“Course not.” Banks senior fell silent for a moment, contemplating his son through narrowed eyes. Then he let slip a thin smile. “You’ve stopped smoking, haven’t you?”
“I wasn’t going to tell anyone.”
“There’s not much you can slip past your own father.”
“Dad, have you been listening to me? All I’ve been trying to demonstrate to you all these years,” Banks went on, “is that I’ve been doing a decent, honest day’s work, just like you did.”
“And Jet Harris, local legend, was a bent copper?”
“Yes.”
“And you’re going to expose him.”
“Something like that.”
“Well,” said Arthur Banks, rubbing his hands together. “That’s all right, then. You’ll be having another pint, I suppose? On me, this time.”
Banks looked at his watch. “Better make it a half,” he said. “I’ve got a date.”
Banks lay in bed late that night listening to Neil Byrd’s CD on his Walkman after dinner with Michelle and a phone call from Annie. “The Summer That Never Was” was the first song on the CD, though the liner notes said it was the last song Byrd had recorded, just weeks before his suicide. As Banks listened to the subtle interplay of words and music, all set against acoustic guitar and stand-up bass, with flute and a violin weaving in and out, like Van Morrison’s Astral Weeks, he felt the despair and defeat of the singer. He didn’t understand the song, didn’t know what all the tortured phrases meant, only that they were tortured.
Here was a man at the end of his tether. And he was thinking of his child, or of his own childhood. Or both.
Banks couldn’t even begin to imagine what this had meant to Luke Armitage when, his mind disoriented with strong cannabis, he had heard it for the first time in Liz and Ryan’s flat. Annie was right. How callous could the bastards be? Or stupid. It no doubt never even entered their addled minds what damage they might be doing. All they could think of was opening up Luke’s mind to his father’s music to further their careers, and everyone knew that drugs opened the doors of perception.
Banks remembered the Rimbaud quote written in silver on Luke’s black walclass="underline" “Le Poëte se fait voyant par un long, immense et raisonné dérèglement de tous les sens.”
Well, had Luke become a seer? What had he seen? Was he trying to kill himself with the diazepam, or was he just trying to stop the pain?
In Banks’s mind, Luke Armitage and Graham Marshall became one. They might have died in different ways for different reasons – not to mention in different times – but they were just two kids lost in a grown-up world where needs and emotions were bigger than theirs, stronger and more complex than they could comprehend. Graham had tried to play the big leagues at their own game and lost, while Luke had tried to find love and acceptance in all the wrong places. He had lost, too. Accident though his death was, according to Annie, it was a tragic accident made up of many acts, each one of which was like a door closing behind Luke as he moved toward his fate.
Banks put the CD player on the bedside table, turned over and tried to go to sleep. He didn’t think it would be easy. The song had left him with such a feeling of desolation and loneliness that he ached with need for someone to hold and found himself wishing he had stayed at Michelle’s after their lovemaking. He almost took out his mobile and rang her, but it was past two in the morning, way too late. Besides, how would she react if he showed such neediness so early in their relationship? She’d probably run a mile, like Annie. And quite rightly.
He could hear his father snoring in the next room. At least there had been a reconciliation of sorts between the two of them. Though Arthur Banks would never actually admit anything, his attitude had changed since their drink together that evening. Banks could tell that his father had been proud of him for his success in solving Graham’s murder – though he insisted Michelle had done most of the work – and for not trying to cover up Jet Harris’s role. Proud for perhaps the first time in his life.
How strange it was to be at home in his old bed. As he drifted toward sleep, he imagined his mother calling him for school in the morning: “Hurry up, Alan, or you’ll be late!” In his dream, he fastened his tie as he dashed downstairs for a quick bowl of cornflakes and a glass of milk before picking up his satchel and meeting the others out in the street. But when he walked out of the door, Dave and Paul and Steve and Graham all stood there waiting for him with the bat, the ball and the wickets. The sun shone in a bright blue sky and the air was warm and fragrant. There was no school. They were on holiday. They were going to play cricket on the rec. “It’s summer, you fool,” Graham said, and they all laughed at him. The summer that never was.
About the Author
PETER ROBINSON’S award-winning novels have been named a Best-Book-of-the-Year by Publishers Weekly, a Notable Book by the New York Times, and a Page-Turner-of-the-Week by People magazine. Robinson was born and brought up in Yorkshire, England, but has lived in North America for nearly twenty-five years.
