by Bankes, Liz
“What?” I say suspiciously.
“Not my penis,” he says loudly. “I wish you’d stop asking.”
A group of women nearby shoot us wide-eyed stares. I start moving glasses around on a table to look busy.
“Come on. You must be due for a break.”
His eyes shine wickedly at me. My urge to know more about him is too strong, and I know I’m going to follow.
“Okay, but if it’s anything weird, I’m leaving.”
I follow him to the door in the corner of the courtyard that leads into reception, and he heads for the wooden door that I saw on my interview day. It opens onto a spiral stone staircase. In one direction the steps descend into darkness, probably to the network of secret passageways. But Jamie starts climbing upward. I lose count of the steps and my legs start to ache as we near the top. Jamie pushes against another heavy wooden door and then holds it open for me.
I walk through and realize I’m at the top of one of the four towers. The hot days have kept the evenings warm, but there is more of a breeze up here than down in the courtyard.
The panoramic view is made even more dramatic by the moonlight. It’s dizzying. Black outlines of trees. Blue fields. The sparkling lights from the town.
“How do you like the view?”
I look around for Jamie and see him sitting on the edge of the turret, facing outward. My stomach lurches. He could so easily fall.
“Not bad,” I say, staying by the door.
He swings his legs back around so that he’s facing me. The breeze is moving through his hair. He grins at me and then grabs a cigarette from a pack lying on the wall and lights it.
“So whose wife are you after tonight, then?” I cross my arms. “Or will you just be encouraging someone to gamble away all their money?”
“Not tonight.” He looks at me steadily.
I watch him expectantly. His expression is almost defiant, like I shouldn’t be able to force an explanation out of him. We face off for a moment, and then he laughs and turns to see the view.
“I’ve been finding myself less bored lately.” He keeps his eyes turned away.
I look at him from the side. He’s frowning in thought, but giving nothing away about what those thoughts might be. And there’s something at the edges drawing me in. Making me frustrated because I can’t figure him out. Does he really do all this just because he’s bored?
There’s the sound of the door thudding shut and the patter of footsteps. Jamie looks over.
“Desmond.”
Dezzie is walking over to us. I smile at her and she stares back.
“What’s she doing here?”
“Don’t be grumpy, Desmond. Mia’s going to sing you happy birthday.”
“I’m not,” I say hurriedly.
“Good. That would be weird,” says Dezzie. She leans forward and plucks a cigarette from Jamie’s pack and runs toward something I hadn’t spotted before—a wooden shelter that’s been propped up in a ramshackle way against the turreted wall. She disappears inside.
Jamie jumps up with a flash of annoyance on his face. I follow him over to the shelter. We’re on the part of the tower nearest to the courtyard, so can hear a hum of chatter from the party below.
We hear the click of a lighter, and then a small puff of smoke billows out from the shelter. Jamie stoops and looks into the entrance.
“Desmond, don’t be an idiot,” he says.
“I learned it from you,” she replies evenly.
“It’s different,” he says, frowning.
She pokes her head out and blows smoke in his face and then retreats back inside. He follows her.
I’m intrigued, despite Dezzie’s hostile glares, and I hover at the entrance.
“Come in, for God’s sake,” snaps Jamie, still clearly rattled by Dezzie’s smoking. He pats a cushion next to him. This is some sort of den. There are piles of books and comics in the corner, some dusty plastic boxes that look like they contain toys, and a shoebox that, when I peer at it, I see has Hands off written on it in Sharpie.
He sees me looking. “The profits of smuggling. Chocolate, mostly.”
“So this is a Radleigh secret, then?” Despite really wanting to not think it’s cool, I do.
“Not anymore,” Dezzie sighs.
“Pa discovered it a few years ago,” says Jamie through his cigarette. “He knows where to look for us now, so we don’t usually have too long.”
Dezzie flicks on a flashlight and bathes the whole place into a warm yellow light. I realize that the sloping roof wall is covered in chalk. There are games of hangman, scrawled messages, an unflattering cartoon of a man’s face with Dick written under it. A heart with the letters J and C inside. I suddenly register a detail I saw when I first sat down—empty wine bottles. Next to them, burned-down candles. Jamie must have brought Cleo up here.
With a jolt, I realize that I have no way of telling the time. My fifteen minutes are probably up. But then the sound of the door opening, much more forcefully this time, makes Jamie and Dezzie both freeze.
Dezzie’s hand clutching the cigarette waves in panic. I lean over, grab it from her, and jam it into my mouth. The crunching footsteps stop outside the entrance to the den. I duck down and come slowly out to face him.
Richard Elliot-Fox definitely has elements of Jamie about him. His posture is brimming with easy confidence, and I can tell through his shirt that he’s tanned and muscular, even if he does have a little middle-aged belly going on. His thick blond hair is carefully crafted into ripples, with none of Jamie’s messiness. And instead of those deep, dark eyes, his eyes are small and mean.
“Hello!” I wave cheerily. I point to the cigarette in my hand. “Smoke break!”
Jamie has followed me out. He stands next to me, and when our eyes meet, he smiles at me gratefully. Dezzie emerges from the den, smiling sweetly at her father.
“I would appreciate it if you wouldn’t indulge your filthy habit around my daughter,” he says icily. “And that goes for you too,” he snaps at Jamie. He turns to Dezzie, and his face softens slightly, although his eyes remain cold. “My darling, if you could bring yourself to put in an appearance at your own special occasion, Aunt Beryl has no children of her own and enough money to fund the rest of your education.”
Dezzie rolls her eyes and trudges past him.
He waves his hand dismissively at me. “Aren’t you supposed to be handing out sausages or something?”
“I am.” I nod politely. I stub out the cigarette and Jamie takes it from me, clearly realizing that I don’t know where to put it.
As I walk back across the tower roof, I hear Richard’s low, cold voice continuing, although I can’t make out what he’s saying. When I reach the door, I turn back for a moment. Jamie is stony and silent; then, in the middle of Richard’s speech, he gives a loud yawn.
Richard leans forward, pointing a finger right in Jamie’s face, and even from here I can see Jamie’s expression darken.
Jamie rolls down the window as we speed along the road back into town. He drives a flashy sports car, of course, but I have no idea what kind. Silver and fast.
“You didn’t bring your gorilla tonight, then.”
“No, he’s off mountain biking,” I reply without thinking. “I mean, just call him Dan … And he’s not mine.”
“I thought you were with ‘Dan’?”
“We’re not …” I pause. I don’t know what we are really. “I like his silly jokes.”
Jamie looks like that’s the most appalling thing he’s ever heard.
“Just because you haven’t, like, laughed at or told a joke in your life,” I mutter.
Jamie gives me a look—a frown with a lot of pouting.
“Oh, I’m sorry. Do you actually do anything besides pout at people?”
“Why are you sorry?”
“Okay, I didn’t go to, like, finishing school, so—”
“If you had been to ‘like, finishing school,’ you would at least ha
ve learned to speak properly.”
“I don’t care if I don’t speak properly.”
“Why not?”
“Because I’m normal.”
He lets out a small nasal laugh.
“Ooh, was that a tiny laugh?” I say in a mock-excited voice, and he smiles—a real, unplanned smile.
“No.”
There’s a silence for a while, and then we’re approaching the traffic circle near my house. I tell him it’s the first exit. He slows the car to a halt in the middle of the road, but it hardly matters since the whole town is deserted.
“Do you like swimming?”
“Um, I suppose.”
“Let’s go swimming.”
He revs the engine and we move off again. He misses the first exit.
“Wait, I—I don’t have my stuff …” He swings past the other exits and back onto the road we came down. We’re heading back to Radleigh Castle.
Chapter 21
Just swimming. That’s fine, isn’t it? It’s exercise. Exercise that means I’m standing next to Jamie in my underwear.
I’m struggling to trace back the steps that led to this. The castle was silent when we walked past on our way from the parking lot. The party ended at one, and as Jamie walked me to his car, I saw Julia being firm in ejecting any stragglers. Any of the guests who overdid it would by now be feeling very sorry for themselves in the back of their parents’ cars, hoping vomit doesn’t stain a dinner jacket. There’s no one else around.
I scrunch my feet on the plastic coping around the pool. My arms are firmly crossed over my body. The lights in the main house are all off, and it feels like I’m completely surrounded by darkness.
“I’m freezing.”
“Get in, then. It’s heated.”
“Do you bring lots of girls back to your pool?”
“Yes,” he says and launches off the side in a clean dive into the water.
I can’t make myself jump in, so I go to the metal ladder in the corner and start climbing in backward.
“God, you’re going about as fast as my grandmother.”
His hands appear at my waist and pull me back. I slip down into the water. He brings his head close to mine, so he’s whispering into my ear. “Do you want to know what I do to every girl I bring back here?”
I don’t say anything and swallow, trying to slow my breathing.
“She’ll hold on here.” He puts his hands over mine, closing them around the handrail.
“I’m behind her.”
I can feel his mouth on the back of my neck.
“Her breathing gets faster.”
He moves closer. His body is touching mine. I feel electricity running up and down my legs.
“She bites her lip.”
The tingling is centered now within me, pulsing. “She cries out for more.”
The feeling rises with every breath and I turn my head. Our lips are an inch apart.
And Dan’s face comes crashing into my thoughts.
A horrible, guilty feeling weighs down on me and I duck down under the water. As I sink, Jamie’s stomach and shorts and legs flash past me, and the urge to pull him on top of me throbs everywhere.
I swim past his legs and away, coming up to the surface on the other side of the pool.
“There. I’ve done my swimming,” I say, trying to keep my voice level.
He laughs. “And now Scrabble?”
For the second time in two weeks, I wake up on Jamie’s sofa. He offered me the bed, but considering he probably meant with him in it, I insisted on the sofa. He wakes me up at six thirty and I mumble that I don’t have work. His response is to tap the side of my face with his hand until I open my eyes.
“What?” I say as a fresh wave of guilt breaks over me.
He nods toward the door. “Put some clothes on and come outside.”
I sit up groggily and get to my feet. “I am wearing clothes,” I say. I follow him out and am hit by a breeze that reminds me that by “clothes” I mean only Jamie’s sweater and boxers.
Another fresh, clear day.
The air outside is crisp, and the grass around the pool is damp. I see streaks of pink reflected in the water and then I look up and gasp. Ruffles of pink cloud cover the sky, shot through with flashes of blue. The castle is a majestic silhouette, and the trees twist in shadowy shapes behind it.
I follow Jamie’s dark figure as he makes his way to the grounds at the back of the castle. He lies back on the grass. I lie down next to him. And we look up.
All I can see is the sky. I let it overwhelm me and switch off all the thoughts and worries in my brain. I feel Jamie shift next to me, moving closer. And then he takes my hand.
• • •
That’s how it began.
My double life.
In the day, I worked and fell easily into being with Dan. Every time I told myself we were just friends, someone would comment how good we were together. After a while, I stopped protesting.
Then, at two in the morning, I’d swim.
Sometimes I’d go to Jamie’s party first. Sometimes he’d pick me up. Either way, I’d find myself there.
At first we would just swim, sharing a few words at the end of each lap. And then talking would take over. We’d talk quietly and close together, so as not to alert anyone from Radleigh. He’d let his sarcasm drop, just for a bit, and I’d see something real.
It was like I was chasing those moments. A glimpse into his childhood. Or what scared him. Or what he really cared about.
But there was something else keeping me there. Something dangerous and exciting because it hadn’t been put into words. Each time we’d meet, we’d take it a little bit further. Not in what we did, but in what we said. Finding words that painted pictures of what we wanted to do.
Turning those words into actions was all I could think about.
Jamie Elliot-Fox is toxic.
That was still to come.
Chapter 22
I’m walking along the road near my house with Dan. Every so often our hands brush against each other. We’re quoting lines from The Office.
When we get near my house, but not quite in view of the windows, I stop and softly punch him on the arm. His face is illuminated by the pool of light from a streetlamp. I realize I’m standing in the shadows.
“S’yalater,” I say, which we’ve started saying instead of good-bye.
“S’yalater,” he says.
He leans in to kiss me and then stops when he realizes I’ve already started turning to go.
I turn back. “Oh!”
“No, it’s fine,” he says quickly.
“No, I …” I step toward him. We kiss once on the lips.
Watching him walk away, I feel a wave of uneasiness. I stand there, hidden from my house by a bush. I’m prolonging the moment of decision. I walk one way and go into my house. My parents know I’m there, and so there’ll be no swimming. I go the other way, and walk back to Radleigh.
I suppose there is a third option: I could live in this bush.
That is actually pretty tempting. I could make a bed out of leaves, be friends with the mice and birds … I bet mice and birds don’t invite you to go naughty swimming with them. If they did, then they would wear those modest swimsuits that Victorian people wore and it would all be very innocent.
While I’m thinking this, and possibly going insane, the decision is made for me, because Mom appears and scares the living crap out of me.
I scream. She screams and throws the trash bag she’s holding across the road.
“What are you doing?” I shriek, despite my being the one who was hiding behind the bush and despite it being completely obvious that she’s putting out the garbage. She eyes me warily as she picks up the bag.
“Bedtime, Mia. I think you’ve had a late enough night.”
I’m lying in bed, staring at my alarm clock. I watch the numbers change. It’s been forty-six minutes since I heard Mom’s door close.
I mo
ve my legs up and down against the sheets. I’m still wearing my work stuff. Static crackles between my tights and the duvet as I carefully slide out of bed.
I never thought I would actually be arranging pillows in my bed to look like a person. I feel like I’m in a teen drama and, next episode, I’m going to be sneaking a boy in through my window or learning that drugs are bad.
As I walk slowly down the stairs, every tiny creak sounds deafening. My breathing sounds like a train going past.
I remember at the last minute to go out the back door; otherwise I’ll trigger the security light.
I go along the river, rather than the road, so it’s less likely anyone will see me. It’s so dark I can’t even see my own feet as I walk. I use my phone as a flashlight. I’m so excited by the nighttime mission that I don’t stop to think that walking along the river at night could be incredibly dangerous.
As I approach the pool house, I realize I haven’t even texted Jamie to let him know I’m on my way. Will he just be expecting me? More importantly, will he reference the fact that I have just sneaked out of my house and walked through the pitch black to get here? I’m hoping that my desperate behavior can just go uncommented on.
He looks at me curiously when he opens the door. Or it could be sleepily. He’s rubbing his eyes and wearing a T-shirt and boxers, so I think I might have got him out of bed.
I jump inside before he has the chance to say anything. “Can we stay in? I don’t feel like swimming.”
He steps back to let me in and points toward his bedroom. “In there.”
“What’s in there?”
“My sex dungeon,” he says and walks over to the kitchen, ruffling his hair. I go over, but pause at the door. You can never be totally sure with him.
“There’s also a TV and a selection of movies,” he continues, taking a bag out of the cupboard. “So it’s up to you.”
“Well, seeing how I’ve left my whip at home, I think I’ll go with the movie.”
He raises his eyebrows at me and gets out a saucepan.
He’s making something in the kitchen, but calls through that I can find pajamas in the dresser. I inspect his room. Despite the nights I’ve spent in the pool house, I’ve never been in here. The TV is enormous and takes up most of the wall opposite the bed, which is also enormous. I peel back the duvet. Silk sheets.
