A Part of Me

by Anouska Knight

  I looked him over, trying to make sense of him. He was holding a brown shoebox in one hand. In the other, a well-worn motorcycle helmet.

  ‘I was passing,’ he said, glancing back at the chrome and onyx-black motorcycle at the mouth of my mother’s drive. ‘Your friend Philippa stopped by my place this morning, said you were sick.’

  ‘Umm …’ I was getting fuggier by the minute. ‘What are you doing here? How did you know …?’

  He began mimicking my frown and it threw me. A crooked smile moved over his lips. ‘Peace offering,’ he said, holding out the shoebox in his hand.

  I tried not to look stupid. ‘A pair of trainers?’

  Rohan smiled awkwardly. ‘It was the only box I had.’ He shrugged.

  Okay. This was officially weird.

  ‘Would, you … like to come in?’ I shrugged gawkily. Please say no. Please say no.

  ‘Sure. Thanks,’ he said, moving past me in the doorway. I closed the door after him and we both stood for a few seconds in Mum’s open hallway, him in his James Dean get-up and me looking like a nothing that would feature in a James Dean flick.

  ‘Nice slippers,’ he said, beginning to smile. I was definitely going to need something stronger than Lemsip.

  ‘Um, come on in. The kitchen’s just through here,’ I managed, shuffling off in front of him.

  I moved around Mum’s island unit to stand behind one of the pine chairs at the kitchen table and watched him follow me in, placing his helmet on the table and the shoebox down on the table top. He pushed the box over to me.

  ‘What is it?’ I asked, lifting the lid of the box.

  Rohan rubbed his hand up the back of his head. ‘I’d like to say it looks like that because of the journey, but that’s how it came out of the oven. Pretty much,’ he said, a boyish smile reaching over his lips.

  I took the bread tin from the shoebox and laid it carefully on Viv’s table. ‘SORR?’ I asked, reading the scruffy pastry lettering.

  Rohan shifted onto one leg and laughed uncomfortably. ‘Carter’s idea,’ he apologised, shaking his head. ‘I think he ran out of pastry.’

  I inspected the top of the loaf-shaped pie. ‘Or maybe he ran out of room? So, this is Carter’s peace offering?’ I asked quizzically.

  Rohan shifted back onto his other leg, scuffed hands braced over the back of one of Mum’s chairs.

  ‘Not from Carter, exactly. Carter was only on decoration detail because your girl Philippa kept insisting I show her around. I got it eighty per cent of the way, honest, then Cart took over.’

  Rohan’s unease was nicely balancing out my burning need to run upstairs and slap some foundation on immediately.

  ‘For someone who doesn’t like being helped out, you sure do change the goalposts,’ I said bravely.

  Rohan nodded, he was going to give me that one. Unceremoniously, my nose began running again. I rummaged around in my sleeve for my tissue.

  ‘I’m sorry I flew off the handle the other night,’ he said, a seriousness settling in his features. He leant away from the chair, against the edge of Mum’s Welsh dresser. ‘I know, I can be …’

  ‘Touchy?’ I was a lot braver in my mum’s house, it turned out.

  ‘If I blamed it on a dodgy upbringing, would that wash?’

  I stopped swabbing my nostrils and thought about it. ‘No.’

  Rohan nodded to himself again. ‘Didn’t think so.’ He laughed. ‘Look, there are guys on site asking me questions I don’t know the answers to, and your friend Philippa scares me. So … if I promise to behave myself from now on, will you come back? When you’re better, I mean?’

  He looked different somehow; it made me want to look at my feet.

  ‘What made you think I wasn’t coming back?’

  His features grew solemn. It reminded me how he’d looked when the police had arrived. When he’d heard how I’d described him. Labelled him. ‘Call it a hunch.’

  ‘I’m sorry I didn’t try calling you, Rohan, when the kids got into the mill. I never meant to offend you.’

  Rohan’s honeyed eyes were still guarded. ‘So, you’ll come back and save me from your friend?’ he asked hopefully. I could only imagine what Phil had been up to. He smiled with me. ‘Want to seal the deal with a spoonful of rhubarb pie?’ he asked.

  ‘Rhubarb? From your place?’ I asked.

  ‘Carter said you liked it, so we saved you some.’ I didn’t know why he’d gone to the effort, or why I felt so gladdened by it, but I did. I turned away for the spoons in the drawer behind me.

  ‘You first,’ I said, passing one to him.

  Rohan dug into what looked like a pretty respectable attempt at baking. For the first few chews, he’d kept an even face. I couldn’t taste a thing, but he didn’t have to know that. I nodded and smiled. ‘You’ll make a fine husband some day.’

  Rohan’s eyes began to lose their smile as he chewed.

  ‘Are you okay?’ I asked, finishing my mouthful.

  ‘Are you okay?’ he choked.

  ‘What’s the matter?’ I asked, gawping uselessly from my side of the table. ‘Er, the bin’s in the island unit – under the sink,’ I said worriedly, passing him a sheet of kitchen towel. What could they have done between them to make rhubarb so offensive? I was instantly glad for my defective nose.

  Rohan turned his back, discreetly ridding himself of what he could of the pie. ‘Too much ginger!’ he rasped. ‘Carter’s idea!’

  I took a clean spoon from the drawer and dug another small spoonful. Come to think of it, my nose did feel a little breezier for eating it, maybe Carter had just stumbled across a super-food.

  ‘Did he use raw ginger?’ I asked, discovering something crunchier than rhubarb.

  ‘How can you keep eating it?’ Rohan asked, laughing. ‘My throat is on fire!’

  It was true, there was a nice warm sensation in my throat too. ‘I think this might clear my cold!’ I said happily. ‘Can I get you a drink?’

  ‘Thanks.’ He smiled, slipping out of his jacket. He hung it over the back of the chair. ‘You know, if your throat is fire-proofed, you should get a few hot toddies down you. Help clear you up. My foster dad always swore by anything that involved whiskey.’

  I pulled the milk from the fridge and poured him out a glassful. ‘And did he also advocate riding high-powered death traps?’ I asked, glancing at the motorbike helmet on the table.

  Rohan sunk the drink I’d offered him, the sinews of his neck flexing as he swallowed. I waited patiently for him to finish. ‘He liked machines. Liked anything with nuts and bolts,’ he said, setting the glass down.

  I passed him a piece of kitchen towel. ‘You have a, er … little milk moustache.’

  Rohan laughed, his chin low against his chest as his face blossomed into warmth. I felt something stir in my chest as I watched his rise and fall in soft convulsion.

  ‘So he passed all that on, did he?’ I said, distracting myself. ‘Knowing your way around bikes, and nuts and bolts, I mean.’ I needed to go and get some decent clothes on.

  ‘For sure. He said anyone could break something, but it took a lot more for a person to make something. I guess it stayed with me. He taught me a lot about mechanics, that kind of thing. Arthur used to let me hang out in his workshop, mess around tinkering with stuff while he fixed things up for folks. Let Carter hang around too, which was good, kept us both out of trouble. Art said he’d know I hadn’t been in trouble, so long as any new cuts and bruises I came home with were on my legs and elbows.’ I watched Rohan bite at his lower lip, shaking his head nostalgically.

  I found myself smiling with him.

  ‘So I guess you know what works then, if you ever have boys of your own.’

  ‘Boys?’ he blurted. ‘As in sons? Like I told you before, parenting’s a serious job, not for someone like me.’

  ‘Everyone probably thinks that, though, don’t they? Until they are one?’ But there was nothing uncertain about him. It was funny how the world worked. Here we w
ere, two people in a suburban kitchen, me desperate to be a parent, and him desperate not to. It didn’t seem fair, somehow, to either of us. Rohan might make someone a fine husband one day, but she would have to be nothing like me. ‘So does Carter bike like you do? I haven’t seen him doing the same kind of crazy moves you and Max go for.’

  Rohan’s shoulders relaxed again. ‘Carter was never really that into getting beat up. You have to take a beating if you’re going to give extreme sports a fair go. Cart’s more of a physical pacifist than an adrenalin junky, like the rest of us.’ He smiled, folding his arms again.

  ‘Carter said that Max is a podiatrist – he’s kidding, right?’ I frowned.

  ‘No, not kidding. Maxi’s a foot man.’ His smile broadened. ‘I know, he still looks like he’s only just started shaving, but I met Max when I was having my rehabilitation. A lot of the guys have proper jobs. But they all free up their time for the bikes. You’ve just gotta be careful what you’re doing. Injury can mess up your income if you’re expected to clock on somewhere fit as a fiddle on a Monday morning. Ask Billy how much fun a broken wrist is when you work in a garage.’

  ‘So what about you?’ I blurted.

  ‘Me? I was lucky, I guess. My sponsors made sure I was insured up to the hilt, so they paid out big when I had my accident.’

  ‘Sponsors? So, you were a professional BMX rider?’ I asked, pretending I hadn’t seen the trophies.

  ‘Don’t get too excited, I wasn’t that good.’ He laughed, knocking his prosthetic. ‘But they paid up, so I don’t have to worry about mortgages, and all that mundane stuff. Got a few fancy prosthetics out of them, too. One for running, one for bathing …’

  ‘Do you miss it?’ I asked, certain that someone like him must pine for the arena he’d left behind.

  ‘Yes, and no. I was thirty-one when I last competed, I’d been doing it since I was in my late teens. It was high-octane; some might have thought I was living the dream, I guess. I even had a few supporters who’d follow my progress, y’know? But, I wasn’t really breaking through my own expectations, I knew that. I was just starting to think about pursuing other avenues, maybe go back to making stuff, being useful with my hands. I’d already told myself that Munich was going to be my last competitive event when I blew myself out of the running anyway.’

  ‘What happened?’

  ‘I’m not sure. Just landed wrong. It didn’t even hurt at first … at first. I knew I’d seriously messed up when I saw the bottom of my own trainer. Up here.’ he said, lifting his hand to his stomach. I felt mine flop as if I’d just gone over a humpback bridge at speed. ‘The whole leg just bent the wrong way. They managed to salvage my knee.’

  ‘Do you really want to talk about this?’ I asked, feeling myself turning green.

  ‘I don’t mind either way. It’s my old life. It’s in the past now, probably best left there,’ he said, letting go of a deep cavernous breath.

  I wondered how we might take the conversation somewhere else. ‘What’s a tag?’ I asked, curious.

  The question caught him off guard. ‘A tag, as in the kids, the other night?’

  I nodded.

  ‘It’s like a calling card, every graffiti artist has their own unique mark. That’s how I knew it was them who’d been hanging around the ramps too. Their tags need work.’ He laughed, shaking his head. ‘But they’ll get better.’

  Rohan hadn’t been anything but calm with the kid the other night, at least for the time I was there with them. James would have gone berserk, dragging the boy straight to the nearest detention centre. ‘Doesn’t that bother you? That there’s a gang of kids defacing your property?’

  ‘It bothered me that they got in the house, especially as you were in there at the time, but I don’t think that’s going to happen again. As for the ramps, they’re kids. Lads on bikes. They’re gonna be interested. The way I see it, if they’re messing around on my ramps when no one’s looking, they’re not off somewhere else doing something really stupid.’

  ‘Like decorating someone’s lounge?’ I asked.

  ‘Or worse.’ He shrugged, serious now. ‘I used to be those kids. Me and Cart, both. We were doing stuff more stupid than that. You know when a kid is really bad news, but the ones that are just being rascals, they just need something to do mostly. And a few ground rules.’

  ‘My mum says the same thing,’ I said, looking for tinfoil to wrap the pie in. ‘She’s trying to secure the Earleswicke community centre for the local rascals to have some place to hang out. Them and the flower-arranging posse.’

  ‘The flower-arranging posse? Oh yeah, they definitely need to be kept out of trouble.’ He grinned. Rohan had this almost trigger-like quality. When he smiled, he threw everything into it, and inevitably it pulled the same back from me. We held sight of each other for a few seconds across my mum’s battered old kitchen table. ‘I should be getting going,’ he said, lifting his jacket. ‘Let you get back to putting your claws up.’ He smiled again.

  I followed him through the kitchen, out across the hallway, and opened the front door for him. ‘Thanks for the pie,’ I offered.

  ‘Yeah, go easy on that.’ He grinned. ‘You might do irreparable damage to your tastebuds.’ He slipped his arm through the visor of his helmet and reached forward with the other. I watched his hand go for mine. I wasn’t sure why I did it, but I held my hand out for his. Rohan reached past my fingers to the tissue hanging from my jumper sleeve.

  ‘Ooh, that’s er …’

  ‘What? Infected with your lurgy? I’m sure I’ll survive.’ He pulled the tissue free then reached up with the tissue and started to come slowly at me, his hand moving steadily towards my forehead. I followed it until my eyes were too crossed, and Rohan dabbed at me gently with the tissue. ‘I’ve been meaning to get that for you,’ he said, passing me the Kleenex.

  ‘Thanks?’ I said inanely, taking it from him.

  He slipped his head into his helmet. ‘I’ll see you when you’re better.’ He smiled.

  I smiled back, but his eyes were more startling when framed by the shape of his helmet. There was still a smile in them when he turned and walked away down my mother’s driveway.

  As soon as I shut the door after him, I felt fluey again. I leant back against the door, and examined the tissue he’d given me. I opened it out and realised why he hadn’t bothered over his milk moustache. I’d spent the entirety of our time together with a Maryland chocolate chip stuck to my face.

  CHAPTER 19

  ‘A DAMNED E-PETITION! Do they think the likes of Hilda Egginton or Flora Merriweather sit surfing the ruddy net of an evening? Half the people in that meeting thought the internet was something they’d take pond-dipping!’ My mother’s voice had been steadily climbing since she’d returned from the evening’s council meeting.

  Phil grinned at me from the other sofa. ‘I hope I’m still as spunky when I get to Viv’s age,’ she mused, popping into her mouth another of the grapes she’d supposedly brought for me.

  We listened to the heated conversation Mum was having on the kitchen phone. ‘One thousand names before they’ll even consider it! It’s a damned stitch-up, Sue, that’s what this is! A bureaucratic stitch-up.’

  Phil’s eyes widened as if further impressed by my mother’s fieriness. Her fringe was always less severe after she’d been for a workout, a lingering glow beneath her porcelain skin only an hour-long spinning class could muster. ‘What’s she so het up about?’ she asked, scooping up another grape.

  I wasn’t sure exactly. Mum had burst back into the house ten minutes after Phil had arrived, ranting her way straight for the phone. ‘I think the council have given them a few hoops to jump through in their quest to rescue the community centre.’

  Phil had already lost interest, inspecting the quality of her last manicure. ‘Are you taking tomorrow off, hon? Do you need me to cover again? Honestly, I don’t mind if you need another day.’ She smiled innocently.

  Mum huffed her way into the lounge a
nd dropped like a sack of potatoes into the sofa beside me.

  ‘Everything okay, Mum?’ I asked, moving my pile of tissues.

  ‘Not bloody really. That useless self-important prig of a councillor, he’s underestimated the Earleswicke community, the pompous bugger. He thinks we can’t get a thousand people to show an interest in the well-being of our community – well, he’s wrong! And I for one will laugh my backside off when we get more than one thousand names and he has to …’ she searched the air in frustration, ‘suck it up!’

  ‘Suck it up, Viv? Did you pick that up in the playground?’ Phil teased. ‘A thousand names for what, anyway?’

  ‘A thousand names of people who don’t want to see the community centre closed,’ Mum droned, as if this should be the most pressing issue in Phil’s universe too. Phil wasn’t even from Earleswicke. ‘But they can’t just be good old-fashioned pen and ink jobbies, oh no. They have to be inputted on the bloody council website.’

  ‘Is that a lot?’ Phil asked drily. ‘Doesn’t sound that many to me.’ Maybe not when it came to saving somewhere like Rufus’s, or the city gym, but this was a tired old community hall we were talking about. The majority of its services catered for the under-threes and over-sixty-fives, probably not the biggest users of online petitioning systems.

  I didn’t like to state the obvious but… ‘More than a thousand people, Ma? To say that they want to keep the community centre? Isn’t that like ten times the amount of people who actually use it each week?’

  Mum huffed into her chest. ‘That’s not the point. It’s community spirit, Amy. You’ll see. We’ll get those names. Blow them, we’ll get more than a thousand.’ Braveheart was making a comeback.

  Phil shifted, repositioning her legs beneath her. She looked even more cat-like snuggled on Mum’s red tartan throw. ‘And then what? If you get the names? What’s their end of the bargain?’

  ‘Then they’ll have to reconsider the future of the centre. Because that’s what that pompous idiot has said publicly they’ll do!’

  ‘If you get over a thousand names?’