The Shadow Year (19 page)

‘A little less singing and a bit more concentration, please.’

‘Keep your hair on,’ jokes Freya.

When she’s finished, Freya stands back to regard her sister through narrowed eyes. ‘Perfect,’ she proclaims. ‘I wish I had some gel to spike it up but it still looks good.’

Kat shakes her head to loosen the last of the shorn hairs then looks at herself properly in the cracked surface of the mirror. She stares for a moment, barely recognising herself.

‘You look great, really different,’ enthuses Freya.

‘Do you think?’ She turns this way then that. Freya has cropped her hair to the nape of her neck and styled it into an asymmetric sweep at the front. It is a dramatic change. Her eyes appear suddenly much bigger in her face and her cheekbones more pronounced. She tilts her head to one side and practises a smile. Freya is right; she really does look different. ‘I like it, I think,’ she says, a genuine smile beginning to pull at the corners of her mouth. She can feel the air moving against her skin where hair used to hang. ‘It feels good,’ she says, fluffing it with her hands. ‘Lighter. Freer. It will be much easier to manage here too.’ Freya nods and Kat squeezes her arm. ‘Thank you,’ she says.

Freya grins. ‘I
told
you it would look good.’

‘All right, Vidal,’ says Kat, brushing herself off, ‘no need to gloat.’

Carla is the first through the back door as the others return from the woods. ‘Oh,’ she says when she sees Kat’s drastic new look. She dumps a basket of berries on the kitchen table and moves across to her. ‘Look at you.’ She reaches out and touches a strand of Kat’s cropped hair. ‘Turn around.’

‘Do you like it?’ asks Kat, suddenly nervous.

‘I do. Did Freya do it? Isn’t she clever?’

Kat peers behind Carla, anxious to garner Simon’s reaction but it is Ben and Mac who enter the cottage next.

‘Whoa,’ says Ben, ‘leave you girls alone for five minutes and you go and get all Twiggy on us.’

‘It’s not Twiggy,’ corrects Freya, ‘it’s
new wave
. It’s completely different.’

Simon enters the room and puts another basket of sloe berries onto the table before turning to them all. ‘Any trouble?’ he asks, and then stops short as he sees Kat’s dramatic transformation. ‘Oh,’ he says, ‘you cut your hair.’

‘Yes.’ She grins up at him. ‘Like it?’

Simon regards her for a moment. ‘It’s very short.’

‘Yes, Freya says short is in. It’s all the rage in London. Do you like it?’ she presses.

Simon smiles ambiguously. ‘It doesn’t matter if I like it, does it? You’re the only person whose opinion really matters.’ He turns back to the baskets of berries on the table.

‘But I’m interested in what you think,’ she presses.

‘Well,’ he says, ‘if you really want my opinion, I don’t agree with slaving yourself to trends. I preferred it long. I suppose I like a more feminine look. But as I say, my opinion really doesn’t matter . . . as long as
you’re
happy with it.’

‘Oh.’ Kat feels a hot sting of embarrassment flood her cheeks and an awkward silence fills the room. No one seems to know what to say.

‘We got a good haul today,’ says Ben at last. ‘Shall we sort through them?’

‘Yes,’ agrees Carla quickly and the others turn to the table, clearly relieved for the distraction, leaving Kat to struggle with her rush of emotion. She feels Freya reach for her hand and give it a gentle squeeze. ‘I think you look amazing,’ she whispers, but Kat doesn’t want her platitudes. She pulls her hand away. Why did she let her talk her into it? She glances around and sees Carla’s high pineapple bouncing on her head and the tangle of Freya’s long, blond locks and suddenly feels about as modern and attractive as a shorn sheep. She stares down at the blanket of purple-blue berries being spread across the table until they merge into a hazy, indigo fuzz behind her welling tears. Don’t cry, she wills, not here, not in front of them all.

Ben continues his act of distraction by popping a sloe into his mouth and chewing. ‘Christ,’ he says, spitting the purple pulp straight out into the sink, ‘they’re disgusting. Remind me why we picked them.’

‘They’re for sloe gin,’ says Mac patiently.

‘What? We’re going to ruin perfectly good gin with these things?’

‘Trust me,’ says Mac, ‘you’ll thank me when you’ve tried it . . . and any winter colds this year, well, it’s the best medicine in the world; that’s what my mum always said.’

‘That’s what
Mummy
said, is it Mac?’ laughs Simon from the end of the table.

Mac lifts his chin and studies Simon for a moment across the table. ‘Yes,’ he says quietly.

‘I’m sure there’s more to those herbal remedies than we know,’ says Freya, throwing him a careful smile.

‘Well it’ll certainly make a welcome change from the homebrew,’ says Carla.

‘There’s nothing wrong with my homebrew,’ snaps Ben.

‘Nothing wrong with it? The last batch you made was virtually undrinkable.’

Ben turns on Carla. ‘That wasn’t my fault. I told you lot it hadn’t had enough time to ferment properly but you wouldn’t listen.’

‘Now, now,’ says Simon smoothly, ‘let’s save the lovers’ tiff for behind closed doors.’

‘Oh piss off,’ says Ben, annoyed.

Kat takes a deep breath and moves closer to the table. ‘So when will we be able to drink the stuff?’

Mac shakes his head. ‘We have to make it first. Prick the berries. Steep them in gin and sugar and then let the whole lot ferment for a bit. It’ll be a few weeks yet.’

Ben huffs. ‘You know, just
sometimes
I wish we didn’t have to wait for everything in this bloody place.’

‘Oh come on,’ says Simon, ‘don’t they say the best things in life are worth waiting for?’

‘I thought it was the best things in life are free?’ says Freya.

Kat sees Simon throw Freya an irritated look.

‘I think it’s both,’ says Kat, finding her voice again.

Simon ignores her and reaches into his jacket pocket. ‘Well you can forget the sloes for now. I think you’ll find that
these
are both free and instantly more exciting than Mac’s little berries.’ He pulls his hand out of his jacket to reveal several stringy white mushrooms nestled on the flat of his palm.

Ben leans in for a closer look then lets out a long, low whistle. ‘Where did you find these beauties?’

‘Down in the meadow.’

‘What are they?’ asks Carla.

‘Magic mushrooms,’ says Mac, his voice flat.

‘Magic mushrooms?’ Carla leans in for a closer look.

‘Oh yeah,’ says Ben with a broad grin.

Kat glances about the group. Simon and Ben are grinning from ear to ear but Carla and Freya look less thrilled, and Mac, as ever, is hard to read, standing further back in the shadows now, allowing Simon his moment of glory.

‘Are you sure?’ asks Carla. ‘You have to be careful with wild mushrooms . . .’

‘Positive,’ says Ben. ‘They’re liberty caps . . . the best kind. He rubs his hands together. ‘Well this has just improved tonight’s prospects somewhat.’

Simon beams at them all. ‘So who’s up for a little trip?’

‘I’m not sure,’ Freya says an hour or so later, eyeing the squares of mushroom Ben is carefully cutting up and laying out for each of them. ‘How do we know they won’t make us sick? You do hear of it, don’t you? What if something goes wrong?’

‘Cold feet?’ asks Kat and the words sound more than a little unkind, even to her ears. She’s still struggling not to blame her for Simon’s reaction to her hair.

‘Out of everyone here, I’d have thought our resident art student would be up for it.’ Simon glances at Freya, the faintest edge to his voice. ‘Anyone else having second thoughts?’

Kat takes a breath. She can feel the spectre of her parents there in the room with her and knows Freya feels it too. But this isn’t heroin, cooked in some seedy den, sold on a street corner. These mushrooms are natural, grown in the meadow and picked by Simon’s own hand. She can feel him watching her and she raises her chin slightly. ‘Not me.’

Simon gives her a nod. ‘Carla?’

She sighs. ‘No.’

‘Mac?’

Mac shakes his head. ‘I’m in.’

Ben slides the pieces of mushroom across the table towards them in turn. Mac reaches for his and puts it straight into his mouth. Kat follows suit and chews quickly. It tastes horrible, like a mouthful of sweet, damp earth.

‘Freya?’ asks Simon.

Freya doesn’t seem to hear. She sits curled on the sofa, her hands hidden in the sleeves of her cardigan as she watches Kat, as if anticipating an adverse reaction at any moment. Kat smiles back at her and chews carefully.

Simon swallows his piece of mushroom straight down then reaches for the Zippo and lights the roll-up between his fingers.

Freya continues to look around at them all nervously.

‘You don’t have to,’ she hears Mac say to her sister, his voice low, ‘. . . not if you don’t want to.’

Kat notices her own foot tapping restlessly on the floor and makes it go still. She’s only ever smoked a bit of a weed before and she still has Freya’s words ringing in her ears. What if things go wrong? What if she has a bad trip, or worse, the mushrooms poison them all? She looks across to Freya again. ‘Go ahead,’ she says, feeling Simon’s gaze on her, ‘it’s fine. After all, you said you were bored . . .’

Freya gives Kat one final glance, then reaches for a piece of the mushroom and swallows it down with a slug of beer. ‘So what happens now?’ she asks, looking around wide-eyed at them all. ‘How long does it take?’

‘Dunno, really,’ says Ben. ‘We just hang out. We wait. We go with the flow.’ He picks up his guitar and strums the opening chords to a Pink Floyd song. ‘The most important thing is not to panic. Just enjoy the ride.’

Kat smiles at Simon. Go with the flow. Enjoy the ride. That shouldn’t be too hard.

She’s not sure how long it takes. One minute she is sitting next to Carla, talking about plans for the vegetable garden while Ben strums quietly on his guitar, then the next instant the evening has taken on a strange, shifting quality and nothing feels very fixed or real any more. Time bends and stretches in a new and curious way. Freya is lying on the floor in the middle of the lounge. Her hands are raised and she twists and turns them in the candlelight, as though they are the most fascinating things she has ever seen. Kat watches her, half listening to Carla’s talk of pumpkins, watching the strange, swirling dance of her sister’s hands. She turns to Carla and asks, ‘Do you feel it?’

Carla gives her a wan, wispy smile. ‘Yeah.’

‘Kind of trippy, isn’t it?’

‘Uh-huh.’

Simon sits in the corner on one of the beanbags, his head tilted to the ceiling as he smokes a cigarette. Mac is on the sofa, watching Freya’s strange horizontal dance. After a while Simon stubs out his cigarette and moves across to lie beside Freya on the floor. Freya turns to grin at him as he begins to copy her strange dancing movements. ‘Isn’t it amazing?’ she asks.

Simon grins back and then clutches Freya’s right hand and raises it to his lips before they continue their strange hand dancing together. Kat smiles to see them – her two favourite people in the entire world – and feels her love for them swelling to fill the room.

‘Do you hear that?’ asks Carla, leaning in towards Kat.

‘What?’

‘The music?’

Kat shakes her head. ‘What music?’

‘Listen.’ Carla tilts her head to one side. ‘Hear it now?’

Kat shakes her head again but then, from out of nowhere, she hears it; a sort of dull drumming noise, beating down on them from all around. ‘The drums?’

Carla laughs. ‘You hear drums?’

Kat nods, a little confused. ‘What do you hear?’

Carla sighs and smiles beatifically. ‘I hear rain.’

Kat stares at Carla, utterly confused. Rain? How can rain sound so rhythmic, so tribal? Suddenly Carla bursts out laughing. ‘Come on,’ she says, grabbing her by the hand. ‘There’s something I want to do, upstairs.’

It’s a little like being inside a kaleidoscope. She is one fixed point while all around her scenes shift and slide in colourful new directions. Now she is up in Carla and Ben’s bedroom. There is an oil lamp on the floor casting the room in a strange, flickering glow. She sits cross-legged on the mattress watching as Carla performs a crazy dance across the blank, white wall in front of her. As she watches, pictures take shape amidst the shadows, strange smudged images drawn in vivid purple paint.

‘What is it?’ asks Kat, peering at the wall, realising that the dripping purple paint isn’t paint at all, but the smears of sloe berries.

‘Look,’ says Carla with sudden solemnity, ‘it’s us. I’ve drawn all of us here at the lake. See?’

Kat peers at the wall and slowly she sees the scrawls transform before her eyes until, yes, she can see it
is
them, not smudged at all but clear and precise, almost their exact likeness; the six figures are suddenly as identifiable as if drawn from a photograph. There is Ben, with his straggly goatee and smoking reefer in hand, and Simon with his broad shoulders and beautiful black eyes, a wide-eyed Freya with her tangled plaits and her arm linked through Carla’s who wears her fuzz of hair like a halo around her head; behind them comes Kat herself, skinny as a boy and with her short new haircut, while last of all, trailing in the distance comes the spindly shape of Mac. Kat is fascinated. She peers more closely and before her eyes the figures suddenly seem to come to life and dance across the wall in a jaunty, impromptu conga. Kat watches them and smiles. They all look so happy. ‘You’re really good at painting,’ she says, turning to Carla, but Carla has gone.

The kaleidoscope turns again and Kat is lying on a mattress, watching the ceiling of the bedroom undulate like a huge piece of fabric. In a moment, she thinks, it will just lift off and there will be nothing left between her and that vast canvas of sky. And sure enough, as she watches, the roof of the cottage lifts up and floats away like a giant white sheet caught on the breeze. Kat stares at the fizzing stars dotted high up in the night sky; she watches as they move closer and closer, and fall one by one down into the room, exploding like fireworks all around her.