Black Rabbit Summer

For the very wonderful Sarah Hughes

The summer of this story started for me on a hot Thursday night at the end of July, just as the sun was beginning to go down. I was busy doing nothing at the time – just lying on my bed, staring at the ceiling – so I didn’t actually
see
the sun going down, but I’m pretty sure it was out there somewhere. Everything was out there somewhere – the sun-streaked horizon, the fading red sky, the stars, the moon, the rest of the world – I just didn’t want anything to do with it.

I didn’t want anything to do with
any
thing back then.

All I wanted to do was lie on my bed and stare at the ceiling.

I had no idea where this lethargy of mine had come from – and I don’t suppose I really cared either – but in the three weeks or so since school had finished, I seemed to have got into the habit of not doing anything at all, and I was finding it a hard habit to break. Getting up late every morning, hanging around the house for hours, sitting out in the sun for a while… maybe reading a book, or maybe not. What did it matter? The way I saw it, the days and nights would pass whether I did anything or not. And they did. The mornings passed, the afternoons passed, the evenings turned into sunset nights… and, before I knew it, I’d be lying on my bed again, staring at the ceiling, wondering where the day had gone, and why I
hadn’t done anything, and why I still couldn’t be bothered to do anything now.

There were plenty of things I could have been doing that night. It was still only half past nine. I could have been watching TV, or a DVD, or getting ready to go out somewhere. I could have been watching TV or a DVD and
then
getting ready to go out somewhere.

So, anyway, that’s what I was doing when the telephone rang and the summer of this story began – I was lying on my bed, staring at the ceiling, minding my own mindless business. The sound of the phone ringing didn’t really mean anything to me. It was just a noise, the familiar dull trill of the phone in the hallway downstairs, and I knew it wasn’t going to be for me. It was probably just Dad, ringing from work, or one of Mum’s friends, calling for a chat…

It wasn’t anything to get excited about.

It wasn’t anything to get
anything
about.

It was just something to listen to.

I could hear Mum downstairs now – coming out of the living room, walking down the hall, quietly clearing her throat, picking up the phone…

‘Hello?’ I heard her say.

A short pause.

Then, ‘Oh, hello, Nicole. How are you?’

Nicole
? I thought, my heart quickening slightly.
Nicole
?

‘Pete!’ Mum called out. ‘Phone!’

I didn’t move for a moment. I just lay there on the bed, staring at the bedroom door, trying to work out why Nicole Leigh would be phoning me at half past nine on a Thursday night. Why would she be phoning me at
all
? She hadn’t phoned me in ages.

‘Pete!’ Mum called out again, louder this time. ‘Telephone!’

I didn’t really feel like talking to anyone just then, and I half thought about asking Mum to tell Nicole that I was out, that I’d call her back later, but then I realized that in order to do that I’d have to get up and go downstairs anyway, and then Mum would want to know why I didn’t want to talk to Nicole, and I’d have to think of something to tell her…

And I couldn’t be bothered with all that.

And even if I could…

Well, it wasn’t just anyone on the phone, was it?

It was Nicole Leigh.

I got up off the bed, stretched the stiffness from my neck, and made my way downstairs.

When I got there, Mum was standing at the end of the hallway with her hand cupped over the phone.

‘It’s Nicole,’ she said in an exaggerated whisper, mouthing the words as if it was some kind of secret.

‘Thanks,’ I told her, taking the phone from her hand. I waited until she’d gone back into the living room, then I put the phone to my ear. ‘Hello?’

‘Good evening,’ a fake-posh voice said. ‘Is this Mr Peter Boland?’

‘Hey, Nic.’

‘Shit,’ she laughed. ‘How d’you know it was me?’

‘I’m telepathic,’ I said. ‘I was just thinking about you when the phone rang –’

‘Liar. Your mum told you it was me, didn’t she?’

‘Yeah.’

Nic laughed again. It was a nice laugh, kind of husky and sweet, and it brought back memories of other times… times I thought I’d forgotten.

‘I’m not interrupting anything, am I?’ she said.

‘What do you mean?’

‘Nothing… it’s just that you took a long time getting to the phone, that’s all. And I heard your mum covering the phone and whispering.’

‘She always does that,’ I said. ‘It doesn’t mean anything. I was just upstairs in my room…’

‘On your own?’

I could hear the smile in her voice.

‘Yeah,’ I said. ‘On my own.’

‘Right.’

I stared at the wall, listening to the muffled silence at the other end of the line, imagining the look on Nic’s face – amused, attentive, engagingly secretive.

‘So, Pete,’ she went on. ‘How’s it going?’

‘All right, I suppose.’

‘What’ve you been doing with yourself?’

‘Not much. How about you?’

‘Christ,’ she sighed, ‘all I’ve been doing for the last three weeks is packing.’

‘Packing?’

‘Yeah, you know… for when we go to Paris.’

‘I thought you weren’t going until the end of September?’

‘We’re not, but Mum and Dad are away for the next few weeks
and they’re trying to get most of the packing done before they go. There’s cardboard boxes and crap all
over
the place at the moment. It’s like living in a warehouse.’

‘Sounds like fun.’

‘Yeah…’

I kept quiet for a while, not saying anything, waiting to find out what she
really
wanted to talk about. Nicole has never been one for small talk, and I knew she wouldn’t have called me after all this time just to talk about cardboard boxes. So I just stared at the wall and waited.

Eventually she said, ‘Listen, Pete… are you still there?’

‘Yeah.’

‘What are you doing on Saturday?’

‘Saturday? I don’t know… not much. Why?’

‘You know that funfair up at the recreation ground?’

‘Yeah.’

‘Well, it’s the last day on Saturday, and I thought we could all meet up and have a night out. Just the four of us – you, me, Eric and Pauly. You know, for old times’ sake.’

‘Old times?’

‘Yeah, you know what I mean – the gang… the
four
of us. I mean, it wasn’t that long ago, was it? I just thought, you know…’

‘What?’

‘I just thought we should all meet up again before it’s too late.’

‘Too late for what?’

‘Well, you’re going off to sixth-form college, me and Eric are going to Paris, Pauly’s probably getting a job… this might be the last chance we get to be together again.’

‘Yeah, I suppose…’

‘Come on, Pete… Eric and Pauly are up for it. We’re going to meet in the old den in Back Lane –’

‘The
den
?’

She laughed. ‘Yeah, I know… I was just thinking about it a while ago, you know, remembering how we built it and everything, and I suddenly realized it’d be a really good place to meet up for the last time. It’ll be fun – just like the old den parties we used to have. Bring a few bottles, get a bit drunk… then afterwards we can all go on to the fair together and throw up on the roller coaster.’ She laughed again. ‘You’ve
got
to come, Pete. It won’t be the same without you.’

‘What about Raymond?’

Nicole hesitated. ‘Raymond Daggett?’

‘Yeah. I mean, there weren’t just the four of us in the old gang, were there? Raymond was with us most of the time.’

‘Well, yeah, I know. But Raymond… I mean, it’s not really his kind of thing, is it?’

‘What do you mean?’

‘You know… going out, going to the fair, meeting up with Eric and Pauly. I just don’t think he’d enjoy it, that’s all.’

‘Why not?’

‘Look, Pete,’ she sighed. ‘I’m not saying I don’t
want
him to come –’

‘What
are
you saying then?’

‘Nothing. It’s just…’

‘What?’

‘Nothing. It doesn’t matter.’ She sighed again. ‘If you want Raymond to come –’

‘I don’t even know if
I’m
coming yet.’

‘Of course you are,’ she said, suddenly brightening up. ‘You’re not going to say no to me, are you?’

‘No.’

She laughed again, but this time it sounded a little bit forced, and I got the impression that she was
making
herself go along with the joke, when in fact she wanted to be serious… and I didn’t know how I felt about that. There was something almost intimate about the way she was talking to me, and if I hadn’t known better I would have sworn she was flirting with me. But I
did
know better. Nicole Leigh wouldn’t flirt with me. We were past all that now. We hardly even knew each other any more. We moved in different circles. We did different things. We had different friends. All we had in common now was the shared memory of a time when we used to mess around together with Raymond and Pauly and Eric. Memories of gangs and dens, of long days down by the river, or in the woods… memories of breathless young kisses and awkward fumbles in the abandoned factory at the back of the lane…