Cicada Summer

by Kate Constable

  So a whole day had passed for the summerhouse girl, but not for Eloise. Time clearly ran differently, at different speeds, in the two places – or should that be the two times, because the place was the same . . . Eloise’s head began to whirl again, and to stop it she jumped up and seized the tin of white paint and a wide brush. The summerhouse girl clapped her hands in delight.

  ‘It’s going to look splendufferous! Let’s do the inside first and then the outside. Only I wish we could paint it all different colours, pink and blue and yellow, but Dad said I could only use white. I said could I put Anna’s House over the door, so people know it’s my place, but he said no to that too—’

  Anna.

  Eloise’s hand shook so violently that the paintbrush fell to the floor.

  ‘Ooh, careful! Lucky you didn’t put any paint on yet,’ cried the summerhouse girl. Eloise bent down and picked up the brush with trembling fingers.

  The girl’s name was Anna. Eloise’s mum was called Anna.

  Eloise forced the paint tin open and dipped in the brush. She swished a wide white streak over the planks, up and back, following the grain of the wood. Anna. Anna. She peeked over her shoulder at the other girl, at Anna, who was still chattering away as she swept dust out through the doorway, something about her dad, and how her mother had gone away for the summer.

  Eloise looked like her mother, everyone said so, except for her hair. Her name was Anna.

  The white paint slapped back and forth across the wall. Eloise hardly saw it. This was her mother, her mother as a little girl. She was alive: a live, talking, giggling little girl, warm and breathing, darting around. And she wanted to be Eloise’s friend, and Eloise had pushed her away . . .

  Eloise let the brush fall again. She rushed to Anna and grabbed her hand.

  Anna looked up, laughing. ‘What’s the matter?’

  Eloise, confused, let her hand drop. She didn’t know what to do. She couldn’t hug this strange girl or kiss her. This little girl wasn’t her lost mum. Not the mum who’d sung and swirled red and gold in the kitchen, not the mum who’d cradled her in her warm lap and whispered in her hair. But . . . she was. She just didn’t know it.

  Eloise felt her face go pink. She shook her head and flipped her hands in the air to say sorry, and then she felt tears rise in her eyes.

  ‘Do you feel sick again?’ Anna said. ‘Is it the paint smell making you nautilus? Sometimes it makes my mumma feel sick. How can you be an artist if paint makes you sick, I’d like to know. Maybe you should have another drink of water. Are you going to throw up?’

  Eloise shook her head and stumbled out of the summerhouse. The sun from the pool dazzled her eyes, searing bright. Tears spilled down her cheeks and she scrubbed them away.

  She heard Anna’s voice behind her, an anguished wail. ‘Don’t go away! You can’t go yet!’

  But then Anna’s voice and all the other noises faded into the familiar well of silence, and Eloise’s eyes opened onto the empty pool, the neglected garden. And when the shrill of the cicadas burst over her, it sounded like jeering.

  6

  The day after that was a scorcher, baking hot and windy. Mo’s radio in the kitchen muttered about fire danger and total fire ban, and when Eloise opened the back door, the hot wind buffeted her face like a dragon’s breath.

  ‘You’re not riding a bike around in this,’ said Mo firmly. ‘You’ll get heatstroke.’

  Reluctantly Eloise shut the door. Anna might be upset if she didn’t come. But then, if the two times did run at different speeds, maybe Eloise could skip a day in her own time without missing one in Anna’s . . . It was very confusing.

  Also, she’d left her backpack and her hat behind in Anna’s time. She’d taken them off in the summerhouse and when the time-wave caught her, she’d been dumped back in her own time without them.

  The worst thing was that her sketchbook was in the backpack; being without that was like missing her hand. If she went back to the summerhouse now, in her own time, would she find the hat and the backpack still there, decayed and rotting and coated with cobwebs? But Anna would have moved them, wouldn’t she? Would she – Eloise went cold all over – would she look at Eloise’s drawings? Would it matter? What would she see? Her own house falling down. Her own garden overgrown with weeds. The faces of strangers. Were there secrets from the future that Eloise had drawn, things that a child from the past shouldn’t see? Well, there was nothing she could do about it.

  Mo was shut inside her study, writing about sea voyages. Her typing sounded like the pecking of angry birds. Eloise drifted from room to stuffy room. She slouched in front of the TV for a while, but Mo only had three channels and one of them was cricket. It made her think of Dad; he was always too impatient for cricket. Eloise clicked the TV off. She wondered when Dad was coming back.

  Books tottered in towers in every corner and spilled from shelves against every wall. But reading was hard work for Eloise. Words were slippery to handle, and she often lost interest in a story before she could struggle to the end. Mum used to help her, but now Eloise had fallen behind at school. She loved to look at pictures, but Mo didn’t seem to have any books with pictures in them.

  When the phone rang, Eloise jumped. The telephone was in the kitchen, an old-fashioned handset hung on the wall. Eloise realised she’d never heard it ring before.

  Of course she couldn’t answer it. She stood in the hallway while the bell shrilled. Mo came out of the study and stood there too, with her hand on the wall. She didn’t move to pick it up; she seemed to be waiting for it to stop. But it didn’t stop; it went on and on ringing. Eloise realised that Mo didn’t have an answering machine to cut in and make it stop.

  At last Mo swore under her breath, strode past Eloise and snatched the phone off the wall.

  ‘Yes?’ Mo glanced at Eloise. ‘It’s your father,’ she said.

  Eloise took the handpiece and pressed it to her ear.

  ‘Hello, El for Liquorice!’ Dad sounded even heartier than usual. ‘How’s tricks? Keeping out of trouble? Things are going well here, really well. Got some really promising investors lined up, well . . . potential investors. One who’s genuinely interested; we’ve had several meetings . . . Shouldn’t be away too much longer. I’ll be back before Christmas, definitely.’

  Eloise had forgotten about Christmas. How far away was that?

  ‘Fingers crossed, eh,’ Dad was saying. ‘Just wanted to say hi, touch base, you know. Is your grandmother there?’

  Eloise held the phone out to Mo, who took it gingerly, as though it might bite, and listened for a minute.

  ‘No, she’s all right.’ She looked at Eloise as she spoke. ‘Keeping herself amused . . . No, she hasn’t. Not to me, anyway . . . I hardly think that’s my responsibility, Stephen . . . If you couldn’t succeed, I hardly think I will . . . No, I will not go cap in hand to the neighbours, begging for psychiatric services . . . For pity’s sake, isn’t it obvious? Makes no difference to me. All right, goodbye.’

  Mo crashed the phone back on its holder and scowled. ‘Sends his love,’ she said, and stomped off back to the study.

  Every evening, Mo emptied the buckets of grey washing water onto her garden. That night, for the first time, Eloise helped too. She staggered with the sloshing bucket into the backyard and tipped it where Mo pointed. A beautiful smell rose up from the wet earth: a fresh, clean, clear smell. Eloise closed her eyes and breathed it in.

  ‘Good evening, Mrs Mo,’ came a polite voice from behind them. ‘Good evening, Eloise.’

  Eloise spun round and saw the head of Tommy from next door pop up over the fence that divided their backyards. He rested his arms on the fence and gazed down at them.

  Mo put her hand on her chest. ‘Haven’t you ever heard of knocking?’ she growled. ‘Nearly gave me a flaming heart attack.’

  Tommy grinned, and his rather solemn face lit up. ‘I’m sorry. I heard your buckets; I knew you must be in the garden.’

  ‘Still could have
knocked,’ said Mo severely.

  ‘What do you want?’

  ‘My parents would like to invite you and Eloise—’ ‘To dinner?’ finished Mo. She lowered her bucket and wiped her hands on her trousers. Suddenly she looked very tired. ‘That’s kind of them. It’s not that I don’t appreciate it. But I’m afraid I can’t accept.’

  ‘Okay,’ said Tommy amiably, and his head vanished as abruptly as it had appeared.

  Mo wrapped her arms around herself, though it was still very warm outside. ‘Come on, Eloise,’ she said crossly. ‘Come inside.’ And she scuttled back into the house, hunched over like a beetle.

  They’d no sooner stacked the buckets in the laundry than the doorbell rang. Mo swore loudly. ‘Now what?’ She peered out through the spyhole.

  ‘Peculiar,’ she said. ‘Nobody there.’ She opened the door a crack and there on the mat at her feet lay a foil-covered casserole dish. Mo took a deep breath. ‘Interfering bossy know-it-all neighbours,’ she said, but her voice was mild. She lifted the foil and sniffed. ‘Smells all right. Suppose we’d better not waste it, eh, Eloise?’

  It was curry, and it tasted delicious.

  The next morning Eloise was eating breakfast when the front doorbell rang again. She nearly choked on her cornflakes, but she didn’t have time to run away before Mo led Tommy into the kitchen.

  ‘Hold on, I’ll make a list,’ she was saying. ‘And here’s your dish. Compliments to the chef. Your father, was it, this time?’

  Tommy smiled. ‘How did you know?’

  ‘Heavy hand with the cardamon, your father.’

  ‘Mum’s so busy at the hospital, or at the surgery,’ said Tommy. ‘Dad’s had to learn to cook a lot of things.’

  Mo clucked. ‘Make sure your mother gets enough rest, won’t you. We can’t afford to lose her . . . Bread, eggs, sugar, apples. Might get some bacon this time. Like bacon, Eloise?’

  Eloise, who’d been trying to make herself invisible, gave a fractional nod.

  ‘Bacon then. And more of those chocolate biscuits, we seem to be getting through those.’ Mo rummaged in the cupboards and scribbled on her list while Tommy reminded her of things she might have forgotten: soap, tissues, detergent.

  It dawned on Eloise that Tommy must do Mo’s shopping every week. Then it occurred to her that Mo hadn’t gone out once since she’d arrived, days ago. She remembered Mo saying that first night that she didn’t like to leave the house. So she really meant it. But Mo wasn’t that old; she could walk all right; she wasn’t sick. Why would she want to stay home all the time?

  Eloise realised with a start that Tommy was looking at her. Not staring, just peeping sideways from under his long lashes. And she remembered something else that Mo had said.

  She scraped back her chair and slipped across the kitchen, not looking at Tommy. She didn’t want to, but Mo had said she must. She held out her hand.

  Tommy gazed at her, puzzled. Then a light of laughter came into his eyes and he gripped her hand and squeezed it. ‘Hello.’

  Mo looked up from the depths of the fridge where she was examining limp vegetables. ‘Hah!’ she said. ‘Well done, Eloise. Eloise is shy,’ she told Tommy. ‘She’ll be starting at your school next year, I suppose.’

  ‘Oh.’ Tommy let go of Eloise’s hand. He was blocking the door so she couldn’t escape. She stood there awkwardly for a second, then, because she didn’t know what else to do, she sat down again and poured out more cornflakes.

  ‘That’s the lot,’ announced Mo finally, and slammed the fridge door. ‘Hold on, I’ll get you that card.’ She marched out of the room.

  ‘The card to get her money,’ explained Tommy. ‘For the shopping. It’s easier for her that way.’

  Eloise nodded.

  ‘Mrs Mo’s your grandmother, yeah?’ Tommy moved closer and lowered his voice. ‘You know, she doesn’t go out? Never, since we came here. Only into the backyard. Panic attacks, she told my mum. Makes her heart go . . .’ Tommy’s hand fluttered like a fish. ‘You know what I mean?’

  Eloise didn’t, really.

  ‘It’s good you’ve come. Family, to look after her, eh? You and your dad?’

  Eloise looked down into her cornflake bowl. She felt uncomfortable and vaguely accused. But she was only a kid; it wasn’t her job to look after Mo. She wanted to go; she wanted to find Anna and get her sketchbook back. It wasn’t quite so hot today. She felt greedy to see Anna again, to look for

  Mum in the summerhouse girl’s face. She was glad when Tommy took the card and the list and left, and when she heard the study door click, shutting Mo in.

  Now she was free, and she hurried out of the house so fast her feet hardly skimmed the ground.

  7

  Every day, if it wasn’t too hot, Eloise went to the big house. Every time, the ritual was the same. She’d drop her bike by the front steps, walk across the grass, and shut her eyes.

  Sometimes it took three steps, sometimes it was ten, before the noises of the present faded out. There was a dizzying moment of silence, of nothingness, and then the sounds of the other time faded in, as if the volume had been turned up – birdsong, the rustle of leaves, faint music from the house, laughter – and her eyes flew open, always just too late to catch the instant of changeover, the plunge into the other world.

  Anna was always there. If she wasn’t already waiting at the summerhouse when Eloise arrived, she’d soon come running, complaining that her father had made her finish her breakfast, or that one of the guests had kept her talking. She pulled a face when she talked about the guests. ‘I like it best when it’s just Mumma and Dad and me,’ she said. ‘But it never is. That’s why I’m glad you’re here.’

  At first Eloise thought that Anna was talking about friends who’d come to stay, but there seemed to be an awful lot of ‘guests’, and Anna didn’t always know their names. Then Eloise wondered if the house was a hotel in Anna’s time, too. It was strange that Dad had never mentioned it.

  Gradually Eloise pieced together that the house was not a hotel – not an ordinary hotel, anyway. Anna’s parents ran it. But this summer, because Anna’s mother was away, her father was running it all by himself and that was why he was especially busy – too busy to spend much time with Anna. It was what was called an ‘artists’ retreat’, where writers and painters and sculptors and musicians could come to work in peace.

  Eloise thought she understood how they felt. Being in Anna’s time, at the summerhouse, gave her a feeling of peace too. Perhaps it was because she knew she was in the past: nothing bad could happen there, because it would have happened already, and it hadn’t, so it couldn’t. She was safe there. At the summerhouse, she and Anna were inside their own private world, where nothing could touch them.

  Sometimes a tilt of Anna’s head or a half-smile would pierce Eloise’s memory like the swift jab of a needle and she would be positive that Anna was her mother. At these moments, Eloise would long to grab Anna and squeeze her, to hold on to her and keep her safe forever. But then Anna would stamp and grumble about something, or she’d say a word differently from how Eloise’s mum used to say it, and Eloise was not so sure.

  Anna gave Eloise back her sketchbook. Eloise took it with a quick skip of the heart, because she never showed her pictures to anyone. But all Anna said was, ‘You’re a pretty good drawer. You’re not as good as my mumma, but you’re pretty good.’

  Eloise felt her face grow hot as she shoved the book into her backpack. But after that she didn’t mind if Anna saw her sketching. They’d often sit together outside the summerhouse, Eloise busy drawing, and Anna chatting or reading or sorting pebbles or eating apples. Anna never seemed to notice or mind that Eloise didn’t talk; Anna chattered enough for both of them.

  Nearly always, the first thing Eloise did when she arrived was to dive into the silvery water of the pool. She’d swim while Anna watched, but Anna never swam. Eloise couldn’t understand why; if she owned a glorious pool like this, she’d swim every day. She held out her
hand to Anna, but Anna shook her head.

  ‘I can’t. It’s too deep, I can’t touch the bottom.’

  So Eloise would haul herself out, dripping, and wrap herself in her sun-warmed towel.

  Once or twice the girls had to hide in the summerhouse because ‘the guests’ wanted to use the swimming pool. They ducked out of sight, listening to the splashes and shrieks of the adults, while Anna stifled her giggles, and Eloise pulled silly faces to make it worse, until Anna slid sideways and cried with silent laughter. But the guests mostly used the pool in the evenings and at night, Anna said, because in the daytime they were working.

  ‘You can’t let anyone see you,’ Anna insisted, and Eloise let herself be hidden; she didn’t want to be seen, anyway.

  One afternoon as Eloise rode down Mo’s street, she saw someone in the next-door garden: not Tommy, but a bearded man in shabby clothes, kneeling by a flowerbed. He looked up as she swung round into the driveway, and raised his hand.

  ‘Ah, you must be Mrs Mo’s granddaughter.’

  Eloise stopped the bike and looked at the ground. The bearded man advanced to the low dividing fence; he held out his hand to shake hers, then dusted it on his trousers.

  ‘Excuse me – gardening. Weeding, to be exact. It is strange, even with no rain, the weeds still flourish. Is it the same for you?’

  Eloise stared at the ground.

  ‘Well, it was a pleasure to meet you, Eloise,’ said Tommy’s dad, just as if they’d had a proper conversation. ‘I am Dr Durrani. I was Professor Durrani, once upon a time. But not any more. That was my job – talking, talking all day, lectures and speeches and meetings.’ He glanced around conspiratorially. ‘May I tell you a secret? I am quite glad to have a rest from all that talk, talk, talk. Sometimes there is nothing to say, you know?’ He grinned suddenly, splitting his neat beard in two, and Eloise found herself smiling back. He nodded. ‘I thought you would agree with me. These days, I am better at listening. You understand?’