Mum flushes, and turns back to her washing-up.
‘You’re too young to know what you’re talking about,’ she snaps. ‘Somebody has to pay the bills around here.’
I shrink away from her. I’m only twelve, going on thirteen. And I wasn’t at all moody or angry back in those days. I was a sunny child, or so my parents were always saying.
‘She’s got a lovely sunny nature, our Lilah,’ they’d say to anybody within earshot, and then whoever it was would turn around and stare at me with a sort of bemused fondness, and I’d go all embarrassed and squirmy.
‘I don’t know,’ sighs Mum. ‘You never know how your children are going to turn out. I mean, you’re no trouble. Not yet. But Jay was a lovely little boy. Really sweet. And now he just bites my head off if I ask him a question.’
I carry on wiping the plates dry and I don’t say anything, but I’m thinking that I actually know exactly how Mum is feeling, because Jay’s started being a bit weird with me too. And my brother being snappy with me is the most horrid and unexpected thing that’s ever happened, and it’s too upsetting to talk about, so I just carry it around inside me like a big, mould-covered, heavy lump of rock that won’t go away.
‘Go and talk to him, Lilah,’ says Mum. ‘I can finish the drying-up. He always seems to prefer talking to you.’
She doesn’t sound bitter when she says this, just a little lost and wistful.
I don’t really want to go and disturb Jay and risk getting snapped at, but I’m still at that age where I obey my parents, so I put down my plate and go upstairs.
Jay’s bedroom door is shut, as usual, but there’s no music pumping out, which is kind of unusual, so I give a soft tap on the door and then hover in the hallway with my ear pressed to the wood.
There’s a rustling, shifting sort of noise, and then Jay pads over to the door in socks and opens it.
‘Not now, Liles,’ he says.
His face is pale, and you can see his cheekbones where the weight’s come off his face. There’s a stench coming out of the room behind him. Sweat, stale air and something else. Something I don’t know, but it’s sweet and sour all at once and strong enough to make me cough and back away.
‘Are you ill?’ I say, because he doesn’t look very well. Jay used to have ruddy cheeks and a glow about him underneath the thick brown curly hair.
Now his face is stripped of all pinkness and his hair is dead straight and jet-black.
‘I’m fine, Liles,’ he says. ‘I don’t feel much like talking, though. Sorry. Maybe tomorrow?’
He shuts the door in my face, gently, but in a way that doesn’t invite me to push it open again.
The smell hangs around in the corridor for a moment.
I put my ear to the door again and listen. I can’t hear a thing.
Maybe he’s gone to bed.
I go down the hall to my own room and lie on my pink duvet and stare up at my own glow stars for a bit, and then I dig out my homework and do it at the desk, all the time listening for any signs of life in the bedroom next door.
Just after I’ve gone to bed, I hear Jay creep out of his room and down the stairs, and then there’s the slam of the front door and a shout of protest from Mum and the sound of her and Dad talking in low urgent voices, but I can’t work out what they’re saying.
Jay doesn’t come home at all that night.
CHAPTER TWELVE
Phew. Adam Carter still likes me. Shame it’s only as a mate, though.
And Bindi still looks like she wants to kill me. I wish she’d give me one of her wet-eyed smiles. I miss her. She’s got quite friendly with Adam now. I think she feels sorry for him.
It’s the evening after I’ve had the chat with Adam at school, and I’ve come home not exactly full of joy, but feeling a bit better now that we’ve agreed to be mates. I go upstairs to write in my diary and things feel at least a bit better.
I’ve still got a lot of sucking-up to do to Bindi, though. She didn’t even say goodbye to me after school, and I don’t get it. To add to my feelings of doom, I saw her making a special effort to be nice to Adam Carter, so now I feel even more horrible.
I only got her to stay by the phone for one evening. I mean, I didn’t ask her to commit murder or anything, did I? But she’s gone all sulky and quiet on me, so I guess I’ve got to buy her a present or something, and I’m just thinking about what to get her as I close my diary, when Dad comes in and announces that it’s time for Taming Lilah, Session One.
‘OK,’ I say. I know when I’m beaten. Dad’s rolled up his shirtsleeves to reveal his tattoos and put on his scariest black glasses. He’s got a no-nonsense vibe coming off him. I can kind of see why the lions and tigers do whatever he says.
‘Right,’ he says, all business-like. ‘Lions get angry. They need a release for their anger, kind of like you do. So I’m going to make you angry and then we’re going for a run down the street. OK?’
I roll my eyes and cast a longing look at my bedroom door, but Dad’s blocking it.
‘So,’ he says. ‘How ARE you, Lilah? Tell me how you are.’
Dad has somehow picked up on the fact that I hate this question, and now he’s using it to taunt me, like waving a stick in front of an angry tiger.
I’m not going to give in yet, though.
‘Fine,’ I say, with a big bright smile. ‘I am absolutely fine. As fine as the finest person in Fineland.’
Dad gives a knowing nod.
‘So there’s nothing bothering you, then?’ he says. ‘That’s great. So you’re absolutely thrilled that your brother has gone missing, your school life is suffering, your best friend is fed up with you, and you hate being at home with your screwed-up parents, right?’
‘Right,’ I say, but my voice has faltered just a tiny bit, and Dad pounces on this as if he were the lion and I’ve just thrown a tasty piece of dead deer into the enclosure.
‘Life just couldn’t be better for you, could it?’ he continues. ‘In fact, I’m quite envious. You get all your meals here for free, your rent paid, while Mum and I have to go out and earn loads of money so that you can sit about doing nothing and moaning about silly little things. Wish I was you!’
Damn. It’s starting to work. I’ve got an itchy feeling going up my legs, and they’re all hot and stuck together. Dad’s got a really irritating smarmy grin on his face, and just looking at him is starting to annoy me now.
‘Don’t,’ I mutter. ‘I don’t want to play this any more. It was a stupid idea.’
‘Pardon?’ says Dad. ‘Speak up. I can’t hear you.’
I flip my chin up and glare at him.
‘I SAID, I don’t want to play any more!’ I shout back at him.
Dad’s eyes begin to glint and spark.
‘That’s more like it!’ he says. ‘Feeling a bit angry, are we? Losing our temper a bit, are we?’
I’m seeing great big sheets of red in front of my eyes.
I swear that a growl escapes from my mouth! I hope I’m not actually turning into a lion.
‘That’s it,’ says Dad. He’s enjoying himself. ‘Just let it out, Lilah. Scream if you want. Howl. Hit me. I don’t really care. I can take it.’
I lunge towards him but I stop just at the last moment because there’s something deep and stern and kind in his eyes, and it reminds me that this is Dad and that he’s quite scary.
Instead, I turn to the wall and start to kick it with my foot. Hard.
Water rushes into my eyes and the bones in my ankle ache and throb, but I can’t seem to stop kicking.
Dad comes over and pulls me away from the wall.
‘OK,’ he says again. ‘Downstairs. Out of the front door. Run up and down the street three times, as fast as you can. I’ll race you, right?’
I don’t know what he’s doing to me, but I find myself obeying and running downstairs and down the hall, straight out of the front door and along the pavement, with my trainers pounding on the ground and the night air rushing past me
in cold draughts and my breath coming all jagged and short and painful as I run my anger away. Dad runs along next to me, super-fit and fast, and my body feels so cold and breathless and alive that for once I don’t think about Jay at all. I just focus on what I’m doing, and Dad keeps me going until I can’t run any longer, and I collapse in a heap over our front wall.
‘Good girl,’ he says, handing me a bottle of water. ‘How do you feel?’
I sit up, still panting, and pour the water over my head.
We sit together on the wall, and it’s really weird, because I don’t feel so angry any more.
A bit of me is still cross at the way he’s bossing me about and making me leg it up and down our street in full view of all the neighbours, but there’s all this buzzy adrenalin pumping around my head, and it feels clear and cool and good, and I don’t feel like I want to kick anything any more.
Not that I’m going to tell Dad that.
Not yet.
‘I feel OK,’ I say in a small voice. ‘But I think I need to go to bed now. You’ve worn me out.’
Dad gives a knowing smile and nudges me gently with his elbow. I very nearly turn round and smile at him, but I just manage to keep it under control.
‘We’ll try it again soon,’ he says. ‘Session Two. You in?’
I give a deep sigh and get up from the wall.
‘Yeah,’ I say. ‘If it makes you happy, I’m in.’
The peace in our household doesn’t last long.
I’m upstairs surfing Accessorize and deciding which bracelets to order online for Bindi, and then I freeze with my hands over the keys, because my parents have exploded into yet another argument downstairs and I can’t concentrate. I creep down the stairs and sit on the bottom step.
‘You don’t even talk about Jay any more!’ Mum is screaming. She’s still got half a clown outfit on, which is kind of bizarre as she’s taken off the wig and her normal, sensible, short Princess Di hair looks really odd above the big white ruff, red clown boots and white suit with big red buttons up it.
‘He might as well not exist. All you care about is your bloody lions!’
Dad is sitting at the kitchen table with his arms folded over his head, perhaps to field off the imaginary bullets coming from Mum’s direction, but at this, he stares up at her with shock in his tired blue eyes.
‘You’re talking rubbish, Rachel,’ he says. His voice is low and cracks when he says Mum’s name. ‘Of course I think about him. Every day. I just don’t go on about it like you do.’
Mum sees me sitting in the hall and lets out a big sigh. I watch her deflate and come towards me with her frilly arms outstretched.
‘Don’t,’ I say, dodging the embrace. ‘I’m so not in the mood for being groped by a clown.’
‘Oh, so you’re going to start on me now, are you?’ says Mum, her voice going all wobbly. ‘That’s right. I forgot that you always side with your father. Well, just go ahead, both of you. Just lay into me like you always do.’
She stalks back into the kitchen and turns her back to us at the sink, throwing cups and plates into the soapy water.
Dad gets up and rubs his palms over his eyes. He glances at my mum’s rigid back and then at my sulky face, and he throws his hands up like he’s surrendering, and slams out of the house to go to the pub.
I watch my mother’s back for a couple of moments and I think that now would be a good time for her to turn round and calm down, and then maybe, just maybe, I could tell her that I miss Jay too, and that they’re not the only ones who feel screwed up and messed about and emotionally wrecked. And that I’m so angry most of the time from bottling all this stuff up that I give myself ice-cream headaches. But she doesn’t turn round, even though she knows I’m still there, and the tension hovers between us like some sort of giant angry dragonfly, so I stomp upstairs and go back online instead.
I crank up Planet Rock on my digital radio and I order Bindi an armful of jangly blue bracelets because she likes that sort of thing, and then I go onto my page on Facebook and look at all the boring, non-important things that my friends have been getting up to. And then I notice that I’ve got a message in my inbox, so I click on it to see who’s invited me to some ridiculous event in Milton Keynes or something, because that’s what it usually is, and instead there’s a message from somebody who looks a bit familiar. And when I open up the message, the chair seems to buckle underneath me, and I lurch to one side and clutch the desk while my head swims and buzzes.
The message is from one of Jay’s band mates.
Don’t get your hopes up, it begins. But I had a missed call on my phone last night. And, the thing is – it’s from Jay’s number. I tried to call back, but it just went to voicemail. I left a message anyway.
I’m shaking so much that I have to get up and go and lie on the bed for a moment.
I hug my knees and rock back and forth, and I think about the last two years, and about my parents screaming at each other, and about all the times we went out looking for Jay, and about the huge police search just after he went missing, and the feature they did on television about missing people.
Then I get up and read the Facebook message again, just in case I’ve imagined it. But it’s still there, so I go downstairs to where my mother is standing at the sink with her shoulders looking sad in the weird clown outfit, and I stand in the middle of the kitchen for a moment because I just don’t know how to say what I’ve just read without making her scream, or faint, or get her hopes up.
Mum turns around with a start.
‘Didn’t realise you were there,’ she said. ‘Sorry about before. I’m just feeling a bit sad today. Somebody at one of my parties said that I was one of the most miserable children’s entertainers they had ever seen, and it kind of upset me. I used to be really good. Never mind. I’ll make us a hot chocolate in a moment, if you like. I’ve even got marshmallows.’
Then she takes a closer look at my ghostly-white face, and she puts down the plate she’s holding and grips me by the shoulders.
‘You’re frightening me,’ she says. ‘Lilah. What is it?’
I can’t speak. I knew this would happen, so I’ve printed out a copy of the email.
I pass it to her. Then I catch my mother by the elbow just before she falls.
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
Mum rings Dad at the pub on his mobile and we go straight to the police with the email.
All three of us, even though it’s now getting on for eleven o’clock at night.
Dad drives. He keeps glancing anxiously at Mum, who’s as pale as death and gripping onto the door handle like she’s going to break every time Dad takes a sharp corner.
Dad’s teeth are gritted and he’s muttering to himself as he navigates the large roundabouts.
I’m sitting in the back seat wrapped in a winter coat, even though it’s a mild spring night. I can’t seem to stop shivering and my bones feel damp.
None of us speak.
We all want to say the same thing, but it’s like if we let the words out it will jinx it, and then we’ll be back to square one.
I think it, though, all the way to the station.
He could still be alive.
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
The first time Jay stays out all night, Mum sits in the kitchen in the dark with a cold cup of tea in front of her, and she waits.
She’s still waiting in the early hours of the morning when I stagger downstairs for a drink, because I’ve woken up all stuck to the sheets in the sunshine streaming through my window.
‘What are you doing?’ I say. I’m kind of stupid first thing in the morning. I mean, it’s obvious what she’s doing. She’s sitting at the table chewing her fingernails and staring towards the clock and then at the front door.
‘Lilah, look at the state of you,’ says Mum.
I glance into the wooden-framed mirror that hangs over the kitchen dresser. Yeah, I do look a bit of a mess. But then, I’m not yet thirteen, so I don’t much care that m
y hair’s sticking up on one side and there are yellow crusts of sleep stuck in the corners of my eyes. My feet are bare and my blue stripy pyjama trousers are starting to fall down around my not-yet-developed hips.
I pull two soft white squares of bread from a packet and stick them into the toaster.
‘Do you want any?’ I say.
Mum smiles, and shakes her head.
‘Couldn’t eat a thing,’ she says. She watches as I plunge my knife into a jar of gloopy cherry jam and then smother the toast with it.
‘That’s expensive, make it last,’ she says, like she’s on autopilot, but she’s looking towards the front door again.
‘Where’s Dad?’ I say, stuffing soggy toast into my mouth. It’s Saturday morning and he’s usually at home doing the garden or compiling some sort of complicated meat dish for dinner later on.
‘Shyama has gone into labour,’ says Mum. ‘He could be some time.’
I roll my eyes. Shyama is one of the lionesses at Morley Zoo. Dad’s looked after her ever since she was a tiny cub with big floppy paws and a tendency to fall over and have to be nudged back up again by her mother.
‘And where’s Jay?’ I say, all casual.
I know full well that he didn’t come home last night.
I was up listening for him half the night.
Missing the sound of Manic Street Preachers through the wall.
Missing our chats. We never seem to have them any more.
‘I’m losing my big brother,’ I say, more to myself than Mum, but she hears and gives me a sharp look.
‘Why would you say that?’
I shrug, and pour hot water into a mug with a teabag in it.
‘Dunno,’ I say. ‘Just feels like it sometimes.’
Mum’s giving me her full attention now.
‘He’s growing up, that’s all,’ she says. ‘You can’t expect him to want to play with you, like when you were both little. He’s probably got girls on his mind now that he’s nearly sixteen.’
The Taming of Lilah May Page 6
