Lost Summer
Page 2
‘Where are you going?’ he demanded.
‘I live on the estate.’
‘You have to pay to go on this road if you’re not from ’round here. Fifty pence.’
Adam remembered the thudding of his heart and how his mouth had become suddenly dry. Kyle had once told him that if you could it was better to talk your way out of trouble than to fight. ‘Actually, I suppose I am from around here now,’ he’d reasoned.
‘Actually, I am from around here old chap.’
One of the other boys parodied his accent. He was thin with pinched features and black hair that lay flat on his head. His jeans were filthy and had tears in both knees and the sole of one shoe flapped loose. He reminded Adam of the kids from the tower estate he used to pass on the way home from school who used to yell names and throw stones or even empty bottles.
The boy in the road seemed amused. ‘What school do you go to?’
‘It’s called Kings,’ Adam said. ‘But I haven’t started yet.’
‘Fucking grammar boy,’ the thin one sneered.
They had given him an ultimatum; pay or fight, otherwise he had to take the long way around.
‘What did you do?’ Morris asked.
Adam was surprised at how vivid his recall was. He could almost feel the sun on his back making him sweat, the smell of cut hay from the fields mingling with hot tarmac and he experienced again the stinging humiliation of being the victim of bullying. He was alone, an outsider.
He had known he would have to fight or never hear the end of it.
They had said he could choose which one of them he took on. Fucking generous of them. The one who’d stopped him was easily the biggest and exuded a kind of lazy confidence. The thin one was the smallest but obviously a nasty little bastard, as Kyle would say. Which left the one on the wall, who so far hadn’t spoken. He was trying to look tough but he was as nervous as Adam was.
They waited for him to decide and when he eventually pointed at the big one he was almost as surprised as they were.
Morris was intrigued. ‘Why did you do that?’
The truth was Adam wasn’t sure. He’d often wondered if it had been a sudden attack of bravery, the tactical response of those with balls of brass; take out the biggest guy and everybody else falls into line. Or had it been something less heroic. Instinct perhaps?
He shrugged in reply. ‘It was all over pretty quickly.’
He’d thrown a few wild punches and remembered at least one connecting with its target, and the expression of pained surprise the other boy wore before he retaliated by swinging his fist in a blur of speed. The blow caught Adam on the cheek with the force of a house brick and knocked him to the ground, but somehow, probably accidentally, he’d managed to grab the other boy’s legs. Next thing they were rolling on the tarmac scrabbling and flailing at one another amid shouts of encouragement from the other two.
‘Finish him, Dave!’
‘Hit him!’
There was blood in Adam’s mouth and his lip felt thick and swollen. Tears of humiliation pricked his eyes. His arms were pinned. Get it over with he’d thought. Fucking country bumpkins. He’d remembered his mother always telling him how great it would be living in the country. How London was full of crime and vandals. All those glue sniffers and thugs on the tower estates. But he’d never been beaten up there. He’d never had three kids try to rob him. At least there he’d had his friends.
And then unexpectedly he was being pulled to his feet and the other boy was half smiling as he wiped blood from his nose and examined it with faint surprise.
‘Shit! You alright?’
‘I think so,’ Adam said.
They faced each other awkwardly and then the boy fetched Adam’s bike. ‘Sorry. It was just a bit of a laugh really.’
Some fucking laugh. The other two boys hung back, the thin one scowling with sullen disappointment.
Adam fell silent, lost in reflection. All these years later and the memory of that day remained as fresh as if it had happened just a day or two ago. He remembered feeling a curious pride for having stood his ground. The boy he’d fought looked at him differently, with a kind of respect. Even then, at that very moment Adam realized that some bond had inexplicably formed between himself and the boy whom he later knew as David. He wasn’t the only one to feel it. The thin one who turned out to be called Nick sensed it too. His eyed had glowed with resentment.
‘What happened?’ Morris asked.
Adam shrugged. ‘They let me go. I didn’t see them again until term started. It turned out I was going to the same school as the one I had the fight with.’
Morris waited expectantly as if there was more. But Adam didn’t feel like going on. He looked at the clock and noted with relief that his time was up.
CHAPTER TWO
The house was set back from the road and all but hidden behind a hedge. All that was visible was the thatched roof, but earlier Adam had wandered past the gate, pausing at the end of the driveway to get a better look. It was the kind of quaint two-storey Sussex village cottage in demand by well-heeled city commuters. Cloud Cottage was the name on the wooden barred gate. A black Labrador trotted over and dutifully though half-heartedly barked before wagging its tail hopefully. It watched with disappointed eyes when he went back to his car.
The first houses on the edge of the village were around the bend several hundred yards away. The railway station was in the next town, where Liz had caught the train to Euston. Mr and Mrs Thomas lived in Cloud Cottage with their three children. Liz had been their baby-sitter until a year earlier, a piece of information Adam had only stumbled across when he’d asked Liz’s father, Paul Mount, to go to the station with him a couple of mornings in a row on the very long shot that he would see something or somebody that would open up a new avenue in what had become a fruitless search.
On the second morning Paul had nodded to a middle-aged man in a suit. ‘Alan Thomas. He works in the City I think. Liz used to baby-sit for them.’
What was it about Thomas that had triggered some kind of internal alarm? He was just another business commuter like hundreds of others. Nothing to mark him out from anybody else, but discreet questioning had revealed that Liz had stopped baby-sitting for the Thomases a year ago. Why?
‘I don’t know really,’ Paul Mount had said. ‘I think it was a bit far and they were often out late.’
Adam had moved into the village pub, which was called the Crown, and for several days had been quietly digging and watching. He knew Alan Thomas caught the seven-thirty-two most days, but sometimes he went in late or not at all. His wife was on the plain side but well groomed. She didn’t have any close friends in the village, which wasn’t unusual for incomers like the Thomases. They tended to socialize with other people like themselves from the country club up the road. Their children attended private schools.
Adam had learned that the police hadn’t interviewed the Thomases. There was no reason to. In the morning he went back to the station and watched the other people who boarded the seven-thirty-two. There was a young woman whom Thomas seemed to know. Adam followed her to her office in the City and after work introduced himself. He said he was a journalist and wondered if she had time for a drink.
‘Adam Turner?’ Her brow furrowed and then her eyes lit up with recognition. ‘I’ve read something of yours.’
Minor fame had its uses. In a wine bar near the station she answered his questions. He didn’t expect her to remember the day Liz had vanished, but in fact she did. Such strokes of fortune happened occasionally and he accepted them as his share of luck. Dig deep enough and often enough and sooner or later something has to fall into place, and he was nothing if not diligent. He hadn’t been home for a week.
‘Actually, it was my birthday,’ she said, as she sipped a Côte de Rhone. ‘So I went in late that day. I caught the nine o’clock. Wasn’t that the one this girl was supposed to be on?’
‘Yes. Did you see her?’
She shook her h
ead. ‘If I did I don’t remember. I sat next to Alan.’
‘Alan Thomas?’
‘Do you know him?’
‘Not really. He was on the same train?’
‘Yes. I remember he said he was running late because his wife was away and he couldn’t cope without her or something. He made a joke of it. Anyway he promised to buy me a drink after work, but he never turned up. Actually, I was glad.’
‘Why?’
She hesitated. ‘It’s just that his wife was away, and you know, I wondered if he was making a pass. He didn’t actually say anything suggestive or anything. I’m probably being completely unfair.’
‘But something made you uncomfortable?’
‘A little I suppose.’
‘Intuition.’
She shrugged. ‘Perhaps.’
But Alan Thomas had sat with her all the way to London, she was positive of that. Had she seen him again after they left the train? She hadn’t. Who was to say he hadn’t bumped into Liz on the platform?
The next day he went back to London and when he arrived home Louise told him that Morris had phoned. ‘You didn’t cancel your appointment,’ she said. Her arms were folded, a wine glass in one hand.
‘I forgot. I’ll call him tomorrow.’
‘Will you make another time to see him?’
‘I don’t know. I think I’m on to something with the Liz Mount story. I might have to put Morris off for a little while.’
‘Christ!’
She slammed her glass down on the counter.
‘Look, it’s just temporarily,’ he said.
‘Right. Your bloody work comes first. Again!’
‘Come on, Louise,’ he said, and reached for her arm as she swept past.
‘Don’t touch me!’ she yelled, yanking free. ‘Just leave me alone!’
‘It’s not a case of my work coming first, dammit. This girl …’
‘I don’t want to hear about her! I don’t want to hear about any of it. There’s always some girl, some parent, somebody. Anybody except me! Where do I come in, Adam? Tell me that. Where do I come into your list of bloody priorities?’
‘That isn’t fair,’ he started to say, but she shook her head and turned away. He watched her go, heard the slam of the bedroom door.
Out of guilt Adam called Morris and made an appointment for two days’ time. When he arrived at the door he suddenly wondered if there was really any point going inside. That morning he and Louise had argued again. Nothing unusual about that, but it had quickly become a bitter fight. Things had been said by both of them that wouldn’t easily be forgotten. The kind of barbed remarks that are designed to inflict maximum damage. He didn’t think she deserved that. He didn’t either for that matter. By the time he’d left the house they’d both been ashamed to look one another in the eye, and anger had been replaced with the dull knowledge that perhaps this was hopeless.
Deep down, however, Adam knew that Louise’s anger stemmed from her frustration with him and he felt badly about that. In the end he kept his appointment and presently found himself at the window while Morris sat behind him, his fingers steepled beneath his chin.
‘During our last session you were telling me about Castleton. You mentioned that you felt lonely when you moved there.’
Adam turned around. He’d been thinking about Liz Mount, wondering what his next move ought to be. ‘It got better after I started school.’
‘The boy you had the fight with went to the same school didn’t you say?’
‘Yes. His name was David Johnson. Nick and Graham, the other two who were there that day, went to the local comprehensive. David and I got to know each other. We ended up being friends.’
‘So, you felt accepted after that?’
‘Not exactly. Sometimes.’
When he looked back now, Adam didn’t think he’d ever felt accepted. Maybe if it had just been David, or even David and Graham it would have been okay. But Nick had never liked him. He tried to explain.
‘Graham was fairly easy-going. A follower I suppose. But when I came along Nick resented me. It didn’t help that David and I both went to the grammar school. David’s dad owned the local sawmill which had the contract for the wood on the estate, so he and Kyle had a lot to do with each other as well.’
‘Nick was jealous?’
‘Probably.’
‘And what was the effect of that?’
‘I think David felt caught in the middle sometimes.’
He recalled a time when they had arranged to go rabbiting. It was early and the town was quiet. They had arranged to meet at the church. Graham and David arrived a few minutes after Adam, but quarter of an hour later there was still no sign of Nick.
‘Why don’t we ring him?’ Adam suggested. There was a phone box on the other side of the square.
‘They haven’t got a phone,’ Graham said.
‘Let’s go to his house then. He might have slept in or something.’
‘It’s best if we wait,’ David said. ‘He’ll come when he can.’ He started idly scuffing his feet along the path between the gravestones while Graham began examining the palms of his hands.
‘I got these bloody blisters yesterday,’ he said, picking at the skin.
It was as if invisible shutters had closed. The subject wasn’t open for discussion but Adam felt excluded by his lack of understanding. He swallowed his frustration.
During that first year he’d lived in Castleton, Adam had never seen where Nick lived. He knew vaguely where it was; somewhere down past the council houses at the bottom end, close to the eastern edge of the wood, but he’d never been there. A faint air of mystery surrounded Nick’s family. Adam knew there was a younger sister who caught the school bus in the mornings and was as scruffy as Nick and just as sullen, and he’d seen their mother around town wearing a shapeless worn coat, her pale blotchy legs bare even in winter. But Adam had never seen Nick’s father, James Allen. Nick never mentioned him, and neither did David or Graham.
What little Adam had known he’d overheard in snatches of conversation between Kyle and his mother. Whenever there was poaching on the estate, or there had been an outbreak of theft, Kyle blamed Nick’s dad. He heard stories about Allen getting drunk in the local pubs and starting fights with men from the estate. Once he’d seen Nick’s mother in town with a black eye. Over time Adam had formed a mental image of the whole family living in Dickensian squalor, terrorized by an evil-tempered thug.
Eventually Nick had turned up that morning but he hadn’t offered any explanation for being late.
They rode their bikes out of town across the bridge and took the road that climbed steeply towards the fells. By eight the sun was already warm on their backs and the effort of the climb had made them sweat. At one point he and David had paused to rest. The others were still out of sight around a bend in the road behind them. On one side the road was bounded by a wall, and on the other by a thick hedge. A blackbird flashed by, chattering in alarm.
When the others finally appeared they were pedalling slowly. Nick’s bike was a big heavy machine that seemed to be made of cannibalized parts. He was wearing boots that looked too big for him, though the laces were undone. The leather was cracked, and the sole of one had come loose at the toe. It was flapping up and down, making a slapping sound as Nick struggled up the hill. The chain creaked with every turn of the pedals. Creak slap, creak slap.
When they finally caught up Nick dropped his bike on the ground and went to sit on the wall. He dumped the sack that was tied over his shoulder on the grass and it moved as the ferret inside poked and snuffled looking for a way out. Nick lit a cigarette butt he found in his pocket, though he was still panting. He coughed and spat then muttered something under his breath as he lifted his T-shirt to wipe the sweat from his face, revealing for an instant his pale skinny body. There was a vivid purple black bruise the size of a melon across his ribs.
‘Bloody hell. What happened to you?’ Adam said without thinking.
‘A few minutes later David and I started off again,’ Adam recounted. ‘Nothing was said but I knew I’d crossed a line. David gave me the cold shoulder all the way up the hill. I kept thinking about the look I’d seen on Nick’s face. It was shame. I’d embarrassed him.’
‘And you felt bad about it?’ Morris asked.
‘A bit I suppose. But I’d be lying if I said I was that worried. Nick made it clear he didn’t like me and the feeling was mutual. Somehow he always managed to turn things around. Like I said, it was mostly because of him that I never really fitted in.’
That day Adam and David had waited for the others at a place known as the Giant’s Chair. It was a rock formation that roughly resembled a huge seat. Local legend had it that a race of giants had once roamed the fells and this was all that was left of their existence. It was easy to climb to the top by the gently sloping grassy rise on one side, but once in the seat itself the drop was a sheer one. It was like standing on the edge of a cliff. From there the road was visible, winding back down to the valley. The town was out of sight but parts of Castle ton Wood could still be seen. A pine forest lay to the north, and fringed inside its southern edge was Cold Tarn, a natural deep lake that even on a day like this, when the sun was beating down from a cloudless sky, appeared black. Sometimes they fished for pike and perch there, and in season wildfowlers stood in the reeds that fringed the shore to shoot ducks. Behind them, Cold Fell rose 600 metres above sea level at the northern extent of the Pennines.