The Summer of Secrets (3 page)

Mick wasn’t listening. ‘I had it a minute ago. Mess every-bloody-where.’

He swept a hand through the piles of paper in front of him, and the tin fell to the floor. His belly got in the way of him bending, and he couldn’t quite reach it. She stifled a sense of revulsion and leaned down to pick it up for him.

‘Dad? The cottages?’

‘What?’ He flicked the lid of the tin up with a thumbnail, pulled out the packet of papers. ‘Nearly out.’ He glanced up at last, fingers separating the strands of tobacco and rolling them up in the paper without him needing to concentrate. ‘They’re only at the bottom of the lane, go and see for yourself.’

Helen took a sip of tea. ‘I wondered if anyone lives there, that’s all. I thought they were empty.’

She could picture them: a row of three or four in a brick terrace, with front gardens right up to the towpath. Surely they’d had missing tiles, broken glass in the windows? She hadn’t been down to the canal for such a long time, and they probably weren’t as bad as she thought. A tiny, clear memory popped into her head, of herself on the bank, holding her dad’s hand. That must have been years ago, definitely before they’d bought this house. It had been one of their special places, where he’d taught her to skim stones and explained about the locks. They’d had a game where they chose a boat, and her dad would tell her a story about how they’d sail away to where the water was carried across a valley on a bridge as high as the sky. Had it been real? She turned to ask him, half-expecting to the man from that time to be sitting there. He’d finished making the cigarette, and was tapping the end against the folded newspaper, searching for something. Helen picked up his lighter and held it out. Mick sat back in his chair, the rollup in his mouth, and held the flame to its tip. When he was done, Helen picked the lighter up, even though she knew the engraving on the side by heart. The letters curled into each other:
Not all who wander are lost.
She flicked the top open, spun the wheel, watched the flame rise steadily. She could remember the moment when she managed to light it by herself for the first time.

‘There’s the old lady, she still lives down there. What’s her name, Taylor? Tyler?’ Mick’s voice came as a surprise, and it took her a moment to catch up with what he was talking about. ‘She must be getting on a bit, though.’

‘So they’re liveable?’

‘More or less.’ Mick pushed his chair back with purpose and stood up, patting at his pockets. ‘Right, I’m going into Southport. Someone’s having a sale of boat stuff. One of the old shrimpers.’ He pushed the stub of his cigarette into the pile on the ashtray.

‘Can you get some shopping?’ Helen scrabbled in the mess on the table for a pen and an old envelope.

‘Only if you’re quick.’ He picked up the newspaper and folded it twice before shoving it in his back pocket. ‘Not too much, mind, I don’t want to be all day.’

After Mick left, Helen sat at the table gazing into her empty mug. The sense that something was going to happen, the mild fizz that had woken her up and driven her out of bed, was fading away. The mess seemed to have taken over, and she’d forgotten to say about getting milk. It wasn’t fair that she was left to do it all. She let out her breath in a long sigh, tipped the rest of her tea into the sink. She wasn’t going to do any tidying up now, anyway. At least the sun was out. If nothing else, she might as well see if she could get a tan this year.

The leaves from the tree danced shadows across her eyelids. There was a lump digging into her back, from a root going under the ground, she supposed. It was too much effort to find another spot, so she wriggled around until she was more or less comfortable. How long had she been lying there? Long enough to check for any colour change? She took a quick peek. In her mind, she was already turning brown, and the pale reality made her close her eyes with a sigh. She was considering whether it was time to turn over when she heard the gate squeak. From some vague superstitious impulse, she kept her eyes shut. If she didn’t look, she wouldn’t be disappointed. Instead, she strained her senses to pick up clues. She was almost sure someone was there, but didn’t realise how close they’d come until a shower of grass seeds fell on her face. She sat up in a hurry to see Victoria collapsing down next to her.

‘Are you busy?’ She was wearing exaggeratedly baggy trousers, held up on her hips with a drawstring and tightening at her ankles so the fine cotton ballooned around her as she sat, and a white sleeveless blouse with elaborate pintucking down the front. It looked like an antique. ‘I had to get out of the house. I painted my room this morning and now, of course, the twins want to paint the attic, and they expect me to help them.’ She felt around in a pocket, pulling out a squashed bag of jelly babies. ‘Do you want one?’

‘Thanks.’ Helen took a moment to choose, in lieu of any speech. A blackbird called out from the hedge into the silence. Victoria bit the head off a green baby and impaled the body on a twig. She reached out a hand and picked up the book from where Helen had dropped it on the grass.

‘Are you enjoying this?’ She put on a voice of exaggerated drama. ‘“
A stirring tale of passion and betrayal, sweeping from the courts of the French kings to the conquest of the New World
.” Sounds like total crap to me.’ Without waiting for an answer, she flopped back on to the grass, and seemed to be addressing the top of the tree. ‘I’ve got a reading list for the summer. All the books people complain about.’

‘All of them?’ Helen felt like kicking herself. Why did she have to sound so sceptical? Victoria didn’t seem to mind, though. She threw a jelly baby into the air and caught it neatly in her mouth before holding out the bag.

‘It was in the paper. I’ll give it to you too, and we can share the books. I’ve not really started yet, so you haven’t got loads to catch up on.’

‘OK.’ Helen reached for the paperback and studied the cover. ‘I was working on a system of random choice. Closed my eyes and had to read the one I touched first.’ She discarded it. ‘If you think that one’s bad you should have seen the last one.’

Victoria laughed, catching at a daisy on the grass above her head and shredding off the petals.

‘Come and try that at our house.’ She threw the remains of the flower at the trunk of the tree. ‘We carry all these books round with us in boxes and none of them are worth reading. I had to go to the library to get the books on my list, and the twins wanted to come along, of course. They cause havoc on the bus.’

Helen sat up and wrapped her arms around her knees.

‘How long have you been here? Only … I mean, I haven’t noticed any removals van or anything.’

Victoria raised her eyebrows.

‘Removals? Hardly.’ She held out the bag, but there was only one left, so Helen shook her head. Victoria bit into it, and then screwed up the paper bag. ‘A friend of Alice’s brought some stuff round in his van. And there’s a bit more coming next week.’

Helen tried to place the name from Pippa’s chatter the day before. She couldn’t remember hearing it.

‘Is Alice your sister?’

Victoria pushed herself up on her elbows. She squinted slightly, and aimed the paper bag at an empty flowerpot.

‘No, my mum.’

Helen waited for more, but Victoria didn’t expand. .

‘What’s it like around here, anyway?’ She asked the question without any great enthusiasm, examining the immediate area with a world-weary expression.

‘Oh, you know.’ Helen bent to scratch at a bite on her ankle to gain time. It wasn’t something she thought about. It was just home, with the wind beating across the flat expanse of the fields behind and the sky that had reminded her of the prairies ever since she’d been given
My Antonia
for Christmas years before. And, when her mother left, it was a place where she’d been surprised to find she’d needed to stay. ‘Quiet. Not much happens.’

‘Oh.’ Victoria sat up and crossed her legs. ‘Is it only you living here?’

‘Well, and my dad.’ Helen waited for the enquiring look which meant,
And what about your mother?
But it didn’t come.

‘It’s a lot of house.’

Helen tried to see it through Victoria’s eyes. Grey pebbledash on the walls, stains running down from the overflow pipes. It was quite big, she supposed. She’d never thought of it like that. Victoria hadn’t finished with her questions.

‘Are you staying home for the summer? Or do you go away?’

Helen leaned over to pick up her glass of squash but there was a wasp floating in it. She didn’t want to lie, but she hated having to admit that holidays mostly revolved around air shows and vintage car rallies. She’d never been abroad, unless you counted the Isle of Wight. It was one of the other things her mother had always gone on about: never going anywhere, how other people rented gîtes or toured the Italian lakes. There had been talk of hiring a boat on the Norfolk Broads this year, but that was out the window now.

‘Probably here.’ She tipped the glass up, letting the squash trickle into the dry earth at the base of the tree. The wasp twitched. ‘My dad’s got plans to fix his boat up.’

That was stretching the truth. Mick had been fixing his boat for most of Helen’s life.

They both turned at the sound of an engine. It slowed as it reached the house, the car pulling into the drive on the far side. The engine cut off, a door slammed shut, and there were footsteps on the gravel path. A minute or two later, Mick walked up the side of the garage and disappeared inside.

Victoria checked her watch. ‘I should go. Alice’ll be waking up soon, and she doesn’t know anything about the painting. I want to see her face when the twins come down. It’ll be hilarious.’

Alice again. Helen had an odd feeling of swimming into uncharted water, her feet scrabbling to find a foothold. Victoria’s family gave her no reference points, and she wasn’t sure how to navigate without appearing completely stupid. It was exhilarating, all the same., All she needed now was a proper invitation to visit, a gesture showing that she would be allowed further in.

‘Was Pippa all right? You know, after …’ She waved a hand towards the garden canes. Anything to keep the conversation going.

‘What?’ Victoria followed her gesture with a puzzled expression.

‘You know, when she ran off.’ Helen could feel her cheeks burning.

Victoria still looked puzzled. She stood up.

‘Yeah, she was all right.’

‘Oh, OK.’ Helen scrambled to her feet as well, but wasn’t sure what to do next. Victoria bent down to brush some dirt from her trousers before she straightened up and set off towards the gate.

‘I’ll see you,’ Helen called after her.

‘Yeah.’ Victoria lifted a hand in farewell. ‘I’ll bring that list of books round.’

‘Books?’ Then Helen remembered. ‘Oh, the list. I’ll look forward to it.’ She bent in confusion to rub at the imprints the grass had left on her leg. Victoria was talking again.

‘It might be a couple of days. There’s … stuff.’ There was a pause, as if she was about to say more, but her next words seemed unrelated. ‘My brother’s going to be back soon.’

‘The one who’s been hitch-hiking?’

‘How did you know?’ Victoria’s voice was almost accusing. Then she grinned. ‘Pippa, right?’ She shook her head. ‘That girl yacks like a leaking tap. See you around, anyway.’

She drifted rather than walked, not looking back or making a gesture of farewell. Her hair was in a long French plait today, haphazardly messy with loose ends that looked as if they were meant to be there, and threads of a lighter colour weaving in and out. It reached almost to her waist. Helen put her hand up to feel her own hair. She could never get it to stay up in any style. If she got to know her properly, she could ask Victoria to show her.

‘Who was that?’ Mick came out of the garage, beer can in his hand. He didn’t wait for an answer. ‘Shopping’s in the car. Get it out, will you?’

Helen stayed where she was, following Victoria’s progress until she was out of sight.

The lane had been surfaced at some distant point, but what remained was cracked and dusty, the space reclaimed by the thrusting growth of dandelions and grasses. Helen stopped, pinching a grass stem between finger and thumb and sliding up, so the seeds gathered in a neat bunch.
April showers
, she thought, as she tossed them away. The sky was cloudless and the air heavy, the heat a dense curtain she had to push her way through. She couldn’t imagine ever being cold. She looked down at herself, at the big white shirt she’d unearthed in the airing cupboard. Her skin was the slightest bit browner, and her bare feet looked nice. She placed them carefully. There were nettles here as well, and the odd thistle.

When she reached the water, she sat on the bank at first, picking up small stones and tossing them in. Again, she remembered walking along a path like this with Mick. There had been ducks, and a boat that had sunk, with only the cabin poking up. Had there been more boats in those days, or was she imagining it? The ducks were still here, a scattered group dabbing at the water like busy shoppers until, at some hidden signal, they paddled off downstream.

Two days had passed with no further sign of Victoria, the twins or the booklist. Helen couldn’t settle. She had tried to read, but the books she had now seemed somehow ridiculous, and when she sat in the garden all she could do was listen for footsteps coming to the gate. The same dialogue circled her head. She should go down to the canal. But she hadn’t been asked, and there was the ‘stuff’ Victoria had mentioned that was going to get in the way. If she pushed in when she wasn’t wanted, they would never be friends. But the canal didn’t belong to anyone, and she’d be out on a walk, that’s all. By the middle of the afternoon on the third day, she’d had enough of her own company. Anything was better than waiting. Even so, she got halfway down and turned back more than once. It was the sound of a car turning down from the main road that pushed her on. She didn’t look back, but it sounded as if it had gone into the Weavers’ driveway.

The far side of the canal was hidden by a spread of reeds. As Helen looked across, a dart of blue shot out of the growth and sped across the surface. She stood up in a hurry, trying to track it. Was it a kingfisher? She’d never been fast enough to follow Mick’s pointing finger, had been left pretending she’d seen one. It was gone, anyway. Probably she’d imagined it. Since she was up, she carried on walking, still keeping half an eye out.