by Kevin Brooks
Lucas looked up as I approached. A depth of solitude showed briefly in his eyes – a lifetime of isolation – and then, as he recognised me, he removed the blade of grass from his mouth and his face broke into a warm smile.
‘You look nice,’ he said.
My legs went weak and I nearly fell over. I didn’t know what to say. I just stood there looking at him. His hair was damp, and rings of sweat darkened the armpits of his T-shirt. He put the grass stem back in his mouth and turned his gaze back to the swans.
I sat down next to him.
We didn’t speak for a while.
The creek was dark but clear, like liquid bronze. Sunlight filtered down through the water revealing flat stones and lumps of blackened bog-wood resting on the sand bed, and in the shallows small fish were darting around looking for flies on the surface. Quiet popping sounds punctuated the silence.
Lucas made himself a cigarette. When it was finished he sat there looking at it for a while, rolling it around his fingers, studying its shape, and then he reached up and stuck it behind his ear. He scratched idly at the scar on his wrist.
‘I didn’t mean to be creepy,’ he said.
‘Sorry?’
‘What I said.’
‘When?’
‘Just now – when I said you looked nice. I didn’t mean anything … I just meant you look nice.’
‘I know – it’s all right. Thank you.’
He smiled. ‘You’re welcome.’ He plucked the cigarette from behind his ear and lit it.
I don’t really like smoking. I don’t like the smell of it and I don’t usually like the way it makes people look. It makes them look stupid. And the fact that they think it makes them look cool only makes them look even more stupid. But with Lucas it was different. I’m not sure why. It seemed more natural with him, as if he was doing it purely for his own pleasure. It wasn’t an addiction. It wasn’t an act or an affectation. It was just something he enjoyed now and then. I don’t know why that should have made a difference, but it did. I didn’t even mind the smell too much, either.
‘No Deefer, today?’ he asked.
‘No.’
‘Just walking?’
I looked at him. ‘Actually, I was looking for you.’
His head nodded slightly but he didn’t say anything. He carried on gazing at the swans in the creek. They hadn’t moved since I’d first seen them. They were still at the water’s edge, still motionless, and they were still staring at Lucas.
‘They’re beautiful, aren’t they,’ I said.
Lucas frowned. ‘Do you think so?’
‘They’re so graceful.’
‘I’ve never really liked them that much.’
‘Why not? What’s wrong with them?’
‘There’s nothing wrong with them, I just think they’re a bit ugly, that’s all. Stupid long necks, beady eyes, nasty-looking beaks …’ His mouth creased into a grin. ‘When I was a kid I used to think the beaks were the dangerous bit. I’d read somewhere that swans can break your leg with a single blow of their wing, but somehow it got all muddled up in my mind and I ended up thinking they could break your leg with a single blow of their nose.’
I laughed.
Lucas looked at me, smiling. ‘I sometimes get things muddled up.’
‘It happens to the best of us.’
‘I suppose so.’ He re-lit his cigarette and blew smoke into the air. Then he glanced at the swans again. I saw him make a gentle jerking movement with his head, a sort of sideways nod, and at the same time he mumbled something under his breath. Down at the creek the two swans turned as one and glided off downstream.
I stared after them, quietly bemused. What I’d just seen, or thought I’d seen, didn’t make sense. It wasn’t natural. It wasn’t … it wasn’t important. Strange things happen. It’s a big world, there’s a lot of stuff going on …
I watched the swans as they drifted away into the distance.
When I eventually turned back to Lucas he was studying the end of his cigarette, gazing at the glowing tip as if it was the most fascinating thing in the world.
‘I need to tell you something,’ I said.
He looked at me, his blue eyes calm and clear.
‘You have to leave,’ I said.
‘What – now?’
‘No, I mean you have to leave the island. It’s not safe.’
He laughed quietly.
‘I’m serious,’ I said. ‘I overheard Jamie Tait talking about you. He doesn’t think you should be here.’
‘Really?’
I nodded. ‘That’s why they’re all saying you messed around with the little girl you saved. They’re trying to give you a bad name.’
He smiled. ‘That shouldn’t be too hard.’
I looked at him. Chewing on a piece of grass, idly flicking at flies – he didn’t seem to have a care in the world. ‘Look, Lucas,’ I said. ‘Jamie’s not as stupid as he looks. If he wants to cause trouble for you, he can do it. And he’ll get away with it, too. No one’s going to touch him – his dad’s an MP, his future father-in-law is a policeman—’
‘I know.’
‘Jamie’s got some rough friends.’
Lucas shrugged.
‘I think they might be planning to set you up.’
‘For what?’
‘I’m not sure – something to do with a girl on the beach, I think. Some kind of sex thing …’
‘Sex thing?’
I felt embarrassed. ‘You know what I mean.’
He held my gaze for a moment, then lowered his eyes and looked away without saying anything. I stared at him, trying to read his thoughts, but his face gave nothing away.
I said, ‘They’re coming after you, Lucas.’
‘Who?’
‘Jamie Tait and Lee Brendell. Tomorrow evening, after you’ve finished work at Joe’s place. They’re going to be waiting for you in the lane. I think my brother might be there, too.’
He nodded thoughtfully. ‘I wondered why Joe was so insistent on giving me some work.’
‘Jamie’s father owns his farm. I think they probably twisted his arm.’
‘Or slipped him some cash.’
‘Joe wouldn’t have known what they wanted you for. I mean, he’s not that bad … I’ll give him a ring and explain why you won’t be coming. He’ll understand.’
‘You don’t have to do that.’
‘I don’t mind.’
‘I need the money, Cait.’
‘What do you mean?’
He raised one leg in the air and waggled his foot. ‘I need new boots. Look—’ He picked at a bit of loose leather. ‘These are falling apart.’
‘What? You’re not still going, are you?’
‘I need the cash.’
‘But what about Tait and Brendell? It’s not a game, Lucas. They’re not just messing around. They’re vicious, especially Brendell. You could end up in hospital.’
‘We’ll see.’
I frowned at him. ‘What’s the matter with you? You said you were leaving the island anyway. Why don’t you just get out before it’s too late?’
He looked at me. ‘I thought you wanted me to come to the festival on Saturday?’
‘Of course I do,’ I said. ‘But you won’t be able to come with two broken legs, will you? Look, I can give you some money if you need new boots. I’ll buy you some bloody boots.’
‘You don’t know my size.’
‘Oh, for God’s sake …’
The emotion in my voice surprised me, and I think it surprised Lucas, too. He looked at me for a moment, opened his mouth as if to say something, then thought better of it and looked away. Suddenly the air seemed very still. I wanted to say something … anything. But I couldn’t. I could hardly breathe, let alone speak. The silence was suffocating.
‘Look at me,’ Lucas said eventually.
I looked at him.
He spoke quietly. ‘They can’t hurt me, Cait. It’s as simple as that. They can’t hurt
me, so there’s nothing to be afraid of.’
‘I don’t understand.’
‘Just trust me. It’ll be all right.’
I looked into his eyes. ‘Why? Why can’t they hurt you?’
‘There’s nothing to hurt.’
I couldn’t think of an answer to that, so I just turned away and stared dismally at the ground. A small black beetle was scuttling around in the grass. I watched it, wondering what it was doing and where it was going. Did it have a plan? Did it know what it was doing? Was it thinking about anything? Was it aware of my attention? I doubted it.
‘Don’t be angry,’ Lucas said quietly.
I breathed in slowly, still staring at the ground. I could smell the sweat from his skin. It was a nice smell. Nice and clean and earthy. I looked up. Lucas was smiling at me. He raised his hand to wipe his face, and just for a minute I thought he was going to reach out and touch me, just a friendly pat on the arm or something – but he didn’t.
‘I’d better go,’ I said, getting to my feet. ‘A friend’s coming round to see me. I’m probably late.’
Lucas stood up.
I looked at him again, and for the first time I saw him for what he really was: a small and fragile young boy.
I said, ‘You know what’s going to happen tomorrow, don’t you?’
He nodded.
‘And you don’t care?’
He shrugged. ‘It’s going to happen.’
‘Take care, Lucas.’
‘You too.’
We stood looking at each other for a moment, then I turned around and walked away.
eleven
W
hen I got back, I just had time for a quick shower and a change of clothes before the doorbell rang. I pulled on a clean white T-shirt, hurried downstairs and opened the door. Simon was just reaching up to press the bell again. When he saw me he jerked his hand back and nearly fell off the steps. It was one of those hazy humid evenings when the heat makes the air almost too heavy to breathe, but Simon was dressed as if it was winter. Long black coat, a battered old trilby hat, and a worn-out rucksack slung over his shoulder. Rolls of drawing paper and RSPCA posters were poking out from the top of the rucksack. In the yard behind him, thousands of flying ants were crawling on the walls and launching themselves into the sky, only to be snatched up by clouds of hungry gulls and rooks swooping and circling in the air. I watched them, wondering how the ants knew it was the right day to fly. Was it the heat? The light? The humidity? How did they know? And what would happen if they waited all summer and the right day never arrived?
Simon cleared his throat.
‘Sorry,’ I said, looking at him. ‘I was miles away.’
I stepped back and we went inside.
‘Aren’t you too hot in that?’ I said, nodding at his coat.
‘Not really,’ he mumbled.
I led him into the kitchen.
‘Do you want something to eat?’
‘No thanks.’
‘Do you mind if I do? I’m starving.’
I fixed myself a bowl of salad and some bread and cold chicken, sat down at the table and started scoffing it down. Simon stood there watching me.
‘Thure you don’t want thome?’ I said through a mouthful of bread.
‘No, thanks.’
‘Thuit yourthelf.’
I spent the rest of the evening being equally loathsome. Poor Simon, he did his best – showing me his poster designs, sketching a plan for the stall, talking to me about what we should and shouldn’t sell at the festival – but my heart wasn’t in it. Whenever he tried to get me involved I either said something stupid or I didn’t say anything at all. I was angry, I suppose – angry, confused, and worried. Worried about Lucas, confused about Lucas, angry with Lucas … I know it wasn’t fair to take it out on Simon, and I didn’t really mean to, but I did it anyway. The way I was behaving, it would have been subtler to hang a banner round my neck saying Go Away.
After an hour or so, Simon eventually got the message and started packing away the festival stuff in his rucksack.
‘I’ll get the rest of it sorted out later,’ he said, with an embarrassed smile.
‘Right,’ I said.
After all I’d put him through, I was confidently expecting him to say goodbye and head straight for the front door, so it came as a bit of a shock when he didn’t. Instead, he plonked his rucksack down on the floor and then just stood there looking at me, kind of shuffling around with a bashful grin on his face. I stared at him, thinking to myself – go home, Simon … please … for your own sake … just go home, now, before I get any worse …
But he had no intention of leaving.
I should have taken that as a compliment, I suppose, but I wasn’t in the mood for compliments. I wasn’t in the mood for anything.
The rest of the night went from bad to worse.
We watched television together in bored silence. I sent him out to make me some tea. I showed him photographs of Mum and snapped at him when he asked me about one of her poems. I made him listen to music I knew he didn’t like. And when we went out for a walk in the dark, I pushed him away when he tried to hold my hand.
I was the Girl from Hell.
I hated myself for doing it, but I just couldn’t help it. It was as if there was someone else inside me controlling everything I did, someone who didn’t give a damn about anything. I don’t know where the real me went. Every now and then I heard a voice calling out from somewhere, begging me to think about what I was doing, but it was too far away to have any impact. It was too weak. All I had to do was tell it to shut up and off it went, scuttling back into its hole with its tail between its legs.
The nastier I got, the humbler Simon became – thanking me, apologising to me, being nice to me … and I just lapped it all up. It was almost as if I was trying to see how far I could go, baiting him, seeing how hard I could push him before he snapped.
God … I was terrible.
Thinking about it now makes me cringe with shame.
Why did I do it?
How could I be such a cow?
I don’t know.
I wish I could say that I didn’t know what I was doing, but I did – I knew exactly what I was doing. And that’s what made it so awful.
I’m sorry, Simon.
twelve
I
t thundered during the night. Mostly it rumbled away in the distance, but occasionally it drifted in close and ripped through the sky with a great black roar that shook the walls of the house. The air was hot and heavy, charged with electricity, and my sleep was ravaged with dreams. In one of them there was a room, an enormous bedroom, like a vast and dirty warehouse, with curtained windows and mattresses on the ceiling and a carpet made of pills, and in this gigantic bedroom there was a party going on. Thunderous dance music was blaring out from wall-to-wall speakers and everybody was drinking and smoking and laughing like lunatics. Bright lights were flashing and the whole room was shaking to the music. I was standing alone in the middle of the room looking around at what was going on. In one corner I could see Simon cavorting with Bill and Angel. He was wearing his battered old hat and his long black coat, but underneath the coat he was naked. Bill and Angel were both dolled up in high-heeled boots and sexy underwear and they were crawling all over him, pouting their big red lips as they stroked his hair and pulled at the buttons of his coat. He was pretending to shoo them away, but I could tell he was enjoying it. He kept looking at me, making sure I was watching him. Over by the wall there was a beach area, a stretch of sand that faded away into the wall … but the wall was somehow the sea. It rippled with the movement of waves, and in the distance a bright green powerboat was racing silently across the horizon. Down on the sand a group of young girls in skimpy bikinis were standing round in a semi-circle clapping their hands and laughing at something. I moved to one side to get a better view. I saw two men, both dressed in boots and baggy shorts. One of them was Jamie Tait and the other one was Dominic. Dom
inic was lying face down in the sand and Jamie was sitting on his head. Dominic’s head was half-buried in the sand and his eyes were white.
Then I saw the swans.
There were two of them. They were walking towards me, each as big as a man, with soleless boots flapping on their too-long legs, and cigarettes held in the tips of their wings. Each had a man’s head bobbing on top of their long white necks, and each of the heads was Lucas. I thought at first they were twins, and I wondered for a moment if that’s why he was here, to look for his long-lost twin brother. Then I realised they were both the same person. They were joined in the middle. They only had one pair of wings between them. They were both Lucas. He had two heads. One of them was smiling, but the other one had no mouth at all, just a thin white scar running horizontally beneath his nose … or where his nose should be. For there was no nose, just a bone-black empty socket. And there were no eyes, either. No mouth, no nose, no eyes – just a skin-covered skull.
He was dead.
That’s why they can’t hurt him, I thought. He’s already dead.
And with that thought, the room, and everything in it, disappeared.
I saw a lot of things that night. Some of them I can’t remember and some of them I can’t forget, but all of them are too painful to think about.
By morning the thunder had moved on, leaving the air stale and exhausted. The day felt hungover. Irritable and sluggish. It didn’t want to get going. It was tired. Restless. It had a headache. The sun was out, but its light was cautiously shrouded in mist, and the birds seemed wary of making too much noise. I imagined them tiptoeing around in the trees, whistling quietly among themselves, like little children trying to keep out of their father’s way on the morning after the night before.
I got out of bed and went to the bathroom.
The house felt depressed.
I felt depressed.
There’s nothing worse than realising you’ve done something shameful and knowing there’s nothing you can do about it. I’d treated Simon disgracefully. I’d belittled him, snubbed him, I’d taken his friendship and thrown it in his face. I couldn’t have been more vile. And it didn’t matter how much I regretted it, or how much I apologised for it, nothing could change the fact that I’d done it. My cruelty was indelible. I’d done it. It was done. There was no going back. No going back …