The Other Side of Summer (18 page)

I could smell the river on Bee all the way home, and it wasn’t good. I didn’t know whether to laugh or cry. I kept taking big gulps of air when I thought about Gabe and the fact that he was a kind of ghost after all. And then I’d remember how close I’d come to losing Bee as well. And then I’d get a whiff of her. Oh, Bee.

The rain had stopped. As we turned the corner of our street, I saw a dark figure sitting on the porch bench. Wren had let her hair down and combed out the tangles. It was almost to her waist like Mum’s. She had her knees up and she was drawing. When she saw me, she was serious for a moment but then I saw a faint smile like the one Mum would give me after we’d
argued, because she couldn’t stay cross with any of us for long.

I walked towards Wren, Bee close by my side, knowing for the first time in ages that I didn’t hate my sister, no matter how hard I’d tried to convince myself that I did.

‘Hi,’ I said.

She made a cute expression that I thought meant, well, that’s a start.

‘Are you going to tell Dad I was out?’

‘Doubt it.’ She sighed. ‘You’d better go inside and do something about that smell.’ She smiled faintly, and carried on with her drawing.

I took Bee straight into the downstairs bathroom. In the light I could see she had leaves and twigs in her fur. Mud, as well. I turned on the shower and she stood underneath it. A pure brown river started to collect around her massive paws. We both got completely soaked and she kept shaking off while I was still washing her.

Finally she was clean. As I tried to dry her off a bit, there was a knock on the door.

‘Summer? Is that you in there?’ said Dad.

‘I was just giving Bee a wash.’ I opened the door. Bee shot out and nearly bowled Dad over. ‘She rolled in something in the front garden.’

Dad looked over my head. The bathroom was in a state. ‘Geez. Bit of a mess. I’d better mop that floor. Whatever she rolled in is probably riddled with germs.’

‘I’ll do it, Dad.’

‘Okey-dokey. Thanks, sweetheart. I’ll get the bleach. I got some powerful stuff the other day. Hospital strength!’

While he went to the kitchen, I had a thought. The smell of bleach. Hospitals. What if Gabe could smell it because that’s where he was? What if he wasn’t dead, or asleep, but somewhere between the two?

I mopped that floor until it gleamed. I was right.
I was right.
The amazing Ibanez Artwood wasn’t meant to stop time or change time, and it wasn’t just giving me another person to say goodbye to. It was a message and finally it had been delivered: Find Gabe. He’s alive.

Did you work it out, Summer?

You knew all along. You knew him.

I’m just here to look out for you. No one wants their big brother running the show.

I miss you, Floyd.

I know. I love you, Summer.

I love you, too.

I went to bed that night wondering where I would go in my sleep and where I would be when I woke.

The pillow has a strange smell. I lift my face a bit and something rough on my cheek scratches against the fabric.

The door slams and instantly I’m wide-awake and on my guard.

Dad’s home.

I get out of bed and stand behind the door. Noises in the hallway; Dad is ramming into the wall at random intervals, getting closer.
He’s been drinking. Again.

I hear his voice, mumbling and growling.
He’s always like this after the fun has worn off.
I wrap my arms around myself and it almost feels like someone else is holding me. I sense Dad’s body press against the door, and then he slurs, ‘Should’ve left him at home with his crazy mother.’ I want to open the door and punch his stupid face. The feeling that I should never have come here gnaws at me.
He made me leave Mum. I need to get home.

Time catches on a nail, and when it breaks off again it’s daylight.

‘Gabe? You up?’

There’s a faraway knocking. The door looks like it’s at the end of a long tunnel. The knocking gets closer and louder.

‘Gabe! Someone here to see you.’

Floyd’s here.

I flip my board off the ground and into my hand. I’m dressed and ready. Floyd holds up two guitars. ‘More lessons. Come on. Let’s get out of here.’

We’re walking along a street, narrow with tall houses.
You’ve been skating and busking all day. It’s been the best. You’re going to miss him when you go back to Mum.

Floyd’s talking, describing his family. ‘Mum’s a bit of a hippy. An artist. Watch out for her bear hugs, she could break a rib no problem.’
She’s the one he adores.

‘Dad rubs me up the wrong way. Can’t help himself. Wren could melt you with her death stare, but she’s got a heart of gold. It’s just that it’s locked in a secret crypt and guarded by rabid monkeys. And then there’s Summer. She’s funny and smart but doesn’t know it yet.’

We walk into a house. Floyd’s still talking but I’m only half-listening. I’m staring at every single thing and taking in the sounds. I shake hands with his mum and his dad, get a glare from his sister, and decide I like them already.

We eat dinner and it’s as if an hour has slipped through my fingers like water. Floyd disappears down some steps that go below ground and comes back up with a skate ramp that looks homemade.

‘Don’t scrape the wall with that!’ his dad shouts at the exact moment I hear the wood make contact.

‘Run before he catches up,’ Floyd whispers.

I touch the long scar on the wall and flinch before following him outside to the street.

It’s dark. I’m in Floyd’s room. He’s playing an old guitar and I’m playing his beautiful one. Wren’s here, singing. We sound good, I think. I want to stay like this. I don’t want the song to end.

Floyd’s sleeping on the floor next to his bed. He faces away from me and I watch his shoulder rise and fall.
You’ll miss him.
Two guitars lean like twin brothers against the wall.
You wish your mum could be here. You think she’d like these people.

Just for tonight, you let yourself feel like part of the family.

I woke in Dad’s bed the next morning. He was already up. I wondered if he was going to ask me about sleepwalking, or let it go. As I stretched and yawned and remembered Dad’s warm-bread smell, my mind was losing the dream I’d just had as if it were water slipping down a drain. I grabbed droplets of it: I’d been at home, playing the Ibanez Artwood with my brother. No, with my
friend
, Floyd, because in the dream I’d been Gabe.

When I came out of Dad’s room there was an ear-splitting noise. Dad was in the back garden attacking the hedge with the set of angry sawfish teeth he was always borrowing from Mike Witkin. It filled the house with an unfriendly grinding, like nails in a blender.

But then I heard something else, faint and delicate like music from a music box. I followed the noise and saw Dad’s laptop on the kitchen table with the Skype window open.

Mum was calling.

I shouted for Dad but he must have had safety earmuffs on – either that, or he couldn’t hear over the noise he was making. I’d have to ignore it. I wanted Mum back, but I wasn’t ready. Mesmerised by the screen, heart beating too hard, I walked towards the kitchen bench and started to make toast.

She hung up; I breathed out.

The grinding metal sound from the garden was loud enough to bury my thoughts. I got the peanut butter, a plate and a knife and stood over the toaster.

Beep-boop-beep
: the gentle calling started up again.

‘Wren! Dad!’ I shouted, partly to be heard over the noise but partly because I was angry at them for leaving me alone when something like this might happen.

No answer.

She hung up. She rang again. She hung up. The sound seemed more impatient every time. By the time the toast popped up I’d lost my appetite.

I sat down in front of the laptop. If it rings once more, I told myself, I’ll answer it.

Beep-boop-beep. Beep-boop-beep. Beep-boop-beep.

One click of the green handset.

‘Hello! You’re there!’ At first Mum was just a voice; she hadn’t turned on the video camera yet and nor had I. She didn’t know it was me; she thought she was talking to Dad or Wren. There was still time to back down.

‘Can you hear me?’ she said. ‘I can’t hear you!’ I could tell she was clicking the mouse with increasing frustration. ‘I always have trouble with this thing.’ It was so familiar, picturing Mum fighting with a piece of technology. She could never work her phone, either; she was always more comfortable with a paintbrush in her hand.

I felt like I was going to cry before we’d even started talking. Her voice and these random memories of her slotted into my heart like the missing puzzle piece that’s been stuck to the bottom of your bare foot all along. And it was her old voice, too, not the whisper-quiet one. The sound reached deeply into a place that I’d tried to forget.

‘It’s me, Mum,’ I said.

The screen flickered and a glow that was black and gold like a burning photograph became my mum’s face in front of one of the small square kitchen windows in Gran’s house. A low sun blinking behind her; green fields just visible in the distance.

Home. Mum and home. It was a shock, like looking into a mirror after a really long time when you’d almost forgotten what you looked like, who you were.

‘Summer? Why can’t I see you?’ she said, panicking. I saw her hand reach out to the screen. Her lip was quivering.

I turned on the video camera.

‘Oh. Oh, there you are,’ she said, sobbing. ‘Oh God, sorry.’ She wiped her eyes roughly. ‘Please don’t go, I’m so happy to see you, Summer.’ She cried through her smile and I realised that my face was completely soaked in tears.

‘Hi, Mum,’ I said in a tiny voice.

‘Hi, sweetheart.’

It was hard to believe she wasn’t in the same room as me. She looked thinner in her face and shadowy under her eyes but still so much better than the last time I saw her. She had colour in her cheeks and had done her hair the way she used to, piled loosely on her head so that it looked like it might fall over at any moment. She was wearing the necklace of big wooden orange beads that I’d bought her one Christmas, which she’d said reminded her of the tiny mandarins Gran used to put in her stocking.

We didn’t know what to say. For a while we just gazed at each other and it was unreal. We both
giggled nervously a few times. Then Mum took charge and started asking me questions about Australia and school and the neighbours and new friends. Immediately I felt my stomach muscles tighten. I didn’t want her to ask that sort of thing yet. It only reminded me that she hadn’t been part of my life. And that I was hurt.

I needed to trust her again, and I thought I knew a way I might be able to. What if she could help me find Gabe? But I was scared. It was so hard to ask Mum for anything, let alone something that might make her think I was crazy.

‘Mum, I need you. Please listen to me until I’ve told you everything. It’s about Floyd’s friend, Gabe.’

I spoke slowly and carefully because I needed to tell her what I knew but not how I knew it, and I didn’t want to trip up. I mixed up lies with truth; I told Mum a story that she could believe.

‘And that’s it. He needs my help.’

‘Why are you so sure that Gabriel’s hurt somewhere and no one’s looking after him? They would have notified his family.’

‘But they didn’t. I just know, Mum. I’m sure he’s in a hospital over there. And I think he needs help. He’s … He’s trapped in a place where he doesn’t belong.’

Before I could say anything more to convince her, Dad slid open the door, panting and shining with sweat and, as if I’d been caught doing something wrong, I slammed the laptop shut.