Caught!

by JL Merrow

  Rose cackled. “Oops, sorry. My mistake. You all right up there, Mr. Emeny? Looking a bit wobbly on that ladder.”

  “I’m perfectly fine, thank you,” I told the tree. “Just need to get on with it.”

  “You sure? Wouldn’t want you coming down the quick way.”

  “I’ll be fine,” I reiterated through gritted teeth, and concentrated on getting the wretched angel to stay where I put it. For something with wings, it was showing a marked affinity for plummeting to the floor.

  Another thought I really wished I hadn’t had.

  Rose didn’t speak again, and must have left the hall. I could faintly hear the voice from before asking with apparent relish, “If Mr. Enemy fell off the ladder, would he die?” and then there was silence. I breathed a sigh of relief and willed my legs not to tremble.

  I nearly fell off the ladder when a gruffer voice asked, “Yer want me to take over?”

  God, I was tempted. “No, thank you, Mr. Minnit. I’m sure I’ll manage,” I said firmly. I was not going to be beaten by a bloody Christmas tree. My pride simply couldn’t stand it. “You go on home to…er, is there a Mrs. Minnit?”

  “Suit yerself,” he said and clomped off without enlightening me as to his marital status, leaving me ample solitude to reflect on the literalness or otherwise of the old saying pride comes before a fall.

  Having finally got the angel to stay where it was put, I had to wrap an industrial-length string of lights around the tree—fortunately, they were modern LEDs rather than actual lightbulbs, but it still took forever to get a uniform effect—and arrange fourteen garishly coloured tinsel garlands in artistic fashion. By the time I’d finished, my arms were ready to fall off my shoulders. I climbed off the hated ladder for the last time with a sigh of heartfelt relief.

  “Bloody ’ell, you still ’ere?”

  I turned wearily to see Mr. Minnit. “Yes, but I’m all finished now. What do you think?”

  He stared at the tree for a long moment. Then he shrugged. “It’s a tree. You going to eff off so I can lock up proper, then? I only come back in ’ere ’cos I saw the lights was still on. Thort someone was robbin’ the ICT suite.”

  “Ah. Sorry to, er…” Mr. Minnit tapped his watch. I gave him a weak smile. “I’ll be, ah, effing off, then.”

  He nodded, and I left.

  Or, indeed, effed.

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  I don’t know who I was expecting, when there was a knock on the door early on Advent Sunday morning. Hanne, perhaps. Or the Jehovah’s Witnesses. Beside me in bed, Sean mumbled something incomprehensible. I didn’t want to move from the warm circle of his arms.

  “They’ll probably go away if we ignore them,” I muttered sleepily into his largely unresponsive hair.

  The knock sounded again, louder this time. I heaved a put-upon sigh and hauled myself out of bed, just in case it proved to be important. Sean mumbled again as I slipped from his grasp. Or possibly snored. I ran down the stairs, hoping whoever it was wouldn’t be too scandalised by my bare legs sticking out from the bottom of my hastily flung-on dressing gown.

  I fumbled with the key and opened the door.

  It was Oliver.

  An ice-cold bolt of lightning shot through me, freezing every vein in my body. Oliver stood on the doormat in jeans and a heavy peacoat, his light brown hair blowing in the breeze. There was a hint of stubble on his jaw. Had he grown taller since I’d last seen him? I couldn’t be sure. At any rate, his gaze met mine squarely. “Can I come in?”

  I struggled to form words. “I—no—what are you doing here?”

  He shrugged. “Your mum told me your address.”

  I should have known. “Yes, but what are you doing here? Oliver, for God’s sake. After what—after you—”

  “I’m sorry, all right?” He stared at his feet. “Didn’t mean to make you lose your job.”

  “Didn’t mean…? Oliver, you went to the headmaster. You told him I’d… Oh God.” I wanted desperately to sit down, to not be clad only in a dressing gown, to wake up out of this nightmare. “Oh God,” I said again. “We can’t—not out here. You’d better come in.”

  I stood back and let him enter my house, fighting the urge to run. Sean was still asleep upstairs. Please, God, let him still be asleep.

  Oliver walked straight in, his shoes leaving damp marks on the hall tiles. It must have been raining outside, I realised, and yes, his coat was wet.

  “I never thought he’d believe me, all right? I was just—sod it, you know. The scholarship boy. I never thought he’d believe me over you.”

  “Why the bloody hell did you do it, then?” Were we speaking too loud? “Come into the living room,” I urged him in a lower voice and shut the door behind us.

  Oliver sat on the sofa without invitation, his long legs taking up more space than I remembered. “I was mad at you, okay? You never took me seriously. Just wanted to show you…” His face twisted. “You were never supposed to lose your job over it.”

  “Never supposed… Oliver, for God’s sake, what did you think the headmaster was going to do in the face of allegations of that nature? He couldn’t just ignore them, could he?”

  “Yeah, but it wasn’t like there was any proof or anything. Couldn’t have been, could there? Just my word against yours. I didn’t think he’d believe me, okay?”

  “And that’s why you came here? To apologise?”

  “Yeah.” He bit his lip. “And—shit.” He stood up, and I followed suit automatically.

  “What?” I prompted when he remained silent. I tried to keep my impatience out of my voice, but I just wanted him to go.

  Oliver took a deep breath. “I’m eighteen now. Not at school anymore.”

  “I know,” I said. At least, I’d assumed, barring resits, he’d have left by now. “You’re at uni?”

  “Yeah. Got into Cambridge.”

  “Congratulations,” I said with as much warmth as I could muster. “You’re enjoying it?”

  “’S okay. They’re all a bit posh at my college.” He gazed down at his feet, then lifted his eyes to stare at me with disconcerting intensity. “Got holidays in a few weeks. I thought we could, well, you know. Be together.”

  Apparently there was something colder than ice, and it was running through my veins right now. Then abruptly it boiled. “You thought what? You honestly thought we could just get together as if nothing had happened? As if you’d never lied about me, lost me my job, my boyfriend…” I was hot and shaking, and my throat hurt.

  And then the door to the living room opened, and Sean stepped through. “Heard shouting,” was all he said, as his gaze took in Oliver, and me, still in my dressing gown.

  “Who the fuck’s this, then?” Oliver demanded. He took a step forward. So did Sean. I realised Oliver was the taller of the two, although admittedly he had shoes on. Sean’s bare feet peeped out from the bottom of his jeans. He’d pulled on a T-shirt as well but still looked vulnerable next to Oliver’s peacoat-clad bulk.

  I had to say something, anything, to defuse the tension. “This is Sean. My fr—my boyfriend.” I swallowed. “Oliver is…Oliver is someone I used to know at Loriners’. He just came round to…to see how I was doing, but he can’t stay.” I took hold of Oliver’s arm and urged him towards the door. “You have to go,” I whispered urgently. “Please, for God’s sake, just go.”

  Oliver didn’t resist, thank God. Blinking rapidly, he looked almost as if he were about to cry as I hurried him to the front door. “I’m sorry,” I found myself saying. “But we can’t… Not ever. I’ve got a life here now. I’m sorry.”

  He nodded and was gone.

  When I turned from closing the door, Sean was standing in the hallway, his arms folded. “Seemed like a bit more than just coming over to see how you were,” he said.

  I forced a smile. “No, no. He’s
just a bit…volatile, that’s all.”

  “Funny, that. Seeing as it was you I heard shouting. Something about losing your job, was it?”

  Oh God. “No, no, I think you must have misheard. Thick walls, these old houses.” I couldn’t tell him the truth. I couldn’t face it. Not with Sean—watching his face as the wheels turned in his head, and he wondered how far he believed me and what it might do to his own reputation. Running through my head over and over, its rhythm tolling a death march, was probably the most hateful phrase in the entire English language: no smoke without fire. I couldn’t cope with it. Not again.

  I could call Oliver back, I though feverishly. Get him to explain… But would he? He’d lied to the headmaster at Potter’s Field. Maybe he’d lie to Sean. Maybe he’d want Sean to split up with me.

  “It’s nothing,” I said again. “Really. Maybe you, um, misheard? We were just talking about, um, old times.”

  Sean said nothing for a long, long moment.

  I thought it was going to be okay. After all, it wasn’t the first time he’d, well, seen or heard something that appeared to put me in a less than flattering light. He’d always been so understanding. So ready to forgive. Surely this time would be no different? He’d accept my explanation, and we’d be fine.

  Wouldn’t we?

  There was a lump in my throat that was making it hard to swallow, and I found my fingers crossing themselves furtively without even a by-your-leave.

  Then Sean spoke, his tone bleak. “You know what my last memory of my dad is? Him telling me and Debs we’ve got to lie to our mum so she won’t find out he’s having an affair.”

  “But I’m not having—”

  He held up a hand. “Never said you were. I told him I wasn’t going to lie for him, and he gave me a clip round the ear. Still didn’t do it. I didn’t like lies when I was a kid and I don’t like them now.”

  “I’m not lying…” I couldn’t continue. Because I was lying to him, wasn’t I? If not precisely by commission, then certainly by omission.

  My silence, I suppose, was as good as a confession. Sean’s face closed off, his eyes hard. He jammed his bare feet into his trainers and grabbed his jacket from the banister.

  “I don’t think this is gonna work.” His voice was jagged, and so quiet I could barely hear it. “I’d better go. See you around.”

  And then he was gone, and the chill of the hall tiles seeped up through my bare feet into my very bones.

  After Sean left me, I did the only thing that made any sense. I went back to bed, dressing gown and all, and pulled the duvet over my head. Surrounded by his scent, cocooned in warmth, I could almost believe it hadn’t happened. That he’d just slipped out of bed to make a cup of tea and would be back with me any minute.

  Only the raw, searing wound in my chest called me a liar.

  I wallowed in self-pity rather longer than was probably healthy, but eventually even I had to admit I’d be better off getting up. My head was throbbing with a fierce ache, and my empty stomach rumbled queasily. I stumbled out of bed, burnt myself some toast and ate it all as a kind of penance. I was almost disappointed to find I actually felt a little better once I’d choked it down.

  I still felt in need of a shoulder to cry on, so I called Rose. She came bearing a half-eaten box of Quality Street, a tub of homemade pasta salad and her own particular brand of sympathy.

  “Robert, you moron. What the bloody hell were you even thinking?”

  Rose’s sympathy tended markedly towards tough love. “I’m not sure I was thinking,” I muttered, cuddling a cushion and picking through the brightly wrapped sweets. All the purple ones had gone, which was my life in a nutshell.

  “Yeah, you got that right. Telling Sean it was nothing. Like he was ever going to believe that!”

  “I suppose you’d have come up with a perfectly plausible story on the spot.” Sod it. I was having a toffee, fillings be damned. I unwrapped it, popped it in my mouth and chucked the gold paper over my shoulder like a pinch of spilt salt, uncaring where it might land. Perhaps I’d just let my house fill up with rubbish, like one of those people they showed documentaries about on Channel Four. Invite in the rats and the cockroaches. After all, it wasn’t like Sean would ever come here again to see me.

  “Or,” she said pertly, “and I realise this is a totally radical idea, I might have told him the truth.”

  I stared at her and opened my mouth to speak—only to find my teeth had gummed up. “Damn it,” I cursed indistinctly and tried to discreetly dislodge the toffee with my tongue.

  “Use your finger, it’s only me here,” Rose said helpfully.

  I glared at her and finally freed my jaw. “I can’t tell him the truth.”

  “Why not?”

  “Why not?” I stared at her in disbelief. “What if he doesn’t believe there was nothing in it? What if he actually thinks I might have been capable of…of that?”

  “Yeah, but if you look at it this way, he’s dumped you already. What have you got to lose?”

  “What if he then goes round telling everyone about it? I’d have to leave my job.” Again.

  I’d miss Charlie, if I had to leave. Damn it, I’d even miss Destinee.

  “Sean wouldn’t do that. Not without any evidence you’d ever actually done anything. He’s not like that.”

  “Would you risk it, though? He might… He might think it’s the public-spirited thing to do. To warn everyone about me. And anyway… I couldn’t bear it. To think that he is alive in the world, and thinking ill of me.”

  Rose looked up. “Lizzy Bennet in Pride and Prejudice. That’s what she said. Don’t look at me like that. I’ve got the DVD, you know.”

  I was too dispirited to point out it was from a book. There was a fair chance Rose knew that anyway and was just trying to cheer me up. Well, fairish.

  “So you’d rather stay dumped,” Rose continued, “than take a chance he might actually believe you?”

  “Why should he believe me? He dumped me for lying to him, Rose. Why would he imagine I’d suddenly come over all truthful?”

  “Yeah, well, there is that.” She sighed. “Maybe you just need to chalk this one up to experience, then. Find yourself someone a bit more trusting.”

  “A bit more… Rose, I lied to him.” I stood up in my agitation, and Quality Streets cascaded to the floor to lie like scattered fairy lights on the rug. “I tried to keep him from even meeting Fordy, and when Oliver came over—the boy who pretty much destroyed my life last year—I told Sean it was nothing. Nothing!”

  I realised I was shouting in her face and backed off a bit. “Sorry.”

  Rose had her hands held up. “All right, all right. You’re a shitface. I get it. So-rry. Jeez.”

  I slumped back onto the sofa, dislodging the last few Quality Streets, and put my head in my hands. “He’s better off without me.”

  “Meh.”

  I looked up. “What?”

  “I said, meh.” Rose leaned forward, her gaze piercing. “Look, I get it, all right, but if you look at it another way, you’ve known him a couple of months, that’s all. What gives him the inalienable sodding right to know all your deepest darkest secrets anyway? If he really cared about you, he’d wait till you were ready to tell him all that stuff, wouldn’t he?” She popped a sweetie in her mouth in triumph, I assumed, at a point well made.

  The wrapper she discarded was purple. I narrowed my eyes at her.

  Then I sighed and closed my eyes. “It doesn’t matter, anyway. Who’s right or wrong. He’s gone.”

  “Never mind, eh? Come on, cheer up. Christmas is coming.”

  “I’m not five, Rose.”

  “Exactly. You’re an adult. And what’s Christmas when you’re an adult?” She looked at me expectantly.

  “Do elucidate,” I said in my driest tones.

  “N
ah, I’ve been trying to give that up. Christmas, you numpty, is the world’s best excuse to spend most of the time pissed off your face.” She beamed.

  Well, there was that, I supposed.

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  On Monday, to put the powdered cyanide icing upon the botulism-laced cake, when I slouched wearily into the St Saviour’s School hall for morning assembly I was greeted by two hundred and fifty children all thrusting their prized Christmas ornaments into my wholly inadequate hands. I tried to look enthusiastic as I resigned myself to an evening spent up Mr. Minnit’s blasted ladder hanging the things.

  In fact it only took me an hour and twenty-seven minutes, which meant there was at least some benefit to being too dispirited to care overmuch how the myriad ornaments were arranged, aside, of course, from basic considerations such as size and colour. I was even starting to feel a little cheered by the result of my efforts. Then when I collapsed the ladder, I managed to trap my finger painfully in the process, and as I swore and lost control of the thing, it knocked against the tree, causing the sodding angel to fall off. It nosedived into the branches, where it took me twenty-three blasted minutes to locate it, and a further nine to get it fixed back into position with the aid of half a roll of sticky tape, a fistful of paper clips and a rubber band.

  “Let’s see you fly out of that one,” I muttered grimly to Our Lord’s herald.

  Then a previously unseen Mr. Minnit yelled up, “Ain’t you done yet?” and nearly made me fall off the ladder.

  It was a long, weary walk back to the Old Hatter’s Cottage. As I passed the Chinese takeaway, I paused, recollected the contents of my fridge (a half-eaten salad, some mouldy cheddar and a microwave vegetarian tofu thing that had seemed like a good idea at the time) and headed in.

  Sean was there. Oh God.

  I’d been prepared, at the end of school, to meet him at the classroom door. Not that I had; Debs had arrived to pick up the twins with her face carefully arranged to express her hopes I would die horribly in a fire, to which event she would be pleased to bring a gallon of gasoline.