For a while there was silence. Sammie was so shocked she didn’t know what to say or do, and Jay seemed even to have surprised himself a bit. But then he started swearing at the pain in his hand, and Sammie looked at the wall by his bedroom door, where he’d damaged the plasterboard.
‘It’s okay,’ she said, rushing over to him and trying to put her arms around him. ‘It’s alright, it doesn’t matter that much, does it?’
Jay carried on swearing and pushed her away, and she started to cry because she was so confused and shaken. ‘Jay,’ she said, ‘Jay, you’re frightening me.’
‘I wanted it to be special for you,’ he said.
‘It was,’ Sammie told him, wiping her tears away, ‘it was special. I… I really liked it.’
Sammie thought Jay was beginning to calm down, but out in the hall she could hear his mum coming up the stairs. Seconds later she burst into Jay’s room, and Sammie stepped back well away from her, even though the slim woman in a ruffled blue blouse and a pencil skirt was hardly a formidable sight. Jay’s mum took one look at the hole in the wall and for a second Sammie thought she was going to flip. But instead, she said in a very quiet and restrained voice, ‘Jay, I want you to walk Sammie home now. Then you are going to come straight back here, and you and me are going to have a conversation. A long conversation.’
…
On the walk home, Jay was still fuming about what had happened, and as they reached her front door Sammie said, ‘why was she even back so early? I thought she worked ‘til nearly six. It was only just gone five.’
Jay kicked out moodily at the doorstep. ‘One of the fucking neighbours,’ he said, ‘apparently one of them phoned up mum’s work. They didn’t even speak to my mum, they just left a message with someone else there saying I’d been playing loud music for hours on end.’
Sammie frowned. ‘But… we weren’t.’
‘I know,’ Jay said, ‘it’s fucking stupid. They’ve got it in for me. Everyone fucking has it in for me.’
Sammie carried on thinking about it, while Jay muttered angrily to himself. It made no sense to her at all. Her and Jay hadn’t had any music on, let alone loudly, and even when Mark had been there earlier and him and Jay had been playing games, it hadn’t been loud.
‘I don’t get it,’ she said.
‘It ruined everything.’
Sammie touched his arm. ‘It didn’t ruin it,’ she said gently, ‘not for me. I… I’m upset your mum found us, but it doesn’t change what happened before that, does it?’
‘Doesn’t it?’
‘Well, didn’t you enjoy it?’ she asked, ‘was it… was it how you thought it would be?’
‘No,’ he said, ‘I didn’t think we’d get walked in on.’
Sammie sighed inwardly, and decided she’d tell him how she felt about it anyway, even if he wasn’t interested. ‘It was… it was even more painful than I thought it would be,’ she said, ‘but I didn’t mind, because it was so wonderful, and I was so happy it was happening.’
Finally, Jay calmed down and looked at her. ‘Did it really hurt a lot?’ he asked.
‘Yeah,’ she said, ‘I think… I think it might be one of the most painful things I’ve ever done.’
Jay touched her face. ‘I really liked it, Sammie,’ he said, ‘it was… it was more, sort of… difficult, than I expected. But it was amazing.’ His face clouded over again. ‘I just can’t believe it ended like that,’ he said, ‘if I find out which neighbour it was—’
‘Jay, don’t,’ Sammie said, ‘don’t get upset about it again. I’m sure other people have had even weirder first times. I mean, it didn’t even seem like it could happen at all to begin with, did it? With Mark not wanting to take the hint and leave us—’ She stopped suddenly as the memory of Mark’s face flashed into her mind. He’d looked so angry, and upset, and jealous, when Jay had told him to go.
‘Jay,’ she said slowly, ‘this call to your mum’s work. You don’t… you don’t think it could have been Mark, do you?’
Felicity
20
Although Jay remained sceptical about me trying to sell my jewellery – and a part of me was inclined to agree with him – I found that ideas began to trickle in anyway, until I thought to hell with it, and sat down at my desk. To begin with I felt oddly self-conscious. I couldn’t switch off and focus on what I was doing, and I nearly gave up. Finally I took a deep breath. It was now or never, I decided. I had loads of new ideas, but if I couldn’t put them into action now, I had to accept I probably never would. With that decided, I laid out all the sketches I’d hastily done over the past few days, and tried to get myself back into the zone.
I surfaced a couple of hours later, when Jay told me he’d made dinner.
‘Tell me about what you’ve made,’ he said as we sat together eating salmon with steamed vegetables.
‘I thought you weren’t interested?’
Jay shrugged. ‘You know how I feel about it,’ he said, ‘but if it’s important to you, then it’s important to me, and I want to hear about it.’
I started to tell him, then I went and grabbed what I’d done so far to help me explain better, holding the necklace I’d been working on up to me to show him how it would sit against the skin. He listened carefully as I explained my idea – the way the metal would eventually form an elegant silver loop around the neck and then plunge down into a luxurious spiral just below the throat, but he couldn’t hide the glazed look that crept into his eyes.
When we’d finished eating he said, ‘you should call Mark.’
Suddenly, I understood. ‘That’s why you’ve come round to the idea, isn’t it?’ I said, ‘it’s not because it’s important to me, it’s because it will help with the plan for Mark!’
Jay watched me in silence. ‘Fine,’ he said at last. ‘Fliss, I’m not interested in it. In fact, I think it’s really stupid, and a complete waste of time. But Mark likes it and I want Mark to like you. Is that what you wanted to hear?’
‘I really don’t like you much sometimes,’ I said.
‘Would you rather I lied?’
I picked up my phone. ‘Okay,’ I said, ‘I’ll call him.’ I stood up to go and talk to Mark in private but Jay stopped me. ‘No,’ he said, ‘in here.’
He started clearing away our plates and I dialled Mark’s number. To begin with I was reserved, stung by what Jay had said about my jewellery, but before long I was babbling away with excitement over the new collection I was going to put together and eventually told him I’d like to take him up on the offer of some help making a website. He sounded thrilled, suggesting we meet up one night to talk about it, so I arranged to go to his flat for dinner the very next day. Although Jay pretended to be intent on clearing up in the kitchen, I knew he was listening to every word.
‘Jay,’ I said afterwards, ‘next time I have to call him, could you let me have some space?’
‘Why?’
‘Because it’s weird having you in the room with me judging every word I say. It’s hard enough doing all this pretending, without you reminding me of it.’
‘You didn’t sound like you were pretending,’ Jay said, with a sideways glance at me.
‘Well, good,’ I said, ‘that’s the idea.’
Jay continued being suspicious of me all evening. He wouldn’t talk to me and was clearly having a sulk. Since he was acting that way anyway I decided to continue work on the necklace, and before long Jay came in and sat on the end of the bed in my room, watching me work.
‘Jay, why don’t you leave me to it?’ I said. ‘I need to concentrate.’
‘Are you going to be doing this every night now?’
‘Not every night,’ I said, ‘but I want to get a fair bit done this week.’
‘So when you’re here you’re going to be doing that, and then the rest of the time you’ll be out with him,’ Jay said, as if the reality of his plan had only just occurred to him. ‘When are we going to talk about what I said the other day? About us ma
ybe trying for a baby?’
I sighed. ‘Jay,’ I said, ‘we are a long way off that conversation.’
…
When I got to Mark’s the next day, I was confronted with a kitchen full of food. He’d said he was going to make pizza, but every surface seemed to be covered in ingredients – from mozzarella to parmesan, olives to tinned pineapple, ham to chorizo. There was even a big bowl of salad, and garlic bread.
‘I didn’t know what you like,’ he said, ‘so I got everything.’
I laughed. ‘You’re not kidding,’ I said.
‘Yeah,’ he said, ‘I guess I went a bit overboard.’
The pizzas were delicious. I ate more than I thought I’d be able to, but when I looked round at the kitchen there was still a lot left.
‘You’re going to be eating the rest of this stuff for a week,’ I said.
‘Yeah,’ he said, ‘well, I’m just pleased that you liked it.’
I helped him take our plates and things into the kitchen, and offered to help him wash up but he wouldn’t let me.
‘I’ll do it later,’ he said, ‘tell me about what you’ve been working on.’
I didn’t take much persuading. We sat on the sofa and he listened to me pouring out my ideas.
‘I’ll make some simpler pieces as well,’ I explained. ‘Probably things people can get personalised with names or initials or whatever, so they can get something unique but not actually that expensive or time consuming for me to make.’
‘Yeah, that makes sense,’ Mark said, ‘a small number of unique, expensive things and then a lot of cheaper, simpler ones.’
I stretched my legs out and sighed contentedly. I felt very full, and very relaxed. Mark’s flat might be poky, and the furniture that had come with it from the previous owners was a bit grotty, and ugly, but it was a cosy place to be. The sofa was so big that it closed off the corner of the room we were in like a little nest, and Mark was an easy person to be with.
‘Are you enjoying getting back into it again?’ Mark asked me.
‘Yes, and no,’ I said.
‘Why no?’
‘Oh… I don’t know,’ I said. ‘It’s fun to pretend I’m doing something good with my jewellery, but how good is any of what I’m making, really? I wonder whether I’m just kidding myself.’
‘Fliss, it’s good.’
‘Really?’
‘Yeah. Honestly, I wouldn’t say it was if it wasn’t. I don’t lie.’
I smiled and laid my head back on the sofa, gazing up at the ceiling. My hand was resting next to me on the cushions, and suddenly I felt Mark touch it. My initial instinct was to snatch it away, but I didn’t, and after a minute or two I found that I didn’t mind it so much.
We talked all evening. He told me about his family, and his brothers and sisters. He had three sisters, one older than him and the other two younger. Two of them had families of their own. He also had a brother who was a couple of years older, and doing a PhD in something Mark didn’t seem to understand well enough to be able to explain to me.
‘Do you see your family much?’ I asked him.
‘No,’ he said after a brief pause, ‘I don’t really… go back home much.’
‘How come?’
He thought about it, almost seeming to weigh me up. ‘I’ve got… some bad memories back at home,’ he said.
I wanted to ask him more, but I could see he wasn’t ready to discuss it, so reluctantly I held back.
‘What about you?’ he asked, ‘do you see your family much?’
I hesitated before answering. In the past, straight after it had happened, I had told people the truth about my family. But more recently I’d changed my tactics. I didn’t like dealing with people’s reactions, and I’d come up with a convenient alternative.
‘My parents both died in a car crash,’ I said.
Mark stared at me. ‘Oh,’ he said, ‘oh… God. I’m sorry. When? How—’
‘It was about two years ago. Please don’t feel sorry for me. It’s just… you know. What’s happened has happened. I don’t dwell on it.’
‘Well, yeah, but… I feel bad for saying I don’t go home much now.’
‘Why?’
‘Because I… well, I can. But I choose not to, whereas you…’ he trailed off awkwardly. I could see he was searching for another topic to divert attention away from himself and his flustered feelings, so I put him out of his misery. ‘So you’re definitely up for helping me make a website?’ I said.
‘Yes!’ he said in relief. ‘I’d love to. I’m free at the weekend, if you want to—’
‘Yeah,’ I said, ‘that’d be great.’
Mark drove me home at the end of the night, and kissed me before I got out of the car. I could see he still felt a bit weird over what he’d heard about my parents, and I was glad I hadn’t told him the whole truth because God knows what a state he’d have got himself into if I’d come out with all of that.
Jay was still awake doing some cleaning, and when I got inside he looked me up and down. ‘You’re not staying over with him then,’ he said.
‘No,’ I said, ‘it doesn’t look like it.’ I examined his face closely. ‘Are you… disappointed?’
‘No,’ he said, ‘and yes. I want… I want to get it done.’
‘He kissed me,’ I told him.
‘What, properly?’
‘Yes, properly.’
All of a sudden Jay’s mood transformed, and he stopped cleaning the kitchen sink to give me a hug. ‘Well done, Fliss,’ he said.
‘Don’t say well done.’
He pulled away from me. ‘What should I say? Thank you?’
‘No,’ I said. ‘You don’t have to say anything. We both know what I’m doing and why I’m doing it. But I’d rather you didn’t remind me.’
PART 2
Sammie
21
To Sammie’s surprise and delight, the months after Jay’s exclusion from school and getting caught in bed with him were some of the happiest of her life. Despite how angry she’d been with Jay about everything, Jay’s mum seemed keen to get to know Sammie and said she could come for dinner pretty much whenever she wanted, so she’d go round there three or four times each week. She enjoyed being part of a family, where there was a proper adult there in the evening making food and giving structure to the otherwise blurry, boring hours. She liked Jay’s mum’s cooking too – she made nice simple things like sausages with buttery mash, or fish fingers, or cottage pie with peas and sweetcorn on the side. Sometimes after dinner she’d give Sammie and Jay some money and tell them to go and get icecreams from the little village shop and they’d sit in the cottage’s cosy lounge and eat them in front of the TV.
If her parents realised that she was going out with Jay they never said, and so she never told them. She supposed they must suspect something when she kept going round to his for dinner, and she started to think that they were glad of the arrangement, because it meant she was out from under their feet.
After his sixteenth birthday at the beginning of November, Jay got a part time job in the kitchen of the village pub, and with his first few weeks pay he bought Sammie a necklace – a lovely little sapphire pendant on a silver chain. Sammie enthused over how beautiful it was and how happy he’d made her, and Jay smiled. ‘I love you, Sammie,’ he said.
It was after this that things changed. Gradually at first, so that it was hard to even be sure. Jay would be incredibly, almost excessively nice to her one moment; saying that he loved her more than anything in the world, telling her she was beautiful, saying he wanted to be with her forever, then in the next breath it was like he used these declarations of love to punish her – saying she didn’t love him as much as he loved her, accusing her of having feelings for other boys at school, and expecting an explanation if she didn’t answer a call or text from him straight away. He became strange about sex as well; pushy and stifling, expecting her to do whatever he wanted whenever he wanted her to, and he was more and more
demanding about what she sent to him in photos. Before long he had built up quite a collection of pictures, including some of her doing things to him, or him doing things to her. Sometimes she felt so scared and uncomfortable about the images that she struggled to sleep. She wasn’t sure how to talk to him about it, so she didn’t. She soon learnt that to stay in harmony with him she had to consistently be what he considered “a good shag”, to not complain too much when he sometimes refused flatly to use the condoms she bought, and to not say no to him – because when she said no he would argue with her, tell her she was “frigid” or being a bitch, accuse her of not loving him or threaten to split up with her.
Sammie had never thought, when she’d considered things like this in the past, that she’d let someone pressure her the way Jay did. But his arguments made a twisted kind of sense after a while. Perhaps he really did get so excited sometimes that it was physically impossible for him to stop and put a condom on. Maybe she was unreasonable to ever say she didn’t want to have sex after she’d made him want it so badly through something she said or did, and perhaps not wanting to do things that were unfamiliar or made her nervous really did mean that she was cold, and prudish and unkind, because after all Jay loved her, and she loved him, and you were supposed to make sacrifices for the people you love.
…
It was at the beginning of December that he first hurt her. They were in bed, as they nearly always were, and she felt his hand on her hair. She thought he was going to stroke it – not that he did things like that often – but sometimes he did, when he was happy. Instead she felt him start pulling one particular strand, making a sharp little pinprick of pain.
‘Jay,’ she said, ‘what are you doing? That hurts.’
He ignored her and carried on pulling, until it came free from her head. That done, he laid the blonde strand on the pillow in front of her, practically beneath her nose, and went back for another. Sammie let him continue as two, three, four strands were added to the little pile and then she tried to move out of his way.
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