Eden Summer

by Liz Flanagan

  Trent shuts the door and takes her seat.

  Barwell clears his throat and says the words that change everything. ‘Jess, I’m really sorry to have to tell you this, but Eden didn’t come home last night.’

  Chapter Four

  9.00 a.m.

  ‘No!’ I shake my head. Even after seeing Claire this morning, I don’t want to believe it. I see it in the teachers’ faces too: the unbelievable cruelty of it. If this was a TV soap, they’d’ve laughed it off for being too grim – No, not the same family. No one will believe that. It’s too much.

  And it is too much for me. In the heat and light of Trent’s office, everything shimmers. I wonder if I’m going to pass out.

  Barwell asks me gently, ‘Jess, do you understand?’

  Trent takes over, living up to her nickname: The Tank. Barging in, crushing any last shreds of hope. ‘Mr and Mrs Holby have reported Eden as missing. It seems she didn’t come home last night. The police have launched an investigation.’

  I stare at her, trying to read the truth here. Trent is sitting as straight as the blue ring binders in a stiff row edging her desk. She’s as composed as her neat pile of papers. Do they have training in this? How to keep control of yourself and everyone else when one of your students is bloody missing? I imagine grabbing her by her suit jacket shoulders and shaking her till that tortoisey neck wobbles.

  ‘But I saw her. I left her at the bus stop. Last night, same as always.’ I remember Eden’s plans. ‘Ask Liam! Didn’t he tell you? She was out with him last night – he’ll put you right.’ This is daft. They must have made a mistake. We can sort this out if we all just talk to each other.

  ‘She didn’t come home last night, although Mrs Holby did receive a text message this morning,’ Barwell says, earning a glare from Mrs Trent as if he wasn’t supposed to tell me that.

  ‘So she’s not missing?’ I blurt. ‘If she texted, she’s not missing. What’s everyone panicking for?’

  Why didn’t she text me? A squirm of guilt spirals through my guts.

  ‘I don’t get it.’ I shake my head. ‘What does that even mean? She didn’t come home? So she might’ve stayed out. That’s not a crime, is it?’

  Eden’s next to me, laughing at the misunderstanding, tilting her head sideways and rolling her eyes. She flicks her hair back and extends one hand to me.

  I blink. Eden vanishes.

  I look sideways at Barwell. He’s edgy, can’t sit still. He ruffles his short dark hair with one hand and I see the silver in it gleaming like wire. His concern tells me this is real. It’s right to be scared.

  ‘Jess, I know, this is awful. It’s a complete nightmare, for the Holbys, for you, for the school, for us.’ Barwell speaks with a southern accent, Essex or somewhere. He’s one of the rare ones – tough but funny, and you can tell that he cares, deep down. ‘But we’re here for you. The school wants to offer you support.’

  ‘Oh my God.’ I put my hands to my forehead, where the pain is tightening like a snare, trapping me.

  ‘We’re all desperately worried about Eden,’ Trent butts in over us both, sounding not very worried at all, just a bit pissed off at the inconvenience actually. ‘But there are systems in place here. We need to stay calm.’

  So much for offering me support. Her eyes move to my left wrist, where the fabric has risen, showing the newest tattoo. I bring my hands down again, tugging my sleeve low, twisting it in my palm as I squirm on the seat.

  ‘The police investigation has already begun. As you can imagine, it’s top priority, after all the Holbys have endured …’ Trent coughs. ‘The thing is, Jess, they will need to speak to you.’

  I grip the chair so hard that one fingernail snaps.

  ‘I’ve just spoken to your mother. She’s expecting you. You need to go home and wait for the officers to call round. They’ll do the interview there and your mother will be with you.’

  ‘Now?’ I whisper.

  Barwell nods.

  ‘It won’t take long,’ Trent tells me briskly. ‘You can slot back into lessons when you’re done.’

  A faint whine starts up in my ears, like my own personal mosquito. My vision changes: the contrast goes crazy so Trent’s suit is saturated, dark as an ink spill. The windows are a dazzling blur.

  ‘You can help.’ Barwell’s voice reaches me as though he’s shouting across a river, through the rushing in my head. ‘What you tell the police – that’s going to help them find Eden as quickly as possible. OK?’

  No. Not OK. Not OK at all.

  ‘Listen, Jess, you’re in a special position. More than anyone here, you know Eden. You know how she was. This summer. This week. The last time you saw her.’

  Chapter Five

  9.15 a.m.

  ‘The last time …?’ It sounds too final.

  I think about the last time I saw Eden, praying with everything I’ve got that it’s not the actual last time. It was far too ordinary for that. Ordinary, but not normal. And certainly not happy.

  Last night after school, we waited in the overcrowded bus bay – the sheep pens, we call them – trying to ignore the racket of the younger kids. It was always easier, being there with Eden. She’s got this thing, like a force field, but good, so that when you’re with her, you’re inside a golden circle and you’re safe.

  We filed onto the bus, choosing the usual seats halfway down on the left of the top deck. We live in the next town, two miles down the valley, so the bus journey was only ten minutes, if that.

  Mostly I like living there, in our little town, the one they call quirky, the one everyone’s heard of, with the artists and the lesbians and the eco-mums and the art festival. The one where the last mills standing became little boutique shops the tourists adore, or cafés or galleries – so at least there is somewhere to work. That isn’t why I like it though. I like the hills. The moor. The rivers. How you can be up on the tops in fifteen minutes and see only two other people during the whole run.

  Last night I got the window seat and I couldn’t stop myself squinting out against the sunshine, searching the faces as the bus pulled away. Then I turned to Eden.

  ‘So, Thursday night …’ I said, watching her face carefully. ‘Got anything lined up?’

  We sat there, limp in the heat, drenched in sunlight through the bus window.

  Eden shrugged. ‘Dunno. Usual. Home first. And Liam texted: he wants to meet up. The delights of town await,’ she ended sarcastically. She tossed her long blonde hair over one shoulder, somehow managing to keep it smooth, shiny and apple-scented, while mine frizzed in red clumps.

  I hid my expression by raising my hands, lifting my hair off my hot damp neck. ‘Wait, you don’t mean hanging in the skate park? And then the club? How can you bear the excitement? Not a real game of pool?’

  Our town has just the one club. It isn’t bad. Liam’s sister Nicci works there, serving us drinks discreetly, and we sit in the bar playing cliché-bingo: one point each for a crossbreed dog, a white man with dreadlocks and a woman in tie-dye on the dance floor. It has some good nights each month, with bands or DJs, but Thursday night wasn’t one of them.

  ‘If Nicci’s working, you’ll get drinks too. How could anyone resist?’ I played along, ignoring the flutter of something in my chest, using a silly voice to match her dryness.

  ‘You?’ She did that head tilt, looking at me sideways.

  ‘Usual … my running night, remember?’ I murmured back, closing my eyes against the light, so she couldn’t see what I was trying to hide.

  When had this happened, batting each other away with cover stories? This wasn’t a conversation, it was a game of alibis.

  ‘Yep, Thursday equals self-inflicted pain as I try to keep up with the good ones,’ I mumbled now. I felt too hot. My skirt was sticking damply to my legs. I blew my fringe upwards. ‘Probably do a route up the moor.’

  ‘And who says we don’t know how to live? You’ll be getting hot and sweaty with a dozen lads.’ She wrinkled her nose. ‘I wo
uldn’t go for those ones though – they’re like greyhounds, no meat on ’em …’

  ‘I don’t go for the lads. I go for the running. It’s a fell-running club, Eden.’ I spelt it out for her, but it came out more harshly than I meant.

  She looked at me in surprise, perfect eyebrows arched.

  ‘Look, we’re here,’ I said abruptly, eager to change the subject. The bus was slowing and I rose and grabbed the handrail so she had to get up.

  This was where we usually went our separate ways, at the park gates. I just had to walk through the park and up the steps to our corner of town where the houses were tightly packed together: terraces, semis, the old council flats. On our street you knew your neighbours’ names and what they yelled when they rowed. I liked it: it made me feel safe, hearing doors slam, the faint miaow of next door’s baby through the wall, kids kicking a ball outside the garages.

  Eden had to wait for one of the little minibuses that went up the steeper hills. She lived in a massive stone farmhouse up on the tops.

  ‘Farm, my arse,’ she said when they first moved there. ‘No chance of us getting a cat, never mind any proper farm animals. They like the idea of a farm. They want to buy designer wellies and a four-wheel drive. Then they’ll pay someone else to do the garden.’

  We leaned on the wall next to the bus shelter. The stone was warm through my shirt. We got black looks from two old dears with shopping bags who glared at Eden’s minuscule skirt and sandals, my make-up and hair, as if it offended them just to see us.

  ‘I can wait with you,’ I said after a moment, feeling like I’d snubbed her. I was supposed to be looking out for her, not getting snappy. I was Eden’s best friend and she’d had the year from hell. Eden and me both. It’s like we were on a seesaw, up or down, never even, but somehow balanced. Right now she was further down, while I was on the up. So it was my turn to be there for her, and that meant taking any kind of crap.

  ‘You don’t have to,’ she said.

  I rolled my eyes.

  ‘I mean, thanks.’ Eden stabbed at her phone. ‘But Liam should be meeting me soon.’

  ‘I’ll get off then, leave you to it.’ I peeled myself off the warm stone and hoisted my bag onto my shoulder.

  ‘What’s going on with you two?’ she asked sharply.

  ‘Nothing’s going on.’ I kept my voice as level as I could, praying the flare of heat in my cheeks didn’t show.

  She glanced at me sideways. ‘Just, seems like you’ve been avoiding him.’ Her voice was deceptively light. I knew her too well to fall for it.

  I shrugged. ‘Why would I do that?’ I faced her, searching her expression for clues. ‘It’s just harder for us all to hang out, now summer’s done. School gets in the way.’

  ‘Yeah, but why …?’ she began, when something pinged into her inbox. Something more important than me. Saved by the bell. Eden grinned widely, happy as a cat in sunshine, staring at her phone as if it was made of rubies.

  I didn’t ask. In my head I was busy burying something, piling soil, filling a hole, packing it down. It was hard work, but soon I’d be done.

  Around us people stirred into life, picking up bags, moving towards the kerb. Sure enough, the little bus was trundling down the main street. It stopped with a wheeze of warm air and people started climbing aboard.

  ‘Have fun later.’ I forced a smile back at her, even though my face felt stiff with deceit. ‘See you.’ I did a funny wave to show everything was OK between us. A wave that lied. A wave that wished it was true.

  Eden laughed and got on the bus, all shining blonde hair and long tanned legs. The double doors closed, swallowing her up.

  Chapter Six

  9.35 a.m.

  Trent stands up, signalling she’s finished with me. ‘Off you go, Jess. Don’t worry. I fully expect Eden to be home soon.’

  Her tone doesn’t fill me with hope.

  ‘She’s had a hard time, that’s all. Since June. Since Iona …’ She leaves it hanging and her hard face melts a little, into the ‘sympathy’ pose.

  I’ve noticed how hard it is for people to say words like: Death. Died. Killed. Dead. I’ve stood next to Eden and listened to people pussyfooting around it with ‘passed away’. Or ‘your loss’. Or ‘about your sister’. Or ‘since Iona’.

  If she’s got to live with it, surely the least they can do is face the truth of it. It’s like they are dirty words.

  ‘Yes, it has been hard for Eden since her sister died.’ Understatement of the year. I sound out each word so clearly it comes out a bit unhinged, but I’m sick of it. They know exactly what happened.

  ‘You say that,’ I snap, impatient with Trent’s fake sympathy, ‘but what have you done to help? I mean, really?’

  Trent bristles.

  I plough on, using my anger. ‘You’re no good in a crisis.’ I glare at Trent, then shoot Mr Barwell a tight smile so he knows it’s not directed at him. ‘I don’t mean you, sir.’ I sigh and turn back to her. ‘You’re so busy worrying how the school appears, what the parents think, what the exam results say. A really good school should care when things go wrong. Not make you feel like a problem. To be fixed.’

  I didn’t mean to say that, but it feels better now it’s out.

  Barwell is the one who replies though. Of course. ‘This isn’t about Eden now, is it? Jess, I’m sorry if you feel that the school has let you down.’

  It is about Eden. Today is all about Eden. But now I’ve started … ‘You know what, while we’re all being so honest? Yeah, I did feel let down back then. But it’s not about me. It’s about anyone who’s a bit different, or having a tough time. You let them all down, and you need to sort it out—’

  ‘I don’t think—’ Mrs Trent tries to interrupt, staring down at me.

  ‘Why didn’t you say?’ Barwell silences her with a gesture, half rising from his chair, then sitting down again and leaning towards me. ‘Jess, you could have told me.’

  ‘Why didn’t you see? Why do you think I skipped school?’ I think I’m about to burst into tears, and I can’t do that, not here, not now. I avoid his eyes and stare down at my knees. I curl my hands into fists so the broken nail digs into my palms, and it helps. ‘I wasn’t in a fit state to articulate my needs.’ I say the last bit in a tight voice, channelling Mum. ‘Don’t you see: it’s when things are tough that it’s hardest to tell someone. It was for me anyway, and it must be true for Eden or else we’d’ve seen this coming.’ I sway in my seat, dizzy with the unfamiliar thrill of telling teachers the truth. ‘You need to think about what it’s like, coming back to school after something bad. You’d better get it right for Eden next week.’

  Trent sits back down, opening and closing her mouth, more like a tortoise chewing lettuce now.

  I’ve had enough of them both. There isn’t time for this stuff now. The heat in the room is suffocating and I can’t stand it a second longer.

  ‘I need to go. It’s too hot.’ I stand up in a rush, pushing the chair so hard it tumbles backwards. I yank the door open and run through it, past Imogen and Charlotte’s question-mark faces.

  Trent starts shouting after me. ‘Jessica Mayfield, don’t you—’

  ‘No, it’s all right, Celia. I’m Jess’s form teacher. Let me see her out.’

  Barwell catches me up by the outside door and puts his weight against it, holding it closed. ‘Jess, wait. Are you OK?’

  Stupid question. I try to settle my breathing and think around my fear. Because it’s him, I stop and I wait and I speak patiently. ‘I’ll be all right in a minute,’ I manage to gasp.

  ‘Don’t worry, Jess. The police will find her. Listen, when Eden’s back and it’s all calmed down, we’re going to talk about what you just said. And the school will help, I give you my word. You and Eden. OK?’

  I nod, to make him feel better. I can’t think about that now.

  ‘Good luck with the police.’ Barwell reaches out as if he plans to squeeze my shoulder, and maybe that would be OK with someon
e else, but not me. Never me. He remembers, pulls back and opens the door for me with a sigh. ‘It shouldn’t take too long. I’ll see you at registration this afternoon? Come to the staffroom if you need me before then. I mean it.’

  ‘OK. Thanks, sir.’ I stumble outside, blinking fast, straight into the chaos of breaktime. I feel the weight of Barwell’s gaze on my back, like an itch I can’t scratch. I check my phone. Its blankness makes me want to scream and hurl it across the yard.

  Eden, where are you? Eden, what did you do?

  I need to understand how it happened. How we got to today. How the cracks appeared. Then I can use it to work out where Eden is. I should’ve known, so I have to fix it. I think back to the first time she told me something wasn’t right. It was back in April. Back when her sister was still alive.

  I planned my first tattoo for weeks. All through the Easter holidays, I doodled variations before settling on the perfect one. I still wasn’t drawing, not properly, but somehow this was OK: small and technical enough to fly under the radar that told me my inner artist was still broken. I redid the artwork twenty times to get it right. Me and Mum had the row again one last time the night before.

  ‘What about hepatitis?’

  ‘I told you. That’s old news. Get with the twenty-first century, Mum. They use gloves and a new needle each time. Sterile, vacuum-sealed, look!’ I spun the laptop round so she could read the FAQs that filled the screen.

  ‘Are you really sure, Jess? It’s such a big step. I know people have removals, but it’s basically forever. How do you know how you’re going to feel? What if you change your mind when you’re twenty, or forty? Or sixty?’

  ‘Mum. I’m sure. That’s the point. That it’s forever, and that I’m sure. That’s why it means something. Why can’t you see? And it’s my body.’ I used that line a lot.

  ‘Yes, it’s your body. And after everything your poor body’s been through, I don’t understand why you’d give it more pain.’ She was shouting now, her eyes shining.

  ‘But that’s my choice to make. It’s mine!’ I yelled back. ‘It’s the opposite of what they did to me. That’s exactly why I’m doing it, honest. I promise you, it’s important to me. It’s not some whim.’ I was speaking more earnestly now. I didn’t want to upset her. I just needed her to see. ‘It’s going to help me – more than all those counselling sessions put together. You have to believe me.’ Sometimes I didn’t even know I believed something till I found myself arguing it through with Mum. ‘This is not another problem. This is me getting better.’