My hand goes to Mum’s locket round my neck. I do remember. It was one of the few nice things anyone did for me in a blurry mess of a time when Mum was back in hospital. I keep her close, but I took the tiny photo of Dad out long ago.
“Phil and Sue, eh? So we’re practically related. Truce?” He holds out a hand. “Er, this is where you say sorry for wrestling me to the floor and nearly breaking my neck.”
“I just reacted,” I say. “You could have been a burglar. Don’t surprise me in future.” I don’t want anyone else here, but I don’t want him complaining about me either. I take the easiest path and help him up.
“Crap apology accepted,” he says. “I’ve had a lot worse. Get any decent food on your trip out?” He edges into the kitchen, taking care not to come too close to me, and opens the fridge.
I lean by the door, ready for a speedy exit, watching him all the time.
He gets mugs from the cupboard above the kettle and a couple of teaspoons from the drawer. He knows his way around the kitchen. “Tea?”
I nod. I’m unsettled. I’d been thinking of this place as mine and here’s someone who treats it like it’s his.
“Going to tell me why you’re here?” he asks. He tosses teaspoons on to the table. Randomly. “And why you’re so jumpy?”
“Just passing,” I say, neatening up the spoons.
“Yeah, right.” He smirks. “Because this place is dead handy.” He squeezes the teabag and pushes my mug towards me across the table, still wary of me.
I glare at him as he dunks custard creams, my custard creams, into his tea.
He shrugs. “I’ll start then, shall I? I like to crash here every now and then. Especially when it’s as cold as this week. I can catch up on the personal hygiene front.” He sniffs his armpit. “Ahh, sweet. You should have seen me when I got here.”
I say nothing.
“Fine. Not very chatty, are you?” He retrieves his bag and empties out some screwed-up clothes. “I’m going to put a wash on,” he says. “Want me to bung in anything of yours?”
“With your stuff?” I’m too slow to stop a look of disgust crossing my face. I can smell the clothes from here.
“All right, point taken. I’ve been trying an experiment in self-cleansing that kind of works with my hair but not with the jeans.” He whistles as he tries to sort his clothes by colour but then thinks better of it and shoves the first pile into the machine.
“Look at us, all domesticated,” he says. “If Phil and Sue could see us now, eh? Have you kept in touch?”
“How long are you staying?” I ask coldly.
“How long are you staying?”
“Shouldn’t it be first come, first served?”
“In that case, I win. Because I was here last month too.” He taps his pocket. “Got myself an extra set of keys cut. We could always phone up Phil and ask him what he thinks.” He winks. “No? Thought not. Tell you what, you can keep the back bedroom this time, even though I usually have that one myself. I’ll take the front. I’ll be gone shortly. Probably. Where are you living these days? Got another foster family?”
“I’m at, was at, boarding school. They have a few places for kids like me. I didn’t do well in foster care.”
Slight understatement.
“I bet. Diggo probably got off lightly. But you don’t kick off there? At this school? What did you say it was called?”
“I didn’t.” It’s nothing to do with him. I’m not going to explain that I like being at school, I like the teachers who encourage me. I like my little study bedroom. I like talking about unreliable narrators in the Lit Discussion Group. I like pretending that I can have that life. But if I’d stayed, Dad could have come marching in there and dragged me back to our past. Julie and her stripey notebook would have helped him to do it. He’d have fooled the lot of them into thinking he was a normal father and I’d have been put on a plane to the US with him before his charms had worn off.
Josh helps himself to a yogurt, which he shovels in, standing by the open fridge door. “What are you doing up here then? Term’s not over, is it?” he asks between mouthfuls.
“I fancied a holiday.”
“Yeah, right.”
“It’s complicated,” I say, hoping to shut him down.
“Things are only complicated if you let them be,” he says.
“That’s crap.”
“Go for the simple life.”
“Is that what yours is? Looks great,” I say. “There’s Keep Fit in the village hall tomorrow and a Christmas craft fayre to look forward to on Saturday.”
He tilts his head to one side and waves his spoon in my direction. “I’m sensing a certain amount of sarcasm and animosity. Chill.”
I hate people, usually of the male gender, telling me to chill, to smile more, to cheer up, it may never happen. I clench and relax my fist repeatedly in my pocket to let the anger subside.
Josh shouldn’t be here.
Having company wasn’t in the plan.
I guess not every teenager is trained in hand-to-hand combat.
Martial arts have a code, respect between fighters. But Dad wanted me to fight dirty. To win at all costs. To be able to fight off the marauding hordes of people swarming over our house to get their hands on a tin of sardines. We watched YouTube videos where some deranged guy with a long grey beard in Montana would demonstrate how to kill a zombie. Dad was showing me all sorts of horrors. Meanwhile, other kids at school were excited if they got into a 15-rated movie at the cinema.
“It’s kill or be killed, Amber, honey,” he’d say, gripping me in a headlock while I thrashed uselessly. I knew he meant other people. But all the same, some part of my brain wondered if it would ever be down to him and me, fighting over the last ration pack. I wondered how much his ‘blood is thicker than water’ mantra and the need to preserve his gene pool (me) would count over his selfish need to preserve himself. That’s what all this was always about. But sharing a gene pool doesn’t mean you automatically love – or even like – someone.
I paid attention to his lessons. He called them training. He had a clipboard and a stopwatch. I learned how to strike an attacker so as to instantly break their nose, where to cut their throat. I practised thrusting my fingers into grapes to desensitize myself from poking actual eyeballs, bit pastrami that had the texture of a tongue. I knew how to force my arms up and away to shrug off an attacker from behind, how to stamp on their feet, kick shins, twist testicles. I could use a set of keys between my fingers like a street fighter’s knuckle-duster.
“Use your weakness as your strength. That’s the Rule. They won’t expect you to be able to do all this,” said Dad. “You’ll have the element of surprise. If someone’s got you pinned to the floor with his trousers round his ankles and his hands on your wrists, you’re ready to bite his tongue. Don’t hesitate. Play dirty. Play real dirty, Amber.”
These are confusing messages for a thirteen-year-old. Seeing all other people as a potential threat to your own safety and existence messes with your head. So the next time there was an incident at school, I may have slightly overreacted. Ben from Year 11 thought it was funny to lift up my skirt with the tip of his hockey stick, and got more than he bargained for. I saw red. Massive fiery clouds of red. I’d been walking around like a pressure cooker set to explode from Dad being back in our lives again. And I just flipped.
Dad was right about the unexpected though. No one expected me to do what I did. Ben ended up slumped against the lockers with his nose broken and bleeding. He didn’t know which to clutch first, his nose or his bruised balls. Thing was, I could barely remember attacking him.
I ran to the girls’ toilets and locked myself in a cubicle. My hands were quivering. Not a mark on them though. Not a bruise. I wiped off the splattered specks of Ben’s blood with toilet paper and flushed it away. I thought one of the teachers would be sure to come and find me and haul me up in front of the Head, suspend me, report me to the police. All those scenarios were sp
inning through my mind, playing out in various shades of worry. But the time ticked on. I watched feet come and go. Toilets flushed, doors banged. I gingerly came out, washed my hands, threw cold water over my face. I stared back at the girl in the broken mirror with puffy eyes that I barely recognized. She was capable of a brutal assault on the spin of a second. Was that what Dad was turning me into?
I got grudging respect from the boys in Year 11 afterwards. They’d sing out ‘Wonder Woman’ when I went past – sniggering and poking fun at Ben. His version of events was that he’d ‘had an accident’ with his hockey stick ‘on a slippery floor’. I don’t know whether anyone believed it but I wasn’t saying anything different. Sexism was alive and kicking and he was ashamed he’d been beaten by a girl. And a weedy-looking one from Year 8 at that.
What I learned:
Injured noses bleed a lot.
Ben was not a feminist.
Dad was right. Like so many of his Rules were proving to be.
My weakness was my strength.
The advent calendar door sticks this morning. I dig at it with my nail and I’m annoyed when I rip it slightly. It’s an angel: plump and glowing golden. No way her wings would hold her up. Basic aerodynamics. And why are angels always white and blond?
Josh’s phone (old-style brick) is charging on the worktop. Josh the sloth is still in bed. His phone is not even locked. I scroll through his contacts and recent history. He has even fewer friends than me, and he’s not been in contact with anyone recently.
It crossed my paranoid mind earlier that he could have been sent by my dad. So I checked through his room last night while he was doing the washing-up but found nothing of any interest. Literally nothing. He has barely any stuff.
I put his phone down but then pick it up again. Should I call Julie, say I’m OK? Explain, and hope she rides in to save me in her white Hyundai. But it’s never going to be that simple – there are procedures they have to follow. They cannot break a rule. Dad can be charming, convincing. There’s no query about him at all on the record.
I swore to Mum I wouldn’t ever tell the social workers about what happened. She was adamant about it – partly her shame that we’d be judged, partly her fear that we’d suffer consequences. I get that. I feel it too. Feelings are hard to subdue, to rationalize.
Mum felt it reflected on her, made her look bad, that she’d left me with him when she tried to sort herself out. And the last couple of times I saw her, she basically apologized for ever sleeping with him in the first place and making him my dad. But that was like saying that half of me was a cancerous growth she wished she could cut out. When she saw me, she saw him. Whatever I do, he’ll always be a part of me. That’s a scary thought in the middle of the night.
Am I mad to be keeping that promise to Mum? Julie’s number is written on a card in my purse. I trace the digits for a minute or two, pondering where the balance of truth and lies would fall between me and Dad. I tap in the number but my finger hovers over the call button. In my head, I replay Julie’s voice stumbling its way through the recorded message – I’ve heard it often enough. I’m going to do it, honestly. But then I’m paralyzed by that promise to Mum. It was the only thing I had to offer her at the end. I can’t just let it go. I can’t let Mum down like that. And the cold, hard truth is that I’m the only one who can keep me safe.
I don’t make the call, instead replacing the phone exactly where it was. I’ve got a feeling in the pit of my stomach I don’t recognize. Homesickness? Do I miss Julie? Don’t be idiotic. No one would miss Julie. I play with my locket, pulling it along the chain from left to right and back to the centre again.
I check my kit to calm me down. I get out my map to familiarize myself with the area in case I have to bail. I want to suss out the quiet roads on foot, how far I can get. But before I can look at it properly, Josh thuds down the stairs singing a Christmas tune. I don’t know how he wakes up so cheerful. He has nothing to be cheerful about. From the cut on his cheek, he’s shaved and tidied up his beard. It looks thinner, neater.
“Now I get why you’re here,” he says, peering over my shoulder at the map. I can smell his toothpaste breath. “You’re doing a Duke of Edinburgh expedition and you got lost?”
“Funny. Very funny. If ever communications fail, at least I’ll know one end of a map from the other and—”
“If communications fail? You are Special Forces.” He’s laughing at me.
There’s a clattering noise behind me. He’s poking in my bag, fishing out the sleeping bag and the camping stove.
I stand up. “What the hell! That’s mine. Put. It. Down.”
“What do you have in here? Fish hooks and line, matches, first-aid kit…” He pulls out the folding mini-shovel. “What’s this? Planning a spot of gardening?” He unfolds it and turns it in his hand.
“It’s the poo shovel,” I say. “For digging a latrine.”
He drops it instantly and it clatters on the tiled floor. “Yuk! Tell me it’s unused?” He wipes his hands on his jeans. “Hardcore camping. I’m more of a static caravan kind of guy.”
“Can you get off my stuff, or…”
“Uh-oh. Am I getting the Amber Warning? Going to take me out with a rolled-up sleeping mat or a spork?” He’s smiling at me. “I’m on your side, Amber. Whatever. We were both at Phil and Sue’s.”
“You keep saying that. So what? That makes us siblings, does it?”
“It makes us something,” he says. “It means something to me.”
He cups his hands round his face. “Look – I’m adorable. Who wouldn’t want to adopt me as a big brother? Though…” The smile goes. “Your school knows you’re on your little holiday, right? No one’s going to think I’ve whisked you off, are they?”
“Of course not. I just need to get my head together for a few days, sort something out and then I’m going back. They’ll barely know I’m gone.”
“Because I don’t want any trouble, Amber. People don’t tend to believe blokes like me. You know that.”
“There won’t be any trouble, OK. No one knows I’m here. Anyway, I’ll be off out of your way at some point. That’s what the map’s for. I won’t be your problem.”
“What do you have to sort out way up here that you can’t sort at Hogwarts?”
I sigh heavily. There’s no reason to sugar-coat it for him. “My dad’s a psycho. He’s back in the country and I don’t want to see him. End of story. I’m not a child, am I?”
“You’re not eighteen though – are you?”
I shrug. “Nearly. What’s a couple of months?”
“If you say so.” He pushes the mini-shovel towards me with his toe. “Now tell me why you’re ready to dig a toilet.” He folds his arms and stands waiting for my answer.
I take a breath. I haven’t explained this to anyone at Beechwood, where I kept my bag shoved far back underneath my bed. There’s been no need. I hide my past as best I can from my classmates, from Julie, the authorities. But Josh – he’s like me, navigating a path of self-preservation away from his past. He’s on the outside too. And I remember him as the guy who got Mum’s locket back for me. Maybe if I tell him a tiny part, he’ll quit with the questions.
“My dad’s a prepper. A survivalist,” I say. “He’s preparing for the existential threat he thinks is just around the corner. Preparing for any ‘shit hits the fan’ scenarios. He trained me up from a little kid.” I pull out a couple of bin bags from under the sink. “You see a black bin bag to use in the dustbin. I see a ‘prep’ – rapid shelter, waterproofing, insulation if I fill it with hay or dry leaves. It’s a basic emergency substitute for my actual Grab-and-Go Bag that you looked in. I always used to have two bin bags with me – even if I was only going out for a couple of hours. But I’ve been managing trips out with Julie, my social worker, for months now without sneaking them along.”
“OK. You’re convincing me that prepping is slightly weird.”
“You can use a bin bag to carry command
eered supplies…” I continue.
“That sounds like a fancy phrase for looting.”
If he doesn’t like the looting idea, he really won’t like my next suggestion, so I keep it to myself. Or you can suffocate someone in a life-or-death scenario.
I go for my run along the beach. I got lazy at Beechwood, let my training regime lapse. Dad was keen on us keeping fit and healthy to take on the physical demands of surviving – building shelters, chopping wood, whatever. Fighting off looters. We used to have a daily boot camp that left me sweating and exhausted.
I drop to the ground and do a set of press-ups and sit-ups. The wind whistles in from the North Sea and whips up the sand. There are a couple of dog walkers further down the beach, hurling balls into the shallows for the dogs to chase. My chest is tight. I breathe in slowly and close my eyes, letting myself feel battered by the wind, before I retreat to the calm of the path through the dunes, dodging dog poo and swirling rubbish as I run.
In the event of emergency, it’s not a good idea to head for the coast – unless you’re going for an evacuation by boat. Dad’s voice is in my head, saying that I’ve cut off my options. One whole side of my location is inaccessible. “What are you going to do when you’re pinned down on one side, drown yourself? Stay one step ahead, Amber. That’s the Rule.” Like a game of chess. If I move here, then what? Knight to F3. If my opponent moves there to counter, what should I do? Knight to F6. Anticipate, block, attack, defend. I’ve got out of the habit of thinking of the world like this. It’s exhausting. But necessary.
The small café by the beach is tempting, all hazy glow and chatter through the steamed-up windows, but I need to save my cash until I know I’ve got access to more. I flick through a newspaper from the bin outside. Still no pictures of me. Maybe I’m just not Instagrammable enough. Good.
The Rules Page 3