By Any Other Name
Page 13
The footsteps splish-sploshed faster behind me and I sped up, running faster. Car tyres hissed . . . I glanced back – he was closer, a silver car cruising beside him.
I dropped everything and ran, fighting the pain in my ankle. Splashing through puddles, swallowing rain in with air.
The slap of trainers gaining on me . . . the hiss of tyres on the road . . .
Then a hand at my neck, one over my mouth, jerking me to a stop.
I tried to scream . . .
But his hand was too tight on my mouth. He lifted me off my feet as if I was no weight at all and bundled me into the back of the car. I reached immediately for the opposite door handle, but it wouldn’t open and I only had a second before he was in beside me, pinning me down.
I screamed out, but he’d slammed the door shut and the driver was already accelerating away. He shoved my face hard into the seat so I couldn’t breathe. I thrashed and fought until he caught my arms securely behind my back. When I tried to buck against him, he forced my arms upwards and the pain made me scream into the seat cushions.
‘Shut her up!’ a voice snapped from the front. ‘I’m trying to drive.’
‘Bullet?’ the voice above me asked.
‘Jesus, man, how many more times? Not yet! Where we planned. Can you not just keep her quiet until then?’
Oh God, oh God, oh God . . . they were going to kill me. This was it. I couldn’t fight off the bulk of the man holding me down. Whenever they got where they were going, my life was over.
I couldn’t grasp what that even meant.
Except it meant fight to be free.
I went limp under him, pretending I’d passed out. He didn’t relax his grip on me even slightly. Did he know I was faking? Was he good enough at his job to tell?
The car seats smelled of synthetic fabric and cigarettes. Another voice, deeper and more authoritative than the other two, spoke from the front passenger seat. I didn’t recognise it. ‘Keep calm, please, both of you. Everything is going to plan. We will be at our destination in twenty minutes. We can deal with our little problem there and still be home for a late supper, eh?’
Oh, nice. His words stopped my panic as if I’d been dunked in cold water. After he killed me, he’d be back in time for tea. I was so pleased for him.
Now I was angry. Call me insane, but it was the complete rudeness of what he said. That my life was worth less than getting his meal on time. Against all logic and normal behaviour, that made me really mad.
And mad made me determined. And focused. I was going to ruin his supper if it was the last thing I did.
I wake shivering. I hate the dreams, but they won’t stop. I sometimes get a few nights’ break, but then they’re back. And they’re not like normal dreams full of crazy, random stuff. These are exact recalls of what happened. I never knew dreams could be like that.
My pyjamas are clammy and I get up and change them before going back to bed with the light on. I read for a while. I’ll have eye bags like suitcases in the morning.
I must drift off eventually because the alarm wakes me at half seven. I hit snooze at first and then drag myself to the shower.
I can’t manage more than a slice of toast for breakfast and I nibble it slowly. I’m swallowing the last of my coffee when the doorbell rings. Dad’s in the bathroom and Mum’s trying to persuade Katie to eat cereal so she looks up at me. ‘Can you get it, please?’
I walk down the hall, but the view through the glass door tells me who it is before I open it. The build and the shock of dark hair are familiar. After yesterday, I don’t want to see him. I can feel myself flushing red already.
‘Hi,’ he says when I open the door. Nothing more – he just looks at me solemnly.
‘What do you want?’ I didn’t mean to sound unfriendly, but my discomfort level is mountain-high right now.
‘Seeing if you’d left yet, as I was going right past.’
‘No, I haven’t.’
‘I can see that.’
We stare at each other. His face is as solemn as anything, but as I search over it, I find laughter lurking in his eyes. It makes my lips twitch too and I want to laugh at the absurdity of us.
‘So, you ready?’
‘One minute?’
He nods and I scoot off to get my coat and schoolbag and say goodbye to Katie.
We walk down the hill some way before Joe speaks. ‘I told you you wouldn’t like it. Are you still mad at me?’
‘I’m not mad at you.’
‘Could have fooled me.’
I deliberately don’t look at him. ‘I’m not, but I might be mad at me. I haven’t decided yet.’
‘I didn’t think you were just being snobby with me. I guessed you thought I was a dick because of how I dress. Some girls do.’
I do look at him then. ‘Emo’s not my favourite look, it’s true. But no.’
‘I’m not Emo.’
‘You so are.’
He growls at me through bared teeth, which startles a giggle from me.
‘Anyway it wasn’t your Emo-ness. It was that you looked at me like you hated me.’
I’m not absolutely convinced but I think he goes a bit red. ‘Yeah, like I said – bad day. I didn’t mean it.’
‘But you were like that in school too, much later on.’
‘Yeah, cos I did think you were being snotty with me by then.’
I sigh in exasperation at how we can so misread messages. ‘I was just having trouble settling in and I didn’t know anyone. If I looked snotty I was probably feeling uncomfortable.’
‘Oh. I never thought of that. Makes sense.’ He bit his lip. ‘I feel stupid now.’
‘Don’t. You’re a boy. You can’t help it.’
He does the infectious chuckle and shoves me gently off the kerb into the empty road.
‘So what changed your mind? Why did you talk to me that day?’
‘I dunno really. You looked really miserable in school when they started bitching about you. I felt sorry for you.’
I don’t like that, someone feeling sorry for me. I should be tougher and cooler than that. But I don’t think he’s the type to gloat so maybe it’s not so bad. ‘Why were you having a bad day that time I first saw you?’
He shakes his head like before. ‘Don’t want to talk about it.’
I remember how red his eyes were that time he came over by the brook and perhaps it’s better not to push him. It might be something awful, and we’re nearly at the school gates. There are certainly too many people around for a private conversation. I remember something suddenly. ‘Hey, you’re not suspended.’
‘No. They just rang my dad in the end and gave me a warning.’
‘Oh, good.’
‘I’m going up the field for a smoke at break.’
He doesn’t invite me to go too but I can’t see any other reason for telling me. ‘Same place as before? I’ll meet you up there.’
‘If you want.’ He locates a Coke can on the pavement and begins kicking it along. I bite my tongue – he really can be totally charmless when he wants to be. Why he wants that is a different puzzle I’ve yet to solve, or even find a clue to.
We get to the gate. ‘See you later then,’ he says and he slopes off round the side of the building. I feel as if I’ve been dismissed.
The morning is the usual round of being pointedly ignored by Camilla’s Cronies. Thank God she doesn’t come to school here or it’d be even worse. I can’t quite explain the difference between being genuinely ignored because people don’t realise you’re there and being deliberately ignored, but there definitely is one and you can feel it on the skin on the back of your neck.
At break, I scramble over the hedge to find Joe already under the oak tree, smoking. ‘That’s bad for you, you know.’
‘Yeah.’
‘When did you start?’
‘Couple of years ago. Bad habit I picked up from my brother.’
And then he clams up, turning subtly away from me to loo
k out over the farmland beyond us.
I contemplate saying something, but I’m quite engrossed in watching his reaction and seeing where this is going.
Nowhere is the answer. He carries on smoking as if I’m not there, just staring at the bare fields.
‘How come you never hang out with anyone in school?’
The answer isn’t what I’m expecting. ‘I used to, but they’ve all left now.’
‘Do you still see them?’
‘Yeah, when they have time. They’re all working though. All my mates here were off farms too and they’re either at college over in Colwich – you know, the agricultural college? – or they’re working full time on the farm. And the lads at college all have part-time farm jobs so they’re too knackered to do much else when they’re done for the day.’
‘Is that what you’re going to do – agricultural college, or work on the farm?’
He gets rid of his cigarette. ‘Bell’s going in a minute. You ready?’
So that’s another thing he doesn’t like talking about.
Later, we eat lunch together in the canteen. Silently because he wolfs his food down without speaking. I pick my way through an unappetising jacket potato loaded with plastic cheese, surrounded by salad that looks as if it’s crawling with caterpillars. We are observed, both by Camilla’s Cronies and practically every other group or clique in the year group. He’s oblivious, or pretends to be. I feel each and every gaze of surprise between my shoulder blades.
Do I care? No, I don’t think I do.
I’ve got that feeling of peace again. Weird.
Tasha has replied:
Babes, why do you sound so down? No, you’re not shallow, or snobby, or princessy. If the people you’re hanging out with make you feel like that, they must be total losers.
I should feel better, but I remember how Tash and I would sometimes sit in the dining hall when we were in a bitchy mood and pull apart every girl who wasn’t in our crowd for how they looked and dressed.
I feel a little bit sick.
If they make you feel that way then they’re not good enough for you. You’re not like that at all – you just know how much you’re worth!
I wince and look away. It’s funny how my value has decreased since we lost money and status. Not that the people around here know that of course – they just judge what they see now. So I guess this is what I’m worth now – just me, without any back-up behind me.
I lie back on the bed and think about the whole thing. It’s a big shock, I guess, to realise that. Even if a magic wand was waved and all the external bad stuff went away and we could go home, I know now. And that knowledge is another thing that takes me further away from being Lou.
Something Katya said springs into my mind. She knew.
‘I think that a lot of the people at school who talk to me do so because Papa has money. I don’t think I have any real friends there, not like you do.’
At the time I didn’t really understand what she meant so I gave an awkward half-smile and said, ‘Really? No, I bet most of them really like you. What’s not to like?’
She smiled back and shook her head. I thought she was probably being a bit paranoid so I dropped the subject. A shame though if she was right and she didn’t have real friends. I couldn’t imagine how horrible that would be.
We’d been sitting on the bench overlooking the cove. It was late afternoon and Katie was playing behind us on her bike. Mum had made strawberry shortcake and taken some round to Katya’s mum and it sounded like she’d all but thrown Katya out here to socialise. Katya had brought some of the cake for us on paper plates.
‘I am sorry – we do not have real ones. We forgot to bring some with us.’
‘Your mum probably thought there’d be some in the cottage.’
‘Yes, I expect so.’ But she was lying. I could see it in the way she wouldn’t meet my eyes. What was the big deal? It was only plates.
‘So is your dad coming down later?’
‘I am not sure. He was going to, but then something important came up at work, so we came on alone.’ She was lying again, or not telling the whole truth at the very least.
‘So what do you like doing out of school?’ I decided to change the subject, because her face had grown even paler. Even if she was lying, she clearly didn’t want to.
Her eyes lit up. ‘I like to paint, and to draw, but most of all to paint.’
‘Is that what you’ve been doing all day?’ Her hands looked very clean, but there was a smear of blue by her elbow that was half hidden by her sleeve.
‘Yes. I forget myself when I paint. I think you might understand that? I’ve heard you when you play your violin in the garden. You forget where you are too?’ I nod and she goes on, ‘So I sat by the little window in the bedroom today and looked out at the sea, and I painted what was inside me.’
‘Can I see it?’
She looked reluctant but got up. ‘Come up. It’s still drying.’
I followed her into the cottage and she led me upstairs. Although the place was the twin of ours, it had a very different feel inside – less lived-in. You could tell it was rented and not loved.
Her room was plain and bare. She hadn’t brought much with her except for an easel in the corner and several blank canvases. Paints were spread over the dressing table. I went round the easel, expecting to see something scenic with rocks and clouds and sea.
What I did see stopped my words in my mouth. The canvas was a wild daubing of angry red and purple and black. I could make out shadowy ghost figures in the background, twisted and knotted into tortured shapes. In the centre was some kind of black void that seemed to be sucking the figures towards it.
She painted what was inside, she said. I looked at her, with her sad eyes and passive face. How could all this be inside that sleek-haired head?
‘What do you think?’ she asked me, calm and serene outwardly at least.
‘It’s not what I expected . . . I wouldn’t like that to be inside me.’
She walked past me to look out of the window at blue sea and beautiful coastline. ‘No.’ She turned back to me. ‘Let’s go into the sun. Leave the shadows in here.’
I know now, Katya. I know how it feels to have that inside. Please God, wherever you are now, I hope you’re not trapped with those shadows. I hope you’re dreaming of the sun shining off the sea. Of swimming in the early morning. Of the sweet, soft crunch of strawberry shortcake on a summer afternoon. Of anything but that.
Katie’s sitting on Joe’s swing pushing herself back and forth, with his old dog lying panting in the grass, and I’m perched on a low tree branch nearby. The sky’s overcast and we’ve got thick sweaters on – Joe’s is black obviously – but the rain is holding off.
He laughs. ‘She never gets tired, does she? You’d think she’d want a change and go up to the playground to the slide or something. But she doesn’t.’
‘It’s part of her condition – habits . . . rituals. Anyway I’m glad she doesn’t.’
‘Why?’
‘It’s peaceful here. The playground isn’t.’
He gives me a curious look. ‘You mean because there’s no danger of running into Crudmilla and Co. here.’
‘No, not really. It is peaceful here. Like the light’s different, or the air or something. It doesn’t feel like it does back in the village.’ No cars or strangers for me to watch for.
‘Oh.’
‘Do you believe places can have spirits? I’m not sure I do but if they can, then this place has a peaceful spirit.’
He sniffs. ‘Probably the fertiliser.’
I try not to laugh but I can’t help it, so I shove him off the tree branch and he drops to the ground where he makes a swipe for my feet to pull me off too. I kick out and he stops . . . then tips me back off the branch a few seconds later.
I hang backwards, caught by my knees, with his hands hanging on to mine to stop me falling. ‘Now, that wasn’t being a good girl, was it?’ he says, wi
th the chuckle that makes me join in.
‘OK, OK, no.’
‘Say sorry.’ He relaxes his arms and I slide a few centimetres back, and let out a shriek.
‘OK, sorry, sorry!’ But I’m laughing as he pulls me back up to a sitting position.
I laugh even more a few seconds later as Katie appears silently by his side and sinks her teeth into his hand. He yelps and scoots under the branch behind me.
‘Katie, no, it was only a game. You’re not to bite.’ But I can hardly speak for laughing.
‘She bloody bit me,’ he whispers. Katie’s glaring at him, looking a bit satanic.
‘Go back and play on the swing, Katie-pops.’
She throws him a last drop-dead look and stalks back to the swing. Kip gets up and gives her hand a quick lick, then flops down again. Joe hefts himself back up on the branch, openly laughing now Katie isn’t looking.
‘You’re in her bad books now.’
‘Ah, I’ll fix that. She can bottle-feed the lamb.’
‘You’ve got a lamb?’
He taps me on the head to say ‘stupid’. ‘We’ve got about ten. Except this one’s mum won’t feed him and he won’t take to any of the other ewes so he’s on the bottle.’
‘Ooh, can we see him now?’ Any shred of sophistication I may think I have vanishes – I’ve never seen a baby lamb close up before. He shakes his head at me in amusement and leaps down to the ground again.
‘Wait there a bit and I’ll get the feed.’
Ten minutes later we’re in the corner of a barn and Katie’s sitting on a hay bale feeding a teeny tiny lamb with a baby’s bottle. Joe and I lean on the railing of the pen.
‘So,’ he says, chewing on a hay stalk, which I suspect he’s doing entirely for comic effect because nobody is that yokel for real, ‘are you ever going to tell me why you lot all turned up here, and where you came from?’