“What about here?” I say.
“Whatever,” Neisha says easily. She catches my eye. “What do you want? You hungry?”
I shake my head and we’re both smiling. It feels familiar, as if we’ve shared secret smiles before.
We go up to the counter and order a couple of drinks: Coke for me, coffee for her. I don’t want to give up the umbrella and I don’t have enough money to pay for both drinks, so I stand awkwardly for a moment until Neisha pays and picks them up. We walk over to a table, the one farthest from the smokers. The umbrella in the middle is standing at an angle and one edge is hanging over the table, dripping onto it.
“Not here,” I say. “It’s wet.”
“Everywhere’s wet,” Neisha says. “Don’t be soft. I’ll get some napkins.”
She puts the drinks down, wipes the table, and sits down. I push at the pole of the umbrella, trying to get it to stand up straight, sending a shower of drops onto Neisha, the table, and me. The pole settles back down at the same angle.
Bring her to me.
“Shut up!” It’s out before I can stop it.
Neisha frowns at me.
“I didn’t say anything. What the hell’s wrong with you?”
I feel stupid, exposed. To hide my embarrassment I crack open my can and, still standing, I sip my Coke. The sharp fizz doesn’t soothe me this time. The bubbles crackling on my tongue add to my agitation.
“Sit down, Carl,” Neisha says. “Sit down and talk to me.”
Maybe this wasn’t such a good idea. Suddenly I don’t want to be sitting here, surrounded by drips and drops, a soggy world holding voices, smells, things I don’t want to see. I want to be inside, somewhere warm and dry. I want to sit under one of those hand dryers you find in public toilets. Sit there and feel the hot, dry air blasting over me. I want to feel safe.
But Neisha’s looking at me, expecting me to sit. I pull a chair back a little and perch on the edge.
“… early days, after all.”
I’m doing it again. Not listening.
“Carl?”
“What? Sorry. Sorry, Neisha.” My leg is jiggling like a jackrabbit’s. I keep flipping the metal tab on the top of my can up and down, up and down. Gotta keep her safe. Gotta keep him away from …
“You don’t really want to be here with me, do you?”
“Yeah, of course I do. You’re the only person … the only one who can understand.”
“I know. That’s what I’ve been thinking. We were the only ones there. We’ve been through something huge. Do you think we’ll always be … close?”
Close. Her lips touching mine. Her breath on my skin. But we can’t be really close if she doesn’t know what I’m going through. If I don’t tell her the truth.
“ ’Course,” I say.
It’s stopped raining. Rob’s gone. I relax a bit.
“Neisha,” I say. “You know how I helped you …”
“Yeah,” she says. “You did more than help me. You saved my life.”
She’s looking at me from underneath her eyelashes. They’re thick and dark and stubby, and I wonder what it would feel like to brush the end of them with my fingertip.
“Well, I want to keep doing that. I want to keep you safe.”
Her eyes soften. She reaches across to me now, touches my wrist, and it changes everything, chases away all thoughts of confession. She keeps her hand there, but her face darkens.
“Thanks, Carl, but there’s no such thing as safe, really, is there?” she says. “We’re just hanging by a thread. One thing, just one little thing, can finish it all.”
“Like water,” I say. “Water in your lungs, not air.” And shivers run up and down my spine, making my arms twitch. Neisha notices and her hand tightens a little. Steadying. Reassuring.
“Yes,” she says. “Or one cell going wrong. Growing too fast, taking over.”
We’re not talking about Rob anymore. I’m guessing it’s someone close, but I don’t want to assume, say the wrong thing, spoil this.
“Like … cancer?” I say.
“My mum,” she says, and the fingers on my wrist tense further. One of her fingernails moves against my skin, digging in. I don’t mind. She can give me some of her pain.
“I’m sorry,” I say. Doing that thing — apologizing for something I didn’t do. Understanding it now. That it’s shorthand for “I’m sorry this has happened to you.”
“Not your fault,” she says. “Not anybody’s.”
“Was it … ? I mean, how long … ?”
“Ages ago, when I was five. Dad moved here to make a new start. He transferred from the factory in Birmingham to the one here. S’pose he thought he was doing the right thing …”
“Wasn’t he?”
She sticks her bottom lip out a little.
“No family. No friends. Years of having no one to talk to, being the only Indian girl in the room, the only one in the whole miserable town. I love my dad, but I hated him for bringing us here.”
And if she hadn’t been here, then she wouldn’t have met Rob. And he wouldn’t have hurt her and she wouldn’t have tried to get away …
“Now this factory’s closing, so God knows what we’ll do next.”
Her face is so sad. Not teary sad, just resigned, worn down. I want to prove her wrong. I want to make things okay. But what can I do? What can I possibly do that would make things better?
Without thinking I half rise from my chair, lean across the table, and kiss her lightly on the cheek. I close my eyes and inhale as my lips brush her skin. And my head is full of white chocolate, vanilla, peaches. She’s sunshine, not the feeble, half-hearted stuff we get in England — full-on tropical sunshine.
I realize what I’ve just done and move slowly away from her. I hardly dare open my eyes. When I do, my self-defense mechanisms kick in. I smack my head and grin stupidly.
“Sorry, sorry. Don’t know what I was doing. God, why did I do that?”
I squint at her out of the corners of my eyes, and she’s smiling, too.
“It’s all right,” she says. “It’s all right.”
And just in this moment, in this glorious second, a fraction of time shared by us, known only to us, I feel happy. Everything else is forgotten. And I want it to stay like this forever. I want to keep her looking at me, through her ridiculously thick eyelashes. I want to keep that light in her eyes, these dimples on either side of her mouth.
There’s a loud crack. Out of nowhere a gust of wind blasts under the table umbrella, stressing the fabric to bursting point. All the water gathered on top cascades onto Neisha, almost like someone is tipping over a bucket. The napkins on our table blow onto the grass, the table itself rocks as the umbrella pole strains to escape from the hole in the middle. Neisha’s coffee cup rolls on its side and dumps its contents in her lap.
Neisha screams.
She jumps up and flaps her hands as if that will shake the water away. She’s dancing on the spot, squealing. Her hair is flattened against her scalp by the water from above. The tops of her legs are steaming as the coffee soaks into her jeans.
I grab a handful of napkins from the next table and hold them out toward her.
“Are you all right? Are you burned?”
The noise she’s making is halfway between laughing and crying.
After a couple of minutes dabbing at her hair and face and neck and legs, she’s calmed down enough to laugh about it. The woman in the café kiosk brings her another coffee, on the house, and a towel. Neisha dries herself properly, wipes the chair again, and sits down. The sun appears from behind the clouds and I can feel its warmth on my skin.
“Jesus Christ, what just happened? That was like an act of God or something!”
Despite the sunshine, her words send a shiver down my spine. In a way I’m sure she’s right. It was deliberate. Someone made it happen. Someone in a jealous rage. And it reminds me how real all this is. Rob. He’s still here. He wants Neisha dead.
I tho
ught I could keep her safe, but maybe I can’t.
“Neisha,” I say, “don’t go down to the lake. Will you promise me?”
She tips her head to one side. “I just think it’s something I’ve got to do.”
“Not today, then. And don’t go on your own. Take me with you. Promise me you won’t go on your own.”
“Okay,” she says, “I promise.”
She sips her coffee. I wish I had coffee not Coke now. I don’t even like the stuff, but I want to taste the same thing as her.
“I’d better be getting back, before Dad goes completely apeshit,” she says after a while.
Without the rain, there’s no excuse to huddle together, and we walk out of the park side by side, not quite touching. When our fingers accidentally bump, I look the other way, embarrassed. I’m itching to put my arm around her, draw her close, to walk in step with her, find the same rhythm. But I can’t … and I don’t need to. Her fingers find mine, threading in between so our hands join up like a zipper. And now I do look at her, just a glance. She’s face-forward, acting cool, like she holds hands with boys all the time. But the last boy she held hands with was Rob.
I push this thought to the back of my mind and concentrate on savoring every step between the park and her house.
Without the rain, without Rob, I feel different. Like a weight’s been lifted off my shoulders. I can almost pretend that none of the other stuff is happening. None of it is real. Maybe I’m not in a nightmare, a horror story. Maybe I’m in the sort of story where something terrible happens and then the boy gets the girl. This boy gets this girl. Carl gets Neisha.
At the corner of her street, before we’re in sight of her house, she unlinks her hand from mine.
“Thanks,” she says, “for walking me home.”
“That’s okay.”
“Better get in.”
“Yeah.”
“You seem better. Calmer.”
“It’s you. Being with you. Talking, you know …” And it is. Her warmth has chased away my demons. If only I could keep her with me.
Neisha. Her eyes. Her skin. Her smell. Her taste.
She’s at her house and I’m walking home, but she fills my senses, and the memories come flooding back. I fancied her the first time I saw her. I wanted her when she was with Rob. But that was nothing compared to how I feel now.
I kissed her.
And she didn’t shout at me, or slap me.
She held my hand.
Under my feet, there’s concrete and asphalt, gravel and grass, but really I’m walking on air. Life’s an unholy mess, but something good’s coming out of this. Something unbelievably, wonderfully good. I want to hold on to this feeling, but of course I can’t. A floodgate has opened in my mind — I’m being bombarded with memories, a tsunami of pictures and voices, tumbling over and over until one of them sticks. Me and her. Neisha and me.
And Rob.
I stop walking, lean against a wall, cover my face, and watch the movie in my head.
“Do you love her?”
He laughs.
“ ’Course not.”
“So let her go.”
“So you can have her? I’d rather kill her.”
“Don’t be stupid.”
“You’re the stupid one, stupid. Do you think she’d want you, once she’s seen your tiny little excuse for a dick?”
“Shut up. Just shut up.”
“She’ll put down her magnifying glass, piss herself laughing, and that will be that. The End.”
“Shut up. She’s not like that.”
“She’s exactly like that. They all are.”
“Not.”
“And you know, do you?”
He saw us, sitting in the park together, that’s why he’s in this rage. Well, I’m not taking it this time. I’m fighting back.
“She likes me. She kissed me. She —”
“What?”
“She kissed me and I kissed her back and she liked it.”
“You’re lying. And if I ever thought you was messing behind my back, I’d kill you — both of you.”
I was lying then, though I so wanted it to be true. And now I remember how he slammed his fist into the door and then into my face. He was so angry he couldn’t help himself. I did that; I wound him up, made him angry.
The pieces in the jigsaw are starting to settle into place. His beatings led her to confide in me. My lie about kissing her sent him into a fury …
So much has come back to me now. Have I remembered everything? Is this all there is to know?
I lied about it before, but this time it’s real.
I start walking again. I’m back on the main street now, and as I walk past the candy shop, hot air wafts out, bringing the soft scent of vanilla. It says “Neisha” to me, and I know it’s a sign. This is it, my future — warmth and sweetness. I’ve earned it. I saved her. But she’s still in danger. In my churning guts I know I’m going to have to save her all over again.
* * *
There are voices in the kitchen when I get home. I pop my head around the door and I’m met with a great whooping shriek. A woman who looks like an older, fatter version of Mum gets to her feet and advances toward me, shrieking.
“It’s never you. It never is. Oh my Gawd. Carl! Carl!”
She wraps her arms around me, holding a mug in one hand and a cigarette in the other. Close to, she smells like a pub ashtray.
“I’m so sorry, so sorry, sho shorry.” She’s talking into my neck now. I look over her shoulder toward Mum. Her eyes are red and glassy; she’s been crying. And drinking. It’s not coffee in their mugs.
“You remember your Auntie Debbie, don’t you?” she says. And I do. Family Christmases from when we were little, her and mum best friends on the sherry before lunch, having a laugh on white wine during the meal, fighting like alley cats on vodka cranberries by the time the Queen’s Christmas message is on.
“For God’s sake, Debs, give him some air. You’re nearly throttling him.”
Debbie unwinds herself and takes a step back.
“Let me look at you. Oh my Gawd, you look like your brother. Oh my Gawd, what a thing to happen.” Tears spill out and trickle down her face. She wipes them away with the back of her hand, then strokes my face, the thumb of her cigarette hand tracing my cheekbone. The smoke makes my eyes sting and I start to cough.
“Here, let me get you some water.” Through my coughing I hear her going over to the sink, running the tap. Then she’s back in my face again, thrusting a mug of water at me, holding it up to my face like I was a toddler.
“Here, here, have some of this.” She slops some into my face.
Have it. Swallow it. Breathe it. Rob’s here, whispering, goading me. And it’s not tap water, it’s the vile stuff from the bottom of the lake — cold and rank. It’s trying to choke me, get inside me, in my throat, in my lungs.
“No!”
I dash the mug from her hand and it flies across the room and smashes against a wall.
“Carl, what are you doing?” Mum’s screaming at me. Debbie’s screaming, too.
“I was only trying to help! He’s gone mad, Kerry. What’s wrong with him?”
“Shut up! Shut up! You don’t understand!” I blunder out of the room, stagger upstairs, and shut myself in my room, but not before I’ve heard Debbie say, “Wild animals, Kerry. Just like you said! You said they were wild animals and I didn’t believe you …”
The musty smell in the room is stronger than ever. I lie flat on my mattress, trying to calm down. Everything’s all right, I tell myself. Neisha likes you. You kissed her, remember? It’s going to be okay.
But it’s not okay.
The stain on the ceiling is bigger, darker. It’s spreading down the walls, like fingers stretching out, reaching toward me. I can feel Rob’s presence … He’s here in the dampness, hanging in the air.
You always wanted her, didn’t you?
It’s not real, is it?
She de
serves this. You both do.
I put my hands over my ears and turn over on my side, bringing my knees up to my chest.
“Stop it! Stop it!”
I’ll kill you, Cee. See if I don’t …
“Just stop it, all right? I’m not listening. Leave me alone.”
There’s a hand on my back. He’s here. I can feel him. I don’t want to look. I don’t want him here, I can’t bear it. I raise my arm up and swipe it behind me. My hand slams into warm flesh and there are two screams, one close, one farther away. I look over my shoulder and Mum’s on her arse on the floor, gaping like a fish. Auntie Debbie’s standing in the doorway.
Mixed up with their screams is another sound: laughter, bouncing off the walls, rattling around the inside of my skull.
I’m on my feet now and I’m throwing myself down the stairs, heading for the door.
“He’s gone mad, Kerry. He’s not safe …”
I run out the front and through the yard, vault over the wall, and I’m gone. I don’t know where I’m running to, but I can’t stay in that place another minute. I run blindly through the alleys and paths, past back-garden fences and garages and bins. I want to run forever, but my tank is nearly empty before I even begin. I slow to a jog and then start walking. My throat’s dry and my legs are like lead.
I’m around the back of the school, near a set of ramshackle buildings known as The Sheds, where the caretakers run their own little empire. It’s the middle of Saturday afternoon now. School’s empty. No staff. No kids. I duck through a gap in the chain-link fence and I’m in. The huts themselves are locked, but there’s a kind of porch outside one of them with two canvas chairs set up. I sit in one of them and try to get things straight in my head.
I’m sorry I hit Mum. If it was just me and her, I could go back home and apologize. Maybe she’d hit me back, maybe she wouldn’t. Whatever. I could take it. And I’ve got a feeling we’d be all right. We’ve been starting to get on. But now that Debbie’s there, it’s different. She’ll be twittering on and on, winding her up. I can’t go home. Not now, not yet.