“No one knows what goes on behind closed doors,” Suzie says, suddenly soothing. She places a hand on Ollie’s chest and he draws back. “Anything might have happened after the dance. Don’t forget, the video came out that morning. What if Ellis posted it himself? What if he confessed to Dylan in the car and Dylan freaked?”
We have an audience now. Each stab from the girls gets a reaction. Some grumble discontent, others whistle like they’re at a cage fight. I’d say the numbers in each group are pretty even. A smaller set smell blood and start hurling the accusation back at me:
“Yeah, McKee, what really happened?”
“Did you do it?”
Did you did you did you did you did you did you did you?
And through it all I can see Gemma in the doorway, smiling.
Suddenly she breaks in. “Stop it! All of you, just stop! Dylan?” She holds out a hand to me. “Can we talk?”
I don’t need to be asked twice.
Mike and Ollie act as my bodyguards, clearing a route so I can follow Gemma out of the lounge and into a room across the hall. I give the boys a nod and they stay guarding the doorway like a pair of mafia goons.
Gemma closes the door behind us and the music fades to a dull throb. Unlike the rest of the house, this room is rammed with paintings, ornaments, antiques of every kind. A couple of what I assume are Argyle ancestors dressed in country tweeds sneer down at us from the walls. Decent paintings, but nothing compared to yours, El. The party girl goes and sits behind a long mahogany desk, kicking up her Valentino heels. She doesn’t appear drunk or upset any more.
“Gemma, what is all this?” I ask.
She shrugs and examines her nails. “Aren’t I allowed to give my friend a proper goodbye?”
I perch on the arm of a soft leather settee. “He wasn’t your friend. He hadn’t been for months. He knew what you did.”
She blinks, and for the first time ever I see a quiver of self-doubt. “Me? I didn’t do anything. You heard them all out there, Dylan. If anyone’s got questions to answer, it’s you, not me.”
“You scripted that whole scene,” I tell her. “Fed Suze and Katie their lines. Honestly, those two are just not that quick on their feet.”
She shrugs in a prove it sort of way. Then pouts a little and changes the subject. “I’ve got a question for you, Dylan, if you’re man enough to answer it. Who were you before Ellis came along? Really? A nothing, a nobody. Just some little freak who sometimes hung around with Mike Berrington and the footie boys. I was barely even aware of you.”
I nod. “That’s right. I agree. That’s who I was.”
“A nobody who no one even noticed. A whispery little gay boy too scared to say who he really was. I don’t think I even knew your name before El picked you out and made you his pet project. Because that’s what you were to him, Dylan. That’s all you ever were.”
It’s weird, I should be angry. Screw that, I should be bloody furious. But I’m not, because I know none of this is true and that she’s grasping for something she needs but can never own. She’s grasping for you.
“And now you’re a nobody again,” she goes on. “Oh, I suppose you can carry on hanging around Mike and Ollie if you like, but Ellis is gone and he was the only one who gave you any meaning.”
I nod again. “Gemma, you’re absolutely right. He did give me meaning… And I gave him meaning too.”
She looks at me and laughs. “You?”
I get up and cross to the desk. She draws back as if I might hit her. I wonder if she’s been hit before. Not by Ollie, I’m pretty sure, but Paul Donovan? I wouldn’t put it past him. I take out my wallet, unfold the paper with her picture and lay it in front of her. She starts to laugh, then stops. When she looks up at me, some of the bite has gone out of her.
“What is this?”
“He knew, Gemma. That day after he left you at Hug-A-Book, after he abandoned you for me, he knew what you did. He rejected you because you wanted him to be something he couldn’t be. You wanted this make-believe gay best friend. He was to be your latest accessory, like your handbag or your dog, but El was larger and more complicated and too fantastic to be anyone’s stereotype. And you hated him for it.”
I round the desk and drop to my haunches in front of her. She has turned in her swivel chair and sits with hunched shoulders.
“Were you there at the lake, Gemma? Did you see him die?”
She looks up at me and a smile flickers at the corners of her mouth.
“You’re right, I hated him that day. I gave him this amazing opportunity and he threw it back in my face, just to go mincing after you. Do you know how many kids would kill to be my friend? But he treated my offer like it was cheap. Nothing.” The leader of the LGBTQ safe-space group grins at me. “He humiliated me, that pretty boy faggot. So yeah, I trashed his shitty little car. But if you’re asking, did I follow you to the lake that night? Did I just stand there and watch Ellis drown?”
She draws back into her chair and shakes her head. Although she hasn’t cried, her mascara is swimming down her face.
“No, Dylan, I didn’t. Whatever you think, I’m not that twisted.” She runs her fingers through her hair, scraping her scalp. “You know what I really think? I think that people like Ellis will always be vulnerable, just because they won’t play the silly games that everyone else plays – to fit in, to be popular, to feel wanted. They’re too brave for that. Too fucking brave to be anything less than what they are. I’m not sure that helps you, but it’s all I know.”
She reaches out for the drawing, turns it over and sees my picture on the reverse, and for a horrible minute I think she’s going to tear it to pieces. But she folds it carefully and hands it back to me.
“He was too much Ellis Bell. Now get the fuck out of my house.”
We say goodbye to Ollie and head back to Mike’s.
“What was his deal tonight?” I wonder.
Mike shrugs. “I don’t know. Nice of him to stand up for you like that though.”
“I guess.”
“So do you think she was telling the truth? That she had nothing to do with it?”
I let the question hang for a moment, replaying the scene over in my head. “I do,” I say at last. “Look, I wouldn’t trust her to take care of the family gerbil, but I also believe that she genuinely organized the Easter dance in your honour because she thought it was a nice thing to do. Don’t get me wrong, she did it for the social kudos too. But I don’t think she’s evil enough to let someone die. So you know what this means?”
Mike slips on his baseball cap and grimaces. “That whoever’s got the journal doesn’t actually know who rescued you.”
“Right. But they know something.”
We part ways at Mike’s house. I’ve done my duty – sworn in secret to Mumzilla – and walked him home. When he mounts the front step and gives me a wave, I feel this lump lurch into my throat and stick there.
Death has taken you, El, and all the way along Mike’s driveway it’s as if I can see you walking with him, your hand swinging close to his.
A fresh breeze smarts my face as I come out of the forest and skirt around Hunter’s Lake. I’ve always loved this place. Mike and I used to camp out in the woods with Mumzilla and Big Mike when we were kids. Snug in our two-man teepee, we’d wait until we heard his parents’ snores from the neighbouring tent, then we’d sit up in our sleeping bags, turn on our torches, and scare ourselves stupid with the story of the lake ghost. They say a girl drowned here once, but on a day like this, with the midwinter sun icing the waters, it’s hard to believe that anything terrible could ever happen here.
Okay, I admit my good mood isn’t just because of the lake and the sharp piney smell of Christmas on the air. I’ve decided that today’s the day. I’m going to tell him. El doesn’t know that today’s special for more than one reason – why should he? – but when his text came through this morning, it was the best birthday present I’d ever received.
Frecks, this is I, Ellis Ma
ximillian Bell, and I am ready to repay my debt. Any chance you could come over to mine? Flat 123 (I know, ridiculous) Mount Pleasant, the Estate, yadda yadda. I am putting the kettle on…NOW! xxx
PS: bring Starbursts.
So it isn’t exactly Shakespeare’s 18th sonnet, but it’ll do.
My parents are taking Chris to London for the weekend: a Spurs game and he needs some new clothes, Mum says. They tried to include me, it being my birthday and everything. (Mum: “Maybe we could pop into the Imperial War Museum.” Chris: “Again?!”) But I’d already made up my mind that five weeks since the bonfire, and two since the library, is long enough. I can’t keep retreating from him.
Because that’s what I’ve been doing. I know, it’s mad. What clearer signals do I need than that moment on the floor of the library, his finger tracing my bottom lip? And I’ve seen loads of El over the past few weeks. In history, where I used to drink in the lives of the long-dead, now I can barely memorize a date. Instead I spend the lessons staring at those long black lashes, watching the flex and tone of those forearms with their paint splatters and their magical tattoos. Actually, me watching him is getting embarrassing, but El’s like the aurora borealis or the Grand Canyon, you can’t not look. It isn’t just history either. Cute Mr Denman, who I definitely would be lusting over if El didn’t completely eclipse him, has caught me more than once wandering around the art block at break time, studying a certain student’s sculptures and canvases.
It doesn’t stop there. Mike has never known me to be so supportive of the footie team. Now, come rain or shine, I can be found sitting on the touchline, cheering the Ferrivale Falcons. If Mike isn’t suspicious by now then I fear his chosen career as a CID detective is not looking promising. Anyway, every time El scores I seem to get my own personal goal celebration. He waddles over, sort of like a duck, and pats my head. The boys find it hysterical, but they don’t see the wink he gives me when he has his back to them.
Most afternoons find us in the comics section of the Ferrivale library. We’ve become a bit of a fixture; Mrs Jackson even brings us hot chocolate. Mostly we sit and read, or El reads and I steal glimpses at him from behind my comic. We talk about lots of stupid, unimportant junk: favourite movies, TV shows, his art, my love of history and comics, my (according to him) appalling diet. Whenever his endless teasing (“Why are your freckles so freckly, Frecks? Have you had them tested for their pure orgasmic properties?”) threatens to plunge us into sex territory (sex territory? Jesus, Dylan!), I make my usual bumbling retreat.
But no more.
No. More.
Maybe no more?
Arrrrggghhhhhhhhh!!!! Because what if his teasing is just teasing? I could be about to make a serious tit of myself…
Stop it. Carpe diem, Dylan. Seize the day by the balls.
I crunch to a halt in front of El’s building and grip the gift in my parka pocket. Okay. Breathe. I plunge down the slabbed pathway to the main door of Mount Pleasant. Someone has attempted to cheer the place up, planting clumps of little yellow, white and purple flowers in beds on either side of the entrance. Because of those colours, his favourites, I think this is Ellis’s doing, and I smile.
As I buzz flat 123, I try to lose the grin. It’s difficult to talk when you’re smiling. You tend to look like a psychopath. Anyway, my jaw is starting to ache. I rock from foot to foot and wonder if El will ask for his IOU back when he gives me the money. Honestly, I’d rather him keep the cash. I love my IOU.
The seconds stretch out and the old stupid doubts begin to creep in again. I get out my phone and reread the message. Is this jokey tone for real? Maybe he and Gemma wrote it together and they’re watching from an upstairs window right now, giggling at me on the doorstep. My traitor brain invents dialogue for them:
Oh, poor wovesick wittle Dywan. I bet he’s bought you a pwesent and evewyfing.
Not Dywan. Mister Fwecks. Oh my God, he might actually think I like him! Pass me a bucket!
But this is rubbish. Although he and Gemma haven’t had any major fallout, there’s definitely been this cooling off between them since that day at Hug-A-Book. I guess she didn’t appreciate getting dumped for…
For me. For ME.
The intercom buzzes and the main door clicks. I take a breath and push through. A floor plan in the vestibule shows Ellis’s flat on the first level. I’m too impatient to wait for the lift and so take the stairs, leaping three at a time. El’s corridor suddenly stretches ahead of me and I force myself to slow down because if he glances out of his door and sees me running, a) he will think I’m completely desperate (which I am), and b) he will actually see me running, which Mike reliably informs me is pure comedy gold.
Flat 123. I count my heartbeats and they steady. I knock on the door. It swings open at my touch and a short corridor with pretty pink wallpaper banishes the gloom of the outer hall.
“Hello? It’s, um, Dylan… Ellis? Is anyone…?”
“In here!”
I step inside and shrug off my coat. I’m looking for a hook, and breathing in this sleepy smell of jasmine, when El calls out again.
“We’re in the bathroom. Please, Dylan, hurry!”
I drop my coat and start opening doors. Living room, broom cupboard, kitchen, a woman’s bedroom, with colourful clothes and smart business jackets hanging on a rail and a straw hat perched on a dressmaker’s doll. Bathroom.
“Oh God.”
Ellis is sitting on the floor, his back propped against the toilet. He’s cradling this middle-aged woman in a pink towelling dressing gown that matches the wallpaper in the hall. She seems to be semi-conscious, her eyelids fluttering, her mouth breathing unheard words. El’s left hand is clasping her right, squeezing, comforting. His own right hand is pressed to her head and there are bright streamers of blood dripping through his fingers. He looks up at me and all I want to do is make this better for him.
At that moment the buzzer in the hall goes.
“Ambulance.” He nods. “Can you let them in?”
I run back to the corridor; I no longer care who sees me running. The intercom’s by the door and I buzz them in, then I return to the bathroom, where El’s face is a picture of pain and worry.
“My hand,” he groans. “Cramp.”
I scoot down next to him. Up close I can see how badly he’s trembling. I can also see the small white trails dribbling out of his aunt’s nose.
“Take your hand away,” I tell him. He looks uncertain. “After three,” I say, bringing up my palm to hover over his. “One. Two. Three…”
Our hands switch places, and in the millisecond before I press mine to the wound, I catch a glimpse of torn skin, thick and lolling like a curled tongue. My palm immediately feels hot and sticky. El makes a tiny shift in position and his aunt moans. They’re both smeared with blood and the lino under my knees is slippery with it.
“It’s going to be okay,” he whispers to her, his voice hoarse and tender at the same time. “I’ll look after you, sweetheart.” He buries his face in her hair, then looks up at me, his eyes wet. “Bless you, Dylan.”
“She’ll be fine.” I nod. It’s the sort of thing you have to say, and I want it to be true.
Blood is beginning to pulse slowly through my fingers when a couple of paramedics shoulder their way into the bathroom. They’re all fake humour – “Hello there, young lady, so what trouble have you been getting yourself into?” – while busily unpacking their kit. One of them edges around us and shines a penlight into Ellis’s aunt’s eyes, then gives her partner this psychic look and he starts tearing open plastic packages.
“You’ve done an amazing job, boys.” She smiles. “But let us take it from here, okay?”
She cradles her patient’s head, which allows El to slide out from under his aunt. When he’s free, I notice his jeans are completely spotless but his George Ezra It Don’t Matter Now T-shirt is flecked red. The paramedic gives me the nod and I remove my hand. Hardly any blood flows now and she takes her time assessing t
he wound. Meanwhile her partner sidles past us and grins through his beard.
“Give us a little space, hey, guys? She’s in safe hands.” As El starts for the door, the paramedic asks, “Do you know what she’s taken?”
“Coke. Silly cow. I don’t know how much.”
“Anything else?”
El shakes his head.
We wait outside the bathroom, standing opposite each other, backs pressed to the wall. The corridor’s so narrow I could reach out and stroke his hand, but would that be appropriate? I’ve no idea. So I just stand there looking at my shoes, and he stands there looking at his socks. Red socks with yellow lightning strikes. It’s the insignia of The Flash. Is he wearing them for me? Shut up, stupid brain! Not the time.
“Bradley Hinchcliffe,” he mutters.
I look up. Everyone in Ferrivale knows that name. My mum and dad had their twentieth wedding anniversary at Hinchcliffes last year. Mike and I had to act as if we’d never been before, and Mike almost overplayed it, walking around and pretending to be wowed by the glitzy nightclub decor, then pleading with my dad to buy us a couple of beers when we’d actually snuck in half a dozen times already. I’m not much of a drinker but on our last visit a supernaturally flexible Mike got so toasted he actually managed to throw up in the pocket of his pulling trousers. Yes, Mike has pulling trousers.
I’m about to ask El what he means when the paramedics trundle his aunt out on this mini-wheelchair thing. Her head’s patched and her eyes are a little more focused. She calls out weakly and El grabs her hand.
“Can I come with?”
The beardy paramedic nods. “But only one of you.”
“Dylan.” His eyes cut to me. “Could you do me a massive favour?”
“Course.”
He fishes in his pocket and throws me a set of keys. I catch them one-handed, which is a kind of miracle.
“Bring me some clothes to the hospital? I’m sorry, could you get a taxi or something? I’ll pay you back.”
The paramedics push on and the passage is so tight that El’s forced to let go of his aunt. Before following, he closes the gap between us and cups my hand around the keys. A little of the terror has gone out of him and I tremble slightly when he brings my hand up to his lips.
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