‘Caro didn’t even fancy him. The student, I mean, and she knew Charlie out of school. They were putting on an art show.’
That sets Sal and Mel spluttering their drinks.
‘Yeah, right! Getting it on, more like!’
‘But it’s all just gossip, isn’t it? That’s the trouble with our school.’
‘So what were they fighting about, then?’ I ask Lee.
I’m intrigued by why she’s on Caro’s side while the others dislike her. She looks at me from under her lashes. She’s wary, wondering what my motive might be. I smile back, open-faced, innocent and friendly. Just chatting, that’s all. I want her to go on. I want her to tell me more.
‘The Geography student said something about her. Hands threw a jug of water over him. That’s how the fight started.’
‘And how do you know that?’ Mel looks unbelieving because it just might be the truth.
‘The other student, the one who teaches History, told me. She likes Caro. Doesn’t think it’s fair what happened to her.’
‘The dykey one who wears a Stop the Cuts badge? Maybe she fancies her, too.’ Mel smirks. ‘Maybe she’s another one of her conquests.’ Her grin grows wider. ‘Hey! Van the Muffeater!’
The others shriek and fall about, although it really isn’t all that funny. Lee isn’t laughing. She throws back her drink and reaches for Mel’s pack of ten.
‘Can I have one?’ she asks, although she has already helped herself.
She lights the cigarette as a blind. She takes a long drag, taking the smoke down.
There’s more to this one, I think, as she sucks on her cigarette and leans on the windowsill. The sleeve of her top slips a bit as she reaches forward to flick the ash. I don’t see all of it, but I see enough to recognise the shape and colour on the white flesh of her shoulder: the dark burnt mark of the five-pointed star. She finishes her drink and Mel pours her another.
‘Weren’t you part of her coven?’ Mel stubs her fag. ‘Weren’t you lot, like, doing black magic?’ She says the words with a shudder and rolls her eyes, pulling a face like a drama mask. ‘Putting spells on people?’
‘It was nothing like that.’ Lee is keen to play down the possibility. ‘Just messing about, mostly. Don’t believe everything you’re told.’
‘They say that Caro used powers,’ Sal insists. ‘That she put spells on people. Like Louise Simpson.’
They all nod as if they know the name.
‘What happened to Louise Simpson?’ I ask. They are losing me now.
‘She ended up in hospital.’
‘Louise was anorexic.’ Lee shakes her head. ‘She’d had problems for years. Nothing to do with Caro, or anybody else.’ She stubs out her cigarette. ‘That was ages ago, anyway. Caro’s into other stuff now.’
‘Yeah,’ Martha wades in. ‘She’s swapped her tarot cards for placards. Caro the activist. Her politics are fake. Like everything else. She just wants everyone to talk about her, like we are now. She doesn’t believe in anything except herself.’
That puts a stopper on the conversation.
They go out, leaving me alone in the house. I don’t mind. I would have gone out with Cal, but he’s otherwise occupied. Also, I’m skint. I’ve spent all my allowance and my summer job hasn’t properly started – like I haven’t been paid yet. I clear up in Martha’s room and open the window wide. I take the bottles downstairs and put them in the recycling, under a pile of other stuff, so Mum won’t notice.
I like having the house to myself. When I was a kid, I used to mooch round and round, going into rooms, poking into drawers, trying to discover the parts of people’s lives that they kept secret from me.
Mostly, I was looking for my dad.
He was in the Army. He went out one day on exercise when I was three, wearing a Bergen that was bigger than me, and he never came back. Killed in an incident involving live rounds. An accident. I don’t remember much from the time when it happened. I don’t remember anything much about him at all. Just that I associate him with the wardrobe, for some strange reason. Mum kept his dress blues in there. After it happened I remember climbing in and seeing the uniform hanging there, all swathed in plastic. Scared the life out of me. I thought it was his ghost. Maybe that’s why the wardrobe makes me think of him. His hat was on top, in a box that I was told never to touch. I used to wonder if that was where his head was kept.
Mum got rid of it all years ago. There’s no trace of him in her room now, except for the medals he got in the First Gulf War. She keeps those in her jewellery box.
Rob used to go round the house wearing them. He remembered Dad better than I did. He used to tell me stories about him, about the battles he’d been in, the action he’d seen. I believed every word until I began to watch movies and read books for myself. Rob gave Dad the hero role in every book he’d read and film he’d seen, from Andy McNab to Black Hawk Down. That was the first chink in my hero worship. I couldn’t figure out why he did it. I was bound to find out sometime or other.
My brother joined up as soon as he was old enough, following in the family tradition. Grandpa, Dad, then Rob. His room hasn’t changed that much from when he went off to join his regiment. The walls are still plastered with Army posters, Page 3 totty, Girls Aloud and pictures of different models of guns, broken into parts and assembled. There are photos of him and his mates. He’d pin new ones up every time he came back from a posting. They all look the same wherever they are in the world. A bunch of guys standing about in combats, posing in their Wiley-X shades, holding guns, swathed in rounds, meaning business; either that or they are in a bar on R&R in Cyprus or somewhere, dressed in shorts and T-shirts, or bare-chested, pissed and sweating, red eyes glaring, grinning with arms round each other, clutching a bottle or a glass or a girl. The colour has faded in some of the photos, the corners curled; others have fallen off the wall. I thought Mum would be straight up here with the stepladder and paper stripper as soon as he moved out, but no. She’s left it just as it is. Maybe she secretly hopes he might come back. Fat chance of that.
He lived here for a bit after he was discharged from hospital, but only for a little while. Being at home got on his nerves. He couldn’t stand Mum fussing over him. It wasn’t his leg and the help he needed with that. It was the nightmares. He’d shout out in the middle of the night, wake up screaming. He didn’t want us hearing; it made him look weak, vulnerable, and he didn’t like us seeing that. He didn’t want Mum going in, trying to soothe him, like he was a little boy again. He used to have nightmares back then, but these were of a different order. In the end, he seemed to give up on sleeping. I’d hear him padding up and down, prowling about the house. The creak on the stairs, the squeak of the laminate when he was trying to be quiet were more disturbing than the shouting.
He couldn’t take Mum worrying, talking about therapy. He’d had that and it hadn’t done anything. He had his own way of dealing with it, involving the stuff he grows and cans of Carlsberg Special. In the end he moved in with Grandpa where he was freer to do things his own way. Grandpa’s deaf as a post and even if he did wake up, he’d say nothing. He understood. He had nightmares of his own.
I grab a beer from the fridge and head out on to the patio. We live on an estate, like lots of others that border the town. The houses are set about in little closes at angles to each other so they all have their bit of private space. A new section gets bolted on every few years. Like Legoland. The estate looks bare, unfinished. This was all fields not that long ago. The trees and hedges that were here before have been replaced by spindly little saplings and shrubs. Mum tries to grow things up the fences and has planted out the borders, but the garden is like a green box. The houses are bright brick, unweathered.
It’s a nice night. The barbecues are on the go. It makes me hungry. I go in and fix myself a bacon sandwich. Come back out to eat it. People are in their gardens. I hear the snatches of conversation, the clink of glasses, bursts of laughter.
I stay out for a lon
g time. The lights die all around me, there’s just the distant street glow. It’s fully dark now. A clear night. The air is still warm and soft as velvet. I look up into the blackness dotted with specks of light. Grandpa had a telescope up in his attic. We used to look at the stars together. I remember the constellations. He taught them to me. I see a shooting star, like a golden pin scratch, then another. I watch out for more, my mind drifting. I see the star tattoo on her shoulder. The pattern of tiny freckles, like constellations. I wonder what her skin would feel like under my fingers. I try to conjure her. I see her profile in close up as she looked over her shoulder; caught in the mirror as she looked from her own reflection to her mother. I re-run those moments again and again, taking in the dark sweep of her brow, the liquid gleam of her eye, the tilt of her nose, the curve of her lip, the shadow under her cheekbone, the fall of her hair. I open my eyes and look up at the sky. A song comes on to my iPod shuffle. I’ve heard it, even liked it, but the words have never meant that much to me before. Now they do.
Chapter 6
I’ve got a summer job down by the river, working for Alan’s Boat Hire, collecting the money from deckchairs, selling ice cream, taking boats out. I’ve been doing it for quite a few summers. I kind of inherited it from Rob. He used to work down here before he joined up. I don’t start officially until the holidays but business has been picking up with the good weather and Alan’s asked me to do a few evenings after school. It doesn’t pay much, Cal takes the piss unmercifully, but it’s outdoors and by the river. That’s good enough for me.
One afternoon I’m sorting out the punts, jumping from boat to boat, getting them in a neat row, making the poles tidy, checking that they all have their complement of cushions. It’s surprising how often those get lobbed into the water. I glance up and that’s when I see her. Under the willows with her things spread out around her, writing in a notebook.
I have the feeling that she has spent the day under the trees, hidden by the screening leaves. There’s been no sign of her at college and, believe me, I’ve been looking. I’m so busy staring that I catch my foot and nearly fall in the water. She starts laughing. She’s watching me, too. I feel my face heating up and turn away quickly, pretending to be busy.
The next time I look she’s up with her bag slung across her shoulder. Her step is as light as a dancer’s as she walks across the grass.
‘It’s Jamie, isn’t it? Jamie Maguire? Martha’s brother? I saw you in the cafe the other day.’
‘Oh, yeah.’
‘So let’s stop pretending we don’t know each other, shall we? Are you for hire?’
‘Yeah, sure.’
‘How much?’
I nod towards the notice. ‘£10 for half an hour.’
She takes out a twenty. ‘Here. Give me an hour.’
I take the note from her and push it into the money bag I wear round my waist.
‘Where do you want to go?’
‘As far as you’ll take me.’ She steps into the boat. ‘As far as we can go.’
I help her to a seat and push off. She leans back against the cushions, trailing one hand in the water. She doesn’t say anything, so I don’t either. She’s wearing sunglasses so I can’t see her eyes, but I have a feeling that they are closed. I take advantage of the chance that gives me to study her. I turn the boat away from the bridge, where the water gets too deep for punts. I know where I want to take her. I let the pole slip through my fingers using it as a rudder, allowing the flow of the current to take us downstream.
‘This is it.’ I turn the punt in towards the ait, the first link in a chain of small islands above the weir. ‘We have to stop here.’
I jump out and pull the punt in under the willows, securing it to a low branch. I angle the boat into the bank, so she can step straight out without getting her feet wet. I’m standing ankle deep, but wouldn’t want her to lose one of her flimsy shoes in the sucking mud. I scramble up on to the bank to help her out. She holds on to my arm and I take her sudden weight. She does not let go as she steps on to the bank.
‘What a magical place.’
She reaches out and brushes the brown, furry tightness of a bulrush, then reaches down to touch the waxy, pale green spears, the curling yellow flowers of an iris. I smile. I knew it would have this effect. It’s like stepping into a green cave, the walls woven from living willow. She’s holding my hand, like she’s forgotten to let go of it, and we walk across ground carpeted with thick grasses studded with golden buttercups. On the other side of the island is a pool. The water here is deep and clear. It brims, before spilling over the lip and gushing and tumbling down the steps of the weir.
‘Can you swim here?’ she asks, peering down past the small, darting fish into the brown depths.
‘I suppose you could.’ I shrug, although there are notices up prohibiting it. ‘It’s probably not very clean, though.’
I wrinkle my nose. The weir gives off a faintly chemical smell. At the bottom, the churning of the water is throwing up foam from detergent dissolved in the water.
‘Can you get across here any other way?’
‘There’s a wooden bridge, leads over from the old allotments. It’s pretty rickety and taped off. Part of it was swept away in last year’s floods.’
‘What’s over there?’ she asks, pointing across the weir.
‘Nothing much. It’s like this, only smaller. They’re called aits. Little islands in the river. You can’t get to that one from the land. You have to cross the weir and the stones are slippery.’
‘What would happen if you did slip?’
I look over the weir at the ribbed concrete steps, the thick, hissing rush of the tumbling water, the turning churn at the bottom of the race.
‘You’d probably drown.’
‘I want to go over there.’
She’s let go of my hand and is taking off her shoes. She sets off, striding across, as sure-footed as a water bird.
‘Watch out for the one in the middle!’ I shout, but she’s already stepped over that, as if she knew to avoid it.
I start after her. The soles of my trainers slip on the stones. I’d have been better off in bare feet but it’s too late for that now. A couple of slabs in the middle are loose and get pushed out of place by the winter spates. They rock and wobble under my heavier step, threatening to tip me over into the racing water.
We used to cross the weir for a dare when we were kids. We’d bike down here or come over from the allotments. Grandpa and Rob would do proper fishing with a rod; I’d rummage about with a net for taddies and tiddlers and put them in a jam jar. I used to get upset when they took my catch to use as bait. Later, Grandpa bought me my own rod and Rob and I used to go over to the island. Rob reckoned there were pike in the reeds where the river was deeper. I never liked crossing the weir. He’d flit over, light-footed and sure of his balance, being afraid is not in his nature. I’d get to the middle and wobble. Just like now. It always got me. The rocking would send my legs rigid. I don’t like heights and I don’t like walking on ledges. I don’t like that feeling of being balanced between things. I always think that I will fall and it won’t be pleasant whichever way I go.
‘Don’t look!’ she shouts from the other bank. ‘Don’t stop. Just keep going!’
This time she’s the one holding out a helping hand as I throw myself on to the bank.
‘It’s even better here,’ she says.
The willows are thicker. There are people on the river bank, boats out, but it’s as though we are alone in the quiet green cage of our own world. Fallen willow leaves make a soft, silvery carpet. I show her where we used to build fires and try to cook things, like we were in some kids’ book. There was a pile of those in Grandpa’s shed. He used to bring them for us to read when it was raining. He’d buy them off the second-hand stall in the market. They are still there in the corner, covered in spider’s webs, pages as thick as blotting paper, puffed with damp: Swallows and Amazons, Famous Five – books about kids who
had adventures and their very own islands. This was our island. We felt like them.
‘I like it,’ she says. She drops her voice to a husky whisper. I feel her breath on my neck as she speaks close to my ear. ‘I like the way that people can’t see us, even though they are really near.’
I can hear voices talking on the river walk, a warning shout from the river and laughing as oars splash and a boat turns back from the weir. There’s something in her face. Something in the way she smiles. The way she looks at me. An invitation. She’s excited by the proximity of other people. She moves closer. I should kiss her. Put my arms round her. Push her down on to the rough counterpane of leaves. That’s what Rob would do. He used to bring girls here when he worked the boats.
I don’t do any of that.
‘We’d better be getting back,’ I say. ‘The hour’s almost over.’
On our way back, we pass the old allotments. I look up automatically, to see if Grandpa is there, to give him a wave. He’s not, of course. He’s not allowed out on his own any more. Someone’s been working his plot, though. The shed’s undergone some running repairs, too. Rob must have been down doing some work for him in between tending his own plantations. He wouldn’t want Grandpa thrown off for not maintaining the plot. He’ll never come back here, but Rob likes to keep up the fiction. Rob can’t stand to think that the old man has changed for ever. Besides, he doesn’t want someone else taking over his garden. That would interfere in his operations.
Grandpa’s shed is substantial, more like a little chalet. Years ago, people used to come down here in the summer to be by the river and out of the town. They were like holiday homes. There aren’t many left like that now.
‘One of them belongs to my grandpa,’ I say.
‘They’re cute.’ She looks over her glasses. ‘Like summer houses or something. Can we take a look?’
I shrug OK and steer the punt into a little landing stage and tie up. We walk up through the allotments. I go first, stamping down grass, pushing brambles out of the way. It’s a bit wild down here. Some of the allotments aren’t kept up. Down by the river, they tend to flood. She walks behind me picking raspberries, sucking in the soft warm pulp of the fruit.