Our Last Summer by Jennifer Joyce

Chapter 14

There is something very, very wrong. A week has gone by and I’m still stuck in the past. June has crept into July and I have yet to come to on the plane. Instead, I’ve remained in Little Heaton, remained twenty-five (which, admittedly, I’m not going to kick up a fuss about) and I’ve played along with whatever trick is occurring. I get up and go to work – with my own name badge pinned to my tunic, which I’d found in the top drawer beside my bed – and help out with breakfast before cleaning the bedrooms, bathrooms and suites of the guests. I go home and make Gran’s lunch and watch the tennis with her before meeting up with Ed and Yvonne in the pub. I shower and eat and chat with my family as though this is all perfectly normal, that I belong back here, and I’m starting to question whether this is my real life and I dreamed up the whole moving to America thing and the last seven years have been a figment of my imagination. Is it possible that I wanted it so badly, fantasised about escaping Little Heaton so much, I believed I’d achieved it?

‘Raf’s proper dishy, isn’t he?’ Laura’s come round for the evening and is squeezed on the sofa with me, Mum and Ed. There’s a bowl of hand-cooked crisps and a second bottle of wine open on the coffee table. Laura aims a crisp at Holby City on the telly. ‘And he’s a doctor, which is proper sexy.’

‘Mum.’ Ed screws up his face. ‘Don’t say sexy.’

‘But he is. I definitely would. Wouldn’t you, Elodie?’

I hold my hands up. ‘Don’t drag me into this.’ I take a sip of my wine. ‘Though he was good on Strictly.’

Laura frowns at me. ‘But he hasn’t been on Strictly. I’d remember that. All those tight tops and sequins and his sexy swivel hips.’ She winks at Ed, just to wind him up. It works, and he pretends to stick his fingers down his throat and vomit over his lap. Luckily, it takes the attention away from my gaffe. When was Joe McFadden on Strictly? It was before I left the UK, I’m sure of it. But what if Joe McFadden hasn’t taken part in Strictly and it’s all part of my made-up fantasy world? The world I’ve created in my head and plotted out seven whole years of, including the tragic death of one of my best friends and the destruction of my relationship with Tomasz. Oh, God. What if there was no relationship at all? What if my life with Tomasz was yet another fabrication and he doesn’t even fancy me?

I drain my glass of wine and top it up. I don’t have a clue what’s going on. What’s right, what’s wrong. Past, present, future. It’s all jumbled up.

‘I think we should go to the pub.’ Ed wriggles free from the sofa, where he was wedged between me and his mum.

‘I’d rather stay here.’ Laura points another crisp at the telly. ‘That supernatural drama’s on after Holby. It was quite good last week.’

‘I was talking to Elodie.’

Laura rolls her eyes at her son. ‘I know. I’m pulling your leg.’ She pops the crisp in her mouth, her lips lifting into a smirk as she crunches it.

‘I wouldn’t go in the Farmer’s if I were you.’ Mum gives Laura a nudge with her arm, encouraging her to shift over into the space Ed has created by moving. ‘I sent Gordon in there after tea. I was up to here with listening to him going on about leadership contests and people quitting parties.’ Mum rests her hand against her hairline, to demonstrate the upper limit of her tolerance for Dad’s political rants. I bet he was gutted to be shunted off to the pub. ‘He’ll still be going off about it now, I bet. The country’s in bloody turmoil.’ She adopts a gruff voice for the last bit, which sounds more like Al Pacino in The Godfather than Dad. ‘Honestly, Laura, he never stops going off about it all.’

He’ll still be going off about it all in seven years’ time.

Maybe.

Who knows? I certainly don’t anymore.

‘Pub.’ I heave myself up off the sofa. ‘Let’s go and get falling-over drunk.’

The pub is pretty quiet, so I spot them almost as soon as I step inside. Sacha’s sitting in the far corner, his biker-boot-clad feet propped up on a stool, with Tomasz sitting to the left of him and Yvonne sandwiched between the two. Ed starts to head towards the back of the pub once we have our drinks, but I grasp his arm to stop him. I’ve avoided Tomasz over the past week because although I’ve been pining for the boy, he’s with Holly at this moment in time and I have never gone for another woman’s bloke, even if I know they aren’t destined to last until Christmas (perhaps I should warn Tomasz not to buy that limited-edition Gucci perfume?).

‘Let’s sit over here.’ I nod towards the opposite corner, to a table beneath the bay window at the front of the pub.

‘But Yvonne …’ Ed aims his pint in our friend’s direction.

‘Yvonne’s fine. She’s with Sacha. She won’t even notice we’re here.’

Ed smirks. ‘That crush isn’t going away, is it? She thinks he’s the best thing since toasted bread.’

‘It’s sliced bread.’

Ed shakes his head. ‘I vehemently disagree. I’ve thought about it and toasted bread is by far the superior invention.’ He sets off for Yvonne’s table and I don’t try to stop him this time. It’d look far too suss if I pushed it any further.

‘All right, Elodie, love.’ Nigel Gacey is slumped in his seat, his mouth downturned at the corners while his wife is sat ramrod-straight, her hands clasped neatly in her lap, her eyes flitting across the pub as though someone is going to jump out of a hiding spot and attack at any moment. Neither looks particularly thrilled to be sitting in the Royal Oak this evening, yet here they are. Nigel lifts his glass and gives a nod as we pass, and I stop, my legs rendered useless with the shock. Nigel’s communication when I’d worked for him and his wife at the minimarket had been restricted to the odd grunt. I wasn’t even sure he knew my name, to be honest.

‘Hello, Mr Gacey.’ I flicker a smile on my face, not fully committing to the gesture as I’m uncertain what is happening here.

‘Your dad in the Farmer’s?’

‘He is.’ Probably mid-rant about the state of the UK right now. A warm-up, really, for what’s to come over the next few years.

Nigel takes a sip of his pint, his eyes narrowing as his gaze lands on his wife. He slams the pint down on the table and folds his arms across his chest, slumping even further down in his seat. I don’t think I’ve ever seen Nigel in the Royal Oak, and it looks like he’d rather it had stayed that way. Christine pretends she hasn’t noticed her husband’s mood and twists in her seat so she can beam up at Ed.

‘Edward. How lovely to see you. Come and meet my grandson.’ She reaches across the table and squeezes the arm of the young man sitting there. ‘This is Dominic. Dominic, this is Reverend Carter’s grandson.’

‘Hey.’ Dominic smiles, lips stretched wide and showing off a row of neat, white teeth. ‘Nice to meet you, Edward.’

‘It’s Ed.’ He throws his arm around my shoulders and pulls me in close. ‘And this is Elodie.’

‘Hey, Elodie.’ Dominic hasn’t stopped smiling – he has one of those faces that always seems to be full of joy – but it widens even further as he looks at me. ‘Beautiful name.’

‘Is that an American accent?’ Ed looks from Dominic to me. ‘Elodie’s dying to visit America. New York or California, preferably.’

‘I’m Canadian.’ Dominic shrugs, still smiling away. ‘Mum and Dad are from England but they moved to Canada not long after they got married.’

Mrs Gacey purses her lips. I know from the time I spent working at the minimarket that she’d never forgiven her daughter-in-law for the move, even though it was her son’s work that had taken them to Canada.

‘How long are you here for?’

Dominic doesn’t have time to answer Ed’s question because Yvonne suddenly descends, popping her head between me and Ed as she clamps a hand down on each of our shoulders.

‘What’s going on here then?’ She spots Dominic sitting at the table with the Gaceys. ‘You must be Dominic. Christine’s told us all about you.’

‘Has she?’ Dominic, still smiling, looks at his grandmother.

‘We couldn’t shut her up.’ Yvonne laughs, though she isn’t joking. I could write an essay on the life of Dominic Gacey.

‘I’m just proud of you, that’s all.’ Mrs Gacey reaches across the table to squeeze Dominic’s arm again. ‘And I’m so pleased you came all this way to see us. It’s a shame your father couldn’t make it. Or your mother.’

‘Work.’ Dominic rolls his eyes good-naturedly. ‘As always.’

‘Dominic’s from Canada.’

Yvonne pats Ed on the back. ‘I know. Quebec. He’s fluent in French and is learning Japanese.’ She opens her mouth to reel off more facts that have been drummed into her, but Ed gets in there first, his face alight with this new knowledge.

‘Tu parles français? Étonnante! Moi aussi.’

Yvonne groans. ‘Oh no. Not again. What’s he saying?’ She looks at me, but I shrug. I don’t speak French. She gives Ed a pointed look. ‘Remember what I said about the baguette?’

Ed holds his hands up. ‘I was just saying that I speak French as well. It won’t happen again.’ His lips twitch as he tries to contain a cheeky grin. ‘Je promets.’

Yvonne looks at Dominic, who translates: I promise. Yvonne holds a finger up at Ed, her eyebrows pulled down low.

‘Final warning, mister.’

‘Sorry.’ Ed hangs his head, but probably only so Yvonne won’t clock his smirk. ‘Won’t happen again.’

‘Good. Now buy me a drink as a proper apology. I’m sitting over there.’ She points at the table, where Sacha and Tomasz are still sitting.

‘Why don’t you join them, Dominic?’ Mr Gacey is out of his seat before his grandson has had the chance to answer, and he shushes his wife as she protests. ‘Let him sit with the younger ones. He doesn’t want to be stuck with a couple of old farts.’ He grabs his pint and downs the dregs. ‘And that way, I can go to the Farmer’s for a quick half.’ Swiping at his mouth with the back of one hand, he raises the other in farewell before he bolts from one pub to the other.

‘Well.’ Mrs Gacey’s mouth is pinched up tight as she stands up. ‘I guess I’ll go and check in on Olivia at the shop.’

‘You don’t mind if I stay for a bit, do you, Grandma?’

Mrs Gacey looks very much like she does mind, but she gives a brief, tight-lipped smile. ‘No, of course not.’ She presents her cheek as Dominic stands up and leans in to kiss her goodbye. ‘You’ve got your key to the flat, haven’t you?’

Dominic pats the pocket of his jeans. ‘I have.’

Mrs Gacey looks at me and then Yvonne with a stony face, her features only softening when her gaze lands on Ed. ‘You’ll look after him, won’t you?’

Dominic laughs lightly. ‘I’m twenty-eight. The flat is a matter of yards away. I’ll be fine.’

Mrs Gacey nods. She doesn’t look convinced, but she leaves anyway. Yvonne waits until the door to the pub swings shut before she claps her hands together.

‘Right then. Shots!’