Cicada Summer

by Kate Constable

  Precious, beautiful water . . . She’d really like a swim today . . .

  Suddenly she wrenched off the taps and jumped out of the bath.

  She was barely dry, still buttoning her shorts, as she snatched some toast and crunched it down.

  ‘You’re in a hurry today.’ Mo stared over the top of her glasses. ‘Something urgent to do?’

  Eloise nodded, then, as she passed Mo’s chair, she impulsively dropped a kiss on her grandmother’s wiry tangle of hair.

  ‘Strewth! What’s brought this on?’ Mo looked up, startled. ‘Not going to do anything silly, are you?’

  Eloise shook her head and grinned as she flew out of the kitchen. She rushed out the back door, launched herself onto the bike and down the driveway, and nearly knocked over Tommy and a slightly-built woman in a blue headscarf as they stepped out onto the pavement.

  ‘Watch it!’ Tommy shouted after her, jolted out of his usual politeness, and Eloise glanced back to make sure they were all right. That must be Tommy’s mum, the doctor. But she couldn’t stop, not even for mothers; nothing could stop her today.

  The smoke had dispersed and the air was clear. Eloise rode the short way, along the main street and past the shops, even though that hill was steeper. She pedalled down the road and through the sagging gates, along the rutted driveway and across the gravel. She was in such a hurry that she didn’t drop the bike at the steps, but rode right around the house and through the tangled grass all the way to the summerhouse.

  Let Anna be there. Let Anna be there, she prayed. She couldn’t waste this idea. It filled up her head, she had to paint it. If only she could get it right.

  She wobbled desperately past the screening trees, jumped off the bike and leapt through the silence into the other time.

  ‘You nearly knocked me over!’ shouted Anna indignantly.

  ‘I know what to paint today!’ burst Eloise. ‘Better than yesterday—’

  ‘Yesterday? That was days ago. I’ve been waiting and waiting, every day, and you never came! Don’t you want to be my friend any more?’

  Of course I do, Eloise tried to say, but her voice clogged her throat. She stared at Anna, mute and miserable, and Anna stared miserably back.

  Then Anna underwent one of her sudden transformations. ‘Oh, let’s not fight, you’re here now.’

  ‘I try to come every day,’ whispered Eloise unhappily.

  ‘What do you mean? Why don’t you just come? Does someone stop you? Do they lock you up?’

  ‘No . . . but . . .’ Eloise stopped. How could she explain to Anna who she was and where she came from? How could anyone handle a glimpse into her own future – a future where she was no longer alive? Eloise could never tell her, never.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ she said softly. ‘I come as often as I can. Promise.’

  ‘Okay,’ mumbled Anna. ‘I just get lonely, that’s all.’ Her eyes filled with those sudden tears that seemed to rise and fall like the tide, and she said, ‘I miss my mumma.’

  ‘Me too,’ whispered Eloise. ‘Me too.’

  The two girls were silent, their loneliness wrapped around them like a dark mist. Eloise stared at the ground, a lump pressing inside her throat.

  ‘Where’s your mum, then?’ Anna said in a small voice.

  Eloise swallowed. ‘She died.’

  Anna’s eyes went completely round. ‘Oh . . . oh, no. What happened?’

  ‘It was a car crash.’ Eloise felt her voice scratching as she spoke. ‘She didn’t feel anything. It was instant.’

  Her scalp prickled; she’d never told anyone about Mum’s accident. She shouldn’t be telling Anna now; surely it was wrong tell someone about their own death, even if they didn’t know it . . . She grabbed up her pencil. ‘Wait, see my idea,’ she said hurriedly. ‘Look at this.’

  She swept the pencil across the pale expanse of the two walls they hadn’t painted on yet, the two walls that faced the doorway and had clear light falling across them. She had to pin down her idea while she could still see it; the image had come to her so clearly in the shower, all in one piece, perfect.

  Anna watched as Eloise sketched and paused and looked and sketched some more, lines of firm grey pencil laid over the pale boards, a picture emerging out of nothing.

  ‘It’s a girl. A girl flying? Ooh no, I see now. Is she swimming?’

  ‘She’s inside the ship.’ Eloise’s hand swooped over the wall. It was hard to get the scale right across the angle of the two walls; the girl’s head was the wrong size. Impatiently she rubbed it out and tried again. ‘She’s under the water.’

  ‘Drowned?’ asked Anna ghoulishly.

  ‘No, no – maybe – I don’t think so.’

  Eloise kept drawing. She wasn’t sure about the edges of the picture, but the central image was strong and clear: the swimming girl, hair streaming in the water, bare feet kicking behind her.

  ‘What’s she holding?’ Anna stepped in close to stare. ‘Is it a mirror? A painting? Something in a frame.’

  The girl held it out in front of her with one hand, as if she were about to swim right through the frame. Eloise scribbled, stood back, erased, scribbled again. She couldn’t make the angle work.

  ‘That hand looks all wrong,’ said Anna helpfully.

  ‘I know!’ snapped Eloise.

  ‘Look,’ said Anna. ‘Why don’t you draw me?’ Carefully she posed her hand, angling her fingers backward, and turned her big hopeful eyes to Eloise.

  ‘Yes!’ breathed Eloise. ‘That’s it . . .’ She nudged Anna’s hand into the right position, and sketched a few surer strokes on the wall.

  The girl wasn’t holding a mirror; it was a window. And through the window you could see – Eloise saw it clearly, all the edges sunlit and precise, not like the dreamy underwater shadows the girl swam through – you could see a garden. Eloise roughed in the outlines of the trees, the border of the flowerbeds, and the house behind, just enough to hint at the shapes, for later. Then she threw the pencil down and rushed for the paint tins.

  Green and blue, a touch of red, to turn it murky purple. The colours swirled and blended. More green, dark green. Eloise dabbed it on the wall.

  ‘Let me, let me!’ Anna pleaded, jumping up and down behind her. ‘I can do that. You do the girl.’

  It was hard to paint someone swimming, suspended in water. How to show that her dress floated around her? Her hair waved delicately, like weeds in water. She was swimming away from the viewer; you could see the soles of her bare feet but not her face. One hand pointed backward, pale fingers like – like little fish. Yes, she was too pink, too pink! Feverishly Eloise mixed colours. She should be silvery, like a fish. That grey was too dark. A splodge of white, mix it in. Yes, that was almost right. A touch of yellow. And white, tinged with blue, for her dress. And her hair greeny-dark, seaweed-dark.

  ‘You have to keep swimming through.’ Anna’s dark head was bent with concentration as her brush swished and dotted. ‘That’s what my mumma always says. Never give up.’

  Swimming through. Swimming through life, toward the light and the garden. Eloise liked the sound of that.

  Colour exploded from her brush; with every touch, the picture flowered and swarmed into being. From Eloise’s imagination, it zinged through her hand and her brush and onto the wall, becoming something real. This morning it had been just an idea trapped inside Eloise’s head; now it was free, something new and fresh, and anyone could see it. Making something: it was the best feeling in the world.

  Steadily Anna filled in the background. A pale green shape. Dark lines, shadowy forms. It wasn’t until Eloise stood back that she realised what Anna had done. It was the house – inside the house. The lines were a little wobbly, the colours uncertain, but Eloise could see the staircase, the double doors, the glass panels. Anna had painted the inside of her own house, sunk to the bottom of the sea.

  She and Eloise looked at each other and laughed, as if it were a joke they’d made together.

  Now Eloise h
elped her: a school of tiny fish darted through the doorway to the living room; a drowned table floated; an upturned vase spilled flowers that drifted in the water. The stairs curved up and away, the thin line of the railing just visible in the shadows.

  A shiver ran over Eloise’s scalp as she saw that the girl she’d painted was the same girl she’d seen on her very first day, the girl who’d run down the steps and turned to stare. It was Anna, of course, a stranger then, but so familiar now . . . and then she saw what was wrong with the girl’s other hand: it should be curled around the frame, pulling her through.

  Eloise sprang to fix it, and at once she was lost again inside the picture. It filled her whole mind; it was her whole mind. Nothing else existed but the paints and brushes, the shapes and colours, the balance of light and dark, her hand and her eyes. She dodged and danced, crouched and stretched, not even aware of her own movements until she paused to gulp from her water bottle and realised that her muscles ached and her eyes were sore. But there was still the garden to finish yet.

  Eloise stood close to the wall and squinted, the finest brush in her hand as she worked on the bright square inside the frame. Yellow and white, the palest green; the whole house just visible in the background, tall trees with sunshine dazzling off their leaves, bushes studded with golden flowers. A window to another world, the whole point to the painting.

  The house was inside the picture, and outside it. The house had turned inside out, the same way time had turned inside out, folding Eloise into the past and shaking her out again into the present.

  ‘I’m tired,’ groaned Anna, and flung herself down.

  ‘Mm,’ said Eloise. Just a shimmer of bright blue sky beyond the roof . . .

  ‘Sit with me.’ The edge of a whine in Anna’s voice showed how tired she was. ‘You can finish that later.’

  ‘Mm . . .’

  Anna unfolded herself and planted her fists on her hips. ‘Come outside. It’s too dark in here. Come out in the sun.’

  Anna was right; the sun had swung around, it was almost too dark to see. Eloise dropped her brush into the water jar with a sigh, and stepped back to look at the picture.

  It was finished. And it was good. It was better than good.

  Eloise felt a wide smile stretch across her face. It wasn’t perfect, but it worked. It was the first time she’d made something that matched, or almost matched, the idea in her head; it was the first time she’d ever wanted to show off something she’d painted. She felt as if her chest would burst. She wanted everyone in the world to see it.

  But Anna had seen it. Her mother had seen a picture that Eloise had painted, a good picture, maybe the first really good picture she’d ever made. Even if no one else in the world ever looked at it, that was something.

  Eloise flung her arms into the air and whooped for joy. Anna whooped, too – not quite as elated as Eloise but prepared to be carried along by Eloise’s delight. Eloise grabbed Anna’s hands and swung her around, out into the afternoon sunshine and danced her around the pool. ‘It’s done, it’s done!’ she sang, and then she threw Anna’s hands away, spun a pirouette and jumped into the pool, clothes and all.

  She heard Anna shriek, and then a tremendous splash, and Anna was in the water too, almost on top of her, screaming and spluttering. Eloise ducked away. Anna thrashed and gasped, churning the water desperately till she reached the side and clung there by her fingertips. ‘Oh!’ she gasped, breathless. ‘That was fun!’

  ‘I thought you were drowning!’ shouted Eloise, and splashed her, and Anna splashed back, and they both screamed and ducked and splashed again, dragged down by their wet clothes, until they were breathless. Eloise swam over and rested her arms on the side of the pool beside Anna.

  Anna pushed herself away into the water by her fingertips and pulled herself in again. Suddenly she said, ‘What’s your name?’

  ‘Eloise.’

  ‘Eloise?’ repeated Anna blankly. Her face changed. She said again, ‘Eloise’, carefully, as if she were tasting it. She gave a solemn nod.

  Eloise hadn’t really realised that Anna didn’t know her name; all this time, she’d never asked.

  Suddenly Anna smiled into Eloise’s face. ‘Eloise!’ she sang. ‘Will you teach me how to swim?’

  ‘Okay,’ said Eloise, and she splashed Anna in the face again. Anna screamed and ducked away.

  Neither of them noticed the tall man standing by the pool’s side, his face dark with anger.

  ‘Anna. Anna! ’ Both girls looked round, struck dumb with shock.

  ‘What the hell do you think you’re doing? Get out of the pool right now.’

  ‘Dad—’ Anna faltered. But she clutched at the edge and tried to haul herself out. Her father grabbed her wrist and yanked her roughly from the water.

  ‘How many times?’ He was shaking her. ‘How many times have we told you not to go swimming alone?’

  ‘But Dad, I’m not—’ stuttered Anna.

  Eloise trod water, her heart pounding. Anna’s dad glared at Anna, then swept his furious gaze all around the pool, across Eloise and back to Anna. He shook her again.

  ‘What rubbish is this now? There’s no one here but you.’

  10

  Anna’s eyes widened in shock. Her father wrapped her roughly in a towel and rubbed her hair as if she were a much younger child. She craned to look past him, to reassure herself that Eloise was still there in the water.

  ‘Dad, look – she is – she really is—’ Anna choked.

  ‘Enough!’ Some words exploded from him, in a language Eloise didn’t recognise. Anna looked scared; she huddled away from him, cowering beneath the towel.

  Eloise felt her own face go numb, her own mouth sag open. It was plain that Anna’s father – her own grandfather, the grandfather she had never met – simply could not see Eloise there in the middle of the pool. He couldn’t see her.

  Eloise found she could move, though her arms and legs were heavy. She dragged herself slowly to the edge of the pool. She could hear her own voice, shrill and uncertain. ‘It’s okay. I wouldn’t let her drown. I was watching her . . .’

  But Anna’s father spoke over the top of her. He didn’t hear Eloise; he couldn’t see her and he couldn’t hear her. He put his hands on Anna’s shoulders and knelt to look into her face. ‘This is not funny any more, baby. This is dangerous now. So many times we told you, you can play in the summerhouse if you promise – promise - not to go into the pool when no one else is there. And now look at this.’

  ‘I’m not a baby.’ Anna pressed her lips together. ‘And she is here. I can see her.’

  ‘This imaginary friend of yours? Yes, I heard you talking about all the paintings you do together, the games you play, I heard you. But Anna, you know it’s not real. You know that, don’t you?’

  Anna said nothing. She flicked a glance over her father’s shoulder to Eloise, who still clung to the side of the pool. She pressed her lips together even harder, and blinked.

  Anna’s father put his arm around her shoulder. ‘Come up to the house now, you’re shivering. This is my fault. I shouldn’t let you be so much by yourself. I’m sorry for shouting, baby, but you have to understand . . .’

  Still talking earnestly, he drew Anna away from the pool, through the gate in the fence, around the trees and up the slope toward the house. Anna walked with her head bowed, saying nothing, her bare feet speckled with grass clippings.

  Eloise’s teeth chattered. She gripped the edge of the pool and tried to pull herself out, but she sank back, as if all the strength had drained out of her arms. She heaved again and rolled out of the water, and lay for a moment on the wet concrete, shivering. At last she managed to crawl into the summerhouse and find her towel. What would Anna’s father have said about the paintings on the walls? Would he think Anna had done them all by herself ? Or would they be invisible to him, too?

  Eloise wished she could forget how it had felt when her grandfather’s eyes raked past her, unseeing, but she couldn’
t forget it.

  When she’d dried herself as best she could, she put on her hat and backpack and stood in the middle of the dark summerhouse with her hands limp at her sides. It was the first time she’d ever wanted to go home before the time-wave rushed to sweep her away, the first time she’d stood there, helpless, waiting.

  Outside it was twilight, and the indigo ink of night gradually darkened the sky. Eloise could see a single star. She left the summerhouse and the pool enclosure and walked around the screen of trees, where Anna had gone. Golden light streamed down the slope from the big house, remote as a lighthouse, as far away as another country. Slowly Eloise retraced her path, trying to walk back into her own time; she almost thought she could feel the dense shimmering wall between her time and the other, resistant against her skin. If only she could hold up a window, like the girl in the painting, and swim through it . . .

  Keep swimming through, she thought. You have to keep swimming through. Don’t give up. And so she walked steadily on, up the slope and back again, invisible inside the gathering dusk, listening to the murmur of music and conversation and the clink of plates and glasses from the open windows of the big house, until at last, at last, the welcome silence rushed over her and towed her away.

  Dusk was falling in her own time, too, but it was still hot. The setting sun splashed vivid orange light on the bare planks of the summerhouse walls. There were no paintings, no trace of paint. Someone must have painted over them, between Anna’s time and now. Dead leaves littered the floor.

  Eloise’s shoulders drooped as she picked up her bike where it had fallen. Swimming through. Her clothes were still damp and sticky, clinging to her skin. The cicadas were so loud it was hard to even think. She pushed the bike along the dark tunnel of the driveway and wobbled out onto the road. If only swimming through didn’t make you so very tired . . .

  One foot down, and then the other, she pushed the bike toward home.

  Eloise was inside the back door before she realised that Mo had visitors. She caught the door before it banged shut and eased it silently closed, then she stood still, on tiptoe, listening.