

‘Is this it?'

‘Not quite.' He leads the way into the museum entrance, then down one of the aisles, past rows of stuffed animals and skeletons: a reindeer, a horse. He takes me to the back of the museum to some steps leading down into semi-darkness. ‘The Pitt Rivers collection,' he says. ‘Random objects from all over the world:
anthropological artefacts
. All a bit weird, and very wonderful. You'll love it.'

Weird
is an understatement. Maybe it's the semi-darkness, or maybe the strange objects in the display cases, but I start feeling distinctly weird too. I spend ages looking at the ‘animals depicted in art' collection. I get my notebook out of my bag and sketch a little Egyptian cat, and then a large gold bee, about the size of my stretched hand. I copy down the words on its handwritten label:
Gilt Bee, Burma, Mandalay. Carved and gilded wood from King Thibaw's throne
.

‘My Gramps would love this,' I tell Theo.

‘Yes?'

‘He keeps bees. He'd like to think they were decorating a throne. Bees are really important, you know. And they are disappearing. No one knows exactly why. And if all the honeybees disappear, then humans won't be long after. We can't survive as a species without them, because of pollination – all the plants we depend on. We're all interlinked.'

‘Darwin.'

‘Well, yes, but it was Einstein who said the stuff about bees.'

‘Can I see your drawing?'

I hand my notebook to Theo.

He studies the bee and the cat. ‘They're good!'

‘Don't sound so surprised!'

‘It's just that Gabes' stuff never looks like anything.'

‘That's because it's not meant to, silly! It's abstract art.'

Theo hands back the notebook. ‘So, what time's your meeting?'

‘The open day goes on till four. Some time this afternoon will be fine.'

‘Want to see the shrunken heads?'

I'm not sure I do, but he shows me anyway, the glass case with the horrible heads: tiny, doll-sized, only they are human skin and real hair, with the brain taken out. There are some examples of scalps, too, where the top of someone's head has been sliced off. It makes me feel sick. The pressure building in my own head is getting worse. I turn away.

In another glass case, I find two little figures made out of moss and bark, a man and a woman. They're carved from wood and covered in moss, with hair and beard made of plant material – lichen, perhaps, with hats of bark. They are much friendlier than the heads and masks.

‘Come and see these moss people, Theo. They're from Russia. To worship a god who guarded the forests.'

But Theo is still in the thrall of the shrunken heads. I can't tell what he is thinking, and he doesn't offer to tell me.

I give up and leave him there. I walk past the display of old wooden skates and snowshoes made of bone and ivory, and find my way to the exit. I'm still feeling weird. It's a relief to get outside into sunshine.

I'm not sure how long I've been there before my mobile rings.

‘Hi, Theo.'

‘Where the hell are you?'

‘I'm outside, at the front of the building, on the steps. It's too creepy in there. I thought I was going to be sick.'

‘Wait there, then. I'll come and find you.'

It seems a long time before he comes through the door. He sits beside me on the stone step. I shiver.

‘We might as well go to my house, now,' he says. ‘It's not far from here.'

‘But what about my open day?'

‘It won't matter if you don't go. It's not as if you had a definite appointment or anything, is it? No one will know.'

‘Suppose not.'

‘They're rubbish anyway, those sort of days. You can't tell anything about what the course is really like. It's just a huge PR exercise.'

I never really wanted to go that much in the first place. It was just an excuse for coming to Oxford. But I don't tell Theo that, of course. I'll have to think what to say to Dad, though, later.

I stand up, button up my coat and wrap my scarf round.

He's already unlocked his bike, and is wheeling it across the grass to the road. I have to run to catch up.

 

The roads look more ordinary, this end of town. The grand buildings give way to brick terraced houses and small shops: an Indian grocer's, a second-hand furniture shop. Theo wheels his bike expertly with one hand on the saddle, and the other touches my back lightly, as if he's steering me, too. But I'm feeling fine, now. I just needed fresh air.

‘This is it.'

We stop at a brick building set at an angle to the street with a small scruffy yard at the front, a full dustbin, a row of empty bottles. The house has been divided into two: one half is smart, with neat window boxes and net curtains, and the other, with its crumpled, half-drawn blue curtain and scuffed wooden door, is evidently his.

‘Who else lives here?'

‘Just me and Duncan,' Theo says as he lets us in. ‘Music student. Composer, conductor, all round brilliant bloke. Makes excellent curry.'

There's no sign of him, just the piano taking up a huge part of the sitting room, and through the doorway, a pile of dirty saucepans in the kitchen sink. The carpet is covered in books, paper, stuff. I follow Theo through to the kitchen at the back – there's only the two rooms downstairs – and he opens big glass doors to show me their back garden. It's almost filled with a chestnut tree, much too big for such a small garden. A few pots containing the straggling dried-up remains of tomato vines are lined along one edge of the tiny square patch of grass.

‘Like it?'

‘Yes. Very nice.'

‘We actually grew things, last term,' Theo says. ‘And cooked them.'

It's hardly a surprise, given his family, but Theo seems oddly proud of himself. ‘I'll get you a rug, to sit on,' he says. ‘Do you want a drink?'

‘Just tea, please.'

‘Hmm.' He steps back into the kitchen and rummages in the fridge. ‘No milk. No fresh-enough milk, that is.'

‘Black tea, then.'

He passes me a blanket and a cushion from the sitting room.

I settle myself down on the grass in the thin sunshine. It's just about warm enough, with a coat on.

Theo brings out the tea, and a cake, on a chipped white plate. ‘In your honour. My special lemon and almond cake. Made with polenta instead of flour.'

‘What's polenta?'

‘Maize meal. Like you get everywhere in Italy.'

‘Really? Never been.' I take a small bite. ‘It's not bad, considering,' I say.

‘Considering what?'

‘You made it. And that it's made with maize meal!'

Theo laughs, and he leans in towards me, and before I really know what's happening he kisses me. On the lips: fleeting and tantalising.

My face burns. I'm suddenly aware that I'm totally alone here with Theo; no one else knows where I am. Gabes' face flashes into my mind. I push the image away again.

‘You look so funny sitting there all wrapped up in your big coat,' Theo says. ‘A little hungry waif.'

‘You said I was
wholesome
and
healthy
before,' I say. ‘What happened?'

‘Dark magic in the museum, of course!' Theo says. ‘Those hungry spirits, just waiting for a healthy girl like you to come along, to give them a home.'

‘Don't. Not even as a joke.' I shiver again.

‘What a sensitive flower you are. I'd never have expected it.'

‘Why not?'

‘Didn't think of you like that. You are so cheerful and positive all the time. All that swimming and cycling and outdoor stuff you do.'

‘Only you could make that sound insulting,' I say. ‘Anyway, you can talk! You swim and cycle too.'

‘But I'm not relentlessly cheerful, or quite so positive.'

I don't like him saying that.

‘And now I've offended you.'

‘Yes.'

Theo frowns.

‘There's nothing wrong with being cheerful. It's better than being moody and pretentious and arrogant!' I say.

Theo cuts another slab of cake for himself and eats it slowly. He looks at me from under that stupid fringe and makes his mouth go into a sort of pout, a caricature of someone who's sorry.

I can't seem to stop myself. ‘You're not the only person who reads poetry and long, complicated novels and has deep thoughts and . . . and sad things have happened to them.'

Theo looks genuinely hurt.

I'm glad.

Finally he apologises. ‘I'm sorry I upset you,' Theo says. ‘I really didn't mean to. I like you a lot, Freya. Always have done, from the beginning. I was just being – I don't know – glib? It's just how I talk. A habit. Covering up what I'm really feeling.'

For a second I catch a clear glimpse of a different Theo. Someone much more vulnerable than he lets on. Someone I could really like.

I change the subject. ‘Your cake is delicious, actually,' I say. ‘And I love your house.'

‘Shall I show you round?'

‘Yes please.'

 

It's really tiny; just two two bedrooms and a small bathroom upstairs. Theo's room is at the back, above the kitchen, looking over the garden. The tree fills the window space, throwing deep shadows into the room.

Theo turns on the desk light. He has lined up rows of photographs along a bookshelf, almost an echo of the photo display on the piano back at Home Farm. The familiar faces of his family smile out at me. And there's one more face: the one I've been half expecting to see: the girl he played with as a child, and was fascinated by as a teenager, and who has planted herself in my brain, too: a ghost girl.