“Okay?” Taylor whispers.
“No prob,” I hiss back. Gripping the rail with both hands, digging both feet into the fire escape, I boost my bottom off the safety of the windowsill, swinging myself through the air for one dizzying moment until I’m standing flat against the outside of the fire escape. I lift my right leg in a wide semicircle—it’s the leg I always lead with, plus it’s my more flexible hip—straddling the top rail for a second before touching my foot to the iron floor of the fire escape.
Safety. And now the other leg can follow. I prop my hips against the rail and lean over it, stretching out my hands so that Taylor, now on the windowsill herself, can grab them and shorten the distance she has to cross. We’ve planned the whole maneuver beforehand, in detail, so we didn’t have to exchange a word, and I’m proud of us; it goes as smoothly as if we’ve executed it hundreds of times before. Once Taylor’s scissored her own legs over the rail, we exchange a swift high five, our palms barely meeting to avoid making noise, before making our way down the open stairs, wincing at every tiny creak and whine of tired old metal that could potentially give us away.
There’s a lighted window up ahead, giving out onto the fire escape. If ours did that, it would have been even easier to sneak out, I think ruefully as I realize it’s the room that Plum and Susan are sharing. I squint sideways, and see them, plus Nadia, Lizzie, and Sophia, a positive gaggle of long, shiny hair and long, skinny legs. Plum’s got a bottle of white wine and she’s filling plastic glasses from it, handing them round, giggling naughtily. They’re all tipsy already, from what I can see—the result of another evening out at the Harvey Nichols bar drinking chocolate-strawberry martinis, no doubt.
And then Nadia comes toward the window, and I lurch back in panic, thinking she’s spotted me. I gesture frantically at Taylor, who freezes on the steps above me as if we’re playing a game of Musical Statues, while I press myself against the brickwork of the building, back flat to the wall, trying not to breathe. Nadia’s shadow is cast onto the section of the fire escape directly outside the window lit up by the light from the bedroom; she leans forward and starts to lift the window sash.
Oh no … she’s spotted me, and now we’re totally in their power.… If they think fast, they could race up to our room and shut the window, so we’d be trapped out here to be caught by a teacher—by Aunt Gwen—oh God, we’re in such trouble.…
I’m rigid, as stiff as a board. Nadia fumbles with the window.
“God, it’s bloody stuck! And I’m dying for a fag!” she complains. “Sophia, you have a go. You’re the biggest. And your nails aren’t as nice as mine.”
Her shadow retreats, and I signal Taylor with a big loop of my arm to make a move; ducking even more, we scuttle under the windowsill and down the next flight of stairs, just in time. As we make it round the corner, Sophia has dragged the window up, and Nadia is propping herself on the sill. I hear the click of her lighter as she fires up a cigarette.
Taylor and I exchange a speaking glance, hugely relieved. This fire escape is our only safe exit route, and with Nadia sitting in the window frame, smoking, there was no way we’d have been able to get past without being observed. Five minutes later and we wouldn’t have been able to leave Fetters, wouldn’t have been able to drop to the ground from the last rung of the fire escape and tear across the lawn, to vault over the stone wall and land on the pavement on the other side, breathless, excited, looking around for Ewan’s car.
Headlights flash from a parked car across the street, and we run over, our hearts pounding.
“That was so lucky!” Taylor gasps as we drag open the back doors of the car—after checking that Ewan and Callum are in the front, of course; we’re not complete idiots—and fall in. The boys swivel round to greet us, and in their eagerness, they bump heads; it’s like a comedy double act. We both giggle, and Callum pantomimes rubbing his shaved skull.
“It’s all right for him,” he complains. “His hair’s like a thatch of pubes—you could hit him with a sledgehammer and he wouldn’t feel a thing.”
“Dude,” Ewan mutters, shocked. “Mixed company, as my mum would say.”
“Oh—sorry!”
Callum sounds mortified at having blurted out what’s probably a private boys’ joke in front of a couple of girls. Taylor leans forward and says:
“My brother knows this guy he’s at college with who has a double skull. It’s like a throwback to the Neanderthals or something. This guy can head-butt a brick wall and not feel anything. Well, apart from getting a bruise, I suppose,” she adds, scrupulously fair.
“You’re joking!” Callum says as Ewan starts up the car and pulls away.
“No, it’s true!” She’s laughing. “I couldn’t make that up! He only found out when he bumped heads with this other guy at basketball practice, and the second guy went flying across the court. Neanderthal Guy didn’t feel a thing. So the coach thought that was weird and sent him for tests.”
“That’s like having a superpower,” Ewan marvels as Callum says to her:
“But is his head bigger than normal?”
“Hah!” Taylor’s really laughing now. “That’s exactly what my brother said! No, it isn’t! So he has—”
“A smaller brain,” Callum finishes.
“But they can’t mess with him about it,” she says, “ ’cause he threatens to head-butt them.”
“Does he have, like, a really low forehead, and eyebrows that stick out, and tiny little eyes?” Callum asks.
We’re all laughing now, partly because it’s funny, and partly out of relief that Taylor has rescued us from the embarrassment of Callum’s having said “pubes” in front of us. I must say, she’s very lucky to have grown up with an older brother; she knows just how to talk to boys. The ice is broken. We chatter away for the whole of the drive. Ewan heads out of Edinburgh; used to the size of London, I’m surprised at how soon the city falls away and we’re surrounded by fields rising away on either side of the road. It would probably be very beautiful by daylight, but I can’t see much at all now, just lines of hedgerows marching away over the fields. Ewan turns off the main highway and onto a couple of side roads with the ease of someone who’s done this drive very often; soon the car wheels are crunching over an uneven, gravelly surface as tarmac gives way to something a lot more rural, and, as he turns a corner, we see that the narrow lane is suddenly lined with tightly parked cars.
Ewan whistles.
“Busy tonight, eh?” he says, slowing down to a crawl and driving past them, down a long stretch, till we come to the gated driveway to a farm. The gates are hung with placards advertising PICK YOUR OWN FRUIT and FARM PRODUCE SHOP, but the gates are padlocked shut, the farm buildings dark and silent. Ewan reverses the car in the short driveway and turns back the way we’ve come.
“Always turn the car before the party,” he says cheerfully. “My dad told me that. Best advice he ever gave me.”
He manages to maneuver the car up a bank, its right two wheels half a foot higher than the left, then cranks up the hand brake with an audible ratcheting sound and leaves the car in gear.
“Should be okay,” he says with the ease of a boy used to country driving. “Climb out on the high side so it doesn’t tip.”
I’m pretty impressed at his confidence, especially when I see how high the car’s slanted up onto the bank; but no one else seems to think there’s anything dodgy about how Ewan’s parked, and he’s managed to get us right in the center of the cars, next to a ruined house that serves as a marker for where we head into the woods to find the party. Other groups are converging to where we’re standing as Callum pulls a six-pack of beer out of the front seat and swings it up onto his shoulder, together with his violin case slung on a strap. Ewan’s pulling stuff out from the boot. I glance at the old stone house as we pass it; the back’s all crumbling, shored up with rusted steel struts.
“Wow,” Taylor says as we walk down a dirt track wide enough to accommodate us all, side by side. Trees c
luster densely around us, ancient oaks with trunks as thick as the width of Ewan’s car, silver birches with spindly dark branches silhouetted against the sky. The moon’s coming out from behind a cloud, and its light shines ghostly silver-gray. In the distance, I can hear the rhythmic thump of drums, the faint sweet wail of a saxophone, and my heart starts to beat with excitement, as fast as it used to before a gymnastics competition.
A real party. A real teenage party. Not like Plum and Nadia’s parties, where they’re so busy pretending they’re twentysomething sophisticates, listening to jazz and drinking martinis, that everyone gets really insecure because they’re trying to act like people they’re not.
Here, we’re all down-to-earth. Literally. As we get farther down the path, I gasp, because the trees fall away, the area widens out, and I see why this is called a quarry party; we’re in a bowl, trees to our left, but a sweeping semicircle of high stone to our right, tall as a ten-story building, craggy and rugged. A huge bonfire is burning in the center of the bowl, and people are sitting all around it; up on the sides of the quarry, people are perched, the occasional small fire glinting high up on the stone rocks, incredibly dramatic. Music rises with the flames; someone must have rigged up a basic sound system with a generator. I hear it humming quietly under the amplified strum of the guitars and drums. Nothing loud, no rock tunes; this is a much more tribal kind of gathering, I can tell already from the atmosphere. It’s mellow and very chilled, people talking quietly, making their own music in their own small groups, cooking marshmallows on the fire.
“It’s kind of postapocalyptic,” Taylor observes. “Very cool. My brother Seth would love this.”
“We usually go over there,” Callum says, leading us round the bonfire to a sheltered spot at the base of the quarry cliff. A big dog bounds across the path, followed by another, panting, two mutts playing happily in the dark.
Ewan has an old blanket, which he lays out on the ground, revealing a pair of bongo drums wrapped inside it.
“We brought some wine, too,” Callum says a little shyly, setting down what he’s carrying. “Girls don’t always like beer, do they?”
“I like beer,” Taylor says, plopping down on the blanket, popping a can of beer, and reaching for one of the bongos. She looks over at me and winks. “Now, this I’m used to,” she says. “Sneaking beers when the adults aren’t around.”
“Man,” Ewan says respectfully, sitting down next to her. “You’re hard-core.”
“Better believe it!” Taylor says as Ewan pulls the other bongo in front of him and crosses his legs around it.
Callum and I sit down too. I’m glad I have tights on under my jeans; the ground’s hard and cold, and they give a much-needed extra layer of warmth. He unscrews the cap of the wine bottle and hands it to me. I tilt it to my mouth, misjudge the angle, and get a mouthful of warmish cheap white wine. I choke and swallow simultaneously, and end up having a coughing fit.
Callum’s undoing the locks on his violin case, but he stops to pound me on the back. God, how obvious could I make it that I’m not used to drinking? I think, embarrassed, but it’s surprisingly nice to feel Callum touching me, and I relax almost immediately. And he doesn’t try to put his arm around me; when I stop coughing, he goes back to taking his violin and bow out, and I sit there, the wine burning its way down my esophagus, my head spinning, trying to work out how I’m feeling about this situation. Taylor and Ewan are already drumming their fingers on the bongos, setting up a light, steady rhythm. I had no idea Taylor could play the bongo, but that’s Taylor for you: she loves being a dark horse.
Callum’s tuning his violin, beginning to coax a sweet, soft, melancholy tune from it. Perfect. I wriggle back a bit till I feel the rock face against my back so I can lean into it, and close my eyes.
Well, this is sort of unexpected, I think. It feels like we’ve paired off, Taylor with Ewan, me with Callum. There’s a subtle shift that happened as soon as we sat down, positioning ourselves on the blanket. Did the boys do it deliberately, or was it just by chance? Instinct tells me it’s the former; there’s something self-consciously aware about the way both Ewan and Callum are sitting, their bodies turned toward Taylor and me, blocking off the other pair. Transforming us into two couples rather than four friends.
I would have seen this coming if I hadn’t been so absorbed in the tangle of my situation with Jase. When Callum and I stood in the cemetery together, looking at that tombstone, I knew that we were both remembering that kiss at the airport, the moment when our mutual resentment and suspicion finally melted away like clouds burning off in the sun. Leaving the truth in clear sight: that we’re very attracted to each other.
I love Jase. But Jase isn’t here. I don’t know where he is, and I don’t know if he’ll ever contact me again. Maybe not. It’s quite likely that I’ll never see Jase again, that he’ll never come back to Wakefield Hall; that we’ve broken up for good.
I swallow hard and tell myself to be strong. I’m not passive in this situation: I have choices. I can wallow in misery, or I can focus on whatever positives I can find. Like telling myself that if I’m alone and boyfriendless, that also means that I’m free to do what I want. Kiss who I want. And no one can blame me for it.
I explore the idea, tentatively, feeling the shape of it. Just for now—while we’re up in Scotland—how would I feel if Callum tries to get closer to me this evening? I really doubt that he and I could have any kind of long-term thing, not with Dan’s death, and its aftermath, lying between us. But goodness knows, I can’t even imagine a long-term thing with another boy now, not with the breakup with Jase so raw and fresh.
And if I ever do manage to find another boy I want to get serious with, I reflect with a sudden, welcome flash of humor, I’ll do my best to pick someone whose family and mine aren’t tangled up in a horrible mess of murder and grieving.
Yeah, why don’t you try that, Scarlett? I think, my mouth beginning to twist into a wry smile. Try going out with a boy who doesn’t have a single ghastly family skeleton rattling in the closet—just for a change? I’m smiling full-on now, even though no one can see in the dark, cracking myself up with my own black humor. Oh, I don’t know if I possibly could. I mean, what would we have to talk about if someone in his family hadn’t killed someone in mine?
Callum shifts, stretching out his legs, and the movement brings him fractionally nearer to me, his calf almost brushing mine. I look over and meet his eyes; he’s staring at me, and I’m blushing, though, again, it’s mercifully hidden by the night around us.
How would I feel if he tried to kiss me tonight?
The idea sends a warm flood of excitement into the pit of my stomach. I draw up my knees and hug them, feeling suddenly very exposed and vulnerable.
But not in a bad way, I realize, surprised. Not in a bad way at all.
It’s weird, looking back, to see how much my life has changed. This time last year, if you told me I’d have two hot boys interested in me, I’d have slapped you round the face and told you to pull yourself together. But back then, I would have thought it was the absolute summit of my dreams to have kissed boys like Callum and Jase: like standing on the top of Arthur’s Seat with the wind blowing round me.
And now, exciting though it is, it’s also unexpectedly painful, because the fact that I’m sitting here contemplating kissing Callum again means that Jase and I truly are no longer together. How can I help but see that the whole situation with our families is just too hard for him? The worst part is that, though I struggle with it, I can’t even blame him for the way he feels. If I were in his shoes, I don’t know how I’d react. Being fair, I have to admit that if I were Jase’s friend, rather than his ex-girlfriend, I might well tell him to put the past behind him, leave Wakefield Hall and all its awful memories for good. And if that means leaving the Wakefield girl behind too … well, there’s always a price to pay.
So I don’t have a boyfriend anymore. There’s no point hiding from the truth.
I look at Callum’s wide shoulders, his head tilted to one side on his violin as he plays; he’s glancing at Taylor and Ewan, his tune melting into their rhythmic beat, the poignant, minor-key song he’s playing perfect for my mood. As if he’s read my mind; as if he’s playing the sound track to this moment of my life.
It’s so beautiful and sad that I have to shut my eyes so I don’t cry. I lose myself in the tune, the bright gold flames of the bonfire flickering through my closed eyelids, and I drift off into a haze that must be sort of what meditation feels like; when I come to with a start, the music’s over, Taylor’s laughing happily, and Ewan is pushing the wine bottle against my hand.
“Did you nod off?” he says. “Were we that bad?”
“Oh no, it was great!” I take the bottle and swig at it, more carefully this time, just a small mouthful. “I actually went into a sort of trance,” I confess.
“Cool,” says happy hippy Ewan. “That’s exactly what we were going for. Enchantment.” He says this last word in a trippy voice, and flickers his fingers at me in a spell-casting, fake-magician way that has Taylor honking.
“Idiot,” she says, shoving him playfully.
“Jeez, you’re strong,” he says, rubbing his upper arm. “Hey! Want to do the circuit?” He jumps to his feet. “Walk around the bonfire, maybe take the bongos, see if there’s a jam session we can join?”
“Cool!” Taylor jumps up too. She ducks down to grab the bongos. “Let’s head over there.” She points to the other side of the bonfire, where a large group has gathered around the amplifier.
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