‘It’s good you’re hanging out with her,’ he says. ‘You can make sure she stays out of trouble. Try and find out who she is seeing on the side.’
‘On the side of what?’ I ask him.
‘Us, doofus,’ he replies.
Leo’s estate is always bursting with life, twenty-four hours a day. This time of day it’s little kids playing out after school, filling the green spaces under the trees with screeches and laughter. Bigger ones ride their bikes and skateboard over a makeshift obstacle course and down flights of concrete steps, risking the wrath of the old people on the bench making the most of the September warmth. Music drifts out of open windows, washing flutters on the tower block balconies, rising up as high as you can see towards the sky.
Leo’s place is on the eighth floor of a long low block, with walkway balconies that overlook the patches of greenery below.
The lift is noisy and slow and smells of weed.
‘So, you’re all in for being Aaron’s henchman?’ I ask Leo eventually. He talked all the way home, about the usual shit we talk about, like how the rehearsals went, football, girls, music and then as we came into his estate, he just stopped. Not a word.
‘That’s not what it’s about and you know it,’ he says.
‘What it is about, then?’
‘People respect him, Red,’ he says. ‘For who he is, and what he’s done.’
I manage not to say anything for one floor.
‘For selling drugs and hurting someone so badly they nearly died?’
‘That geezer, he knew the risks. It wasn’t some civilian he went for. It’s war out there on the streets, man.’
I want to laugh, but I’m not totally sure how he’d react if I did, and he’s not wrong. In this last year there has been a stabbing in London every single week. We had an assembly on it at school. They are fundraising to put a metal detector in the main entrance, which is stupid because there are about ten other ways in and out of the building.
‘You are a civilian,’ I say instead. ‘You’re a guitarist, a really good one. It’s not worth it, is it? Getting involved with that shit?’
Leo gives me a long hard look as the lift shudders to a stop.
‘Red, you just don’t know what my life is like. You don’t even really know me.’
‘Red!’ Leo’s mum beams when she sees me. ‘You staying for dinner?’
I’m the archetypal good friend, the one that mums are always pleased to see because it means that their kids aren’t getting into gang war on a Wednesday night after school.
‘Thanks, Mrs Crawford,’ I say, ‘but I can’t.’
Her face falls, and I see the worry etched into it. Leo doesn’t know how lucky he is having a mum who gives a shit.
‘Tell me, how is Naomi? I called Jackie, but she’s not picking up, I don’t blame her, I can’t imagine what’s she going through.’
‘No change yet,’ I tell her, and she hugs me suddenly, whispering in my ear.
‘It’s good to see you, I haven’t seen you for such a long time. You keep an eye on my boy for me, OK? I worry about him.’
She releases me. ‘Well, nice to see you anyway.’
I nod a silent promise that I will do my best, but what if Leo’s right? Maybe I don’t know him at all.
Aaron is sprawled in a chair in the corner, one leg hooked over the arm, gaming. On the screen several CGI gangsters fall under the sweep of his machine gun.
‘Yes! Bastards!’ he shouts at Leo. ‘Come here, bro, watch me slay these mothers . . . ’
‘Hi,’ I say. Aaron slings me a sideways glance.
‘What the fuck is that?’ he says looking at me. ‘Oh fuck, now I’m dead!’
‘I’m Red,’ I tell him. ‘Leo’s mate.’
‘Red’s in the band,’ Leo adds, as if he doesn’t quite want to own our friendship.
‘Oh yeah,’ Aaron says, looking me up and down. ‘That’s a strong look . . . Red.’
‘Thanks,’ I say and he smirks. He didn’t intend it as a compliment.
‘So how are you doing?’ I try for small talk.
‘A lot better if you stopped talking to me,’ he says, dropping the console as he loses another life. ‘Can you take it away, bro, please?’
It takes me a second to realise I am the ‘it’ he is talking about.
‘Would you mind if I asked you something, about when you were at Thames Comprehensive?’ I wish I didn’t sound so fucking preppy, but I do. Thing is, even if I tried to go gansta I’d still sound stupid.
‘Well, I tried not to be there so much, know what I’m saying?’ Aaron laughs and Leo looks at his feet.
‘Do you remember Carly Shields?’
Aaron looks at me with a tilt of his head. ‘Yeah, nice girl. Proper sweet. We were something for a while. Yeah, that was sad.’
I’m surprised by the softness in his voice, his smile.
‘Aaron!’ Leo’s mum calls from the kitchen.
‘Fucking what?’ Aaron calls back. ‘Always nagging.’
‘Look, it doesn’t matter,’ I say getting up. ‘Leo, come with me to Rose’s?’
‘Yeah, maybe . . .’ Leo starts to get up.
‘I was gutted when she topped herself, real sad. She was good, you know? Made me feel good for a bit. Then she dropped me, just like that and started getting well weird.’
‘Weird?’ I try not to sound too interested.
‘She went mental, like a few days before. I remember that. Totally changed.’
‘Really? How?’ I ask him.
‘Came to me, and asked me if I knew anyone that would kill someone for her. Said she had money.’
‘What?’ Leo questions.
‘You calling me a liar?’ Aaron challenges him at once. ‘I was like, no, girl, but now I come to think of it I should have taken her money, she wasn’t going to be around to collect much longer.’
She changed. She was scared. She wanted someone dead . . .
‘Sounds like she went nuts, then,’ I say. ‘Coming, Leo?’
Leo gets up, but Aaron’s hands stop him.
‘Nah, Leo. You’re not going anywhere bro. We got plans.’
‘You don’t need me, though, do you?’ Leo shifts from one foot to the other.
‘Don’t matter if I need you or no, you’re my brother. You are coming.’
‘Right.’ Leo sits down. ‘Sure.’
‘Message me later,’ I say.
‘Sure.’ For a moment I wonder if I should stay, if maybe just being around might help. The last thing I want to do is let Leo cross a line he can’t come back from, when I could have stopped him. ‘I could—’
‘You, freak, are not needed,’ Aaron tells me. ‘You bring me down, mate.’
‘Leo?’ Leo won’t meet my eye. ‘Tell you what, I’ll call Rose and she could come over here, and we could do something, the three of us, yeah?’
‘Red,’ Leo shoots me a dark, warning look. He’s telling me that hanging around isn’t going to work out well. ‘You gotta go.’
Still I don’t move, I can’t. Until Aaron springs up out of seat and is suddenly standing over me, his face in mine.
‘My bro told you to get lost, so do one, before I take you outside and show how to get downstairs the quick way.’ I see the spittle in the corners of his mouth, the mass of tiny red veins in his eyes, and I am shit scared.
‘See you later, Leo.’
He looks at me, but doesn’t reply. He doesn’t have to, his eyes say it all.
23
Rose’s street is quiet, all the children safely ensconced inside air-conditioned houses or playing in walled gardens. Cars that cost twice as much as most people earn in a year sit outside, polished and pristine, and if there had been anyone on the street, they would have looked at me twice, just so they could mention me at the next neighbourhood watch meeting. Her house is quiet, no sign of her dad or Amanda.
I feel a little guilty for not being with Naomi, but Ash says even she isn’t going today. She see
ms to have been up all night crunching numbers that probably can’t be crunched. But I need to be here, because, you see, Rose is more than a person, she is a place where I don’t have to think any more, where I can just be me for a while, and it’s just a relief. I hadn’t realised how knackered I am, how much I just want to chill out for a bit.
And Rose’s house is the perfect place to do it; it’s a haven of order, insulated with cash. They have a woman that comes in four times a week, so there is never a pile of washing on the stairs, or unwashed mugs in the sink. It always smells nice, and there are cut flowers in vases in the hall and the living room and upstairs, too.
As soon as we arrive, Rose goes upstairs to get changed, and comes back down in a baggy T-shirt and leggings, bare toes, her long hair loose,. I watch as she sets about making us bacon sandwiches, and gives me mine with a Coke in a glass bottle and a stripy straw.
‘So are you worried about Leo?’
‘Kind of,’ I say. ‘Yeah. Aren’t you?’
‘I’m not sure. He’s got a dark side, you know.’
‘What do you mean?’ I look at her.
‘I mean sometimes he’s not the Leo we know. Sometimes he gets mad.’
‘With you?’ There’s an edge in my voice, and Rose catches it.
‘No, of course not with me. I’ve got him eating out of the palm of my hand. I just see it sometimes. He feels trapped.’
‘I don’t know,’ I sigh. ‘My parents hate me. You hate your parents. It’s kind of normal hating your family, right?’ I think how Leo looks more than pissed off though; he looks sad and afraid. And the way he acted, like he had to be someone else for Aaron.
‘How is home?’ she asks me, halfway through a mouthful, and I shrug.
‘Not like here,’ I say.
‘Here’s not like here when they are here,’ Rose tells me. ‘You know what it is, I think they are planning to have a baby, either that or she is already knocked up. Whenever I walk into a room, they stop talking. And you know, I don’t actually care if they have a baby except I care about the poor kid, growing up with those fuckwits. There should be a law or something, a test that stops you getting pregnant if you don’t have the intellect to sufficiently parent a human.’
‘A what now?’ I laugh.
‘What?’ Rose laughs too.
‘That didn’t sound like you, sounded like you’ve been reading a newspaper or something.’
‘Are you saying I’m thick?’ Rose peels the crust off her sandwich and throws it at me when I shrug, laughing, her eyes sparkling. This is the Rose I know, relaxed, carefree, not putting on a front for anyone. Not that distant, distracted and mean girl I saw the other day.
‘Rose, can I ask you something a bit . . . disgusting.’
‘Ha, yeah, go on.’ Rose’s eyes light up.
‘My dad . . . he’s never . . . I mean has he ever tried to . . . ’
Rose keeps nodding, waiting for me to get to the point.
‘Do you think my dad is a pervert?’
Rose laughs, ‘Definitely.’
‘Shit really, what’s he done to you?’
‘No, no, Red! I don’t think your dad is a pervert. He’s never done anything to me other than treat me pretty nicely, and try to look down my top.’
‘Oh God!’ I cover my face.
‘I’m joking, you moron,’ she laughs. ‘Your dad is like all dads. Mortally embarrassing, but not evil. I’m pretty sure of it.’
‘You are?’ I must look worried because she puts her arms around my neck and hugs me.
‘Stop talking nonsense and focus on the issue in hand,’ she says. ‘Movies downstairs or up?’
I look at the big telly on the wall in the living room, and think of being alone with Rose, on Rose’s double bed.
‘You decide.’
‘Up. Far more private.’ She grins at me, as she grabs a multipack of crisps, and a couple more Cokes.
‘You’re not drinking tonight?’ I ask her.
‘I can go twenty-four hours without booze,’ she says. ‘I’m not your mum.’
Somehow when she says it, it seems funny.
Before the movie starts Rose turns off all the lights, except for the little fairy lights she has wound round her headboard and some scented tea-lights on a shelf over her bed. I sit on one side of her bed, folding a pillow to support my neck, keeping one foot on the ground. Before she died, my nan told me that in Hollywood, in the old days before sex scenes and nudity were allowed, there was a rule that even married couples shown on screen always had to have at least one foot on the floor, so that they couldn’t possibly be having sex. Although of course it’s totally possible to have sex with one foot on the floor, if you are really determined, at least that’s what my nan told me. Anyway, tonight it feels safer to follow that rule myself, to keep myself in check, to not say anything that might give away what I’m feeling right now, which is something like being hideously tortured and deliriously happy at the same time.
‘Your favourite.’ Rose clicks through iTunes and sends a movie to the TV. ‘The Breakfast Club.’
‘Really?’ I grin at her. ‘You don’t even like this movie.’
‘It’s not like I don’t like it, it’s just I prefer my cinema to be dated after the birth of Christ, but you say it’s the pinnacle of all teen movies ever made, and so I’m going to give it another go, because I’m sorry for being a dick to you and it seems like the least that I can do.’
‘It’s fine,’ I say, trying not to beam at how perfect this moment is.
‘So you’re saying I was a dick, then?’
‘No, I’m saying that you weren’t like you, for a bit. And I worry about you, you know that.’
‘I do.’ Rose hugs me briefly. ‘But you know what, I’m OK. I am A-OK. It’s like I am finally getting to understand who I am at last. I’m becoming a woman, Red.’
I snort Coke down my nose. She whacks me on the head with a pillow and I think maybe, just maybe, this is the first time in ages that I have really been perfectly happy. If I could hold on to this one moment, and never let the clock tick on, I would.
We watch the movie, or at least I watch each frame flicker by as I try to take in how I am feeling, and fail.
Molly Ringwald does her lipstick trick, Judd Nelson punches the air and as the credits roll, Rose grabs my arms and pulls me further onto the bed.
She does do that. I’m not imagining it. I’m looking at her now as she pulls me over into the middle, where she is waiting, lifting my arm and tucking her head underneath, so it is resting against my shoulder.
Shit, what does this mean?
‘You know what, Red,’ she says. ‘I really think you are the best person I know.’
‘Oh shut up,’ I say, glad that she can’t see the goofy way I’m grinning at the ceiling.
‘I really do, though.’ Her head tips back and I crane my neck to look at her. ‘You never give up on me, or let me down. No matter what fucking stupid thing I do or say, and that’s really special, you’re really special to me, you know that, don’t you?’
She rolls over so that her chin is resting on my chest, and my heart stutters and strums, the weight of her against me makes my body fizz and pop, her arm across my stomach stopping me breathing. This really is happening, I really am on Rose’s bed, and she really is lying almost on top of me. ‘I worry sometimes that you don’t realise how amazing you are,’ she says, and her voice is so soft and gentle.
It’s too much, I shift, turning onto my side, and tipping her onto hers so that we are lying lengthways facing each other, still just a few centimetres apart, but at least this way I can breathe. This way I might not die.
‘I’m really not amazing,’ I say. ‘I’m just me.’
‘Shut up,’ Rose says. ‘You’re brilliant, funny, kind, loyal, the best drummer in the known universe, and the best dancer, and I love the way your hair falls in your eyes, and you wear those stupid checked shirts every day and . . . Red, there’s something I swore not t
o tell you, but I can’t keep anything from you . . . ’
Time slows down to a trickle and then stops. I see the lights reflected in her deep blue eyes, and the tiny hairs of her soft cheeks and the way her top lip bows when she talks, and the silver scar just to the left of her mouth, and it’s like everything in the universe, since the beginning of time has been reaching just for this moment, this one perfect beautiful moment.
And I don’t need to hear what she is going to tell me, because I know, that something incredible has happened, and Rose feels like this about me.
She loves me back!
It all feels so right as I reach out, placing my hand on her waist, so destined to be as I lean over and kiss her. And even as it happens I see her eyes widen and her shoulders stiffen and feel her pull back as my lips meet hers, and yet my lips meet her lips, and for the smallest, fraction of a moment I am kissing the girl I love and I know what it feels like to be perfectly happy.
And then she’s gone, and there is just cold air where she was.
When I realise what has happened I see Rose stand up, staring at me, eyes wide with horror. When time starts again, it’s racing.
‘Fucking hell, Red, what the fuck?’ she says. ‘What are you doing? Why are you . . . I didn’t want that, why do you think I’d want that? You of all people. trying to force me to—’
‘No. I wasn’t, I didn’t . . . I’m sorry . . . I thought . . .’ Everything rushes on without me, I’m still on a time delay, my mind, my body still catching up with that look on her face. Whatever I thought, I thought wrong. I got it really, really fucking wrong. Oh fuck, oh no, oh shit, oh fuck.
‘I’m so sorry.’ I spring off the bed. ‘I’m sorry, I just thought . . . it just felt . . . I thought you wanted me to kiss you. I’m so sorry, Rose.’
I’ve never seen Rose look so upset, so angry, her face is patches of red and white.
‘Oh my fucking God, Red, you are supposed to be my best friend! The one person in my life who isn’t trying to fuck me. I trusted you, I felt safe with you. And . . . and . . . and . . . ’
‘I am your best friend.’ I move towards her. ‘Rose please—’
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