by SJI Holliday
‘What am I going to do with you, eh?’ he says, his voice softening, cracking. He leans down and kisses her, and Laura feels like she is going to melt into the earth. Sunshine dusts her bare feet, and Mark’s weight and warmth press down on her. The tingle starts again and she can’t bear it any longer. She can feel his hardness, pressing into her. He pulls away, sits up. Gazes down at her before climbing off. His face is flushed. He looks like he’s about to say something, but changes his mind. He crawls over to the blanket and sits down.
‘I could do with a drink. Want one? There’s Coke or Fanta. Or water.’
Laura sits up. ‘You didn’t have to stop,’ she whispers.
He smiles a half smile. ‘I didn’t want to, Laura. Christ.’ He shakes his head. ‘I want this day to be special. I don’t just want to . . . you know.’
Laura smiles back. ‘I know.’
16th July 2015
Dear Marie,
I don’t know how long it takes for a letter to arrive these days, but I’m hoping you’ve read the one I sent you yesterday, and that the reason you haven’t replied yet is that you’re busy with work. That’s understandable. The people who work here are always so busy. Running around like blue-arsed flies, most of them. With some of them, I wonder if they just run around so much to avoid having to do any of the difficult stuff. It can’t be easy working here. Some people are extremely difficult to get along with. You’d laugh at some of them.
Do you still listen to Billy Idol? I remember you dancing to ‘White Wedding’ and pulling your lip up into a sneer like Billy. You liked him, didn’t you? You had a poster of him on your wall – right opposite your bed. He must’ve been the last person you saw every night before you went to sleep.
You were always the last person that I saw before I went to sleep. I’m not sure if you know that.
It was me who ruined that poster, but I’m sure you guessed that. Why didn’t you say anything? Were you worried that Mummy would ask us why?
I’ll write again soon, Marie.
I hope you’ll have some time to write back.
Lots of love,
Graeme
13
Back in her flat, still spooked by the man at the pool, Marie rummages through the kitchen drawers until she finds what she needs. A multi-head screwdriver, where all the different shapes and sizes are slotted into the lid, a chisel – that she couldn’t remember ever having had a use for – and a miniature hammer she’d got as a present with one of those huge bars of toffee that you have to smash up. Who’d given her that? Anne probably. No doubt one of those gimmicky things she’d bought for the shop that didn’t sell.
She has slight reservations about what she’s about to do – after all, it is technically vandalism – and isn’t it an actual offence to take someone else’s mail? Anyway, it’s the middle of the day, and most people in her block have regular nine-to-five jobs, so no one is going to be in to see her. Plus, she’ll make sure she fixes it back up again so they won’t even notice that anything has happened.
Armed with her small arsenal of tools, she puts the front door on the latch and walks out into the hall. There are twenty flats in the block. Ten on the ground floor, ten above. Due to a numbering system that makes no sense whatsoever, Flat 9 is directly above her. She remembers thinking at the time of the fire that she was lucky that there’d been no damage to her own place. Apart from the stench, of course. No one had managed to escape that. If you went upstairs, it was even worse. The fire brigade had hosed the place down and sealed it off – apparently it was safe – but no one was likely to venture inside it. The locks had been changed, after the fire brigade had broken down the door. The man who’d been renting it wasn’t in, thankfully. He’d gone out to buy bread, forgetting that he’d already switched on the pan to heat the oil for his chips. He’d bumped into someone down the street, and they’d both watched as the siren went off at the fire station and the firemen – all part-time and busy doing other jobs at the time – turned up and disappeared full pelt up his road. That was when it dawned on him. By the time he got home, the whole building had been evacuated, and he got more than a bit of abuse when he appeared around the corner with his sliced white loaf. After they all realised he wasn’t dead, of course.
Marie was out at the time. Meeting a man in Edinburgh after a series of chats on an online dating website. He was at least ten years older than his profile suggested and looked like the type of person you try to avoid at the bus stop. She remembers it clearly, as it was her first and last attempt at online dating. What was the point?
She starts off with the screwdriver, using a wide, flat head. She pushes it into the keyhole, wiggles it about. Nothing. Why do these things look so much easier when you see them on TV? A thought pings. ‘Oh you idiot, Marie,’ she mutters. She leaves the tools on the floor and goes back into her flat to get her keys. Her mailbox key is on the keyring, along with the front-door key and a small photograph of her and Anne on a rollercoaster in Blackpool. She glances at the photo and smiles. Such a long time ago now. Not long after she’d moved to Banktoun. A school trip to Manchester where she and Anne had sneaked off on the train to the Pleasure Beach. They’d got in no end of trouble for it, but it had cemented them as friends right from the start. Marie had thought about Graeme that day, remembering when they used to go to the shows together and he’d always win her one of those mad-haired plastic trolls – what were they called again? Gonks. That was it. Marie had bitten back tears for most of the trip: no matter what Anne said or did, he was always at the back of her mind. Even in the tiny keyring photograph, she could see her red-rimmed eyes and forced smile. Anne had said to her on the train back to Manchester: ‘If you ever need to talk about anything, you can talk to me. I hope we’re going to be good friends.’ Marie smiled at the memory, Anne’s solemn face, candyfloss stuck to her cheek. Her breath all cheap cider and chewing gum.
Marie pushes her own mailbox key into the lock for Flat 9, assuming that, if not exactly the same, the keys are bound to be similar. Why had she never thought about this before? She wiggles the key and it seems to turn a fraction, and then stops. Of course it does. That would be too easy.
After a few more pokes and wiggles with various screwdriver heads, Marie has to admit defeat. She drops the screwdriver onto the floor and picks up the hammer and chisel. Still trying to remember what it was she’d ever bought a chisel for, she carefully wedges the tip of the tool into the gap next to the lock, angling it slightly to the right. Then, holding it tightly with her left hand, she whacks the handle of the chisel once, sharply and neatly, with the toffee hammer.
The door of the mailbox shudders slightly. The sound reverberates around the walls, making her wince. She does it again – this time hitting slightly harder with the hammer, pushing deeper with the chisel.
The door springs open.
Marie drops the tools onto the floor in surprise. There’s an echoing clang as the metal hammer lands on the chisel and bounces against the lower level of mailboxes that line the wall. Marie holds her breath for a moment, expecting one of the other residents to open a door and come out, ask her what the hell she’s doing. But there’s no sound, thankfully. As she’d hoped, no one is in. Either that or no one cares.
There’s a pile of mail in the open mailbox. She lifts it out and starts to sift through it. Junk, mostly. Why am I doing this out here? she wonders. She glances around one more time, then bends down to pick up her discarded tools. The hammer has left a small dent in the door of Flat 1’s mailbox. She hopes they won’t notice. Clutching the pile of mail and the tools against her chest, she pushes the door of Flat 9’s mailbox closed.
It springs open again.
‘Shit.’
Thinking through her options, she goes back into her flat again, dumps the pile of mail and the tools on the kitchen table. She rummages in the kitchen drawer again. Pulls out a jar of paperclips, a pile of elastic bands. Smoke-alarm battery – the square ones that her dad used to make her
and Graeme stick on the end of their tongues. She pauses. Feels her heart beating in her chest.
Where are you, Graeme?
Eventually, she finds it. A ball of Blu-Tack, stuck to the back of the drawer. It’s dried up, pieces of fluff sticking to it. She rolls it about in her hands, warming it up, trying to make it pliable again. She pulls little pieces off, rolling them into individual small balls. It’s a basic idea, but hopefully it’ll work. Will it be strong enough to hold, though? She decides it’ll do until she has time to fix the lock properly.
She wanders back out into the hall, and as she starts to stick the small balls of Blu-Tack along the edge of the mailbox door an odd sensation comes over her. Something prickles down her back. Someone is here. Near her. She imagines she can hear them breathing.
Did you hear me breathing, Marie?
She pushes the memory away.
‘Hello? Is someone there? I’m just sorting out some mail . . .’ She lets her sentence trail off.
No reply. Paranoid, she thinks. That’s what happens when you start doing things you’re not supposed to be doing.
She sticks the rest of the balls inside the door then pushes it shut, holding it tight, hoping that the stickiness will find some purchase. She takes her hand away and steps back. The door moves slightly, finding its natural position. It holds fast. She watches it for a moment, listening for the sound of unsticking . . . waiting for the door to spring back open again. But it seems to be OK – for now, at least. She’ll ask Anne if she can send Ian round to help her fix it. She’ll have to tell them she broke it. But she won’t tell them why. She won’t tell anyone.
As she turns back towards her flat, she hears a noise. Something is being scraped or dragged across the floor above her. Someone moving furniture. Someone in the flat upstairs. Flat 9. But no one lives there.
Do they?
She walks back into her flat, double locks it. Puts the chain on. She never puts the chain on. She walks through to the kitchen and jumps with fright. Cadbury is on the table, licking up crumbs. The cat looks up at her and gives her one of its looks. The pile of mail has been scattered across the table and onto the floor.
‘Get off the table, missy,’ she says, shooing the cat. It jumps down and runs off into the living room. She scoops up the mail. She stops. She doesn’t want to look. There’s another faint sound of scraping from upstairs. She goes through the pile, slowly, one by one . . . pizza leaflets, people’s names she doesn’t recognise, junk from Virgin and Sky. Then a letter. That handwriting. Another one.
Marie drops the pile of letters onto the table. Her whole body shakes. There are at least ten letters in there addressed to her, that same looping scrawl. Marie feels the remnants of last night’s rum ready to make a reappearance. She throws up into the kitchen sink.
14
When Laura was young, she was obsessed with Barbie dolls. She’d had seven or eight of them, and she spent all her time mixing and matching their outfits, styling their hair. She’d been friends with a girl called Mindy Heller back then. Mindy had a Star Wars Luke Skywalker figurine, plus two Action Men. Mindy was the kind of girl who preferred to climb trees than style hair, but at the time Laura was the complete opposite. When they were seven, Mindy told Laura all about sex, by demonstrating as graphically as she could using Luke and the Action Men and her Barbies. She described the whole thing in great detail, and Laura hadn’t realised until a few years later, when they’d started biology at school, that Mindy’s descriptions had been so accurate. Mindy had moved away after her parents split up, and Laura had often wondered what happened to her and how it was that she’d known such explicit, accurate details about sex at such a young age. Laura’s own mum hadn’t told her anything until she was nearly eleven.
‘You know about how to make babies yet?’ Laura’s mum had asked, casually stirring a saucepan of Bolognese sauce. Laura was setting the table, glad that her back had been turned when her mum said the words all pre-teens dread.
‘Yes,’ Laura said quietly. ‘I know about periods, about intercourse and about giving birth. Is there anything else?’
Laura’s mum laughed. ‘You seem to have it covered, love. You know I’m here if you’ve got any questions.’
Laura took glasses out of the cupboard and laid them on the table. She wondered if her brother had already had sex. She wondered if he’d tell her about it. Mindy Heller had told her that it hurt. She wondered how she knew that, if it was just something she’d been told.
Blinking away the memories, Laura lies back on the blanket. Mark is lying flat out, one arm thrown behind his head. His eyes are closed and he’s snoring gently. The sun casts speckles of light across his cheeks. He was up all night playing something on his PS4 that Laura had never heard of. He’s been dozing for half an hour, while Laura has been sitting looking out at the river, daydreaming. The place is so still, so quiet. The noise of the weir is a faint burble in the distance. The leaves on the trees barely ruffle, except for the occasional flutter of a bird in the trees or something scurrying in the undergrowth.
Was it going to happen today?
Laura’s stomach flips, thinking about it. She’s looked stuff up online, making sure she used the incognito window on Google so that her search wouldn’t get saved. ‘Does it hurt the first time?’ ‘Can I get pregnant the first time I have sex?’ ‘How long does sex last for?’ ‘How long should I wait before having sex?’ ‘What does spunk taste like?’
Laura wanted to ask Hayley these questions, but she wasn’t sure she could trust her not to go and tell the rest of the school. Laura has changed since her days of Barbies and her sex education from Mindy. When Mindy left, Laura gradually became more like her – more tomboyish, less girly – as if trying to replace the friend who was missing. Doing karate meant she mixed with boys a lot, but in a different way – she didn’t spend her time obsessing over pictures of celebrities and pop stars in magazines. She could throw a boy twice her size and weight onto the ground with a hand on an elbow and a simple flick of her wrist.
But something else changed inside her when she saw Mark looking at her that day across the assembly hall. His eyes seemed to burrow deep inside her; the small smile on his face had made blood rush to her head. Then someone had nudged him in the ribs and he’d turned away. That was it, until that night at Karen’s party, when she’d been too shy to talk to him. She was glad he wasn’t so timid that day he’d come up to her in the park and asked if she fancied a walk. And then a few days later when he’d been hanging around at the bottom of her street, and they’d ended up at the Marchmont Lodge and the shows . . . Had he been waiting for her? She was too nervous to ask.
Laura leans across Mark’s sleeping form and takes a can of drink from the rucksack. She pops the tab on the Fanta and takes a swig. The noise wakes him up.
‘Hey you . . . Have I been asleep? Why didn’t you wake me?’
‘You looked like you needed the rest. Besides, you’re no use to me if you can’t stay awake.’ She flips a leg over, straddles him, pins him to the ground. She shuffles her body down until her pelvis is aligned with his; she leans forwards, staring down at him, her long hair trailing down either side of his face. He grins, and she feels him growing hard beneath her. She shifts slightly, and he wriggles beneath her.
‘Am I hurting you?’
He laughs. ‘Not in the way you think.’ He places his hands on her bare elbows. ‘Take your T-shirt off. Go on. There’s no one here, and we’re away from the path, if anyone turns up.’
Laura’s heart starts to race. She lifts her arms above her head, crosses them back down, taking hold of her T-shirt at both sides. She pulls it slowly over her head, drops it at her side. She hears Mark take a breath. Feels him shift beneath her. His hardness is becoming uncomfortable.
‘Fucking hell,’ he whispers. ‘Your body is . . . You’re beautiful.’ He curls up, pulls her down on top of him. The kiss is frantic, deep. He pushes her back up, his hands on her breasts, flips the cups of h
er bra down, just enough. His fingers are on her nipples and she hears herself moan. He pushes her off, climbs on top of her. She lets him slide a hand up the leg of her shorts, inside her knickers. His fingers explore her, gently, tantalisingly, until she can’t take it any more. It’s happening so fast. Faster than she imagined. Her face burns, her breath is coming out in small, jagged gasps.
‘Can I . . . Are you ready?’ Mark says. His voice is thick with lust.
‘Yes. Please, yes. Have you . . . ?’
He pulls himself up onto his knees and takes a square foil packet from the pocket of his shorts, yanks her shorts down, her knickers going with them. She feels exposed, wants to cover herself up – but only for a moment. Then it passes. He looks down at her, and the look in his eyes is dark and delicious, and Laura thinks she might melt into the blanket. He pulls down his own shorts and his boxers . . . and he springs out. She’s surprised at the size of it, at the colour of it . . . He rips the condom packet with his teeth, and rolls it in his fingers. Pulls it down in one swift, practised move. She knows he’s done this before, but she doesn’t care. She wants someone who knows what he’s doing . . .
He leans forwards, places his hands at either side of her head, and kisses her again. She feels the tip of him pushing against her. He pulls away, just slightly, says, ‘Are you ready? Are you sure?’
She makes sure she says it clearly, definitely: ‘Yes.’
She’d thought she was ready, but she doesn’t expect it to feel like this – like something too big for a small space, pushing through layers and barriers into a place it’s not meant to go. There’s a sharp pain, and then he pulls back a bit, slowly, carefully, before pushing back in. Then it’s a delicious, numbing pain that sends her senses into overdrive. The movement, the feeling that she’s doing something so intense, so . . . carnal. She lifts her legs and wraps them around his back and the feeling changes to something that she could never have imagined.