The Last Summer of Us (11 page)

The elephant in the woods trumps everything.

We leave the tents where they are for now; there's nothing much in there to steal and none of us can be bothered to take them down yet. Besides, it's bad enough that Steffan insists on taking the violin back to the car and hiding it under a load of junk in the boot. I don't want to wait any longer. Because, you know,
elephant
.

I say we're out in the middle of nowhere. Technically speaking, for round here at least, that's not strictly true. There's the pub, a couple of villages within ten minutes' drive, a handful of farms, and of course there's the St Jude's field. Like I say, by the standard of things round here, we're practically in the suburbs. Years ago, the woods had a reputation for attracting stoners looking for mushrooms – and the reputation's stuck, judging by the needle I almost trod on. So maybe there is something weird going on out here.

The ground is parched and dusty, even in the shadow of the trees; the summer's taken no prisoners. Big cracks criss-cross the soil where tree roots have pushed up close to the surface, and brown leaves, their edges curled, skitter about in what passes for a breeze. They're thicker on the ground than usual at this time of year – even the oldest trees are struggling in the heat. And when we get close, the river's lower than I've ever seen it. Shopping trolley and all.

“You want to try crossing?” Steffan scowls at the water, like that'll make any difference.

“It's shallow enough.”

“You first, is it?”

“Coward.”

“Manners. Ladies always go first, I thought.” He winks at me. He's waiting for me to fall over and land on my arse in the middle of the river. Of course he is.

“Well,
fine
.” As I pick up my shoes, I congratulate myself on wearing shorts today – not that they could save me from getting wet, of course; it just feels like this way I'll be somewhere closer to the “dignified idiot” end of the sliding scale than the “total loser” end.

The water's cooler than I was expecting. After the first shock of it, it's nice. The riverbed here is mostly flat rock, worn smooth by the rush of the water, and it feels almost soft beneath my feet. Something solid, moving, brushes my toe. “Just a fish, just a fish, just a fish,” I whisper to myself. Not a monster. Definitely not any kind of monster, and an axe murderer would have a hell of a time hiding in this little water. Besides, how do you swim holding an axe? (Answer: carefully.)

I can feel their eyes on my back the whole way across – so when I make it to the other bank without having slipped, splashed, tripped over my own toes or otherwise embarrassed myself, I'm feeling more than a little smug. “Ta-daa!” I shout back at them. I bow. They roll their eyes.

“Yeah, alright. Bravo. You walked in a straight line and you didn't fall over.” Steffan is not as impressed as he ought to be, frankly.

“Ah, correction: I
forded a river
and didn't fall over.
Totally
different thing.”

“Christ, you're annoying.” He's strung his shoes together by their laces around his neck, as though he's wading across the Amazon. As he sloshes through the water, they swing to and fro and smack into his chest with every step. Jared – thoughtful as always – follows him across, carrying his trainers and peeling off his T-shirt to dry his feet when he reaches the other side. The sunlight, dappled through the moving leaves above us, dances across his bare shoulders. There's a scattering of freckles just below his collarbone – and before I can stop the thought, I imagine my fingertip tracing the line of them over his skin; feeling the warmth of his chest beneath my touch.

I boot the thought out of my head as fast as I can – but what if it shows on my face? He's got his trainers back on now and he's standing up, wriggling back into his T-shirt. What if he looks at me? Will he know what I was thinking? Do
I
know what I was thinking – was that even me? I mean…it's
Jared
, right?

“Bloody tart.” It's Steffan, sitting on the ground and trying to work his still-wet foot back into his trainer. It's taken him till now to get the laces unknotted. “Whipping his top off left, right and centre. Any excuse.” He shakes his head. Jared just smirks.

I'm safe.

It takes Steff a very, very, very long time to get his hobbit-feet back into his shoes. “Right, then,” he says finally, standing up and brushing himself down. It's exactly the same thing his dad does: the gesture, even the intonation of his voice. Steffan probably has no idea. I wonder whether we all copy our parents in one way or another. Are their mannerisms built into our bones, or do we just catch them after years spent in close proximity? Can you catch a gesture, a turn of phrase, like a cold – or are they already coded into our genes? And what about the other things: taste in music, in books? Favourite foods? Tics and bad habits. Diseases…and addictions. What about those?

The trees are thinner on this side of the river. Less wild – not that the woods across the river are particularly wild. After all, they belong to someone, don't they? Here, though, they seem…neater, somehow. As though somebody wanted to keep them that way. And there's the beginnings of a path, by the look of it. Are we about to just go tromping into the middle of someone's garden? There's only one place I can think of this far into any woods round here, and surely we can't be…

The path suddenly deposits us onto a sweeping driveway winding through the trees – once it was gravel by the look of it, but now it's mostly dust and potholes.

“Oh, no,” says Jared from behind me. When I look round, he's rubbing his face. He knows where we are. He drops his hand, and shoots me an anguished look.

I know where we are too. And suddenly, I understand the elephant in the woods.

This is Barley Vale.

I had no idea we were so close to it – although I probably should have twigged as soon as I heard the noise this morning. Any other time, I probably would have. I wonder whether Steffan realized; it's painfully obvious that Jared didn't. I guess we've all just got other stuff on our minds.

It used to have a different name, this place, until a handful of locals complained that it was “out of keeping with the area” – for which you can usually read: “'s
foreign
, isn't it, and we don't like foreign” – so Barley Vale is what it became. The sky-blue railings and the slightly ramshackle collection of Portakabins and breeze-block buildings in front of us, all painted white with peeling red guttering, and the agricultural shed behind them, looming out of the trees, is all that is left of the hospice. Somewhere behind them, set into the side of the hill, must be the temple.

Just like everybody knows the story about the mushrooms, everybody knows the story of Barley Vale. How it started as a beaten-up old shed used by a couple of hippies, and then turned into a commune. Somehow, a guru got wind of the place and moved in, building a small hospice for the terminally sick and spiritually inclined, and a temple. The hospice turned into a bigger hospice, the temple turned into two temples and a visitor centre and kitchen, as well as a hostel for pilgrims who came to see Guru and pray at the temples.

Oh, and there was the elephant. According to the local papers, it was rescued as a baby by Guru from…somewhere, and brought to live at the Vale. They built the barn for him to sleep in, and there were rumours about him following Guru around like a puppy and being taken for walks in the woods on a lead.

Barley Vale was where some people came to live and some came to die. Some were just passing through on their way to somewhere else. Until it went bankrupt.

Which brings me back to Jared – standing in the middle of the ruins of his father's biggest con.

I know what you're thinking. What kind of man steals from a hospice – a hospice with a temple and a guru and an elephant, no less?

I'll tell you what kind of man.

Jared's father.

I can't remember whether the fraud was why he went to prison the time before last, or the time before that. There was an assault in there somewhere, but I don't know if he actually did time for it. The latest conviction was the really spectacular one: for attempted murder. It was the first time where Jared refused to visit him inside – which may or may not have had something to do with it also being the first time Jared had sat in the gallery in court. He was old enough to hear it all by then – all the things his grandparents and even his mother had tried to protect him from. He heard it all and with it he heard everything that had gone before. I can't imagine how that must have felt.

The rule with Jared's dad – with Jared all over, I guess – is that we don't ask. Not Steffan, not me. Not really. It's part of the roles we've built for ourselves over the years: the Rich One, the Quiet One, the Responsible One Who Is Prone To The Occasional Outburst Of Drama. The names are only part of it. We owe it to him not to ask the big questions, because the answers are messy and painful and will force him to dig up things he's long since buried. And besides, neither of us want to ask those questions, because all they would do is push Jared back into the box of his relationship with his dad – someone who's been gone more than half Jared's life anyway. Someone who doesn't know the first thing about what makes him laugh, or what his lopsided squinting-frown means (that he doesn't approve), or anything more significant than what his favourite football team used to be when he was five.

No, don't ask me. It's sport, isn't it? I don't do sport.

Barley Vale was one of Jared's father's scam victims – along with most of the town. He stole from more people than he didn't, and he didn't discriminate and he showed no mercy. Everyone was fair game – even this place. Nobody knows where the money went, but it sure as hell went. The hospice was the first to shut down, for obvious reasons. The little community there just couldn't keep it running. The monks managed to keep the hostel running a little longer, but that money ran out pretty fast…and gradually, everybody left. Now, all that's here is a bunch of rotting buildings and a rusty tin shed.

And, apparently, an elephant. You'd think somebody would notice that, wouldn't you?

The big barn is to the side of the cluster of buildings. Jared hangs back, looking around him as though he's trying to picture everything as it was before. It's hard. The concrete steps going up to the doorways are cracked and chipped, with straggly grass growing out of them. There are big ruts in the drive where wheels sank into the mud at some point, now long-dried by the hot summer. Sheets of dust blow across the driveway, chased by a few curled brown leaves. Steffan slaps his hand on one of the railings and the metal rings out in the silence, making me twitch. It reminds me uncomfortably of a funeral bell. He's looking at his palm, and pulls a face: the blue paint has flaked all over his skin. He brushes his hands together, but instead of the flakes coming off, they simply spread to cover
both
his palms.

“Can we go?” Jared's voice is low.

“But—”

“Lim, I can't be here.”

“Why?” I turn to face him properly.

“You know why.” He won't meet my eye. Steffan's rubbing his hands together furiously, utterly oblivious. Maybe a little too oblivious.

“Because your dad did this?” I wave at the emptiness. It breaks my heart – both the desolation in his face and in the deserted space. There's a shrivelled brown bush in the corner of the yard that I think used to be a rose. Now it's just a dead weed. “You're not responsible for him, for what he does. Don't you dare think you are, Jared.”

“He ripped all those people off – all
these
people off.” His wave mirrors mine, but just like a reflection, they mean different things.

“Exactly.
He
did that. Not you. You're his kid, not his keeper. You are never responsible for your parents' actions, Jared. Never.”

“Neither are you.” This time, he looks straight into my eyes; straight into
me
. And he holds my gaze and I hold his, and I could almost swear—

“Looks like we're not the only people here,” says Steffan – and I tear my eyes away from Jared's to see a man in cut-off denims and a faded orange T-shirt rounding the corner of the yard. He doesn't look thrilled to see us, but on the other hand he's not brandishing a shotgun, either. (You laugh, but it's not funny when it happens. Honestly, we were only taking a short cut back across the field. Talk about an overreaction…)

“Lost, are you?” he calls, scratching his head. He's watching us carefully.

“Nah.” Steffan's the one who answers.

Whatever it was that passed between Jared and me, he missed it. And there was
something
, wasn't there? I don't think I imagined it. There was.

Steff nods back towards the river; towards the car and the campsite and a time, only seconds before, when I knew exactly where I stood. “We're from town, you know? Camping. Heard the…”

“You want to meet Piggy?” The man's suddenly all smiles.

“Piggy?”

“Come round. He loves company.” And with that, he vanishes back round the corner.

Steffan blinks. “Piggy? They called the elephant Piggy?”

“Well, they called
you
Steffan,” Jared says with a shrug as he slides past me without even a second glance.

I don't know what the hell is going on any more.

There are some things, I've learned, that manage to take you completely by surprise no matter how you think they're going to go. Sometimes it's good, sometimes it's bad…sometimes it's just different. This is one of the Just Different times.

There, in the middle of a shed which was only really designed to hold cattle, is a small elephant. Piggy. He looks pretty happy to see the random guy we've just bumped into, and I realize that this must be who's taking care of him. After all, someone has to feed him, don't they? And muck out his shed. But there's no way Random Dude is a zookeeper, or even remotely qualified to look after something like an elephant – little or not. In fact, I'm almost certain I've seen him around town on market days, which would make him one of the local farmboys and would probably mean that the closest he's ever been to any kind of exotic animal would be if he had a pet budgerigar when he was a kid.