He pulled them out from behind his back, like a bad magician at a children’s party. ‘Not exactly; I thought you might like these.’
It wasn’t the greatest trick in the world, but it still left me speechless. No one had ever given me flowers before. (Dan Lulham bought me a Mars Bar once.)I didn’t know what to say.
‘Bog asphodels,’ said Campbell, holding the posy of delicate yellow flowers under my nose. ‘The Latin name means “weak bones” because farmers thought they were bad for their sheep.’
‘Oh my God, you’re not actually interested in that stuff, are you?’
‘Of course not,’ said Campbell. ‘But you can’t help picking things up, can you?’
He was right there. That Chopin waltz had been running round my head for weeks. ‘If you say so.’
‘So you don’t want them, then?’
‘I didn’t say that. I just . . .’
‘If you put them in water they might perk up a bit.’
I smiled like the Queen as he handed them over. ‘Thanks. They’re really . . .’
But Campbell had already turned to leave.
‘Hang on a minute; where are you going?’
‘I thought you said you wanted to head back.’
‘Yeah, well, I changed my mind, didn’t I? So come on, Cam. Where are you taking me?’
The animals obviously had no difficulty communicating. Their grunts, snuffles and high-pitched chatterings made our own stuttering attempts at conversation all the more obvious.
‘Pigs,’ said Campbell.
‘Eh?’
‘Did you know they can make at least twenty different vocal sounds?’
‘Is that right?’
It wasn’t the greatest chat-up line I’d ever heard, but it was no worse than Dan Lulham’s ‘Do you want to come upstairs and see my Xbox?’
‘They’re intelligent too.’
‘Who are?’
‘Pigs,’ said Campbell. ‘Some guy even taught them to play computer games.’
If Dan Lulham could complete Black Ops in under six weeks, an intelligent pig ought to fly through it. ‘Sorry, Campbell, have you got a thing about pigs or something?’
‘I kind of like them, if that’s what you mean. And I always go and say good night to Winston – especially when there’s something on my mind.’
‘Who’s Winston?’
‘My favourite pig,’ said Campbell. ‘He’s the one with the black eye markings.’
It was the last laugh I had in weeks. ‘There’s a lot I don’t know about you, isn’t there, Cam? Got any more dark secrets up your sleeve?’
‘No . . . No, of course not,’ he said, glancing down at his muddy trainers. ‘Why would you say that?’
‘Calm down, only joking.’
So when was he going to make his move? There were only a few centimetres between us, but it might as well have been the Grand Canyon. By the time we were halfway to Cineworld, Dan Lulham was all over me like icing sugar.
A new and troubling thought popped into my head. What if, ‘Do you want to go for a walk with me tomorrow tonight’, actually meant ‘Do you want to go for a walk with me tomorrow tonight?’ Surely he wasn’t that devious.
‘Campbell?’
‘Yes.’
‘Do you mind if I ask you something?’
‘Yes . . . I mean, no.’ He buried his hands in his pockets. ‘It depends what you want to ask.’
Mum sometimes bribed me to watch Jane Austen movies with her, but they were so full of characters who couldn’t express their feelings that I spent half the time inwardly screaming, ‘For God’s sake, just tell him/her’. Maybe it was harder than I thought.
‘Is this a . . . ?I mean . . .’
He was studying my face as if some enormous zit had erupted.
‘What I mean is, Campbell, is this like a proper date?’
‘Would you like it to be a “proper” date?’
‘Would you like it to be a proper date?’
Campbell stared a little harder. ‘Are you wearing make-up?’
‘Ten out of ten for observation.’
‘You look . . . You look really nice,’ he said, switching his attention to the path ahead. ‘And yes.’
‘Yes what?’
‘Yes, I would like it to be a proper date.’
‘Good,’ I said, doing my best not to sound pathetically relieved. ‘So would I.’
An orangey glow had appeared in the new forest. Earl was roaring the men on to new heights of masculinity.
‘Health and safety would go mental,’ I said. ‘What are they doing down there?’
‘He said he wanted to show them the secret of fire,’ said Campbell grimly.
‘He’s getting worse, isn’t he?’
‘Tell me about it,’ said Campbell, stepping up the pace, like he was late for a train.
‘What’s the hurry?’
‘We won’t be able to hear that lot when we get to the top.’
He was right. The combination of wind, waves and all-night party animals (the delinquent fulmars, a party of sozzled seals on a stag night) practically drowned them out.
‘This way,’ said Campbell, leading me towards one of the granite boulders that lay strewn along the clifftop. ‘We can shelter behind here.’
He stretched out on the soft grass. I lay down next to him, my left hand trailing at my side, so close to him our fingers were almost touching.
His voice was dreamy and strangely breathless. ‘Did you know there are over a hundred billion stars in the Milky Way?’
I so thought he was going to make his move. ‘I suppose this is where you bring all your girls?’
‘No. I mean, I haven’t got any girls. Not that I’ve never . . .’ He squirmed endearingly. ‘This is where I come to think.’
‘That’s a pity,’ I said, turning my face towards him and inwardly screaming, ‘For God’s sake, just kiss me’.
And I swear Campbell’s lips were poised to pounce, when the distant sound of men chanting floated up on the breeze, and he pulled away. ‘I’m sorry, I —’
‘That Earl is such an idiot,’ I said, furious that his juvenile antics had interrupted our first kiss. ‘I mean, he really gets off on it, doesn’t he? Never mind meditation, the guy needs a psychiatrist if you ask me.’
Campbell sat up abruptly, pulling his knees to his chest. ‘He wasn’t always like that.’
‘Eh?’
‘Believe it or not, he actually used to be a pretty OK dad.’
I kneeled beside him, trying to get my head around what he’d just said. ‘Hang on a minute. Are you saying Earl is your dad?’
Campbell nodded.
It was hard to believe it. They were just so different. Apart from the good looks, of course. ‘But how . . . I mean, why . . . I mean, you never said.’
‘You never asked. And anyway, it’s not something I’m particularly proud of right now.’
‘So what happened to him?’
Out on the rocks, the seals were singing a love song. Campbell glared disapprovingly.
‘Come on, Cam. It can’t be that bad.’
‘Want to bet?’ He threw back his head and laughed, but it wasn’t a happy sound. ‘ Want to bet; that’s pretty funny actually.’
‘Stop it, you’re scaring me.’
‘Dad worked in advertising,’ said Campbell, his sad eyes scanning the universe. ‘He fell in love with this place after they shot a hairspray advert here. When the island came up for auction, he said he just had to have it. But he never intended to live here. Mum hates all that hippy stuff.’
‘So why did . . .?’
Somewhere in the last thirty seconds our hands had crept across the grass and jumped on each other.
‘Mum left when it started getting out of control.’
His palm was warm and clammy. ‘What did?’
‘Dad’s online gambling,’ said Campbell. ‘Poker mainly, but he wasn’t fussed in the end. He said it kept him calmer; Mum didn’t se
e it that way.’
‘How come you ended up here?’
‘Believe it or not, Dad’s commune idea actually sounded like it might be just what he needed – no internet and all that. So I said I’d go too.’ Campbell’s face wasn’t exactly screaming ‘happy ending’. ‘He was all right to start with, but that all changed when Kevin died. Well, you’ve seen what he’s like now.’
I gave his hand what I hoped was a reassuring squeeze, but it came out more like, You’re not wrong there. ‘I suppose he is kind of . . .’
Campbell squeezed back. ‘And then I found out . . .’
‘Found out what?’
‘Nothing, nothing, I mean . . . I . . .’ He was like the guy who forgot his lines in Millie’s play, spouting randomness until he chanced gratefully on the right words. ‘I suppose I realised he wasn’t the person I thought he was.’
‘What do you mean?’
‘I don’t know. It was, well . . . another side to him that I’d hardly seen before.’
‘Sounds like my sister.’
Campbell flashed me a relieved smile. ‘Anyway, it’s your turn now, Jess. What brought you to Devil’s Island?’
‘It’s a long story.’
‘That’s OK,’ said Campbell. ‘I’m not going anywhere.’
And very soon we were lying on our backs, our hands entwined, face to face with a hundred billion stars.
‘I suppose I should begin with work experience,’ I said. ‘And guess what? It sucked.’
‘Tell me about it,’ said Campbell.
So I told him about it; all the way from Dad’s shock marriage counselling announcement, right through to our arrival on the island and my sister’s confusing character transplant. And talking about it felt so good that I probably touched on details he really didn’t need to know about: Steve the IT guy’s great taste in music and less than great taste in fiancées, Brian Simkins’ thoughts on the future of the banking industry, the service station breakfast menu, even the ferryman’s chances of flogging a book about a dead horse. Campbell was a good listener, whispering a supportive ‘What a slime-ball’ when I told him about Dan Lulham, squeezing my hand when I got to the part about how much I missed Dad.
And after I’d finished, I suppose I was expecting a few comforting words, not an uncomfortable silence. ‘Come on, Campbell, say something.’
He let go my hand, pushing himself up until he was sitting cross-legged, his face crinkled in thought. ‘Don’t you think it was a bit . . . strange?’
‘You’re telling me,’ I said, lining up next to him like a trainee Buddha. ‘But which part are you talking about? Millie’s non-existent carving project or an IT guy who really wants to be an artist?’
‘I’m probably being really stupid here,’ said Campbell, ‘but I don’t really see why you suddenly took off like that.’
‘I told you. That photograph would have been round the whole school by first break.’
Campbell nodded. ‘Yeah, I mean, I can totally see why you wanted to get away for a bit. But what about your mum? Don’t you think she’d want to stick around to support your dad?’
I’d been thinking up excuses for her ever since we arrived. Now it was time to try them out on Campbell. ‘Maybe they needed some time apart. They weren’t exactly getting on.’
‘So what?’ said Campbell. ‘You should have seen some of the crap my mum put up with before she left. And anyway, you said they were seeing a counsellor; sounds like they were trying to work things out.’
‘Mum just wanted to protect us. Like Millie said, the papers love a banking scandal. This was about the only place no one could get to us.’
‘Mmm,’ said Campbell.
‘What?’
‘Well, I just . . .’ He drummed on his knees, like he was playing the bongos. ‘Maybe you should talk to your sister.’
‘You think I haven’t tried?’
‘Maybe you should try harder. If she’s changed as much as you say she has, there’s got to be a reason for it.’
Of course there had. I just wasn’t sure I wanted to hear about it. ‘OK. Next time I —’
‘Come on,’ said Campbell, jumping to his feet and offering me a hand up. ‘I really think you should do this.’
‘You mean now?’
‘Wouldn’t it be better to get it over with?’
‘What about our date?’
He still had hold of my hand. I so didn’t want him to let go.
‘There’ll be plenty more dates, Jess. At least, I hope so. Look, I don’t want to come over all Dawdler on you, but we’ve got all the time in the world to get to know each other. Come on, I’ll walk you back if you like.’
‘No,’ I said, reluctantly reclaiming my hand. ‘Look, I will talk to her, but I need more time to think. Why don’t you go and say goodnight to Winston? I’ll stay here for a bit.’
Campbell shrugged. ‘OK, if that’s what you really want. I’ll say . . . goodnight, then.’
The next bit should have been so easy, but we were both too chicken to step into the few centimetres of No Man’s Land that separated us.
‘We should do this again sometime,’ I said.
‘I’d like that,’ said Campbell.
‘And thanks for the flowers, they’re . . .’ I’d clutched them so tightly they were drooping inconsolably. ‘ . . . lovely.’
Campbell backed slowly into the shadows. ‘Good luck with your sister, Jess. I really hope you get some answers.’
If I paced the cliffs any longer, my feet would carve out a permanent memorial.
Campbell was right; I should go talk to my sister.
Of course it was strange. I’d known that all along. Why would Mum just take off like that? OK, so she and Dad were going through a bad patch. That didn’t mean we had to drive off in the middle of the night and abandon him.
But my talent for self-delusion was almost heroic. I’d accepted their lame explanations because I was too scared to think of the alternatives.
What were they hiding? More to the point, did I really want to know? Every time Millie hinted at something, I always backed off.
Dad once told me I should never be afraid of the truth. That was easy for him to say. Right at that moment it was the last thing I wanted to do.
But I couldn’t stay on the clifftop forever. Even the wind was telling me to woman up and stop making feeble excuses. If Millie really knew something, it was time to find out.
Her Fearful Symmetry
It must have been past midnight when I climbed through the entrance hatch, hoping in my palpitating heart that both of them were asleep. The connecting tube to Mum’s room was pitch-black, but the flickering light at the end of the other tunnel meant only one thing. I muttered my expletive of choice and crawled towards it.
The ‘vision’ slowly materialised as my eyes grew accustomed to the light. She was sitting on the bed, a Mona Lisa smile hovering about her lips. At first, it felt kind of positive that she’d dumped her black sweatshirt on the floor. She wore that thing everywhere, even in bed. The pale blue T-shirt that once bore the slogan Girls just want to have fun was a massive improvement.
And then I saw what she was doing.
But Millie didn’t see me; she was far too busy concentrating on her work, the knife poised in her tight white fist. It certainly answered one question anyway. I knew now what she’d been carving.
Herself.
My sister’s once perfect arms were an abstract masterpiece of angry red lines.
But you know what was really scary? Even in her darkest hour, she hadn’t forsaken the Golden One’s passion for symmetry. Both arms matched perfectly.
The Bad Thing
‘What are you doing?’
She didn’t even bother to come up with an implausible explanation. ‘What does it look like?’
I grabbed hold of the chest of drawers and tried not to black out. ‘But why?’
‘Because it makes me feel better,’ said Millie.
The naus
ea died when the anger took over. ‘What, are you stupid or something? How can . . . hurting yourself make you feel better?’
‘It’s what I do when it all gets too much.’
‘I know what self-harming is Amelia. Done the role-play, got the T-shirt. I just can’t believe you’d be so selfish.’
‘Selfish?’ she whispered, gently weeping, like her freshly cut wounds. ‘You don’t know anything.’
Part of me wanted to comfort her, but the words spewed up from a reservoir of resentment deep inside. ‘I know you’ve been a complete pain in the arse since we got here. Well, if you ask me, it’s pathetic. The first bad thing that ever happened to the Golden One and you just can’t hack it, can you? You think you’re hard done by; what about the rest of us? Have you never stopped to think what all this is doing to Mum? And I can’t even begin to imagine how Dad must feel.’
She rose slowly from the bed, looking me up and down like I was the lunatic, not her. ‘Please don’t make me do this, Jess.’
‘Do what?’
She dropped the knife.
I dropped the flowers.
She opened her mouth. Not one sound emerged.
‘Right, that’s it. I’m telling Mum.’
‘No, don’t,’ said Millie, swooping for her sweatshirt. ‘She’s got enough to worry about.’
‘Oh come on, Mills,’ I said, my anger swiftly dissolving into confusion. ‘I can’t just forget about it. What’s Mum going to say when she finds out?’
She’d already shrouded the evidence in black cotton. ‘She doesn’t need to find out.’
‘I don’t know . . . I’m not sure, I mean . . .’ The pod started spinning, like something out of an ancient sci-fi movie. ‘If Dad was here, things would be different. He’d know exactly what to do.’
‘You are joking, of course.’
‘You’ve got stop this, Millie. It’s been tough on all of us, but you can’t keep blaming Dad.’
‘Yes I can,’ she said. ‘You really don’t know the first thing about him, do you?’
‘I know he’s not incompetent for a start. Brian said he was the best analyst he’d ever worked with. It’s not Dad’s fault if something went wrong with that Russian deal.’
Millie’s laugh was a cross between the canned, American sitcom variety and an evil genius about to reveal her master plan. ‘God, you’re naive. Do you honestly think Mum would have dragged us off to the middle of nowhere if it was just about a couple of billion quid?’
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