by Non Pratt
“You can come round any time, you know. Not just when I ask.” He nodded at the clippers. “Or when you want something.”
I stared down at the clippers in my hand trying to think back to the last time I’d called round on my best mate without him inviting me. Finn waited, his careful stare asking me the questions he knew I wouldn’t want turned into words, wanting me to know he was there, that he’d listen.
I wished there was something I could tell him.
“Thanks, mate,” I said, turning away. “For everything.”
“Sure.” One thing Finn would never do is pry.
Things still weren’t right when I picked Claire up on Saturday.
“Hair looks nice,” I said, my fingers tapping on the wheel. I was almost sorry we were going to cut it off. She looked cute with plaits.
“Thanks.” She was already drawn into herself and I hated the way it felt like I was losing her the way I was losing everyone else. I didn’t want to carry on like that. Couldn’t.
“I’m sorry, OK?”
“What for?”
“I’m sorry I didn’t tell you that I’d broken up with Laila. You’re one of my best friends and…” I didn’t want to be there, confessing this much to her, but what choice did I have?
“And?”
I turned to look at her, relieved to see the first smile I’d witnessed in a while breaking through her mood.
“Not going to make this easy for me, are you?”
“Any reason I should?”
“No. I’m sorry I hid the truth from you, C. I’ll be straight with you from now on. About everything.” Except Kam. Except the guilt I felt for what happened. Except, except except… “OK?”
“You’re forgiven,” she said.
Up at the caravan we set things up quickly and it hardly seemed any time at all before I was standing, revving the clippers like we were about to start a race and asking Claire if she was ready.
She gave me a baleful look. “I’m going to get into so much trouble over this.”
I put the clippers down to lay my hand on her shoulder, pleased to feel her lean into me, rather than away.
“If it makes you feel any better, my dad has some very outdated views on boys who wear earrings.”
A laugh puffed out of her. “That doesn’t exactly make me feel better…”
“But it cheered you up, right?” I grinned at her then, and she flickered her gaze up to my eyes for a moment before looking away.
“A bit.” She sucked in a long breath, holding it there as if the oxygen was enough to make her brave. “Let’s do this.”
Claire had used double-sided tape to fix her eye mask directly onto her skin so there’d be no straps to get in the way and plaited her hair into two long braids to make it easier to cut. Which might have worked if the scissors hadn’t been so blunt that I had to hack and saw through each plait like I was chopping off a branch. Once they were off, I tried to raise a smile by wriggling her plaits around, hissing, “It’s alive!” but all Claire managed was a weak little wibble of her lips before she turned to stare at the camera again, her hand going up to where her hair now hung, hacked jagged along her jaw.
I flicked on the clippers again, their high-pitched buzz piercing the bubble of anticipation in the air.
Claire met my gaze and locked her jaw.
In the edit, Claire sped the footage up and ran some music over it. It’s a trick she uses on the videos with less banter and more action. If you watched it, you’d think it was funny.
But that’s what editing is for. That’s how our channel – any channel – operates. Show people only what you want them to see. It’s why I have a hard time watching traditional vlogs. I can’t believe they’re real. Claire believes what people present to her, but I can’t, because I know.
Running those clippers over Claire’s head wasn’t funny. It wasn’t horrific or awkward, or any of those emotions that can be added in the edit.
It was intimate, pressing the blades into her head, feeling the give of her skin, the meagre cushion of flesh on bone, running the clippers over with one hand, the other brushing away the hair I’d shorn off, feeling the prickle of loose hair and the velveteen fuzz left behind.
Thinking back to my balls-up in the library, I ran my hands over her scalp one last time, dusting off any loose hairs, seeing her face bared, her ears and eyebrows and jawline all at once. As I looked at her, I thought about kissing Claire for real.
How much would I have to pay you to go there?
I didn’t know which of us would carry the cost – Claire, who deserved something more than a boy who fed her nothing but a lie, or me, too broken to be able to tell the difference between wanting to kiss a girl because I liked her, or because I needed her.
CHAPTER 19
It was a slow day. The last week of term and all anyone could think about was when it would end, even the teachers. For English, Kontos had scheduled a library lesson where we were supposed to be researching Chaucer’s historical context. I was on my phone.
The donations were climbing up towards the target needed for me to do my streaking dare on Boxing Day. Whether they’d make it there before the twenty-sixth was another matter – and I’d have to film the dare on faith. And on my own. Claire was off to Ireland and already I was stressing out about what I was going to do with all the time that left me with…
I tapped subtly through the usual cycle – Twitter, Instagram, the channel itself and, just for good measure, just because I was avoiding having to actually read anything in Middle English, I checked our email.
And found the one from Moz.
“Where’d you get to yesterday?” Finn asked, sliding onto the common-room sofa. He’d messaged me a couple of times while Claire and I were with Moz in London, but I’d ignored them until later and fobbed him off with an excuse about my phone being out of battery.
“Coursework,” I lied, surprised he’d even noticed I’d been gone. We don’t have any subjects in common and we only sync on a few of our frees.
Finn stared at me for a very long moment, elbow propped on the back of the sofa as he gently tugged at the ear he was stretching.
“The kind of coursework that takes place in London?”
I was so unprepared that there was no way of styling out the way my head snapped up and my mouth started forming a horrified “What?”
“Mum was at a nursing conference in London yesterday. She left early. Same train as you, it turned out, same carriage.”
Finn was looking at me closely, daring me to deny it.
“Said you were with a girl with very short hair.” Finn’s brows lowered a fraction. “That it looked like you were close…”
I turned away to dodge the disappointment in the way he was looking at me.
“So,” Finn said. “Who is she?”
“Claire Casey.” Finn frowned like the name might mean something and I added, “She’s in the year below. We’re just friends.”
“Is she the reason for what happened with Laila?” The way he said it, the look he gave me, you’d think I’d done something wrong.
“Laila broke up with me, remember?”
“How would I remember when you never talked to me about it?” He sounded like Claire. Finn muttered something that sounded like “fuck” and he sagged forwards, letting out a sigh strong enough to blow my discarded sweet wrappers off the table next to us. “Why couldn’t you just be straight about it?”
“What? I am—”
“Seriously. Just stop. I was the person whose clippers you borrowed to cut her hair. Or are you so wrapped up in whatever this is that you forgot?”
He looked up to see from my expression that this was exactly what had happened.
“All this time I’ve been giving you space, backing you up when Matty bitches on about you cutting us out of your life. Him and then Laila – and I tell him the same thing I’ve been telling myself, that we need to let you work through what’s happening with your family an
d…” He shook his head, mouth twisted in distaste. “I thought that maybe you might drift away from Matty for a bit, that Laila was a good girlfriend at a bad time, but you and me, Sef…”
Mild Finn Gardner, my best and oldest friend, was calling me out.
“You and me are mates, Finn.”
“Mates talk to each other. When was the last time you were straight with me about anything that’s going on in your life?”
I couldn’t answer that.
“You don’t need to say anything, Sef – I wouldn’t be able to believe you anyway.” He got up to leave, not even bothering to turn round when he said, “If you could give my clippers back, that’d be great.”
CHAPTER 20
I had no one left but Claire and things there were still precarious. My apology over the Laila situation had patched things up enough for us to work on camera, but that wasn’t enough. Not any more.
The next day, Claire was off for her Christmas break with her family and although we’d talked about meeting up for me to give her a birthday present, we’d not actually sorted anything out. Took me a while to work out that if I was waiting for her to suggest it, then it wouldn’t happen and the relief I felt when she agreed was scary.
It wasn’t until she got into the passenger seat that I knew what would happen. That I needed her to be more than whatever it was we’d become. This girl, with a shaved head and a hole in the knee of her leggings, whose body I’d once wrinkled my nose at…
I was going to kiss her.
We drove to the Forgotten Footpath, following it to where there’s a bridge that crosses one of the streams that feeds into the Lay. Uncle D used to take us there on hot summer’s days when we’d grown bored of the park. Felt nice to share something more of myself with her, something I didn’t have to put into words.
Lying on the hilltop, I thought more and more about how much I’d miss her over the holidays. Claire had become my escape from the world and all I wanted to do was hold her so close she couldn’t leave. When we danced, I wondered if she could tell, with how tight I held her hand or the way that I looked at her, what it was I was feeling.
I don’t dance on a hilltop with just anyone. I mean, who does?
When the song stopped, that should have been my moment, only she pulled away before I had a chance.
“What are you doing?” I pulled her towards me, my fingers knotting a little tighter around hers.
“You want to dance to this too?”
The way she wrinkled her nose wasn’t pretty and yet…
“I thought we were aiming for a hat-trick of birthday goals?”
… I’d never wanted to kiss someone more than I did Claire.
I know the moves – I’ve kissed girls in clubs and house parties and on dark nights down by the river – but I’ve never touched a girl and watched her melt beneath my fingers the way Claire did, pushing her head against my hand, closing her eyes, drunk on touch.
“I’ve wanted to do that ever since we shaved your head.”
“Head-stroking should definitely be added to the list of things people do on their birthdays…” I had her.
“I’m incorporating it into one of the others,” I said.
I kissed her cheek, her jaw, the soft, pale skin of her neck, where she smelled like soap and tasted like comfort. Her chin. Her nose.
I felt like I was on fire for her by the time our lips met, everything sensible burned away by the feel of her mouth on mine, my hands in her hair, my body wrapped up in hers.
It was dangerous to let Claire get this close to me – as much for her as it was for me – but I’ve never let that stop me from doing something.
CHAPTER 21
We’ve always done Christmases well. Nan and Paps were never ones to turn down the opportunity to squash too many people around their dining-room table and talk over the top of them, whatever the holiday. Once they died – within a devastating three months of each other five years ago – Mum took over: Easter for Auntie Iffat, summer with Uncle D, Christmas at ours.
Not this year. Not with things the way they were between Auntie Iffat and Mum.
After the accident, me and Amir and Mum and Dad had lived in a bubble pierced only by visits from Uncle D and phone calls from Auntie Iffat. Living so far away, she was desperate to help. She’d order online shopping to be delivered to our house and call every evening to check in on Kam’s progress.
For the first month or so, she was everything Mum needed in a sister. Until they talked about her coming to visit Kam.
I only caught the gist of it. Mum’s voice was raised loud enough that the sound carried up the stairwell to where I was in Kam’s room putting away the laundry I was proud to have washed myself.
“… how can you say that?” A pause. “Well, it’s not helpful. If you can’t—” Interrupted. “I can’t talk to you about this. Tell your husband to keep his opinions to himself!” I wondered what Uncle Ali had said. “No, Iffat, I’m not having anyone with that attitude come to visit. I’m sorry.” That sounded ominous. “You think about that. I’ve got to go… OK … well, bye then.” And the conversation ended with the sound of the house phone clattering back onto the cradle.
Dad was there before I was and I stood, hidden from view, and listened to Mum tell him that Uncle Ali had said that we get what the world gives us for a reason.
“As if this is Kam’s fault!” No. Mine.
Dad’s voice was muffled when he spoke and I imagined him leaning over Mum and kissing her head. “You know how Ali thinks about these things.”
“I know, but my sister…”
“It does not mean she does not love Kam.”
“I can’t have her visit knowing she thinks like this, I’m sorry.”
The calls resumed after that – less frequent and shorter – and although the Christmas holiday was the first chance that all of them could visit, no one said anything about it happening, my parents throwing themselves into very different distractions. Dad took every job he could – it’s a busy time of year for deliveries and if the law hadn’t said otherwise, he’d have been driving twenty-four seven. Mum was the opposite. As her office wound down, she’d been spending more time at home, batch-cooking dishes to replenish the freezer stocks and teaching Amir how to make stuff like chicken biryani and shepherd’s pie – the same recipes she’d talked Kam through in preparation for uni, worried he’d fall into the typical student diet of baked beans and takeaway burgers.
For Amir, the problem was too much free time.
“What do you want?” I didn’t even bother looking up from my laptop. Didn’t need to, I could see him out of the corner of my eye, lurking in the doorway like a pungent shadow.
“I wouldn’t ask, but…”
I paused the video I was watching and looked up at his ferrety little face, waiting for him to say it.
“Could you give me a lift?”
“Depends.” I was only messing, but Amir looked crestfallen.
“Doesn’t matter.” The words practically fell out of his mouth, his lips were so slack and sullen.
“Oh, come on, you doughball. I’m not serious.” I pushed the computer off my knee and got up, ready to go, but Amir stayed where he was, wary.
“It’s to go see Kam.”
My heart turned into a vortex, sucking any feeling into a black hole and leaving my insides cold.
“OK,” I said. “I can drive you there.”
He didn’t trust what he’d heard, waiting for me to go first down the stairs and out of the door. Neither of us said anything in the car, the radio masking the suspicion that hung so heavy in the air around us, the DJ’s inane banter providing the backdrop for the moment we both glanced, ever so slightly, to where the outline of the viaduct was sharpened by crisp white winter light.
“Are you even allowed to come here without, like, booking?” I asked, eyeing up the front of the building.
Amir nodded. “So long as it’s within a certain slot in his schedule.”
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The schedule had been pinned to the fridge by lumpy magnets made in art classes gone by, but of everyone in the house, I was the only one who’d have to look at it to know what Kam was up to. The rest of them had absorbed his routine into their psyche with the same ease as if he were living under our roof.
The thought of Kam being somewhere so far that Amir wouldn’t be able to drop by for a visit like this twanged at my fears about the channel. No one would know about Moz being on board until he’d edited and uploaded the video and we’d not yet reached the target for my streaking video…
“Sef?” Amir had opened the door and was looking across at me. His expression was one I’d not seen for so long that it took me a moment to decode it. “Do you want to come in?”
Hope slipped from his face the longer it took me to answer.
“I can’t, Amir.”
And I waited for him to say something, to call me selfish or tell me he hated me, his anger my penance for being so weak.
I waited like I wanted it.
“Maybe next time,” he said.
But next time was Christmas Day, and I didn’t go then, either. I gave Amir Kam’s present wrapped in newspaper because I hadn’t been able to find where Mum had put the Christmas paper.
“What is it?”
“A photo.”
“Who of?”
“Me. Blowing a kiss to the camera like I’m Marilyn fucking Monroe.” I shoved the picture at him. “I’m assuming you’ll be there when he opens it. See for yourself.”
Amir grunted then gave me a look. “You could be there too, you know.”
“Don’t…” I said, squeezing my eyes shut and feeling sick with sadness.
“Is talking to the doctor helping?”
I kept my eyes shut so he wouldn’t know the depth of the truth.
“No.” Although I’m sure it might have done if I’d actually been to see him.
I Skyped Uncle D for the four hours they were gone. Although I’d been messaging him regularly, I’d not really been involved in the family Skype chats. Even from the screen of my laptop I could feel the warmth coming off him like he’d trapped the sun in his smile. Despite the different time zones, we ate our dinner together – Uncle D eating vicariously as I showed him all the party food I’d bought from Aldi.