The Square Root of Summer (30 page)

“He keeps telling me everything was always
my
idea,” I complain. “Did you know it was his idea to come over this summer, not his mum's?”

“Ha-ha,” Papa says, goblin-gleeful. “Not at first—I thought it was you, like the cat.”

“Papa,” I say carefully. “
I
didn't bring Umlaut home.”

“
Nein?
Anyway, after the party, I call Thomas's mum and she told me that he told her it was your idea.” He hands me his glass. “I've missing you.”

I take a sip—sour and vinegary—and say, “I've been here.”

“Have you?” His voice isn't sharp, like the wine—but it stings. If everyone's telling me I'm only half here, maybe they're all right.

“I missed you too,” I tell him. Papa draws his knees up, looking out to the tangled garden. “And I miss Grey.” I gulp the wine again, to hide my embarrassment. We've never talked about this. We've snuck around, avoiding the subject.

“Ich auch.”
Me too
. “I don't know—did I get it wrong? Letting you and Ned find your own way? When your mami died, Grey did this for me. Stepped back. Let me discover.” Papa trails off, plucking the wine from my hand. “
Liebling
. You've been reading his diaries. You know now he was ill, the radiation treatment?”

*R

*R

*R

Radiation? The wine and the second shock announcement of the day set me reeling in the twilight. I think of Grey's thunderstorm moods last summer. His early nights. All the times I'd cycled past the Book Barn and the door had been locked. Getting me a book for my birthday. Thomas's voice in the kitchen, saying,
morphine.

And Grey, leaping over the fire. Shouting for a Viking's death.

“No. I didn't know.” All these secrets, shattering.

“Ja, Liebling,”
says Papa. He gulps his wine, till there's just a bit left, then he hands it back to me. “Go slowly. I already have Ned to deal with. Hodgkin lymphoma.” He tests the words on his tongue, unfamiliar. “Cancer. For a while. The stroke was always a possibility. But anyway, even so. There wasn't much time, and he wanted you not to know. You and Ned had exams. You'd lost your mami. He liked when everything was happy, you know?”

And I thought we had all the time in the world. I've held on to a meaningless wish for a year. It stings a little, when I let it go. It had put down roots. Then I pour my wine onto the grass: a ritual. And at last, the guilt dissolves like smoke in the air.

Papa is watching me.
“Ich liebe dich mit ganzem Herzen,”
he says.
I love you with my whole heart.

Ned chooses this touching moment to start pounding AC/DC through his open window.

“
Ist
your brother?” asks Papa, wincing.

“I'll get him.” I unfold upright and stomp over to his window, taking out my feelings on the grass. Yellow tulips and wormholes and a wish. It's haunted me for a year; now it's gone.

“Ned!” I bang on the window. “We're getting DRUNK.”

He pops his head out immediately. “What's the occasion?”

“Grey.”

*   *   *

“Remember the slugs?” I ask.

“The sluuuuuuugs.” Ned stretches the word from here to the moon as he flops backwards on the grass. We've been out here since I banged on his window, the twilight slipping into dark, sharing our favorite Grey anecdotes. Tree laundry. The frozen orange story. Slugs.

They were Grey's first test on the road to enlightenment. He read all these books, went temporarily vegetarian, started meditating. Fat Little Buddha statues sprang up all over the cottage, and bites sprang up all over Grey's legs because he wouldn't even swat a mosquito.

Summer and mosquitoes gave way to autumn and daddy longlegs. Around October, it started to rain. And rain begat slugs, and slugs begat more slugs, and slugs begat Grey slowly, softly, gradually, losing his temper. For a few weeks, he'd painstakingly pluck fat grey apostrophes off the pavement and tip them into the Althorpes' vegetable patch.

Then one night, we were woken at two in the morning by a bellow of “Bugger enlightenment!” and Grey banging a hoe on the pavement. A massacre.

“Did I ever tell you about him and the bells? He just stood out there”—Papa waves in the direction of the church—“yelling they should shut up.”

There were bells after his funeral, ringing out through the afternoon. Everyone goes quiet. Ned wriggles upright.

“We should do something,” he says, breaking the silence.

“It's late,” says Papa. “Bedtime. No more parties, no more drinking.”

“I meant”—Ned rolls his eyes—“about Grey. It's nearly a year. Shouldn't we ring bells or, okay, maybe not. Fireworks?”

“If you both wanted, we could scatter the ashes,” says Papa. “They're in the shed.”

“The
shed
?” Ned hoots. “You can't keep them in the shed! It's—it's—”

“Where else would you keep them,
Liebling
?” Papa asks, his face rumpled in confusion. “Anyway, Gottie put them there.”

“I
what
?” I choke on my wine.

“I put them in one of the Buddhas, and you cleared them all away,” he says, standing up, “so that's where they are.”

“Papa, when you say they're in
one
of the Buddhas … Half of them are back out in the house. Do you know which one?”

“I know which one,” he says. It's clear he's always known. Is he as vague and absent as I think, or do I just not notice him? “I'll find it. You all start to think about where we can do this. Maybe here.” He disappears into the dark.

“Here…” I say. “You don't think he means in the garden?”

Ned snorts, and we're back to normal. “Bit morbid. I bet near the Book Barn, or in the fields. What do you think?”

I wait until Papa comes back from the shed, a cardboard box in his hand. He rests it gently on the grass between us. It's unreasonably tiny.

“Grots?” Ned prompts me. “Where should these go?”

“The sea,” I say, because Grey wanted to die like a Viking.

There's nowhere else. The sea is the only place big enough, and the box is far too small. How can you hold the universe in the palm of your hand?

 

Sunday 24 August

[Minus three hundred and fifty-seven]

I wish I knew how the world worked, already. Because I wake up early with a pounding headache and Thomas's email clutched in my hand. And I can read it.

From:
[email protected]

To:
[email protected]

Date:
4/7/2015, 17.36

Subject:
Trouble times two

The answer's yes, obviously.

But I think you already know that.

Hasn't it always been yes when it comes to us?

I want to see the stars with you.

And whatever you tell me, I'll believe.

Because remember—

Things can get dark, and fairly terrible

But the scar on my palm makes you fucking indelible.

I read it a dozen times, and it still doesn't make any sense. The stars—that's obvious, the plastic ones he put on my ceiling. But what is he saying yes to? What have I told him that he believes? And I want to throttle him—this is hardly the clear warning you give if you're flying across the Atlantic to visit! It is, however, thoroughly Thomas—full of heart and gesture and a little bit loony, with no thought to the consequences.

I think I know why I can read it, too, and it's got nothing to do with the Weltschmerzian Exception. I've finally forgiven myself for Grey's death. I'm allowed a little bit of love in my life.

And I know what I can do for a grand gesture. Still in my pajamas, I grab my book bag from the wardrobe and run through the misty dawn to the kitchen.

By the time I climb the apple tree, the day is full sunshine. While Umlaut chases squirrels around the branches, I check for frogs—I don't want to accidentally shut one in. Then, moment by moment, I empty my book bag, and fill up the tin box. The seaweed from the beach. Canadian coins, the treasure map and my constellation, the little plastic stars, a pair of Thomas's balled-up socks, my ice-cream-sticky napkin from the fair yesterday. The recipe he wrote out for me.

And the squashed and terrible results of my first solo baking attempt this morning—a chocolate cupcake.

I close the lid and padlock it for Thomas to open. This time capsule of our summer. It's the best I can do. Then I lean back against a branch and start writing him an email on my phone.

From:
[email protected]

To:
[email protected]

Date:
24/8/2015, 11.17

Subject:
Bawk, bawk, bawk

Trouble times two, remember? Turns out, one is worse. I can't explain it, but I need you to come and open the time capsule with me. I know you've got no reason to. But I don't know how to be without you.

If you need more reason than that … Picture me now, holding out my little finger to you. And saying: Hey, Thomas. I dare you.

I look at what I've written. I think about Thomas's email, and that he told me it was a reply to mine. My fingers move on instinct, adjusting the date to 4 July. And I know it will work, because it already has. I hit send and shove the phone in my pocket, along with the key for the padlock. Now I just need to shower and go find Thomas.

I'm standing up and turning around on the branch, one foot reaching out into the air, searching for a knothole, when the time capsule begins to change. First, the old and tarnished padlock I took from the toolbox this morning becomes shiny and clean. Then the names on the top,
THOMAS & GOTTIE
, fade away.

“Uh,” I say to no one, to Umlaut, as I pause, half in, half out of the tree. I thought all this nonsense had stopped after the party. After the last wormhole. Except for,
um Gottes Willen
, Gottie you moron, except for the fact you could suddenly read Thomas's email this morning! Talk about a screenwipe.

As I watch, captivated, the writing reappears, followed by the tarnish. The lock re-rusts at warp speed. The time capsule pulsates back and forth, faster and faster: clean/dirty, letters/blank, rust/shiny. Past/future, past/future, past/future. The Weltschmerzian Exception didn't begin when Grey died. It's starting now.

And a drop of rain falls.

Upwards. There's not a cloud in the sky. As another drop of rain hits me, I scramble away from the time capsule, and “Oh, shit—”

I think I hear someone shouting my name as I fall out of the tree.

 

Five Years Ago

“Did you just SEE that?” Thomas shouts through the rain.

It's pretty dark, but I still saw the ginger cat run past us under the annex.

“Yeah, it's under here.” I get down on my hands and knees, trying to peer under the building. The grass is gross—all wet and slimy—but my jeans are already soaked. It's just water though. I'm a twelve-year-old girl, not the Wicked Witch of the West.

“Here, kitty kitty.”

“What? No,” says Thomas behind me. “G, you have to see this.”

“Mmm. In a minute.”

“G,” says Thomas impatiently. “Forget the cat for a minute. A girl just fell out of the tree.”

“No, she didn't.”

“Geee…”

I sigh. Thomas has been weird all day, ever since the head-butt kiss. I don't want to play his stupid game. I want to get the cat. But I stand up anyway, turning round, wiping my muddy hands on my jeans.

There's a girl lying on the grass under the apple tree.

Seriously.

It was just me and Thomas in the garden. Grey booted us out the Book Barn, then came home and booted us out the house too. Unbelievable! Thomas is leaving for Canada today, and it's my last chance to kiss him—to kiss ANYONE in my whole life—and we keep getting interrupted. Then the cat ran through. And now there's this girl. She sits up, rubbing the back of her head.

“She fell out of the sky-aye,” Thomas sing-songs as he starts crab-walking towards me.

“Actually,” says the girl, standing up tall tall tall. “I fell out of the tree.”

She shields her face with a hand from the rain and peers at us. At me. “Hi, Gottie.”

I stare back, spooked. How does she know my name? She looks like my mami, who I've only seen in photos. They all look the same as this girl: dark and skinny, with a big nose, and choppy hair like mine.

“Aren't you cold?” I ask. I'm wearing rain boots, jeans, a T-shirt, Thomas's jumper, and a Windbreaker. The girl is wearing pajamas and a book bag and no shoes. She must be friends with Grey. And she's not wearing a bra. I can tell. Her toenails are cherry red and chipped.

“Did you hit your head?” asks Thomas. I sidle next to him and take his hand. He squeezes mine back.

“No, I hit the hedge.” She giggles.

She's loopy: there isn't a hedge back here. The ginger cat comes running to her, and it purrs and rubs against her ankle.

“I
knew
I should have called you Schrödinger!” she says to it, then turns to look up into the apple tree. “Holy long division—it's a paradoxical time loop.”

What is she talking about?
Thomas looks at me, and, slowly so she doesn't see it, I point my finger at my ear and move it round in a circle. Mouth: “Cuckoo.”

But how can he smile when he's going away today? Doesn't he mind?

“But why here? Why does it open today and not somewhen else? Is it the time capsule?” the girl murmurs to the tree. Then she looks over at us. “Hey, Trouble Times Two. Can you do me a favor?”