A siren interrupts us.
‘Shit, police! Get out of here.’
‘Which way? Where are they?’
‘Danny, Danny – take the bike. Move it. Now! Now!’
‘Cam! Behind you, come on, run.’
They erupt into a hubbub of shouting and action. At first I don’t know which way to go, but then Fraser grabs my hand and hauls me back on to his quad. ‘Hang on!’ and we’re racing over the grass again. I’m not sure where we’re going but the bikes scatter in different directions. Headlights flash up the field and they’re coming towards us. I’m confused at first by how slowly, but then I realise there’s only one car – they’re here to break us up, not seriously catch anyone – and now it’s funny watching everyone run off so fast.
Once we’re off the field and on a back lane, Fraser kills the engine and gets off to push. There are houses with lights on to the side of us and I guess he doesn’t want to attract attention.
‘Let me drop this off and I’ll walk you home,’ he says.
Walk me home. That has a nice old-fashioned feel. I like it. Nobody’s ever walked me home before.
We push the quad bike forward in silence, him on one side, me on the other, and come out of the lane on to a wider one with smooth tarmac underfoot. The houses here are bigger – detached with garages the size of some of the cottages we’ve just passed. I can hear raised voices from the open door of one house: ‘And just where have you been, young lady? No nonsense! I said you were to be in by nine. I haven’t forgotten this is a school night even if you have.’
‘Lucy’s place,’ Fraser whispers, suppressing a laugh. ‘Her dad is a control freak.’
I nod and we push the bike on a few more houses until we reach a gated drive leading to a large white house. Fraser stops and swings one of the huge iron gates open.
‘Come in, but shush,’ he says and we take the bike inside. He leads me to the garage and we park it in there. The four cars are all parked outside on the drive and I wonder what the point of a vast garage is if you’re going to do that. All I know is that this is the polar opposite of the place I live in now.
He beckons to me and we leave as quietly as we came. He closes the gate behind him and looks at me expectantly.
‘I don’t know the way home from here,’ I admit. ‘Where are the shops? I know how to get back from there.’
He waves further down the lane. ‘This way.’
As we walk back, I wonder if I can fob him off when we get to the main street. Can I convince him to let me find my own way from there? For the first time in my life, I’m ashamed to let someone see where I live. It’s the most horrible feeling.
I understand the word dread now. I live with it every day in one form or another. It’s not the adrenalin-inducing things that scare me, like being raced around on the quad bike. It’s these little deaths every day. These, and the waiting for . . .
STOP! Now that is out of bounds . . . I can’t think about what’s coming this summer because I really will choke up and break out of role. It terrifies me that much.
We come out on to the high street by one of the hairdressers.
‘I can find my way from here. You go back home.’
He smiles. This time, my bones are too full of wanting to get rid of him to even think about melting. ‘But I want to.’
‘Really, you don’t have to.’
He frowns slightly. ‘Really, I do. Now which way?’
I give up and prepare myself for the worst. ‘Down here.’
He doesn’t say a word as we walk through the estate to my house and I don’t try to make conversation. When we get to my door, I say, ‘Thanks,’ and don’t meet his eyes.
‘See you tomorrow in school?’
‘Yes, sure.’ I risk a look at him but I can’t read what’s in his face.
I grit my teeth and smile. ‘See you tomorrow then.’ And I run up the path and close the door before he notices my embarrassment.
At break-time next day, I am absolutely starving and I race out of the science block as soon as the bell goes. The canteen is at the opposite end of school and there’s a piece of cheese on toast with my name on it if I can beat the rush. Nobody got breakfast at home because Katie decided to have a screaming fit at the table and knock everything on to the floor. We were expecting her to erupt – it’s her first day at school, and first days and Katie don’t mix. The neighbours must have thought we were half killing her from the noise she made.
So with nothing more than a hastily gulped glass of juice in my stomach, it’s crucial that I get to that cheese on toast. If I miss a meal I’m always ravenous.
Thankfully there’s no queue, but it looks as if PE let the Year 10s out early because the canteen is full of red, sweaty faces filling their mouths as fast as they can.
Urgh, bacon rolls – microwaved, anaemic bacon with a rind of white, greasy fat poking out of a doughy burger bun. Gross. But there on the rack beside the bacon rolls is one last slice of cheese on toast. It’s the only thing here that tastes like real food and they mix mustard in with the cheese for some extra kick. My stomach growls in anticipation.
I scoot through the chrome barriers and reach for the slice . . . but my fingers close on air. I look in surprise at the empty rack . . . realise it’s empty . . . and then look round . . . to see that stupid Emo holding my, my, cheese on toast. My stomach howls in protest, and so do I.
‘Oi! That’s mine! You pushed in.’
He looks at the empty space behind him and shrugs. ‘Can’t push in if there’s no queue.’
‘But I was here first. That’s mine.’
‘If you were here first, you would have got it. I was here before you.’ He scowls and turns to go to the till.
My temper bubbles to a boil, encouraged by my furious stomach, and I grab his arm to pull him back. ‘It was mine and you know it. You snatched it on purpose, you freak!’
His face twists in anger. ‘Get off me, posh bitch.’ He wrenches his arm free and walks to the till.
If I was Lea, I’d have burst into tears. That was her favourite trick. But I have more self-respect, so I snatch up a bacon roll and march to the till myself. He pays for his toast and slouches off, with a last glare back at me.
Moron!
I do a quick scan round the canteen and spot Fraser in the far corner with Stuart. He catches my eye as if he’s been waiting to do that and waves to me to join them. I wander over with the disgusting bacon roll, taking my time. Fraser gets up and pulls out a chair for me. ‘Hey, I was hoping I’d see you. Are you busy a week on Saturday?’
I sit down beside him and nod at Stuart, who smiles in return and then gives an excuse about having to see a teacher before making his exit. I wonder if that was planned, but there’s no clue in Fraser’s face.
‘Next Saturday? Not sure yet. Why?’ I have nothing planned of course, but he doesn’t need to know that.
‘There’s a party at Cam’s place. Her parents are away and she has the house to herself. I thought you might like to come. My sister’s giving me a lift – it’s too far from the village to walk.’
He’s asking me out. He’s actually asking me out. I feel insanely pleased and I’m embarrassed by it. When did I get this sappy over a boy?
Since I moved here and lost myself ?
Whatever. He asked me out and I’m going, and I will have fun and I will feel like me again. Caution can go straight to hell on a quad bike.
‘Yeah, sounds OK. Thanks.’
He grins and I like how grateful he looks that I said yes. If that makes me a bitch, so be it. My ego has been in bits for too long – it needs a boost, and a Fraser-shaped boost will do just fine.
Katie’s waiting for me when I get home from school, sitting on the doorstep and sucking a lolly.
‘How was school?’ I ask.
‘Poop.’
‘Is your teacher nice?’
‘Poop.’
I sigh; she’s in one of those moods.
&nbs
p; ‘Did you make any friends today?’
‘Boo-Boo is a poophead.’
I sit down next to her on the step.
‘You learned that word today, didn’t you? Who from?’
‘Sammy. Sammy told it to me. It’s a good word, isn’t it, Boo-Boo? I like it. Poooop!’
I have to laugh. She’s smiling and Katie’s smile always cheers me up. ‘So school wasn’t so bad after all? Who’s Sammy – a boy or a girl?’
‘Poooop! A boy. He’s funny. We played on the slide and in the ball pool.’
I put my arm round her shoulders and give her a hug. ‘Is Sammy your friend now?’
She nods and sucks furiously on the lolly. ‘Yes. Best friend.’
‘Hey, do you want me to take you to the swings before tea?’
‘Don’t you have homework?’ Mum says as she passes through the hall with a pile of washing.
‘I can find the time to take my sister to the park first.’
Katie’s already bouncing on the spot. ‘Swings! Swings!’
Mum shakes her head and walks off laughing. ‘Take her, please, and give us all some peace.’
I get her coat and we walk through the houses and across the main street. There are a few people I know by sight hanging around outside the post office, but we don’t meet anyone I talk to at school. There’s a little playground on the playing fields and I take her there. A girl her age is on the climbing frame with what must be her younger sister as they look so alike, and their mum sits on a bench half watching them and reading a book at the same time. Katie runs to the swings and perches on one.
‘Pushies, Boo-Boo! Pushies!’
I pull the swing back and shove hard, sending her soaring up in the air. She screams in excitement and I send her higher next time, and higher.
‘WHEEEEEEEEEEE!’
I push her and push her until my arms ache and her throat grows hoarse from squealing. The kids on the climbing frame go home and I’m still there making my sister fly.
‘More, Boo-Boo, more.’
Just me and her. It feels like none of it ever happened.
Until the car goes past.
It’s a white car with a rear spoiler and the exhaust roars as it goes down the lane by the playing fields. It’s the sound that attracts us; we see it at the same time. I can tell the exact moment Katie notices the car because her ‘Wheeeeeeeeee’ changes to a shriek.
I stop pushing.
The swing slows as the car travels out of sight and Katie starts to howl.
My fingers, arms, legs, head all feel like they’ve turned to ice. I can’t move. I think my heart has stopped beating. I can’t even move to comfort Katie who’s now sitting with her feet on the ground, bawling her eyes out.
I’m back there again, last summer . . . back where it all started . . .
I pushed Katie again and the swing whooshed skywards to the sound of her shouting, ‘Higher, higher, Boo-Boo.’ I gave a nervous glance at the tree branch the swing was tied to, but it seemed to be holding strong, so I gave her an extra hard shove when she flew back my way.
‘Wooooo-hooooo!’ she yelled.
I turned my face up to catch the hot August sun in between pushes. The smell of dinner cooking from the white cottage behind us wafted out of the open window and mixed with the scent of drying seaweed on the rocks at the bottom of the cliff. This had been our favourite holiday location since forever. No matter where else we went, no matter how exotic, if we didn’t come here at least once a year, to this tiny bay buried deep in Cornwall, we all felt cheated.
Even the name, Treliske Cove, could make me excited on a grey winter’s day at home in London. Being here in the afternoon sunshine, with a warm breeze stirring my hair and the seagulls diving from the cliffs to the glinting sea, that was paradise. And tucking up tight under the handmade quilt in the little bed under the eaves in my room in the cottage, all snug and sleepy and smelling of fresh air and sea – that was the very best feeling in the world. Or was that waking in the morning when the sun came up, and snatching up a swimsuit to pad my way down the steep cliff steps to the bay, where I’d swim in the sea and hope to see a dolphin offshore?
Katie finally got tired of swinging and hopped off the old tyre to play on her trike. I took her place and swung lazily, letting my feet trail through the long grass. The cotton curtains fluttered in the open casement window of Katie’s room and there was a bird perched on the windowsill of mine, something tiny like a chaffinch. The cottage was painted stone with bright green windows and doors. It looked like the definition of happiness to me.
The chaffinch took to the air and I followed its path over the field of grass mixed with wild flowers to the cottage on the other side of the fence, a twin of ours, but rented out whereas we owned ours. At the moment, it was occupied by another family from London. Mum had spoken to them; I hadn’t. She went over to welcome them when they arrived a couple of hours after us. Apparently they owned a place in Hampstead, which meant they were worth serious megabucks. Mum said there was a woman about her age and her daughter, who looked a year or so older than me, but her husband was joining them later – he was dealing with a problem at work. The woman – Natalia, said with a Russian accent that was hardly noticeable until she told Mum her name – looked weary, as if that happened a lot.
The daughter’s name was Katya, but Mum said she seemed very quiet. I could see she was working up to sending me round there to be sociable with her so I’d made a hasty exit. I took my violin to the bottom of the orchard to practise so I missed the rest of the gossip. But playing under the old apple trees was another piece in the paradise jigsaw of this place.
As I gazed across the field to their cottage, I could see a face in the window. It was the girl. Pretty, with long, light brown hair and a pale oval face. Her Russian heritage showed, I thought, in the set of her eyes and cheekbones. She looked what Mum would call ‘quietly expensive’.
Katie and I had been out here in the sunshine for most of the day; the Russian girl hadn’t set a toe outside. How could you come on holiday to a place like this and stay cooped up in the house? I thought about waving to her, but something about her expression stopped me and I looked away.
When I turned back, she was gone. I shrugged and watched Katie playing race tracks on her tricycle along the lines I’d flattened in the long grass for her that morning.
The roasting chicken smell from the kitchen was making my mouth water. ‘Katie,’ I called, ‘last time round now. It’s nearly time for dinner.’
‘Rrrroooommmm-rrrooommmm,’ she called as she pedalled past furiously.
I laughed and got up to cut off her path if she tried to go round again, holding her discarded cardigan out as a flag for the finish line. She leaned in on the corners like she’d seen the racing drivers do on TV when she and Dad watched motor sport, making her rroommm-ing noises on the straight stretches where she could accelerate, her little legs whirring round until finally she was on the home stretch speeding towards me.
I give the commentary. ‘And it’s Katie Drummond in pole position . . . can she hold on? She’s nearly there . . . it doesn’t look like anyone can beat her now . . . and . . . and . . . YES, YES, YES . . . it’s Katie Drummond finishing first . . . the WINNER!’
Katie pulled her trike up and clapped and giggled, her face red-flushed and happy. That was how I loved to see my sister best.
She got off the trike and came to get her cardigan.
‘Aren’t you too warm for that? You don’t have to put it on if you are.’ I hated the flash of anxiety in her face when I said that, when I made her question what would have been an automatic action, but fortunately something distracted her from my mistake.
Katie frowned and I turned to see a white car drive slowly down the lane. I didn’t see anything unusual about that myself – driving slowly was sensible on these twisty lanes, even if it did seem maybe a bit overcautious to be crawling along that slowly. But Katie made a harrumphing noise and frowned harder. Why?
The driver didn’t look unusual, just an average man you wouldn’t have taken a second look at, youngish, driving a car with one of those stupid rear spoilers some guys think look good, but are actually cheap and tacky.
‘What’s up?’ I asked her. Later, I would wish a thousand times over and more that I had left that question unasked.
She pointed to the car. ‘He goes past lots.’
Did he? I shrugged. ‘Maybe he lives down the lane somewhere.’
Katie shook her head. ‘No.’
I didn’t question her. Katie knew every car in every house in the locale just from driving around with Dad. She could remember the makes, colours and often the number plates simply from having driven past them while they were parked outside the houses. ‘It might just be one you haven’t seen –’
‘No. It only started the yesterday before yesterday. But he goes past lots. You should count, Boo-Boo. It’s lots and lots and lots.’
It was my turn to frown. OK, that did sound a bit weird. ‘Like how many lots?’
‘Ten times on the yesterday before yesterday, eight times yesterday and today nine times to now . . . there and back is one time.’
Yes, that did seem a lot in such a remote place. In the city, I’d have assumed he was just posing with his naff car, but out here? It didn’t make sense.
‘OK, you tell me when you see the car again and I’ll count too.’
Katie beamed and ran to hug me. ‘Boo-Boo counting too. Love you!’
I hugged her back. Sometimes she just wanted someone to join her in her world, I thought, when she couldn’t make it across into ours. That was the hardest thing about Katie’s autism – the constant suspicion that she didn’t want to be marooned in her bubble of handicap and cut off from the rest of us. Some children in her therapy centre did seem to want that, but Katie was different. ‘Love you too, Katie-pops.’
Mum stuck her head out of the door to call us in for dinner and I forgot all about the car. Until I was going to bed and I went to draw the curtains. In the fading light, I could just make out the outline of a white car with a rear spoiler driving slowly past again.
By Any Other Name Page 6