The Last Summer of Us Page 5

  It’s not fair. It’s not fair.

  It’s not fair that I have to deal with Becca – and everyone like her, with their small-mind, small-town whispers and their sideways glances.

  It’s not fair that I’ve had to watch my family fall apart while I stand there and do nothing, because what else could I do?

  It’s not fair that the summer – the time when I’m supposed to be on the beach or in the park or just staying up all night for the hell of going to bed as the sun comes up, when I’m supposed to be thinking about the future, my future – has been turned into my own private hell where I leaf through coffin catalogues like I’m picking out curtains or colleges.

  It’s not fair that it couldn’t be in six years. Six months.

  It’s not fair that it’s now.

  And it’s not fair that this is how I think, that I resent something so sad, that on top of everything else I feel guilty – and it makes me feel even worse.

  Somewhere, there’s a little cloud of it’s-not-fairs, just waiting to rain on me. Which isn’t fair either. So it goes.

  My it’s-not-fair approach seems to have worked though, because finally, finally, Steffan’s shoulders droop a little and he sags back against the wall. “We’re moving. How’s that for not fair?”

  “What?” He gets it in stereo as we both say it at the same time.

  “Dad’s been headhunted. Something about an advisory role in a blah-blah-blah. I wasn’t really listening.”

  “You’re moving? When?”

  There’s a studied silence. He won’t look at either of us.

  “When, Steffan?”

  “Three weeks.”

  “Three weeks?” I’ve gone shrill. I hate being shrill. Jared’s doing that half-smile-that-isn’t-really-a-smile thing, shaking his head. Now he’s picking at the grass. Right now, though, it’s Steffan I’m interested in. “And when were you going to bring this up?”

  “Dunno.” He flicks a ladybird off his knee. “First there was his dad” – he jerks his head towards Jared – “and all his family shit, and then there was…”

  “My family shit.”

  “Well, yeah.” He shrugs. He’s worried he’s offended me with that, but I’m not offended. I’m shocked, if anything. Shocked that he’s kept this to himself; that he didn’t feel he could tell either of us. It’s huge. The kind of thing you tell people. The kind of thing you tell your friends. Mind you…thinking back over the last couple of weeks it’s all pretty huge, and none of it in a good way. I can’t help but wonder whether we’ve upset some great cosmic balance – and that’s even before I punched Becca.

  “Three weeks. But you’ve not been packing or anything.”

  Cardboard boxes in the garage…

  “It’s part of the deal; they send people to do it all for you.”

  “Steff…” Jared looks thoughtful. “That’s a relocation package. One of Mum’s lot got offered that a few years ago, and that was the end of them.” He peers over his sunglasses. “Where exactly are you moving to?”

  “Yeah. About that.”

  “Where?”

  “LA.”

  There’s always Steffan. Always has been, always will be.

  Or maybe not.

  I’d been expecting him to say Cardiff. Bristol. London. Somewhere that wasn’t the other side of the world. I mean, even in London we could still see him sometimes; catch a train maybe. Get the coach. But America? That’s crazy.

  “But…what about school?” My voice is shaky.

  “It’s all taken care of. They’ve got me a school place…somewhere, and then Dad wants me to apply to music college. Thornton, or something.”

  “Is that what you want, though?”

  “Does it matter?” He scowls and bites his lip.

  “Of course it matters! Why are you letting him do this? He can’t!”

  “He can, alright? It’s complicated.”

  “How complicated can it be? It’s your life, isn’t it? Don’t you get a say?” I’m indignant for him, I think; he’s so calm. Too calm…or maybe he’s just pretending to be. Steffan, our protector, is protecting us again. He’s already had this conversation, hasn’t he? He’s had it over and over again: just him and his dad, with no one there to speak up for him. No one to make his father see that this isn’t what he wants, but he’ll take what he’s given because it’s easier, and that’s what you do when it’s you against them and there’s no one in your corner.

  His mother would have been in his corner.

  And that’s why he wants to visit her grave. He wants to say goodbye…again.

  Oh, Steffan.

  She baked. It was what she did, Steffan’s mum. She didn’t like cake (or so she said) but she loved baking, and their house always smelled of whatever had just come out of the oven. There was a downside to this: she liked to experiment. She’d order flavours from all over the internet. I’ve still not forgotten her peppermint and rose sponge – it was…unique. Even Steffan turned his nose up at that one, which tells you just how bad it really was. But she was always smiling and laughing, and there was always music in their house and flowers in the garden, even when she was sick. And then she died.

  You never see the really big things coming, do you?

  Jared has gone very quiet. Which is going to make our little expedition fun, isn’t it? He’s giving Steffan the silent treatment. Steffan’s…well, not quite all there. And I’m a shambles. Maybe we should just turn around and give up on the whole thing.

  I don’t even blame him – Jared, I mean. And I don’t think his reaction is just because he’s known Steffan even longer than I have. They started primary school together on the same day and they were in the same class for years, until Steffan went to the school where he’d meet me (and where Jared followed a bit later). They’ve been in and out of each other’s houses since long before I came on the scene, so to Jared, losing Steffan must be like losing part of his past. But there’s more to it than that, and I wonder if it has something to do with Jared’s map.

  The first time I went in Jared’s room, I saw the map on his wall; big enough to take up all the space between his bed and his window, marked with pins and bits of string and pictures torn from magazines. I thought it was kind of weird, but it was Steffan who explained it, of course, as we wandered back down the street that evening in the early autumn sunshine. Apparently, Jared always said that as soon as he was old enough, he was going to leave. Just go. He’d get the cheapest flight he could to the East Coast and work his way across the States until he wound up in California.

  “Then what?” I’d asked. Steffan just shrugged and kicked a stone down the pavement.

  “I don’t think he’s thought that far ahead. It’s just what he’s always wanted to do.”

  Of course he hadn’t thought ahead. He hadn’t thought about passports or visas or Green Cards or…anything. Because that’s the one thing about Jared that people don’t realize. He’s smart and he’s on the rugby team and he’s good at maths – but he doesn’t just look like one of those old movie stars. He thinks like one too. Even after all the things that have happened with his dad (or maybe because of them), he’s kind of innocent. Sweet. He’s…what do you call it? Naive? That. He’s like the kid who grew up on a farm, wearing dungarees and slinging hay bales… And now he’s got me talking like we’re in an old movie and everyone’s about to break into a song about how sunny it is and how there are flowers in the hedgerows or something. Anyway, you wouldn’t believe all this if you saw him take down the St Matthew’s team centre at the last match – but that’s Jared for you. A mystery. A riddle. He’s The Quiet One. He watches and he listens; less forgetful than I am, less self-absorbed than Steffan. It’s like he’s always waiting for something – a chance to make a run for it, maybe.

  I look at him looking at Steffan again and I catch it; it’s only there for a second, flashing across his face and disappearing in a heartbeat, but it’s there. He’s jealous. Steffan’s taking Jared’s
escape plan…and he doesn’t even want it. The wrong one of us is going to America and we’re all as trapped as each other. All stuck in lives that are determined by other people. Other people’s choices. Other people’s mistakes.

  Steffan puffs out a long, slow breath and throws the middle of a daisy at me. The white petals are scattered around his knees. “Still,” he says, dangerously close to smiling at me, “I bet that’s taken your mind off your hand.”

  “It had. Until you brought it up again. Thanks for that.”

  “What? You think you’re going to be allowed to forget that one? Just wait till school starts and Becca kicks off again.”

  I hadn’t thought of that. School, without Steffan. Becca without Steffan.

  How much can one person take? I wonder. How much can we carry before we break? How much more for Jared, with Marcus and his mother and now his dad back again? How much more for me? Becca’s comment was cruel and it was meant to cut…and how many more will there be? How much can we take, and how much more can we lose?

  Steffan knows I’m thinking it. He’s thinking it too. “We’re pretty screwed up, aren’t we?”

  I laugh. “Speak for yourself. I’m perfectly adjusted.”

  “Yeah, right.” He dusts his knees off and clambers to his feet. “Adjusted.”

  “That’s all I’ve got, I’m afraid.”

  “That’s all any of us have got.” He smiles at me, and I grin back.

  Jared shakes his head at the two of us. “You two are mentals, you know that?”

  Steffan throws his arm around my shoulder and I lean into him. We both pull faces at Jared, who shakes his head again and laughs as he hauls himself to his feet and rubs bits of grass from his hands.

  They’re ready to move on. They’re probably right. Places to go, things to see, people to…

  On second thought, maybe it’s better if we don’t bump into anybody else for a while. Either way, we’ve got to find somewhere to camp tonight before night actually rolls around.

  Steffan tosses his car keys to Jared, who snatches them out of the air without even breaking his stride.

  “Spock, you have the conn,” he says, and Jared rolls his eyes.

  “The original series? Really? Like I said: mental.”

  “Listen, mate, Kirk was cocking amazing.”

  “And you’re Kirk, clearly.” Jared pockets the keys. This is an old argument and we all know how it plays out, but they do it anyway. Who’d have believed that the pair of them are closet Star Trek nerds? Or that they’d have sucked me into it too? Honestly.

  “Bang right I am. And you…” He raises his hand, thumb extended and fingers splayed in the Vulcan salute as he pulls a mock-serious face and raises an eyebrow.

  It’s my turn. “You’re both rubbish.”

  “Oh yeah?”

  “Yeah. Bones is the best. It’s always Bones.” I shoot them a grin back over my shoulder. “The reboot version of Bones, obviously.”

  And, predictable as the moon rising, the tide turning and the clouds bursting on the one day you’ve not got an umbrella, I can feel them thinking it. If I turn around, they’ll have the same soppy look on their faces that they always do, and they say it in chorus.

  “Uhura.”

  Like I said: predictable.

  six

  Mothers. Our mothers. Steffan’s baked. Jared’s is…best left out of the discussion.

  Mine?

  Mine likes…liked…to control things. Events. People. She was the one who did everything, organized stuff and ran things. When I was little, she always said it was because that’s what she was trained to do, what she’d learned in her management course at college, and it was just easier for her to do everything. As I got older, it changed to being because nobody else could do it as well as she could. We’re talking about the small stuff: Sunday family get-togethers, barbecues. Dinners – not for thirty or forty people or heads of state, but for a couple of my parents’ friends. People who had never cared whether the bookshelves in the hall were dusty, and never would…but she still spent three days getting everything perfect for them.

  Gradually, it started to wear her down. I didn’t see it at the time, and maybe I should have. But you kind of assume your parents are…well, your parents. They’re the ones in charge, right? They remind you of it often enough, so it must be true. They’ve got it all worked out. You’re the one who’s stuck figuring out how the world fits together and what the hell you’re going to do in it, and why you shouldn’t be so terrified of the thought that it sets your teeth on edge. They’ve already had their turn.

  I wrote my mother’s eulogy at three a.m. and I told myself it was just like any other piece of homework I’ve ever been given. But it wasn’t. How do you catch someone in words? How can you trap a complete soul in a handful of pages and bring them back to life in front of the people who’ve known them their whole lives? People who know them as someone else. I only ever knew my mother as my mother…but they knew her long before she became that. How do you tell them who she was and not lie? How can you?

  One way or another, everyone lies at funerals.

  Jared has spent a good five minutes adjusting the driver’s seat and we’re still parked by the bridge. (Thankfully, alone now. Because Becca’d love this.) Five minutes. I’ve watched as the hands on my watch ticked round. Five minutes of shuffling the seat one click forward, two clicks back. Twiddling the cracked plastic dial on the side of the seat to tip it forwards and back. The Rust Bucket being what it is, most of the car’s held together with hope, faith and chewing gum, so when it’s fiddled with too much, the seat mechanism has a strop and bangs the whole thing back onto my knees right as I’m sliding across the back seat.

  “Oi!” I shout and Steffan glances over his shoulder at me from the passenger seat as Jared sighs and yanks his chair forward again.

  “Remember: not my fault,” Steff says pointedly.

  “It’s your bloody car,” I snap.

  “And who wanted to bring it? Hmm? We could’ve—”

  “No. We couldn’t.” Jared’s finally happy with the seat. And now he’s started on the steering wheel.

  I do not remember a time when I wasn’t stuck in the back of this car in the hot sun – a car, I might add, with no air con and with windows that barely work – waiting for Jared to be ready. Eons have passed. When they find me, I’ll be nothing but a pile of dust, still waiting in the back seat.

  Dust to dust.

  I know.

  Suddenly, it comes to me. The sunroof. There’s a sunroof. It’s closed. Hot air rises, doesn’t it? So if I open it, the car can’t possibly get any hotter. It’ll get cooler, because of physics. Or something. Not even the Rust Bucket can argue with physics. Of course, getting to the handle is going to be tricky, but the pair of them are too busy bickering about the sun visors to listen to me…

  I slide forward as best I can and lean in between the seats, twisting around so I can reach the handle. That’s how old this car is – no electric sunroof here. Like I said: hope, faith and chewing gum. Steffan looks up, poking me in the ribs as I grab the handle. It turns and the roof creaks open and suddenly there’s fresh air on my face, and I’m looking up at clear blue sky framed by green leaves. It looks so blue you could dive into it.

  It’s not elegant, but I twist some more and manage to stretch far enough to poke my head out through the sunroof. It’s just wide enough, I think… I wriggle, and my shoulders scrape up through the hole too.

  “What the…?” Jared’s finally noticed what I’m doing.

  “It’s boiling in there!” I don’t know whether he hears me. I don’t care. The sky is sapphire and the breeze is on my face…and the engine starts.

  I’m not rushing for them. I wriggle my arms through the gap and rest them on the roof. My palms tingle on the hot metal.

  “Would you sit down already? I get it, okay?” Steffan’s getting antsy. I’m still not rushing. The air tastes different here. Up by the pillbox, it tast
ed of summer and parched grass and hot stone. Here, back by the river and without Becca to spoil it, it tastes clean and clear – although that might be because the car still smells of cheese and onion crisps, with a hint of banana going off in the heat. I knew I should have made Steffan check under the seats.

  I’m just about to slide myself back into the car when I hear the click, and then the groan of the suspension…and the car creeps forward.

  They wouldn’t.

  Would they?

  The car keeps on creeping. It pulls away from the side of the road.

  They would. They have.

  Bastards.

  The breeze picks up as the car moves – still slowly – along the road. There’s no traffic here; past the bridge and surrounded by the fields and the trees, there’s no one left to see me but the ghosts of POWs. We pass the memorial at the crossroads and I feel the breeze pick up and the wind tug at my hair, and without knowing why I’m doing it, I throw open my arms and close my eyes and I’m flying.

  “Faster!” I shout down to Jared, but I can hear him telling me to get back inside.

  “You’ve had your fun, Lim. Sit down.”

  “No!”

  “I’m not kidding! Sit your arse back down, would you?”

  The car sweeps to the left, then back to the right. It’s gentle, but deliberate. I take the hint and slide myself back in through the sunroof, dropping into my seat. Jared’s fingers are gripping the steering wheel and even behind his sunglasses I know he’s frowning.

  “You could have just waited, you know,” I say.

  Steffan’s pale when he swivels in his seat to stare at me. “What was that?” he asks.

  “Forgetting,” I say, and fasten my seat belt.

  seven

  The boys are learning that pop-up tents don’t actually pop up. I did warn them about this when they were yammering on about how easy it was all going to be and wasn’t the whole “camping” idea so amazing. I think they were expecting to just unzip the bags and a tent to magically appear out of each one, all ready to go. Ha. But you can’t tell them – really, you can’t. So I’ve been sitting here on this tree stump for the last twenty minutes, while they wave a bunch of metal rods around and get tangled up in a load of fabric, generally getting themselves into a hell of a mess. They also seem to have invented a couple of brand-new swear words. They’re surprisingly original.