Tyme's End (8 page)

I told him I was in love with him. Oh, God, I told him I was in love with him . . .

I close my eyes and look at the bright orange of my eyelids. For a moment, out of habit, I start to imagine I'm with my real mother, in a foreign country under a hot Middle Eastern sky . . . But I don't want to be anywhere but here, right now.

.

When I wake up, he's gone.

It's a little bit cooler than it was, but the air is still warm and heavy, sticking to me like honey. The stream is chirruping, singing to itself, and I can smell hot earth and grass. I don't want to open my eyes, but I do. And Oliver's gone.

For a second I feel more bereft, more alone, than I've ever felt in my life.

I sit up. The remains of the food are still spread out around me, but shadows have grown over them like moss. The bottles of champagne and elderflower stuff are still in the stream, rocking gently in the current. I look round, squinting through the trees to see where the sun is. I don't know how long I've been asleep.

I put my hand down on something soft and warm. It's Oliver's T-shirt, neatly folded but still dented from where my head was resting on it. He must have put it there for me to use as a pillow, after I went to sleep – carefully, without waking me. I pick it up and put it to my face, breathing in the scent of summer soil and grass, my own shampoo, cigarette smoke and, underneath all that, the clean laundry smell that was the first thing I noticed about Oliver when he hustled me out of Tyme's End like a bouncer. That was only yesterday. It feels like years ago.

I stand up, still clutching the T-shirt, and look round. His bag is still here, and I feel a wave of relief. If his bag's here, he's coming back – although
my
bag isn't where I left it. For a moment I wonder whether he's stolen my special box, but it's not like he would want it. He probably moved it to stop me rolling over on top of it and squashing everything when I was asleep.

Anyway, if he's coming back, I don't care about anything else.

I walk over to the nearest tree and sit down against the trunk, facing towards Tyme's End and the sun, the way we came. I watch and watch, narrowing my eyes against the low green glow of the sunlight on the grass, waiting for Oliver. And it's not long before I see him, materialising through the dazzle like a mirage, becoming more and more solid as he gets closer. In this light he could be anyone: he could be a ghost, except that he throws a long shadow. It points to me, like a finger. He raises his hand when he sees me, but I don't move. I savour the feeling of staying still while he walks towards me.

He's wearing jeans and trainers but nothing else, and he puts his hands into his pockets and hunches his shoulders when he gets close. His skin is paler than mine, and greenish spots of shade slide over his chest. I want to stare at him, but from the way he's standing I know I shouldn't.

‘Hello,' he says. ‘Did you have a nice nap?'

‘Where did you go? I woke up and you weren't here.' I sound like a little girl, but it's too late to take it back.

‘I went to check on the lawnmower situation.' He twists and looks over his shoulder at Tyme's End, shading his eyes. ‘Which is non-existent, unfortunately, so I stuck the petrol in the study, just behind the secret door to the cellar, because I thought we shouldn't leave it lying around. Oh, and –' He glances at me quickly. ‘I put your bag in there too, your papers, because I thought it was probably safer, in case it rained or something.'

I look up at the sky and then back at him, raising my eyebrows.

‘Yeah, well, you can't be too careful.' He holds out his hand to help me up. ‘You don't mind, do you?'

‘No,' I say. ‘'Course not. Thanks.' I take his hand and pull myself upright, too suddenly, so that I reel into him and have to put my hand on his bare chest to get my balance back. He flinches. ‘Sorry – sorry.'

‘It's OK. Just – no, really, it's OK. Your hands are cold.' He walks through the trees, a few paces ahead of me. Then he stops and we stand side by side, looking at the water, the stream pouring itself over the rocks, the smooth trembling of the reflected trees. ‘Did you swim?'

‘No,' I say. ‘Not yet.'

He smiles. ‘You should. It's nice.'

‘Only if it won't traumatise you to see me in my underwear,' I say, and instantly want to bite my tongue.

He laughs, without looking at me, and walks away to the side of the stream, kneeling to fish the bottles out of the water. ‘It's all right, I won't watch you.'

‘I don't mind if you do.'

He still won't look at me. He's fiddling with the wire on the champagne bottle, untwisting it.

‘When I said –' I wish he'd look at me. I want to go and kneel next to him. ‘Oliver, what I said – I wasn't joking. I meant it, really, I –'

‘I thought you probably did.' Suddenly he jerks his hand away from the bottle and puts his index finger in his mouth. He says, indistinctly, ‘Bugger.'

‘Are you OK?'

‘Yes, I – stupid, jabbed myself on the – I didn't mean I believed you because it didn't surprise me – just from the way you said it. I'm not that arrogant.'

‘You could –' I drag my foot through the grass, pushing a plastic bag aside. ‘You could say something about it. If you wanted. You could tell me you're really embarrassed and let's forget I ever said anything and I'm not old enough to know what love is anyway.'

Then he does look at me. He grins. I don't know if he's laughing at me or himself.

‘Bibi, I'm twenty-seven. You're
sixteen
. Words can't express how bad an idea it would be. Trust me, OK?'

‘You think I'm a kid.'

‘I think –' He stops, and his smile fades. ‘Yes. Because you
are
a kid.'

‘I'm not. I'm over the age of consent.'

He puts his hands over his face and laughs through his fingers, shaking his head. Then he looks up and smiles at me. ‘Yes, but the fact that you even need to
say
that . . .' He picks the bottles up, comes towards me and sits down at my feet. He doesn't say anything else until I sit down next to him.

‘Bibi, in my experience, the love affairs you remember most kindly are the ones that never happened.'

‘That's really profound. Is that Confucius?'

‘Do you want champagne now or after your swim?'

‘Both, please.'

‘OK,' he says. He pushes at the cork with his thumbs, frowning, until it comes out with a discreet, tactful pop.

‘Impressive,' I say.

‘My grandfather used to have champagne every Sunday night. When I got old enough he made me do the corks because his hands got stiff, and he said it would be a useful skill for later life.' He inclines his head towards me. ‘He obviously had a point.'

‘Why Sundays?'

‘Because they were dreary. Apparently.'

‘Oh.' I watch him. He's smiling down at the neck of the bottle, an odd, loving, bitter expression on his face. I say, ‘He sounds nice.'

‘He was. He was the nicest man I've ever known. To me.'

I realise, suddenly, that the sun's almost set. I'm not cold, but my skin prickles.

I say, ‘We don't have any glasses. We'll have to drink straight from the bottle.'

‘OK,' he says, and takes a gulp. A drop of champagne rolls down from the corner of his mouth, fizzing. ‘Wait – you probably shouldn't swim if you've been drinking. Swim first. I'll save you half a bottle.' He gives me a wide, untrustworthy grin, and I laugh.

‘Yeah, right.'

‘No, I'm serious. Afterwards. I don't know how I'd break it to your parents that I let you drown.'

I open my mouth and shut it again. Then I turn away and undress down to my bra and knickers. I don't think he's watching but my nerves tingle as if he is. I'm not exactly embarrassed – I told
him he could watch, after all – but I sidle towards the pond because I can't bring myself to look in his direction. I jump in, and it's icy. I hear myself yelp, and when I've wiped the water out of my eyes and found my feet in the mud Oliver's laughing at me, holding the bottle of champagne in both hands so that he doesn't spill it.

I roll over on to my back and tread water, looking up at the trees. Now that the sun's set the light is green-grey-blue, the sky high and clear. I love the feeling of weightlessness, like I'm not real. Oliver's stopped laughing now and all I can hear is the click-rattle-chirrup of the stream and my own heartbeat. I hold my breath and put my face underwater, but it's too dark to see anything. The water seems warmer now, just cooler than my body. It's lovely. I float in silence.

After a while the water is lighter than the sky. It ripples round me, opalescent. I pick it up in my hands, half expecting it to be opaque and silvery against my skin.

It's almost completely dark before I stand up and wade back towards the bank. Oliver's watching me, his hands round his knees. There's a breeze, and suddenly I'm freezing. My teeth start to chatter.

‘Sorry, I don't have a towel. You'd better use this.' He holds out something dark to me, and when I take it I realise it's his T-shirt. I wipe the water off my face and when I look up again he's standing up with my clothes in his arms. He passes my T-shirt to me, then my jeans, and I lean on him while I drag them on. The denim sticks to my damp legs. I'm a little bit warmer but I'm still shivering. He stands in front of me, his hands in his pockets. Then, suddenly, he reaches out, pulls me towards him and starts to rub my back in a brisk older-brother kind of way. He's put on a jumper, and I press my face against it, taking in the clean-laundry warmth, feeling his arms round me. ‘You'll warm up in a sec,' he says. ‘I've got another sweater in my bag. You can borrow that if you want.'

‘I'm OK.'

Somehow we sit down, so that I'm cross-legged, leaning back against him. He dries my hair for me, very carefully, like he's scared of breaking it. I'm still shaking, and he puts his arms round me and squeezes, so that I feel the warmth of his whole body. ‘Better?'

No
would be a lie, and I don't want to say
yes
. So I stay quiet.

‘You should go home. It's getting late.'

‘I haven't had my champagne yet,' I say, and I hear him laugh. The vibration goes through my back and straight to my heart.

He shifts, and reaches backwards. I'm leaning on him, so I move too, until we're lying down, my head on his chest. He grunts, and then makes a satisfied noise. ‘Got it. Here we go.' He passes the bottle to me. I have to tilt my head forward to drink. The champagne's warmish and flat, but it tastes great.

I prop it in the crook of my elbow and look up at the patch of clear sky above the pond. The stars are starting to come out.

I say, ‘Do you want me to move?'

‘It's fine.'

‘Because – I know you don't want to –'

There's a pause, and I hear him swallow. ‘I never said I didn't
want
to.'

There's another pause. The undergrowth rustles as the dark things start to wake up. I open my mouth, but I'm smiling so hard I'm not sure I'll be able to make words.

‘Bibi,' he says, very softly, into my hair, ‘if you laugh, or say anything, or make so much as a joke I swear I'll –' He hesitates. Then he puts on a theatrical, reading-aloud kind of voice, parodying himself. ‘I'll break your neck in one swift practised movement like a stick of sugar candy.'

‘Rock,' I say. ‘Not “sugar candy”.
Rock
.'

‘God, teenagers,' he says. ‘You have to have the last word.'

‘Yes,' I say.

He shakes his head and we both laugh quietly, as if neither of us wants to break the silence. And we lie and look up at the stars.

.

.

VII

.

.

It's starting to get light. I lift my head a little and the sky above the trees is so blue and clear I want to touch it.

I say, ‘Are you asleep?'

Oliver yawns and I feel him shake his head. ‘No. Are you?'

‘Definitely. Can't you tell?' I lie back down, resting my head in the hollow between his shoulder and his chest. He got his spare sweater out of his bag for me – fumbling around by the light of his cigarette lighter – when I woke up at midnight, freezing and not sure where I was, but even so I'm cold. The warmth of his body is comforting, and his sweater is like another pair of his arms, hugging me. I breathe in his smell. I'm knackered and covered in midge bites, and my neck aches from leaning on him all night, but I don't want to go home.

‘It'll be morning soon.'

I don't answer. If I pretend we can stay like this for ever, maybe we can.

‘Bibi? You should go home. Your parents – won't your parents be –'

‘Not yet,' I say. ‘I want to watch the sun come up. Forget my parents.'

‘Oh. OK,' he says, and yawns again. ‘I wonder what time the first train is.'

‘To Gatwick?' I raise my head again to look at him, but there's not enough light yet to see his expression.

‘Yeah. Well, to Tonbridge.'

‘Have you booked your flight?'

‘I'll get the first one I can, when I get to the airport.'

I feel sick. I sit up. My hair's sticking to my cheek where I was leaning on him, and I brush it away. ‘When are you coming back?'

‘Probably never.'

‘OK.'

‘Bibi, you knew – I said, all along. I told you –'

‘I said it's
OK
.' I look up at the sky. It looks fragile. If you hit it with a hammer it would shatter, with a huge musical smash. ‘What about Tyme's End? I thought you weren't going to sell Tyme's End?'

‘I'm not. I'll get my solicitors to give it to you. Miss Habibah Hope of 19, Marks Cross Road, Falconhurst.'

‘Very funny.'

‘I'm not joking.'

I look round at him. He shrugs and smiles. In the half-light his face is pale, eaten away by shadows like an old man's. I wonder suddenly what his grandfather looked like. ‘But – I thought –'

‘You want it, don't you? This.' He gestures to the smooth, blue-grey water and the trees. ‘I don't mean the hou— not just the house. I'd like you to have
this
.'

‘I thought you . . .' I don't know what to say.

‘As an apology,' he says, and runs his hand over my hair and down my back.

It makes me shiver. ‘You don't have anything to apologise for.' I turn my head so that his cheek is only a few centimetres from my mouth. He's still smiling, but not at me. ‘Really – Oliver, you don't have anything – I promise, there's nothing to apologise
for
.'

‘That's what you think,' he says. Then he turns and kisses me, very lightly, on the mouth. It's so quick and gentle it's like something brushing past me: a ghost, a memory, a premonition of a kiss.

I go to kiss him back, but he's already getting to his feet.

‘Come on,' he says. ‘Let's get this trash cleared up before the sun rises.'

.

The dawn is beautiful. I'm not sure I've ever seen the sun come up before – not watched it rise, like this, concentrating on every second as the sky goes green and lemon-green and amber and rose. We stand a little way apart, and even though we can't see the sun through the trees the sky is so lovely I want to pause it, like a TV, and keep it like that for the rest of my life. It makes me sad to know I'll only see it once, and then it'll be gone. I feel like I'll never see anything as good ever again.

I say, ‘What's the time?' because if he says how beautiful it is I'll start to cry.

‘Five past five.'

‘What time's your train?'

‘First one's about quarter to six, I think.'

‘And that's the one you're getting.'

‘Yes,' he says.

‘Then you should go,' I say. ‘It'll take half an hour to walk there, probably.'

He glances at me and nods. ‘Will you come to see me off?'

‘If you want me to.'

Suddenly he pulls me sideways, so I stumble into him, and he puts his arms round me and squeezes me so tightly it's hard to breathe. ‘Yes,' he says. His mouth is next to my ear, and it tickles. ‘Yes, I'd like you to.'

I clench my jaw, because I'm not going to cry until he's safely on the train to the airport.

‘I'm really glad I met you, Bibi.' He pulls back, his hands on my shoulders, and smiles. ‘I can't tell you how glad. If I hadn't – I don't know what I would've done.'

‘Good,' I say. ‘Great. That's excellent.'

He watches me for a second, and then laughs. ‘Yeah, OK. I'm getting sentimental. Sorry. Forget it.'

‘Yeah,' I say, although I know I won't forget it, ever.

‘Let's go,' he says. And we start to walk up through the trees towards the house and the bit of broken wall that I know better than my own front door by now.

I thought it would be quiet – it
feels
quiet – but actually there's birdsong and things rustling and there's already the occasional swish of a car from the road. I hear a motorcycle drone past, cutting out at the loudest point, and an aeroplane goes overhead, leaving a double trail on the blue like a scar. Everything's wet, shining with dew, and it smells of fresh air.

Then Oliver stops dead, and points. ‘Bibi. Look.'

For a moment I don't know what I'm seeing. Tyme's End, with reddish copper light blazing through the windows, the panes glaring the colour of fire. For an odd second my heart jumps into my throat. But the light's too even, too still, to be a real fire: it's only the dawn reflected in the glass. I breathe out slowly, half wanting to laugh. It's as beautiful as the sunrise, but in a different way. I can feel goose pimples prickling on my arms. Everything goes very still, as if we've walked into a photo.

There's something wrong. I don't know what it is, but –

‘I think it remembers,' Oliver says. His voice is funny, quiet and focused, as if he's talking to someone hidden, just within earshot. ‘I think – especially now, at dawn, in summer . . . I think Tyme's End knows what happened there, all the things that happened, the things that people don't know and can't ever know. I think the past leaves traces that we can't see. And sometimes . . . We think things have gone, when they haven't.'

I don't want him to go on. I
really
don't want him to go on. I close my eyes and dig my nails into my palms, because there's something – I don't want him to say any more. I wasn't scared last night, but now – in this glorious, chirping, dazzling morning – I am.

‘I think . . . we look at the past. And sometimes it looks back at us.'

I squeeze his hand, pressing it against my leg. ‘Oliver –'

He looks down at me, his eyes narrowing as if he's trying to remember who I am. Then he shakes his head. ‘Sorry.'

‘You're freaking me out. I don't know why. You looked – like someone else.'

‘Someone better-looking, I hope.' He grins, but that other expression – the trace of unfamiliarity – is still just visible.

I shrug and pull him forward. ‘Let's go. Your train.'

‘Wait. I –' He doesn't move. He's still got hold of my hand. ‘There's something I . . . Will you give me a minute?'

‘What?'

‘I want to go and – say goodbye. I know it sounds stupid. Just go and have a last cigarette and . . . look round.'

‘It's not stupid.'

He nods, the corners of his mouth turning up, but his eyes are distant, staring over my shoulder at the house. He says, ‘My grandfather died there. I was upstairs when he – I came downstairs, at dawn, and found him.'

I haven't got a clue what to say. I still feel a dragging, dull pain in my gut. It takes me a moment to realise it's fear.

He pulls his hand out of mine. ‘Stay here.' He takes his rucksack off his shoulder and slings it into the grass at my feet. ‘I won't be long. One cigarette.'

‘OK.'

‘Actually, why don't you wait for me at the wall? Then I won't have to retrace my steps. It'll save time. If I want to catch this train –' His tone is brisk and businesslike, as if this is just an ordinary day, as if we'll see each other again tomorrow.

I say, ‘Sure. Fine. I'll wait for you at the wall.'

‘Great.'

He strides off towards the house, breaking into an irregular run. The windows have started to fade now. But the unease stays with me, even though the flat fire on the glass has died.

I remember suddenly that my special box is inside – but it's safe there. I'll get it later, when he's gone. I watch him until he slides in through the back door. Then I pick up his rucksack and make my way diagonally through the trees, turning my back on Tyme's End.

.

I wait for him at the wall. He doesn't take that long – fifteen minutes, maybe – and then he's walking towards me, hurrying, with his hands in his pockets and his head down, as if he's making an effort not to look back. He smiles when he sees me, and reaches out to take his rucksack. I can smell the smoke on his clothes, but in the fresh air it's not as bitter as normal; it's more like woodsmoke or a bonfire. He pushes me forward, so I almost trip and have to brace myself against the wall. It's cold and wet under my hands, like damp sand. ‘Come on. Let's go. I'll miss the train.'

‘OK, OK,' I say. ‘If you make me break an ankle there'll be all sorts of complications and it'll take even longer.' It's meant to be a joke, but it just sounds petulant. I can't help it; I don't want him to go. I hope he
does
miss the train.

We walk down the High Street. I want him to take my hand, but he doesn't. There's hardly any traffic, but I can smell petrol. It makes me feel queasy.

He's biting his lip, frowning. When he glances sideways he sees me looking at him and looks away.

We don't say anything until we get to the station. The ticket office is closed, but the gate on to the platform is open, and the boards are flashing up the train to London. He says, ‘That's the one. I have to change at Tonbridge.'

We've only got seven minutes. I feel my throat tightening and tightening. I want to turn round and walk away. I want to go with him.

‘Bibi,' he says. He's talking very softly, as if he doesn't want to be overheard, but there's no one else around. ‘Listen to me. I wanted to say . . . You belong here, OK? Even if you don't always live here, in England, you've got as much right to be here as anyone else.'

‘OK.'

‘And I meant it, about Tyme's End. The land, the river – it'll be yours. It'll be
really
yours. As much yours as it was mine, or my grandfather's, or H. J. Martin's. Don't keep telling yourself you belong somewhere else, because you don't. Inheritances don't always go through bloodlines.'

I'm not completely sure what he means with that last sentence; but he's talking so earnestly, carefully, looking straight into my eyes, that I think I understand what he's trying to tell me.

‘And – the things you don't know . . .' He pauses, and, without quite knowing how, I realise he's talking about my mum, my real mum. ‘Don't let them haunt you. Don't let anything haunt you.'

‘Right.'

‘But – don't forget, either. The past does matter. But not as much as the present.'

‘OK.'

He stares at me. There's a pause; then, suddenly, it's like he can see my expression. He rubs his forehead with his hand, laughing. He's got a smear of something dark on his hand, like mould. ‘All right. I just needed to give you the benefit of my superior wisdom.'

‘Was that all of it? Eleven years' worth?'

‘Don't be a smart-arse.' He shakes his head. ‘I did mean it, though.'

‘Yeah, it was really . . . interesting.'

We look at each other, and we both grin.

‘OK,' he says. ‘I'd better go.'

‘Go on then.'

‘OK, I will.' But he doesn't move. Then he grimaces and digs quickly in the back pocket of his jeans. ‘Shit. Sorry, I –'

He's holding something out to me: familiar glossy rectangles, the top one shiny ochre and brown.