The Summer We All Ran Away (23 page)

“Is that something the prison chaplain told you?” said Priss. “Don't even pretend you weren't inside, you bastard, because I know, I
know
- ”

“Okay,” said Tom.

“No,” said Kate. “No, you don't have to,
you don't have to
- ”

“I was behind walls for more than three decades,” said Tom steadily, “but not the way you think. I was a monk, Priss. I was a monk, and then one day I lost my faith and I wasn't a monk any more, and I didn't know what I was going to do. Then ten months ago, a stranger gave me a way out. He came to me for help, but he ended up helping me. He's a musician called Jack Laker and he owns this house, and he said I could come and stay here if I wanted to. Maybe he made that offer to Kate too, I don't know, I've never asked.” He glanced at Kate, but she was still busy with the cloth, cutting it into strips with kitchen scissors and then meticulously submerging each strip in the bowl of icy water. “I don't know where Jack is right now, but it's definitely not his body buried out there in the woods, Priss, I promise you.”

Priss was staring at him as if the universe had just tilted on its axis. “Jack Laker? Are you serious?”

“Do you think I'd make this up?”

“Do you know who he is?”

“Yes, he's a musician! He gave me money and directions to get here, he wrote them on the inlay card of one of his albums, look - ”

Tom fumbled in the pocket of his jeans and unfolded a worn oblong of cardboard. Davey felt his spine crawl with recognition. He glanced at Priss. Her face was perfectly expressionless; the look he suspected she hid behind when something happened that had moved her too profoundly to be shared with the world.

“And this is really his house,” she said.

“Yes, he told me - ”

“He told the whole bloody world,” she said. “Every nerdy arty kid for the last thirty years has had a copy of that album cover on their wall. I can't believe I didn't - ” she shivered. “Fuch me, I really thought - ”

Kate smiled. “That I'd done him in? Or that Tom had? Well, I hope you aren't too disappointed. Now, are you going to let me bandage that ankle or not?”

Her right ankle was twice the size of her left, and she winced and swore when Kate touched it. The silence as Kate bandaged it lay over them all like snow.

“I do
want
to believe you, you know,” Priss whispered as Kate lowered her ankle gently to the floor. “I don't actually
want
to think you're a murderer.”

“Well, that's something, I suppose.” Kate reached up and took a leaf out of Priss' hair. She flinched away, but then let her do it. Her eyes were filled with tears. “Now I think we should all go to bed, and talk about this in the morning, don't you?”

Priss wiped her eyes with the back of her hand, leaving a streak of dirt across her cheekbone.

“We can't just walk away from this, you know. You can't fix everything with fresh bread and bandages. Some poor bastard died, and whoever it is, they deserve a hearing.”

“I swear to you, Priss, I'm not trying to walk away from
anything. But we're all tired and cold and we're not going to get anything done tonight.”

“We could call the police tonight.”

“Is that really what you want? With you still on the premises?”

Priss looked at Kate in despair. “Why are you doing this?” she asked. “Really? Just tell me. Are you taking care of me because you're some sort of fuchin' saint on earth? Or are you doing it so I'll feel guilty and not dob you in to the coppers after all? Which is the real you?”

“I'm just myself,” said Kate. “I'm me. I'm not a saint, but I'm not a murderer either. I know you want there to be a simple explanation, but this is real life. Sometimes life is just a whole lot of stuff that happens, just one thing after another, and then suddenly you're at the end of it all thinking,
so, what the hell was that all about?”
She held out an arm. “Come on. I'll help you up to bed.”

Priss opened her mouth to protest, then closed it again. Davey watched silently as Priss, Tom and Kate left the kitchen. He listened to them climbing the stairs, Priss' progress heavy and reluctant, followed by Kate's light, even footsteps and then Tom's slower, firmer tread.

He made sure the door to the kitchen was shut, and then he turned to Isaac, who was sitting silently at the table, just waiting for the time to pass until he and Davey were alone.
Like a condemned prisoner
, Davey thought, although he had no idea how a condemned man would behave in real life.

“It was you, wasn't it,” he said sadly to Isaac, and sat down opposite him at the table.

Isaac, naturally, didn't say anything. He just looked questioningly at Davey and waited for him to continue.

“I saw you that afternoon,” he said. “That afternoon when you put flowers under the tree. On her grave, I suppose. You killed her, didn't you? That's why you went to visit the grave. To say sorry.”

Silence.

“You and Kate know each other from - from before,” he said. “Of course, you don't ever speak, so we've never had to hear you get her name wrong, but she's not called Kate at all, is she? She's really called Evie, isn't she? That girl who was in love with Jack. We found some letters and a photograph of her up in the annexe. I don't know why Priss didn't recognise her, I noticed it at once. Her hair is shorter now, but it's still the same colour. That's where you two know each other from.”

Isaac's face was in shadow; Davey had no way of telling what he thought about all of this. He ploughed desperately on.

“The body was that woman called Mathilda,” he said. “That's what happened to her, isn't it? The girl Jack was in love with. Maybe you made it look like an accident, but you killed her. Jack helped you hide the body, before Evie got back from Greece. That's why he left afterwards and never came back. And poor Kate, Evie I mean, she's been waiting here all this time waiting for him to come back one day, except he never
is
coming back, is he, because he knows what's out there and he can't bear to be near the house where you k-k-k-killed his g-g-g-girlfriend!”

He paused dramatically, convinced that at last, in this final extremis, Isaac would finally speak, but Isaac remained stubbornly silent.

“You're not even going to deny it, are you? Oh my God, I'm right, aren't I?” Davey felt a vast, hollow triumph open up inside his chest. “I'm right! You did kill her! Jesus God, you killed her, and it's not just that, is it? It's not just that poor lady out there in the woods, it's Jack and Evie too. You're the reason they never got together, because he left before she got here, and she's been here ever since. The only thing I can't work out is why you ever came back here.”

Silence.

“No, hang on,” said Davey, breathless. “That's why you've been sort of hanging around me and Priss, and giving us all these little hints. You sort of w-w-w-w-wanted us to find it, and sort of didn't. Because you know what you did, don't
you? You know how terrible it was.”

Silence.

“Or is it because you l-l-l-like Priss? I've seen you looking at her. Well, she's n-n-n-n-not interested in you, okay? It's absolutely dis-dis-dis-disgusting the way you fawn over her. She's young enough to be your daughter, you know, it's vile for you to even be thinking of her like that. And it's not just because I l-l-l-like her, I do like her, of course I d-d-do, but I'm not stupid enough to think that means she has to like me in return - ” he stopped, grabbed the light that hung low over the table, and angled it towards the other side of the table. “Are you, are you laughing at me?”

Isaac put up one hand to shield his eyes from the brightness. The corners of his eyes were creased with mirth and, despite his best efforts, his mouth turned irresistibly up at the corners.

“How can you possibly be laughing? What part of this is funny? What's the matter with you?” Isaac's shoulders were shaking. Davey felt a cold spasm of terror clutch as his stomach.
This is real
, he realised.
I'm in a deserted country house with a murderer, and now he knows I know
. “Look, I'm sorry, maybe I shouldn't have said anything, we can talk about this. No, don't, stop it,
stop it
- ”

Isaac was making his way around the table towards Davey, still laughing. Davey retreated. Isaac was going to attack him; Isaac, possibly, was going to kill him, and then melt away into the velvet night outside. He knew he should defend himself, it was ridiculous for someone his size to be such a coward, but the mechanics of hitting anyone, even in self-defence, even when in fear of his life, simply eluded him, all he could do was back away. He retreated across the kitchen, holding his hands uselessly out in front of him. Isaac was still coming towards him, still laughing. Davey felt the edge of the worktop against his back and realised he had run out of kitchen.
Why didn't I go towards the door instead?

Isaac was right in front of him now. He effortlessly seized Davey's hands in his own and forced Davey's arms down by
his sides.

“Don't - ” said Davey, pointlessly, and closed his eyes.

And then, instead of the blow he'd been expecting, he felt Isaac's mouth settle over his, and his entire body fell into a sweet and utter stillness. Isaac's tongue slipped between his teeth. He could still feel the quiver of laughter in Isaac's chest. He felt his knees buckling treacherously beneath him, and was grateful for the support of the worktop.

“Don't,” he said weakly, when he could breathe again. Isaac moved obligingly back, leaving a courteous distance between them. He could hear his own pulse thumping in his ears. Isaac waited to see what Davey would do next.

There was an invisible hand in the small of his back, pushing him forward. Someone else had taken over his body, Priss was right, this was a ghost story after all, he was being haunted, possessed, taken over. Someone else was making him reach out and take Isaac's hand in his, caress those crisp dark curls shot through with grey. This wasn't what he wanted, it was Priss he wanted, in fact he thought he might even be in love with her. This was someone else's wishes and desires. Someone else put his arms around Isaac's waist.

No
, he thought in amazement.
It's me. Of course it's me. This is me. I'm doing all of this. This is who I am
.

Isaac led the way to Davey's bedroom and closing the door behind them, he gently pulled Davey – shivering with desire – onto the bed and closed the curtains around them. The world around them was shut out and they were enveloped in a dark and private space where there was no sight, only an abundance of touch and sound and scent and taste. When Davey laid his hand flat against Isaac's chest, he felt again the quiver of his silent laughter.

chapter sixteen (then)

Naked and content, Priss lay on Mark's bed with her eyes half-shut, basking in the sunshine. Mark lay beside her and watched her greedily. Priss was studying the cover of the CD that played in the background. The proportions were right, but the image – a house with a rosy light burning in a high window – looked as if it had been designed for a larger space, like the vinyl covers Mark had framed on his wall.

“If we got caught,” she asked at last, “what d'you reckon we'd be in the most trouble for? Bunking off, or having sex?”

Mark considered this for a while. “Having sex, probably.”

“Why? If you bunk off enough they get the law on your parents. You'd think that's the thing that'd annoy them more, right?”

“We're underage,” Mark pointed out.

“Only just. What's going to happen in the next - ” she counted on her fingers “ - the next seven weeks that means we're magically allowed to shag?”

“I wonder how much we're allowed to do
before
then?” asked Mark, getting interested. “How far can we go before we're officially breaking the law?”

Priss rolled over and rested her chin on his chest.

“I don't know. I always just assumed it was, you know, the actual deed. It's all meant to stop you knocking me up, isn't it?”

“So if I get you off and you get me off, but I don't put it in you, then we're in the clear?”

Priss laughed. “I suppose so.”

“Yeah, well, that's not what they said in PSD. It's all supposed to be about emotional maturity and stuff.”

“And
stuff?”
Priss looked scornful. “Are you, like, totally going Valley Boy on me?”

“We need to be sure we're ready for the emotional side of physical intimacy. Mrs Alsop said it so it must be true, right?”

“So basically they're, like, the orgasm police?”

“I wonder which is worse,” said Mark thoughtfully. “Getting each other off but not doing it properly, or doing it but neither of us comes?”

“Depends what you mean by worse, I suppose.”

“How about if we do it and one of us comes but not the other?”

Priss' smile was luminous. “Now that's a fuckin' crime, alright.”

Davey sat in his bedroom holding the unopened envelope. He had never in his life felt such a profound peace. He had finally broken free. James could rant and storm all he wanted. This was it. This was freedom. The front door opened. He went downstairs to meet them.

But James stood alone in the hallway.

The man who had been Brother Andrew looked in the small shaving mirror he kept among his few, sparse possessions in the cell that had become his prison.

“Hello,” he whispered to his reflection. “I'm Tom. Tom. I'm Tom. My name's Tom. Fine, thank you. I'd like to buy a railway ticket - ”

No. He wouldn't need to give his name. All they'd be interested in was his money. And he shouldn't call it a
railway ticket
, he'd be buying it at a railway station. What other kind of ticket would it be? He thumbed through the money again. The notes looked different to how he remembered them. Of course, the bank notes must have been through several design
changes since he'd last handled cash. Jack had given him six hundred and fifty pounds, an appalling amount of money. Would the train ticket cost that much? He had no idea.

“Tom,” he murmured again, trying the name on for size. He wasn't sure if it was the name he would have chosen for himself, but then, how many people did get to choose their own name? Why should a failed monk be any different?

Priss rolled reluctantly off the bed, and stretched. “We should do some work, mate. We've not touched that last chapter for days. What?
What?
”

“You are so unbelievably sexy,” said Mark huskily. She grinned, and reached for a t-shirt. “You're not so bad yourself.”

Mark glanced down at his thin, pale legs. “Don't take the piss.”

“I'm not.” Priss reached for the huge black art folder at the end of the bed. “Sexy's not the same as physically perfect, is it? It's about what's inside.”

“The outside helps.” Mark reached out an urgent hand and stroked her thigh. “Especially when - fuck, Priss, you're just lush.”

“Fuck off and stop objectifying me.”

“I'm not objectifying you, I'm giving you a compliment.”

“No you're not. How would you like it if I only fancied you 'cos of that fuchin' contraption?” She gestured at the wheelchair that stood beside the bed.

He grinned. “And you're really hot when you're angry.”

“Fucking give over, would you?”

“Look, I just really fancy you, alright? I see you naked and it turns me on! Massively! So shoot me for being a boy. I can't help it.”

Priss looked remorseful. “I want to get this first draft finished, is all.”

“Yeah, well, we can do that later, can't we? My mum's coming back in an hour.” He hitched himself up to a sitting
position and kissed Priss' navel.

“The quicker it's finished, the quicker we can get it sent off to a publishers and the quicker I can - ”

“What?”

“Nothing.”

Reluctantly, he stopped kissing her breasts. “You alright?”

“Fucking known for it. I'm just looking forward to not living with my dad.”

“I don't get why finishing the book means you can - ”

“New York, remember?”

“Oh yeah.” He pulled Priss down onto the bed beside him. “What's the deal with your dad, anyway?”

“Nothing I can't handle.”

“He's not, you know, like, hitting you, is he? Or um - ”

“Look, he's not hitting me and he's not fiddling with me and it's none of your business anyway.”

“I wish I could keep you safe, that's all.”

“You?” Priss laughed. “You're no use to anyone. You're corrupting me sexually, you're interfering with my education for your own selfish pleasure, and every time I try and get some real work done you start distracting me.” She pushed him onto his back, and climbed briskly on top of him. “It's a good thing you've got a big knob or I'd be running for the hills.”

“I've sent your mother to get her hair done,” James told Davey.

Davey felt the first stirrings of unease.

“Let's have a look, then.” James held out his hand for the envelope. “You haven't even opened it. That confident, are you?”

Davey watched James' broad thumb slide beneath the flap of the envelope and remove the thin slip of paper.

There was an ominous pause.

“You did this on purpose,” said James, his eyes fixed on the slip of paper. “You conniving little shit. You deliberately failed your exam.”

“I - I - ”

“Don't
try and pretend you didn't. You're not stupid unless you want to be. This is worse than last time!”

Davey suddenly saw no point in pretending. “Yes,” he said, and shrugged. “I did.”

Going over the wall
. The image implied something dramatic, exciting, requiring ropes and grappling irons, or at the very least torn-up bed sheets and a perilous descent from a window. But of course, none of that was really necessary. No-one was imprisoned here. Everyone had chosen the life they now lived. The wall existed only in his mind.

Nevertheless, it took another six weeks of agonising waiting – six weeks of nerving himself – six weeks of obsessing so painfully about the envelope stuffed full of banknotes that he was more convinced than ever that the love of money was, indeed, the root of all evil, before he was finally able to run. The moment arrived unexpectedly, one afternoon during the time set aside for private prayer and meditation. He was sitting on the edge of his bed, staring blindly at the crucifix on the wall, feeling the familiar misery folded around him like a blanket.

“So stop it,” he said out loud. “Stop being miserable. Come on. Time to go.”

And suddenly, astoundingly, it was possible. He was over the wall. Now all he had to do was to walk away.

He reached beneath his bed and found the envelope, taped carefully to the underside of the bed frame. He was afraid that if he looked back he would lose his nerve, so he simply walked out of his cell, leaving the door open behind him. His footsteps echoed in the stone corridor, but he knew no-one would disturb him.

On the doorstop, he hesitated. He wanted to go and say farewell to the garden, perhaps even to visit the bees and let them know what has happening but he recognised the impulse for what it was, the last spasm of procrastination, holding him
back. The bees would be fine without him. The whole place would be fine without him. The men he was leaving would continue to make their prayers to the silent, empty places in the universe, a way of life that had made sense to him once, but no longer.

What would be the meaning of his life now?

He thought of the man he had seen in the dank, sweaty vestibule at the back of the Phoenix, of that same man stumbling in over the doorstep of a church. What if the purpose of his life was, after all, to help someone else?

Whatever you did
, he vowed recklessly,
whatever you did, Jack, I'll keep your secret. You gave me my freedom. Now I'll give you yours. I'll guard your house for you. If I can stop it happening, they'll never find out what you did
.

It lacked the weight of the vows he had made as a young man, but what good had come of them? This was a burden he knew he could carry; the right payment for the freedom and the second chance he'd been granted. He walked down the dusty private road towards the smooth black tarmac that unwound like a ribbon, leading him out into the world.

It wasn't until the third car slowed, swerved and stopped, until the third window rolled down, until the third face looked out and asked if they could offer him a lift, they didn't normally pick up walkers but they figured they'd be safe with him, right? - that he realised he was still wearing his monk's habit.

The corridor outside the changing rooms was the usual chaotic riot. Miss Langland blew a sharp blast on her whistle, and the shrieks and curses and laughter mumbled to a reluctant silence, punctuated with an occasional giggle.

“Stop messing around and get changed,” she ordered them briskly. “What's the matter with you? Sixteen years old, most of you are now, and you still haven't got the nous to get into your kits without me telling you? You're pathetic, the lot of you. Priss, where do you think you're going?”

“Taking Mark to the toilet, miss.”

“He can take himself.” Could he? They'd done their best with inclusion, but so far they'd been unable to organise a sports-friendly wheelchair. Instead, she and Mark had established a wordless
detente
where she turned a blind eye to him quietly wheeling himself down the corridor towards the library. Miss Langland still felt the occasional pang of guilt about this, but since neither Mark nor his mother had made any waves about it, the staffroom consensus had been that they could let things slide, on a sort of don't-ask-don't-tell basis.

“It's the building work, miss,” said Priss. “He needs help to get the wheelchair past.”

Miss Langland looked searchingly at Priss. Her face had that perfectly smooth and expressionless look that set alarm bells ringing.

“So can I go, miss?” asked Priss, meek and demure, eyes downcast.

Oh, for God's sake
, thought Miss Langland wearily.
What the hell could she be getting up to with Mark Asher?

“You come straight back here once you've taken him,” she said.

“I'll need to wait till he's finished, miss. So he can get back.”

“What? Oh, I suppose you will. Alright, then. But straight after that.”

“Yes, miss.”

“I'll check.”

“Yes, miss.”

She watched Priss all the way down the corridor. Everything about Priss' body language told Miss Langland the girl had just put one over on her. But, she thought again, what could she possibly be getting up to with Mark? After all, he was in a wheelchair, wasn't he?

As always, the blow seemed like the action of some unseen
spirit, rather than the fist of the man who stood before him in the hallway. Davey's ears rang. He shook his head to clear them.

“I did it on purpose,” he repeated, tasting blood in his mouth. “I did it on purpose. I did it on p-p-p-p - ” deep breath, “ - I did it to make you listen! I'm not going to do Economics at university, I'm not g-going to come and work in your bloody bank, I'm n-n-n-n - ”

He was flattened by a hailstorm of blows and kicks, a furious attack accompanied by an unearthly growling that was coming, it had to be, from his stepfather, but how could a human being make such a terrifying noise? It was like being savaged by a wild animal. He closed his eyes and tried to endure; to disappear; to hide in some secret part of his mind while his body underwent its inevitable, terrible punishment.

After refusing nineteen offers of a lift more or less on a reflex, he gave in and accepted the twentieth; an articulated lorry with a trailer so vast he couldn't begin to imagine what it contained. The logo on the side was a black West Highland terrier with a basket in its mouth, and the word
NETTO
. Some sort of pet food? He climbed into the cabin, taking a childish pleasure in his vastly increased height. The lorry driver seemed delighted with his capture of a genuine man of the cloth, and talked sporadically and at length about his life on the road, its trials and its unexpected benefits and finishing each disjointed anecdote with an apology for any offence caused.

In the nearby town, Tom slithered out at a traffic light, waved goodbye to the driver, and found a row of shops. The names were a mystery, conveying nothing beyond a general intention to sell him things, but he peered in through windows until he found what he was looking for - a charity shop, with racks of clothing laid out, in an approximation of attractiveness on ugly tubular display racks and mismatched hangers.