by Julia Green
For Jesse and Jack
Contents
One
Two
Three
Four
Five
Six
Seven
Eight
Nine
Ten
Eleven
Twelve
Thirteen
Fourteen
Fifteen
Sixteen
Seventeen
Eighteen
Nineteen
Twenty
Twenty-one
Twenty-two
Twenty-three
Twenty-four
Twenty-five
Twenty-six
Twenty-seven
Twenty-eight
Also by Julia Green
One
It’s the end of August, my last day on the island of St Ailla.
‘I’m just going out,’ I call to Evie as I slip out of the back door, on my way to the shed to pick up my wetsuit. ‘One final swim!’
‘Keep an eye on the time, Freya,’ she calls back from the kitchen. ‘The ferry leaves at eleven.’
I run down the lane past the farm to the campsite, turn left through the wooden gate into the field, up the earthy track between flowering gorse bushes that smell like coconut. At the top of Wind Down I stop like I always do at the turf maze; I walk carefully round the ridged path into the middle and back out again. It’s part of my ritual of saying goodbye.
I turn into the wind and start running over the short grass towards Beady Pool. There’s no one here. I peel off my clothes, wriggle into my wetsuit. The water is freezing even though the sun’s out today, the sea a brilliant turquoise. I swim out, overarm, as far as the end of the line of rock, and then back, more slowly, breaststroke. This is the last time I’ll swim in the sea this year. I turn on to my back and let myself float, arms outstretched, eyes open to the wide blue sky. For a moment I let myself drift, held by the water, surrounded by light.
Finally, when it’s time to go, Evie and Gramps walk me down to the jetty. Spirit, the small island boat, is already waiting to take passengers over to Main Island for the ferry. Evie and Gramps hold me between them for a long goodbye hug.
‘Take care, sweetheart,’ Gramps says. ‘Come back to see us soon.’ He wipes his eyes with his sleeve. ‘You’re leaving with the swallows, Freya.’ He points to the row of birds lined up along the telephone wire at the top of the jetty.
‘They’re just practising,’ Evie tells him. ‘They’re not going yet. They’re not quite ready for that long journey south.’ She squeezes his hand. ‘And they’ll be back next year, even the young ones. Straight back to the nests where they were born.’
She hugs me one last time. ‘It’s been so lovely having you here all summer it’s hard to let you go!’ She laughs. ‘But you know what they say: one door shuts and another one opens!’
I find a seat at the back of the boat, like I always do, so I can watch my grandparents getting smaller and smaller, and the gap of sea between us stretching bigger and wider. I wave until they are tiny dots, and then I turn and I face the other way, looking forward.
It’s as if I’ve got two lives, my island life, and my normal one, back on the mainland. This is the moment when I cross over, one to the other. It’s always hard. But it’s like Evie says: another door opening. The beginning of something new.
Two
The train’s packed. At each station, more people pile in. The luggage racks are spilling over with bags and beach stuff, surfboards propped up at the end of the carriage. The over-breathed air is thick with the smell of suntan lotion on hot skin. I’m pressed in the window seat in Coach A, the quiet carriage at the front of the train, my book open on the table before me unread, just wanting to be home, now. There’s still at least two and a half hours to go.
A sudden jolt shakes the train, followed by the stink of brakes as the train judders to a long-drawn-out stop. For a moment, everyone is silent. It feels as if the train might tip over. Are we about to crash? I am suddenly deeply afraid, alert to danger even though nothing else happens: the train simply stops. The acrid smell of the too-hard braking seeps through the train.
The train manager’s voice comes over the intercom: a man’s voice, kind and oddly human, shocked by his own words which come out in a rush and say too much, too soon: ‘Someone’s walked out on to the line!’ before he reverts to the usual train-manager language: ‘There has been a fatality. There will be a severe delay to your journey.’
A babble of voices. All around me, people start getting their phones out, as if desperate to speak, to tell someone close to them. They repeat the exact same words: someone walked out on to the line . . . fatality . . . delay. The woman opposite me tuts. ‘It’s the driver you feel sorry for.’
I look out of the window. Because I’m in the front carriage, I can see it all unfold. The train manager struggles into a bright orange vest, talking into his phone at the same time. Another man joins him. The manager steps back on to the train and his voice comes again, over the loudspeaker system: ‘Could the relief driver who is travelling on this train please come forward, and bring two cups of tea for the drivers from the buffet as you come through.’
The little detail of the cups of tea brings the tragedy horribly into focus. I can imagine everything, of course: the driver, traumatised, needs his sweet tea. He won’t be allowed to drive the train. In my too vivid imagination, already tuned into death and disaster, I’m with him in the front of the train as he sees the person step out, as he applies the brakes, as he closes his eyes, because it takes miles for a train at that speed to stop and there is nothing, nothing he can do . . .
The driver climbs down from the cab, and the manager moves over to stand beside him. Two of the three men light cigarettes. A man holding two paper cups of tea walks slowly through our carriage and everyone goes quiet again, watching. He joins the men at the side of the track. The drivers sip tea. They’ve got their backs to the train; I can’t see their faces.
We wait. People talk. A girl on the other side of the train carriage says she saw something fly past the window; she’d thought it was just a piece of wood, but now she thinks it was a shoe, or something . . .
Another announcement. ‘We apologise for the severe delay to your journey this afternoon. British Transport Police have now arrived.’
I text Mum to say my train’s going to be really late. I don’t tell her why. She texts me back. Can you get a taxi from the station? Dad and I have to go out. Sorry. See u later. Love Mum xx
A policeman turns up. He writes things down in a notebook, nodding. I take in more details of the driver; grey hair, a beard, middle-aged, blue short-sleeved shirt, railway uniform. The other men seem to be looking after him, in their particularly male way: cigarettes, a joke, even; standing very close without actually touching.
The policeman pulls on latex gloves. He walks away, and I imagine him picking things up . . . pieces up . . . my mind shuts down then. I’m trying not to think about what might be left, scattered along the track or caught under the wheels . . .
‘We have nothing further to report. We apologise for the severe delay to your journey. Engineers are still inspecting the train for any damage caused by the incident.’
The idea that the train might be damaged . . . My brain reels.
Even as it happens, I see what I’m doing. It’s as if I’m noting everything down, committing the details to memory, as if I might be called upon as a witness, later. Or is it my own way of keeping the real truths at a distance, so I don’t feel anything?
Eventually – an hour, maybe an hour and a half later – the train limps slowly into the next station. We all have to get off. The platform’s crowded with peopl
e: trains delayed in either direction; no one going anywhere.
I stand, almost dizzy, on the platform with my bag, and I do not mean to, but I do see the front of the train, and the huge dent. I hug myself and weep.
I suppose I am attuned to death, and grief, and the tragic moment that splits the world in two. It happened in my own family, when my brother, Joe, died in a boating accident at the island I’ve just travelled from. Bit by bit, we’ve pieced our lives together again, and that’s not what I want to write about now, because I did all that two years ago, when I was fourteen, and that’s all over. But I suppose, thinking about it now, it’s why the death of an unknown person under the wheels of the train I just happened to be travelling on, wouldn’t leave me alone. I kept thinking about it, and wondering why, and wondering who.
Three
The house feels empty, as if nothing has disturbed the air for hours. The table is tidy, the draining board clean, the polished wooden floor swept. Through the back window the garden is green and gold in the late evening sunlight. It’s taken me almost nine hours to get home. I pick up the note on the table. Dear Freya . . . We’ve gone out for dinner but look forward to seeing you tonight when we get back, or in the morning if you’ve already gone to bed . . .
Maybe it’s better like this. I won’t go blurting out what happened, now. There’s no point raking up old sadness, which is what happens whenever you mention another horrible thing. Mum still can’t watch certain things on telly. She won’t watch the news, because it is too likely to bring up awful tragic events: children dying, random acts of unbelievable cruelty. Dad’s different: he has put all his energy into making our new house really beautiful. It’s almost finished: polished wooden floors, huge windows, open-plan kitchen/dining/sitting room, full of light.
I’m too exhausted to cook anything for my supper. I go upstairs and run a bath. I lie in the water watching the light drain from the sky as the sun sets. The silence of the house soothes me, little by little. In my bedroom, I find my bed made up with a clean white sheet, white duvet cover, white pillowcases. Someone – Mum, I guess – has placed a jug of pink and cream roses from the garden on the bedside table. I don’t unpack.
Some time later, the sound of the front door opening startles me awake. I listen to their voices drifting upstairs, but I’m too drowsy to get up. The familiar noises of my parents getting ready for bed, running a bath, lull me back towards sleep. At one point, footsteps pad along the landing and I know Mum’s standing outside my room, looking through the small gap in the barely open door, checking I’m safe. She stays a while, and then, satisfied, she pads back again.
I’m breathing deeply, steadily, like you do when you’re almost asleep. And then, just as I’m drifting off properly, I feel again the jolt in my body, like on the train, except it’s as if it’s me, falling.
The moment of impact.
Solid train meeting soft flesh.
Next morning, after breakfast together, me telling the story of my island summer, answering questions about Gramps and Evie, after all that, and once Mum and Dad have both left for work, I turn on my computer. I check emails.
I flick through local news items, to see if there’s anything about yesterday’s accident. Nothing. But as soon as I type the two words train suicides into the search engine, a whole load of references come up: far too many. I’m suddenly sickened by the whole business, can’t bear to read any of them.
I make coffee, instead, and take it with me into the garden, to the place we’ve made for remembering Joe. I sit on the bench, under the cream roses, and I doodle in my sketchbook for a while. I flip back through the last few pages, full of six weeks’ worth of drawings: summer on St Ailla. Boats at the jetty; the old lighthouse; the beach at Beady Pool; Danny fishing for mackerel off the rocks. Danny’s my friend who I first met three summers ago when he was staying with his family at the farm campsite, down the lane from Evie and Gramps’ house. I’ve seen him each summer since. Except this year, because it rained so much, they went home early.
I send him a quick text. Back home now :( You missed the best days. Sunny all this week! Fx
In a week’s time I shall be starting college. I’m going to be doing my A levels at the further education college in town: Art, English and Biology. Miranda will be there, too. Miranda and I have been best friends for ever.
I phone her. She doesn’t answer, so I text her instead. I’m back! Want 2 meet up 2day? I’m going to swim at the weir. See you there at 2? Bring a picnic.
It’s the lazy end of summer, just before everything changes. Sometimes it’s a sad time of year for us (Joe died in late August) but this year I’m ready for change, for a new beginning. It’s been a wetter than usual summer, but the last week has been fine and sunny: what Dad calls an Indian summer. One that comes late and unexpectedly.
The field next to the river where you can swim above the weir is the closest thing we’ve got to a beach in this landlocked city. On hot days, local kids cycle there along the towpath that runs next to the canal. Families come too.
I haven’t ridden my bike all summer. I find it at the back of the garage, covered in dust and spiders’ webs and with a flat tyre. It takes me ages to find a bike pump. I can’t be bothered to mend a puncture now so I just pump up the tyre and hope for the best. I put the bike pump in the bag with the picnic food, just in case.
It’s easier cycling once I’m off the road and on to the level towpath. I’ve forgotten how good it feels, spinning along past the moored-up boats, past the backs of houses and long gardens, ducking under the stone bridges that cross the canal. It doesn’t take long before I’ve left the city way behind and the houses have given way to fields. I reach the place where you have to come off the path and take a track down to a lane and the level crossing over the railway. I lock the bike up against the fence, where there are already loads of other bikes, pick up my bag and push through the wicket gate.
Wait. Watch. Listen, the wooden sign says. It’s a clear stretch of railway so you can see easily whether there’s a train coming either way, and there’s a proper crossing, wooden boards over the rails, so it’s perfectly safe. Today more than usual I take in the other sign: Danger of Death. It’s totally silent. No humming of the rails, no train remotely in view either direction. I know that the London train comes through every half-hour, and there are slower local trains every so often. Even so, I wait, and listen again, before I walk across. My palms are sweaty by the time I’ve got to the other side, through the gate and across the stile into the field.
The cows have retreated to the opposite end of the field, mostly lying down at the edge under trees. The sound of splashing water and shouting voices drifts up from the river. I can’t see Miranda. I wander through the groups of people sunbathing on the grass till I see people I recognise from school. Ellie and Tabitha wave at me. I go over to them.
‘All right?’ Ellie says.
‘Yes. You?’
She nods, sleepily.
Tabby gets up and gives me a hug. ‘You look great, Freya! Good summer?’
‘Amazing!’ I say. ‘You?’
She shrugs. ‘Nothing special.’ She looks at my rolled-up towel. ‘You swimming?’
I nod. ‘You’ll be staying a while? I’ll leave my stuff here.’ I strip off my skirt and top – I’ve got my swimming things on already, underneath – and walk over the grass towards the river. I climb down the steep bank to the water.
Compared to the sea, the river water’s almost warm. I wade in further and as soon as it’s deep enough, start swimming upstream away from the line of kids splashing at the edge and balancing along the top of the weir. The light is golden, streaming through a canopy of green willow branches, making liquid gold on the surface of the river as it flows downstream. I swim against the current with strong, smooth overarm strokes until I’m far upstream and there’s no one else around.
Swimming in a river is very different from the sea. The way it moves, and the colour; even the textur
e of the water is different, like silk, soft against my skin instead of stinging and salty. I keep away from the bank, where the water is shallow and it’s easy to stir up silt with your feet. A kingfisher flashes across in front of me, and disappears again. Suddenly hungry, I tread water and turn, swim back downstream.
I find Miranda sitting on the weir, her legs dangling over the edge. Her skin is smooth and golden, her hair sun-bleached from two weeks of Spanish sun.
‘Hey, you!’
She turns. ‘Freya!’
We hug, and she shivers. ‘You’re freezing! How long have you been in the water?’
‘Long enough. I’m hungry. Coming out?’
She walks carefully back along the slippery edge. The weed beneath the water looks like combed green hair. I swim beside her until it’s too shallow, clamber out on to the bank and walk after her, dripping, to my towel. When I’ve dried myself, I spread out the cotton sheet I’ve brought for us to lie on, and we share our picnics.
The afternoon wears on, a drowsy, hot September day, wasps buzzing lazily round the bags and bottles, Miranda and me catching up on a whole summer apart. Some of the time, we just doze in the sun. Warmed through, contented, I listen to Miranda’s account of summer love in Spain, the hopelessness of holiday romance. Someone called Jamie.
‘So I probably won’t see him ever again!’ She sighs.
‘Where does he live?’
‘Edinburgh. Well, that’s where he’s studying.’
‘You could fly,’ I say. ‘From Bristol.’
‘It wouldn’t be the same, though,’ Miranda says. ‘It only worked because of where we were.’
‘Well then.’
‘Perhaps I’ll meet someone at college. There might be boys we don’t know.’
‘Of course there will. Loads of new people.’
‘And Danny? How did that go?’ Miranda asks me.
‘Good. Only I didn’t see much of him. They left early. It was wet almost all the time he was there.’
