by Grace Lowrie
I spent most of the autumn term trying not to obsess about Sebastian, but it didn’t work. I could tell whenever he was somewhere close by a prickling sensation on the back of my neck and I couldn’t resist subtly looking out for him in the playground. Despite his cold indifference I still got butterflies in my stomach every time our eyes met, so I tried to avoid him as much as possible. But in November the twins had a joint fourteenth birthday party.
I felt shy at first – it was strange seeing everyone outside of school and the crisp, clear night felt eerily magical. But Celeste was keyed up about the fireworks and her infectious excitement soon reassured me. The display was breath-taking and we all oohed and aahed as flashes of fiery light illuminated the sky with transient colour, leaving trails of smoky echoes in their wake. Some of the boys snuck up on the girls in the dark to make them shriek and soon we were all giggling and larking about.
Sebastian hung back in the shadow of the house, watching the rest of us from afar with his usual laid-back manner. Most of his dark straggly hair was hidden under a black beanie, pulled low down on his forehead so that he looked even more brooding than usual, but he laughed along as we made idiots of ourselves. Eventually Celeste went over to him, took his arm, and dragged him down the garden to where we were toasting marshmallows over a bonfire in a big circle. Sebastian was forced to stand between Celeste and myself and as I passed him a skewer, I silently prayed that he couldn’t see me blushing.
Maybe I was just distracted or impatient, but I just couldn’t get the hang of toasting my marshmallows. They either caught fire and tasted burnt or simply melted off the skewer into the flames, disappearing out of sight. I was just about to give up completely when Sebastian unexpectedly offered me his skewer. Perched on the end of it was a perfectly toasted marshmallow. He didn’t say anything, just watched me with an unreadable expression as I carefully took it from him, my gloved fingers brushing his. I thanked him, my words coming out in a whisper, but he nodded once in acknowledgment before turning away to comment on something someone else was saying. I glanced around the group but was relieved to find no one looking in my direction. I gently blew on the marshmallow before tentatively putting it into my mouth whole. It tasted delicious and I couldn’t keep the smile off my face as it warmed me from head to toe.
Celeste ended her phone call and looped her arm through mine.
‘Are you on a break? Can you come for lunch with us? Sebastian’s somewhere in the architecture department, but I’m meeting him here in a few minutes.’
Sebastian was here? I felt dizzy and then reality came crashing back to me. Oh God the department meeting! I glanced at my watch. It was five minutes to two. Where had the time gone?
‘Oh, Celeste, I wish I could, but I have a meeting and I can’t be late …’ I jumped to my feet.
‘OK, well, look,’ Celeste pulled a neat little notebook and pencil out of her handbag and started scribbling in it. ‘We’re having a house warming party on Saturday, you have to come. This is the address.’ She ripped the little piece of paper out and handed it to me as I started to move away anxiously.
‘OK, what time?’
‘Eight o’clock onwards, but whenever you like; you’re always welcome,’ she said with a shy smile.
I hugged her quickly, tightly. ‘Saturday,’ I said as I turned away.
‘Saturday!’ she called after me, grinning as I strode away in my heels.
At the far end of the gallery I hastily punched a code into the security pad and pushed open the heavy panelled wooden door marked ‘Staff Only’. Once through it I turned and looked for Celeste. She was standing in plain view watching me and a tall, handsome man in a sharp suit was striding towards her. Sebastian! I paused, one hand on the door as Celeste greeted her brother with a kiss on the cheek and then gestured in my direction. Sebastian turned, pinning me with his deep blue gaze just as the heavy door slipped from my fingertips. It slammed shut with a bang and they were gone.
The striking image of Sebastian Walker haunted me throughout the department meeting, despite my constant, conscientious note-taking. I’d thought of him often over the years, pictured him in my mind and recalled the way he would look at me. But my memory had not done him justice. He was enigmatic and beautiful – he simply took my breath away.
Chapter Four
As I journeyed home it took all my willpower not to take the Tube straight over to Holland Park where the twins now lived. But seeing Celeste again after so long had brought back memories from the summer of 1993 with a clarity that could not be ignored.
‘Merde, please don’t tell me you’re going to listen to that song again!’ Lucille said, as she picked up her handbag and rummaged through it. She was running late.
Celeste rolled her eyes but didn’t say anything as the music restarted. We were listening to ‘What’s Up’ on the Walkers’ new CD player, even though we knew it off by heart.
‘You girls should be out in the garden making the most of the sunshine,’ Lucille persisted. ‘I thought you were camping, no?’ She looked pointedly at Celeste and then at me.
I was practically living at the Walkers’ by then, which suited me just fine – the summer holidays were much more fun at their house than at mine. Celeste had suggested we camp out under the stars like Arabian princesses, so we’d spent the morning constructing a makeshift tent under the oak tree with washing line, bed sheets, and gypsy shawls. We had lined the inside with rugs and cushions from Celeste’s bedroom until there was just enough room left for the two of us to lie side by side.
‘We are!’ Celeste huffed. ‘But it’s baking hot in there.’
‘Well, why don’t you go and sit in the shade down by the stream? Read a book or something.’
I smiled apologetically at Lucille, but Celeste just rolled her eyes again.
‘Right, well, I’m going out now. If you get hungry the leftovers from lunch are in the fridge and I think Sebastian’s around somewhere. I’ll be back about seven, OK?’
‘OK,’ Celeste pouted.
‘Bye,’ I smiled.
As the front door shut Celeste jumped up and switched off the CD player, cutting the 4 Non Blondes off mid-chorus. ‘I’ve had an idea,’ she said.
Five minutes later we were standing in the stream with our jeans rolled up, giggling. The water was cold and almost reached my knees. Through the murk I could just make out my feet on the uneven bottom and feel the slime between my toes.
‘C’mon, let’s go this way,’ Celeste said. She was wading out beyond the garden boundary and I tentatively floundered after her, my feet sliding about on hidden rocks. We slowly paddled our way through a succession of private back gardens and while it did cross my mind we might be trespassing I was far too curious to worry about it. There were compost heaps, vegetable patches, climbing frames, swing sets, and sheds of all shapes and sizes. Some gardens were overgrown jungles and others manicured to perfection. One was littered with hundreds of stone animals and I imagined that the White Witch of Narnia must have lived there. An elderly man in a deckchair peered at us over his newspaper as we hurried on by. In another garden, two small boys casually waved at us from their tree house as if our journey was merely routine. Around a bend was an ornate hump-backed footbridge painted in blue and white and we ducked underneath it, calling to each other to test the echo. But eventually we reached a submersed shopping trolley where the stream disappeared under a busy road, so we had to turn back.
Just as we were ducking out from under the bridge again, Celeste suddenly lost her balance and fell, landing with a splash and a cry. As I rushed to help her up, I thought she would laugh, until I saw the sting in her eyes – she’d hurt her ankle and there was blood gushing from her knee. She hopped awkwardly on one foot, dripping, chanting ‘Ow ow ow’ and clinging to me with cold fingers as I helped her to the muddy bank.
‘What should I do?’ I asked, taking a tissue from my pocket and wiping the blood from her knee. ‘D’you think you can make it back if I help
you?’
‘No,’ Celeste shook her head and I could see she was trying not to cry. ‘Seb,’ she gasped.
‘What?’
‘Get Sebastian … please,’
‘OK, don’t worry.’ I untied my sweatshirt from around my waist and wrapped it around her shoulders. She looked pale but she smiled to reassure me and I knew I must have looked worried. ‘I’ll be two seconds, OK?’
‘OK,’ Celeste said. I lurched off through the water, splashing water up my jeans and stumbling over every rock.
When I got back to the Walkers’ garden I staggered up the bank and sprinted across the lawn, my hair flying. In the kitchen my feet skidded across the tiled floor and I collided with Sebastian in the doorway with an ‘oomph’. He must have already known that something was wrong because his face was troubled.
At the water’s edge Sebastian didn’t pause to roll his jeans up, he just waded in as he was and I followed. He didn’t seem to notice the cold. He asked me about Celeste in a deceptively relaxed manner as we made our way downstream, his dark eyebrows furrowed. I replied on autopilot, my heartbeat hammering in my chest. When we reached Celeste she looked calm but her eyes were swollen.
‘Celly, what have you done to yourself?’ Sebastian crouched and wrapped her in a hug.
‘Seb …’ Celeste sobbed. They only ever used these nicknames with each other.
‘Let’s have a look then.’ Sebastian gingerly lifted her leg out of the water and rested it on his own lean, denim-clad thighs to assess the damage. She had goose-pimples, pruney toes, and her ankle was already starting to swell. Sebastian tentatively rotated her foot in different directions and Celeste watched, waited, and winced. Sebastian seemed to know exactly what he was doing, while I hovered helplessly. ‘I don’t think it’s broken,’ Sebastian said looking up into her face. ‘It’s just a bad sprain.’ Celeste hugged him again with a tentative smile of relief and as they held each other it was clear just how close they were.
‘C’mon, let’s get you out of here.’ Sebastian turned and crouched down in the water with his back to Celeste. In a practiced move she wrapped her arms and legs around him and he rose smoothly into a standing position with his sister on his back. Sebastian and Celeste both flashed smiles at me before setting off upstream and I followed, dazed and only just aware of how sore my own feet were.
Less than a week later Celeste’s foot was returning to a normal size and colour and she had a large, itchy, brown scab on her knee.
‘Don’t pick it!’ I said for the twentieth time.
‘I’m not!’
‘You are!’
Celeste groaned. ‘It’s itchy!’
‘I know.’
‘Maybe it’s ready to come off?’
‘It’ll scar! Just leave it,’ I said more forcefully.
‘OK, OK … you sound just like Mum,’ she muttered.
Even in the patchy darkness of our bohemian tent I could tell Celeste was rolling her eyes. But it was her that had warned me about scarring in the first place. It was after midnight, it was warm and stuffy and I could tell by Celeste’s voice that she was dozing off to sleep. Celeste fell asleep easily.
An hour later I was still bored and awake while Celeste gently snored. I quietly wriggled out of my sleeping bag and crawled onto the dewy lawn. The moon was bright and I could see small shadowy bats darting about way above my head. I stood for a while in my nightie, the air deliciously cool on my skin, and just gazed at the stars. After a while I reached back into the tent, dragged out Celeste’s dressing gown, and put it on. I wandered back towards the house but it was only as I reached the patio that I realised I wasn’t alone. There was a lamp on in Sebastian’s bedroom, the window was open and Sebastian was perched sideways on the ledge; his back against the frame, silhouetted against the light.
I paused mid-step, watching him watching me, motionless. Then he took a leisurely drag of the cigarette in his hand and released a cloud of smoke. It lingered like a ghost in the still air before fading.
‘Alright?’ he said.
‘Yeah, you?’ I replied trying to sound relaxed.
‘Where’s Celeste?’
‘She’s asleep.’ I waved my hand in the direction of the tent and Sebastian nodded thoughtfully.
‘Aren’t you scared out here in the dark on your own?’
‘No,’ I said honestly. ‘It’s nice … peaceful,’ I added.
Sebastian smiled at this, warmth suffusing his features. ‘Yeah, I know what you mean.’ He took another drag on his cigarette and I boldly walked over to the nearest sun lounger and sat on it cross-legged. As I wrapped the dressing gown around my legs I could feel his eyes watching me in the semi-dark. ‘You wanna fag?’ he offered.
‘Yeah OK,’ I replied, privately impressed at how cool I sounded. I disliked smoking; the stale smell reminded me of my mother and her yellowed fingers, but I did it occasionally to keep Celeste company. Sebastian neatly tossed first a cigarette and then a lighter into my lap and I lit up.
‘Celeste is,’ he said as I exhaled. ‘Afraid of the dark I mean.’
‘Yeah, I know,’ I nodded. ‘She has a great imagination,’ I added in her defence.
‘Yeah, you could say that,’ Sebastian said wryly, his eyes holding mine. ‘She’s not as brave as she likes to make out though, I’m glad she’s got you.’
I was taken aback by the sincerity of his words at that moment, his posture relaxed, his eyes shining with light.
Sebastian put some quiet music on in the background. I was expecting an angry heavy metal album but it was something else, electronic and rocky at the same time with darkly soothing male vocals. When I asked him about it he said it was ‘Songs of Faith and Devotion’. I assumed that was the name of the album but I was too embarrassed to ask. He told me his favourite song was ‘I Feel You’ and I made a mental note to look it up in the library. It might be my new favourite too.
We talked for hours, Sebastian in his window and me on the lounger below. I was amazed at how openly he spoke to me, as if we were old friends. Maybe because we knew a lot of the same people it just felt that way. He also listened to everything I said with a still, silent intensity that made me feel heard, as if for the first time. Sometimes he absent-mindedly strummed to himself on an acoustic guitar, tunes that I recognised and others that I didn’t. I could tell he was talented, because the sounds were melodious, regardless of whether he was concentrating or not. And as the night progressed I became absorbed by his mannerisms. I noticed that he cocked his right eyebrow every time he said something witty, and when he laughed, it was with warmth and affection, his whole face lighting up and his smile extending right up into his cheeks like Celeste’s.
The Walkers were due to head back to Corsica in a few days’ time on their annual family holiday and I confessed that I would miss them all. My honesty surprised us both, but to my relief Sebastian didn’t comment.
‘What do you think our mock exams are gonna be like?’ I asked to change the subject.
‘Pretty easy, I reckon.’
‘You think?’ I tried to sound nonchalant.
‘Don’t worry, I’m sure you’ll be fine. But if you need any help just let me know,’ he said. I felt warm at the thought of Sebastian tutoring me. Were we friends now?
As the sky began to lighten with the dawn, self-consciousness crept back in. I was curled on my side on the lounger and started to feel aware of the damp clinginess of the clothes I was wearing and how messy my hair must be. Sebastian and I yawned at the same time and acknowledged it with smiles.
‘I’d better get back before Celeste wakes up,’ I said, rising.
‘See y’later,’ he nodded.
I retraced my footsteps through the grass that now glistened with morning light and crawled inside the tent without looking back. Celeste was still asleep, her mouth hanging open, her breathing slow and deep. I peeled off the damp dressing-gown and quietly shrugged back into my sleeping bag, cosy and warm. I couldn’t remember ever
feeling so elated before. The night felt like one long wonderful dream. Threads of my conversation with Sebastian were still looping through my head as I fell asleep to the sound of birds singing.
I could still remember how happy I’d been in Sebastian’s company; just one brief glimpse of him from a distance had brought it all back. The next few nights I would slip out of the tent as soon as Celeste was asleep and he would been sitting there in his window, as if expecting me. He had always stayed upstairs in his room and I’d always remained below on the terrace, a safe, casual distance between us. But we’d chatted for hours … or sometimes we just sat companionably, listening to music, smoking cigarettes, and watching out for shooting stars.
I’d never told Celeste about our nocturnal conversations. I was worried she wouldn’t like them and I didn’t want to give them up. But it felt strange keeping a secret from Celeste, disconcerting somehow.
At one point their dad Philip had discovered us – he had come out onto the terrace in a navy dressing gown and slippers and asked us what we were doing. Sebastian had sighed and told him we were just talking and Philip had pointed out that it was late and we should go to sleep. But he hadn’t insisted, instead he’d bid us goodnight and gone back to his room and we stayed where we were. It was the summer holidays after all.
But unfortunately, seeing the twins again at the museum had inevitably brought other memories back too; dark recollections that would keep me awake at night.
Chapter Five
I was in the bath when the phone rang. I’d been in there a good hour, the water was tepid and my skin wrinkled. I was trying to read a Point Horror book without getting the pages wet, but my arms were aching from the effort and my mind kept wandering away.
Across the hall I heard Mum answer the phone. I couldn’t hear what she was saying, but I could tell from the tone of her voice that there was something wrong and my skin prickled. I got out of the bath, dried myself briskly and hurried into my bedroom to get dressed.