“Mmm?” The bastard’s actually wedged his knees against the glovebox and has closed his eyes.
“There’s, like, a thing.”
“A thing?”
“A thing. You know. A…thing.” My brain can only handle so much at a time. The car stuff is taking up so much processing power that I have apparently lost the power of normal speech.
“Go round it, then.”
“How?” I grip the wheel even tighter.
It’s a gatepost. A metal gatepost.
Wait. There are two of them.
(How is this a surprise? Of course there are two of them. They’re either side of a gate.)
Ahead, the almost-road begins to narrow. The low wire-and-post fencing running either side of it angles in, ending at a wide galvanized metal gate. Which is open. Beyond it, the road disappears altogether and turns into a large, lumpy field.
I make an unhappy squeaking sound. Reluctantly, Steffan opens an eye. “Just keep going straight on and through the gate.”
“But…”
“It’s fine. You could fit at least two of this car through there, okay?”
“It’s just…”
“Why are you going right?” Both of his eyes are open.
“I’m not.”
“You are!” He sits up.
“You said go straight on…”
“Stop looking at me and look where you’re going!”
We have swung wildly to the right and I’m now steering us straight at the right gatepost and the edge of the metal gate. I do what I do best when I’m panicked. I freeze.
We’re still inching forward. The needle on the speedometer is barely off the pin…and yet the gatepost looms ahead of us; suddenly it’s as large and unavoidable as a cliff face. And there is nothing I can do…
“Seriously, Lim. Brake?”
“Can’t.”
“The pedal, Lim. Brake.”
“Oh.” I glance down at my feet. He sees one of my knees twitch.
“Not that one – the other one.”
“Which one?”
“The other one!”
The gatepost is still there. Still getting bigger.
I stamp both my feet on the floor of the car, pressing down all three pedals at once. There’s an awful sound from the engine, and Steffan’s resorted to shouting at me in Welsh – much bloody good might it do him – and he’s yanking the wheel to the left and hauling up the handbrake and with a final howl and a cough from the engine, we’ve stopped.
My heart is pounding in my throat and my hands are slick with sweat. Suddenly, there’s a voice in my right ear. “The only thing you could crash into for a mile, and you head right for it…”
I scream, the rush of adrenaline breaking my trance as Jared jumps away from the window, still laughing. I disentangle myself from the seat belt and from the pedals and (after an awkward moment where I forget how to open a car door) get out of the car as fast as I can.
I’m shaking.
So’s Jared – but in his case it’s with laughter. There are creases around his eyes that I don’t think I’ve ever seen before. They make him look both younger and older at the same time, and in amongst the panic and the embarrassment and the everything else, I wonder what he was like as a kid. Before.
“Thank you for your concern, Jared.” I don’t sound quite as offended as I’d like to – and his laughter’s infectious, even if it’s entirely at my own expense.
Steffan slams the car door. “Well. My life just flashed before my eyes.”
“I told you it was a bad idea.”
“Promise me something, would you?”
“What?” I fold forwards, resting my hands on my knees.
“That you’ll wait till I’m in another country before you try driving again?”
His scowl breaks into a smile. Jared’s still giggling and I can’t help myself any longer – and then all three of us are there, standing around a little lane in the middle of the countryside, laughing because suddenly there’s no reason not to.
fifteen
“I’m telling you – it’s him.”
“It’s never. Seriously. No way.”
We are in the supermarket. The glamour. But having survived a night in the wild and my traumatic first driving lesson earlier, I have demanded my reward.
No, obviously it’s not a trip to the local supermarket.
I want a picnic on the beach, seeing as that’s where we’re meant to be going. You have to have a picnic on the beach on a summer road trip, don’t you? It’s the law. And, with only a few days to fit in “all the usual places”, it has to happen today. Because I say so. An actual picnic, involving something a little more exciting than the two or three packets of crisps which have survived Steffan and Jared’s locust-attacks and the half bottle of flat lemonade that’s been rolling around inside the spare wheel in the boot and the two bottles of warm beer which have kept wedging themselves under my lower back. Not to mention those bloody cigars Steffan’s nicked from his dad, which I’m sure will make an appearance at some point. I’m kind of hoping he’s forgotten about them; what with Jared’s sly little cigarette habit, if Steff starts puffing away on a bunch of cigars, I’m going to have to do something really outrageous just to keep up. No idea what, of course, but I’m sure I could come up with something if I really put my mind to it.
Jared has gone to raid the deli counter for cooked chicken, leaving Steffan and me to hunter-gather everything else. And that’s when we spot the most loathed of all our teachers picking over the fruit and veg. Being the mature types we are, we both immediately turn tail and hide behind the milk fridge, peering round to spy on him. It’s obvious he hears something, as he glances up from the aubergine he’s busy feeling up, but we’re saved by the racks of semi-skimmed.
When you’re a kid, you kind of believe that your teachers live in school; that somewhere in the staffroom there’s a little row of beds and, come seven thirty in the evening, they all tuck themselves up with their hot-water bottles and a cup of tea and go to sleep. Of course, you soon realize that teachers have lives outside of school (and that some of them – shocker – even have families) but there’s still something so weird about seeing them outside school boundaries. Wearing…shorts. Buying vegetables.
Mr Lewis is the teacher I would have least expected to see out in the wild. In fact, up until this very moment, I was still absolutely convinced someone just folded him up and put him in a desk drawer at the end of the day, and then shook him out and dusted him down again the next morning. He’s tried to fail me at physics twice in the past year. I’m starting to take it personally.
I don’t even know why we’re hiding.
It just seemed like the thing to do.
I mean, it’s not like he can give us detention for having a basket that’s filled mainly with sausage rolls, is it? What’s he going to do – call our mothers?
Yeah. Good luck with that.
“What are you doing?”
Jared has appeared behind us, clutching not one, not two…but three bags of cooked chicken. There are shiny grease spots soaking through the waxy paper in several places. It makes me feel vaguely sick.
“It’s Loopy Lewis,” says Steffan, jerking his head towards the vegetable stands.
“And you’re hiding…why?” He drops the chicken into the shopping basket and shakes his head.
“Oh, like you’d understand,” Steffan scoffs. “Mr Top-of-the-Class. Mr Suck-up. Mr—”
“Alright, point taken.” Jared peers around the milk fridge. “What’s he doing?”
“I don’t know. Performing an experimental jazz piece?” Steff pulls a face.
“You should go into comedy, mate. You’re clearly better at it than you are at physics.” Jared shakes his head and wanders back up the aisle. Steffan scoops up the basket and follows him, muttering something about spicy salsa. He’s not much better at physics than I am.
I peer back around the fridge. “Loopy” Lewis, as he�
��s known, is still there, but the longer I look at him, the less I see the stroppy old teacher who’s made my Thursday afternoons a misery for the last two years and the more I see…something else.
Beyond the school walls, he has none of his usual power. He’s not on the platform at the front of the classroom here, or prowling up and down the spaces between the desks ready to snatch your work out from under your hand to “examine your workings” (and, in my case, usually to criticize my handwriting). He’s a lonely old man, shopping for food for one. He looks sad.
I step out from behind the fridge – and, despite everything I just thought, I find myself straightening my T-shirt as I cross the aisle to the vegetable stand.
“Mr Lewis…” I tail off. I’m not quite sure what to say next. I just feel like I have to say something. At the top of the aisle, Steffan’s head pops around the shelves. He’s mouthing something at me. I blow him a kiss, and snap my hand back down just as Mr Lewis turns to look at me.
“Miss Jenkins.” He’s peering over the top of his glasses at me. Maybe that whole thing about him having no power over me outside school…maybe that was a mistake. He looks me up and down. “I didn’t think you lived…”
“I don’t. I’m just passing through. With friends.”
“Friends. I see.” He makes the word sound unfamiliar. Maybe it is. “I see,” he says again. His eyes flicker across the surrounding shelves.
His fingers, wrapped around the wire handle of the shopping basket he’s carrying, look so much thinner now than they do when they’re pointing out the mistakes in equations. They’re bone wrapped in thin skin, speckled with scars and long-faded freckles. And that’s as if the basket he’s carrying wasn’t sad enough already: one onion, a half-loaf of sliced bread, a pint of milk, three apples, two chicken breasts…
We always took the piss out of Loopy Lewis because we couldn’t imagine him having a life outside school. Now I can see he really doesn’t, it’s not funny any more. It’s sad. It’s so, so sad. He’s just a lonely man, trying his best to get a bunch of kids who don’t really want to be there to pay attention and get them through their exams as best as he can…and then he has to do the same thing the next year, and the next, and the next.
“I just saw you, and I thought I’d say hi.” My voice sounds weak, even to me. I smile anyway. I mean it, which surprises me.
“Well, that’s very nice of you,” he says in a tone I’ve never heard him use before. It’s a non-teacher voice…something your neighbour would use when you’ve dropped off a parcel you took in for them. Not at all what I’ve come to expect from him. He pushes his glasses up his nose.
“I was sorry to hear about your mother…” He lowers his voice, and there it is. The pity stare.
Mr Lewis is giving me the pity stare.
“Thanks.”
And just like that, Funeral Limpet is back: the one who nods and is sensible and sombre and makes tea for police officers when they’re standing on the upstairs landing and tries to help the funeral director sort out the flowers. She would never climb out of a car sunroof just because it was too hot inside. She would never try and drive her best friend’s car. She would never wonder what the skin just above Jared’s collarbone would smell like, up close…of smoke, or sweat, or sunshine…
Mr Lewis is saying something to me, only his words are coming out all wrong. Or maybe I’m hearing them all wrong – and he’s suddenly narrowing his eyes at me and there’s a hot flush creeping up my face from my chin to my eyebrows and is it warm in here all of a sudden or is it just me?
I pull myself together and his voice fades back in. He’s trying to be kind – he’s saying all the things you say to a kid whose mother just died and who the whole town’s whispering about. And then, I realize, he actually means them. All the things he’s saying, all the words – he means them.
He’s one of the only people who has, and I can barely stop myself from hugging him.
I admit, this is not how I saw this going.
He looks over my shoulder, past me, to the end of the aisle. The smallest of smiles flickers across his features. “It would appear that the other Musketeers are waiting for you.”
Wait. What?
That’s not possible. It’s just not. The Three Musketeers joke is a private one; one which has never even been outside my head, let alone been handed in to my physics teacher (who is probably the closest thing to a nemesis I’m ever going to get – would that make him Rochefort or the Cardinal…?).
He sees my shock. I think he probably enjoys it, because he chuckles and peers over his glasses one more time and says, “You aren’t the only one looking out at the world, you know. And you certainly aren’t the only one who notices what book someone is carrying when they walk into a classroom. Particularly not when it’s as well-read as your copy.”
And quite suddenly, he pats my arm – hesitant, but friendly – then he wanders off, leaving me staring after him and wondering whether my physics teacher is, in fact, psychic.
sixteen
I’ve never liked the feel of sand in between my toes. Maybe it’s because, when I was little, most of the time said sand was estuary sand from Llansteffan or Pembrey. Muddy and damp, it clots between your toes and clings to them and refuses to come off. I’ve always wondered what it must be like to walk along one of those tropical beaches where the sand is as white as bone; fine enough to flow like water if you scoop it up into the palm of your hand and let it fall. And where there are coconut trees. I don’t even like coconuts, but they feel like they’re an integral part of the picture, so…
We aren’t likely to find many beaches matching that description around here and especially given the time we have is only “A couple of nights, maybe…” But this beach, this particular beach, is a good enough substitute. Well. It’s a beach and the sand’s not too muddy. So I’ll make an exception and take off my shoes as soon as we’re off the concrete slipway and onto the sand. Behind us, there are a couple of pubs, a tiny post office and the smallest souvenir shop you’ve ever seen – all of which are doing a roaring trade in (respectively) cold beer, postcards with dolphins on and inflatable dolphins. The pub nearest to the ramp is called – no prizes for guessing – The Dolphin.
Yes. This is where you come if you like dolphins. To my left you’ll note the board advertising the “dolphin watching” boat trips into the bay. To my right? The bay. Featuring a complete and total lack of dolphins.
I know.
Luckily, I can take or leave the dolphins.
“I hate sand,” says Steffan. He’s already managed to stick his foot into some kind of mini-dune, so his shoe’s full of it. He kicks his lower leg out with every step, trying to shake it all out – but the only thing he seems to be doing is making himself look like an idiot.
Even more so than usual.
Of course, Jared’s trailing behind, and I know even without checking exactly how he looks. Because it’s how he always looks. Movie-star Jared, weighed down by the consequences of someone else’s actions. If his dad hadn’t gone to prison, hadn’t mucked everything up, would Jared be different? Would he be like Simon and Rhodri and all the other boyos round here who think they’re something special? Or would he still be…Jared? Would he still be the one who hangs back, who keeps quiet until he has something to say? Is it the weight that makes him who he is, who he will be? Is he his father’s son in that, at least?
And if he is – if he was shaped by his father’s actions – what does that mean for me? What am I? What will I be, years down the line?
“Are we there yet?” Bloody Steffan.
“Oh, come on. At least let’s get round the cliff into the bay…”
“What for? It’s still all just sand, isn’t it?”
“I get it. You’re not a fan.”
Part of it is him sulking because he’s had to leave the violin in the car. Even he’s not daft enough to bring it out here – but he’s paranoid that someone’ll steal the Rust Bucket and take his b
aby with it. I’ve pointed out that there is no reason, godly or ungodly, why anyone in their right minds would want to steal that car, but he’s still not happy. He wants to sit where he can see the parking bay by the sea wall where we’ve left it (although how he thinks this will make any difference at all, other than his potentially being able to wave goodbye to his car and his beloved violin – not to mention my phone, which is buried somewhere under all the crap in the back – as they drive off up the hill, I don’t know…).
He can sit there if he wants. I want to be around the cliff, in the bay, where there’s nothing but the rocks behind me, the sea before me, the sand below me and the sky above me.
And these two. Obviously.
Mostly because between them, they’re carrying my picnic…
“Here,” I say.
Steffan immediately drops the carrier bags he’s holding. “About bloody time. You know if the tide comes in, we’re screwed?”
“Tide, schmide.” I have one of the sleeping bags tucked under my arm. Of course it’s not mine – I’m not that daft. It’s Steffan’s. He just doesn’t realize that. The sea’s about as far out as it could possibly be – not only do we have hours before it comes anywhere near cutting us off in the bay, we’ll see it coming in plenty of time. It’s not like we’re pitching camp, is it? I shake out the sleeping bag and plonk myself down on top of it before Steffan (who’s now eyeing it suspiciously) has a chance to object.
Jared sets his bags down a little more carefully than Steffan and looks around. He’s measuring the place, weighing it as though this is the first time he’s ever been here. The sun catches his hair, turning it through shades of russet and gold as he moves his head this way and that, looking first up at the cliffs and the rocks behind us and then back out to sea.
“You’ve been here before, right?” I ask. After all, it was his suggestion, wasn’t it?
He shrugs. “Not for a long time. Not since I was a kid.” He looks like he’s about to say something else, but there’s a rustling sound and his face suddenly lights up. Steffan’s found the sausage rolls. The pair of them are lost to me, instantly.
The Last Summer of Us Page 11