Lucas Read online

  And anyway, I kept thinking, what actually happened? He hardly touched you, did he? He didn’t do anything … he hardly touched you …

  Then I started crying again.

  Later, as I was sitting by the open window looking out into the dark, I heard Dad singing quietly in his study. The words drifted gently in the night air: ‘… Oh, I’ll take you back, Kathleen … to where your heart will feel no pain … and when the fields are fresh and green I’ll take you to your home again …’

  I fell asleep eventually, only to be woken in the early hours of the morning by the sound of Deefer barking as a car roared down the lane and screeched to a halt in the yard. Laughter and drunken voices cracked the night.

  ‘Yay, there! Dommo, Dommo …’

  ‘Watch it!’

  ‘Woof! Woof!’

  ‘Can’t get out, man—’

  ‘Hey, hey, Caity—’

  ‘Shhh!’

  ‘Mind the bleedin’ door—’

  ‘Ha! Yeah …’

  After a couple of minutes of slamming doors and shouting, the car revved up, squealed round the yard and screamed back up the lane. I lay in bed listening to the sound of heavy steps dragging across the yard, coughing, keys fumbling at the front door, then the door opened and clonked shut and Dominic stumbled into the hall and tiptoed noisily up the stairs and into his room. Within five minutes the sound of drunken snoring was reverberating through the walls.

  I closed my eyes.

  The voices …

  Hey, hey, Caity—

  Shhh!

  I couldn’t be sure, but the one doing the shushing sounded just like Bill. And the other one, the one who called my name – that was Jamie Tait.

  two

  T

  he next day I left the house around one o’clock and set off across the island to meet Bill. I hadn’t got much sleep and I was feeling pretty crappy, and I really didn’t fancy a Saturday afternoon in town, but I couldn’t see any way out of it. It was too late to call it off, and I couldn’t just not show up, could I? Well, I could … but then I’d probably spend all day sitting around worrying about it, waiting for Bill to ring up and get all snotty with me, and I didn’t want that. There was enough friction between us as it was.

  The bus stop where we’d arranged to meet is on the west of the island, in the middle of the village. Normally I’d walk along the beach and cut up through the country park, but after the episode with Jamie Tait I thought I’d give the beach a miss for a while. So I took the long way round, following the east road as far as the Stand and then south along the island road into the village. It was a fine day for walking – hot, bright and clear, with a gentle breeze to cool the skin – but it didn’t do much to raise my spirits. I was tired. Bothered. Upset. The memory of the night before kept nagging away in my mind – the sound of the car, the shouting voices, the sound of Dominic and Jamie Tait … and Bill. I couldn’t stop thinking about it. What on earth was she doing with them? Did I really hear her voice? Was it really her? At the time I could have sworn it was, but as I walked the narrow lanes towards the village I was beginning to have my doubts. Now that I was up and about, now that the day was alive, the dead of night seemed a long way away, and the memory of the drunken voices was fading with every step I took. By the time I reached the bus stop I was fairly sure I must have been mistaken. Bill might have changed, I told myself, she might have grown up faster than me, she might even get up to a bit of no good now and then – but even so … out drinking with Dominic and Jamie and God knows who else until the early hours of the morning?

  No.

  No way.

  She wasn’t that stupid.

  She wasn’t at the bus stop, either.

  By two o’clock the bus had come and gone and there was still no sign of Bill. I didn’t really mind waiting, but I was beginning to feel a bit self-conscious about my appearance. Bill’s suggestion – that I spice it up a bit – had totally confused me, and I’d spent a good hour or more that morning trying to decide what to wear. If I’d dolled myself up as she’d suggested, I would have felt ridiculous. Walking around town dressed like a fifteen-year-old prostitute, I would have died of embarrassment. But on the other hand, if I’d ignored her suggestion, if I’d worn my usual gear, she’d have made a big scene about it, because she’d be dressed – or undressed – to kill, and she’d make out that I was dressing down on purpose, to make her look like a tart. Of course, if we were both dressed as tarts, that was fine, that was all right …

  Totally confusing.

  In the end, I’d made a compromise: cut-off jeans, a cropped black top, slicked back hair, and sunglasses. But no lipstick, and definitely no heels.

  I wasn’t unhappy with the end result, in fact I thought I looked pretty good, it’s just that I wasn’t used to being dressed up. It made me feel strange, sort of unnatural, like I was trying to be someone else, and the longer I stood there waiting, the more I felt as if everyone was staring at me.

  By ten past two I’d checked the timetable, sat down, got up and strolled around for a while, sat down again, and now, for about the third time, I was reading the Village Events poster: Saturday 29 July (today) – Jumble Sale in the Village Hall. Sunday 30 July – Free Concert in the Country Park, Brass Bands + Moulton Majorettes. Saturday 5 August – West Hale Regatta: Family Fun Day. Saturday 12 August – Hale Summer Festival…

  ‘You haven’t forgotten what day it is, have you?’

  The sound of the voice startled me. My body gave a little jerk and I turned around to see Simon Reed standing at the entrance to the bus shelter clutching a long roll of drawing paper to his chest.

  ‘The festival,’ he explained, nodding at the poster.

  ‘Oh … right,’ I stammered. ‘Yeah, no … no, I haven’t forgotten. I was just … I’m waiting for Bill.’

  ‘The bus has already gone, it went twenty minutes ago.’

  ‘Yeah, I know.’

  I saw him flick a glance at my legs, then he lowered his eyes and stared at the ground, unsure what to say. Simon is always unsure what to say. Simon Reed … Weedy Reedy they used to call him. Or Simple Simon. Or just Weird. He’s always been a slightly detached kind of boy. Even when he was at infant school he never mixed very well with the other children. The only person he ever seemed happy with was his older brother, Harry, a big lunk of a boy with a ruddy face and a permanent beaming smile. Simon was ten when Harry was killed in a farming accident, and after that he became even more remote, spending most of his time just drifting around the island on his own, studying plants, watching birds, barely talking to anyone. I’d got to know him quite well through helping out with the local RSPCA group his mum ran. I’m not usually that keen on getting involved with groups, and I’d only got mixed up with this one by mistake. The year before, Bill had gone through a short-lived eco-warrior phase. She goes through these phases at the rate of about one every two weeks – grunge-girl, hippy-chick, earth-child, ladette … none of them ever last. Anyway, during her eco-phase she’d developed a huge crush on Simon, and she’d sneakily persuaded me to join her in volunteering our services to the RSPCA as a way of getting into his good books. The crush, of course, lasted all of a week, and when it came to actually doing some volunteer work Bill didn’t want to know. ‘Get out of it,’ were her exact words. ‘I’m not poncing around all weekend selling pictures of dead whales.’ I was too much of a coward to back out though, so I’d stuck at it, and after a while I started to enjoy it. So I carried on. Simon and I met up now and then to arrange stuff for RSPCA stalls at fetes and local shows, designing posters, badges, local information, that kind of thing. That’s what he’d meant about the festival. We’d been working on some ideas for a stall at the Summer Festival – in fact, he was coming round to my place next Friday to show me some posters he’d designed. We usually met at my house. Sometimes his mum would come round and pick me up and take me out to the small farm in the middle of the island where they lived, but more often than not he walked ove
r to my house. That’s why Dominic liked to pretend he was my boyfriend. That’s why … well, anyway, he wasn’t my boyfriend. He was just a nice, quiet, slightly odd-looking boy who happened to be my friend.

  I looked at him now. Shortish, kind of lean, with a long face and dark eyes and a shock of jet black hair that flopped down over his brow, causing him to continually brush it back with his hand. Although he lived on a farm, he had the complexion of someone who never went out in the sun. A pale, almost unhealthy look. This wasn’t helped by the fact that, whatever the weather, he always wore a long black coat, a long-sleeved work shirt, and dusty old corduroy trousers – never shorts. But despite all that – or maybe because of it – there was something intriguing about him … a prettiness, I suppose. But a certain kind of prettiness. The kind of prettiness that most girls reject, and other boys fear. And, of course, what they fear – or don’t understand – they hate. So, all in all, Simon wasn’t the most popular of boys.

  I went over and stood next to him. He smiled nervously and started swinging the roll of paper against his leg.

  ‘Is that for the posters?’ I asked.

  ‘Yeah. It’s only rough stuff, it’s the best I could do. I was going to get some proper stuff in town—’

  ‘That’s where I’m going. I could get some. There’s that art shop down by the library – what do I ask for?’

  ‘A1 cartridge paper, it’s quite expensive—’ He started digging in his pockets, looking for money.

  ‘It’s all right,’ I said, ‘I’ll get it. What is it – sheets or a pad?’

  ‘Well, if you can get about half a dozen sheets …’

  ‘White?’

  ‘Yeah, thanks.’

  ‘That’s OK.’

  He nodded again, then turned his attention back to the pavement. An awkward silence hung in the air. I thought about asking him if he wanted to come in to town with us. I knew he wouldn’t, but I wondered if he’d appreciate me asking. Would I, I thought, if I was him?

  Probably not.

  ‘Are you going to the regatta next Saturday?’ I asked him.

  ‘I don’t think so.’

  ‘Why not?’

  ‘I don’t know … it’s not really my kind of thing.’

  ‘You could come with us if you want. We usually watch it from that little cliff over the bay. It’s quiet there.’

  ‘Well, maybe.’

  ‘It’s just me and Dad … and Deefer.’

  ‘What about your brother?’

  I laughed. ‘I doubt if he’ll be with us.’

  ‘Well, I don’t know …’

  ‘Go on, it’ll be fun—’ And then I stopped, realising that I sounded just like Bill when she was trying to persuade me to have a good time.

  ‘What?’ Simon asked.

  ‘Nothing, it doesn’t matter.’ I changed the subject. ‘What time are you coming round on Friday?’

  ‘Uh … about … six o’clock? Is that all right? I could make it earlier if—’

  ‘No, that’s fine … I got that information about the bird sanctuary, by the way. They sent a pile of stuff – leaflets, badges …’

  ‘That’s great,’ he said. ‘I thought we could—’

  He stopped in mid-sentence and we both looked up as a bright green hatchback pulled up at the side of the road with the engine revving and bass beats booming from the open windows. The driver was a fat young man in a sleeveless T-shirt and sunglasses who I recognised as Robbie Dean. The girl beside him in the passenger seat, chewing gum, was his younger sister, Angel. Just as I was thinking to myself – oh God, what do they want? – Bill leaned out of the back window with a huge grin on her face.

  ‘Hey, Cait!’ she called out. ‘Caity! Come on!’

  I looked at her in disbelief. What the hell was she doing with the Deans? What was she playing at? I glanced with embarrassment at Simon. He’d shrunk into his coat and was doing his best not to look too uncomfortable. I wanted to say something to him, but I couldn’t think what.

  ‘Come on, Cait!’ Bill yelled, swinging open the car door. ‘Move your ass, girl!’

  ‘I’d better go,’ I mumbled to Simon. ‘I’ll see you on Friday, OK?’

  His eyes remained fixed to the pavement as I walked across to the booming car, took a deep breath, and got in.

  ‘Better than the bus, eh?’ said Bill, lighting up.

  We were racing across the Stand in a choking haze of cigarette smoke and perfume and deafening drum beats.

  ‘What?’ I shouted.

  ‘Better than the bus!’ she shouted back.

  ‘Yeah … great.’

  She offered me a cigarette. ‘Want one?’

  ‘No, thanks.’

  ‘What do you think?’

  ‘What?’

  She turned to face me, hands on hip, striking a pose. ‘What do you think? Do you like it?’

  It was a tight red strapless top, an unbelievably short two-tone skirt, and a pair of metallic grey ankle-strap shoes with three-inch platforms. With her streaky-blonde hair slicked with gel, crimson lipstick, and full-on eyes, she looked like an eighteen-year-old princess on a girls’ night out.

  ‘Very nice,’ I told her.

  She slapped my thigh. ‘I see you made an effort – hey, Angel, didn’t I tell you? Angel?’

  The girl in the passenger seat turned to face us, snapping her gum and looking me up and down with a cold stare. She was sixteen, going on twenty-one. Curly peroxide hair, painted blue eyes, with lips like Madonna and an attitude to match. ‘Yeah,’ she said, fingering the top of her sheer white sun dress. ‘Very sweet. They go for that.’

  I lurched to one side as the car swung out to pass a stream of traffic on a narrow hill, then lurched back again as Robbie pulled over just in time to miss a double decker bus trundling down the hill on the other side. Tyres squealed. Horns hooted. Robbie grinned and stuck a finger out the window, shouting, ‘Up yours!’

  Angel laughed, then leaned across and whispered something in his ear. Robbie grunted, and I saw him adjust his sunglasses and glance at me in the rear-view mirror. I looked at Bill for support. She was checking her lipstick, brushing cigarette ash from her skirt, rolling her head to the beat of the music. She winked at me.

  I settled back and stared out of the window, consoling myself with the thought that the journey wouldn’t last for ever.

  As we approached the roundabout at the edge of town, the traffic got heavier and the car slowed to a crawl. For the last few minutes Angel had been fiddling around with a packet of cigarettes and a jigsaw of cigarette papers, and now she’d lit the joint and was leaning back with one arm dangling from the open window, sucking the smoke down into her lungs. Why she’d waited until we reached town, and why she was making such a big deal out of it, I didn’t know. I assumed it was meant to impress me. After a few more puffs, she twisted round in her seat, wiggling her bum all over the place, and passed me the joint.

  ‘No, thanks,’ I said.

  ‘’S all right,’ she sneered, ‘it’s only a bit of blow.’

  ‘I know what it is – I don’t smoke.’

  ‘It’s grass, girl. It won’t kill you.’

  She was leaning over the back seat with her bum sticking up in the air. I looked her in the eye, trying to see beyond the pose, trying to imagine what she was like when she was alone … but I couldn’t see it. That sort of girl is never alone, because without other people they have to be themselves, and they can’t stand themselves.

  ‘Your brother smokes,’ she said, passing the joint to Bill.

  ‘I expect he does,’ I said.

  She curled her lip. ‘And your old man.’

  ‘So?’

  She seemed taken aback for a moment, as if she’d expected me to be shocked. Her lips tightened and her eyes narrowed, and then Robbie slapped her on the backside and said, ‘Which way, Ange?’ and she took the opportunity to wriggle back into her seat and regain her bad-girl composure.

  ‘Multi-storey in Crown Street,’
she hissed. ‘And if you slap my arse again I’ll break your bleedin’ neck.’

  Bill, meanwhile, was coughing to death on the joint.

  ‘Having a good time?’ I asked her.

  ‘Whoof,’ she said, with tears streaming down her cheeks.

  With the car parked, and Angel and Robbie scuttling off into the spiral gloom of the multi-storey walkways, I finally had the chance to ask Bill what on earth she thought she was doing.

  ‘What do you mean?’ she said, walking off with an innocent giggle. ‘It saved us a couple of quid bus fare, didn’t it?’

  ‘Oh, come on Bill … Angel Dean, for God’s sake—’

  ‘Angel’s all right, she’s a good laugh.’

  ‘No she’s not.’

  ‘You have to get to know her, that’s all.’

  ‘And you do, I suppose?’

  She stumbled over a kerb and started giggling again, then skipped over and slung her arm around my shoulder. ‘Oh, Caity … matey … you’re not jealous, are you? You know you’ll always be the only one for me …’

  ‘Yeah, yeah … will you get off?’

  I watched her as she bent down and checked her makeup in the wing-mirror of a parked car, and I watched the way a passing group of thirty-year-old men in football shirts nudged each other, eyeing her up. God … I was really getting sick of the whole thing, the whole weekend, everything. I felt as if I’d been plucked out of nowhere and dropped smack in the middle of some tacky Australian soap, where everyone and everything revolved around tits and bums and sex. I was tired of it. If I’d known what was coming I would have turned around and gone home right then. But I didn’t know what was coming. And Bill was my best friend. And I didn’t want to appear unfriendly, did I? So I just followed her out of the car park and onto the bridge that spans the dual-carriageway, shaking my head as she hitched herself over the railings and gobbed at the passing traffic.

  ‘Where are we going?’ I asked wearily. ‘Town’s the other way.’