He opened one swollen eye and grinned. ‘Bloody hell, Cass.’ His voice grated in his throat and he couldn’t quite get the words out right, so he spat some blood and a chunk of tooth, and tried again. ‘Bloody hell. Y’okay?’
‘I’m fine, I’m fine, don’t move, I...’
Somebody grabbed me from behind. He’d have come to the same grief as Rose Parsons if he hadn’t remembered to shout: ‘Cass! Cassie!’
With a surge of joy I recognised Dad’s voice. Then he was slumping down onto the pavement and hauling me backwards into his arms. That felt nice. I wouldn’t have abandoned Ming for anyone else, but I tell you, that felt nice. And safe. I let my head loll back against his familiar chest. ‘Hi, Dad,’ I mumbled.
Dad’s old drinking crony Wilfred Makunga was halfway down the street in the gang’s wake, obviously straight out of church since he was still in his billowing cassock, and he was standing there shaking his not inconsiderable fists and bellowing, ‘You shits! You filthy little shits! I KNOW YOUR PARENTS!’ at the top of his booming voice. Not very ecclesiastical.
I stared at Ming, my thoughts tumbling around my spinning head. ‘You’re ruthless.’
One of his eyes was already half-closed and purpling. ‘Look who’s talking,’ he said.
It hit me then, what I’d done. In an instant I was sick and terrified and my whole body felt like one big bruise. I didn’t take my eyes off Ming’s, but I didn’t dislodge Dad’s arms, either. ‘I’m in trouble, Dad,’ I whispered.
‘Jesus, Cass. No kidding.’
‘No, I mean trouble trouble. I think I broke her jaw.’
My gentle peaceable Dad hugged me fiercely. ‘Good,’ he said.
9: Bodies
I ached to see Ming, but they wouldn’t let me. Not because he was hurt, and that was what infuriated me: because I was, and allegedly they didn’t want me hurt any more.
For God’s sake, Cass, look at the state of you. That was Mum. Just keep your head down for a while. Please. Please, love.
The best thing you can do for him is stay away from him. Dad was fiercer and colder than I’d ever have expected, his eyes steel-blue. Wilf got him medical attention, if that makes you feel better. Ming’s damn lucky, so keep his luck good. Stay away from him, Cass.
My brother was more predictable. Don’t let me find you near that idiot or I’ll finish what Jeremiah started.
And the maddening thing is, I felt so guilty about reducing Mum to tears and Dad to moral blackmail, I went along with it.
I’d stopped sleeping, though. The fight had shaken something in my head, and like a can of Coke thrown at a wall, the contents wanted out. If someone didn’t snap the ring pull soon I was going to explode. Never mind the cacophony, I knew there was something recent I had to remember, something about that day in the wood. It felt like the most important thing in my life and I had to remember it for Ming’s sake, but there was so much rage and old confusion jumbled up in my brain, I couldn’t find it. I lay awake every night crying with frustration but I couldn’t pin it down.
Despite Wilfred’s mouthy threats, Jeremiah’s gang didn’t get into trouble, not one of them. Ming’s suspension was turned into permanent expulsion: well, so much for his medical career. I got one concession for having the bejay-sus beaten out of me, and I think I only got that because Rose Parsons did, too, and because after all my father was a One Church cleric: the school let me sit my exams at home. I was amazed at their lenience. Certainly it must have seemed amazingly lenient to Dr DeVilliers, who sat there invigilating me as if it was some kind of martyrdom. Cruella had a soft spot for Rose Parsons, I remembered, so that can’t have helped, and nor could the fact that Rose was meant to be her Titania in A Midsummer Night’s Dream in a week’s time. The old bat glared at me for two hours at a stretch, purse-lipped, and between her Evil Eye and my own inward distractions, I performed dreadfully on every paper.
I didn’t care. I was lovesick and guilty and terribly frightened, I was dazed with insomnia, and I kept thinking: well, Ming isn’t sitting exams at all and he never will. If I’d been smarter I’d have taken the attitude that I was disproportionately lucky and ought to make the most of my own opportunities, but I wasn’t thinking that way. I was barely thinking at all.
The exams must have preoccupied me more than I thought, though, because the logjam in my brain cleared, unexpectedly, the morning after the last one. Or perhaps I’d stopped hunting consciously for my lost thought, and that’s why it sneaked back of its own accord.
And woke me up with a hard slap in the face.
• • •
I don’t know why Mum wasted money on breakfast cereal. Dad ate on his feet every morning, stuffing a slice of toast into his face and mainlining coffee while he watched the news. Griff, as far as I knew, had barely eaten human food in about three years. Drank the blood of bats overnight, or something, and he didn’t look good on it. And Mum’s appetite these days was about the same as mine. That morning we hid from each other on opposite sides of a giant carton of Rice Krispies, and we had nothing to say.
On reflection, maybe that’s why mothers buy cereal: for the boxes. They give you something to read when the awkward silence becomes unbearable.
I’d been staring at that carton for a while and I knew the vitamin-and-mineral content off by heart, not to mention the names of every character in that god-awful new animated movie Rodent Rapture! I hoped I wasn’t going to get the free plastic angel hamster falling into my bowl: it’d feel like a dreadful omen. Reduced to studying the barcode, I almost wished for another exam, something to learn by rote, something enlightening to read. There was nothing but a yawning gap in my brain and my heart. The summer loomed in front of me, empty, dark and awful: Mingless.
Panicking, I shovelled Rice Krispies into my mouth, forcing myself to chew, tasting only dust. The radio burbled in the background: more PR puff about the redevelopment in the capital, more outside-broadcast demolition sounds as high-rises collapsed or wrecking balls crashed into crumbling tenement walls. And more meaningless banter from Ma Baxter, boring on about her economic ambitions for her beloved nation. Mum had stopped even pretending to eat. The fingers of both hands were twisted into her hair as she stared at her plate.
It occurred to me that Mum had been brought up in those tenements, and maybe she was sad about her entire childhood imploding in clouds of dust. Well, so what? Metaphorically speaking my childhood had just done the same, and frankly I had no pity to spare for anyone beyond myself and Ming.
To keep from seeing the misery in Mum’s eyes, I stared fixedly at the Rice Krispies barcode. It didn’t take me long to think it reminded me of something. Something I’d seen quite recently on the Internet, over Griff’s shoulder.
Then I connected.
I jumped out of my chair like a scalded cat and slammed out of the front door. With Mum’s stunned cry echoing in my ears, I ran hell-for-leather for the woods, and the river, and the cave.
• • •
It was hot, so hot. It had to be one of the hottest days of the year. June can be like that, of course, before July and August kick in with the rain. Looking back, it seems so predictable, but maybe that’s hindsight. Like everything else.
I kept worrying about the heat every time I broke into a painful jog, every time I limped to a walk. Sweat trickled down my spine, made my underarms sticky and blurred my eyes. Oh, God, what would the Bishop be like after four weeks in May and June, trapped in that cave? Cold in his grave? Hardly.
I felt sick and I wanted to cry, but I didn’t have time and I couldn’t spare the energy. I didn’t even know what I could do about the godawful mess we’d made. But I had to try.
We’d pulled the Bishop out of the water. He was lying in a cave, high and dry and perfectly findable, I knew that now. And on his cassock, or maybe even on his arm, was Ming’s perfectly identifiable saliva.
Godless Darwinism might be something we didn’t mention, but that didn’t stop the government making use of s
cience. That Rice Krispies barcode jiggled and danced before my eyes as I stumbled down the forestry track and into the woods, black and white stripes that wobbled mockingly into a DNA code. All the animated characters from Rodent Rapture! were pointing at it and holding their sides and laughing their little bug-eyed heads off at us. Oh, God, how could we have been so stupid? How could Ming?
I had to slow my pace as the hill steepened. Spiders landed on my arms and face and chest, with no Ming to break the webs for me, but I had to keep going. Half the time I had my eyes shut, but even when they were open I tripped on fallen branches camouflaged by overgrown moss and lichen. My t-shirt was wet with sweat now and – oh, God, there was another, clinging to my shoulder, so I swiped it off with a yelp – and my hip just ached. I was going to suffer for this tonight, I knew it. Another sleepless one. So what?
Tiny sticky legs on my face. I yowled, then realised I was panicking. Calm down, I shouted inwardly, don’t be pathetic, it’s only a bloody spider, there’s something a lot worse waiting for you in that cave.
Except it was worse even than I thought. As I scrambled down the slope and came in sight of the riverbend, dread turned me cold and hot sweat stung my eyes, and I had to grab a pine branch or I’d have fallen. Because something was coming out of the cave.
I stopped. So did my heart. I thought I’d faint; maybe it was just the heat that was making my brain swell till I thought my boggling eyes would pop out of my head.
The figure waded ashore and stood up straight: young and lanky, I realised, breathing again. Too much hair for a zombie Bishop. He dusted his hands together, rubbed them on his jeans, twisted them, flicked away something invisible, and finally stooped to plunge them back into the river. He crouched there for ages, letting the water flow over his hands right up to his wrists, then submerged his arms up to his elbows. Rising shakily to his feet he turned, and his eyes met mine. They were hollow and miserable and scared, and they were still bruised.
‘Cass,’ said Ming.
His voice was very faint, but I heard him clearly in the hot stillness of the wood. The birds were too drowsy to sing and even the river hardly made any sound, its waters brown and calm and rippling.
I limped down the last bit of slope to his side, but he backed away and flung up a hand. ‘Don’t touch me,’ he whispered.
I could hardly get the word out. ‘Why?’
‘Because I smell of... I had to touch the...’ His eyes were glazed and very green in the forest light. We stood there in silence for an age, and then we both said it together.
‘DNA.’
Ming gave a huffing laugh, then we were both talking over each other.
‘When did you...’
‘I didn’t think...’
‘I remembered. This morning. It just hit me, Cass. I can’t believe I was so stupid.’
‘See?’ I managed to smile at him. ‘I knew we were psychic.’
I made a half-hearted attempt to go towards the cave, but Ming stood in the way. ‘Don’t go in there. Please.’ The hollowness was back in his blackened eyes. ‘Please don’t. I’ve done it.’
I was very shocked, though I’d been planning to do it myself. But I was hugely relieved, too, that I didn’t have to go in there and scrub off the stain. As ever, Ming was my fall guy.
‘Do you think you...’ I began.
‘I don’t know. I don’t know if I got it off. I don’t care. I did my best.’ There was a greenish tinge to his skin now, too, but it might have been the hot light through the summer foliage. ‘It doesn’t matter. I’m not going back in there, I’m not.’
‘Of course you’re not,’ I soothed.
‘We lugged him all the way down here. We’ll have left traces all over him!’
‘Yeah. I know, but that...’ I shrugged and fell silent. Ming must feel bad enough already. No need to say it: that you might be able to explain a lot of things, forensic technicians might even miss a lot of things. But not a great gob of spittle.
‘There’s something else.’
‘What?’ My mouth dried.
Ming swallowed. Then he gulped again, and again, as if his throat just wouldn’t let him speak. At last he took a high-pitched breath.
‘Somebody’s been in the cave.’
All I could do was stare. I didn’t want to ask how he knew. I didn’t want to hear about footprints in the sand. I didn’t want to know. It was like my exam results: an envelope I wasn’t going to open. I clamped my mouth shut and stared at Ming, shaking.
Ming dragged his t-shirt off over his head, then turned his back on me to fumble at his belt and the zip of his jeans. Then he was shoving past me and half-running upriver, along the little rabbit-path and down to the pool under the cliff, where a long underwater rock formed a natural weir. Sitting down on the rough sand, he tugged off his trainers and stripped off his jeans and underpants, then staggered gratefully into the water. With a great shuddering breath he sank under the still surface.
Running after him, I skidded to a halt on the tiny beach and gaped, completely thrown. Along with the frisson I got from seeing him buck-naked, I couldn’t help feeling a bit sidelined. He hadn’t stripped off for me, I thought resentfully: he’d stripped off for the Bishop.
That struck me as funny. And it was hot, and I was dizzy with relief that I didn’t have to go into the cave. Besides, I was just hysterically happy to see Ming again, whatever the circumstances. Those were my excuses for starting to laugh, and I was still laughing helplessly when Ming’s head resurfaced, his hair darkest blond and plastered across his shocked eyes.
I couldn’t stop laughing. He watched me as if I’d taken leave of my senses, then ducked back under. When he came up he fired a mouthful of water that got me right in the face.
That was even funnier, but at least it made me cough so much I had to stop laughing. Flicking his hair out of his eyes, he grinned at me.
‘C’mon in,’ he said. ‘The water’s lovely.’
‘Liar,’ I told him. But I stripped off anyway.
After all, what was that old rope swing for? It needed testing, after a whole year’s neglect. Some kid might venture down here, and try it out, and get hurt when it broke. I had a moral duty...
Ah, but the rope had survived just fine, I thought, whooping as I swung out over the pool, let go, and plunged into the water, drenching Ming again.
I loved the river in its summer mood. It was cold enough to knock the air from your lungs, but you got used to it in seconds, and then you felt you could stay there forever. I wished we could. We were getting a bit old for horseplay and duckings and splashings, but what the heck, we indulged ourselves. Even the Bishop might have heard the screams and yells.
Quite a bit later, but almost simultaneously, as if at some signal only bats and teenagers could hear, we snapped out of the riotous mood. Contented silence fell between us. I shut my eyes to see the flicker of tree shadows against my eyelids, and floated blissfully onto my back. Bumping into Ming, I half-floundered, limbs flailing and splashing, but calmly he slipped his arms under mine and clasped his hands across my chest.
‘Shush,’ he said, in a perfectly normal voice. ‘Relax.’
Happy again, I drifted in the gentle pull of the river, my shoulders against Ming’s chest, his chin resting on my head. The river was cool on our pleasantly numb limbs, the sun hot on our heads. I could lie here in Ming’s arms indefinitely, and he seemed content with the arrangement. We were breaking all kinds of laws, and if anyone saw us we’d be in such deep trouble we’d never talk ourselves out of it, but no-one was going to see us. There was a rotting corpse in a cave just a little downstream, but even he seemed an almost benevolent presence. We were getting used to him. He didn’t scare me any more...
The sun drifted briefly behind a sliver of cloud and I shivered. Shaking himself, Ming kissed my cropped hair and let me go.
I couldn’t help being disappointed as he splashed to the tiny rough beach. ‘I’m not cold,’ I said, trying not to sound pet
ulant.
‘That’s how people get exposure,’ he told me darkly. Flinging his clothes into the river he waded after them, then scrubbed and wrung them out, over and over again. Speaking of exposure, I was getting a good view of Ming now, but he seemed too distracted to worry about it.
‘You’ll have to get home in those.’ I nodded at his clothes.
He glanced up at me through wet strands of hair and shrugged. ‘I’ll wait till they’re dry.’
Goody, I thought. So will I, then.
When he had hung his things on handy tree branches and perched his trainers on a sunny rock – he’d even washed those – he didn’t come back in the river, but sat down in a mossy hollow between the river and the trees, where the sun blazed full on his pale body. Scrambling out of the water to join him, I knew he was watching me very intently, though he was trying not to show it and there was a slight blush on his cheekbones. I let myself stare back. Most of the cuts and bruises were fading, but there was still a big black-and-yellow stain across his cracked ribs and in my head I kept replaying the horrible sight and sound of Jeremiah’s boot going in. A tingle of hatred went down my spine.
‘You okay?’ I asked him.
‘Yeah.’ He shut his eyes and lay back, flopping one arm out to the side in what I chose to read as an invitation. He certainly didn’t object when I slumped down beside him. The arm went round my shoulders and I curled happily against him. He gave that funny huffing laugh again.
‘What?’
‘Nothing. Trying to picture your brother’s face.’
‘Yow. Don’t do that.’ I laughed into his shoulder, then shut my eyes and inhaled. He didn’t smell of anything evil. He smelt of river and sunlight and moss.
‘Is Griff very angry?’
I hesitated. ‘They all are,’ I said at last. ‘But I don’t think they’re really angry with you.’
‘I bet they are,’ he said. When I opened my eyes he was gazing at the sky through the dipping branches, sunlight dappling his face. ‘I’m really sorry about it, Cass.’
Bad Faith Page 10