The Last Summer of Us (26 page)

In the tent behind us, there's a synthesized siren followed by a distorted howl and a loud spinback…and Will's at work. He's got better taste in music than either Jared or Steffan, I'll give him that – and an appreciative cheer goes up from inside the bar. I turn and look back into the tent. They're testing the floodlights, switching them on and off and on and off, and I have to raise my hand to shield my eyes from the glare, but I can still see him. He's standing behind his laptops and his decks; a hand lifting his headphones up to one ear while the other hand's in the air in something that looks like triumph. Already there's a little knot of bodies directly in front of him, watching and listening. He looks so in control, and there was something so calm, so measured about him – about the way he spoke, the way he moved – that it gives me hope. People move forward, move on. They have to, in the end, don't they?

The main tent – the one we saw from across the valley – is much bigger on the inside than I had expected. The stage is taller, too, looming over me. There are lights rigged up on metal girders high above, and on supports which have been bolted into the ground. Someone has woven a daisy chain through the one nearest to me. It's impressive. I've always been rubbish at stuff like that – you need good nails to punch through the stem without tearing it, and I chew my nails, so. Although, to be fair, I
have
been doing better. Well, had. Sort of fell off the nail-chewing wagon a few weeks ago, didn't I? Never mind.

The tent must have gone up earlier in the summer: the grass inside, only partly covered by rubber matting, is green and damp. I can't quite stop myself from bending down to touch it, to rub it between my fingers. It's cool and soft and not at all like the grass outside. It seems strange that the two can feel so different – even smell so different – just for the sake of a little shade.

At the far side of the tent from the stage, beside a bank of seating, there's another much smaller platform. And on it there's a row of cameras.

Oh, Steffan's just going to be
thoroughly
obnoxious now, isn't he?

Steffan is pacing. Up and down, up and down, up and down, wearing a rut in the ground that's almost as deep as the one made by the tractor. He's flexing his fingers, wiggling them, keeping them constantly in motion in time with the music from the stage. And he's gone a sort of beige.

Steffan is nervous.

I'm not surprised; if I were him, I'd be terrified.

Since we got here, the place has filled up. And I mean
filled
. There are now people everywhere. The bar tent is heaving and the stage tent is a clammy, humid mass of bodies. It's sticky. And pungent.

The violin case is sitting on the ground. Steffan's still pacing up and down by the side entrance to the tent – or what I guess you'd call the stage door. He looks like he's going to throw up.

I've never seen him this nervous. Gradually, all the bravado has fallen away until what we're left with is the real Steffan. Not the rugby player, not the guy with the crappy old car who drives too fast and swears like a trooper and pretends to be untouchable…but the Steffan underneath it all.

Because Steffan's just like the rest of us; he wears a mask too. It's one of the things that keeps us together, this strange little alliance. We see each other's masks; see the strings holding them on – and more than that, now we can see through them. And when the mask slips in public, we cover the gaps, run interference. We always will.

The real Steffan is quieter than he lets on. He worries more. He hurts more. He
cares
more. That's what he hides behind his mask.

Watching him pacing, I feel nervous
for
him. I can't tell if it's my heart or the bass drum onstage making the inside of my ribs rattle. I can taste Steffan's fear in my mouth, as sharp as if it's mine; of course I can. It's what we do, for better or worse. He's pacing and he's flexing his fingers and then – suddenly – he stops. His eyes close, just for a second, and when he opens them he's transformed.

He picks up the case and he looks right through us – both of us, waiting with him. And without a word, he pushes his way into the tent.

“Come on,” says Jared. “Don't want to miss his big moment, do we?”

The tent is absolutely rammed; after all, we're into the big-hitting slots now. I pray to every god I can think of – and a few I've probably just made up – that Gethin's band have improved since the last time I heard them play. If not for Gethin's sake (or his dad's, having presumably paid for this) then for Steffan's.

The band who were on before them are taking a bow and filing off the stage with their instruments. Who'd have thought you could get
that
many trumpets on one stage? The audience swells and shifts, the people who'd been watching at the front falling back while others move up to take their place. Some guy staggers as he passes me, waving a plastic pint glass overhead. I only manage to avoid the beer-shower that follows by jumping back and landing on somebody else's toes. “Sorry!” They either don't hear me or don't care. Probably both.

Gethin knocks over his mic stand. There's a good start; feedback howls around the tent and everyone groans.

If I stand on tiptoes, I can just see Steffan behind him at the back of the stage, holding his violin. The lights flit across his face and then spin away. He looks calm.

He looks like he belongs.

He does. He belongs up there with the lights and the crowd and the music – not stuck in a small town where no one will ever hear him or see him except for the gossips, who'll tear your skin off in strips until you're nothing more than one giant exposed nerve. He
belongs
up there, and I finally understand that it's not just my mother I have to let go. I have to let him go too.

To give them their credit, they've got better. A lot better. They're somewhere on the borderline between “tolerable” and “alright” now. In fact, they may even be inching into “good”, but let's not be too hasty.

And Gethin's still a dick, so there's that.

I find myself swaying slightly to the music. All around me, people are dancing. They're laughing and they're drinking beer that's a little too warm or a little too flat – and they don't care. The tent smells of beer and sweat and damp and people…and life. It's alive.

The drumbeats vibrate through the ground like a heartbeat, through me. They pulse against my ribs – and they're even in time.

And there, suddenly, is Steffan.

The lights find him and he lifts his bow. He moves across the stage like he was born to it; side to side, his eyes open but not seeing. There but not there. The band around him nod their heads to the rhythm, and somebody, somewhere, starts to clap. Slowly, steadily, in time. I didn't even notice when the drums stopped, when all the other instruments died away and left nothing but Steffan playing alone.

The notes wrap around me, over me. They fill the air and everyone in the tent is clapping along…and just like that, the rest of the band burst back in and there's music everywhere and Steffan's still playing, faster and faster, and I can see the smile on his face from here as he stamps one foot and he plays and he moves and he plays.

And from somewhere behind me, a hand takes mine. I know the feel of it already: rougher than you'd think, warm in the heat of the tent.

He pulls me back towards him as I turn to face him, drawing me in. His eyes search my face, his other hand brushing my hair away and tucking it behind my ear. He looks so serious, so completely centred on me, that I could almost believe there was nothing else in the world. That there was no one else.

He lifts his hand, lifts mine, lifts
our hands
, the fingers entwined, and he looks at me. Really looks at me.

And then the corners of his eyes crease and his mouth twitches and his lips part into a smile…and he spins me away and around, and we're dancing and I can't tell if it's the world that's spinning or if it's me. All I know is that I don't want it to stop.

If I could stop time, just once, this would be it. This moment; this
now
. This would be it – here in this tent with Steffan playing and the crowd hearing him and Jared spinning me around and around, pulling me close and then twirling me away; his eyes watching me. His smile all mine.

This is the memory I want to save. This one.

I can let go of everything else.

I don't even know when the music stopped; I didn't hear it. All I can hear is the ringing in my ears and the sound of applause. And Jared's pulling me into him again. I can feel his hand on my waist, on the small of my back; his fingers wrapped around mine. Close up, he smells of heat and of dry, dusty grass. Of smoke. Of warmth.

He smells of beginnings. Beginnings set in motion a long time ago and overlooked. Beginnings which no number of endings could bury.

I rest the side of my head against his shoulder, breathing him in.

His hand moves from my back to my hair, smoothing it. His fingers trace the line of my neck, grazing my jaw. His thumb brushes my collarbone.

And the light is blinding as the path opens up in front of me.

We started this with a funeral. It ends with a wake. Our wake: Steffan, Jared and Limpet's. The paradox that somehow worked. This is how we bow out. This is where we end. When we look back – and we will, sometime – this will be the moment we see. This is the ending and the beginning. This is all of it. All the mess and all the masks forgotten. All our scars charted and mapped. This is what it always was; what it was always going to be.

When Steffan comes to find us, his eyes shining and a drink already in his hand, he sees Jared's arm around my waist and he winks and he raises his glass to us as we elbow towards him and throw our arms around his shoulders, because he already knew.

Of course he knew. He'd known all along…

You know what a limpet is, really? It's a shellfish which attaches itself to something and holds on for dear life. It holds on so tightly that it's impossible to remove without actually
killing
the stubborn little bastard. A limpet would rather see itself destroyed than let go of whatever it is that it loves.

Sometimes we have to let go.

We cling to the ships that carried us, even as they founder. We hold fast to them as they sink, not caring that they will drag us down with them into the cold and the dark. We follow the wrong stars, keeping our course even as the quicksand closes over our heads.

We hide behind our masks, too afraid to let anyone see what's on the inside. We worry the scars are all that anyone will see: the bruises, the cuts. The damage we've sustained. We're frightened that the damage is all we are; that it will define us always and for ever. We're scared that the cuts will make us sharper, that we will cut in our turn.

Our damage, our history – it doesn't define us.
We
define
it
.

No more Limpet. She can go. I don't need her any more.

No more pretending, no more hiding.

It's time to move on.

Picture me dancing, somewhere on the top of a hill where the grass is sunburned brown and there's music and laughter and the air smells of spilled beer and hay; the ends of things and the beginnings of others.

Picture me with my hair streaming behind me, laughing as confetti dances in the wind.

Picture me as these things, because that's how I'll be.
That
is who I am.

And my name; my real name…?

My name's Rosie.

What's yours?

Like Limpet, Steffan and Jared, Maggie Harcourt was born and raised in Wales, where she grew up dreaming of summer road trips and telling stories for a living. As well as studying medieval literature at UCL, Maggie has variously worked as a PA, a hotel chambermaid and for a French chef before realizing her dreams and beginning to write full time. Maggie now lives just outside Bath, and still visits Wales to wander the Carmarthenshire beaches and countryside.

maggiehaha.tumblr.com