Lying About Last Summer Read online

  Brandon secures the lid of his cake box. “It happens,” he says, and I’m grateful that he’s so matter-of-fact. I like that he’s here and not bombing into the pool at Morley Hill.

  “So how are you doing, Toby?” I ask, to change the subject. To make him happier.

  He neatens a row of granola packets. “Busy. Doing more deliveries.”

  I’m about to tell him I wasn’t talking about the shop, but he says, “What about you? What d’you think of Morley Hill?”

  What d’you think of Moorly Hill? Toby hated writing and spelling. My skin prickles with alarm.

  I want you to be happy but I’m upset with you.

  Don’t forget.

  “Someone’s been sending me messages, pretending to be Luisa,” I say. “D’you know anything about them?”

  I’m aware Brandon’s staring at me.

  Toby screws his face up. “No. What messages? Is that the real reason why you’re here? Not because you want to see me. You want to accuse me of sending messages.”

  “I just…” Am I going mad? Why would Toby want to stalk me? How could he have seen me in my tartan shirt? Could it have been him in the white van when we were in the village? Does the farm shop do deliveries in a van these days? I go to the shop window. I don’t remember there being one out there but perhaps I just didn’t notice. Nope. But the buckets of flowers catch my eye. There are different bunches, colour-themed. I see a couple with white flowers and greenery.

  “The white flowers…” I say.

  “They’re eight ninety-nine,” says Toby. “Two for fifteen. Want some?”

  “No.” I need to clear my head.

  “They were Luisa’s favourite,” says Toby. “Roses and freesias.”

  They were? I picture Toby lifting a bunch out of the bucket for Luisa and handing it to her, the water dripping from the stems. Then I know. Running back to the counter, I place my hands on the smooth wooden surface, on the tiny bleached area that I thought was a smudge on the camera lens.

  Toby’s my stalker. He placed those flowers on here.

  “Do you want me to recreate that horrible photo of the flowers here?” I say. “We can check it against the original.” My phone is lying broken in Morley Hill, but if I absolutely had to, I might be able to download MessageHound on Brandon’s.

  Toby’s eyes flit to Brandon and back to me. “I thought you’d like the flowers.”

  “You bastard,” says Brandon. “Of course she didn’t like the flowers.”

  “You terrified me,” I say.

  Toby winces. “I didn’t want to terrify you. I wanted to shake you up a bit. Make you think about things.”

  Rage rips through me. “You think I need shaking up?” I recall the silly hope I’d had that it was actually Luisa contacting me, the confusion and fear. Not being able to trust Brandon. “How could you?”

  I run.

  Toby shouts, “Wait, Skye. Please. I want to explain,” but I keep running. Out of the shop, to the far end of the car park, to the gate Luisa, Toby and I used to like sitting on as kids, rattling it so we’d have to hang on as tightly as we could. I fling myself against it and bury my head in my arms, breathing in the metal smell of the gate as tears drench my hot skin. Toby was someone I would have trusted with my life.

  How can the Toby who sat on this gate, and lay about in snow, on grass, and in Luisa’s bed with me, who let me help in the shop way before I was any use, change into a person who would hurt me so deeply? So willingly. I think of all those times I pretended I was a Mulligan, not a Colton. Of my secret fantasy that Luisa would marry Toby and we’d all live happily ever after.

  How did it all go wrong?

  Two sets of footsteps make their way over the rough stones in the car park. One set arrives before the other, and I feel a hand on my back. I know it’s Brandon before he says, “You should talk about this with Toby.”

  “Skye, I’m sorry. I was a jerk.” Toby sounds like he did when was younger, apologizing for a game involving cowpats that had gone too far. My fury loosens a notch.

  “Why did you do it?” I say, wheeling round as I wipe my nose on my arm because it’s that or the bottom of my T-shirt. “That account was private.”

  “I didn’t set out to do it,” he says, looking down at a big stone that he’s pushing with the toe of his work boot. “I do things which make me feel close to Luisa. I want to let go, but I can’t. It’s too soon. So I hang out with her old friends, eat salt and vinegar crisps in Hoathley cinema, look at photos. After we split up she didn’t MessageHound me any more. Said it was too much faff. But I knew you two still used it sometimes and you stored photos. I wanted to see the photos, ones I hadn’t seen before.”

  “Didn’t Luisa change her passcode after you split up?”

  He lifts his head. “She changed it from her birthday to yours. I’d seen her do it loads of times when I was delivering to your house. She never changed her username.”

  I shake my head. Using birthdays as a passcode. How predictable. But it was my birthday she used. Fresh tears sting my eyes.

  “You sent that message saying how much you missed Luisa,” says Toby. “I missed her too. I couldn’t help replying, and then … I got carried away. I was upset.” He sees me wipe my eyes with the back of my hand. “Come on. I’ve got some kitchen roll in the shop.”

  I look at Brandon, who nods.

  Perhaps it’s because we’re not making eye contact, but Toby speaks more easily as we walk back to the shop. He explains that he saw me at Morley Hill on Monday when he was doing an afternoon delivery there, and again in the village. He’d borrowed the van for a catering event. “Each time I wanted to say hello,” he says, “but I didn’t because I thought you might blank me.”

  “I wouldn’t have done,” I say, but I know I would have been embarrassed. I’d have tried to get away as soon as possible.

  We’re in the shop. Brandon perches on the stool that’s used for reaching high shelves. Toby leans behind the counter for the kitchen paper and breaks off a couple of sheets for me. “I couldn’t be sure,” he says. “You didn’t want to have anything to do with me for the last few months.” He takes a deep breath. “I was envious that you were having a nice time at the camp. I wanted my voice heard for a change. Except –” he pulls a face “– I know it wasn’t my voice; it was Luisa’s.”

  I see it. How we dropped him. First Luisa, then the rest of the family. Our families had been entwined all our lives and I didn’t take any of that into account. I never thought about how much Toby loved Luisa, even though she didn’t have time for him any more. He loved the rest of us too. I blow my nose, and chuck the paper in the bin behind the counter.

  “I know it’s been hell for your family,” he says. “But my family have had a rough time too. We miss her.”

  “Even though she changed?”

  He nods. “To be honest, I think she was just going through a phase. Like when she became a vegan.”

  And it’s back. His sweetness. Us being us. I don’t want to scream at him any more. I see in his face how he’s only just been coping.

  “I really am sorry,” he says. He rubs one eye and he looks so tired I wonder if he has trouble sleeping too.

  “I’m sorry too,” I say.

  “You know what, I’ve missed your help in the shop.”

  “Is that because no one else will accept the pitiful amount you paid me?” I half smile.

  “Partly.”

  The hostility between us has disappeared, but it’s still stilted. “How are the customers?” I ask.

  “They’re fine,” he says. “No more of a pain in the arse than usual.”

  The barking in the farmyard makes me jump. “Kip!” I say.

  “Want to see him?” asks Toby, though it’s a question he doesn’t need to ask.

  I glance at Brandon, who’s opening his cake box, and follow Toby to the stable door. When Toby unbolts the bottom half and whistles, Kip comes bounding towards us, ears flying. I squat t
o greet him and he charges into me, waggling his whole body and panting bad breath.

  “He recognizes you,” says Toby. Out of all the farm dogs, Kip was always the one most likely to appreciate anyone showing an interest in him.

  “Who’s moved into Yew Tree House?” I say when Kip has quit throwing himself at me, and is sitting with his tongue panting, ears pricked.

  “A family with six-year-old twins,” says Toby. “They’re away on holiday at the moment. We’re keeping an eye on the place for them.”

  “So it wouldn’t matter if Skye wanted to have a look round before we go back to Morley Hill?” says Brandon.

  I bite my lip. Do I want to do that?

  “One of you could climb over the fence into the garden, I guess,” says Toby. “Unbolt the gate in the wall at the bottom, unless they’ve padlocked it. There’s CCTV at the front of the house, the side gate and above the patio doors.”

  Brandon lobs his empty cake box into the bin behind the counter. “What d’you think, Skye?”

  I see the red water, and Luisa’s seaweed hair. But I was brave enough to leap from the tower. Brave enough to come this far. “OK, I’ll do it.”

  twenty-seven

  Scaling the wooden fence isn’t going to be easy. It’s high, there’s nothing to hold on to and there are no weak points. It’s not that sort of garden. On the plus side, the new people haven’t added glass or barbed wire along the top, or a note saying that it’s covered with anti-climbing paint.

  “I’ll give you a leg up,” Brandon says. “What’s the other side of here?”

  “A flower bed.”

  “So a good place to climb over?”

  “As good as any other,” I say. I squish his arm muscles. “Are you ready?”

  “Bring it on,” says Brandon. He stands sideways against the fence with his hands clasped, palms upwards, for me to step on. “Try and push off against my hands while I lift you.”

  We listen for cars; then I do a little run-up and shove my canvas shoe in the stirrup he’s made with his hands. We’re not quite in time, I wobble, and although I can reach the top of the fence, I’m too low to pull myself up.

  “Ow.”

  “Practice run,” says Brandon, after I’ve slid back to the ground and checked out the graze on my leg where it scraped against the fence. “After three.” He begins the count straight away, and on three I place my foot more firmly in his hands and push down hard as he propels me upwards. I grasp the top of the fence and my arms shake as I force them to take my weight, levering myself up. The moment I glimpse over the top into the garden, I wobble but I keep my balance and haul myself to the point at which I know I can clear the fence in a clumsy vault.

  I land in a clump of pale pink flowers. “I’m fine, in case you were wondering,” I call to Brandon as I attempt to resurrect the flowers by fluffing them up.

  Very little has changed in the garden. It’s ordered and pretty, with pink, purple and white flowers in between the various greens. Still no yellow or orange blooms, colours which weren’t part of Mum’s scheme. The lawn is stripy, neatly edged. There’s a different style of wooden garden furniture on the patio. I take in the CCTV camera on the back of the house that points down at the patio doors, and the new alarm box.

  And then I force myself to confront the pool area. The glass fencing is still there. Beyond it the pool, with its cover rolled back tightly, gleams. Blue, not red.

  “I’ll go down to the wall,” calls Brandon. “See you at the gate.”

  “OK. Give me a moment,” I shout back, except my voice cracks and sounds so thin he might not have heard me.

  Be brave.

  I walk across the soft lawn to tackle the childproof gate. The simultaneous squeezing and lifting routine works first time, like it did that day last summer. It’s weird the tiniest of details that stay in your head, etched deeply for no reason.

  There’s a new bench, pushed up against the changing room building. Turquoise plastic. It looks great. Better than our wicker chairs, which had to go inside at the first drop of rain, and snagged the fabric of swimming costumes if you didn’t use one of the white seat cushions.

  It’s hard to look at the changing room. I tug at the door, hoping it’s locked. It is. There’s the plant with the small white flowers that I could smell at Morley Hill. I touch the enormous plant pot that it’s growing out of and the sweet, overpowering fragrance wafts over me.

  My shoes are disproportionately noisy on the hard pale stone as I walk towards the place where Luisa smashed her head. There’s no damage to the stone, no lingering bloodstain. Who scrubbed it clean? Crouching down on to one knee, I dip my hand in the pool, and recoil straight away. If my counsellor were here, she’d say, Why did you do that, Skye?

  There’s no reason. This is clean water. Nothing bad can happen. I lean forward and try again, cupping the water in one hand and holding it until it leaks away. The smell of chlorine reaches my nostrils and I almost gag.

  According to family legend, I could swim before I could walk. It was my thing – the skill that differentiated me from Luisa and Oscar. This pool always felt as if it belonged to me. The tiles, darker blue than in most pools, the sudden drop to the deep end, and the way when you swam in the direction of the house, you could see through the glass panels across the garden.

  “Skye?” Brandon’s shout sounds worried.

  I leave the pool area and run to the tall brick wall at the bottom of the garden, into the shade of the trees where clouds of insects vibrate, and the grass is springy in between tree roots. The new family have revamped the compost heap with a new wooden structure. The intense smell of grass cuttings hits the back of my nose.

  There’s a wheelbarrow in front of the gate, which I move. The bolts are as rusty as ever. No padlocks.

  “Skye?”

  “I’m here,” I say through the gate. I prepare to slide the reluctant bolts back, wary of my hands slipping or my skin being caught.

  One bolt has to be coaxed across by wiggling it; the other slams back. Brandon helps inch the gate open enough to squeeze himself through from the field.

  “Welcome to my old garden,” I say.

  “Nice,” he says, walking ahead to the main lawn. He stops when he sees the pool, and I catch him up.

  “Let’s dip our feet in,” I say. This time it takes me several goes to open the gate. “Did you have lots of pool parties here?” asks Brandon, as he goes towards the water, pulls off his trainers and socks, and lowers his foot in. “Whoa. Colder than it looks.”

  “A few,” I say. “But Mum and Dad had very strict rules. They were worried about someone drowning.” I look away, to where the trampoline used to be.

  “This must be hard for you,” says Brandon. “The minute you want to leave, we’ll go.”

  “Thanks. I’m OK for the moment.” And I am. I’m here and I’m OK.

  He sits on the edge of the pool with his legs in the water, the sleeves of his hoody pushed up to his elbow. It’s difficult to take in that we’re here, two worlds colliding.

  “Once you get used to the temperature, this is quite pleasant,” he says.

  Slowly, squatting, I undo my laces, loosen first one canvas shoe, then the other, stand up and step out of them. Without either of us saying anything, I sit down next to Brandon, both legs pulled up. Gradually I hover them both over the pool, straining my stomach muscles.

  “Go on,” says Brandon, and I plunge them into the water together, gasping.

  We swirl our feet about. I’ve hardly ever sat like this by a pool. The lure of the water was always too much, and I couldn’t bear not being in it. “If I had a swimming costume with me, I might be tempted to swim,” I say.

  “You could strip off,” says Brandon. He looks embarrassed. “I don’t mean naked. Underwear. It’s like a bikini, isn’t it?”

  Not really. I’m wearing lilac pants with a band of lace round the top. My bra is … I hitch back the shoulder of my T-shirt. It’s not my white-turned-grey
one, but it’s a bad clash with my pants: turquoise and white stripes. I want to get over my phobia – that’s the most important thing. The pool is calm and clean, and I’m not panicking. The MessageHound stuff is over. Everything is OK.

  “I’m doing it,” I say. Before I can think too carefully, I remove my outer layers and run to the shallow end.

  Brandon laughs as I lower myself into the water that reaches my thighs, squealing from the coldness.

  “The new people are stingy with their pool heating.”

  “They’re on holiday,” calls Brandon. “They weren’t expecting visitors.”

  If I wasn’t wearing my underwear I would be doing this way more slowly, but to cover up my bra, I crouch down until my shoulders are immersed. “Oh my God,” I shriek. “I can’t feel my legs any more.”

  “Get swimming, then,” calls Brandon.

  “Aren’t you coming in with me?”

  “Nope. Too cold for me.”

  “Wimp.”

  I’m in the pool where Luisa died. The knowledge hits me in the throat. I breathe in and out deliberately loudly so I can keep it under control. My coordination is off-kilter for a few seconds. I’ve turned into my granny, who swam so slowly I could never understand why she didn’t sink.

  Do a length and get out. I face the house and push off against the smooth-tiled wall of the shallow end. With my neck extended and my head out of the water, I glide and twitch my legs enough to move forward. It feels unnatural so I lower my head into the water. It’s a relief to sink into the world of dappled noise and refracted light. Without thinking about it, I’ve switched to front crawl, and I have the familiar sensation of being cut off from the real world. At the end of the pool, I lift my head to take a breath.

  I’ve done it: one length in the pool.

  Ahead, through the glass panels, there’s the lawn and the patio area. In my flashbacks I’m often here, at the end of the pool, lifting my head towards the house like this. I see Luisa running. This afternoon there’s no one there, but that doesn’t stop my heart stumbling and my ribs pulling closer together.