Bringing the Summer (26 page)

‘Guess.'

‘The Bible?'

‘No. Lady Julian of Norwich.'

‘
Who?
'

‘Medieval mystic. 1342 to 1416.'

‘Honestly, Theo! What are you like!'

‘Impressively well read? An inspiration?'

‘If you weren't driving I'd hit you!'

Theo laughs.

I'm relieved. It is all going to be all right. We will still be friends. I'll still be able to visit Home Farm sometimes. And in just a few hours, it will be the first day of the New Year, a new beginning for us all.

Twenty-eight

Beginnings, endings. One door shuts and another door opens. That's what Evie said to me, way back at the end of the summer.

I'm sitting on my bed, making a bracelet for Miranda out of different coloured silk threads. I've chosen the colours I associate with her: apricot, cream, orange, pink, purple and apple green. It's a new, complicated chevron pattern with six strands so I have to concentrate and be very patient, methodically weaving and knotting the coloured threads, but it's satisfying, too: the rhythm of it. After a while my hands learn the pattern; my fingers move by instinct.

I start thinking about my own life, with its different coloured strands, like a bracelet. I imagine saying that to Miranda and making her hoot with laughter. The different strands weave in and out of each other, so that one colour is sometimes stronger or more vivid than the others. Sometimes there seems to be just one dominant colour, and no tones or shades. If you look really closely, though, you can see that the other more subtle colours are still there. Gabes' strand is gold, and Theo's a darker colour, not black but blue-dark, like a night sky.

There's another thread that has been there all along, running underneath, though I've only just started to notice it. Danny. And I'm not sure yet what colour he'll be; it's too soon to tell. Turquoise blue, like a summer sea? Or silver, like a live mackerel? Or something else, quite unexpected?

 

The post arrives. Mum comes upstairs and knocks on my door. ‘Postcard for you, from Evie.' She hands it to me.

‘Thanks, Mum.' I wait for her to go back downstairs before I read it.

Evie says she loves the painting I sent them for Christmas. They are going to frame it and hang it in the sitting room in pride of place above the fireplace. Gramps sends his love too.
Guess what? The old lighthouse buildings have been sold! Or maybe you've heard already? Danny's dad was over here just before Christmas.

I stare at the words. Does she mean what I think she means? That Danny's family are buying the lighthouse buildings?

Years ago, Joe and I sunbathed in the overgrown garden next to the empty buildings and imagined living there. We talked about having special curved furniture to fit in the round rooms in the old tower. The view from the top would be amazing.

Two and a half years ago, when the derelict buildings were actually for sale, I wanted Dad to buy them and do them up so we could have our own house on St Ailla and live there all year round. It was after we'd sold the big house near the canal; Mum and Dad were looking for somewhere new, to make a fresh start after Joe died. But Dad said no: Mum would never contemplate living there. Being so close to the sea would be a constant reminder of losing Joe. Dad had a whole string of other reasons, too. There's only one little shop; it's hundreds of miles away from their work and friends; it's a little too close to his mum and dad, lovely as they are. Island life is just too small. And I told him what Gramps always says:
if you want to see a lot, standing still in one place is a good way to do it
.

For a second, a pang of envy clutches my heart.

But I know it couldn't ever be mine, really. And if that's so, then there's no one I'd rather see living in the old lighthouse buildings than Danny and his family.

I send him a message.

What's this about the lighthouse????

Danny texts me almost straight back.

It's true! We've bought it. Going to do it up for summer holidays!

I'm so excited I have to talk to him. I call him. ‘Danny? It's me!'

‘Freya!'

‘It's amazing news. Why didn't you tell me before?'

‘It's only just happened. We had to wait for the bank to decide about a loan. We've got to borrow loads of money. We'll be broke for years. But Mum and Dad were determined . . . Hattie's over the moon!'

Hattie is Danny's little sister. ‘She can have a bedroom in the tower,' I say. ‘Like a princess!'

‘It'll be years of work, first,' Danny says. ‘Every hour of every holiday, probably. But I'm excited about it. It'll be awesome when it's finished.'

‘I'll be going over to St Ailla in April,' I say. ‘It was my Christmas present from Gramps. Will you all be there, then?'

‘I guess.'

‘So I'll see you then?'

‘Yes.'

 

That's over three months' time. By then, I'll have finished my next project for Art. We're doing life drawing this term; I'm doing a special study of the human hand. Both Danny and I will have exams coming up; maybe we could do Biology revision together, in between his work on the lighthouse with his dad. Biology is Danny's favourite subject: he's going to be either a marine biologist or an oceanographer, he says.

I start to see it all unfold in my mind's eye.

 

First there's the journey. The train, then the ferry.

The sea will be rough, with a strong swell that makes the boat roll. A spring gale will be blowing. Everyone on the ferry will be feeling sick. But after four or five hours we'll be nearly there, and as soon as we get alongside the first of the outer islands at the edge of the archipelago the rolling will stop as the sea becomes more shallow. The mood on the boat will lift. I'll see a swallow: the first of the summer.

When we arrive at the harbour on Main Island I'll make my way down the stone steps to the little island ferry,
Spirit
, for the final leg of my journey.

Evie and Gramps will be waiting on the jetty at St Ailla to welcome me. Evie will have cooked something special for supper – her fish pie with prawns, perhaps, made with potatoes Gramps has grown in the garden, and redcurrant meringue cake. Gramps will open a bottle of best bitter for himself and pour a champagne flute of sparkling wine for Evie, and we will toast my arrival.

‘The swallows are back,' I'll tell Gramps. ‘I saw my first one today.'

Later, when Evie and I are alone together, she will ask me questions about life at home. About Mum and Dad. Miranda. College work. My paintings. I'll tell her about my new project.

‘You can draw our hands,' Evie will say. ‘Mine and Gramps'. That'll take you a while, with all those little wrinkle lines to sketch in!'

I'll tell her about Gabes and Theo and the family who caught me in their spell and swept me away.

‘Don't be so dazzled by the moon and the stars that you stop seeing what's right under your feet!' Evie will say. I'll know she's thinking about her and Gramps; they were childhood sweethearts but she went away from home and it was only many years later she found him again.

‘No need to be in such a rush about everything, either,' Evie will say. ‘Take your time. Friends, boyfriends: don't ever settle for less than the best.'

I'll laugh, and I'll say yes, I know that. I want a life that means something, that is big enough to make a difference. I want to be open to it all, and I want to go on learning new things.

‘Whatever you do, wherever you go, you'll always be welcome here,' Evie will say. ‘You and whoever you choose to bring with you, Freya, for whatever reason.'

And perhaps Gramps will hear our voices, talking softly, back and forth, in the sitting room. He'll come slowly downstairs to join us, one creaky step at a time.

Gramps will look lovingly at me, and then he'll turn to Evie.

‘She's like the swallows,' Gramps will say, ‘our Freya. Coming back to us each year. Bringing the summer with her.'

Also by Julia Green

 

Breathing Underwater

Drawing with Light

Blue Moon

Baby Blue

Hunter's Heart

First published in Great Britain in May 2012 by

Bloomsbury Publishing Plc

50 Bedford Square, London, WC1B 3DP

This electronic edition published in May 2012 by Bloomsbury Publishing Plc

 

Copyright © Julia Green 2012

 

The moral right of the author has been asserted

 

All rights reserved

You may not copy, distribute, transmit, reproduce or otherwise

make available this publication (or any part of it) in any form, or by any means

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printing, recording or otherwise), without the prior written permission of the

publisher. Any person who does any unauthorised act in relation to this publication

may be liable to criminal prosecution and civil claims for damages

 

A CIP catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library

 

ISBN 9781408819852

 

www.bloomsbury.com

www.julia-green.co.uk

 

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