Bringing the Summer (15 page)

‘Or we could go there.'

Mum shakes her head. ‘No. I don't think so. I don't think that's a very good idea at all.'

‘Why make such a big thing about it?' I say. ‘It's just a day.'

They both look at me, and then at each other.

I pick up my plate and take it over to the dishwasher. ‘I'm going upstairs.'

Up in my room, I text Miranda.
Are you free tomorrow? Can we do something FUN?

It's ages before she replies. I've almost given up; have had a bath and got into bed. I try reading, but my mind keeps drifting away from the page. At last my phone bleeps. Text message.

Ice-skating? Meet 11am station? Unless yr mum/dad can give lift?

Yes! 11 at station x
I text straight back, and then I turn off the light and burrow under the duvet, as if the soft darkness will keep my own thoughts at bay.

 

It's the most fun we've had together since . . . I don't know, Miranda's last birthday party, probably. She's much better at skating than I am; she used to have lessons, after school, and she can do all the stuff like turns and going backwards and even a bit of ice dancing. It's packed with people, being Sunday morning, but mostly families, younger kids. We lace up our boots and then hobble over to the rink, and holding hands, to begin with, while I get my confidence up, we skate round the edge of the ice near enough for me to grab the side rail if I start to tumble. After a few goes, I've got my balance right and we go faster, further from the edge. The effortless speed is exhilarating! We let go of our hands, and Miranda shows off her pirouettes and jumps and figures of eight. She teaches me how to go backwards, how to stop quickly, how to turn. We laugh and laugh, and then I make a mistake, and trip up and land hard on my bottom on the ice, and we laugh even more.

We come off the ice for a drink at the funny old-fashioned café at the side. Our cheeks are glowing, I'm wet through, but I feel brilliant. We sip milkshakes through straws. It's like being ten again, when it was so much easier to just have fun and not worry about anything.

‘So,' Miranda says, doing an extra-loud slurp through the straw to get up the last chocolatey bubbles. ‘What happened yesterday?'

She knows me so well!

‘I didn't go to the open day thing at all.'

‘Ah.'

‘I met Theo, instead.'

‘Theo?'

‘Gabes' brother.'

‘Freya!'

‘Don't be shocked!'

‘But I am! What were you thinking of? Are you completely crazy?'

‘Don't say that. I know, it's stupid. He's too old. He's Gabes' brother. But I had such a lovely time. We met in a café. He took me to this extraordinary museum. We went back to his house. We talked and talked. He kissed me.'

Miranda looks stricken. She doesn't speak at first. Then she says, ‘That's bad. Very bad. And worse than you think.'

‘What do you mean?'

‘Well, I didn't know anything about Theo, did I? And I didn't realise you hadn't told Gabes about you going to Oxford, obviously, since you didn't tell me you hadn't. Why would I guess a thing like that? So when I bumped into Gabes in town, yesterday, I just mentioned about you being in Oxford for the day, and I suppose he did look a bit peculiar, but I didn't know why, then . . . Now it makes more sense.' She pushes the empty glass round with her finger. She looks back at me. ‘What I don't get, more than anything, Freya, is why you have kept all this secret from me. I thought we were best friends.'

‘We are,' I say. ‘I'm so sorry, I know it seems weird, the whole thing.'

‘You planned it all out, and you didn't tell me.'

‘I know.' My voice sounds feeble, pathetic.

‘You didn't tell me because I'd have made you see what a mistake it was. I'd have stopped you. Honestly, you are totally hopeless, Freya.'

A little spurt of fire rises up inside me. ‘You don't understand. It's not like you think. Gabes and I aren't going out together. We're just friends. That's all.'

‘Really? Does he know that? And you're not going to be
friends
any more, I don't think. Not when he finds out about you and Theo.'

‘You won't tell him.'

‘No. But you should.'

I unwrap a chocolate bar and break off half for Miranda. Is she right? Is it anybody's business, any of it, other than Theo's and mine? I know the answer, really. I sigh deeply. Why do things get so complicated? I wish Miranda and I really were just ten years old, ice-skating, scoffing chocolate, best friends for ever and ever.

‘Remember that rhyme, from primary school?' I say. ‘
Make friends, make friends, never, never break friends.
'

She scowls at me. ‘And?'

‘Nothing; it just came into my head. Things were easier then.'

‘Well. Yes. Duh! We were kids. And now we've growed up, remember? No one said it would be easy.'

‘Grown, not growed.'

‘You!' Miranda stands up and pushes me, and I shove her back, and we start laughing again. ‘Come on, let's get moving!' She grabs my arm and we hobble back to the ice, and soon we're gliding smoothly off again, arm in arm. We leave our differences behind. We cross our arms in front, still holding hands, and then twist, turn, arms behind us, like an elaborate dance movement. The feeling of speed, of lightness, feet gliding over ice, through air, spins a new mood over us both.

The music changes. An announcement about
anyone with a blue band
comes over the loudspeakers. Our two-hour slot is up.

We're tired out. We sit for ages, unlacing our boots, collecting our shoes, sorting out coats, talking all the while about this and that; nothing important, nothing that will spoil things between us.

We emerge from the skating rink into a wet afternoon. We walk slowly back to the station and wait for a train home. ‘We should go skating again, with the college crowd,' Miranda says. ‘We all need more fun in our lives!'

‘You are so right. Let's go next weekend.'

‘You're not going back to Oxford, then?'

‘No. Nothing planned.'

‘Tell me, next time?'

‘Yes.'

‘Promise?'

‘Cross my heart. Hope to die if I tell a lie!'

We both laugh.

I give her a hug. ‘Thanks, Miranda!'

‘Whatever for?'

‘Being you. Being here. Understanding me.'

 

So it's so much worse, that I break my promise.

I don't tell Gabes about me and Theo, even when I go over to his house to see the newborn kittens.

I don't tell Miranda that Theo phones, twice. Sends me a postcard. Invites me for another weekend.

Seventeen

It's a bitterly cold day in early December. Because the Oxford University term is so short, theirs has already finished, whereas we've got another three weeks left at college.

Theo's waiting for me at the station. As the train pulls in, I can already see him scanning the carriages ahead, and then he spots me and our eyes meet. A delicious shiver runs down my spine.

He waits for me to open the door, his face solemn. He's got his coat collar turned up, and a black hat and grey scarf. His hands are pale and naked-looking.

I step down on to the platform. He holds both my hands in his for a second.

‘You're freezing!' I say. ‘Sorry to be so late. There were wrong signals or something. We waited for ages outside Didcot.'

He shakes his head.

I know I sound utterly banal. I can hear my own voice, babbling rubbish as we cross the car park.

We pause for him to unlock his bike, and then he pushes it along beside us as we walk back towards the city. We stop on the bridge to stare down at the frozen canal from the bridge. The houseboats are all marooned in ice.

‘
Steadily going nowhere! Happy the whole day long!
' The silly line from an advert on telly pops into my head and out of my mouth without warning. The more I want to be intelligent and mature, the worse I get. I put my arm through his, anyway, and we push on forward into the crowded streets.

‘Coffee first?' Theo asks.

‘Yes! Can we go somewhere else, this time? Not that greasy spoon place.'

Theo shrugs but he steers me down a narrow alleyway and along a cobbled street to a different café. He locks the bike outside and we go in and sit at the window table. We order coffee, and toasted crumpets because we're both suddenly starving. It seems the right sort of food for Oxford.

Theo warms his hands under his armpits, hugging himself. Now he's taken off his coat he looks thin, much thinner than last time I saw him. His face is pale, his eyes too dark.

‘How's the term been?' I ask him.

‘Mad. Too much work. Too many essays, all due in the same date.'

‘But you've finished, now?'

‘Yes.' He narrows his eyes as he looks at me. ‘Did you read the story? The one I wrote, I mean.'

‘Yes.'

‘You didn't mention it.'

‘No. I didn't know what to say.'

‘Did you like it?'

‘Yes. But it made me confused. Like, was it made up? Or real?'

‘Does it matter?'

‘To me, yes.'

He leans across the table so his face is close to mine. ‘What did you think, though, as you read it? That it happened like that? Could have happened?'

He frightens me when he's this intense.

I think, fast.

‘Yes,' I say. ‘It was totally believable. The girl – Bridie – seemed so real and alive it made me really sad . . .' my voice fades out. ‘That she . . . that she isn't, any more.'

Theo doesn't speak for a while. Our coffees arrive, and we eat the crumpets: two each, with butter dripping through the holes and pooling on to the plate.

‘But she lives on, in a way, through my story, doesn't she?' Theo says.

‘Yes, I guess . . .'

‘And I might write more about her.'

I don't know what to say to that. Bridie's ghost is hovering between us now, an unwelcome guest at the table.

‘I hear her voice, sometimes,' Theo says.

I look up at him. ‘Yes?' My heart beats faster. ‘That happened to me, too, after Joe died. I'd hear his voice, just as I was dropping off to sleep. I'd even see him, sometimes, or feel his arm brush mine . . . it's natural, when you've loved someone, Theo.'

‘No, not like that. I actually hear her. She talks to me,' Theo says.

I don't try and argue. There's no point.

I try to put it out of my head, but it's as if a shadow has fallen over us. Everything has shifted for a second. Things are not quite as they should be.

‘So,' I say brightly, to lift my own spirits. ‘Can we go to the Botanical Gardens, next? They'll be amazing in the frost.'

Theo makes an effort to lift the mood too. ‘You can draw them. Did you bring your notebook?'

‘Of course! But it's too cold to sit still and draw,' I say. ‘I'd like to see the river. And I want to find the seat where Lyra and Will sat, at the end of the last
His Dark Materials
book.'

‘See, you muddle up real life and stories all the time, too,' Theo says.

We put on our coats and scarves and Theo pays. ‘Ready?'

I nod.

‘There's a place on the river where people swim, all year round,' Theo says. ‘Even in the winter.'

‘Well, that's just crazy!'

‘I thought you liked river swimming?'

I know we're both remembering being at the stream together at Home Farm. The time we first met.

I'm thinking about what he said, on the way back from our swim that late summer afternoon:
I wish I'd found you first
.

‘What's your friend Duncan doing today?' I say.

‘Why?' Theo stops and for a second he looks almost angry. ‘He's packing up, if you must know, ready to go home to Birmingham.'

‘There's no need to be so spiky! I only asked.'

Theo recovers himself. ‘Sorry, Freya. I don't know what's the matter with me.'

We go past the big bookshop.

Theo points to a book in the window display, about
finding your inner fish
.

I laugh.

The tension between us gradually begins to ease.

 

The Botanical Gardens are thick with frost. It has edged the leaves with white fur, transformed seed heads into white baubles; the grass is like cake icing, crunchy under our boots. We run over the lawns, making maze patterns for each other to trace round and round. Our breath makes clouds in the still air.