The Summer We All Ran Away (4 page)

“What's the matter?” asked Mathilda.

“Sometimes he sees a rabbit or something.” Jack was sliding clumsily down the tree. “And he makes that sound. That hunting sound. Just once, and then they run like hell and he shuts up again.”

“He's still making it.”

“That's why I'm worried.”

“You're tripping,” Anna told herself. “This isn't real. This
isn't
real.” She rubbed her eyes fiercely, then put one hand against a tree trunk to steady herself. The bark sighed and softened beneath her fingers. The man in the cage looked at her pleadingly.

“The gate's locked,” she told him. “I'm sorry.”

Don't leave me
. The words leapt from his head into hers.
If you come in here with me, they'll open the gate. Then we
can get away
.

She looked uncertainly at the barred gate.

Go up the hill and slide down the inside wall. I'll catch you
.

“I took something earlier,” she confessed. “I'm not sure I'm thinking straight.”

Help me. Please
.

The ground felt spongy beneath her feet as she climbed. She sat cautiously on the concrete lip, her legs hanging over the edge.

“Shit! Fucking hell! Don't you dare jump, you stupid cow! Jack, where the hell are you?”

A man in a pale green suit danced in front of the gate, trying to get her attention.

“You can't keep him locked up,” Anna told him. “It's not right.”

“If you jump in there and that beast eats you and you fuck up Jack's career I swear to God I will - does anyone have a gun or something?”

Jack's blood ran cold. The panther paced the enclosure, lashing its tail. Above him, a girl with no clothes on was preparing to jump.

“You utter fucking idiot,” Alan screamed at him. “See that? That's your entire career going down the toilet! She thinks she's rescuing it!”

“Stay there,” said Jack to the girl. “I'm coming to get you.”

“Too late.” Her smile was brilliant. “Shall I count down? I think I'll count down. Ten. Nine. Eight.”

“Give me the key.” Mathilda held out an imperious hand to Jack.

“Who are you?” asked Alan.

“Why do you care? Give me the
key.”

“You can't let him out,” Jack said. “You can't.”

“I'm not going to, you idiot. Key.”

Jack took the key from around his neck and put it into her hand, then wondered wildly what he was thinking. As she ran
towards the gate, Mathilda stripped off her dress.

“One,” said Anna briskly, and slid over the edge.

Rooted to the spot, Jack felt his heart stuttering, slowing, failing. Two women were going to die in his garden, right in front of his eyes.

“Hey!” Mathilda's shout, the penetrating voice of a trained actress, echoed off the curved concrete wall. The panther, about to spring, jumped five feet straight in the air instead, and turned towards her.

Jack opened his eyes and saw Mathilda running at the panther, waving the green dress like a flag. The panther snarled, cowered, then crouched.

At the exact moment of its leap, Mathilda threw her dress. It fluttered out like a flag and covered the panther's head. While it clawed frantically at the thin fabric, Mathilda grabbed Anna's hand and dragged her to the gate. The panther tore its way free of the cheesecloth and leapt after them, but Jack was already slamming the door shut. They all felt the bars shudder as the panther's shoulder crashed into the enclosure. The padlock was back on and they could all breathe again. The night air was sweet and the orange lanterns blazed.

“Jesus Christ and all the little angels,” said Alan, with great fervour. “I think I'm having a heart attack.”

“Shit.” Anna was crying. “Shit, I was supposed to rescue him, wasn't I? Why are you keeping a man locked in your garden anyway?”

“Sorry?” Jack wondered if he'd heard right.

“Of course it's not a man, you stupid mare,” Alan sighed. “God Almighty, junkies.”

A crowd of interested onlookers melted out of the trees to stare at their host, his manager, and two naked women. Jack stared back with undisguised horror.

“Who's with this stupid cunt?” Alan demanded, grudgingly putting his jacket around Jane's shoulders. “And who's got a coat they don't like?” A boy of about eighteen with a shock of
black curly hair quietly removed an immaculately-cut zebra-striped jacket and offered it to Mathilda. “Good to see we've got a gentleman in our midst. Anyone owning up to this daft cow, what, you again? Proper Sir Galahad. Get her out of my sight, would you?”

As he led Anna away, the boy gazed helplessly at Mathilda, but she was looking at Jack, who was watching the gathering crowd as if they might eat him alive.

“Why don't the rest of you fuck off as well?” Alan demanded. “I think we can all agree the party's over.”

Like scolded schoolchildren, the guests began to disperse.

“Right,” said Alan. “I'll make sure they leave. Jack, if you don't do the tour after I sort this out, you're the most ungrateful bastard who ever walked this sorry earth, and don't you forget it.”

Jack and Mathilda faced each other in the clearing.

“You're Jack Laker,” she said.

“Well, sort of.”

“Why on earth didn't you say? I'm sorry I was rude about your house. And your party.”

“You were right. It was a terrible party.”

“Then why give it?”

“Look,” said Jack, desperate. “I didn't sleep with the nurses in rehab and I didn't have girls sent up to my dressing room, they just turned up there, and I stopped speaking to my friends because I couldn't even stand myself, never mind anyone else.”

“But you do have a panther in your garden.”

“Well, yes, but it's not how it - ”

“It's wrong to keep wild things caged,” she told him. Then, unexpectedly, she smiled. “Jack, it's kind of cold out here.”

He put his arms around her and pulled her against his naked chest. The feeling of her skin against his sent a delightful shiver up his spine.

Delirious and drowning, he whispered, “I want to make you warm.”

chapter three (now)

Davey was in a quiet, rosy darkness, desperately thirsty, and he was not alone. Someone held a tall glass of iced water while he gulped frantically. Within moments he knew it was coming back up again, and there was a hand on his back and someone holding a bowl while he retched.

“You don't do this very often, do you? Drink it more slowly. Here.”

More water, sipped this time, and then the feeling of cool silk against his cheek.

He was awake again, alone this time, still thirsty, head throbbing, but there was a carafe of water with a glass over the narrow neck. He lay in a four-poster bed hung with heavy brocade. Cracks of light crept in around the edges of the curtains covering the tall window.

He drank deeply once again, and returned gratefully to sleep.

When he woke for the third time, the room was like a sauna and he was soaked with sweat. Sitting up, he discovered someone had undressed him. Undressed him and, it seemed, stolen his clothes, because the faded jeans and t-shirt on the captain's chair beside the bed were certainly not his.

He dragged at the curtains and sunshine swarmed joyfully in. The heavy sash window finally conceded two inches of fresh air. Gulping it down gratefully, he surveyed the room.

The wallpaper was alarmingly fashionable, a deep purple geometric pattern that clashed elegantly with the scarlet curtains and bedspread. There was a good high ceiling that went with the long windows, and panelled doors with glass door knobs that begged to be handled. Behind one he found a bathroom, austere and intimidating with a black suite and black and white tiles, and scrupulously clean. A single threadbare white towel hung on the rail.

To his mild surprise, the shower was merely a wall-mounted attachment over the bath. Coming out of the bathroom, he spotted his rucksack lurking furtively at the end of the bed like an imposter.

He held the strange jeans hesitantly against him. They felt good against his skin, possessing the worn-in comfort of long years of wear. If he was trying to buy them they'd be described as
vintage
and his stepfather would yell at him for wasting money on stuff that should have been thrown out years ago. The t-shirt was a faded decal of the
Jaws
poster.

Whose clothes were these?

The house around him was totally silent.

Reluctantly, feeling as if he was stealing from an exceptionally generous host, he put the clothes on.

Outside his bedroom was a long, wide corridor. The décor out here was also fiercely avant-garde; lime-green carpet and green-and-yellow wallpaper in a pattern of regimented flowers, like a collision between a maths book and a Van Gogh painting. Opening a door at random, he blundered into a space strewn with papers and notebooks and a girl's clothes. He backed out hastily and hurried away, too intimidated to open any more. At the end of the corridor, a staircase described a slow, stately descent.

Trying not to make any noise, Davey crept downwards.

As he reached the ground floor, he found the same odd conjunction of Georgian fittings and ferociously modern décor. The velvet pile on the wallpaper was soft beneath his
palm; a long window was half-filled with a monstrous cheese plant. Now he could smell bacon and coffee and toasting bread, intoxicating smells that made his stomach growl. He heard the murmur of voices, and a woman's laugh.

The brass door knob felt cool and friendly. He turned it and found himself in a kitchen full of warmth and light and voices, and a sudden silence as he crept in.

“Hey, look.” A girl a few years younger than him, her Liverpool accent thick enough to spread on toast. “The psycho junkie's woken up.” She was almost intimidatingly lovely, with huge grey eyes and thick, lustrous fair hair tumbled carelessly about a classical, heart-shaped face; a show-stopping beauty that clashed defiantly with the thick silver nose ring, the variegated metal lacing the pinnae of her ears, the layers of black clothes, the stacks of cheap rings on her fingers, the chipped black nail polish. She was curled up on a long wooden bench, sheltering between a deep crimson wall and a battered pine table. A black notepad and a chewed biro lay on the table next to her, and a dark brown coffee cup nestled in her long, ink-stained fingers.

“I'm - ” Davey felt his stammer begin to clamp down. “I'm D-D-D - ”

“Dangerous? Dirty? Deaf? Dull? Dim-witted? Deluded? Damned for all eternity? Dead from the neck up?”

“Be nice, you horrible girl.” A woman's voice from by the stove. She looked soft and motherly, her face crowned with soft brown hair cut into a neat, sleek shape. When she put a hand on his forehead, Davey recognised the cool comfort that had brought him back to life.

“I'm Kate,” she told him. “Are you feeling better?”

His tongue leapt free of the stammer. “I'm Davey.”

“Nice to meet you. This is Priss.” Priss subjected him to a carefully blank stare. “And this is Tom.”

Tom was wiry and tanned, grey hair just brushing his collar. Davey held out an awkward hand.

“How are you?” Tom asked.

“I'm
really
sorry about last night,” Davey began.

“No,” said Tom, “how are you? We were worried.”

“
I
bloody wasn't,” said Priss.

“And I'll leave today, of course I will, and - ”

“Davey,” said Tom patiently. “Stop it. Alright? How
are
you?”

“I - ” Davey was speechless.

“Hungry, I should think,” said Kate. She dipped into an orange saucepan and put a bowl of porridge in his hands. “There's cream and sugar on the table.”

Davey sat down, feeling breathless. Priss closed her notebook and gave him a hard stare.

“You'd just better not be a psycho junkie,” she said. “Alright?”

The porridge was marvellous. Davey spooned brown sugar into it, then added a generous slop of cream.

“I'm not.”

“'Cos you were absolutely fuckin' out of it last night.”

Davey had just discovered what was meant by
inhaling
food. It was hard to stop eating for long enough to answer her.

“I'm sorry.”

“We had to carry you inside. And undress you. Your clothes were absolutely fuckin' disgusting.” Davey blushed scarlet. “I wanted to put you in the outhouse.”

In spite of how uncomfortable Priss made him, Davey found he was fascinated by the cadence of her voice, by the pace and the lilt and the soft Germanic consonants. He didn't like hearing girls swear – girls, he felt, were meant to be soft and pretty – but the word ‘fucking', pronounced by Priss, became almost poetic.

“Priss,” said Kate warningly. Priss rolled her eyes, licked the tip of her finger and began to eat sugar from the bowl. Davey reached the bottom of his porridge bowl, and stood up.

“Thank you,” he said. “And I'm sorry. I mean, really, I simply can't, I don't, and I'll go today, of course I will - ”

Kate looked at him in surprise. “Well, you can if you like, but you don't have to,” she said. “You can stay as long as you want. There's plenty of room. We're not a hotel or anything, you don't have to pay,” she added, seeing his expression. “But if you fancy it, you're welcome.”

It was like being offered a million pounds by a stranger in the street.

“Oh, but, but I c-c-c-couldn't.” Could he? “I mean you d-d-d-don't know anything about me, it's so nice of you to offer but really, I c-c-c-couldn't - ”

“You're obviously running away,” Kate said. “Hey, that's okay, most people do in the end. But why not stay here while you decide what you're going to do next? Priss, if you must draw on the table, draw us something pretty, hmm?” Priss rolled her eyes, and opened her notebook instead. “I liked your choice of book, by the way. But was there a reason you only brought socks?”

Completely off-balance, Davey was forced to resort to simple honesty. “I don't know. I wasn't really thinking when I packed.”

“Not to worry. I'll find some stuff you can borrow. If you don't like your room, there are a couple more you could have instead.”

“Um - ”

“You don't have to explain anything if you don't want to.” Kate was carefully not looking at him, stirring the ladle in the porridge. “We won't ask any questions, I promise. But you look like someone who needs a safe haven.” She looked up from the porridge, and smiled. “That can be here, if you like.”

“B-b-b-but - ” he looked wildly around at the three people in the room. Kate radiant and motherly. Tom and Priss looking at Kate, who was clearly in charge. Tom's expression wary and questioning, Priss blank and enigmatic. “But, I mean, I can't, I don't want to intrude, it's not right, you don't want strangers in your home.”

“Good Lord, this isn't our house,” said Kate, laughing.

“Oh? Oh! So, you're just renting it for the s-s-s-summer?”

“You think we're a family?” Priss snorted. “Do I look anything like Kate and Tom? Do I sound anything like them?”

“We're squatting,” said Kate, and winked. “Don't worry,” she added, seeing the look on his face. “No-one comes here. You're absolutely safe.”

Davey could hear the blood singing in his ears. “But don't you, um, don't you want to n-n-n - to n-n-n-know anything about - ”

“We've all got secrets,” said Kate, very gently. “We won't ask as long as you don't. Okay?”

Davey felt himself flush with guilt.

“Um, I mean, it's so nice of you, but I just don't know if - ”

She had a nice, friendly smile, and a way of looking vaguely past him and onto more important things that made him feel curiously welcome. “You don't have to decide now.” She glanced at the bright sky. “Maybe I'll put the washing out.”

“I'll come with you,” said Tom. “See about the garden.” He glanced at Priss, who had disappeared behind her curtain of hair. “Priss - ”

“Mmm?”

“Be nice to Davey.”

“And feed him,” Kate added, over her shoulder.

The kitchen when they left it became a more threatening, uncertain place. Priss glanced at Davey, then went to cut thick slices of bread from a crusty loaf and layer on thick rashers of bacon.

“So,” she said, slapping the sandwich in front of Davey. “Anything you want to tell me?” She poured more coffee for them both, and sat down to watch him eat.

Davey had no idea where to begin.

“D'you know where the word
house
originally comes from?” Priss demanded, returning to the sugar bowl.

Davey looked at her warily, and shook his head.

“It comes,” said Priss, looking smug, “from an old German
word.
Hud
. It means to hide. A house is somewhere to hide.”

The bacon sandwich was obscenely good. Davey closed his eyes in bliss as salty grease oozed onto his tongue.

“It's actually quite rude to just sit there and eat and not reply to anything I say. Didn't your mam teach you that?”

“I'm sorry.”

“Good. And you apologise too much.”

“I'm s - ” He stopped. Priss laughed, and licked sugar off her fingers.

Five mouthfuls of peace, and she began again. She was relentless, like a very beautiful woodpecker.

“So how much did you drink yesterday?”

“I don't know.” Just the word
drink
made him feel sick. He washed it away with a swallow of coffee.

“Kate sat with you for hours. She thought you might die in your sleep. You know, like, choke on your own spew.”

Davey put down his sandwich.

“Could you not talk about being sick when I'm eating? Please?”

“Just trying to stop you eating the pattern off that plate.” She yawned, not bothering to cover her mouth. Davey glimpsed perfect white teeth and a clean, pink tongue. “What happened to your face?”

The sandwich suddenly lost its appeal. Davey put it down on the plate and reached blindly for his coffee.

“Are you going to talk to me about anything at all?” asked Priss, saccharine-sweet.

“I'm sorry. No, I'm not - ” He had to stop himself from slapping himself on the forehead.

“Did you kill someone?”

Davey spluttered over his coffee.

“Why on earth would you think I'd killed someone?”

“You turned up here out of the blue, you were absolutely dead drunk, you were obviously running away in a hurry, your face is a fuckin' mess and all you've said since you got here is that you're
sorry”
She shrugged. “Murder's not the only
answer, but it's a good one.”

Davey stared at her in horror.

“So,” she said, watching him with interest. “Did you?”

“No, I didn't!”

“Sure?”

“I think I'd remember!”

“Probably,” she agreed. “You could be lying. But I bet you're a fuckin' useless liar. Which would you rather be, a bad liar or a successful murderer?”

“What kind of a question is that?” asked Davey crossly.

“Just pick one.”

“But why? Oh, alright then, a bad liar.”

“You'd rather be bad at something than good at something?” Priss seemed disappointed. “Do you want some more porridge?” Without waiting for him to answer, she took his bowl and filled it again.

“Thank you,” he said, surprised. She shrugged.

“Kate told me to feed you. Thing is, the Holmesian method of deduction doesn't really allow for multiple possibilities. You
might
be a murderer on the run, but you might have come here 'cos you like the view, got drunk 'cos you think it's cool, smashed up your face 'cos you walked into a door, say sorry all the time 'cos you're an inadequate loser with no self-esteem, and only packed socks and
Alice in Wonderland
'cos you left your luggage at the station. What?”

“How do you know what I brought?”