Our Last Summer

Alexander Bexley-3

Ryan doesn’t believe in God, but he’s always gone to church every Sunday when he comes to stay with Nan. It makes her happy, and it isn’t really any demand on him, so he doesn’t mind too much. All he has to do is sit quietly, not even listen, for an hour or so, then smile and be respectful to all Nan’s elderly friends who want to coo over how much he’s grown and how much he looks like his grandfather. (Which, for the record, he doesn’t.)

This time, though, he keeps an eye out as the small church slowly fills, instead of daydreaming, certain—absolutely certain—that the boy, if he lives in Appington, will put in an appearance sooner or later. It is doubtful that the entire village is religious, but Ryan knows how things work here: the attendance of church is not so much the worship of any deity, but a reaffirmation of their unity as a community; that these people are in a common place, with common goals, and—for better or for worse—are the same. New families failing to attend church is as much of a sin in Appington as theft, and if Milly likes the boy’s father, then…

He is correct. Eventually—not five minutes before the sermon begins—the boy materialises, looking uncomfortable in a grey suit, caught between a tall man and a rake-thin woman, who are presumably his parents.

Immediately, Milly’s remarks on the small family become clearer. The man is not obviously the boy’s father, but for the hair. He’s a tall man, but while Ryan supposes that the boy might be tall in a few years, he’s much broader than his son, with the air of someone who played a lot of sport in his youth. In a church full of elderly people, he seems almost ludicrous—outsized in every way. His hair is the same messy dark cloud as the boy’s, though it’s streaked through with grey now, and it is cut and styled. He looks much more comfortable in his suit, as if he wears one every day, and he has the air of someone who can either charm or command at will. Ryan’s immediate thought is politician, but this far out from London, he is just as likely to be a businessman or a lawyer. On the whole, he is unremarkable—just another man doing well for himself in life.

His wife, on the other hand…

Now, she is related to the boy. They have the same angular features, particularly in the bones of the face, and the thinness of the body. She is obviously old—fifty-five if she’s a day—and carries herself with a rigidity that looks uncomfortable. Her bony hands are folded in front of her at all times, and she doesn’t look at another soul in the church. Her hair is pure white, and pulled into a severe bun that makes her face look haunted or even angry. When they sit, a few pews in front of Ryan and his Nan, she maintains a careful foot of space between herself and her son. Milly’s remarks become clear—this woman, Ryan thinks, is not the motherly type.

Milly huffs quietly next to him.

“What a lot!” she whispers, and smooths the front of her Bible haughtily.

“Who’re they?” he asks Nan, whispering, but the boy seems aware of it anyway, and flicks a blank glance over his shoulder at Ryan. Whether he recognises Ryan is unclear, but Ryan supposes that he must.

“Who?” Nan turns and looks, then hums in realisation and says: “The Bexleys. I’m sorry, dear, I should have remembered them sooner. They’re always in church. John and Alice Bexley, but I don’t know the son’s name.”

The boy doesn’t look at Ryan again.