Our Last Summer by Jennifer Joyce
Chapter 4
I can’t do it. I can’t stand here and watch my world unravel all over again. As much as it pains me to leave him, I can’t hang around, knowing that Ed is going to die.
‘I have to go. Heather’s waiting.’
‘Wait. We’ll come with you. Help with the loft.’ Ed takes a step, but I press a hand to his chest to stop him. It’s too much. Ed. Sacha Nowak. Being back in the village. The bizarre time-hop thing. And Tomasz will be back any minute now. I can’t see him. Speak to him. I’m scared. Scared that he won’t remember what we had. Scared that he will and he won’t forgive me for what I did.
‘No. Don’t. I don’t want your help.’ I start to run, ignoring the cries of my friends as I fly through the village. Muscle memory takes me away from the Royal Oak and back towards the canal. My thighs burn as I sprint across the iron bridge, turning on autopilot as I reach the cricket grounds and barrel into my childhood street. The street is lined with stone houses with red-tiled roofs, their front doors leading straight out onto the pavement. My house is the fourth one on the left, the one with the pitch-roofed porch added above the door and the skip standing outside.
‘There you are! Give me a hand with these.’ Mum’s struggling under the weight of a mountain of magazines, stepping gingerly over the threshold so she doesn’t end up flat on her face on the pavement. Her hair is pulled back into a ponytail with a red velvet scrunchie that I think was mine or Heather’s when we were little, and she’s wearing a pair of leggings with a trailing thread at the ankle and a T-shirt with a logo so faded I couldn’t take a guess at what it once was. She has a bag lady look about her but I want to throw my arms around her and squeeze the life out of her because I haven’t seen my mum for four years and it hits me like a speeding bus how much I’ve missed her. My chest feels full, as though someone’s pumped up a balloon in there, and I can feel love and happiness radiating from every pore.
Mum peers at me from behind the magazine mountain. ‘What happened to you?’
I look down at Heather’s soggy dress. ‘I fell in the river.’
Mum’s eyes flick upwards, to the bright blue cloudless sky. ‘You’re twenty-four, Elodie. When are you going to grow up?’ She stomps towards the skip and chucks the magazines over the side.
‘You should recycle those.’ It’s a dickhead thing to say when I haven’t seen my mum for four years but I can already feel the balloon in my chest deflating and it’s crabbiness seeping from my pores now.
Mum turns sharply to look at me. ‘And you should be helping clear out the loft instead of messing about in the woods. Come on.’ She places a hand on my damp back and guides me towards the front door. ‘Get changed – quickly – and then go up and help your sister. I’m putting the kettle on. I’m gasping.’ She fans herself with one hand while she uses the other to urge me inside and towards the staircase. But I don’t want to help clear out the loft. I want to hide. To process. I tried not to look at Tomasz when he emerged from the van, but how could I not? My eyes had been drawn to him and my heart had ached even as my words from the past screamed at me inside my head. ‘It’s your fault Ed died. You should have tried to stop them. I wish I’d never met you and your family.’
Had I meant those words at the time? I don’t believe them now, haven’t for a long time, but back then, during the immediate aftermath of the accident when Sacha got away with a few injuries while my best friend died? I don’t know. I know I’d loved Tomasz. Proper head-over-heels, and-they-lived-happily-ever-after love. But Ed was gone, forever. I’d been angry, bereft, totally heartbroken, and I’d taken it out on Tomasz. Squashed up what we’d had into a little ball of fury and tossed it away.
I’d loved him. So much.
But I’d loved Ed too.
I dart up the stairs, ignoring Mum’s offer of tea, and push my way into the bedroom on the right, the one next to the bathroom. I haven’t been in this house for years, haven’t slept in this bedroom for even longer, but it feels familiar. Comforting. The bedroom is cramped, with twin beds squeezed into the small space. Heather and I had slept in bunk beds when were younger, and we’d had to sacrifice space when we’d insisted on separate beds. There are wardrobes standing in the alcoves and a chest of drawers under the window and the overstuffed room had only added to the trapped, stifling feeling I’d been so desperate to escape from. But now this bedroom feels authentic. It’s real. This space had once been a refuge. A place to laugh and cry. Somewhere I belonged. I fit in this room and I’m not sure I’ve ever fit in anywhere else in quite the same way.
‘Elodie? Is that you?’
There’s a frantic edge to Heather’s voice but I ignore it and gently push the door shut before creeping across to my bed. The covers are crumpled, the duvet hanging half off, and I straighten it before climbing into bed and covering my head in an attempt to disappear. I don’t want to be here. I want to go back, to the plane, to my real life where everything makes sense. I don’t belong here. I’ve been here before and I’m not sure I can go through it all again without crumbling to pieces. It’s so cruel to make me live through losing Ed twice without being able to change a thing.
The covers are whipped away from my face. Heather’s looming over me, her face lined, lips pursed, her hands planted down on her hips.
‘What the hell, Elodie? You’re supposed to be helping with the loft. And you’re crumpling my dress. What is wrong with you? First you mess about on the rope swing like you’re still eight years old, then you lounge around in bed with wet clothes like a sloth.’
‘What’s wrong with me?’ I laugh as I scrabble up into a sitting position. ‘What is wrong with me? I’ll tell you what’s wrong with me.’ I stand up so I’m face to face with my sister in the small space between our beds. ‘I’m not supposed to be here.’
Heather drags in a deep breath. She folds her arms across her chest before she releases the breath in one big huff. ‘I know you’re not supposed to be here.’
‘You do?’ Hope blooms: if Heather knows about my misplacement, maybe she knows how to fix it. How to bring me back round to reality.
‘We all know, Elodie.’
I lower myself slowly onto my bed. They all know? Yvonne and Ed? Mum? So why didn’t they say anything? Why have they let me play this thing out as though it’s real? They could have clued me in, told me what’s happening. Why I’m repeating this awful day.
‘You never stop going on about it.’ Heather unfolds her arms, holding them out for a moment before she lets them flop against her sides. ‘How you’re too good for this place. How you’re going to get out of here as soon as you can, but do you know what, Elodie? You’re twenty-four. You can leave at any time, so why don’t you?’ She raises her eyebrows, waiting for me to answer but I don’t say a word. ‘You could have gone to uni. Done something with your life. But here you are, still living at Mum and Dad’s and playing in the woods like an overgrown teenager. I’m getting out of here.’ She jabs herself in the chest with her index finger. ‘I’m not staying here to work in the stupid minimarket for the rest of my life.’
‘I won’t stay here working at the minimarket for the rest of my life.’ I hold Heather’s gaze, the backs of my eyes burning with rage. How dare she judge me and my choices? And if she thinks she’s getting out of here any time fast, she’s deluded. I could tell her. Wipe that smug look off her face. Tell her that in eight years’ time she’ll still be in Little Heaton while I’ll be in California, living my dream. Sort of. Four years ago, my dream didn’t involve living alone in a tiny apartment with views of a brick wall or silently raging every time an advert for limp dicks popped up (unlike the poor malfunctioning dicks) on my telly screen.
‘What are you girls doing in here?’ Mum’s in the doorway, two mugs of tea in hand. ‘We need to get on with this loft. The builders are coming first thing on Monday morning and there’s so much to do.’
‘Sorry.’ I stand up and squeeze past Heather, heading for the wardrobe in the right-hand alcove. ‘I’ll get changed and I’ll be right up.’
I wait until Mum and Heather have disappeared up the ladder to the loft before I close the door, leaning my back against it as I squeeze my eyes shut. Heather doesn’t know why I’m here. None of them do. As far as everyone else is concerned, it’s eight years ago and nothing is out of the ordinary. So it looks like I’m stuck here, forced to relive this day. I don’t know what to do, how to wake myself up from this weird-ass dream, so I simply change into clean, dry clothes and climb up into the loft.
‘Jeez, there’s a lot of stuff up here.’
I pause on the ladder, so only my head is poking up into the loft. There’s no natural light up here and while there are a couple of lamps providing some light, it’s still pretty gloomy. Despite the lack of light, I can see the piles of crap that have accumulated over the years. It hasn’t even been stored neatly, simply shoved haphazardly wherever it could fit so there are bulky computer monitors stacked on top of wonky-looking chairs and dusty black bags. There are three monitors that I can see from here, but there could be more tucked away in Crap Mountain, and there’s at least two tellies and a VHS player stacked up among a plastic baby bath, half a Christmas tree and a threadbare deck chair.
‘It’s your mother.’ Dad’s head pops up from behind a ginormous stack of newspapers and I feel the balloon in my chest reinflate. I thought seeing my parents on a screen or hearing their voices over the phone was enough, but it really wasn’t and I feel the pressure of tears building up. I’ve missed out on so much by pushing my old life away and the balloon bursts as a pain as sharp as a knife slices through me because I can’t snatch back those lost years. Dreaming about the past won’t change a thing.
‘She can’t throw anything away.’ Dad’s eyes slide towards Mum. ‘I just found a bag of plastic tubs with no lids.’
‘You never know when they’ll come in handy.’ Mum pulls a Kwik Save carrier bag closer, her hand resting protectively on top of it.
‘I do know when they’ll come in handy. Never.’ Dad jabs a finger at the carrier bag of tubs. ‘Elodie, love, stick that in the skip before she gets too attached. And take that bloody teapot down as well.’
Mum’s eyes widen. Forgetting the tubs, she snatches the broken cat teapot from beside her and holds it to her chest. ‘Not the teapot. I’m going to fix it.’
Dad puffs out a laugh. ‘You’ve been saying that since Christmas. And how can you fix it? The ear’s missing.’
‘She could take it on Repair Shop.’ I’ve never seen the TV show myself but Yvonne raves about it, even though she usually ends up a blubbering mess when she tells me about the items that were brought in to be fixed.
‘Which shop?’ Mum clutches the teapot closer to her chest. ‘They do repairs? Is it in town?’
Heather has been shoving old teddies into a bin liner, shuddering and wriggling her fingers as each one leaves her hands, but she pauses so she can glare at me. ‘Don’t encourage her. This is why this place is such a mess. Just fling the teapot in the skip and get on with clearing.’ She grabs a crocheted rabbit, checking it for spiders before pushing it into the bag. ‘I didn’t know it was this bad when I signed up to help. I’ll have to have a million showers to get clean again. Ugh.’ She shudders dramatically. ‘I don’t see why I should have to do it when it isn’t my mess.’
‘Because the builders are starting work on the conversion on Monday.’ Dad disappears behind the newspapers again. ‘And it’s either this or your gran bunks in with you two.’
‘But I won’t even be here most of the time.’ Heather bustles a yellow bear into the bag with more aggression than is necessary. ‘I’ll be away at uni in a few months. Gran can have my bed.’
‘And when you come home for the holidays?’ Mum carefully places the broken teapot in the bag with the lidless tubs.
Heather shrugs before continuing to throw the soft toys into the bag. ‘Can’t she just go in a nursing home? She’ll be all right once she’s got used to the smell of piss and boiled cabbage. She might like it.’
‘The smell of piss and boiled cabbage?’
I catch Dad’s eye and can’t help smiling at his quip. Heather doesn’t find it funny and rolls her eyes at him.
‘She might like living in a nursing home. There’ll be people her own age there, and bingo and stuff. What’s she going to do here?’
‘Lots.’ Mum tucks the Kwik Save bag into the corner of the room and beckons me up into the loft, because I’m still just a floating head at the hatch at this point. ‘She’s going to help your dad in the garden and we’re going to sign up for some clubs.’
‘But what about during the day when you’re at work?’
Mum pauses for a moment, but she juts a hand in my direction as I scramble onto my knees, finally fully in the loft. ‘Elodie can pop over on her lunch break.’
Heather grins slyly at me. ‘Congratulations on your new job as Gran’s babysitter.’
Mum shoots Heather a dark look. ‘Gran isn’t a child. She doesn’t need a babysitter. She just needs a bit of care and company. I hope you’re not going to make her feel like she’s a burden when she’s living with us.’
Heather ties the bin liner. ‘Like I said, I’m going to be away at uni most of the time so it won’t really affect me.’ She stands up and grabs the bin liner and the Christmas tree segment. There’s still a foil bauble attached to one of the branches. ‘I’m going down to the skip. Give me the teapot.’
Mum shakes her head. ‘I’m going to take it to the repair shop in town. It’s better than dumping it in landfill.’
Dad’s head pops up from behind the newspapers. He runs his tongue over his teeth as he looks at me in the poor light. ‘Thanks for that, Elodie. We’ll be lucky to part with half of this junk now. Quick, get moving it down to the skip before she spots anything else she thinks can be fixed.’
Heather glares at me as she passes to head down the hatch. Keeping my head down, I shuffle over to Crap Mountain and start to dismantle it. There’s all sorts here: dressing up outfits from when Heather and I were little, records that could probably make a few quid (but I’m afraid to point this out) and bits and pieces of bric-a-brac. I work hard, bagging it up and dragging it down to the skip and I’m sweating more than I do taking part in the spinning classes at the gym. Okay, that one time I took part in the spinning class at the gym.
‘Right.’ Mum stands up, stretching out her back. ‘I need to go and put tea on.’
‘Do you have to?’ Strangely, I’ve quite enjoyed the four of us being cooped up here in the loft, gently teasing Mum about her hoarding or winding Dad up about the evidence of his short-lived hobbies: wine-making, matchstick models, computer coding, line dancing (Dad had tried to stuff the cowboy boots in a bin bag but Heather had pounced and we’d taken delight at ribbing him about it ever since). The family had felt fractured even before I’d left for California, with Heather away a lot of the time studying and me moving into the flat above the charity shop with Tomasz, so it’s been nice spending this time together, even with the spiders and the humidity and the hard labour.
‘The troops need feeding.’ Mum ties the full bin bag by her feet and hefts it towards the hatch.
‘I’ll help.’ Heather scrabbles up on to her feet, swiping her grimy hands down her T-shirt.
‘You will not.’ Mum cocks an eyebrow at Heather. My sister has never offered to help cook a meal and it’s obviously a ploy to get out of clearing out the loft. ‘You’ll carry on up here, thank you very much.’
With a heavy sigh, Heather drops down onto her knees and drags a cardboard box of old crockery towards herself while Mum bobs down the hatch, calling out a final ‘yeehaw’ at Dad, which makes Heather and I snigger. Dad waits a moment after she’s disappeared before he leaps across the loft towards the Kwik Save carrier bag.
‘Quick. Grab that teapot while she’s distracted.’
Dad and Heather pop down to the skip with the crockery, teapot and yet another batch of newspapers. We’re making good progress with Crap Mountain but there’s still a way to go. Shuffling forward, I grab the handles of a battered suitcase and drag it away from the pile. The top is covered in a blanket of dust and I shudder as I pinch the zip between finger and thumb and feel soft cobwebs instead of hard metal. Supressing the icky feeling, I drag the zip around the perimeter of the suitcase and throw the lid open.
‘Oh my God.’
How could I have forgotten about this, the reason I ended up in California four years ago?