Summer at Hollyhock House

by Cathy Bussey

  Faith wondered if she was going to cry. ‘I really was in love with you too,’ she said softly.

  She stared out over the greenhouse, softening her gaze and letting the greens and reds inside and the riot of colour around it blend into a kaleidoscopic blur. Rik was silent too and she found she didn’t feel the sadness so much knowing that he was right there with her. This wasn’t the conversation she’d expected to be having with him, but she was glad all the same.

  Rik flicked a stray stalk back into the veg patch. He was wearing a black t-shirt that had seen better days and a great deal of cement and dust, not to mention the wrong end of several of Paul’s tools. His hair, including the mess of ever-increasing stubble, was wilder than ever and the sun had turned his skin another shade darker.

  ‘Call me naïve, but I actually thought, after we got together, I thought that was it. I thought we would travel together and have adventures and scratch our itchy feet and get married and knock out a bunch of kids,’ he said all in a rush. ‘I was a bit of a romantic as a kid and I was totally sold on the idea of you and me.’ He glared at her hotly as if already regretting his outburst.

  Faith blinked rapidly. ‘That’s exactly what I thought too,’ she said softly. She couldn’t bring herself to say any more.

  ‘It’s messing with my head,’ he said, still sounding annoyed. ‘You being here. Especially with GT knocking around too looking like the image of Tackle. I feel like — like I’m in a...’

  ‘A timewarp,’ Faith said.

  ‘Yes! A timewarp.’ He frowned again. ‘When I saw you on the drive it was like I was looking at the same girl who rolled up one day with her bike. But also it was like I was seeing you now, but more — I don’t know. Something.’ He was clearly frustrated at his uncharacteristic inability to find the words. ‘And I’m still half convinced you’re just not going to show up one day. I’ll come down onto the site and there’ll be this big space where you used to be, and I’ll start to wonder if you were ever really here at all. Then off we go on the bikes again and it’s just like it always was, before…’ he tailed off.

  Faith once again felt such a strong surge of affinity with him it was almost physical. That was exactly how she felt too — it was like she was having three relationships with Rik, the friends they had been, flashes of the heady intensity of their brief time as more than friends, and one with him now, which was reminiscent of both at times and at the same time, still completely new and loaded with the fear that it might all suddenly end again, like it had never really begun. This is crazy, she thought. But at least it’s not just me.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ she said, not really knowing what she was apologising for but knowing he still sounded almightily annoyed and that somehow that had to be her fault. ‘We don’t have to hang out. We don’t have to go out, ride the bikes — we don’t have to do any of it. I can just keep out of your way.’

  Rik looked exasperated. ‘If I wanted you out of the way, I’d just stay out of the way,’ he said. ‘I’m not telling you this like it’s some massive problem for you to solve for the both of us by shutting yourself away again, removing yourself like you were never part of the equation. We’re friends, you’re a part of this,’ he swept his hand over the garden, ‘after this summer it’s not like we’ll never see each other, unless you take off again.’

  ‘I won’t,’ Faith said quickly. ‘I’m a bit past that now.’ In more ways than one, she acknowledged. She might have wanted to run away and hide at the very beginning but now the idea of just closing the door on Rik and on Hollyhocks was unthinkable.

  They sat in silence again, much more companionably this time, and Faith let her thoughts swirl up and amass, waiting to see what appeared. It didn’t change anything, she acknowledged, there was no hope that he might still feel the same way about her. That much was obvious. But he also had made it pretty clear that nobody would be closing any doors at the end of this summer, they would still see each other, they could be friends, or at least have a knowledge of each other’s lives.

  It was validating, in a way. They’d never discussed their actual feelings for one another then or now, other than that first awful conversation, when he’d said very little about it. Sometimes she wondered if she’d dreamed the whole thing herself, or just lost it all, scattered like wildflower seeds, but seeds could eventually have roots, and so could she.

  She didn’t have to lose him altogether, all over again.

  ‘I’d better get back to it,’ she said eventually. Rik nodded and they both stood up. Faith forced herself to meet his gaze, which was level and steady.

  ‘I really did love you,’ she said, a little sadly. ‘I hope you know.’

  ‘I don’t really think you did,’ he countered, ‘because if you had, I don’t think you would have been so quick to think the worst of me.’

  ‘Believe me,’ she said. ‘I did. I suppose I was scared, maybe, or just young and confused, but mainly I was just so very much in love with you and I think,’ she felt a tugging at her heart even as she said the words, ‘I think a part of me will always love you.’

  It was about as close as she could get to expressing how she truly felt, but Rik was still looking at her as if he was waiting for something, anything else that she could offer him, and without any words left in her she didn’t really know what she could do next, other than to try and show him just what he meant to her.

  She stepped forwards and he didn’t move away, or towards her, he didn’t move at all, frozen to the spot, frozen in time, maybe, and she stood up on tiptoes and kissed him, her lips soft as butterfly wings, just once. Just for a second.

  Just long enough for the memory of how his mouth had once felt against hers, the taste of him, the heat of his raw energy, to rush back up into her consciousness.

  She stumbled away and turned to GT, snapping her fingers and pointing at her heels and as if by Hollyhocks magic he for once got the message and fell in behind her, and she and the dog walked back to the rockery together. The second she knew, just by feeling it, not needing to look, that Rik had gone, she grabbed the terrier and buried her face in his wiry coat, and cried.

  Chapter 17

  The weekend Faith’s parents headed out of town was to prove momentous not just for her and Rik. When she showed up at Hollyhocks he told her, with an expression of faint disgust, that Minel and Paul had finally got together.

  ‘Oh,’ she said delightedly. ‘About time.’

  Rik grimaced. ‘I wish they’d keep the noise down.’ He shuddered, then shot her a sly look. ‘At least I won’t have to listen to it tonight.’

  ‘Oh are you staying at Jason’s?’ Rik’s best friend had invited them to a house party, as his parents were also out of town.

  ‘Only if you’re there.’

  They spent the party entertaining themselves ingratiating a lovestruck Jason with the ever-admired Sophie Barnes.

  ‘Reckon we’ve done enough?’ Rik asked as he and Faith watched Jason and Sophie, who were now in full flow, finishing each other’s sentences and exchanging admiring looks.

  ‘I think so,’ she agreed.

  ‘So we can go?’

  So this is it, she thought.

  A full moon was blazing up in the sky, giving off a silvery glow. Faith nudged Rik. ‘Don’t sprout fangs and claws.’

  ‘It’s not me you need to worry about,’ he said, following her gaze. ‘Tackle always goes mental on full moon nights. We’d better not let him follow us back to yours.’

  But she didn’t want to go back to her house. We don’t belong there, she thought, looking at Rik. If we’re going to do this, it can’t be in my poky little bedroom with the walls and ceiling looming in on us.

  ‘I don’t think we should go to mine.’

  ‘Oh.’

  ‘Let’s go to Hollyhocks,’ she said decisively. It has to be there, she thought, that’s where he and I met, that’s where we became ourselves and that’s where we first came together, that’s where we need to be.
r />   ‘If you like,’ Rik said, ‘but Minel and Paul…’

  She smiled at him ecstatically. ‘Not the cottage. I don’t want to hear that awful din either or have to explain myself to your nosy sister. Let’s go to the hay barn,’ she said excitedly, ‘nobody’s going to come in there and bother us, we can get some blankets from the cottage, and there’s those cracks in the ceiling so we can watch the moon, and Tackle can come and find us once he’s finished his marauding and pillaging.’ It was perfect, she thought, it was exactly what she wanted to do.

  Tackle was mercifully absent when they got back and rounded up some blankets and cushions from the cottage, and they climbed up to the top of the stack of bales. The moon glowed encouragingly overhead through the cracks in the ceiling. In the silvery glow Rik’s eyes looked black and the light on his skin made him look so beautiful she found she had a lump in her throat.

  ‘So,’ he said, finally a little lost for words.

  ‘So,’ she echoed.

  He kissed her and she lost herself in him, letting him pull their clothes off and scatter them far and wide, lying back naked and completely exposed beneath him as his eyes drank her in. She could tell how excited he was, too excited even for foreplay, she suddenly wondered if it really was going to hurt.

  ‘So,’ he said again. ‘Do you want to?’

  ‘Do you have condoms?’

  He nodded.

  She could smell the slightly musty sweetness of the hay piled around them and something a little acrid, petrol he must have spilled when filling up the lawn mower. The moonlight splintered around a narrow crack in the roof and in the distance she heard a fox shrieking.

  ‘Yes,’ she said matter-of-factly. ‘I want to.’

  It took a while to work out how it would all come together. Faith was surprised how exposed she felt and how logistically awkward it all was. Rik was as gentle and careful as he could be, but it was still uncomfortable.

  ‘Sorry,’ he said sheepishly. ‘I got way too carried away.’

  ‘It’s OK.’

  ‘I’m so glad that was with you.’

  She stroked his hair, which was damp with sweat. ‘I’m glad it was you too, Rik. It was always going to be you.’

  They lay in silence, staring up at the moon through the cracks in the ceiling, watching as time held still.

  The balmy air brushed calm across her heated skin, soothing her tension until all of her felt fluid and resonant with life.

  She could feel Rik next to her, his energy rolling off him in waves, drawing an answering pulse from within her.

  Inside the stillness, everything was in motion.

  She reached out for him at the exact same time as he turned to her.

  When Faith woke soft light was streaming into the haybarn. She guessed it was early, around six, because it was still chilly and the air smelled fresh and inviting. The dawn chorus was in full swing, birds shrilling and cheeping and singing melodically, repeating their refrains over and over again, occasionally changing in pitch and tone. She could hear the trilling of a blackbird and the low cooing of woodpigeons, and the distinctive ‘teacher, teacher’ notes of a great tit.

  I wonder what they’re saying to each other, she thought.

  Rik was still asleep, his eyelashes casting spiky shadows over his cheekbones. Not even sleep could soften those, but he looked peaceful and much younger and almost angelic. She could feel the air humming with a kind of earthy magic, but it wasn’t tranquil and dreamy and softly cherishing, like it had been last night. It was vibrant, awake. More forceful. Did we do that, she wondered? Did we change the frequency? It still felt evocative, but she shivered, realising that without the blanket she must have kicked aside at some point during their brief doze, she was cold. She must have moved away from Rik.

  Well, that was a mistake.

  She shifted back over to him, huddling into him for warmth, and he stirred and blinked. ‘You look beautiful in the morning,’ he said dreamily.

  ‘You look sexy in the morning,’ she countered. ‘And the afternoon, and the evening, and at night, and at 3am, especially at 3am…’

  ‘Last night,’ he said, suddenly intent. ‘All of yesterday. It was all.’ He paused. ‘It was so much more than I thought it would be,’ he said softly.

  In the end all they had really had to do was tune into that pulse of energy and it had guided them all the way.

  Even through the awkward bits, even though it still took a couple more attempts until Rik managed to hold on long enough for her, grasping her hand and tightening his fingers around hers until his knuckles were white.

  Once she had truly surrendered and let it all take over her the intensity had been shocking, the connection far more profound.

  ‘You know I love you, don’t you?’ he said. ‘I’ve always loved you.’

  Of all the things he’d said to her, this was the nicest, but she felt that magic tighten and tremor again. It must just be going through its evolutions to prepare for change, just like she and Rik had changed until they had arrived at the point they were at now, the point at which she supposed they must always have been meant to be.

  ‘I love you too,’ she said softly.

  He kissed her and pulled her on top of him. ‘It’s been hours.’

  Tackle, alerted by the disturbance, shuffled over to see what was going on. But as his ferocious yellow eyes took in the scene his intuition told him there was no place for him in the ensuing mayhem and, without any prompting at all, he sloped off and faced the wall.

  ‘So can we tell everybody now?’ Rik asked as they finally left the haybarn. Faith was looking at Hollyhocks, which was just beginning to stir in the still-early morning light. The birds had died down now, finished their showboating and gone about the serious business of the day, whatever that was. Eating and flying and resting and twitching — they did twitch a bit, the way they hopped across the ground on both legs, tiny powerful movements that propelled their entire feather-light bodies inches into the air. And they would be watching for predators, Faith thought as Tackle shot out behind them and ran yapping into a small gathering of thrushes, which all took flight and dispersed across the cloudless sky.

  ‘Yes,’ she said, squeezing his hand. ‘Although you know Minel will make our lives unbearable, she and Paul will be wisecracking all over the place and in front of your parents, and Sara too.’

  He shrugged. ‘I don’t care. It doesn’t really bother you, does it?’

  It did, but she didn’t want to tell him, because she knew it would make him think less of her. ‘Of course not,’ she said, kissing him quickly.

  Her mother was sitting at the kitchen table when Faith got home. Does she ever move? Faith thought agitatedly.

  ‘Where have you been?’ Judith asked.

  ‘Just out,’ Faith said. ‘Sorry I didn’t answer the phone earlier.’ She assumed they must have phoned. ‘I was in the shower and it had stopped ringing by the time I got to it.’

  ‘Who were you out with?’

  ‘Some friends.’

  ‘Sit down,’ Judith instructed.

  Faith slid into a chair. ‘Don’t worry,’ she babbled a little frantically. ‘I didn’t do anything.’

  ‘It’s not about that.’ Judith said. Faith gripped the table, realising her mother’s cheeks were red and her eyes very puffy. Judith began to talk, and Faith watched her knuckles turn white as her world imploded.

  It took Faith two weeks to recover from the bombshell Judith and Jeff had dropped on her. In that time she didn’t ring Rik, even though she knew he’d rung several times while she was out riding her bike, spinning mile after mile as she contemplated the future she was so powerless to influence.

  But slowly her thoughts crept back to the parts of the future she could control. On Saturday morning she woke just before sunrise with an unmistakeable feeling of excitement in her stomach. Judith and Jeff had shocked all her joy away with their sudden announcement, but she could feel a new resolve within her, and along
with it, at the top of her mind, was Rik.

  Today, she thought. I’ll go and see him today. We’ll tell Minel and we’ll go public and I’ll be able to see him whenever I want, kiss him in front of everybody, stay with him at the cottage, hold his hand at school. I’ll tell my parents I’m going to study garden design and that’s the end of it and there’s absolutely nothing they can do about it — now they’ll know how powerless I feel, because it’s my life. And I’ll go travelling with Rik and have that life I want so much.

  She might not be able to persuade her parents not to self-destruct, although there was always a chance her pleas might help, but she could at least make sure they didn’t take her down with them.

  She fidgeted around the house, avoiding eye contact or conversation with her parents, until 8.30am when she could wait no longer. Everybody would probably be asleep at Hollyhocks but she’d go anyway, she could hang around in the hay barn until they woke up or see if the cottage was unlocked — Rik and Minel often forgot to lock it at night — and even sneak up to Rik’s room to surprise him. That would be fun, she thought eagerly, she could creep straight into bed with him and wake him up in just about the best way possible.

  ‘See you later,’ she called as she let herself out the back door.

  Judith, gazing into the murky depths of her tea cup, didn’t even bother asking where she was going. Faith felt a flash of guilt. Maybe she should stay with her mother today. Keep her company. It was just one more day.

  But her heart was already racing, and she knew she couldn’t hold out any more.

  Hollyhocks looked dormant in the early morning sunshine. Faith avoided skidding up the gravel drive, anxious not to create a racket and wake anybody up, and instead dismounted silently from her bike and leaned it against the side of the hay barn. She ran up to the cottage on light feet, keeping an eye out for Tackle on his way home from goodness knows where.