Stones

by Polly Johnson

  When we part company, Joe kisses me on the cheek. ‘Come round later?’ he says, which takes me by surprise.

  ‘You’re back home?’

  ‘Just for now. It’s too hard living out all the time.’

  ‘Okay then,’ I say. ‘If I can, I will.’

  ‘If you can then,’ he says back, and grins.

  ‘Cocky.’

  The address he gives me isn’t that far away and he knows I’ll be there. I want to know about the bruises. I want to see what sort of people his parents are.

  I spend the rest of the day wondering what to wear, which isn’t like me. I don’t know whether we’re going out or staying in, but I don’t want to end up in some club looking like a big kid, with Raven sizing me up from a distant corner.

  Dad’s already asleep in his armchair when I leave, and Mum is standing at the window looking out. She’s been there for ten minutes and it wouldn’t surprise me if she was still there when I get home. When she’s in this mood you can go right up to her and talk and she won’t even hear you. I know because I’ve tried it.

  I close the front door and take off, shutting the silence behind me like a ghost in a shoebox. Over the road I see Matt going indoors with a bottle of wine. He gives me a thumbs-up and cocks his head in question. I give him one back and he smiles and goes in.

  It’s not far to Joe’s; at eight o’clock I’m there. He lives in a terrace of white houses with wide bay windows and cactus-like plants outside. There’s a man putting the car away as I knock, but when I smile he just looks at me as if I have two heads.

  ‘Can I help you?’ he says.

  I tell him I’m calling for Joe and he sneers. ‘Oh. How nice. I’m his father, and this will be a first – a girl calling for him.’

  He almost pushes me aside to shoulder the door open and goes to the bottom of the stairs. ‘Joseph!’ he shouts. ‘There’s a girl here for you. In case you don’t know what that means – they’re the ones in skirts and make-up!’

  Since I’m wearing jeans and my face is as bare as the day I was born, I just stand there and stare in the direction of the floor. Joe’s dad stands next to me, mashing a pair of gloves in his hands like one of those strength balls.

  ‘Do you know he wears eye stuff?’ he asks me suddenly. ‘He does. He comes home from those clubs with stuff round his eyes like a bloody girl!’ He shouts the last bit really loud up the stairs, and his face turns red. Shouting makes me nervous, and I’m just wondering whether I should wait outside when Joe comes pounding down with his jacket in one hand and his face a similar shade of red.

  ‘Let’s go,’ he says, pushing past his father. ‘Sorry about him.’

  I give his dad a weak smile as I follow but he doesn’t return it. His eyes are fixed on Joe’s retreating back.

  As we reach the street the door shuts behind us with a crash, but Joe shows no sign of hearing. He’s walking really quickly as if I’m not with him, and his breath is coming fast. I have to jog – first to catch up with him and then just to keep up.

  ‘That was weird,’ I say. ‘Have you had a bust up?’ He doesn’t answer me, and when he glances at me a moment later I can see his eyes are filled with water.

  ‘I don’t wear make-up,’ he says. ‘Not like he means. I just sometimes put a bit of black round them – it’s a Goth thing, you know?’

  I tell him I don’t care anyway, and I don’t. ‘You can wear a bra and pants if you want,’ I assure him. ‘It’s nothing. Forget about your dad, eh?’

  ‘He hits me, Coo. I can’t forget about him.’

  ‘He does what? You mean really hits you? Like fists?’

  ‘Yeah, like fists. But he won’t do it again.’

  ‘What did you do?’

  ‘I told him if he did it again I’d hit him back, then I’d go to the school and tell them what he did. He can’t do that and get away with it.’

  He’s boiling with anger. The tears are angry tears, not sad ones.

  We walk in silence all the way into town, where the lights and noise take away the taste of what happened.

  ‘Sorry you couldn’t come in properly,’ Joe says, ‘but it’s no good when he’s like that. We could go to a party instead though. Someone I know.’

  ‘I’m not sure, Joe,’ I say. ‘I mean, I’m not dressed for a party. I thought—’

  ‘You look fine,’ he interrupts. ‘You always look fine. You worry too much.’

  It’s almost as if he doesn’t care. Like he just wants to get there and it wouldn’t matter if my leg was broken. I follow him, raking my hand through my hair to make it look fuller, and biting my lips to give them some colour.

  ‘It’ll be okay,’ he says. ‘When we get there I’ll calm down. It’ll be all right. You’ll see.’

  We weave through people and lights until eventually we come to a row of houses where the windows are all lit up. Joe knocks at a door and someone opens it, letting out a blast of heat and music. The party is well under way – people sweating, the rooms full of bodies. We push through to the kitchen and get some beer, then manage to get outside to a little square terrace, surrounded on three sides by the walls of houses. It’s like being in a cave, and I stick to Joe, not daring to leave his side. Everyone is a stranger to me, and all of them are older. The girls have piercings, and the boys are more like men. I feel completely out of things, but Joe looks right at home, as if these are the people he really belongs with. His face has lost its usual guarded look. His eyes shine and the coloured lights strung along the wall highlight his spiky hair.

  ‘This is Coo,’ he’s saying. ‘She’s my friend. Look after her?’ And then he’s gone and I’m left standing next to a tall girl dressed all in black. ‘Sorry,’ she says, ‘but that’s typical Joe.’

  It’s then I realise how little I really know him. He must be counting the days to when he can get away from school and his father, to be with these people full time. I nod at the tall girl, swig my beer and just watch.

  After a time, I’m bored. I push myself away from the wall and go inside, shouldering my way through all the people. I can’t see Joe anywhere – until I get to the bathroom that is. A girl is coming out, wiping her nose on her sleeve. Even though she can see me, she lets the door go so it bangs in my face. ‘Yeah, thanks,’ I say, and then go in.

  The bathroom is a mess. There’s a rubber duck on the toilet seat, and paper unwound on the floor. The bulb has gone in the overhead light and it’s gloomy as a cave. I’m about to go closer, when I hear a noise and look up to see two boys in the shower cubicle. They’re fully dressed and pressed together against the white tiles, whispering. One of them lowers his mouth to the other’s neck. They haven’t even heard me.

  ‘Sorry,’ I say.

  ‘Don’t worry about it,’ says the taller of the two. ‘Did you want to use the loo?’ As he turns, I see the other person. It’s Joe. He looks up, and when he sees me he flinches and tries to hide his face, twisting hopelessly in the small space.

  ‘No, thanks,’ I say. ‘Forget it.’

  I push my way through the kitchen, desperate to get away. I pop the front door like a cork and escape to the chill, quiet street where the air hits me like cold water. There’s a big bubble of something inside me that wants to get out. I feel like a fool; an idiot. Then I feel cheated. As if I care that Joe likes boys, but why didn’t he say so? Why did he have to make me think he liked me? I remember the kiss and how he kissed me back – just for a moment.

  ‘What was I?’ I shout at the closed door. ‘Some experiment?’

  The door stays closed of course. I stand there like a total loner then walk away. My footsteps echo between the tall houses until at last I see an expanse of black sky ahead of me and know I’m near the sea, where it’s easy to find my way.

  I dodge the traffic, running across the road towards the promenade and the yellow lights of a fish and chip booth. My stomach feels like a ball of snakes, but I buy some food anyway. I’ve just heaped on the salt and vinegar and taken
the first bite, when I turn and see Banks. He’s sitting on a bollard with a can of beer – staring right at me.

  For a moment I waver. I don’t have to talk to him; I can just walk away. All I have to do now is turn to the left and I can be home in fifteen minutes. I could, but I don’t. Maybe it’s the memory of Joe, standing in that shower while I waited outside, abandoned, but I don’t want to be alone. Instead of doing what I know I should, I start off down the promenade under the sickly glow of the streetlights, knowing Banks is behind me.

  He catches up as the people thin out and falls in beside me. I don’t know how he dares after what he’s done, but I’m sure he’s thought out all his excuses. I want to be angry with him, I really do, but instead I hand him the bag of chips and he takes it without comment. We walk until we’re quite alone, creeping through the bushes to avoid The Mansion; ahead of us Alec shouts into the night, making my heart jump in my chest. Banks grunts and takes my arm, keeping me close. ‘No worries,’ he says. ‘He won’t come here.’

  I look at him and he looks back. His face is serious and sad looking. He’s waiting for me to say something but I can’t. Not yet. Then he smiles at me. He’s so confident I’ll forgive him that I feel like smacking him one. Until I realise that I have forgiven him. I must have, or I wouldn’t be here, would I. I begin to understand all the times my parents took Sam back, over and over and over again. Because that’s what people do when they love someone.

  21.

  Thought Diary: ‘Always forgive your enemies – nothing annoys them so much.’ Oscar Wilde.

  We’re drinking cider from a big bottle that Banks has. It’s a bit like apple juice, except apple juice doesn’t make the tension melt out of my body like this does. Banks sits there looking so unconcerned I could whack him, but he’s all I have right now, which is a bit pathetic when you think about it. He makes no excuses as we pass the bottle back and forth, but I can tell he wants to say something. It’s all backed up ready on his tongue – the excuses and sorries and I promise I’ll nevers. I talk instead, so I don’t have to listen.

  ‘I haven’t forgiven you,’ I tell him. ‘I’m here because I don’t want to go home, that’s all.’

  He shifts and opens his mouth to talk, but a low rumble of thunder swallows his voice, saving me from having to hear it.

  ‘There’s going to be a storm,’ I say. ‘I love lightning over the sea.’

  Banks huddles up into his coat, swigging from the bottle and coughing on and off through a second roll-up. I imagine his lungs, as black as the clouds that are barging their way right now into the darkness of the beach, covering the low moon. The air is full of damp and freshness, and then the rain starts like a sudden round of applause, smacking off the ground until it’s a mass of grey dots in the glare of yellow neon.

  ‘God’s doing Pop-Art,’ I smile. ‘When I was a kid, I used to think rain was his paintbrush dripping water.’

  Banks swears and flicks the bottle behind him into the corner of the shelter. ‘There is no God,’ he growls. ‘It’s just rain, same as it’s always been. You’re too old to make up silly stuff.’

  His scorn burns. I remember the party and all those people – my age but so much older. I hunch into my jacket and say nothing. Banks coughs again, with a horrible, wrenching, body-shaking force, and huddles into his coat with a drawn-out groan. We sit in silence listening to the rain with its long slow sighing, and the thunder growling somewhere off towards Hove.

  ‘How could anyone believe in God?’ he says at last. ‘With your brother and all? I bet you prayed and asked, didn’t you, for him to get better? I did that for me once, but seems like I’m stronger than God, ’cos here I am.’

  ‘I don’t know if I believe in God,’ I say. ‘It’s you who talks about Heaven and white stones, not me. Anyway, if some god changed everything we asked for, we’d just be like puppets he was jerking around.’

  Banks lets out a loud laugh – the sort you make over dinner when someone says something really funny. ‘Oh hell,’ he says. ‘Don’t talk to me about being jerked around – story of my flaming life.’

  ‘Well, why do you let yourself?’ I say. ‘Why don’t you get hold of the strings and do something. You can’t want to be here, but here you are.’

  ‘Oh, yeah,’ Banks says, sitting up straight now. ‘Sure – here I am. Must be I want it, right? It’s so much fun I don’ wanna change it. Just like your brother, eh?’

  I jerk upright. ‘Oh yeah,’ I say, ‘like you ever knew my brother!’

  ‘Oh,’ says Banks. ‘But I did.’

  His words crash into my mind so hard that for a moment it feels numb. ‘Don’t say that!’ I hiss at him. ‘You never did.’

  ‘Didn’t I?’ he says. ‘I know everyone round here who likes a drink. Dogs always sniff each other out.’

  Even in the dimness he must see my expression, because he sighs and his voice softens. ‘I knew him,’ he says. ‘But I only worked it out the other day, honest. Otherwise I’da said before. Stoner Sam we called him. He was a crazy one.’

  It’s like I’m frozen. I can’t believe what he’s saying. Banks knew Sam. Maybe they even sat here on this bench together. Maybe he’s the one who lost the chess set.

  ‘Did you play chess?’ I blurt out, and to my amazement, Banks smiles.

  ‘Yeah,’ he says. ‘Yeah we did – how’d you know that? I always beat him, and one day he threw half the pieces into the sea. Didn’t like losing I guess.’

  We sit for a long moment in silence. I remember the lonely little knight on the floor of Sam’s room and my brain feels numb with the thought of the two of them trying to play chess – with my chess set.

  Banks seems unconcerned, like it means nothing.

  ‘Did he talk about me, Banks? Ever?’

  He looks at me like I’m nuts. ‘How would I know?’ he says. ‘He used to go on sometimes – about his ma and pa and his snotty little sister – but how could that be you, right?’ He grins, trying to turn it into a joke. For once, his eyes are focused, his long lashes blinking like a baby’s in the dusky half-light. They sweep his grimy cheek – lashes wasted on a man. His grubby hand, shaking a bit on his leg, is wrapped in a bandage almost as black as the shadows behind us.

  ‘It was a long time ago. It’s taken all this time to put you two together. You’re so different, but there can’t be two Stoner Sams, can there? I gave him a stone once – a stone for a stoner. Told him about them, like I told you.’

  I stare at him. Not that stupid business again. And he laughs at me for talking like a kid. ‘Where is it then?’ I say. ‘This stone.’

  Banks stares at me, rubbing the side of his face and squinting. ‘He chucked it,’ he says at last. ‘Lost it, dumped it, I dunno. He was just ranting on one day. I had other things on my mind.’

  We sit the rain out in silence. Banks smokes and coughs and I sit and remember the time when Sam was my brother instead of a disruptive force.

  ‘He used to like fossils,’ I say. ‘When we were small and Mum and Dad were planning a holiday, he always wanted to go somewhere where there used to be dinosaurs.’

  ‘Now he’s a fossil himself,’ Banks says. ‘Everything set in stone.’

  We sit back in the falling dark and I remember how carefully Sam used to wrap the fossils to take home, and all the time he spent showing me pictures of what they used to be.

  Banks is staring at me, then out in the darkness, someone screams. I get up with my heart racing, but there’s no follow up cry. I feel stupid now. ‘I wish I had it,’ I say. ‘That stone.’

  Banks laughs. ‘Why?’ he says. ‘It was just two pissed blokes clutching at straws. Anyway, I thought you hated him. If you want it so much go and find it. It’s out there somewhere, on the beach. It would be a bloody miracle – then I’d believe in God for sure.’

  I look at him, but he’s laughing silently, head tilted up to the grotty ceiling of the alcove, his neck all dark with dirt.

  ‘There aren’t any miracl
es,’ I say. ‘And don’t talk to me like I’m some kid.’

  Banks opens his mouth to speak but then stops and just looks at me – up and down, slowly. He doesn’t say a thing, but he stops smiling.

  The rain quietens and he walks me back along the beach, stumbling along right by the water, even though it’s freezing cold and the sea is throwing itself up onto the stones. He picks things up and throws them as hard as he can, out into the darkness where we can’t even hear them fall. The dusty pebbles shine when the water washes over them. Like Banks after his bath, all clean and shiny new.

  He’s fallen behind me now, lost in the gloom until I hear him shout. Then he comes up, still talking though the wind grabs each word, balls it in a fist and hurls it back into the sea.

  ‘Whaat?’ I bellow back. ‘I can’t hear you!’

  He crunches up the incline and falls into step beside me, cutting off the cold with his big black coat. ‘I said I found one,’ he bellows, even though I can now hear perfectly well. ‘A special one.’

  I squint in the gloom, searching his face to see if he’s still laughing at me, but his eyes are on mine; serious.

  ‘What put it there then?’ I ask him. ‘You don’t believe in God, so what?’

  He doesn’t answer, just walks along, arms out sideways like he’s balancing on a beam.

  ‘That,’ Banks says, ‘out there.’

  I follow the direction of his pointing finger. It’s turning in a big circle showing me the angry sea and the clouds, and the gulls hidden away somewhere but still screaming into the dark sky.

  He turns back and opens his hand so I can see what he found. At first it’s just another stone, but then I see. Where the water has touched it, it gleams like marble and there’s a hole right through it that you could thread a chain through. I’ve never seen anything quite like it before.

  ‘What was your question then?’ I ask him, and he goes silent. His lifted coat encloses us in a cathedral quiet.