by Cj Flood
‘I don’t,’ I said, too quickly, and the little stags were there, charging at the backs of my eyes. I blinked them away.
‘You’re too soft, Iris. You need to toughen up. Before you get taken for a ride, good and proper. If they’ve run out of water, then I’m . . .’ He trailed off, searching the kitchen for inspiration.
Fiasco lifted her nose from her ball and grinned at us, her pink tongue flopping from the side of her mouth, frothy with slobber.
‘Then I’m Fiasco’s mother,’ he said.
I didn’t laugh.
‘You’re just saying that so you don’t look bad.’
‘What? I’m not Fiasco’s mother?’
I opened my mouth to say something else, and he lost his temper.
‘You’re wrong, Iris. And I don’t want to fall out with you again, so let’s just leave it at that, shall we?’
The question sounded aggressive, probably because I wasn’t really being asked anything, and I stared at him fiercely, but I didn’t say any more.
Later that afternoon, Dad and Austin had to get some wood chippings and cement and because they needed the space in the pick-up, Dad said I could stay home. As soon as he’d gone, I ran upstairs to watch the travellers. Trick’s dad’s van wasn’t in the paddock. The men worked all day in the week. His mum was in the caravan, and three of the little girls were doing cartwheels and handstands outside. Patsy must have been in bed. I thought of Mum, on her own, needing water somewhere.
My arms ached as I headed down the bottom field with a bucket full to the brim. It got heavier by the second, and I had to stop halfway for a rest. I tripped on a rock crossing the lane, and sent some of the water flying, but I kept going. I hadn’t been in the paddock since the travellers arrived.
Dad hadn’t mown the grass since Mum left. It was soft and springy under my feet. Daisies and dandelions and dock leaves crowded cow parsley and hogweed. I had to be careful not to get my foot caught in the tangles or slop water over the sides.
When I looked up, two of the little ones were sitting on the steps. A line of white washing flapped above their heads. It smelled like Trick. They stared at me, then, clutching at each other, ran up the caravan steps, calling for their mammy.
I was right by the campfire when Nan appeared.
Her face was blank as she looked at me, and I worried what she’d think about me disobeying my dad like this, but then she smiled, and her brown eyes were more lovely than ever. The breeze caught her long red hair as she walked, lifting it behind her, the sunlight turning it fiery.
Her nails were painted turquoise, and I could see the way her hair curled on the back of her neck, just like Mum’s did, and I knew exactly how it would feel if I touched it: warm and silky and soft. I handed the water over, careful not to spill any. She smelled of raspberries, and washing powder and, ever so faintly, smoke.
My skeleton felt like chocolate mousse, and I hoped that she would say something quick because words had escaped me forever.
Gold bracelets on her arm jangled against her narrow wrist as she took the bucket. She cocked her head to one side.
‘You’re a kind girl,’ she said, and she put her empty hand out and squeezed my shoulder. ‘A good girl, I think. So don’t you be telling our Patrick I’ve been up to see you. He won’t like that. Proud like his daddy that boy . . .’
I shook my head. I tried to think of something to say.
‘Come to think of it, you’d better be getting back before anybody sees.’
She turned and carried the water towards her caravan, and I stood mute, my shoulder tingling where her hand had been.
The girls had come to the bottom of the steps at some point, and had their hands in front of their mouths, giggling, and the noise of their laughter snapped me out of it, and sent me running back towards Silverweed.
Seventeen
Dad had gone back to playing Mum’s music. In the daytime, when he was working or doing stuff around the house, he had a lovely voice, but at night when he’d been drinking it got all broken and raspy.
He sang ‘These Arms of Mine’ and ‘Stand By Me’ and I knew he was going through the CDs she’d left in a shoebox by the telly, the ones she used to play when he was at the pub. I twisted loo roll into my ears, and put my head under the duvet, but the tissue fell out and under the covers got all hot and sweaty, and I couldn’t shake the feeling that I was living in some kind of damaged animal shelter instead of a loving family home. It took a long time to get to sleep.
That night, Dad was watching nature programmes in the living room, making his way through a four-pack. This was his new habit. Instead of going to The Stag, he watched telly until he was drunk enough to play Mum’s music. Sometimes I watched stuff with him, but mostly I read in my room. He looked too sad when he drank.
My eyes felt scratchy from lack of sleep as I made us both hot chocolate. Taking a mug, he almost smiled at me, then remembered how I’d disappointed him. I saw it on his face.
I drank my chocolate quickly, then took myself off to my room.
I lay on the bed with my book, but couldn’t concentrate on reading. I’d microwaved the hot chocolate too long, and it had burned my mouth. There was a mosquito in the room and it kept shrieking past my ear. I was never going to get to sleep. My twisted toilet roll earplugs waited on my bedside table. I kept looking out the window. Was Trick in the corn den waiting for me right now? My room was on the ground floor. It would be so easy to open the window and climb out.
The mosquito screeched by again, and I jumped up to hunt it, but it had disappeared. The opening bars of ‘Stand By Me’ came out of the living room, and I couldn’t take it. I was on my desk, out the window and in the front garden before I’d even decided.
A breeze blew the rose bush outside my bedroom window as I crouched on the ground there, listening. It was almost eleven, and I was so glad I didn’t have to listen to Dad’s broken singing, but guilt was like a little animal curled up in my stomach.
I couldn’t get to the paddock without passing the side of the house where Dad was, and the moon meant it wasn’t quite dark enough to make a run for it safely. If he stood up for any reason or looked out the window, he’d see me in a second.
The grass was cool against my fingertips as I made my way along the front of the house, spider-like. It was about ten metres from the end of my window to the living room. Twelve of these strange spindly steps should do it. I counted them to keep calm. The daisies had closed their heads for the night, and the air was sweet with grass and roses, but Dad was singing in the room just behind me and it made my stomach ache. The living room windows were wide open, and I heard Dad crush an empty can and chuck it in the log box. I took a deep breath. I imagined Trick, in his red vest and faded jeans, waiting for me, and I ran.
Wind filled my ears and my heart thumped away, and every second that passed I expected to hear Dad shouting from the window, but it didn’t come, and so I kept going, using my arms properly the way I never bothered to in PE, no matter what Mr Limb said. I dodged potholes with man-sized strides, took balletic leaps, pointed my toes, and then I was at the pig farmer’s gate, up and over, and running again, not needing to any more, but wanting to, because I’d done it! I had escaped from the house, and I was going to see Trick.
Eighteen
The corn den was empty.
I rested my hands on my thighs, tried to get my breath back. My legs were scratched from the corn and brambles and nettles I’d run through. I swore, and then something hit me on the head.
‘Thought you were a goner.’
I spun round. Trick was in the oak tree. A baby acorn landed near my feet.
‘I am,’ I said, thinking what would happen if Dad checked my room.
I dug my foot into a hollow in the trunk, pulled myself up using the lowest branch.
‘Hey! I put a nail in for you.’
I looked down at the trunk. A shiny nail stuck out.
‘Bought it specially!’
&nb
sp; ‘I’m too good,’ I said, looping my arms around the next branch and heaving myself up.
‘Hammered my thumb and everything,’ he lied, holding up two perfect thumbs for examination. His hair fell across his eye, which was less swollen now. He wiped it back off his forehead.
I stood in the tree’s fork, leaning against the trunk. He was wearing a white vest tonight, instead of his usual red one, and his jeans were long, and then I realised. He’d fitted a pair of cinema seats into the place where the trunk split into three.
He laughed, and started talking really fast.
‘Got ’em from the tip! Me da said I could have ’em, I didn’t tell him what for, mind, or he’d have my head for a souvenir. I’ve been desperate for you to come down and see. Look, brackets and everything.’
‘Brilliant,’ I said.
He patted the seat next to him. It was velvet. ‘Got another surprise for you as well. I’m so glad you’re here . . .’
He talked on about what else they’d found at the tip, and he was so excited, but I was finding it hard to listen.
Through the leaves of the oak tree, in the moonlight, I could see the wispy flowers waving above the maize crop, and the rows that it grew in, which were never clear when you were standing in them. I could see the tall trees that edged the brook, and the travellers’ caravans, and the hawthorn hedge that surrounded the lane, and our yard, and the pick-up.
‘Where’ve you been?’ Trick asked, nudging my shoulder with his, and I made an exhausted sound with my mouth.
I told him all about it: that Matty had told on me, and Dad was hardly talking to me, that Sam was out all the time. It wasn’t until I got to the bit about his mum asking for water that he spoke.
‘She came to the house? Christ! She makes things worse. What’d your da say?’
‘He didn’t believe her.’
Trick smiled grimly, looking down at our feet. ‘Who would? As if we’d leave her on her own, without any water.’
I thought of myself lugging the bucket of water down there, and wondered if it was possible for a human head to explode from embarrassment.
‘He’s not been to the pub since he found out. He stayed in all weekend. He’s keeping watch.’
‘Not very well,’ Trick said, but I couldn’t laugh.
Blue light came from our living room, and I thought of Dad inside, watching telly on his own. He was right. I was too soft. I was stupid to trust everybody.
‘Hey,’ he said. ‘I didn’t mean it.’
I held my breath, and tipped my head back, blinking at the branches above.
‘I shouldn’t have come out here. I didn’t mean to. I just wanted . . . I wanted to tell you . . . Oh, I don’t know.’
Trick put his arm round me. He used the crook of his finger to dry under my eyes. I wiped my nose on the bottom of my T-shirt.
He got up from his seat, and jumped into the cornfield.
‘Come on!’ he called, impatiently.
‘What? Where are we going?’
‘Exactly, Iris! Where are we going? It’s so mysterious. Let’s see.’
He held his hands out to help me down, and I ignored them as usual, jumping from the lowest branch to land knees bent on the tangle of weeds below.
He started running, and I thought back to the first time we’d met, when he showed me this place.
We ran all the way along the brook to the furthest edge of the cornfield, past the meadow and Drum Hill, into the Ashbourne Estate.
The lake was black and silver in the moonlight. The sky was so clear we could see the Milky Way.
Trick grabbed my hand, and pulled me along the water’s edge to the ancient oaks. He stopped at a mess of holly and brambles, and leaned into it, swearing as he got scratched. He dragged out a wooden rowing boat.
In the daytime you could rent them. Families and couples rowed to the island in the middle of the lake. I’d never done it before because the park ranger had chased us so many times for sneaking in that we had to stay out of his way.
‘I freed one for you,’ Trick said.
We took our flip-flops off, and Trick rolled up his jeans and we walked the little boat into the water.
It was cool and lovely, and the noise of it made me need a wee. Cold mud slipped between my toes.
‘Ladies first,’ he said, and I rolled my eyes at him, and climbed in. He jumped in after me, and the boat slapped against the water. I put the oars into the rowlocks and started rowing.
He was quiet as we floated away from the bank. We looked at the sky. There were no clouds anywhere. The moon reflected in the black surface of the lake. Trick trailed his hand in the water. The oars splashed out a rhythm.
‘My go,’ he said after a while, but I didn’t want to stop. I liked the way it felt, how I had to focus all my attention on getting the rhythm right. My arms ached, and I worked them harder.
‘Fine,’ he said.
He stood up, rocking the boat as much as he could. I tried to keep rowing, but it was impossible. I flicked water at him with an oar.
‘You’ll pay for that,’ he said.
He pulled his vest off, and I saw how thin he was. He didn’t even have to unbutton his jeans to take them off. He just slid them down. He smiled at me, and his wonky eyes flashed, and I felt the need to examine a sycamore leaf floating by on the water.
‘Seeya!’ he said, and he half somersaulted off the boat.
He came up gasping and frantic.
‘Water’s lovely!’ he said. He did a thrashy front crawl, as fast as he could.
He came to the side of the boat and prepared to splash me, but I screwed up my face at him, and stood. Without taking anything off, I jumped.
It was as freezing as ever and we raced each other to keep warm. We tried to touch the bottom and floated on our backs. Trick tried to scare me, shouting that things were biting him, and I pretended to be scare-proof which in the black water wasn’t easy, and then just before we dropped to the temperature of the lake, we climbed back into the boat. The summer air dried us off as I headed to the island.
A family of ducks quacked a warning to each other as we approached, and we heard something drop into the black water. I used the oars to pull alongside the island. Willows made a sort of shelter above our heads. Trick came to sit beside me.
He nudged me with his shoulder.
‘You know, you’re the best girl I’ve ever known, Iris. Hands down. You can do everything.’
My heart spun like a Catherine wheel, and I wanted to tell him he was the best boy I’d ever known, that I wished that he could stay in our paddock forever, and I was desperate to touch him, just to put my arm around his back, but I couldn’t do it. I just sat there listening to my heart and the night, and waiting, until gradually, the air grew stiller, and it felt less like bats swarming.
Blackbirds nested somewhere above us. I heard their warning call, and looked up to see if I could spot them.
‘What you thinking?’ Trick said, and his voice was very soft and very low.
‘Blackbird,’ I said, automatically. ‘Listen.’
I held a finger up, as if that’s what I’d been doing all along, as if that was what I was interested in. I thought of Dad at teatime, flicking through his book about wildflowers as if there was nothing else important in the world, and Mum in her sky blue van driving away from everything that mattered, and it was like my body was daring me to do something that my mind hadn’t agreed to yet.
I turned my head, and there he was waiting for me, his eyes still grey though I couldn’t tell it in the dark, his irises still odd, and he smelled of cigarettes and chewing gum and chips, and it was lovely, and when I put my mouth against his and kissed him, it was as if I’d always known how to kiss, and how stupid it was, how unbelievably stupid that I could have worried about this.
Nineteen
I went back into the house through the kitchen. Dad’s room was above mine, and I didn’t want him to hear me climbing through the window. It was darker
inside than out, but as soon as I crept in, I heard someone. I froze, widening my eyes to see better. Dad was sitting at the table. My heart ram-raided my chest.
But Dad would be standing up, switching the light on, shouting.
It was Sam. And he had his head in his hands.
‘What’s up?’ I whispered.
‘Piss off,’ he said, but he didn’t sound angry.
He sniffed, palms jammed into his eye sockets.
I sat in Dad’s chair, next to him.
‘What’s happened?’
He rubbed his eyes, and breathed in sharply. I switched on the lamp by the phone.
There was a thin trail of dappled black blood running from his nose to his top lip. Both nostrils were edged with it. His left eye was beginning to close.
I filled a mixing bowl with warm water and put it on the table. The tea towels were greasy and smelled bad, so I dunked the bottom of my T-shirt instead.
‘Careful,’ Sam said, as I dabbed his face.
‘Shhhh! Dad’ll be down.’ I wrung my T-shirt over the bowl, sending the water pink, and started again, gently as I could.
‘Who’ve you been fighting this time?’
He shook his head.
The room was quiet except for the trickling of water.
‘I nearly had them,’ Sam said, after a while.
‘Looks like it.’
‘You didn’t see. There were two of them. They were loads bigger than me.’
In the living room, Fiasco changed position and exhaled from her nose.
‘You don’t always have to fight, you know.’
‘That what your boyfriend says?’
I stared at him.
‘Cause he’s a liar if he does.’
I stopped cleaning his face, and took the bowl to the sink.
‘That where you’ve been?’ he said.
I poured the pink water down the plughole.
‘I know anyway,’ he said. ‘It’s obvious.’
‘Why ask then?’
‘You want to watch him, you know, Iris.’
My heart was beating fast, and I rinsed the bowl, so he couldn’t see my face.
