The Summer of Secrets

by Sarah Jasmon

  She saw Victoria paddle herself around. Pippa, now with a clear view, let out a high-pitched wail as she realized what was happening. She started towards her twin, arms and legs lashing out but not getting her very far. Victoria had jumped back in and already had hold of Will. He seemed to be a dead weight, but they were making a steady pace towards the bank, so Helen turned her attention to Pippa, in time to see her go under and then struggle off again. She was gasping, and couldn’t seem to hold her head out properly. There was nothing else for it. Helen held her breath and let herself slide down the side of the bank.

  The water was warmer than she had expected, but she felt slime squeeze between her toes. She took a deep breath and kicked off, taking only a couple of strokes to reach the kicking and struggling Pippa.

  ‘I need to get to Fred!’ She was breathless, and her body was slippery and hard to grip. Helen held on, her fingers digging into Pippa’s shoulders as she repeated herself until it sank in.

  ‘It’s OK, Victoria’s got him. Everything’s OK.’

  She was out of her depth now, kicking to stay afloat, hampered by the clinging fabric of her clothes. Pippa started to sob, holding on with her arms while her legs floated up, buoyed by the ring. The shift in balance was unexpected, and Helen’s head went under the surface. The water was cool around her face, but dirty, and full of germs. That disease, something to do with rats. With a huge effort, she fought her way back up, keeping her mouth clamped tightly shut. She could see Victoria struggling to manoeuvre Will’s slippery, unresponsive body up to the grass. Pippa chose that moment to kick her legs out of the ring. She used Helen’s stomach as a base to push herself off, and the force sent Helen under the water again, this time with her mouth open.

  By the time she was upright again, coughing and spitting, feeling for the mud at the bottom of the canal, Victoria was on the bank next to Will’s prone form. Helen took a step, registering something hard underfoot. She had just staggered within reach of the side when Will leapt up with a triumphant shout, and ran away down the towpath, Victoria in enraged pursuit.

  Her arms were shaky, and she wasn’t sure if they’d have the strength to pull her out. Everyone else had disappeared. She scrabbled for a foothold in the stonework of the side until, with a final effort, she rolled over and ended flat on her stomach. It was probably a good thing no one was there, she thought, to see her flop about like a whale. She lay there, panting, wondering how much canal water you had to swallow before you died. The sun was warm against her back. Voices were lifted behind the cottage, and a door banged. As she heard the voices coming closer, she rolled over. The sun glinted from the water into her eyes, and a jolt of pain sliced up from her foot.

  She was sitting on the bank trying not to feel queasy at the sight of the blood oozing when the others came back. Victoria was behind Will, pushing him forward in short jerky runs.

  ‘And now you can get back in and fetch the dinghy, you little …’ Her voice tailed off. ‘What did you do?’

  They gathered in a cluster, Pippa pushing her head through to see what was happening. Seth had come with them, and he took hold of her foot to examine it more closely. His hands were warm, and big enough to surround her foot. She tried not to mind being sopping wet, her hair dripping in tails down her back. Not so much a water nymph as a water goblin. She heard herself make a hiccupping sob. The cut was nasty, slicing right across her instep.

  ‘Ouch.’ Seth gave her a half smile. ‘Glass in the mud probably. Dangerous business, swimming in the canal.’

  ‘I didn’t want to. I was helping Pippa when …’ She heard her voice wobble and dug her nails hard into her forearm ‘… when Will pretended he was drowning.’

  ‘So you went in for the rescue and ended up the casualty?’ His voice was calm. ‘I wondered why Will was running so fast.’ He pulled out a handkerchief, and started to wrap it around her foot. ‘I was a Scout for about three weeks once. I wonder if I can remember what to do?’

  He helped her up, and slid an arm around her back.

  ‘Come on. Let’s see if you need a doctor.’ He turned to the others. ‘Give her some space. And get the dinghy back in.’

  The kitchen was quiet, the dust on the window filtering the sunlight down to a manageable hue. Seth swept the pile of books stacked up on the chair off on to the floor, and supported her down into it.

  ‘Now let’s see what we’ve got.’ He picked up her foot again, making her gasp with an indrawn breath as he dabbed at it with a handkerchief.

  ‘Is it bad?’ She risked taking a peek. ‘I don’t want to get that thing from the rats.’

  He placed it down again as gently as if it was made of glass.

  ‘I don’t think you need to worry as long as it’s bleeding. Pushes all the nasties out.’ He gave her a grin. ‘And at least you don’t need to worry about sharks.’

  Her foot was soaking in a bowl of warm, sharp-smelling water by the time Pippa, followed by the other two, sidled in.

  ‘Are you all right?’ Victoria spoke first, her hands gripping Will’s arm up behind his back. ‘Will has something to say to you. Don’t you?’ she hissed at him, giving his arm a further twist.

  Will kept his eyes fixed on the floor. ‘Sorry.’ He shot a glance towards Helen’s foot. ‘Will you get gangrene? Victoria said your foot would fall off.’ He gave a yelp as Victoria dug in her fingers. ‘I only wanted to know – it was you that said it!’ His voice was aggrieved.

  ‘That’s enough.’ Seth levered himself off the table edge and herded the twins out through the door. ‘Off you go and play.’ On an afterthought, he opened the door again and shouted after them: ‘And stay out of the water. Get the hosepipe out.’

  Victoria turned to him, one eyebrow lifted. ‘We haven’t got a hosepipe, have we?’

  Seth smiled over at Helen. ‘Yeah, well, it’ll give them something to do, won’t it?’ Helen smiled back as an involuntary shiver ran down her torso. ‘You need to get some dry clothes on. Do you want to go home?’

  Victoria butted in. ‘No, she can come up to my room, I’ll find her something.’

  ‘I’ll put a plaster on it.’

  Helen closed her eyes and let herself feel comforted. It was almost worth the pain.

  ‘Does it hurt a lot?’ Victoria was on the floor, leaning on the side of the bed. Helen was lying on it, the jumble of covers pushed down at the end so her foot could rest on them. Seth had said the cut wasn’t too bad, but it was throbbing so much she wasn’t sure she believed him.

  Helen nodded. ‘A bit.’

  ‘It’ll feel better once the aspirins get going.’

  They were silent for a few minutes, then Victoria spoke, this time without turning.

  ‘I was talking to Moira yesterday.’

  ‘Oh. Right.’ Talk of Moira made the emptiness of the past few days sweep back through Helen’s chest. She could feel tears coming. It was the shock, she told herself only to be expected with the scare she’d had, and her foot. She cleared her throat and tried to sound normal. ‘Is she still on the boat?’

  ‘Yeah, for the time being. She was talking about going to London. There’s a big CND rally being planned, and Seth might be going down with her. Me too, if I can get them to say yes. She’s got some friends in a squat we could stay with.’

  ‘Squat’ was a horrible word. Helen closed her eyes and saw it written on the back of her eyelids, the letters swelling in a monstrous dance. She missed the beginning of Victoria’s next sentence.

  ‘… which is weird, don’t you think?’

  ‘What? Sorry.’ She rubbed her eyes and pushed herself up on to one elbow. ‘Who was what?’

  ‘Dave, you know, the guy on the boat?’ Victoria linked her fingers together and stretched up her arms, leaning backwards at the same time. She gave a satisfied grunt. ‘I reckon he’s done some pretty dangerous stuff. Moira started to say something, and he made her shut up.’ Her arms dropped back down by her sides, and she studied Helen with narrowed eyes. ‘I wonder
what it feels like, knowing you’ve killed someone?’

  ‘I don’t want to know.’ Helen pictured him, sitting on his stool with that half smile on his face as he watched her trying not to look at Moira. ‘Besides, why would he come here?’

  ‘Even terrorists have to live somewhere.’ Victoria got up and went over to the window, craning her head sideways as if she was trying to see the boat. ‘And what better place to hide?’

  ‘I bet she’s making it up.’ Helen closed her eyes, the blood in her eyelids throbbing in time with her foot. ‘You don’t get terrorists, anyway. Not in this country.’

  ‘What about the IRA?’

  Helen felt too tired to argue. She let the silence stretch out.

  ‘Which reminds me –’ there was the sound of Victoria crossing the room – ‘I wanted to show you something.’

  The door opened and Victoria’s feet thumped off down the stairs. Tiredness washed over Helen’s body; she buried her face in the pillow and tried not to breathe. When she heard Victoria come back, she pretended to be asleep.

  ‘Helen?’ She felt Victoria nudge at her arm, but it was too much effort to respond. ‘Helen?’ The whisper came again, then retreating feet and the closing of the door.

  Chapter Eighteen

  2013, Manchester: 12.30 p.m.

  The shutters go up with their usual rattle and I remember, yet again, that the windows need cleaning. It doesn’t matter, though, because the sun only hits this bit of the street for a short burst in the early morning before it disappears behind the shadow of the concrete multi-storey opposite. I’m only going through the motions today, and I wouldn’t even be doing that if it weren’t for the fact I need something to occupy me that doesn’t require emotional energy.

  Larry bought the place before the Northern Quarter was redeveloped, for a clientele of solitary men who slipped in unnoticed and didn’t need shiny window displays. The shop’s uninviting position, on a tatty, curving access road, was a bonus then. The sex shops have largely disappeared, but a niche in the market they’d unexpectedly unearthed – selling D. H. Lawrence and Henry Miller – had led Larry into the second-hand book market. By the time I started to work there, it made up most of his trade, and his shop was part of a circuit browsed by wordless bibliophiles, as discreet in their way as the previous clients. They’ve mostly gone as well now and, with the tramlines and the bus station cutting us off from the bars and vintage shops and no Larry behind the counter recounting his stories, there’s not much point in making the effort.

  There’s a customer waiting today. He follows me in, and stands in front of the crime and thriller shelf, pretending that’s what he is in here for. He’s going to be disappointed. When Larry was alive and in charge, that bookcase was filled with books about walking: Wainwright guides and Ordnance Survey maps, that sort of thing. The men would come in and pause to scan the shelves before strolling around the end and through one of those curtains made of strips of plastic in primary colours. Larry didn’t let me go in there, even though it was OK for me to take the money and wrap the magazines into a brown paper roll. One of the reasons he had against me when I first applied for the post of assistant was that I’d remind them of their daughters, put them off buying, but he could see I needed him. So I got to spend my days browsing the shelves out front, learning them by heart.

  Some of them drop by occasionally, the old blokes who haven’t kept up with the times, and it’s always eyes right for the maps, then a step forward before stopping dead as it hits them: the magazines aren’t there any more, the curtain has gone. They tend to buy a couple of thrillers to save face, though some of them like to talk about the old days. I keep a few Playboys in Larry’s memory. Never forget, he would say, tapping his fat forefinger down hard on the counter, how many writers got their break in Playboy. Quality publication. I often wonder what he’d make of the marketplace today, the online porn, the disappearing second-hand bookshops. He’d have laughed, I think, and set himself up on eBay.

  On the wall by the till, there are some framed photographs from his heyday. Larry in his black overcoat, hair combed to the side, hobnobbing with a forgotten comedian. Larry at the dog races, next to a man with a trophy tucked in the crook of his sleeve. There’s even one where he has his arm around the shoulder of a very young George Best. They’re gritty, grey-toned. I remember the photos Victoria showed me of Alice and Jakob and Piet, the London of the sixties. The same time in history, perhaps, but it might as well have been happening in a different universe.

  I close my eyes to let the memories brush through my mind. The runaway Alice, picked up on a street corner by the young artist, who falls in love with her face and her body, painting her into his best work only to lose her to his glamorous brother. I feel Victoria fixing me with a compelling gaze and hear her voice: ‘You can never talk about it to anyone. I shouldn’t be telling you, really.’ Alice had the most beautiful face I had ever seen, her eyes forever fixed elsewhere. She was the princess in the tower, the lady in the mist. I would have believed anything I was told about her. But was it even Victoria who told me about Alice being a runaway? I press my fingertips against my eyelids, letting the specks of colour swirl and retreat. I don’t trust my recollection of the past any more.

  At the end of the day, whatever their provenance, these are stories belonging to a summer which existed outside of the bounds of everyday reality. And its abrupt ending, its total, final and underlining cut-off, leaves them floating there, fairy tales from a world so enclosed I am no longer certain what was real and what I had created for myself. The globe clouds over but, before the pictures disappear, I catch sight of Moira, the bad fairy taking the colour away, her mocking face reminding me that I am, will always be, on the outside.

  Something falls to the floor and brings me out of the past. I’d forgotten there was anyone else in here. The man who came in behind me has knocked a pile of books over. I pretend I haven’t noticed as he bends and stacks them on the floor before crossing to the records. They’re on the far side, the big squares of the LPs stacked upright so browsers can flick them forwards one at a time, the seven-inch singles heaped into a box. I keep my eye on him. Not in case he helps himself – I can’t work myself up to worry about that, not today. He picks up a record, one from the back of the box, and I send out desperate thought waves. Not that one, I ask. Please, not that one, not today. He glances round as if he can hear and takes a step away. Then, as he seems he about to leave, he walks quickly back, picks up one of the albums and comes up to the desk. It’s some obscure prog-rock group. I wave his money away in relief. Take it, it’s not worth anything, have a nice day.

  When he’s gone, I go over to the box and flick through the records myself. There it is, at the back, the cardboard cover foxed at the corners, but the drummer still smiling, the snail serene in his endless slide. It had turned up in a job lot from a house clearance ten years ago. Cumulus. A message from Victoria to me. I wanted to hide it away, to keep it safe, but something stopped me. It’s not like I believe in all that stuff, but I left it in the box, with the three-for-fifty-pence Top of the Pops and James Lasts and Funky Aerobics, waiting for the day one of them would come in for it. I didn’t need to look at it, didn’t need to know when. It was enough that it was there, keeping a tiny crack open for them to come back to me. If some random customer found it and bought it, I would never see the Dovers again. It was my gamble with the universe.

  Could that be the other reason I’ve opened the shop up today? All these years, the record has been there and Victoria has been elsewhere, on another planet. Today, she is in Manchester. Who’s to say she hasn’t brought the others with her? Piet, Alice. The twins. Seth. My fingers tap on the sides of the box. They could arrive early, take some time to explore. They might well be on the lookout for a dusty-fronted store with a box of old LPs. I go back to my stool, aware of every passing shadow, and I reach for the book I keep under the counter. It’s dog-eared and stained, with a cracked spine and only half
a cover. Ulysses. A relic from another life, almost the only thing I took with me when I left. Altogether, I’ve probably read it at least three times, but never in the right order. It’s become the answer when my mind is unsettled. I don’t have to know where I am, and I don’t have to remember who is who or what is what. I can open it at any page and let the world retreat.

  Chapter Nineteen

  1983

  The abandoned glasshouses were majestic in their dereliction. They went on and on, some sheltering the dried and twisted remnants of what might once have been tomato plants. Victoria had been the one to find them, even though they were no more than ten minutes’ walk from Helen’s house, going across the fields. Once they were inside, they could have been anywhere. It was, Helen thought, a bit creepy. Victoria led Helen through space after space, glass crunched under their feet, fugitive wafts of humid growth dissipating around them. The glass magnified the sun to a vicious level of intensity.

  ‘Didn’t I say it was amazing? Wasn’t it worth leaving your stupid book?’ Victoria spoke in a low voice, as if afraid of being overheard. ‘I can’t believe you’ve never been here before.’

  Helen kicked at a stone. ‘I didn’t know they were here. You can’t see them from the road or anything. And my foot still hurts.’

  Victoria giggled. ‘Why are we whispering? There’s no one around.’ She stuck her fingers into her mouth and let out a long, shrill whistle.

  A tremulous shiver ran through the air, as if the glass edges were responding to the sharp wave of sound. Helen held her breath, prepared for glittering shards to rain down on their heads, for the plants to turn and crawl towards them with grasping tendrils. Nothing happened. The surrounding fields remained quiet; they could have been at the end of the world.

  Victoria bent down, grasped a stone and swung her arm around in an arc. From high above their heads came the sound of glass breaking.