The Story of Us

by Barbara Elsborg

  “No. Like some water?” Zed offered Caspian his bottle.

  Caspian took a slug and passed it back. “Thanks. Where do you go to school?”

  “Middleton Academy. What about you?”

  “Shelton. Well, I was at school there.”

  “Where’s that?”

  “Boarding school. Miles away in Hampshire. How old are you?”

  “Fourteen.”

  “I’m fifteen. Brothers and sisters?”

  “One brother who’s four years older than me.”

  Caspian gave a short laugh. “Snap. I have ten-year-old sisters as well. The terrible twins.”

  Zed laughed. “Do you get on with your brother?”

  “Yes. He hates me and I hate him. Perfect relationship. What about you?”

  “Tamaz is okay, but he moved out last week to live in Canterbury. He starts university in September.”

  “My brother is heading for Cambridge if he gets good enough grades. He probably will.” Though Caspian had wondered how much influence his father had on his brother’s acceptance since he’d had to repeat a year and take two A levels again. “So how do we make it more den-like?” He knew but wondered what Zed would suggest.

  “We need to twist in bendy branches to make the sides. Maybe we could weave a door. We can put leafy branches on the ground to make it more comfortable. Then we’re all set to hide from predators: bears, wolves, and terrifyingly evil flamingos that want to destroy any of their kind who are different.”

  “You’re trying to protect me?”

  “I rescued you. You’re mine now.” A look of horror flashed across Zed’s face. “Sorry. I’m letting my imagination escape from my mouth. Which way do you prefer to rest your head?”

  Caspian blinked. That had been a fast change of subject. “Why?”

  “Most flamingos prefer to rest their head to the right. The ones that prefer to rest their heads on the other side are more likely to be involved in violent clashes with other birds.”

  “How do you know that?”

  “I just remember stuff. I like spotting signs of danger.”

  “You could be useful.”

  Zed laughed and they both went in search of branches. Caspian broke slender stems from a shrub, ripped off more of the same growing from the stump of a tree felled a couple of years ago, then threaded them through the log sides. He used to make dens until he’d inherited his brother’s treehouse, but he wondered how long it would be before the twins invaded and forced him out. Though they were into clothes and shoes and tormenting him, not dirt and fun.

  Finally, he and Zed crawled inside the structure. There was just about enough room to sit up side by side.

  “This is cool,” Caspian said. “Definitely safe from terrifyingly evil flamingos. Not sure about bears or wolves.”

  He dropped onto his back, but as Zed did the same, Caspian heard the catch in his breath. As Zed twisted onto his front, Caspian caught sight of a long, raised red welt above the waist of Zed’s shorts. Zed saw him looking and yanked his T-shirt down.

  “What happened to your back? Was it when you rescued me, when I didn’t need to be rescued?”

  “No.” Zed lay with his head on his arms and stared at him.

  Caspian didn’t push. He didn’t want him to leave. “Are you going away this summer?”

  “You mean on holiday? No. I was told last night I might have to do some sort of summer school thing in Canterbury. I’d prefer not to.”

  “It might be fun. Kayaking, abseiling, making rafts, playing sport, learning how to break open safes or hotwire cars.”

  “It’s for Muslims. And don’t say then it must be about building bombs, or how to make suicide vests.”

  “I wouldn’t.” Though it had briefly crossed his mind.

  “And I don’t consider myself to be Muslim but don’t ever tell anyone I said that.”

  “What are you then?”

  Zed shrugged.

  “An unbeliever like me?” Caspian asked. “We had church every Sunday at school. I kept thinking I’d get hit by a thunderbolt because I didn’t listen.”

  “But being Muslim is a way of life. It’s a lot stricter than other religions. But I can’t be Muslim and be…”

  Caspian wondered what he’d been going to say. “We can go to hell together. Assuming they don’t have individual hells for each religion.”

  Zed smiled. “This is the first time I’ve said more than a sentence to anyone but a teacher or my father and brother for a long time.”

  “No friends around here?” Caspian hoped the question didn’t piss him off.

  “Not really. What about you?”

  “Not here, no. I had friends at Shelton but since I was expelled, I doubt I’ll see them again.”

  Zed’s eyes widened. “Expelled? What did you do?”

  “Didn’t conform to their high standards of behaviour, according to the Head. The way he reacted it was as if I’d destroyed the fabric of society and it was only that I got caught smoking.”

  “You got expelled for that?”

  “Well I might have accidentally set fire to some paper in the science lab which caused a bit of a fire. My first cigarette and I didn’t even like it, which was why I chucked it in the bin but it mustn’t have been completely out. The alarm went off and the fire brigade came.”

  Zed winced.

  “There were a few other incidents too. I sneaked off to town when I wasn’t supposed to. I told a few white lies to teachers and apparently I swear too fucking much.”

  Zed laughed and then frowned. “Was your father furious? What did he do?”

  “He yelled a lot. I’ve been expelled before and had to repeat a year. But he’s called another school and convinced them to take me. Blackstones has a rep for being military strict. It’s in the middle of nowhere in Scotland. I’ll have to be up at some godawful hour for a freezing cold shower, go cross-country running in wind, rain and snow, and be served thin porridge for breakfast. And more fucking church on Sundays. I can’t wait. Not.” Caspian shredded a leaf that poked through the side of the den. “I really don’t want to go, but my father won’t budge.”

  “I have a father like that too. Do you live in Lower Barton?”

  “Yep, do you?”

  “Upper Barton.” Zed pulled a crushed slice of bread from his pocket. “Want some?”

  “To eat?”

  “I’m feeding my pet flamingo.”

  Caspian snorted. He didn’t really want the bread, but he broke off a small piece and ate it.

  “Are you going on holiday this summer?” Zed asked.

  “Probably. But not yet.” He didn’t want to tell Zed they had a home in France as well as here. He was enjoying just being a normal boy, not getting picked on for being stupid. “What sort of things do you do in the holidays?”

  “Nothing much.”

  “Except hide from bears, wolves and flamingos. Do you have a bike? We could go off for the day.”

  Zed shook his head. “I don’t have one.”

  “Give me your phone number and we can plan something. Maybe I can convince my brother to lend me his bike and you can have mine.”

  “I don’t have a phone.”

  Caspian clapped his hands to his face in mock-horror. “No phone? How do you survive?”

  “It’s a terrible struggle.” Zed gave an exaggerated sigh.

  “But it’s safer to have a phone. I mean what if you were attacked by a murderous flamingo? You couldn’t call for help. You might get pecked to death. Shit, look, my head’s leaning left.”

  Zed sniggered.

  “Seriously, how do you manage without a phone?”

  “I just do.”

  Caspian thought about it. “Would you want one?”

  “’Course I would. I’m just not allowed. Maybe when I’m sixteen. That was when my brother got one.”

  “What else aren’t you allowed? Can you watch TV?”

  “So long as it doesn’t contain any nude sc
enes, extreme violence or vulgar music. Of course, that’s exactly what I want to watch.”

  Caspian laughed.

  “But I abide by the rules. The no vulgar music one is hard.”

  “Are you allowed a computer?”

  “No. Nor books that are inappropriate which are mostly the only sort of books worth reading.”

  “Your father wants to suck all the fun out of life.” Though Caspian’s wasn’t much different.

  Zed sighed. “He does but it’s not that. If you’re a believer you’re happy to respect and follow the rules. There’s nothing wrong with being Muslim. The vast majority of Muslims are good, kind people, though not all of them, which is true in any religion. Partly it’s just down to the way everything is interpreted. Vulgar music being an example. What the hell is that? Words in a song that are offensive or suggestive? All popular music? Schubert and Tchaikovsky were reputed to be gay so did they write vulgar music?”

  Gay? Caspian stared at Zed. “Your parents sound strict.” Is that how you got the marks on your back?

  “My dad is. My mum’s dead. She had cancer.”

  “Oh, that sucks. I’m sorry.”

  “She died three years ago. She’d just started a job teaching at the village school when she was diagnosed. We’d only been here a year when she died. I miss her.”

  “What does your father do?”

  “He’s a pharmacist in Maidstone. What about your parents?”

  “My mum doesn’t work. She does good things when she can fit them in between her tennis lessons and shopping. She volunteers and stuff. Campaigns on behalf of various organisations. Throws dinner parties and lunches to persuade people to donate to causes she feels are worthy. That sounds mean because she is sincere, but in a way, it feels like she’s doing no more than picking up one piece of litter and putting it in a bin.”

  “But doing that is better than nothing.”

  “I suppose. My dad’s a senior civil servant. He works for the government. He’s always busy.”

  “Do you like him?”

  “He’s okay. Unless I’ve done something bad. Which is a lot of the time.” He grinned. “Can’t you convince your father you need a computer for schoolwork?”

  “Not when I can just use a school computer.”

  “Can’t you use your father’s while he’s at work?” Caspian asked. “Or does he take it with him? You can delete the history. If you don’t know how, I can explain how to do it.”

  “You’re an expert in that?” Zed smiled. “What have you been watching?”

  I wish I dare tell you. Caspian sighed. “Bob the Builder. The shame…”

  “I should think so. I thought I knew how to hide having used his computer but somehow, he still knew. I got into a lot of trouble. I didn’t do it again.”

  The Adam’s apple rising and falling in Zed’s throat made Caspian think the trouble might have been physical.

  “I’ve got an old laptop you can have.” Caspian shocked himself by offering but the laptop was just sitting there doing nothing. He got a new one every year. One upside of having a learning difficulty. As if his father buying him a new laptop would make any difference. He didn’t try to understand Caspian’s dyslexia.

  “That’s really kind but if my father found it, he’d take it off me and he would find it.”

  What an arsehole! For a moment, Caspian wondered if he was being spun a line, a picture being painted of a father who sounded worse than his. But for what reason?

  “What’s your favourite thing to do?” Zed asked.

  Caspian thought about saying—jerking off—though not to Bob the Builder, then changed his mind. “My father would say—making trouble, but I like taking things apart and putting them back together, not always back to the way they were. I like making models of things.” And writing poetry.

  “You mean models that you buy and construct?”

  “No. Just thinking up designs and constructing them. I try to repair stuff too. Most of my inventions I don’t have the equipment or knowledge to make so they just stay as ideas.”

  “What’s your favourite invention?”

  “A doll that falls apart when you squeeze it, and it’s full of plastic insects.”

  Zed gaped at him. “How old were you when you did that?”

  “Nine. I kept unfastening the joints in my sister’s dolls and stuffing plastic bugs inside. They freaked out and I got into trouble. I had to make a stable for a herd of My Little Pony because I’d been so mean. But it was the twins who’d started it. They’d— Well, they’re vicious little monsters.”

  “What’s the best thing you’ve come up with?”

  “A way to stop one of our dogs chewing its damaged tail. I cut out a hole in an old baby ball that was made of a strong plastic mesh and figured out a way to harness it to Monty so he couldn’t lick the wound or bite the ball off. The vet was impressed. My father less so when Monty wagged his tail-ball so hard, he knocked a glass of red wine onto a cream carpet. So I managed two in one there. Making trouble and making something. What about you? What do you like?”

  “Music. Running. Reading. Peanut butter. But music above everything.”

  Caspian pushed himself up on his elbow. “Me too. I lurrrrve vulgar music. What sort of music do you like?”

  Zed laughed. “Everything. Almost.”

  “Do you play an instrument?”

  “Piano and cello. But only at school. I’m not allowed…” Zed gave a heavy sigh. “My dad says music is forbidden in Islam, so in my house I have to be careful. Do you play anything?”

  “Not really. I tried recorder, trumpet, piano and saxophone—in that order because you had to play something at school. I was terrible at all of them.”

  “Did you have a favourite?”

  “The guitar. I haven’t ruined that for me yet.”

  “You play the guitar?”

  “Play is a strong word. I look at my guitar and imagine myself playing it. Then I try and I’m crap.” Caspian smiled. “Come with me.” He crawled out of the shelter and headed toward his treehouse, Zed on his heels.

  When he stopped at the foot of the ladder, Zed looked up and gave a short laugh. “This is yours? We spent all that time making a hovel and you had a mansion?”

  “Making the den was fun and I didn’t make this. It was made for my brother.”

  Zed walked around the tree looking up at the treehouse. “Wow. It looks amazing. Is that glass in the window?”

  “Perspex. And there’s music up there.”

  “A piano in your treehouse?”

  Caspian grinned. “Climb up and see.”

  Zed went up fast but Caspian didn’t miss the marks on his lower back and the top of his legs. Someone had hit him. His father. Shit.

  By the time he’d clambered up through the trapdoor, Caspian’s smile was back on his face. His father never used physical force, just mental cruelty. Once he’d finished yelling about Caspian’s expulsion, he’d ignored him for days, walked right past him as if he wasn’t there.

  Caspian dropped the trapdoor in place.

  “Wow,” Zed sighed. “All you need is a water supply and you could live up here.”

  There was a single foam mattress piled with cushions along one wall, a shelf holding a few books he hadn’t read and wasn’t likely to, piles of drawing pads filled with his designs and a box of pencils. Battery powered fairy lights hung all over the ceiling, though Caspian rarely came here at night.

  “What’s that wire for?”

  “Burglar alarm. Flip that switch to turn it on and off.”

  “What noise does it make?”

  “Try it.”

  Zed flipped the switch, a lion roared and he laughed. “This is brilliant. Does your brother still come here?”

  “No. I’ll probably have to fight the Terrible Twins for possession at some point, but they don’t like spiders or any sort of insect or getting dirty so maybe it’ll stay mine.”

  Zed looked out of the window. �
��Bird boxes. Did you make them? Have birds been in them? Wow, this is like living in a giant nest.”

  “With a roof. Yep, I did make them but I don’t know whether they were used because I was away at school in May and June.”

  “You could build a walkway between here and that tree. Construct a platform to sit on.”

  “I’d thought that too. I made a pulley system to haul myself from one tree to another, but my father made me dismantle it after I fell and cut my head. I’m always breaking something. Both arms, a wrist, a leg, ribs. Not all at the same time.”

  “I’ve never broken a bone.”

  “Don’t. It hurts. Maybe we can make a zip wire.”

  “Okay. You can have the first go if you’re accident prone.”

  Caspian smiled and picked up earphones and an MP3 player from the shelf before he dropped onto the mattress. “Music. We can share.” He offered Zed one of the earpieces.

  Zed sat next to him.

  “So what music do you want to listen to?” Caspian asked. “Kaiser Chiefs? Green Day? Take That? Beethoven?”

  “Do you have Beethoven on there?”

  “No.” Caspian grinned. “It’s a mix but not Beethoven.”

  “Play the music you like.” Zed put the earpiece in, leaned against the wall then jerked forward with a grimace of pain.

  “What have you done to your back?”

  “Nothing.”

  Caspian stared at him and even though Zed met his gaze, he knew he wasn’t telling the truth.

  “We can lie down,” Caspian said.

  They settled on their stomachs and Caspian switched on his music player. The first song was by Robbie Williams. Something Beautiful from Escapology. How apt was that? Zed was beautiful. This place was their escape. Caspian was in love.

  He wasn’t. Not really.

  But if he’d ever doubted his attraction to guys, he now knew the truth. Zed had kickstarted his heart. That had been the feeling in his chest.

  Zed closed his eyes and Caspian stared at him. His eyelashes were insanely long and thick, and Caspian wanted to run his tongue along them. When Zed licked his lips, Caspian swallowed hard. He had no idea whether Zed was into boys or not. He was too afraid to test it out or ask, in case the answer was a thump in the stomach or a plain no. More than someone to crush on, Caspian liked the idea of having a friend nearby, someone to talk to and do things with. He thought Zed might like that too.