Summer Season (23 page)

It wasn’t just Kezzie who was unimpressed by Lauren’s news; her mum was none too impressed either. Particularly as she found out about it via Facebook, where Lauren had gleefully changed her relationship status from single to in a relationship with Troy Farrell.

‘It will only end in tears,’ her mum had warned her. ‘Don’t say I didn’t warn you.’

‘I’d never say that,’ said Lauren, feeling a little sore. It would be nice if just one person she cared about was slightly happy for her. The girls were, of course, but it wasn’t the same. Lauren didn’t want to end up in a position where she had to choose between Troy and everyone else, but a small gnawing knot of anxiety growing inside her was warning her that it might be inevitable.

It was a warm May morning as she walked down the hill with Sam, after dropping the girls off at school. The trees were lined with the last of the pink and white apple blossom, which fell at her feet like confetti as she passed. Sam laughed as the petals gently floated into his hands. Lauren smiled as she saw a couple of Summer Fest posters tacked to the trees. Eileen had obviously been out early; she was keen to get what she called a ‘buzz’ going.

Troy had the afternoon off, and they were going to go shopping later, but for now she and Sam were heading for
the playground. Although Lauren was pleased to be back with Troy, she lurched between her anxious feelings that everyone else was right and she was making a mistake, and an insane giddy happiness because Troy made her feel so amazing when they were together. Their relationship was a hundred times better than it had been previously, because now it was a proper adult one, with both of them taking responsibility for it. She wished everyone else could see it.

Humming to herself, she pushed open the iron gate that led into the Memorial Gardens.

‘Oh no!’ Since the revamp of the gardens, no one had reported any vandalism, and slowly the night patrols had tailed off. Thanks to the campaign in the paper, more parents were using the playground, and Eileen had assured her the Parish Council was looking at allocating some money towards replacing the equipment. ‘We’ll still have to raise some money via the Summer Fest,’ she said, ‘but at least it’s something.’

The cause of Lauren’s dismay was the empty plinth, which once more bore the legend
Daz 4 Zoe
, and was covered with empty bottles. Someone had clearly thought it was fun to pull up some of the bedding plants, too, and there was mud all over the path.

‘All that hard work for nothing,’ she said, picking up the plants and putting them to one side. If they’d done this here, what on earth had they done to the playground? She pushed Sam towards it with her heart in her mouth.

The damage was not as bad as she feared; there were some broken bottles it was true, and someone had sprayed graffiti on the side of the slide, but it could have been worse. But still. All that effort and people just wanted to destroy it. She could have wept.

Instead, she rang Eileen and Kezzie, who both arrived as quickly as they could, and Rose Carmichael, who promised
to get her husband to bring some paint stripper home from work. She had barely seen Kezzie since Troy had moved back in and when they did meet things had felt awkward between them. Kezzie didn’t talk about Troy, but Lauren knew what she was thinking. And of late, she’d been getting the idea that Kezzie might be avoiding her.

‘I just can’t believe it,’ said Lauren. ‘Bastards.’

‘I still think it’s bored kids,’ said Kezzie.

‘They may well be bored,’ said Lauren, ‘but they need to learn to show some respect for other people’s property.’

‘Ooh, touchy,’ said Kezzie. ‘I was just saying.’

‘Grow up, Kezzie,’ snapped Lauren. ‘Even if they are kids, we can’t just give them a pat on the back and send them on their way.’

Kezzie looked a little hurt, but said nothing, while Eileen smoothed the way with, ‘I guess we’ll have to reinstate the patrols. Now the warmer evenings are here, it’s more tempting for the vandals.’

‘I can do tonight,’ said Kezzie. ‘I’ll see if Joel’s available.’

Lauren felt a spasm of envy shoot through her, although she couldn’t have explained why. She and Joel had had such a comfortable friendship till Kezzie came along, and over the last few months Lauren had felt she had been slowly edged out. She had no right to feel like this, she knew, particularly now Troy was back in her life, but she’d got used to being the person Joel relied on, and he seemed to be relying on her less and less. It was no one’s fault, Lauren could see that someone as dynamic and dazzling as Kezzie was going to be more attractive to Joel than she was (though why she should care about that, she didn’t know), but she missed the easiness of the relationship she’d had with Joel. And worse, Joel had seemed withdrawn in the last few weeks, since she’d been with Troy. They’d never quite recovered from the awkwardness of Joel’s declaration of love being so
swiftly followed by Troy moving in. And she had no doubt at all that Joel disapproved.

‘I can’t babysit tonight,’ said Lauren, thinking of the evening she had planned with Troy. It was probably good for Joel to know that she wasn’t constantly at his beck and call.

‘I’m sure Christine’s free tonight,’ said Eileen. ‘I’m not, unfortunately.’

‘Hot date is it?’ grinned Kezzie, and Eileen blushed.

‘I am seeing Tony, as it happens,’ she said.

‘Good for you,’ said Kezzie. ‘I’ll give Joel a ring, but I’ll do it anyway. I’m not having all our hard work going for nothing. In the meantime, I’m going to go and sort those beds out in the Memorial Gardens. There might be something we can salvage.’

She left quickly, barely saying goodbye to Lauren. Damn. It looked as though Kezzie wasn’t going to forgive her easily.

As the weeks had gone by, Joel had got used to seeing Lauren with Troy, and even persuaded himself it wasn’t like a knife digging into his heart. His feelings for Lauren had crystallized at a point when they could come to nothing. He told himself what he’d never had was no loss, but he knew in his heart it wasn’t true. Every time he saw the way Lauren was with Sam, how loving she was with him, how much fun he had with her, he regretted not having been bolder before. He realized with a jolt that, just as Lauren always had, he missed the sense of completion that he would have had from being part of a family. And though he could never have it with Claire again, there had been just the smidgeon of a possibility that he could have had it with Lauren, but he’d cocked it up. By taking her for granted, he’d ensured that Lauren would never show any interest in him. And now that door had been closed to him. With Troy
on the scene, Joel felt he had to hang back more, and become more reserved with Lauren, for fear of intruding. Their usual easy intimacy had been replaced with an awkward distance, and Joel regretted that more than anything.

‘There’s nothing you can do,’ Kezzie said to Joel, when they reached the gardens that evening. It hadn’t taken him long to agree to come out. He was furious that someone should have tried to destroy their hard work. ‘She’s completely head over heels in love with the guy. We just have to hope that she sees sense. At the moment she won’t hear a word against him.’

Joel sighed, ‘I know, it doesn’t make it any easier though, does it?’

‘Nope,’ said Kezzie. ‘Come on, let’s make ourselves comfortable.’

They sat down on the bench, and chatted idly about the Summer Fest, and the gardening celebrities Kezzie had managed to interest in the project. Latest was, that at least one known TV presenter was likely to turn up on the day. ‘Wouldn’t it be great if he’d endorse my work,’ Kezzie was saying, when they heard a rustle in the bushes. Joel flashed his torch.

‘Anyone there?’ They heard muffled giggles, and a rather obvious, ‘Ssshh!’

Kezzie and Joel looked at each other and grinned. They sat waiting for a few minutes, and everything went quiet. This seemed like a good moment to put their plan into action.

‘Must have been a fox,’ said Kezzie, loudly. ‘How about we call it a day now?’

‘Good idea,’ said Joel. ‘I don’t think anyone’s coming.’

Noisily, they got up and left, clanging the garden gate shut behind them. Then they waited with bated breath. It
took five minutes for the giggles to start again, and then there were a few shouts of laughter, and four teenage kids burst out of the hedge.

‘Coast’s clear,’ they said. And one of them ran to the plinth and sprayed something on the side.

‘Not so fast.’ Joel and Kezzie had crept up quietly behind the kids, who were so intent on what they were doing, they had no idea that anyone was behind them.

Joel grabbed the nearest one, and Kezzie shone the torch in his eyes. The other three stopped in shock, and looked poised to flee, but they were clearly anxious about the fate of their friend.

‘Oi, you can’t touch me,’ said the boy.

‘OK, I’m not touching you,’ said Joel, letting go. He had no desire to spend the evening in a police cell facing charges of assault on a minor, ‘but I am calling the police.’

‘No, please don’t,’ he said, ‘my mum will kill me.’

‘You should have thought about that,’ said Kezzie. ‘Have you any idea how much hard work has gone into making these gardens look nice again? And you lot have destroyed it.’

The boys shrugged, and looked embarrassed.

‘Why do you do it?’ said Kezzie.

‘Dunno,’ said the tallest one, who was looking particularly sheepish.

‘Nuffin’ else to do,’ another of them said, and kicked a stone away from his feet.

‘Why not try and be constructive?’ said Kezzie. ‘Did you know the council is planning to do up this whole area and have ideas for making it more teenager friendly? If you stopped destroying things, people might be prepared to let you have a proper graffiti area.’

‘What? Really?’ The boys looked quite hopeful.

‘Well, I can’t promise anything,’ said Kezzie, ‘it’s not up
to me. But they’re never going to agree to anything like that if you keep coming here and ruining everyone’s hard work. You have to stop doing this, or nothing will change.’

There was a whispered conversation, during which Kezzie detected a fair amount of swearing, then one of the boys said, ‘So if we promise not to do it again, will you let us go?’

‘For now,’ said Kezzie.

‘What do you mean, for now?’ The oldest boy eyed her suspiciously.

‘I mean, you can go home now, and we’ll say nothing more about it, but tomorrow you are going to come back here and clean up your mess.’

‘Why should we do that?’ said the tallest and cockiest-looking one.

‘Because if you don’t, we may just change our minds and call the police after all,’ said Joel. ‘The choice is yours.’

The boys looked at each other and muttered something.

‘Right, I want names and numbers,’ said Joel. ‘And I will be ringing your parents and telling them what’s happened.’

The boys looked collectively stricken at that, but when Joel reminded them it was better their parents knew than the police, they gave up their details readily.

‘Nick Carmichael,’ Joel whistled, as he recognized one of the names given him, ‘and your mum and dad have helped out too.’

Nick shifted anxiously from one foot to the other.

‘They’re going to kill me,’ he said. His woebegone manner was so comical, Joel nearly laughed out loud, but he adopted a stern look, and said, ‘Well, I hope you’ve learnt your lesson. We’ll see you back here on Saturday morning at nine o’ clock.’

Nine a.m. on Saturday found Kezzie and Joel back at the gardens organizing the boys, and some of their mates, whom they sheepishly admitted had helped on previous occasions, to clean up the plinth with paint stripper supplied by Nick’s dad. Rose Carmichael had been furious when she’d found out and Nick had been grounded for a month, or so she claimed. ‘I might let him off for good behaviour,’ she whispered to Kezzie behind his back, ‘but he’s going to have to work very hard for it.’

With Rose there to oversee things, the boys pretty much got down to work straight away. They clearly regarded her with awe as someone not to be crossed, and in record time they had cleaned all the graffiti off the plinth. Kezzie organized another group to replant the borders with the plants that had been pulled out, and took it upon herself to give them a gardening lesson.

‘I do understand about being bored and destructive, you know,’ she said, as she showed them how to dig in the roots properly. ‘But it’s much better to do something constructive.’

The boys didn’t look wholly convinced, but they seemed to enjoy her tales of guerrilla gardening, so maybe some of what she’d said wasn’t falling on deaf ears.

By lunchtime, the gardens had been restored again, and they were able to send the boys home, but not without Rose issuing dire warnings of what would happen to them if they caused trouble again.

‘We certainly won’t hesitate to call the police next time,’ Joel said.

‘Thanks for not doing it this time,’ said Nick, putting his hands in his pockets.

‘Did you mean it about having a place to graffiti properly?’ said one of his mates.

Kezzie looked at Joel. ‘Well, it’s certainly something that the council is considering. Could you promise not to
vandalize other bits of the village if you had somewhere like that?’

‘Yes,’ the boys’ faces lit up with enthusiasm. ‘And if we had a skating park as well, that would be cool,’ one said.

‘We only did it cos we were bored,’ another agreed.

‘We’ve got a meeting coming up for the Summer Fest,’ said Kezzie. ‘I’ve mentioned it before, but we could try and do up the old pavilion and have that as a place for you guys to go to.’

‘That would be wicked,’ said Nick.

‘It’s conditional on your good behaviour though,’ warned Kezzie. ‘We won’t do it if you continue to mess about.’

‘No worries,’ said Nick, ‘we’ll be good as gold from now on.’

‘You’d better,’ admonished Kezzie, but she grinned. They weren’t bad kids; they were like she’d been, bored and idle. If they could be encouraged to more constructive pursuits, it could only be a good thing.

‘Do you think we can swing it?’ Joel said. ‘You know how stuffy some of those Parish Councillors are.’