One Perfect Summer

by Paige Toon

  ‘But what if—’

  ‘No,’ I interrupt. ‘No more. Talk about something else or I’m going back to Mum and Dad’s.’

  ‘Okay, okay!’ she cries. ‘Blimey.’

  Adele’s ‘Someone Like You’ comes on the radio.

  ‘I love this song,’ she says.

  ‘It makes me sad,’ I reply.

  ‘Me too.’ We sit there in silence, listening. ‘Hey, it’s like you and Joe!’ she exclaims.

  ‘What are you going on about?’

  ‘It’s like you and Joe! Except he’s Adele. You’re the one who’s settled down and married now. I bet he’d cry if he knew.’

  ‘You’ve had too much to drink.’

  ‘Imagine that, though! Imagine if he did still love you and he found out you were married! He’d be so cut up!’

  ‘I thought we were changing the subject.’

  ‘Yeah, but, seriously!’

  ‘Right, that’s it. I’m going to my parents’.’ I make to stand up.

  ‘Don’t go! I’m sorry. Let’s talk about something else.’

  Hesitantly I settle back down on the sofa.

  ‘Did you see that Phoenix Seven is now coming out in early December?’ I stare at her in disbelief. ‘They must’ve brought the release date forward to capitalise on all the press,’ she continues.

  ‘Are you seriously talking about Joe’s new film?’ I ask with amazement. I can’t even be cross about it.

  ‘Sorry, sorry!’

  More silence. She starts to say something and then stops.

  ‘What?’ I ask.

  ‘Did you . . . Were you . . . Oh, never mind.’

  ‘Spit it out!’

  ‘Why did you marry Lukas when you were still in love with Joe?’

  ‘Fucking hell, Lizzy!’ I exclaim.

  ‘Sorry, but I just don’t understand!’

  ‘I’m in love with Lukas too, you dimwit!’ I snap, but I’m not really angry. Not properly.

  ‘Yes, but . . . when you saw that DVD of Strike, didn’t you even contemplate not going through with it?’

  ‘With the wedding, you mean?’

  ‘Yeah.’ At least she has the grace to look awkward with this line of questioning.

  I sigh. ‘I was too freaked out to watch the whole movie. You said something about his name change and I wrote him off as a different person to the boy I fell in love with. And calling it off didn’t seem like a viable option,’ I add wryly.

  ‘It was a bloody big wedding,’ she concedes. ‘But if you’d seen Strike when it came out at the cinema the year before, do you think it would have made a difference?’

  I think back to a few weeks ago, when I finally gave in and allowed myself to watch Strike from start to finish, along with Sky Rocket and all those interviews. That was when I realised he hadn’t changed all that much.

  ‘I almost did go to see Strike at the cinema,’ I tell her, recalling how Jessie had wanted to see it but it wasn’t out yet. And then it hits me with sudden realisation that Jessie and I were supposed to go to the movies on Friday – the day that Strike came out. We changed our date to Monday because Lukas came back earlier than planned from Rosalinde’s wedding.

  The colour drains from my face.

  ‘Are you alright?’ Lizzy asks. ‘You look like you’ve seen a ghost.’

  ‘I’ve just remembered something,’ I say in a low voice.

  ‘What?’

  I tell her.

  ‘So you would have seen it well before the wedding,’ she says slowly.

  ‘I would have seen it before Lukas had even proposed,’ I reply.

  ‘Would you have still said yes?’ she dares to ask.

  I don’t dare to think about it.

  The next week, my period is late and I nearly have a heart attack. I’m pretty sure the ensuing sickness I feel is too early to be related to pregnancy, but I finally manage to get to a chemist to buy a pregnancy test. And of all the evenings for Lukas to come home early, this is the one he chooses.

  ‘Alice?’ he calls.

  ‘Shit!’ I mutter, stuffing the pregnancy test box into the bin. I snatch up the wand and stare at the result – willing something to appear before he does. I can hear his feet on the stairs. I open the bin, about to throw the test in regardless of its result, but something makes me hesitate. He knocks on the door.

  ‘Alice?’ he asks.

  ‘I’m coming,’ I say, flushing the toilet and hoping he doesn’t enter.

  Fat chance.

  His eyes fall on the wand in my hand and then he’s staring at my face in shock.

  ‘Are you . . .’

  I look down at the wand. What does one line mean? Shit! I’ve already binned the box. I delve back into the bin and pull it out, while Lukas waits with bated breath. Why didn’t I go for one of those whizzy digital ones that just say pregnant or not pregnant? One line means . . .

  Not pregnant.

  ‘No.’ I laugh with relief and glance up at him.

  He looks crushed. My face falls.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ I say, feeling awkward.

  ‘You’re happy you’re not?’ he asks.

  ‘Um . . .’

  He stalks out of the bathroom. I hurriedly follow him downstairs to the living room. He opens the French doors and goes out into the garden. There’s a bench at the end. He sits on it. I tentatively go to join him.

  ‘Did you see Rosalinde while you were in Germany?’ I ask.

  ‘This isn’t about Rosalinde!’ he exclaims. ‘This is about us! You and me. I want to have children!’

  I take his hand. ‘I know you do.’

  ‘I feel like you can’t commit to me,’ he says quietly.

  ‘I married you!’

  ‘Yes, but you didn’t want to, did you?’

  ‘Of course I did!’

  He sighs. ‘I know you’re still confused about . . .’ He lets go of my hand. ‘How did things end between you?’ he asks, turning to face me. His stare is not cold or icy – his blue eyes are full of pain.

  ‘Not well,’ I admit. I haven’t gone into all the details with Lukas. It wasn’t necessary, and I don’t like to remember.

  ‘Can you tell me about it?’

  Maybe he needs to understand. With reluctance I tell him about that night, about how Ryan killed Joe’s beloved dog and then tried to hurt me, how Joe’s parents told him to leave and never come back. How my dad made me go and pack up my things, and how Joe was gone by the time I got back downstairs. I tell Lukas how I searched for him everywhere, how I continued to search for him for months, how I barely had a life at university for the first term and a half. Until I met Jessie and got a job on the river.

  The ache inside my chest intensifies as I recall this last part. I barely see Jessie these days. It’s not a lie to say that he saved me. I miss Emily too.

  ‘You wanted answers,’ Lukas says quietly. ‘I wouldn’t let you seek them after we were married.’

  ‘I understand,’ I tell him.

  ‘Do you still need answers?’ he asks.

  I don’t reply for a while.

  ‘That’s a yes.’ He sounds hurt.

  ‘It’s not like I’m going to get them,’ I say swiftly. ‘He probably doesn’t even remember me.’

  ‘Of course he does,’ Lukas says, and there’s no bitterness in his voice. ‘No one could forget you.’

  A lump forms in my throat.

  ‘I love you.’ Tears fill his eyes.

  ‘Please don’t be upset,’ I beg.

  ‘You know,’ he says, laughing sharply, ‘I came home early to tell you that I’ve got a promotion.’

  ‘You’ve got a promotion?’ I sit up straight. ‘But that’s brilliant!’

  ‘It’s in Germany,’ he says dully.

  My stomach falls. ‘But I don’t want to live in Germany.’ I shake my head violently.

  He turns to face me. ‘I’ve lived in the UK for almost a decade.’

  ‘But we met here! You can’t expect me t
o leave my friends and family and move to another country.’

  ‘What friends?’ he asks gently. ‘You barely see them.’

  ‘That’s not my fault – you don’t like them. It’s hard for me to see them.’ I feel desperate.

  ‘What about my friends and family?’

  ‘But you bought into a life in England when you met me!’

  ‘Alice,’ he chides, ‘that’s not strictly true, is it? We’ve never explored the possibility of living in German—’

  ‘Exactly!’ I interrupt. ‘You can’t bring it up now, that’s not fair! What about my job?’

  ‘I was hoping you’d have a baby . . .’ He sees the look on my face. ‘But you could get another job as a teacher. Your language skills are coming along well—’

  ‘I didn’t even WANT to learn to speak German!’ I practically shout. ‘I wanted to learn to speak Mandarin!’

  He sighs and regards me. ‘Perhaps now is not the right time to talk about this.’

  ‘It will never be the right time to talk about it!’

  ‘Calm down.’

  ‘No!’

  I get up and start pacing the lawn, feeling like a caged animal. I can’t go to live in Germany. I can’t. I won’t!

  I realise I’m acting like a spoilt brat, but I can’t help it.

  ‘It’s a very good job,’ Lukas says. ‘It’s with LMU Munich.’ That’s the university. Hold on a moment . . .

  ‘But you told your father you refused to work there!’ I exclaim.

  ‘That was when he lined up the interview. This time it’s on my terms. It’s much more money,’ he adds.

  ‘I don’t care about the money,’ I snap.

  ‘Couldn’t we try it for a couple of years?’

  Oh, God, is he really going to make me do this?

  ‘When do you have to let them know?’ I ask.

  ‘I already have. I start in a month.’

  A week later one of Joe’s mates from Cornwall goes on live television to defend his old friend. It was supposed to be a very gentle piece about how he was always a good guy growing up. No one expected him to come out with the revelation that Joe’s brother had beaten him regularly as a child, while his parents did nothing to stop it.

  After the programme airs, Joe’s parents threaten to sue the TV station and the following outcry is enormous, but more witnesses come forward, including two people who were at the pub in Dorset the night that Ryan hit Joe over the back of his head with a bottle. Suddenly there are pictures everywhere of the back of Joe’s head, cropped in to show that the scar is still there underneath his short black hair. Anyone who’s ever had any sympathy for Joe’s parents, loses it. The tide has well and truly turned.

  Soon afterwards Joe goes on Oprah and his superstardom reaches new heights. He talks about his difficult upbringing, but doesn’t slate his parents, saying only that they’re not on speaking terms and haven’t been ever since the bottle incident when he was eighteen. Roxy and I watch the interview in the staff room the moment it’s loaded up onto You Tube.

  It’s a tiny screen and the quality is shocking, but both of us hang on every word. My heart goes out to him more than ever.

  ‘I bet you’re in his thoughts now,’ Lizzy says on the phone that afternoon, when clips from the Oprah interview are shown on the news. ‘I can’t believe you were there when his brother smashed his head open.’

  ‘Yes, but what a horrible thing to remember me by,’ I reply. ‘I bet he’d rather forget.’

  ‘Not likely now, is it?’

  ‘I can’t really talk,’ I tell her with a sigh. ‘Lukas will be back soon.’

  ‘When’s he leaving for Germany?’ she asks.

  ‘Two weeks.’

  It’s not a permanent arrangement, but for now I’m staying in the UK. He understands that I need to give my work notice, and he also wants to find us a house and get settled in. We plan to rent our house in Newnham. I couldn’t sell it – not yet. Not if he’s promising we can return to the UK after two years.

  ‘How do you feel about him going?’

  ‘Awful,’ I reply.

  ‘You’re still not coming around to the idea of moving yourself?’

  ‘No. But I guess I will.’

  ‘I’m amazed he didn’t ask you about it before he accepted the job.’

  ‘I’m not. He knew what I would say.’

  A fortnight later I stand outside our house and say goodbye to my husband. He’s driving back to Germany.

  ‘Drive safely,’ I say with tears welling up in my eyes.

  ‘I will.’

  He touches his hand to my face and I look up into his eyes. ‘I can’t believe you’re going.’

  He regards me sadly and takes me in his arms, pressing my cheek to his chest. ‘I love you,’ he whispers into my hair.

  ‘I love you too.’ I breathe in his aftershave and out of the blue I remember going to his bedsit on Trinity Street and opening his wardrobe, searching for a cold compress. I tilt my face up to him and he kisses my lips as hot tears sting my eyes. He releases me and climbs into the car. Then he starts the ignition, and I stand and watch with blurry vision as he drives away from me and the life we’ve built together.

  I sob my heart out that day, but as the weeks pass I get strangely used to being without him. Soon December rolls around and it will be only a couple of weeks before school breaks up and I’ll head to Germany for Christmas. Well, New Year. I’m spending Christmas this year with my parents – for the last two in a row I’ve been with Lukas’s family, so this year they made me promise. Lukas is working right up until Christmas Eve, and again the day after Boxing Day, so it’s not worth him flying to the UK to be with us for just two days. I feel oddly detached about seeing him again. He sounds unfamiliar when he calls. I’ve always hated talking to him on the phone.

  One night they show Strike on the telly and I watch it again, my heart in my mouth. There’s one point when Joe looks straight into the camera and I feel like he’s looking at me. It makes my heart flip.

  Lizzy calls me during the advert break.

  ‘Are you watching it?’

  ‘Yep.’

  She laughs. ‘Thought so.’

  I hate this. She makes me feel dirty. I know I should switch the telly off, but I can’t. Night Fox comes out on DVD next week. I’ve already one-clicked it on Amazon.

  ‘You know he’s going to be in London next week for the Phoenix Seven premiere?’

  Her comment is casual, but my heart doesn’t take it as such.

  She giggles. ‘I was thinking we could go to Leicester Square and see if we can catch his eye!’

  Her words are still ringing in my head a week later, when school breaks up for the holidays. I’m not due to go to my parents’ until tomorrow, but Joe’s premiere is tonight. I couldn’t sleep last night for thinking about it.

  I’m seriously thinking about going. Actually, that’s not true. I know I’m going. I made up my mind in the middle of the night.

  ‘I love you so much. I can’t imagine ever loving anyone more . . .’

  That’s what Joe said to me. I remembered his words last night. I have to find out why he didn’t come back for me. I have to know that he no longer loves me. I need closure before I can move on. And I know that Lukas would never forgive me – I know that – but if he ever finds out I’ll have to make him understand. He has to if he wants me to move to Germany, to have a family with him, to fully commit to him . . . because he’s right: I haven’t.

  I plug in my headphones, but I can still hear the train clunking down the tracks as the fields and farms flash past. I’ve booked myself into a hotel in Leicester Square on a last-minute deal. I need somewhere to drop off my bags because I don’t want to see my parents first. I don’t want to have to explain why I’m getting dressed up – or why I’m so on edge. I need space to collect my thoughts before I see him again. And if there’s any chance – any chance at all – that he’ll spot me and want to speak to me, then I need some
where private where we can go.

  One song finishes and another one starts. The gentle tap, tap, tapping of the drums is instantly familiar, followed by keyboards as the music builds up and then the bass and lyrics kick in. Kingmaker’s ‘You and I Will Never See Things Eye to Eye’ fills my ears and then I’m there with Joe at Corfe Castle when we first talked about this song. He’s wearing his Kingmaker T-shirt and looking at me across the table in the café, and we haven’t even kissed yet, and Dyson is there at our feet, and I can’t believe it was over nine years ago: he feels so real, so much more real than he feels when I see him on the big screen. I want my Joe back so much. So much that it hurts.

  I’m full of nerves and anticipation as I get ready. Leicester Square is already bustling with Strike Stalkers desperate to catch a glimpse of their idol. I wish school had finished yesterday so I could have caught an earlier train, but I’ll push my way to the front of the crowds if I have to.

  I have a quick shower and then dry myself off, pulling my clothes out of my bag. I’m wearing the outfit that I wore the night that Lizzy and I went to see Joe at the pub: dark-blue jeans and the pink and red top that I dragged out of the bottom of my wardrobe on a recent clutter clear-out. I want to wear something he might recognise and it still fits me. I do my hair and make-up the same too. Well, as much as I can without Lizzy’s vast Shu Uemura collection. My hair is shorter than it was back then, but it still comes to past my shoulders. I wonder if I’ve aged much? Urgh, what a thought.

  I look over at my mobile on my bedside table and, on a whim, go and switch it off. I don’t want to think about anyone other than Joe tonight. Sorry, Lukas. I squeeze my eyes shut and guilt prickles away at me. I need to do this! I’m doing it for him too.

  I grab my bag and rush out of the room.

  Leicester Square is heaving when I get downstairs, and the atmosphere is electric. The big screen above the cinema entrance keeps playing clips from the movie and every time Joe’s face shows the screams get louder. I duck, dive and push my way through the crowds to get as close to the barriers as I’m able. I can’t get right to the front – there are girls there holding banners and photographs and I can tell from the look in their eyes that they’d rather kill than budge. But he should be able to see me here. I hope. I can’t believe I’m doing this.