The Summer We All Ran Away

by Cassandra Parkin

  No, he thought in amazement. It’s me. Of course it’s me. This is me. I’m doing all of this. This is who I am.

  Isaac led the way to Davey’s bedroom and closing the door behind them, he gently pulled Davey – shivering with desire – onto the bed and closed the curtains around them. The world around them was shut out and they were enveloped in a dark and private space where there was no sight, only an abundance of touch and sound and scent and taste. When Davey laid his hand flat against Isaac’s chest, he felt again the quiver of his silent laughter.

  chapter sixteen (then)

  Naked and content, Priss lay on Mark’s bed with her eyes half-shut, basking in the sunshine. Mark lay beside her and watched her greedily. Priss was studying the cover of the CD that played in the background. The proportions were right, but the image – a house with a rosy light burning in a high window – looked as if it had been designed for a larger space, like the vinyl covers Mark had framed on his wall.

  “If we got caught,” she asked at last, “what d’you reckon we’d be in the most trouble for? Bunking off, or having sex?”

  Mark considered this for a while. “Having sex, probably.”

  “Why? If you bunk off enough they get the law on your parents. You’d think that’s the thing that’d annoy them more, right?”

  “We’re underage,” Mark pointed out.

  “Only just. What’s going to happen in the next - ” she counted on her fingers “ - the next seven weeks that means we’re magically allowed to shag?”

  “I wonder how much we’re allowed to do before then?” asked Mark, getting interested. “How far can we go before we’re officially breaking the law?”

  Priss rolled over and rested her chin on his chest.

  “I don’t know. I always just assumed it was, you know, the actual deed. It’s all meant to stop you knocking me up, isn’t it?”

  “So if I get you off and you get me off, but I don’t put it in you, then we’re in the clear?”

  Priss laughed. “I suppose so.”

  “Yeah, well, that’s not what they said in PSD. It’s all supposed to be about emotional maturity and stuff.”

  “And stuff?” Priss looked scornful. “Are you, like, totally going Valley Boy on me?”

  “We need to be sure we’re ready for the emotional side of physical intimacy. Mrs Alsop said it so it must be true, right?”

  “So basically they’re, like, the orgasm police?”

  “I wonder which is worse,” said Mark thoughtfully. “Getting each other off but not doing it properly, or doing it but neither of us comes?”

  “Depends what you mean by worse, I suppose.”

  “How about if we do it and one of us comes but not the other?”

  Priss’ smile was luminous. “Now that’s a fuckin’ crime, alright.”

  Davey sat in his bedroom holding the unopened envelope. He had never in his life felt such a profound peace. He had finally broken free. James could rant and storm all he wanted. This was it. This was freedom. The front door opened. He went downstairs to meet them.

  But James stood alone in the hallway.

  The man who had been Brother Andrew looked in the small shaving mirror he kept among his few, sparse possessions in the cell that had become his prison.

  “Hello,” he whispered to his reflection. “I’m Tom. Tom. I’m Tom. My name’s Tom. Fine, thank you. I’d like to buy a railway ticket - ”

  No. He wouldn’t need to give his name. All they’d be interested in was his money. And he shouldn’t call it a railway ticket, he’d be buying it at a railway station. What other kind of ticket would it be? He thumbed through the money again. The notes looked different to how he remembered them. Of course, the bank notes must have been through several design changes since he’d last handled cash. Jack had given him six hundred and fifty pounds, an appalling amount of money. Would the train ticket cost that much? He had no idea.

  “Tom,” he murmured again, trying the name on for size. He wasn’t sure if it was the name he would have chosen for himself, but then, how many people did get to choose their own name? Why should a failed monk be any different?

  Priss rolled reluctantly off the bed, and stretched. “We should do some work, mate. We’ve not touched that last chapter for days. What? What?”

  “You are so unbelievably sexy,” said Mark huskily. She grinned, and reached for a t-shirt. “You’re not so bad yourself.”

  Mark glanced down at his thin, pale legs. “Don’t take the piss.”

  “I’m not.” Priss reached for the huge black art folder at the end of the bed. “Sexy’s not the same as physically perfect, is it? It’s about what’s inside.”

  “The outside helps.” Mark reached out an urgent hand and stroked her thigh. “Especially when - fuck, Priss, you’re just lush.”

  “Fuck off and stop objectifying me.”

  “I’m not objectifying you, I’m giving you a compliment.”

  “No you’re not. How would you like it if I only fancied you ’cos of that fuchin’ contraption?” She gestured at the wheelchair that stood beside the bed.

  He grinned. “And you’re really hot when you’re angry.”

  “Fucking give over, would you?”

  “Look, I just really fancy you, alright? I see you naked and it turns me on! Massively! So shoot me for being a boy. I can’t help it.”

  Priss looked remorseful. “I want to get this first draft finished, is all.”

  “Yeah, well, we can do that later, can’t we? My mum’s coming back in an hour.” He hitched himself up to a sitting position and kissed Priss’ navel.

  “The quicker it’s finished, the quicker we can get it sent off to a publishers and the quicker I can - ”

  “What?”

  “Nothing.”

  Reluctantly, he stopped kissing her breasts. “You alright?”

  “Fucking known for it. I’m just looking forward to not living with my dad.”

  “I don’t get why finishing the book means you can - ”

  “New York, remember?”

  “Oh yeah.” He pulled Priss down onto the bed beside him. “What’s the deal with your dad, anyway?”

  “Nothing I can’t handle.”

  “He’s not, you know, like, hitting you, is he? Or um - ”

  “Look, he’s not hitting me and he’s not fiddling with me and it’s none of your business anyway.”

  “I wish I could keep you safe, that’s all.”

  “You?” Priss laughed. “You’re no use to anyone. You’re corrupting me sexually, you’re interfering with my education for your own selfish pleasure, and every time I try and get some real work done you start distracting me.” She pushed him onto his back, and climbed briskly on top of him. “It’s a good thing you’ve got a big knob or I’d be running for the hills.”

  “I’ve sent your mother to get her hair done,” James told Davey.

  Davey felt the first stirrings of unease.

  “Let’s have a look, then.” James held out his hand for the envelope. “You haven’t even opened it. That confident, are you?”

  Davey watched James’ broad thumb slide beneath the flap of the envelope and remove the thin slip of paper.

  There was an ominous pause.

  “You did this on purpose,” said James, his eyes fixed on the slip of paper. “You conniving little shit. You deliberately failed your exam.”

  “I - I - ”

  “Don’t try and pretend you didn’t. You’re not stupid unless you want to be. This is worse than last time!”

  Davey suddenly saw no point in pretending. “Yes,” he said, and shrugged. “I did.”

  Going over the wall. The image implied something dramatic, exciting, requiring ropes and grappling irons, or at the very least torn-up bed sheets and a perilous descent from a window. But of course, none of that was really necessary. No-one was imprisoned here. Everyone had chosen the life they now lived. The wall existed only in his mind.

  Neverthele
ss, it took another six weeks of agonising waiting – six weeks of nerving himself – six weeks of obsessing so painfully about the envelope stuffed full of banknotes that he was more convinced than ever that the love of money was, indeed, the root of all evil, before he was finally able to run. The moment arrived unexpectedly, one afternoon during the time set aside for private prayer and meditation. He was sitting on the edge of his bed, staring blindly at the crucifix on the wall, feeling the familiar misery folded around him like a blanket.

  “So stop it,” he said out loud. “Stop being miserable. Come on. Time to go.”

  And suddenly, astoundingly, it was possible. He was over the wall. Now all he had to do was to walk away.

  He reached beneath his bed and found the envelope, taped carefully to the underside of the bed frame. He was afraid that if he looked back he would lose his nerve, so he simply walked out of his cell, leaving the door open behind him. His footsteps echoed in the stone corridor, but he knew no-one would disturb him.

  On the doorstop, he hesitated. He wanted to go and say farewell to the garden, perhaps even to visit the bees and let them know what has happening but he recognised the impulse for what it was, the last spasm of procrastination, holding him back. The bees would be fine without him. The whole place would be fine without him. The men he was leaving would continue to make their prayers to the silent, empty places in the universe, a way of life that had made sense to him once, but no longer.

  What would be the meaning of his life now?

  He thought of the man he had seen in the dank, sweaty vestibule at the back of the Phoenix, of that same man stumbling in over the doorstep of a church. What if the purpose of his life was, after all, to help someone else?

  Whatever you did, he vowed recklessly, whatever you did, Jack, I’ll keep your secret. You gave me my freedom. Now I’ll give you yours. I’ll guard your house for you. If I can stop it happening, they’ll never find out what you did.

  It lacked the weight of the vows he had made as a young man, but what good had come of them? This was a burden he knew he could carry; the right payment for the freedom and the second chance he’d been granted. He walked down the dusty private road towards the smooth black tarmac that unwound like a ribbon, leading him out into the world.

  It wasn’t until the third car slowed, swerved and stopped, until the third window rolled down, until the third face looked out and asked if they could offer him a lift, they didn’t normally pick up walkers but they figured they’d be safe with him, right? - that he realised he was still wearing his monk’s habit.

  The corridor outside the changing rooms was the usual chaotic riot. Miss Langland blew a sharp blast on her whistle, and the shrieks and curses and laughter mumbled to a reluctant silence, punctuated with an occasional giggle.

  “Stop messing around and get changed,” she ordered them briskly. “What’s the matter with you? Sixteen years old, most of you are now, and you still haven’t got the nous to get into your kits without me telling you? You’re pathetic, the lot of you. Priss, where do you think you’re going?”

  “Taking Mark to the toilet, miss.”

  “He can take himself.” Could he? They’d done their best with inclusion, but so far they’d been unable to organise a sports-friendly wheelchair. Instead, she and Mark had established a wordless detente where she turned a blind eye to him quietly wheeling himself down the corridor towards the library. Miss Langland still felt the occasional pang of guilt about this, but since neither Mark nor his mother had made any waves about it, the staffroom consensus had been that they could let things slide, on a sort of don’t-ask-don’t-tell basis.

  “It’s the building work, miss,” said Priss. “He needs help to get the wheelchair past.”

  Miss Langland looked searchingly at Priss. Her face had that perfectly smooth and expressionless look that set alarm bells ringing.

  “So can I go, miss?” asked Priss, meek and demure, eyes downcast.

  Oh, for God’s sake, thought Miss Langland wearily. What the hell could she be getting up to with Mark Asher?

  “You come straight back here once you’ve taken him,” she said.

  “I’ll need to wait till he’s finished, miss. So he can get back.”

  “What? Oh, I suppose you will. Alright, then. But straight after that.”

  “Yes, miss.”

  “I’ll check.”

  “Yes, miss.”

  She watched Priss all the way down the corridor. Everything about Priss’ body language told Miss Langland the girl had just put one over on her. But, she thought again, what could she possibly be getting up to with Mark? After all, he was in a wheelchair, wasn’t he?

  As always, the blow seemed like the action of some unseen spirit, rather than the fist of the man who stood before him in the hallway. Davey’s ears rang. He shook his head to clear them.

  “I did it on purpose,” he repeated, tasting blood in his mouth. “I did it on purpose. I did it on p-p-p-p - ” deep breath, “ - I did it to make you listen! I’m not going to do Economics at university, I’m not g-going to come and work in your bloody bank, I’m n-n-n-n - ”

  He was flattened by a hailstorm of blows and kicks, a furious attack accompanied by an unearthly growling that was coming, it had to be, from his stepfather, but how could a human being make such a terrifying noise? It was like being savaged by a wild animal. He closed his eyes and tried to endure; to disappear; to hide in some secret part of his mind while his body underwent its inevitable, terrible punishment.

  After refusing nineteen offers of a lift more or less on a reflex, he gave in and accepted the twentieth; an articulated lorry with a trailer so vast he couldn’t begin to imagine what it contained. The logo on the side was a black West Highland terrier with a basket in its mouth, and the word NETTO. Some sort of pet food? He climbed into the cabin, taking a childish pleasure in his vastly increased height. The lorry driver seemed delighted with his capture of a genuine man of the cloth, and talked sporadically and at length about his life on the road, its trials and its unexpected benefits and finishing each disjointed anecdote with an apology for any offence caused.

  In the nearby town, Tom slithered out at a traffic light, waved goodbye to the driver, and found a row of shops. The names were a mystery, conveying nothing beyond a general intention to sell him things, but he peered in through windows until he found what he was looking for - a charity shop, with racks of clothing laid out, in an approximation of attractiveness on ugly tubular display racks and mismatched hangers.

  It was like walking into every church jumble sale from his childhood. He inhaled the scent of old clothes and books and felt dizzy. Who knew this was how freedom would smell? The three volunteers – two women in their fifties, who he’d expected, and a man in his twenties, who he hadn’t – fell respectfully silent as he came in. He could feel their gaze moving over him like fingers. Hastily, he picked out trousers, a shirt, a pair of shoes. Took them to the counter.

  “That’s twelve twenty-five,” said the woman, then hesitated. “Although since you’re um - ”

  “No, I insist,” said Tom, appalled. “Really.” He thumbed through his envelope of cash, found a twenty pound note, handed it over.

  “Well, if you’re sure.”

  He glanced at the name on the plastic bag she was offering him. What on earth was Scope?

  “Of course I’m sure,” he said firmly. “Thank you very much.”

  “D’you know, I never knew - ” the young man was looking at Tom’s robes in fascination. “Doesn’t it get really hot with real clothes on underneath?”

  Did this man actually imagine he was wearing an entire other layer of clothing beneath his habit? Tom laughed. It felt good. It had been years since he’d last felt like it.

  “Actually,” he said, “it does. Thank you both, I’ll maybe see you again soon.”

  Outside the shop, he inspected the handful of change: a note, five coins. The only one he recognised was the fifty pence piece. The o
thers might as well have been from another country. Now he needed to change, but where? Were there still public toilets? What would happen if he went into a pub and tried to use the facilities? And what time did the pubs even open?

  He was aware that he’d changed, deeply and utterly, from the man who had walked into the monastery decades ago. Nonetheless, he’d somehow imagined the world on the other side of the wall had remained mothballed. Staring at the mysterious assemblage of coins in his hand, he realised that he was a stranger, lost in a strange land. The thought was unquestionably thrilling.

  He could go anywhere. He could do anything. And no-one, no-one would know.

  He had to stop himself from skipping down the pavement.

  When Davey opened his eyes again, he was lying on the hall floor. James stood over him, panting and flexing his fingers, perspective turning him back into the malign giant who had haunted Davey’s dreams since he was three years old.

  “What have you got to say for yourself?” James demanded.

  The word sorry fluttered automatically up to Davey’s lips. For the first time in his life, he swallowed it.

  “Did you ever think,” he said instead, forcing the words out between swollen lips, “that maybe there’s a bloody good reason Nature fixed it so you’d never get to be a real father?”

  After that, James beat him until he lost consciousness.

  “We’ll have to be quiet,” Priss whispered as Mark drew her onto his lap. His mouth was flushed and rosy. His hands fumbled for her breasts.

  “You mean you’ll have to be quiet,” he whispered back. “You’re the screamer, not me.”

  “Fuck off, I am not, ohhh - ”

  “Jesus, Priss, you feel so good.”

  Struggling for silence, they moved together in constrained ecstasy. On the other side of the wall of the disabled toilet, they could hear the headmaster Mr Yates tearing a clinically efficient strip off Dean Reynolds, who had apparently been caught selling speed at break time. Mouths pressed tightly together, they reached orgasm to the news that the police had been called and would be arriving in Mr Yates’ office shortly.