Open Water, Caleb Nelson [best summer books txt] 📗

and have ­fun – and we get this,’ she says, signalling the spit falling from the dirty grey sky. Thunder crackles, like the distant rumble of a giant’s stomach, and she sighs, the short whoosh joining nature’s sounds.

The night before, you had been sitting on her sofa, when she made the declaration.

‘I don’t think that’s a good idea,’ you said.

‘Why not?’

‘I just . . . it’s quite sudden.’

‘But I want to. Come on, come help me.’

In the bathroom, you laugh and giggle as she wets her hair, flattening the curls with water. You don a glove and help ease the dye across her soft scalp, once, twice, until the desired colour is reached. She is going from dark to blonde, spreading chemicals as one does in a darkroom, to encourage an image to emerge from celluloid. The beauty of shooting on film is in the unexpected. You don’t know what will appear out of the development process. You are doing the same here, the bleach on her dark roots producing a glow like sunshine at golden hour. When you settle in bed for the night, you run your hand through her yellow curls, and she murmurs towards slumber.

‘This feels good,’ she says. ‘This has felt good. I’ve enjoyed this summer together.’

‘It’s not over yet,’ you say, but she’s already asleep.

Carnival Sunday. Bits and pieces like a film strip: walking through puddles on Rye Lane, determined to find a space where she would feel safe. Peering into the barbershop, doing a walk by. Holding her by the underside of your forearms. It will be OK, you tell her, not because she’s nervous, but because you believe it. Inside, waiting for a chair to become free. A measure of rum to ease the jitters. ‘Is that your boyfriend?’ The answer is too complex: when you have the words to explain, they will still feel inadequate. ‘I won’t hurt her,’ the barber says, noticing how you eye him as the razor glides across her scalp. You hear the conversation and know she has found another place to feel comfortable. Two dots of blood on her forehead as he lines her up. You both promise to return. It doesn’t feel empty.

Carnival Sunday. You’re scraping the plate with your forks. Leftovers from the day before, rice and peas, jerk chicken, the meat slipping from the bone.

‘I have to go soon,’ you say. ‘You still heading out?’

‘I think so,’ she says, suppressing a yawn. ‘We’re taking a nap,’ she says, leaving the room.

In her bedroom, you clamber into bed, pull the duvet over yourself, suddenly tired.

‘Wait,’ she says.

‘What?’

She giggles. ‘Did you really think we were taking a nap?’

Carnival Sunday. You return later that night after leaving her house for a few hours. Kick off your shoes without undoing the laces. She’s where you left her, in bed, the grin still traced on her lips, her words still echoing pleasantly, like laughter: ‘Did you really think we would take a nap?’

It’s night now, and the rain has stopped. You describe the party you left her for and wonder about the enormous street party you didn’t make it to.

‘There’s always next year.’

She nods, settling into the folds of her duvet. You wrap your arms around her, letting them linger, comforted by her warmth. Her curves and juts are familiar. The shape of her recognizable, even with the newly cropped blonde hair. She smells like her, which is a ­cop-­out, really, but if pushed, you would say she smells like a place you call home.

20

Miserly grey of a London sky on Carnival Monday. Hot and muggy and stiff. Summer’s beginning to stall and dwindle. You ran into a friend at Victoria train station. You hadn’t seen each other for years, not since way before he found his freedom being taken from him, but this isn’t the time or place, no, this is a time for joy and so neither of you mention the letters you wrote to each other during his ­eighteen-­month stint, neither of you joke about his slim frame gaining mass, neither of you suggest that there might be something else, something like tired, swimming in his dark brown eyes. You embrace and exchange numbers, promising to link up later in the day, both knowing the possibility of phone reception during Carnival is slim. You split, heading underground. When you emerge, London is still grey, the sky a single colour. As luck would have it, you bump into more friends trudging along the route, following sound and signs. Heading towards a house party. Rooftop vibes, they’ve got a little balcony. You’re reminded of Leah and Michel taking up Frank’s invitation to an amazing carnival pad in Zadie’s NW.

You can see everything from here. No need to lumber through the mass of people searching for a toilet or chicken or avoiding noise and violence on the ground, there’s always violence here, I guess that’s what you expect ­when – yes? That’s what you expect when? And in the silence, someone offers you a sausage roll and a Red Stripe and tells you to eat and drink until you are content. The room begins to spin in blue anger. There’s mimicry of broken English, like patois was a luxury, rather than a necessity, like the language did not emerge from Black body being split. There’s a Rasta wig here too. You are unsurprised that you don’t have fun. No one notices you slip onto stairs onto street into Carnival, just in time to witness a crime being committed. Woman, bringing the yellow pastry of a patty towards her open mouth. Man, charges towards her with no regard, his elbow knocking hers, faint surprise as her pastry falls to ground, landing with a thud. He does not look back. She is too confused to chase. She looks up to see you, the witness, and you both grin in pain. This is how you found yourself standing in line with a stranger, relaying the events of the house party with rooftop vibes to her. While you talk your voice wobbles