“We can be together,” he says, so softly that I’m not sure if I heard it. It’s almost as if he’s saying it to himself.
“Even though you don’t really know me?”
“I do know you, Verity Nekton.” He tilts his head back so that he can look into my face. “I know who you are.”
For a long moment we stand there, our eyes meeting.
Greg digs in his pocket for a pen and an old Gatesbrooke bus ticket. “Here,” he says. “This is my phone number. My family and I get back in a month. Call me. I’ll come and get you. OK?”
I nod. “OK.”
He pushes the gate open, but he’s holding my hand, so I walk through with him. The Brothers’ house is bigger than ours, with a garden and a small cul-de-sac on the side where the road from the main parking lot ends. A taxi waits there, and Greg’s bags are on the porch.
I clutch the ticket in my hand as I watch Greg get into the taxi. It drives slowly away. Then it stops. Greg’s door opens. He runs back across the gravel toward me.
He holds my face between his hands, and he stares into my eyes. “Verity . . .” he says. Then we kiss. It’s not a kiss-it-better good-night kiss. Not a little bit of nothing. I stop thinking about the future and the past. I feel the ticket crumpling in my fist.
“Promise me you’ll call?”
I nod.
“You won’t forget?”
“No.”
Then he’s gone. But I can’t feel sad now. Dreams do sometimes come true. Even for me.
CHAPTER 25
RIL IS WAITING at the top of the steps. As usual, she looks tense. But she fixes a bright smile on her face when she sees me.
I speak first. “I’ll go and get my bag,” I say, walking under the arch that leads to the Sisters’ house. I turn back and look through it, at Serafina and her parents, Emanuel with his arm around his mother’s shoulders. Children are gathered near the strawberry table, their faces stained pink. I’ve done it, haven’t I? I’ve convinced Brer Magnus that I’m a Brotherhood girl and I’ve passed my exams too. But the list is still in my pocket.
I run across the lawn and get out my key. Do it quickly, before you have time to think. Inside the house I put the latch down to lock the door, and instead of going upstairs, I go into the kitchenette. I put the papers in the metal sink and light a match and let it crinkle up the edges with black and then gold until there’s nothing but fragments of charred tissue. Then I turn on the tap and leave it running while I fetch Georgette’s lemon air freshener from the bathroom. Afterward I shut the kitchen door.
I feel as if a huge weight has been lifted off me. I start humming as I run upstairs for my bag. But then there’s a volley of knocks on the outside door. I grab my bags and run back down with them. I’m taking everything with me. It’s not much anyway.
Ril is standing there. “I thought I’d give you a hand,” she says. “Then I’ll take you to your new room.”
WE DON’T TALK much in the car. She drives into the Old City, past the Meeting Hall, which is caged around with scaffolding. I suddenly see why—it’s being cleaned. Ril crosses the canal bridge and turns down toward the shoreline. Old dockyards and warehouses line the waterfront, and the sea disappears into mudflats.
She pulls up outside a boarding house. There are houses on one side of the road only. The other side is taken up by a huge old police station, built from big stones so dirty that they look black. The entrance is directly opposite the front door of the boarding house.
“Up here,” says Ril.
My spirits drop as we climb the stairs. The carpet stinks, and on the landing there is the kind of toilet you would pay not to have to use. My room has a bed and a kitchenette.
“Here you go,” says Ril. “Now.” She sits down on the one chair.
I sit on the high narrow bed.
“A few things to run through. First, there’s food in the fridge and the cabinet. Second, there’s a curfew for Hoo—for Brotherhood after nine, since the bomb.”
“Can’t I just wear my own clothes for the summer, then?” I don’t like the idea of not being able to go out at night.
Ril looks at me pityingly. “Of course not. You’re Verity Nekton now. Continuity, K.”
She stands up and takes an envelope out of her bag, “I’ll meet you every week to give you your money and check in.” She hands the envelope to me.
“Oskar promised me I’d be able to contact him.”
“Oh yes, thanks for reminding me.” She takes a cell phone out too. “Here you go. I filled it up, and Oskar’s and my numbers are in there. There’s a load of other fake numbers in the contacts, in case it falls into the wrong hands.” She walks over to the door. “One more thing: have you got the list of people who attended the Spring Meeting?”
I walk over to the window and open it. “No.”
“What do you mean?” She frowns. “Where is it?”
I turn back to face Ril. Then I shrug. “I couldn’t get it,” I say. “They’ve tightened up on security recently, cameras in the Meeting Hall block and everything.”
“That’s disappointing, K.”
I know I should apologize, but I can’t bring myself to do it. I just stand and look back at Ril, waiting for her to go away.
“Well, that’s it, then,” she says eventually.
I DON’T ASK her when I can see Oskar. I can call him myself now. But I don’t. There are far too many thoughts churning around in my mind. To keep them at bay, I clean everything and unpack my stuff and make some toast. But as soon as I curl up in the chair by the window, they crowd back in.
It was so easy to tell Greg how I felt. I was so sure, I still am. But I shouldn’t have done it, because I can’t see how I can tell Greg what I’ve done and who I really am, and then carry on working for Oskar for another year. And if I tell Oskar I want to stop now, I’ll have nothing. I’m nobody.
Down in the street a minibus pulls up outside the police station. Two policemen go around to the back and open the doors. It doesn’t take long for them to hustle out the boys inside. And guess what? All of them are Brotherhood.
I look at my watch. Half past nine. Surely they haven’t been arrested just for being out after nine? It’s horrible to know that I can’t go out for a walk along the seafront without risking arrest. And without the Reconciliation Agreement this is only one of the things Brotherhood people have to live with.
At least I have a TV. I turn it on and flick through the channels. Maybe Greg has changed his mind anyway. Why did I pin my hopes on a few words spoken in a hurry?
In the street below, a car shrieks to a halt and four or five Brotherhood boys in masks leap out. No, one of them is a girl. They throw something at the front of the police station, and I hear breaking glass. Then they’re back in the car and screaming off again. Moments later they’re followed by a police car and a van, sirens shrieking.
I think of the promise I made to Oskar. None of the reasons for doing this, being a spy, have gone away. It’s just that now I don’t trust him. Does he really know that only a few Brotherhood people are terrorists? These thoughts dance endlessly round and round each other in my mind.
A MONTH PASSES. Most days I go out sketching, filling two sketchbooks with studies of the canal towpath or the Old City buildings. Ril checks up on me once a week. I don’t know why Oskar hasn’t been in touch. Is it because I failed to get the list for him? Ril doesn’t mention it again. There’s no way around the curfew. Not with the police station opposite and no back door.
I start trying Greg’s number from a pay phone. There’s no way I’m going to use the phone Oskar gave me to call him. Then one day Greg answers. The weeks fly back and I’m outside the Brothers’ house again, having to let him go. But now he says that he wants me to come and stay with his family in their house in the country. I say yes, and I arrange it around Ril’s visits so she won’t know.
I SIT ON the train, looking out on the rolling hills. I’m going to see him at the next station. Tha
t’s all I can think about, as I stare out at the streams winding through soft green meadows. However strange I might look, I can’t stop smiling the whole way there.
Greg is standing alone, looking up and down the platform at the train windows. His hair has grown longer over the summer, not very Brotherhood. He pushes it out of his eyes, squinting against the sunlight. He’s wearing long shorts that skim his hip bones because he’s gotten thinner.
He doesn’t see me until I get off the train. I pull my red suitcase behind me along the platform, feeling so nervous that I’m hanging back, even though I’ve been longing for this moment, thinking it out so many times that now it’s almost as if it’s already happened.
Greg sees me. He gives me a beam of a smile: a smile I could never have imagined. We sort of hug each other, not sure whether to kiss. I didn’t imagine how much I like him.
Greg laughs. He reaches for my bag. “I’ve got a car.” His arms are brown. “It was for my sixteenth birthday, but we only got it last week.”
“I didn’t know you could drive.” I don’t mention that I can drive too, because my driving was kind of unofficial, long ago on the runway of a disused airport, in a tractor with other kids from the children’s home.
The car is an old four-door hatchback. As I get in, I see black grease spreading out from under the wheels.
Greg looks down. “It always does that.” He drops his keys on to the seat while he puts my bag in the back. “It’s not far.”
I pick up his keys. The key fob is a round object. “What’s this?”
Greg whistles, and it begins to flash and bleep. “You never know when you might lose your keys.” He gives me a sheepish smile.
I shake my head and laugh. He looks sideways at me, a little bit worried. Then he laughs too. He starts the engine and pulls away from the curb.
“Is it nice to be with your family?” I ask. My voice comes out dry.
“It’s good,” says Greg. “My sisters are driving me crazy, though.” He glances at me again. “But don’t worry, they’ll love you.”
Suddenly I feel very nervous. I don’t know how to fit into a family.
GREG STOPS THE car outside a weathered stone house. The front door is open, and a little girl is skipping up and down the top step.
“That’s Angelina,” says Greg. “Don’t take it personally if she just giggles at you.”
A tall girl with long brown hair appears behind Angelina. That must be Meredith. Then I see Greg’s parents in the hallway as well. The whole family is framed in the doorway. I can’t decide if that makes them look like they’re guarding the house or welcoming me. They look close. When I see them I think, Greg’s family. Not Brotherhood family. Oh, but what will they think of me?
Greg puts his arm around my waist and pulls me toward him. “This is Verity.”
I glance up at him. He’s beaming again. He looks proud of me, and that makes me feel a stab of pain.
Angelina hops down the steps, her straight chestnut hair swinging over her shoulders. She looks up at me. “Are you Greg’s girlfriend?”
“Um,” I begin, but it doesn’t matter, because she breaks into peals of cackling laughter.
“Shut up!” Meredith frowns.
Angelina grabs hold of my hand in her small strong one and drags me into the kitchen, where the pine table is set, ready for dinner.
“Let’s show Verity her room first,” says Rosanna, Greg’s mom.
She takes me up to the top of the house, to an attic room under the sloping roof. Greg follows behind her, with Angelina at his heels.
“This is Greg’s room,” she says. “He’s sleeping downstairs.”
Behind her, I see Greg raise his eyebrows. I look around the room. There are books piled under the desk and on top of it too. Outside, trees with feathery leaves whisper against the window.
We go back to the kitchen. On the way down, Greg takes my hand, and I grip it in mine.
“You sit here, Verity,” says Angelina, pulling me down on to the seat next to hers. She knocks a fork onto the floor and dives under the table.
Greg sits opposite me. Our eyes meet and he smiles. I’ve never seen him smile so much. It’s almost unnerving. Meredith sets a big dish of chicken in the middle of the table. Greg’s dad, Gerontius, opens a bottle of red wine. Rosanna is already at the table, leafing through a medical journal. She pushes her glasses up her nose. “There’s an interesting article about ulcerated feet here, Gerry.”
“Mom,” says Meredith.
Greg directs a heavenward glance at me.
Rosanna tosses her journal onto the kitchen cabinet, where it totters for a moment on top of the stack of other magazines, books, and papers. “Help yourself to chicken and rice, Verity.” She pushes the dish toward me.
“There’s two pieces each,” says Angelina quickly.
“Angelina!” Meredith glares across the table. “Don’t be rude.”
“Well, there are.”
I take a piece of chicken.
Gerontius sets a full glass of wine in front of Rosanna. “I got stopped today in town,” he says to her.
“Again?” Her voice is sharp.
Gerontius shrugs. “It was a patrol car this time.” He pours water into Angelina’s glass, spilling some down the side. “They were actually going in the opposite direction. Then they saw me, and that was it. Lights, siren . . .”
A silence falls. Across the table I become aware of Greg’s eyes, fixed on me. He and Meredith exchange glances.
Angelina looks from face to face. “Why, Dad?” she begins.
Rosanna shakes her head at Gerontius.
“Who stopped you?” Angelina’s voice is insistent.
“The important thing is to remove the necrotic tissue before it spreads to the bone,” says Rosanna quickly.
“Oh, yes?” Gerontius helps himself to brown rice.
Rosanna whips around to get her journal and flashes a photo of an ankle oozing pus at them. “See?” she says brightly. “Too late to operate on the foot drop at this stage.”
“Ugh!” Angelina covers her eyes.
“Do you have to?” says Meredith. “Please?”
“What?” Rosanna peers around. “Oh. Sorry. Sorry, Verity. I always forget.” She reaches back to replace the journal and the whole pile slides off the dresser. “Oops,” she says. “Gregory could have been a doctor, Verity.” She fixes Greg with a sudden stare, very like the one he’s directed at me so many times. “But instead he’s throwing away all chance of that and he wants to study cartoons.”
AFTERWARD, WE ALL wash the dishes together. Greg and I dry, and the girls put away. It’s so ordinary, yet so strange to be part of a family routine. When we’ve finished, Rosanna announces, “Angelina, it’s time for bed.”
We go into the sitting room. Greg and Meredith and I sit down on the comfortable old sofas, then Angelina comes bouncing in.
“I want you to read my story, Greg.”
He gets up, but in the doorway he turns to me and says, “Don’t go away!”
I wait there for him, even after Meredith goes upstairs too. I pick up a magazine about Physiotherapy.
After a while Rosanna’s footsteps clip down the hall. “Did you get Meredith’s passport replacement form?” she says.
I hear Gerontius walking toward her. They’re just outside the room. “Yes, I did,” he says. “But I wish we could wait until after the Reconciliation Agreement becomes law. Look at the questions.” Papers rustle as Rosanna flicks through them.
I don’t think I should be listening to this, but I feel too awkward to go out. If only Greg would come back. I try to concentrate on the journal, but it’s dense scientific jargon.
But then Rosanna reads out from the form: “If a citizen, go to page thirty-five. If Brotherhood, answer questions eleven-A to twenty-nine.”
“Let me see.” There’s silence for a moment. Gerontius’s voice sounds tense with anger even though he’s trying to talk quietly. “What sort of quest
ions are these? All your family and friend connections? Detailed information about where you go on weekends? It’s outrageous.”
“We can’t go back abroad knowing Meredith’s passport will expire while we’re still away. And we must have done it for Greg,” says Rosanna.
“Yes, but then we couldn’t expect anything better,” insists Gerontius. “Now we can. If we could just hold on for a couple of months, there’ll only be the one form for everyone. Meredith won’t ever need to be on the fingerprint database.”
“That’s true . . .” Rosanna sounds worried. “She won’t need an ID card until she’s sixteen anyway . . . But we haven’t got any choice.” I hear her putting shoes in the shoe rack. “And let’s just hope the Reconciliation Agreement isn’t derailed,” she says darkly.
Greg’s family have had years of this to deal with. Thanks, Oskar, for putting my fingerprints on my ID card when I didn’t even need to have one. But I’ve only lived like this for a few months. I don’t think I’ve ever felt so horrible. Such an impostor.
Suddenly I know I can’t ever lie to Greg again. I’m going to tell him the truth, whatever the consequences.
He comes back in. I look up at him. He’s smiling the loveliest smile as he sits down beside me. “Hey,” he says softly. “What’s wrong?”
“Greg,” I say, “there’s something I have to tell you.”
But before he can reply, his mother breezes in. You’d think the conversation about the passport form had never happened.
“OK, you kids,” she says with forced cheeriness, “let me help you get your bed ready, Gregory.”
It’s clear Rosanna wants me to go. Between her and little Angelina, it’s going to be almost impossible to be alone with Greg today. And so I have one night to lie in his bed, listening to the swishing of the trees that he listened to when he was a child, remembering his eyes as he said good night. Knowing that we are still friends.
WE SPEND THE next morning picking blackberries to make jam. Meredith stirs the bubbling mixture. She’s so hot that her hair has frizzed up all around her face. Every now and then she drips a bit onto a plate and tips it to see if it’s set. So far it’s still running.
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