Five Years From Now

by Paige Toon

  ‘Of course not. You know me, I’ll be quite happy to have an early one.’

  ‘Sorry we kept you waiting so long last night.’

  ‘I wanted to see your face before I went to bed,’ he replies, pressing my hand.

  ‘It feels like ages since I saw you at Christmas.’

  ‘One day I’ll drag myself to Liverpool,’ he promises.

  ‘Hopefully we’ll have more room next year.’

  Right now, I live in a house with three other girls and, more often than not, their boyfriends, too, but in our third year, Joel and I might get something together. We’ll probably share with another couple.

  ‘Joel seems nice.’ Dad nods towards the bathroom.

  ‘Yeah, he’s great.’

  He hesitates, then takes a sip of his tea, but I sense he has something to say.

  ‘Everything okay?’ I prompt.

  He sighs. ‘I heard from Van a few days ago.’

  My heart lurches.

  ‘He’s here, in the UK.’

  In my head, I’m scraping the chair across the tiles in my hurry to get out of here, but I force myself to stay seated.

  ‘He asked if he could come to visit.’

  I know Dad has stayed in touch with Van, but sporadically – they send Christmas and birthday cards, but probably only speak once a year.

  ‘What did you say?’ My voice sounds like it’s coming from someone else.

  ‘I told him you’d be here with your boyfriend…’

  My heart clenches.

  ‘…So we wouldn’t have a lot of space,’ Dad finishes.

  ‘He could stay in my room,’ I find myself offering.

  ‘He’s travelling with a friend, anyway.’

  ‘Which friend?’ I ask. A girlfriend?

  ‘Dave, I think he said.’

  I’m unsettled by the pang of relief I feel.

  ‘They plan to spend a few weeks surfing the coast before heading to Europe, so they’ve invested in a campervan. I said I’d check with you, but thought they could park on the drive.’

  My head spins as I nod.

  Dad covers my hand with his, patting it lightly before getting up to stack the dishwasher. I help him.

  I haven’t seen Van since he left under those horrific circumstances five years ago. Dad banned me from ringing Australia, but eventually I defied him, willing to suffer the consequences. I must’ve called a dozen times before Van finally answered. He said that he’d been away on a fishing trip. He sounded like a different person. Our conversation was strained and tense – much, much worse than any of the stilted exchanges we’d had in the past. My dad had spoken to Van’s dad and had landed him in a lot of trouble. I knew Van felt deeply ashamed about what had happened. The aftermath hit him hard.

  I wrote him letters – dozens of them. But it was months before I received a reply. I’d even accused Dad of keeping them from me. I became paranoid and bitter – I was horrible that year.

  But when Van’s letter finally arrived, I wished Dad had been hiding others, because what I imagined receiving was very different to what actually came.

  Van told me that he felt sick about what we’d done and that he wished he’d never crossed that line with me. He would always care for me, he said, but there was no point in me pining for him because we could never be together. He admitted he’d dropped out of school months earlier and had been too embarrassed to tell me at Christmas. Now he was working with his dad full-time and just wanted to be happy, surfing and hanging out with his mates. He thought we’d both feel better if we gave each other some time and space to recover, and he hoped we could be friends again one day.

  That was the gist of it. I tore it up and burnt the pieces.

  ‘Who’s Van?’ Joel asks when I tell him about our forthcoming visitor.

  ‘He was sort of like a stepbrother to me between the ages of five and ten,’ I explain, having so far managed to avoid the subject, which will probably always be sore to me. ‘My dad and his mum got together and they moved in with us.’

  I tell him about Ruth’s death and how Van had to go and live with his real father in Australia.

  ‘He came over here when he was fifteen, but that’s the last time I saw him.’

  ‘How long ago was that?’ Joel asks, and I realise I haven’t explained that we’re the same age.

  ‘Five years ago – our birthdays are two days apart.’

  ‘You’re practically twins!’

  ‘Our parents used to joke about it. We had to share birthdays and everything.’

  ‘Urgh, I wouldn’t have liked that.’

  Joel has an older brother and a younger sister. They get on okay, but there’s always been a bit of competition between them – they’re not super close.

  ‘To be honest, by the time I moved to Cornwall from London, I was so happy to be here that I would have shared pretty much anything.’

  ‘And you were in the same bedroom?’

  ‘Yep.’ I smile. ‘The titchy one at the top of the stairs.’

  ‘Huh.’

  ‘Bit different to your house, eh?’

  His home is a veritable mansion compared to mine.

  ‘Still, what a place to grow up,’ he says, holding back a tree branch for me.

  We’re in the wooded area, to the left of the deck and down by the water. The cottage may be small, but it’s built on an acre of land. I’m showing Joel around. I step onto a dead tree trunk on the path, feeling the rotten wood give a little beneath my feet.

  Spriggens… I think to myself, as a memory floats back to me of the naughty fairies who I once imagined jumping out from behind this very tree trunk, frightening Fudge and Smudge so much that they tumbled down the bank and splashed into the river.

  I open my mouth to tell Joel about it, but change my mind and snap it shut again.

  ‘NELL!’ Ellie practically catapults herself into my arms from across the other side of the bar area.

  I haven’t seen her since Christmas. She goes to Newcastle University and has a boyfriend there, too, so our trips to visit each other have been few and far between since the first year when we caught up every couple of months.

  She and Joel hug. They met in October when she came to Liverpool for my birthday weekend. He and I had only recently got together.

  ‘Brooke!’ I squeal, looking past Ellie to our friend, who’s just walked in the door. Her brother, Brad, is close behind her.

  ‘I called out to you, but you didn’t hear me,’ Brooke chides, as we repeat the same process of hellos.

  She’s at university in Glasgow, so she’s even further afield than Ellie.

  ‘Aah, together again,’ Nick teases from behind the bar. He still has longish light-blond hair and curls that Ellie would’ve killed for when we were younger. Her beloved perm dropped out after only a few weeks. Now she wears her chestnut hair straight. It comes to past her shoulders, but mine is even longer. Not that you’d be able to tell – I’m wearing it in a braid tonight.

  I go to the bar, taking Joel with me. ‘Where’s Drew?’ I ask Nick, after I’ve introduced him to my boyfriend.

  ‘He’s “oop north” with his girlfriend for Easter,’ Nick replies, affecting a terrible northern accent. Drew’s girlfriend, Charli, is from Yorkshire.

  ‘That’s a bummer. I haven’t seen him in ages.’

  Drew and I ended up becoming friends, once he’d got over my New Year’s Eve snub. He knew after that night that I wasn’t interested, and soon moved on to date a girl from another school. They were together for about a year, but he’s never flown solo for long.

  Unlike his brother, who is perpetually single.

  ‘Guess who’s coming to stay for Easter?’ I say as Nick sorts us out for drinks. I’m amazed at how I’ve managed to sound casual, considering I feel anything but.

  ‘Who?’

  ‘Van.’

  ‘Cool! Is he here to surf?’

  ‘Yeah, I think. He and a mate are travelling around Europe in a camperv
an.’

  ‘A campervan! That sounds fun. Make sure you get him to give me a call. Does he still compete?’

  I shrug. ‘I’m not sure.’

  I’m embarrassed to admit that I never speak to Van at all. The last time I heard from him was when he sent me a card for my eighteenth birthday. That was over two years ago and made me feel very strange indeed. He sends Christmas cards, but they’re also addressed to Dad, so they don’t count.

  We don’t stay too long as Joel is driving and can’t drink, but we all make a plan to go to the beach in the next few days. Everyone’s around for a good couple of weeks so there’ll be plenty of time to catch up.

  ‘I’ve always wanted to be able to surf,’ Joel says on the journey home.

  ‘You could learn. Why don’t you do a couple of lessons while you’re here? There’s an amazing surf school at Poldhu Beach, not far from us.’

  ‘Bit old, aren’t I? And isn’t the water freezing?’

  ‘Yeah, but you wear a wetsuit, and you’re never too old. Take a right here.’

  He flicks on his indicator. ‘Maybe I’ll look into it.’

  I’m tense as he drives past Steven and Linzie’s farm. Around the bend is where the driver took Ruth off the road.

  ‘Careful on this stretch,’ I warn. ‘It’s tight.’

  ‘It’s fine,’ he scoffs, and my insides draw tight with anxiety. Another car zooms around the corner towards us, making Joel swerve. ‘Jesus!’ he erupts. ‘He was right over on my side of the road!’

  ‘I told you,’ I say through gritted teeth. I’m clutching the armrests with white knuckles.

  ‘Yeah, all right, Nell, I didn’t realise the drivers around here were freaking nutcases.’

  I don’t bother to tell him that the people on holiday are the worst.

  It’s because I’m so stressed that I don’t notice the campervan until we’re almost upon it.

  ‘Is he here already?’ Joel asks with a frown, pulling up on the drive. He peers out of the front window. ‘Bit small, isn’t it?’

  My entire body is racked full of tension.

  It’s a VW Syncro, not one of the vintage VW split screen campers, but more of a modern eighties one. The bottom half is black, the top half is cream and there are two surfboards strapped to the roof. ‘How do two blokes fit in that for months on end?’ Joel glances across at me. ‘Are they gay? I wouldn’t care if they were,’ he continues nonchalantly, getting out of the car.

  I’m glad he doesn’t really require an answer, because I can’t give him one. I’m struggling simply to breathe. An electric eel has slithered into my gut and has coiled around my insides, pulsating and squeezing and filling me with nervous energy.

  The campervan is dead silent, so they’re either out cold or they’re inside the cottage. As it’s only ten o’clock, I predict the latter.

  My hand is shaking as I retrieve my keys from my purse and unlock the door. Deep voices spill through from the kitchen.

  ‘Here they are,’ Dad says as I put one foot in front of the other.

  I’m vaguely aware of there being three people at the table, but my vision tunnels towards Van. He’s at the end, sitting in a laidback pose with one long leg crossed over the other, his ankle resting on his opposite knee. An empty beer bottle sits in front of him and another is in his hand, his elbow propped on the table. His hair is a little longer than it was, coming to below his chin. It falls like a dark slash across his forehead, but I have a clear view of his eyes resting on mine. His lips very slowly tilt up at the corners.

  I feel as though my heart has been sucked over the falls of a wave and has wiped out at his feet.

  Joel grabs my shoulders and cheerfully propels me into the room. Dave jumps up to shake his hand and Van unfurls his lean body from his relaxed position and languidly gets to his feet to do the same. In a daze, I watch him step forward to greet my boyfriend. He seems even taller than he was when I last saw him, and broader too, like he’s filled out some of his skin. He’s wearing ripped denim jeans and a faded black T-shirt with a graphic print that has partially rubbed off in the wash. He’s unbearably attractive.

  Dave appears in front of me, breaking me out of my stupor. ‘It’s really good to meet you,’ he says in a warm, Aussie accent, giving me a hug. I try to smile at him, but I’m shaken. He’s tall, too, with bronzed skin and light-brown hair that has been so highlighted by the sun that it’s almost blond.

  ‘Did you have a good night?’ Dad asks us perkily, and I imagine he’s trying to keep the atmosphere light. He must know that this is difficult for me.

  I’m grateful when Joel answers on my behalf. ‘Yeah, it’s a great pub, isn’t it? Right on the river,’ he tells Van and Dave.

  ‘You guys want a beer?’ Dave asks, indicating a bucket on the floor that’s full of bottles on ice.

  ‘You came prepared!’ Joel exclaims.

  ‘I know,’ Dad says. ‘I feel like a bad host.’

  ‘Don’t be silly,’ Dave reproaches. ‘We didn’t want to impose. We’re happy you’re letting us park up on your drive.’

  ‘I’ll grab a beer,’ Joel accepts Dave’s offer. ‘I couldn’t drink at the pub as I was driving.’

  ‘Nell?’ Dave asks.

  ‘Sure.’ My voice breaks, but I nod. I’ll have the whole bucket, please.

  ‘Jeez, you’re tall,’ Joel erupts with a laugh. He’s looking at Van, but Dave is almost the same height. ‘How do you guys fit in that thing out there?’

  Dave casually throws his arm around Van’s shoulders. ‘With difficulty,’ he says easily. ‘We need to get a tent, don’t we, mate?’ He shakes Van’s shoulder.

  ‘We do,’ Van answers slowly and he sounds sleepy or drunk, I can’t tell.

  Once more his eyes return to mine.

  It hits me then that we haven’t even said hello. We haven’t touched, we haven’t hugged, we haven’t so much as shaken hands. And I get the feeling we’re not going to. He’s standing only three feet away from me, but he may as well still be on the other side of the world.

  An icy-cold beer finds its way into my hand. I put it straight to my lips and drink.

  ‘Come and sit down,’ Dad urges us.

  I go around to the other side of the table and pull up a chair next to Dave, opposite Dad, leaving a space for Joel to sit between Van and me.

  Dad meets my eyes across the table – his are full of concern. I take another swig of my beer, finding it hard to concentrate as Joel asks about their trip so far. He’s good at making small talk.

  Dave does most of the answering, but Van says very little unless prompted.

  ‘We met a couple of surfers at the pub earlier, didn’t we, Nell?’ Joel says. ‘Nick and…’

  ‘Max,’ I tell him, glancing in Van’s general direction. ‘You remember them?’

  He nods. ‘Of course.’

  ‘They said they’d like to catch up with you while you’re here.’

  ‘That’d be cool.’

  A shiver goes down my spine every time I hear his voice.

  ‘I was wondering about doing a few lessons,’ Joel says as I turn back to him and smile. ‘I can’t surf. Not that I’ve ever tried, but it’d be cool if I could. Do you surf, Mr Forrester?’ he asks Dad.

  ‘Call me Geoff, please,’ Dad bats back. ‘And no, I do not surf. You’ll find me in the garden, but not the sea.’

  ‘Dad works at Trelissick, a National Trust property about half an hour from here.’

  ‘I thought you worked at Glendurgan Garden,’ Van interrupts with a frown.

  ‘Not any more,’ Dad replies.

  ‘But he’s going for the Head Gardener job, so if he gets it, he’ll be working across Trelissick and Glendurgan.’ I say this with pride.

  Dad wriggles self-consciously, but he returns my smile.

  ‘I’d like to go to a few National Trust places while I’m here,’ Joel says.

  His parents got him membership as part of his Christmas present.

  ‘The
re are loads in this part of the country.’ I smile at him and he reaches out to tuck a loose tendril of hair behind my ear. I shake it free again and he laughs softly.

  I’ve been steadfastly avoiding looking at Van, but my eyes slide past his as I return my stare to Dad and I feel like I’ve been punched in the stomach.

  As soon as I’ve recovered, I affect a yawn. ‘Time for bed.’

  ‘Yep, sounds good,’ Joel agrees, draining the dregs of his beer.

  ‘Do you want to use the bathroom first?’ I ask him.

  ‘No, you go for it.’

  I push my chair out from the table and go round to give Dad a kiss on his cheek.

  ‘Night, darling,’ he says fondly, patting my hand.

  I say goodnight to the room in general and then head into the bathroom and close the door, my heart racing. I grab my toothbrush and brush my teeth with the fervour of a crazy person, blood mingling with my tears as I spit foamy toothpaste into the basin. Then I straighten up and stare at myself in the mirror.

  ‘The colour of runny honey in sunshine…’

  ‘We are not brother and sister.’

  ‘I am in love with her.’

  And let’s not forget: ‘I wish I’d never crossed that line and I hope we can be friends one day,’ I remember bitterly.

  I take a deep breath and inhale slowly.

  I love Joel, I remind myself. I’ve moved on. I’m twenty now, not some stupid teenager who believes everything a good-looking boy tells her. I’ve grown up. I’m in an adult relationship.

  My heart feels marginally lighter after the pep talk, and I leave the bathroom, heading straight for the annexe without looking towards the kitchen as I go.

  A moment later, there’s a light rat-a-tat-tat on my door.

  I open it a crack, jolting at the sight of Van on the doorstep.

  ‘We’re calling it a night, too,’ he says. ‘But at some point I’d love to get into the wardrobes.’ He nods towards them. ‘Not now, obviously, but maybe tomorrow.’

  ‘Sure.’ I clear my throat. ‘Sure,’ I repeat and sound comes out this time.

  ‘Thanks.’ He smiles a small smile, his eyes dark and impenetrable. I want to tear my gaze away, but find that I can’t. My fingers are numb as they clutch the door frame.