She points to me, and the smaller of the two sticks his tongue out at me before flashing a gap-toothed grin.
‘You look very impressive,’ says a voice behind me.
It’s Ed, unselfconscious in his swimming trunks. He pulls his goggles down over his head, and just as I’m about to say something – or think of something to say – one of the twins pipes up.
‘Is that your boyfriend?’
‘Shh, boys,’ says their mother. Her hair – damp from the heat of the pool – is falling in her eyes, and she swipes a lock of it back behind her ear.
‘Why don’t you two come and sit over here on the side with me and wait for the others,’ I say, and my voice sounds a lot firmer than it feels.
The mum gives me a look of such gratitude that I feel sorry for her. At least she’s getting half an hour off now, even if she’s got to sit in the tiny, crowded spectator section with the rest of the baking-hot, totally harassed swimming-lesson parents.
‘Can we get in now?’
Demon twin #1 – the gap-toothed one – gets up from the ledge where they’re supposed to sit and wait, and darts towards the edge of the shallow end.
‘No!’ I say, and I raise a finger in warning. ‘Sit down there right now, or you’ll be on the side for the whole lesson.’
There’s a split second when I think Oh God, he’s going to burst into tears, but then he shuffles his bum back on the ledge so he’s leaning against the wall and crosses his arms, looking mutinous.
‘Excellent work,’ says Cressi from behind me. ‘I can see you’re going to be a natural at this.’
And it turns out that I love it. I know Cressi, so I realize her bark is far sharper and more terrifying than her bite, but the children don’t – so they’re on their best behaviour. She’s kind and funny, with a sense of humour so dry that it goes right over the head of most of the children in the lessons, and a good number of the parents too. We have the tiny ones holding on to floats and kicking, and I manage to get Amelia (‘Tears before bedtime, that one,’ Cressi says under her breath to me as she approaches for the five o’clock lesson) to let go of the side of the pool and try floating on her back.
I’m concentrating so hard that I even forget that Ed’s in the pool – until, that is, Cressi nudges me and points to him as he powers down the fast lane, arms slicing through the water effortlessly.
‘You didn’t tell me your friend Edward was a pro.’
We watch as he hits the end, disappears for a few seconds as he executes a perfect tumble turn, and emerges halfway down the pool.
‘I didn’t know.’
I realize afterwards, as I’m rubbing my hair dry with a towel, that he might still be swimming. It’s not like we made any arrangements to meet up afterwards, or anything, but . . . I have a look around the changing room and realize he’s half leaning, one leg crossed over the other, by the side of the lockers.
He looks up from his phone and smiles. ‘Are you done?’
‘I am,’ I say. ‘I was just looking for you.’
A dimple flickers in his cheek when I say that, and I realize in that second that maybe – just maybe – he’s not as super confident as he appears to be.
‘And here I am.’
‘And here you are.’
‘It’s boiling. Shall we go and get a drink or something?’
I nod.
Cressi is in the foyer as we open the door from the changing rooms, and the cool air hits me in the face.
‘See you later, Holls,’ she says. And she looks at Ed for a second. ‘Pretty impressive swimming there, young man.’
Ed ducks his head. ‘Thanks.’
I walk along the high street with Edward, heading for the pound shop. It’s the strangest feeling being here. We’re only three miles from home, and it’s familiar – we’ve been coming here since I can remember to catch the train into Edinburgh and to go to the little book shop. But, at the same time as it’s familiar, it reminds me of the feeling of being on holiday – I can let my guard down, because I don’t have to worry that someone from school’s going to turn up and start taking the piss out of my clothes or my general existence.
Despite earlier, Ed seems quite relaxed too. We grab drinks and a packet of Oreos from the shop – I offer him a pound, but he shakes his head.
‘It’s fine,’ he says. ‘You can get them next time.’
As we walk out of the shop, I catch a glimpse of myself in the glass of the door. There’s a smile I can’t hide at the thought of there being a ‘next time’.
It’s still really hot, even though it’s late – almost seven – and the shadows are lengthening. We walk down the stonewalled path to the canal and sit by the water’s edge on one of the wooden picnic benches, facing each other. The sunlight flashes and dapples on the canal, reflecting the sky and the branches of the willow trees that hang down, reaching as if they’re trailing their fingers in the water. The bench smells of hot-baked wood, and I run my fingers across it, feeling the grain, which has been smoothed out after years of weathering. It’s one of my favourite places to sit, but normally I’m here alone.
‘I’d better just text my mum,’ I say, realizing as I do that I sound about twelve. I pull my phone out of my jeans pocket and remember there’s no credit on it. I’ll have to use the borrow-a-quid thing.
‘Me too.’ Ed mirrors my movements, and as we’re both typing he looks up for a second at the same time as I do, and he catches my eye.
‘She worries,’ he explains.
‘Mine does too.’
‘I keep trying to point out that I’m six foot one and hardly likely to be abducted, but she’s convinced that every time I go out someone’s going to try and lure me away to see their puppies.’
‘Mine has a broken ankle.’ I don’t add that, actually, it’s not really her that worries – although she does, just not about things like that – it’s me. I’ve sent a text saying Just out of swimming. Won’t be long. Is everything OK? and I’m trying to remind myself that she’s probably just drinking tea and her phone’s out of reach.
I put my phone back in my pocket and pull open the packet of Oreos, extract one, and begin to dismantle it, twisting it round so it splits in two. I am about to lick the filling off the biscuit when I realize that maybe that’s a bit gross, but –
‘That’s how I eat them too.’ Ed reaches across to the packet, grabs a biscuit and twists it apart.
He raises his eyebrows at me.
‘Terrible manners,’ he says, laughing as he hands me the other half of his cookie.
Together, sitting by the water as the ducks splash and potter in the canal, and the willow branches sway in the breeze, we deconstruct all the cookies, and talk, and it’s strangely not uncomfortable.
‘How come Cressida is so posh?’
It’s my turn to raise my eyebrows. Ed’s accent is not exactly the usual for round here.
‘How come you can tell she’s posh when you’re so posh yourself?’
‘I’m not. I just went to school in Edinburgh. Everyone there sounded the same. I think it’s because half the parents are English.’
He says all that in his posh accent, which makes me want to laugh, but then I think about the boys hanging around outside the pool and how Allie gets picked on for sounding weird, and I realize that maybe he doesn’t need to be reminded of that.
‘Cress is English,’ I explain. ‘She moved up here when her husband got a job transfer. He’s in the army or something, I think.’
She’s sort of comfortably terrifying. If you were in trouble, I get the feeling that Cress would sort it out in no time, in her no-nonsense, efficient sort of way. Then afterwards she’d bollock you for being an idiot, and you’d try harder next time. If all teachers were like her, I think school would be bearable. Almost.
‘That explains the sergeant-major effect.’ Ed grins.
His teeth are white and straight, and I wonder if he’s had a brace. Mine are almost straight, but my front teeth
cross over a little bit. Not enough to justify a brace, the dentist said, but enough that I notice perfect teeth in other people.
I want to ask him about that, and everything.
‘Why don’t you teach at the pool in Kilmuir?’
I glance away for a second and then fiddle with the friendship bracelet on my wrist, spinning it round. ‘I just . . .’
‘S’alright,’ says Ed. ‘I just wondered.’
‘No, it’s just . . . it’s a bit like living in a goldfish bowl, and it’s nice to escape sometimes.’
He nods, his mouth turning down at the edges, his face thoughtful. ‘Yeah. That’s why I like swimming.’
‘Me too.’
‘When you’re in there, counting breaths, thinking about your strokes, there’s no room to think about all the other shit.’
There’s a second where his face is unreadable and he looks blank, before he shakes his head.
‘Sorry – don’t mean to go all deep and meaningful on you.’
‘I know what you mean.’
There’s a moment where neither of us says anything, and we both look out at the canal. It’s a bit awkward – well, it feels it to me, anyway, because I don’t really make a habit of talking about how I feel about stuff. But it’s strange and nice that he feels the same way about swimming as I do. Cressi has spent years trying to persuade me to join the team, but it’s not about other people for me – it’s the opposite.
‘D’you want another? I’m always starving after swimming.’ Ed pushes the Oreo packet across the table and three of them roll away like chocolate wheels. He reaches out and catches them, handing two to me and twisting the third apart and eating it.
My phone buzzes in my pocket and I pull it out.
Don’t rush back if you’re having fun.
Mum always says that. The thing is, I always do, anyway, because I’m worried that she’s not OK.
I watch as a raft of ducks swims past – teenage, half-grown ducklings following their parents – and I remember a time when I didn’t worry all the time about what my mum was doing.
‘Everything OK?’ Ed says, apparently noticing my distraction.
I nod, and we both reach for a biscuit at the same time so our hands touch. There’s a feeling in my stomach like I just swooped underwater for a second, and I feel a catch in my breath. Ed cocks his head to one side and takes the Oreo from the packet.
He twists it apart and lays both halves on his upturned palm, stretching it out towards me.
‘We can share it.’
The corners of his eyes crinkle up when he smiles. He rakes a hand through his hair, which has dried now and is flopping, dark and wavy, over his forehead.
I have never felt like this while eating a cookie. That’s a sentence, I think to myself, that I never thought I’d hear.
Ed shoves the whole biscuit in his mouth sideways on, then puts a hand over his mouth. ‘God, sorry,’ he says, pulling a mock-horrified face. He takes his hand away.
‘You’ve got –’ I motion to my own face, quoting the packaging – ‘delicious vanilla-flavoured filling on you.’
‘Where?’
‘On your nose.’
‘Where on my nose?’ Ed’s laughing as he leans forward across the table towards me.
‘Here,’ I say, tapping the left side of my nose with my finger. He brushes at the right side of his, as if we were mirror images.
‘No,’ I say, and I reach across and brush it off with a finger, and I can feel my cheeks going scarlet. ‘There.’
His eyes meet mine for a second, and the same feeling of swooping underwater hits me right in the depths of my stomach. I look away towards the canal, and there’s a sudden flurry as a tiny moorhen dives under the surface in a rainbow of splashes hit by sunlight.
Ed’s phone buzzes, and he pulls it out of his pocket. It’s the third time in the last ten minutes, but he’s been ignoring it until now.
‘Shit,’ he says, looking at the screen. ‘I’m going to have to go.’
‘You OK?’
‘Yeah.’ He shoves his phone back in his pocket after tapping a quick reply. ‘It’s just . . . It’s nothing really.’
I pick up my bag and push the strand of hair that always comes loose from my ponytail back behind my ear.
Ed picks up the Oreo packet and crushes it in his hand, tossing it into the bin as we walk past and back up the lane to the high street. He’s biting his lip and frowning. His stride is long – I manage to keep up, but we’re walking fast, as if he’s late for something. I check my phone for the time, realizing that I’ve just missed the bus and there’s probably not another one for half an hour.
As we emerge from the gloom of the tree-shaded lane and through the passageway between the shops, a small red car hurtles to a stop in front of us. The side door is flung open.
‘Where the bloody hell have you been?’
I can’t see inside because the long shadows cast the person in the driver’s seat into darkness, but they are clearly Not Impressed. Ed leans down and folds the front seat forward. He throws his bag in the back seat and turns to look at me, an awkward expression on his face.
‘Sorry, my mum – she’s a bit—’
‘Edward.’ The voice from the car is flat and angry. I recognize that tone. Pissed-off parent is pretty much universal.
‘It’s fine – don’t worry.’ I look across the street and realize the bus must be late – it’s turning round in the supermarket car park. If I run, I can make it.
‘I wanted to . . .’ He reaches into his back pocket, pulling out a blue Sharpie.
‘We need to go,’ says Ed’s mum from the car. ‘Now.’
‘Give me your hand.’
He takes my left hand and scribbles his number on it. He shoves his hair back from his face again, and for a second the stressed-out look on his face is replaced with a smile.
‘Just in case you’ve got any spare Oreos you want eaten.’
I let my hand drop down to my side as he folds himself into the impossibly tiny space in the front seat and slams the door shut. The little red car hurtles off, and it somehow looks as furious as his mother sounds.
CHAPTER NINE
When I walk into the common room the next day, Allie looks up, grins at me and shoves her chair sideways with a clatter of metal on tiles.
‘All right?’
It’s like clearing the crap in our house is making space for all sorts of things. The world feels brighter and less claustrophobic. I feel less invisible. Maybe it’s because Cressi’s filled the cupboards with food, and the washing’s up to date, and my uniform smells of bluebell-and-lavender fabric conditioner (‘Don’t worry about the Tesco order,’ she said when it all arrived at the door – there was tons of stuff, and it must have cost a fortune).
We sit and talk and laugh with Rio until the bell goes for form, and as we’re leaving the common room, Allie says, ‘D’you want to come out this evening? I’m going to Rio’s place.’
I open my mouth to say no, I can’t, I have to get back. But something stops me. And, in that second, I make a decision.
‘Yes.’ And I smile at her. A proper, open, let’s-be-friends sort of smile. And the world seems to get a tiny bit bigger in that moment.
Allie lifts the metal bolt on the wooden gate that leads to Rio’s house. We’re in a meadow full of wildflowers, and as we walk I run my hands along the tops of the grasses, feeling them tickling my palms. It smells green and floral. Blue cornflowers are everywhere, and the whole place feels busy with bees and wildlife humming industriously. He told me at lunch that he can’t stand living out here, but I think it’s perfect. The path to the house is cut roughly with an old-fashioned hand mower, which is balancing against a pile of wood beside their cooking hut.
‘Hello, you two.’ A man with a grey-streaked beard appears. He’s wearing a pair of faded old jeans, covered with rainbow splashes of paint, his curly hair sticking up untidily.
He cups a hand to his mo
uth, yelling in the direction of the field beyond. ‘Ri!’
Rio walks out of the glass doors of their strange wooden house. It’s shaped almost like an upside-down wooden boat, only with huge glass windows at the front. He’s dressed in a new shirt, still creased in the lines where it’s come out of the packet, and his hair is gelled into sharp, neat spikes.
‘You look –’ his dad’s eyebrows lift momentarily – ‘very dapper.’
‘Thanks.’ Rio shoots us a look that speaks volumes.
I’d be quite happy living out here. But Rio wants to live in the middle of the city in a sleek designer flat and get a job paying loads of money and have a convertible. He’s working in the computer suite at school on some coding thing that’s going to make him a millionaire. Apparently.
‘This is Holly,’ Rio says.
I half lift my hand and do a sort of awkward wave. ‘Hi.’
Rio’s dad smiles. ‘Nice to meet you, Holly. I’ll leave you three to it, shall I?’
And he disappears back inside, humming to himself. He looks exactly like you’d expect an artist to look.
As soon as he’s gone, Rio turns to Allie.
‘Did you get it?’
She reaches into her bag and pulls out a black aerosol can, throwing it to him.
‘Oh my God, you are a star.’ He catches it with one hand and spins it on his palm, beaming. ‘Result.’
Rio unfastens the top two buttons of his new shirt and sprays copious amounts of Lynx over himself.
‘Steady on,’ says Allie, in a funny voice that makes us laugh. ‘I thought we were taking Blue for a walk in the woods?’
Rio fastens up his shirt. ‘We are.’
‘So why are you . . . ?’ Allie motions to his outfit and turns to me, pulling a face.
He looks like he’s dressed to go into Edinburgh and spend the afternoon in a cool cafe, watching the world go by and sipping expensive cocktails.
‘I happen to think it’s important to dress the way you want to feel, Allie,’ he says, teasing.
I look down at my faded T-shirt, jeans with a hole in the knee – and not the kind you buy in New Look – and beaten-up fake Converse. I’m clearly embracing tragic social outcast.
My Box-Shaped Heart Page 6