‘Same as always, then?’
‘Very funny,’ he says, as we step together on to the path to the care home.
‘Also true.’
‘Now it’s not funny.’
‘Or is it?’
‘I have no idea what we’re even talking about now,’ says Dad, pressing the security buzzer with a jab of his thumb, but I can see that he’s smiling.
Grandpa has been living in an old people’s home for over a year now. He coped for a while on his own after Grandma died, and never complained, but when it became clear he was losing weight and not looking after himself properly, he reluctantly agreed to move somewhere where he’d get more help.
His body is much healthier now, but his mind isn’t what it was. He almost seems to be trapped inside himself these days. When we visit, I can sense him struggling to peer out at the world and make sense of what he sees. Glimmers of the old Grandpa still shine through, but you never know when that’s going to happen.
We head for Grandpa’s stuffy little room, through corridors which smell of bleach mingled with whatever vegetables they’re boiling that day. I don’t know what it is they cook, but any time of day you go there, that’s the smell: boiled vegetables and bleach. Even now, with the sun beating down outside, all the radiators seem to be churning out heat.
Grandpa is the only other person in the family who likes games, so I always take a pack of cards with me, and his lined, sagging face brightens a little whenever I sit down next to him and deal. Whist and crazy eights are his favourites, and the only time I ever hear him laugh these days is when he beats me. I love hearing the raspy, wheezing sound of his old man’s cackle, so sometimes, if a game is close, I let him win, just like he used to do for me when I was small.
Chess was our game back then. He’d sit with me for hours, teaching me moves and strategies, chatting con-tentedly in the lilting, throaty East European accent he’s never lost, every game ending with him saying, ‘Ach, you beat me again!’ in mock annoyance, which delighted me every time.
I have a feeling he’d be upset if he knew how the tables have turned, but I’m always subtle about it and he never guesses.
After a few hands of cards, I retreat to the window seat to play games on my phone, and Dad takes over the chair next to the bed for their fortnightly chat. I don’t usually listen to what they’re saying, but when Dad starts trying to explain about Rose’s move into the commune, I find myself tuning in. He doesn’t appear to notice I’m listening, because the story he tells Grandpa about his visit doesn’t match the version he gave Mum and me. It’s clear that he likes the place much more than he admitted to us.
After a relatively short and unconvincing account of Rose’s rebellion, and the possible reasons for it, he starts talking about the other people who live there, in particular a guy called Clyde, who sounds like some kind of guiding light for the commune, a veteran of ‘the struggle’ (whatever that is). Dad goes on to explain that he and Clyde have figured out that they would have been at university at exactly the same time, and even visited India in the same year, but their lives took opposite paths, with Clyde having travelled all over the world, living hand to mouth from a string of temporary jobs, keeping himself going where necessary by busking.
‘He’s just done whatever he wants, for his whole life,’ says Dad, with something that sounds a little like awe. ‘Whenever he’s begun to feel bored or restless, he’s just picked up and gone somewhere new.’
At this point, Grandpa, who has been silent ever since Dad took over the chair next to him, pipes up. ‘Moron!’ he barks.
‘Who, me?’ says Dad, with an embarrassed glance in my direction, as if he’s only just remembered I’m in the room.
‘No – this idiot friend of yours. What a waste of a life!’
‘Well, maybe I’ve explained it badly,’ says Dad. ‘He’s a nice guy.’
‘It’s no use being nice if you’re lazy,’ says Grandpa. ‘I can’t stand people who are lazy.’
‘I know, Dad, I know,’ replies my father wearily.
I often feel, watching these two talk, that their conversations inevitably end up falling into a groove that bores them both, as if they’ve already had all the conversations they’re ever going to have, and the only question is which one it will be this time.
‘Biscuit?’ says Dad, raising a plate of chocolate digestives towards Grandpa in an obvious bid to change the subject.
I jump up and take three.
On the way home, we stop for our usual takeaway in the car. Dad’s staring out of the windscreen, lost in thought as he unwraps the food and takes a mouthful, and still has the same dreamy expression on his face when he leans forward and silently takes a second bite.
‘Still the best?’ I say.
‘Yeah,’ he mumbles. ‘Still the best.’
My first full week with the whole house to myself turns out to be less exciting than I’d hoped. The thrill of unsupervised solitude wears off surprisingly fast, and my enjoyment of uninterrupted days of nag-free gaming soon fades.
Seeing people would help, but everyone in my group of close friends has gone away on holiday, and it would feel weird to contact anyone else. I know I could always go next door and have balls thrown at me by Callum, but that never feels tempting.
The days soon begin to seem long, empty and slightly lonely. By the middle of the week, I realise that I’m starting to look forward to Mum getting home from work.
On Wednesday morning, Mrs Gupta, our other next-door neighbour, wakes me up with a ring on the doorbell at the highly antisocial hour of ten o’clock, but I manage to forgive her because it turns out she’s delivering a homemade cake, along with the message, ‘This is for your mother. Tell her I’m thinking of her.’
What kind of a mad person delivers a cake to a teenage boy who hasn’t even eaten breakfast, in an empty house, and tells him the cake is for his mother? Does she know nothing? What planet does she live on? How I’m going to find the restraint to reach the end of the day with anything more to hand over than an empty tin with a few crumbs in it I have no idea.
‘And do ask her if there’s anything I can do to help,’ she adds.
‘More cakes,’ is the obvious answer, but I manage to hold this in and just nod politely, until it occurs to me to say, ‘Help with what?’
‘Something has to be done. Everyone’s been saying it for ages, but now … well … this was bound to happen sooner or later. I’m just so sorry it happened to Rose. She was such a lovely girl. I remember when she used to babysit for the boys …’
‘She’s not dead. She’s just crossed the road.’
‘Your family is being so brave. I admire that, I really do. It’s terribly sad, what’s happened to this street. Those people coming here, turning a lovely house into a filthy hovel.’
‘It was empty.’
‘Yes, and now look at it! God knows what goes on in there! Such a shame.’
Mrs Gupta turns and walks away. I stand in the doorway, holding the cake tin, watching her go, and just as she’s getting to the pavement, I say, ‘Why does everyone hate them so much? What have they actually done?’
She stops, turns, looks at me, thinks for a few seconds, then says, ‘Well – they’re dropouts. Anarchists.’
‘What’s an anarchist?’
‘Someone who doesn’t believe in anything.’
‘If they don’t believe in anything, what are they protesting about?’
‘This is a conversation you need to have with your own parents. It’s not my place. Just … be careful. You don’t want to go the way of your sister. And don’t eat all the cake!’
‘Of course I won’t,’ I say, closing the door with one hand and opening the cake tin with the other.
That afternoon, feeling directionless and bored, I cross the road to visit Rose again. As I enter the commune, I hear the sound of guitar music wafting into the hallway – the kind of sleepy/bluesy thing I always make Dad switch off in the car, but it’s ob
vious this isn’t a recording coming out of a speaker. This is someone in a nearby room plucking an actual instrument with amazing skill and delicacy. The sound of it makes me freeze and listen, momentarily floating me away to a faraway place – somewhere empty, hot and dry.
I follow the drifting shimmer of notes and find myself in the kitchen, along with a dreadlocked couple sitting at the table, staring at their mobile phones in silence, and a bearded man swathed in layers of sack cloth and leather who is stirring a vat of something that smells like curry. He looks like he might be in fancy dress as an innkeeper in a children’s fairytale. On a stool by the window is the grey ponytail guy, plucking an ancient-looking acoustic guitar with a dark patch in the wood under the strings from years of strumming. Everyone ignores me as I stand there staring at the guitarist, watching the spidery dance of his fingers on the fretboard.
Only when I step closer and stand a couple of metres in front of him does he acknowledge my presence with a brief nod, before returning his full attention to the guitar.
This guy is obviously Clyde. He looks like the kind of man people would talk about when he’s not there and listen to when he speaks. There’s something about him that looks simultaneously old and young, wizened and carefree. His hands are huge, hairy and rough-looking, but they move with fluid precision on his guitar strings, every motion smooth and perfectly coordinated, each finger sliding from note to note without the slightest flicker of hesitation or unnecessary movement. The expression on his face is one of serene, blissed-out concentration. I don’t normally like sad music, but watching him produce these sounds in front of my eyes is mesmerising, and I lose all track of time as I watch him play.
Eventually, allowing his strings to reverberate on a long chord that sounds like both a whoop of delight and a howl of despair, he stops playing and looks at me. We listen together as the sound fades away. ‘You like blues?’ he says, after a while.
I shrug, since I never liked it before now. ‘Are you Clyde?’ I say.
He nods, seemingly unsurprised that I know his name without any introduction, then looks me up and down. ‘So you are … ?’ he says, in the gravelly voice of a lifetime smoker.
‘Luke,’ I say. ‘From over the road. I’m Rose’s sister. I mean she’s my sister. I’m her brother. You know Rose? She’s moved in here. For a while. Or maybe for good, I don’t know.’ Something about this man’s level, unblinking stare is making me gabble like an idiot.
‘I know Rose,’ he says. ‘She’s a good kid. Lots of ideas.’
‘And I think you know my dad.’
‘Yeah, he visited.’
‘He’s told me about you,’ I say.
Anyone else would ask what had been said, but not Clyde. He just nods and smiles, with a distant look in his eyes, as if he’s not so much smiling at me as through me.
‘Hi!’ says a voice from the doorway.
I turn, and my heart sinks at the sight of Sky, still wearing my favourite hoodie and the too-short tracksuit trousers, giving me a geeky wave.
‘Hi,’ I say reluctantly.
‘So you two are friends?’ says Clyde, giving me a pointed stare, as if the question is some kind of test.
‘Yes!’ says Sky, but Clyde keeps his eyes fixed on me, with one eyebrow fractionally raised.
‘I suppose,’ I say, after a while. ‘We only just met.’
Clyde gives a tiny nod of approval. ‘Was it you that gave her the clothes?’
‘It was my mum.’
‘That was kind,’ he says, less as a compliment than a judgement, then he casts his eyes down and begins to pluck a quiet tune.
‘Do you know where I’d find my sister?’ I ask.
Without taking his hands off the guitar strings or saying a word, he briefly flicks his chin upwards, a gesture that seems to mean upstairs somewhere – not my problem.
I don’t want Sky to follow me, so without looking at her, I head out of the room and up the mud-streaked staircase.
I eventually find Rose sharing a hammock in a tiny bedroom at the back of the house. When she sees me, she scowls, hastily extinguishes a roll-up cigarette, and tumbles out of the hammock with all the elegance and grace of a cowpat exiting a cow.
At first I can see only the feet of her hammock companion, and a dangling tress of red hair. It’s immediately obvious from the atmosphere in the room that I’m interrupting something.
‘What are you doing here?’ says Rose, straightening her clothes.
‘Just came to say hi,’ I reply.
‘Again?’ she says, as two hairy legs emerge from the folds of the hammock, followed by a long, skinny body. Sure enough, it’s Ginger Man-Bun Boyfriend Suspect from the house meeting. He’s wearing nothing more than a pair of cut-off jeans and a Celtic arm tattoo.
‘Yo, blud,’ he says.
I try to smile at him, but I don’t really manage it because I’m too busy trying to calculate how crazy my parents would go if they knew Rose had a boyfriend in the commune, let alone the owner of a tattoo and a man bun.
‘So you’re the famous brother,’ he says.
‘Famous?’
‘I was being ironic.’
I have no idea what this means and look towards my sister for some kind of explanation, but she’s still just staring at me with go away eyes.
‘Space,’ says the boyfriend, extending a hand.
‘What?’
‘Space!’ snaps Rose. ‘That’s his name.’
‘Space?’ I say.
‘Yeah,’ he replies.
‘This is Luke,’ says Rose.
‘Space as in … outer space … or just space? Like a parking space,’ I ask.
‘Who can say?’ replies Space, with a knowing smirk.
‘Is that a nickname?’
‘Used to be,’ he replies. ‘Shall I leave you two to catch up?’
‘No,’ says Rose hurriedly. ‘Luke isn’t staying.’
‘Aren’t I?’
‘Did Mum and Dad send you here to spy on me?’
‘No.’
‘What do they want?’
‘I don’t know. I haven’t asked them. I just came to see you.’
‘Why?’
‘Why do you keep asking why I’m visiting you?’
‘Why do you keep visiting?’
‘Because you’re my sister. Mum and Dad don’t even know I’ve come.’
‘Dad keeps on hovering round here too.’
‘Does he? I thought he only came once.’
‘No – he keeps turning up.’
‘When?’
‘All the time! Why can’t you just leave me alone!’
‘That’s not very friendly.’
‘It’s spying that’s not friendly.’
‘I’m not spying. I …’
‘Can I say something?’ interrupts Space, stepping forward and taking Rose by the hand, then, bizarrely, taking my hand too.
‘The nuclear family unit is nothing more than a social convention, but brotherhood and sisterhood are part of our human geology,’ he says. Then he puts my hand into Rose’s and steps back.
I cannot remember the last time I held her hand – it’s probably around a decade ago – and for some reason this feels like one of the most embarrassing moments of my life.
We can’t look at each other, and can’t instantly recoil from one another’s touch, but neither of us can think of anything to say, either, so for a while we just stand there, hand in hand, staring at the floor.
‘I should get home,’ I say, mainly because this seems like the least weird way to let go of her and step away. ‘Is there anything you want?’ I add. ‘From over the road, I mean. Or any message you want me to pass on?’
‘Just … tell them not to worry. And to leave me alone. I’m fine.’
‘OK.’
‘And don’t say anything about Space.’
‘Don’t say that he exists, or don’t say he’s your boyfriend, or don’t describe him?’
‘Just say n
othing.’
‘All right. My lips are sealed.’
As I’m walking out of the room, having pretty much given up on ever getting a friendly reception from Rose in her new home, she says, ‘What about you? Are you OK?’
I turn back and see an expression on her face that now seems free of hostility, possibly even almost apologetic.
‘I’m all right,’ I say, with an attempt at a smile. ‘Mum and Dad are a bit out of their tree, but that’s no big deal. Got the house to myself all day, which is nice.’
‘Yeah – Mum’s been hassling me about not babysitting you, but you don’t need that, do you?’
‘No – course not.’
‘Cool. Well, if you want to pop over again, text me first, and maybe we can hang out.’
‘All right.’
‘It’s good here,’ she says. ‘We’re doing something important.’
I nod.
‘There are other ways to live,’ she adds. ‘Different to Mum and Dad. And that’s OK.’
‘I know. It’s Mum and Dad that don’t get it.’
‘They will eventually,’ she says.
‘So you’re going to be here for a while?’
‘Probably. Can’t think why I’d leave.’
Whether this is something Mum and Dad have already figured out, or is news that would break their hearts, I have no idea. Either way, it doesn’t feel like information I’m in any hurry to pass on.
‘You understand why I’m here, don’t you?’ says Rose.
‘I think so.’
‘Even if we don’t stop the airport expansion happening, it’s important to stand up for what you believe in, isn’t it?’
‘Totally.’
‘We’re planning things. Protests. Stuff is going to happen.’
‘Well, if I can help …’
‘Maybe you can. When it’s time, I’ll tell you.’
‘OK.’
‘Good. See you soon, yeah?’ she says.
I smile and set off home, feeling surprisingly good about the way the visit panned out, until I step outside, and there’s Sky. Waiting for me. Not even doing anything else while she waits, but just standing there, looking at the front door like a dog outside a supermarket.
The Summer We Turned Green Page 5
