Oh, God, I thought, blanching. If you only knew...
But she was getting into her stride now. ‘I knew this boy when I was young. Handsome, but very kind eyes, and that’s an unusual combination.’ Abby sighed nostalgically. ‘Well, I liked him, but he wasn’t going to break my heart. Oh, no, no-one was going to make a fool of me. So after we’d flirted a bit I sent him a little note, but I didn’t sign it, and I thought, if he guesses it’s from me, this’ll be the beginning of something.
‘And he did guess, Cassie. But he only went and asked me, asked right out if the note came from me, and of course I panicked and denied it. Just in case he was taking the mickey, you know? Just in case he’d be laughing about it later with his pals. I denied it very convincingly; oh, I was a great liar when my pride was at stake. So nothing ever came of it. I could have loved that boy.’ Her eyes had a faraway look. ‘Ah, I had my pride, though, Cassie. My dignity was intact, and much use may it be to me when I’m cold in my grave.’
I stood up sharply. I’d actually found that quite sad, and I felt for her, but right now cold in my grave was not a phrase I wanted to hear, even if, strictly speaking, the Bishop wasn’t. ‘Aunt Abby, I need to go,’ I said desperately.
There was a wounded look in her eyes that cut me to the bone. ‘Well,’ she said curtly. ‘Give me those keys. I’ll clear up. I’ll have to tell your father but I promise he won’t be angry.’
‘I know.’ I nibbled my thumbnail. ‘All right. Thanks.’ Laying the keys carefully by her hand, I hesitated. The woman had just opened her heart to me and all I could do was run away. Feeling guilty, I tried to make a joke of it. ‘What brought this on, anyway?’
She breathed on the chalice and rubbed it with her sleeve, then checked her own lipstick in the reflection. ‘Things turn up, Cassie.’
That observation made me feel sick. ‘What?’
She tweaked the corner of her mouth with a coral fingernail. ‘I mean, things happen. People have to go away. Whatever. I’ve been meaning to tell you my one-and-only nugget of wisdom since your father was pouring font water on your screaming bald head and I was promising to be a good godmother. Well, I haven’t been. So that’s the hottest tip I can give you and it may not be much use to you but I thought I’d get it in while I had the chance.’
I was alarmed now. ‘You’re not ill, are you?’
‘God, no! What gave you that idea? I’d just hate you to think I was going to be around bugging the backside off you for all eternity. Well, I will, but that’s in the next world.’ She laughed. ‘Nobody’s around forever in this one, that’s all. So remember what I said.’
‘I will.’ Funnily enough I meant it, because she’d scared the daylights out of me there. I gave her a quick tight hug, which surprised her no end. ‘Thanks for that. Honest. But I need to go.’ I fumbled for an excuse she’d appreciate, and fortunately my flash of inspiration came at that moment, rather than two hours too late as usual. ‘I said I’d meet Ming.’
‘Ah.’ Sure enough, her eyes lit up with vicarious lust. ‘You run along then. And remember double what I said.’
‘Uh-huh.’ I smiled at her, and backed out still smiling. And then I made a run for it.
• • •
I was so relieved to be away from there, away from Aunt Abby and her tart-with-a-heart monologue, that it was a genuine shock when I woke up at three a.m. replaying the whole stupid thing in my head. What was all that about? Why had she brought it up now? What did she mean, People have to go away and I’m not going to be around for all eternity? And how come things can seem of such minor importance in the daylight, and tie your gut in knots in the small hours?
I lay watching the digital glow of my clock count down the minutes till dawn, longing to go back to sleep. I thought about Aunt Abby and her lost love and for a while it wiped out all thoughts of Ming and even of Griffin. For about five minutes it seemed like just the saddest thing I’d ever heard in my life, and I spent four of the five minutes crying buckets into my pillow. That’s three a.m. for you.
It wasn’t like Aunt Abby was an expert on violent death and the concealment of bodies, I thought, and that’s where some advice would really have come in handy.
God. If I’d only known, I could just have asked.
8: Jaw Jaw
‘Hey, Cripple,’ said a voice behind me. ‘Where’s your Infidel?’
Grinning, I turned. ‘Hi, Ruth. Suspended again, the big eejit.’
‘You better look after that boy or I’ll be taking him off your hands.’ She winked at me.
At Ruth’s back was the usual straggle of wannabe-rebels and hangers-on. Mostly girls, but there was one sallow dark-haired boy with bright nervous eyes who seemed to regard Ruth as his personal saviour and bodyguard. I didn’t quite get it because he wasn’t her type, but she can’t have minded his company because he was attached to her by invisible elastic.
We’d been running between Moral Studies and Maths, a quick changeover, and we weren’t supposed to talk in the corridors. Not in loud voices, anyway. It was considered disrespectful to the teachers and to the One God. Rose Parsons must have felt we weren’t showing sufficient respect, because she tightened her pious pretty mouth as she passed us, then spoilt the effect by throwing a truly filthy look over her shoulder.
Chewing hard on her gum, Ruth hitched up her bag and gave Rose the finger.
‘Self-righteous little cow,’ she sniffed. ‘Wish I’d killed her when I had the chance.’
I giggled, couldn’t help it. ‘You never had a chance. Don’t talk such mince.’
‘I can dream.’ Ruth gave me a brilliant smile. ‘Really, Legless. Poor old Minger. You don’t look after that Infidel, I’ll have him. Cute.’
She was a mouthy girl, Ruth, and she was going to get in a lot of trouble one day, but until then: get her alone, or in her small trusted coterie, and she was a hoot. People like her made school bearable and I hoped they weren’t going to die out.
That hope – carelessly worded – gave me a sick feeling in my stomach. Things weren’t so bad. Everybody knew the authorities would loosen up a bit soon, because things couldn’t continue at the same radical fever-pitch forever. I was uncomfortably aware that there was another side to that ropey theory, which was that things always got a lot worse before they got better, but I shoved the thought away, sent it to join the rest of the low-key cacophony in my brain. One more thing I didn’t want to think about.
‘Go and give us some gum.’ I kept an eye out for Dr deVilliers as Ruth pressed a stick of gum into my hand. Cruella considered chewing gum the work of the devil, along with so much else (including my Macbeth essay, which had not gone down well. I wondered what Dad would say when he saw my D minus. I hoped he’d think it was funny).
‘You’re okay, Legless.’ Ruth shoved her remaining gum into her pocket. ‘For a sky pilot’s brat.’
‘Sh,’ I said. ‘Shut up. Hurry up and all. I don’t want another detention. My dad’s okay, and don’t call them that. You’ll get in trouble.’
‘I could call them a lot worse. I was only polite cause it’s your dad.’ She sniffed again.
‘Just watch yourself,’ I warned her.
It was something people said a lot. Watch yourself. Watch your mouth. It wasn’t aggressive: it was caring, it showed concern. We all did have to watch ourselves. Because other people undoubtedly did.
Ruth was no saint: she was an out-and-out bully when she could get away with it, and she used to think it was fun to bully me, when I was still limping badly. She bullied me even though I was a ‘sky pilot’s brat’, and for that I had to admire her nerve. Later, though, she had a change of heart, me having whacked her shin with a crutch and left her wordless and gasping with agony in a corner of the toilets. After that she decided I was under her protection. I’d have liked to be her friend, too, but politically that would have been stupid, and there was no future in it. I had Dad to think of, and let’s face it, Ming was bad enough. I’d known Ming since before I w
as toilet-trained, since the world was young and his parents were wealthy landowners and dinosaurs ruled the earth (or would have done, if we were allowed to mention evolution). Ming was different, Ming was a special case, but I couldn’t afford any more inconvenient friends. Ruth, when she hit what passed for the real world, would have to shift for herself.
Right now she could still intimidate her way out of trouble. She had her small gang of rebels, she could defy the world because she was strong and brassy and brave, and I was happy for her.
‘So,’ she said now. ‘What news of the old goat Todd?’
I blinked. The crazy cow could still shock me. An adult could hang for a remark like that. Opening my mouth reflexively to remonstrate with her, I remembered Griff. Poor Griff. She was right: Todd was evil and devious. One of these days I’d know what to do about it. But the low clamour in my head wouldn’t let me think straight, not right now. ‘He’s a... he’s a...’
‘Goat,’ Ruth said again, helpfully. ‘Filthy old goat. Made my flesh creep at assembly. Squeezing the girls’ bums when he got the chance. Leering at their tits. Old goat. See you.’
I laughed, shocked beyond speech. But I felt superior, too, with my secret baleful knowledge of Todd’s true crime, and now I only needed to know what I’d do to make things right again for Griff. I loved him, but in the last few years I didn’t know him any more. That was down to Todd. So Todd should be punished. Something must be done.
Except that something had already been done. The memory jabbed me in the gut. Something had been done, finally and fatally.
Amazing, isn’t it, what the mind can wilfully forget? As I watched Ruth swan into Maths ahead of me, arrogant and unhurried, I thought about Todd’s bloated corpse, floating into the cave like a fat canoe, and wondered what I’d already wilfully forgotten.
• • •
Ming was waiting for me outside the school gates that afternoon, which I thought was needlessly provocative to Jeremiah and the rest of the Scripture Corps. Even I wasn’t sure if I was pleased to see him. A train of thought was winding tortuously through my head: something I was trying to remember, something I’d said to him in the wood, something vital that I couldn’t quite grasp. When I saw Ming, the train of thought left without me.
As I stopped and smiled nervously at him, Esther Kelly shoved past and pulled out her mobile. Walking backwards, she kept her eye on us as she thumbed a speed-dial button, her weasel-pretty features twisted into a smirk.
‘You’ve done it now.’ I made a face at Ming. ‘Jeremiah won’t be on his own this time.’
‘Nope. He won’t make that mistake again.’ Ming grinned. ‘Let’s get out of here.’
We got out of there. Ming was pretty good with the murkier alleyways of town and I felt perfectly safe within about ten minutes. I felt even safer when he casually took hold of my hand. Lordy, I was turning into a simpering wuss. I’d be in an Empire-line dress before I knew it.
‘So what did you want to talk about?’ I asked him at last.
His fingers tightened on mine. ‘What do you think? What else have we got to talk about?’
That made me cross. ‘You seriously think that’s all we’ll be talking about for the rest of our lives?’
‘Er,’ said Ming, nonplussed, and I realised what I’d said.
I swallowed and tried to fight back the blush. This, as everyone knows, only makes you go redder. ‘I mean, presuming we’re going to be friends beyond next Tuesday or whatever. Just friends. Obviously.’ Jeez, I was making it worse.
‘Obviously,’ he said, glancing to left and right, then back at me. A muscle under his eye twitched, and he lifted his hand to touch my lips.
That was worse than being kissed, worse than his hands running down my back: just that light pressure of his fingers against the corner of my mouth. There was a gremlin in my ribcage, merrily putting my heart through a wringer, and my innards were pounding like a bellyful of pistons. You might call it a rush of blood to anywhere but your head.
Making the effort of my life, I managed not to kiss his fingers. Or suck them, or flaming well eat them, along with the rest of him. Holy hormones.
Ming slewed his eyes away so that he wasn’t quite looking at me. I could see his heartbeat in his throat. His fingers slid away from my mouth and the back of them brushed my cheek, then came to rest against my ear.
Determined not to squeak and give myself away, I looked levelly at him.
‘Cass, don’t worry about the... the cave,’ he blurted. ‘That’s all I wanted to tell you.’
‘Don’t worry,’ I echoed stupidly. ‘Right.’
‘Because if you worry... if you think about it too much – you’ll start... oh, I dunno. Saying things, maybe. Being nervous. Giving yourself away.’
‘Giving us away,’ I corrected him, hoping with hindsight that didn’t sound like another threat.
If it did, he didn’t let on. ‘Yes. We don’t want to behave any different. Nothing strange.’
I thought our behaviour was a little weird right now, but it was nothing to do with the cave and its contents. The nerve endings in my ear were behaving extremely strangely. And the rest of me. ‘How many murder stories have you read?’ I asked him. ‘’Cause if you ask me, all they’ve done is make you nervous.’
‘That’s not murder stories,’ he said. ‘That’s you.’
He flexed his fingers so that the tips of them rested lightly behind my ear. Nice. Then he used his tenuous hold to pull me closer, and kissed me again. Nicer.
I didn’t want to stop kissing him, and I got the distinct impression he didn’t want to stop either. It was quickly out of our hands, though.
‘Hello, Cassandra. Hello, Minger.’
‘Bugger,’ said Ming softly.
As we turned to look at Jeremiah, I saw a fleeting fear cross the big thug’s features. I knew where it came from. The overused nickname had slipped out automatically and now he was afraid Ming was going to mock him again, in front of his three hulking pals and two sneering girls. That was what scared Jeremiah Maclaren, I thought: laughter. But glancing at Ming’s curled lip, I knew he wouldn’t mock Jeremiah for that, not again. Unlike some, I thought with fierce pride, Ming wasn’t sad enough to recycle a joke.
Neither of us spoke. We just watched them.
‘You’ve got some nerve, Minger, hanging round the school.’ Jeremiah’s swagger was back. ‘Education’s for the Faithful, not infidels. Keep on showing up, though. I want an excuse to deal with you.’
‘You and who else?’
I thought that was a mighty stupid question, seeing as Jeremiah had five cronies with him right now, but I avoided kicking Ming’s ankle and kept my lip zipped.
‘The militias, Minger. You think your parents are safe, in a funny way, don’t you? Because the cops are always watching them?’ He smiled. ‘We’ve sympathisers in the police force, Minger. We’ve members in the police. But we’re not inhuman, even to Godless dissidents. We wouldn’t like to leave you an orphan.’ Jeremiah smiled again, more nastily. ‘So when we’ve finished with them, we’ll come for you. All right?’
I knew Ming wanted to say something cheeky and defiant, but it must have stuck in his throat. A small shiver ran across his skin.
‘Look at the pair of you.’ Jeremiah sniggered. ‘What a waste of Intelligent Design. Why didn’t your fathers give you decent religious names?’
‘Cassandra’s a religious name,’ said Ming. ‘Just not your religion, you pig-ignorant dick.’
Okay, that was asking for it. And he got it. They piled right in on him. And on me: oh, cheers, Ming, I thought, while I was still thinking rationally.
Now, I’m quite small, and I’m skinny (and not in a nice way), but if Esther Kelly and Rose Parsons thought I wasn’t going to put up a fight they had another think coming. I’d be far happier breaking Esther’s neck than I was breaking my rabbit’s, so I was hardly going to hold back on the teeth and the fists. After all, I wasn’t without scrapping experience, s
eeing as I grew up with a slightly older brother, so I held my own for a bit.
Ming, though, had four of them against him. When Esther was curled on the ground, temporarily winded by my foot, and I was straddling Rose with my hands round her neck, I risked a quick glance in his direction. He was not having a great time of it but the yelps and grunts weren’t only coming from him. Something really struck me then, even harder than Esther kicked me as she recovered and got me off her pal.
Talk about Ming the Merciless. I was astonished at how ruthless he was. He didn’t hold back at all, but went for eyes and throats and groins with incredible savagery. Obviously that only made them come back at him with double the ferocity, but still, he’d done a respectable amount of damage by the time two of them were managing to hold him down while the others put the boot in.
Esther had her arm round my throat now, dragging me down. ‘Stop,’ I managed to gasp. ‘They’ll kill him!’
‘So? You too, bitch.’ That was when Rose made the mistake of flinging herself on top of me.
I don’t know what happened then. I went a bit demented, that’s all. Rose had long blonde hair and I knew that was a big misjudgement on her part, and I knew exactly what to do with it, too. I grabbed a hank of it, ripping it from her scalp till she squealed so loud Esther had to let go of my throat to try to wrestle my hands off her. Not a chance. I was so mad at Rose I dragged her over, shoved her face down in the road and scrambled onto her back, ignoring Esther’s yells and her pummelling fists and tearing nails. I had a pretty good grip, so I tore Rose’s head back and slammed her jaw into the tarmac. I didn’t so much hear the jarring crunch: I felt it.
Esther screamed. Rose just made an awful gurgling moaning sound. The four boys dropped Ming, who curled up foetally, and goggled at Rose. And then there were running footsteps and furious shouts, and the gang panicked. Jeremiah and one of the others picked up Rose between them and they half-ran, half-staggered off, throwing curses back in our direction.
I flung myself down beside Ming, dying to touch him and scared to. What if his skull was fractured, what if his neck was broken, what if I...
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