Furious Thing

by Jenny Downham

  ‘He pushed me against a wall!’

  ‘To calm you down.’

  ‘Because he’s cruel!’

  There. I’d said it. The words echoed.

  Mum stood perfectly still. ‘Has he ever hit you?’

  ‘Not that kind of cruel.’

  ‘Has he ever touched you inappropriately?’

  ‘No, Mum! Listen to me, that’s not what I’m saying.’

  ‘Then what are you saying?’

  It was as if she was a delicate boat and he was a massive ship dragging her about in his wake to smash her up. ‘He treats women like they’re nothing.’

  She looked up from the drawer. ‘So, now he’s a misogynist?’

  ‘Do all women cry as much as you? Do all blokes blame a teenage girl for stuff as much as John blames me? Why does Iris have to be so perfect all the time? Remember the tree? Remember how John blamed us for Iris’s accident?’

  ‘You can’t hook that on him, Lex.’

  ‘Yes, I can! I only took her outside to distract her from the yelling.’

  ‘Blame doesn’t work like that, Lex. You could just as easily blame me for stomping off, or whoever left the spike in the grass, or the tree for growing too high, or the neighbour for not looking out the window and stopping it happening.’

  ‘Or me for taking Iris up there?’

  ‘Yes. Or you.’

  ‘So, whose fault was it John went mental on the way back from the hospital?’

  She shook her head. ‘I don’t know. I don’t remember.’

  ‘I threw stuff out the car and he yelled at me.’

  ‘Well, that sounds like your fault.’

  ‘Even if I did it to help you?’

  ‘What are you talking about?’

  It was like a charge between us. Like our eyes got caught and couldn’t break free.

  I said, ‘He stopped yelling at you and yelled at me instead.’

  ‘You lose your temper on purpose, is that what you’re saying?’

  ‘Maybe.’

  ‘You chucking chairs and trashing the kitchen is all part of some great masterplan?’

  ‘This is what you do, Mum, can’t you see? It’s his fault – all of it. And you never dare point the finger at him.’

  She turned on me, her eyes glittering. ‘Stop this war with him, Lex. He’s going to be my husband. He’s going to be your father. We are going to be one happy family and you’re going to like it.’

  She was honestly suggesting she could force me to be happy? I got up from the bed and walked to the window and looked out at the tree.

  Years ago, I had thrown a book of maps from the car and, like a miracle, John had turned his anger on me. A couple of weeks ago, I threw his laptop. And there’d been loads of times in-between. It wasn’t a masterplan, but it was something …

  If didn’t do those things, John would hassle Mum for days. He’d grind her down with counter-accusations and then with silence. He’d refuse to look her in the eyes or answer any questions. He’d eat and sleep separately. He’d be perfectly normal with Iris, so Mum knew who was being punished. He’d be late home every night after work and sometimes not come back at all. And Mum would ask: Where do you go? Why is this happening again? What did I do? Tell me how to be? She’d do everything she should – shop, cook, clean, remember her kids exist – but only in a vague way, like someone had rubbed out her brightest colours.

  Why had I only just seen this?

  Why didn’t Mum see it at all?

  She was supposed to protect us and all she did was tread eggshells around him. It was only his love affairs that got her angry.

  I said, ‘He’s never going to be faithful.’

  ‘You don’t know anything about it,’ Mum snapped. ‘You’re too young to understand how it’s possible to forgive and move on.’

  ‘Forgiving him doesn’t make him faithful. It just lets him get away with cheating.’

  ‘Stay out of it! That’s a vicious thing to say.’

  I turned from the window. ‘I bet he’s still seeing her.’

  ‘I’m warning you, Lex.’

  ‘Do you know for sure he isn’t?’

  ‘Stop it!’ She marched over, and I thought she was going to hit me, but she stood right in front of me and I knew she was going to say something terrible instead. ‘Relationships are complex. You of all people should know that. You have no right to go about dripping poison when you spend most days swooning over a boy who has no interest in you whatsoever.’

  ‘What are you talking about?’

  ‘You and Kass and this ridiculous secret relationship you imagine you have with him.’ She swept a hand through her hair. ‘Maybe I should have said something sooner, I don’t know. I thought you’d grow out of throwing yourself at him.’

  I was silent. Every bit of me prickled with sudden cold.

  ‘Say something,’ she said. ‘Say you know what I’m talking about. I just feel your raging disapproval all the time.’

  ‘That’s because you’re talking bullshit! You don’t know the first thing about me and Kass.’

  ‘Oh, Lex,’ Mum said as she reached out for me. ‘Oh baby, don’t cry.’

  I pushed her away. I didn’t want to be near her. She was weak and ridiculous. How could she possibly know anything about love?

  30

  I tapped Kass on the shoulder. I said, ‘Hey.’

  He turned around and smiled up at me, then immediately realized I wasn’t supposed to be in a bar in Manchester on a rainy Thursday evening and his smile crashed. ‘Lex. Oh my God. What’s happened? What are you doing here?’

  There were two girls and a boy sitting at the table with him and I felt their interest fall on me. They stopped talking. They knew I was important.

  I said, ‘I came to see you.’

  ‘By yourself?’ Kass looked beyond me for the briefest instant, as if John, Mum and Iris were about to appear.

  ‘Sorry I didn’t call first, but I’ve got no phone.’ I dumped my bag on the floor. ‘And you can’t send me home because the last train back to London already left. And tomorrow’s my birthday and I want to spend it with you.’

  The two girls were checking me out. I could feel the weight of their gaze, trying to make sense of who I was. The boy was looking too, but in a different way. He was doing that up and down thing with his eyes. Maybe he thought I was Cerys.

  I said, ‘How about a hug, Kass?’

  He stood up and clasped me quickly. We weren’t alone, so it had to be brief. He stepped back. ‘Does anyone know you’re here?’

  ‘I left a note.’

  ‘Saying what?’

  I grinned. ‘Not much.’

  ‘They’ll be freaking out.’

  They all kept looking. But the boy stabbed a sudden finger in my direction. ‘I know who you are. You’re the outrageous sister. It is you, isn’t it? You throw stuff through windows. What did you throw? A chair? A TV?’

  ‘I’m Lex,’ I said, smiling mysteriously.

  ‘Stepsister,’ Kass said.

  I wanted to say that we weren’t related by blood, but until I got to know these people maybe it was easier to keep things simple. I stood with one hand on my hip, raindrops clinging to my hair and dress, waiting for Kass to remember he loved me.

  Remember the layers of us, Kass? The years of us?

  ‘I’m calling my dad,’ he said.

  I shrugged. ‘I wouldn’t bother. I took his wallet, so he’s only going to yell at you.’

  The boy at the table laughed. ‘I’m in love with your sister, Kass.’

  Kass scowled at him. ‘Yeah, well, hands off.’

  It was thrilling, Kass wanting me for himself like that. It reminded me of the party, when he’d pushed the table over because I kissed a boy.

  Kass turned his attention back to me. ‘Anything else I should know before I ring him?’

  I didn’t want to tell him my plan in front of his friends – how I wanted him to come back to London and get his mum to
team up with mine. I figured we could even involve Monika. Mum made no sense any more and was too flimsy to rescue herself. I loved the idea of three of John’s exes kicking him out of the flat together and then changing the locks.

  I’d get to all that when me and Kass were alone. So I said there was nothing else and that if he insisted on phoning John it was up to him, but in the meantime, I was going to the bar. I smiled at his friends again. ‘Can I get anyone a drink?’

  Kass shook his head. ‘You won’t get served.’

  ‘Bet I will.’

  He watched me reach down and pick up my bag. I put some shimmy in it. I knew I looked good in my red dress. I’d changed into it on the train – the dress that hugged my curves, that John said was ‘too much’ all those weeks ago. I’d done my make-up and hair in a scrap of mirror. Clackety-clack went the train as I turned into my new shiny self. I put my London clothes in a bag and sealed it shut. I was a slick Manchester girl now.

  ‘So,’ I said, flashing John’s credit card at everyone. ‘What can I get people?’

  The girls laughed. The boy snapped his fingers. And that’s when Kass gave in, like he knew the usual rules didn’t apply.

  He took the card from me. ‘I’ll do the honours.’

  He didn’t even blink when I asked for a rum and coke. He introduced his friends – Jaydon, Mia, Poppy – and left me with them while he went to the bar. I squeezed myself onto the end of the sofa next to the girls. I liked the dimness of the place, the scarlet walls, the film posters, the fairy lights strung above our heads.

  ‘So, you’re pretty hardcore,’ Jaydon said.

  I shook my windswept hair for him. ‘That’s me.’

  ‘And it’s your birthday tomorrow? How old are you going to be?’

  I smiled. ‘Depends which ID I use.’

  He snapped his fingers again. ‘I’m seriously in love with you.’

  Mia, the girl closest to me, threw a beer mat at him. ‘Back off, Jaydon. She’s way out of your league.’

  Poppy leaned across and rubbed my arm. ‘Just deck him when you’ve had enough.’

  Jaydon held his hands up in mock surrender, but we three girls shared a knowing look. I loved it that they knew I could take care of myself, that they included me like that. And even though he didn’t stand a chance, it was exciting that Jaydon fancied me.

  They asked me questions about my journey and how I’d managed to find Kass with no phone, and I told them about getting a cab from the station to the halls of residence and sneaking past security, then getting his flatmate to draw me a map.

  The girls laughed and said I was intrepid. Jaydon called me heroic. They asked me what I’d written in my runaway note (sod your wedding) and Jaydon asked what kind of trouble I’d be in for stealing John’s wallet (What can he do if I don’t let him do it?). Everything I said was the right thing and by the time Kass came back with the drinks, I felt as if all my edges were sparkling.

  Kass settled opposite me, his legs under the table, his knees touching mine, his feet close enough to bump with my boots.

  Hello, hello, my feet said to his. He pushed gently back. I see you, his feet said to mine.

  ‘So, I rang my dad,’ he said.

  A thrill of fear skimmed my chest. ‘And?’

  ‘I persuaded him not to send an armed response unit.’ He grinned at me. ‘It looks like you’ve got a night of freedom.’

  Only one night? We’d see about that.

  I swallowed the fear and raised my glass at my new friends. ‘To freedom.’

  It was the best evening of my life. I was like a queen holding court. I wasn’t stupid or ugly or wrong or bad or difficult. I was intrepid and heroic. It made me happier than I could imagine, like a weight I didn’t even know I was carrying had been lifted.

  Kass couldn’t stop looking. He kept shaking his head and saying things like, ‘I can’t believe you dared to run away. I can’t believe you stole my dad’s wallet. I can’t believe you’re here.’

  Every time he said something like that, I said, ‘You better believe it,’ and bumped his foot again. Hello, hello.

  At one point he bent close and said, ‘What’s the plan?’

  ‘What makes you think I have a plan?’

  ‘Because nothing’s ever simple with you.’

  So, I told him about getting his mum to talk to mine and making a team to defeat his dad and he grinned and kissed me on the cheek. ‘Awesome,’ he said.

  Mum was wrong. I wasn’t imagining a relationship with Kass. He’d loved me since the day we met. And he loved me still. She’d see it when we turned up hand in hand to save her.

  I told stories about me and Kass growing up and I made us sound like kids from a book – living in trees, playing tricks on the grown-ups, running free.

  ‘She’d do anything I suggested,’ Kass said. ‘Utterly fearless.’

  The girls told him off for leading me on and he laughed and said I should be thanking him for curbing my excesses.

  ‘I am very difficult to curb,’ I said.

  They all chuckled. Jaydon even slapped the table in merriment. I heard my own laughter echoing back at me and it sounded wonderful.

  We didn’t slag John off. We never had in public. It was a secret scar we carried, like a family tattoo or a branding, and it was difficult to expose it to air. We’d seen John make people we love cry. We’d seen him weaken them. We’d witnessed the accident of their lives – how nothing turned out how they thought it would. Tomorrow we’d go back to London together and destroy him. But tonight was for love.

  Kass told them I was brilliant at acting. He showed them pictures on his phone that I didn’t even know he had of me in my Year Nine drama project. I said I’d like to go to drama school and they all got excited and said I should apply to Manchester to study theatre after A-levels.

  I realized I’d misunderstood happiness. I’d always thought that if I could be someone else – someone like Iris or Cerys – that I’d be happy. But I was happy being me. I wouldn’t have swapped with anyone.

  Kass’s eyes turned tender as the night ticked by. I kept catching him looking at me and I wondered if he was doing the same calculations in his head that I was doing in mine?

  The last train had gone.

  He had a room with a bed.

  There were no adults to tell us what we couldn’t do.

  I turned sixteen at midnight.

  I imagined it like a honeymoon – his eyes bright with love, his hands knowing just what to do, his body leading mine, him whispering, I love you, Lexi. Us together for hours in some kind of heaven.

  It was almost eleven o’clock when our eyes caught and held, and he mouthed. ‘Want to go?’ And I nodded.

  We said goodbye to the others. They wished me luck for when I got home, and I told them I wouldn’t need luck because I had a plan and they laughed and said they hoped it was a good one.

  Outside, it was still raining. The street lights reflected on the wet pavement, stretching yellow and amber ahead of us.

  I linked arms with Kass and he grinned at me.

  ‘Ready?’

  31

  I’d seen Kass’s room on Skype, but here it was – crimson curtains, brown carpet, shelves full of books. He studied at that desk, read in that chair, slept in that bed night after night. I knew I was walking into womanhood as I stepped in and he shut the door behind us.

  ‘So,’ he said, ‘this is it.’

  ‘I love it.’

  He laughed. ‘It’s a cell.’

  ‘At least you’ve got a double bed.’

  He gave me a long look. ‘At least there’s that.’

  My heart was beating wildly as he gathered clothes from the floor and flung them in the corner. He moved books from the chair to the desk, switched on a lamp and turned off the main light. The room sank into a rosy glow.

  ‘Come and see the view,’ he said.

  I put my bag on the bed and followed him over to the window. The rain glistened silver as it
fell past the lamps outside. There were trees and a courtyard and a road beyond. On the other side of the road was the park we’d walked past on the way back from the bar.

  ‘No buildings,’ he said, ‘just greenery. Good, huh?’

  ‘Aren’t architects supposed to like buildings?’

  ‘Ah,’ he said. ‘You caught me there.’

  He sounded sad. I turned to him. ‘You should swap courses.’

  ‘Should I?’

  ‘You don’t have to do what your dad says any more. I’ve got a plan, remember?’

  He didn’t look at me, pretended fascination with the world outside. ‘Let’s not get into that now, eh, Lex?’

  My eyes had adjusted to the dark and I could see all the detail of his face – the shadow where he hadn’t shaved, the beautiful curve of his bottom lip, each eyelash.

  Once, Kass said if everyone in the world had to pick a partner, he’d pick me. Another time he said he could never get married because everyone else was counterfeit. When I asked what that meant, he said I was his one true thing.

  I took a step closer and nudged him with my elbow. ‘It’s me, Kass.’

  ‘Yes,’ he said. ‘I know.’

  Still he wouldn’t look. I nudged him again. ‘I came all this way to see you. I changed into this dress on the train. I did my make-up and hair in the little wobbly toilet.’

  ‘Stop,’ he said.

  ‘Stop what?’

  ‘You know what.’

  But I was a slick Manchester girl. I walked into that bar and found him, and he looked at me like a moth attracted to a light.

  ‘Remember,’ I said, ‘the very first time we met? You told me the garden was dangerous and if there was a fire we’d all die because there was no way out. You remember that?’

  ‘Not really.’

  ‘I showed you my special way of climbing the tree and how to jump into the cemetery and you said it was clear I could look after myself.’

  ‘Why are you telling me this?’

  ‘Because I can look after myself, Kass. And so can you.

  And together, we can rescue everyone else. We’re fucking amazing.’