One Last Summer

by Connelly, Victoria

  ‘Are you ready?’ she asked.

  ‘I’m bracing myself,’ Harrie said, trying not to laugh.

  Lisa took a deep breath, still holding onto Harrie’s shoulders.

  There then followed a torrent of abuse the like of which Harrie had never heard before. She wasn’t aware Lisa knew half of those words, but perhaps her experience of teaching in inner-city Leeds had taught her a few of them.

  When she finally stopped, the night air seemed to vibrate with the echo of her words.

  Lisa stepped back a little. ‘Do you think it’s done anything?’

  ‘Well, I think I might have lost part of my hearing.’ Harrie laughed and then Lisa laughed too. ‘Lisa – your language!’

  ‘What about it?’

  ‘I’ve never heard you swear like that before.’

  ‘When needs must.’

  Harrie linked her arm around Lisa and the two of them walked slowly through the orchard, back towards the garden. The light from the moon had silvered the gnarled trunks of the apple trees and their shadows made the most enchanting of patterns on the grass, like bewitched lacework.

  As they walked on, Harrie felt Lisa swaying again.

  ‘I think you should probably have something to eat. Do we have some biscuits or cake or something?’

  Suddenly, tears were pouring down Lisa’s face. ‘I ate your last piece of cake!’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Your birthday cake! I pigged the last slice in the middle of the night!’

  ‘Hey, it’s okay!’

  ‘No, it’s not! Oh, god! I’m such a bad friend!’

  ‘You’re not a bad friend. You’re an extremely good one,’ Harrie told her.

  ‘I just took it! But I’ll buy you another one. A whole cake. A massive cake! None of us will go near it. It’ll just be for you!’

  Harrie laughed. ‘You don’t need to buy me a cake.’

  ‘I’m so sorry! I’m so sorry!’

  ‘It’s okay. Now, let’s get back indoors. There are moths about.’

  ‘What?’ Lisa started swatting the air with her hands. ‘Get me inside!’

  They rushed across the lawn, stumbling in the half-light towards the great front door, which Harrie was relieved to close behind them. Lisa looked exhausted and Harrie pushed the tendrils of hair away. They’d been sticking to her friend’s cheeks, wet with tears.

  ‘Let’s get you to bed, shall we?’

  Lisa nodded and stumbled as she made her way towards the spiral staircase. Harrie placed a hand in the small of Lisa’s back as she swayed on reaching the landing.

  Once in Lisa’s bedroom, she pulled down the duvet and plumped the pillow and Lisa got in without protesting, snuggling down under the bedclothes.

  ‘I haven’t done my bedtime meditation,’ she said, suddenly sitting bolt upright.

  ‘I think you’ll be okay without it tonight.’

  ‘Will you stay with me until I fall asleep?’

  ‘Of course I will.’

  ‘You’re my best friend, Harrie. You’ve always been my best friend.’

  Harrie leaned forward and kissed Lisa’s warm forehead, and then sat with her until she was quietly snoring before tiptoeing out of the room. She wondered how much of the night Lisa would remember in the morning. Probably not a lot, but Harrie would certainly never forget it.

  Chapter 16

  Audrey met Lisa out on the landing the next morning. She’d already had her breakfast, taken a walk and read two chapters of her Susan Hill novel. Lisa, it seemed, wasn’t having such a productive morning.

  ‘God, you look dreadful!’ Audrey told her.

  ‘Gee, thanks!’

  ‘I’m guessing you stayed up and had more wine?’

  ‘Very likely.’

  ‘You don’t remember?’

  ‘I have a vague recollection of shouting at Harrie.’

  ‘What?’ Audrey was appalled. ‘Why?’

  ‘I think I was trying to scare the cancer away.’

  Audrey stared at her friend. ‘Seriously?’

  ‘I thought it was the right thing to do at the time.’

  ‘You thought shouting at Harrie was a good idea?’

  ‘Not Harrie – the cancer.’

  ‘You’ve got to stop drinking, Lisa,’ Audrey said, the warning tone back in her voice. ‘It’s not good for you and it’s certainly not good for Harrie.’

  Lisa nodded and then clutched her head as if regretting the movement. ‘I don’t feel so good.’

  ‘You should go back to bed.’

  ‘I think I feel worse lying down.’

  ‘Hey, I saw your young gardener friend. He was asking how you were. I think he’s waiting for his yoga lesson.’

  ‘Oh, no!’ Lisa groaned. ‘I completely forgot about that!’ Her hands flew up to her hair. ‘Can I use your shower? Please!’

  ‘Go on – it’s all yours.’

  ‘Thanks!’

  Audrey watched as Lisa returned to her room and came out a second later with a towel and some bottles.

  ‘Tell him I won’t be long,’ Lisa said.

  ‘Lisa?’

  ‘Yes?’

  ‘Are you okay now? I mean, about Harrie?’

  Lisa’s eyes widened and Audrey could see them sparkling with tears. ‘I’m never going to be okay with this.’

  Audrey nodded. ‘I know. Me neither. But we’ve got to do our best to be strong for her this summer.’

  ‘I know,’ Lisa said in a very small voice. ‘But I just can’t think about anything else except the cancer now. It’s just sitting there between us and I can’t even look at her sometimes, let alone speak without fearing I’m going to break down any minute.’

  ‘That’s probably why she didn’t want to tell us – because it changes everything, doesn’t it? I’ve been thinking about this and I truly believe that she doesn’t want to see our miserable faces. She was trying to save us from the pain of telling us for as long as possible, wasn’t she?’

  ‘I don’t know how she did that,’ Lisa said. ‘I would’ve rung you both at the first sign of trouble.’

  ‘Me too,’ Audrey said, ‘but this is our Harrie. She’s always been the strong one, but she needs us now and we’ve got to be there for her, okay?’

  Lisa nodded. ‘I know.’

  ‘No more wine, Lisa, I mean it. And no more shutting yourself away. I know this is hard. It’s probably one of the hardest things we’ll ever have to get through, but we’ve got to make this the most wonderful summer ever. If you keep away from the wine and I keep away from laptops and spreadsheets, I think we can really be there for Harrie when she needs us most, just as she’s always been there for us in the past.’

  Lisa closed the space between them and hugged her. Audrey got a faceful of Lisa’s bath towel, but she didn’t care. All the anger she’d felt about Lisa’s response to Harrie’s cancer ebbed away from her in that moment and compassion flooded her heart.

  ‘I’m going to be there for her,’ Lisa told her. ‘I promise. And for Honor and for you.’

  Audrey did her best to blink her tears away. ‘I know you will.’

  Harrie was sitting in the garden with one of her green smoothies. Honor was having a swim, Audrey was reading in a deck chair in the shade and Lisa had finally surfaced and was doing something yogic with the gardener. Audrey kept peering over her sunglasses at her and, because Harrie was wearing sunglasses herself, she probably didn’t think she’d noticed, but she had. It was sweet that her friend was concerned about her, but she couldn’t help feeling awkward at being stared at like that – as if she might die on the spot at any moment.

  When she’d first announced her diagnosis to her friends and colleagues at home, there’d been a strange sort of stampede. Suddenly, everyone had wanted a piece of her. It was part of the reason she was hiding away at the priory. As soon as she’d told people she was ill, they’d flocked to her, which was nice, of course, but they hadn’t wanted to spend quality time with her when she was fit
and well so it seemed odd that they wanted to see her now. Was that how lottery winners felt, she wondered? A little bit of money suddenly turned you into a human magnet. The same thing seemed to happen with a death sentence. You suddenly became everybody’s favourite person.

  Harrie was not the sort of person to want a fuss. She’d never felt comfortable being the centre of attention. Her own wedding had been a massive embarrassment to her, with cameras poking in her face and relatives everywhere. The only time she felt at ease being looked at was in the classroom and that was because she became somebody else then. Teaching was a kind of performance. But being so closely monitored by people because she was sick was nothing short of unnerving.

  She tried to ignore Audrey, hoping her friend would go back to her book and let her get on with her aimless daydreaming. More and more, she found she just wanted a place to sit and dream, to watch the clouds chasing themselves across the sky, to listen to the wren, the robin, the blackbird, and the cawing of the jackdaws, the cooing of the pigeons. She wanted to watch the wind playing in the trees. Simple, everyday things that she might once have missed because there was never enough time to just be still and observe them. It astonished her how much pleasure you could get from such things. Why didn’t more people know about it? Why was everyone always rushing? Harrie smiled to herself; her illness was turning her into a philosopher, although she wasn’t enjoying how tired she was feeling lately.

  She closed her eyes against the sun and against Audrey, revelling in the warmth and the soothing call of a nearby dove from its home at the top of the tower. It was then that she remembered the face in the chapel.

  ‘You okay, Mum?’ Honor asked from the pool as Harrie got up from her chair.

  ‘I’m fine.’

  ‘Where are you going?’ Audrey asked.

  ‘Just to see Samson.’

  She made her way quickly into the priory, where she had a drink of water in the kitchen before going through the cloister and into the chapel. Her sun-warmed limbs cooled down now that she was inside the ancient building.

  As usual, he was hidden from view when she first approached.

  ‘Hello?’ she called up. ‘Anybody there?’

  A sandy head popped over the scaffolding and he nodded an acknowledgement.

  ‘Can I come up?’

  Samson didn’t answer, but Harrie soon heard the heavy tread of his boots as he descended, coming to earth with a light jump a moment later.

  ‘Is that a no?’ she asked him.

  ‘Have you a head for heights?’

  ‘I think so.’

  ‘It’s very delicate up there – delicate and dangerous.’

  ‘Okay. I promise not to touch or trip over anything.’

  Samson gave her a look as if he didn’t know if she was joking or not.

  ‘I’ll beg if I have to,’ she said. ‘Come on! I’ve been bribing you with tea for weeks now.’

  He scratched the back of his neck and looked distinctly ill at ease. ‘Follow me,’ he said at last, and Harrie only just managed to stop herself from punching the air in glee.

  She’d never climbed through scaffolding before and, although she wished she wasn’t wearing a sarong, she was glad that she at least was wearing trainers instead of flip-flops. Even though she’d told him she was good with heights, she still did her best not to look down.

  ‘I see what you mean about having a head for heights!’ she joked now. Samson turned around and glared at her.

  ‘You’re not going to pass out on me, are you?’

  ‘No!’ Harrie cried, but she clenched hold of the sides of the ladder all the more as she continued to ascend, her hesitant steps following Samson’s sure ones.

  ‘So this is your office,’ she said once they’d both made it to the safety of the top.

  ‘I guess it is,’ he said.

  Harrie looked around, trying to take it all in at once, from the pale golden stone in front of her to the incredible view of the fan-vaulted ceiling. She saw his tools laid out, his denim jacket folded neatly and his lunch box and flask. Everything he needed.

  ‘I just love this stone,’ she said, her hand instinctively reaching out to touch it and then pausing just short of contact. ‘May I?’

  Samson gave a single nod. ‘Yellow Triassic limestone,’ he said.

  ‘Is it?’

  ‘It’s the period before the more famous Jurassic. Over two hundred and fifty million years ago.’

  ‘How amazing.’ Harrie looked at the stone with a new appreciation, and then she saw it – the face. It wasn’t any ordinary face and it certainly wasn’t a gargoyle.

  ‘It’s an angel,’ she said, her fingers inching to touch it. ‘Can I?’

  Samson nodded. ‘She’s survived all that time. I think she can survive a quick poke.’

  Harrie laughed. ‘I wasn’t going to poke her!’ Her fingers gently caressed the stone, appreciating the lines carved so many centuries ago. ‘I saw her from below. Well, I noticed a vague face, but I couldn’t make out what it was. But she’s lovely! I had no idea you were hiding something so precious up here. You should have told me about her even if you didn’t want to show me.’

  ‘I wasn’t hiding her from you,’ he said, sounding surprised that she should think that.

  ‘I know,’ she told him with a smile. ‘It’s just that you don’t think to – well – share things, do you?’

  ‘What do you mean?’ he asked, narrowing his bright eyes a little.

  ‘I mean, you’re pretty self-contained, aren’t you?’

  ‘I don’t understand.’

  ‘You do your job. You put your head down. You don’t get involved with people, do you?’

  ‘There isn’t usually anyone to get involved with.’

  Harrie mused on this. ‘I suppose not, but I’d like to get involved.’ She looked at the angel again and then something occurred to her. ‘I mean, to get involved with what you’re doing. I didn’t mean to get involved with you or anything like . . .’ She paused, seeing colour creep into his cheeks. She was embarrassing this poor man.

  He cleared his throat. ‘I’m glad you’re interested.’

  ‘Really?’

  He nodded and she thought she saw the tiniest of smiles tickling the corner of his mouth.

  ‘One of the reasons I booked this place was because I’m fascinated by the past. I’m always nosying around old churches. It drives my daughter mad. We can be driving back from somewhere and I’ll see an old church and just have to pop inside and see what’s there because you never know what you’re going to find, do you?’

  Samson seemed to be taking all this in. ‘You like misericords?’ he asked.

  ‘Pardon?’

  ‘Misericords – they’re the carvings on the underside of a folding seat. You find them in churches and monastic buildings.’

  ‘Misericords,’ Harrie repeated slowly. ‘What a gorgeous word! I’ve never actually seen one. At least I don’t think I have.’

  He looked surprised by this admission. ‘There are some in St Michael’s just down the road from here.’

  ‘Really?’

  ‘I can show you if you like. I think they’re some of the best in the country.’

  ‘I’d love to see them.’ She grinned. ‘Is this you proving to me that you can get involved with people?’

  ‘I thought you said you didn’t want to get involved with me?’ His eyes sparkled as he spoke.

  ‘Well, I didn’t mean that exactly,’ she said, struggling to work out what she did actually mean. ‘I meant – well – never mind. I’d love to see these misericords.’

  ‘Okay.’

  She smiled and he gave a half-smile in return. Or maybe it was a muscle twitching.

  ‘So, when would you like to show me these misericords?’

  ‘After I finish here for the day?’ He looked at his watch. ‘A couple of hours? Meet me by my van.’

  Harrie nodded. ‘Right.’

  They looked at each other and Harrie
wondered if he was going to say anything else. No, of course he wasn’t.

  ‘Well, I’d better leave you to it,’ she said.

  Samson gave her a little nod then turned his back to begin his work again and Harrie couldn’t help smiling because she felt she was finally chipping away at the surface of Samson Haverstock.

  Lisa took one final breath and slowly opened her eyes. Alfie was sitting in front of her, his eyes still closed, his legs crossed and his palms facing upwards on his knees. She watched him for a moment, the afternoon sun the colour of golden syrup on his face.

  ‘When you’re ready, open your eyes,’ she said softly.

  Alfie did as he was told, his blue eyes focusing on her.

  ‘Wow! I’ve never felt so calm,’ he said.

  ‘Meditation is a powerful thing.’

  ‘I’m not used to looking inside, you know?’

  Lisa nodded, remembering the miraculous journey she had taken when she’d first started to meditate.

  ‘It’s like floating away,’ he added. ‘I thought I might actually be floating at one stage and that this yoga mat had turned into a flying carpet.’

  Lisa smiled at the notion and, for some reason, she began to cry.

  ‘Hey!’ Alfie leaned towards her and wiped the tears from her face with his fingers. ‘What’s the matter? Is it something I said? Something I did?’

  ‘No!’ Lisa shook her head. ‘I didn’t mean to cry. It’s just that sometimes meditation can bring the emotions up to the surface, you know?’

  ‘I’m beginning to.’

  She dared to look at him, wiping the tears from her eyes with a tissue from her pocket.

  ‘I’m trying to be happy,’ she whispered. ‘I’m trying to be brave for her, but I’m not doing a very good job.’

  ‘Who are you trying to be brave for?’

  She sniffed. ‘Harrie. She’s ill. Really ill.’ The tears began to rise again.

  ‘Oh, god!’

  ‘And I’m so scared. I don’t want to lose her, Alfie!’

  ‘Hey!’ he said, moving closer and wrapping his arms around her. Alfie rubbed a hand up and down Lisa’s back in a soothing motion.

  ‘You know what she once did for me?’ she said. ‘We’d gone to London to stay with my uncle. He had this really cool flat with a spare room and we went to see a play in the West End. Well, after the show, I wanted to hang around the stage door to see if we could meet the cast. The guy playing the lead was from a big US TV show I was crazy about at the time. Anyway, it was absolutely freezing and I was shivering so Harrie ran off somewhere and got me a cup of coffee. I still remember how blissful that moment was when I clasped it in my cold hands.’