Bringing the Summer (6 page)

It's Miranda's turn to talk: Charlie's amazing saxophone playing, and how she wants to go with him and a load of others to Glastonbury, next summer. Y
ou've got to come too, Freya! Pleease?
We get to the gate where we turn off down to the level crossing, and we lock up the bikes while a high-speed train from London thunders past. I think of Bridie. It's as if she's permanently etched on my mind, now. But I don't say anything to Miranda this time.

We spread my rug out on the grass near the river, so we can see the weir and watch people. It's not as hot as it has been; we talk, and read a bit, and then I get up to go for a swim.

‘Please come!' I say to Miranda. ‘It's more fun with you.'

She shivers. ‘It's too cold. And I don't like the mud, and not being able to see what's underneath. But I'll watch you from here.'

 

Under the willow trees, the light falls in triangles of golden sunlight. I swim slowly upstream, long leisurely strokes, holding my breath as my face goes under, taking steady breaths as I turn my head before dipping in for the next stroke. The rhythm is deeply restful, the water flows like silk over my body. Hardly anyone else swims this far from the weir; most come to play, and hang out, rather than for serious swimming. And that's not why I do it, either. But the feel of moving on, through water, is something my body needs, and it's the only way, sometimes, that I can calm down the wild turmoil in my mind, when thoughts go on overdrive.

I've gone beyond the stretch of the river where Miranda will be able to see me, should she actually be looking. Which is unlikely. She's probably reading.

I wonder about the stream near his house where Gabes said you can swim. I can't imagine it being deep or wide enough just there, but perhaps I'm wrong. How will it be, when I see him on Monday at college?

A bird skims low in front of me: so close I see the moment when it scoops up a beakful of fly and river water. A swallow, again. They are everywhere this summer. Danny's hurt voice briefly flits into my mind, and I put it out again, quickly.

I lie on my back to float, though it's hard work to keep still, with the river current pulling me downstream. An image comes: that Pre-Raphaelite painting by Millais, of Ophelia, drowned in the river with flowers in her hair. Ophelia from
Hamlet
. And I remember reading something about the woman who was the artist's model; Lizzie someone. She caught cold from lying in the bath water too long, didn't she?

When I finally emerge from the river, dripping and shivery, the field is full of shadow. The sun is covered by a fine skein of cloud, mottled like the back of a mackerel. The weather's changing. It already smells different.

Miranda hands me a towel. ‘Hurry up! You were ages. It's gone all cold and horrible. I want to go back.'

We cycle back fast along the towpath. The air smells of wood smoke; several of the narrowboats have lit their stoves already. It begins to spit with rain. Summer is over.

Nine

Gabes and I have coffee together most days the next week. We just chat, it's very relaxed and casual. We don't touch, or anything physical at all. Perhaps he just sees me as another ordinary friend, like all his others. I'm slightly disappointed, but I don't let on, even to Miranda. Then, on Friday, he invites me to spend Saturday at his house and I say yes. Same arrangements as before: he'll pick me up from the road near college, on his bike, but in the morning this time. Eleven.

So here I am. This time I'm more prepared for the ride: sensible clothes, a waterproof jacket, gloves. It's beginning to rain.

‘Hi, Freya!' Gabes is right on time. He hands me the spare helmet and waits for me to climb on behind him. We set off down the street, turn off for the roundabout and chug slowly up the hill. It's not nearly so much fun in the rain. I pull the visor down to cover my face. Lorries sail past us, splashing water up over my legs. It's a relief when we turn off the main road on to the quiet lane.

I'm leaning into his back, arms tight round his waist and my head down because of the wind and the wet, so I don't see the bend in the lane coming up. The bike seems to tip: my instinct is to lean the other way, to balance.

My big, stupid mistake.

Everything happens so fast I hardly know what is happening. The bike skids on the wet tarmac, I spill off the back, the bike goes over into the bank. I can hear the
tick tick
of the dying engine. There's no sign of Gabes.

There's one of those weird, slow-motion, silent moments that happens after accidents – as if you've fallen into something, the pause between one note and the next – before the usual sounds of everyday life fold back again: the
cheep cheep
of a bird in the hedge, rain dripping on to leaves, wind rippling the long grass along the verge.

I'm not hurt. I sit up, stretch each limb to make quite sure, but I'm fine.

I stand up. I'm covered in mud and grass seeds. I adjust the helmet, which must have slipped sideways as I hit the ground. It did its job, though. Saved my head. ‘Gabes?' I call. ‘You all right?'

There's a sort of grunting noise. I walk further up the lane. I can see him now, sticking half out of the ditch next to the hedge. I start to laugh. ‘I'm so sorry,' I say. ‘I leant the wrong way. I know you said not to but I forgot. It was all my fault.'

He shifts position. He grimaces as he moves. ‘I've done something to my foot. Broken it or sprained badly. It hurts.'

I stop laughing, though he still looks funny, sitting in a ditch. ‘What can I do? Shall I help you get up?'

I pull and he heaves himself up, and we get him out of the muddy water on to the grass, and then he lies back, white-faced.

‘Got your phone?'

I nod.

‘Better call home. Mum'll come out and get us.'

I hand him my phone while I go to pick up the bike and push it towards the verge, out of the road. It's heavy. Luckily the lane's deserted. We skidded right across, and if something had been coming the other way, fast . . . Better not to think like that.

We settle back down on the wet grass to wait. I can tell he's in pain, but he doesn't grumble much. He's annoyed about the bike, and about being stuck, and now a broken – we're sure it
is
broken – foot. ‘I'll be stuck at home, at the mercy of my parents giving me lifts,' he says.

A car comes along the lane. The driver slows down when he sees us, winds down his window. ‘You two OK? Need a ride somewhere?'

I shake my head. ‘No thanks. We're all sorted.'

It's only about ten more minutes before we hear another car, and Maddie appears, driving their green van.

‘You poor loves!' she says, getting out. ‘Oh, Gabes! Your foot! It's all twisted. You look awful!'

Between us, his arms round our shoulders, we manage to help him to the van door and up into the front seat. Then we push the bike over and lift that up between us, into the back.

‘Hop in next to Gabes,' Maddie says to me. ‘We'll go via Home Farm and then you can wait there while I take Gabes to Accident and Emergency. Are you sure you're not hurt at all, Freya? It must have been quite a shock.'

I nod. ‘I'm fine. Really.'

‘Nick could have a quick look at Gabes' foot, first, I guess,' Maddie says. ‘We don't want to end up at the hospital unless it's strictly necessary.'

‘I thought Nick was a vet?' I say.

‘He is. But it's much the same: animals, people, broken bones.'

That makes me laugh.

Maddie switches the radio on. The rain sweeps over the big front windscreen. It's nice being higher up, in the van. You can see over the tops of the hedges. Well, you could, if it wasn't so rainy and misty. It's cosy, the three of us bowling along together. I almost wish we were going on a proper journey. A holiday or something.

‘How did it happen, exactly?' Maddie asks. ‘Tell me properly.'

Kind, generous Gabes says he doesn't know, that it was just a skid on the wet road. He doesn't mention me leaning the wrong way, upsetting the balance. Doesn't blame me at all.

‘Will the bike be all right?' I say.

‘Probably,' Gabes says. He frowns again. His face has gone white, with two red splotches on his cheeks. He's obviously in pain.

The day we planned together is ruined, now. But at least Maddie hasn't suggested taking me straight back home.

 

The rain has stopped by the time we arrive at their house. Maddie parks the van in the courtyard.

‘You stay here,' she says to Gabe. ‘I'll go in quickly to see if Nick's around. You come with me, Freya.'

So I follow her into the house, and she fills the kettle and gets a flask out of a cupboard. ‘The wait's bound to be horrendous. Better to be properly prepared.' She goes upstairs, calling for Nick.

I sit down at the table. I leaf through the pages of the colour magazine from the newspaper. The cat comes and sits on my lap.

Maddie hurries back into the kitchen with a book in one hand and Gabes' jumper and notebook in the other. ‘Nick isn't here. No one is. So, just make yourself at home,' she says to me. ‘Unless you want to come up to the hospital too, with Gabes? But it's probably better for you to stay here.'

‘I'm fine here, as long as you don't mind,' I say.

‘Beth and the twins won't be back till about four. I hope to be back long before that. But you'll tell them what happened, if necessary, won't you?'

‘Of course.'

‘Just help yourself to anything you need. Food, books, films, musical instruments, garden.' She sweeps her hand round. ‘You'll find something to keep you happy, I'm sure.'

I wave from the door at Gabes as they go off. I walk slowly back inside the house. I fill up the kettle again, to make tea. I chose myself a china mug from the row on hooks on the wooden dresser. I imagine what it would be like, to live here all the time.

 

At first it's a bit odd, being alone in someone else's house. I'm a bit nervous, expecting someone to walk through the door at any moment. After a while I relax. I go round the house, peering at pictures and photographs hanging on the walls, looking at the rows of bookshelves, taking it all in. Everything's old, and used, and nothing matches, and yet it all blends perfectly together. It looks random, but how can it be? I think about how in our house my dad has chosen everything really carefully, and with a particular colour or design in mind: Danish chairs, for their clean lines, and pale wood furniture, neutral colours. Miranda loves it. To her it's really cool and awesome.

Along the top of the piano are rows of photographs in frames: old ones, black-and-white, and a whole series of children at different ages and stages. I peer at the children's faces, trying to work out who is who. I think I can tell Gabes in most of them. And there's another boy, thinner and darker than Gabes, who must be Theo, the older brother at university. I lift up the lid of the piano and run my fingers over the keys, lightly to begin with, because the sound is almost shocking in such a silent house, and then I get more confident and I play the two pieces I know off by heart, from when I was little and had lessons. I go upstairs to the bathroom, and imagine lying in the big old bath, with a view out of the window to the orchard, in sunshine. There's a shelf of books in here, even, and a big framed oil painting of four children, from olden times. Perhaps they're Gabes' ancestors, who once lived in this house.

I pad along the landing and down the step to Gabes' room. His bed's unmade. I leaf through the pile of drawings on his table, and then feel guilty, as if I'm reading a private diary or something personal like that, even though the drawings are of the garden, mostly. It gives me the idea, though, of going outside, doing my own work while I wait. I borrow some paper and a bunch of pencils from Gabes' desk, and go back downstairs.

Everything's shiny in sunshine after rain. I go the way we went before, across the yard and round to the vegetable garden, and then through the gap in the wall to the orchard. The apple trees are weighed down with fruit, and wasps feed off the fallen plums in the grass. Hens scratch at the grass with their scaly feet, clucking and crooning at each other. They take no notice of me, as if they know I offer nothing. I find a dryish patch of stone to sit on, and I start to draw.

I'm not sure how long I've been there when I hear a car, and doors slamming, voices and a baby crying. I sit back, my drawing on my knees, to see what happens next. I'm hoping Beth will remember me; I didn't meet the children before. But it's not even nearly four o'clock. So perhaps it isn't her after all.

I screw up my eyes, because the sun's so bright. Someone is standing in the archway into the orchard: a figure in silhouette, backlit. They come slowly across the damp grass, and I see a young man, a boy, really, with dark hair, and black jeans, and a black jacket. I recognise him instantly. Theo.

He doesn't smile.