Bringing the Summer (16 page)

It's much too cold to sit for long on the bench where Lyra and Will sat in the story. We walk along next to the river for a while, and then we go into the glasshouses, where the air is warmer, before we start walking back a different way, skirting through the backs of the colleges.

We're both freezing. The sun still hasn't come out, but the frosty air turns to a grey mistiness, damp that seeps through clothing. We stop off to buy food at the covered market off High Street. I buy a postcard to send to Evie and Gramps, and another, for Danny. But that makes me feel bad, somehow. Because I'm here with Theo, and I know they wouldn't approve . . .

On an impulse, Theo grabs my arm and takes me down a narrow medieval street and through one of those secret wooden doors into a small courtyard.

‘Are we allowed?' I whisper.

‘It's fine,' Theo says. ‘I want you to see what it's like, inside.'

We go through another door, across a small courtyard with a beautiful plane tree in the centre. From a lit window two storeys up the first notes of music drift across the courtyard as someone begins to practise the piano. It's all quite magical. We go up some steps, and through a door, and I find myself in a chapel, the light coming through a huge medieval stained-glass window at one end. The wooden ceiling is decorated with paintings of angels, and a real boy is sitting on a chair, playing a lute. We might have stepped back hundreds of years.

We stand together at the entrance to the nave, and turn to look up at the tower above, just as the bell begins to strike. A crowd of tourists comes through the door. Someone begins to explain the history of the chapel. We tiptoe out again, back through the way we came, out on to the street.

We don't say much. We weave our way back to Jericho. My feet are tired. I'm cold and damp. It's a relief to finally arrive at Theo's house.

Duncan's already gone. He's left a note for Theo on the kitchen table, with a P.S. for me. Theo hands over the piece of paper. It's an invitation to us both for a New Year's Eve Party, at his home in Birmingham. ‘What do you think?' Theo asks.

‘No way will my parents let me go,' I say. ‘Not so far, just for a party, and with people they don't know.'

‘So, how come they didn't mind you coming to Oxford to see me?'

I feel myself blush. ‘I didn't tell them.'

‘So where do they think you are?'

‘I said I'd been invited to Home Farm, again. That I'd stay in Laura's room, like I did before. It seemed easier, somehow, because . . . well, now my dad's been there and met your parents . . .' I'm so embarrassed I stumble over my words.

Theo stares at me.

Is he shocked that I lied?

It was too horribly easy to lie to Mum and Dad. They trust me, I guess. I've never given them reason not to.

‘So they think right now you are with Gabes?' Theo says.

I don't answer, and Theo doesn't say anything either.

I stare at the scrap of paper in my hand, at Duncan's flamboyant handwriting in black ink. I look at our two names written side by side:
Freya and Theo
, as if we are a couple. Is that what Duncan thinks? What has Theo said about me, exactly?

Now Duncan's gone home for the holidays, Theo and I are going to be alone together in the house for a whole weekend. No one knows I am here. It's beginning to feel a bit scary.

Nothing will happen unless I want it to, I tell myself. And my instincts all say,
Wait, go slowly, don't rush into anything!

 

We make a meal together with the food we bought at the market. Theo, like everyone in his family, knows how to cook. I help chop onions and slice mushrooms and carrots. While the beef casserole is slowly cooking in the oven, he shows me how to make a cake he calls Linzertorte, with hazelnuts and cocoa and cherry jam. The kitchen is warm and steamy, scented with allspice and nutmeg. It begins to feel more normal, making a meal together; not so intense.

‘Do you see Beth, sometimes?' I ask Theo. ‘She lives in Oxford, doesn't she?'

‘Summertown,' Theo says. ‘North of here. I've been there once this term. Mostly, at the weekends when I've got more free time, she's staying at Home Farm. As you know.'

I think guiltily of my last visit there, with Gabes, to see the kittens just after they were born. Four tiny tabby-and-white kittens, small as mice. It was mid-week, so Beth wasn't around. We weren't there for long, and after supper and kitten-viewing we went back to town for a film with Miranda and some of Gabes' friends. And I felt terrible the whole time, because I didn't say anything to Gabes about Theo, and he didn't say anything either, about Miranda telling him I'd been to Oxford . . . and it was a relief that we were hardly alone at all the whole evening.

Theo's phone rings, and he goes through to the sitting room to talk. I listen, of course, but he doesn't give much away. It sounds as if he's arranging for us to meet some people later on. Or possibly for them to come here. I'm slightly nervous. They will all be much older than me. Twenty, twenty-one. University students.

I look up as he comes into the kitchen.

‘All right?' he asks.

I nod.

‘Want a drink?'

‘Just tea, please.'

‘I bought some milk this time, specially for you.' He opens the fridge and gets out a carton. ‘See?' He plonks a tea bag into an orange-and-white-striped mug with the words
Brave New World
in black letters on one side.

‘Have you read the book?' I ask him.

‘Huxley? Yes. The title's a quotation, from Shakespeare,' Theo says.

‘
How beauteous mankind is! O brave new world that has such people in it
. It's from
The Tempest
. I know because it's Gramps' favourite play.' I feel rather proud of myself, but Theo doesn't look particularly impressed. He starts to wash up the load of pans and bowls we've used. I take my tea into the sitting room and try to make myself cosy on the sofa. I draw my knees up under the blue blanket someone's left in a heap.

‘Do you want to light a fire?' Theo calls. ‘There's wood and stuff in the basket.'

I kneel on the rug in front of the fireplace, and make a wigwam of the smallest bits of wood, and scrunch up newspaper, light it with a match. The thin blue flame licks along the edge of the paper, flares up as it catches the dry sticks. I add more wood, piece by piece, the way Evie's taught me. It's odd, the way I keep thinking about her and Gramps. It's the third time today.

I draw the curtains and pull the sofa closer to the fire, and sit with my back against it, the blanket over my knees, to wait for the room to warm up. Theo is still busy cleaning up the kitchen. The room gets quietly darker, and I don't put the lights on. It's better this way, with just the light from the fire.

Theo comes to join me. We sit very close, our bodies touching all along one side. I sip my tea, the mug warm between my hands. We stare at the fire, and neither if us says anything for a long time.

‘She couldn't sit still,' Theo says. He's thinking about
her
, again. Bridie.

‘Not for even a few minutes. Last time I saw her, she was all nervy and on edge, her hands twitching, even when we were sitting down. She kept getting up, and she had to be smoking, or drinking, or something, the whole time. She was so thin, it was as if her skin was transparent. I knew she was ill, really badly ill. Why didn't I do something?'

In the light from the fire I see tears on his face. A memory washes over me, of my brother biting back tears – already, aged about fifteen, ashamed to show his emotions. Thinking about Joe makes me braver with Theo.

I put my arms around him. ‘It wasn't your fault. There wasn't anything you could do,' I whisper into his hair.

Izzy's light voice comes into my head, from the summer I spent with her, the year after Joe died. She made me a necklace with a pebble from the beach:
a talisman to cure you from sadness
.

Theo needs someone to help him get over his sadness, like Izzy helped me, and that someone could be me, if only I could work out exactly how. And then maybe something good can happen out of all this, and I don't need to feel bad about seeing Theo, and hurting Gabes . . .

 

While we wait for the dinner to cook, Theo tells me about the poet John Keats. He's been reading him this term. ‘He wanted to live a life of sensation, rather than thought. You know, experience things in the moment. Feel everything.' Theo reaches over to the coffee table and picks up a small hardback book. ‘Listen to this. It's about trying to catch a moment of beauty.'

I've heard the poem before; that famous one about a Greek urn.

‘She cannot fade, though thou hast not thy bliss,

For ever wilt thou love, and she be fair!'

Is he still thinking about Bridie?

He flicks through the pages of the book and finds a second poem to read aloud. He reads well: the words make a kind of sense to me even though some of them are very old-fashioned. And they are beautiful: they linger in the air, casting a kind of spell over us both. We watch tiny sparks spiral up like fireflies as the logs slowly sink and crumble and turn to ash.

Theo goes to the kitchen to check the dinner. ‘Won't be long,' he says.

‘Good! I'm ravenous!'

Finally it's ready and we can eat.

 

There's a knock at the door about nine.

Theo opens it. ‘Harry! Toby!'

‘We're on our way to the pub,' the tall one – Harry – says. ‘Coming?'

‘Come in and meet Freya first,' Theo says. ‘And seeing as we're about to have pudding, you can join us.'

Theo cuts the Linzertorte into slices and we eat almost all of it, piece by delicious piece, even though it's so sweet and rich. Theo seems different with his friends. I go quiet. They are all so much older and cleverer than me.

Harry goes over to the piano and plays some classical piece, mournful and lovely. I think of that moment in the college courtyard, the notes of music hanging in the cold air. They each take turns. Theo isn't as good as they are – both Harry and Toby are studying music, like Duncan – but he's a million times better than I would be. Harry and Toby play a duet.

I stay in the background, listening, but not saying much. They don't seem to mind, or even to notice.

Toby starts rolling a joint.

‘I'm tired, Theo,' I say. ‘I'm going up to bed.'

‘Night night, Freya!' Toby says. ‘Good to meet you.'

At the top of the stairs I hesitate.

I turn right, into Duncan's empty room.

 

Theo comes up after a while and stands in the bedroom doorway.

I'm still fully clothed, sitting on the bed in the dark.

‘What's the matter? Aren't you coming with us for a drink? Or are you fed up with us? Do you
disapprove
?'

‘No,' I say, though I do, a bit. ‘Had you forgotten? I'm sixteen, Theo! Not old enough to drink in pubs, not legally, anyway.'

‘No one's going to know,' Theo says. ‘They'll assume you're our age. A student.'

I shake my head.

‘Do you mind if I go?' he asks.

‘No.'

‘You'll be OK. I mean, it's perfectly safe round here.'

‘Of course! It's fine, Theo. I'm tired, I'll go to sleep. I'll see you in the morning.'

The front door bangs shut behind them.

I lie there in the silent house. It's a bit weird of Theo, isn't it? Going off with his friends like that and leaving me here, when I've come all this way to see him.

But, surprisingly, I do sleep, deeply and without dreaming.

 

Next morning, I wake up to a freezing cold house. I get dressed quickly, go downstairs. Theo's coat and shoes are lying in a heap on the floor, so I know he did come back last night even though I didn't hear him. I try to get the fire going, but there's not enough wood in the basket to keep it burning for long. I pick up all the empty beer and cider bottles lying around the sitting room and put them in the bin in the kitchen. I make tea. I stand at the French windows, staring out at the small back garden. The grass is thick with frost; tiny birds flit in and out of the bare branches of the tree. The sky is clearing to brilliant blue as the sun climbs higher. I'm so cold I find my coat and put that on, an extra layer.

The house is completely silent. I pick up the volume of Keats' poems and find the second one Theo read aloud to me last night and read it again to myself. A love poem. What does
that
mean? Was Theo trying to tell me something? Or was that all about Bridie too?

While I wait for him to surface, I do a series of quick drawing exercises in my sketchbook: one minute, then five minutes, then drawing with my opposite hand, which taps into the other side of your brain, and then drawing without looking at the paper. I draw the tree. I try to draw from memory the figure of the boy playing the lute in the chapel, but I can't get it right.