Bringing the Summer (3 page)

The bell on the door jangles as a whole bunch of people come in. All part of one big family, I guess: the parents, then two grown-up daughters, two teenage boys and two babies. Apart from the babies, they're all dressed up really smartly, in black suits and polished black shoes, and the women have hats and even gloves and handbags, all black. They look totally out of place. But they come in anyway and people move chairs so they can all get round one table, and they're all laughing. I can't take my eyes off them.

I look down at my own clothes: jeans, a white shirt with little pearl buttons, short black jacket.

The family order coffees and cakes, and the babies – toddlers, really – squirm and whine, and one of the boys – he looks about eighteen – entertains them by folding paper serviettes to create animals: paper frogs that hop. The boy looks vaguely familiar, with his fair curly hair, and blue eyes, and hands with fine, long fingers. When he smiles, his face glows. At one point he looks directly at me, and I turn away, quickly. I bury myself in my drawings, shading in the background, adding a detail to the chair.

I check the time. Five more minutes.

The church is an ugly modern building. A small group of people are waiting outside. Everyone looks a bit shabby, and disconnected, as if they don't know each other. I hover, not knowing what to do now I'm here. I don't want to speak to anyone, or draw attention to myself. I'd expected just to slide into a pew at the back of the church. But when I'd imagined it, I suppose I was thinking of the sort of packed church we had for my brother, not this sparse gathering. And I feel a fraud, far worse than gatecrashing a party. A hanger-on, an intruder at someone else's tragedy.

The priest comes to the door and invites people in. I follow. I can't sit at the back now: there are so few people it would look even more obvious. So I slip in at the end of a row near two older women. It's horrible that there are so few people here, and terribly sad. The music starts, and then there's a sudden flurry of activity – more people arriving – and I look round to see that same family, the one from the café, file in to the pews behind me. The smart black clothes make sense, now. But they look out of place even here in church, because no one else is dressed in black, or even half as smart. It's a mystery, what connection they have with everyone else, or with the short life the priest is talking about, in his droning, churchy voice.
Our sister
, he calls her, but she isn't anyone's real sister as far as I can see.

What was I hoping to find out? Something about Bridie, I suppose, that might help me understand
why
she did what she did. But I don't find anything out from the priest's speech, which is bland, and general, as if he's never met the girl. He probably hasn't. There's no one at the front of the church who seems as if they might be her parents. Or friends. No one young, even, apart from me and the family in black. Most of the others might as well be random people off the street. I wonder, briefly, if the two women near me are social workers, or something like that.

As soon as the last prayer is over, I think, I'll leave the church.

The boy in the pew behind me watches me as I get up. He half smiles, as if he recognises me, too, from somewhere. He's holding one of the babies on his lap, and something about that touches my heart for a second.

It's a relief to get into fresh air, daylight. What did I think was going to happen? Some revelation, perhaps. Or a way to close the door on the incident that caught me up, involuntarily and at random. If anything is ever random, that is.

I walk back along the high street towards the station, past the café, past the run-down shops and market. Amidst all the normal busy city life, Bridie's death, her funeral and burial goes unnoticed and unmarked. The sky is tight stretched, a solid grey cloud above the streets and houses, but the air is sticky and warm. I take off the black jacket. I notice each tiny thing, and think: Bridie, whoever she was, will never see any of it, feel it, touch it, hear it or anything, ever again.

On the train back, I open my sketchbook and look again at the drawings I did in the café. An image of that family keeps coming to me: all ages, all talking and laughing and quarrelling and being a normal big family. And against that, thrown into stark relief, the solitary figure of the girl. Bridie.

Images of discord, I think. Just a project, for Art. That's all.

 

Mum's having a cup of tea at the kitchen table; she looks up from her magazine as I come in. ‘Freya! Had a good day? You're later than usual.'

‘OK. Tiring.' I pour myself an orange juice, take it out to the garden.

Mum follows, cup of tea in hand. She flops down in a deckchair. ‘It's the weather, making you tired. The air pressure's building up for a storm. See all the thunderflies?'

‘How was your day?' I ask her.

‘Fine. Busy. I'm glad it's Friday. Got any plans for the weekend?'

‘Miranda and me'll go out tonight, I expect. I'll phone her later.'

I don't tell Mum where I've been. She'd be cross. Upset. I have to keep so many things from her these days and it makes us distant. I hate it but I don't know what to do to change it. To get back to how we were before Joe died. I'm starting to realise how lonely it makes me feel.

I text Miranda. We arrange to meet at Back to Mine, at nine thirty. She's hoping Charlie, from her Geography class, will be there. I don't tell her why I wasn't at English and she doesn't ask.

Upstairs, I lie on my bed and stare out of the window at the top of the tree. Birds – swifts – fly high, swooping for flies, screaming their shrill high cries. I find an email from Danny, inviting me to London for a weekend.

Five

I'm just coming out of the studios the following Monday when I see the boy with the curly hair. I'm sure it's him. The one from the funeral, with his family. So that's why he looked familiar. I look again, to make sure. It's definitely him.

‘Hi!' He nods at me as I go past.

Does he remember me, from the church?

At break, I go back to the studios to get my jacket and he's still there, working on some big colourful painting. His name's pinned on the board, marking out his studio space:
Gabriel Fielding
.

He sees me looking, and I blush, but neither of us says anything. I find my jacket on the back of a chair, and I walk out again. I'm meeting Miranda for coffee before we go to English together. He watches me go. I can feel his eyes on me.

After that, I keep seeing him – not just at college, but in town, too. We go to the same places, I guess. It's hardly surprising. It's not exactly a big city. I like the way he looks, and I like his artwork, too. But what am I going to say if he asks me about why I was at that funeral? I'll just look weird.

 

‘Who
is
that guy?' Miranda says. We're having lunch outside at the Boston café on Friday afternoon. ‘He keeps looking at you.'

‘He's one of the Art Foundation students,' I say. I don't look up.

Miranda smiles. ‘And very good-looking. And clearly interested, Freya!'

‘He's so not,' I say. ‘He's never said more than hi to me.'

‘That's a start,' Miranda says. ‘Hi.'

I laugh. ‘Not everyone's like you, so fixated on relationships. There's more to life than love and sex, you know.'

She laughs too. ‘Is there? Really? Like what, for instance?'

‘Friends. Finding out what you really want to do. Being creative. Having fun. Swimming. Saving the planet. Making a difference to the world. Want me to go on?'

‘Not really. Anyway, you can do all that and be in love. Everyone needs love.'

‘How's it going with Charlie?' I ask. ‘Seeing as we're talking
love
.'

‘OK. He invited me to watch him play at the Bell at the weekend.'

‘That's progress.'

‘Well, he asked lots of people. Not just me.'

‘Ah.'

‘Exactly.' Miranda sighs. ‘I'm just one of the crowd.'

I glance over at Gabriel, sitting with a small group of other art students at one of the tables under a sun umbrella. White cotton shirt, sleeves rolled up. Jeans. Flip-flops. Nice. There are three girls in the group, but they all just seem like good friends. He's almost always in a group of people. I think again about that big family – his family, I presume. He's at ease with people.

‘You could come,' Miranda says.

‘Where?'

‘To the pub, on Saturday night.'

‘You have to be eighteen,' I say. ‘They always check. You won't get in, either.'

Miranda checks her phone. ‘I'm going to be late for Geography if I don't go now,' she says.

‘I'll stay and finish my coffee,' I say. ‘And see you later, yes?'

Miranda picks up her bag. She leans over and whispers in my ear. ‘He's still there, and still looking. Play your cards right and you're in.'

‘Stop it! Have fun in Geography. Say hello to Charlie from me.'

Two of the girls from the group at Gabriel's table get up to leave. They each hug Gabriel as they go past his chair. I get my notebook out, and start drawing. I try to draw the market stall opposite, and the Polish man selling strawberries. I'm still no good at doing people. I've got Life Drawing next term, so I need to get better. It's hard to get the proportions right, and my people look flat: surface decoration rather than three-dimensional figures. I draw the pigeons that are picking scraps out of the gutter near the corner shop. It's less busy now: end of lunch hour. People go back to their offices, college classes, wherever.

I'm conscious of a figure standing next to me. I look up, and it's him: Gabriel, carrying an empty glass.

‘Want another coffee?' he says. ‘I'm getting myself one.'

‘Thanks!' I've gone hot. Bright red, probably. ‘A cappuccino, please.'

He comes back with the two cups and he sits down at my table as if that's a perfectly natural thing to do. I glance over to where he was sitting before. The people he was with have all left.

I don't know why I've suddenly gone so self-conscious. It's like when I had that crush on Matt, years ago. Izzy's boyfriend. Maybe it's because Gabriel reminds me of him a bit: the fair hair, blue eyes. Confident.

‘I'm Gabes,' he says.

‘Freya.'

‘You doing Art A level?'

I nod.

‘It's a good course,' he says. ‘I did it last year. Fun. Now I'm doing the Art Foundation.'

I sip my coffee.

‘I've seen you somewhere else,' he says. ‘Haven't I? In Exeter. A funeral. It was you, wasn't it?'

I nod.

‘How come you knew Bridie?'

‘I didn't.'

He frowns. ‘I don't get it. What were you doing there, then?'

I take a deep breath. ‘It's very complicated.'

He looks at me. ‘So, tell me.'

‘Something awful happened.'

I tell him about the train.

He listens. At one point he winces, though he doesn't interrupt. ‘It must have been really shocking,' he says when I've finished. ‘I can kind of understand why you wanted to find out who it was. It's like . . . seeing something through. Anyone would be a bit curious, wouldn't they?'

‘Would they?' I'm not so sure. Most people would just want to forget the whole thing. It happens a lot, apparently. The train people try to cover up
how
often, exactly.

‘And you? Did you . . . I mean, how did you know her?' I ask.

‘That's a bit complicated too.' He stops talking, and for a moment I'm not sure what to do. Is he thinking? Deciding whether to tell me? But he starts up again.

‘We knew her a long time ago. When she was little. So when she heard what had happened, Mum wanted us to go. She guessed there wouldn't be many people there. We all went, the whole family, except for my older brother.' He smiles at me. ‘We must have looked pretty weird, all of us in that church in our smart clothes.'

‘No. I thought – well, I think it's nice you did that for her. I wish I had a big family like yours.'

Already, I've said too much. He wants to know about my family, and before long I'm telling him about Joe, and my whole life history, almost.

We've both finished our coffees. I look at my watch. We've been here over an hour. I've missed English.

‘I'd better be going back,' I say.

‘I'll walk with you.'

By the time we get into college the art studios are empty.

‘What's your project, this term?' he asks.

‘Discord.'

He laughs.

‘Why's it funny?'