Lying About Last Summer Read online

  “No,” I say. I’ve never actually been in a kayak.

  “You’ve got to have stamina for kayaking,” says Joe.

  Stamina was something the old me used to have. In the days when fifty lengths of the Hoathley pool was only the warm-up at training. “I’m sure I’ll be OK,” I say.

  “I can keep an eye on you,” says Joe. “I’ve kayaked on rivers, in the sea, in rapids… I know my stuff.”

  I take hold of my tray and stand up. “Thanks,” I say. “Good to know.” Who does he think he is – my dad?

  Danielle doesn’t want to do anything. She wants to stay in the room and sleep some more. Fay, naturally, has chosen the same activity as me.

  As we follow the signposts to the boathouse, she lists her kayaking worries. What if she can’t keep up with the group, her hair goes uncontrollably frizzy, or she falls out of the kayak and gets trapped underneath it without enough oxygen?

  “You should stick with Joe,” I say. “He told me at breakfast he’s an expert.”

  “You sat with Joe?” says Fay. “What did you talk about?”

  “Kayaking,” I say. She might as well have I Fancy Joe printed on her crop top.

  The lake is huge with its own little jungle island in the middle, covered in trees. It’s surrounded by the woods where the high-ropes course is – I can see a few of the really tall wooden posts sticking up above the treeline. It’s peaceful here, though probably less so once people get going on the high-ropes course and the screaming starts.

  We make our way to the boathouse, which is a long, rickety building. Two huge wooden doors facing the lake are wide open and reveal rows and rows of kayaks inside, slotted into their compartments like wine bottles in a rack. The grassy area in front of the building slopes gently down to the water and a wooden jetty. There are two benches on the grass and a sign by the jetty: No fishing. No swimming. No trespassing on island (nature reserve).

  “I’d like to live on an island like that,” says Fay. “All on my own. Far away from everyone.”

  Fay is the least likely person to cope with living on an island on her own, but I let that pass.

  Joe’s already standing outside the boathouse with the kayaking instructor. The two of them are deep in conversation about sprints, marathons and personal bests. Tacked to one of the doors is a list of participants for this morning’s session. I see we’re waiting for three more people. Kerry, Alice and Brandon.

  They arrive together, and the instructor comes over to see if Brandon wants to borrow a T-shirt from lost property to avoid ruining his shirt.

  Brandon glances down at his geometric print shirt, creased in rectangles as if it’s fresh out of a packet, and shakes his head. “I’m good, thanks.” He rolls up his sleeves to the elbow as we follow Tim, the instructor, into the gloomy boathouse through a side door. We leave everything we don’t want to get soaked or lost overboard in wire cubes, and clip ourselves into damp life jackets.

  Tim gives us paddles, which we wave around on dry land to get an idea of the technique. He stands with his back to the lake so that we face it as we copy his movements. I avoid looking at the water, which is waiting for me, murky and unappealing.

  The boats are longer and heavier than I was expecting, with dank water swilling about at the bottom. We carry them down to the jetty, where Tim says he’ll hold each person’s boat while they get in, apart from Joe’s, who knows what he’s doing.

  Joe goes first. Fay volunteers to go next, probably so that she can be alone on the lake with Joe for a few minutes. She does a bit of shrieking as she paddles away from the jetty, but she seems to be able to make the kayak go wherever she wants.

  Kerry goes next, followed by Alice, then it’s my turn.

  “Good luck,” says Brandon.

  I glare at him because he didn’t say that to the others. Does he think I’m totally hopeless?

  My bare feet make uneasy contact with the old lake water in the boat, and I thump down on the seat sooner than I’m expecting. As soon as I dip the paddle into the water on one side, I feel the whole thing tip, my stomach sliding with it. I shift my body so it’s more centred.

  “Feeling good, Skye?” yells Joe. He couldn’t sound more patronizing if he tried.

  I nod but don’t give him the satisfaction of eye contact. I move the paddle how we were shown on the bank but I’m finding it hard to look at the water and not see a red tint to it. There’s a lump of panic in my throat. I think about the breathing lessons I had from the counsellor at school. Breathe in slowly through your nose for a count of five. Imagine your lungs are a bottle and you’re filling it with air from the bottom up. Hold for three. Breathe out through your mouth for a count of five.

  It helps a bit.

  Everyone’s in their boat now. Tim calls us over to him. He’s going to lead us round the lake. We’ll go at a gentle pace. It’s going to be fun. The perfect way to spend a sunny morning. He can’t believe he gets paid for this.

  Kerry and Alice want to go behind Tim; Fay angles herself next to Joe. I hang back, and I find myself alongside Brandon.

  “Having fun?” he asks.

  “Bucketloads,” I say. “How about you?”

  He slices the paddle through the water at the wrong angle and water sprays him. “Should have chosen archery. Some of the lake water just went in my mouth. D’you think I’ll get sick?” He lets his boat glide and peers at the water. “I bet there’s all kinds of poisonous algae in there. Can’t you die from some water-rat disease?” His face wrinkles up in disgust.

  “Possibly,” I say. “You’re such a townie.”

  “Oi. You live in London too.”

  “Near,” I say. “And I haven’t always lived there.” I shove my paddle in the water. “Come on. We’d better catch up the others.”

  As we move closer to the island, I see that although it’s mostly thickly forested, it has a pebbly beach all round it. Like a desert island without the sand or palm trees. Without me noticing, my kayak has drifted away from the group and I need to go more to the right, but I’ve lost the rhythm of my paddle… I push it too far into the water with too much of my body weight behind it. My legs are crossed and I can’t right myself in time. No. I can’t fall in. I can’t. Please no.

  I fall. The water is freezing. A shock. In the half second that my head is underwater, all the nightmares I’ve had about drowning resurface in my head. Icy fear grips me. The desperate desire to breathe, the chest pain and the panic. As I tread water and keep my head up, I think of blood leaking into water, drifting in red clouds.

  Breathe.

  I’m wearing a life jacket. If I need to I can flip on to my back. I’m not that far from the shore. I can swim.

  I’m aware of boats near me, voices that sharpen into sense.

  Joe’s voice: “I’ll get her kayak.”

  Fay’s: “Skye! Skye?”

  Tim’s: “Skye, you’ll be able to put your feet down in a minute.”

  My feet find the gravelly bottom of the lake. Tim is there beside me in his boat. “Nice swim? We’ll get you back in your boat in no time.” He shouts to Joe. “Hey, mate. Bring her kayak over.”

  I walk through the thigh-high water in slow motion. “I’m not going back out,” I say. “I’ve had enough.”

  “Hey, don’t be embarrassed,” says Tim. “It’s a sunny day – you’ll soon dry off.”

  “I’m not going back out,” I repeat. “You can’t make me.”

  “Go on. Be brave,” says Tim.

  Be brave.

  I keep wading.

  Tim shouts at the others. “I won’t be a mo.” He clambers out of his boat into the water, not even registering the coldness of it. “I’ll help you on to dry land.”

  He grabs the back of my life jacket and hauls me forward on to the jetty like I’m an enormous dead fish. I crawl on to my knees, then stagger to my feet.

  “I’ll sort out your boat,” says Tim. “You go to the boathouse. There’s a towel on the back of the door.
OK?”

  I nod, then shiver up the slope towards the boathouse. I wish that he’d stood on the jetty with me for a moment and put his arms round me. I know he wouldn’t have been allowed to. Child protection issues and all that. But for the first time in a year I want someone to hug me, and tell me they know how hard it was for me to be in the water.

  The towel on the back of the boathouse door smells of wet dog but it’s dry. I take off my life jacket, wrap the towel round me, over my wet T-shirt and shorts, and grab my flip-flops from the rack. As I squelch out of the boathouse, I see Brandon lugging his kayak up the slope.

  “What’s the matter?” I ask.

  “I wanted to check you were OK.”

  “No, seriously.”

  He gives a mini shrug. “Had enough of the lake tour. Wasn’t my thing.” He unclips the fastening on the front of his life jacket and lets it hang open. “But you are OK?”

  I nod. All this checking-I’m-OK business is wearying,

  He dumps the boat down and contemplates the mud between his toes. “I’d better go back for a shower.” But he plonks himself on a bench and sighs.

  I sit down on the other one and curl my knees up. I’m reminded of sitting with Annika by the side of a pool. Huddled under a towel, though usually it smelled a lot more pleasant. Exhausted, with no energy to move.

  After people started to hear about what happened, Annika came round and gave me a present. A cutesy little teddy on a key ring wearing an obscene pair of red Speedos. It was the sort of thing that used to make me laugh, but it went in a box for the charity shop when we moved. Every time I looked at it, I was reminded of Annika crying, and me not able to say a single word.

  I miss Annika.

  The others are on the far side of the island now. Blocked from view.

  “You freaked me out when you first fell in,” says Brandon.

  “Why? Were you worried I’d swallowed some water?”

  “I could see you were panicking. Can you swim? Did you lie on that form we had to fill in?”

  I give him a look that means You what? “I’m a club swimmer,” I say, before I correct myself. “Was a club swimmer. I’ve swum in south of England competitions. I’ve got trophies and everything.”

  “Then why were you acting so weirdly?” asks Brandon.

  Why does everyone have to be so nosy?

  “Bad memories,” I say. I stand up. Make sure my feet are firmly in my flip-flops, so I’m not going to slip. “See you later. I’m off to have a shower.”

  eight

  I’m the first person in the yellow dining room for lunch. Danielle’s second. She tells me she was hoicked out of our room by Pippa after Fay and I left for the lake this morning. Apparently, staying in bed wasn’t on the list of this morning’s options, but she was allowed to sunbathe on the patio outside the games room.

  “How was kayaking?” she asks as she takes the food wrap off a basket of garlic bread and takes a chunk.

  I help myself to one too.

  Danielle keeps going even though her mouth is full. “Your hair’s wet. Did you fall in?”

  “I had a shower.” Not technically a lie.

  A member of the catering staff bustles in and grabs at the food wrap covering the other bowls, as if she’s being timed. The archery crowd come through the door with Pippa, and I take a plate from the pile and get moving.

  The kayakers don’t turn up until I’ve almost finished my first course. They drib-drab in, Joe and Fay ahead of Kerry and Alice.

  “Look at that,” says Danielle. “Someone is actually listening to Fay.”

  Fay’s standing close to Joe. Her face is tilted up towards his and she’s telling him some long, involved story. Joe is nodding and smiling.

  “She’s not his type,” I say.

  “How d’you know what someone’s type is?” says Danielle.

  I shrug, and fork some coleslaw into my mouth. “The two of them don’t … match. I can’t explain it.”

  “That’s stereotyping,” says Danielle. “You’re saying that people need to match? What, like in skin colour or level of attractiveness?”

  “Course not,” I say, as I watch Fay and Joe leave the buffet table and head for the two spare seats next to me.

  “It’s cute,” says Danielle. “They’re both as annoying as each other.”

  I brace myself for the conversation that’s about to take place just as soon as Joe and Fay reach me.

  “Skye!” calls Fay, before there’s a sensible talking distance between us. “Are you all right? Did you swallow any lake water?”

  Danielle thumps her fists on the table with delight. “Oh. My. God. You did. You fell in!”

  Fay takes the place next to me, and Joe sits the other side of her. “How are you?” he asks, leaning forward to hear my answer.

  “Fine,” I say. “Yeah, fine.”

  Joe tells me how I missed a great paddle round the lake. “You and him,” he says, nodding towards the door, as Brandon walks into the dining room. He’s changed into clean shorts and a green polo shirt. I’m grateful there are no more spare seats on our table. The sooner we can get this discussion over with, with the least amount of people, the better.

  “You should have got back in the boat,” says Joe. “You know, like getting back on a horse. Without fear there is no courage.”

  I roll my eyes. “Spare me the inspirational quotes.”

  Danielle laughs. “I wish I’d gone kayaking now. I could have filmed you falling in.”

  Joe holds his hand up, palm out. “That’s bullying.”

  He has a point.

  “Lighten up,” says Danielle.

  “If you knew what happened with my girlfriend you wouldn’t say that,” says Joe.

  “What happened?” asks Fay. She rests her fork on the side of her plate

  “Cyberbullying.” He pours some water into his glass. “Which led to suicide.” It’s weird the way he says it. As if he’s delivering an important line in a play.

  “That’s awful,” Fay murmurs.

  “Yes,” says Joe. “It’s been a nightmare.”

  Fay bites her lower lip.

  “What sort of cyberbullying?” asks Danielle.

  “There was a photo… It got circulated.”

  “A sexting thing?” asks Danielle.

  “Kyra took a naked selfie and…” He leans back and runs both hands through each side of his blond surfer hair. I’m embarrassed for him. “The police were involved,” he says. “There was an enquiry. But nothing happened.”

  “So nobody got the blame?” asks Fay.

  Joe shakes his head. “Kyra went to a different school to me. I tried to find out if anyone got expelled or anything, but no one would tell me.” He sounds bitter.

  There’s a pause. All of us are used to The Pause. It’s the one where other people leap in and say, “I’m so sorry.” Then they usually don’t know what to say next.

  Fay gets there first. “I’m so sorry, Joe.”

  Danielle says, “It pisses me off that people don’t know the difference between banter and bullying.”

  I want to get up and leave. I don’t want to hear Joe’s sad story aired and flapped about. But we have to wait around for Pippa’s after-lunch chat, so while I squish crumbs of carrot cake on to my finger and eat them, one by one, I listen to more details, responses to questions from Fay and Danielle. Kyra was found in the garden shed by her mum. She’d taken a fatal overdose of her granddad’s pain relief medication. Joe found out from a friend.

  He tells us how gorgeous Kyra was. Later, when he has his phone, he’ll show us some photos. She was a surfer. That’s how they met. She gave him his anklet a couple of weeks before she died. He hasn’t taken it off since.

  So I was right about that anklet.

  The afternoon’s activities are Ultimate Frisbee or orienteering, followed by a workshop called Coping with Difficult Feelings, then a table football tournament. None of it is compulsory but Pippa is keen for people to Ha
ve Fun, and Make the Most of What’s on Offer. She has a further announcement.

  “Today is Brandon’s sixteenth birthday.”

  She waits for the cheering to calm down, and I search him out. He’s on the other table. Squirming. I can’t believe he didn’t mention it this morning. He’s had a pretty crap birthday so far. A tiny bit of kayaking which he didn’t enjoy. Me walking away from him in a huff.

  “He doesn’t want a fuss,” says Pippa. “But we couldn’t let the occasion go past unnoticed, so there’ll be a cake in here at four-thirty p.m.”

  Someone starts clapping, Danielle whoops and Brandon does a mock bow in his seat as acknowledgement but looks embarrassed.

  “What activity are you choosing?” Fay asks Joe.

  “Frisbee,” says Joe. “How about you?”

  “Same,” says Fay.

  How very unsurprising. But it’s helped me make my mind up – orienteering it is.

  *

  Only three Yellows want to do orienteering: me, Danielle and Brandon.

  “Are you sure you’re not stalking me?” I ask him, but in a nicer way than if I didn’t know it was his birthday.

  As this is an inter-group activity, we’re waiting by the stone steps outside the main dining room for Blues and Reds to join us. Brandon says, “Are you sure you’re not stalking me? I’m pretty sure I put up my hand before you did.” He adds, “But I’m OK with you stalking me.”

  I shrug. “Happy birthday, by the way.”

  “Cheers.”

  Danielle looks up from where she’s been watching loads of ants crawl in and out of a crack in the cement below the bottom step. “I’m not feeling this orienteering thing any more. I need a cigarette.”

  Two girls wander up. “Is this where we’re supposed to wait for orienteering?”

  “Yeah,” I say.

  “Are you the music lot?” asks the same girl. She has incredibly long hair, blonde and very straight.

  “Nope,” says Danielle.

  “Are you Yellows?” asks the other girl. She sounds quite excited. “Here with the charity?”

  I nod.

  “I hope you don’t mind me asking,” says the girl who looks like Rapunzel, “but do you all have … I don’t know how to put this … mental health issues?”