by Kate Simants
She unfolds one, hides her face in it, forces herself to breathe slowly.
Then she remembers the letters.
She looks around her, wildly trying to locate them. He’s holding her bag, and she lurches out at him to get to it.
‘Woah,’ he says, handing it to her. Everything is already packed back in. ‘You all right?’ He opens the cab door and helps her inside.
‘I’m sorry. Fuck. What a m-m-mess.’
James gets in next to her and puts a hand on her arm. ‘Don’t. It’s OK.’ He instructs the driver to take her home first, and they pull away.
She forces a few deep breaths and gets herself under some kind of control. ‘This is basically the most unprofessional night of my entire career. It’s the wine, I’m so sorry.’
‘Is it?’ He laughs softly. ‘That looked like more than just the wine.’
She doesn’t know this man. But it is delicious, the proximity of that release. What would it be like, to just be honest with someone?
‘Is it about the baby, Wren? Or Paige?’
Like breathing air after a lifetime underwater.
Shut up, Wren, she tells herself. She tightens her jaw. Just shut up.
24
Before
Leah’s got her own place. Got it pretty much the day she turned sixteen, said she got lucky having a social worker who reckoned she was OK to leave care, get direct payments, the lot. And fair play because she’s doing all right, and she’s doing this part-time thing at college learning how to look after little kids. Her flat’s not far from Beech View but Luke came on Cameron’s bike. He didn’t ask to borrow it, so Cameron’s going to go mental. Luke thinks about that for a second, and finds that he doesn’t give a fuck.
Luke and Leah, they’re standing in the kitchen end of her bedsit, waiting for the water to boil in the saucepan on the cooker. She hasn’t got a kettle.
‘I’ve got some of those little packets of hot chocolate, want one?’ she asks. He nods, and she opens a cupboard and digs around for them. Calls out to Paige on the sofa, ‘Hot chocolate?’
‘Low fat?’ Paige wants to know.
Leah finds a packet, reads both sides. It’s just the normal kind, but she pulls a whatever face at Luke.
‘Yeah!’ she calls back, grinning at him.
‘Go on, then.’
Luke loves being at Leah’s. It’s easy.
‘They had them in the waiting room when I went for the interview,’ she says, tearing it open. She tells him about her new job; it’s kind of waitressing but in an old people’s home so sometimes she has to feed them as well. ‘Which is bollocks really,’ she says, pouring on the water. ‘It’s not what they said I’d be doing. But no one else wants to do it and I’m not going to let the old fuckers starve, am I?’
‘Thanks,’ he says, taking the mug and blowing.
She leans back against the worktop, staring out the window. ‘One girl there, she says she’s not spooning anything into anyone’s mouth for the money we get. And it’s not even like she needs the money. Lives with her parents, spends the whole lot in bloody Topshop. But,’ she says, heading over to the sofa, ‘they’ll have to pay me more when I’m seventeen. I’ll probably be able to live off it then.’
She puts a mug in front of Paige, who’s been brushing her hair for the last ten minutes, looking like she’s a million miles away. Luke had messaged Leah and she’d said he could come over after school because she was on earlies. He thought he’d have her to himself because Paige would be swimming, but she was already there when he turned up. He hadn’t seen her at school.
Paige lays the hairbrush down and picks up her mug. As she brings it to her lips, her cuff slips and there on her wrist is this delicate little silver watch. Luke frowns at it, and Paige, realising what he’s looking at, glances at Leah, who’s trying to dig something out of the back of the sofa. Not meeting his eye, Paige unclips the strap and stuffs it in her pocket.
‘Got it,’ Leah says, yanking out the Grand Theft Auto IV disc. She loads it up, sinks back into the sofa, and gives him that look, warm but waiting. ‘What’s up then, Lukey? You just come down to scrounge my hot chocolate, or what?’
He looks into his mug. He’d wanted to talk to her, but he can’t now Paige is here. He starts talking about getting sent out of maths earlier but it trails off.
There’s a silence, until Leah says, gentle as mist, ‘Paige said you got in some trouble with the home staff.’ He flinches and reddens, says nothing. ‘All right,’ Leah says. She passes him a controller for the knackered old PS3. ‘Maybe you just came over for some company, then.’
‘I don’t like being on my own, either,’ Paige says vaguely, brushing again.
‘Yeah, well. Good job you’re so friendly, isn’t it?’ he says, and if she doesn’t spot the anger in his voice she’s as stupid as she is fucking beautiful. ‘You’re getting plenty of company.’
Paige puts the mug down. Leah eyes both of them. She loves a barney, Leah, loves winding people up, but she’s not smiling.
‘What’s that supposed to mean?’ Paige says, looking at the floor.
And it gives Luke courage. He knows he’s right about Polzeath. Something is going on.
‘You’re not exactly discreet.’
Leah gives Paige this look like what the fuck? Luke watches whatever it is passing between them.
‘You going to tell us what’s going on, Paige?’ he says. What he means is, please, please tell me you’re not fucking him. Please.
Leah places her mug very carefully on the table that she’s covered in photos of random stuff she’s cut out of a magazine. Then she slaps her legs and gets up. ‘I’m going for a fag,’ she says.
Frowning, Luke points at the ashtray literally right there in the middle of the table, noticing the empty pack of Lambert & Butler, folded up into a cube like how Rob does it.
Leah says, ‘Yeah, but—’ and she glances at Paige, who flashes her a warning.
‘What’s going on?’ Luke asks.
Leah, suddenly cheerful, says, ‘Passive smoking – don’t want you getting cancer as well,’ even though she’s never cared before.
‘I’ve given up,’ Paige says to the table.
Leah looks from Paige to Luke and back again, and then she leaves the room. They hear her footsteps on the metal stairs down to the ground floor.
Paige and Luke talk at the same time.
‘Look I wasn’t spying on you but—’
‘It’s not what you think, Luke—’
Paige laughs nervously, and he doesn’t get why she’s not angry with him. He’s basically just admitted to stalking her.
Paige clears her throat. ‘What did you see, Lukey?’
He shrugs. He can’t look at her. ‘Enough,’ he says.
‘Whatever you think you saw, just forget it.’ She says it like she’s trying to be tough. It doesn’t work.
‘No,’ he says flatly.
She sighs. ‘Please. Just… just leave it.’
‘Leave what, though?’ He picks up the fag-packet cube and turns it over in his hand. ‘You’re going to have to tell me.’
She sighs. ‘It’s none of your business.’
No. He’s not having it. He reruns what he saw the night before, Polzeath’s paws on her. What is he, forty-five? Fifty? Older?
She brings her knees up, holds on to them. Her bare arms, still tanned from the summer, but still skinny despite the swimming. And out of nowhere, a picture in his head: holding one of those arms in both hands and snapping it like a twig.
He grits his teeth and it goes away. He says, ‘Why are you doing it?’
‘I don’t want to talk about it.’ There’s a sadness on her face that he’s never seen before. The answer swirls out at him, wraps itself around him.
She cares what he thinks of her.
‘I can save you,’ he says. He didn’t mean it to come out.
Her forehead knots and then she smiles. ‘Save me from what?’
; ‘Him.’
She shakes her head. ‘It’s not like that, Luke. It’s—’
‘Please don’t fucking say it’s complicated.’
‘Well, it is.’
Luke can’t believe what he’s hearing. It’s like they’re not even having the same conversation, or like she’s been brainwashed. ‘But he’s forcing you into—’
‘He’s not! We—I know what I’m doing, all right? Just leave it.’
‘I’ll tell someone. Mel. You don’t have to do this, Paige.’
‘Luke, don’t. Just forget it.’
The sound of the door opening behind them, but he doesn’t turn. Panic in Paige’s eyes. She’s said something she shouldn’t have said.
‘Paige,’ says a voice from the doorway. Luke turns.
It’s Rob. Rob, here. Luke opens his hand: it was Rob who made the fag-packet cube. And Leah, standing just behind him. Paige takes her chance and darts out of the door, followed by Rob, who just gives Luke this little raised-eyebrow look that says, yeah, what you going to do about it?
And all Leah does is stand aside to let them go.
Leah’s going to the warehouse, and she talks Luke into going. She can see how fucked off he is about Rob showing up.
‘Come on,’ she says, pulling on her coat. ‘We’ll have a spliff, clear your head.’
He’s so churned up he thinks what the hell, why not. He gives her a backy on the bike all the way, and she clings on round his waist. He tries to pretend it’s Paige, but then he gets hard so he stops, willing it to go away.
They found the warehouse months ago, and it’s basically theirs, no one else goes there. He can’t quite remember the way but Leah shouts directions until he recognises where he is – the Feeder Road out to the Avon, the bridge, then the secret route in. There’s an alley between two metal fences and it stinks of piss but the weeds are knee-high and blooming with bright blue flowers. He thinks of his mum, and he wishes he could show her.
He rolls to a stop by the chained-up gate and looks up. It’s one of those big brick places – they call it the warehouse but it could have been a factory or anything, they don’t know. Beyond the fence there’s a massive open entrance, a load of twisted rusty junk outside, like it vomited all its rubbish and no one got round to clearing it up.
They find the loose bit and climb through, darting across the scrub before anyone sees them. Loads of signs tell them how dangerous it is.
‘Fuck me it’s dark in here,’ Leah says as soon as they’re inside. They stand there blinking for a minute, getting used to it, then they make their way up. It’s got these creaky as fuck steps that you have to be really careful on.
‘Remember last time?’ she says, laughing, heading over to the steps. Her voice echoes in the emptiness.
‘Still get the nightmares,’ he says, adding, ‘you bitch.’
Last time, Paige had been there too, and the two girls had scared the shit out of him pretending to fall. Quite high up there’s a whole step missing and the board underneath it is smashed too so it’s basically an open hole. Bolted into the wall under the broken section of stairs is this big iron grid thing. It turned out Paige and Leah had spent an afternoon seeing if they could drop down to make it look to anyone above them like they’d fallen, when actually they were just hanging on, ready to climb or drop down the last bit.
At the broken step, Leah pauses and looks down.
Luke’s right behind her. ‘You could seriously die falling down there,’ he says as he comes to the gap.
‘You could, maybe. Me and Paige are little mountain goats though, aren’t we?’ She laughs, and he holds her arms and pretends to give her a shove, making her scream. ‘Stop it!’
He lets her go first, then clings to the scaffolding pole bolted to the wall and steps carefully around it. He has to almost stretch into the splits to do it.
They go up, and the door to the roof is stiff with rust but Leah shoulder-barges it and then they’re out. The sun is going down, a messy riot of orange that turns everything in front of it to silhouettes.
Leah goes right over to the edge and stretches out her arms. She turns, her back to the drop, and grins at him. ‘Let’s sit on the edge.’
‘No chance,’ Luke says. Even standing several metres back like he is now is making his knees forget how to lock. He goes over to the raised bit he prefers, where some kind of vent that’s a good height for sitting on sticks up against the flat roof. You get all of the view but you don’t feel like you’re going to die any second.
She follows him, sits, and gets her tin out of the little fabric bag she takes everywhere with her.
‘What you need is a bit of a calm down,’ she says, opening the tin.
Luke watches her unpack the little box: baccy, Rizla, resin.
He chooses his words carefully. ‘Is she seeing him, then?’
She keeps her eyes on the papers, sticking two together with a lick. ‘I think that’s her business, isn’t it?’
‘Just asking. Wondering if, you know. Paige likes him.’
She sighs. ‘Luke. Rob’s a mate. There’s nothing to get paranoid about.’
‘Would you tell me?’
‘Course I would,’ she says, winking. But it’s got to be a lie because Paige and Leah are close like that. Even though Leah’s older. They knew each other from before, Paige told him ages ago. Back when Leah was still in care.
In Luke’s head, the veins of it connect. Leah had been in a home in Burnham-on-Sea. The one the Polzeaths ran.
Keeping it casual he says, ‘What was it like when you were in care, Leah?’
She laughs. ‘What do you think? It was shit.’
‘Like what, the staff?’
She rolls a tube of card for a roach, shrugging like he’s stating the obvious. ‘Everything. The house was a dump, the staff mainly couldn’t give a fuck, the other kids were mental – usual shit. Same as what you’ve got, probably.’
‘And the owners?’
‘Didn’t see them much, but yeah,’ she says, dismissing it. ‘They were pretty bad. I stayed out of their way. Same owners as you’ve got. That arsehole Polzeath. All about the money.’
‘Oliver?’ He frowns like the judgement is a surprise to him, like he thought he was an OK guy.
‘That’s him. There was this one girl, it’s a really sad story actually. She was his little favourite. Probably shouldn’t say this but she came off like she thought she was better than the rest of us. Used to see her and Polzeath having these private chats all the time; he’d ferry her about. Fucking creepy,’ she says, arranging the tobacco in the V of the paper.
‘Do you think he was – you know?’
‘Screwing her?’ She holds the little block of resin, puts the lighter to it. ‘Hell of a risk if he was.’ The brown block crumbles between her fingers onto the waiting tobacco. She runs the tip of her tongue along the glue line and rolls the whole thing shut. ‘Honestly though, I don’t know. We weren’t close.’
‘So why was it sad?’
‘She topped herself,’ she says simply.
‘Seriously?’
‘Yep. Shit, innit?’ She inspects the joint and puts it between her lips, lights up, takes a drag and says, ‘Makayla, her name was. Slater.’
Luke stares at her. ‘She have a brother?’ he asks. Because Fat Jake’s surname is Slater.
She frowns. ‘Yeah. I think she did. He was in a different kids’ home.’
Shit, Luke thinks. Poor Jake. The kid’s a total twat, but still. Shit.
‘Did she kill herself because of him? Polzeath?’
Leah shrugs. ‘Don’t know. Maybe.’ She takes another pull, holds it in, hands the spliff to Luke. ‘Why are you so interested?’
Luke says he’s not, just asking. He takes a deep pull of smoke, holds it in his lungs as he passes it back to her. It’s strong, but he doesn’t cough. He lets it snake out into his blood, feels it sparking up the cells of his skin and it’s like he’s coming alive. When he opens his eyes
, Leah’s grinning at him. But he’s not ready to let go, not just yet.
‘I’m going to kill him.’
‘Who, Polzeath?’ Leah gapes at him, then she cracks up. ‘For what?’
‘I mean it.’
‘Fuck’s sake, Lukey. You don’t half take stuff seriously.’ She leans over and puts the joint back in his mouth. ‘Forget I said anything. He’s a bit of a creep, he’s got a big ego and a fat wallet and he can seem like a dick. He’s not Adolf fucking Hitler.’
He makes himself laugh then and says, ‘All right, fine.’ But it’s not fine. It’s like the world’s just tipped up and no one else has noticed. What’s he actually supposed to do, just sit there?
They all think that’s what’s going to happen. That he’ll shut up and stay out of it, because he’s just a kid and if she wants to whore herself out for pocket money, she can.
They’re wrong.
25
Now
‘He’s going to kill me for giving this to you,’ Leah Amberley mumbles as Wren lifts the second cardboard box out of the boot of a borrowed car and into the back of Suzy’s battered Kangoo. Her own car is in the garage, being looked at by another of Suzy’s legion of cousins.
‘You’re not giving it to me. I’m delivering it straight to him.’
‘Without dicking around with it?’
Wren lifts a corner of a cardboard flap. ‘Leah. I’ve got better things to do with my time than go through his old pants and,’ she pulls out an electrical cord, ‘clippers, or whatever.’
‘Yeah, well. He’s still going to bollock me.’
Wren’s head is pounding from the wine the night before, and the fumes from the dual carriageway next to them aren’t helping her nausea one bit. It’s barely past dawn, so she hasn’t even been able to properly sleep it off, but this is more important than nursing a hangover. She hadn’t expected the call that quickly – Leah had already said she wouldn’t be able to get hold of Rob’s stuff for another week or so. But the grandad had been unwell and cut his holiday short, and she’d gone round to see him as soon as he’d got back last night.