The Other Side of Summer (17 page)

The woman who answered the door was hardly taller than me. First she smiled at me, and then she looked confused.

‘Where is Yana?’

‘Um, I don’t know. Are you Mrs de Souza?’ This had to be Gabe’s mum. She looked a lot older than mine but I could see she had been beautiful.

‘Yana is coming!’ she shouted, putting her hand up in front of my face. I’d scared her, and I wasn’t used to that feeling. No one was scared of me.

‘I’m so sorry. I’m a friend of Gabe’s. Gabriel.’ I thought she’d probably like his full name, like most mums.

Again, she looked confused.

‘Is Gabriel here?’ I asked. I tried to raise my voice a little and say it over her shoulder, in case he was in his room. His mum was scanning my face as if she was looking for something in particular, but no matter how many times I said his name her face didn’t give me any clues that she knew who I was talking about.

‘Why did they send someone new? Where is Yana?’

‘Sorry, I don’t know. Is Gabriel here?’

Suddenly she smiled. ‘You have come to see the baby! Ah!’ And she grabbed my arm and pulled me inside.

I was terrified; this was really being inside Gabe’s home, not just a dream. What if Gabe came out of his room, or came in the front door behind me, and didn’t recognise me? I would just be a stranger, a trespasser.

His mum let go of my arm and wandered off down a small, dark hallway. She went into the bathroom and closed the door. I looked around me. The place was tiny and there was hardly any light. I could see one bedroom, dimly lit, with a floral bedspread and thick pink carpet. The other two doors were closed.

I heard the shower turn on. What was Gabe’s mum doing? Why would she let a stranger inside her house and then go for a shower? I had to get out. Gabe was obviously not at home and I was scared. Everything was spinning out of my control.

But I couldn’t leave without knowing more than I did when I arrived. I turned a door handle and found not a room but shelves full of towels and sheets. I tried the only other one. Instantly I knew this was Gabe’s room. It was as if I’d had a dream about it but instead of turning into pictures, the dream had turned into a sensation like goosebumps. The walls were cold blue and there were pockmarks from posters like I remembered
from my walls when we left our old house. I looked for other signs and began to notice strange things. A tube of hand cream on the bedside table, an old-fashioned patchwork quilt that looked homemade folded at the end of the bed. A bag of knitting. This was Gabe’s room but who did this stuff belong to?

I went back into the hallway and the bathroom door opened. Gabe’s mum was standing in front of me in her underwear.

I panicked. Gabe had told me that she got confused and forgetful, but now that it was happening I couldn’t think of the right thing to do. I went back into Gabe’s room, grabbed the quilt and put it around his mum’s shoulders.

‘What is this?’ she said, fingering the quilt but not questioning why I was putting it around her.

‘I have to go. I’m so sorry.’

I left her there, not knowing what else to do, terrified of being discovered, embarrassed for her and ashamed of myself for feeling that way. I closed the front door behind me and ran down the stairs, all the way down to street level, until my lungs were tiny and airless.

The swings were still empty so I sat on one to catch my breath. I couldn’t go home yet. What if I’d done something that put Gabe’s mum in danger? What if
she went back into the shower and slipped? What if I’d really frightened her? What would Gabe think of me right now?

It was soon completely dark. I was still on the swing, and shivering. I had almost gone back up a few times to see if Gabe’s mum was all right, but I was scared I would make things worse. How did he look after her every day when she didn’t even know his name? We had both lost our mums, in a way, but at least mine might not be gone for good. It made me want to help Gabe, somehow.

I looked up again at the building and worked out which window was his. The kitchen light was on; his bedroom was dark. Every figure who passed me by was him until a sign told me it wasn’t – wrong height, wrong hair, too old. Then I saw a tall, broad woman wheeling a shopping trolley go into the front entrance. I bet myself that this was Yana. I crossed the road so I could see right up to the top floor. A short while later, Gabe’s bedroom light came on.

Gabe might have lived here once, but he didn’t anymore.

I kept coming back to the thought that if Gabe really didn’t know that, it must mean that he
was
a ghost and he couldn’t remember his own death. What if my role was to prove that to him? What kind of a job was that?
Well, I wouldn’t do it. What if I did tell him? And then what? It was better I didn’t; that way we could carry on being friends. The way we were was fine; nothing needed to change.

There was no one else around. It was dark and Dad had just sent a worried message asking when I’d be home. A lie slipped out easily –
Still with Becky. Home very soon.
– but it curdled in my tummy. I pictured Dad smiling at the thought of me with a proper friend, took one more look up at where Gabe should have been, and walked away.

School the next day went slowly. I spent recess and lunch with Becky and her friends again, but Floyd’s voice kept creeping in and I couldn’t shake this heavy feeling.

You have to keep looking for answers.

Why can’t you just tell me them?

You think I know more than I do, Sum.

I sat out on the porch in the evening, trying to read the first book Mal had sent me. I looked up when a familiar ball-bouncing sound echoed along Lime Street.

‘Hey, stranger,’ said Milo. His hair was swept right back instead of hiding half his face. I thought how familiar he seemed now, and how his face was one of
the few that I felt relieved to see every day. Milo wasn’t like Gabe, but he was real and right here. I felt a pang of envy that Wren, who had spent most of her years on Earth being mean, had this kind, smart,
real
friend who thought so much of her. A boy who drew reliable maps to places. ‘How’s life?’ he asked.

‘Fine.’

‘Great.’

‘It’s not really fine.’

‘No.’

‘Could you tell?’

‘A bit. Do you want to talk about it?’

I walked over, reached for a fence post, and chipped away some white paint with my fingernail. ‘I’m not sure how to. You wouldn’t believe me.’

‘Believe you? Of course I’d believe you.’ He waited, quietly.

‘Do you believe in ghosts?’ I said.

His eyes grew wider in surprise, but afterwards I could tell that he was actually thinking hard about it. ‘It’s difficult for me to say no flat out,’ he said. ‘I mean, I think there are infinite possibilities in this universe. We’re only a tiny part of it. Take the stars, for example.’

I couldn’t help smiling because Milo sounded like a professor. ‘Sorry. Yes, the stars. Go on.’

‘Well, look up. See that one, just to the right of that peppercorn tree?’

I pretended I knew which tree was a peppercorn, but I was pretty sure I had the right star anyway. ‘Got it.’

‘Okay. That star you’re seeing in this exact moment might not even exist anymore.’

‘What? Why? I can see it.’

‘But what you’re seeing is the energy it sent out to reach you from millions of kilometres away. By the time it gets to you, time has moved on. It’s a new moment. Things have changed. Maybe the star isn’t a star anymore. Maybe it’s gone out.’

‘But … No! It can’t … That can’t be true.’ I felt like he was confirming that Gabe didn’t exist anymore. That he was gone from the earth like Floyd.

‘Summer, I didn’t mean to upset you.’

I left him without another word and ran down the path, thinking I might cry. Wren opened the front door unexpectedly and I barged past her.

‘Was that Milo?’ Wren closed the door. ‘Are you crying, Summer?’

‘No.’ I wiped snot from under my nose. I couldn’t fall apart again. ‘He’s great, Milo is,’ I said in a horrible voice that nearly choked me. I wanted to hurt Wren. Make her feel unsure. ‘I think he really gets me.’

Summer, don’t do this. This isn’t you.

‘Yes, he’s … cool,’ Wren said, too casually, her true feelings wiggling out like soft tentacles.

‘He made me the most amazing map. I think I’ll try to spend more time with him.’ The words were dripping out of me, but then so were tears. I was pathetic. ‘That’s okay with you, right? If I spend time with Milo?’

‘Sure. I don’t own him.’ She looked sorry for me, which made me hate her even more.

‘That’s what I thought.’

I went upstairs full of fury that couldn’t find the right way out. I lay curled on my bed. I couldn’t settle. I wanted to wriggle out of my skin. My mind was racing. I’d done nothing to help Gabe yet. He believed he was alive. But someone else was living in his room. What Milo had said – about the stars – meant that Gabe might be coming to me from his past.

And the one thing I had left of my brother – his precious Ibanez Artwood – was our connection. The guitar had survived for a reason, and being scared of the truth wasn’t a good enough excuse to ignore it.

I got out of bed with the energy of a single thought: Go to the place that felt like it was ours, even though it had belonged to thousands of people before us.

Bee knew exactly where we were going. She trotted ahead of me, looking back to make sure I was following.

At first I was terrified, being out so late by myself, the sky gaping over us like a black hole. But Bee was more than an average dog, and every time I thought about going back and lying in my bed, no closer to the truth, I just got faster and more determined. The Ibanez Artwood felt lighter on my back.

I couldn’t explain what was making me go, but I knew this now: whoever said that pain healed with time was just making it up for something to say. Pain circled around up high like a bird of prey, and you were a tiny mouse on the ground. At times you didn’t even
know the bird was up there, but then you might fall under its shadow again. You could either stay in your hole and never go out, or you could run the risk and see what else was outside.

I had my dog and I had my brother’s guitar. I had a dad, a sister and, far away, a gran and a mum. Right now, I suspected, Gabe didn’t have anyone.

When we arrived I felt further away from home than I’d ever been. The jetty rock was cold and silver under the moon. Further along still, the storm drain groaned and spewed out more water.

There was no way of getting under the bridge tonight because the river was full, much higher now on the steep bank and swamping the place where I’d sat with Gabe. But there was a gap in the orange plastic fencing by the stairs where I could squeeze through and hold it open for Bee. As we went up, Bee brushed against my legs.

This half of the bridge felt truly solid, so I took one step and then another. Up ahead I could see where the concrete had crumbled away, leaving the iron poles that connected one half of the bridge to the other exposed, like an injured limb revealing broken bones. I didn’t want to get too close to that. Here would have to do.

I sat down and watched the river twist away in both directions. I took the guitar off my back and the invisible breeze made me shudder.

Here was Floyd’s final song, the final part of the gift he’d left for me: ‘I Will Follow You into the Dark’. I knew this song. Floyd had played it so many times that even Mum, who was his biggest fan, had begged him to learn a new one. I remembered the scene, how she’d held his head against her chest and lovingly told him that she wanted to throttle him sometimes. I remembered the mischief and love in her eyes, and in his.

Oh, I missed her. I mouthed the words into the night as I cried and for once felt not anger but an old, comfortable love.

I hadn’t even got to the chorus when Gabe appeared, over the other side of the broken bones of the bridge. Quickly I wiped my eyes and remembered what I was here for.

He looked different: less clear, a smudged outline. He was facing the wrong way and the moon shone bright on his shoulders. I stayed silent as my fingers held the vibrations of the strings, and I watched him turn around slowly to his alternate universe.

Eventually his eyes found me.

‘Hey,’ he said. He had a smile in his voice, but he looked less than before. What could that mean about where he was and how I could get there? The sounds of the night creatures were gone and the river lay still. He waved at me, a confused look on his face, perhaps
because I hadn’t said a word yet. I didn’t want to scare him.

‘I went to your house,’ I said, keeping my voice light. ‘For real this time.’

He looked confused for a moment, but then he remembered. ‘You did? This is weird. It feels like weeks since I saw you.’

‘It was only two days ago.’

‘So … I wasn’t there, right? When you came. Because I’d remember that.’

I was scared to tell him what his mum had done, how I’d left her, and that he wasn’t the one looking after her anymore.

‘Something big has happened, Summer.’ His voice seemed to melt into the space between us, making it hard to hear.

‘What? Speak up, Gabe.’

He came closer to the gap and instinctively I stepped forward to warn him not to fall. But he’s not really here, I told myself.

‘Dad came back. Saw how we were living. Like it was some surprise, right? I argued with him as much as I could. Pointed out that I was doing a better job than he could but he said
he
was the adult and
he
was making the decisions. He got Mum a carer. She’s going to
hate
that.’

‘Oh, Gabe.’

‘I’ve let her down.’

‘No! Never. You loved her in the best way.’

So Yana was the carer, and that was why her things were in Gabe’s room. Maybe she took naps there or sometimes stayed over.

Bee was doing a nervous shuffling thing, close to the edge, as if she was desperate to get over to Gabe’s side and comfort him.

‘So you’re living with your dad?’

‘He reckons he’s taking me on a trip. He’s bragging about it. Trip of a lifetime. Yeah, right. I told him I can’t leave Mum but he says if I don’t take this break and then go back to school after, he’ll put Mum in a home. He’s all, “It’s for the best, son”. But I’m only his son when it suits him.’

I was only half-listening because an image had just come to me: my brother’s hand reaching out to help me up from the ground. I realised that it was from the skateboarding dream last night. But it wasn’t me he was helping up, it was Gabe.

‘Where does he want to take you?’ I gulped. Gabe said he’d never been to London, but he also said he’d never been to the river.

‘He won’t say. It’s a surprise. The real surprise will be him actually following through instead of skipping town again.’

A shadow of knowing came over me. We weren’t just slipping in and out of each other’s place, but time as well.

‘But Summer, it’s not just that,’ he continued. ‘It’s that I remember something. I keep having the same dream. I’m looking at the sky through a round window. The sky changes all the time but I don’t move. I can see the edges of this window right up close, and it’s so beautiful outside but all I get is this perfect circle of a view. I can’t leave wherever I am.’

He looked at me through a circle he’d made with his hands. ‘And the round window has lines across it. Five or six maybe. Thin horizontal bars,’ he said. ‘Sometimes they flicker and blur.’

I clutched the Ibanez Artwood. That’s what he was describing. His burrow. His safe place. The bars were the strings; they blurred when I played. Something
had
happened to Gabe, only where he was –
when
he was – it hadn’t happened yet. I put my hand to my heart, because it hurt. He’d died in the bomb, hadn’t he? That was where this was leading. In his time he hadn’t been to London yet, but in mine he had.

‘Gabe, what date is it where you are?’

‘I think it’s … twenty-third or twenty-fourth of March.’

It wasn’t March in my universe. ‘Which year?’

‘2015.’

But it wasn’t. That was last year. So this was it: somehow he’d met my brother – the skatepark dream flashed in front of my eyes like strobe lighting – and somehow they’d ended up at Waterloo station together. There were still so many holes, but standing between us now was this murky river, half the world, and nearly four hundred days.

‘There’s that smell again,’ he said.

‘The one from my house?’

‘Bleach. And food. Bad food, like school dinners.’

So whatever he could smell wasn’t in
my
world. School dinners? Was it just a memory?

It was so quiet in our bubble. Nothing I said would be carried away on the wind or drowned in the river. But I had this chance to say goodbye, a chance I hadn’t had with Floyd. Was that what this had all been for?

‘Gabe, I want you to know that there’s nothing to worry about. Everything’s going to be okay.’

‘You sound like you’ve worked it all out. Have you? I need to come over there where you are.’

‘No, you can’t. You have to stay where you are.’

‘What do you mean?’

‘Just trust me.’

‘I do, Summer.’

‘And … And I want to tell you something,’ I said.

‘What is it?’

What were the right words? I felt something for Gabe that was more than like, but I didn’t know what it was. It was some kind of love but it was in a box, wrapped inside many layers, waiting to come out and be love but not yet.

‘You were my first friend here,’ I said.

‘Thanks. I’ll be back though, Summer.’

But he wouldn’t. This was torture.

‘I know. But still – bye, Gabe.’

He was starting to fade. I hugged the guitar, because I couldn’t hold him, then held out my hand across the gap in the bridge. When his hand met mine the tips of my fingers sizzled like the ends of sparklers. Then, in a twist of air, he was gone.

I started to sob. I’d been holding it all in – not just this moment, but everything. I cried loudly and messily up there on the bridge, looking over treetops as the brown river rushed again and the wind blew, relentlessly continuing their journeys. I cried for Floyd and Mum. For Gabe. What was it all for? For Mal, for home, for Gran and her sea view and for Charlotte the cat. For Dad and Wren. And, I can’t lie, I cried for me. The old me, who was someone I was supposed to be looking after and had forgotten about. I could never have her back. I had to let her go, too.

Underneath my toes, I felt the edge of the concrete where the bridge ended. I closed my eyes. Now the sound of the river could be anything. It was Gran filling up the watering-can while we three played till dusk in her rambling garden. It was a night at the beach, camping with Dad, waves lapping the shore as we fell asleep. It was Mum running me a bath in our tall, crumbling house in London, swishing her hand around too-hot water to make it just right.

I felt Bee right beside me. She barked and ran back along the bridge.

‘Bee! Wait!’

A pattering sound began and I noticed that the river water was being speckled with rain. I followed Bee. The rain got heavier; it sounded like a machine and pelted my back with tiny nails, ran down my neck and arms and soaked my hands as one held the metal railing and the other held the guitar. I heard a splash.

‘Bee!’ I squeezed through the gap in the orange fencing, pulled the guitar through and looked for her. She was in the river, trying to swim across to the other side, where Gabe had been. But the current was strong and the rain made it worse. Her head vanished under the water, and bobbed up again. ‘Please, Bee! Come back!’

But she couldn’t. She was swept under the bridge and around the corner. I screamed. There was no way
down the bank and no path to get downstream to rescue her.

I kept calling her name so she’d know I wasn’t going to give up.

‘Bee, I’m coming!’

The rain was so loud. I put the guitar down and went to pull off my shoes. The river was fast, and I was terrified, but I loved her so much.

Out of the corner of my eye I saw a movement in the water under the bridge. She had made it! On her long, bandy legs she struggled up the small ledge of bank that was left and I held out my arms to her.

She did a gigantic sneeze and shook herself so her fur stood on end. Then she came into my arms and I hugged her big wet head and kissed her. ‘I’m sorry, Bee. He’s gone. I’m so sorry.’