Bringing the Summer

by Julia Green

  ‘Of course.’

  ‘Just help yourself to anything you need. Food, books, films, musical instruments, garden.’ She sweeps her hand round. ‘You’ll find something to keep you happy, I’m sure.’

  I wave from the door at Gabes as they go off. I walk slowly back inside the house. I fill up the kettle again, to make tea. I chose myself a china mug from the row on hooks on the wooden dresser. I imagine what it would be like, to live here all the time.

  At first it’s a bit odd, being alone in someone else’s house. I’m a bit nervous, expecting someone to walk through the door at any moment. After a while I relax. I go round the house, peering at pictures and photographs hanging on the walls, looking at the rows of bookshelves, taking it all in. Everything’s old, and used, and nothing matches, and yet it all blends perfectly together. It looks random, but how can it be? I think about how in our house my dad has chosen everything really carefully, and with a particular colour or design in mind: Danish chairs, for their clean lines, and pale wood furniture, neutral colours. Miranda loves it. To her it’s really cool and awesome.

  Along the top of the piano are rows of photographs in frames: old ones, black-and-white, and a whole series of children at different ages and stages. I peer at the children’s faces, trying to work out who is who. I think I can tell Gabes in most of them. And there’s another boy, thinner and darker than Gabes, who must be Theo, the older brother at university. I lift up the lid of the piano and run my fingers over the keys, lightly to begin with, because the sound is almost shocking in such a silent house, and then I get more confident and I play the two pieces I know off by heart, from when I was little and had lessons. I go upstairs to the bathroom, and imagine lying in the big old bath, with a view out of the window to the orchard, in sunshine. There’s a shelf of books in here, even, and a big framed oil painting of four children, from olden times. Perhaps they’re Gabes’ ancestors, who once lived in this house.

  I pad along the landing and down the step to Gabes’ room. His bed’s unmade. I leaf through the pile of drawings on his table, and then feel guilty, as if I’m reading a private diary or something personal like that, even though the drawings are of the garden, mostly. It gives me the idea, though, of going outside, doing my own work while I wait. I borrow some paper and a bunch of pencils from Gabes’ desk, and go back downstairs.

  Everything’s shiny in sunshine after rain. I go the way we went before, across the yard and round to the vegetable garden, and then through the gap in the wall to the orchard. The apple trees are weighed down with fruit, and wasps feed off the fallen plums in the grass. Hens scratch at the grass with their scaly feet, clucking and crooning at each other. They take no notice of me, as if they know I offer nothing. I find a dryish patch of stone to sit on, and I start to draw.

  I’m not sure how long I’ve been there when I hear a car, and doors slamming, voices and a baby crying. I sit back, my drawing on my knees, to see what happens next. I’m hoping Beth will remember me; I didn’t meet the children before. But it’s not even nearly four o’clock. So perhaps it isn’t her after all.

  I screw up my eyes, because the sun’s so bright. Someone is standing in the archway into the orchard: a figure in silhouette, backlit. They come slowly across the damp grass, and I see a young man, a boy, really, with dark hair, and black jeans, and a black jacket. I recognise him instantly. Theo.

  He doesn’t smile.

  I get up, ready to explain, to introduce myself, but before I can he’s turned round and walked back through the arch.

  I make my own way back to the kitchen, just in time to hear Theo say, ‘There’s a strange girl in the orchard.’

  By the time I get to the door, he’s disappeared inside, and Beth’s there, one child on her hip, smiling at me. ‘Hi, Freya!’

  The little girl squirms to get down. She’s only a toddler, with a fluff of fair hair, in a white cotton frock.

  ‘Hello!’ I say shyly. I start to explain. ‘Maddie had to take Gabriel to the hospital –’

  ‘I know, she phoned me; she said you’d be here. She’s waiting while they X-ray his foot. Then she’ll bring him home, once he’s had his foot plastered or whatever they’re going to do. I’m just about to make some lunch. Want some?’

  ‘I can help if you like,’ I say.

  ‘Would you keep an eye on the girls?’ Beth says. ‘This is Phoebe. Erin’s still sleeping in the car.’

  I’m not really used to babies, but I do my best.

  Phoebe solemnly hands me a book, and she lets me read it to her, though she won’t sit on my lap to begin with. We sit side by side on the floor instead.

  ‘Poor old Gabes,’ Beth says, running lettuce under the tap. ‘He’ll hate being cooped up with a broken foot.’ She picks ripe tomatoes out of a bowl on the table and starts to slice them. ‘What happened, exactly?’

  I tell her. Phoebe tugs my hand, to make me read the book again. It’s the one with the elephant and the baby that they were arguing about when I came to supper.

  Beth clears some of the stuff off the table, and lays down the bowl of salad and plates and a wooden board with different cheeses. She fills a small green bowl with olives, and makes a dressing with limes and garlic. Even the smallest actions she makes somehow stylish. She licks olive oil off her fingers. ‘So, you know Gabes from college, yes? Are you doing the same course?’

  I shake my head. ‘Just A levels, at the moment. I might do the Art Foundation afterwards, though. I haven’t decided. What about you? What do you do?’

  ‘I’m a mother. That’s all I do these days.’

  I flush. ‘Well, that’s a very good and important thing to do.’

  She looks at me. ‘Is it? Not many people seem to think so.’

  I’m out of my depth, now; embarrassed. Luckily Phoebe’s tugging at me again. I follow her into the front room, where she shows me a box of toys, and we start building things with coloured bricks. I make a house, and she knocks it down. That’s her favourite thing, I work out: knocking things down.

  Footsteps come down the stairs, and the dark shadow of the boy I saw before is there, suddenly, watching us.

  ‘Hello,’ I say. ‘I’m Freya. Gabriel’s friend.’

  He nods, and goes on round to the kitchen.

  I hear him, chatting to Beth in the kitchen, and then to Erin, who has woken up from her nap.

  Lunch is chaotic with two small children, and no one seems to sit down at the same time throughout the whole meal, but I still love being there, part of it all. Theo doesn’t say anything to me, but he’s lovely with Erin, in particular. He lets her feed him bits of salad with a spoon. Most of it spills on to the table. We’re just starting to clear the dishes when we hear the van. I go out into the yard just as Maddie’s helping Gabes out of the front seat on to brand-new crutches.

  ‘Are you OK? Is it broken?’ I hover next to Gabes, wanting to help.

  ‘Yep.’ He holds out his foot, solid in bright blue plaster.

  ‘I’m so, so sorry, Gabes!’

  He hobbles and hops across the yard into the kitchen and collapses into the nearest chair. The crutches clatter to the floor. I pick them up, lean them against the table.

  ‘We were quicker than I expected,’ Maddie says. ‘Best to break bones in the morning, I guess, rather than the evening with all the drunks and fights. There was hardly a queue.’

  ‘Lunch, baby brother?’ Beth asks Gabes. She starts heaping salad on to a plate for him, cuts a hunk of bread, butters it generously, as if he is a child.

  I sit with him at the table while he eats, and then we go to the sitting room, so he can rest his leg up properly on cushions on the sofa.

  ‘Does it hurt?’ I run my finger gently down the plaster.

  ‘A bit. They gave me strong painkillers.’

  ‘I feel awful. It’s all my fault.’

  ‘Rubbish,’ Gabes says. ‘Stop saying that. It was an accident. The wet road.’

  The cat pads into the room, jumps up on to
Gabes’ lap and starts paddling with her paws, settling down and purring loudly. I watch his hand, absent-mindedly smoothing her fur.

  ‘Dad thinks the cat’s pregnant,’ Gabes says after a while. ‘It’s too early to tell for certain, but Dad has an instinct about these things and he’s probably right.’

  ‘I’m surprised you don’t have a dog, living out here, with your huge garden and everything.’

  ‘We did. She died, beginning of May. Mum wept for a week. It was awful.’

  ‘I used to want a dog so much. A border collie. There were puppies at the farm on the island one summer.’ I start to tell Gabes about St Ailla, but he’s yawning, not really listening.

  ‘Sorry,’ he says. ‘It’s the painkillers. Making me sleepy.’

  Maddie puts her head round the door to check on Gabes. ‘Everything all right?’ She laughs as he yawns noisily again, head back, mouth wide open. ‘Perhaps you’d like me to take you home, Freya? He’s not going to be very good company, by the look of it!’

  A shadow comes in the doorway. Theo. ‘I’m going for a swim,’ he says quietly. ‘She could come with me.’

  ‘She? You mean Freya? It’s not much of an invitation, put like that!’ Maddie laughs again.

  Theo makes a big drama out of rolling his eyes behind her back. ‘It’s turned out such a beautiful sunny afternoon, Freya. Would you care to join me for a swim in the river?’ He puts on a mock posh accent. ‘We can lend you a delightful bathing suit.’ He looks at Maddie. ‘Can we? Yours or Beth’s? Would they fit?’

  ‘I’ve got my own, thanks,’ I say. ‘In my bag. Just in case. Gabes said we might swim.’

  We all look at Gabes, slumped down on the sofa now, already asleep.

  ‘He won’t be swimming for a while,’ Maddie says. ‘Poor old Gabriel. Up to you, Freya. It’ll be cold, mind.’

  ‘Not as cold as the sea, at my island,’ I tell her. ‘And I’ve been swimming there all summer, even in the rain.’

  Theo is taller than Gabes, with much darker hair, and paler skin. He’s dressed all in black. I still haven’t seen him smile. But he’s Gabes’ brother, isn’t he? So he must be OK, deep down. I know he’s studying English at Oxford, so presumably he’s clever, too, though I can’t really tell, yet.

  ‘How far is it?’ I ask, as I gather up my things.

  ‘Fifteen minutes’ walk, max.’ He leads the way across the yard, back up the rough track to the lane, then turns off almost immediately over a stile and down a footpath lined either side with stinging nettles, waist high, wet and droopy after the morning’s rain. It smells damp and fresh.

  The footpath goes downhill along the edge of a field. I catch glimpses of the stream through gaps in the trees that line the banks, dappled silver. At the bottom of the field we climb another stile, on to the grassy path that runs along the stream bank. The water runs shallow over pebbles at this point, nowhere deep enough to swim, but further along the stream curves round and the pebbles give way to sandy mud and the water has scoured a series of deep pools.

  Theo starts chanting poetry as he strides ahead. ‘“Clear and cool, clear and cool, by laughing shallow and dreaming pool” . . . Charles Kingsley, from The Water Babies,’ he says, showing off. He stops at a patch of grass, and starts stripping off down to his boxers, surprisingly unself-conscious.

  I can’t help noticing how fit he is: his upper body and arms. I didn’t expect that. Under all those baggy black clothes I never imagined he’d have the body of a dancer. Or a swimmer. I watch him dive cleanly into the top pool. As he surfaces, he shakes water off his hair like a wet otter.

  ‘Come on, then!’ He smiles at me for the first time.

  ‘I need to change first!’ I wish I’d thought to put on my swimsuit up at the house. Now I have to do it wriggling under my towel, crouched under a bit of hedge that turns out to have prickles on the branches. I know he’s watching. I pull the black straps up over my shoulders and stand up. It’s my proper swimsuit, not a skimpy bikini, but flattering, sophisticated in simple black.

  ‘Where did you get a tan like that?’ he calls from the stream.

  ‘St Ailla,’ I say. ‘My island for the whole summer. Not that there was much sun.’ I put my clothes together in a neat pile next to his. I dive in, making barely a splash. I can see he’s impressed. He has no idea about me. It gives me huge pleasure to surprise him. I swim downstream, wading between the pools. The water is much clearer than the river at the weir. I swim with the current in the next stretch of the river, and when it finally gets too shallow, I wade to the bank and walk back up the path.

  Theo’s lying on his towel on the grass, sunning himself. He studies me for a minute, as if he’s thinking what to say. ‘So, you are a real water baby.’

  ‘That’s what my mother used to call me.’ I feel myself flush. I pick up my towel to wipe my face, and to hide behind. My heart’s pounding and I’m slightly out of breath after my long swim and the walk back. I dry myself and then spread out the towel next to Theo, and sit down. My skin tingles as it begins to warm up. I turn to face him. ‘Swimming is what I love best.’

  Theo studies me for a moment. ‘Best out of what? You can’t have best, without something to compare it with.’

  ‘How pedantic you are,’ I say. ‘OK. Swimming is what I love.’

  ‘Why not, I love swimming? Much more straightforward.’

  I think about it. ‘But it means something subtly different.’ I smile. ‘Surely you can see that? If you care about words, and language, so much.’

  ‘Who says I do?’

  ‘It’s obvious. Because you’re so picky about them. You are studying English, after all.’

  ‘Reading. I’m reading English. That’s what you are supposed to say.’

  I laugh outright. ‘You are pompous and ridiculous, Theo!’

  He frowns.

  You’d think in a big family he’d be used to being teased. But he’s clearly annoyed.

  We lie side by side in the afternoon sun without talking. Flies buzz in clouds above our heads, noisy and irritating. The undergrowth smells slightly rank as it steams gently in the warmth. It’s a different sort of heat now it’s autumn.

  I notice a scar on the inside of Theo’s arm, deep like a knife cut, but from long ago, healed to a silver line. There’s something dark and unfathomable about this boy. He’s very different from Gabes, or Beth, or Kit, even, for that matter. For a fleeting moment I think of that girl again: Bridie. I haven’t asked Gabes about her yet. I daren’t ask Theo.

  Theo props himself up on his elbows, leaning backwards. ‘We’ve swum here since we were small children. Maddie used to bring us,’ he says. ‘But Gabes is never that keen. I’m surprised he asked you over for a swim. I wonder why?’

  ‘Because he knows it’s what I love?’ I say. I know he’s implying something else, something more cynical, but I won’t take the bait.

  ‘And I get the privilege instead. Poor old Gabes!’

  I get up. ‘I’m going to change.’ I take my clothes and walk down the path, to find a big enough tree to hide behind.

  By the time I return, he’s also got dressed into his black jeans, black T-shirt.

  ‘Do you want to stay longer, and read, or draw, or whatever?’ He sounds less arrogant now.

  ‘Gabes might be awake. Let’s go back.’

  ‘As you will.’ That wry, laconic smile flits over his face. He leads the way along the path. He stops near a tree, peers down into the stream. ‘There’s an old pike lives in here somewhere. Do you know that Ted Hughes poem?

  ‘No.’

  ‘I’ll find it for you, when we get home.’

  It’s clouded over. Looks like rain again. At the stile, Theo climbs over first then holds out his hand to help me down, even though I don’t need help. He keeps hold of my hand the rest of the way, as far as the house track, and I let him. There’s something powerful about him: a dark kind of magic, winding me in.

  Just before we arrive at the house, he lets go
of my hand, and looks directly into my eyes. ‘Lucky Gabes. I wish I’d found you first.’ He turns away, walks down to the courtyard and into the house, before I can challenge him.

  Found me? As if I’m some sort of object, lying around waiting to be discovered! But despite that, his words leave me feeling – what, exactly? Excited, I think. As if I’ve got some sort of power or magic of my own, now, to match his.

  Maddie’s cooking in the kitchen. She looks up as we come in. ‘Nice swim?’

  ‘Yes, thanks,’ I say. ‘Freezing cold but still delicious. How’s Gabes?’

  ‘Awake, bored. Watching some film. Go and find him. He’ll be glad to see you.’

  Theo doesn’t speak. He goes straight out of the kitchen. I listen to his feet thumping upstairs.

  Gabes looks very fed up. He flicks the remote to turn off the film.

  I sit down at the end of the sofa. ‘Are you feeling better?’

  ‘You were ages,’ he says.

  ‘You were sleeping. I didn’t think you’d mind.’

  He flicks the film back on. I watch with him for a while. ‘I need to hang out my wet things,’ I say. He nods without looking at me.

  I rinse out my swimsuit at the kitchen sink. ‘Wring it out well, then put it to dry in the utility room,’ Maddie says. She smiles. ‘I’m assuming you’re staying for supper, Freya? And you’re welcome to stay over, tonight. Laura’s room’s free. Or I can take you home later, if you prefer?’

  Nick comes in with the twins, one on each arm. Phoebe stretches her arms out towards me and makes little crowing sounds. She can’t talk yet.

  I’m absurdly pleased. ‘Hey, Phoebe!’ I say, taking her from Nick. Her small body is so warm and light. She hardly weighs a thing. Her head, downy soft, nestles under my chin.

  ‘I’d love to stay,’ I say to Maddie. ‘Thanks. I’ll call Mum.’ I pass Phoebe back to Nick, so I can use my phone. I take it into the hallway.

  Mum isn’t there, so I leave a message on the answerphone. I go back into the kitchen. ‘Where am I, exactly? This house, I mean? So I can tell my parents.’