Lost Summer

by Stuart Harrison

  ‘Not bad.’ He turned towards his companions. ‘Caught a few didn’t we?’ They nodded and murmured their agreement. ‘There’s a lake up on the fells. Thought we might try up there tomorrow.’

  ‘Cold Tarn.’

  ‘Eh?’

  ‘It means Cold Lake. Tarn is lake.’

  ‘Oh. You know it then?’

  ‘I used to. I haven’t been there for years though.’

  ‘Tarn. I must remember that. The name’s john, by the way. John Shields.’

  ‘Adam Turner.’

  Shields introduced his wife and the other couple, though Adam knew he’d struggle to remember all their names. He was invited to join them if he felt like it, but he thanked them and said he thought he’d go for a walk and work up an appetite, though he stayed and chatted while he finished his drink.

  When he got outside he wondered if he should have taken them up on their offer and almost went back. The alternative was a solitary meal somewhere, and a cold wind blowing across the square made him rethink taking a walk. For a moment he toyed with the idea of phoning Angela but he didn’t know what he would say to her, and besides what if David answered the phone? Instead he turned up his collar and with his shoulders hunched against the wind started across the square.

  Halfway along the main street he paused outside a small pub called the Ship. A sign outside promised home-cooked food and through the thick glass of the window he could make out a room with a low ceiling and a blazing open fire at one end. He went inside and ordered a Scotch at the bar. The light was dim and a low hum of voices from the dozen or so people in the room added to the cosy atmosphere. He nodded to a man next to him and as he scanned the room he saw David sitting at a corner table with Graham and another man who had his back to the room. With a small shock of recognition Adam noted the black hair grown over the man’s collar, the way he slouched in his chair with his legs splayed out in front of him and the curl of cigarette smoke rising around his head.

  ‘Christ,’ he muttered under his breath, which attracted a glance of mild surprise from the man next to him at the bar. For a second Adam considered leaving, but before the idea had even properly formed David glanced over and their eyes met. He looked even worse than he had the previous night, the shadows beneath his eyes making it look as if he hadn’t slept much. The others, alerted by David’s expression, turned towards him, and knowing he had no choice Adam made his way over. As he drew nearer a fleeting look of discomfort, guilt almost, flashed in Graham’s expression and suddenly Adam had the feeling that they had been talking about him.

  ‘I was just out for a walk,’ he said when he reached their table. ‘I thought I’d try the food here.’ He nodded to Graham and David, annoyed that he’d felt he needed to explain himself, and then lastly turned to Nick. He hadn’t changed much. He was still slightly built but wiry with it, his dark eyes narrowed and veiled in the smoke of his ubiquitous roll-ups so that he appeared to wear the same faintly amused sneer that Adam remembered.

  Adam started to offer his hand but changed his mind and nodded instead. ‘Hello, Nick.’

  The response was a barely perceptible nod in return. ‘Never thought we’d see you back here again.’ His tone carried an unpleasantly mocking innuendo.

  ‘Never thought I’d be back.’ He was struck by the tableau the three of them made. Still together after all these years, still united by not only friendship but by the bonds of a common experience that went even deeper. They had lived in this town for all of their lives. Nobody made a move to invite him to join them and Adam was suddenly conscious of his status as an outsider. He was reminded of the day when he’d first met them when they had stopped him on the road to the estate. He had never felt so alone as he had at that moment. The overwhelming sense of isolation that came from not belonging, and the threat that entailed as a consequence. He suddenly realized that he’d spent the years afterwards trying to become one of them, to fit in, and though he’d always thought it was Nick who’d barred his true acceptance, he was wrong. It had in fact been David, because he could have overruled Nick if he’d chosen to.

  A sour taste rose in Adam’s throat and he took a gulp of whisky to dispel it. A flash of old resentment flooded to the surface to replace his sense of discomfort. He turned to Graham.

  ‘I’m glad I ran into you, I was planning on coming to see you in the morning anyway.’

  ‘Oh?’

  There’s something I wanted to ask you. I talked to some of the protesters up at the wood this morning. They told me their camp was attacked at the beginning of September. Some local vigilantes paid them a visit one night.’

  ‘That’s right, there was a bit of trouble about then.’

  ‘A bit of trouble? Men with clubs beating the shit out of a bunch of kids in the middle of the night is a bit more serious than that isn’t it? When I spoke to you yesterday didn’t you say there had been the odd scuffle?’

  ‘Maybe some of them did get carried away,’ Graham admitted, looking uncomfortable.

  ‘Odd choice of phrase for a policeman,’ Adam noted. ‘Sounds as if other than a bit of overenthusiasm you endorse that kind of thing.’

  ‘That isn’t what I meant,’ Graham said angrily.

  ‘No? So, were any of them arrested, these people who got a bit carried away?’

  ‘We didn’t hear anything about it until the next day.’

  ‘But you must have had descriptions of them.’

  ‘It was dark, Adam. And it all happened quickly. The descriptions we got were vague.’

  ‘Was anybody even questioned?’

  Graham stared at him, one hand clamped tightly around his pint glass. ‘Like I said. The descriptions were vague.’

  ‘But surely in an area like this you’d have some idea of who might do something like that,’ Adam persisted. ‘Or is beating kids up with clubs common around here these days?’

  Up until then David had been listening without comment, but suddenly he broke in. ‘For Christ’s sake, Adam, don’t believe everything they tell you.’

  ‘What? You think they were making it up?’

  ‘I’m just saying they know how to make a story interesting for the media, that’s all.’ He said the word media as if it brought an unpleasant taste to his mouth.

  Adam turned back to Graham. ‘Two of the boys who were killed in that car accident had injuries that they didn’t get in the accident. According to the pathologist they happened a few days earlier. One of them had a cracked rib. She thought they might have been in a fight.’

  ‘What of it?’

  ‘Didn’t you think it was likely they got those injuries when the camp was attacked?’

  ‘I suppose they could have. I didn’t really think about it.’

  ‘Yes, the same thought had occurred to me,’ Adam said scathingly.

  ‘What the hell are you getting at?’

  ‘Well, surely when Helen Pierce came up here and started asking questions it was enough to make you wonder, wasn’t it? I mean, first two of those boys get beaten up by local thugs, then they end up dead because Ben, a kid who never got drunk, was off his face behind the wheel of a car he didn’t even know how to drive. It’s just a little strange, don’t you think? Did you know they weren’t living at the camp? They left after the attack. Weren’t you even curious about where they’d been for the three days before they were killed? Or what they were doing on that road that night?’

  ‘Dammit, Adam, I told you! There was no reason for me to wonder about anything. It was an accident!’

  ‘And the vigilantes were just a coincidence were they? Seems to me that maybe whoever organized that little event could have been specifically trying to scare Ben and his friends away.’

  ‘Why would anyone do that?’

  ‘That’s a good question. Maybe it has something to do with this Forest Havens development plan I’ve been hearing so much about.’

  ‘What does that have to do with anything?’

  ‘The company had to
get planning permission before they went ahead didn’t they? There are rumours that some of the planning committee members took a bit of persuading.’

  The atmosphere around the table altered perceptibly. David paused in the act of lifting his whisky glass. ‘Who the hell have you been talking to?’

  ‘Actually it was a local journalist.’

  ‘Janice Munroe,’ David said bitterly. ‘I forgot, you used to work at that bloody rag didn’t you?’

  ‘You know her then?’

  ‘I know she was trying to make trouble, running around with a lot of half-cocked ideas that didn’t hold water.’

  ‘I thought she was pretty genuine. She had a lot of interesting things to say about some of the people with a vested interest in wanting the development to go ahead.’

  ‘I take it by that you mean me.’

  ‘Your name came up.’

  ‘There’s no law against lobbying for a point of view, as far as I know.’

  ‘True. If that’s as far as it goes. But if council members benefit personally from contracts associated with the development, it goes a bit beyond lobbying.’

  ‘So that’s what she told you was it? Did she also happen to mention that the paper hasn’t printed a single suggestion of her bloody theories? And do you know why? Because there isn’t a single shred of proof to support it, that’s why! But then I don’t suppose that would worry you, would it, Adam?’ he added.

  ‘Meaning?’

  David lifted his pint and emptied it. ‘Meaning I wonder what you’re really doing here, Adam. Are you really here because of those kids, or did you come for some other reason?’

  ‘I take it you’re trying to make some kind of point here. Are you going to give me a clue or do I have to work it out for myself?’

  ‘I think you know what I mean. I think you must be enjoying this. A chance to write something that’ll make us all look like right bastards. Make it look as if the people who’ve lived around here all their lives don’t give a sod about the countryside or the wood. Not like all your hippy friends, eh, Adam.’

  ‘And why would I want to do that?’

  David stared at him and shrugged. ‘Maybe you’ve got an axe to grind.’

  Adam emptied his glass and set it down. He hoped it didn’t show that David’s accusation about his motives had hit home more than he cared to admit. ‘You think I’m here because of some kind of grudge, is that it? A chance to settle old scores?’

  David’s eye flicked towards Adam’s leg. ‘Am I right, Adam?’

  ‘I hate to disappoint you, but there are more important issues here. Like what happened to those three boys for instance.’

  ‘Nothing happened except they were in an accident. They drank too much and ran off a road they didn’t know. For Christ’s sake it happens all the time!’

  ‘Except that in this case the boy who was supposed to be behind the wheel didn’t either drink or drive.’

  ‘According to who? Not the coroner.’ David shook his head. ‘But it doesn’t matter what the coroner said does it? Or what anybody says come to that. Not if you’re determined to pursue some conspiracy fantasy that bloody woman at the paper has fed you.’

  ‘If it is a fantasy then nobody has anything to worry about, do they?’ Adam said. ‘By the way, since we’re on the subject did you ever meet somebody called Jane Hanson?’

  The question took David by surprise, as it was meant to. Adam watched his reaction, and for an instant he was sure the name had registered but then David met his eye with a blank look and when it was evident that he had no intention of responding one way or the other Adam shrugged.

  ‘Just a thought.’ He looked at them each briefly in turn, then nodded generally. ‘Nice catching up with you all again.’ As he went to the door he was conscious that he was limping slightly and when he glanced back he saw that Nick was watching him with a sardonic gleam in his eye.

  ‘Welcome home, Adam,’ he said.

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  He remembered waking up in hospital after they’d operated to save his leg. He remembered the agony of the drive back to town, the blood that soaked everything and the numbing cold that had seeped into his bones and made his teeth chatter. He’d faded in and out of consciousness, convinced in his few lucid moments that he was going to die.

  He had survived though, and a week after emergency surgery he’d gone back into theatre for a second operation to repair his mangled knee. Two weeks after that he lay in bed with his leg hoisted in the air and covered from thigh to toe in plaster. David stood beside the window.

  ‘How much longer will you be in here?’ he asked.

  ‘I don’t know. Another week or two I think.’

  David looked at his leg and shook his head. ‘Christ,’ he said.

  ‘It wasn’t your fault,’ Adam told him, as he had a dozen times already.

  ‘Of course it was my fault. I shot you for fuck’s sake! I could’ve killed you.’

  ‘Well, you didn’t, but now I know what it feels like to be a deer I don’t think I’ll eat venison again.’

  ‘I should have made sure,’ David insisted.

  ‘Listen,’ Adam said. ‘It was an accident.’

  David, however, couldn’t meet his eye. He stared out of the window for ten minutes before he spoke again. ‘Nick and Graham said to say hello, by the way.’

  Yeah right, Adam thought. Graham had been in to visit once, but Nick hadn’t, and never would.

  The doors at the end of the ward swung open and Angela came back with fresh water in a vase for the flowers she’d brought with her. She wore jeans and a thick rollneck sweater and her cheeks were still pink from the cold.

  ‘Got some,’ she said. Through the window the city huddled under a leaden sky. The snow that had fallen a few days ago had partially melted and then frozen again and was now banked beside the roads in dirty piles. ‘I was talking to the nurse. The young one. She said you’ve been sleeping much better this week.’

  ‘Sometimes I wake up, but they give me something for the pain if I need it.’

  She fished in her bag and produced some magazines and fruit she’d brought from the shop. ‘Did you finish that book I brought you?’

  ‘Yes. Thanks. It’s over there.’

  She looked in the cupboard where he pointed. ‘I’ll take it back to the library. Do you want me to get something else?’

  ‘Thanks.’

  She started talking about school and the shop, and he half listened to her, but mostly he just watched her. He could have reached out and held her hand, but something held him back. Perhaps it was David looking on from the other side of the bed.

  ‘We should think about going,’ David said eventually. ‘We’ll miss the bus.’

  ‘I suppose so.’ Angela picked up her coat. ‘I’ll see you next week. I’ll ring your mum and she can tell me if there’s anything you need. Is she coming today?’

  ‘Later, I think.’

  ‘Okay. Well, we better go.’ Quickly she bent down and kissed his cheek. ‘Bye.’

  ‘Bye.’

  David glanced away. ‘See you later, Adam.’

  Adam watched them leave. The doors at the end of the ward swung closed behind them. They would take the lift down, and then cross the entrance hall to the main doors. He imagined them stepping outside into the cold grey afternoon, and hurrying to the bus stop. Then sitting together on the bus for the ride home.

  The young nurse on duty came by and smiled at him. ‘Everything alright then?’ She straightened his bed and moved the chairs back into place. ‘She’s nice. Is she your girlfriend?’ He didn’t answer, but the nurse didn’t seem to notice. She smoothed the covers on his bed. ‘Won’t be long and you’ll be home again.’

  Adam kept thinking about the first time that David had come to visit after the accident. Like today he’d kept repeating that he was sorry and that it had been an accident. He’d said it often enough, and with the same insistent note of desperate persuasion that Adam had beg
un to wonder exactly which of them David was trying to convince.

  Kyle and his mother came later, and asked the usual questions about how he was feeling, unloading books, taking ones he’d finished. More fruit. There was a short silence and his mother glanced meaningfully at Kyle, who took his cue.

  ‘We spoke to your doctor yesterday, Adam. The last operation hasn’t been a great success, I’m afraid. Your leg’s healing quite well, but left the way it is you won’t have a great deal of mobility.’ He paused. ‘You might never walk again without crutches, or at least a cane.’

  It didn’t come as a total surprise. He’d seen enough huddled doctors and nurses to be able to read their expressions. At least they weren’t going to amputate, which had been his secret fear.

  ‘There is an alternative though,’ Kyle went on. ‘I’m afraid it wouldn’t be very pleasant for you. But the outcome could be much better in the long run. It would mean another operation, perhaps several over time.’

  ‘How long?’

  Kyle and his mother exchanged glances. ‘Perhaps six months to a year.’

  That long. He tried to hide his dismay from them. ‘I’d have to stay here?’

  ‘No,’ his mother said quickly. ‘You’d only be in hospital for the operations and for a little while afterwards. But you’d have to come in for physiotherapy every day. Of course you couldn’t manage that on your own, and there’s school to think of.’

  They had thought it all through. He listened as they outlined their plan, which was that he and his mother would stay in Carlisle close to the hospital during the week. The physio would be for several hours each day and travelling backwards and forwards wasn’t practical. At weekends they would go back to the Forge. He tried to listen to it all, but after he’d gotten the gist of it he couldn’t concentrate.

  ‘Do you want some time to think about it, Adam?’

  He came to with a start. Kyle and his mother were looking at him with concern etched in their expressions and he realized they had been waiting for his answer. For how long? He wasn’t sure. A minute? Ten?

  ‘No, it’s okay,’ he said. ‘I’ll do it.’