The Last Summer of Us

by Maggie Harcourt

  And there, on the top of the hill behind it, is something that looks distinctly like a festival tent.

  “Steff?”

  He doesn’t listen. He’s progressed to standing in front of the car and pressing random combinations of things on his phone while swearing.

  “Steffan?”

  “One sec. I’ve almost—”

  “Steffan. Look.” I march over and stand behind him, putting my hands on his arms and forcibly turning him to face the right direction. “That’s where we’re meant to be, right?”

  “Oh?” He squints at the hill. “Oh. Right.”

  “Shall we?”

  Right on time, his phone chirps. Guess who’s just found the satellite?

  twenty-five

  A metal fence has been set up all around the festival site. It’s not exactly going to keep out your hardened fence-jumper (there’s a gap wide enough for me to lie down in right in front of us, for starters) but that’s not really the point, is it? It’s a token fence. It’s more about the idea of a fence than the actual fence. It’s essence of fence.

  The guy on the gate is wearing a hi-vis vest and earphones. The earphones upset Steffan, as he’s been looking forward to using his “I’m with the band” line the whole way here. Bless. Instead, earphone guy looks at the car, decides we’re obviously involved in setting up, sniffs, and waves us through.

  You can tell we don’t get a whole lot of festivals round here, can’t you?

  There’s a rattly, grindy sort of sound as the bottom of the car scrapes along the dry rut left by a tractor when the ground was wet. After the hot summer, it’s hardened to something like concrete and I can almost feel Steffan wince at the drawn-out gouging sound.

  We grind to a halt in front of a post with brightly-coloured cardboard arrows cable-tied to it. They’re all pointing in different directions; a riot of orange and pink. They’re all also written by someone who was both drunk and wearing a blindfold at the time and I can’t make out a single word.

  Steffan drums his thumbs on the steering wheel thoughtfully. “That look like it could say ‘park’ to you?”

  “As in car park?” Jared leans forward in his seat.

  “As in ‘buggered if I know’.”

  “Worth a go, isn’t it?”

  We follow the arrow.

  Two minutes later, we’re bumping back the way we came. The sign which Steffan thought said “park” actually said “portaloos”. Not the same thing at all.

  Taking the path of least resistance (which we kind of need to do, because this rut is just getting deeper and deeper), Steffan goes straight past the pointless direction post and dead ahead. I think he’s working on the principle that eventually we’ll either run out of field or someone will stop us and tell us where to go. Failing that, I wouldn’t be surprised if he just parks anywhere.

  “Tents!” I can see tents. Camping tents, as opposed to festival tents. (Steffan, naturally, has already spotted the bar tent. Of course he has.) “There!”

  The car lurches in the direction of the camping field. Spotting the narrow gateway that leads into it, Steffan looks at me in the rear-view.

  “Want to drive, Lim?”

  “That’s just mean.”

  “No sense of humour.”

  I pull a face at him in the mirror.

  This time, I help them with the tents. And when I say “help”, I mean “supervise”. And when I say “supervise”, I mean “stand there holding bits until they want them”. Things go smoothly. I am absolutely convinced this is down to my presence.

  We leave the bags locked in the car and Steffan sets about trying to find Gethin’s camper van. Apparently, it’s bright orange with stickers designed to look like bullet holes all down one side. Classy. Mind you, it would still be easy to find even if we didn’t know that: it’s parked right against the fence at the far side of the camping field, with the doors open and terrible, terrible drum and bass booming out of it. The speakers have been turned up so high that every bass note distorts and squeaks.

  Steffan shakes his head sadly. “No one should do that to a stereo.”

  “Gethin for you.” Jared shrugs.

  Gethin himself is pacing up and down outside the camper, muttering into the phone clamped to his ear. He nods hello to Steffan and Jared, and does a double take at me, smirking slightly.

  Ah.

  It would appear that Becca’s been talking. Well, that’s not exactly a surprise, is it?

  Gethin grumbles into his phone one more time and then tosses it into the camper.

  “Steff!” He holds out a hand. Steffan looks at it. Gethin drops his hand.

  The thing about Gethin is, basically, he’s a bit of a dick. Harmless, but still. Dick.

  “How’s it going, mate?” he says.

  He also calls everyone “mate”. All the time.

  Like I said: dick.

  Steffan shrugs and mutters something about rehearsal. Gethin smirks and shakes his head. This is not the correct response. Steffan takes a step back. Gethin frowns; raises his hands placatingly.

  Jared and I exchange glances. It’s like that.

  “I think I left my… Need to…not be here. Car.” I whisper over Steffan’s shoulder. Without taking his eyes off Gethin, he hands me the keys.

  Jared falls back slightly, but he doesn’t come with me.

  Home 2morrow. At music thing – Steff playing. Call u when we’re on the way xxx

  I send the text to Amy, and I think how strange this must be for her. How hard. She’s just lost her sister, and now here she is, taking care of us all. Even my father, picking him up and trying to put him back together. I can’t run away and expect her to pick up the pieces. That’s not fair. But how can you even start to help someone you barely know? And that’s what I’ve realized: I have no idea who he is any more. I haven’t for a long time. But there’s two sides to that coin. And maybe it’s something we can fix. Maybe not, but it’s worth trying, right?

  And Amy, poor Amy. Who’s taking care of her? Someone should take care of her too.

  My fingers move over the letters on my phone.

  Hope u’r doing ok? xxx

  It’s pathetic, really, isn’t it? That that’s the best I can do? I mean…yeah. It is. But it’s a start.

  The spat between Steffan and Gethin has been settled. Gethin has – grudgingly – agreed to rehearse at least one of the songs (having not taken kindly to phrases like “amateur hour” and Steffan’s firmly-worded version of “I do not ‘wing it’, thank you very much…”) and now there are wristbands. Shiny plastic wristbands in the same neon shades as the indecipherable signposts. Steffan’s is bright green, stamped with the letters VIP in thick black ink.

  There’ll be no living with him now.

  He beams at me. “VIP, baby.”

  “Yeah, alright. You’re special. Special.” I make air-quotes around the word with my fingers.

  He snorts and fastens the plastic stud on his wristband. Jared and I both have orange ones – guest passes, Gethin says. He has a handful of them – although even with a dozen of the things, I can tell he’s still reluctant to hand one over to me. I refer you to my previous statement.

  Steffan peers at my wristband. “Still doesn’t say VIP, though, does it?” he cackles, and then he actually does a little dance, shuffling his feet about and chanting, “VIP, VIP…”

  “Loser.”

  “VIP.”

  “Seriously.”

  We leave them to get their act together.

  The air smells of hot, dry grass trampled underfoot. It smells of diesel, of cider and cigarettes and burgers and ice cream and the ends of things. The end of the summer. The end of us: of Steffan and Jared and me.

  “You want to get a drink?” Jared asks.

  “Thinking about it, yeah. Just a water or something – I’m dying.”

  “Dying?” He raises an eyebrow at me.

  “Yes. Dying. Literally.” I slump sideways theatrically, dropping onto th
e grass. It hadn’t occurred to me that the ground would be quite so hard…

  I can feel the dry grass stems prickling against the back of my neck, against my arms. I can feel the sun on my face – even now, this late in the summer, and even with my eyes closed (playing dead, remember?) it paints a wash of reds and oranges on the inside of my eyelids. And then everything goes cold and dark. I open my eyes and look up to see Jared standing over me, blocking the light. The sun behind him gives him a halo as he stretches a hand down to help me up.

  “Dying?” he says again, more pointedly this time, as he watches me brush dead grass out of my hair.

  “Actually dying. Fell over and everything. You did see the falling over, didn’t you?”

  I’d hate to have to do it again.

  The bar tent is the smaller (but only just) of the two main festival tents. A long wooden bar has been installed on plastic matting and a handful of staff and stewards are lugging crates of bottles from the open flap at the far end, where several vans have pulled up to unload supplies. Why they didn’t just park at this end is beyond me, but there you go. Two barmen are rigging up beer taps on the bar, and another is rolling a small metal barrel along the mats.

  Jared trots up to the bar and leans across. Without looking up, one of the guys working on the taps jerks a thumb back over his shoulder. Jared asks him something, but the barman shakes his head – and with a smile, Jared darts behind the bar.

  There’s few enough people here, and yet there’s an atmosphere, an “end of summer” feeling. It’s in the way the breeze is picking up. You can see it in the way the light fades fast at the end of each day – not like the evenings of July which stretch on for ever. Now, the darkness comes earlier and it comes fast. But by the time the nights close in, I won’t be afraid of the dark. I won’t be afraid to sleep. I won’t look for my mother’s face in crowds and I won’t catch myself thinking that I heard her voice. Because every ending is a beginning; where one thing finishes, another thing starts, and I’m ready to let go. To move forward.

  A crash from somewhere near the bar draws my attention back to the tent. A steward has dropped a box of cables in front of a small platform set up near the end of the bar. Judging by the table with laptops and leads spilling off it – not to mention the guy wearing a massive pair of headphones around his neck – it’s a makeshift DJ booth. The DJ laughs and scoots around the table to help the steward pick up the wires – and I can’t help but think he looks familiar. He’s in flip-flops and board shorts, and his T-shirt has got some kind of record label logo on it, but my brain’s telling me that’s not how I’ve seen him dressed before. And I do know him. He’s a few years older than us, definitely – not even still in college, by the look of him, but I know I know him.

  “What are you scowling at?” Jared reappears and hands me a plastic bottle of water, straight out of the fridge.

  “The DJ dude. Can’t figure out where I know him from.”

  Jared takes a swig from his own bottle and looks over. “It’s Will,” he says, screwing the cap back onto his water – and either the DJ hears him or he realizes he’s being watched, because that’s the exact moment he picks to look up and over at us. He looks thoughtful, then nods at Jared in recognition.

  Now I remember how I know him: that’s Will Ellis.

  He was way, way above us in school – like I said, he must have left college by now – but his brother Alex was pretty well known around town. “Was” being the operative word, because, a couple of years back, pothead Alex thought it would be an awesome idea to get into a car and drive while he was off his face. Two weeks after he passed his driving test. One twisty road, one car going far too fast and driven by a pot-fiend. One single-lane humpback bridge and one car coming the other way, minding its own business. While Alex walked away without a scratch, both the adults in the other car were killed instantly, the reports said; only their three-month-old baby in the back seat survived.

  Everyone knows about Alex Ellis, and that’s why it’s such a shame that, from what I remember, his older brother Will’s a really nice guy. Wherever he goes, whatever he does, he will always be “Alex Ellis’s older brother”; tainted by it. Haunted by it.

  Following Jared’s lead, I make my way towards the DJ, stepping over thick electrical cables which have yet to be taped down and picking my way through jumbles of connectors. Will hops down from the platform and nods by way of greeting. “Jared.”

  I didn’t think it was possible for anyone to be less chatty than Jared. Wrong.

  They move in for one of those complicated handshakes which turns into an awkward man-hug; you know the kind of thing – one part chest-bump to one part back-slap-and-nod. It’s the most relaxed I think I’ve ever seen Jared around anyone except Steffan, and that’s saying something. I watch him as he and Will talk, their voices low. The strange light in the tent makes the creases at the corners of his eyes look deeper than they are. The last of the summer sun has darkened his freckles even further, and they’re scattered like stars across the bridge of his nose. He runs his hand back through his hair as he laughs at something Will says, and I glance at the DJ. He does have lines – real ones, both around his eyes and across his forehead – and it’s a surprise to see the beginnings of a streak of grey in his dark hair, close to his temple. How can that be? How can someone that I remember from school (even if they were at the opposite end of it to me) have grey hair? What does that even mean? That we’re already on the downward spiral, locked in from cradle to grave?

  They’re both looking at me, almost like they’re waiting for something.

  Oh. They are waiting for something, aren’t they? I can tell by the patient look in Will’s eyes and the amused expression on Jared’s face.

  “Sorry. Miles away – what?”

  “I said I was sorry to hear about your mum,” Will repeats, for my benefit.

  Of all the things to miss hearing. “Thanks,” I mumble. There’s not a lot else I can say, is there – and by now the response is automatic, conditioned and pre-programmed. It’s What We Say To Condolences, isn’t it? It’s what everyone expects.

  “Shitty deal,” Will carries on. “Bad enough when something happens in your family. Worse when everyone thinks it’s their business. Some people have a hard time coping with that.” He studies me carefully, blue-grey eyes travelling across my face. “But you look like the type to be alright.”

  “You know the type, do you?” I ask. He’s taken me by surprise.

  He half-smiles, squints down at his feet and then looks straight back at me as he steps away and swings himself back onto the stage. “I know the type.”

  And with that, he nods goodbye and is back behind his little desk, pulling his headphones up over his ears and jabbing at buttons as he gets on with his set-up. It’s how we leave him.

  “How d’you know Will, then?” I ask Jared as we push our way out of the bar tent. There’s now a steady stream of people making their way in, and the staff are starting to look a little panicked. The noise level is rising as more people with different coloured wristbands filter in searching for the bar. There’s a little group right by the exit (or the entrance, I guess – it depends which way you look at it) who have a drink in each hand and a small pile of empties between them. As we pass, they count to three and down what looks like a full cup of cider each, like they’ll find their hopes and dreams at the bottom of a plastic pint glass… Or maybe they just want to drown their fears. But the thing about fear that not many people seem to realize is it can swim.

  Jared’s gaze is fixed on the valley. “Court,” he says, “and then visiting.”

  Of course. If I did the maths in my head (which I’m not going to, because, maths…) I’m fairly sure I’ll work out that Will’s brother was in court at about the same time as Jared’s father – last time around, anyway. Both cases rumbled on for ever. Mind you, I’m not even going to consider the logistics of visiting a prison and how that all shakes down, because everything I know
about it comes from repeats of Prison Break – and I’m going to go out on a limb and assume that this isn’t exactly the best basis for comparison.

  I had no idea that Jared and Will knew each other that well. I doubt Steffan does, either. It’s another piece of Jared that feels like a secret, another piece of the puzzle. A puzzle I’m beginning to think he’s letting me figure out – and before this trip, I would never have expected that either.

  Everyone knows everyone round here…or at least they think they do. Because now I don’t believe we ever truly know anyone. We only get to see what they show us, what they are on the outside. We get to see their masks; if we’re very lucky, we get to see the scars underneath them. We see flashes, glimpses; always moving and changing like a kaleidoscope. We give different pieces of ourselves to different people – friend, parent, child, teacher – and we trust that no one ever tries to join them all up. We split ourselves apart in an attempt to belong wherever we can, and then we wonder why we don’t know who we are.

  In the tent behind us, there’s a synthesized siren followed by a distorted howl and a loud spinback…and Will’s at work. He’s got better taste in music than either Jared or Steffan, I’ll give him that – and an appreciative cheer goes up from inside the bar. I turn and look back into the tent. They’re testing the floodlights, switching them on and off and on and off, and I have to raise my hand to shield my eyes from the glare, but I can still see him. He’s standing behind his laptops and his decks; a hand lifting his headphones up to one ear while the other hand’s in the air in something that looks like triumph. Already there’s a little knot of bodies directly in front of him, watching and listening. He looks so in control, and there was something so calm, so measured about him – about the way he spoke, the way he moved – that it gives me hope. People move forward, move on. They have to, in the end, don’t they?

  The main tent – the one we saw from across the valley – is much bigger on the inside than I had expected. The stage is taller, too, looming over me. There are lights rigged up on metal girders high above, and on supports which have been bolted into the ground. Someone has woven a daisy chain through the one nearest to me. It’s impressive. I’ve always been rubbish at stuff like that – you need good nails to punch through the stem without tearing it, and I chew my nails, so. Although, to be fair, I have been doing better. Well, had. Sort of fell off the nail-chewing wagon a few weeks ago, didn’t I? Never mind.