Читать книгу The Deviants - C.J. Skuse, C. J. Skuse, C.J. Skuse - Страница 8

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Moonlight Adventure Saturday, 1 August

It’s like those really old paintings you see in art galleries – if you look at them from a distance, they’re beautiful. A quick glance, it’s a masterpiece. But as you get closer, you start to see all the cracks. We were a masterpiece, me and Max. We’d known each other for ever. We had the same taste in music. We finished each other’s sentences. We ate Carte d’Or watching Botched Up Bodies and he’d pretend not to wince. We watched romantic comedies and he’d pretend not to cry. And he had these marvellous arms and always wore sleeveless hoodies in summer.

But close up, there were problems. And these problems were becoming harder to ignore. I was snipping at him more and he took nothing seriously.

He could still impress me though. This one night, he arranged a big surprise for me at the garden centre. I had no idea what the occasion was.

‘You don’t remember, do you?’

There had to be a good reason why he’d gone to so much trouble. Not only had he stolen Neil’s keys and broken us in after hours, he’d set up a table in the café, with lit candles, buttered teacakes and two glasses of milkshake. It looked like something from a honeymoon brochure, with all the fairy lights strung up in the palm trees and the white cloth on the table. Essentially, though, we were still in a garden centre. I’d worn an actual dress and shaved my actual legs to be taken to a place that sold worm poo and weed killer.

‘Of course I remember,’ I lied. ‘This is nice. Thanks.’

He folded his arms. ‘I could get quite offended, you know.’

‘What?’

‘You don’t have a Scooby, do you?’

‘Ummmm, well… I’m pretty sure it’s not my birthday. And you’ve just had your birthday, so that must mean that it’s…’ I scanned my brain for something, anything. What did 1 August mean? But I had nothing. Max looked so disappointed it was almost painful.

And then I got it. It was the synthetic strawberry smell of the shakes that did it.

Our first proper date, five years ago, when I was twelve and he was nearly thirteen and we realised we liked each other more than as the best friends we’d been since primary school. It had been here, in the café, supervised by our mums on another table. We’d had teacakes and strawberry milkshakes, and Max paid for it with his own money from his Pokemon wallet, even though his dad owned the store. Then we had our first proper kiss, inside one of the sheds, while the mums went to look at geraniums. On the way out, Max had held my hand.

My whole body flashed over with goosebumps. ‘Oh God. I’m so sorry!’

‘It’s all right.’ He shrugged. ‘I wanted to do something without my parents or your dad being around. Something for us.’ He pulled out a chair for me and sat down opposite. ‘So I thought we could come here when no one else was around, hang out and have teacakes and milkshakes, just like then. Well, I could, anyway.’

‘What do you mean?’

Like a sadistic magician, Max whipped away my buttery teacake and creamy shake, replacing them with a bowl of freshly chopped fruit and an ice-cold bottle of Evian.

‘I figured you’d be on low cal till breakfast. There’s no orange or lemon, don’t worry.’

I smiled, but my heart sank. My summer training plan meant I was on a strict low-carb low-fat diet. ‘Oh, goodie.’ It was sweet that he’d remembered to leave out the citrus, though. Only Max would know to do that.

‘Happy anniversary, Ella Bella Boodles,’ he said, leaning across to kiss me.

‘Happy anniversary, Max,’ I said.

We tucked in by the light of a salted caramel Yankee Candle. The fruit was freezing, and burst against my sensitive teeth like I was crushing gemstones. It was weird, being there when no one else was around. Normally when me and Max met for lunch there’d be loads of shuffling grannies with walking sticks, or kids on the next table having food fights or pasting stickers all over the undersides of their chairs. Tonight, but for the trickle of a water feature somewhere, the place was silent.

Outside, the night had coloured everything dangerous. Through the large glass windows, the looming mass of Brynstan Hill was just visible. They called our town Volcano Town. Apparently, in Old English, Brynstan meant ‘brimstone’ – that biblical ‘hell hath no fury’ stuff. That was the only exciting thing about this little place – the fact that the huge green hill we lived around could spew out molten lava any old time, and blow all the sheep and Iron Age remains to bits. At Easter they put three crosses on it. In November, they held a huge bonfire on the top with fireworks – from afar, it looked like an eruption. I liked the night. It was the only time of day I didn’t have to stare at the bloody thing.

‘Did I tell you Dad’s bought a new car?’ said Max, around a gobful of teacake.

I winced as I bit down on a freezing chunk of melon. ‘Another one?’

‘Limited edition Porsche 911 Turbo S. Over a hundred and forty grand. Grey leather seats.’

‘Grim.’

‘No, it’s sweet. The ride on it is unbelievable. Top speed’s, like, two hundred miles an hour. Nought to sixty in three seconds. It’s, like, one of the fastest cars in the world.’

‘Like one of the fastest or actually one of the fastest?’

‘One of the fastest,’ he said, his face alive with joy.

I chomped down on an apple chunk. ‘Don’t say “like” then. If it’s one of the fastest, say it’s one of the fastest.’

‘All right, all right, easy, Tiger.’

‘What’s the point of a car that fast anyway? Can’t drive it anywhere at that speed. It’s ridic.’

‘Why are you so snippy?’

‘I’m not snippy. It winds me up, that’s all. Your dad spends money like it’s going out of fashion, and my dad reuses tin foil.’

I hadn’t realised how much my anger levels had risen in the last five minutes. Max was always the one who pointed out my potential bitchplosions; like a scientist keeping an eye on the heat levels inside the crater. But Neil – his dad – always had that effect on me. Everywhere he went in the town he was treated like royalty, all blinding smiles and two-handed handshakes, but to me he was a show-off who stank of aftershave and wore too much gold.

‘Dad’s earned it, Ells. You can’t say he hasn’t.’

‘How many new cars is that this year?’

‘Only three,’ he said. ‘It’s being delivered from Germany in a couple of weeks. Oh yeah, Mum asked me to ask you to come over for lunch tomorrow.’

‘Bit late notice, isn’t it?’

‘You haven’t got anything on, have you?’

‘Yes, I have. Training.’

‘You don’t train at weekends.’

‘Summer regime.’

‘What about next Sunday then?’

‘I can’t, Max. I can’t mess Pete about.’

He closed up. I could tell he was pissed.

‘Maybe the weekend after next?’ I suggested, more to cheer him up than anything.

‘Yeah, yeah. I won’t hold my breath. It’s not haunted, you know. I know you said it freaks you out, but Jess isn’t there, I promise.’

‘I know. I’m sorry.’ I felt bad about lying to him about that.

‘I wish she did haunt it,’ he said, a pink line of milkshake framing his top lip.

‘Funny thing to wish,’ I said, still feeling awful. I reached out to thumb away the mark from his mouth.

‘I know. Sometimes you just need someone to talk to who’s not your parents, don’t you? Like a big sister.’

I reached out to him and pulled his hand towards me. I held it between both mine. ‘You can always talk to me.’

‘Yeah, I know,’ he said, with a smile. ‘So, you’ll come for lunch next Sunday then?’

I sank back in my chair. ‘Your mum always cooks everything in tons of lard.’

‘You can just have the veg, can’t you?’

‘Oh, cheers. I’d rather just be with you anyway, not all your family.’

‘It’s not all my family. It’s just my aunts and uncles. And we don’t have to stay with the olds all afternoon, do we? We can go into town, or across to the island, or something?’

That gave me actual chills, despite the warmth of the restaurant. ‘No, not the island.’

‘We could hire a boat like we used to.’

‘I don’t want to hire a boat like we used to.’

‘All right, all right.’ He threw down his half-eaten teacake and sat back.

‘There’s just no point, is there? There’s nothing to see. Just trees and a few old rocks.’

‘It doesn’t matter, does it? We can just go there for some alone time. We used to spend whole days there when we were kids.’

‘Yeah, well. We’re not kids any more, are we?’ Max’s face was still doing that scrunched-up thing. ‘I’ll come over for lunch soon, I promise.’

‘How about when the new car’s there? That weekend, yeah? Please? I’ll tell Mum to do your potatoes in Fry Light. She won’t mind.’

‘OK. I’ll change my training schedule that weekend.’

His face lightened at once, but I could feel my forearms heating up – my rash was coming on. It was always worse in summer. He reached across the table for my hand and just held on to it for the longest time. As my stress levels dropped, my body cooled, with a comforting sweep of goosebumps.

‘Anyway,’ he said, fiddling with something under the table and pulling out a small turquoise box and a large white envelope. ‘This is for you. Just to say I love you to Pluto and back.’ He handed them to me.

I couldn’t hold back my smile. ‘Not the Moon?’

‘Pluto’s further away, innit?’ He stuffed the second half of his teacake in his mouth and grinned crumbily at me.

I set down the envelope and opened the box. Inside, on a crushed velvet bed, was a silver chain with a solid silver teddy pendant in the middle. ‘Oh, it’s gorgeous.’

‘Cos I gave you a teddy bear on our first date.’ He took the necklace from the box, coming round to my side of the table. The original bear was still on the shelf above my bed – a little koala he’d brought back from Australia after one of his many holidays.

I felt the cold chain graze my neck, and the even colder metal of the teddy bear slide and come to rest at the base of my throat. Max did up the clasp. I looked down to see it and moved the teddy’s little arms and legs. The box said ‘Tiffany’.

‘This looks expensive, Max.’

‘It’s fine.’

‘Your dad gave you a loan, didn’t he?’ I said, unable to mask my disappointment.

‘Well, yeah – but when I start here next month, I can pay him back. It’s cool.’

Max was such a sponger where Neil was concerned. He never had to work for anything. He’d coasted through his GCSEs because Neil said he could just work for him at the garden centre. He was only doing A levels because I nagged him to. My dad said he could be so much more if he ‘applied himself’. The thing was, even when Max didn’t apply himself he got grades most kids would kill for. It was so annoying.

‘So it’s not actually from you, it’s from your dad, isn’t it?’ I said. ‘Same as your driving lessons, your car, our Glastonbury tickets…’

‘Do you like it?’ he said.

‘Yes,’ I said, touching the teddy bear – a mistake, as he spotted my scabby knuckles.

‘Christ, what happened to your hands?’

I toyed with telling him the truth, but then thought better of it. ‘I fell over on the track a few days ago.’

‘How did you manage to fall on the backs of your hands?’ He lifted up my other one and looked at it, gently tracing his fingertips over the scabs. ‘This one’s even worse.’

‘I tripped. I think my new spikes are too big.’ I flexed my fingers – the deep ache was still there, but if I didn’t concentrate on it too much, it didn’t matter. Quickly, I diverted his attention back to the necklace. ‘This is beautiful. Thank you.’

I opened the envelope. Inside was an oversized card, covered in pictures of us. He must have spent ages sticking them down, shaking on glitter. There were pictures of us on swings. Our school Nativity, with me as Mary, with a cushion up my dress and Max as the innkeeper, with a scribbly black beard. Selfies in Starbucks. Selfies outside the arena in Cardiff waiting to see The Regulators. Selfies on bonfire night in woolly hats and scarves. Snuggly Duddlies in our Christmas onesies. There was one photo he hadn’t cropped – it was a day we’d spent on the island with some other kids we used to hang around with – Zane, Corey and Fallon. We all had wet hair and chocolate or jam around our mouths, and we were all laughing.

‘God, look at us,’ I said. My throat grew sore.

‘Yeah. I didn’t want to cut that one up,’ said Max. ‘I love that picture.’

‘Me too,’ I said, clearing my throat. I never saw them any more. Even though we’d all gone to the same school, walked the same streets, breathed the same salty air, we were virtual strangers now. Zane had turned out to be the world’s biggest bully, we hadn’t seen hide nor hair of Fallon since the funeral, and though Corey still lived just down the road from me, we rarely spoke any more. Weird, wasn’t it? One day spending every second of the holidays together, the next barely acknowledging each other’s existence.

I opened the card. The message inside read: To my Ella Bella Boodles, who owns my heart and every beat in it. Love you always and 4 ever Maxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx.

I looked at the front again. At the picture of us all as kids. Me, Max, Zane, Fallon and Corey. ‘Do you remember going to the town carnival? Us all sitting in Zane’s mum’s hairdresser’s window, eating tomato soup?’

‘Yeah, I do.’

‘And watching the fireworks on the hill on Bonfire Night. And that time we went to the island and Corey got stuck up the tree and Zane had to talk him down. God, we’d spend whole days out there in the summer, wouldn’t we? Do you remember camping out?’

‘Ella…’

I’d have given anything for just five minutes back inside that photograph. Before the island had become this evil cancerous lump sticking out of the sea that I could barely look at. It used to be called Grebe Island. Supposedly formed thousands of years ago from a huge blast of debris the volcano spewed out. Another local legend says there’s precious stones buried there. When the council put it up for auction, Max told Neil about the stones and the next thing I knew, he’d bought it and renamed it Ella’s Island. The council and a few birdwatchers were up in arms about that. I hadn’t been back there for years.

Max was looking at me, all glassy-eyed and cheesy smiley.

‘What?’ I said, a mouthful of freezing-cold fruit.

‘I really love you, Estella Grace Newhall.’

I looked up at him. ‘I love you too, Maximus Decimus Meridius.’

‘Oi,’ he said, with a bat of eyelids. ‘I’m trying to be meaningful here.’

‘I love you too, Max Alexander Rittman.’ I couldn’t say anything else. Why did looking at that photograph make me pine so much? Me and Max weren’t even going out then, just friends; friends who knew there was buried treasure on that island, and spent years looking for it. Friends who gurned for photos, who ate chips not caring about what we weighed, not caring whether our tans were even. That’s why I loved Max, I guessed. Because of what he represented. I’d hung around with various Beckys or Laurens at school and I knew girls at the track who did the same distances, but none of them were Max. He was my constant.

‘Estella, to the last hour of my life, you cannot choose but to remain part of my character, part of the good in me, part of the evil…’

I couldn’t help it – I laughed. I was glad for the break in the tension in my throat. ‘You did not just come up with that.’

‘No, it’s from Great Expectations. I memorised it.’

‘My dad named me after her from that book.’

‘Seriously?’

‘Yeah. We’re all named after Dickens characters. David, Oliver, then me. Apparently Estella’s a right bitch in the book too.’ I laughed an ugly laugh and I hated myself for it.

‘You’re always so hard on yourself.’

‘It’s the athlete in me. Nothing’s ever good enough. Everything can be improved.’

‘How come I didn’t know that about your name?’

I swallowed as tears stung my eyes. Luckily, he didn’t seem to notice. ‘There’s lots of things you don’t know about me.’

Stroking my hand, he stared at me. There was meaning in that stare. I tensed up, flaring with realisation; tonight wasn’t just about ‘marking the occasion’. This was a prelude – he wanted us to try sex again. Here. Tonight. I pulled away.

‘What’s wrong?’

‘Nothing.’ I scratched my arm. ‘My hives are up. I had a satsuma earlier, it’s probably that. I need to cool down. Do you fancy a dip in the pool?’

‘Sure.’ He blew out the Yankee Candle and we both scraped back our chairs on the hardwood floor and walked out of the café, through the sliding doors and into the night.

Hidden between all the rose beds and ferns, bronze statues, ceramic ladybirds and smirking Buddhas, lay the large rectangular pool with the statue in the middle; a laughing pearl fisherman, spouting water from his ears. It all looked so beautiful, lit by outdoor nightlights, making the water look as appealing as an icy blue cocktail on a hot beach. People had thrown coins in, and the bottom was green with algae in patches, but otherwise it was quite clear. A string of lights that looked like blue ice cubes hung around the edge of the pool.

Max had known me when I swam – in the days when my dad used to call me ‘Little Fish’ because I could hold my breath underwater for a whole minute. Now, I was ‘Volcano Girl’ – the Commonwealth Games hopeful with a county record for the 400 metres. In the days before dieting and 6 a.m. jogs got their claws into me, I’d loved to swim. But I didn’t even own a costume any more. And Dad hadn’t called me Little Fish for years.

‘Good idea, this,’ said Max, kicking off his trainers and ruffling his socks down over his feet. ‘I didn’t shower after football.’ He pulled his T-shirt up over his back. I took off my top and skirt, until I had on only my black sports bra and Snoopy knickers. It never used to bother me that my underwear didn’t match.

I got in as Max lowered himself beneath the surface. I watched his body shimmer through the blue water until he bobbed up in front of me with a smile, a dolphin expecting chum. He put his hands on the ledge, either side of me.

‘Hello,’ he said, droplets of water peppering his skin all over.

‘It’s colder than I thought.’ I shivered. His hair looked darker when it was wet.

‘Your rash any better?’

I looked down at my elbow creases. ‘Yeah.’

I hugged him towards me and we stayed like that until he pulled back and kissed me in a desperate smash of lips and tongues and teeth. I wanted to lie down with him and just kiss, stroking his bare back like I sometimes did. I liked the feel of his body against me, and I felt safe, holding him. That was all I wanted to do. But he wanted more. He was so ready. I’d thought that if I kissed him long enough I would be ready too—that I’d get the feeling. The hunger. The throb between my legs. But it wasn’t there. There was something in the way.

‘Come on,’ I said, and started moving away from him, climbing out of the pool.

‘Where are we going now?’ he said.

‘Where do you think?’ I said, reaching over for his hand.

He scrunched his face up. ‘I better stay here. Got a kind of – situation going on.’

‘It’s because of that. Come on.

We padded through to Garden Furnishings to grab some picnic blankets, and then back out between the foliage towards the sheds, like Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden. We chose a two-storey Wendy house with window boxes then we spread out the blankets on the floor and lay down. Our breaths were hot. Our skin was wet. He moved on top of me and kissed me all over my face, gentle as a moth bumping a light bulb.

‘You’re shaking like a jelly,’ he chuckled.

‘I’m fine. I’m just cold.’

Maybe it would be all right this time. It was no big deal. Everyone did it. I stroked across the span of his back, his skin as soft as catmint.

Before my brain could catch up with my body, I moved him away and reached down to peel off my wet Snoopy pants. I flung them outside the shed and they landed with a splat on the path. It would be all right.

‘Are you sure you want to?’ Smiling like Christmas had just arrived, he started wriggling out of his boxers.

‘Come on, quickly. Before I change my mind.’

I couldn’t have felt less in the mood than if he was measuring me up for my coffin.

‘Why do we have to be quick? We’ve got all night.’

‘Before I lose my nerve then,’ I laughed, and shuffled back underneath him. I didn’t want to think too much about it this time. I just wanted it done.

‘Ella, if you don’t want to . . .’

‘No I do, I do want to. Please. Come on.’

‘I haven’t got any condoms.’

‘I don’t care this time. Come on, please – quickly. Kiss me again.’

As we kissed, Max’s hands were in my hair, then at my neck, my side, around my hips and my bottom before one of them sneaked around the front. He was going ‘there’.

‘Kiss me again.’

I kept my eyes open. I wasn’t worried. This was Max and he loved me. I was safe in his arms. We both wanted this.

‘You smell so good.’

‘You do too,’ I said in breaths, even though the only thing I could smell was the intense spicy smell of the wooden shed. ‘Tell me you love me.’

His fingers were going deeper. ‘I love you so much, Ella. God, I want you.’ He un-clicked my sports bra and pulled it off. ‘I want you so badly.’

I held his head against my neck as my tears rolled down my cheeks into my ears. The necklace had slid down – the bear was resting on my sweaty shoulder, looking at me.

His tongue flicked inside my mouth. ‘I want you so much.’

I slid my hand into his hair and grabbed a tuft. Any second now, I’d want this too.

‘You’re gorgeous,’ he said. Silently, a dragon roared in my belly. Max wriggled about, positioning himself so every inch of his naked body was against some naked part of mine. ‘Kinda need you to open your legs a bit though, Ells,’ he laughed.

I was lying like a corpse. ‘Oh sorry.’

Oh God, this was it. We were actually going to do it. I wasn’t going to be scared. I grabbed on to his back. I looked up through the roof of the Wendy house, and through a crack in the wood I saw starlight. I drew up my knees. He was going to put it inside me. Any second now. The starlight grew blurry in my eyes.

I closed my eyes and found a memory. Fallon and me, dancing on rocks, laughing so hard about something. Max and Zane were pulling at branches in the woods – making a den. Corey was sitting on a pebble beach, trying to catch a fish with a stick and some string. We were best friends who danced, built dens, fished, had picnics and swam whole summers away. And we had the best big sister to look after us and tell us stories.

‘Who wants to hear my new story? I just finished it.’

‘Me! Me! Me! I do! I do!’

‘Right, get over here, then.’

There weren’t always five of us. Sometimes, it had been six.

Then I realised where we were. We were on the island – the sea had swallowed the land. I looked around. I was alone. They’d all gone. I was stuck there, forever screaming.

‘Ella?’

With a jolt of panic, I was wrenched back to now, back to the hard shed floor, Max’s heavy body on top of me, waiting for the pain I knew was coming.

‘Ella?’

I was panting. ‘Just do it, Max. Do it, please. I’m ready. I’m ready. I’m ready.’

But I wasn’t ready. I was crying. The only thing I was ready to do at that moment was vomit. And just as he pulled away from me, a thick surge raced up my throat.

‘Oh God,’ I managed to squeak, lunging for the open shed door as everything I’d eaten that day erupted from my mouth before I’d reached the nearest bush.

How to Kill a Moment, by Estella Grace Newhall.

For the next minute, the only sound was me yacking into a yucca. When I was done, I looked behind me. Max was sitting on an upturned flowerpot. Naked and embarrassed, just like Adam. And there was I. Naked and embarrassed, just like Eve. ‘I’m sorry.’

‘I’ll get our clothes.’ He stood up, snatched up his sodden boxers from the path and walked back towards the pool.

I followed him. ‘I feel better now.’

He turned around, his eyes as sad as I’d ever seen them, and grabbed his trousers from a bronze giraffe’s ear, scrabbling them on. A plastic sachet fell out of his back pocket. I picked it up, but before I could look at it, he snatched it away.

‘What was that?’

He stashed the packet back in his jeans. ‘Condoms.’

‘I thought you said you didn’t have any?’

He didn’t answer.

‘I hate that I keep doing this to you.’

‘All you had to say was no!’ he yelled. ‘Have I ever pressured you? Why do you even lead me down the road if you can’t go there?’

‘I thought it would be OK this time.’

‘You thought that last time. And the time before that. And every time, we end up like this – having a massive barney.’ He trailed off and scratched his head on both sides, like he was trying to scratch his brain out. ‘I’m sorry, I’m sorry.’

He was so angry. He’d never been this angry before. I saw what I was doing to him, his strange fury, and I hated myself even more. I started gathering up my clothes. It wasn’t until I’d laced my trainers and he was sitting on the edge of the pool with a roll-up that he spoke again.

‘I Googled it,’ he said, reaching for my hand. ‘Genophobia. It’s a proper thing.’

I sat down next to him on the edge of the pool. ‘Is there a cure?’

He rubbed his mouth and reached for my hand. ‘Don’t think so.’

‘We’ll be OK though, won’t we?’

He surrounded me in a hug. ‘Yeah. ’Course we will.’