24

In the morning, I knew before I opened my eyes that the world was wrong. I kept my eyes shut. Hayfever head, thick with wine and over-breathed air. Blur. For the meaning, for the sound. The night came back in beats, each one bad. I decided I would never open my eyes again.

Then I heard a noise. I was not alone. Someone was in Sofi’s bed. I looked through locked lashes. Sofi was in Sofi’s bed. She was wearing pyjamas for the first time that summer, but she was here.

‘I know you’re awake,’ she said. I made sure none of my body moved. I stopped breathing.

‘It’s OK,’ she said then. ‘It’s OK.’ Long breath out. She was smoking. It was freshly lit. ‘It has to be, you’re leaving tomorrow. Hey, look at me.’ I couldn’t.

‘Pip?’ I said, eyes shut.

‘Yeah?’

‘Did you—?’

‘We went to see the Czech boys.’

‘But you didn’t—?’

‘Didn’t what, Jude?’ She stopped. ‘After a while he said we had to go back for you. I came here and found you passed out in a pile of peanuts.’

I didn’t know if I wanted to say sorry, or thank you. It was right at the back of my throat, but there was so much of it there it got stuck.

‘You can open your eyes now,’ she said. ‘It’s OK. It’s your last day, it has to be OK.’

*   *   *

It was the third Sunday of August, and that morning, my last morning, it was the annual Service on the Sea. There’d been posters everywhere. We’d said we’d go. The two churches on Sark would come together, and everyone would be there.

Everyone would be there, but I couldn’t go now: Pip would be there.

Pip. He had given me flowers in my crown, and what had I given him? When he needed me, I had given him nothing.

‘Just move it, Judas,’ Sofi said, ripping off my sheets. ‘We’re not going to be late for church.’

We played tug of war with my sheets, but there was still enough wine in my blood to let her take me. I saw the world through the glass I’d drunk from. Softer edges, separate, still slightly more shine than there should be.

It was raining, but even so there must have been about two hundred people down at the harbour. Half the island, in coloured raincoats or under umbrellas. I saw the woman from the shop, with a baby I thought she’d be too old to have; men who’d said hello to us from ladders; young girls in baggy leggings who’d plaited Sofi’s hair. Up at the front, DJ Roger, ringed fingers on his song sheet, and behind him, Bonita, in a huge blue hat. Up high on a ledge at the back, the Barclay brothers, who we recognised, and a few of the Farquarts, who we didn’t. A hymn was just starting. It was ‘Great is thy faithfulness’. I knew it from school but I couldn’t sing.

Further along the harbour wall from us, I saw them. The men and the cousins, in a black line, practically in height order. A little bit away from them stood Esmé, tiny. Even Esmé was here. And next to her, arm around her shoulders, Pip leant down to kiss her head.

I felt a seam of pins and needles prickle round the back of my neck.

Caleb saw me and tipped an imaginary hat, as if nothing had happened. Perhaps he didn’t remember. I pretended I hadn’t seen. I looked at the vicar, tried to look at every single thing about him so my mind had something to do. I tensed my ears to fill them with white noise, but I could hear the sea slap at the harbour wall. It was that or my heartbeat, I’m not sure, but it was faster than normal.

When Sofi saw Pip, she touched my arm. ‘It’s his new suit for school. Fuck, he looks handsome; doesn’t he look handsome?’

The rain ran fast. The birds chattered louder behind the Salvation Army band. A trumpeter with a purple nose stopped playing so he could wipe his glasses.

The sermon started. It was the vicar’s last service. He was talking about leaving Sark for a different parish.

‘Like you and me,’ Sofi said. And I said, ‘Like Pip.’

He was holding Esmé’s umbrella for her, her bag, her song sheet. She was holding onto him. I reached for Sofi’s hand, hers hot, mine cold. We all held onto something.

By the time the service ended it was raining so hard it made the stone harbour floor bounce and pixelate.

*   *   *

It shouldn’t have been, but in the end it was Pip who came to us.

‘Sorry,’ he said, and so he said it for me. ‘We shouldn’t have left you.’ There was rain on his eyelashes.

I suddenly didn’t want him to look at me, I couldn’t disappoint him again, and so I buried my face in his shoulder. Sofi still had my hand and ran a finger over the veins on my wrist. Then she reached up and touched Pip’s tie. ‘Let’s go home,’ she said. ‘We’ll make a goodbye cake.’

Summer would end in Sofi’s kitchen.