Kite Spirit

by Sita Brahmachari

  ‘Run, Kite, run!’ Before she knew what was happening she was being funnelled into the finishing lane. Seth ran over, lifted her up and twirled her around, mud flying in every direction. The feeling Kite had at that moment was one of pure joy, and she was relieved that she could still feel it, even though the fact remained that happy moments in a world without Dawn were also the hardest things to bear. They had always turned up to support each other on big occasions. More and more she called on these happy memories of Dawn so that she could carry her best friend with her through all the important days of her life.

  It had taken a lot longer to try to fly again. One day she’d overheard Ruby talking on the phone: ‘You won’t stop calling, will you? I’m sure she’ll come back in time, so please keep trying.’

  Annalisa had more than lived up to her promise, calling regularly until finally she’d come and knocked at their door. At first Kite hardly recognized her with her new shock of bright red hair cut into a sleek bob and finished off with a sequinned bandanna.

  ‘I adore the flowers!’ Annalisa enthused, looking down at the sculptural orange heads of the birds of paradise. ‘It is not possible to have these exquisite birds outside your door and never fly!’

  Annalisa sat in her cross-legged yoga position on Kite’s bed. ‘I know you have your examinations to catch up on, but Ruby says you are doing well and must have a break from revision.’

  Kite lowered her eyes.

  It was difficult to describe even to herself what had stopped her from going back to Circus Space, except that it would feel like she was moving on and fulfilling her dreams without her best friend.

  ‘I know this doesn’t make any sense, but I feel like it’s a sort of betrayal.’

  ‘So remind me . . . what was the last message of your friend?’

  Kite stood on her bed and took down the birthday card, with the Dawn owl feather inside. ‘I think it was probably this.’

  Annalisa ran her fingers over the feather, examined the image on the front of the card, and raised her eyebrows. ‘Exactly,’ she seemed to say.

  Kite stood and looked at herself in the mirror. She was taller and stronger, and after all her training at Circus Space over the past six months she had finally lost her skinny-little-girl straight-up-and-down figure. People who hadn’t seen her for a while commented on how much she’d ‘matured’. Mali has whistled when he’d first seen her and asked her out again almost straight away. She’d told him that she liked him ‘much better as a friend’. ‘That’s the line no one wants to hear!’ he’d joked. Then what was it that Grandma Grace had said when she came to visit last month . . . ?

  ‘You’ve bloomed, my darlin’.’

  But if she had changed on the outside, the real growing she had done was invisible to most people around her. It had taken time to understand that she would never be the old Kite again, that what Dawn had done had changed her forever.

  Kite cried most of the morning on what would have been Dawn’s eighteenth birthday, but she’d eventually got herself dressed and was heading out to Circus Space when there was a knock at the door.

  She opened it and there was Hazel, who had also been crying. She was holding a photograph album in her hands, which she offered up to Kite.

  ‘I was trying to work out who would understand how I feel today,’ she wept.

  They sat and looked through the photographs of Kite and Dawn from the ages of five to sixteen. Here was a record of all that had been good and happy and funny and plain stupid about all the things that they had done together. Hazel and Kite had laughed and cried and when the album was closed and neither of them had any tears left Hazel got up to leave.

  ‘I’m on my way to Circus Space; I was wondering if you’d like to come with me,’ Kite asked tentatively.

  Hazel reached out for Kite’s hand and nodded. ‘I’ll never forget how you came to sit by my side at Dawn’s funeral,’ she whispered, squeezing Kite’s hand firmly in her own.

  Kite had got to know Garth much better since she left the Lakes. He’d visited her in London for a few days before leaving for New Zealand and they’d trailed around galleries, talking and finding out the kind of things they’d never asked each other before. She knew now what music he liked, how much he’d enjoyed his work in the outward-bound centre, that he planned to go to art college in Manchester but that he felt ‘like a fish out of water’ in the city. Since he’d been in New Zealand they’d phoned and emailed and he, who had claimed to be backward with technology, had even got into Skype and Facebook and now they posted photos and messages to each other every day.

  Kite picked up the little collection of hand-made postcards that he’d sent her over the last two years. Some of them were sketches of the abstract-looking sculptures he’d built in the sheepfolds for his commission. Kite had talked so much about Garth to Esme recently that she’d asked if they were going out. Kite laughed at the thought of it because you could hardly call someone trying to kiss you once over two years ago and a collection of postcards (no matter how much thought had gone into the drawing of them) ‘going out’. She shuffled the cards in her hands and turned the most recent one over and read it for the hundredth time. Maybe it was because the distance was so great between them that she missed him so much now. It felt like an age till Christmas.

  Dear Kite,

  I never thought I would think anywhere as beautiful as the Lakes. This is a sketch of me and my dad sitting by Lake Taupo (largest lake in New Zealand). It puts me in mind of Kite Carrec. Thinking maybe you might want to visit me when I get back . . . how does Christmas in the Lakes sound?

  Can’t wait to see you,

  Love,

  Garth

  She didn’t really know what they would mean to each other now or how she would feel about him when she returned to the Lake District. But she knew what he’d been to her and she would never forget the way that he’d held her when she’d been the closest she had ever felt to falling.

  Now here she was on the train staring out of the window and watching the frozen landscape changing. A single tree in the middle of an icy field reminded Kite of how she had felt inside when she last travelled up to the Lake District. She felt relieved that the weather and the season could not have been more different than on her previous visit. In places it was difficult to tell where the land ended and the sky began as the powder snow began to cover houses, buildings and trees and seemed to smooth out all the hard edges of the world. Smoke rose from farm and cottage chimneys and Kite thought of the welcoming amber glow of the Carrec Arms and Ellie lighting the fire for Jack.

  She contemplated the snow as it covered every imperfection in the landscape.

  ‘I love it when it snows,’ Dawn said as they waited at the bottom of the steps for Jimmy to take them sledging. ‘It makes everything look so perfect. I never want to spoil it by treading in it.’

  ‘I can never wait to jump in!’ Kite laughed, grabbing a great handful of snow and lobbing it at Dawn.

  On their way home Jimmy let the snow settle in the palm of his hand. ‘Do you know, every single flake is different? If you look at these under a microscope no two are the same.’ Dawn peered up at Jimmy, her serious little face full of wonder.

  ‘Like you two – chalk and cheese!’ He laughed as he tugged them along on the sledge.

  Kite smiled. She had come to love the flow of memories that played through her like music.

  She felt in her pocket for Dawn’s reed box that she always carried with her. It was comforting to hold it close.

  Kite sat in the plush velvet seats of the auditorium waiting for the musicians to enter. People were gathering all around her, sorting out their coats and looking through programmes. She glanced down at the one Dawn had given her and searched out her friend’s name. She felt ridiculously proud. The musicians entered the stage in their sections. The wind instruments sat together on a platform above the violins. Dawn blushed bright red as she settled herself in her seat and then stood and played the
top A that the whole orchestra tuned up to.

  Kite watched the conductor in his long black coat as Dawn played, his hands instructing her to come in lightly and smoothly. Just before she began her first solo Kite held her breath. She could read the tension in Dawn’s face and watched as she made tiny adjustments and readjustments to the reed.

  Now Kite felt the tension in her own body until the first note of Dawn’s solo emerged rich and clear. Then she began to enjoy it, as Dawn too relaxed into the music. She felt her heart leap and her emotions soar. As she watched, Kite understood that Dawn’s playing was her way of flying.

  There was applause all round and people were giving the orchestra a standing ovation.

  The lady next to her handed her a tissue. ‘Brahms can do that to you,’ she said with a smile, and Kite realized that she had been crying with pride.

  Now the conductor was asking Dawn to stand up. She looked mortified but he insisted and the audience kept on clapping too, demanding her to take a special bow.

  ‘Why has he picked her out?’ Kite asked the woman as she thanked her for the tissues and wiped her eyes.

  ‘Because that girl is going to be great.’

  Kite wiped the tears from her eyes and reached up for Grandma Grace’s St Christopher. ‘You keep wearing it, my sweetheart,’ was the last thing Grace had said to her before going back to St Kitts. Kite rummaged in her bag and took out Garth’s slate necklace. She hung it round her neck, pulling the leather fastening tighter. It was the first time she had worn it. Then she plugged in her iPod and listened to the end of Seth’s new album. It had taken him over two years to write but it had re-launched his career. He was often away now, playing concerts and festivals. Finding out about his family seemed to have given Seth so much more than just this album, Kite thought, as she listened to the confident, sombre music on The Song of Storeys. This last track he had called ‘For Dawn’.

  Kite looked in her hand mirror and wiped her eyes. ‘The road should be long and winding.’ Tears came easily to her these days, but Lucy had told her that it was a good sign and so she never tried to stop them. She ruffled up her hair, so long now that it cascaded down her back to the base of her spine, then took out the brown eyeliner she’d bought at Euston station and underlined her eyes as Dawn had once taught her to do. She turned to the side to see the tiny sea-green jewel that glinted in her nose, her eighteenth birthday present from Ruby and Seth. She smoothed her short velvet paisley-print skirt over her thick leggings and retied the ribbons on her new cherry DMs.

  Garth was standing on the snowy station waiting for her. Bardsey sat faithfully beside him. It was comical how their heads scanned the platform in the same direction, searching for her. Garth was wearing a serious-looking padded parker. He looked taller and broader in the shoulders and back, but maybe it was down to the layers he was wearing against the cold. Kite threw on the oversized sheepskin jacket that Seth had allowed her to pinch off him. As soon as she stepped off the train she was greeted by a loud bark and Bardsey bounded towards her, leaping at her as if he’d been longing for her to come back. Kite laughed and brushed the snow from her clothes.

  ‘You should have seen the greeting I got when I came back from New Zealand!’ Garth walked towards her with his long arms flung open wide, like the Angel of the North. Kite smiled inwardly at the thought. It was what she’d found different about him when they’d first met, and what she’d grown to like about him. It didn’t seem to occur to him to hide how he felt. They stood and held each other without speaking, their combined breaths visible in the cold bright air. Her heart thudded in her chest as she hugged this boy who seemed to understand her better than anyone. She pulled away from him in case he felt the intensity of her feelings towards him. What if he didn’t feel the same way? But as they parted he let his hand rest on the back of her head as if he didn’t want to let her go.

  ‘You’re wearing my slate-stone.’ Garth touched the leather pendant, grazing the skin on her neck as he did so. She nodded, feeling the heat rise to her cheeks.

  ‘So how was it? Seeing your dad?’ she asked.

  Garth furrowed his forehead. ‘We had a fair bit of talking to do, but we had some good times together. He’s coming back to visit next year, so we’ll see.’

  ‘You can sit together on that carved seat you made for him.’ Kite smiled. ‘Remember the deer?’

  ‘I remember the sun on your hair . . .’ he let his fingers trace the length of it down her back.

  ‘Isn’t this Dr Sherpa’s old Land Rover?’ Kite asked, taking a deep, calming breath as she climbed in.

  ‘Not any more. He sold it to Gran.’

  Kite could not imagine the Agnes Landseer she had known driving around in this. She was glad that she had not come back in summer, glad that everything looked so different with the ground frozen and the sky heavy with snow, and all this made her feel as if the world was new and peaceful and settled . . . until they began to drive up the now smooth path that lead to Mirror Falls. Halfway up was a new sign: ‘Mirror Falls Visitor Centre’.

  ‘Gran’s set up a sort of sanctuary for nature lovers,’ Garth explained.

  That slow climb up the track stirred up all the old emotions and she found herself gently weeping. Garth took one hand off the steering wheel and reached for hers.

  Kite took a deep breath as they stepped through the familiar glass entrance to be greeted by a cheerful woman with a sleek silver bob and a flash of crimson lipstick. She walked around the reception desk and offered Kite the warmest of hugs. If she had seen her on a street in London she would have walked straight past her, she bore so little resemblance to the Agnes Landseer she’d known only two years before. If only Dawn had understood this, as Agnes had, as she herself had – that you could come back from feeling low, that things could always change, unless you stopped life in its tracks.

  Bardsey led the way and the three of them took the path down by the waterfall and past the stone ledge. Kite’s mind spiralled down too: now she was staring through the stepping stones at a sheep carcass, now she crouched next to the Dawn owl, now she was feeling the power of water rushing over stone as Garth handed her bone after bone to place in the hessian sack. She had come, with the help of Lucy and Miss Choulty, to understand all the strange happenings and sightings of Dawn at Mirror Falls as a reflection of her own mind after Dawn committed suicide, but now that she was here it all seemed so real again.

  They walked beyond the waterfall, trudging through untrodden snow to the base of the chasm, following the line of the stream far enough to turn and look up at what had once been the large sheet-glass window view on to the valley, the same window that the imprint of the Dawn owl had clung on to for so long. Apart from a slit of open glass through which a few birdwatchers’ telescopes protruded, the whole of the front of the building had been clad in slate.

  ‘Not as perfect as it was, but at least we’ve had no more owls crashing in on us,’ Agnes explained. ‘I’ll let you tell.’ She patted Garth on the shoulder and winked at him playfully. ‘Leave Bardsey here with me – you two have a lot of catching up to do.’

  ‘Tell me what?’ Kite asked as they climbed back into the Land Rover.

  Garth smiled his wide warm smile but didn’t answer. They headed out to the Haweswater Dam in silence.

  ‘What do you want to do now?’ Garth asked as he pulled into the car park. It felt to Kite as if the Land Rover was about to combust with the force of the charged energy between them.

  ‘Let’s run!’ Kite leaped from the car with Garth close on her heels. Together they ploughed up the snow that scrunched satisfyingly beneath their feet.

  ‘You’re on!’

  As they ran up the fell the snow began to fall, lightly at first and then heavier. The last time she’d run up here she’d been pitifully weak. Now her body felt strong and fit and able to carry her up even the steepest of fells in the deepening snow.

  ‘You can run!’ Garth laughed as she kept pace with him over the final s
tretch of ground that led to the cave. They lay on the cold rock until they got their breath back. Kite turned her head to Garth so that their breath mist mingled together.

  ‘I always could run . . . before . . .’ Kite faltered.

  He sensed her change of mood and sat up a little way apart from her.

  She pulled her body upright too and they surveyed the lake as the snow landed and melted on its surface. It seemed like a dream now that they had really stood in the dry reservoir together building the sheep sculpture and burying Dawn’s reed. Now everything was submerged deep, deep underwater. Kite surveyed the smooth white landscape that made everything look perfect for a while. But what she had come to accept was that under the surface of everything was the constant presence of Dawn, what Dawn had been and what Dawn had done and what Dawn would have been doing now if she was still alive.

  ‘I’d like to go to Old Jack’s grave, buy you a drink in the Carrec Arms and see Ellie and Cassie and Dr Sherpa to say thank you for all they did for me . . . and Seth’s sent a photo of Peter’s sister in Germany for me to give to Aida . . .’ Kite told Garth.

  ‘Aida died just a few weeks ago. Did you not hear?’

  Kite shook her head. She felt strangely sad that she couldn’t tell Aida the end of the story about Lily, her best friend. How Kite and Seth had made the trip together to the nursing home in Hamburg and Kite had been moved by the whole experience. It was a sweet photo that she now showed Garth of her great-grandfather’s sister Anna holding the little leather deer made by her brother Peter, which Aida had given to Seth.

  ‘She had a collection of her own just like the one Aida gave us.’

  ‘Poor Aida!’ Garth sighed. ‘She would have liked to hear of that. But maybe she’s somewhere out there listening!’

  It was something that Kite had thought about a lot over the past two years. What happens after you die? The only conclusion she could come to was that somewhere inside her she would always carry something of Dawn’s spirit.