A HAZY SHADE OF WINTER Page 6

  He laughed and wiped his eyes with the back of his sleeve. ‘Okay.’

  She led him up the path. He didn’t think, and he didn’t care. Holly was here, and that was all that mattered. And Emily. Emily, too.

  They went in through the oak front door. The hallway was just as he remembered it; white skirting and sky-blue woodchip walls. A big pendulum clock ticked above a display case of bone china, and a stuffed owl under glass glowered from the foot of the stairs. Foxy, if he recalled aright, had christened it ‘Toby’. Music and voices pressed against the closed front room door.

  ‘Hey!’ called Holly as she went opened it. ‘Look what the cat dragged in.’

  Heads turned, and he saw faces he hadn’t seen in a decade or more, heard the kind of full-hearted laughter, and felt the sense of belonging he hadn’t known in as long a time.

  ‘Hey mate.’ Ben gripped his hand tight. ‘How you doing?’

  ‘I’m good,’ Matt said, meaning it for the first time in years. ‘You?’

  ‘Never better.’

  ‘Yeah.’ Matt stared round the room; it, too, seemed unchanged. The gilt-framed oil of Victorian London by night above the marble fireplace; the same sky-blue walls as in the hallway; the smooth but comfortable leather sofas, the big onyx coffee-table, the thick white shagpile carpet. He remembered the car he’d found under the ivy outside. ‘You still got that old Jag?’

  Ben nodded and laughed. ‘You know me. Fancy a spin later?’

  ‘That’d be good.’ Ben’s sandy mop was untouched by grey, hardly thinned at all, the boyish features barely softened with age; The weight of Matt’s years felt painfully heavy on him. ‘You’re looking well,’ he said.

  Ben grinned. ‘Don’t worry, mate,’ he said, ‘we’ll have you back to your old self in no time.’

  ‘I’ll drink to that,’ said Matt, and as if by magic a beer was in his hand. Foxy rolled up, good old Foxy, fat now where he’d been skin and bone, but his blue eyes still crazy, laughter still manic, offering a fat, smouldering joint. ‘How ’bout smokin’ to it too?’

  ‘Why not?’ said Matt, and took a grateful hit.

  They all came up; Adam and Danielle—still joined at the hip after all these years—the three C’s, Pete, Brian; Karl, full of the ease and confidence he’d lost . . . he was hugged, kissed, pounded on the back, and whichever hand wasn’t at that moment clutching a drink or spliff was pumped until he thought his arms would detach at the shoulder.

  Then the crowd parted and . . .

  She stood there and smiled at him.

  ‘Matt.’

  ‘Emily.’ He couldn’t think of another word to say. He didn’t have to. When he held her, it was as though summer had never gone.

  And on through the night the party went, time blurring, slipping by, and finally ceasing to exist. Beers and joints were passed round, and the house rang with laughter and the stereo’s thunder. And again and again their song was played: ‘The Boys of Summer’, a great hymn to all that once had been, and now had come again.

  Matt talked with Holly, with Ben, with all the rest, but in the end, who else would he want most of all to talk to, this and every night to come, but Emily? They ended up on the front room sofa, holding hands like moonstruck teenagers, and finally kissing, breaking out of it with sheepish grins as the congregation broke into whistles and applause. And nothing could have seemed more apt, more right, than when Emily took his hand to lead him from the room and upstairs, to one of the bedrooms.

  They undressed feverishly, Matt aware of how his body had changed, sagging where it had once been at least comparatively taut, threads and touches of grey showing already in his once-black hair, the youthful smoothness of his skin beginning to fade. He braced himself for those same signs in Emily, but couldn’t see them. When he looked at her, perhaps it was a trick of the light, but her face and body seemed unaltered. The dim, softening light, perhaps; he hoped it was as kind to him.

  All these years they’d kept the faith, coming back . . . and he’d never known. Why hadn’t they told him, sought him out? He felt his eyes sting again and his chest tighten at the thought of all the times when he could have been where he belonged.

  ‘Hey.’ Emily’s hands slid down his body. ‘What’s wrong?’

  He opened his mouth to speak, and she kissed it. ‘Come to bed.’

  Meekly, he followed.

  ‘I’ve wanted this so long,’ one of them said. He was never sure which.

  Afterwards, he cradled her in the crook of his arm and watched her, smiling up at him, eyes heavy-lidded.

  ‘Why did no one tell me?’

  She shook her head. ‘Don’t ask that, Matt. You’re here now.’

  Her lips’ soft touch silenced him before he could reply, and then her eyes closed in sleep.

  He’d have lain here happily all the night and longer, but the body has its own demands, and after a while he rose, touching his lips gently to her forehead. Still a little self-conscious, he dressed, then tiptoed onto the landing. He used the bathroom, came out, and walked into Sam.

  ‘All right, mate.’

  ‘Sam.’ They shook hands. ‘Good to see you again. All of you.’

  ‘Don’t start gettin’ all mushy on me.’ Sam grinned cockily at him. Same as ever. ‘Talk to you in a bit, yeah? Nature calls.’

  Sam moved past him towards the bathroom. He doesn’t look any different at all, thought Matt. Same as back in that summer, before . . .

  Sam.

  Just before they’d lost contact, Holly had told him about . . .

  ‘Sam?’

  Sam turned. ‘Yeah, mate?’

  ‘I thought . . . I mean, I heard . . .’

  ‘What?’

  Sam looked at him unsmiling. ‘Daft, really . . .’ mumbled Matt.

  ‘What?’

  ‘That you . . .’

  Sam just looked at him. No smile on his face. No nothing.

  The silence gathered between them, and in it the summer warmth of Avalon died. Then Sam turned and went into the bathroom, the door closing behind him.

  Matt stood on the landing for a moment, then turned back to the bedroom door, but his hand froze halfway to the knob, then fell back to his side.

  Downstairs, the party went on. And once again, ‘The Boys of Summer’ played.

  Matt went down. Halfway there, he stopped before a silver-framed mirror on the wall. He stood and stared while the big clock ticked away in the hall, then finally reached out and touched his shivering fingers to the reflection of the boy he’d been a dozen faded summers gone.

  They were all still there in the front room; all but Emily and Sam.

  ‘Hey, mate!’ Holly waved a bottle in the air. ‘How you doin’?’

  ‘Good,’ he said. He felt as if he was on autopilot, acting normally in a place where reality had ceased to apply. ‘Holly, I just ran into Sam.’

  Was it just him, or did her smile seem to twitch? ‘Yeah?’

  ‘Yeah. But I thought . . . I’m sure it was you who told me . . .’

  ‘Matt . . .’ Was there a warning note in her voice?

  ‘You told me he was dead. That he topped himself.’

  The music died. Then and there. So did every whisper of conversation in the room.

  Matt turned and looked around. They all stood there, looking at him as if he’d just cracked the wrong kind of joke.

  ‘Oh, Matt,’ said Holly. ‘Matt, why did you have to . . .’

  ‘Had to happen sooner or later,’ said Ben. He wasn’t looking at Matt as he spoke, but down into the depths of his glass, swirling the contents round and round. ‘Always were a bright lad.’

  ‘Too bright for your own good,’ said Foxy, sighing. ‘Always made yourself unhappy that way.’

  ‘Houses remember,’ said Holly softly.

  ‘What?’

  Her hair was dry and lacklustre, where before it had been glossy and bright. ‘Houses remember, Matt. Not just the bad times. The good ones too. Even when they’re not muc
h more than ashes and dust. Avalon remembers. It remembers us.’

  ‘And we remember Avalon,’ said Adam, drawing Danielle to his side.

  ‘We knew you’d come back in the end,’ said Holly. ‘Just wondered what took you so long.’

  ‘Back down memory lane,’ said Ben, knocking his whisky back. ‘Sam was just the first. We all come home.’ He flung the glass at the fireplace, where it shattered.

  ‘Ben!’ said Holly.

  ‘What?’ said Ben. ‘It’s true, isn’t it? How we all came back here? One by one? And realise there’s more for us here than there’ll ever be out there?’ He gestured out of the front window. He was white, bloodless now. As Matt looked around, he saw that all were, their eyes black hollows scooped in their faces. And the window was smashed into spines of jagged glass, the floorboards bare, and the walls charred black, water dripping down from a leak above; the fireplace was a stripped, gaping hole in the wall, below an empty, lopsided picture frame from which limp dead melancholy flags of rotten canvas hung.

  ‘Didn’t realise it at first,’ Foxy said, almost to himself. He pushed a hand through his wild hair, and Matt saw the black, bloodless gash along the inside of his forearm. Foxy looked up, his eyes red. His other hand rose, flapped limply at the air, fell back to his side. There was a gash along the inside of that arm too. ‘Ran away. Tried to forget it. But I knew, even then, I never would.’

  ‘Too bloody right,’ Ben said bitterly. ‘None of us ever can.’ His face was white but unmarked. There was no sign of violence on him at all. Carbon monoxide poisoning, maybe? That would fit Ben. Lead a hosepipe from the exhaust of his beloved car in through the window, run the engine, drift painlessly away. And the others . . . Danielle and Adam’s tongues pushed blackly from their mouths, eyes swelling, faces darkening. Round their throats the flesh sank in in livid collars, showing the bite of the rope. And the others, too. Karl, Camilla . . . all of them.

  Holly’s hand tugged at his arm. His head turned before he could stop it, and he saw the bluish marbling of her waxy flesh, the way her filmed eyes were crumpling hollowly in at the pupils, as if deflating.

  ‘Matt . . .’ she said.

  He pulled his arm free and stumbled towards the door. They closed in on him, but they were weak and slow in their death and decay, and had no power to hurt. He shook them off and stumbled down the hall.

  ‘Matt?’

  He froze at the front door.

  ‘You going without saying goodbye?’ Emily asked, behind him.

  He couldn’t answer. He made his hand reach out and grasp the knob.

  ‘Matt . . .’ Sorrow, and an aching loneliness. ‘Matt, don’t.’

  The knob turned in his hand. The door opened in an agonising slow motion as her footsteps creaked the bare boards and her voice drew closer.

  ‘Matt,’ she said, ‘I love you,’

  The door swung wide, but he couldn’t seem to go through it.

  Her voice rose in bitter fury. ‘Won’t you even look at me before you go?’

  And it was that, more than anything else, that drove him forward, out into the night.

  Matt ran past his car, didn’t even think of trying to start it, and on back up the slip road. He looked back once, and saw Avalon, its frontage pristine once more, the roof restored, lawns trimmed neat again, bushes spattered bright with colour and the figurine pissing merrily in the fountain’s pool, rich and lush as a flower on a grave, ripe and lusty with stolen life, and then tore his eyes away to run again. Behind him, he could hear Holly calling his name, and the others. He refused to listen, in case he heard Emily among them, blundering on, outstretched hands batting branches away, all the way to the main road, till he couldn’t hear them anymore.

  Dawn found him picking his way back through ankle-high mist to the forecourt. The car stood alone; its wing mirror showed him his old familiar face of the day before. Avalon was empty and still again, its restored glories fallen back into ruin.

  There was a photograph, crumpled and stained, beside the front wheel. An old picture of the lawn, a lone figure kneeling on it, arms outspread, hands hung down as if draped over the shoulders of people who’d been beside him, but were no more.

  He got back in the car and drove away, for now.

  In the end, he thought, we all come home.

  Come With Me, Down This Long Road

  CROSSING THE BRIDGE off from the main A-road, Sam followed the street past a boarded-up pub and the first row of terraces to its corner. There he found a railway bridge, beyond which lay a lumpy plain of wasteground, humped with what he guessed to be overgrown coal-slag. He walked under the bridge, gazed about for a moment in the heat while flies buzzed and crickets chirped, then headed back to the corner and carried on down the road.

  He’d glimpsed the street’s beginning and end from the bus on every journey to and from Manchester, and his curiosity had been tickled. Being as new to the area as he was to widowerhood, the best way to get to know it seemed to be to explore. So: it was a Sunday today, the first of what promised to be a fine summer; what better way to spend a part of it? It had been a while since he’d simply had and followed an impulse to its sweet or bitter ending.

  And so he kept walking even as the first misgivings surfaced. Initially, it all looked pleasant enough, nearly all the terraces and semis along the road’s length presenting the same clean, pebble-dashed fronts. But as you saw them closer to, the flaws and cracks showed, the wildly overgrown gardens. One garden had been paved over, but feathery green tufts of grass spurted up between the cracks, as though the stones had been dropped directly onto the lawn and pressed flat, in a vain attempt to suppress it. Sam dismissed his unease as groundless, silly. Besides, if something disturbed you, it should be pursued and confronted. Even so, the sight gave him the impression of a desperate, cracking façade erected to disguise something else—panic, perhaps, or despair—that, despite its illogic, he couldn’t seem to shake.

  Maybe he was getting heat stroke. It was hotter than he’d expected. There were clouds, but they mostly hugged the sky’s lower edges; he yearned for one to hide the sun, however briefly. If he could find a shop, he’d buy some bottled water.

  It was quiet; perhaps the heat was affecting everyone, or they weren’t so stupid as to go wandering around in it when they could stay inside in the shade, near fridges full of cold drinks, taps full of cool water . . . Just the thought made Sam feel parched, and he licked his lips.

  A couple of kids went by on bicycles; the first signs of life. They called out to one another in broad Scots accents. Sam walked on, feeling sweat dew his brow; he wiped it off and smoothed it on the back of his neck, relishing the brief coolness.

  The second sign of life was a naked child—a toddler—lurching across a front lawn and tumbling on its driveway, two doors down from where he stood.

  It fell with a shrill, catlike yowl that made Sam flinch, ringing loud across the silent street, but even though the front door was ajar, there was no sound, much less motion, from within. Sam strode forward, ignoring the twinge of pain in his hip. He and Teresa had desperately wanted children; in the end, he’d left the social services for another career, unable to continue seeing how carelessly some abused a gift others yearned for. Years later, the old anger still remained.

  The neighbours’ privet hedge obscured the view, but only for a moment; then Sam reached the low garden wall and looked over. It took his brain a moment to process what it saw.

  The sight held him in momentary paralysis before he recoiled from it and stumbled on down the road, his hip pain stabbing him again but once more ignored, even as it twisted his gait out of true. It held him only briefly, but too long. Long enough for him to register not only the flabby, featureless white body, for all the world like a lump of dough, but the eyeless head it raised as it began to cry again.

  There was a newsagent’s shop further down the road, and Sam bought a bottle of water there. He didn’t say anything; he didn’t trust himself. He used the
water to take one of his pills, and walked slowly—there being nowhere to sit—until the hip pain had lessened.

  Well, wrong though it was, he could understand the parents’ unwillingness to approach their child. His and Teresa’s childlessness had seemed a sorrow at some times and a blessing at others; for the first time since her death, he felt it as the latter.

  He drank the rest of the water, his body thirsty for it after all it had sweated out, and not just with the heat. The things that could happen. He shook his head sadly. The things that could happen. But he was determined not to let it spoil his day, his walk. Teresa would have wanted him to go on, to enjoy, to relish. So, he would.

  Sam kept walking. He passed several culs-de-sac on his left, all cobbled, half the houses boarded up. A gaunt, stringy man in his fifties sat on a folding chair on the pavement outside one, head bowed. The sun burned incandescently above and there was no wind.

  Then, abruptly, the houses petered out. Past them he could see, on the right hand side of the road, a wooded slope, and on the left, a long expanse of open land, a huge vacant lot, thick with waist-high grass. And a power station, surrounded by a tall pitted iron fence with a faded warning sign, a pylon reared high like a skeletal idol.

  But there was another building, just before you reached the station. What was it? He recognised the type; it was a prefab job, the kind popular in the ’sixties and ’seventies, white and red panels fixed to a frame. A lot of schools had been built that way in his old area. And there was a sign outside the gates like the kind you’d find at a school, but it was blank, the lettering long torn down, and the gates were padlocked, topped with spiralled coils of razorwire. If it had been a school, it had been abandoned, and for a long time.

  Next to the power station. Never allow that now, of course. He crossed to the left side and eyed the abandoned building, but there were no more clues to its identity at close quarters. He shrugged and went on.

  There was the generator, in the middle, big thrumming box of power that it was, other bits of paraphernalia that Sam, no electrician, didn’t pretend to understand dotted round it. And what were those, next to the generator?