I Know What I Saw

by S K Sharp

  ‘All right,’ he says, as we reach the Shelley. ‘Stay here. I’ll be back in five minutes.’

  I wait by the road, knots and clusters of other pupils from the school drifting past in shoals as they cross the park. I look for Kat. I don’t see her at first; but then I do, not on the path through the park but a little further down the road by the entrance to the Secret Car Park. I don’t know how she got there without me seeing but there she is, and she’s with Gary – I know it’s him because of the coat – and I can tell they’re arguing because I’ve seen Kat angry plenty of times and she gets so animated, with her hands waving all over the place. I’m about to go and see if she needs help, but before I can move, she’s turned away and is heading across the park towards home. Gary doesn’t follow, so I decide she’s OK.

  Five minutes later, Dec pulls up next to me in the lime-green Ford Capri that his dad bought for him on his eighteenth birthday. He winds down the window and wiggles his eyebrows.

  ‘Want to go for a ride?’

  Teenagers have sex in the backs of cars all the time, if you believe the movies. It doesn’t look very comfortable, so I’m a bit nervous when I get in, but he doesn’t try anything. When I sit beside him, I feel happy and safe.

  ‘Where are we going?’ I ask. Not that I particularly care.

  ‘Anywhere, as long as it’s away from here.’

  Ten minutes later we’re heading out of London. I ask him again where we’re going and, if we’re running away together, could I at least pack some clean underwear first, and he laughs: no, nice thought, but we’re not running away, not yet, but there’s this place he wants me to see, and does it matter if I’m home late? He fishes out some cassettes from the glove box and we listen to Tears for Fears’ Songs from the Big Chair album, and he tells me that even if I think I don’t like it, I have to listen to the whole thing anyway because he thinks it’s the best album ever; and of course it isn’t, but it is better than I thought. I even like some of it, although I make sure that all Dec sees is me making faces like I’m dying.

  A few songs later and the world outside is green and full of trees and fields. I wind the window down and lean my head against the door and let the air rush into my face. I don’t know where we’re going and I don’t care. We pass through a village with a quaint name and an old Tudor pub and thatched-roof cottages, and it feels like the first time I’ve ever properly been away from home on my own.

  Dec stops before the album finishes. I have no idea where we are except that we’re not in London any more. He buys us each a can of Coke and comes back and asks if I’m OK, because we both know that I’m not, and neither is he.

  ‘Sometimes I think about going to Europe,’ he says. ‘Go to Italy maybe. Or Spain or Greece. We could get one of those Interrailing cards and head for somewhere warm and sunny, and we could sleep under the stars.’

  I laugh. ‘The furthest we’ve ever been on holiday is bloody Bournemouth.’ Europe sounds great. Romantic.

  We drive for another few minutes and then Dec stops again, this time in a lay-by in the middle of nowhere. A public footpath sign at the edge of the road points across a field to some woods. He gets out of the car and beckons me to follow.

  ‘I want to show you something.’

  The sun comes out as we walk together. The air under the trees is still. It’s so peaceful. My hand brushes his. Not deliberately. We flinch away and then reach for each other, fingers lacing together. We reach a clearing beside a river, with an old weathered picnic table and a tyre on a rope hanging from a branch over the water. We bask in the sun and neither of us speaks, and it’s a perfect silence because we’re both here, the light streaming down, dappled shadows of leaves and branches dancing on rippling water.

  ‘Thank you for this,’ I say at last.

  ‘Thank you for … for being you,’ says Dec.

  My head is full of crazy thoughts. I want to reach across the old wood of the table and take his hand and kiss him and never mind where we are – nothing matters except that we’re together. I don’t want to lose this feeling. I don’t quite understand but it’s beautiful and it’s precious. Is this love? I think it must be, but I was already in love with him last night and this feels even bigger and brighter.

  ‘Mum’s really going to do it,’ he says. ‘She told me this morning. We’re going to move out and stay with Aunt Eileen in Clapham. It’s all over.’

  I lean into him and pull him close. ‘It’s not your fault.’

  ‘Everyone thinks Dad’s so great.’ He shakes his head. ‘But you know, I’m sort of glad.’

  ‘It’s not your fault,’ I say again. It’s what I know he needs to hear because it’s what I need to hear. I have no idea, really. It must be someone’s fault, right?

  ‘You sure about that? Because apparently everything that went wrong in Dad’s life was my fault. He told me that when I was twelve. My fault for being born and screwing everything up. Said my uncle had it right, leaving Kat’s mum the way he did. Said he should have done the same – how he regretted it every day that he didn’t.’

  ‘Well … fuck him,’ I say, surprised at myself.

  Dec looks at me in shock. ‘What?’

  ‘We deserve better. Both of us. Kat, too. So yeah, fuck him! Fuck both of them.’

  The tragedy melts off Dec’s face. He starts to laugh and so do I, harder and harder, until we’re both clinging to each other, tears in our eyes, and I’m not sure whether I’m laughing or crying and I’m not sure about Dec, either.

  ‘You know, you’re really sexy when you’re angry.’ He takes a step back, goes to the tyre swing and grabs the rope dangling from under it. ‘We used to come here when I was a kid. I’d always end up soaked.’ He grabs hold, teetering for balance, gets one foot inside the tyre and then swings out over the river. I’m sure he’s going to fall, but instead he hoists himself up and waves his arms, gripping the tyre between his knees as he arcs back towards the bank. Now I know he’s just showing off …

  ‘Easy!’

  I watch as he swings and I start to laugh. ‘How do you get off?’

  He laughs back and leers. ‘Give us a tug, love?’

  I go over and pick up the rope he used to pull the tyre to the bank. It’s wet and rough and slimy and horrible. I pull as hard as I can, dragging Dec back to the shore. I feel my feet about to slip. Any minute now, I’m going to go over on my backside, and either I’m going to let go or we’re both going into the water – and that is not happening, not in my school clothes!

  ‘Come on, Nix!’ He’s laughing at me. ‘Pull!’

  I lean back and heave, knees bent, heels dug in, remembering a sports-day tug-of-war from when I was seven, Mr Lambert yelling at us like it was the Battle of Iwo Jima. Come on, girls! Dig your heels in! Get your weight behind it. Bend those knees and pull! I grit my teeth and then the rope kicks in my hand, pinging free as Dec jumps and flies straight into me and we both go over in a tangle of arms and legs, and about the best that can be said is that at least he doesn’t land on top of me. He’s laughing and laughing, enough for both of us, which is just as well because I’ve landed on a root or something, which means I’m going to have a massive bruise tomorrow, and my hands hurt; and I’ve got mud all over my blazer, and I really ought to be angry with him, furious, and I want to be, but also I want to kiss him …

  ‘You’re mad,’ I tell him.

  He staggers up and offers me a hand. I take it and pull hard, enough that he loses his balance and falls on top of me. And I can feel him, the weight of him, the warmth of him, pressing me down from my knees to my chest, and I can see the shock in his face and the desire, too. His eyes are wide like they were last night, and I’m still furious, but there’s something else – a voice in the back of my head that doesn’t want him to get off.

  ‘Move, you oaf!’ I snap.

  He gets up, still laughing. This time I let him help me to my feet. ‘You OK?’

  ‘I’m fine.’ I really want to kiss him. ‘But
you’re a bloody idiot.’

  Dec nods to the tyre. ‘Want a go?’

  ‘What, so you can drop me in the bloody river?’ Why am I even thinking about it? I tell him again that he’s an idiot, and he grins and shrugs and says yes, he is that, but I should let myself go a little, and he really, really won’t let me fall into the water. I point out that I did a fair bit of letting myself go only last night, if he happens to remember back that far; and who says I want to let myself go? And then somehow my blazer is on the table and he’s holding the tyre in place and I’m trying to climb onto it, and I’ve probably put enough ladders in my tights to equip a legion of window cleaners, but like they say on Mastermind, I’ve started so I’m going to finish.

  ‘Stop looking up my skirt!’ I try to get one leg around the top of the tyre.

  Declan laughs and doesn’t look away. ‘You’re gorgeous, you know that?’

  Another pang in my belly. I get one leg over the top and lever myself up, and the rope’s pushing my skirt up round my bloody knickers. I squash it down. Why am I doing this? ‘If I end up in the water,’ I tell him, ‘I will bloody well murder you. You and your bloody Capri, too.’

  Dec makes like I’ve shot him, staggers like he’s mortally wounded and lets go of the rope, and suddenly I’m swinging out across the water, and it’s a lot further and a lot faster and a lot higher than it looked; and there’s a noise something between a squeal and a scream that turns out to be me clinging to the rope like it’s the only thing saving me from a pit full of angry alligators … but I don’t tip over and I don’t slide and I’m not about to crash into the river and die, and my heart is pounding and I can’t remember the last time I ever felt so alive and …

  ‘I am going to kill you,’ I shout. But I’m not, because Dec’s grinning like a clown, and he’s not laughing at me, he’s laughing because I can’t hide that I’m loving this. He’s laughing because he sees me – the real me – and because that’s what makes him happy; and when he reels me back to the river bank and I have to jump free, he catches me and we stagger back, locked together, and I have his face in my hands and I’m kissing him and kissing him, and I don’t stop him as his hands slide up under my blouse, because I love him, I love him so much.

  It’s almost dark when we get back to Byron Road. My hair’s all messed up and there’s mud all over my clothes but my heart is singing. Mum’s not simply going to murder me, it’s going to be murder squared; but she’ll murder me a little less if I sneak in and clean myself up before she realises I’m back, so I have Dec drop me on Shelley Street and use the alley to sneak into the back garden. The kitchen door is locked like it always is, but Mum keeps a spare key hidden under a flowerpot behind the garage. The dining room and the back bedroom are dark, which probably means that Mum and Dad are in the lounge watching telly, so maybe all I have to do is let myself in and avoid the creaky boards as I creep up the stairs …

  I hear them as soon as I crack open the door. They’re in the lounge but the telly isn’t on. They’re not exactly shouting at each other, but I can tell straight away that it’s another argument. Dad sounds exasperated: ‘That’s exactly the opposite of what you said at the weekend!’

  ‘I know what I said, but … Look, I really don’t know what the right thing is here any more and I still think we can’t ignore it. I’m just saying that we shouldn’t turn people’s lives upside down without—’

  ‘So now she is old enough to make her own decisions. Is that what you’re saying?’

  Oh my God! They’re talking about me again. They’re talking about me and Dec, because Mum’s worked out that Dec and I are having sex.

  ‘No, she isn’t. That’s exactly my point! But, Craig …’ I hear Mum sigh. ‘You’re right: it’s her life that’s going to get ruined, too. There’s no getting away from that. Old enough or not, it has to be her decision.’

  I close the door and slip back outside. I’m sixteen. Sixteen! It makes me so angry, because I know they’ll never stop thinking I’m a child, even when I’m a hundred. I want to run inside and shout at them: We used a condom, OK? Is that what you want to hear? We’re not stupid!

  All I want to do is run. I go back to the end of the alley in case Dec is still there, but he isn’t. I sit at the end of the garden for a bit, wondering what to do. When I finally go inside, Dad’s in the lounge watching telly and there’s no sign of Mum, so I guess she’s gone out. I creep upstairs and change into my pyjamas and stuff my dirty school clothes under the bed. Then I sit in the gloom, not bothering with the light, waiting for Dad to notice I’m home or for Mum to come back from wherever she’s gone – for one of them to tell me that I’m grounded for the rest of my life and I’ll never see Dec again, because did you know that his parents are separating and he’s moving to Clapham with his mum; and, by the way, we’re breaking up, too, and your dad’s going to keep the house, but we’re moving to Mongolia: won’t that be fun?

  I go to close the curtains and see the light on in Dec’s room. He’s at the window. My heart jumps. Is he looking at me? I can’t tell. I lift my hand and wave but he doesn’t wave back, and then I realise that he can’t see me because it’s dark in my room. I turn on the light and lift my hand again. Hi.

  Dec does the same. Hi back.

  I point to him with one hand and touch my heart with the other. I love you.

  We watch each other. Then Dec blows me a kiss and steps away from his window. I don’t move, waiting for him to come back, but he doesn’t. I’m about to burst into tears, then the phone rings and I know it’s him, and I thunder down the stairs and almost crash into Dad coming out of the lounge.

  ‘Jesus, Nicola! Where the hell have you been?’ He looks terrible, like someone died.

  I grab the phone. ‘Hello?’

  ‘Nicola, I asked you a question, young lady.’

  ‘I love you,’ says Dec on the other end of the phone. ‘I always will.’

  ‘I love you, too.’

  ‘Nicola!’ shouts Dad.

  ‘I have to go,’ I say.

  I put the phone down and turn to Dad. I know what’s coming. The end of the world, that’s what. But I don’t care, because Dec and I will be together, no matter what Dad says. And we’re going to stay together, forever, and there’s nothing Mum and Dad can do to stop us.

  14

  Saturday 8th February 2020

  ‘So now she is old enough to make her own decisions. Is that what you’re saying?’

  ‘No, she isn’t. That’s exactly my point! But, Craig … You’re right: it’s her life that’s going to get ruined, too. There’s no getting away from that. Old enough or not, it has to be her decision.’

  Oh God. Oh God, oh God …

  I don’t even close the door behind me as I leave Chloe Clarke’s house. Everything crashes into place. I thought they were on the brink of separation. I thought they were talking about me. But it wasn’t our family they were talking about at all. They were talking about Kat. Kat and Arty Robbins. They knew. That’s what it was.

  And the way Kat talked about him that morning. That wild tirade that came out of nowhere as we were walking to school. You could say Uncle Arty stuck his hand up your dress …

  And two nights earlier, the night before the party.

  ‘Have you thought about what this would do to Nicola?’

  ‘Of course I have. She’s my daughter! That’s partly the point! Some things you can’t brush under the carpet, and this is one of them. It can’t go on, Craig. It has to stop. It has to stop now!’

  It wasn’t about them. It wasn’t about me, or about me and Declan.

  Oh God.

  I walk through Wordsworth Park in a daze, replaying everything in my head over and over. Kat and Arty Robbins. That’s what Mum and Dad were arguing about. Mum knew the truth, all the way back then, when it was happening. She already knew the night before the party, and Kat was fifteen. Fifteen. That’s what it was all about at the Shelley – why it all blew up like it did. That’s wh
y Mum was so incandescent, and why Arty went for her. He wasn’t just having an affair; he was sexually abusing a schoolgirl, his own brother’s daughter, and Mum threw it in his face in the middle of his fiftieth birthday party, in front of everyone. Never mind murdering Jesus; that was one thing the lace curtains of Byron Road would never forgive, no matter how many minibuses Arty bought.

  Kat and Arty Robbins. All this time and I never knew.

  He was a dick. Kat’s own words, a few days ago.

  She wanted a way out.

  Oh God, no. Not Kat …

  What was Arty Robbins doing out in the park that night in the first place? Did someone lure him there? Who could have done that? I don’t think I know anything any more.

  Kat?

  Jesus Christ, what am I thinking? We were teenagers, for God’s sake! She was fifteen. She was my best friend. She couldn’t have done something like that. I’d have known …

  Wouldn’t I?

  All my boyfriends had to be such secrets. You must remember what Mum was like …

  Shit! And what was it Arty said, while I was hiding under Declan’s bed? Your cousin and that trash-mate of yours. Barclay. Where are they? He was looking for her. He knew about Kat and Gary, more than even I did, and he wasn’t looking for him, he was looking for her …

  I bet I know exactly where they are.

  Where did a pair of teenagers go to be alone if there wasn’t an empty house they could use?

  The park.

  I play it out in my head, as much as I know, then filling in the blanks with guesswork. Mum confronts Arty in front of everyone. Maybe she doesn’t name names but she makes sure he understands that she knows exactly what’s going on. Arty flips. Goes after her. Outside the back of the pub, he attacks Mum. Tells her … I don’t know, tells her that if she doesn’t keep her mouth shut, he’ll kill her? I don’t know, I don’t know. Dave comes out and sees it and breaks it up. He and Mum go out to the park to get away from it all; Dad comes out and now he sees them, and it’s all messed up, and they get into a fight that’s nothing to do with Arty Robbins, not really.