Lying About Last Summer Read online

  He’s by her boat now. Almost in one fluid movement, he pulls out the paddle and throws it into the nettles. He picks up the kayak and carries it to the shore, where he shoves it as hard as he can with both hands into the lake. “Don’t worry, Fay doesn’t need it,” he calls up the beach to me.

  Fay makes a gurgling noise. Her eyes are shut, her body unresponsive again, and I hurry on, toes grimly gripping my flip-flops, towards the tree, even though there’s no life jacket for me to wave on the other side – it’s out on the lake, inside my kayak.

  It would take hardly any effort for Joe, taller and stronger than me, to carry Fay over this massive trunk. I have to balance her on it long enough for me to clamber over myself. Twice she almost slides off. Her face is greyish and clammy, her partially open lips horribly dry in contrast.

  “There’s no point dragging her round the island,” calls Joe, walking slowly back up the beach towards me. “She’s not got long.”

  I try to imagine he’s not there, only a couple of metres away, smirking. It half works until he starts talking again. “I liked you,” he says. “And you know what? I could see that you were full of shame and self-loathing. I would have helped you.” He comes a little closer, and speaks in a softer voice. “I was wrong. You’re not worth saving. You’re trouble. That’s why I chose to help Fay. She proved herself to me. She has what it takes.”

  So I’m not as needy and vulnerable as he’d have liked? That backhanded compliment gives me the boost of strength I need to haul myself over the tree. But I cry out as I rip off the scab from when I fell in the paving slabs by the pool on the first day.

  “You’re going against Fay’s wishes – I hope you’ll be able to live with yourself knowing that,” says Joe, jumping on to the tree trunk, assuming his favourite position up on high.

  “She was under your influence,” I spit at him as I position myself to pick up Fay. “Like Kyra, I expect.”

  “I miss Kyra,” says Joe. He jumps down, slamming into my shoulder, almost knocking me over.

  Breathe in through the nose. Out through the mouth.

  “Unfortunately she took the wrong path. The path of shame. I didn’t want her to move on. It broke my heart but the universe demanded it.”

  I grip Fay close to me, over-tightly because I’m shaking so much it’s hard to control my limbs. But I have to ask. “A naked photo – that was the path of shame? Or was it because she tried to break up with you?”

  Joe bends down to pick up a large pebble. My shaking becomes more violent and I keep walking, praying he’s not going to throw it at my head. There’s a loud splash and I assume he’s hurled it in the lake. He shouts at my back. “She made the wrong choice. She chose someone else over me, and he let her down.”

  There. I can see the boathouse, but – I squint and move closer to the shore – there’s no one in sight.

  “Help!” I scream. “Hellllp!”

  I hear Joe’s footsteps, steady on the shingle. “Shout all you like,” he says. “Your voice won’t carry across the lake, and anyway, the focus of the search is in the village right now. It’ll give Fay the last bit of time she needs.” He glances at her, and she’s suddenly so heavy that I have to lay her down, right there on the damp stones.

  I’m almost too stiff and tired to place her in the recovery position, but I do it, forcing away a surge of frustration towards her, at allowing herself to fall under Joe’s spell. Her hand reaches feebly for mine, and I know I’ll do anything to save her.

  “All right, you win,” I say to Joe. “I’ll make her comfortable, and wait.”

  Joe smiles and I have to look away. “Good girl. I knew you’d see sense sooner or later.”

  I want to punch him with all my remaining strength, but I’m going to need it very soon.

  “She wanted to die on her dad’s towel,” I say. “She brought it all the way here and I left it in the woods. It’s not far away. Please would you get it for her?”

  “You know where it is; you get it.” His eyes are narrowed.

  I give a long sigh. “I’m exhausted, Joe. Please. Let’s respect Fay’s last wishes.”

  He thinks for a moment. “Where is it?”

  I tell him roughly – he’ll see the trampled vegetation where Fay entered the woods for himself, so there’s no point going for wild lies, even though I need as much of a head start as I can get.

  It’s agony to stay still until he disappears from sight behind the fallen tree, but then I flick off my flip-flops, yank off Fay’s shoes and scoop her up.

  “I’m going to swim across the lake with you,” I whisper in her ear.

  The first touch of the water round my ankles is a relief. It’s cool against my stings. As I wade in deeper, as fast as I can without making too many splashing noises, I’m overwhelmed by the dread of a panic attack. I remind myself I’m wet already from the rain. That I can do this.

  “Here we go, Fay. It’s going to be OK.” I float her in the water and grip under her chin with one hand. With my spare arm I scull. The best stroke for my legs, trying to keep clear of Fay, is a mixture of kicking and breaststroke.

  I fight the fatigue that’s already in my muscles and pretend I’m swimming in front of a home crowd at the club. Every metre of water between us and Joe counts. I’ve seen him in the pool. He’s not a bad swimmer. He can leap easily across the tree and enter the water further along the beach to give him an advantage,

  Swooshing and swishing fill my ears as I lean my head back, the eerie amplified language of water. I smell chlorine, lingering on my skin from earlier. Droplets splash into my eyes. I close them and see blood. Blood everywhere. The water in my eyes is no longer lake water but salty, blood-red tears for my beautiful, sweet, stupid drug-dealing sister who died on her own when I was there, so close to her.

  After a while, I open my eyes, check my direction and look at Fay’s face. Her lips are a bluish colour.

  I let the anger that surges within me give my muscles some power. There are so many people to be angry at, including myself.

  “Hang on,” I whisper to Fay. “Please hang on.”

  Her face is white. My brain superimposes Luisa’s face, puffy with an open wound.

  Where’s Tim? I fantasize about him coming by with a motor boat and lifting us out of the water.

  Rain drizzles down endlessly. The next time I raise my head, I miss a breath. Joe’s in the water, swimming front crawl. I pull Fay closer to me and double my effort. Faster. Stronger. Every muscle in my body is shredding apart. My lungs are bulging. The water is no longer cold but warm like bath water. I’m going to be sick. It rises and I turn my head. Swim on for several agonizing strokes to avoid it; then two whole seconds are wasted as I tread water and gasp.

  Joe’s gaining. It’s inevitable.

  “We’re nearly there, Fay,” I say through a mouth that’s dry and foul-tasting. But maybe I think the words instead, or say the wrong ones. I can no longer lift my head and when the movement of the water changes, I sense rather than see that Joe has almost caught up with me.

  Noise drifts towards me but other people’s words don’t make much sense either. We’re coming. Hang on.

  “Help!” I yell inside my head.

  Joe’s alongside. Out of breath. Weaker than I thought. “Skye, let me take her.” I can’t work out what he means.

  His arms reach out and I lurch away, desperate to keep my head above water, gasping. I lift up Fay with the last of my energy. So this is what drowning’s like. Silent because there’s not enough air to shout.

  More movement in the water. I still have hold of Fay. I see Luisa’s lifeless, floating body next to us.

  Shallow water. My feet touch the bottom.

  Strong hands drag me and Fay out of the water. I’ve no idea whose. It’s hard to stand upright so I lie down on the wet grass. I hear my gulpy, raspy breathing. I smell the disgusting boathouse towel. Feel its scratchy comfort. I see Fay being put on a stretcher. Next time I open my eyes there’s the g
reen uniform of a paramedic above me. Or maybe a traffic warden. No, definitely a paramedic.

  “Fay?” I whisper, as the paramedic helps me to my feet and replaces the towel with a blanket. My mouth is dry and my throat hurts.

  “On her way to hospital, my love. She’s in good hands now.”

  I’d like to ask if Fay’s going to live, but it’s probably too early to tell, and my head is swirling and blackness is closing in.

  When I wake up the rain has stopped, I’m on my side and I have a tight band round my arm that’s becoming looser. “Blood pressure returning to normal,” someone says, and there’s the ear-startling sound of Velcro being pulled apart, followed by a new lightness in my arm. Through the blanket, I feel a firm hand on my back. “You’re OK, my lovely. You fainted and we’re going to keep an eye on you. Just lie there a moment and let the wooziness pass.”

  I give the tiniest of nods, and the hand on my back pats me in acknowledgement.

  I hear Joe’s voice next. “When we realized the kayaks had drifted off, we didn’t know what to do. We knew time was running out for Fay and we didn’t have phones. I thought I’d brought mine but I must have left it in the main office.”

  Pippa’s voice says, “Very brave of you to swim.”

  “Because Skye was the stronger swimmer, I told her that she should swim with Fay, and I’d swim beside them as backup.”

  How can he say these things?

  I open my mouth to speak but cough. Lake water spews out of my mouth into a bowl that’s being held in front of me. Someone holds back my hair. Now there’s a hand on my shoulder. Tissues wipe my face.

  “How did you know Skye was the stronger swimmer?” That’s Brandon. “You’d never seen her swim before.”

  I want to hug Brandon. To hug him fiercely and feel his strong arms around me too. Being upset with him earlier seems a long time ago. He was shocked by what I told him, but maybe he wasn’t as disgusted by me as I thought he should have been. Perhaps he could see that I was capable of more. That if I was given a second chance to save someone, I wouldn’t hesitate.

  “Maybe Skye told me she was a good swimmer. I don’t remember the details,” says Joe.

  “I don’t understand why your kayak drifted off,” says Brandon. “You’re a coach. I’d have thought you’d know how to secure it properly.”

  “Mate, you weren’t there. It was a crisis situation.” He says something in a lower voice, and Pippa says, “Yes, of course. Could someone get Joe a cup of tea? Brandon, let’s not bombard him with questions until he’s had a chance to recover.”

  Let me speak. But when my eyes are open the dizziness takes my breath away. I feel myself falling back into the darkness and the conversations around me reduce to a murmur and then nothing.

  Pippa’s voice again. Loud, and possibly on the phone, telling someone that the paramedic reckoned Fay had received treatment in the nick of time, that she’d almost certainly make a good recovery.

  Another conversation drifts towards me.

  “We spoke earlier. I’m the centre director. I’d like to thank you, young man, for what you’ve done this evening.”

  “It’s a pleasure, sir. My last girlfriend committed suicide last summer and I was determined it wasn’t going to happen again. Fay and I are very close. Is there any chance of going to see her in the hospital?”

  I snap my eyes open. It’s an effort to sit up. “He…” I begin but my voice is a fraction of a whisper. I’ve lost my voice from shouting for help.

  The paramedic is beside me. “Up you get. There you go. Let’s sit you on the bench now.”

  I clutch my throat.

  “Sore throat? I’ll get you something for that,” says the paramedic.

  “Skye,” says Pippa. “You and Joe really should have waited for Tim before going across to the island, but we’re immensely grateful to you both.”

  Everyone swivels to look at me. There are far more people here than I realized. I look for Brandon, and can’t see him. Where is he?

  My eyes land on Joe, standing with a blanket round him. A mug of tea in his hands. He looks straight at me, a twitch of a smile at his mouth. “Feeling better, Skye?”

  Does he think I’m too scared of him to speak out? The paramedic hands me some tea. My hands shake as I bring it to my mouth, mostly through rage and frustration. The hot liquid is soothing beyond anything I’ve experienced.

  “We did a good job, you and me, didn’t we?” says Joe.

  “Lies,” I say. It sounds like more of a regular whisper.

  “Sorry?” asks Pippa. I beckon her over to me. Urgently. But Joe speaks first and distracts her. “We found Fay lying in the woods,” he says. “With her dad’s old towel.”

  Everyone’s going to believe his version over mine.

  The mention of the towel distracts people. Someone says Tim should kayak over and get it for Fay if it’s that important to her.

  In the middle of this discussion, Brandon appears, out of breath and waving some paper.

  “You’ve got to…” he says, charging straight into the middle of everyone, bending momentarily to catch his breath before continuing. “You’ve got to see something.”

  “Brandon?” says Pippa. “What’s going on?”

  Joe moves forward. “What have you got there?”

  Brandon steps back from him. “Photos.” He swivels, so he can see me. With one brief look he tells me that he’s holding something of significance. “Here’s a photo of Joe and Kyra, his girlfriend who died last summer. And this is Fay with her dad, I think.”

  The first one is a printed version of Joe’s favourite photo, him on the beach with Kyra. The other is the precious photo Fay showed me that she kept in her suitcase. It’s been ripped from its silver frame. Brandon turns them over, and across the back in thick black marker pen there’s writing, and someone’s drawn the same weird symbol on both – something that looks vaguely familiar.

  “You’ve been through my bag,” says Joe in a calm, cold voice. “Those photos mean a lot to me so I’d appreciate you giving them back. They’re none of your business.”

  “Hang on,” says Pippa. She holds out her arm so that Joe can’t go any nearer Brandon.

  Brandon speaks more quickly. “They both have Rest in Peace and the same symbol.”

  Joe shakes his head in a show of exasperation. “I’ve just swum across a river. Can you hurry up and make your point.”

  “My point is,” says Brandon, “I scanned that image with my phone and did a search. There’s a website that uses that symbol. It’s supposed to offer support to suicidal people but there’s a nasty vibe to it. You wrote on Fay’s photo and drew that symbol before anyone knew she was missing, didn’t you?”

  “I don’t know what you’re talking about,” says Joe. “Fay gave me that photo as a present. She’d already written on it herself.”

  I shake my head. Fay would never have defaced the photo in that way, pressing down on the marker pen so carelessly that the ink bled through to the front, wrecking it.

  “If she did it herself, then you knew what she was planning to do,” says Brandon. “You must have known what that symbol was because it’s on the back of Kyra’s photo too. Are you telling me Kyra did that?”

  “Yes,” says Joe. “She did.” He speaks calmly but his eyes are darting about.

  I see Pippa glance at the centre director.

  “Come on,” says Brandon. “It’s your writing, isn’t it?”

  The necklaces. That’s where I’ve seen the scribbled symbol before. I stand up and whisper, “Joe made necklaces for Kyra and Fay with that symbol on. He has photos of them wearing the necklaces on his phone.”

  Pippa comes over and I repeat it into her ear.

  “Where’s your phone, Joe?” asks Pippa. She takes the photos from Brandon.

  “What’s going on?” asks Joe. “What are you accusing me of here?” His voice has lost its composure.

  In an attempt to stop the dizziness in my hea
d I squeeze and unsqueeze my toes.

  “Skye saved Fay on her own, didn’t she?” says Brandon.

  My legs are wobbly but I don’t sit down. I stay absolutely still so I don’t miss Joe’s reply.

  “No,” he snaps. “She didn’t save her. She snatched Fay’s chance to restore the balance. Skye shouldn’t have interfered.” He throws his mug on the ground, spraying tea in an arc over the grass. “I’ve had enough of this conversation.”

  He strides off on a path that leads to the accommodation blocks. The centre director follows him, and I hear Pippa on her phone, requesting the immediate presence of the police officer who is taking a statement from Danielle in the staffroom.

  I place my own mug on the arm of the bench and make my way across to Brandon. We wrap our arms around each other, tightly, for long, comforting seconds before I whisper, “How did you know to look in Joe’s bag?”

  “There had to be something hidden away,” says Brandon. “People like him always keep mementoes of their victims, don’t they? The problem was persuading his room-mates to let me rifle through his bag. I told them I was finding him some warm clothes.” He clutches my shoulders, and his expression is serious. “Listen, Skye, I’m sorry about this afternoon. What happened … between us. I didn’t mean to be patronizing, if that’s what you thought, and what you told me didn’t make me like you any less. I was happy you trusted me enough to tell me the truth.”

  I nod. It means I’m sorry too. I want to kiss him but the inside of my mouth is too revolting, so I curl into his body for another hug, inhaling the shop smell of his shirt. My blanket drops to the ground but Brandon doesn’t care that I’m wet and stink of chlorine laced with manky lake water.

  After a bit, I look up at the dusk-heavy sky and think, I saved Fay, but I’m sorry it couldn’t have been you, Luisa.

  epilogue

  We sit, Brandon and me, in a park near the shop that repairs phone screens. We have food for a picnic but I’m not interested in eating right now. I lean in, instead, to kiss him. He has one hand on my back, the other in my hair, and there is a fizzing inside me. A pleasure that astounds me.