by C. J. Skuse
‘Guess so,’ said Fallon, crawling across the carpet to put Corey in the recovery position so he didn’t choke on the little green houses. ‘He’s a real sweetheart, isn’t he? I’d forgotten how much I liked him.’
‘Yeah. He’s harmless.’
‘Does your dad still write those romance novels about the buff guy in the kilt?’
‘Yeah, I said. ‘He’s onto number thirty-eight now. Or is it eighty-three? No, it’s thirty-eight.’
‘I read the first series. They got a bit silly after that. Oh, sorry.’
‘No, you’re right. They’re bloody awful. Even my dad says they’re awful. But he gets amazing royalties from them so he’s not complaining.’
‘My mum’s got all of them. Her favourite’s Call 999 For Doctor Delicious. When Jock becomes…’
‘. . . a doctor? Yeah. From the Doc in the Trossachs series. God, that’s the worst one. He’s a haddock fisherman for God’s sake. What’s he doing taking out an appendix? Dad used to read passages out to me when I was ill. Just made me iller.’
Fallon smiled and looked down at Corey. ‘Romance is nice. Being in love is nice, I imagine. I’ve never been in love.’
‘What about the teaching assistant at school? What was his name?’
‘Oh no, that wasn’t love. He was just a quickie in the music room after clarinet practice.’
I tried hard to look unruffled but it was so difficult. I was so aware of every movement on my face.
‘You and Max are in love, aren’t you?’ Fallon asked, stroking Corey’s comatose head. He was still lying across the board, dribble pooling on the Community Chest space between Oxford Street and Piccadilly.
‘Huh?’ A blush crept slowly over my face. ‘Yeah, of course. I love him to bits.’
‘But… ?’
‘I didn’t say “but”.’
‘No, but… what did Max mean about the “sex stuff”?’
‘Oh, nothing. Just something personal. He shouldn’t have said it.’ The blush deepened and started burning.
Fallon stacked the Chance cards. ‘Is he too rough? Some boys are like that.’
‘No,’ I said, alarmed. ‘We haven’t. We just… haven’t.’
Her eyes widened. ‘You haven’t had sex with him yet?’
‘Why is it so shocking?’ I said, exasperated. ‘I’m only seventeen. It’s not like I’m seventy.’
‘I didn’t mean it like that!’
‘Sorry, it’s just a bit – personal. Max thinks I’ve got this phobia about it.’
‘That’s understandable,’ said Fallon, her voice dropping to a whisper. ‘You know, after what his dad did to you and everything.’
You know that feeling you get when the world just stops turning, just for a split second? Like that sick plunge of dread you get when you think your phone’s been stolen, or you get a phone call so late at night that something bad must have happened? That’s how I felt just then. Like the bottom had dropped out of my life. The top of my head had been opened like a sunroof, and my darkest secret had swarmed out into the open.
‘Fallon, for Christ’s sake!’ I checked the doorway. Corey was still snoring £50 banknotes up in the air. ‘Don’t ever say that out loud again.’
‘I’m sorry,’ she whispered. ‘I haven’t told anyone, Ella, I promise. I just thought Max might know by now.’
My eyes couldn’t get any wider. ‘Do you think we’d still be together if he did? Do you think I’d still have to go round his bloody house once a month and eat roast beef at the same table as the man? Do you?’
‘I’m sorry. I swear I haven’t breathed a word to anyone. And I won’t do. Ever.’
‘Just keep it that way. All right?’
She nodded violently.
‘Just change the subject.’
‘OK.’ But neither of us could think of another subject to change it to. It was too big a subject to manoeuvre round. My heart thumped. My brain swam. A cold sweat had washed over my body like I’d just walked through freezing fog. When Fallon hadn’t been in my life, sometimes I could pretend it hadn’t happened at all. That it was only my secret to know. My secret to stab me silently where no one could see the bruises.
‘Corey seems to have perked up a bit,’ said Fallon, eventually, after so much silence.
‘He’s not happy, he’s drunk. They’re not the same thing.’
‘Oh.’ Now it was awkward. Now I had to change the subject. We were turning in circles, like being back on the teacups at the Brynstan Fair. I’d felt sick then too.
‘So, are you looking forward to being a mum then?’ I said, my eyes still fixed on the money I was shuffling.
‘I guess,’ she said. ‘It’s a bit scary. I’m worrying about pooing, mostly. Mum says I came out when she was in the toilet. She said sometimes, in labour, you actually do a poo.’
I rammed the title deeds into a stack. ‘I don’t know what to say to that.’
‘And if you have a baby in a water bath, you poo in the water and they make you get it out yourself, with a sieve. Mum says I can’t take one of our sieves cos she needs it to strain the broccoli. I’ve got to eat a lot of greens at the moment.’
‘Of course,’ I said, numbly.
‘But when the baby’s here, it’ll be nice to have someone who I can love and who will probably love me back.’ A guinea pig crawled onto her lap and she began stroking it to sleep. ‘These guys love me too, I know they do.’
A bubble of emotion surfaced in my chest. I stared at her belly. ‘Thanks for not telling anyone, Fallon.’
She smiled. ‘That’s all right.’
I looked down at her bump. It seemed a lot more obvious now she was sitting down. ‘Can I… touch it?’
‘Of course you can!’ She lifted up her top and presented her bump like a gift. I touched it with one finger. It was hard, like a basketball. I pressed three fingers against it. Then my whole palm, flat to the warm surface where her stretch marks shimmered in the firelight, like finger drawings on condensation. There was the faintest movement beneath my hand. And I just started crying, right there.
‘Oh God I’m sorry.’ I sniffed. I instinctively drew away, but she held my hand in place.
‘You don’t owe him, you know,’ she said. ‘Max, I mean. Don’t ever feel bad about that.’
‘Huh?’ I said, wiping my eyes. ‘I don’t want him to see me crying.’ I took my hand away again. ‘Pete said the same thing when I told him.’
‘Yeah and he’s right. People might say I grew up with straw in my hair but I know some things about life, Ella. You should only do it with a guy when you’re ready. If it’s meant to be, he’ll wait for you. If he doesn’t, he’s not the one.’
‘What if he doesn’t wait?’
She shrugged. ‘That’s his stupid fault then, isn’t it?’ She squeezed my hand and smiled as she let go. ‘It is most definitely not yours.’
‘You’ll be a good mum, Fallon.’
‘How can you tell?’
‘Because you want to be.’ She smiled even more at that. It felt good to give her a compliment.
Max appeared in the doorway, doing up his fly. ‘I forgot where the toilet was, so I pissed in the road, that all right?’
‘Yeah, whatever,’ said Fallon. A one-eyed tabby cat wandered in and curled up on top of the broken piano in the corner.
Max grabbed an empty bottle from the sofa. ‘Right, come on then,’ he announced. ‘Truth or Dare. We’re all drunk and there’s empty bottles about. We can’t keep the cliché at bay any longer.’
Me and Fallon pulled Corey up into a sitting position, and set about getting him dressed again – like he was a doll.
‘You playing, Core?’ said Max, slapping his cheeks to wake him up.
‘Yeah,’ he said, eyes barely open. Fallon spun the bottle first – it pointed to Max.
‘Truth or Dare?’
‘Truth.’ He smiled. My mouth went dry.
‘Umm… tell us a secret.’
I could
tell this wasn’t going to end well. It never does in films.
‘I don’t have any secrets,’ he said, looking at me. ‘You know them all, anyway.’
‘I didn’t know about your drug addiction,’ I said.
‘I go in Jessica’s bedroom sometimes. At night.’
We sat, silent, still like Stonehenge. Corey’s eyes widened.
‘I can’t go in her room during the day cos my mum treats it like a shrine. No one but her is ever allowed in there. Even her pyjamas are still where she left them the morning she went. Her hairbrush has still got her hair in it. There’s a pot of Nivea in there with her fingermarks in. It’s like one of those rooms in a stately home that’s roped off. Mum keeps a shoebox full of the newspaper cuttings from the accident as well.’
Fallon and I blinked at each other but said nothing.
‘I look through the photo albums sometimes too. That’s where I got the idea for your anniversary card.’ He smiled at me. ‘I found all these photos of her with us as kids. Trips to the beach. Trips into town. Trips out to the island. There’s pictures of all of us, even Zane. She loved being with us. She taught me to ride a bike. I’d forgotten that till we saw those kids on the Strawberry Line today.’
Fallon smiled. ‘She taught me how to spell “Mississippi”. And she gave me all her old dolls’ clothes. I’ve still got them.’
‘She taught me to swim,’ said Corey. ‘Well, I can stay above water. And sort of move along. A bit.’
Max fumbled in his pocket and pulled out his wallet. From a secret pocket under the credit cards, he pulled out a folded photograph – the photograph of all of us that he’d copied for my card. He handed it to Fallon. Corey scurried over to her, looking at it over her shoulder.
‘Wow,’ said Fallon. ‘I’d forgotten how beautiful she was, Max.’
‘You’ve got the same eyes. The same smile actually as well,’ I said.
‘She looks like Jennifer Lawrence.’ Corey hiccupped. We all looked at him. ‘She does, though, doesn’t she?’
‘Yeah,’ said Max. ‘I guess there’s some resemblance.’
‘Did I do those plaits in your hair, Ella?’
‘Yeah, most likely,’ I said. ‘My mum could never plait hair and I can’t do them on myself.’
‘God, look at Zane,’ she said. ‘Haha, look at his buck teeth! We’re all so tanned.’
‘Is that me?’ asked Corey.
‘Yeah,’ said Max. ‘In that bloody Ben 10 T-shirt. I was beginning to think it was a layer of your actual skin.’
‘We lost touch just after she died, didn’t we?’ said Fallon, still gazing at the photo. ‘We were all… ruined.’
None of us could say anything more. It was like someone had blown a huge bubble of truth and it had popped stickily in all our faces.
It was a heavy minute of silence until Max snapped his gaze away from the flickering flames and spun the bottle again, hard. It landed on Corey.
‘Aha! Truth or Dare, my friend.’
‘Truth,’ said Corey, with a gassy burp.
Max thought for a second. ‘Where’s the weirdest place you’ve ever done it?’
‘I haven’t,’ said Corey, as quick as a tick.
‘What, never?’
‘Is that such a major surprise?’ said Corey, picking up a new bottle of Acid Rain. ‘Who’s gonna want to sleep with a guy who hasn’t got the fine motor skills to undo a bra? I can barely tie my own shoelaces. As you can guess, my fingering game ain’t so hot.’
Max shrieked with laughter, not for the first time that day, and doubled over in hysterics. So did Corey.
‘Oh you poor sod,’ Max breathed, wiping tears from his eyes. ‘Bet your arm cardio game’s amazing though, innit?’
‘Oh yeah, I got that down, mate. I got that down. My right bicep’s bigger than Thor’s.’
They both rolled around in a hysterical embrace, like two kittens with a ball of wool. I couldn’t help but smile.
‘Corey, your turn to spin,’ said Fallon, replacing the bottle. He and Max were still too out of control to concentrate, though, so she spun it instead. It landed on me. ‘Truth or Dare, Ella?’
‘Dare,’ I said. She looked at me. ‘What? It’s boring if we keep saying Truth all the time. I’d prefer to do something.’
‘But I can only think of a Truth. OK then, let me think.’
As Fallon pondered, Max levered himself up on his elbow. ‘I dare you to text Hamlin something nasty.’
Fallon beckoned a small rat-type-thing to come out from behind the sofa cushion. ‘Who’s Hamlin?’
‘Pete Hamlin,’ I said. ‘My running coach.’
‘Oh,’ she said. ‘What do you mean, nasty? Something mean?’
‘No,’ said Max. ‘Kinky stuff. Something like, Hey Sexy, Thinking of you and me getting moist tomorrow at training. Kiss kiss. Monkey face. Heart eyes emoji.’
‘Max!’ I said. ‘That’s ridic, he’ll kill me.’
‘No he won’t. He can take a joke, can’t he? He’ll know it’s just a laugh. Go on.’
‘I’m not doing it. We should start tidying up anyway. Rosie will be back soon.’
‘Ooh forfeit, forfeit!’ said Corey.
‘No, I’m not doing it. And I’m not doing a forfeit either.’
‘I’ll do it then,’ said Max, and before I could stop him, he fished my mobile out of my hoody pocket, holding me at bay.
‘Max, give me that phone! Max! Please! It’s not funny.’
He was scrolling. He clicked on Pied Piper. He was texting. ‘Please Max!’
He hit Send. ‘Done!’
‘I can’t believe you!’ I snatched the phone back from him and checked my sent messages. Can’t wait to get sweaty with u tomoz, Bae X
‘You bloody idiot!’ I yelled. ‘How could you do that?’
‘Oh for God’s sake, Ells. It’s a joke. Be interesting to see what comes back, won’t it?’
I didn’t like the look on his face as he sat back down again – it was almost spiteful. ‘What do you mean by that?’
‘You never know, do you? Like, he could come back with something similar. Maybe you hope he does.’
‘I don’t think it’s funny, suggesting my running coach is some kind of paedo.’
‘Oh, come on, he must have tried it on with you at some point. You’ve been having one-to-ones with him for ages. And he’s a hot guy.’
‘So?’ I shouted. ‘I’m training for the Commonwealth Sodding Games, Max. Newsflash: you need to train quite a bit for that.’
Max reached into his pocket and pulled out the little key bunch Pete had given me. I instinctively checked my own pockets – nothing.
‘Fell out of your trackies earlier. There’s a Brynstan Academy fob on there they only give to teachers. Why’s he giving you his house keys?’
‘So I can use his punchbag, all right? He’s been teaching me how to box. Now give them back.’ I grabbed the keys from Max and shoved them in my trouser pocket again, zipping it up this time.
The silence between me and Max at that moment would have frozen water. Fallon looked worried, like a child watching her parents argue. Then my phone beeped, and the screen lit up. Pied Piper had replied to the message. You’ll do anything to avoid cross-country, won’t you? See you tomorrow. Don’t be late, Bae
‘See?’ said Max. ‘He can see it’s just bants.’
‘Bugger off,’ I spat.
‘You won’t go home, will you?’ said Fallon, a note of desperation in her voice.
‘What?’ said Max.
She looked hurt. ‘You’re going to argue and then you’ll phone someone to pick you up and you’ll go home, won’t you? Can you stay – just for another hour? Please?’
We all looked at her. She was practically in tears.
‘Why, Fallon?’ asked Corey, sobering. ‘Why’s it so important to you?’
‘The Shaws are coming. The ones we saw on the Strawberry Line, earlier. They’ve got into the habit lately of bothering me every
night. I’d like a break.’
‘Why?’ I asked. ‘What do they want?’
‘Nothing. They just pester me, that’s all. Stones at the window. Spooky noises through the letterbox. That kind of thing. They frighten me.’
‘But nothing frightens you,’ said Corey. ‘Don’t Dare Fallon, remember? I dare you not to be scared of them.’
She shook her head. ‘It doesn’t work with them. I still don’t like them coming round. But if you’re here…’
Max made a clicking noise with his tongue. ‘Hang on a minute, those kids we saw on the Strawberry Line were, like, kids. Little kids. All of them under twelve at least.’
‘I know,’ she said. ‘But I’ve told them so many times. Luke – the eldest – he winds the rest of them up and off they go. They never come in. But sometimes they’ve thrown stuff through the window. A brick. A bottle. Once they set light to a hay bale, out in the barn. If I hadn’t seen them, the whole lot could have gone up. We had kittens in there at the time too, they could have been killed.’
I started folding up the Monopoly board. The game was clearly over.
‘Little gits!’ said Corey furiously. ‘How dare they?’
Fallon nodded. ‘The police won’t do anything; I’ve rung them before. And they’re too young for the courts to get involved. Mum says to ignore them; that they’ll get bored soon. But I don’t think they will. They know I’m scared. What can I do, Ella? What if they – try and do something to the baby when it’s born?’
You know when you hear an annoying noise and it repeats on and on and on and on until you’re so mad you could just kill whatever is making the noise? Like a banging door or a cough or a persistent fly that won’t just find the damn window? That’s how I felt right then – everything Fallon was saying about the Shaws just wound me up and up until I was raging inside so badly I wanted to break something.
‘Ella, what are you doing?’ said Fallon. I followed her gaze down to my hands.
Without even realising it, I had torn the Monopoly board right down the middle.
‘So the rage took over?’
9
A Little Upset
Yeah, a bit. That horrible Acid Rain I drank just seemed to make it worse. I listened to more tales of the Shaws, and how they’d teased Fallon for so long now she was ‘almost used to it’. But what I saw was emotional abuse. Physical abuse. Arson. Their latest trick was blackmail. They’d scammed over sixty quid off her, this summer alone. And they still kept coming back for more.
