It was bound to happen. It’s the most natural set of questions in the world and I have my answers all prepared, and yet I still panic inside when he asks.
‘Gloucester was the last place we lived. We move about a lot because of Dad’s job, which is why I was out of school for a while – it wasn’t worth going as we moved so often so I studied from home for the last two years. Anyway he decided to go freelance so we could settle somewhere and we pitched up here. Dad’s from the north originally, though he moved about a lot as a kid too, and he wanted to come back to his roots. Why here? Because there’s a good school for Katie. She needs proper support. Dad fancied having a house project to do up so he downsized us for a while. We’ll move somewhere bigger when he’s done all the work on the house and had a chance to look around for somewhere he really wants.’
‘Wow, did you write that down as a script and learn it?’
I freeze. He can’t know – he’s just joking. But I messed up there. Stupid of me – I can’t afford to do that with him. He’s too sharp. I need to regain control of the situation.
‘Yeah, ha ha. It feels like it. You’re about the fiftieth person to ask me that. Maybe I should write it down and print it off. Then I can just hand it to people and save the questions.’
He turns to look me straight in the eye, spinning the straw in his mouth, which looks ridiculous. ‘Maybe you should. Or maybe you could give me the real version.’
When I look closer, I can see irritation in his dark eyes. They’re difficult to read, that dark, dark brown, But he’s cross, it’s clear. How does he know? Because I bungled the story, or from something else he’s picked up? I ask in the end because I can’t afford to make more mistakes.
‘Apart from the speaking like it’s scripted? And good catch – you nearly saved it. But it was you.’
‘What?’ I cast a distracted glance at Katie with the lamb to make sure she’s not listening. She isn’t.
‘You made me think it’s not true. You don’t fit.’
Oh, thanks . . .
‘What I mean is, you don’t behave like someone who’s used to moving around or you’d have settled in quicker. You wouldn’t have arrived like you were Paris Hilton dropped in the Bronx. You’d have known that’d turn people against you. You’d be more . . . bland.’
Several things strike me at once:
1. He is uncannily astute for a boy.
2. He must have spent a lot of time thinking about this. A lot.
3. He doesn’t think I’m bland. Is that an insult or a compliment?
4. He’s got really long eyelashes.
‘Bland?’
He nods. ‘People who fit in everywhere are always bland. I suppose you have to be to get on with so many different types of people.’
I decide ‘not bland’ is a compliment coming from him.
‘So why do you lie about it, and are you going to tell me the truth?’
‘I can’t.’
His eyes look more disappointed than cross now, or am I imagining that? ‘Why not?’
I take a deep breath, trying to find something that will satisfy him. ‘It’s not just my story to tell, so I can’t.’
He bites his lip and nods his head thoughtfully. ‘Fair enough.’
I can’t believe that’s the end of it but it seems to stop him. Katie’s finished feeding the lamb and hands him the empty bottle. She’s following the little thing around now, stroking it like a dog. He smiles as he watches her.
‘What about you?’ I flick his arm lightly with my finger.
‘What about me?’
‘You’re not exactly out there with the personal information yourself. I asked you what you were going to do when you leave school and you ducked out of answering. Don’t think I didn’t notice.’
His smile shifts to a more rueful one. ‘I’d never think you don’t notice things. I reckon you probably notice too much to be comfortable.’
Hmm, that makes two of us then. ‘So what are you going to do?’
‘They need me on the farm.’
Flat-voiced, no enthusiasm. Hmm again. ‘Is that what you want?’
‘Doesn’t matter what I want. They need me.’
I straighten up. This doesn’t sound right. ‘OK, what would you do if they didn’t need you?’ I don’t know why I persist when I won’t answer anything myself, but it takes the focus off me.
He almost laughs, but not in a pleasant way. ‘I’d go to sixth form, then uni, then I’d travel.’
‘Studying what?’ I keep my eyes averted, watching Katie, so I don’t put him off answering.
‘Languages. Or maybe English. Or a combi course.’
‘Where?’
There’s a derisive snort in reply. ‘Oxford.’
‘Why does it have to be you who works on the farm? What about your brother? Gemma told me he’s in the army. But farming’s got to be better than killing people, surely!’
He whirls round and I immediately know I’ve made a terrible mistake. ‘You can fuck right off !’ he yells in my face as he leaps up and storms past me out of the barn. Kip scrambles up and runs after him.
I’m so taken aback that I don’t move at first then . . .
‘Joe!’
I rush after him but I can see his back disappearing round the side of the barn opposite. A man emerges from it and stares curiously at me before following Joe. I don’t bother going any further. I know it won’t do any good.
‘Katie.’ My voice is shaking. ‘It’s time to go.’ I take her hand and lead her slowly home.
I keep hoping Joe’ll come after us, but he doesn’t.
I seem to be developing a frightening knack for losing friends. But I’m not losing this one. I refuse to.
I text Joe after tea: Sorry. Me and my big mouth
He doesn’t answer for ages. I’m getting into bed, glum and miserable and I haven’t even checked my Facebook page, when the text tone goes. I scramble for my phone.
Was helping with lambing. Not ignoring you. It’s OK – not your fault.
Sure?
Yes. Good night.
I close my eyes. There’s no knowing whether he’s being curt because he’s annoyed or it’s that peculiar bluntness he has at times. I suppose I’ll just have to take it at face value.
I don’t want to lose him. He’s the only proper friend I have here.
Proper?
Then I realise what I mean: he’s the only person I’ve met since I’ve been here that I really, really like. With all his weird, quirky habits. And even with all the bits about him I don’t know. I just like him. Strange how that happens sometimes. And even stranger how it happened even though I detested him at first. I guess maybe first impressions are a sucky way to judge people. I should remember this in future, I think.
Back home there were all those people I didn’t really like, but it mattered what they thought. I twisted myself into what they wanted me to be; I knew what they expected of me and I delivered, just to be in the popular crew. Thinking about what Joe said, maybe I was bland back then. Before I came here and lost that ability, being so far out of my normal pool that I couldn’t cut it – a saltwater fish in a freshwater pond, choking.
I cringe into a ball on the bed when I think about how stupid I used to be. How I thought I could control what happened to me. Follow my pre-planned ideal path as it was all set out in my head. Make it happen because that’s how I’d decided it should be. Stupid little girl, Lou. Stupid, stupid.
Holly’s smarter. Holly knows life doesn’t work that way. That chaos can come and steal your dreams from you. Steal your life from you.
Katya . . .
Holly thinks maybe it’s time to stop debating what I was. That girl is dead. They killed Lou at the cottage in Cornwall that night. They killed her again when they took her to the forest to put a bullet through her head.
I don’t want to see if there are any messages from Tasha. I just want to go to sleep and not dream.
It’s craz
y warm for late April and Joe and I are doing French revision, lying on our tummies in a field he says will be tall hay in a few months. At the moment it’s bright green grass. An occasional car drives past on the top road but otherwise it’s quiet, though I can see the village centre is busy with the farmers’ market. Joe says his mum is down there selling a glut of end-of-winter potatoes from the market garden she has at the back of the farmhouse. His dad is off doing something with the cows. He always seems to be doing something with cows. I never knew cows were so much trouble. I thought they just wandered around fields eating grass. When I say that to Joe, he rolls around on the ground, laughing.
I’m forgiven. We don’t mention his brother. I still want to know why he got so upset but I can wait. I’ll find out sooner or later.
I’m learning to be much more patient these days.
Mum’s taken Katie to the market so I can have revision time, and Joe and I alternate between reading through lists of vocab, testing each other, and practising conversation. He’s tough to work with, making me go over anything I get wrong again and again. I’m relieved when we’ve finished the travel topic and I can have a break while we read up on the next one.
The sun’s warm on my back and I roll over to let it warm my face. ‘Don’t go to sleep,’ he warns. He told me earlier I looked tired and I am. I don’t remember dreaming last night but I felt drained when I woke.
‘I’m not,’ I say huffily. ‘I’m having a timed break. Like you’re supposed to so your brain operates more efficiently.’
He snorts. ‘Good way of describing a nap.’
I hear a rustle as he turns the page of his book and he goes quiet again.
I’ll start again in a few minutes. I’m just going to relax here for a while and chill. Soak in the peace and . . .
. . .
I’m floating, weightless . . . feels good . . .
Warm . . .
Not sure where I am but . . . don’t care . . .
. . .
. . .
Getting colder . . . and it’s dark . . . if I opened my eyes, it’d be dark . . .
Smell of pine needles . . . earth . . .
They’re here, with me.
Their breath sounds in the stillness, harsh from running.
I stay perfectly still, fear crawling over my skin like cockroaches.
Air on my face . . . is it wind or their breath? Terror’s rising, pounding blood through my veins . . .
The pine needles, sharp and astringent, like Christmas gone horribly, horribly wrong.
I’m in the forest . . . they’re here . . . the bullet in the gun is for me . . . they’re coming . . .
I wake with a jerk and Joe’s crouched over me. ‘Are you OK?’ He looks worried.
I sit up. My hands are shaking. ‘Yes.’
‘Don’t lie to me.’ He puts his hands on my shoulders. ‘What was that? A bad dream?’
I nod.
‘You have a lot of those?’
I nod again, slower.
He sits beside me, looping his arm round my shoulders. ‘Is it because of coming here?’
‘Not really. I had them before.’ I hesitate. I shouldn’t say it but it’s so hard never to have anyone who understands. ‘Why we came here is part of the reason I have them though.’
He opens his mouth to ask . . . but then closes it again. Maybe he knows I can’t tell him.
Is it OK, Joe? Is it OK if I don’t tell you? Will you still be there for me? I need someone, you see.
Hi Tasha,
How’s it going with the new guy . . .
Oops, I have to look back to remember his name . . . delete . . .
with Gideon? I’m starting to settle in a bit here now. School still sucks massively, but the exams are so close that everyone is completely focused on them. I guess it’s the same for you. But I finally made at least one friend and there’s a couple of girls in my classes that I sort of talk to now.
I’ve given up being ashamed of how I blanked Nicole and Ella after I hooked up with Fraser and instead I’m making the effort to put things right. I don’t hang out with them outside lessons, but we say hello etc. in the corridors and sit in a group in class. They never say anything to me about Fraser and the others. In fact we only ever really talk about schoolwork, but that’s OK. It feels friendlier than just sitting alone when Joe’s not there.
Katie’s really enjoying her new school and she seems to have made loads of friends. LOL! She’s the one with autism who’s supposed to find socialising hard and she’s got more than me. Typical, eh?
What are the others up to? Give me news! I need some girly gossip from civilisation!
Love Lou xxx
The funny thing is I don’t really mean the last part. I would have a few weeks ago but now it’s just a joke. I don’t miss my old friends with that awful aching that pulls at my insides and makes me want to scream. I’d like to see them of course, but it doesn’t hurt so badly now.
The lack of decent shopping around here still drives me totally crazy though. Once my exams are over, I’m dragging Mum somewhere huge to do serious retail. Bumpkin-ness is not going to take me over. I will resist.
My text tone goes.
What are you doing?
Joe makes me laugh how he never uses text speak. Always proper sentences and grammar.
Not much. Why?
Want to come round? I’ve just finished milking and Mum’s baked. The kitchen is full of cake. She’s taken some round to my Aunty Jenny’s, but I’m allowed to decimate the rest.
Decimate. He used decimate in a text. Oh, Joe! Spending the rest of your life on a farm is so not the right thing for you.
Cake? I’ll be there in 5!
I don’t quite fly there, but almost. Just the mention of home-made cake makes my tummy rumble and I know his mother’s will be good because it’s a farm. All those farm women can bake, right?
I’ve never been in the house before, but I know where the back door is and Joe’s hanging out of it. ‘Hurry up, I’m brewing!’ he calls. I go into a large kitchen that looks much as I expected – a big range cooker, pine kitchen units, large table in the middle and a tiled floor. Except there’s a difference between this one and the ones in the magazines Mum used to buy in her escape-to-the-country moments. And that difference is mud and mess.
The dresser is crammed with stuff, what looks like bills and farm paperwork, balls of twine, and keys, and heavy work gloves.
‘Sugar?’
‘No thanks.’
Joe slops some milk into a mug of tea and shoves it at me across the table along with a plate. I pick my way across the pile of muddy boots and wellies near the door, trying not to step on the clumps of mud that’ve dropped off them on to the floor. Those tiles are in need of a good mopping, I hear Mum’s voice exclaim in my head; there are paw prints all over them.
‘Pick a cake and cut,’ he says, waving an enormous knife at me. It looks like the kind of thing you could behead someone with. There are three cakes lined up in front of me. One is definitely chocolate, the next looks like lemon and the last is a carrot cake with frosting. They look delicious.
‘Where’s the knife drawer?’
He gestures behind him in surprise. I take the giant cleaver thing off him and swap it for a bread knife.
‘Ohhh!’ he says when I come back to the table. ‘That’s why I always make a mess when I cut things.’
It’s incredible how some boys can be so uber-intelligent, or able to fix cars, or do . . . boy . . . stuff. And yet be so domestically dumb all at the same time. I decide on the carrot cake and cut a slice.
‘Which one do you want?’
‘The same.’
I put a slice on his plate and he grins at me before taking a bite that practically demolishes the piece in one go. I take a small bite and chew it pointedly. It’s wasted when he fails to notice. However, I was right about one thing – the cake is awesome.
We’re on our second pieces when he comes o
ut with: ‘So I thought we’d trade.’
I swallow. ‘Trade what?’
‘Information.’ He grins. ‘You and me. We’ll swap.’
‘Oh, look, I told you –’
‘Nah, keep your knickers on, I didn’t –’
‘What? Er, what?’
‘Oh, sorry . . . just something my dad says . . .’ He chuckles and flushes at the same time. ‘I didn’t mean you to tell me something you really can’t. Just something you can but you haven’t yet. And I’ll tell you. Fair?’
Possibly. ‘You’ll tell me what?’
He puts his cake down. ‘I’ll tell you about Matt.’
His brother. A proper trade then. But can I?
‘You first then.’ He waits expectantly.
‘I don’t know . . . no, I . . . OK, I can tell you this bit, I guess.’ His eyes remain on me, dark and watchful like the collie’s by his feet. ‘Most of what I said wasn’t true. I’m not from Gloucester and we never moved around. Actually until now I’ve lived in the same house all my life. You were right about that. But I can’t tell you where I’m from or why we’re here now. Sorry.’
He smiles. ‘That’s all right. Anything else?’
‘I missed my friends really badly when I came here, and I missed home. That’s probably why I was so grouchy, and snotty – if I was snotty.’
‘You were a bit.’ He nudges me gently with his foot under the table. ‘You’re all right now though.’
‘What about you?’
He sighs and lays his hands on the table, clasping them. ‘I owe you, I suppose, for being so touchy with you and biting your head off when you mentioned my brother. You weren’t to know why.’
‘Gemma told me you two are really close.’
‘Yeah, we are. I went mental with him when he joined up. Not because of the farm because Dad can just about manage with me to help, and Matt said he’d come back to take over when he’d done a few years’ service. But because he left me here. He’s my best mate and him going away did my head in.’
By Any Other Name Page 14