Stones

by Polly Johnson

  ‘I spent the evening with Banks,’ I snap. ‘You know? That “odd tramp” I like to hang around with? He didn’t need to bring someone else along. He seemed very happy to see me – he kissed me in fact!’

  As soon as the lie is out, I wonder why I said it. I’m about to take it back, when I see the look on Joe’s face. His head snaps up and he looks at me hard.

  ‘He did what?’ he says. ‘He kissed you?’

  ‘Yes,’ I say, ‘not everyone thinks my company is repellent… We did other things too.’

  Joe grabs my wrist and makes me look at him. His eyes are narrow and angry. ‘Exactly what other things, Coo? Have you gone nuts?’

  ‘Get off me, Joe! You don’t know him – he’s okay. He’s coming to London with me… he’s going to look after me…’ I can’t seem to stop. Joe is white-faced and breathing hard.

  ‘Listen, Coo,’ he says. ‘This is serious. You can’t go there again. How old is he – how old are you? Apart from anything else, he’s filthy! Did you use anything?’

  I don’t like his questions. I don’t like what he’s saying one bit. ‘Get lost, Joe,’

  I hiss. ‘You don’t know anything – you just can’t cope with the fact that someone likes me!’

  ‘Oh for God’s sake!’ Joe pulls me back, his eyes wide. ‘You think it’s that? You really think—’

  ‘No!’ I hiss. ‘I don’t. I know what you like – and I don’t care. I just wish you considered me enough of a friend to be honest with me, that’s all!’

  Everyone is looking, and I see myself as he obviously does; just a stupid kid who’s playing around where she shouldn’t. He doesn’t care about me one bit.

  I walk out but he doesn’t follow, just stands there glaring at me as if he’d like to kill me. I’m glad. Now he knows how it feels.

  I don’t see him the rest of the day and he’s not waiting for me at the end of it. I’m done with him. I am. All the same I go home and sit in the sitting room watching TV and biting my lip to stop the stupid tears from coming. Mum joins me for a bit before making dinner, and before I know it, Dad’s home and we’re eating together. It’s almost ten o’clock when Ben and Matt turn up unexpectedly. Ben comes into the kitchen where I’m washing-up the pans from dinner, takes up a plate and starts to load the dishwasher.

  ‘This is a surprise,’ I say. ‘Did we forget you two were coming over?’

  ‘No,’ Ben says, ‘we came to see you. Matt’s keeping your mum and dad talking because I don’t want to make trouble for you.’

  I carry on washing-up, not even looking at him. This has to be Joe’s doing.

  He’s only met Ben and Matt once, so he must be more freaked than I thought.

  ‘I don’t want to talk about this,’ Ben says. ‘I don’t have long. Some would say I should speak to your parents, but I don’t think you’d ever forgive me… I’m worried about you, Coo.’

  ‘Don’t,’ I tell him. ‘Joe had no right to go running to you. He’s overdoing it all anyway.’

  ‘Just promise,’ Ben says. ‘Promise you’ll come and talk to me before you do anything else that stupid. This is important, Coo.’

  I look at his face. Worry is written all over it and I feel terrible. I lied to Joe and now Ben and Matt are here, all in secret because they care about me.

  Down the hall we hear Mum coming, talking about coffee, and Ben starts to say something else.

  ‘Stop,’ I tell him. ‘It’s fine. I promise, all right? Joe’s got it all wrong, but I promise. I promise … right?’

  Mum comes in and Ben puts a bright smile on his face as she bustles about with biscuits and the coffee maker.

  ‘You better mean it,’ he says quietly. ‘Don’t let me down.’

  40.

  Thought Diary: ‘You can always tell how much you love someone by how much they can hurt you.’ Some Tumblr.

  For two days, what I said lies in my stomach like a bad fish pie. The horrible old feelings of anxiety come back, waking me early and making it hard to get to sleep at night. Part of it’s because I lied about what Banks did. Part of it is that Joe, Ben and Matt believe it. Mostly it’s because I’m not sure what happened myself – or what might have happened. What I wanted to happen.

  I leave it lying in the back of my mind, but it doesn’t go away. In the end – while I’m waiting for it to unscramble itself – everything happens at once, like the end of a story you write in an exam where you forget the time and have to wind it all up in two sentences.

  On Wednesday evening, a text from Raven buzzes through:

  ‘Come. Joe gone for Banks.’

  I grab my jacket and run, flipping open my phone to call Joe but it goes straight to voice mail. The wind whistles in my ears and I’m cold all over, but that doesn’t matter. The streets are crowded but I push my way through, uncaring. What will Banks think of me when he hears what I’ve said? What will Joe think when he knows I’ve lied?

  I run all the way down the promenade towards The Mansion – and there in the distance I see a dark figure. It’s Raven and she’s standing with her back to the beach. Her face is a white blur, with big black eyes like someone poked them out with sticks.

  ‘He’s already there … ’ she says. ‘What took you so long?’

  ‘What did Joe tell you?’ I say as we walk, but she just stares at me. The wind is vicious – pushing at my face and screaming in my ears. Raven walks with her head down, breathing hard and fiddling nervously, click-click-click, with her long black nails.

  ‘… made him really angry,’ she ends, the first bit of the sentence being stolen by the wind.

  ‘WHAT?’ I bellow, but she shakes her head and keeps on going.

  Somehow, before we even get there, I know what’s coming. As we cross over and approach the sweep of concrete outside The Mansion, we see Joe. His arms are flailing backwards as if he’s trying to balance on a skateboard, and Alec is pushing him in the chest – red hair whipping around like a fright-wig.

  ‘Oi!’ Raven shouts, and we charge – she in her elephant’s foot boots and me blinded by my hair – as the wind turns and slaps at us again. Alec looks up and sees us coming. His eyes blaze madly and he lifts his arms as if to welcome us in.

  He looks especially bad today – cold from inside out. His skin is stark white, his eyes red-rimmed and sore looking, his mouth a purple hole. He’s lost his hat and the hair bursts out like a bunch of snakes whipping in the wind.

  ‘Stay awaaaaay!’ he screams. ‘You devil’s spawn, you wicked imp of hell!’

  Another time, his craziness would be laughable, but not today. Joe is still trying to walk forward and all the time Alec is pushing him back.

  ‘I don’t want you!’ Joe shouts, trying to get past and into The Mansion. ‘Get the hell out of my way.’

  Alec isn’t listening. He dodges in front of Joe again, growling. Raven looks at me, her hands stuffed in her mouth; eyes wide.

  ‘Keep away from him,’ I tell her. ‘I’m going to get Banks.’

  Raven grabs my arm, shaking her head. ‘No!’ she says, ‘listen to him Coo… that noise he’s making…’

  ‘What?’ I haven’t got time for this. I pull away but she won’t have it.

  ‘It’s him,’ she says. ‘Not your bloke – him. He’s the one who attacked me. I know he is!’

  My eyes flick from her to Alec and back again. She means it. I was right, but I don’t have time. ‘Call the police,’ I tell her, and pull my arm free.

  Joe is still trying to get past Alec, but I sidle past both of them and into the black mouth of The Mansion. After the brightness outside, I can’t see anything for a minute, and then as my eyes adjust I see a body – a person – lying down with its back to me, in a brown sleeping bag. Banks.

  ‘Wake up!’ I shout. ‘Come out and stop this!’

  He doesn’t answer so I kneel down and lean over. His eyes are open; staring at the wall. He must be able to hear what’s going on. He must know I’m here.

  From outside
Raven screams. Banks’ eyes flicker and he tenses as if to move. ‘Please,’ I say. ‘Please! I’m sorry—’

  The scream comes again and now Banks flinches. I stand up again and turn to see Alec swinging his fist at Joe. He has him by a handful of coat and is smashing his fist up, down, up, down into Joe’s face. From the side, another figure comes, but it’s just the old man tottering out from the side path. He’s walking quickly and shouting out, in a high, thin voice, ‘No, Alec – no – leave it alone!’ as if to some sort of dog.

  Joe is on the ground now, and Alec kicks him – thok, thok, thok – as if Joe’s a bag of sand. Every time he tries to get up Alec kicks him again, and then punches him down on the back of his neck, his shoulder, his head.

  ‘Banks!’ I plead, shaking him. ‘Please Banks, please.’ But he doesn’t move.

  I give him a push and then I’m outside, hands clutching at Alec’s smelly jacket, pulling with all my strength. He must be really drunk, because he comes away all of a sudden. He totters, loses his footing, and we go down hard, his horrible face mashing into mine in a blur of wet and smell. I scream, and he grabs my hair and pins me to the ground. His ugly face is an inch away and he’s whispering at me, dripping dribble onto my cheeks and yanking my head this way and that, banging it against the concrete in emphasis to the words:

  ‘I’ve seen God! I’ve seen him – and the fire – and the devils – and the end of everything!’

  Then, like a cartoon, lights explode in front of my eyes, and something in my neck seems to wrench sideways.

  ‘Baaanks!’ I scream, one more time, and then the awful weight is off me and I’m rolling sideways.

  My head hurts to move and my eyes are going round in circles, picking things out: two men helping Joe, whose face is streaming blood; the old man dancing up and down in his broken shoes; Raven on her mobile, and then Banks and the red-headed maniac, barging through the failing light. Alec’s arm is twisted up behind his back, and Banks is pushing him on. Alec keeps breaking away and turning back, eyes flicking between me and Joe, fists snatching at nothing.

  Banks gets an arm round his neck, pulls him, and the two of them fall, rolling across the roadway. They break apart, and then close again, until Alec forgets who Banks is and goes for him like a tiger.

  My head is ringing and my neck stabs with a sharp pain so the vision of them blurs. They disappear into the gloom of the beach, Alec breaking away only to be pulled back, screaming, spitting and shouting, until a new sound breaks in louder than anything – the blare of a police siren.

  Joe is huddled over, a handkerchief over his face and one arm across his stomach. The streetlights have come on and across them whirl the first peppery flakes of what might just turn to snow but will probably just batter the sea all night with ice pellets. I stand and look at it as if nothing else in the world is going on; beautiful snow falling like icing sugar. I look again at Joe. A policeman is with him, radio crackling. It’s the ring man again, but he doesn’t see me. He beckons to Raven, who looks like a real bird now with her black coat flapping and giving her shadow wings. She’s still holding her mobile and she’s nodding now and pointing.

  Down towards the sea, everything is silent and dark. I worry for Banks. I don’t know whether he was dragging Alec away to help me, or him, but either way, I doubt that Alec cares. While everyone is looking somewhere else, I move across the grass, behind the bushes, and across the road to the steps where the railway ends. The pebbles rattle and knock when I jump down, as if sounding an alarm. My neck hurts with a sickening jar whenever I move, and something is wrong with my balance. I intend to go straight down to the water, but find I’m going sideways. Then I hear a voice, muffled and unearthly, and move towards it.

  The darkness grows by the second and it’s hard to hear anything above the whooo of the wind. The sea is hushing itself away to my right. As I pass the dark bulk of the train terminal building, I see them at last. They’re a solid, black, heaving clot of shapelessness that becomes clear as I draw closer. Banks is leaning his whole weight on Alec, begging him. ‘Al, Alec, please mate, stop – please stop this – there’s cops up there. Mate, please…’

  I’ve made a mistake. I see it too late. Banks is trying to help him. His mate, his friend. It wasn’t about me.

  I take a step backwards, then another, but it’s too late. Alec surges upwards, growling and grunting like a beast, and I stumble on the stones, off balance. Banks looks up and sees me, and as he does, Alec twists and throws him off sideways with a sudden, furious movement and lets out a bark of fury. For one second he flails round, and round again, and then he comes for me.

  I try to run, but the pebbles sink beneath me and pitch me sideways, flying up behind me with a clatter. Alec says nothing, but a curious whine escapes him and continues until the moment he grabs hold of me and knocks me down. White pain spears through my neck, and for a second I think I’m blinded, until I realise it’s the water. I’m on my back, and the sea has thrown itself over me, rushing up my nose and into my mouth. I start to choke, to turn round and get up, but it’s no good; Alec has me at last.

  His weight falls over me and his hand goes to my throat, pushing me down. Still he says nothing, or if he does, I can’t hear it, and every time I try to draw some air, the water fills my mouth. Briefly, he’s lifted away and I scream Banks’ name and see that he’s there, but it’s not me he’s worried about. It’s Alec.

  ‘Mate!’ he hisses. ‘Shhhhhhh, Alec! You’ll kill her … ’ and as he reaches out to stop him, he treads on my hand, like I’m not even there.

  I manage to get up on one arm but Alec twists, then turns, bringing his foot down hard on my chest.

  Banks’ voice pleads again – louder this time. ‘Mate,’ he says, ‘mate… please Alec, come on, please.’ Although Banks must be pulling at him, it’s useless. Alec has the strength of ten devils, and the sea is in league with him.

  Sound comes and goes, and the pain in my neck increases, until suddenly the weight is gone and my face is clear of the water. Hands are pulling me up and somewhere there is shouting: ‘Help! Down here. We’re here!’ When the water clears I see it’s Joe. Not Banks; Joe.

  I peer into the darkness where two figures stumble and shuffle – arms flailing – voices as shrill as two mad birds. As they diminish – a black clot into thicker darkness – I know that one of them is Banks. His arm is round his friend, and he doesn’t look back. Not once.

  ‘Keep still, Coo,’ Joe is saying. ‘Don’t move.’ And then I hear him shout again, his voice fading and flaring in my ears. Lights flash, there’s a noise of water and stones, and then it goes quiet and dark, like falling asleep in a curtained room.

  41.

  Thought Diary: ‘Pain and pleasure, like light and darkness, succeed each other.’ Laurence Sterne.

  I wake and there’s a grey light above me, like very early morning. I lie for a while, still and unmoving, feeling every inch of my skin against cold sheets. There’s something around my neck so I can’t move my head, and I can’t seem to hear properly. Somewhere a light glows and something beeps rhythmically until someone turns it off. I hear a voice buzzing distantly behind a curtain, and the squeak of shoes walking away. I remember for a moment; Banks walked away too. He left me. Then I sleep again.

  I eat the breakfast they give me, and I’m told that in the afternoon I can go home. Before this, though, a policewoman comes to see me. She wants to know what happened, in my own words, but I have no idea what to say. How far back do I go? Do I tell her it’s all my fault because I told the lie that started it? Do I bring Joe into it? I don’t know, so I say nothing. I just say that Alec attacked me down on the beach – that he tried to drown me.

  ‘And Mr Banks,’ she says, ‘what was he doing?’

  ‘He saved me,’ I tell her. ‘He shouted for help and tried to protect me. He didn’t do anything wrong. He didn’t do anything. Nothing at all.’

  When she’s gone, I think of Banks and his voice pleading with
Alec as his foot crushed my hand: ‘Mate… please…’ and how every time Alec hit him he just kept saying it, and I let it all settle in my mind like dirt on a riverbed.

  Later on, Mum and Dad come and take me home. We drive in silence and I watch the world go by through the glass as if it were a film set I’ve been fired from. We reach the house and Ben and Matt are there with flowers. They give me a hug and then go – making little scrunched-up faces at Mum and Dad as they leave. Mum puts the flowers in water while I go upstairs and get into bed, and a few minutes later she and Dad both come in and sit like two awkward teenagers next to me. ‘You’re home,’ Mum says.

  ‘I’m fine,’ I tell her, surprised by the paleness of her face. She smiles at me, and takes my hand. ‘You might have died,’ she whispers. ‘What were you doing with those people?’

  ‘Now, Karen, don’t,’ Dad says, and Mum looks at him like she’s a little girl.

  ‘Banks isn’t those people,’ I say. ‘He looks after me… looked after me.’

  Dad sighs. ‘We know Stuart helped you,’ he says. ‘We’re not accusing him. But – where did we let you down so much that this has happened?’

  This is my chance. Now is the time to tell them exactly what I think; exactly what it feels like to have to shout that loud. They look at me, waiting.

  ‘Nothing,’ I say. ‘You didn’t do anything.’

  Dad puts an arm round me, and I don’t push it away. ‘We let you down,’ he says. ‘There was just so much—’

  ‘– to think about,’ Mum breaks in. ‘To worry about and deal with. We thought you’d just roll along, do the right thing. We tried to keep you out of it.’

  ‘I killed him,’ I blurt out, and the relief seeps out of me like guilty poison.

  Mum and Dad look at me, and at each other, and I can’t stop. I have to go on. ‘I killed Sam. I was there that night – the twenty-first. I worked it out. I was at his room and I heard him. I could have done something!

  ‘I met him in town and he begged me to ask you to let him come home. I went back with him and his room was disgusting. The bed was all unmade… there were bottles everywhere… and he peed in the sink, Dad. In the sink…’