Daylight Saving (7 page)

He laughed.

“By the way,” I said, “I’ve arranged a game of volleyball with Chrissy and Tash for tomorrow on the beach.”

“Really?” he said. He frowned. “OK. Might be fun, I suppose. Bit cold.”

“I remember you playing when we were on holiday in Spain. You’re good.”

He looked out the window and into his past. “Yeah,” he said. “I’m all right.”

Dad went through to the kitchen area, and after a moment, I followed him, to get a drink of water. He was staring, perplexed, at the tomato plant. “What the bloody hell . . . ?” he said.

I saw that the plant had changed again. The tomatoes had shrunk, their skin had tightened. Most of them were half green and half orange.
32, 31, 30,
I thought. I knew then that there were forces in the world that I would never understand. Perhaps I didn’t want to understand them.

Dad and I went to the Tropical Dome. We swam separately, Dad for ten minutes before he got out and sat on the lounger with his cup of coffee. He wasn’t exactly happy, but we weren’t fighting. I swam deep into the main pool and started counting again, plugging my heartbeat into the rhythm of the strokes, imagining Lexi’s body folding under the water. The outside noises faded until I couldn’t hear anything but the rumble of my blood.

Flashes came to me of Lexi’s face, the marks on her temple, the soft blending rainbow of her black eye. There were boys back at school who liked that kind of thing: girls getting roughed up. They looked at pictures on their phones. I wasn’t one of those guys, and the thought of Lexi’s injuries tore into me; it felt like my stomach was bleeding. I pulled myself deeper into the water, until the images went away, and I felt a brightness around my body.

When I rose up out of that suspended state, I saw that the sky beyond the Dome was dark with storm clouds and rain was hitting the glass. I peered up through the palm leaves. The green on the gray. Steam rose up from the Jacuzzis. Over on the lounger, I saw Dad reach into his bag, take out a miniature bottle of whiskey, and pour a good glug into his coffee. He glanced around to make sure nobody had seen. Like a boy. I got out and put on my T-shirt.

“Easy, Dan,” said Ryan. “You certainly can move in the water, buddy. Serious.”

“Hi, Ryan, thanks,” I said.
I’ve got a good teacher,
I thought, picturing Lexi’s gliding strokes.

“Your dad OK today? I see he left his sneakers at home.”

“Yeah,” I said. “Hey, that was the girl I was talking about, by the way. When you saw me this morning.”

“What?” he said.

“This morning. When you rode past?”

“Yeah. Near the lake . . . ?”

“Yeah. I was with Lexi. The swimmer I was talking about.”

He pulled at a tangled thread of his yellow hair and frowned. “A girl? I didn’t see a girl, man,” he said.

“She was right next to me,” I said.

“Sure, man,” he said slowly. “Whatever you say.”

The frown never left his face.

Dad went down to the on-site pub, the Red Lion, and I sneaked off to meet Lexi at eight. The cinder paths smelled of fresh rain, and the air was as clean as steel; the sky was a dark blue. She was waiting by a tree, her legs crossed, hair slick, hands in her lap. I dropped the bike and walked over to her. She noticed that I was limping. “What happened?” she said.

“Nothing. I think I must have pulled a muscle while I was swimming.”

“You’ll want to be in shape for what we’re about to do. It requires peak physical condition,” she said.

“Well, that shouldn’t be a problem, then,” I said, patting my belly.

She took me by the arms. “You have good solid shoulders, Daniel. That’s what you need. Now, give me a backy.”

While I stood astride the bike, she sat on the seat with her legs out to the sides, and I pedaled off in the sprint position. “Where are we going?” I asked.

“Other side of the lake. We’re going round in a big circle.”

“Like history,” I said.

The dynamo clicked, and the light flickered on the ditches and wooden fence rails. She told me to slow down when we reached a group of family residences. This was the area where big families stayed, and it was dominated by rows of tall terraced houses. It looked like one of those new housing estates and reminded me that there was a world outside.

“Leave the bike in the bushes,” Lexi whispered.

I did as I was told. “What are we doing? I’m not robbing anyone,” I said.

“Wait,” she said.

We crept through long grass to the fence of the first back garden. Just a normal paneled fence. The wood was damp from the rain and warm from the sun that had followed the storm. The houses were on a downward slope, so you could see bits of the other gardens, and the fences like a line of dominoes. Some people had hung out their swimming towels on the washing lines.

Lexi put her foot on the ledge of one of the fence panels and her hands on the top of the fence, her fingers flickering to avoid splinters. One of her fingernails was black, and blood rose around its edges. She put her head down and rocked.

“What are we
doing
?” I said.

“Follow me,” she said. “And whatever you do, don’t think.”

She pulled herself up and over the fence, and I heard her running across the first garden. She was on top of the second fence before I had overcome my shock. I tried to haul myself up, but I was too heavy for a standing start. I took a few paces back and ran at the fence, jumped, grappled, and I was over. Four chairs stood in the garden, a sopping magazine on the table. I paused for a moment and then started running for the next fence, propelled by fear and joy.

It was an incredible feeling, and something I will always remember. I could feel the adrenaline roaring inside of me and the hushed glide of the air against my skin. At first, I just concentrated on her back and tried to forget the fact that there were people in those houses to my left. But soon I relaxed into it. My senses were heightened. I felt the wet squeaks of the long grass beneath my feet as I slipped and slid like a newborn deer. The fourth garden smelled of bins; the fifth smelled of detergent from the towels they’d forgot to take off the line. Lexi tried to sabotage me, back-heeling a tricycle into my path and spinning another washing line so that the towels clattered into my face. She ran in absolute silence, but I could see her shoulders trembling from laughter.

Me, I wanted to holler. I wanted to howl with the rush of it all.

When we’d started, I had been afraid that people would see us, but now I didn’t care. In fact, I
wanted
them to. This was how I wanted to be seen. This was how I wanted to be known: as a silvery streak of moonlit man hurtling past the window, a moment of pure beauty in the life of these shoddy holiday homes.

It felt like everything was in high-definition. Lexi spit on a plant by the sixth fence, and I could see the bubbles of saliva on the leaf, like sap. I reached the top of the eighth fence just as she reached the top of the ninth — she was exactly where I would be in three seconds’ time. She was my future. The route of gardens unraveled beyond her. I sprinted across the tenth lawn and then —
bang!
— I hit a table camouflaged with a green tarp and flipped over the top of it, rolling across the grass. I was still laughing when I stood up. I turned to my left and saw a woman standing behind the patio door in her living area, looking absolutely dumbfounded in her tracksuit. Our eyes met for a moment, and then I was gone.
“Wooo!”
I shouted as I picked up speed again.

When I got over the last fence, I saw that Lexi was already lying on her back in the long grass, her chest going up and then down in even heaves, the left side fluttering. I ran over and lay down beside her, turned onto my stomach, and looked back at where we had come from.

“You made it,” she said.

I could hardly breathe. “Yes,” I said.

“Daniel,” she said. “I think you may have found your sport.”

We stared at the hazy crescent moon. “Looks like a fingernail,” I said.

“I’ve always wanted long fingernails,” she said. “But I will never get them.”

“You will.”

She shook her head.

“You’re a good partner,” she said. “I could hear you behind me.”

I felt the back of her hand against the back of mine. It wasn’t much, but it was contact.

“I’m playing volleyball with my dad tomorrow. And the two women next door. I arranged it,” I said.

“You got him some adult company,” she said. “Good for you, Daniel.”

“It’ll be a bit of a comedown after this,” I said.

“Well,” she said.

I picked up her scent. She smelled of the lake, a scent that is almost untraceable. It almost smells of nothing, but it contains the freshness of life. The dark, dark greenness of the water.

“Where’s your mother?” she said.

“She’s staying with her sister down south. Nowhere else to go. She comes up to see me once a fortnight. I try to get Dad to come along, at least to talk to her. I’m missing the next visit because I’m here.”

“What a pain,” she said.

“It’s got its good points,” I said. I didn’t look at her. Thinking about Mum and Dad immediately made me tense. I raised myself up onto my elbows.

“Do you want your parents to get back together?” she said.

“Yes.”

“Do you think that’s possible?”

“Maybe. I split them up, so I can probably work out a way to get them back together, right?” All the anger was flowing into me again.

“What do you mean you split them up?” she said.

“I saw my mum with another man. My dad asked me about it, and I couldn’t hide it from him.”

Lexi sighed. I was getting irate. I looked at her, but she was just staring at the moon.

“Are you listening?” I said. “I’m telling you I destroyed my family.”

“That’s not very nice, is it?” she said.

“I didn’t do it on bloody purpose!” I shouted. “I didn’t
want
to see Mum with the doctor. I didn’t
want
Dad to question me about it. It wasn’t my fault. It wasn’t my fault, was it?”

Lexi turned to me. “No. No, it wasn’t. Well, then. You’ve said it.”

I looked at her. I was breathing hard, trying to stop myself crying. But she was right. And it was the first time I had ever said that it wasn’t my fault. She had this way of making things plain and obvious.

I lay back in the grass. My heart was still beating fast from running across the gardens, but I felt better now. “Are your parents divorced?” I said. I didn’t expect her to answer.

“No. Weird, eh? Most people in my school had divorced parents. When I was small, my best friend said to her mum, ‘Lexi Cocker’s family must be really poor, because her parents have to live in the same house.’”

“That’s funny,” I said. “What’s Lexi short for?”

“Alexandria,” she said.

Alexandria Cocker. I thought back to the letters carved on the tree.
AHC.
Her initials.

“What do the numbers mean? On the tree?” I asked, softer this time. But she shook her head. Then she put her hand through her hair, scrunched it. Her eyes widened. “I’ve got to go,” she said.

She scrambled to her feet and winced, holding her belly.

“Wait,” I said. I grabbed her arm, but she yanked it away viciously and ran off into the trees, in the direction of the lake. “Lexi,” I called, “what’s happening?”

She did not turn, and she did not reply. I swallowed hard and looked around. The counselor at school said I didn’t like sudden good-byes. He was right. They made me anxious. I could still feel the place on the palm of my hand where I had briefly held Lexi before she tore herself away. It was ice-cold.