The Last Summer of Us (13 page)

Shoes. Computers. Cheap hotel bathrooms.

Not people. People are not, should never be, functional.

Unless, of course, they're alcoholics. Then we say they're “functional” like it's a good thing.

The big things sneak up on you. It probably snuck up on her. Awful as it sounds, I'd rather think of it that way: that by the time she realized what she was doing, what was happening to her – what she was – it was too late. The alternative? The alternative is that she made that choice and she stuck with it, and all those bottles that Amy just cleared out from under the sink and in the garden shed…that was the path she chose.

Drinking yourself to death isn't glamorous. It's not Dean Martin and the Rat Pack and all those golden Hollywood stars that Jared loves so much. It's jitters and night sweats and not being able to speak. It's hands that shake so badly that writing a shopping list is like writing Hamlet.

The slide is deceptively slow – slow enough not to notice if you don't know what to look for. It's like the sea eating away at a cliff. You don't know what's happening until one day the cliff crashes into the sea. When it comes – and it will – there's no time for goodbye. It's just…over. It's only when you look back, when you start finding all the clues that were left behind, that you realize you should have seen it coming. But you understand this all too late, because foresight is a luxury you just didn't have.

And here's the other thing nobody tells you about that life: it doesn't just cast a shadow before it, it leaves an echo behind. Why else is Amy throwing out a drinker's stash when the drinker is no longer here to drink it?

Why do you think?

There's only two other people who live in that house – and like I said, vodka's not my thing.

I know what kind of doctor is coming to see my father, and I know why my aunt doesn't want me there. They're hoping to save him from himself, from the slide. They're shoring up the cliff before it crumbles – or at least they're trying to.

Steffan watched his mother wither away, eaten from the inside by something she couldn't control. I watched mine give up on everything but the bottle, and when I picked up the clothes the paramedics had cut off her and I pulled the sodden sheets from the bed, I wrapped them all in plastic and I threw them in the bin.

My mother used to play patience in the winter. It was always around six o'clock in the evening, and she'd finish up whatever it was she was doing. Dinner was either cooking or was something fast enough that she didn't have to worry about it for a while, and she'd pour herself a drink and put on opera and she'd sit down and deal out the cards. It was like a ritual, I guess; I'd come down from my room and homework or whatever and I'd find her sitting at the table in the living room moving tens onto nines or shuffling kings into empty spaces while she waited for my father to come home from work.

She tried to teach me; did teach me patience (oh, the irony, yes) and racing demon. She once tried to teach me poker, but I was about ten or something and refused because, well,
Mother
, right? And now I really, really wish I knew how to play because it would actually be kind of a cool thing to be able to do.

I always thought the card games were just her way of marking time between the phases of the day: once the afternoon was over but before the evening could really begin. It never occurred to me that it wasn't a way of killing the time; that it was actually a reward for making it through another day of a life that was – for whatever reason, and who says there even was one – killing
her
. The cards weren't the ritual. The drink was.

It was a Manhattan, to begin with. Patience and a Manhattan. And then it was patience and two Manhattans. And then it was just the Manhattans, no cards.

And somewhere, sometime, it changed again. It wasn't a cocktail any more. It was wine.

Because that's better, right?

Only what nobody saw, and what we all found out too late, was that what we thought was plain old white wine was actually laced with vodka; one stashed within the other like a Russian doll, hiding in plain sight.

I don't remember when she stopped using the wine.

Could I have saved her? That's
my
secret; the question that keeps me awake – the question which, last night, for the first night in fourteen, I forgot to ask. Could I have changed the story, switched the ending? If I had taken away a glass of wine at dinner; had diluted the vodka down to nothing under the tap? If I had said something, would it have made a difference, or would it already have been too late? Could I have done
anything
? Was it better to let her think I didn't see? Kinder, or more cruel?

Even though it's Steffan who lost his mother to a disease which carried her off with barely a backward glance, it's Jared who would understand how this feels.

All of us are scarred, but some of us are guiltier than others.

I've barely said goodbye to Amy when Steffan, already over by the car and
always
the master of subtlety, decides that the best way to get my attention is to hoot the horn of the Rust Bucket loudly and repeatedly – all the while yelling a load of, frankly, astonishingly filthy stuff. I can only hope Random Dude from the Vale isn't in earshot…but at the same time, I can't stop myself from smiling. Steff has never been good at real affection. Taking the piss? Sure. But honest affection – love, I guess – not so much. When his mum died, it was like he hid his heart somewhere; locked it in a box with a key like the ones in those shoes I wanted so badly, and put it away. I see flashes of it from time to time. A single heartbeat's worth maybe, but it's there.

“In the car, Limpet. In the car now, or you're walking home…” His voice carries across the lane and into the field. I walk faster towards the car.

Like he'd leave.

The sound of the car engine starting, then revving as loudly as the poor thing probably can without exploding, makes me jump. He wouldn't.

Would he?

Actually, given the chance he probably would.

I start running.

“Alright?” Steffan's sitting on the car bonnet when I get there. “Where's the fire?” His face is tilted up towards the sun, his eyes hidden behind his sunglasses. Inside the car, Jared's smirking from behind a pair of knock-off Wayfarers (like I said: so Hollywood). Although he's sitting in the passenger seat, I can see his right foot resting on the accelerator; his knee crooked awkwardly across the centre console. The engine growls as he twitches his foot and the pair of them snigger.

“Very bloody funny.”

“Serves you right for leaving us to lug your bag and tent round.”

“I'm sorry; were the big strong rugby boys struggling with the girly bag?” I'm unimpressed. “Did you break a fingernail?”

Slowly, Steffan tilts his head back down to face me, peering over the top of his glasses. “In the car, girly.”

He slides down from the bonnet as I climb – somewhat reluctantly – into the back seat. If anything, the car's even hotter than yesterday. It feels like I'm climbing into an oven.

“Jesus, Steff. You could fry eggs in here.”

“Open a window, then.” Things rattle ominously as he slams his door shut.

“Ha ha ha. Such a comedian.” I pull a face. He ignores it. “So what's today?”

They look at each other blankly. And then they both turn and look at me – just as blankly.

“Today? Saturday?” Steff offers.

Clueless. Utterly clueless.

I roll my eyes. I'm already sweating. The car smells of something not dissimilar to unwashed feet. Not my feet, I can tell you. It's
rank
. Whose stupid idea was this road trip, anyway?

“Beach,” I say.

“Beach yourself,” Steffan pings back at me. It's an old joke. A very, very old one which is clearly way past saving, like an old mug hidden under a bed.

“Are we going yet? I'm bored. And hot.”

Jared opens his mouth to say something, then closes it again and shakes his head. Steffan snorts. I pick up the magazine lying on the back seat and start leafing through it. I'm not going to rise to the bait.

Finally, Steffan settles himself into his seat and fastens his belt with a click. “Fine,” he says as he puts the car into gear. “Beach it is.”

We've been driving for a good ten minutes before I look out of the window and realize. We're heading towards the estuary.

“Umm, Steff…” I toss the magazine aside. “You're not thinking about Llansteffan, are you?”

“Mmmppphhfffwah?” Crumbs go all over the dashboard. I can see them from here. Always eating.

“It's like you live under a rock. The diesel, remember?”

There's another shower of crumbs and a growl, but he swings the car into a U-turn on the deserted road. It's barely wide enough, and there's a clatter of brambles and branches along the side of the car as we scrape the hedge, but it's fine.

He'd forgotten about the diesel.

It was a couple of weeks ago now, and it wasn't much, but it was all anyone could talk about for a while. A bunch of townies “acquired” a few barrels of red diesel and were trying to sell them – but when a particularly interested member of our local police force stopped their van and asked them a couple of questions, they panicked and dumped the whole lot into the stream above Llansteffan. They poisoned the stream, the fish, the plants and – because the stream feeds down across the beach to the estuary – the sand. Nice going, boyos.

“Right, then. Change of plan. We'll…er…?” Steffan drums his fingers on the steering wheel.

Jared doesn't look away from his window. “The Havens.”

Steff glances up into the rear-view, waits for me to nod or shake my head. My mother grew up in the Havens. It's where she used to spend her summers; summers just like this one, with friends just like these. To sit on the beach there, now, will be like dancing with her barefoot on the sand.

I nod.

“Alright, then. The Havens.” Steffan flicks the indicator on and takes the next turning off the road onto an even narrower one.

I recognize the way Steffan looks at me in the mirror. After all, I've seen it enough recently. When someone you love dies on you – a mother, a father, whoever – it's like you're helpless. Powerless. Watching your friend go through that is a kind of helplessness too.

I can see it clearly in Steffan's face. He doesn't say it, doesn't speak the words aloud. He doesn't need to; I can read him well enough to know. He's watching for splinters, watching for signs. He's doing his best to light my way so that I don't lose myself in the shadows. It never occurs to him that perhaps I don't want to be found. Not yet. I don't want someone to light my way: I want to find it for myself. And when I've had enough of being in the dark, I'll open the blinds or light a candle or do whatever it is that we do when we're ready to stop hiding. I don't want the pity or the sympathy or the nervous glances back in the mirror. Not from him. Especially not from him. Did I look at him like that, when it was his turn? I suppose I did. I must have. And is this how it goes – that we each have our “turn” at this? Steff first, now me…and someday, Jared too. Will he look at us and find the two of us looking back at him like that when it's his turn?

And then I remember. No. He won't. Steffan will be on the other side of the world. Between everything else, I'd forgotten about that. How could I forget? Steffan is leaving…no, not leaving. Being
taken
.

Sitting in the back of the car, I feel like an invisible hand has slipped around my throat and tightened, cutting off my air. Steffan will be gone in no time. My best friend, gone. Just like that. Another thing I'm powerless to change, another thing that I have to stand back and accept. Helpless.

I don't want to be helpless. I'm not some damsel in distress, walled into a tower and waiting for a knight to swing by and rescue me. I don't
do
helpless.

I can't see Jared in the rear-view. All I can see is the back of his head in front of me. It's not giving me any answers – but at least he can't be giving me That Look from the back of his head. And that's the thing: Jared looks at me differently from Steffan. He always has, hasn't he? I'd never thought about it before now – I've never needed to – but he's always seemed more distant. Cooler. After all, Steffan is Steffan and Jared is Jared and never the two are alike.

My mind fills with the memory of Jared, leaning against the tree in the graveyard. Jared, standing guard outside the changing block; peeling off his T-shirt in the sunshine; standing in what's left of Barley Vale.

My head is full of Jared and my heart pounds and as Steffan misses a turn, swears and hurls the car into a three-point turn, I can't tell whether it's the movement or the memories making my stomach lurch.

As we bump along, I cling on to the door. “So, when're you getting those driving lessons, Steff?”

“Driving lessons, you say…?”

Uh-oh.

Steffan takes the junction he'd missed, then almost immediately turns again – this time onto a road that's little more than a bunch of potholes strung together with gravel. Definitely uh-oh.

“Private road,” he says, pulling over and releasing his seat belt. The ignition's still running as he jiggles the gear stick into neutral and yanks up the handbrake so hard the suspension creaks.

Very uh-oh.

Steffan turns to look at me. “Out,” he says, and he can barely hide his own amusement.

Oh, god. I know exactly what he's thinking. He's been threatening this for a while.

“No way.”

“Yes way.”

“Don't have a licence.”

“Don't need one.” He wags a finger at the sign saying
Private road
, right beside us. Just to clarify.