Bringing the Summer (2 page)

Solid train meeting soft flesh.

 

Next morning, after breakfast together, me telling the story of my island summer, answering questions about Gramps and Evie, after all that, and once Mum and Dad have both left for work, I turn on my computer. I check emails.

I flick through local news items, to see if there's anything about yesterday's accident. Nothing. But as soon as I type the two words
train suicides
into the search engine, a whole load of references come up: far too many. I'm suddenly sickened by the whole business, can't bear to read any of them.

I make coffee, instead, and take it with me into the garden, to the place we've made for remembering Joe. I sit on the bench, under the cream roses, and I doodle in my sketchbook for a while. I flip back through the last few pages, full of six weeks' worth of drawings: summer on St Ailla. Boats at the jetty; the old lighthouse; the beach at Beady Pool; Danny fishing for mackerel off the rocks. Danny's my friend who I first met three summers ago when he was staying with his family at the farm campsite, down the lane from Evie and Gramps' house. I've seen him each summer since. Except this year, because it rained so much, they went home early.

I send him a quick text.
Back home now :( You missed the best days. Sunny all this week! Fx

In a week's time I shall be starting college. I'm going to be doing my A levels at the further education college in town: Art, English and Biology. Miranda will be there, too. Miranda and I have been best friends for ever.

I phone her. She doesn't answer, so I text her instead.
I'm back! Want 2 meet up 2day? I'm going to swim at the weir. See you there at 2? Bring a picnic.

It's the lazy end of summer, just before everything changes. Sometimes it's a sad time of year for us (Joe died in late August) but this year I'm ready for change, for a new beginning. It's been a wetter than usual summer, but the last week has been fine and sunny: what Dad calls an Indian summer. One that comes late and unexpectedly.

 

The field next to the river where you can swim above the weir is the closest thing we've got to a beach in this landlocked city. On hot days, local kids cycle there along the towpath that runs next to the canal. Families come too.

I haven't ridden my bike all summer. I find it at the back of the garage, covered in dust and spiders' webs and with a flat tyre. It takes me ages to find a bike pump. I can't be bothered to mend a puncture now so I just pump up the tyre and hope for the best. I put the bike pump in the bag with the picnic food, just in case.

It's easier cycling once I'm off the road and on to the level towpath. I've forgotten how good it feels, spinning along past the moored-up boats, past the backs of houses and long gardens, ducking under the stone bridges that cross the canal. It doesn't take long before I've left the city way behind and the houses have given way to fields. I reach the place where you have to come off the path and take a track down to a lane and the level crossing over the railway. I lock the bike up against the fence, where there are already loads of other bikes, pick up my bag and push through the wicket gate.

Wait. Watch. Listen
, the wooden sign says. It's a clear stretch of railway so you can see easily whether there's a train coming either way, and there's a proper crossing, wooden boards over the rails, so it's perfectly safe. Today more than usual I take in the other sign:
Danger of Death
. It's totally silent. No humming of the rails, no train remotely in view either direction. I know that the London train comes through every half-hour, and there are slower local trains every so often. Even so, I wait, and listen again, before I walk across. My palms are sweaty by the time I've got to the other side, through the gate and across the stile into the field.

The cows have retreated to the opposite end of the field, mostly lying down at the edge under trees. The sound of splashing water and shouting voices drifts up from the river. I can't see Miranda. I wander through the groups of people sunbathing on the grass till I see people I recognise from school. Ellie and Tabitha wave at me. I go over to them.

‘All right?' Ellie says.

‘Yes. You?'

She nods, sleepily.

Tabby gets up and gives me a hug. ‘You look great, Freya! Good summer?'

‘Amazing!' I say. ‘You?'

She shrugs. ‘Nothing special.' She looks at my rolled-up towel. ‘You swimming?'

I nod. ‘You'll be staying a while? I'll leave my stuff here.' I strip off my skirt and top – I've got my swimming things on already, underneath – and walk over the grass towards the river. I climb down the steep bank to the water.

Compared to the sea, the river water's almost warm. I wade in further and as soon as it's deep enough, start swimming upstream away from the line of kids splashing at the edge and balancing along the top of the weir. The light is golden, streaming through a canopy of green willow branches, making liquid gold on the surface of the river as it flows downstream. I swim against the current with strong, smooth overarm strokes until I'm far upstream and there's no one else around.

Swimming in a river is very different from the sea. The way it moves, and the colour; even the texture of the water is different, like silk, soft against my skin instead of stinging and salty. I keep away from the bank, where the water is shallow and it's easy to stir up silt with your feet. A kingfisher flashes across in front of me, and disappears again. Suddenly hungry, I tread water and turn, swim back downstream.

I find Miranda sitting on the weir, her legs dangling over the edge. Her skin is smooth and golden, her hair sun-bleached from two weeks of Spanish sun.

‘Hey, you!'

She turns. ‘Freya!'

We hug, and she shivers. ‘You're freezing! How long have you been in the water?'

‘Long enough. I'm hungry. Coming out?'

She walks carefully back along the slippery edge. The weed beneath the water looks like combed green hair. I swim beside her until it's too shallow, clamber out on to the bank and walk after her, dripping, to my towel. When I've dried myself, I spread out the cotton sheet I've brought for us to lie on, and we share our picnics.

The afternoon wears on, a drowsy, hot September day, wasps buzzing lazily round the bags and bottles, Miranda and me catching up on a whole summer apart. Some of the time, we just doze in the sun. Warmed through, contented, I listen to Miranda's account of summer love in Spain, the hopelessness of holiday romance. Someone called Jamie.

‘So I probably won't see him ever again!' She sighs.

‘Where does he live?'

‘Edinburgh. Well, that's where he's studying.'

‘You could fly,' I say. ‘From Bristol.'

‘It wouldn't be the same, though,' Miranda says. ‘It only worked because of where we were.'

‘Well then.'

‘Perhaps I'll meet someone at college. There might be boys we don't know.'

‘Of course there will. Loads of new people.'

‘And Danny? How did that go?' Miranda asks me.

‘Good. Only I didn't see much of him. They left early. It was wet almost all the time he was there.'

‘And?'

‘Nothing else. Nothing to report.'

Miranda narrows her eyes. ‘Are you sure?'

‘Promise.'

‘OK. I believe you. I think.'

I laugh. Miranda's always trying to matchmake. It's her main occupation. She's never even met Danny, but she's convinced he'd be perfect for me, if only he was about a year older. At our age, she says, girls are sooo much more mature than boys. Danny's sixteen, like me.

 

By seven, most of the families have packed up and gone home and a new load of people arrive, with barbecues and beer and music. Swallows swoop low over the field, catching flies. As the sun goes down, the sky turns pink and golden and then a deep turquoise blue. We're both chilled from sitting still so long. The cows that were grazing at the far end of the field move closer towards the river, chomping the dampening grass as they go.

I stand up and stretch. ‘Better go back. I haven't got proper lights on my bike.'

We pack up the picnic things, and say goodbye to the people we know from school, and traipse back up the path to the railway crossing. There aren't so many bikes piled up now. We unlock ours and disentangle them.

By the time we start cycling back, side by side along the canal towpath, the boat people are sitting in groups round small fires along the grass at the edge of the path, lanterns hanging on the low tree branches, and the summer night smells of wood smoke and roll-ups and charred meat.

‘Would you like to live like that?' Miranda asks. ‘On one of those narrowboats?'

‘I wouldn't mind,' I say, ‘in summer. Except, if I had a boat, I'd want to be able to go places. Not just on the canal, up and down.'

And that makes me think of my brother, who was going to go places too. And then that reminds me of the train
incident
, so I tell Miranda about what happened, and it changes the mood of the evening, but not in a good way.

Miranda looks at me. ‘You want to be careful,' she says. ‘It was just a random thing. It didn't mean anything. Don't go brooding about it.'

‘No,' I agree.

But of course I do. I just don't tell her about it any more.

Four

We're into the third week of college. It's mid-September, and the Indian summer is still with us: one sunny day after another. It's a waste, having to be inside so much. But at least college is different from school: you don't have registration with your tutor in the morning, or have to stay on the premises at breaks; you're free to come and go, and they treat you like you're grown up. Because the college is right in the middle of town, we can go off for coffees and lunch, and to the park, whenever we don't have lessons.

The art studios are amazing, much better than the school art rooms, and one of our teachers – we're supposed to call them lecturers, now, and we can use their first names (Jeanette) – is a proper successful artist who has exhibitions and sells her paintings. So it feels more real, and more as if it's a proper thing to do, instead of some
pipe dream
, which is what Dad thinks. One of my assignments is to research artists' interpretations of the theme of discord, so that's what I'm doing now, in the learning resources centre. It's the end of the day, and no one else is here.

It's only a few clicks on a search engine to go from Ana Mendieta and Annette Messager to Railway-Related Deaths. I'm searching, again, for something about the train accident.

I find a list of deaths, in date order. I check the places, and the dates. It's that simple. The stark details come up on the screen. The date, first, and the place. I find a name.
Bridie
. Immediately, my heart does a sort of leap. A real person, a girl, and she died. Of course she did. I knew that, didn't I? How could anyone possibly survive being hit by a train? But knowing the name, knowing it was a girl, makes it all suddenly much more shocking.

I find another article, from a local newspaper. There's just been an inquest in Exeter. It gives the date for the funeral, and the place. I look that up, too. I do all this research on autopilot, and I write it down in my notebook, as if it's part of the Art project. Perhaps in some weird way it is. I don't tell anyone. Bit by bit, I work out what I'm going to do. I don't tell anyone about that, either.

 

Five days later, I'm taking the train westwards again, on a Friday lunchtime. It means I'm skipping an English class, but . . . well, I couldn't explain to anyone why, but I just know I need to go to the girl's – Bridie's – funeral. It's at some random church in the middle of the city but the train journey is easy enough, and the church is only a short walk away, according to the street map I download.

It's the first time I've been on a train since it happened. I notice how much more nervous I am; the way I check out the other people in the carriage, and listen out to the different sounds of the engine. I breathe deeply to make myself relax. The train stops three times. A few people get on and off. No one takes any notice of me in my window seat with my notebook on the table in front of me.

At Exeter I get off the train and make my way out of the station and on to the main road. I check the map. I've allowed too much time: there's ages before I need to be there, so I walk along the main road to find a café. I choose one near the church, push open the door and go in.

I take in the black-and-white lino floor and a random collection of old wooden tables. I sit down at a sewing machine trestle table with metal legs. The café walls are papered with music sheets – pages of them from old books. I order tea. I do my usual thing of watching everyone come in and out. I draw; quick pen and ink sketches, and the sounds of the busy café waft over me: the hiss of the milk steamer; the clatter of cups and saucers; people chatting. I make my tea last a long time. I make up stories in my head about who people are, and why they're here. A mother and daughter: shopping trip. Three students, having a late lunch, planning some music event. An older man with a younger one – his son, who he hardly ever sees? I watch a middle-aged man and a woman leaning across the table to be closer, so rapt and intent on each other I guess they are new lovers. Not married. Perhaps it is the beginning of an affair . . .