After Eden ae-1 Read online

  ‘But you hardly know anything about me.’

  Ryan laughed, just as Megan launched herself off the harbour wall with a scream. I watched as she swam towards the shore. From experience, I knew that they’d all repeat the jump four or five times before they tired of it and swam across the bay to Lucky Cove on the opposite headland.

  ‘Are you going to educate me?’ said Ryan.

  I looked at him, lost. ‘What do you want to know?’

  ‘Everything.’ He was still smiling at me with his big, warm smile, a smile that was amused and friendly and just on the cusp of being flirtatious without quite crossing into it.

  ‘That could take a while,’ I said, feeling myself blush.

  ‘I don’t mind.’

  I lay back on the sand and closed my eyes, enjoying the gentle caress of the April sunshine on my skin.

  ‘Everything is a big subject,’ I said. ‘How about you get to ask me three questions.’

  ‘Like three wishes in a fairytale?’

  ‘Mmm. Exactly. And then I get to ask you three.’

  ‘OK,’ he said. ‘Only three questions. I’ll have to make them count. So let’s start with the perfect date.’

  ‘That’s a good question,’ I said, stretching my arms above my head. I’d never considered it before. My perfect date. I’d never been on any kind of date, good or bad. ‘I’d like to drink cold champagne and eat warm, sweet strawberries while the sun sets over the sea.’ I’d never had champagne before, but I liked the way it sounded.

  Ryan laughed. ‘Very romantic.’

  ‘I hope so. I mean, for it to be the perfect date, it would have to be with someone I love.’

  ‘That leads on perfectly to my next question. Have you ever been in love, Eden?’

  Both the question and the way he said my name made my heart stall. I was pretty sure my blush must be in full bloom by now, from chest to forehead. I put my hands over my eyes to shield them from the sun and my embarrassment, and then parted my fingers slightly so I could look up at him. He was looking down at me, the sun weaving through his hair and lighting up his face.

  ‘No,’ I said, although I was beginning to wonder if the acute mixture of nerves and embarrassment I felt whenever he was near might be one of the symptoms.

  He held my gaze, a half-smile on his face. ‘What are you afraid of?’ he asked.

  For a moment I thought he was still talking about love, but then I realised that this was question three.

  ‘Heights,’ I said. ‘Deep water. And missed opportunities.’

  ‘Missed opportunities,’ he repeated. ‘I agree. OK. Your turn.’

  I thought for a moment, unsure what I most wanted to know about him.

  ‘What’s the worst thing you’ve ever done?’ I asked in the end.

  Ryan exhaled slowly. ‘Whoa. Right in with the serious stuff. How about a gentle warm-up question first to help me relax.’

  ‘I only have three questions.’

  ‘You’ll probably be disappointed by my answer. I haven’t done anything really bad. I guess the worst thing I’ve ever done is pretend to be someone I’m not so I could fit in with a group of people.’

  I couldn’t imagine Ryan struggling to fit in. It made him sound vulnerable in a way that didn’t add up.

  ‘Second question?’ he asked.

  ‘What do you want to do when you grow up?’

  ‘I don’t know,’ he said, shrugging one shoulder. ‘Probably something with the environment. With animals or plants. Study ecosystems. Protect fragile habitats.’

  ‘Like a job at the Eden Project?’

  He smiled. ‘Something to do with Eden. Yeah. That would be perfect.’

  ‘Last question,’ I said. ‘Who is your hero?’

  Ryan chuckled. ‘Connor.’

  I looked up at him through my fingers. He was laughing of course.

  ‘Connor?’ I asked.

  ‘Why not? He’s smart, he’s independent, and he doesn’t care what anyone thinks. And he has you for a best friend.’

  ‘Be serious.’

  ‘Fine. I don’t have heroes. I don’t believe in them.’

  ‘Why not Gandhi or Nelson Mandela or Martin Luther King? Surely they’ve done more to earn your admiration than Connor?’

  Ryan said nothing. Out of nowhere came the memory of Matt telling me that Ryan had never heard of Hitler. I sat up. ‘You have heard of Gandhi and Mandela?’

  ‘Of course,’ he said. He dug his heel into the sand and frowned.

  ‘Who are they then?’

  Ryan looked at me and exhaled deeply. ‘I have heard of them. I recognise their names, but I can’t remember why they’re famous.’

  ‘History lessons in New Hampshire must be so bad. What did they teach you?’

  ‘You’ve had your three questions,’ said Ryan.

  ‘Answer it and you can ask me one more.’

  ‘They taught us about the Greeks and Romans mainly and the history of discovery and exploration.’

  ‘Like Columbus?’

  He nodded. ‘Can I ask my final question?’

  ‘Fine,’ I said, expecting another general question about my loves or hates.

  ‘What did Connor mean earlier?’

  ‘You mean when he began his Mr Health and Safety routine?’

  Ryan nodded.

  I hesitated. I hated talking about what happened. People never knew what to say. ‘Ten years ago, I was in an accident. I was in a car with my parents and we were driving home from a wedding. My dad was driving. He’d had a lot to drink apparently. We were on the coast road, halfway between Penpol Cove and Perran. He lost control of the car. It skidded off the road and into the sea.’ I pointed to the headland across the bay from the harbour. ‘That’s where it happened. It’s known as Lucky Cove. Both my parents drowned.’

  Ryan said nothing, but I noticed on the drive home later that afternoon that he stayed well below the speed limit for a change.

  Chapter 7

  Ryan knocked on the door at eleven o’clock on the dot, just as the beeps on the radio signalled the hour. I smiled to myself at the military precision of his timekeeping. How had he managed that? I’d been watching for him from my bedroom window, half expecting him to call and cancel. It was my turn to host the Sunday revision session and although I’d invited Ryan every week since we met, this was the first time he’d accepted.

  I’d seen his silver car reach the top of Trenoweth Lane before heading around the corner, out of sight. A minute or two later, he’d strolled along the road, his backpack swinging from one shoulder, as though he didn’t have a care in the world. Part of me hoped to catch him doing something self-conscious – like checking his reflection in the wing mirror of a car – but he had just ambled along the pavement, hands stuffed in the pockets of his jacket.

  Miranda got to the door before me and I guessed she had been planning that all along.

  ‘Hi,’ I yelled, running down the stairs two steps at a time.

  Ryan looked up at me and smiled. ‘I wasn’t sure what we were studying, so I brought everything,’ he said, holding up his backpack.

  I was stunned for a moment by just how great he looked in his shirt and black jeans, and then I remembered my manners. I jumped to the bottom of the stairs.

  ‘Ryan, this is Miranda, my aunt.’

  ‘How do you do?’ Miranda said, shaking his hand enthusiastically. ‘Come inside and meet Travis, my partner.’

  Partner. That was new. Travis had somehow skipped the boyfriend stage, jumping directly from friend to partner, passing Go and collecting two hundred pounds without me noticing. Not that I minded too much. Despite the vegetarian jibes, Travis was OK and he seemed to make Miranda happy.

  Travis was sitting at the kitchen table drinking a coffee and reading the food section of the Sunday newspaper. He stood up and held out a hand. ‘It’s nice to meet you, Ryan.’

  ‘Likewise,’ said Ryan, shaking Travis’s hand.

  ‘Take a seat,’ said Mi
randa.

  Inwardly I cringed. Miranda had warned me that she wouldn’t let Ryan and me go up to my room alone. What did she think we were going to get up to with her and Travis downstairs and Connor and Megan on their way over? And if she objected to me being alone in my room with a boy, why did she allow me to spend hours alone with Connor? It was typical of her random, half-thought-through rules that held no logic.

  ‘What part of the US are you from, Ryan?’ Travis asked, as he sat down again.

  For a second Ryan looked alarmed, as if he’d been asked a trick question, but then he pulled out a chair and joined him. ‘New Hampshire.’

  ‘Live free or die,’ said Travis with a smile. ‘I’m from California myself.’

  ‘Eureka,’ said Ryan, smiling back.

  ‘Would one of you like to explain what you’re talking about?’ I asked.

  ‘No,’ said Travis, winking at me. ‘You like puzzles. You work it out.’ He turned his attention back to Ryan. ‘What part of New Hampshire?’

  ‘Wolfeboro. Do you know the area?’

  ‘Not at all,’ Travis said. ‘But my college room-mate came from that area, so I’ve heard a little about that part of the country. What’s the hunting like out there? Mike used to shoot deer. He invited me but I never did make it out.’

  ‘Ryan’s vegetarian,’ I said. ‘He doesn’t hunt.’

  Travis smirked. ‘Well then, this really is a match made in heaven. Shall we put an announcement in the paper?’

  Ryan looked at me, one eyebrow raised in a question.

  ‘Just ignore Travis,’ I said. ‘It’s his aim in life to irritate and embarrass me as much as possible.’

  ‘You have an unusual accent, Ryan,’ said Travis. ‘You’re not originally from the east coast, are you?’

  ‘We move around a lot. Dad’s a writer and he likes quiet places. Every year or so we move. Wolfeboro is home, but I grew up all over the place.’

  Miranda was pouring orange juice into a jug. ‘That sounds exciting.’

  Ryan shrugged. ‘It’s OK.’

  ‘Has he written anything we might have read?’ she asked.

  ‘Not unless you enjoy books on palaeoclimatology and astrophysics.’

  ‘What’s that?’ asked Miranda, reaching for a set of tall glasses.

  ‘It’s the study of long-term climate change.’

  ‘He must be very clever.’

  My phone vibrated with a text message. ‘Connor and Megan have just got off the bus,’ I said. ‘They’ll be here in a couple of minutes.’

  ‘Well then, you’d better take this up to your room,’ Miranda said, passing me a tray laden with biscuits and cakes and juices.

  That morning I had tidied, dusted and vacuumed my room and even picked a bunch of daffodils from the garden to make the room smell nice. Miranda had noticed and she and Travis had teased me all through breakfast.

  ‘Voilà,’ I said, kicking the door open. ‘Chez moi.’ I put the tray down on my desk. Ryan shrugged off his black jacket and hung it on the hook on the back of my door.

  He turned a full circle, taking it all in with a smile. ‘So this is where you dream,’ he said, almost to himself.

  He leant on the window sill and gazed down into the back garden. A cool wind was blowing in from the Atlantic. Miranda had pegged out the washing and the sheets billowed and snapped on the washing line like sails.

  ‘Choose a seat,’ I said.

  As well as the single bed, there was a desk with a chair, an armchair with a reading light and a beanbag on the floor. Plenty of options.

  Ryan chose the bed. He leant back against the headboard.

  ‘Sorry about the interrogation,’ I said, sitting next to him.

  ‘They seem nice.’ He picked up a small framed photo from my bedside table. ‘Are these your parents?’

  I nodded. It was my favourite photo of the three of us. We were standing in the back garden on a sunny day. My mother was wearing a pair of thin, rectangular sunglasses and her bright red hair, which fell almost to her waist, gleamed like copper. My dad, tall with wavy brown hair was grinning at the photographer. I was in between them, my darker auburn hair tied into two neat little plaits, squinting through the sun.

  ‘Your mother is beautiful,’ said Ryan. ‘You look like her.’

  It was a sweet thing to say. My mother was beautiful but we didn’t look alike. Nor were we alike in personality. She was as vibrant and confident as the colour of her hair and, according to Miranda, was as reckless as I was cautious. My mother had jumped out of an airplane for charity when she was twelve and had once been rescued by the coastguard when her rubber dinghy floated more than a mile out to sea as she slept. Although Miranda had never said so, I was certain she would have been one of the kids jumping off the harbour wall as a teenager. The most reckless thing she’d done, however, was drop out of school aged sixteen when she’d discovered she was pregnant with me. Against everyone’s advice she had married my dad, who was only seventeen himself.

  Ryan put the photo back on the bedside table and turned his attention to the books piled up next to my bed. ‘You’ve been working on Shakespeare.’

  I nodded. ‘English is one of my first exams. I have a list of revision topics for Shakespeare.’

  ‘Let’s hear them.’

  I shuffled through a file of papers. ‘Who is most responsible for the deaths of Romeo and Juliet?’

  ‘The apothecary?’ suggested Ryan. ‘He sold Romeo the poison.’

  ‘I think that Shakespeare is the most responsible.’

  Ryan raised an eyebrow. ‘Because he wrote the play?’

  I shook my head. ‘Shakespeare spells out what will happen in the play at the beginning, in the prologue. The chorus tells the audience that “a pair of star-crossed lovers take their life”. I think that he means that their future was already written. It didn’t matter what they did, or what anyone else did, they were destined to take their lives. I guess I’m talking about Fate.’

  ‘You could be right. Romeo and Juliet frequently see omens that suggest their fate.’

  ‘Evidence, please, Mr Westland,’ I said, mocking Mr Kennedy, our English teacher.

  Ryan lay back on the bed and stared at the ceiling. ‘Just before going to Capulet’s ball, Romeo has a premonition that things will end badly – “my mind misgives some consequence yet hanging in the stars,”’ he said quietly, his eyes still gazing at the ceiling as though the words were written there. ‘ “Shall bitterly begin his fearful date with this night’s revels, and expire the term of a despised life, closed in my breast, by some vile forfeit of untimely death.”’

  ‘I take it you studied this play back in New Hampshire?’

  Ryan nodded.

  ‘It seems they teach literature more thoroughly than they teach history.’

  ‘That was a backhanded compliment,’ he said, swatting my thigh with a copy of Romeo and Juliet. ‘So, Miss Anfield, how does Shakespeare explore the theme of Fate in his plays?’

  ‘That’s a massive question,’ I said, groaning. ‘You’ll have to narrow it down a bit.’

  ‘In Macbeth, is Macbeth the victim of Fate or his own ambition?’

  ‘Macbeth believed in Fate. But he also tried to prevent Fate from determining his destiny. Like when he tried to kill Banquo’s sons. But the prophecies all came true.’

  ‘Forget Shakespeare. Do you believe in Fate?’

  ‘No. I believe we make our own destiny. I hate the idea of Fate. It’s a cop-out. It stops people taking responsibility for their actions. I think that, until we make a choice, the possibilities are infinite.’

  Like the choices I was faced with now. He was lying on my bed; I was sitting next to him, mere inches separating us. I could stay where I was, and ask him what he thought about Fate. Keep it friendly and platonic. Or lean over impulsively and kiss him.

  ‘And once you’ve made a choice?’

  ‘All the other possibilities disappear.’

  Ryan sat up, leant t
owards me and gently placed one hand on my arm. ‘So imagine this,’ he said, a mischievous twinkle in his voice. ‘Imagine you travel back to the Victorian period. And imagine you walk in on your great-grandfather meeting your great-grandmother. Would you look at them and think that their possibilities were infinite? Or would you think that Fate had already determined their future? That they were bound to make choices that would eventually lead to you being born?’

  I hesitated, thinking through his question. Downstairs, I heard the ring of the doorbell, registered vaguely that Connor and Megan had arrived. ‘I don’t know about that,’ I said eventually. ‘That’s different. And ridiculous.’

  ‘Humour me. Imagine that you were able to prevent them from meeting at all?’

  ‘I don’t suppose I could do that,’ I said. ‘Because if I prevented them from meeting, then I would never be born, in which case I would be unable to travel back in time and prevent them meeting.’

  Ryan grinned. ‘And there’s the paradox.’

  I smiled back. ‘Do you believe in Fate?’

  ‘I don’t think so,’ he said. ‘Ask me in a hundred years.’

  A herd of elephants stampeded up the stairs and my door swung open. Connor came in first, with Megan right behind him. Ryan removed his hand from my arm. Connor was all smiles until he saw Ryan sitting on my bed.

  ‘Great,’ he said. ‘You’re here.’

  Connor sat in the armchair and pulled a physics textbook out of his backpack. ‘Let’s warm up with some science, shall we?’ he said.

  ‘We’ve already warmed up,’ I said.

  Connor looked at Ryan and then at me. ‘Bet you have.’

  ‘What’s that supposed to mean?’ I asked.

  Connor shook his head. ‘It doesn’t matter. I’ll test you.’

  Science – physics in particular – was his strongest subject and I suspected he chose this so that he could spar with Ryan in some silly intellectual showdown. Ryan answered every question Connor threw his way, in detail, a bored expression on his face.

  ‘If you already know all the answers,’ Connor said eventually, ‘why don’t you go home?’

  ‘Connor!’ I said.

  ‘It’s OK,’ Ryan said, standing up. ‘I’m quite good at science. Not so good at twentieth-century history. Let me know the next time you plan to study that and I’ll come along.’