Читать книгу The Flask - Nicky Singer - Страница 20

By the time we get back home it is almost dark.

“Who’s that?” Gran asks as we turn into our drive.

It’s Zoe, of course, knocking at our front door. She turns as she hears the car pull up. I wind down my window.

“Want to come to the park?” she asks.

Zoe and I often go to the park at dusk. It’s one of our little rituals. We swing on the swings after all the little kids have gone home. We swing and talk. Or Zoe dances. She dances around the swan on its large metal spring. She dances along the wooden logs which are held up by chains, she backflips off the slide. When she’s tired, which isn’t often, we lie together on our backs in the half-moon swing and look at the sky. Or I look at the sky anyway. She looks upwards, but what she sees I don’t know, because people can look in the same place but not see the same things, can’t they?

“Bit late for the park,” says Gran.

But I want to go to the park because I want some private time with Zoe. I want to tell her how beautiful my brothers are, after all; I want to take time, sharing all the details of those little birds and the web of their join. I want to look in her eyes, see myself reflected in the mirror of her, the big sister of two baby boys.

“Please,” I say to Gran. “Just for half an hour.”

I also want to tell Zoe about the flask.

“Well,” says Gran. She looks at her watch. “Oh, all right then. Just while I make dinner.”

“Thanks, Gran,” I say, and I actually lean over and give her a kiss.

Zoe doesn’t know we’ve just come from the hospital and I don’t tell her. I want to be lying in the half-moon when I tell her about the babies. I want her to be the first to know, as she was about the join. A special moment, shared. Luckily, as we head down the cul-de-sac, she’s already chatting to me, she’s telling me about her sister’s boyfriend and his new car and how her mother won’t let the boyfriend drive Zoe about, but she doesn’t mind him driving her sister about, which is ridiculous and…

And soon we’re at the park and Paddy and Sam are there too with a football and two jumpers to mark a goal. Paddy isn’t Paddy’s real name, his real name is Maxim, but he doesn’t look like a Maxim so everyone calls him Paddy. He has a big, round, smiling face and he bounces through life like a beach ball. Happy and full of air. Or at least that’s what I think. Zoe thinks he’s massively handsome and has An Outstanding Sense of Humour. It’s Paddy, in fact, that Zoe has her eyes on.

I’m desperate to skirt behind the conker tree so we can get to the playground unseen, but Zoe is heading straight for the boys.

“Zoe…” I start urgently, clutching at her jacket.

But she’s already pulling away, calling. “Hi! Hi! Hi Paddy. Hi Sam.”

So there I am, trailing behind her.

The boys look up.

“Hey,” Sam says. Sam wears slouchy trousers and likes to think he’s cool. “How’s it going?”

“Great,” says Zoe.

We haven’t seen either boy since school broke up for the Easter holidays.

“We were just going to the swings,” I say quickly.

“Well, in a mo,” says Zoe.

Paddy looks at Zoe and then he looks at me. “Did the babies arrive yet?” he asks.

And there’s a moment where I could just say no, I could just say no and then we could walk away, and I could tell Zoe like I planned to as we lay in the half-moon swing.

“Well, did they?”

“Yes,” I say.

“What?” shrieks Zoe.

“They arrived.” I think I say it because I don’t want to deny them any more, these baby birds who are my brothers. I need them to be around me. Solid.

“Why didn’t you tell me?” shrieks Zoe.

Why didn’t you ask?

“Oh, right,” says Sam, whose interests are pretty much confined to sport and his computer.

“And?” asks Paddy.

“And they’re beautiful,” I say. “Boys. Two boys.”

“They’re all right then?” says Zoe. “They’re both all right?”

“They’ve got eight legs,” says Paddy.

“What?” says Sam.

“That’s what my nan said,” Paddy continues. “They could have eight legs.”

“Mumbo jumbo,” I say, and I shoot a look at Zoe. “They have four legs.”

“Four!” exclaims Paddy.

“Yes,” I say. “Two each. Like normal people.”

“Oh – normal!” Paddy laughs.

Zoe’s shrugging. Zoe’s making out that whatever Paddy’s saying, it’s nothing to do with her.

“What you all on about?” Sam asks.

“Jess’s brothers,” says Paddy. “They’re not just any old twins. They’re Siamese.”

Sam is doing knee-ups with the ball. “Siamese?” he says.

“Conjoined.” I hear my voice going up, I hear myself about to shout. “The correct term is conjoined twins. And as for normal, they are normal. Considering the cellular complexity of the average human being, that is.” Shut up, Si. “They’re as normal as me. Or you. If you call that normal.”

Paddy ignores normal. “Point is,” he says, “they’re joined down the chest.”

Sam drops the ball. He drops his jaw. His mouth hangs open. “Man,” he says. “Joined down the chest? Wow. Like, you mean, face to face? Like they’re facing each other all the time? Jeez.”

“If I was stuck on to my brother,” says Paddy, going to retrieve the ball, “if he was the first thing I saw when I woke up and the last thing I saw before I went to sleep, that would kill me.”

“More likely kill your brother, being stuck to you,” I say. Then I round on Zoe. “Come on,” I say. “We’re going.”

But Zoe’s feet seem planted in the ground.

“In the old days,” says Paddy, “they put Siamese twins in the circus. People paid to see them.”

“Conjoined!” I shout.

“You could do that,” Paddy continues. “You could bring your brothers in next term and charge a pound a go to look.”

“They might not even last that long,” I say. Or maybe I don’t say it. Maybe it’s the silent thing shouting in my head. They might not even last that long.

Paddy’s big face is shining with excitement. “I’d pay,” he says. “I’d pay to look. Wouldn’t you, Sam?”

“Yeah,” says Sam.

“You could have a different rate depending on whether it was just a look or a touch,” Paddy continues.

“Shut up,” I say.

“A pound for a look, two pounds for a good look and a fiver for a touch.”

“I said SHUT UP.”

“We could call it JFS – Jess’s Freak Show.”

And now everything that’s been silent and bottled up comes frothing and boiling over at last and I go right up to him because I’m going to hit him in the stupid, shining face. I draw back my fist and I lash out as hard and fast as I can, but he just catches my wrist.

“Hey,” he says. “Hey. What’s up with you? It was only a joke. Can’t you take a joke now?”

“I hate you,” I scream.

But actually it’s Zoe I hate.