Cruel Summer

by James Dawson

  ‘I see. Sorry. I just wondered. I guess I have a sixth sense for stuff like that. I thought there was something there.’

  Katie brushed sand out of her hair, feigning nonchalance. ‘Not at all. It was a long time ago.’

  Erin’s shoulders seemed to drop. ‘It’s so funny. Ever since we got here, I knew there was something going on. Greg, you should have told me, so I didn’t stick my foot in my mouth!’

  Oh, clever girl, thought Ryan. She’d seen through the veneer of cheesy grins and poolside dance routines. Just under the surface they’d all been scarred by last summer, something Erin was evidently picking up on. They weren’t fooling strangers, let alone themselves. Ryan took a deep breath. Now was the time. They were all here, they’d all had a drink, the fire was hypnotic. It was the perfect time to talk about Janey. In a murder mystery, it’s called the ‘drawing room scene’, where the detective gathers all the suspects to reveal what he or she has learned.

  ‘Oh, for crying out loud!’ Ryan exploded. ‘Why don’t we just talk about it now and throw the massive sodding elephant in the room onto the fire?’

  ‘Ryan . . .’ Alisha warned.

  ‘No.’ He was determined. ‘Erin should know. Greg, I can’t believe you haven’t told her.’

  Greg muttered something under his breath that sounded like, ‘He better shut his mouth before I shut it for him.’

  Suddenly Erin was the outsider more than ever. Confusion creased her pretty face. ‘Tell me what? I didn’t mean to start an argument.’

  ‘You haven’t.’ Katie threw Ryan a disapproving glance, motherly as ever.

  ‘Oh, come on,’ Ryan continued. ‘Did we really think we could hang out for two whole weeks without the subject of Janey coming up? I say we get it out of the way now and enjoy the rest of the holiday.’

  A pause. ‘You know what? He may have a point,’ Greg sighed, folding his arms.

  ‘Thank you, Greg. You know I’m right.’

  ‘God, what can there possibly be left to say?’ Alisha’s expression was one of mild disgust.

  But the floodgate was open now and all that Ryan had longed to say came gushing out. ‘Everything. After Janey died, I had about a million questions but everyone clammed up. I’ve had a year of bursting to know, but it’s like someone passed a secret law – the “We Don’t Bloody Talk About Janey” law.’

  ‘Ryan, you’re being a dick,’ Alisha said.

  ‘I’m not. Wanting to know what happened does not make me a dick.’

  Erin spoke up. ‘Guys, I’m really sorry. I didn’t want to cause this.’

  ‘You didn’t,’ Ben said. ‘Can we all take it down a notch? Ryan, you’ve gone to the bad place again.’ Ryan rolled his eyes, but said no more. Ben continued. ‘It’s fine to talk about it. It happened. Not talking about it doesn’t change anything.’ As he spoke he kept his gaze fixed on the fire. There was something robotic about his voice, like he was taking extra care to control it.

  ‘OK, what is going on?’ Erin’s voice wobbled. ‘You’re all really freaking me out now.’

  Ryan looked to Ben, who gave him the slightest of nods, but where to start, and how much to reveal? He wasn’t sure it was right to air all his suspicions at once. ‘We had a friend called Janey.’ He selected his words precisely. ‘This time last year she killed herself.’

  ‘Oh, God, that’s awful!’ Erin’s eyes widened.

  Ben took a deep breath. ‘I . . . I was dating her at the time.’

  Those eyes widened further. ‘Oh. Right. But I thought . . .’

  Katie intervened, her coy eyes fixed on the sand, only flashing up for the briefest of moments. ‘We’d broken up the Christmas beforehand.’

  ‘Oh. OK. I’m so sorry, you guys. I mean . . . about everything.’

  Ryan continued. ‘It was on the day of the leavers’ ball. Janey jumped off the top of Telscombe Cliffs. Or so goes the official version of events.’

  A pause. Then Ben said, ‘What’s that supposed to mean?’ The fire made Ben’s skin glow like bronze, but his expression was inscrutable.

  Ryan shrugged. ‘Just that there was no note. Only a body.’ More choice word selection.

  ‘Jesus, Ryan, do we need the gory details?’ snapped Alisha.

  ‘I’m sorry.’ He paused. He couldn’t do it. He couldn’t accuse his friends of murder. It was too dramatic, too high-concept, even for him. Frustration crawled under his skin. What did he really want to say? ‘It’s just so sad,’ he finally blurted out. ‘So pointless. There’d been . . . a big fight at the ball and she ran away. Janey was even more dramatic than me, if you can believe that. She was angry, but we never thought she’d do something so stupid. I mean . . . none of us went after her . . .’

  Those last six words summed up the problem. She could so easily have been stopped. Any one of them could have talked her out of it. A tear pooled in the corner between his eye and nose. Alisha hooked her arm through his.

  ‘It’s not your fault,’ Erin offered. ‘I think once someone’s decided to do something like that . . .’

  ‘She put us all through hell. You know for four weeks, before they found the body, we thought she’d been abducted or something,’ Greg cursed. ‘She wasn’t thinking straight. It was such a selfish, bullshit thing to do. We all get pissed off; we don’t chuck ourselves off a cliff.’

  ‘Greg. Don’t,’ Alisha said gravely.

  He was only saying what they’d all thought, though. Everyone has an argument from time to time – but they don’t kill themselves. This was what had haunted Ryan all year – it was so stupid. So unlikely. If it had been TV, it would have made far more sense for Alisha to die – with all her recklessness she would have made a perfect cautionary tale. So many things about that night didn’t make any sense. Janey should have been here, with them, right now, on the beach.

  Erin spoke again, her curiosity now bordering on nosy. ‘What was the fight about?’

  ‘It doesn’t matter,’ Ben said simply, clearly battling to maintain an even tone.

  ‘It doesn’t’ Alisha agreed. ‘What matters is that none of us did anything. Not one of us went to see if she was OK – we were all too wrapped up in our own stupid stuff. I sometimes think it was our fault she jumped.’

  Although the fire crackled and spat, the beach was suddenly freezing cold. ‘Do you think—’ Ryan started.

  ‘Do I think what?’ Greg downed the last of his beer.

  Ryan steeled himself. ‘Do you really think Janey killed herself?’

  Orange and amber and gold and white danced in all their eyes: Ben, Greg, Katie, Alisha and Erin. At first no one spoke, everyone waiting to hear what everyone else would say. The silence was deafening.

  Katie broke it. ‘Ryan, the only person who truly knows what happened that night is dead.’

  SCENE 7 – ALISHA

  Alisha stared at the fire for what felt like hours. Eventually, the roaring flames lost their will to fight, tiring to feeble tongues before dying to embers. They still glowed scarlet though, and they still gave heat. When she poked them with her stick, they flared up angrily in a shower of sparks. Alisha had no idea how much time she lost to this pursuit; it was hypnotic.

  Most of the others had drifted back to the villa, blaming coldness or tiredness. Maybe it was all too much: the flight, the wine, the sun. Janey. Katie remained on the other side of the ashes, a pashmina around her shoulders. The pair sat in companionable silence. For years, Alisha had wished she could be Katie. Katie seemed perfect to her. Like, now, she was wearing a crisp white summer dress. Alisha was not the sort of girl who could wear white and not smear ketchup down herself.

  It wasn’t just Katie’s dress sense, though, it was everything about her. She was an only child, she lived in a gorgeous house, she had Ben, her grades were flawless. That was before you even got started on her do. The girl basically had Little Mermaid hair. It was a mystery to Alisha, therefore, why Katie had a sadness in her eyes these days. She smiled and chatted but there was a pai
n there; Alisha could see it. Perhaps Katie blamed herself for what had happened.

  The mood had lightened a little after the talk about Janey, but the elephant, although acknowledged, hadn’t gone anywhere.

  ‘Hey, Miss Katie. You OK?’ Alisha asked.

  Katie nodded and gave her a kind smile. ‘Of course. How are you?’

  ‘I’m peachy. You looked a million miles away.’

  ‘I’m fine, I promise – just sleeping with my eyes open,’ Katie said, sweeping her hair off her face. ‘Today’s been a long day.’

  As if on cue, the unmistakeable, tall silhouette of Ben ambled over the sand towards them. As much as she’d love to be a fly on the wall of whatever was about to happen, Alisha had no desire to play the gooseberry.

  ‘Hey,’ she said. ‘I’m gonna get ready for bed.’

  Katie took a deep breath, clocking Ben at the same time. ‘I’ll be in in a minute.’

  Alisha walked over and kissed her on the head, noticing that Katie still used the same shampoo – it smelled like toffee. It was a reminder of how close they’d been once upon a time. Alisha wasn’t sure they were any more. The gesture felt awkward. It was as though Janey had been the stitching holding them together. After she jumped, everyone fell to pieces, tumbling miles apart in different directions.

  Alisha turned and left Katie alone with the tide and the embers – and Ben. As she passed Ben, she gave him a smile of encouragement but continued towards the villa. Her flip-flops clacked on the stone tiles as she climbed the stairs, allowing her fingers to brush the hedgerow that grew along the perimeter.

  Out of the corner of her eye she saw a sleek green lizard dart under the cover of a flat stone, quicker than lightning, and she made a mental note to try to photograph the little fella tomorrow if she could find him. She was getting accustomed to doing things alone – it was starting to feel like that was her lot in life.

  When she arrived at the top terrace, she paused before the sliding doors and looked back at the bonfire. Ben was nestled beside Katie, his arm around her shoulders. Obviously, Alisha couldn’t hear what they were saying, but they were deep in sombre conversation, both shaking their heads with down-turned mouths and furrowed brows.

  Then Katie rested her weary head on Ben’s shoulder and, with his free hand, he stroked her hair.

  Alisha sighed. She felt happy for her friend and, at the same time, utterly, utterly lonely.

  SCENE 8 – RYAN

  Perhaps it was the wine or maybe it was the whir of the air-conditioner, but Ryan couldn’t sleep. Gritty black-and-white flashbacks filled his head – fast edits to confuse yet tantalise the audience. Hundreds of disturbing, violent scenarios played out in his mind’s eye however much he tried to block them. He pictured Janey’s last minutes at the top of the cliff. Did she fight? Had she been dead already when she’d got there? He imagined a lone car parked in the hotel car park with the boot open. He saw a figure, shrouded in black, take Janey’s body out of the trunk and drag her to the edge of the cliff.

  He rolled over, making a ‘hmph’ noise. Who was he kidding? It had been suicide. His overactive brain was making up stories. Stupid and illogical Janey’s death may have been, but it had been the final episode so someone had had to die. Those were just the rules of television – the big finish.

  He rolled over, the thin, sweaty sheet becoming tangled in his bare legs. He was hot and bothered. With a sigh he rolled off the bed and opened his bedroom door. Not turning any lights on, he crept past the other bedrooms. The air smelled of night-breath and he could hear Greg gently snoring alongside Erin, the lucky cow.

  He tiptoed into the lounge where Ben was sprawled face-down on the sofa-bed. Like Ryan, he wore only his boxers and moonlight filtered through the gossamer drapes onto the smooth canyon in the centre of his back. It looked hot – even though Ryan didn’t fancy Ben in the slightest. He could understand why girls fell for his puppy-dog eyes and dimples, but Ryan preferred a bad boy. Always had.

  He snuck through to the kitchen. Believing horror stories about what would happen if you drank local water (maggots would hatch in your stomach), he opened the fridge and took a bottle of mineral water. Pausing in the dining area, he looked out into the night. They were so alone here. Their nearest neighbour was a cruise ship that skirted along the very edge of the horizon.

  God, it was so humid. The water was already too warm.

  He didn’t see Ben’s rucksack until he kicked it, sending its contents spilling over the tiles. Biting his lip to keep from cursing, Ryan rubbed his stubbed big toe. Ben didn’t stir, his head facing the wall. ‘Ben?’ he breathed. There was no response. Ben was in a deep, deep sleep. Ryan stooped to tidy the mess.

  This was only hand luggage. Ryan scooped up a phone charger and an iPad, a copy of New Scientist magazine (Ben was such a geek), some contact lens solution, half a warm Dr Pepper and his wallet. He was shoving everything back in the bag, when something else caught his eye. At the bottom of the rucksack was something oddly familiar. He reached for it, his fingers closing on the rough sack material and pulling it out into the moonlight.

  It was a mask. One of the masks from the night of the ball – which to the students of Longview High was also known as ‘Prank Night’. It was a ghastly thing. Ben and Greg had cut eyeholes in the sacks, drawn on deranged grins in marker pen and worn them over their heads. Ryan smiled as he remembered. With everything else that had happened that night he’d totally forgotten about the Scarecrow Prank. It had been his idea – based on a story he’d written – and it had worked brilliantly. That night would have been one of the best nights of his life . . . had Janey not died.

  He slipped the mask over his head and tiptoed to the mirror on the wall near the stairs. In the gloom his head look malformed, truly something from a child’s worst nightmare. He remembered the voice . . .

  ‘What are you doing?’

  Ryan cried out and whipped round, almost knocking the mirror off the wall. He had to steady it to prevent it falling. Ben sat up on the sofa, took one look at the mask and recoiled, almost tumbling off his bed.

  Ryan yanked the mask off. ‘Ben, it’s just me,’ he whispered.

  ‘Ryan, what the bloody hell are you doing? You scared the crap out of me!’ Ben exclaimed.

  Ryan couldn’t suppress a giggle – the look on Ben’s face was priceless. ‘Well, now you know what it feels like. Do you remember this?’

  ‘Of course.’ Ben rubbed his eyes. ‘Why did you bring it?’

  ‘I didn’t. I thought it was yours.’

  Ben shook his head. ‘I lost mine. Must be Greg’s. What time is it?’

  ‘But it was . . .’ Ryan stopped. He couldn’t be bothered to argue. Perhaps it was Greg’s bag, not Ben’s. ‘It’s still early. I just came to get water.’

  ‘OK.’ Ben rose off the sofa with his long legs. Looking at the defined muscular ridges that ran over his hips, Ryan thought maybe he did fancy Ben a bit. Then again, if he had to think about it, he probably didn’t.

  ‘Just gonna use the loo,’ Ben mumbled. The poor thing was half asleep as he sloped across the lounge. Ryan threw the hideous mask onto the dining-room table, from where the hollow eye sockets watched him return to bed.

  SCENE 9 – ALISHA

  Alisha stretched out in the empty bed, purring like a cat as she extended her limbs as far as they’d go. She had no idea where Katie had gone, but it was cool to have the bed to herself for a while.

  With brilliant sunlight pouring through the blinds, making zebra stripes across her bare legs, the morose pity-party mood from last night evaporated immediately and she felt silly for being so mopey. She sat up and ran a hand through her ’fro which, at this time of the day, looked either really Vogue editorial or like a particularly scrappy bird’s nest depending on your point of view.

  Muffled voices carried through the air vents. She heard laughter and at once felt like she was missing out. This was why she rarely slept late any more – it seemed like a waste of a day
. Alisha bounded out of bed, pausing only to pull a baggy Metallica T-shirt over her head. She didn’t want to miss the action.

  When she got to the kitchen, it was buzzing.

  ‘Morning!’ Erin greeted her with cabin-crew cheer. ‘Coffee or tea?’

  ‘Ooh, tea, please.’

  ‘And we’ve got all sorts of continental goodies,’ Ryan added in a weird American version of the British accent. ‘We totes have our own branch of Patisserie Valerie out on the terrace.’

  Alisha wandered out onto the top terrace. It was quite the spread: croissants, pastries, cake. ‘Oh, my God, death by carbohydrate!’ She sat down next to her brother.

  ‘That’s the general idea,’ Greg said, wiping icing sugar off his chops. ‘My trainer is like four hundred miles away, so I’m not having chicken for breakfast!’

  From her position on the other side of the table, Katie laughed and selected an apricot Danish. ‘Seriously? You have chicken for breakfast?’

  ‘He has chicken for every meal.’ Erin grimaced. ‘We basically live in Nando’s. We might as well pay rent there.’

  With the neon-blue sky and dazzling, cleansing sunshine, the awful shroud of the ‘bonfire confessions’ was washed away. This was a new day, a fresh start. As awful as last night had been, Ryan’s words were spot on – things were out in the open now and the group seemed altogether more relaxed. Perhaps they could just enjoy the rest of the holiday. Alisha mentally planned her day – maybe she’d have a go at surfing or something.

  Ryan sat down with a glass of orange juice. ‘I’m so glad we talked last night.’ It was like he had read her mind. ‘You know what, this fortnight could even be like a tribute to Janey.’

  Behind her, inside the villa, Alisha heard a door slam shut. The wind again.

  ‘I think you’re right,’ Ben agreed. ‘It’s time we moved on. We’re all still alive and Janey was never a fan of moping.’ Alisha didn’t say a word, but that wasn’t strictly true; Janey had loved a good sulk.