The Last Summer of Us

by Maggie Harcourt

  “You done being the Ostrich Whisperer?” Steffan calls. He’s not impressed; standing there with his arms crossed, he’s obviously not forgiven any of them for pecking his car roof. Not that one more dent would make a difference to the Rust Bucket, but I know better than to point this out. Has anyone ever had a blood feud with a bird? Because this looks like it could be the first.

  “Yeah, yeah,” says Jared, turning around to face us. He’s smiling. Not grinning; it goes deeper than that. He looks happy. Like whatever he was thinking has washed everything else away, wiped his mind clean. He looks different, somehow. And when his eyes meet mine, they hold my gaze and without knowing when it happened, or how, or why, I’m smiling too.

  nineteen

  “Wait. An actual bed?” I can’t quite believe what I’m hearing. That whole “on the road, staying in tents” thing lasted about as long as a packet of crisps near Jared. Not exactly surprising, knowing Steffan (whatever he says). I’m relieved. Granted, it’s only been one night since I slept in a bed – my bed – but somehow, the idea of Not Having To Sleep In A Tent Tonight is already exotic. Maybe because time has twisted and stretched since I walked out of my front door. Maybe because I have. Although perhaps I’m not so much twisting as bouncing back. Rewinding and replaying. Rebounding. Becoming what I was before, but more.

  For better or for worse; the same but different.

  The hostel was Steffan’s idea. I knew he’d crack; him with his “Yeah, sure, we’re camping.” He might have been a Scout, but that was a long time ago – and when he saw the hostel, right down by the beach in the next village along the coast, he made such a big fuss from the passenger seat (yes, I’ve been relegated to the back again – what can you do?) that Jared didn’t really have any choice other than to pull over. I wonder whether the hostel being slap bang next to one of the best pubs round this way – and one which happens to be a bit flimsy on the ID policy in the summer – has anything to do with it. Not that I’m a cynic or anything, you understand…

  This is the surfing sweet-spot of the coast – hence the hostel, and the astonishing predictability of a whole row of old VW camper vans parked up along the road with boards leaning against them – not to mention the townies sitting on the benches outside the pub, wetsuits rolled down to their waists, dripping gently onto the pavement. I swear I just saw one of them shake a head full of (bleached) hair back, braying something about “the lifestyle, man”. Yeah, right.

  Alright for some, isn’t it? The ones who can just load themselves into a van and drive off into the sunset when the mood takes them. The ones who can come and go as they please – who can get out if they want to. But then, looking at them and listening to them, I guess the trade-off for having that particular “lifestyle” is to be an insufferable wanker, so it’s all a question of balance.

  While Steffan and Jared attempt to deploy their considerable charm at the hostel to get us beds for the night (and when I say “charm”, I mean it in the loosest possible sense; ditto “considerable”) I cross the road and sit on the wall above the beach, dangling my feet over. There’s a big drop here; the slipway’s further along, and beneath me is the part of the beach where all the dinghies are tied up, far above the reach of the high waterline. They’re used for sailing lessons, mostly by kids, and usually they’re busy all summer long – but looking down at them now, I don’t think some have been in the water for a long time. They’re high and dry and safe on the shore – but that’s not what boats are built for, is it? For waiting, for staying safe. They’re meant for sailing; meant to be out on the waves.

  Amy has sent me a text message. It’s brief and to the point, and tells me nothing more and nothing less than I was expecting.

  Dad in2 treatment 2morrow. 6 weeks residential. Will take him. U want to stay with me? Let me know when ur coming back. xx A

  That word again. Treatment. Weirdly, the first thing I think about is his office. I wonder if everyone he works with knows. I wonder if they already did. Would hearing this be a relief to them? Some of the people from his work came to the funeral and they were almost as careful not to get too close to him as they were to be polite to me.

  But…treatment.

  Maybe it isn’t too late for him. Maybe I should take that as a sign ­– as some kind of encouragement. Maybe.

  The sun is finally on its way down into the water. It looks like it’s hovering right above the surface, just hanging there – and the evening has brought a calm that’s still enough for the sea to reflect it perfectly. In the bay ahead of me there are two suns: one sinking into the waves as its twin rises to meet it…and then they’re both gone.

  I half-wonder whether Jared wants company on his Great American Journey; whether Steffan can smuggle us both out in his suitcase when he leaves. Everything here feels such a mess. Can you blame me for wanting to run?

  There’s laughter behind me, and footsteps, and then someone shoves a ratty piece of laminated paper in front of me.

  “Dinner, isn’t it?” says Steffan, dropping into a slouch beside me and swinging his leg over the sea wall. Jared follows a moment later – but oddly, he doesn’t sit on the other side of Steffan. He sits, much to my surprise, on the other side of me. This is…unusual. It makes me momentarily forget what I’m meant to be doing. I look blankly at the paper Steff just handed me, then at Steff. He looks blankly back at me.

  “What?” he says.

  “What?” I say.

  “Food?” He taps the front of the sheet, and I finally get myself together enough to actually look at it. The word MENU is printed in wonky capital letters across the top.

  Dinner. Right. Yes. So, not expecting me to eat the paper, then. Good.

  “Let me guess. Pie?” I hand the sheet back to him. They both make appreciative noises. After all, it can only be a matter of half an hour since they scoffed that pack of chicken wings that had somehow got left in the car. (Meat sitting in a hot car all afternoon? I passed, thanks.)

  “Not having the ostrich steak?” It’s still funny. It is.

  “I’m not sure Jared should – you know, not now he’s bonded with them and everything. It’d be like eating one of his own.” The slight wobble in Steffan’s voice gives away just how hard he’s trying to keep a straight face. Jared nods calmly, chucking a pebble down onto the beach. He manages to hit one of the dinghies. There’s a fibreglassy clonk.

  “Whoops.” Jared glances around to see whether anyone heard.

  Only me.

  Even Steffan’s too busy pawing at the menu. You’d think he was a starving man, looking at him: he’s reading every single thing on there – even though he knows as well as I do that he’ll order a pie, because given the choice between pie and anything else in this world (untold riches! Wisdom beyond the reach of men!) he will always choose pie. The pie always wins.

  It feels fake somehow, this. Like we’re playing at being grown-ups. Frauds. And maybe we are: just playing. But I don’t feel like I’m a fake. Yet here we are, sitting on a wall and ordering dinner from a pub like civilized people.

  Mind you, the second I think this, Steff lets out an almighty great belch and sniffs loudly. “Beer,” he says, and rubs his hands together.

  “You’re disgusting.”

  “Better out than in.” He looks revoltingly pleased with himself. Almost as revolting is the faint waft of cigar smoke that’s still lingering around him like a cloud of cartoon flies. I flap my hand dramatically and he rolls his eyes.

  “Such a grouch,” he says.

  “Steff?” I say sweetly, leaning back to look at him as he stands up, menu in hand. He raises an eyebrow at me. “Scampi?” I bat my eyelashes in what I hope is an adorable, irresistible manner.

  “You want to get that looked at,” he says, tapping the edge of the menu against the flat of his palm. “Might have conjunctivitis.”

  “Funny.”

  “I know.” He grins and ducks over the road and into the pub.

  Behind us, one of the ba
r staff is bringing out lanterns to set on the tables clustered around the front of the pub. She’s got an armful of them, and we half-turn to watch her weaving between the surfers and the locals and a group who look like they’re pretty much exactly the same as us, and are probably staying in the hostel too. There’s a clatter as she drops one – and before I can even blink, Jared’s off the wall and across the road and is helping her pick it up; taking the others off her and setting them on the end of the nearest table for her to light. The bleach-blond-wetsuit-surfer-boys were right next to her and not a single one of them moved.

  And what’s that sudden sour spike I can feel, somewhere inside my chest? It feels a lot like jealousy, but it can’t be that. Not when Jared is simply being Jared. But he smiles at her and says something that’s too quiet for me to hear, and she laughs and hands him a lantern, and suddenly there’s fingernails raking down the inside of my ribs.

  I think it’s fair to say that this is an overreaction. Just a teeny one.

  The real shock, though, is that I feel anything at all. Because this is Jared, and…

  And this is Jared.

  And.

  And.

  “You alright?” Jared asks, sitting back down on the wall. He sets the lantern down between us and the little flame inside it flickers, then straightens and steadies.

  “Me? Oh, sure.” I slide my hands underneath my knees so he can’t see them shaking.

  Because this is Jared, and suddenly I understand.

  “How’s the hand?”

  There’s still no sign of Steffan. He’s got talking to someone, that’s my guess. Steffan attracts conversation; he just has one of those faces, one of those demeanours. The kind of general Steffan-ness which suggests to people that yes, he’d love to stop for a chat. The thing is, he usually would. It’s fine. I’m used to it.

  “The hand?” Jared’s question takes me by surprise. I actually hold both hands up and look at them as though, up till that point, I’d forgotten what “a hand” is. I realize how stupid this looks and put my hands back down again.

  “Is it sore?” Jared nods towards my right hand.

  Ah. He means after I walloped Becca.

  Was that only yesterday? It feels like weeks ago. Months. And if that was yesterday, the funeral was only the day before. How does that work? Already it feels like it was so long ago that it may as well have been another lifetime. Like it happened to someone else.

  I wonder if it did.

  I’m different, I think. I didn’t feel it happen, didn’t see it – but something in me has changed. Amy’s text about my father might have broken the me of two days ago: the Funeral Limpet, who was pretending so hard to be something she was not. She was the thin ice over the winter river; the single glass sheet that covers the deepest well. I am…something else. Someone else.

  There are no ghosts. Nothing looming over me; not now. And somewhere in the distance, far ahead of me in the dark, I can see a light.

  A single lantern, with a little flame that flickers and then steadies.

  Cracked and crazed I may still be, but maybe – just maybe – the cracks are showing signs of growing smaller. Not by much, not yet, but give them time.

  Perhaps I’m not made of glass after all. Perhaps I’m made of something stronger.

  I know. I’m as shocked by that thought as you are.

  “My hand? Oh, yeah, it’s fine,” I mumble, rubbing at my knuckles. And it is, which presumably proves that I hit like a girl. What were you expecting?

  “You could’ve broken something.”

  “Yeah, Becca’s face. What a loss that would’ve been.”

  He doesn’t answer, but when I look round, he’s watching me. His eyes are searching my face; taking in every part of it. Drinking me in. He’s still sitting there, silent, watching me, when Steffan reappears.

  “How the hell can you see anything?” he says, setting down a small round metal tray with glasses on it. “Twinkly bloody lanterns, my arse. It’s too dark.”

  “It’s called night, Steff. You see, when the sun goes to bed…”

  “Alright, Limpet. Don’t get smart or I won’t tell you what just happened.”

  “You went in to order food and got lost? You had to go and hunt down the cow for your pie all by yourself?”

  Jared joins in. “Cow? Don’t know why you bothered – there’s a whole load of ostriches up on the hill…”

  We dissolve into giggles. Steffan tries to scowl – but his frown breaks and he starts shaking his head and laughing. “And I suppose we’ll be using you as bait, will we?”

  “At least they like me,” Jared laughs.

  “Let’s see you being smug about it when they’re eating you, right?”

  “Are you planning on throwing me to them whole, or just feeding them my dismembered limbs?”

  “Not sure yet.” Steffan takes a swig of his drink and wags a finger across me at Jared. “Sleep with one eye open, boyo.”

  “Enough!” I hold up my hands in surrender. “What’s this amazing thing that you were threatening to not tell us?” I nudge Steffan, who lurches sideways in an attempt not to spill his drink. Jared – automatically forgiven, as always – reaches across me and clicks his fingers impatiently until Steff passes him a glass.

  “So you know how Gethin has a band?”

  “How could we forget?” I finally get my drink.

  The saga of Gethin’s Band is an epic, sprawling tale of love, betrayal and a crashing inability to find a drummer who can keep time…reaching as far back as the days when Steffan and Jared were in football club with him. Since then, Gethin’s band has been through good times (their demo getting played by one of the new music DJs in Cardiff) and bad (pretty much all the rest of it). Lately, though, they appear to have got themselves together and have even been playing in public. Once or twice, members of said public have even paid for the privilege of hearing them – which I’m sure is as much of a shock to Gethin and company as it is to the rest of us.

  The long and the short of Steff’s news is that somehow (I suspect massive bribery on the part of Gethin’s father), the band have found themselves on the bill of a not-insignificant local music festival, tomorrow night… The catch being that, technically, said festival is supposed to be vaguely folk-flavoured. Gethin, in his wisdom, has decided that the way around this is to have someone play the violin onstage with them.

  Guess who he’s asked?

  twenty

  Even after a heavy dose of pub pie and beer, Steffan’s still feeling far too hyped up and sociable to even think about sleeping. So while I would happily have voted for bed (a bed! Even a crappy hostel bed!) instead, we’re watching the surfers build a beach bonfire. Well, I tell a lie. Jared and I are watching them, sitting in an old fibreglass dinghy a little way along the beach, while Steffan buzzes about being the life and soul of the party. Maybe he just doesn’t want to go to bed, because if he goes to bed and closes his eyes, when he opens them it’ll be tomorrow, and however exciting this festival thing might be, however hard he’s trying not to think about it, there’s the minor matter of his mother’s grave to think about first – not a million miles along the road from here.

  The surfers are – as you’d expect from a bunch of show-off lifestylers, as opposed to proper surfers (I’ll stop now, honest) – pretty bloody useless, and burning logs keep falling off the top of the pile they’ve built, only to be kicked back in by whoever happens to be closest to them. Predictably, they’re all wearing sandals, so I’m figuring there’s a lot of burned toes happening. Jared snorts with amusement every now and again – I think he’s hoping one of them falls in.

  Occasionally, I catch a glimpse of Steffan, beer in hand, the firelight flickering across his face. He looks happy enough for now, and I’m glad.

  Jared’s sitting at the other end of the dinghy, with the glow of the fire catching the curve of his brow, his nose, his cheekbones. His legs are stretched out along the inside of the boat, his feet almost touc
hing mine. Whoever the dinghy belongs to, they’re lucky it hasn’t rained in a while: most summers, a boat left the right way up on the beach would be full of water in a couple of days. It would sit there, going gently green inside. As it is, it’s full of sand and shells; someone’s even tried to build a tiny sandcastle between the narrow plastic planks that serve as seats. One tower remains, slumped sideways across itself. A tiny paper flag is still sticking out of the ramparts at a wacky angle. Go home, castle, you’re drunk.

  There’s a shuffling sound in the sand nearby and we both look over – just in time to see Surfer Dude Number Four throwing up emphatically behind an abandoned windbreak. At least, I really hope it’s abandoned – or there’s a family in for a nasty surprise when they toddle on down to the beach tomorrow. Surfer Dude surveys his handiwork, wipes his mouth with the back of his hand and sets off back towards the bonfire. It’s a circuitous route, given he can’t even walk in a straight line, and he stops every few steps to take a swig from the bottle he’s still holding.

  Closer to the fire, there are raised voices. A scuffle. Sound and fury; fists. Always the same. Bruises and regret.

  The sound of breaking glass somewhere close by makes me jump – and suddenly Jared’s hand is on my shoulder.

  “Hey…” It’s all he says.

  The bottle of beer I was holding lies smashed at my feet; the remains of my drink bubble away into the base of the boat and around the sad little sandcastle, forming a frothing white moat.

  “Why do they do it?” I ask. “What’s it for? Like that guy…” I wave in the direction of Surfer Dude – who, after an epic journey, has almost made it back to the safety of the firelight. As we watch, he slumps onto the sand, still waving his bottle.

  “Because.” The boat creaks as Jared shifts his weight. “They do it because.”

  “Because? That’s it?”

  “I’m not the one to ask, am I? And besides, you’re not really asking why they drink, are you?”