The barman nods and rings up the bill. She holds her bank card out and presses it to the machine the barman is holding. She turns back to me. ‘Can it wait until I have this drink inside me? That guy over there recommended these shots. I mean, I’ve heard of it, but never actually had one, if you know what I mean!’ She laughs towards the barman who smiles back at her.
Caitlin leans her back against the bar and begins talking about us heading home tomorrow and what a wonderful break it has been. ‘Just the ticket,’ she says. ‘You did well to get this place at such short notice.’ She pauses before she speaks again. ‘I don’t know what I’d do without you, Sasha.’ She sort of slurs this last part.
My surroundings become fluid as her words get picked up by the sea breeze. What would she do without me? I have been there for her since she was a kid. I was always there for her when her parents hadn’t been – couldn’t be – the parents she needed them to be. Was I willing to throw away so much history? Here? Tonight?
The barman produces two shot glasses: dark red at the bottom, clear liquid in the middle and a brown, creamy liquor top.
‘Oh, my goodness, would you look at those!’ Caitlin exclaims. ‘Bottoms up!’ She downs one with barely a flinch. ‘I’m going to take this other one to that chap over there, Daz or Gaz… Oh I should have got one for you, my bridesmaid.’ Caitlin slinks towards me and brushes her lips across my cheek. ‘But you’re not much of a drinker, are you? I’ll have another one for you later.’
She walks back towards her awaiting crowd. Then she stops and turns and shouts over the music.
‘Sorry, what was it you wanted to say?’
It is as though all the words I have planned in my head have evaporated.
I shake my head. ‘I was just going to say, what a great time I’ve had. Everyone has.’ I force a smile, but it feels weak. Maybe Caitlin is too drunk to notice. She spins back around and carries on walking the way she was headed, but I hear her shout back at me, ‘You’re such a funny thing sometimes.’
Her words, so familiar, taunt me.
It was a stupid idea trying to talk to Caitlin tonight – she’s too preoccupied. But then she always is these days. I would find another way, another time. But it has to be soon. I have to tell her what I know about what happened that summer at Saxby.
For what started out as a beautiful adventure, where a friendship was cemented, soon unearthed deeply buried secrets.
4 Saxby House, Dorset, July 1988
I could smell the sweet scent of my own sweat from a day spent mostly on the school field doing sports and picking daisies. I was sitting in the passenger seat of Dad’s Volvo estate, my legs sticking to the hot leather. I had my Sony Walkman playing the Tracy Chapman album. Since it came out in the spring, I’d been obsessed and I felt the familiar tingle of excitement when each track began. I liked to listen so many times that I could almost work out what they were thinking when they wrote the songs. Mum said I was bonkers, whilst Dad just smiled and said, ‘Good on ya, kid.’ He loved his music. He deadheaded flowers and strimmed hedges by day, but at night, he sang in a rock band. At least he did before we moved here two months ago.
The car rumbled down the driveway of the fifty-acre Saxby estate, where Dad was the head gardener and Mum did the housekeeping and cooking. In return for their work, they received a tidy wage and a lovely three-bedroom cottage just next to the main house with its own garden. But the estate grounds were the real garden. I sometimes followed Dad around for his work, and other times I just disappeared off and explored. Dad told me to be careful, that if I saw Mrs Clemonte, the lady of the house and Dad’s boss, then I was to scuttle home as fast as I could. ‘Remember, I’m here to work, Sasha – we mustn’t get under their feet.’ I was told this regularly, but his words never really hit home. Living at Saxby was exciting in so many ways, and I was drawn to the house and the Clemonte family. Despite what my parents said, Josephine Clemonte was always nice and talked to me for ages sometimes. But I didn’t tell Mum or Dad that.
I knew this job meant so much to them both, that they were happy here now. So was my brother, Hunter. But I was sad when we first had to move miles away from London and all our friends and family. But Mum said she’d had enough of the city and didn’t want to raise us there any more. She said we’d make new friends, and I did make a few at school. And, yes, living at Saxby was much nicer than the rough estate we lived in in Hackney, but I missed my old friends and hanging out in the courtyard and car park at the bottom of the flats. I missed the lads on their BMXs doing wheelies and stunts over discarded pieces of scrap wood. I missed sitting on the patch of grass at the front of the flats, flicking through Jackie magazine and blowing pink bubbles with our gum, thinking we were the bees’ knees because we had just discovered the secret to boys via a few flimsy pieces of paper.
Saxby came into view as we rounded the corner where the elderflower tree stood. Its branches, which usually offered an abundance of flowers, were desolate and browning. Any leftover flowers would now turn to berries. I’d learnt so much about plants
