by Anna Wilson
Don’t force yourself.
‘Yeah.’
‘No big deal.’ Kenan turned and walked away.
She immediately felt bad: it would have cost him, offering to play with her like that. She sighed as she looked in at the table-tennis table – which had more paint pots heaped on top of it.
No one’s played with him for a while, then.
‘So do you play with your dad – or mum?’ Summer asked.
But Kenan was striding ahead now. The moment of tentative friendliness had passed as quickly as it had come.
Somehow, Summer could not see Tristan taking the time to play table tennis with Kenan: the way the father and son had been with each other earlier – she could not envisage matey afternoons spent playing and joking together.
Maybe that’s what’s made him so grumpy – nothing to do with me at all.
They had come to the end of the corridor. Kenan was leaning with his back against another door, pushing it open. A narrow beam of sunlight crept in and lit up the tiles on the floor. ‘This leads to the garden. Mum’s pride and joy,’ he was saying.
Summer felt a trickle of cold run down her back as he said this. She was suddenly convinced that they were not alone. She glanced behind her.
Someone is watching me.
Somewhere a door banged. Summer’s heart caught in her throat.
Kenan did not seem to have noticed anything. ‘Your room’s above here. As it’s above the kitchen passage, the servants probably slept in your bit.’ He grinned.
This idea seemed to please him, that she should be put away in the servants’ quarters. Before she could think of a suitable retort, Kenan leaned towards her and rasped: ‘This part of the house is haunted.’ He opened his eyes wide to make his point. ‘Especially up where you are! Must be the old servants, rattling around in the woodwork.’ He whirled away from her again and gave the door a shove, dancing jauntily through and waving his arms in a ghostly fashion, calling, ‘Whoooo! Whoooo!’
‘Yeah, right!’ said Summer. ‘So how come there are no ghosts in the main part of the house, then?’ Her voice bounced shrilly off the damp walls, betraying her fear.
Kenan glanced back at her, that stupid grin on his face again. ‘How should I know? Maybe the servants were particularly bad while they were alive,’ he said. ‘And now they just can’t rest in peace.’
He was a jerk, talking about death like that. He knew about her mum. What did he think he would achieve by trying to spook her? She could not run away. She was here for good now, whether he wanted it or not.
She felt something snap inside her.
‘Why are you being such a—?’
He squared up to her. ‘What?’
‘I mean what have I done to you? I’ve only been here five minutes – and it’s not like it’s out of choice – and you’re . . . you’re behaving like I’m here specifically to make your life hell!’ She shook her head. ‘If it makes you feel any better, I didn’t want to come here.’
‘No. It doesn’t make me feel better,’ Kenan countered. Without waiting for a reaction, he turned away again and scurried down some stone steps and on to a cobbled walkway, lined by imposing grey walls.
No choice but to follow.
They went through a wrought-iron gate and out into a gravel-coated area with a formal flower bed. The air was sweet with last night’s rain, the walls reflected heat and light from the startlingly golden sun. The warmth was a welcome surprise after the cold of the house.
Summer looked up and drank in the deep blue of the sky, the small smudges of white cloud. Something swooped low over her head and curved up sharply in front of her, making her duck.
‘Swallows,’ Kenan said. ‘Not seen them before?’ he added, seeing the look on her face. ‘They nest here every year.’ He turned left and had his hand on the latch of a sage-green wooden door in the wall. ‘Their favourite places are in the eaves and in the woodshed.’ He spoke with pride.
He’s loving this, playing Lord of the Manor.
‘Right,’ Summer said. She refused to sound impressed.
She looked up and saw the little nests snug under the rafters of the house.
Maybe that’s what’s making those scuffling noises.
A fleeting image passed through her mind of the dusty London pigeons sheltering under the arches near the station back home.
Another world.
The swallows zipped in and out of the covered passage she had just walked through. Tiny faces with wide-stretched beaks appeared at the edge of the nest. Chicks set up a clamouring, their scrawny heads reaching towards the adult bird approaching, desperate to be the first to be fed. The parent hovered expertly, popping morsels into the hungry mouths before flitting off again to fetch more food.
What would happen to them if the adult failed to show one day? No guardian would swoop in and take them under its wing. They would be left to fend for themselves, or to perish.
So what made her more important than one of these chicks, that she should be swept up and cared for by Kenan and his family? They had had a life without her. A simpler life.
She was unwanted baggage. A nuisance that had to be accommodated.
She glanced at Kenan.
Survival of the fittest. Which of us would it be?
‘You coming or what?’ Kenan said, breaking into her thoughts. ‘Walled garden,’ he said, as he opened the door and went in.
Summer hesitated.
‘So?’
‘Yeah, yeah. Coming.’ She felt her throat tighten. If her mother had been here, she would have walked through this very door, seen what she, Summer, was now seeing.
Did you live here, Mum? A long time ago?
She felt something soft brush her ankle and looked down to see the little white cat, winding its way in and out of her legs, purring loudly. She bent to pick it up, wanting to hold it to her, to feel her arms around something. But the cat slithered out of her grasp with a soft mew and ran back to the house.
Why didn’t she tell me about this place? It’s obvious it’s pretty special. Why keep it a secret?
‘As I said, Mum’s pride and joy.’ Kenan stepped aside and gestured as though he had conjured up the scene before them.
‘Oh!’
Kenan blushed when he saw Summer was wide-eyed. ‘Cool, isn’t it?’
Summer nodded. She saw he had let his guard slip, letting her catch a glimpse of what the place meant to him.
No wonder he was chuffed, she thought, gazing around. This was The Secret Garden after all, and she was Mary Lennox!
Can’t see Kenan as Dickon, though; for all his chitchat about the swallows.
There were four separate sections to the garden: one a neat vegetable patch, one a miniature maze, another with an umbrella-like tree in the middle, and the fourth planted artfully with pink and purple flowers. Gravel paths acted as dividers and in the very centre of the garden was a pond with a fountain.
‘It’s amazing,’ Summer breathed.
So perfect, so still and quiet: Summer felt she was spying on a private world that rarely invited, or welcomed, visitors.
‘Isn’t it? Mum’s own design,’ Kenan said, that edge of pride in his voice again.
Seeing the carefully planted garden, so neat and tidy, Summer knew then, without a doubt.
This is Mum all over.
Her mother had loved gardens, always been wistful about what she would do if she had had the space. Tears welled up in Summer as she saw in her mind’s eye the rows of pots on their small London patio, the sweet peas growing up the trellis.
She was here, then. Had to be.
Kenan was looking at her strangely. She swallowed, forced herself to say something. ‘She must be clever. Your mum.’
‘She is.’ A cloud passed over his features. He looked lost; younger suddenly.
‘Are you—?’ Summer wanted to ask him if he was all right, but she did not trust her voice.
She turned away to the pond, blinking hard, and fo
rced herself to focus on the huge orange-and-white fish which rose up through the murky green depths.
‘I bet the cat has a go at these,’ she called. A change of subject to lighten the atmosphere.
He frowned. ‘What?’
She opened her mouth to repeat herself. Kenan had already turned swiftly away, however, and was walking back out of the garden, as though regretting ever showing her the place.
‘Let’s go,’ he shouted, when she did not make a move to follow.
‘OK! OK! What’s the rush?’ She jogged over to catch up with him. ‘Will I meet your mum later?’ she added.
‘How do I know?’ Kenan would not look at her.
‘Tell me what’s going on. Please?’ she said. Then, more quietly, ‘Has she – is she cross or something? Because of me?’
Kenan continued to ignore her, walking fast, head down, brows knitted together.
‘Kenan?’ she tried again. ‘Something’s upset you. What is it?’
‘Dad says I have to show you round, and that’s what I’m doing, OK?’ he said irritably. ‘So either follow me or go and find something else to do.’
And what would that be exactly?
Yet again, she did not have a choice.
Kenan’s dark mood did not lift as he marched Summer around the sprawling grounds. He carried out a sullen, bored inventory, pointing out where the sea was, explaining that the ‘side walk’ (a path that ran along the far edge of the lawn) had once been the main driveway to the house.
‘So how come it was changed then?’ Summer asked.
This at last seemed to provoke something in the boy. He stopped and she saw that expression of wicked amusement flicker across his face again.
‘Because of the ghosts.’
Summer rolled her eyes. ‘Ghosts in the house, ghosts in the garden. You don’t give up, do you?’
‘It’s true,’ he insisted, suddenly animated. ‘When people used horses and carriages, the horses used to come down that way and they would always get spooked at the same point. It got to the stage people didn’t want to come and visit any more, so the owners made the driveway we use today.’ He nodded in the direction of the drive she had come down the previous night. ‘Come on, I’ll show you where the ghosts are.’
He strode ahead, his long legs carrying him quickly across the lawn. She saw the shadow of his father in the way he moved. Kenan had the same rangy body, the same thick, dark messy hair.
She hesitated as he headed for the path, partly concealed behind shrubbery, trees and more of those large blue-flowered bushes Tristan had showed her the night before. What had he called them? High-something. They bent their blowsy heads low, casting cool shady shapes over the path.
‘Come on!’ He was urging her to follow.
Don’t be a wimp. He wants you to think spooky thoughts. You don’t believe in ghosts.
Didn’t she? What about that unexplained phone call the night her mother died?
She felt goosebumps rise on her arms, in spite of the warmth from the sun.
‘Wait, can’t you?’
She ran into the shadows to catch up.
Kenan was standing in a sun-dappled spot on the dirt-track. ‘It’s here!’ he said. ‘This is the place.’ His thin pale face was flushed with excitement, a little boy again, enjoying his story, as though caught up in an adventure.
He’s playing make-believe.
‘How do you know this is it?’ Summer looked around, sceptically. ‘It’s never wide enough here for a horse and carriage.’
Kenan would not be put off. ‘I told you, they changed it. After the horses got spooked so many times. By the ghost. It definitely feels colder here than anywhere else in the garden. That’s what they say about ghosts, isn’t it? That you feel a chill if there’s one about? What d’you reckon?’
She thought of the chill she herself had felt in the old kitchen passage when she had been certain someone was watching her. Maybe he wasn’t trying to scare her: he seemed genuinely to believe what he was saying and to want her approval, for her to share something with him.
She couldn’t let him have the satisfaction, though. Her mouth twisted. ‘Oh, come on. You don’t really believe that rubbish?’
Kenan’s bright-eyed expression vanished. ‘Whatever,’ he said. Then, drawing himself up, ‘Since you obviously know everything, you don’t need me, so you can piss off now.’
‘What?’
‘You heard me. Piss off. I didn’t have to show you round. It’s not like I haven’t got other things to do.’
She held up a hand to pacify him. ‘Hey, I only meant . . . No need to be so—’ she began.
Kenan had broken into a run, was sprinting across the lawn towards the house.
A lump rose in her throat. She hadn’t exactly been enjoying his company, but . . . she didn’t much want to be left alone like this either.
What am I going to do now?
She felt guilty. Kenan had been upset in the walled garden; something to do with when she had asked about his mother. She should have been nicer to him. She was the stranger, this was his home. But . . . oh! She needed someone to take care of her too.
She looked towards the house again. He had definitely tried to put the wind up her with all his talk about hauntings. That wasn’t kind, was it, whatever he was feeling? It was hardly subtle either, bringing up the subject of ghosts when he knew her mother had died so recently.
Ghosts.
She shuddered, but not because she was standing in the leafy shade. It was a sudden, iron chill that clutched at her heart.
Because there, on the far side of the garden, staring out at her from the darkened porch at the front of the house, was her mother.
‘Mum?’
Summer was running, her feet pounding the grass, her legs not moving fast enough, as though pushing through deep, cold water.
‘MUM!’
When she reached the porch, there was nothing there. No one. She was sobbing; her chest heaving. She took hold of the front-door knob and wrenched it this way and that, rattled it ferociously.
Locked.
What is happening to me? First that phone call and now this. I don’t believe in this stuff. It’s all his fault.
She let her hands fall to her sides and stood weeping.
What are you doing? She is not here. She is not anywhere.
Summer shook her head, trying to push the tears away, and to rid her mind of the sight of her mother in the porch, looking right at her.
She rubbed her nose hard on the back of her hand, blinked angrily. She could not bear the thought of Kenan watching her from inside the house, and knew that she could not go back in. She could not face Kenan or Tristan. She turned and looked back at the path.
There must be a way out of this place. The sea was that way, he said.
She was not thinking clearly now, only knew how she felt – hemmed in, spied on. By whom? By Kenan, hiding somewhere in the house? Or by someone or something more unsettling?
She pushed that thought away as she ran back to the shady path, looking about her wildly. If this was the old drive, then a right turn would take her back to the road Tristan had driven them along the previous night.
So left to the sea then.
Even though she could not know where she was going, Summer did not question the decision she had made. She did not want to stop and think. Stopping and thinking seemed only to lead to unwanted memories, tears, and visions of things she would rather not see. So she pushed forward beneath the green and brown canopy, ran through the shadows and beams of light, and away from the house.
There! A five-bar gate ahead. She wrestled with the catch and was out, on a track that sloped down to the right, away from the house, with open fields on both sides.
She gazed along the track.
To the sea.
She ran on, sweating, wishing she had worn shorts instead of jeans. Her armpits were damp and uncomfortable, her feet rubbed painfully in her trainers. She could have w
alked, of course she could. But what if Kenan or Tristan decided to come looking for her? No, she needed to get away quickly; needed space.
Another gate.
She heard Tristan’s voice echoing in her head: ‘Show her the farm, the rockery . . . the beach.’
Did he own the farm? Or would she find herself wandering on to someone else’s property? She looked at the gate. No ‘Private’ signs. She swallowed, checked about her, then pushed the gate open and ran through. A path swept away and down, lined thickly on either side with more and more of those big blue flowers they had back at the house.
The bushes towered over her, the great floppy heads heavy with moisture from last night’s rainfall. As she brushed past them, droplets of water fell on to her T-shirt, running in rivulets down her arms, cooling her skin. She couldn’t see where the path was heading and began to feel a little foolish.
Maybe I should turn back. What am I going to do when I get . . . wherever I’m going?
She gave one final push against the greenery; the leaves parted like curtains and the path ran out. A deep bowl of riotous colour fell away beneath her: cascading ferns; huge balls of tiny, purple-indigo flowers; dragon-tongued fronds of red and orange; trumpets of white. And among them a stream, pure and fresh, trickling down over moss-streaked rocks. Around this paradise rose giant granite boulders, the crevices in them like features on ancient faces, looking down on the place, protecting it.
From people like me.
Summer felt sure she should not be in this beautiful garden. It was too special, too private. Or maybe . . . was this the rockery?
A rockery – that’s a garden with rocks in, right?
Well, this was a garden, and there were loads of rocks in it. But ‘rockery’ did not really cover it – the place was more like something out of Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland. Those huge leaves, like giant versions of the rhubarb plants her mother had grown in pots on the balcony: looking up at them made her feel as though she were shrinking.
More fairy-tale stuff.
Still, if this was the rockery, it must be part of Bosleven, so presumably it was fine to be here.
That was a lot to assume, though. She felt a strong sense that she was not supposed to be here; that any human would feel unwelcome here. The garden had the air of a lost world about it. Lost or forgotten.
