Game Girls

GAME GIRLS

GAME GIRLS Judy Waite Andersen Press London

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ISBN number: 9781849398251 Version 1.0

For Elaine and Maidy Special thanks to my agents Jenny and Penny Luithlen, for their support and encouragement, and for their overall faith in the idea.

First published in 2007 by Andersen Press Limited, 20 Vauxhall Bridge Road, London SW1V 2SA www.andersenpress.co.uk www.judywaite.com All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without the written permission of the publisher. Copyright © Judy Waite, 2007 The right of Judy Waite to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted by her in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act, 1988. British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data available ISBN 978 1 84270 618 3 Typeset by FiSH Books, Enfield, Middx. Printed and bound in Great Britain by Bookmarque Ltd., Croydon, Surrey

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EWARE. Be aware. Fern is always aware of danger. Across the road the sea is ruffled by a sharp breeze, white foam chopping onto the shingle. On the beach people stretch on towels, drawn by the unexpected heat wave. Two women wade uncertainly out into the water, stopping at thigh deep and bending to splash their arms and shoulders. Watching them through the pub window, Fern thinks that, in spite of the heat, it is October. The water won’t be warm. She can almost feel the sea-bite of cold on their skin. Still, that won’t put them off. Fern knows about the 1

holiday crowd – the way they must always grab everything. Every last snatch of sand and sun and sea. Or in this case, stones and sun and sea. They won’t be thinking about the danger either. The council have the warning flags flying, exposing secret currents more deadly than sharks, but there are still some swimmers out there. Tourists never care. Fern cares though. She knows the tides, and all their moods. Turning away, she empties a sachet of sugar into her cappuccino. She’s arrived too early. Stupidly. Alix would say it’s not good to be early and blokes will take advantage if you look too keen. It’s shabby in here. Shabbier than Fern had expected. The Sea Horse Bar back in Long Cove is smart – fresh and clean – but here there are stub marks like small round scabs on the table where she’s sitting, and an ashtray – unemptied – where soft grey flakes float in a puddle of beer. She shuffles her chair forward, resting her elbows on the scabbed table. The place is busy. Mainly blokes. They sit in groups. Smoke. Read newspapers. Fern doesn’t think any of them are 2

Steve. He said he would be wearing a khakicoloured jacket. She didn’t click to see his photo – you had to join up to do that – but she’s already got a picture of him in her head, just from the things he said in the chat room. He sounded gentle. Caring. She thinks he’ll have curly hair and friendly blue eyes. He won’t be any older than twenty. Steve Regular Guy. Solvent. Own car. New to area. Into Clubs. Music. Art. WL2M 18+ for drinks and friendship. Maybe more. Fern is hoping she can pass for eighteen plus in Alix’s hand-me-down high-heeled shoes. It was the art bit that drew her to him mostly – they’d at least have something in common. And the promise of friendship is like a hand beckoning. ‘Hello – excuse me but – are you Honey? My name’s Steve . . . ’ She startles round, her cappuccino sloshing into the chipped china saucer. She’d forgotten she’d given him a false name. 3

‘Hi.’ She makes nervous dabs at the spilt coffee with her napkin and struggles to smile. He must be pushing forty. And he’s almost bald. ‘Can I get you another coffee? Or something stronger?’ She stares at him. ‘Um – yes. I’ll have . . . a Bacardi Breezer please.’ She wouldn’t normally drink in the day, but she tells herself she needs it, just to get through the next half hour. ‘I’ll be back in a jiff then, Honey. Don’t go anywhere, will you?’ He weaves his way between the tables. She watches him as he reaches the bar, thinking this might be her chance to run. His back is slightly hunched, the khaki jacket baggy round his shoulders. She pictures him putting it on, checking what’s left of his hair, making sure he hasn’t forgotten his money. And she knows she can’t do it. Can’t leave him standing stupidly with her drink by an empty table. He dreamed of friendship through a Lonely Hearts website. Half an hour isn’t going to hurt. She counts the scabs on the table while she waits. Seventeen. A scab for every year she’s 4

been alive. She wonders about the people who crushed their cigarettes down onto the wood and thinks, without wanting to, about stub marks on homework. An exercise book filled with clumsy unreadable writing, burning in a bin in the park. ‘So – what do you do?’ He is back, putting her drink down and sliding into the chair opposite. ‘At Art College,’ she says, picking the Breezer up and sipping it straight away. She had battled to prepare this eighteen-plus fantasy person, and anyway, it’s not too much of a lie. It’s where she will be next year, provided she can scrape a pass in English. She’s not much good at English, though. You need to be able to read properly to be good at English. And to write. She’s always been in the ‘specials’ class for most subjects. ‘I do things with clay mostly. It’s what I’m best at.’ ‘I would’ve loved to have done art.’ He smiles across at her. ‘Graphics probably.’ She tries not to notice that his teeth are stained. ‘Why didn’t you then?’ He looks away for a moment, something lost in his eyes. He has a nice face – in between 5

the wrinkles. ‘My parents couldn’t run to it. They needed me to get out and get earning.’ Fern nods. At least she’s with him on this. It’s going to be a struggle for her mum and dad too. Dad’s not earning. Mum does her best. She’s holding them all together but the guesthouse needs masses of work because of last year’s floods and storms, and they’re so squeezed by council ‘dos’ and ‘don’ts’, they’re shelling out more than they bring in just on ticking over. He leans back in his seat and rolls out a conversation about life as a pharmaceutical salesman. It may not sound that exciting, he tells her, but he gets to have a go-faster car and a chance to travel and has she ever been to Japan? ‘Japan?’ Fern laughs suddenly. Him asking her if she’s ever been to Japan is like him asking her if she’s ever been to the moon. She’s never been anywhere. Well – visits to Gran and Gramps in the cold of Scotland. Or out of season weeks away to resorts even grimmer than this one. ‘There’s a great sushi restaurant at the other end of the town. Morimotos. You sit on rolled bamboo mats to eat. We could go there?’ 6

‘Now?’ Fern almost chokes on the Breezer. She pictures herself sitting on the floor. She’d have to take off her too-high hand-me-down heels. ‘Not now. No. But maybe next weekend? Saturday?’ Fern blinks across at him. All this is going too fast. How can she get out of it? She’s never been any good at saying ‘no.’ ‘I’ll . . . I . . . maybe,’ she stutters. He is watching her carefully. ‘I’ll get in some more drinks,’ he says as he takes her empty bottle and heads for the bar again. Across the road, on the beach, a couple are packing up. The girl – about Fern’s age – leans into her boyfriend, who wraps a vanilla yellow towel round her shoulders and kisses the top of her head. Fern looks away quickly. She forces a smile as Khaki Steve puts the new Breezer in front of her. Maybe she could go out with him. It might be all right if it’s just a meal. It’s Alix’s birthday next Saturday but when Fern asked her about it she just went vague and said she thought her mum would fly home and they’d probably go out for ‘posh nosh’. Fern wanted to believe 7

this, but a nagging doubt scratched at her. Maybe she’d set something up with Courtney Benton-Gray? Alix has just got to know Courtney, and Courtney would be someone who didn’t want Fern around. It’s one of the reasons Fern made herself go through with this whole internet date thing. She wants to do something secret – to impress Alix. Something to surprise her with later. She takes a fierce swig of the Breezer. Khaki Steve is smiling the stained-teeth smile. ‘Tell me more about yourself. Where you live, for instance.’ Where she lives? This is fine. Safe. Safe-ish anyway, as long as she doesn’t tell him too much. She wouldn’t want him appearing on the doorstep. ‘We’re by a river – it feeds into the sea. It’s all salt water, so it’s got a beachy feel.’ ‘A tidal river?’ He leans closer across the table. ‘It sounds like an interesting place to live.’ ‘Partly, yes. But it’s dangerous too. Sometimes.’ ‘Dangerous? Why?’ ‘There are really strong currents, with sort of boggy black holes beneath the riverbed. If you 8

swam in the wrong bit you could get sucked down. There are signs up so nobody does, but I saw a dog get out there once and it didn’t stand a chance.’ She fingers the rim of her bottle. This is another memory she doesn’t want to have. The flailing, bulge-eyed dog, and the screams of a headscarfed woman. Fern had been hosing down the dinghy when the dog came hurtling past. It was chasing a wing-damaged gull that half flew, half ran, out onto the water. She tried to dive in front of the dog, but she was too slow. There had been a few frenzied splashes; a brief spluttering, and then nothing. Only the gull flying raggedly away. ‘You OK?’ Khaki Steve reaches across and touches her hand. She lets him take it and they sit, holding hands across the table. Her head suddenly feels all muzzed and muddled and she doesn’t know if everything in life is very funny or very sad. ‘Drink up,’ he says. ‘We’ll go for a drive.’ She is aware that she sways slightly as she stands and she lets him steady her and leans into him, remembering briefly the girl in the vanilla yellow towel. 9

‘Don’t forget your bag,’ he says. ‘Ooops. Brain’s gone.’ She picks up the soft leather handbag, another of Alix’s hand-medowns, and he steers her to a Go-Faster car which is parked just round the corner. She knows she is supposed to be amazed by how red and sporty it is and she knows that she is supposed to not get in because she must always be aware of danger, but her head is fuddled and she’s feeling strange and they’ve been holding hands across the table. ‘I know somewhere,’ he says. ‘It’s not far. We can sit and watch the water together.’ And he turns a CD on which plays ‘Sinking’ by the Blades and she lets the idea of him swim around her again, thinking maybe he isn’t even that old if he goes for bands like this. Maybe the Japanese sun has just dried him out a bit. They slide into the traffic and nudge through the town which is as crowded as the beach. Fern feels tired suddenly. She wonders if Khaki Steve would mind if she closed her eyes. She wonders if she looks stupid when she sleeps. 10

The engine changes tune and, struggling to sit up, she realises she’d dozed off. They are pulling into a car park. There is a low wall and a strip of beach all straggled with seaweed and rubbish. She thinks that the council should sort that rubbish out. It’s all wrong, in a tourist town. People should complain. The sea sloshes in. Lazy. Indifferent. Khaki Steve stops the engine. The Blades are still playing. Break-your-heart words bleeding out through the speakers. ‘The Way it Began’. She can’t have been asleep for long. He undoes his seat belt. He undoes hers. ‘I like you, Honey,’ he says, nuzzling into her neck. In front of them, along the strip of beach, three boys run and dive into the indifferent sea. Their voices carry back to the Go-Faster car, high and happy and playful as seals. The sun streams down round them, glittering the tips of the waves. Fern feels Khaki Steve take her hand and move it to the bulge at the front of his trousers. ‘Please, Honey. I like you. Please.’ He has undone his zip and he pushes her 11

hand inside and moves his own hand on top of hers, making her rub. She wonders what Alix would do. She wonders if this is normal. She’s never been any good at saying ‘no’. The windows of the Go-Faster car are steaming up but she keeps looking out ahead and he still keeps making her rub him and rub him; his breathing is strange and he is groaning. The happy-as-seals boys have found a stick or a shoe or something. They are throwing it and leaping after it and throwing it again. It is over very quickly. Fern takes her hand away. Khaki Steve slumps for a moment, his eyes shut, and she knows this is her moment to get out of the car and run. ‘That was good.’ His voice is flat now. ‘Shall I see you again?’ ‘I . . . ’ She needs a reason to get away and the truth is the best she can dredge up. Will he try to stop her if she reaches for the door handle? Maybe he’s locked the door from the inside. ‘. . . I’m not as old as you think I am.’ ‘Shit. How old?’ 12

‘Seventeen. Just.’ ‘Shit.’ This is all her fault. She lied to him. She put herself here. ‘It’s fine.’ She edges sideways slightly, leaning away from him. ‘But I want to go now.’ He grabs hold of her arm and his grip is tight and she winces. Now she’s scared. His other hand is digging in the pocket of the khaki jacket. ‘Look – take this. Forget it all happened.’ He is holding the wallet and pulling out a wad of notes which he pushes into her bag. ‘Can I drop you anywhere?’ ‘No. Everything’s fine. How does this handle work?’ He doesn’t answer but she gets the door open anyway and stumbles out, not shutting it behind her. Not looking back. For a moment she can’t think where to go, but then runs down onto the strip of beach; her too-high hand-me-down heels slide into the crunch of sand and shingle and she is like a person in a dream – in a nightmare – running and running but going nowhere. Wrenching off the shoes, she drops them down amongst the seaweed and the rubbish that people should complain about, then races like a 13

maddened thing, heading back towards the town. The shingle bruises up into her soles and tears her tights, and a new wind spins against her and the sea has lost its glittered shine. But at least her head is clear now. And she’s not going to keep the money. It’s dirty. It’s wrong. When she gets home she’s going to put it in a bag with a brick, and chuck it out on the bog-soft riverbed at low tide. Mucky money. Mucky ending. That’s the best place for it. *** ‘Fifty quid?’ Alix hits the hold button, looks up from the fruit machine, and widens her eyes at Fern. ‘I just . . . it just happened.’ ‘When?’ ‘Yesterday. In the afternoon.’ Alix lets her last coin rattle into the slot. The machine dings and flashes. The arcade is manic, bells and buzzers exploding all round her. She wonders if she’s hearing Fern right. ‘You mean – you went with some older guy in his car and . . . ’ 14

‘I think I’d had too much to drink.’ Alix can accept this. Too much to drink can mean half a cider for Fern. The machine judders round its row of symbols. Three cherries. There is the tinny rattle of money being dropped. She scoops it up with one hand and feeds another coin in, narrowing her eyes at the machine. There must be a way to calculate your chances of winning. The symbols can’t really just be random – there must be some sort of pattern that she could learn. If she cracked that, she could make a killing. Easy money. Fern stands slightly to one side, watching Alix hook out a fresh tumble of winnings. ‘I know I’ve been stupid. I wasn’t even going to tell you. I got him from the internet. DateMate.com. You know – one of those lonely hearts ones.’ ‘Don’t worry about it. You’ve survived.’ Alix shrugs. ‘Be grateful he was just a lonely old git and nothing worse.’ She steps back from the machine, dropping the coins into her bag. ‘I’m bored with this one. Let’s go and look for Courtney. She was only going to the loo to sort out her hair. She must be done by now.’ 15

‘Promise you won’t tell anyone?’ Fern touches Alix’s arm and holds her hand there. Her big Bambi eyes are anxious. Begging. ‘I promise.’ Alix resists the urge to shake her away. She hates being hung on to. Clung on to. ‘But d’you think I’m a . . . you know . . . a slag?’ Alix smiles and shakes her head. ‘No. Just . . . ’ She hesitates, rolls the word ‘stupid’ round her head, then changes her mind. ‘. . . green.’ ‘Like my name then?’ ‘What?’ ‘My name. Fern. Ferns are green.’ ‘Oh. Right.’ Alix breathes an inner sigh. Patience. Patience. Fern’s one of those ‘do your head in’ people – she only got to know her because she and Mum stayed in River’s View when they were scouting for a house – but she doesn’t mind her in small doses. In fact, she can tolerate most people. She shapes herself to see their point of view. Shapes herself to be the way they want her to be. Now, she links her arm through Fern’s. ‘I’m doing a sort of gathering for my birthday next weekend. Just a few of the crowd from college. I’ve only just planned it 16

because my mum apparently can’t get back for the actual day.’ Alix isn’t completely sure she wants to let Fern in on this, but it won’t hurt – and every now and then she feels sorry for her. ‘My brother’s coming too. Aaron. He sent me a text this morning. He said he would bring some mates.’ ‘Do you get on with him?’ ‘He’s fantastic. But I’m hoping I’ll get on with his mates even more. I’m saying my prayers that they’ll all be drop dead gorgeous.’ She looks sideways at Fern, suddenly thinking it might hurt after all. Fern will get left out. She’ll be sitting on the side, a wilting wallflower, and she – Alix – will end up trying to make her all right. Damn being sorry for people. It nearly always spins round and spits in your face. She’ll have to persuade Aaron to spend some time with her. He might not mind – after all, he won’t be looking to get off with anyone himself. ‘You’re dead lucky, having a brother. I wish I did.’ Dead lucky. Alix examines the words in her head. Dead. Lucky. The two words somehow don’t work together. She wonders how the 17

phrase started out? What sort of people would be lucky being dead? They push out through the arcade door and into the car park outside. The afternoon is warm for so late in the year, the sky blue and high. Alix refuses to stand by the Ladies. ‘It’ll make us look like we’re touting or something,’ she says. ‘We’ll go over here. By my Mini.’ ‘What’s “touting” mean?’ frowns Fern. Alix ignores her. She can ask her mum when she gets home. ‘Hey – nice car. That blue Ferrari. Over on the right, by the ticket machine.’ ‘Oh yeah.’ Fern nods like an enthusiastic puppet, staring in the wrong direction. Alix wonders if she even knows what a Ferrari is. Alix decides she could just see herself in a Ferrari. Or maybe with the owner of one. She knows her cars – or knows enough about when to be impressed. Knowing about cars is one of the pearls of wisdom Mum has passed down. Near the steps that lead down to the beach a guy with Rasta hair is sketching one of those naff pastel touristy portraits. Next to him a gang of seagulls squabble over a squashed bag of chips. Alix thinks the image of birds is all wrong. People 18

use words that make them mystical. Graceful. The truth is they are loud ugly scavengers just out for themselves. She’s not sure if this is a good thing, or a bad. The door to the Ladies bangs open, and Courtney swings out. Short, gelled black hair. Black eyes. Black clothes. ‘It stinks in there,’ she wrinkles her nose. ‘I thought I was going to die. Overcome by fumes. D’you think I could have sued?’ ‘Money won’t do you much good if you’re dead.’ Dead. Unlucky. Alix leans back against her car, watching a toady, long-haired guy who is definitely past his sell-by date head over to the peacock-blue Ferrari and get in. He revs the engine. Reverses. Drives off. Maybe being with the owner of a car like that wouldn’t be so good after all. ‘Shall we go down to the beach? Mess about a bit?’ Fern has a childlike tinge to her voice. Let’s make sandcastles. Oh let’s. Oh let’s. Alix glances at Courtney, who glances back at her. A tiny shake of the head. A shared smile. Almost invisible. ‘It’ll be too busy. Beach people annoy me. Let’s walk to the shops – there’s still another two hours on the parking 19

ticket. I can’t afford to buy anything, but it won’t hurt to look.’ ‘D’you need a job?’ asks Courtney, as they start to walk. ‘There’re vacancies at Easi Shop. I could get you an application form.’ ‘Sweet of you but . . . I’m trying to hold out.’ Alix’s smile is all sugar. Not in a million years. I wouldn’t be seen dead working in Easi Shop. ‘Mum isn’t sending enough allowance – too caught up with her latest lover to be thinking it through. I’ll have to plead poverty when she comes over next week. I’ll fill the fridge with mouldy beans, and tell her we’ll have to share tea bags.’ Alix thinks about Mum’s latest lover – Creepy Carlos. His mouth is too thin. He’s got eyes like a snake. But he’s lavishing luxury on Mum in Tuscany, and Mum likes being lavished in luxury. Too-thin mouths and sly snake eyes can be ignored when luxury is being lavished in. ‘Do you think she’ll stay with him?’ Alix can hear the fascination in Fern’s voice. Everyone is always fascinated by Mum. ‘Doubt it.’ The truth is, Mum never stays with anyone. Two years has been the longest, and that was for ever ago. Uncle Ray. Alix can’t 20

even remember what he looked like. They strike out along the promenade, then turn left and head down the cobbled lanes towards the shops. ‘Hey look.’ Alix stops by the gold embossed window of The Dress Agency. ‘I love that. It’s sexy. And the colour . . . all shimmery blue. It’s in the sale. £199.99 marked down to £49.99. That’s a hell of a drop.’ ‘Two hundred quid is a stupid amount.’ Courtney stands with her arms folded, glaring at the dress. ‘No wonder they had to knock the price down.’ ‘It’s not that much.’ Alix shrugs. ‘My mum wouldn’t dream of even trying on anything that’s less. This is probably just end of season.’ Fern leans to the side, trying to peer round the side of the mannequin. ‘It’s gorgeous. So low at the back, though. You couldn’t wear a bra. But I bet it’s lovely on someone tall and slim. And blonde.’ The huge eyes blink round at Alix. ‘Someone like you.’ Alix thinks it through for a moment. ‘I’ve got one of those stick-on bras. It just fixes round the front,’ she says slowly. Fern nudges her. ‘Try it on. Go on. Maybe 21

your mum could do a credit thing over the phone.’ ‘Like I said – she’s too caught up with Carlos to even listen to my moments of great need. But I can work on it. She’s promised to fly over next week. She’s bound to take me shopping then.’ ‘It won’t be there by next week.’ Courtney is backing away, her mouth turned down as if she’s been sucking a sour sweet. ‘Not if it’s really a bargain.’ ‘Go on, Alix. At least try it. Maybe they’d put it by.’ Alix hesitates again, teased by the possibility. ‘It’s my colour, I suppose.’ And then she thinks it’ll be no good after her birthday anyway. Where the hell would she wear it in this end-of-the-earth town? ‘Forget it. I can’t be bothered.’ She heads off after Courtney and they strike on along the cobbles, turning right into the lane that leads back out towards the promenade. They’re better off back here, where there at least might be some action. Window shopping’s such a tedious waste of time. It’s not until minutes later, when they’re 22

standing beside the railings that run along the edge of the beach, that Alix realises Fern hasn’t followed them. ‘We seem to be missing someone.’ Courtney is watching the glittering water. ‘Maybe she had to get home. Guesthouse duties calling. There’s a short cut to her house just down a bit from the beach.’ ‘Maybe.’ Alix remembers Fern’s pervie car park moment and hopes she hasn’t got herself abducted or anything. Perhaps the blue Ferrari guy offered her a boiled sweet. Fern’s dopey enough to take it. Alix thinks she should have got the Ferrari number plate so she could be a stunning super memory witness when the police ran the story on Crimewatch. She watches the water with Courtney for a moment; white yachts and motor boats, and the car ferry bumbling along to God Knows Where. It’s all so boring. Boring boring boring. Alix turns away as a guy walks by, an easel under his arm. She remembers him – the Rastahaired artist from outside the arcade. Perhaps she can have some fun with him. ‘Hey,’ she calls, ‘you were sketching in the car park just now, weren’t you? D’you want to 23

do a portrait of me? I’ve just made my fortune on the fruit machines.’ She rummages in her pocket and brings out a handful of copper coins. He stops and smiles at her. ‘I’ve just packed up, but I’ll be back here tomorrow.’ Alix puts one hand on her hip and pouts. ‘That’s tragic,’ she sighs. ‘I’ll be busy then.’ He looks troubled, as if he’s really sorry. ‘I’m truly washed up. I’ve been working all day. But you choose any other time next week, and I’ll be here for you.’ He glances at Courtney. ‘Both of you. I’d like to do you both together.’ ‘I bet you would.’ Alix looks at Courtney too, but Courtney is ignoring them. She’s still staring out across the sea. Alix turns back to the guy. ‘Tomorrow morning. First thing. We haven’t got any lessons till later.’ He shifts his easel, nods and grins, his smile all warmth and enthusiasm. ‘I’ll look forward to it.’ He raises one hand. ‘See you tomorrow,’ and walks on. Alix watches him go. ‘Like hell he will,’ she murmurs. ‘I wouldn’t want one of his cheap touristy scribbles even if he turned out to be the next Picasso.’ 24

She checks her mobile for the time. Still an hour left on the car. Leaning back on the railings she gives Courtney a sharp nudge. ‘What shall we do now?’ She scans the promenade, as if hoping for magicians; marching bands; men eating fire. She’s bored again. *** Fern takes the shortest route back to River’s View, hurrying along the coastal path that fringes the edge of the river. The tide is out and the air belches a stench of seaweed and mud and things rotting. She is always drawn to it – fascinated by the moods that tug and pull at the water. The daily debris of washed-up secrets, the sullen weight of mud when the tide slides away – but most people just see it as sludgy. Sludgy and smelly. It wasn’t always this bad though – not until the weather started changing. Dad used to say that was why the currents were so dangerous. The new high tides have grown more and more powerful, affecting the pull of the undertow. He used to get really worried about the 25

environment, and how things were changing. It really mattered to him that no one cared enough and nothing would be done until it was too late. Used to. There are other things that take all his energy now. Half walking, half running, she hits the quieter end of the path. Normally she would stop here, soaking in the strange, almost prehistoric, mud-slimed view. Today she presses on, passing the ancient wreck with its ribbed wooden frame that juts out of the sludge like old dinosaur bones. She rounds the final bend that curves up past the rotting jetty, and leads on to River’s View. Fern fights a sudden impulse to skip towards it, the way she used to do when she was little. River’s View. Down to two Tourist Board stars now. And still fading. But still – it’s home. ‘Hello, sweetheart. Heavens, it’s hot, isn’t it? You shouldn’t run when it’s clammy like this.’ Mum is just inside the door, resting the phone back down on the hook. ‘I’m not stopping.’ Fern pauses by the stairs, breathless. ‘I’ve got to get something.’ ‘What sort of something?’ Mum stops 26

scribbling notes in her diary, and looks up. Fern hesitates. She can hardly tell Mum what she’s come back for. ‘My sketch pad.’ She nods as she says it, as if she’s in conversation with herself. ‘I thought I heard you come in, angel.’ Dad shuffles out from the study, the local Long Cove Echo in his hands. Fern hugs him, feels him fragile, so light he could float away. She steps back, trying not to let a rush of sadness overwhelm her. ‘Good to see you up,’ she says. ‘You feeling better?’ ‘Much.’ The answer frees her. The illusion that he is – at least temporarily – all right. ‘I need to go.’ ‘You might want me to read this with you later – an arts award. The council are trawling for ideas that might bring tourists in – it’s a sort of “Art and the Environment” project. It was in yesterday’s Echo.’ His hands shake as he passes the Long Cove Echo to her, and she tries not to notice. She takes the paper. Rolls it up. Of course she’ll let him read it to her. She’ll do anything for Dad. But not now. ‘We’ll check it out when I get back – only that old wreck is really clear 27

because the tide’s so low, and I thought I’d do some rough sketches of it. I was thinking of sculptures.’ Mum has been squinting at the diary, checking through pages, and now looks up at Fern again. ‘Like those mermaids you did for your GCSEs? The guests really loved them. We could sell some for Christmas if you made up some more.’ ‘They were pathetic.’ Fern doesn’t know what makes her say this, but she feels a rush of embarrassment at the memory of her school project. What would Alix say about clay mermaids? Mum raises one eyebrow. ‘You got an A star for them. The examiners must have thought they had some merit.’ Fern shakes her head in sudden irritation. Mum would like to keep her in a safe little world, churning out mermaids forever. But Dad is still smiling and she’s in a hurry. This isn’t the time to talk it through. ‘Mermaids won’t be enough to get me into Art College. I’ll need to show lots of different ideas.’ The Art College argument is Fern’s safest option if she wants to get back into town quickly. 28

Anything to do with art always gets her a winner’s badge at home. If she gets into Art College then the future is already shaped. Set and glazed. ‘Must get that pad.’ ‘You go carefully, Fern. Don’t be back late. And make sure you keep your mobile switched on in case anything happens.’ ‘Yes, Mum. No, Mum.’ Three bags full, Mum. ‘And don’t run on the stairs.’ Up in her room she tucks the rolled-up Echo on the shelf, wedging it behind Lily, the elephant, and a soft green crocodile. Then she turns to her bed, lifts the mattress and slides her hand in amongst the springs. Her knuckles graze against the coiled wire and she has to edge her whole elbow in to get some proper space to feel. It’s still there. She knew it would be. Mum almost never cleans her room – she’s got too many others to do – so she’s hardly going to go poking about between the bed springs. Slipping the wad into her jacket pocket she glances at the alarm clock by her bed. The 29

Mickey Mouse hands point to nearly five but she can make it if she really runs. The Dress Agency won’t close until five-thirty, even though it’s Sunday. Not with all these tourists around. The only problem will be coming up with an excuse if she bumps into Alix and Courtney. She ought to ring them – find some garbled reason why she disappeared – but that still won’t explain why she’s racing back down there. It doesn’t matter. She’ll make something up. The main thing is to get the dress. Grabbing her sketch pad – just in case Mum is still lurking – Fern runs downstairs, slipping out of River’s View, then running back out through the gate and along the path. The tide has drained even further now, the riverbed glossy; stranded weeds and water plants smudged up in the shine. Fern is relieved she wasn’t stupid enough to chuck the mucky money away. She’d planned to. She’d wanted to scrunch it and crush it into a bag of stones. One hard throw out in the right place would have got it sucked down and down and down. But Mum had been out on the slipway, helping a guest tie the dinghy up to its post. Fern had smiled, her expression carefully blank, and 30

then stumbled away again. Up in her room, she’d wedged the mucky money under her mattress. She’d have to wait till Mum and the guest came back in. Except, once she’d hidden it she didn’t want to touch it. She didn’t want the memory. But she’s not scared of the memory now. With an ache in her lungs and a stitch in her side, she’s only scared that she won’t be able to run fast enough in the heat. Today, by the fruit machine, Alix listened to Fern’s worst-ever secret and didn’t judge. She wants Fern there on her birthday. She linked arms with her as they walked through the arcade. The present is a giant thank you. And that revolting time with Khaki Steve will have turned out to have done one good thing after all. ***

31

‘H

APPY BIRTHDAY.’ Courtney blinks twice as Alix opens the door in the shimmerblue Dress Agency dress. ‘Thanks. Fantastic to see you. God, you look drowned. Stick your umbrella on the side there, and come upstairs. I’ve been slaving over a hot stove all afternoon, so I’m only just finishing getting ready.’ Courtney follows Alix up to her bedroom, and drops her overnight bag down onto the bed. The room is warm, almost too hot for her, and the fluffy cream carpet gives everything an air of luxury, despite the muddle of clothes and 32

shoes and magazines. Alix has been set up well – white-lacquered furniture, velvets and silks. No expense spared. Courtney wonders, suddenly, if her mum is on a bit of a guilt trip. Maybe she feels bad about living abroad? ‘The dress looks really good on you. You must have got round your mum after all.’ Unzipping her bag, she sorts through the neat stack of underwear and towel and tomorrow’s Easi Shop overall. ‘Actually – Fern got it. Came over with it this morning. I wasn’t up but she left it in a bag on the front step, then sent me a text and woke me up anyway.’ Alix pulls a face at Courtney, and Courtney pulls a face back. Fern is ridiculous. Fern gets everything wrong – even when she does something right. ‘Anyway – you look good too. All black – as ever. I love the top.’ Courtney shrugs. ‘Got it from a charity shop. It’s OK, I suppose.’ Fern’s overenthusiastic present needles her. Has Fern really got money to throw around? She pulls her own gift from her bag, and tosses it to Alix. Alix catches it, tearing the paper. ‘Hey – a 33

Blades CD. That’s fantastic too. Thanks.’ Courtney takes her bag, pushes it under the corner chair, and sits down. She’s feeling cheap and tacky, and hopes the sales girl took the Cash Converters sticker off the CD case. ‘So – where did Fern get the money? I thought they were having to boil rats to survive at River’s View.’ Alix props the CD up next to the mirror. Courtney thinks the shimmer-blue dress is like gossamer on her, catching the light when she moves. Sassy and tight. A second skin. Alix peers in the mirror, pouts, and begins brushing her hair. It is silky sleek like spun gold. Long and straight. Shampoo advert hair. Her reflection smiles out at Courtney. ‘It’s a dark, deep secret – I’m not supposed to tell anyone.’ The needling becomes a scratch now. Courtney raises her eyebrows. Maybe Fern nicked it. But as soon as she thinks this, she knows it isn’t true. Fern is the sort of person who would have the drawer snap shut on her if she even as much as brushed her fingers over a till. She might not really know Fern – might 34

never have wanted to – but she knows about her. They went to the same schools together, right through from infant days. ‘I’ve got it. It was a tip. One of the guests at River’s View. Good service or something.’ ‘Sort of. You’re getting warm.’ Alix laughs. ‘I’ve got the vodka ready for us – Vladimir – on the table by the bed there. D’you want some?’ She swings away from the mirror and reaches for it, twisting off the lid. She swigs hard. Four noisy gulps. Then she hands the bottle across to Courtney. ‘Now you.’ Courtney tries not to think about germs and saliva. Closing her eyes she swallows hard, the clear liquid fire in her throat. Alcohol is a kind of disinfectant. It’ll be all right. Opening her eyes again, she sees Alix is back by the mirror, her hands on her hips and standing sideways on. ‘This dress doesn’t make my stomach look bulgy though, does it?’ Courtney can’t believe Alix doesn’t know how thin she is. Thin slim. Not all knots and bones and bits-jutting-everywhere thin. The question is for show. And for praise. ‘If someone stuck you up against the wall you 35

might get mistaken for an ironing board.’ Alix laughs. ‘Sounds interesting. Being stuck against a wall by someone.’ Courtney laughs back but it’s a sound she doesn’t feel. Alix is like that a lot. Easy about sex and always up for surprises. Anything – or anyone – to pass the time. She hugs herself suddenly, although the cold isn’t coming from Alix’s fluffy carpet overheated bedroom. It’s coming from inside her. A black wave of knowledge that she doesn’t want to think about. She shakes her head quickly, forcing herself out of the swamping dark. ‘The dress looks good. Honestly.’ Well done, Fern. I hate you. She wishes she’d bought Alix something more, but she’s supposed to be saving all her Easi Shop earnings – she’s going to need a deposit for a flat. It’s her big plan for when she’s finished college. She’s getting away from home. Leaving completely. She’ll only ever go back just to touch base with her brothers. ‘So – what else did you get – for your birthday, I mean?’ ‘My mum sent some jewellery. And we’ll go shopping when she comes over next week.’ 36

Alix lifts a blue velvet box, half-buried by a muddle of make-up, opens the lid and hands it across. ‘It’s not really “me”, but I suppose it’s the sort of thing you keep forever. I’ll probably love it when I’m a hundred and ten.’ Courtney widens her eyes at the sparkling crucifix. It’s a dazzle of colour, crystal gems catching rainbows in the bedroom light. ‘Are they real diamonds?’ Alix leans across her, lifting it out and lacing the chain between her fingers. ‘That’s what the card said.’ She swings the cross to and fro, watching it for a moment. ‘It’s a scary thing though, a crucifix. I mean, I don’t believe in God or anything, but they do have a sort of magic power. Evil things are supposed to shrink and die when you wave them about.’ Courtney thinks about this. She used to have a crucifix, a tiny gold one that she got when she was christened, and she wore it all the time when she was younger. It never did her any good. ‘You’d better look after it then. Make sure it stays on your side.’ Alix laughs and sits back on the bed, swilling the vodka again. Her long legs are curled under her, the magic-power crucifix still 37

dangling casually from one hand. Courtney thinks that, whatever she’s doing, Alix always looks amazing. A moment in a photograph. Courtney never looks like that. When she catches her face in the mirror she always looks so strung up. ‘This deep dark secret . . . ’ Courtney can’t stop herself. She wants one last try. ‘Did Fern . . . ?’ ‘Look. I really can’t tell you. But maybe you’ll find out one day. Secrets always come out in the end. Now – sssssh.’ Alix sits forward, then freezes, one hand raised slightly as she tilts her head. ‘Listen. Outside.’ Courtney listens. The rain is stronger, flinging itself at the window. ‘The weather?’ ‘No, no.’ Alix drops the crucifix down onto the quilt. ‘There’s a car turning in the drive.’ She bounces up from the bed, hurrying to the window. Then she ducks back. ‘It’s my brother – Aaron – with his mates.’ Courtney can now hear the growled purr of an engine. The slosh of tyres on wet tarmac. She goes to the window too, standing just behind Alix. Four blokes get out of a four-by-four, dipping their heads against the rain as they wait for each other. 38

‘That’s an expensive set of wheels. Someone’s parents must be loaded.’ Alix’s voice has dropped to something husky and deep. ‘I didn’t expect them yet. They were supposed to be having football practice before they left. The rain must’ve stopped them.’ She steps away, picks up the Vladimir, swigs it hard and then hands it across to Courtney again. ‘I couldn’t tell from that glimpse though.’ ‘Couldn’t tell what?’ ‘What one I’d want. Could you?’ Courtney grips the bottle, staring down on the four tops of heads which are now huddled outside the front door. She wants to make herself feel something. Excitement. Anticipation. Bubbles and giggles and girlish delight. None of it comes. The doorbell rings and it is like a scream through the house. The cold wash of black slides through her again. ***

39

They all squash up in the hallway. Aaron gives a small bow. ‘Pray, gentlemen – let me introduce you to my fair sister Alix – and . . . ’ ‘Courtney,’ says Courtney. Aaron smiles. ‘. . . the delectable Courtney.’ Alix smiles back at her brother. He’s brought three amazing guys with him. All gorgeous beautiful spunk hunks. Aaron might not be into girls but his mates usually are. The mates he lets her meet, anyway. ‘This is Nathan, Dale and Tom.’ Aaron comes forward, goes to hug her and then stops. ‘Sorry, fair sister – don’t want to get that dress wet. It’s thumping down out there, and look at me – I’m dripping. But anyway – happy birthday. And hey – you look stunning.’ Warm wonderful Aaron. She doesn’t care what his secrets are. He’s the one guy in the world she’ll never get bored with. ‘Thanks.’ She squeezes his hand and smiles round at the spunk hunks. She loves it that they’re beautiful. Loves it that they’ve made the effort to come. She still can’t decide which one she wants to go for, but time stretches ahead. There’s no hurry. They’ve got to be better than the college 40

rabble anyway. The guys there are decent enough but . . . She rolls the thought round her head, trying to decide what she’s thinking. Not enough. That’s it. Decent enough, but not enough. ‘We’ve got you refreshments – stashes of the King’s best beer,’ Aaron is saying. ‘It’s all out in the carriage.’ ‘Bring it in. Bring it on. I’ve made up some notso-royal chilli, and there’s garlic bread and rice and salad.’ She knows she is glowing. Knows the spunk hunks are taking her in and looking her over. The shimmer-blue dress clings in all the right places. They are probably trying not to stare at her breasts. The thought of this makes her warm and shivery, and she bites back a smile. The night is young, and it belongs to her. ‘Sounds like a banquet. I’ll bring the booze in.’ Aaron grins, and goes off. ‘I’ll go and help. I’m Tom, by the way.’ The spunk hunk who was the driver shoots a grin at her, and heads back outside. He’s got a smile to die for. A bit short for her, but who cares about height tonight. Nathan and Dale turn and follow him. Alix raises her eyebrows at Courtney, who raises her eyebrows back. 41

‘Kitchen,’ says Alix. ‘Let’s make sure everything’s ready.’ She closes the door, trying to use the moments between lighting the oven and manoeuvring the salad from the over-stuffed fridge, to gauge a reaction from Courtney. ‘What d’you think?’ ‘I think they look . . . ’ Courtney gets glasses down from the cupboard. Lines them along the top of the washing machine. Then she fills up a bowl of frothy hot water and starts cleaning the sink. ‘. . . OK.’ ‘OK? Come on – they’re gorgeous. Which one would you go for? I promise to give you a free run if you just say the name.’ Alix pulls some garlic bread from a carrier bag on the floor, wraps it in tinfoil, and pokes it on the bottom shelf of the oven. It’s too long and it crushes up against the door as she jams it shut. She shrugs. It doesn’t matter. Everyone will be too drunk to care soon anyway. ‘Sorry.’ Courtney jerks a look round at her, her expression strained, as if she’d been somewhere else in her head. ‘What did you say?’ Alix pulls a frozen pizza from the freezer, 42

tearing open the box. ‘Surely you—’ But the question is sliced short by spunk hunk Tom staggering in with a box of beers. Alix steps slightly to the side but the space is tight and Tom brushes her arm as he passes, pressing into her. ‘We’ve got plenty of vodka.’ Alix smiles at him and sweeps her hair back from her face. It splays down over her shoulders, and she can feel its silk touch on her skin. ‘And some soft drinks. Of course.’ ‘Of course.’ Tom edges Courtney’s newly lined up glasses to one side and plonks his box beside them. ‘Many coming?’ ‘Just a college crowd. They’ll bring drinks too. Do you think I’ve got enough though?’ ‘Oh, I think so.’ Tom gives her the to-die-for smile. ‘You’ve got plenty.’ He looks at her. They are very close. He has tawny eyes, gold flecks among the brown. The rain has curled his hair slightly. Dampened his shirt. She wonders if she should slip off her heels. ‘Food, glorious food.’ Aaron springs into the kitchen, sniffing like a starved bloodhound. ‘All smells delicious. It’s been a miserable journey in the rain, and we need replenishing. 43

Oh, hang on – birthday gift for the fair maiden.’ He hands Alix a parcel. Small. Flat. CD size and shape. She takes it, turning slightly to break the moment with Tom. ‘Thanks – I – wonder – what – it could – be.’ Tom laughs loudly. Dale and Nathan appear in the doorway. They are laughing too. Alix thinks about princesses in history, all the court bent double because Her Royal Highness said something amusing. She feels a rush of something. Confidence? Power? She is Princess for the night. All the world will bow before her. She shreds the last corner of paper from the CD, waving it round as if there are crowds lining the streets to see it. ‘Thank you, Good Sir.’ ‘The Blades, my fair maiden. Triple box set. A real favourite at court, I understand. You haven’t got it, have you?’ Alix slides a look at Courtney, who is still scouring away at the sink, her back to them all. She’s fairly certain she’s not listening. ‘No. No. I’ve been wanting it, though. It was top of my 44

list – even ahead of a certain bewitched frog.’ ‘Say cheese, please.’ She looks round as Dale holds a mobile up at her. It’s one of the newest multi-media Smartphones. He is taller than Tom. Golden blond. She usually goes for tall blond-haired guys. She glitters out a smile at him. Eighteen. Gorgeous. Princess for the day. The doorbell rings at the same time as the land line phone. ‘I’ll do the door,’ Courtney says. Alix wonders if Courtney was listening after all, and then decides that it doesn’t matter. Her CD had a Cash Converters sticker on it anyway. It’s not as if she broke the bank buying it. She watches as Courtney washes her hands, drying them carefully on some kitchen towel. She folds it neatly into squares before wedging it into the already bulging bin. ‘Probably the first of the college crowd. Prepare for Invasion.’ Alix watches Nathan’s eyes follow Courtney as she heads to the hall, and thinks it’ll make things easier if they get together. She’ll only have to choose between two spunk hunks then. 45

She heads for the front room. It’ll be Mum who has rung, of course. Everyone else always calls her mobile. Beside her, Aaron kneels by the CD player, starting up the Blades. ‘Hello? Mum?’ ‘Happy birthday to you. Happy birthday to . . . ’ Mum always sings as if she’s on stage, to an audience. Alix can picture her now, the way she’ll be shaping her face. Possibly stretching out one arm for performance value. If Carlos is there, watching, she’ll be sliding him glances, and smiling. He’ll be transfixed. Drooling. The creep. ‘Hi, Mum.’ The Blades start up and she drums her nails on the handset, tapping her fingers with the beat. People start filling the room. Dale appears, takes another mobile shot, winks and shows it to her. She smiles down at it, nodding, thinking she’s looking good. Tom jostles past him, mouthing, ‘It’s vodka and orange.’ He hands her a full glass and stands watching her, knocking back his own beer and wiping his mouth with the back of his 46

hand. He has nice hands. Strong-looking. Alix likes guys with strong-looking hands. She tries to focus on what Mum is saying to her. ‘So how are you, darling? Are you having a good day?’ ‘Fantastic, thanks.’ She sips the orange vodka. Dale is lurking with his mobile again. A gold-haired god. She’s going to have to choose between him and Tom. ‘Aaron said he was coming, and you’d be having some friends round. That’s lovely for you.’ ‘Yes.’ She waits for Mum to tell her exactly when she’s flying back to celebrate with her. She’s bound to make it special, even though it’ll all be rushed. A shopping spree – probably London. A meal out in one of the restaurants down the cobbled lanes in Long Cove. Then hurried goodbye hugs before jetting back to Tuscany for more lavishings with Creepy Carlos. ‘Thanks for the present. The crucifix. It’s fantastic.’ ‘Carlos found it. It’s very valuable. He says we must get it added to your contents insurance.’ Dale seems to be taking a string of pictures, 47

and Alix forces another smile across at him. Creepy Carlos chose it? What the hell has her eighteenth got to do with him? Mum should have been pounding the streets of Tuscany choosing something herself. She’ll be glad when Mum finally drops him and moves on to the next one – and in between lovers Mum always spends more time with her. ‘Carlos chose it? That’s sweet of him. Give him a hug for me.’ ‘Of course, darling. But – Alix – there’s something else. The reason I couldn’t come over to be with you today. I wish I could have come – then I would have been able to tell you properly.’ ‘Tell me what properly?’ She feels an uneasy prickling in her chest. ‘I’ve been feeling so queasy. And the doctor said . . . ’ Alix drains back the orange vodka in one go. ‘We’ve been trying for a while, as they say. We thought I might be too old . . . ’ Mum gives a high, girlish laugh. Presents pile up in the corner. Ribbons and bows. Strangers have been choosing things; 48

wrapping things; lavishing her. More of the rabble press in, blowing her kisses. Someone turns the music up louder. Courtney appears, dragged in by Nathan. They start to dance. ‘. . . was so lucky . . . Carlos sorted out a specialist and . . . ’ Aaron comes in with Fern, sits her down on the sofa. Fern waves at Alix. She looks flushed and nervous, her eyes following Aaron as he disappears back into the kitchen, coming back a moment later and bringing her a drink. ‘. . . so maybe you could come here instead? Christmas would be best. I should feel better by then. From what I remember with you and Aaron, the nausea wears off after about three months. Carlos will send you the fare.’ Alix’s hand clenches on the empty glass. If it breaks the jagged fragments will cut her palm. Warm blood on the carpet. Has Carlos told Mum they must get the carpets insured? ‘Alix?’ ‘Mum, I have to go. I can’t hear you very well.’ She puts the receiver down slowly. Carefully. She feels she has iced up somehow; frozen inside. 49

Dale appears and she lets him take the empty glass from her. Tom touches her shoulder. She stares at them both for a moment and then shakes herself, forcing out a smile. To hell with Mum. To hell with everything. She links arms with both Tom and Dale, her beautiful strangers. Pulling them closer she steers them towards the middle of the room. Glowing. Gorgeous. Princess for the day. ‘Come on, let’s dance. All three of us together.’ *** Nathan has led Courtney into the front room where the Blades are playing – again. It must be Aaron’s CD because the one she gave was left upstairs. She’s still got the receipt – so Alix can swap it if she likes. Or perhaps she’ll just pass it on to someone else, at another party. Recycling presents. What does it matter where something comes from? If she was Alix she’d probably recycle it too. They start to dance in a slow, distanced way. She can feel his eyes on her, trying to make her look back at him. His right arm circles her 50

waist, pulling her closer. ‘So-oo sexy.’ Courtney stiffens. He loosens the hold but keeps his hand there and she can feel it touching and touching and touching all through her black sleeveless top, to her skin. She dances faster so that she can turn her body away from him and try and give herself a bit of space. He speeds up too, catching her waist again, drawing her back in. ‘Are you gay or something?’ he laughs, nibbling her ear. She makes herself smile at him, and hopes it doesn’t look too fake. She should at least try and look friendly. These are Alix’s brother’s mates after all. She should do this for Alix – maybe that could be her birthday present. A sort of hostess. Alix might find that more useful than a doubledup CD. ‘Of course not.’ She thinks that maybe being gay would be better. Easier. Only she isn’t. She doesn’t want girls to touch her any more than she wants blokes. She lets him nuzzle against her. Stroke her back. Pull her in tight. There’s a stack of presents on the floor and she counts them. Nineteen. There must be 51

more people here than that but some will have come with partners. One present between two. The evening slides on. The noise grows. Nathan steers her back into the kitchen for more vodka. A chubby-faced bloke is stirring the bubbling chilli, splats of sauce spluttering over the top of the oven. Courtney resists the urge to grab at a kitchen towel and mop it all up. ‘Who’s burning the garlic bread?’ Patti Hodge hustles past. She’s doing the same business studies course as Courtney. The course where Courtney first met Alix. ‘Oh shit.’ A bloke who has been leaning against the opposite wall, his eyes half-closed, looks at Patti and gives a high-pitched giggle. ‘I forgot about it.’ Everyone shrieks with laughter as a charred black baguette is pulled out from under the grill. ‘Shit.’ ‘Think it’s probably cooked.’ ‘Who likes their garlic bread well done?’ ‘Come on, letsh go outside.’ Nathan seems determined to stay glued to Courtney and she thinks that, even if she got rid of him she’d probably have to do it all again with someone 52

else, and she couldn’t face that. It just isn’t worth it. ‘OK. I’ll get my jacket. It’s in the hall.’ They carry their drinks into the tiny patch of Alix’s rain-sodden garden, sitting on a patio under a dripping sun umbrella. The metal chair burns cold on the back of Courtney’s legs. Light spills out from the kitchen window, highlighting the spiking rain. A snail edges slowly across the paved slabs of concrete, a thin trail of silver marking its path. Courtney draws her feet in under the chair. Nathan shuffles nearer, trying to kiss her ear, her cheek, her lips. ‘Yoor sho shpecial,’ he says. She swigs more vodka, wondering why she can’t get drunk like every other person at this party. Being drunk would make her normal. Being drunk would make her forget. He pushes one hand down the front of her top. She grips his arm, pulls his hand out and places it firmly on his own knee. ‘Are you schure you’re not gay?’ He keeps pawing at her, his hand groping lazily, his head half-buried in her shoulder. She thinks that maybe this is outside her role as party hostess. Above and beyond the call of duty. Alix surely wouldn’t want her 53

reduced to this – not even as a present. Five minutes later, when he staggers up and goes inside for the loo and ‘top upsh’, she slips away, heels squelching into the soggy grass as she hurries out through Alix’s side-gate. The rain washes him off her, dripping him out into tiny pools and puddles as she walks. *** Fern can’t believe it. All that stupid worrying and that lonely hearts Khaki Steve disaster and thinking she might be too ugly or boring or stupid for anyone to really like her and now . . . ! Alix’s brother! He looks like Alix too. Wheat-blond hair and blue blue eyes. Beautiful. He’s got his arm round her. Well, not exactly round her, but stretched along the back of the sofa. They haven’t said a lot because the music’s up too loud, but not talking is good because she probably wouldn’t be able to think of anything interesting enough to say. She wonders if Alix mentioned her to him. She thinks she must have done, because he 54

seemed to know exactly who she was when she arrived. Alix must have said something nice, or else he wouldn’t have bothered to come rushing over. She tries to think through what Alix might have told him, but it’s hard. Whenever she tries to think of nice things about herself, it’s as if a giant boot comes thumping down out of the sky and squashes it. She shifts slightly on the sofa, leaning her head backwards, suddenly aware that it is now resting against him. Heat blushes through her. Is this too keen? Alix is up dancing, dazzling brighter than diamonds, whirling about in the shimmer-blue dress and caught between two partners that Aaron has told her are his friends. Courtney has been dancing but she went off to the kitchen a while ago, another of Aaron’s friends leading her away. Fern hopes Aaron doesn’t want to dance. She’s so awkward with it – she can never pick out where the beat comes. All the sounds muddle up in her head. She gets it too fast or too slow and at a primary school disco she once turned round to find two boys mimicking her, lurching about, clumsy as clowns. 55

‘Can I get you another drink?’ Fern realises Aaron is talking to her. She looks up at him, making her eyes meet his even though she can feel the blush heat up her face again. The truth is she doesn’t want one – she’s already had a Breezer, just out of embarrassment. But he’s going to think she’s stupid if she says no. ‘I could have another Breezer,’ she says. ‘You could,’ Aaron smiles at her and his blue blue eyes are warmer than Alix’s, ‘but what do you actually want?’ She smiles back, uncertain. Is it all right to be honest? His face is up close to hers and she can catch the scent of him – slightly musky. Almost sweet. ‘I’m not that good at drinking.’ He tilts his head, the blue blue eyes considering her. ‘It’s not a test,’ he says gently. ‘You can’t get it right or wrong.’ ‘Actually – I can.’ She thinks even this answer is wrong, because someone like him will want girls who are mature and sophisticated. ‘I mean – it makes me a bit silly. Alcohol. I can’t hold it very well.’ He smiles again and all her insides are melting. Liquid. 56

Then he squeezes her shoulder and gets up and she knows she’s blown it. Of course she’s blown it. As he walks away she stays sitting stiffly on the end of the sofa, his touch on her shoulder like a burn. Nobody comes over to her. Everyone is talking and laughing and getting drunk and she tries to keep her expression relaxed and happy, relieved that at least Mum is picking her up and she’s got an excuse for leaving early. And suddenly he is back, smiling, handing her a drink. ‘I’ve got you some fruit juice. Sorry I took so long. I had to rummage through cupboards for it.’ Fern’s whole heart seems to spill over. He hasn’t minded about her being honest, and he hasn’t tried to push her with the drinking. He isn’t a Khaki Steve, happily watching her get more and more drunk. ‘Thank you.’ She pushes out a smile at him and he smiles back. She wishes now that she could ring Mum and beg her to come later, but she can’t because River’s View demands they make such an early start in the mornings. She doesn’t want to be unfair. 57

He sits next to her again, his arm stretched back along the top of the sofa. ‘My mum’s coming at eleven.’ Her voice sounds silly. Squeaky. She starts worrying again. Will he think she’s pathetic? ‘We always have to be up early on a Sunday.’ He has had to lean forward to hear what she’s saying, and she feels herself trembling, as if every nerve in her is waking up to him. Alix is laughing up at Aaron’s friend, her arm round the other one. She is drinking vodka straight from the bottle. Fern wonders if she should try and get her to slow down but she’d probably just laugh at her. And Aaron might think she was a goody-goody spoilsport wimp. ‘So tell me . . . ’ Aaron’s face is close to hers again. ‘. . . what are you doing at college?’ Fern takes a breath, hoping he’s not just being polite. Hoping he might really be interested. ‘Pottery is my main thing. The thing other people seem to think I’m best at.’ She can feel her voice warming, the silly squeakiness all gone. She can tell him all her dreams about Art College and the future. She is hardly thinking of Alix now. And anyway, she was just being stupid. It’s Alix’s eighteenth birthday and even 58

if she does get drunk, nothing bad could happen to her in her own home. Fern doesn’t need to worry about her. *** Alix sits on the edge of the bed. Her head is muzzy. The room is muzzy. How did she get up here with Tom? And Dale. ‘Are you OK?’ Tom slides his arm round her and she rests her head against his shoulder. ‘Think so.’ Dale is behind somehow, rubbing her back. The movement makes her feel like she wants to throw up. ‘No, don’t.’ She murmurs this, tilting her head to look over her shoulder. Dale’s face is very close. He starts kissing her. Tom pulls her chin round and away from Dale, and he kisses her too. She breaks away. ‘I don’t feel well,’ she whispers. ‘Why don’t you lie down, baby?’ Dale moves round to one side of her, making room. She feels Tom lift her legs, straightening her out. 59

‘That better?’ She realises he is stroking her through the shimmer-blue silk of her dress. ‘The room’s spinning.’ She is whispering again. She closes her eyes. After a moment it starts to seep in that they are both lying next to her. One either side. Maybe it isn’t Tom touching her. Maybe it’s Dale. ‘No,’ she says. ‘Stop.’ ‘It’s OK. We won’t do anything you don’t want to.’ This is definitely Tom, and it’s the ‘we’ that startles her eyes open. Up until now she’s had the vague idea that Dale was here more by chance. He just helped Tom get her upstairs – and stayed. ‘I . . . no.’ She struggles to sit up, wincing suddenly. There is something sharp sticking into the base of her spine. ‘Ouch. What the hell is that?’ She reaches round, fumbling for whatever it is. Her fingers grip something spiky and hard and there is the sound of shimmerblue silk tearing. ‘Hey,’ says Dale, his voice warm in her ear, ‘are you ripping your clothes off for us?’ Us. We. ‘Something’s snagging me.’ She struggles to 60

look behind her and see what it is. ‘Here, I’ll do it.’ She feels Tom’s fingers fumble with the fabric. ‘You’re all caught up. Hang on.’ She slumps forward, her head on her knees, closing her eyes. All this effort is too much. Too much. There is another long rip. ‘Sorry. Your dress is a bit torn. But this is the culprit.’ Tom gives a low whistle, holding his hand out to her. ‘A necklace.’ She opens her eyes again. Takes the crucifix from him. One of them – she’s not sure if it’s Tom or Dale, is stroking her skin through the rip. Lacing the chain around her fingers she remembers a story Mum used to tell her, a hundred years ago. ‘The Princess and the Pea,’ she says out loud. ‘Do either of you know that story?’ ‘Didn’t she feel something hard in her bed?’ Tom or possibly Dale starts laughing. It is a soft raspy sort of sound, not much above breathing. One of them is down the front of her dress now, exploring the edges of the stick-on bra. She drops the crucifix onto her open palm. 61

The room mists round her again. Her and Mum. Mum has woven herself a different fairy tale now. The drawbridge is up, and Alix is on the wrong side of the moat. She lies back down, grips the crucifix tightly, the diamond-hard edges pressing into her skin. Dale has moved away slightly, pulling off his shirt. Tom moves one leg over hers, pressing down on her. ‘We’ve both got condoms,’ he says. Alix squeezes her eyes tight shut. She would like Mum to appear out of the haze. She’d like to hear what sort of fairy tale she weaves around this. When Tom or possibly Dale presses his lips against hers, she lets her mouth open slightly. Lets herself sigh. Her fingers release the crucifix and it slides away. She circles her arms around Tom or possibly Dale. Valuable. Very valuable. She wonders if Mum has taken out insurance on her. ***

62

C

OURTNEY WALKS ON. The night washes down on her, rain in her hair and her eyes. A cold trickle finds its way in at the neck of her jacket, sliding a slippery snail trail down her back. The pavements shine up in the glow from the streetlamps and water ripples down the road in small rivers, gurgling up out of drains and streaming round leaves and twigs and pieces of litter. Rain drums everywhere, on everything. From nearby she can hear the heavy rush of a waterfall escaping from a broken piece of guttering. A car passes and she shrinks sideways into 63

the hedge to avoid the spray, seeing at the last moment that it is Fern with her mum. Neither of them see her. Courtney thinks about the Dress Agency dress again, and decides she is glad she didn’t get Alix anything over the top. Things like that are a kind of blackmail. I give you the best present I can think of. You stay my friend through thick and thin. Things to do with Fern have always annoyed her. She was never part of the bullying – not even at primary school when she was arguably young enough not to know better – but she never stopped it. Blind-eyed, head in sand, she’d always walked by on the other side. That oh-so-sweet, little girl, please-takecare-of-me face. But it was more than that – it was the way she always walked about with her mum and dad, holding hands, linking arms. Hugs and goodbyes in the playground. Her look screamed ‘please take care of me’ but she didn’t need it. And those children that did need it – they probably never screamed out a look at anyone. It is as she turns the corner into her own road that she first hears the car. It has slowed 64

down behind her, keeping pace. She quickens her step and it seems to speed up – just enough – keeping the same distance behind. Courtney won’t let herself run. Don’t lose control. Don’t lose control. Get your mobile out. Let the bastard see you’re making contact with someone. And then – oh help. She hasn’t got her mobile. It’s upstairs in the neatly packed bag next to Alix’s bed, along with the overall she’s going to need for Easi Shop tomorrow. She wants to cross over, so she’s not on the driver’s side, but she doesn’t want to risk stepping out in front of the car. She keeps walking. Her heart hammers at full speed. Just past the first bend she comes to the phone box. This is supposed to be what Mum calls a ‘respectable’ area, but it’s still never safe from ‘drunken yob riff-raff’ – and the phone box is always the top choice for attack. Now, tonight, the glass is all shattered as usual, the panes a crazing of tiny fractured lines. Crystal beads litter the pavement. But the light is still on in there, and the 65

handset is on its cradle. It’s got to be worth a chance. She pulls at the door, keeping her back against it so it doesn’t shut, and edges in. Her hands shake. She bangs on the buttons. 999. Nothing. The phone is dead and outside, just slightly ahead now, the car has stopped. She’ll have to bluff it. Scream for help down the dead mouthpiece anyway. She sounds out silent words. Yes, please. Norwood Avenue. No, that’s fine, I’ll wait here. The phone booth smells disgusting. Urine. The car dims its lights. Dad makes a fuss about things like this, on his council meetings. Phone boxes not working. Streetlamps out. Her dad, Saviour of Cove End. On the shelf underneath the handset, someone has wedged a card. Jasmine. For ALL your pleasures. 07789 9988 XX. The card has got damp and is curled on the corner, the last numbers blotted away. 66

Courtney stares at it for a moment. The car door closes quietly. Footsteps. She talks properly now. Loudly. ‘Yes, it’s a white car – a hatchback. PGR 7—’ There is a knock on the window behind her, a small tap. Courtney turns slowly. This is it. This is how it starts. Or ends. She tenses, ready to bolt. Ready to fight. ‘Don’t you dare try to—’ A middle-aged lady with prim neat curls stares out from behind very round goldfishbowl glasses. ‘I’m so sorry, my dear – I hope I haven’t frightened you, but I’m nearly out of petrol. Is there a station nearby? An all-night one? I could probably manage a couple more miles on what I’ve got, but it would be dreadful to be stranded on a night like this. Terrible weather, isn’t it? I’m barely able to see where I’m going.’ Courtney is still shaking. ‘Texaco should be open,’ she manages to croak. ‘Just turn left at the end of this road and it’s about half a mile.’ ‘Thank you, dear.’ The woman is gone, back in her car, crawling away as if going slowly will help her save more petrol. Maybe it will. Courtney 67

hasn’t a clue. She’s not going to ask Dad if he’ll let her learn to drive. Pushing back into the rain, Courtney runs. Her shoes make a stabbed clicking that she thinks must be waking the whole street up. They’ll be at their windows, tutting and shaking their heads. That Courtney Benton-Gray, out all hours, running about like a common yob waking up the whole street. And her dad a councillor too. Respectable people, or so you’d have thought. That’s teenagers for you. Not enough discipline these days. Minutes later she is at her gate, a stitch in her side, her breath tearing out of her. And then she realises that not only has she left her mobile and her Easi Shop uniform at Alix’s – her key is there too. She would never never never risk ringing the door bell. She’ll have to sleep in Mum’s car. Slipping off her shoes, she tiptoes round the side, her bare soles stinging on the hard gravel. The garage key is under the stone, where it always is, and she opens the side door carefully, edging past the silent broom and the lawnmower and the cupboard stacked with tins of super gloss paint. 68

Sliding into the back seat she curls up, shivering. Rain batters the garage roof. Mum’s car smells of clean shampooed seats and air freshener. Mum, who is probably sleeping, and who has no idea that Courtney is out here in the cold. And now the image of Fern comes back to her. Fern always holding hands with her mum in the playground, every morning for the whole seven years they were at primary school. Fern out walking, sandwiched between her mum and her dad on a Saturday afternoon. Fern just now, safe in a car, rattling past through the puddles. And Courtney starts to cry. *** It’s 2 am and she’s in bed but Fern has never been so awake. It is as if she’s floating, the evening glowing – almost magical – in her mind. She can still feel the warmth of his arm around her shoulders. 69

She has a hope she is almost afraid of shaping; a dream that he will ring her tomorrow. He might ask Alix for her number. She doesn’t believe that he will – not really – and she knows she shouldn’t be wanting it. She should just take tonight and fold it in bubble wrap and tuck it away in the back of the wardrobe where it will always be safe. Every now and then she could get it out and look at it. Please please please ask Alix. He came to the door with her when Mum rang the bell. Gave her a hug. His lips brushed her hair. HIS LIPS BRUSHED HER HAIR. There was nothing else. There had been nothing else. Mum stood in the rain watching them both, and Fern nodded a hurried goodbye, then followed her down the path to the car. ‘Thanks for your company,’ he called, as she climbed inside. ‘You’ve been great.’ The words dazzled her. Sparkled her. A sudden gust of confidence made her wind down the window, her hand waving into the darkness as they drove off. The rain blew in, 70

peppering the dashboard. Mum glanced sideways. ‘Fern!’ She’d wound up the handle and stared ahead, the windscreen wipers swishing a slow frustrating rhythm. She wished she could have stayed with him longer; afforded a taxi; had the sort of parents who’d let her make her own way home. ‘Who was that anyway?’ Mum said. The car hit puddles. Slowed for lights. Tutted its indicators at junctions. ‘Alix’s brother. Aaron.’ ‘He’s older than Alix, isn’t he?’ ‘Yes.’ ‘Is he . . . is he anything like her? In personality, I mean?’ ‘I don’t know. I don’t know him properly.’ ‘Alix isn’t like you. She’s a bit more – worldly. I just wondered if he was like that too.’ ‘I don’t know. I just told you. I don’t know him properly.’ Mum didn’t say anything else but the silence brimmed with warnings unspoken. Don’t run down the stairs. Always look both ways before you cross the road. Don’t do anything silly. 71

Now, still awake, it’s 2.15 am. The night spirals on. No night has ever been this long. Where is his university? Sunderland? Surbiton? She did ask him but she’s never any good at remembering names of places. She wonders if it’s far away. Getting up, she pulls on her dressing gown, the pink fleece all soft and warm. She walks carefully – the night must always be tiptoed through, she should never disturb a guest. Soft-footed as a cat she pads to the window. The river is oily black and its skin shivers in the spittling rain. The green marker lights wink on and off and a couple of houseboats are lit by deck lanterns, but mostly everywhere is dark. A gull skims past, headed for the sea, its mewling call like a cry for help. Fern remembers the dog. She used to dream about it. Usually it was the dream of what happened, but once she dreamed that it came up out of the boggy riverbed. It crawled into the house, slinking up the stairs and into her room, dripping brown ooze and scrags of weed down onto the carpet. She knew it had been trying to find her. And in her dream she might have felt sorry for it 72

except it suddenly broke out through its slimed-mud skin and it wasn’t a dog anymore: it was a girl with her head thrown back in a silent scream, tiny slithering eels all splattering from her mouth. Fern shivers now and pulls the belt of the soft pink dressing gown tighter. She shouldn’t be thinking of things like this. She wants her head just flooded with Aaron. Conjuring up the magic again, the memory of the evening stirs round her. It has been beautiful. Brilliant. Running back through it she makes it properly hers; pinches it into the shapes she wants. He chose to sit with her. There were other girls, but he stayed with her and even when he had chances to go, he stayed. A new mood bubbles up in her. She wants to laugh and sing and run outside in the rain and who even cares about the boggy brown sludge. *** When Alix wakes they are both gone. She sits up slowly, remembering. Oh God. Oh no. Gripping the corner of the table to steady herself, she pulls herself out of bed and stands, 73

wavering, on the crumpled Fern birthday dress. Struggling to keep her balance, she lurches across to the mirror. Oh God. God God God again. Mirror, mirror on the wall, who is the most wrecked one of all? The glass answers back with silent disapproval. Her hair is wild, her skin blanched, her eyes hollow and strained. Two guys. God God God. She gropes for her robe, pulling it from the chair behind, wrapping herself up. The cool silk is comfortless. The embrace of a stranger. Heading for the window she draws back one curtain, squinting out at the day. It’s dry now, the rain all blown away. On the drive opposite a man in a green jumper is pruning bushes, the shears making a heavy click of sound. Next door a woman pulls up in a black BMW, gets out, fires her automatic key ring at the lock. From across the rooftops church bells chime madly. So much noise. Too much happening. And Tom’s four-by-four is gone. Alix turns back from the window, the glare of the day too light and too bright. She wants 74

shadows and blankets. Hot chocolate. Dark corners. So they went. What did they think of her? What does she think of herself? Walking unsteadily out through the bedroom door, she checks the landing. The spare bedroom. The bathroom. No sign of anyone sleeping over. Not even Courtney. She used to like the quiet, but today she is unsettled by it. Downstairs in the kitchen dirty glasses crowd the worktop. Crumbed plates. A half-chewed pizza. She opens the fridge door and a can of beer rolls out. Someone has covered the chilli with cling film and crammed it in awkwardly, wedging it between a French stick and an unused lettuce. The smell assaults her and she turns away, all the plates and pots shuddering as she slams shut the door. At the sink she runs the tap, rinses a glass and then fills it with water. She drinks thirstily, the cold kicking her awake. She splashes her face, dampens her hair. More water. She needs more water. Still clutching the glass she walks slowly through into the front room. A window has been opened and a breeze 75

filters in, shivering the blinds. Picking her way across the cushions and the debris of a spilt ashtray, she thinks the room isn’t too bad. Considering. Just an empty beer glass on the shelf. Scattered CDs on the floor. The stain of something she decides not to investigate shadowing the far corner. And the presents. She knocks back the rest of the water, goes to the hi-fi and turns it on. She wants the company of sound. A band she doesn’t know, which is too loud and too brash, bashes out something about shaking free. She keeps it on. The too-loud sound shakes the roots of her thoughts. Stops them from growing. She realises she was afraid of herself in the silent house. Kneeling by the pile of presents, she picks at them as if they are a meal she is being forced to get through. Love from Patti. Have a great day. Go for it, babe. A perfumed candle. A voucher for Virgin music. A sequinned picture frame. There are others, but the energy for opening them drains from her. She wishes Courtney had stayed over. Or even Fern. She keeps kneeling, her head dropped forwards, her hair swinging limply and 76

covering her face. She is trying not to remember other birthdays. Mum always bought her birthdays – she paid for convenience; church halls, magicians and clowns, caterers, DJs. Parties were never held at home because Mum never had time to organise them properly. The guests were usually different from year to year – they hardly settled anywhere for long – and sometimes Alix didn’t even recognise the smiling face above the proffered gift. But the Grand Opening of Presents was always made special. They got bagged up, packed in the back of whatever car Mum was having lavished on her at the time, and brought home to be opened as a finale to the day. And it was always a ceremony – an oohing and aaahing over endless trinkets and toys that would probably get packed off to charity next time they moved. Mum always said that ‘things’ nailed you down. Alix thinks now of the villa in Tuscany. Christmas will be best. Carlos will send you the fare. She pictures the baby. She gives it sly snake eyes. A too-thin mouth. There will be a string of new birthdays she will never be part of – that she 77

doesn’t want to be part of. She wonders if Aaron feels the same way she does but knows, almost as soon as the question rises, that he doesn’t. Aaron will love the idea in his carefree, laidback way. He will be the one who visits. He will be the one who brings her news she doesn’t want to hear. Photographs she will scrunch up once he’s gone. She has the strangest feeling, suddenly, of being cut loose. Spinning away. The feeling is so giddying that she has to put her hands up to her head, pressing her fingers hard into her temples as if this is in some way holding her together. The too-loud, too-brash music clicks to a stop and the new silence hums round her. She stands slowly; she has been kneeling too long and her legs have numbed up, pain needling the back of her calves. She needs to shower, sort her hair out, and wash this mood away. Stretching, she thinks the first thing she’ll do is to visit Courtney at Easi Shop – after that she’ll go on to Fern. She’s got that Virgin Records voucher and she’ll get Fern to go with her into Long Cove, to spend it. 78

And maybe later they can both come back and help her finish up all the crammed-in contents of her fridge. No alcohol though. Absolutely no alcohol. She’s never going to drink again. As she limps towards the door, a sound strikes up – a mobile is ringing, tinning out an alien tune. She scans the room, trying to gauge where it’s beeping from. She shifts cushions. She pulls out the chair. Down on all fours, she pinpoints the direction of the sound at last. It’s somewhere underneath the sofa. Crawling forwards, she slides her hand underneath, brushing away a few stray peanuts. A hair band. Dale’s phone. She pulls it out. The mobile flashes as it rings, an on/off glow of light that makes it seem alive. The name on the screen is Tom. So is Tom ringing Dale, or is Dale ringing her on Tom’s phone? Dale and Tom. The idea of them curls round in her head. Strangers who come and go and they don’t mean anything and they don’t want anything more than to fill the moment. Is that really so bad? The ringing stops, and the phone lies 79

waiting in the palm of her hand. She doesn’t call the number back. She needs to think. Whichever one of them it is that’s calling, she needs to decide what it is she wants to say. ***

80

A

LIX HAS SWUNG IN – sauntered in – to Easi Shop and stands skimming the Sunday papers in the rack next to Courtney’s counter. She takes out the Sun and flicks through it. ‘Global warming. We’re all going to die – apparently.’ She yawns, stuffing it back. ‘If that’s the case, we’d better all have a bit of fun before it’s too late.’ She pulls out the Sport, shakes it open it at the middle, and scans the centre pages. Then she shrugs her shoulders, stuffing that back in too. ‘All rubbish. Who cares about boring people’s sordid secrets.’ She breezes a smile at Courtney. ‘What’s the worst thing you’ve ever done?’ 81

Courtney glances nervously down through the aisles, checking for Barry Ludd. Pumped-up self-important assistant managers don’t take well to people messing up the papers without buying one. ‘I slept in the garage last night – in my mum’s car. That was pretty bad.’ ‘Slept’ isn’t exactly the right word. She’d shivered through the endless hours, her legs crammed up and cramped, her head angled awkwardly against the passenger window. She’d done it before – slept out in Mum’s car – but she must have grown quite a bit since the last time. This morning her neck feels as if it is in spasm, the muscles all knotted and locked down one side. ‘Why did you do that? Sleep in the garage?’ Alix steps back as an old bloke wheezes up with a tin of beans. Courtney’s fingers are stiff and clumsy as she hits the till buttons. ‘I left my key at yours. My whole bag. I had to beg to borrow a spare overall this morning. It hasn’t exactly made me employee of the month.’ ‘Poor you. It must’ve been grim.’ Alix watches the old bloke wheeze away out of the door. ‘Why did you go home anyway? You were going to stay.’ 82

Courtney wonders if it’ll get back to Alix that she was so offhand with her brother’s mate. ‘I thought so too, but – I don’t know. I was out in your garden and the next thing I knew I was headed home. Probably too gone on vodka to know what the hell I was doing.’ ‘I’m with you on that one.’ Alix gives a tight smile and studies Courtney for a moment. ‘So what about Nathan?’ ‘He was OK.’ ‘OK? Is that all? Has he taken your number or anything?’ ‘I wouldn’t have given it. I didn’t fancy him enough.’ ‘Enough for what?’ Alix’s smile is coaxing now. Inviting sordid secrets. Courtney doesn’t want this conversation. Not about Nathan. Not about anyone. She shifts the subject round, steering away from Alix’s probing. ‘I had a weird thing happen on the way home – sort of sordid. Or at least, a bit of it was.’ ‘Go on. Go on.’ ‘I got a bit paranoid – thought there was a nutter following me in his car – so I ducked into that phone box just down the road from me.’ 83

‘Don’t tell me – it turned out to be a Tardis and you time-travelled to another dimension, and then met a dark handsome alien who had his wicked way with you amidst the swirling gases of a distant land.’ Courtney remembers the urine stench and the fractured windows. ‘Not exactly.’ ‘Well, at least you didn’t get raped and pillaged and then axed to death, seeing as you’re here now. So what did the nutter want?’ ‘It turned out to be an old biddy wanting to know about petrol stations. But there was a card in there, tucked at the back of the shelf. Jasmine. For ALL your pleasures.’ Alix raises her eyebrows. ‘ALL of them? What an offer. A prossie then?’ ‘They’re always in the phone booths down on the seafront – cards like that. My dad had this huge campaign to get them banned once, but the police reckon it’s impossible to regulate.’ ‘Does it shock you?’ Alix has her head on one side, watching Courtney closely, as if she is calculating something. Courtney busies herself tidying the counter. Rearranging boxes. Spraying the till buttons with Anti Bact. She has stood in that phone 84

box too often – not recently, but not timetraveller years ago either. She has listened to the soothing ‘Hello’ of the Help Line voice. She has waited, never strong enough to speak, but praying, praying, that they’ll trace the call. Out loud she says, ‘It was just unusual. So close to home. And round there people are usually really stuck up – you know – think they’re middle class.’ ‘The card.’ Alix is persistent. ‘Did it say anything else?’ ‘Just a phone number, and even that was smudged. The glass was all smashed and the rain had got in.’ ‘Bet it’s not her real name. Jasmine. But it must all work like a code. Secret messages. Guys who want the “service” must check out all the phone boxes. Was it a mobile number?’ ‘I don’t know. I didn’t pay it that much attention. I thought I was about to be raped and pillaged and then axed to death, remember.’ Barry Ludd has edged along Aisle Two and is making a show of ticking off stock from the shelf, but his glance keeps sliding round as he shoots suspicious glances at Alix. Courtney knows she’ll be in trouble later. 85

A man comes up with ‘two for one’ packets of cheese. Courtney scans them. Puts them in a bag. Agrees with him that it’s a wonderful day – amazingly warm after all that rain. ‘You would have to have a second phone.’ Alix is frowning. ‘Just for business purposes. You wouldn’t want anyone you knew to recognise the number.’ A string-haired woman struggles in, a grizzling toddler hoisted on her hip. ‘Twenty B&H,’ she says. ‘Choclutt,’ wails the toddler, trying to swipe at the rack of sweets next to the newspapers. ‘No. Stop it. Shut it.’ The string-haired woman has gritted her teeth, rifling through her pockets, turning sideways to try and move the toddler away. The toddler flails her fists like a miniature boxer, lashing instead at a display of cola lollipops on the other side. The display wobbles, then falls, the lollipops rolling across the floor. The woman slaps the toddler’s leg. The toddler screams. The woman glares at Courtney. ‘You shouldn’t put ’em there. It’s wrong, tempting kids like that.’ She waves a credit card at her as she talks. 86

Courtney gets down the cigarettes and scans the code. ‘Sorry. I’ll talk to my boss.’ She forces her voice to sound ‘happy to help’. ‘The customer knows best’. ‘Anything you say’. ‘Could you put your card in the machine, and pin in your number?’ Standing slightly behind the woman, Alix pulls a face at her. Then she gathers up the lollipops, chasing them behind the canned drink stand. The toddler keeps screaming. Alix straightens up, glowing out a smile at her. ‘I’ll buy one for you.’ Courtney hands the woman her cigarettes, and pulls the receipt from the till. The woman sighs. ‘She don’t deserve it.’ But she takes the lollipop from Alix anyway. Barry Ludd sidles up. ‘Problems?’ ‘What’s new?’ The woman sighs, unwrapping the sticky red foil and dropping it on the floor. The toddler is making small bleating sounds. There is a bubble of snot on the end of her nose, and the woman wipes it with her sleeve. Courtney shudders. As they leave, Barry Ludd picks up the dropped lollipop foil. ‘Are you in here to buy?’ he says to Alix. ‘Because if you’re not, 87

I’ll have to ask you to leave.’ Alix rolls her eyes at Courtney, then blows a kiss at Barry Ludd. His face burns crimson. He turns back to Courtney. ‘Get rid of this.’ Pressing the foil down on the counter, he strides away. Courtney picks it up carefully, trying to hold it with just the edge of her nails, and drops it in the bin beside her. She gets out the Anti Bact and wipes the counter again, and then uses the cloth to wipe her fingers. Will the chemicals eat away at her skin? She doesn’t care. The layer underneath will be clean and new. No foul gremlin germs to seep inside her. She hates it in here, every single second of it, but she’s got to stick it out. She needs to earn whatever she can, and there aren’t any other part-time jobs round here. Not out of season. But one day she’ll really be something. She’ll get a top job doing something important and worthy and she’ll drive up here in a flashy black car and she’ll stick two fingers up at Barry Ludd. *** 88

Fern sits round the side from River’s View, on the edge of the concrete slipway. She is watching two guests in matching yellow jackets try to navigate the dinghy out towards the middle of the river. It’s warm again, last night’s rain already dried away, so they’re going off fishing. Dad’s told them the best places, but they keep drifting back towards the mudslugged shore, as if the boat is trying to force them home. ‘Use both oars equally.’ She cups her hands around her mouth, calling to them across the water. She’s heard Dad shout that at guests a thousand times, but rowing is harder than it looks, especially when the tide is really running. Beginners usually give up and come back in again, full of exclamations about the pull of the undertow. Dad used to row guests himself on a Sunday – he even took Alix and her mum when they stayed – but he couldn’t do it now. Every step ‘outside’ is a giant effort, her and Mum holding him up, all of them drained – and somehow more defeated – when it’s over. Dad was ill before he was ill, the disease already eating into him before the 89

symptoms showed. Fern thinks about how bad things can be pulling at you, even when you don’t know they’re there. The undertow of life. They have a small shingle beach just to the right of the slipway. Amongst the beiges and browns, the sun catches now on a glint of glass. It glitters up at Fern, bottle-green starlight amongst the mud and stones. She jumps down onto the beach, lifting the glass and wiping the dirt away with her thumb. It is smooth, hazy, beaten soft. When she was small she used to pretend things like this were jewels washed in from an underwater castle. She made the castle once, all sequins and tinfoil, placing the glass treasure in a magic circle round the outside. She was the mermaid princess, the glittering turrets her home. She can picture that Princess now, diving deep into the silent depths, her long hair streamed like reeds. She’d loved the silence of this underwater fantasy. Loved the freedom as she moved through it. In her real life, even now, she cannot swim. Pushing her hand in her jacket pocket she checks her mobile for about the millionth time. No messages. No missed calls. 90

Loosening her mind to a fresher fantasy, she lets herself imagine him coming to find her, jumping down from the slipway, his trainers crunching on the stones as he lands. She won’t turn round. It’s more romantic for her to be gazing out across the water. He’ll stand behind her and put his hands over her eyes just like someone in a film. ‘Guess who,’ he’ll say. ‘I guess you,’ she’ll reply. Her voice, as she says this, will be dreamy and soft. And she’ll turn round and he’ll be standing there, probably smiling, arms stretched out to pull her close. And then she hears a car scrunch in round the corner, and her loosened-up mind seizes tight with panic. What if it’s really him? She squints in the direction of the sound. A door slams. Footsteps. ‘Hi.’ It isn’t Aaron – it’s Alix. ‘Hi.’ ‘Thought I’d drive over and check that you survived last night. Are you hungover?’ ‘I didn’t drink much.’ What did Aaron tell her? Maybe it’s him who really wants to know how she is? 91

‘I felt like death when I woke up. I’m never touching alcohol again.’ Alix wrinkles her nose as she jumps down onto the shingle and stands beside Fern. ‘It’s a foul stink today, isn’t it? The river, I mean.’ ‘The tide’s coming in. It doesn’t smell once the mud gets covered over.’ Fern fingers the glass treasure and then spins it out towards the slinking water. It falls short, vanishing beneath the liquid mud. ‘That glass will keep sinking and sinking and sinking. All the way to the middle of the earth.’ She pictures the glass sliding down, gathering slime. ‘The middle of the earth?’ ‘Well – a long way anyway. I watched a dog get sucked down there once. Its body was never found. Gone forever. It’s terrible to think about, isn’t it?’ ‘Terrible,’ says Alix. ‘Aaron . . . ’ Fern turns to Alix, fumbling through questions in her mind. Is it all right to ask about him? Is it all right to look ‘too keen’ to someone’s sister? ‘. . . is – is he still at your place?’ Alix sounds bored. ‘He went early. They all did. They had a match.’ ‘Oh. Right.’ Fern gets a dropping down 92

feeling. Sinking and sinking and sinking. ‘I came to ask you something.’ Alix seems to switch back into a brighter mood. Fern feels a fresh rush of heat. Has he sent Alix with a message? ‘I got some vouchers. Virgin Records. I wondered if you fancied a drive into town so I can spend them?’ Fern turns back towards the river. The yellowjacket guests are under way now, already some distance off. The sun splashes down onto the water, sparking it with silver. Close by two swans glide, one behind the other. Even a day ago this would have been brilliant – the whole thing of Alix driving over to ask if she’d go shopping. Today it feels flat. A ‘nothing’ thing to do. ‘Fern – did you hear me?’ Fern looks round at her slowly. She doesn’t want to go shopping. Not today. She wants to lie in her room with the curtains closed and to try not to think. The dinghy has stopped moving, the guests dropping the anchor over the sides. They’ll be all right now. She doesn’t need to keep a check on them anymore. ‘I’ve got loads of food left too. A whole bowl of chilli. I thought you might want to come back 93

and help me eat it after we’ve shopped? Courtney’s already said she’s up for it.’ Fern thinks Alix’s blue blue eyes are painful to see. ‘Fern – stop it. You’re staring at me like a zombie. Do you want to come with me or not?’ Alix is spinning her car keys round and round her finger. Fern still tumbles up endless questions about Aaron, and knows suddenly that she’ll never have the courage to ask them. She won’t want to risk him ever finding out she was too keen. The whole Aaron dream drops away. Of course he wouldn’t be interested. There must be a million girls after him at Surrey or Sunbury or wherever it is. She rushes out a smile. Alix has driven over because she wanted to check she was all right. She wants to go shopping with her. She’s invited her to dinner tonight. Fern should be grateful for all these things. ‘Sorry. I sort of switched off then. Yes. I’d love a trip into town. Thanks.’ Alix smiles back. The sun shimmies her hair with a soft gold halo. Fern thinks she looks like an angel. She could never really say no to Alix. *** 94

‘H

OW WAS WORK?’ ‘Boring.’ Courtney watches Mum scrub down the new granite worktops in the kitchen, scouring them over and over again. She wonders whether kitchen surfaces can erode over time, like cliffs worn down by the sea. Except they won’t keep the kitchen that long. Mum changes décor like most people change underwear. ‘Dad wants a roast tonight.’ Mum straightens up, smoothes down her sleek bobbed hair, and glances at the clock on the cooker. ‘He’s out on the bikes with the boys at the moment. Can you do the veggies for me? I 95

want to get the carpets vacuumed before they come back.’ Courtney opens the larder and pulls out a bag of potatoes, then empties them into the bowl by the sink. ‘I’m not here for dinner though. I’m going over to Alix’s. There’s some food from last night to finish up.’ Mum passes her the vegetable knife, her mouth a thin line of disapproval. ‘You should be here for Sunday dinner. It’s a family day. Honestly! Just one day of the week – is that too much to ask?’ Courtney doesn’t answer, and with the sigh of a thwarted saint, Mum goes tutting away. Courtney starts peeling the potatoes. The drone of the vacuum cleaner hums out from the dining room. ‘How are you doing?’ Mum is back, pulling a mustard-gold duster from the cleaning unit. ‘Make sure you get all the eyes out, won’t you? And cut away any bruises.’ Courtney’s hand moves mechanically. The knife has a thin blade, slightly curved. The serrated edge catches a spark of light as it strikes in through the window. Every eye is off. Every bruise is out. She is a potato-peeling 96

machine. Seven. Eight. Nine. She has to do more. Ten-year-old boys eat roast potatoes as if it’s the last chance they’ll ever get to eat anything ever. As if on cue the front door slams open. Seconds later, the boys spill in. Jamie and Lucas. Cheeky blue eyes and dimpled grins, their faces freckled with flecks of mud. Courtney keeps peeling, listening as Mum fusses about the dirt on the carpet. ‘I’ve just spent ALL afternoon cleaning up.’ Courtney is always glad that they are boys. She could never have coped with the worry of sisters. She would have had to keep sisters very safe. She can love them, but she doesn’t have to protect them. They’ll never need her like that. Then she feels her back stiffen. Something in her stomach curls. He is there in the doorway. She knows it before he speaks. Over the years she has grown antennae that can pick out every tiny trembling vibration of his key in the lock. His breath in the hall. His tread on the stairs. ‘We did eight miles – all along the river’s edge.’ His voice is as eager as the boys. She won’t turn round, but she can picture his lean, tanned face and knows his eyes will be all lit up. 97

‘You should’ve thought about the puddles.’ Mum is still fussing, telling the boys to ‘get those things off’ so she can put them in the washing machine. The boys rattle out stories about mega skids and Jamie falling in a puddle that was ‘this deep’. Courtney knows that, in spite of the fussing, Mum will be all lit up too. Mum sparks like light on steel for Dad. Courtney lays the knife on the edge of the sink. ‘Potatoes are done. I need to go now.’ She says this to Mum, not letting her eyes move to Dad, edging away as he comes over to pour himself a glass of water. If he touches her, even brushes against her, she will carry the touch for the rest of the day. Not that he touches her now. It’s been four years. But it wouldn’t matter if it was forty years. Four hundred. Four thousand. She’ll never escape from the horror of the times when he did. *** ‘Wednesday then. Afternoon.’ The bright upfor-anything smile slides from Alix’s face as she clicks off Dale’s mobile. She stays staring at it, 98

as if it holds secrets. Which in a way, it does. She heads back to the kitchen, watching Fern stir the chilli. It bubbles up slowly, whispering soft phuts of sound. ‘Hubble, bubble, toil and trouble,’ mutters Courtney. She is washing the salad, blasting cold water over everything. Alix wishes she could get Courtney on her own. She has been running an idea through her head all day. A bad idea. A wicked witch of an idea. But every time she thinks about it, she feels less shocked – and more excited. ‘I need some wine,’ she says, taking a bottle from the fridge and putting it on the side. Fern looks round and widens her eyes at her. ‘You said you’d never . . . ’ ‘Changed my mind.’ Alix rummages through the clutter of cutlery in her top drawer, and pulls out a corkscrew. ‘There’s still loads left from last night. It would be criminal to waste it.’ Courtney rinses three glasses for her, and she carries everything through to the table in the front room. Fern passes her on her way back out, taking the chilli. She smiles at Alix anxiously, and Alix smiles back. What a lovely time they’re all having. 99

She edges close to Courtney, murmuring, ‘Don’t go home when Fern does, will you? I need to ask you something.’ ‘Ask me now,’ Courtney murmurs back as she sets out the salads. ‘Otherwise I’ll spend all evening trying to guess.’ Fern appears behind them. ‘Just need the bread. Everything’s ready.’ Her voice is earnest and bright. ‘Fantastic, Fern. Thanks. We’ll bring the rest through.’ Maybe she and Courtney can have a bit of fun – she can try and run the conversation over Fern’s head. ‘Come on, everyone. Let’s go eat, drink, and be merry.’ As Alix slides into her seat, she thinks Mum would be impressed – her and her mates all sitting down to eat at a table. Although she wouldn’t be so impressed if she knew what turn the conversation was about to take. Well tough shit, Mum. I don’t care what you think. She rang twice earlier – left messages – but Alix isn’t going to call her back. ‘That card.’ She doles chilli onto Fern’s and Courtney’s plates. ‘The one you saw in the phone box . . . ’ 100

Fern reaches for the bread. ‘You mean like a birthday card?’ ‘No, not a birthday card.’ Alix takes some bread too, breaking it into pieces and chewing it slowly. ‘It was a sort of business card – left by a lady of dubious repute.’ Fern stares at her blankly. ‘Oh. Right.’ ‘A prostitute.’ Courtney begins on her salad. ‘A woman who has sex for money.’ Fern looks down at her food, studying it as if it might be an exam she is going to get tested on. Alix struggles not to laugh. ‘The thing is . . . ’ She forks up her first mouthful for the day. It is tangy hot. Rich spicy meat and beans and mushrooms and peppers. It feels like the first meal she’s ever really tasted. Wonderful. Exquisite. She eats hungrily, talking between mouthfuls. ‘. . . the thing is – I mean, do you think it’s that bad?’ Fern stays staring at her food. Alix keeps pushing. ‘Sex. For money. I don’t see anything terrible about it. It’s no worse than just going with someone – some stranger – for one night. In fact, it’s better. At least you’d be in control.’ 101

Courtney cuts a slice of cucumber into four tidy quarters, and then presses her fork down on one of them. ‘It’s exploitation.’ She spits the words, as if they’ve been boiling up in her. ‘Guys using girls just to get what they want.’ Alix pounces on this. She has expected it, and she is more than prepared. ‘Surely it’s the other way round. Girls using the guys. And you’re just as exploited in Easi Shop, if you ask me. Having to jump when that creepy manager clicks his fingers. And I bet the pay is rubbish. Prostitutes earn good money – I mean REALLY good money.’ Alix reaches for her wine glass, raises it. ‘By the way – cheers, everybody.’ ‘Cheers.’ ‘Cheers.’ Courtney squashes down another quarter of cucumber. ‘You have to have a pimp. And they’d use and abuse you. That’s what they do.’ ‘I don’t see why you’d have to have a pimp. You could just do it yourself. Work from home.’ ‘You wouldn’t be safe.’ Fern glances at Alix as if she’s worried she might be saying the wrong thing. Alix notes that Fern has a red stain of sauce at each corner of her mouth. She scrapes up the 102

last of her own chilli and then doles herself some more. ‘Why not?’ Fern starts eating again, very slowly. ‘If you left a card with all your details on it in a phone box, a mad lunatic might turn up. He could really hurt you. Even kill you. No one would even know.’ ‘You’d be safe if there was more than one of you around.’ Alix starts running her fingers up and down the stem of her glass. She is answering Fern, but her words are for Courtney. ‘Suppose there were always at least two of you in the house together? That would be the deal – always.’ ‘It’s still abuse against women,’ says Courtney. ‘And apart from that, someone would be bound to find out. What about the law? Tax people? Neighbours?’ ‘How could anyone prove anything? We’d just be entertaining “friends” at home. No one could have a problem with that. As long as you don’t work the streets, you’re OK.’ Fern manages to look up at last. ‘What does “working the streets” mean?’ ‘You know, women on street corners, trying to get kerb crawlers.’ 103

‘Trying to get what?’ ‘Guys in . . . oh look, doesn’t matter. Just trust me. You shouldn’t do it outdoors. But inside . . . ’ Alix can feel the laugh wanting to spill out of her again. She feels elated with this whole conversation. High on it. ‘Inside, it’s actually better to charge for sex than it is for cooking. You need certificates and inspections and things to sell cooked food.’ ‘That’s true.’ Fern reaches for her wine. ‘We’re always being checked up on at home. We have to—’ ‘Exactly.’ Alix cuts her short. ‘And if the food’s rubbish, I bet your guests send it back. And if they end up with a jippy tummy, they’ll probably even sue you. But I can’t see anyone wanting to complain to any sort of legal watchdog if they’ve had a bad screw.’ ‘What about people you know?’ Courtney stabs a tomato, the soft flesh squirting pips and juice. ‘Even if the law doesn’t catch up with you, your family or friends are bound to find out.’ She looks across at Alix and their eyes lock and Alix can see that she knows where this discussion is headed. She smiles. ‘I don’t see 104

why. It’s that “watchdog” thing again – if anyone you knew ever turned up at your door, they’re not going to broadcast where they’ve been, are they? It’s a secret thing. Private. And you could get a new mobile phone – just for business purposes. That way no one will ever even recognise your number.’ ‘Diseases?’ ‘Condoms. That would be a basic every time.’ ‘And what would be on offer? You know – what would you actually do?’ ‘It’s a client-based business strategy, so obviously you try to meet the customer’s needs – remember that triangular sales diagram we looked at in business studies the other week? But you can say “no” sometimes, too. You draw your own boundaries.’ Courtney is watching her carefully now; they are talking across Fern, as if she isn’t even in the room. ‘I still don’t get how you can do it without a pimp – or someone starting you off. How would anyone know how to come to you in the first place?’ Alix shrugs, stabbing up one final stray kidney bean. ‘Word of mouth, perhaps. That 105

would be safest. Fern’s right about the phone box thing, you wouldn’t know who you were getting. But if everyone who came knew someone else, like a sort of long chain of clients, it makes it a bit more exclusive. And I don’t think that would be dangerous at all.’ Courtney’s eyes search Alix’s, but her expression is closed. It is impossible to tell how she’s reacting. Alix makes her argument sound speculative, choosing her words carefully. ‘Maybe you start off with someone you’ve been with already – offer them something extra. Explain you’re a bit desperate for cash.’ ‘Bit of a risk, surely? How would you know they’d be up for it?’ Courtney raises some meat to her mouth, and then drops it down on the plate without eating it. Alix shrugs again. This is the only clouded area. Is it gut instinct? Or is it already knowing something dodgy about them – already sharing a secret? The conversation hovers, unfinished, as they all eat in silence. ‘They’re not called prostitutes anymore, anyway,’ Alix says suddenly. She finishes her 106

wine, pours herself more and then tops up Courtney and Fern. ‘They’re called Sex Workers. It’s more like a kind of social service. I’ve been looking the whole thing up on the internet.’ Pushing her plate aside she slides another look at Courtney. Maybe she should let the whole thing drop – for now at least. She’s planted an idea – she should just be patient and see if it grows. But she’s not feeling patient. She’s feeling buzzy. A strange dangerous anticipation is razoring through her. ‘I’ve got a suggestion.’ Her voice is now practical. Businesslike. ‘Let’s call it a social experiment. Aaron’s two mates want to come over Wednesday afternoon – and I haven’t got anything timetabled in at college, so I’m free. I think you are too, Courtney, but I’m not sure about Fern. They’re supposed to be collecting Dale’s mobile, but I don’t really believe it. I mean – you don’t need two guys to carry a phone.’ ‘What are you getting at?’ Courtney’s face is a mask of cold stone. Alix sweetens a smile at her. Do it. Just do it. Fern isn’t going to understand, and she can work on her later. ‘I wondered if you fancied 107

being around? We could make them an offer they couldn’t refuse.’ ‘Is Aaron coming with them?’ Fern has flushed pink, the words rushing out of her. Alix can see she’s following a different agenda. Good. ‘No. Just Tom and Dale.’ Fern’s face takes on an odd expression, and Alix can’t decide if she’s disappointed or relieved. ‘I couldn’t have been there anyway – I’ve got English Wednesday afternoon. I’m not allowed to miss it.’ ‘Oh. Shame.’ Courtney is staring at Alix. Alix meets the look. ‘It could mean REALLY good money,’ she says. ***

108

F

ERN works in the old boathouse, rolling out slabs of clay. Today, in college, they did figure drawings, and now she wants to make figures of her own. She’s got an idea that won’t go away – strange images in her head. In these images there are people struggling through slime. They are not quite human. She sees them as mud dwellers, lost in a world that lies trapped beneath the undertow. She keeps the door open to give herself the best light, although it is a grey afternoon. Misted rain fuzzes up the boats and the river. The days are shrinking now, so even though it’s 109

still unseasonably warm, it gets dark early. The electrics don’t work – last year’s floods ruined them – and their insurance didn’t cover the outbuildings. Dad says – used to say – that he’d get the wiring sorted and safe again, but it won’t happen now. She takes the first slabs, rolling them into legs and torso. It’s going to be a crouching figure, with clumsy slab hands covering the head. Always be aware of danger. Beware, beware, the undertow. Her hands smooth the clay tenderly, the way a mother strokes a child. She is working through touch and instinct now, hardly needing the feeble light. She loves to work like this, feeling her way to the heart of what she’s doing. She never uses wheels, or coils, or any of the normal potter’s tools. And when she’s working properly, when it’s all flowing, everything else just falls away. Nothing matters – except getting it right. Maybe the undertow is a kind of angered God. Maybe He wants to punish people for hurting the weather and changing the ways the currents flow, so he drags poor souls down 110

through the dark sucking mud. Maybe the dragged-down souls dream about the world above the river. The world above the river is their vision of heaven. Outside, a cormorant shrieks across the darkness. The rain grows heavier, tinning down onto the roof. She dips her hands in a bowl of cold water, sluicing off the excess clay, and then turns back to the workbench to roll slabs for the head. ‘Fern, sweetheart – how are you doing?’ Fern almost screams as she jolts round, startled and disorientated, the way she always is when people appear suddenly when she’s lost in her work. Mum is by the door, pulling at the front of a tired grey cardigan, wrapping herself into it. Her hair is drizzled with rain. Fern takes a breath. ‘I’m doing OK.’ Mum comes closer and squints at the slabbed body parts. ‘It’s . . . it’s very different. Not like the things you usually do.’ Fern feels a scraping of irritation. ‘I can’t get the face right,’ she mutters. Mum tilts her head, stepping back to try and gain a longer view. ‘It’s so gloomy in here 111

– it must be hard to work in all these shadows.’ The irritation scratches through Fern again. Without answering she twists a handful of fresh clay from the bag on the bench and begins to roll it very thin, twizzling and squeezing it between her fingers. ‘What’s that going to be?’ ‘It’s hair – but sort of seaweedy.’ Fern doesn’t look up. ‘I want it to look all matted and ugly.’ There is a silence, and Fern knows Mum is thinking about mermaids and A star grades and the sorts of things guests might like to buy for Christmas. ‘I really came down to tell you it’s dinner time,’ says Mum. ‘Dad’s got a doctor’s appointment this evening, so I need to get through everything early. And you shouldn’t really be out here now it’s late. Anyone could be walking past on the path. It’s not safe.’ Fern does look up now, and is suddenly ashamed. Even in the shadows she can see that there are folds beside Mum’s mouth and her eyes are hooded; the face of someone much older. ‘I’ll just finish this bit, and then I’ll be in. Don’t worry about the tidying up after dinner though – I’ll sort it out.’ 112

‘You’re a sweetheart. My little star.’ Mum hugs Fern, kissing her hair. ‘Five more minutes,’ she says. ‘Otherwise I’ll be in here nagging at you again.’ She walks back outside and away. Fern wets the single strand of seaweedy hair, and moulds it to the slabbed head. Then she covers the whole figure with a moistened cloth before swishing her hands round in the water. She wipes them dry on her jeans. A sweetheart. A little star. She wishes Mum would stop calling her things like that. She wishes Mum could see she’s growing up. *** Alix opens the door and she doesn’t think she’s going to be able to do it. The Dale and Tom of last weekend have become hazy and vague. She has built new ones in her head instead. She has had conversations with the new Dale and Tom, told jokes, flirted and set tiny traps hidden behind giggled questions. They always answer perfectly, laughing in the right places, saying 113

exactly what she needs them to say. These two are real, and she had forgotten about them being spunk hunks. Why would gorgeous spunk hunks want to pay? ‘Come in.’ She stands back, wondering now if she just looks too obvious in the short red skirt and lacy black top. She is a fake. Two dimensional. They probably won’t even fancy her. ‘You look good.’ Dale hugs her. If he’s embarrassed about last Saturday, it doesn’t show. ‘Amazing.’ Tom is standing behind him, nodding. She meets his eye over Dale’s shoulder and remembers the gold flecks and the to-die-for smile. This whole idea is going to explode in her face. She doesn’t have to go through with it. ‘You – you remembered how to get here OK?’ Stupid stupid question. ‘How could I forget?’ Dale squeezes her shoulder then hugs her again. Tom is still doing the smile. These are nice guys. Her brother’s mates. With not too much work, either one of them could end up as her boyfriend for a while. Why doesn’t she just settle for some nice meals and clubs and weekends away in Sussex? 114

‘Your phone’s all ready.’ Stupid stupid. Again. She’s made it sound as if she’s washed it and polished it all ready for collection. ‘Do – d’you want a drink?’ ‘Sure.’ ‘Sounds good.’ They are in control and her grip grows looser with every passing second. She’s never going to be able to see this through. ‘I’ve got a mate here. Courtney. You might remember her from Saturday?’ It sounds false, rehearsed. Which it is. Dale and Tom glance at each other. She sees questions in the glance, as if they are passing thoughts telepathically. Is her friend there to protect her? Or is she offering something even more exciting than Saturday night? The glance hardens the mood in her. They are, it seems, here for something. Not just nice guys. Not completely. Courtney comes down the stairs. Her face is masked with a creamy pale foundation, her eyes ringed in dark liner. She is dressed in black. Of course. ‘Courtney. My mate.’ ‘Hi.’ 115

‘Good to meet you.’ Dale and Tom smile at Courtney and then pass the look to each other again. Which one do you want? Alix wonders, suddenly, if they always work as a team. The idea seems to slide in under her skin. If this is true, she has been easy prey. ‘Come on.’ Her smile is bolder now as she leads them through to the kitchen. ‘Beers for the boys.’ She pulls two bottles from the fridge. She and Courtney have already washed their nerves with vodka but the effect, which gave her a rush of courage twenty minutes ago, seems to have evaporated. ‘I think I’ll do a Breezer,’ she says brightly to Courtney. ‘You want one?’ ‘OK.’ Courtney shrugs. She seems tense and won’t meet Alix’s eye. Alix gets the bottle opener and flicks off the lids. The second one pings out of control, bouncing down onto the floor. Dale bends to get it. Alix feels as if her legs are blushing. Is he staring up her skirt? ‘Let’s go through to the front room. I’ll find some music.’ With the CD started up, her awkwardness returns. Dale and Tom sit either end of the sofa, legs stretched, filling all the space. Alix 116

has seen this pose before. Guys in charge. Her own legs are crossed but she doesn’t have much choice, not with the shortness of her skirt. She tugs at it with one hand. It isn’t her and she hates it. She will never dress like this again. Courtney, her legs tucked underneath her, is on the floor by the window, staring across at the opposite wall. She is clearly avoiding making eye contact with everyone. Alix has set candles burning but she left the curtains open – she didn’t want to look too up for it – and the wispy flames are almost invisible in the day-bright room. The guys are bound to see through her naïve scene setting. They are probably laughing. Telepathically. ‘So – you had a good birthday?’ Tom lifts his beer to his lips. Alix can’t tell if the question is loaded or not. Does he mean the day itself – or the part he played in it? She needs to sound encouraging, to lace her answer with innuendo. ‘Yes, fantastic. Some things went much better than I’d expected. Thanks.’ The music is the Blades. Aaron’s CD. Alix bets Aaron doesn’t know these two are here. Shared secrets. 117

Courtney is still staring straight ahead. There is a candle behind her, on the window ledge. Its nervous light tips the edges of her spiked-up hair, giving her the look of a girl in a dark fantasy, touched with powers. Alix wonders whether dark power is a seductive force for guys. Alix drinks more, and tries to relax into the music. This whole moment feels unreal now, like a badly acted scene in a play. Dale glances at Alix, then back at Tom. ‘We can’t stay too long. We’ve got a couple of things to do before we head back.’ Tom nods, swills his bottle, checking the contents. ‘Sure. I’m nearly done on this.’ Alix hears the game behind the words. Of course they can stay. Why else would they have come? But they’ve got the dice, and they keep rolling out sixes. She should just let them go. Forget the whole insane rubbish idea. But when she thinks of this, a flatness seems to level across her, like arriving at the fairground to find all the rides have packed away. She uncrosses her legs, sits with her knees pressed together, and leans forward with a smile. ‘I’ve got more beer,’ she says. 118

‘Yeah, sure.’ ‘Why not.’ Both still casual. Playing her. But not for long. Soon she’s going to start rolling sixes on her own dice. She gets up and goes into the kitchen, opens four new bottles, then carries the drinks back in. ‘The sun’s in my eyes,’ she announces. ‘Anyone mind if I close the curtains?’ She moves a candle to over by the CD player, and then shuts out the day. The atmosphere in the room seems to thicken. As if it is waiting. She smiles round at everyone, and then sits on the floor beside Dale. Courtney jolts a glance at them both. She starts on her new Breezer and shoots a tight, strained smile across to Tom. Tom gets up. ‘I’ll try a new CD. I’m sick of hearing this.’ It takes him ages. ‘This tuning.’ He shakes his head. ‘It needs sorting.’ The music crackles up, then fades. Crackles and fades. He is down on his knees, his shadow in the flickering light grown huge, half-filling the room. A sultry instrumental sound seeps out. Lulling. Luring. Alix can tell he has chosen this carefully. It is music for moonlight. Music for lovers. 119

He doesn’t come back to the sofa. He goes to the window and sits on the floor next to Courtney. Alix feels Dale’s hand rest on her shoulder, and her insides knot up. This is a crucial point. She has to get her timing right. Leaning against him, she turns slightly. ‘The thing is, Courtney’s here for a reason. We’ve been looking forward to it. To seeing you – I’ve told her what good company you both are.’ Dale’s hand is massaging her shoulder now, a confident movement, the touch of someone who is sure he isn’t going to be brushed away. Alix turns to look at Tom. ‘We wanted you to have a fantastic time with us. Me and Courtney. We thought we’d – you know – help you a bit. If you’d help us.’ Tom’s gold-flecked eyes rest on Dale’s hand for a moment, then rise up to meet Alix’s. ‘What sort of help do you want?’ She shifts sideways slightly, manoeuvring herself away from Dale’s easy reach. Courtney shifts too, her back now straight and rigid against the wall. ‘We’re – we’re trying to run a business. 120

We’re having a bit of a cash crisis and we’re offering a service . . . ’ Alix forces herself to stay looking at Tom. She has to make it look like she knows what she wants. She sees him raise his eyebrows. Sees him send a thought to Dale. ‘How much . . . ’ asks Dale’s voice from behind her. ‘How much do you want for your . . . service?’ She smiles then, and tries not to punch the air. It’s going to be easy after all. ***

121

F

ERN is dizzy from staring at the dancing words. She has the yellow sheet to lay over them which is supposed to pin them down but they still shift and flicker; taunting black squiggles that she battles to understand. The concentration has made her eyes ache. She looks up, blinking out of the English room window and across the sports fields. Autumn is pushing in properly now, the trees that edge the grounds leafed in brown and russet and gold. She wishes she was outside. ‘How goes it, Fern?’ Rob Perry is standing beside her. 122

‘I, uh – OK.’ ‘You’re not using your acetate?’ ‘No.’ She doesn’t try to explain. She gave up explaining things a long time ago. She remembers how, when she was younger, she thought reading was this hard for everybody. She didn’t realise that for most people letters stayed fixed on the page and they could follow them from left to right – and that the squiggles told them something that made sense. Or is it right to left? She gets muddled with that too sometimes. Rob Perry bends down, sliding her worksheet round for a better view. While he checks it through, she stares at his ear. There is a small gold stud pinched into the lobe. She likes Rob Perry. He never fusses too much. He’s nice looking too. Alix even said once it would be all right to be a ‘special’ if it meant you got Rob Perry helping you out. ‘It’s pretty good.’ Rob Perry slides the worksheet back to her, straightens up, and smiles. ‘Just keep going. Make sure you check through for punctuation.’ Fern keeps going. She checks for punctuation, even though checking for punctuation is a guessing game. 123

Rob Perry says she shouldn’t try to understand it – she should just learn the rules and keep on doing them until they stick. She tries to do that. She can see it makes sense. Except, even though she’s learnt the rules, the writing shifts and shakes and won’t stay still long enough for her to be sure she’s done it right. It is like that now, staring down at her sheet, the words trembling up at her. The only writing she’s ever really coped with is short texted messages, or sometimes internet chat rooms. No one seems to care about rules and punctuation then. She wonders, suddenly, if Khaki Steve had guessed she was stupid from her spelling. Maybe he picked her out carefully. ‘OK, everybody.’ Rob Perry is cleaning the whiteboard, pushing papers into a baggy brown briefcase and checking his watch as he stands at the front of the room. ‘We’ll wind up for today. See you again on Friday.’ Wind up for today. Fern thinks of herself as a kind of clock, internal hands ticking away her seconds and minutes and hours. Everyone could be a clock, she decides. Babies must be no later than one 124

o’clock. Students her age must be around four in the afternoon – about now, in fact. Old, old people are gone eleven. But then, she thinks again, it doesn’t quite work. Some people run on too fast. Some people’s lives just don’t end when they should. She doesn’t want to think about what time Dad might be telling. Outside the English room she makes her way through the corridors. They are clogged with students. Books, bags and chatter. ‘Oh my God – guess who sat next to me in history?’ ‘You getting the bus, Janie?’ ‘Me and Karl have got tickets for The Breakdown tonight.’ Everyone is with someone. Arms linked, hands held, pressed together in groups. Fern doesn’t see Alix or Courtney, and out in the car park there is no sign of Alix’s Mini. And then she remembers they were doing something – meeting up with Aaron’s friends to give one of them back his mobile. She feels a graze of pain as she thinks about Aaron. Alix and Courtney will probably end up going out with those two friends. They can’t be 125

coming back all this way just for a mobile phone, and anyway Alix could have posted it if it was really that important. If Alix gets together with someone, Fern is certain she won’t be asking her to go shopping, or inviting her round to share the dregs of her chilli, anymore. The thought of this empties her out. She’d loved Sunday, round Alix’s, just chatting with Alix and Courtney. She’d felt part of it. Part of them. She had let herself believe that she might have regular friends to go and see, but she thinks now that of course it won’t work out like that. She trails on home, crossing the road to the side where the houses are, taking herself away from the couples and threesomes and small gangs. The afternoon is restless, a gruffling wind unsettling the leaves and litter that have piled in the gutter. She stops to pick up a conker, the spiked green case split and cracked. Cradled in its soft white bed, the chestnut brown is like an exposed heart. It can be scratched or kicked or bounced. Or crushed. She edges it out with her finger, nestling it in her hand. 126

Rounding the road that forks off to the river path, she sees someone hurrying ahead of her. Courtney. She is walking determinedly, too far away to catch up. Perhaps Aaron’s friends’ changed his mind about collecting his mobile? Or perhaps Alix and Courtney were stood up? And then it strikes Fern that maybe Alix is at home, alone. She could go round and see. It’s a chance to be like everyone else – a chance to be with someone. Dropping the conker down into the gutter Fern turns, heading left – or is it right? – to Alix’s. *** Courtney doesn’t go home. Instead, she heads out along the main road, walking quickly. School is out. Small clusters of pupils in Long Cove High blazers mill about. Lighting cigarettes. Chewing gum. Laughing too loudly. She thinks that she used to be like that. Although she never really did the laughing. 127

Her hair is still slightly damp because she showered at Alix’s. Showered and showered and showered. Showered so much that in the end Alix came knocking on the door checking she was all right. Her walking takes her away from the pupils, past the river path that leads round to Fern’s house, left at the church and then down the hill into the country park. She hadn’t known she was headed here. She hasn’t been down here for a long time. The entrance to the park has a small kissing gate and she weaves through it, stepping out onto the moss-soft track that leads down to the lake. There is birdsong everywhere, and she feels she is listening to the sound for the first time ever. It is not beautiful. It is harsh and sharp and angry. Maybe the birds are really screaming. She thinks how terrible it must be to scream and scream until your lungs want to burst, and to have people say, ‘Oh, what a beautiful song.’ She walks faster. Down by the lake there is a small girl, standing with her mum, throwing bread for 128

the ducks. Courtney stops behind them, even though she knows it is a weird thing to do – stopping and watching people. But she wants suddenly to link herself in with them. Be part of the safety of this little girl and her mum, who have time to spend standing and smiling at a squabble of ducks. ‘Look, Mummy – that one there – the brown one. He hasn’t had any bread yet.’ ‘That’s a lady duck. The man ones are the ones with all the pretty colours.’ ‘Why?’ ‘I’m not sure, darling. Maybe it’s because the mummies have to hide in the reeds when they’re nesting on their eggs.’ The mum has endless patience in her voice. Stay near me. I will know everything for you. No one will hurt you when you’re near to me. Courtney feels a bitter tang in her mouth and realises she has been biting her bottom lip. She keeps watching. More ducks come steaming round from behind the tiny island, behind them long lines of ripples crisscross each other in the dimpled water. The little girl scrabbles in her bag of bread, giggling. 129

Courtney watches her and not the ducks, and tries to remember what it was like to be that small, to stand on this very spot, her own hand in the bag of bread. She’s done it – she knows she’s done it – because there are photos at home. Her and Mum, before the boys came along. But it’s just photographs. She can’t remember the real her standing here. She can’t remember the real her doing anything that long ago. ‘Do you want some?’ Courtney is startled by the question, realising the girl has turned and is handing out a crust to her. She wants to say no but the girl has wide grey eyes which are fixed gravely on her as if this is something that matters. ‘Thanks.’ She takes the bread and walks forward to the edge of the water. It is rippled but clear, bowing trees nodding their branches wisely from their upside-down reflections. We know. We know. A fish splashes near, peach-pale and ghost-like under the surface. ‘You just throw it,’ says the girl, ‘like this.’ She hurls her breaded confetti in an arc, the ducks bleating madly, racing each other to get to it first. 130

Courtney throws her own arc of broken crust. ‘See, it’s easy.’ The tone of the girl’s voice shows she has taken charge. ‘The brown ducks are the ladies but I like the boy ones best. They’re prettier.’ Courtney catches the mum’s eyes for the first time, and the mum smiles at her. ‘I know you,’ she says. ‘You work in Easi Shop.’ Courtney nods and smiles back. She understands the statement. The mum is confirming that it’s safe for her grave-eyed little girl to talk to Courtney because Courtney isn’t a stranger. She’s already been recognised and vetted. She works in Easi Shop. She must be all right. Courtney hurls the next handful of bread further. A few ducks make the half-hearted effort to swim for it, but most of them lose interest. The little girl’s offerings are easiest. She empties the bag out upside down, the last soft flakes snowing down onto the pond. Then she takes Courtney’s hand, her small warm fingers closing trustingly around Courtney’s. Courtney glances at the mum again. The mum is still smiling. 131

Courtney wonders what she’d do if she told her that, just under an hour ago, she had a stranger’s cock in her mouth. For money. *** Alix is glowing – not at all like someone who has just been stood up. ‘Did you have a good time? With Aaron’s friends?’ ‘Sort of. You know.’ Alix shrugs and throws Fern a bag of crisps from the kitchen cupboard. ‘More leftovers. We can have a drink as well.’ Fern can’t link the glow with the shrug, and then decides it’s because Alix is trying to do the ‘not too keen’ thing. She watches her hook two Breezers from the fridge, twisting open the lids with a bottle opener. Fern wonders when Alix is going to tell her that she’s going to see him again. Her and Courtney. She sees them laughing, linking arms, all four of them out in pubs or clubs or all the places where Fern never really fits. They sit at the table in the living room. It’s untidy. Beer cans. An empty Breezer bottle. Halfburned candles. For some reason the curtains are closed. 132

‘Can I ask you a question, Fern?’ ‘Anything.’ Fern splits open the crisps and puts one in her mouth but doesn’t swallow it. Crunching noises are embarrassing, and bad manners. She’ll have to let it get soft before she can eat it properly. ‘I wanted to ask you – and don’t get upset with me – have you ever had a boyfriend?’ Alix crunches into her own crisps. Fern sucks the crisp. Chews it nervously. Swallows at last. ‘Not properly.’ She hates having to say it. There have been a few groping moments with a boy who stayed at River’s View with his grandparents last year, and a date to meet someone from school in the country park when she was fifteen. The date didn’t turn up and she sat on the bench watching the ducks in the lake, and pretended it didn’t matter. ‘So . . . does that mean you’re still a virgin?’ The question feels like a kind of punch – even coming from Alix. The familiar rush of heat burns up into her face, and she doesn’t answer. ‘I just wondered because – I – well, I think I know what might be the problem.’ Alix’s voice is very gentle now, and her eyes have softened. 133

Fern tries not to think about Aaron. ‘What problem?’ ‘Why you haven’t had a boyfriend. It’s because you look too scared all the time. Too worried. Like a deer with a firework up its backside.’ Fern forces out a laugh she doesn’t feel. She can picture this deer – a cartoon image – leaping about with sparks fizzing out of its rear end. Is all this something to do with Aaron? Has he told Alix she was pathetic? ‘I could help you.’ Alix swigs at her Breezer, and digs for more crisps. ‘I could get you some – practice.’ Is it Aaron she wants her to practise with? What if he’s even suggested it? Fern is trapped in an anguish of shame. ‘What d’you mean?’ ‘I might be able to find some guys who are as nervous as you are – guys who wouldn’t mind a bit of practice themselves.’ ‘You mean – Aaron?’ Fern knows she is doing the deer face again. She can feel her eyes widening and rolling and she hates herself, but she can’t stop. Alix studies her for another moment, and then laughs. ‘God no, not Aaron. Aaron 134

doesn’t even . . . well, let’s just say it’s not his scene. But I bet there are more guys like you than you realise.’ ‘How would you tell?’ Fern thinks Alix can hardly go up to strange blokes in the street and ask them if they want to ‘practise’ being a boyfriend with a deer-scared wimp. ‘It’s to do with another idea I’ve had. Something me and Courtney want to try. We’re going to get some guys round and have a bit of fun with them – and they’re going to pay us for our time.’ ‘Pay you?’ Fern grips a tight hold on her crisp packet, the crisps sounding like tiny firecrackers as they crush together. Alix swigs back more Breezer, then wipes her mouth with the back of her hand. ‘It’s more like a social service. We’re helping guys out. And in your case, they’d be helping you too. Sharpening you up a bit.’ Fern’s deer eyes are locked wide. ‘It doesn’t even need to be – you know – all the way. Some guys are just happy for something more . . . ’ She tips her head back and drains the last of her crisps into her open mouth. ‘. . . manual.’ Fern isn’t sure what Alix means, but she 135

doesn’t want to look any more stupid than she already is. She sips her Breezer, hating the taste. She usually has a mug of hot chocolate when she gets in from college. Alix leans forward and chinks bottles with her. ‘Look – no pressure. It was just a thought. You can forget I said it if you want. But if you ever think you might want to give it a go – just let me know.’ Fern forces down the last of the Breezer. ‘I need to get home.’ She tries to brighten Alix a smile. ‘Thanks – for the drink and everything.’ She walks through the late afternoon, the sky already darkened. The streetlamps are on and she thinks they look like eyes. Eyes watching her. A man passes and she shrinks into herself, staring down at her feet. She waits forever to cross the road and then when there’s a space she runs, which she shouldn’t do. What if she tripped? What if she fell? She thinks about people being scared of her. Scared of making her scared. Turning the corner, she reaches the river path. It’s not lit, and there are only the lights on the boats, and the beacons, and the spooky silver glow of the moon. 136

She wants to run, but she makes herself walk. Slowly. Slowly. Nothing will happen. She hears footsteps, and hesitates. ‘Where have you been?’ Mum comes looming towards her out of the twilight. ‘I was just coming to look for you.’ Fern stops, one hand on her hip, thinking this is how Alix sometimes stands. ‘I’ve been to see Alix.’ She flicks back her hair. ‘Not to see her brother, I hope.’ ‘He’s at university. And anyway, no. Alix is my friend. Why shouldn’t I go and see her?’ She walks on, slightly ahead of Mum, hoping she can’t smell the Breezer on her breath. ‘Well, you should have rung.’ Mum is hurrying behind. ‘And it’s dangerous, walking about on your own now the nights are drawing in. Anything could happen.’ Beware. Be aware. Fern draws up the image of the cartoon deer again. The fireworks get bigger, fizzing and exploding. The deer springs one way, and then another. Its ears are flat and its eyes bulge. Somewhere, on the other side of an invisible screen, everyone is laughing. 137

The thought jumps into Fern’s head that all of her life Mum has been weighing her down with warnings. Warnings about strangers. Stray dogs. Playing by the river. Stand back – well back – from the train. Don’t swing too high, or too fast. Don’t burn candles in your bedroom. Maybe Mum has done this to her. She walks faster, leaving Mum behind. There are tears in her eyes. A storm in her head. Pushing inside the house she rifles through the drawer under the telephone table, grabbing a candle and a box of matches that are kept there for power cuts or floods and probably even the end of the world. She slams shut the drawer and pounds up the stairs just as Mum hurries in. ‘Everything all right?’ Dad appears, shuffling into the hallway from his study. ‘No, it’s not.’ Fern stops halfway up the stairs and spins back to face them both. Her voice is shaking. Her nails dig into the candle. ‘I’m not going to be a bloody deer anymore. No one’s ever going to laugh at me again.’ ***

138

H

E IS A FRIEND of Dale’s. The first real client. When he rang, Alix had thought he sounded cultured. Upper class. He didn’t give her his name, and she didn’t ask for it, but she told him hers. ‘I’m Antoinette,’ she’d breathed into the phone. ‘I’m free next Wednesday.’ ‘Hi, come in.’ She stands back from the door to let him step inside. Courtney walks through from the kitchen to the front room and gives him a brief smile, although she doesn’t speak. Alix has stressed it is important that every guy knows there is someone else in the house – cultured voices or not. 139

‘Follow me.’ She leads the way upstairs, moving slowly, letting her hips sway with every step. She bets he’s watching. Of course he’s watching. And he looks clean. Well dressed. She’s already clocked the designer jacket and quality shirt. This pleases her because she hasn’t yet decided what she’d do if someone really dirty and disgusting turned up. She’ll have to develop strategies. Maybe dirty disgusting guys won’t get the whole deal. Maybe they’ll have to pay extra. Or maybe she just won’t do it with them at all. At the door to her spare bedroom she stops and turns to him. ‘Are you all right?’ He nods and grins. He has a designer face to go with the clothes – in another time and place she’d probably have come on to him anyway – and she wonders again why someone like him, and like Dale and Tom, would want to do this. ‘I’m fine, Antoinette,’ he says. And she knows that he is. With one hand on the door handle she lifts the other up to his face, stroking his cheek. He has great bone structure. He could be a model. A film star. A Greek god. ‘I’m glad you came,’ she whispers. 140

He slides his arms round her waist and pulls her closer, nuzzling her hair. ‘I haven’t. Yet.’ She giggles, pressing her back against the opened door and drawing him into the room in a slow backwards shuffle. ‘You will,’ she whispers, nibbling his ear and slipping her hands up inside his designer jacket. Her nails raze a slow line down his back, scratching through the quality shirt. If she can always get bookings with guys like him, this will be a fantastic way to earn a living. *** Fern sits in Alix’s spare room, on the edge of the single bed. The quilt is cream silk, the bedstead brass. She feels sick. It’s not an actual being sick sort of sickness. It’s more a slow tightening in her stomach. She isn’t going to be able to do this. Except Alix and Courtney have been having clients in here for the last couple of weeks. And now Alix says she’s booked someone who is ‘just the thing’ for Fern. There is a white wood wardrobe where Fern’s clothes are hanging – she’s borrowed a skirt and blouse from Alix for today – and next to the bed 141

there is a whitewood table with a small white alarm clock, a box of tissues, and a condom. Fern wonders if the tissues are there because she’s likely to cry. She smoothes down her skirt and checks herself in the mirror. Alix made her open the top two buttons on her blouse. ‘It’s more sexy,’ she’d said. Fern doesn’t feel sexy. ‘If you don’t like it you can stop,’ Alix had said. Fern knows she won’t like it. She doesn’t even know which way up condoms go. They did sex education at school in Year Nine and they all had a go at rolling a rubber onto a banana and it was funny then. Patti Hodge collapsed on the floor with hysterics when Fern’s got stuck halfway, but even if that hadn’t happened they’d have all still been laughing, their fists stuffed into their mouths trying not to annoy Miss Lymph, who kept saying, ‘Now, girls, that’s enough.’ It was one of her best memories from school. She’d felt included. People had thought she was funny – in a nice way. The whole session had been funny. 142

It isn’t funny now. Fern wishes she’d taken condoms home to practise on. Maybe there’s time even now, to grab the condom and run downstairs. Maybe Alix has some bananas in the kitchen. There is a knock on the door. Fern tries not to do her ‘deer’ eyes, straightens her back, and sits with her hands in her lap. She feels like a schoolgirl waiting for the headmistress. Or maybe the headmaster. ‘Hi.’ ‘Hi.’ Fern is aware of Alix hovering slightly behind the bloke, and then melting away. She’d told Fern she would deal with everything – even the money. ‘All you have to do,’ she’d said, ‘is the deed.’ Fern stares at the bloke she is going to be doing ‘the deed’ with. At least he’s young; not sun-dried like Khaki Steve. She’s probably supposed to slink across the room to him and pull his head down to meet hers, kissing him passionately. He’s going to be disappointed. He’s going to ask for his money back. ‘Ah’m no’ really sure why I’m here.’ 143

His accent is Scottish – a bit like Gramp’s. Fern loves Gramp’s voice, the way it lilts and sings. ‘You . . . you don’t have to stay. I mean – I’m sorry.’ She can’t look at him and drops her head, her hair swinging forward to cover her face. ‘Ah just – ah don’t do stuff like this. Not normally.’ She shakes her head, whispering, ‘I don’t either.’ ‘Could we mebbe just talk?’ he says. ‘Talk?’ She makes herself look up then, straight at him. He is still by the door, and squinting across she tries to get a sense of what sort of person he is. He is medium height, medium build, and has brown hair down to his collar. His fringe is swept sideways across his forehead and she tries to think about him washing his hair, combing it across like that, worrying how it might look. The idea of him doing these things softens something in her. ‘Do – do you want to come over and sit down?’ He walks across, not looking at her, and sits on the bed. They wait in silence, both staring at 144

the wall. Fern wants to be home, in the boathouse, making figures out of clay. ‘I’m sorry,’ she says again. ‘Ye don’t need to be.’ The lilting voice is awkward. Shy. She risks a glance at the clock. Seven minutes gone already. Alix said it should take twenty. There can’t be too much time left. ‘So where are you from?’ ‘Scotland.’ ‘No – I didn’t mean that.’ She forces out a giggle. ‘I mean where in Scotland?’ Not that she knows one end from the other, but it’s something to say. She should, at least, think of things to say. ‘Glasgow.’ ‘I know where that is.’ She feels stupidly pleased to have found this common ground. ‘My gran and gramps live near there. Just outside. I’ve been there for holidays.’ ‘Did ye like it?’ He shifts slightly, edging closer. ‘Yes. It’s cold though. Or it always is when we go.’ ‘Aye. That’s Scotland fur ye.’ She realises, touched now with a different 145

sort of cold, that he has put his hand on her leg. Her head races with questions to ask about Scotland. Anything. Anything. ‘Is this OK to touch ye like this?’ She stares down at the hand. It’s a pale hand. Slightly freckled. She doesn’t want it to start touching her anywhere else. And then she gets a rippled memory of trying to learn to swim. She’d been terrified that day too, her tummy in knots for the whole car journey to the pool. The changing rooms rang with strange echoes, the tiled walls scaring her with their endless whiteness. She had to use a foot-pool, and a shower where the water rushed out too cold and made her yelp. The big pool itself boomed noises, people splashing and shouting. Sometimes screaming. Her lesson was at the shallow end. ‘It’s all right,’ Mum had whispered, leading her round. ‘It’s not very deep. Your feet will be able to touch the bottom. I’ll be watching from those seats on the other side.’ Fern stood, awkward and skinny in her angelfish swimming costume, at the end of a row of chattering children. The teacher asked if she wanted armbands or a float. Fern glanced 146

sideways at the others. She was older than all of them, and not an armband in sight. ‘Float, please.’ Her voice came out all shaky and small. The teacher smiled and picked out a float from a huge basket. Fern took it, gripped it, her fingernails cutting into the pale blue polystyrene. The teacher said, ‘OK, let’s do it. In your own time – everybody in.’ There were whoops and shrieks and splashes like explosions and Fern dropped the float and ran, back through the foot-pool and past the showers, huddling in the white-tiled cubicle with her head pressed down onto her knees. ‘Oh, Fern.’ Mum had come hurrying to find her. ‘Come on. We live by a river. You’ve got to learn. It’ll help keep you safe.’ But she never had. And it’s like that now. If she doesn’t learn how to put her hand on a boy’s knee, to unzip his fly, to roll a condom down onto his banana, then she never will. And she’ll stay that stupid, pathetic, deerwith-a-firework person forever. Bracing herself, forcing herself, she slides her hand across to touch him. It’s clumsy and uncertain but at least she’s doing something. At least she’s putting a toe in the water. 147

‘Ah’d like to kiss ye,’ he says. ‘If ye don’t mind.’ She tilts her face backwards slightly and closes her eyes, letting his mouth press down and move across hers. His hand moves from her leg, finds her breasts, and then slides down to her leg again. There is fumbling and he shifts, leaning away. Opening her eyes, she realises he is undoing his trousers. She battles against fresh panic. That desperate run back to the changing rooms. ‘This,’ she manages to squeak out, reaching to the table for the condom. ‘We have to use this.’ She struggles. He helps. They are both clumsy. Both flailing about in the shallow end. When it is on, she remembers Khaki Steve and the way he made her hand move. She does this now, hoping she’s getting it right. The Scottish Banana Boy is sighing, the sound still lilting. Almost a song. And then it is over. Before time. Ahead of time. Looking at the clock she can see there are still minutes to go. He stands up, his eyes not meeting hers, zipping his fly back up and holding out the condom like a limp sort of apology. 148

Fern understands now what the tissues are for. *** ‘You’re great.’ Courtney makes herself whisper the words. ‘I like you.’ ‘I like you too,’ he whispers back. She’d told him her name was Isadora and he had said, ‘Isadora – I adore ya.’ She’d kept her cringed response hidden. She isn’t allowed to ask his name and she’s glad about that. Knowing his name would make him a person. They are lying together in Alix’s spare room – the ‘love nest’ as Alix is now starting to call it, and his hands are all over her and her hands are all over him too but her hands are mechanical hands. All metal and batteries and wire. He pulls at her hair. Pulls at her clothes. Her mechanical hands keep working on him. They have been designed well and they always know exactly what to do. He is the fifth one now and she is trying to think of it as a job. Like stacking shelves or going round Easi Shop with the price gun. Or maybe just staying calm and not letting herself 149

care when the queue by the till gets too long and people start making long breathed-out sighs and glancing at their watches. ‘Sexy baby,’ says the bloke with no name. ‘God I want you, sexy baby.’ ‘I want you, sexy baby, too,’ she says. She has learnt to talk back. To move against them or under them or whatever it is they seem to want. They’re not her first, of course. She’s had real boyfriends – lots – and she’s let them do what they wanted to do too, but she didn’t feel anything then and she doesn’t feel anything now. The curtains in Alix’s love nest have floral stripes running down in vertical lines from the top. Courtney decides that her mum must have chosen the curtains. Alix isn’t a floral stripes person. She counts the stripes, moving from left to right. She has to calculate the bits where the curtains hang in folds. Three stripes to a fold, she decides. So that’s nine stripes she can see, and another twelve in the folds. Twenty-one stripes on each curtain. Forty-two stripes all together. But what about the actual flowers. There are thirty-two to a stripe. Sixteen lilac, and sixteen yellow. So that means that, altogether, there are . . . 150

The bloke with no name gives a long breathed-out sigh and at last lies still. He feels heavy on her. Courtney eases herself out from under him. He doesn’t look at her now and she has noticed this with the others. They often don’t look once it’s finished. She wonders if they’re ashamed. She wonders if she’s ashamed. Once he’s gone she’ll have a shower. She’ll make it fire hot and stand right in the middle, trapped in the steam, angry spits of burning water scorching her skin. And once she’s showered she’ll rub herself dry, rubbing and rubbing and the towel will begin to feel scratchy-rough; rubbing and rubbing as if she could somehow graze away her whole surface and be a brand new person, born again, stepping back out into the world. ***

151

A

LIX IS SLIGHTLY AHEAD of Courtney and Fern, weaving them through the crowded Long Cove precinct. It’s a warm, bright Saturday afternoon, and everywhere is thrumming with early Christmas shoppers. She notices people, noticing her. Especially guys. Guys give her long looks, sometimes grinning or winking. Alix always smiles back. She feels tall – not physically tall, but larger than life. Striding the streets, all the world laid out before her. She burns bright as the sun. Glowing. 152

‘Do you think that would suit me?’ Fern taps gently on Alix’s arm, pulling her up outside Miss Minx, the snow-sprayed window crammed with sparkly party tops and brash Christmas outfits. ‘Hang on,’ Alix calls to Courtney, who has gone battling past as if she hadn’t realised they’ve stopped. Courtney comes back, glances in the window, and pulls a face. ‘It’s rubbish here. Everything falls to pieces after the first wash.’ ‘It might not.’ Alix pretends to scan everything, as if she’s thinking it all through, then shakes her head. ‘None of it’s special enough for you, Fern. I can help you do better than that. I want to make you look fantastic.’ She thinks maybe she should dress Fern herself – and Courtney too. Even if Courtney insists on everything being black, she should be able to find things that are subtle and exotic. ‘Think different. Think distinctive,’ she says, leading them both away. ‘Think different, think distinctive. Think different, think distinctive.’ Fern repeats this as they carry on past the Wimpy and Waterstone’s, Woolworths and Wallis Shoes. 153

Alix glances over her shoulder at Courtney, whose face is set and still beneath her mask of pale make-up. They’re so different, the three of them, but guys seem to like that. It gives them a choice. Or at least, they’re getting regulars now. It started with Tom and Dale, but now the whole thing is spreading. It’s all word of mouth – the way she pictured it would be. She runs this phrase round her head. Word of mouth. Words whispering secrets. The invisible power of information passed on. Excitement rides up through her again. ‘What about here? It’s only just opened.’ It is Alix who stops them all now. ‘I saw an internet site for this line last week. Cobwebs – they do designer wear but it’s sort of Dark Arts. A particular look. It might work on you, Courtney.’ ‘Maybe.’ Courtney has her arms folded and is scowling at a display of mannequins in black loose-knit dresses, high boots and long gloves. ‘I don’t like those though. They’re see-through. And it looks like the moths have been at them with all those holes.’ ‘Come on, we should at least look inside.’ 154

Alix says this brightly, but sighs inwardly. Being with Courtney is like dragging a brick around sometimes. They push through the door. It’s done up for Christmas in here too, but the theme is very dark. Heavy green holly and blood-red berries. Nothing glitzy or party bright. Alix decides that Dark Arts will be perfect. She wants to really push this ‘different look’ idea. Courtney needs to be inscrutable. Sultry. Fern is the innocent – natural. And she . . . Alix studies her face as she passes a holly-decked mirror. Mirror, mirror on the wall . . . she’ll be the most glamorous one of all. Beside her, Courtney rummages along the rails. ‘These dresses are a bit short. I mean, disgustingly short.’ ‘Disgustingly short is good. We could match them with lacy stockings. Guys will go nuts for you.’ Alix keeps watching her ‘most glamorous one of all’ reflected face. She is suddenly fascinated by the way her mouth moves when she talks. The way her eyes light when she smiles. She shakes her head slightly and her hair shimmers, tumbling. There is no vanity in this. She feels detached from herself. An observer. She is seeing what guys see. 155

Understanding in a way that has never quite hit her before, exactly what it is that guys want. She likes guys. She loves guys. There’s nothing wrong with trying to give them what they want. ‘They’re pricey too. I don’t know that I want to pay out this much for a bit of old rag.’ Courtney has pulled one of the dresses out and is holding it against her. Alix looks at her with her new ‘guy’s eyes’. ‘Think of it is as an investment. You have to speculate to accumulate – remember we did that in business studies last week? The more sexy you look, the more guys will keep coming back. So you’ll make even more money. Sexy equals guys equals money equals sexy equals guys equals . . . ’ Courtney interrupts her. ‘They’re really stretchy too. They’ll make my backside look big.’ ‘Guys go for that. Your ass is your asset. Trust me.’ Courtney thunders out a look, and then shrugs. ‘I can’t be bothered to try it on. I’ll get it as long as they do a refund scheme.’ ‘Good idea. We can check it out back home 156

then.’ Alix leans against a pillar that is draped with fine silvery lace, while Courtney joins the queue for the till. ‘Your ass is your asset. It’s like the first line of a poem, isn’t it?’ Fern nudges her. Alix smiles, and tries to work out what Fern will look best in. All that afternoon she watches them try things. Persuades them to buy things. She smiles warm approval. She tells them they’re fantastic. And she feels high on it. Flying. It is like playing the fruit machines, dropping in the coins. Buzzers and beepers and a million lights flashing. Win Win Win. Only they’re not playing for two pences here, and their chances aren’t random or pre-set. ‘What about you?’ asks Fern at last, swinging her carrier bags as they leave Just Eve. ‘You haven’t bought anything for you.’ ‘I thought I’d try The Lanes.’ Alix checks the time on her mobile. ‘Those designer places – The Dress Agency where you got me my birthday present, and some of the smaller places round there. If you two are all spent out, we’ll head off now, before they start closing.’ They walk on quickly, Courtney and Fern 157

still behind Alix, both loaded down with bags and trying to keep up. Alix glances back every few minutes, just to check they’re still following. She’s still feeling high. Still smiling at everyone. The Lanes are busy too, and harder to navigate a path through. ‘Oh look – they’ve got the decorations up,’ breathes Fern. ‘They’re not going to be officially lit until next weekend,’ Courtney mutters back. ‘The council have kicked off about it this year. Although next weekend is still way too early, if you ask me.’ Alix thinks about all the money getting spent on looking good and owning things. She can’t decide which of the two is most important, and then decides it’s actually both. Looking good AND owning things is what it’s all about. The Dress Agency is soft carpeted. Fragranced. The dresses are all satin and silk. Beaded jackets. Film star shoes. ‘It’s all so beautiful.’ Fern is wistful. ‘I could never afford anything like this.’ 158

‘Maybe next time.’ Alix is barely listening. It’s out of her range too – even with her new improved bank balance – but she’s dreaming now. It never hurts to dream. Someone squeezes past, knocking their elbow against her. ‘Sorry.’ It is a male voice, rich and deep. Alix angles herself sideways, letting him pass. A model-tall, dark-haired girl with a sulky mouth is clinging to his arm. She stares after them and thinks they look ridiculous because the girl is so much taller. He’s not just short, he’s squat. Toady. She thinks he looks familiar – she’s seen him somewhere before. And whoever he is, he’s old – way too old for the clinging limpet. And then he turns round and looks straight at her. Alix can see the reaction in his eyes, even from the other side of the shop. He looks as if he’s been kicked in the gut. Slapped in the face. Alix has often seen reactions like this in guys’ faces, but never from ‘oldies’. But maybe she’s never taken any notice of ‘oldies’ before. Would it be so bad, to go with an oldie? An 159

oldie with money, of course. An oldie with money could help a girl look good and own things. She smiles at him – not a full on smile, but something more subtle. A tease. ‘Come on, Hugh.’ The Limpet is pouting, dragging at him. Hugh nods at Alix and she nods back, her eyes holding his. She thinks she has never seen such raw yearning and she feels a shivered excitement. He holds the look for a moment more, and then turns away. ‘I know him,’ Courtney says in a low voice. ‘Or at least, I’ve seen him about. He flashes around in a bright blue Ferrari. It’s very distinctive. You must have seen it.’ Alix tries to focus on a black and gold dress but her gaze keeps sliding back to where Hugh is standing. He has his back to her now, and she narrows her eyes at his thinning dark hair. Shoulder length. It’s too long for his age, and peppered with grey. She watches as he picks out a pastel silk blouse and holds it up against The Limpet. The Limpet takes it from him, slouches across to a gilt-framed mirror, and checks the watered pink 160

against her face. Hugh follows her, murmuring something – presumably – about how it looks. Alix thinks that pastel pink is all wrong for The Limpet. Her tones are too brash. Too bronzed. She’s a prime case of over-tan. Lucky for her she’s young, so she’s getting away with it for now. She’ll be an old walnut by the time she hits thirty. The Limpet hooks the blouse back up on the rail and presses her palm against Hugh’s cheek. He kisses her fingers. Jewelled fingers. Moneyed fingers. Alix wonders if it was Hugh who has decorated her fingers so lavishly. She wants him to look round at her again, but he doesn’t. ‘Wow.’ Fern nudges her. Alix blinks, irritated. Fern is pointing to a shelf lined with soft leather bags. ‘Look at those – the prices. Does that say £200? Just for ONE bag?’ Fern’s voice seems to bounce out in the hushed luxury of The Dress Agency, and Alix feels as if even the dresses will shudder and cringe. She doesn’t want Hugh to turn round and see her boggling like a silly kid at the price of handbags. 161

She likes the idea of him fantasising about her, even if she never sees him again, and she wants the fantasy to be wonderful. ‘Come on,’ she says, gripping Fern by the wrist and shooting a nod at Courtney. ‘Let’s go.’ Outside she walks – strides – back along the cobbled lanes and round into the main town again. She hasn’t bought anything but she doesn’t care. She’ll drive in on her own tomorrow. She doesn’t need Courtney or Fern’s opinions anyway. The crowds have thinned out now, the afternoon turned dusky. Guys grin and wink, and she smiles back, but her head is still running through the scene in The Dress Agency. Hugh isn’t the only one with a fantasy. *** Fern lines the five bags up along the end of her bed, then runs her finger around the top edges. Today has felt strange. She has felt strange. ‘I want to make you look fantastic,’ Alix had said. Fantastic isn’t a word Fern has ever thought she could be, but if Alix thinks it, then she’ll try to believe her. 162

‘We’ll go out somewhere together soon – hit town in all our new gear. Now – what about this?’ Alix held up a clingy white top. ‘If you don’t like it, you don’t have to have it.’ If you don’t like it, you can stop. Fern hadn’t stopped when it was Scottish Banana Man. She didn’t stop three days later when Beer Belly Bill laid his glasses carefully on the white bedside table, then gazed at her blindly while he groaned. She didn’t stop last weekend, when Gentle Jim stroked her hair before he left, whispering he loved her. These aren’t their real names – she made them up. It gave her something to think about while she was doing ‘the deed’. Today in Ethnic she’d tried on the clingy white top and wondered when Alix would organise the town hitting. She pictures this now – Alix, Courtney, and her – all of them swinging, giggling through the streets of Long Cove. It’s funny, because she doesn’t like what she’s doing with all these blokes, but she loves what it does for her. It lets her in. She gets phone calls. Text messages. Last week they’d all watched a DVD at Alix’s, and even Courtney throws her a thin smile at college 163

now. She wonders if they’ll know each other all their lives. Weddings and christenings. Maybe even funerals. Friends Forever. Forever Friends. A memory assaults her, as if someone has jerked her arm round behind her back. She gave a girl a pencil case once. It was a present at a party. They had both been about five and writing was already a meaningless muddle to Fern, but this girl – Frances Hall – had frowned down at the glittery letters that ran along the sugar pink plastic. ‘What does that say, Mummy?’ Frances Hall’s mummy wore peachy-pink lipstick with nail varnish to match, and she pointed one of the peach perfect fingernails down onto the letters, tracing along the raised edges: ‘Forever Friends.’ And Frances Hall looked up at Fern, her eyes round and grave, and handed the pencil case back. ‘I don’t want it.’ It had been the first time. Later there had been ‘You smell’ and ‘Fern the Thicky’ or things that at least gave her a clue to what she was doing wrong, but that first time was the worst. She had smiled and given her face a glazed-over look as if she 164

hadn’t really understood, and Frances Hall’s peachy-pink mummy whisked away to ‘sort out some lovely games’. The bag nearest to her is printed with a daisy pattern. Fern breaks the neat lip of tape that kisses the top edges together and lifts out a parcel of lilac tissue. The white top is a thin crepe fabric, soft and light. When Fern slips her hand inside, the crepe makes her skin muzzy. There’s a silken white bra with it too – ‘You need something strapless’ – and matching knickers that Alix said were French. In the next bag is a box with high strappy shoes and a white gypsy skirt. Inside the smallest bag are stockings and suspenders that she isn’t sure how to put on. ‘Practise at home,’ Alix told her. ‘Learn to do it quickly. You might sometimes want to make a quick change.’ Standing now, Fern wrestles herself out of her jeans and jumper, changes into the new silky underwear, and then puts on the suspender belt. It is white lace with a pale blue bow at the front, and the stockings are cream. The belt itches a bit, and the stockings don’t pull on straight the first time, so she has to 165

untwist them and start again. She fumbles with the straps on the belt. It’s hard to get them straight too. She’s never going to master the ‘quick change’, and although she twists round she can’t get an angle on the back view properly, so she can’t see what they look like from there. She picks out the high strappy shoes instead. They’re white too – even higher than the ones she wore on the Khaki Steve Disaster day, but at least she’s not going to have to run in them. She slips them on. Taking her first steps, she wobbles across the carpet to the other side of the room. Then she wobbles back again. Across and back. Across and back. She walks slowly, one leg slightly crossing the other, trying to move in the way models do. She still wants to know how she looks. There is a long mirror in the guest bathroom, and none of the guests are in. Dad’s asleep and Mum won’t be back till five. She opens her door and does the leg-crossing model walk out into the hall. The guest bathroom smells of soft lavender and the sharp tang of toilet cleaner. 166

She can’t get the full effect in the mirror because the room is too cramped, so she steps back as far as she can. She has to press against the wall, squinting at the reflection, which is from the neck down because there still isn’t room for her face. She’s not sure about the stockings – she doesn’t understand why Alix was so insistent that she got some – but it’s the shoes that really startle her. They stretch her legs on and on and it makes her think about the Hall of Mirrors in the small fair that sets up in Long Cove every bank holiday in August. Strange. A stranger. And she thinks, strangely, that she likes this long-legged faceless stranger. She swivels sideways, watching the way her body moves one way and then the other. Her mind gropes for a word to describe herself. Fantastic? No. Alix went too far with that. She swivels again. Normal. That’s how she looks. Without her boggle-eyed, deer-scared face this could be any teenage girl’s body. This could be someone that people wanted to be friends with. *** 167

Alix always makes it easy. But clear. They are sitting on the side of her ‘love nest’ bed and she smiles at him; takes his hand. He has L.O.V.E. L.U.C.Y. along the backs of his knuckles. She traces each letter with her finger. ‘I’ve just got to settle a few details with you first.’ Her voice purrs, as if she’s telling him he’s gorgeous, fantastic, she’s so glad he’s here. ‘You need to wear protection. That means we both stay safe. And you have to pay before we start. We agreed the price on the phone, didn’t we?’ He nods, pulling out his wallet and handing her the notes. She takes the money, counts it, and leans past him to put it in the drawer. Fern and Courtney’s clients always pay downstairs – that way she knows it’s happened. She doesn’t trust either of them – but especially Fern – to be able to make guys settle up in advance. Not once they’re with them in the room. She glances at the clock, then edges closer to him. He has a stubbled chin and strong, muscled arms. There is something ‘builderish’ about him, she decides. She can picture him out drinking; singing and swearing, swaggering loudly with a gang of mates. In here, now, he is 168

as meek as a puppy. ‘Is there anything special that you’d like?’ He swallows. ‘Just – you know – straight, thanks.’ So straight he will get. She has already learnt that sometimes it takes them a couple of visits before they start being honest. That’s fine with her. A couple of visits is a good business record, as far as she’s concerned. And if he wanted anything drastically different it would cost him more anyway, so it’s best to build that in slowly. This guy doesn’t make much eye contact, but they all vary. She tries to care about each one. For thirty minutes she can be whoever they need her to be. Gentle. Wild. Wicked. Sweet. Understanding. Pliant. Stubborn. Controlling. Controlled. It’s just like acting – a series of mini plays where she directs, produces, and performs the main part. Sometimes they don’t want anything much. One guy, last week, just came to be held. Now she unbuttons her blouse – buttons are usually better than zips – she can make undoing buttons into more of a show. She’s wearing fun undies – red silk with bits of white 169

fluff. She got a set for Courtney and Fern too – ordered them from the internet. It’s a concession to mark the fact that it’s Christmas next week, although she’s not sure that Courtney is entering into the spirit of the whole thing. She hasn’t even taken hers out of the box yet. Christmas. Bloody Christmas. Alix still can’t decide what she’s going to do. Perhaps she’ll get away somewhere hot? Perhaps they could all go? She just fancies turkey on the beach. She lets him explore her, unbuttoning his shirt at the same time. Pulling it off him, she leans her head against his exposed chest. ‘You’re gorgeous. Fantastic.’ His hands keep searching. More urgent. She can feel him shaking behind the touch, and she smiles slightly. ‘I’m so glad you’re here.’ They get locked into a kind of sitting down tussle. He paws at her clothes. She removes him from his. He smells a bit. Stale sweat and last night’s curry. She’ll have to use the air freshener when he’s gone. Smiling up at him, she puts her hands on his shoulders and pushes him onto the bed. 170

‘Mmmmm, that’s nice. You’re gorgeous.’ She sits astride him, rocking, sliding one hand down between his legs. He is looking at her but his eyes have grown clouded and unfocused. She knows she could be anyone. ‘Fantastic.’ She glances at the clock. ‘I’m so glad you’re here.’ *** ‘You working all day?’ Courtney shakes her head, her scalp prickly with the crown of tinsel she has forced down over it. She hands the bloke the packets of batteries that apparently didn’t get provided with his son’s remote control car. ‘We finish at two.’ The bloke winks at her, takes his receipt. ‘Half an hour left. Well – you’ve been an angel. We’d have had tears all over the turkey if you hadn’t been open. Merry Christmas.’ ‘Merry Christmas.’ As well as the scraggy halo of tinsel, Courtney is wearing a flashing Christmas tree brooch underneath her Easi Shop name badge. That’s as much as she is prepared to do. ‘You should leave,’ Alix had said, looking 171

up from cramming her suitcase full of skimpy tops and bikinis and suntan lotion. ‘You could come with me then. It’s not like you couldn’t afford it.’ But Courtney can’t afford it – she can’t afford questions. Suspicion. Easi Shop is the best explanation she’s got for the new clothes (they’re all second-hand, Mum – there’s a shop in The Lanes that does it) or all the toys and trainers and gadgets she keeps bringing home for the boys. (I get them cheap through work – they run a sort of warehouse catalogue.) And anyway, she’s not going to do what she’s doing with Alix and Fern forever. Not once college finishes and she moves away. And she’s going to need a reference then – from a job that hasn’t involved her lying on her back and panting. ‘Any fresh double cream?’ A middle-aged woman races in as if she’s being chased. ‘Sorry, we’ve only got tinned left now. You could try Texaco. I think they’re open all day.’ The woman humphs in exasperation, looks at her watch, then races away again. ‘Merry Christmas,’ Courtney calls after her. The door rattles slightly as it slams. 172

Courtney tidies the counter, sprays it with Anti Bact. An impeccably dressed couple come in. ‘We’re lost.’ The woman has on pearly-pink lipstick to match her lamb’s-wool jacket. ‘Do you do maps?’ Courtney directs them down Aisle Four and watches in the security mirror as they pore over the Long Cove and District Street Finder, making notes on the back of a folded envelope. They leave without buying anything. ‘Merry Christmas.’ ‘Merry Christmas.’ ‘Well – I reckon that’s it.’ Barry Ludd comes through from the stock room and goes over to lock the door. He is wearing a ridiculous green headband with red plastic antlers springing up out of it. He’s got quite a wide head and Courtney thinks the headband must pinch his skin. She folds the cleaning cloth and places the Anti Bact back neatly on the shelf under the till. A car screeches up. Someone – Courtney can’t see who – bangs on the door. Barry Ludd shakes his head. ‘Closed,’ he mouths. The someone Courtney can’t see shouts, 173

‘Effing bastard!’ in through the letterbox. Barry Ludd follows Courtney down the aisles and through to the stock room, turning off the lights in the main shop as they leave. ‘Are you in tomorrow?’ ‘Yep. Morning shift again.’ Courtney answers him without turning round, already unbuttoning her overall. She folds it neatly, slipping it into its carrier bag. As she reaches to take down her jacket from the hook above, she realises he is still behind her. Close behind her. She half turns, and tries to smile at him. She doesn’t like him, but she’s been feeling sorry for him, working Christmas morning. He’s in his thirties and he lives with his mum and she’s sure that, like her, he probably prefers to be out than in – even out somewhere like Easi Shop. He’s given her a Christmas present too – a box of chocolates. She’s been feeling guilty about that, even though she knows they were on special offer last week. It didn’t even occur to her to get him anything. ‘I’d like a word,’ he says quietly. She realises he isn’t quite looking at her. He is staring past her left ear, at the wall. He is still very close. 174

Courtney wonders if he’s going to sack her and she closes her eyes. A silent prayer. No please, please don’t sack me. I do all the rubbish shifts. All the hours no one else wants. Don’t sack me please. ‘I know what you’re up to,’ he says. Her eyes open. Widen. What does he think he knows? She’s never nicked anything from here – not even a packet of chewing gum. She’d never risk that work reference. ‘Honestly.’ Her eyes search his face and he’s still not looking at her. ‘I’m not up to anything.’ ‘You and your mate. The slag who comes in here to see you sometimes.’ The word ‘slag’ seems to tremble as he spits it out. She can see he is shaking. ‘Wh . . . what do you mean?’ ‘I know people who know people. I’ve been hearing stories.’ Courtney has always known that it was only a matter a time before the wrong person got ‘the word’. ‘It doesn’t matter,’ Alix said, when Courtney tried to talk to her about it. ‘If someone we knew ever showed up at the door, what could they say? Just the fact they’d showed up would implicate them. They’d want 175

to keep it quiet just as much as we would.’ ‘I want some.’ Barry Ludd’s voice is hoarse and strange. He is looking at her now, nodding at her, the red plastic reindeer antlers swaying. ‘Think of it as my Christmas present.’ He pushes her against the shelves. There is the roll and clatter of things falling. Forcing one leg in between hers he wrestles her to the floor, and then there is only his rasped breathing as he takes what he wants. Courtney stares over his shoulder, counting out the cans of tomatoes that are stacked against the opposite wall. ***

176

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LIX DIGS HER FEET in the sand, scooping up handfuls and sprinkling it down over her toes. She’ll lie out again in a minute, but it’s cooler than she’d thought it was going to be. It’s windier too and she has goose bumps on her arms. She could have gone to Italy of course – ‘Darling, you must come for Christmas.’ Aaron is there even though she’d tried to bribe him to be with her instead. ‘Gran Canaria? But Mum wants us with her. She’d be gutted if we did that. And even more hurt if we asked her to pay for it.’ 177

‘She doesn’t need to know. And I’ll pay.’ ‘With what?’ He’d laughed at her, so suddenly innocent, a hundred years younger than her now. She thinks of Mum and her bulging belly, and the image makes her cringe. There was no way she was going out to Tuscany for Christmas. Mum thinks she’s at Fern’s but she’s told her not to ring because the phone might wake Fern’s dad. ‘He’s in a bad way,’ she said. ‘I’ll call you on my mobile.’ ‘My legs ache so much,’ Mum sighed. ‘The extra weight. I’ll send you a picture of the latest scan . . . ’ Alix cut her off then. She does that a lot. Mum never rings back. There are other people on the beach – a honeymoon couple from the same hotel. They are holding hands, paddling in the sea. They have a glow around them – an invisible circle that cuts out the rest of the world. Alix would like to catch the husband alone in the lift. There are oldies too, all leg veins and cellulite. There should be laws about baggyskinned women in bikinis. Sitting near her – too near – is a family. 178

Mum and dad. Two boys. A pin-thin girl. The pin-thin girl is grizzling, whining that she has sand in her eyes. The mum rubs the girl’s closed lids with a towel. ‘No, Mummy. No. It hurts, it hurts.’ ‘Take her back to the hotel.’ The moustached dad is angry. The whole holiday is a painful chore. Alix slid glances his way all through breakfast. He seemed distant – shut out from all the others. Just once, he looked her way. She held the look and saw him warming. Stirring. It was like watching someone come out of a deep sleep. She’ll have to move in a minute. The grizzling is annoying. No, Mummy. No. She remembers another Christmas – years and years ago – they were staying at some ‘Uncle’s’ house, helping him pin cards among the wreathes of holly on the wall. Stepping backwards, a sting of pain had stabbed the sole of her bare foot. When he’d seen the drawing pin, the round head flat against her skin, Aaron had gone white and screamed. But Alix didn’t cry. The ‘Uncle’ wrenched the pin out with tweezers and when it was finished Mum 179

promised her an extra present for being so brave. She forgot, of course, but Alix hadn’t minded too much. She had been proud of the braveness. Proud of not annoying the ‘Uncle’. Proud of always managing to be the way Mum wanted her to be. The family with the grizzling girl walk away, heading back towards the hotel. The boys kick sand sullenly. ‘Don’t do that.’ The moustached dad is striding ahead, glaring back over his shoulder. ‘We’ll ALL end up with the bloody stuff in our eyes.’ Alix watches them go, their footprints weaving a straggled path along the beach. She oils her body, straightens her towel, lies back. She’ll have to brave the wind so she can at least go home with a tan. Courtney and Fern couldn’t believe she’d do a last minute deal like this on her own, but it was her best option. It was either really having to do Christmas Day at Fern’s – the offer had at least been true – or sitting it out alone in her house. Courtney was working in the morning, and said Christmas afternoon belonged to her brothers. It wasn’t a choice, she’d said. Just one of those once a year essentials. Alix has noticed before, that Courtney will do anything 180

for her brothers. She has filed this information away in her head. Knowledge like that can be useful sometimes. She closes her eyes, the red heat of the sun swimming under her lids. ‘Hello. I join you?’ She blinks her eyes open again, squinting up. It’s Stephan or Stefano or something, one of the waiters from the hotel. He’s handsome in that pretty Spanish-boy way. Dark eyes. Curling lashes. ‘You holiday on own?’ She smiles at him, shading her eyes so she can see him properly. ‘I needed a break. I’ve been working hard.’ ‘What job you do?’ Her hair blows across her face and she pushes it back, considering her answer. ‘Student,’ she says at last. ‘I student too. I study Madrid. Christmas here just for money.’ She nods and smiles again and he smiles back. His smile is beautiful. Wide and warm. A million girls would fall in love with him immediately. ‘I take you out tonight,’ he says. ‘I buy for you some special Christmas meal?’ 181

Dark eyes. Curling lashes. So sweet. So gorgeous. A million girls, but she doesn’t feel anything for him. She has stopped feeling anything for guys. She gazes back at them, and works out how much they might be prepared to pay. She doesn’t do this with the pretty Spanish boy now though. She knows these waiters scrape and bow to get their hard-earned euros, and they’re not going to part with it for a bit of fun with her. Anyway, it’s too risky – things could get nasty if he turned her down and the hotel manager found out what she’d been offering. And besides, she doesn’t need it. She’s already busy tonight. She’s got an agreement with a bearded American whose pale, freckled wife always has to go to bed early. *** Fern sits by the tree, the fairy lights twinkling, glittering the room. Mum is in the hall, on the phone to Gramps, and Dad is asleep in the chair. 182

The television flickers out the annual film which she never watches because she can’t sit and concentrate on anything for that long. The day has been everything that’s safe. Presents by the bed. Presents under the tree. Crackers and turkey and a Christmas pudding that Dad poured brandy onto and then made magic with a ghost blue flame. She has loved it. She would like to hold it here, in this moment, and play it back over and over again and never have anything else happen. Outside, their house is wrapped in a soft grey mist that cotton wools them in. There is a scatter of pine needles across the carpet, and she thinks she should get up and get the vacuum cleaner to sort it out for Mum, but not yet. Not just yet. Just beside her is a fallen bauble – one of the timeless silver ones they unwrap from mist soft cotton wool each year. She lifts it gently, holding it by its tail of cotton and letting it swing. It has caught the room in its silver dome and she sees herself in it, very small, distorted. In the chair behind her, Dad snores. Once she would have thrown cushions at him, and 183

he would have woken and grumbled, and then laughed and thrown them back. Now she is glad he is sleeping. Glad of the rhythm of grunted sound. Just glad he is there at all. She’s been so cross with him lately – with both of them, slamming doors and shouting and staying out late even though she knows Mum can’t bear it. Today she feels different. Today she feels an ache for them as she thinks about the way she’s been. She brings the bauble closer, holding it between two fingers now to stop the swinging. The small distorted reflection stares out at her, a yellow paper crown that Fern had forgotten she was wearing skewed untidily on her head. Fern thinks that maybe there is another world in the thin-silvered glass. Maybe the skewed-crown girl looking out is as real as Fern is. Maybe she is thinking Fern is the distorted reflection. Outside, the mournful voices of foghorns muffle across the mist. ‘Mince pies?’ Mum pushes her head around the door. Fern nods, kneeling forward and looping 184

the tail of cotton back onto the branches of the tree, a new rain of needles rattling down. ‘That would be great, Mum. Thanks.’ The silver bauble trembles, touched now by the colours from the fairy lights. A world where it is always magic. Always Christmas. Fern thinks about the girl inside, and wishes she could swap. *** The bearded American is short and round. He arrives at her room with a bottle of sparkling wine and a bouquet of flowers. The flowers are red. Velvet petals. Fragranced. Alix doesn’t ask how he got them past his wife. He has even remembered a corkscrew. ‘You’ve done this before,’ teases Alix. ‘I reckon maybe you have too.’ He speaks with a soft slow drawl. She has dressed up for him. A piercingly blue sundress. Matching blue gemstone necklace and heavy hooped earrings. High high shoes. She smiles at him again and holds out two glasses from the tray beside her bed. He pours the wine and it fizzes out, trickling onto her thumb. 185

She licks it off slowly, watching him watching her. Then she raises her glass. ‘Happy Christmas.’ He’s paid extra. Her Christmas bonus to herself. ‘Happy Christmas.’ She pats the bed beside her. ‘Just come and sit by me. I’ve got to settle a few details with you first.’ He nods, listens, his head on one side as if she is explaining a long list of symptoms. ‘Sure,’ he nods. He pays her in euros. She slips the notes under the tray, wondering whether she’ll spend them all here, or have them changed when she gets home. She turns her back to him and looks at him over her shoulder. ‘Could you unbutton my dress?’ ‘Sure.’ he leans towards her and kisses her neck. ‘Mmmmm. You’re gorgeous. Fantastic. What would you like me to do?’ ‘Why don’t we take a bath together?’ ‘Mmmmm. Wonderful idea. Just give me a minute while I get it lovely and warm for us.’ She kisses him deeply and then draws away, running a bath full of silvery bubbles. ‘Our 186

very own pool of magic,’ she whispers as she comes back out, taking his hand and leading him through into the steaming room. It is later, as he is buttoning back up his shirt, that he pauses and looks at her. ‘You might have done it before,’ he says, ‘but you’re still pretty new. There are things you should learn.’ ‘What sort of things?’ Alix is propped against the pillows, feeling film star exotic in a new silk robe that she bought from the local town. In fact – she bought three. The other two are presents for Courtney and Fern. She can’t decide whether to be offended, or curious, about what he’s just said. He leans across, touches the necklace, and then the earrings. ‘You should steer clear of these. And these.’ She puts her hand to her throat, her fingers over his. ‘Why?’ ‘Think about it.’ He twists the beads slightly. ‘Just think.’ Alix feels the tightening pressure on her throat. She stares at him, and swallows hard. ‘No one’s ever tried to hurt me.’ Her voice grows tense. No soft purring or sexy giggles now. He drops his hand away, but his eyes rove 187

over her, examining the detail. ‘Those earrings would rip through your lobes in a struggle. That belt on your robe – someone could strangle you with it. You’re asking for trouble. There’s some real hard-nut psychos out there.’ She edges away from him, iced fear closing her in. Maybe he’s really Fern’s worst nightmare. Maybe he has hidden an axe amongst the blood-red bouquet. He stands up and buttons his fly, and his voice is suddenly tired. ‘You’ve gotta take more care.’ She reaches for her wine, trying to keep her voice calm. ‘With what?’ ‘First thing – there’s diseases. You can catch stuff – real bad stuff.’ ‘I never let anyone do anything without a condom.’ He reaches for his socks. ‘Make sure you keep it like that. Herpes and Aids are incurable – although even condoms aren’t one hundred per cent. Sometimes they split. But there’s other stuff too. Always make your clients at least wash their hands. Maybe even get them to take a bath, like we did just now. That way you’ll be sure they’re clean. They can still carry bacteria on their fingers. And that’s the side of it you can control.’ 188

‘What about . . . the other side?’ ‘Girls getting themselves roughed up. Raped. Sometimes it’s just been the bodies. You don’t ever know who is buying your time – or what the guy really wants for his cash.’ Alix watches him lace his shoes as he talks. The wine tastes flat, all the sparkle gone. What does he mean by ‘the bodies’? Do murderers put their shoes on before they lunge? He double knots his laces and rubs the back of his hand against his bearded chin. ‘Let’s start with your hotel door – look at it.’ She looks. ‘What about it?’ ‘You’ve left the key-card on the wall beside it. How d’you know I won’t sneak off with it when I leave – and let myself back in later?’ ‘I . . . ’ ‘And you’ve been happily drinking wine with me. What if I’d spiked it? I could’ve had you unconscious in five minutes.’ Alix puts the empty glass down onto the bedside table. Her hand is shaking. No one even knows he’s in here with her. Will the hotel check if she doesn’t go down for breakfast? Will she make the front page of the papers back home? 189

He stands up, checks his face in the mirror, and turns back to her. She is sitting very still, hands clenched, wondering how quickly she could grab the internal phone and scream for help. ‘I’m sorry,’ he says, and his voice seems gentle and genuine. Sorry for what? Is his gentle genuine tone an act? The lull of his voice before the storm of what he’s about to be sorry for. ‘Truth is I’ve seen too much. Been around too long. Trust me. Girls like you are a psycho’s dream.’ ‘So – how do you know so much?’ She has edged herself nearer the phone, but maybe she should have made a dash for the door. ‘I’m a doctor.’ He glances at his watch, and then looks back at her. His eyes are gentle too. Almost sad. ‘Downtown New York. We get it all in my practice.’ She stares at him. Pictures crowd her mind. Bodies bruised. Battered. ‘Stay safe, little lady. And thank you. It’s been a great evening.’ He smiles again but his eyes seem full of sorrow and she wonders if he’s got those pictures in his mind too. 190

She watches him walk out through the door. Hears the ping of the lift. She gets up, checks the key-card. He didn’t sneak off with it – but he might have switched it. She checks it again. Then she goes to the mirror and runs her finger along the crystal gems of the piercingly blue necklace. She tightens it, twizzling it round one finger until it leaves small marks, like bites, in her neck. Would it snap before she choked? And if it did, would it even matter? There’s still the belt. The murderous hands. Whatever size he is, he’ll be strong. Mad psycho killers are always strong. Up until now it’s just been a game. She needs to sharpen up a bit – wise up. Studying her reflection, she thinks that it won’t happen to her. She can’t imagine her face with bruises. She can’t imagine her eyes bulging out of a choked lifeless face. But she’s learnt some important lessons tonight and she’s going to make some big changes when she gets back home. It’s lucky she met the bearded American, and he’s put her straight before anything bad happens to any of them. *** 191

A

LIX GOES WITH COURTNEY to the Drop-in Centre. ‘It’s a good idea for us all to start getting checked regularly anyway,’ she says. ‘I’ll hustle Fern along here next week, when it’s hopefully not so busy.’ Courtney is almost too tired to speak. She’s been sick, sicker than she’s ever been after vomiting from the morning after pill, but the deal was she’d come back for tests once the clinic opened properly after the holiday. They sit in the waiting room, Alix leafing through a magazine, Courtney trying not to meet the eye of any of the other girls sitting 192

tense and uneasy on the orange plastic chairs. ‘Lisa Cullen?’ A nurse comes out, young and slim and neat, her hair in a tidy French plait down her back. Courtney stares at her for a moment. This is someone with a respectable job. A respectable life. The nurse glances down at the sheet in her hand, and then round the room. A plump girl gets up and goes off with her through the double doors. Alix nudges Courtney. ‘Nurses,’ she whispers. ‘Guys go for nurses.’ Courtney doesn’t answer, but wonders if that’s going to be Alix’s next great plan. Costumes for them all. Nurse costumes. Maid’s costumes. Clown’s costumes – for all she knows or cares. ‘Courtney Benton-Gray?’ This is a different nurse. Older than the last. Courtney’s heart sinks. She’s probably going to get a lecture. The Inquisition. She gets up, hoping there’s no one here who might have recognised her name, and follows the nurse through the double doors to her fate. She’d got drunk. That was what she’d already told them when she came in for the emergency appointment. Got drunk Christmas 193

afternoon and didn’t even know the bloke’s name. It’s weird, she thinks now, that this was more acceptable to her than saying what really happened. She doesn’t want to go back over what really happened. And anyway, what’s the point? Apart from Alix and Fern, who could she dare to tell? ‘OK, sweetheart . . . ’ Courtney is startled by the warmth in the nurse’s voice. Her eyes fill suddenly, threatening to spill. She swallows. Bites her lip. Digs one nail into the palm of her hand. ‘. . . I’m going to need to ask you a few questions. Tick a few boxes.’ Courtney nods, mumbles through her answers. Boyfriends? Allergies? Has she ever had a sexually transmitted disease? ‘And now it’s just the bloods, sweetheart.’ The nurse puts down the tick list and picks up a kidney-shaped tray with some small empty tubes arranged along one end. ‘Just roll up your sleeve for me – and hold your arm out – there – that’s a good girl. You’ll just feel a tiny tiny pinprick.’ 194

Courtney stares out of the window. It’s a clear day, brittle. The sky is high and blue. Small soft clouds float past, reminding Courtney of the cotton wool she used to use for cloud pictures at school. She starts to count them. Counts all the clouds in the sky . . . four, five, six, seven . . . ‘All done, sweetheart, that wasn’t too bad, was it?’ Courtney looks down at her arm. The nurse is dabbing at her pinpricked skin with a small soft cloud. She sticks on a plaster and gives Courtney a smile. ‘Pop back in a week,’ she says. ‘We should have your results in by then.’ *** ‘Do you know anything about electrics?’ Alix kneels on the bed, watching Dale get dressed. He pulls on his sweatshirt and looks at her. ‘What sort of electrics?’ ‘I want some wiring done. I need a buzzer set up in here. Something we can hear downstairs if there’s ever a problem.’ Dale goes over to the mirror and smoothes 195

down his hair. ‘Do you get problems then? From some of the guys?’ ‘Nothing major. We get a few weird requests sometimes, but if it’s too strange we just say no.’ Alix smiles at him in the glass, thinking Dale’s not averse to making a few weird requests himself. ‘But I’m thinking more of insurance. Something in place for a “just in case” scenario.’ ‘It sounds out of my league. You need a real expert.’ Dale picks up his jacket from the end of the bed. ‘But I’ll ask round when I’m back on campus tomorrow.’ ‘I can pay him in kind.’ Alix gets up from the bed and pulls on her robe. ‘If he prefers.’ Dale laughs. ‘If you’re offering that, you’ll probably find ten guys clutching meters and screwdrivers lined up on your doorstep by tomorrow lunch time.’ He hesitates for a moment. ‘In fact, you don’t have a burning urge to learn football, do you? I’m sure I could teach you all you need to know.’ She winds her arms round his neck. ‘You just want to see me rolling around in mud,’ she murmurs. He presses against her. ‘You know me too 196

well,’ he murmurs back. She lets him squeeze her for a moment, and then draws away. ‘Oh – one other thing. Can you ask if anyone can do plumbing too? I want a small sink in the corner.’ ‘I’ll check around. I’m sure I can get you a whole en suite fixed up. Sauna. Whirlpool. Your wish is my command.’ She pulls him to her again, biting his ear and softening her voice. ‘A sink is plenty – but if you can find me good guys, I think you’ll have earned a bonus – I’ll give you something extra special next time you come.’ He bites her neck, bunching her hair in one hand and pulling her head back slightly, his other hand moving down her body. ‘I said NEXT time,’ she giggles, kissing his forehead and taking hold of his hands. She needs him to get going now. She has to get showered before Courtney’s appointment. ‘Ah, you drive a hard bargain,’ Dale groans. ‘I’m getting all wound up again – just the promise of your “extra special” time.’ But he doesn’t try anything else. That’s the fantastic thing about clients like him. They respect her, and they understand the rules. It’s 197

not always as easy as that with everyone. ‘I’ll go hurrying off – back to Sussex to gather an army of experts. See you soon, I hope.’ ‘The sooner the better,’ smiles Alix. ‘Call me next week. I’ll let you know how it’s all gone.’ ‘You bet.’ She follows him down to the front door. ‘Drive safely. I’ll miss you.’ She blows him a kiss as he gets into the four-by-four, winking the headlights and beeping twice before he reverses out of the drive, and away. *** Fern waits for Alix to bring him up. ‘Just remember to make him wear a condom. And he has to wash before he starts,’ she’d said. There is a knock on the door. ‘Come in.’ He comes in, a dark-haired stranger that Fern can’t bring herself to look at properly. ‘The sink is in the corner. And . . . and you have to put this on.’ She has been clutching the condom, her palm sweating, and she holds the packet out to him. She can’t help with his 198

banana this time. She is shaking inside and out. ‘Try to look at it as being like an arranged marriage. Your wedding night.’ Alix had been gentle when she said this. Encouraging. ‘In fact, when you think of it, it’s quite normal really. Millions of girls have had their first time like that.’ Up until now, Alix has found Fern clients who don’t want to go ‘all the way’. But this client is different. And Alix is sure Fern is ready. He undresses while she sits staring at her hands, still not looking at him. ‘You say I have to get washed up, Honey?’ ‘Just your hands and your . . . your . . . you know.’ He laughs. ‘Yep. I’ll scrub down my “you know” for you.’ Fern listens to the sound of the water running. And worse, to the sound of it being turned off. She hears the foil being torn. ‘Fuck. These things are a pain.’ She’s not ready for this. Not her head or her body. She’s made herself get used to the other things, and found ways to make them seem all right – but she can’t make this seem all right. She could walk out. She could kick off the silky 199

white high heels and run. But Alix is downstairs, and Alix believes this is something she should do. She has dressed her in white. A lacy blouse. A layered skirt. She feels like a wedding cake. He comes over and touches her shoulder. She flinches because she can’t help it. He grips the tops of her arms. His fingers pinch through her blouse and she wonders if she will bruise. With one hand fumbling at the skirt, he presses her down on the bed. His hands are rough and urgent and harsh and next he is on top of her and everything hurts. ‘Once it starts happening,’ Alix had said, ‘you’ll know what to do.’ Fern lies trembling, waiting for the knowing to start. He is still pulling at her, wrenching open her blouse and all the time kissing her. Except it isn’t nice kissing – not the way Fern always dreamed passionate kissing would be. It is his mouth pushed on her mouth, pressing down hard, the stubble of his face scratchy and stinging. ‘Come on.’ His voice is a kind of growl. ‘Open up.’ 200

She lets him force himself between her white-stockinged legs. She closes her eyes. The knowing hasn’t started. Doesn’t start. She is crumbling beneath him. It hurts. It hurts. He makes beast noises. Her eyes stay squeezed shut. Maybe he will kill her. Killer Kevin. ‘Be sweet to him once it’s finished,’ Alix had said, ‘and let him know you enjoyed it. That way he’s more likely to come back.’ Once it is finished Fern crawls in under the duvet and curls tight, her hands cradling her head. She hears him dressing. A zip is pulled. He seems to take forever to put on his shoes. The getting dressed noises stop at last. She can sense him waiting, and she knows she is supposed to get up and lead him downstairs but she can’t bear the thought of looking at him properly. The floorboards in the Love Nest creak. His footsteps head towards the door. Even when he is definitely gone, she still doesn’t move. Time passes. Outside she hears a dog bark. Children’s voices drift through from a few gardens away. ‘Fern?’ Alix comes in, sitting on the bed and 201

touching her shoulder through the quilt. ‘How was it?’ Fern keeps her back to her. She is bleeding tears and she doesn’t want Alix to see. ‘My first time was pretty crappy too,’ Alix says. ‘It was in a car park. The back of a car. How sleazy is that?’ Fern still doesn’t speak, but she is listening. ‘I didn’t even like him, but we’d been for a meal and I just thought I ought to. He was older than me – old enough for car ownership anyway. I was impressed by that. And flattered that he’d picked me out.’ After a moment, Fern rubs her eyes and shifts round to face Alix. ‘Were you sorry then? Afterwards?’ Alix leans forward and gets the box of tissues from the table, pulling out a handful and handing them to Fern. Fern blows her nose, sniffing loudly. ‘I think,’ says Alix, talking slowly as if she is considering it all for the first time, ‘I think I was disappointed. I’d wanted it to be romantic and wonderful and it was just this kind of frantic uncomfortable grope. I never saw him again.’ ‘Did it hurt?’ 202

Alix shrugs. ‘A bit I suppose. Can’t really remember. It’s all faded now – it was so long ago.’ Fern wonders how long ago it was. Two years? Five? Even more? She doesn’t like to ask. At least she’s done it. It’s over. She can’t believe it will ever fade for her though. She won’t ever be able to not remember. Alix stands up, handing Fern her robe which is hanging on the door. ‘You can go and shower him all away. And I promise you . . . ’ She hesitates, as if she’s going to say something important and needs to phrase it exactly right. Fern takes the robe, slips it on and does up the poppers that Alix got a dressmaker to sew in. She won’t let them wear anything with a sash. Then she blows her nose again, wobbling out a smile as she wonders if Alix is going to suggest they go out somewhere, as a kind of treat. Maybe they can do that town hitting that she promised her before? They’ve never been out anywhere together yet. ‘What?’ ‘. . . it won’t be so bad next time.’ The smile stays fixed on Fern’s face as she watches Alix leave the room. 203

Next time. Alix is expecting her to do it again. *** ‘The first thing he wanted, when he rang to book the session, was my shoe size.’ Alix is halfway up the escalator, turning back to talk to Courtney and Fern. ‘Did he want to buy you shoes then, for a present?’ Fern is gripping the escalator rail with one hand, and her handbag with the other. She keeps glancing nervously at anyone who hustles past, as if she thinks they might be about to hit her over the head with a brick and run off with her life’s savings. Alix flicks a look at Courtney, but Courtney doesn’t return the glance. She is turned away slightly, watching the posters as they slide by. Adverts for West End musicals. Perfume. Magazines. ‘He wanted me to sort of “borrow” them. And it wasn’t just one pair. It was loads.’ Alix reaches the top and steps off the moving stairs. A moment later Fern gives a yelp and jumps awkwardly, hurrying to walk beside Alix 204

through the subway. ‘Loads?’ ‘He turned up with six pairs – all brand new. Still boxed. In Shoe Express carrier bags.’ Alix turns back to Courtney, who is following behind. ‘Do you remember him?’ ‘He was weird.’ Courtney rains a handful of coins into the hat of a busker who is singing badly and strumming a guitar. Alix thinks he’s not much older than them. She slots her ticket in the exit barrier and the grey gates flap open to let her through. Fern slots her ticket in, and it jams. ‘Oh no. What’s happened?’ ‘It’s the wrong way up.’ Courtney does do the flicked look to Alix this time, and they both stand and wait while the guard lets Fern out through an exit at the side. They walk on together through the hubbling station, heading out into Oxford Street. Alix loves the buzz and hum of London. Everything’s happening. Colour and noise. The best and the worst people, with all the shades in between, moving and mixing together. They pass a stall selling hot chestnuts, and another selling flags and mugs and postcards of Big Ben. 205

‘There’s so many shops.’ Fern glances from left to right, hesitating and getting knocked by the hurrying crowd. Alix can see Fern will end up trampled if she keeps up with the dithering. She takes her arm. ‘Most of these shops are just the main High Street ones – not really any different from Long Cove. We want to go home with bags with different names on them. I reckon we should try some of the big stores first – they do designer ranges, and it’s not usually so manic in those either. There’s a crossing here.’ She swerves to the right suddenly. ‘Come on. Most of the best places are on this side.’ They cross without waiting for the green man signal, a red bus blasting its horn at them. ‘Quick,’ gasps Fern, breaking into a run. Alix smiles, impressed with herself for her infinite patience. ‘Just trust me,’ she says, joining up with Fern again on the pavement. She leads them purposefully on through the throng, and then in through the automatic doors of John Lewis. ‘Level one – to start with. This way.’ Alix steers Fern towards the escalator that runs down the centre of the store. 206

Fern seems to manage to relax. ‘You didn’t finish telling me about the bloke with the shoes.’ ‘Oh – right. We went up to the Love Nest – still with all those Shoe Express bags – and he wanted me to get out of my skirt and top. So I did that – and then he opened the first box and produced some red patent stilettos. He asked me to put them on. It was all very polite, though. He was a real gentleman.’ ‘He wanted you to do it wearing shoes?’ ‘No, that’s just it. He didn’t want to “do it” at all.’ ‘He paid for you to sit there wearing his shoes?’ ‘It was a bit more than that. I had to walk about in them, while he watched. And then he opened another box – and another –and another.’ They reach the top of the escalator, Fern still leaping off but at least this time managing not to yelp. They walk among the rails of clothes – so many styles and names and lines and looks. They brush past funky fun dresses and racks of jeans, suits and jackets and long sequinned evening gowns. Occasionally sales girls smile 207

their lipsticked smiles and ask if they need any help. ‘We’re fine,’ says Alix, her eyes scanning the displays. ‘Just looking.’ ‘What sort of shoes were they?’ Fern stands beside her, examining everything Alix takes a second look at. ‘Mostly trainers.’ Courtney, who has been keeping up with them but didn’t appear to have been listening, cuts in suddenly. ‘And flip flops.’ Fern’s eyes widen. ‘Really?’ Alix bites back a smile. ‘Don’t be . . . no. They were all stilettos. Killer toes. I’m amazed I didn’t get blisters after half an hour of being squashed into them all.’ She sees a pearl-white gypsy style dress and stops to lift it from its rail, holding it against Fern. ‘This would suit you.’ Fern takes the dress, fingering the embroidered neckline. She seems to be struggling with something, making herself ask another question. ‘But . . . but why? Why would he want you to walk about like that?’ Courtney picks a black dress from the same rail, scowls, and then hangs it back again 208

fiercely. She spins round, her eyes glitter hard. ‘Come on, Fern. Stop being such a drip. You KNOW that some blokes are just weird. You must at least have worked that much out.’ Fern’s cheeks flush pink and she stares down at the dress. But when she speaks her voice is quiet. Almost dignified. ‘No,’ she says, still not looking up at Courtney. ‘I didn’t know that.’ Courtney is looking at her differently now – a strange expression – almost of pain, tightened across her features. Alix can’t guess what she’s feeling, or why, but the last thing she can bear is a public scene between the two of them. ‘Look, why don’t you try that on, Fern. It really is “you”. And Courtney – you’d look fantastic in one of those scrunchy black ones. See there? With the long slitty side bit?’ Moments later she is watching them both disappear into the dressing room, praying it doesn’t start ringing out with shouts and screams and the sounds of things breaking. Near her is an elaborate stand, circular glass shelves edged with gold, and on every shelf is a pair of shoes. Not Shoe Express shoes but beautiful work-of-art fantastic shoes. She picks up a black satin stiletto which is encrusted with 209

small jewels. Wriggling off her own shoe, she slips it on. There is a mirror nearby and she walks towards it, her step slightly uneven because this heel is so much higher than hers. An assistant appears, hovering very close and murmuring, ‘They’re beautiful, aren’t they? Very popular this season.’ Alix doesn’t answer. She is watching the reflection of the shoe. She changes position, turning one way and then another, checking out the side view. The front. The back. She thinks Courtney is right. Some blokes ARE weird, and you’d need a psychiatrist to tell you why. But so what? It was all harmless. And it had pleased him. ‘Thanks, Antoinette,’ he’d whispered at the end, hugging her after she helped him pack all the shoes away again. He sounded so genuine – almost close to tears. She’d liked him. Weird didn’t mean wrong or terrible. Just different. He paid her extra too. ‘I’ll use it to buy a stock of my own – for when you want to see me again,’ she smiled. ‘No need.’ He squeezed her hands as if they were best friends joined together in a secret. ‘I 210

like buying them. The whole shopping thing. Truly.’ He laughed then, and Alix laughed with him. They were both still laughing when he left. Alix thinks she could surprise him though. She could produce her own range as a kind of grand finale. It would be a bit of fun, and she’s got other clients who are into shoes too – in all sorts of ways. A special collection would be a good investment. She turns to the murmuring sales assistant. ‘I love it,’ she says. ‘Could you get me the other one?’ *** Blubber Boy is so heavy on her. He smells too. Fern knows she’ll have to open the window and spray air freshener round once he’s gone. Alix was right, in a way. It has got better – at least in the sense that she’s learnt what to do. But she never likes it. ‘You’re so popular.’ Alix is always saying this. The system, as far as Fern can understand it, is simple. The blokes ring Alix up on her secret mobile number – she never takes anyone 211

from off the streets – and if they’re ‘newies’ then she shares them out between Honey and Isadora. But if they’ve been more than once then she calls them ‘regs’ and they can choose to go with whoever they want. This is what Alix means when she says Fern is popular. They often choose to go with Honey again. When Alix tells her this, it is as if she thinks Fern will be pleased, but the truth is she’d be happy if no one ever chose her. Except she’d miss the money. For the first time in her life she has been able to buy clothes and CDs and anything else she wants. She’s careful about it – she keeps it away from Mum – but Mum is so caught up with Dad she almost never asks Fern about anything anymore. And of course, the other worry is that Alix wouldn’t have so much time for her if she stopped. In fact, Alix might not have any time for her at all. Blubber Boy is grunting in her ear. He kisses her face, his lips rubbery and wet. His breath is bad too. He’s horrible, but at least he isn’t weird. Courtney was right about the weirdness. Last week Ropey Roger wanted her to tie him to the 212

bedstead, although she couldn’t manage to get the knots pulled tight enough. He got fed up and told her not to bother in the end. She has tried to tell Alix about the weird blokes but Alix gets super efficient when the sessions are finished, sorting out the money and keeping an extra bit – the ‘administrator’s cut’ – for herself. There is never much time for talking. They go shopping for new clothes sometimes, but that is not the time for talking either – Alix is always concentrating on what is most likely to please clients. They don’t even stop for lunch. Getting everything bought is the focus of the day. And other than that, whenever they are together, they’re always working. Alix uses her own bedroom as a second Love Nest now – mainly for Isadora. She has started charging more for her Antoinette sessions, and she almost never takes the ‘newies’. Blubber Boy gives a small, triumphant shout, as if he has just won a prize. He rolls off her with a sigh, and Fern can see from his eyes that she’s pleased him. He’ll probably choose her again. 213

She gets up and pulls on her robe, refusing to watch him dress, but once all his clothes are on and the wobbly fat is covered, she fakes a soft smile. ‘Was that all right?’ ‘You’re a real minx, Honey.’ He makes an awkward lurch, trying to tweak her nipple through the robe. She gives the girlish laugh that Alix has taught her how to do, and sidesteps away. Leading him back downstairs, she hurries ahead so that he can’t keep up with her – so that he can’t grope her again on the way down. She opens the door and he kisses her clumsily, lumbering away into the evening. Now that he’s gone she can even feel sorry for him. A sad lonely man. She should at least feel some sympathy for that. He has been her fifth tonight and she’s getting a taxi home – she always tells Mum it’s Alix who brings her back but she’s got plenty of money for taxis these days. She could glide home in a limousine if she wanted to. She is aching. Aching and tired and sore. ‘Honey . . . ’ Alix appears in the doorway as Fern heads back upstairs to get showered. ‘Someone else has just booked – it’s a newie so I 214

didn’t want to turn him away – only Isadora is asleep in my room. You can keep what you earn – I won’t take my cut off this one. He’ll be really grateful that we’ve responded at such short notice, so you could be doing us all a favour in the long run.’ Fern looks at Alix. She wants to say no. She so badly wants to say no. Alix smiles at her. No no no. Fern nods. ‘OK.’ *** Courtney sits on the bench that looks out across the sea, a plain white carrier bag tucked in under the seat. It’s the scruffy end of Long Cove – out of sight of the golden sand tourist-land – and the beach here is mostly pebbles and mud. Three children – all girls – are playing down on the shingle. It’s warm for January, almost spring-like, and everything seems touched by a hazy glow. It seems unreal to Courtney – she isn’t part of this gentle day. She has gate-crashed in on a scene from a film. 215

The nurse’s voice was caring. As if Courtney, and her future, mattered. ‘You’ve tested negative this time, sweetheart,’ she’d said. ‘But I do urge you to come in and get checked regularly. Even something as common as chlamydia can make you infertile. It’s important that you don’t take chances.’ Two phrases ring like omens through her head. This time. Don’t take chances. Courtney watches the three girls play some sort of jumping competition, measuring their efforts with algae-coated sticks. She has never thought about having children. Her future has been about getting good qualifications, and leaving home. It’s been about getting a job and staying independent. Beyond that, it was always fuzzy – but that doesn’t mean there might not have been children in the fuzziness. Babies. Her babies. ‘And there are other diseases too. Aids is the big one – and we’re seeing a new increase in that. And then there’s Herpes – Syphilis – all of these are incurable. If you end up with any of them, we can’t help you. I’m going to give you 216

a bag of condoms to take away, but if you think you need more, then come and see us again.’ The nurse had smiled, but Courtney couldn’t force herself to smile back. She stared down at her hands. Took the carrier bag of condoms. Thanked the nurse without looking her in the eye. The bag was full. There must be at least fifty packets in there. Could the nurse tell, Courtney wondered? Could she see the truth? She wants to give up working with Alix – this is a wake-up call, and she ought to get herself out of it. Only she’s left Easi Shop – she hasn’t even walked past it since Christmas Day – and she hasn’t saved enough. They earn a lot, but Alix is always pulling them round the shops, making them spend spend spend. ‘Speculate to accumulate,’ she insists. Courtney needs to stop the speculating now. She just has to accumulate. She has to have enough money to get away. The three girls grow bored with their jumping competition. Two race down to the sea, shrieking when the waves slush in, daring the water to swamp their trainers. 217

The third one collects pebbles, putting them in a pile and patting them into shape. She finds straggles of seaweed and runs them round the top edge of her mound. A cone shell goes in the centre, pointing upwards. ‘Let’s play families,’ Courtney hears her call. ‘I’ve just made us all a cake.’ ‘I’ll be the mum,’ calls the tallest girl, running back up. ‘No, I will.’ The other girl joins her, crouching down and adding new pebbles to the mound. ‘You have to be Dad because you’re the biggest. Hayley can be our baby.’ ‘A waaaaaaaaaaaaaaa. A waaaaaaaaaaaaa,’ wails Hayley, dramatically. ‘Now stop that noise,’ the tallest girl is talking in her gruffest man voice. ‘If you don’t shut it, I’ll clout you one.’ Courtney drops her head in her hands, wishing she could block all the world away. ‘Hey come on – don’t.’ It’s a bloke’s voice. Very soft. Courtney scrunches her eyes tighter, pressing her knuckles against the lids. ‘Go away.’ The last thing she needs is the sympathy of male strangers. 218

She hears a creak on the bench next to her. Whoever it is has sat down. She stays locked in the world inside her cupped hands. It feels strangely safe, a small warm pocket of black to lose herself in. Leave me alone. Leave me alone. She begins to cry and the crying grows and grows. It feels huge and ugly and giant sobs hack through her, as if the pain is trying to belch its way out. ‘Here – use this.’ There is a touch on her arm. A tissue being pushed in between her fingers. After a moment, she takes it, pressing it up to her eyes. She blows her nose, but keeps her head dipped down. She must look awful. Awful. ‘Sorry. I must look awful,’ she mutters. ‘Maybe. You haven’t let me see your face yet.’ Courtney raises her head slowly, defiance hardening in her. Let him see her. Let him find the right things to say. He grins, the smile spreading across his face. A smile bigger and wider than she’s ever seen on anyone before. What the hell has he got to smile like that about? ‘At least you look happy,’ she sniffs. ‘Looks like I’ve got to try to be happy for 219

both of us.’ His eyes are a melting brown. His hair is done up in a hundred tiny banded plaits, all woven in with red and green and gold. There is a smudge of blue – possibly chalk dust – running down his left cheek. He’s about her age. She takes all this in, and then looks away. ‘Want to talk?’ he says. She shakes her head. She notices he’s propped an easel and a small wooden box in front of the carrier bag full of condoms. ‘Walk then? Along the shore?’ ‘I look a mess. I’ll scare small children.’ She nods in the direction of the beach, but the girls have gone. An old man is there instead, scrunching across the shingle. One heavyfooted step crunches down on the pebble cake. ‘I know – coffee.’ He touches her arm. ‘There’s the Bluebird café just over the main road there. Small. Dark corners. I’ll tuck you in a quiet place where it’s all shadowy and no one will ask you to do anything at all. Not even me.’ Courtney knows the Bluebird café, although she’s never been in there. It’s where all the oddballs go. ‘It’s sort of – I don’t know . . . ’ She struggles for the right word. ‘. . . “arty” in there, isn’t it?’ 220

‘Is that bad?’ ‘No. ’Course not.’ She never got on with the ‘arty’ crowd at school. They were always so vague. So random and erratic. So full of tedious enthusiasm. ‘Good,’ he says. ‘Because “arty” is my middle name. It’s how I earn an honest penny. Pictures of tourists. Pastels. If I couldn’t do that I’d have to empty bins for a living.’ She looks at him again, and it’s not just his smile. It’s as if the whole sun is shining out from behind his eyes. ‘Your hair,’ she sniffs. ‘It must take forever.’ He grins again. ‘You grow yours a bit longer and I’ll teach you how to do it too.’ She stares at him now. There is something in what he’s said – in the way he’s saying it. It seems like he’s holding out some sort of future to her. He wants to know her long enough for her hair to grow. There is warmth in the idea. A warmth in her. As if whatever it is that is golden in him is washing out onto her. ‘OK then, coffee,’ she blows her nose hard into the tissue. ‘But the corner has to be really really shadowy.’ *** 221

‘C

AN YOU SPARE A MINUTE, FERN?’ Rob Perry calls her back as she heads out through the English room door. She turns to him. She hasn’t really got a minute because Alix has organised a taxi to pick her up from the car park at four. This is the only way she would let Fern come into college at all. She’s had to miss the last three special Wednesday lessons, because Alix keeps taking bookings. More and more bookings. More and more clients. Alix wants her to start doing Thursdays now, too. ‘I’m worried about your work. You’re 222

slipping behind.’ Rob Perry looks at her with troubled eyes. Fern is sorry she’s put trouble in his eyes. She struggles to dredge up excuses, and when she speaks it is words spilling out that she hasn’t known were coming. ‘It’s my dad. He’s quite ill, and Mum needs me to help when I can.’ She thinks of the lie like mud spreading through her. Surely Rob Perry will guess how disgusting she is? She stares down at her trainers, thinking that soon her feet will be squashed into white stilettos. Or maybe it’ll be the cream ones with the tiny diamonds. Alix still always keeps her in white, or cream. ‘I’m so sorry. I thought it must be something like that. Would it help to get your mum in and we could all talk it through together?’ ‘No!’ Fern’s head jolts up in panic. ‘No. I just . . . she’s worried enough, that’s all.’ The mud thickens, dark and heavy. It weighs in her. How can she ever wash out a deceit like this? Rob Perry’s smile is caring. Hopeful. ‘I could get you concessions, if you talk to me about it. Extra time in the exams. Maybe some extra tuition after college, too. I’d be willing to 223

stay behind and work with you – if you think that would help.’ Fern’s eyes sting. ‘I’ll do anything I can for you. It would be a tragedy if you didn’t get into Art College.’ She has thought about this of course – she has known in some shadowy background way that she can’t afford to miss English lessons – and she can’t afford not to get into Art College. Now, hearing it said aloud moves it out from the shadows and she is faced with it, staring at it. A tragedy that she has sculpted herself. She looks up at Rob Perry and sees all the warmth of the world in his eyes. She wonders if he can see all the scum of the world in hers. ‘I’ll talk to Mum,’ she says, her voice thin and small. ‘And I won’t miss any more Wednesdays, I promise.’ *** Alix fastens her robe as she watches him dress. Trousers first. Then sweatshirt. Then socks. Guys who dress in that order are experienced. They know better than to hop around naked in their socks. 224

He calls himself Jack when he rings to book, but she knows it’s not his real name. She never lets any of them tell her their real names. She doesn’t care what he’s called. It’s not important. But she thinks of him as the guy with the gorgeous long-lashed eyes. He is sitting, bent forward on the bed, knotting the laces on his trainers. She reaches out and touches his arm. ‘Thanks for coming.’ He looks round at her and grins. ‘Thanks for having me.’ She grins back. She has slipped into this ritual of talk with him. She has other rituals with other guys and it’s curious, the way it happens – the way it’s so easy to do the little jokes and phrases with different ‘regs’, making it seem, just in that bit of time in the Love Nest, that they’re real lovers. Partners. Couples who go to the cinema and have meals together and hold hands and dream. ‘Can I ask a question?’ This isn’t part of the normal ‘real lovers’ game. Questions are taboo – but this guy has been five times now, and she doesn’t understand why. It’s not like that with all of them – sometimes she can see exactly 225

why – but not him. She leans back on the bed, her head on the pillow. ‘Why DO you come? Come here at all, I mean? You’re gorgeous. You must get loads of offers.’ She wonders, as she says this, whether she’s just talking herself out of a slice of next week’s takings. She could offend him. She might be forcing him into a really uncomfortable spot. He starts working his jaw, chewing at the inside of his mouth, and she can see he is struggling. ‘I’m so sorry. If you don’t want to . . . ’ she begins. But he shakes his head. ‘It’s because you feel safe,’ he blurts at last, and his beautiful longlashed eyes look sad. ‘Safe?’ She had expected exciting, daring, risky, naughty. Never ‘safe’. ‘I don’t get you?’ ‘With you . . . ’ He seems to be picking through words. ‘. . . with you, it won’t go wrong.’ ‘What won’t go wrong?’ ‘Girlfriends. Being in relationships. Heavy things like that go wrong.’ He stands up abruptly. ‘That’s why.’ She stands with him and lets him hug her – 226

they are back in their ‘lovers’ game now. She wonders who it was that hurt him so much. She can’t imagine it, can’t imagine feeling things like that. Surely he doesn’t have to get involved – he could just run before anyone gets too close? ‘I’m sorry,’ she whispers, pressing her head against his chest. ‘Sorry that someone gave you a crap time.’ He hugs her tighter – a real crushing embrace. ‘Thanks for caring,’ he whispers. She draws away slightly, smiling up at him. ‘I haven’t put you off me, have I?’ Opening the door, she herds him out, following him downstairs as she talks. ‘You didn’t mind me asking?’ ‘I’ll be back next week,’ he gives her one last hug in the hall, kissing the top of her head. ‘Promise.’ She waves and blows a kiss as he heads down the path. She’s not sure if he’s got a car or not – a lot of the guys choose not to park anywhere near the house – and she watches as he crosses the road and walks briskly away. She thinks, as she finally steps back inside, that it’s a criminal waste to let yourself get hooked into one person – especially someone who is going to hurt you. 227

‘Alix?’ Fern appears in the hallway. Alix turns to her. Fern has that silly wideeyed face on, like a kid opening Christmas presents. ‘Everything OK?’ ‘There’s been a phone call – from your mum’s boyfriend. Carlos.’ ‘What did he want?’ Alix grows cold. She wants to push past Fern and get a drink or check her email or watch telly or order in pizza. She wants to do anything rather than hear what it is that is making Fern shine out a smile like someone who’s about to tell her she’s won the lottery. ‘It’s your mum. She’s had the baby. Carlos wants you to ring him back.’ *** They meet on the same scraggy bit of beach a week later. Courtney is scared, remembering how golden he had seemed. How much she’s thought and thought and thought about him all week. Elroy. They’d swapped names and held hands in the Bluebird café. What if she’s got it wrong? Built him up? Dreamed him? 228

But when she sees him, sitting waiting on the bench, her knees almost physically give way. ‘Hi.’ ‘You came.’ He seems stupidly pleased, as if he is almost bewildered by it – by the fact that she has bothered. ‘What d’you want to do?’ She shrugs, stands smiling at him, as stupidly pleased as he is. ‘Anything really.’ And anything is really what she means. Being with him is like being in a sort of magical other world, away from everyone and everything else. He stands up and hugs her, and although she doesn’t want to, she feels herself shrink slightly. Straight away he loosens the grip, as if he can sense that she’s panicking. ‘Come on then, let’s go down here. Find a little piece of peace.’ His fingers twine through hers as he leads her onto the scraggy bit of beach. As they reach the shingle his arm slips round her shoulders, but it’s a light touch and she manages to stay calm. To behave like someone who is normal. ‘We’ll just sit here for a while, down beside the sea wall. Keep out of the wind.’ He isn’t trying to kiss her or grope her and even the way he holds her has a sense of quiet about it. It is 229

as if there is no need to hurry anything. It is as if he knows she might need time, and space. He slips off his jacket and lays it on the shingle. ‘My lady. Be seated.’ ‘You’ll get cold,’ she tries to protest. ‘The wind’s still batting in, even down here.’ ‘Sit!’ He makes his voice mock stern but he can’t keep the smile from his eyes and the look he is giving her is so sweet and so tender that she is suddenly overwhelmed by the whole idea of him, and she has to turn away. ‘OK,’ she says, trying to stop her voice from wobbling. ‘I’ll sit.’ She edges as far along the jacket as she can – making a place for him – but she sits upright, hugging her knees. He drops down next to her, his own legs stretched out and relaxed. She can feel the pressure of his thigh against hers, a warmth washing out from him. She wants to relax, to rest her head against his shoulder. She wants him to hold her hand again. ‘It’s a magic place here, isn’t it? Brings you closer to your soul,’ he says. Courtney tries to imagine being close to her soul, but nothing will come. She’s not sure that she’s got one. The sea swills in, then rolls out again. 230

The sky is gunmetal. A few gulls circle and call. A boat dips and bobs. The sun pours out rays from behind the grey clouds, and they stretch to touch the horizon like beams in a child’s painting. ‘This stone . . . ’ Elroy has run his fingers through the pebbles and lifted one out, holding it in front of her. ‘. . . it looks boring at first, doesn’t it? But look at the colours. The tiny speckles, splattered like ink blots. That little knot there – just on the side. I could get lost in it – just looking at it. Stones are amazing.’ Courtney takes the stone from him, holds it on her palm. She can’t see what he can see. She can’t make it be amazing. She looks up at him, wondering if she should pretend, but he touches her cheek and the brush of his fingers is electric and his eyes are touched with warmth and honesty and everything pure and she knows that she never wants to pretend about anything to him. Not even about stones. And that, she thinks, is amazing enough for her. *** 231

T

HE VILLA SPRAWLS on the side of a hill. It is painted white. Vibrant pink flowers splash colour across the garden. Alix doesn’t want to admit it, but it all looks fantastic. ‘I take your bags. You go on in.’ Carlos, who put her in the back of his black Mercedes for the journey from the airport, and who spent the drive talking in Italian on his mobile phone, leaves her at the front door. It springs open before Alix gets the chance to knock and Mum is suddenly there underneath the arch, hugging her and chattering about how wonderful it is that she’s come and how Aaron arrived on the late flight last night. 232

Alix can’t feel the hug and she doesn’t return it, but she kisses the air beside Mum’s cheek and hopes that will do. Mum’s hair has grown and she’s wearing it loose, which Alix thinks ages her – and she’s put on weight. Alix is scratched by the idea of Mum gaining weight like this. So what if she’s just given birth? She doesn’t have to let herself go. The baby isn’t in evidence. ‘Where is she? I can’t wait to see her.’ Alix takes in the cool elegant living space with its polished wood floor and engraved, elaborate furniture. She wants to get this first introduction over with. She’s already practised what she’s going to say. Oh, isn’t she beautiful. Congratulations. Look at her tiny hands. Although she won’t be beautiful, of course. She’ll be old walnut wizened and scrunched, the way newborn babies always are. ‘She’s upstairs, but she’s due to wake. Don’t you want a drink first? Or a look round.’ ‘No. Honestly.’ Get it over with. Get it over with. ‘Come on, then.’ Mum beams a smile at her. ‘I can’t wait for you to see my little Carla.’ 233

Alix follows Mum, who walks painfully up the polished wood stairs to the landing. Apparently it was a difficult birth, but Alix switched off when she was force-fed with all the details. ‘In here,’ Mum whispers, pushing open a dark oak door. Alix expects Mum to go bustling in, scooping up My Little Carla and oohing and aaaahing and making irritating coochy coochy noises. She does none of these things. She stands back, nudging Alix forward. Alix makes herself walk into the nursery alone. At least the floor here is carpeted, and she can tiptoe towards the crib. It’s a big room – too big for a baby – and refreshingly cool, with a fan washing out a humming breeze from the corner. The curtains are closed and the light is very soft, a muted glow lying like a film over the cream walls and curtains. Alix reaches the crib, and looks in. My Little Carla is awake. ‘Hello there,’ Alix makes her voice baby soft and wonders how long she’ll have to keep this 234

up for. My Little Carla struggles to look up at her with blinking, unfocused eyes. Alix stares down at her. Maybe it’s just the way the light gentles the room, but My Little Carla’s skin seems smooth and clear; she has fine wheat-blonde hair that already has the hint of a curl, and such a perfect nose. Such a pink petal mouth. Alix wants to hate her, and can’t. Carla yawns, waving her hands which are bunched into tight tiny fists. Alix reaches down to touch one hand, stroking the perfect miniature fingers. The baby lies still with the touch, as if she’s letting it soak into her, trying to make sense of this looming stranger. As Alix leans in closer she draws in a fresh, sweet, untainted smell. A smell all baby and new. Pressing gently against the tiny fist she feels Carla relax slightly and then tighten her hold again, this time clinging to Alix’s index finger. The grip is so fierce, so strong. It is as if this brand new miniature person will never let her go. Mum tiptoes up beside her. ‘She’s got such tiny hands, hasn’t she?’ Alix bites back the stinging reply that says 235

something about her looking silly with anything else, and nods. Carla’s eyes are still searching hers, her hold still locked onto her finger. ‘I remember standing like this with you. I so loved watching you. I could stand over you forever.’ Mum is murmuring, gazing down into the crib. Alix feels a rushed, ‘What happened then? Why did you stop?’ But the accusation locks in her throat. This isn’t the time, or the place. ‘I used to talk to you too, and you’d follow me with your eyes – the way she’s doing with you now.’ Alix feels dazed by Carla’s eyes. Such brilliant blue. ‘What sort of things did we talk about?’ ‘Oh, I don’t know. What Aaron was doing at playschool that day. What Daddy was up to. What you wanted to be when you grew up.’ Carla’s eyes now move to Mum, the look deep and intense, as if this is all incredibly interesting information. Alix wonders how much babies understand. Maybe they are born knowing everything. Maybe life just makes them forget, day by day, until by the time they can talk all the knowing 236

is gone and they have to start learning from scratch again. ‘A dancer,’ says Mum. ‘We talked about how you wanted to be a dancer. Although if I’m honest, it was my dream for myself really. It was me who had wanted to dance. I dropped out of drama school when I met your dad.’ ‘You must have been gutted by me then.’ Alix glances sideways at her. ‘I hated those ballet lessons you dragged me to.’ She remembers Mum’s various stabs at getting her to classes. She hadn’t minded the dancing – not when she could be bothered to put her mind to it – but she’d hated all the sweetly poisonous little girls fretting their way through grades and shows and competitions. Mum smiles. ‘No – you haven’t wound up as a dancer, but . . . ’ She touches Alix’s arm. ‘I’m so proud of the way you have turned out.’ Alix tries not to flinch. Mum leans down towards the crib, and Alix suspects the ooohing and aaahing is probably about to begin. ‘We’re proud of your big sister, aren’t we? She’s clever. She’s independent. And she’s making a success of her life. Not like her silly mummy.’ 237

Alix glances round the too-big nursery. She thinks about the sprawling white-washed villa. She thinks about Carlos is his sleek black Mercedes. ‘You look like you’ve done all right to me.’ Mum sighs. ‘I married too young. Wrong man. Wrong dream. It went downhill from there.’ Alix thinks about this downhill slide. She finds a long-buried memory of herself, about four years old in a silly bobbled hat, clinging uncertainly to some ‘Uncle’s’ arm. Aaron is next to them with Mum, and the four of them are sliding, skiing down the side of a mountain. There was a photograph somewhere, once, but she doubts if Mum has kept it. Mum never carries any baggage from the past. Carla starts whimpering. Not a cry, but a protest. You’re ignoring me for too long. Alix thinks maybe she should have done more of that herself. ‘She needs feeding.’ Mum is leaning in over the crib now and Alix steps back, easing her finger away from Carla’s grip. The cry gets stronger – more of a wail. 238

Alix thinks, for one mad second, that perhaps she hadn’t wanted her to let go. The thought gives her a rush of warmth, and she stands uncertainly, wondering if she should always be here. Move to Italy. Devote her life to keeping this beautiful, new half-sister safe. ‘Oooops, smells like we need changing now, too,’ coos Mum. ‘Mummy will sort you all out. Mummy will make everything all right.’ She smiles at Alix, and Alix smiles back. She would like to tell Mum about her life back home – not to shock her, but to stop her. To stop her being the same with Carla as she was with her. And to let her know that she didn’t, for Alix at least, make everything all right. ‘What a pong.’ A voice at the door stops her. ‘Looks like I’ve chosen a bad moment.’ Alix turns to see Aaron bounding in towards them. He kisses Mum – a proper lipagainst-cheek kiss. He kisses the soft downy curls on the back of the wailing Carla’s head. And he hugs Alix, that warm and gentle big brother hug. ‘Great that you made it. Have you seen the pool yet? It’s humongously huge. We ought to go for a swim.’ 239

Alix glances at Mum, who has moved to the far side of the room. She is laying the now screaming Carla on a yellow plastic mat. ‘Be with you in a sec,’ she says to Aaron. ‘I’ll find out where Carlos has put my stuff, and grab my bikini.’ She’s going to be there for Carla – if she ever needs her. She’ll move out here to Italy if she has to. But it’s not going to be yet. ***

240

F

ERN WATCHES Muscles Mick walk away into the star-bright Saturday night, and then closes the door. Earlier, when he started to get rough, she thought she might have to ring the buzzer, which she has never done before. None of them have. But she stopped him from hurting her – she asked him not to twist her arms above her head, and he did. He said sorry too, at the end, and he even looked like he meant it. Sometimes blokes don’t realise what they’re doing. She’s noticed that. She thinks those ones are probably the most dangerous. 241

She is bone tired. She should go back upstairs and shower, and she will in a minute, but she suddenly isn’t sure it will help. ‘Dirty girl.’ Muscles Mick said this in a way that made it sound like her being dirty was a good thing, but all she could hear was Mum’s voice from forever ago. ‘Fern – look at you – you dirty girl – all that mud on your hands, sweetheart. Let’s get you all bathed up and lovely again.’ She thinks now that Alix has made her lovely on the outside – or at least lovelier than she was – but something inside is all smeared up and soiled. She walks into the kitchen. She’ll get her usual hot chocolate before she does anything else. She is longing to sit with it quietly, the mug cupped in both hands, the taste sweet and hot and safe. And then she’ll find a way to tell Alix she’s had enough. If there are already bookings for next week, then Fern will come back for those, but after that, she’ll be finished. Alix will be cross – she’ll probably cut her off, but Fern isn’t sure she even cares anymore. She just doesn’t want to keep feeling dirty on the inside. ‘Fantastic news.’ Alix looks up from sorting 242

the night’s earnings into three neat piles. Fern feels a moment of panic, scared she is going to announce there’s some new last minute booking that she wants her to take on. Courtney, who is sitting at the table opposite Alix, rubs her eyes and yawns. ‘I just had a call through from Aaron – while you were both upstairs – and we’re all invited to a party. He did mention it when we were in Italy last week, but I wasn’t sure if it would really happen, so I’ve been keeping quiet about it. I didn’t want to waste time telling you if it didn’t come off.’ ‘Count me out.’ Courtney shakes her head. ‘I’m shattered.’ ‘It’s not tonight. It’s in two weeks’ time. One of his mates from university knows this guy who lives near here, and he’s – well – mega rich. Millionaire. And the party’s at his place. It’s one of those huge houses with gardens that run down to the river.’ ‘How come we’ve been invited?’ Courtney studies her nails, which Fern notices are ragged and bitten. Alix raises her eyebrows. ‘It’s simple – his mate – I don’t know who she is – she’s trying to 243

get something going with this millionaire and she’s managed to wangle herself some invites – but she needs a lift down.’ ‘And?’ ‘And Aaron’s agreed, but says the deal is he can bring who he wants – and he thought as it was so near, we might want it to be us.’ ‘So is he picking us up from here?’ ‘I said we could get a taxi but he wants to drive us and I couldn’t push it. He thinks I’m a struggling student and I can’t risk shattering the illusion.’ ‘Don’t you ever worry someone will shatter it for you? His mates have sent us enough custom. What if someone gives him “the word” one day?’ Alix shakes her head. ‘It won’t happen. I’m sure of it. He wouldn’t be interested enough to follow it through.’ ‘Must be a real gentleman then.’ Courtney gives a sudden, hard laugh. Fern stands, locked tight in the moment, listening to the possibility that she will see him again. She has the sense of something rushing through her. An ache. A longing. She’s not sure if she’s excited, or scared. 244

Courtney heads for the fridge. ‘Why us? Why doesn’t he bring a girl for himself?’ Fern looks from Courtney to Alix. The answer hangs like an axe over her head. ‘He . . . ’ Alix hesitates, looking down and checking something in one of the piles of notes. ‘. . . he’s between partners at the moment. He’s not with anyone.’ Fern hears this like a song of freedom. He’s not with anyone. He’s not with anyone. All this time, since Alix’s party, she has tried not to let herself think about him. But thoughts, daydreams, fantasies come drifting up and she is lost in them before she even realises they’ve happened. Sometimes they float in when she is working in the boathouse. Sometimes they nudge her at college when she’s struggling with the work. Once they brimmed up out of her, making her cry as she stood by the river watching geese fly. She doesn’t understand how it is that an almost stranger can just scrape past her life and leave such a mark. A gouge. A scalpel sliced across soft clay. ‘We’ll get really glammed up – we’ll go shopping for something special – and we’ll 245

have the weekend off. A night out together. And . . . ’ Alix hesitates again, picking up a tenpound note and blowing it a kiss. She lays it back on the pile a small smile on her lips. ‘. . . who knows who we might meet? Who knows what contacts we might make for the future?’ Fern waits for Courtney to take a can of Coke from the fridge, and then gets out the milk. She finds the mug and the hot chocolate amongst the muddle in Alix’s cupboards. Pulling out a saucepan, she pours in the milk and lights the gas. She can’t tell Alix about giving up now. Not for two weeks. She can’t risk being dropped from the invitation. She has to at least see him. He’s chosen her and Courtney and Alix to go somewhere special with him, and it might mean something. It might be a complicated way for him to get to see her again. She knows it’s madness to think like this – but it’s a chance she can’t just let go. The milk bubbles up, boiling sooner than she’d expected. She makes the drink all creamy and steaming, and sits down at the table with the others. She sips it and it’s too hot – burning her tongue, but she hardly notices. 246

If he does want to see her – if he shows her he’s interested again – at least she’s learnt something these last six months. At least she’ll know what to do. *** Alix watches through the window as Courtney and Fern arrive, both in taxis that pull up at the same time. She goes out to greet them. ‘You look fantastic,’ she smiles. ‘I hate this. It feels too tight.’ Courtney smoothes the black dress down round her hips, and picks irritably at the low cut neckline before following Alix inside. ‘You look great too, Alix.’ Fern hurries in behind them. She is in a thin-strapped cream dress, her hair crimped, a butterfly hair slide pinning it back just above one ear. One of the straps has slipped down over her shoulder and Alix hoists it up again for her as they stand in the hall. ‘Keep your back straight. They won’t do that then,’ she whispers. Fern nods and bites her lip. Her eyes are wide, anxious. Alix thought she might have 247

toughened up lately, but maybe that’s impossible. She’s asked Aaron to keep an eye on her again, and she hopes he remembers. She might be a pain but she gets a lot of ‘regs’. She does better than Courtney most days. ‘These are the pashminas – the shawls I ordered in from The Dress Agency.’ She lifts three soft tissue parcels from beside the door and makes her voice sound sales-lady posh as she hands them out. ‘Black with a cobwebby silver weave for the dark-eyed diva, and sweet buttercream yellow for the girl with the gorgeous hair.’ ‘Ladies, ladies.’ Aaron appears at the top of the stairs. Dark jacket. Silk cravat. The silk cravat is undone. ‘Excuse the state of undress,’ he grins as he moves towards them. ‘I can never get these beggars right.’ ‘Leave it like that then.’ Alix’s own dress is just above knee-length, emerald-green silk, a long thigh-length slit down one side. She has a Dress Agency bag to match, her own green silk pashmina, and silver stilettos that are a shoe fetish guy’s dream – although she’s not going to be working tonight. Scouting, yes – but working – no. ‘An undone cravat is more sexy anyway.’ 248

‘Then undone it shall remain.’ Aaron turns, offering his arm to Fern. ‘Ladies, as your official driver for the night, I shall escort you to the car. I’ve already dropped Daisy off, so I know where we’re headed.’ Fern blushes. Takes his arm. Alix and Courtney follow on behind. Minutes later they are in Aaron’s Saab, driving through the evening. People are out cycling, walking dogs, standing chatting. The air is muggy with a heavy, weighted warmth. ‘It’s so beautiful.’ Fern is in the front seat, looking from side to side. ‘Look at the sky. It’s a sort of dusty lilac.’ Alix doesn’t care about the dusted lilac sky. She is thinking about Carla. It’s curious, the effect the baby has had on her. Mum sent her a photo and she’s stuck it on the fridge. It’s incredible how much she’s grown, even in such a short time. She comes into her head at all sorts of odd hours – even when she’s with a guy, which is never the ideal moment. It is as if something has struck up between them that she can’t cut free from. In fact, she doesn’t even want to. They drive over the bridge and into the quiet 249

lanes that run along the edge of the river – Fern’s shabby guesthouse lies on the other side, where the shore is muddy and washed up with all sorts of muck. This side is very different. Aaron whistles. ‘Look at these houses. This lot must be dripping in gold.’ ‘I think it’s sick.’ Courtney folds her arms and slumps back in the seat. ‘Some of these are even second homes. Having that much money is grotesque.’ Alix glances at Courtney and wishes she’d sat in the front, away from her. She looks out at the luxurious, detached houses, and they seem to taunt her. One day she wants to be living in a world like this – not around here, but somewhere where no one will recognise her. Only it’s going to take a lot more clients, and a new business plan, to get there. Everything is great as it is, for the life she’s living now, but it won’t be enough. Not for much longer. Maybe she could get in more girls? If she upped her own percentage, and tripled the income, she could just reserve her favours for special occasions. Special guys. Maybe guys like the ones she’s going to meet tonight. 250

‘This is it, ladies.’ Aaron turns the car into a long sweeping drive, crammed up with Morgans and Porsches and BMWs. Pushing the business dilemma to one side, Alix gets out of the car and stares up at the house. ‘Wow.’ Fern is goggle-eyed. Entranced. ‘It’s amazing. A real film star’s palace.’ Alix turns to Aaron as he fires his key at the Saab door, and then scrunches across the gravel to stand with them. ‘Your friend seems to have picked herself a winner,’ she smiles. And then she spots the peacock-blue Ferrari. *** Fern leans back on the bench, Alix’s pashmina wrapping her against the evening. She doesn’t need it. It’s a warm night – the heat of the day still choking the air. But Aaron has tucked the pashmina round her. Sat next to her. Has his arm stretched along the ornate iron back rest. The cocktail is sweet strawberry, iced, and with real fruit floating in the top. She sips it, making herself savour it slowly, reminding herself that behind its pink innocence it’s probably laced with brandy or 251

tequila or some other liquid demon that wants to addle up her head. She doesn’t want that. She doesn’t want addling. And anyway, it’s Aaron she’s drunk on. Aaron spinning her world around. He hasn’t left her side, and tonight is a cocktail of magic and dreams. ‘It’s an amazing place. I’ve lived in Long Cove forever, and I’ve never been in any of the houses round here. It’s another world, isn’t it?’ She struggles to keep talking, determined to sound confident. ‘Absolutely. Yes,’ says Aaron. ‘I can’t imagine what it’s like to live somewhere like this though. Can you?’ ‘Absolutely not,’ says Aaron. ‘Would you even want to?’ ‘Absolutely probably,’ says Aaron. And laughs. She laughs too, a thrill skimming her. They are laughing together. She sips more sweet strawberry and wonders if she should put her hand on his leg. And then she thinks it might be too soon. He’s got his arm along the back of the bench but he’s not actually touching her. She risks leaning into him slightly, noticing that he doesn’t move 252

away. ‘I love those glass sculptures – those lilies or whatever they are. They’re lovely – but strange.’ She sips more cocktail and squints towards a small pond, where organic-shaped ornaments are lit by a dance of coloured lights. ‘Surreal,’ he says. She’s not sure what the word means so she stays quiet, finding the courage to rest her head on his shoulder. It feels so natural. So right. She wants to find a way to tell him he could kiss her. Wisps of music thread down through the garden behind them. She thinks of the music as strings of colour, crisscrossing the night. Disembodied voices pass, murmuring. Someone – a woman – shrieks, then giggles. They’ve been quiet for too long. She needs to get him talking again. Shifting slightly, so that she is facing him, she asks brightly, ‘What university is it that you’re at?’ ‘Sussex.’ He doesn’t look back at her, but stays staring out across the pond where a small fountain is showering silver into the silky water. ‘Near Brighton.’ Fern has heard of Brighton and in her head she sees pictures of beaches. A pier. ‘That’s by the sea, isn’t it?’ 253

‘Yeah.’ Sussex Sussex Sussex. She’ll have to remember. ‘I love the sea. The river. Even though water scares me sometimes, I still can’t bear to be away from it for long.’ ‘Scares you?’ He does look at her now, asking gently, ‘How does it scare you?’ She worries that he’ll think she’s stupid if she starts going on about her dog dreams and the mud figures all sucked down by the undertow. ‘Oh – just because I can’t swim. I tried to learn once but I panicked and after that it just didn’t happen.’ She knows he can swim because Alix talked about them racing in the pool at her mum’s villa the other week, and she waits for him to say something else, but he doesn’t. ‘Are . . . are you going back to . . . to Surrey tomorrow, do you think?’ She has tried to make this sound like nothing, a light shower of empty words, but it comes out weighted. A dropped stone. He grins at her. ‘It’s Sussex. And I don’t know yet.’ Fern feels herself tense up, almost jolt. This 254

could be it. He might be going to make a move on her now – maybe that’s why he doesn’t know what he’s doing. He needs to know what she’s going to say. Her hand strays to the silk fringe of the pashmina, plucking at the tassles. The moment ripples outwards. She could lose it. It might ebb away. ‘What would you do if you didn’t go? Back. Tomorrow, I mean.’ He grins again. ‘Annoy Alix. Sleep on in the morning. No one should surface before lunch time on a Sunday unless there’s some pressing need, like football practice.’ ‘Don’t you sleep on when you’re at university then?’ Fern realises she is gabbling about nothing but she can’t help it. She’s scared that he will ask to see her, and scared that he won’t. He makes an odd noise – a humph. ‘Sadly I don’t get the chance. It’s the girls. They get all heated about things like their best bra going missing or whatever, and they seem to think the whole house should hear about it.’ ‘The girls?’ Fern makes herself focus on a collection of glass sculptures that edge the pond, graceful green stems washed in a fan of light. Girls. He lives with girls. 255

‘There’s four of us – three girls and me.’ ‘Oh – right.’ Three girls. Three girls living with Aaron. A waiter approaches, seeming to glide along the grass towards them. ‘Madam?’ he bows slightly, the tray held immobile. Fern realises her strawberry cocktail is finished. She hands him the glass, and takes a fresh one. Is it orange this time? She isn’t sure. Colours always look different in the dark. ‘Sir?’ The waiter turns to Aaron, bowing again. Aaron waves him away with the hand that isn’t stretched behind Fern’s back. ‘Thank you, but no. I’m driving,’ he says. The waiter glides away again. Fern sips the cocktail. It’s more lemony than orange. She sips it again; for courage, she thinks. ‘Are they pretty?’ Bits of tassle have been pulled away from the pashmina and she brushes them down from her lap. ‘Sorry?’ ‘The girls you live with. Are they pretty?’ Her mouth is fixed in a small growling smile and she struggles to soften it. ‘I’m not sure. I don’t really look at them in 256

that way.’ She senses a slight movement of his shoulder, a shrug. She thinks, relieved, that he doesn’t sound interested in them. He doesn’t sound as if he’s even thought about it. And then he says, ‘In fact, you can decide for yourself. Here’s one of them now. Oh hey, Daisy – what’s up?’ Fern looks round as a slim girl, porcelain pale and in a long red dress, weaves unsteadily towards them. Or at least she thinks the dress is red. Colours look different in the dark. ‘Aaron. Thank God I’ve found you.’ Daisy drops – collapses – onto the bench bedside him. ‘Hey now – what’s happened? Come on. Talk to me.’ Fern feels his arm move away from the back of the bench, his body turned from her now, focusing on Daisy. She shifts position, moving forward and tilting her head to see round his back, her small growling smile forcing out a sympathy that no one is even noticing. Daisy has her fists clenched and is pressing them up against her eyes. Aaron reaches forward, taking both hands and drawing them down gently into her lap. ‘Come on. Tell me. Tell me.’ 257

His voice is so tender. Fern feels the wrench of very word. She stays smiling. Stays sympathetic. ‘He isn’t interested. I thought he was at first – but then he just seemed to drop me. I think he fancies someone else.’ Aaron pulls her towards him, cradling her. ‘Then he’s nothing but a rat. A skunk. A disgusting slur on the face of all mankind.’ Daisy giggles, opening her eyes and sniffing up at Aaron. ‘A cesspit in the stagnant pond of life.’ Aaron hugs her tighter. ‘A foul gush of slime in the sewer of time.’ They are both laughing now, rocking together. Fern feels shrivelled. She could never play these games of words. ‘Look – I’ve got an idea. You don’t have to risk his boiled blisters for eyes seeing you like this. We could head off somewhere – drive through this dark and velvet night, and find an enchanted land where all the Princes will be lined up waiting for you.’ He turns to Fern, as if he has suddenly remembered she is there. ‘I’ve got to get Daisy away, and I don’t know if 258

I’ll make it back to pick you ladies up. So use this for a taxi . . . ’ He wrestles in his back pocket and pulls out a wad of notes. ‘Alix must be around somewhere. And the other girl. See if you can find them – and tell Alix I’m sorry. I’ll call her tomorrow.’ He is already standing, Daisy swaying against him. She doesn’t even look at Fern. Together they melt away into the evening. Fern stays slumped on the bench, the pashmina lopsided now, swigging back the orange that-is-probably-lemon cocktail. She stares at the pond with its lit-up glass ornament lilies. Insects flicker round them, hovering and buzzing. She thinks that is the second time in her life that a bloke has given her money to get rid of her. ‘Another drink, madam?’ The voice at her shoulder makes her look round, the waiter hovering like an apparition. She forces herself to move, stretching out the empty orange butprobably-lemon glass, wobbling it down onto the tray. The waiter steadies it. She takes another. Who knows what colour it is? And who cares? *** 259

Courtney is sitting in the garden at a small painted table, pressed up in a corner under a tangle of honeysuckle. She hopes no one will find her. She has had a few drinks – she’s on her third now – but this fruited cocktail rubbish doesn’t seem to be touching her. A couple of blokes have come over but she’s shrugged them away. She can’t face the idea of empty conversation. Small talk. Pointless chatter. Wafts of music drift from up near the house. There are lights everywhere, small-eyed fairy lights that squint down from the branches of the trees. Courtney thinks it’s all so shallow and crass. She wishes she hadn’t agreed to come. Alix had a big idea about them all getting dolled up and having a good time being gorgeous together. Except Courtney doesn’t feel gorgeous. The black sequined dress she is squeezed into cost a fortune, and she can’t believe she let Alix persuade her to waste her money on it. It’s not ‘her’. This world isn’t hers. The world where she feels happiest is Elroy’s world. When she thinks about Elroy she thinks of 260

words like ‘gentle’ and ‘clean’ and ‘honest’, and when she thinks about Alix now, she sometimes shudders. At school once, years and years ago, they did Greek mythology, and one of the gods was a woman with her hair full of snakes. Courtney remembers the illustration – the face so innocent and the hair all seething and writhing and forked with small, venomous tongues. Medusa. Alix. A beautiful, dangerous, powerful goddess. Is she being fair? A breeze whispers in, skimming up and over the garden from the river. Sipping at the cocktail she watches the ripples on the water and thinks about the last three weeks with Elroy. Sitting on the beach. Walking from one end of the promenade to the other. Talking endlessly in the Bluebird. They’ve got so much to say to each other, drinking coffee in their favourite shadowed corner. Elroy is brimful of words – he knows about art and God and politics and books, and he opens her up to ideas and questions and each time she meets him, she goes away feeling different. Stronger. But they don’t always talk. 261

Sometimes they just sit quietly, looking and looking and looking at each other, drinking each other in while the coffee goes cold and Lofty, the owner, takes it away quietly and gets them some more. She loves this limbo existence – they haven’t even been to each other’s homes yet – and in her fantasy she makes it stay that way. No groping and sweating and panting and pawing over each other. Just him liking her as a person. Her liking him. And there’s Mum and Dad too, and the way she knows they’d be, with their thinly masked disapproval. She won’t subject him to that. She won’t tell him where she lives. Although she knows it’s not exactly the same for him – he is scared of inviting her back to his bedsit – he’s already told her that. ‘It’s not a great area,’ he said yesterday, a touch of anxiety behind his beautiful, incredible smile. ‘You might go off me if you saw it.’ It amazes her that he doesn’t know how she feels. He could live in a cardboard box for all she cared. But she didn’t press it because being 262

together in his bedsit might change things in a way she won’t even let herself think about, and she doesn’t want to risk the change. She sips more of the cocktail and looks back up towards the grotesquely huge house, where the ‘have it all’ people are laughing and dancing and eyeing each other up. Judging each other. Comparing. Competing. Babylon. That’s what Elroy would call it. If he came here now, walking past the bottom of the garden with his easel and his pastels, would he even recognise the glammed-up plastic doll of a girl sitting staring out across the night. And if he did recognise her, would he want to know her anymore? She’s not pretending with him – she’s promised herself she will never do that – but not mentioning something isn’t pretending. Avoiding. Evading. That’s all she’s doing. She’s got to be careful. The thought of him thinking badly about her coils like a snake in her head. She’s got more than a rough area bedsit for him to find out the truth about. She’s got a million seething secrets to try and hide. She stands suddenly, emptying what’s left of 263

the drink out onto the grass. Sod it, she’s going home. She’ll find Fern and Alix and tell them she’s getting a taxi back. She doesn’t even know how it was that Alix persuaded her to come. *** Alix is watching Hugh. She feels as if she knows where he is, even when she can’t see him. It’s as if she’s developed a kind of radar, sensing his position at any point in the room. He had a different girl with him earlier. The Limpet who clung on to him in The Dress Agency has clearly been prised away. Tonight’s one seemed gentler, and nicer. She looked lovely too, all dolled up in a slinky red dress, which was doubly annoying. It’s going be a major barrier if Hugh is with someone he genuinely likes. Alix isn’t sure where Little Miss Lovely is now, but no doubt she’ll be back. She’s not going to leave her catch unattended for long. She makes murmured conversation with strangers who want to know her name. What 264

she does. Who she knows, and how. ‘Cocktail, madam?’ She takes a drink from the waiter’s tray, and sips it thoughtfully. At least she doesn’t have to worry about it being spiked in here. She thinks it must be fantastic to be able to take a house like this for granted. Rooms draped with velvet and silk, sparkling crystal chandeliers, arched windows and marble statues set in alcoves in the wall. When she looks up Hugh has slipped from her view. She slides a look round the room – a glimpse is all she’ll need. His shoulder. His hair. She finds nothing. He has really gone. Little Miss Lovely must have crept back in and stolen him away. She nudges through a maze of rooms, passing clusters of guests who smile distractedly and continue their conversations. ‘Sorry.’ ‘Excuse me.’ She feels a sense of urgency, as if some dangled chance is being whipped from her. ‘Excuse me.’ ‘So sorry.’ In the Victorian conservatory she stands 265

defeated among a fresh thrum of guests. A man with a foghorn voice is telling an endless joke about a goldfish. His audience nods and fixes him with expectant smiles, poised for the moment when they are allowed to laugh. Hugh could be anywhere. The most likely place is in some silken-sheeted bedroom with Little Miss Lovely. The image of this churns up in her. She wants to rage through the house, flinging open doors and spitting fury at whoever she finds. All around her, the thrum of guests laugh. She wants to scream at them to shut up, and to tell them they’re all stupid. She wants to force them to go and find him for her. ‘I hope you’re having a good time.’ Alix freezes. She thinks it’s fascinating that this voice, heard only once and even then so very casually, can jolt her so powerfully now. It is as if the idea of him has lain somewhere at the edge of her subconscious, waiting to be called back. He has walked in from outside and he touches her arm as she turns to face him. ‘Hi,’ she smiles, feeling awkward with her Dress Agency bag and pashmina. She should 266

have got someone to take them for her. There must be a butler around, in a place like this. ‘I know you,’ he says. It isn’t a question or a battle with his memory. It’s a statement. ‘I know you too.’ He laughs, and the laugh seems to light up in him. He looks almost attractive when he laughs. He calls the waiter over and gets her another drink but she barely even sips it this time. She is so aware of being near him. The way he asks questions and then watches her answer. Not listens, but watches. She is glad she is beautiful. ‘Tell me what you do,’ he says. ‘Just a student.’ She wrinkles her nose. ‘I’ll be leaving soon. I’m not sure what comes next.’ He laughs again. ‘I left Oxford twenty years ago, and I’m still not sure what comes next either.’ She laughs with him. They are so close, their bodies brushing against one another. Guests jostle up and tell him it’s a great party and what an excellent location and they hope he can make it out to see them in their place on the Riviera soon. He nods and answers with 267

enthusiasm, but his eyes never quite leave her. ‘I’ve booked fireworks for midnight,’ he says. ‘It’s nearly time. Join me.’ Taking her elbow he steers her out into the sweetly scented garden. There is an orchestra playing, people dancing. The garden is as fantastic as the house. ‘Champagne, sir?’ The waiter gives a small bow and Alix wants to giggle. How amazing to have servants bowing to you. She remembers learning once in history at school that Kings and Queens employed people to wipe their bottoms. Maybe Hugh has an official ‘bottom wiper’ for himself. She stifles back another giggle. Hugh takes the bottle and tips it into two slender glasses. ‘Let’s toast,’ he says. ‘What to?’ She smiles at him, glows for him. He doesn’t smile, just looks at her, his expression almost pained. ‘To beauty,’ he says at last. ‘The sheer bittersweet joy of it.’ She lets herself giggle out loud now, and raises her glass. A wild fizz and splutter explodes above her. Looking up, she sees the sky is drenched with pink light. Then green. Then gold. There is a 268

long high swizzle of sound. The air thumps and thuds. Showers of silver stars grow and explode, raining round them like jewels. She glances at Hugh. He is not watching the fireworks. He is watching her. She warms him another smile. His arm comes round her and pulls her close, very gently. They stand together, faces tilted upwards, and a new feeling sparks up in her. A fresh sense of purpose. A clear direction. The fireworks keep coming. Shushes of pink light. Flashes of green. A golden snowflake spreads and grows, spreads and grows. It fills the sky, hovers, and then explodes. A thousand sparks come sprinkling down. Dripping the garden with gold. Hugh hugs her very tightly, then lets go of her to clap. Alix claps too, wondering what his next move will be. Wondering how best to play it. ‘Alix – I’ve found you.’ Courtney’s pale face looms up through the darkness. ‘What’s up?’ She wants to hiss and gesticulate and make Courtney go away, but she can hardly do any of that without Hugh seeing. 269

‘We’ve got to go.’ Courtney sounds jaded. Tired and irritable. Alix moves away from Hugh, her back to him, trying to block him from the conversation. ‘Why?’ ‘It’s Fern, she’s pissed.’ ‘Oh shit.’ ‘She’s thrown up in a lily pond. It’s disgusting. She’s disgusting. I had to wipe her down with that shawl thing you gave me. I’ve been looking everywhere for you.’ ‘Where’s Aaron? I asked him to look out for her.’ ‘Gone off, apparently. Fern keeps slurring on about a girl. He gave her fifty quid so we could get a taxi – because he thinks we’re all destitute students, of course. But anyway, I’ve booked it – it’s due any minute.’ ‘Where is she now?’ Alix shoots a panicked glance behind Courtney, suddenly scared that Fern might come lurching up singing rugby songs, or something worse. ‘I’ve managed to drag her out the front. She’s sort of propped against the wall of the house, moaning and groaning.’ ‘Oh God.’ Alix closes her eyes. Vomit 270

splashed across the drive. Vomit on the crammed-in cars. Probably even the peacockblue Ferrari. Hugh mustn’t know that Fern came here with her. She turns back to spin him a story but a woman in a gold-fringed trouser suit has hold of his arm and he is bending politely towards her, listening. This is the best she can hope for. No explanations. Just slip away. ‘Let’s go then.’ She heads off with Courtney, weaving hurriedly through the crowded garden. There is just a moment back in the house when she pauses, takes her green pashmina and loops it over the wood-panelled banister. It’s pretty weak, as an excuse for coming back, but it’s all that she can think of at the time. ***

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ERN THINKS she’s probably going to die. Nobody could feel as ill as this, and survive. Her head feels pressed in by tightening metal bands. She is hot and cold and cold and hot. Her hands shake. She daren’t move because she’s scared of being sick again. She forces her eyes to stay open and stare up at the light shade that hangs from the centre of her bedroom ceiling. The tiny flower patterns on it are too busy. Too hurried. But she makes herself keep staring. Maybe a fixed point will stop the room from rolling again. 272

She has no idea how she got home. How she got into bed. She can remember some things though. She can remember Aaron. And the girl in red. The room around the light shade tilts, then spins slowly. Fern concentrates on not throwing up. When the knock comes on the door she rolls sideways away from the sound, the effort of movement sending spiked pains all through her skull. ‘Fern?’ Mum comes in quietly – at least she understands about being quiet – and sits on the edge of the bed. ‘How are you doing?’ Fern stays staring at the opposite wall. More flowers. More hurry. ‘I’m too ill to speak,’ she manages at last. She feels Mum’s hand on her shoulder. ‘Don’t.’ Fern winces. ‘It hurts. Everything hurts.’ ‘It will do.’ Mum takes her hand away but she stays on the bed. ‘That’s what hangovers are like.’ Fern thinks, dimly, that Mum is sounding calm. Maybe the mad rant will come later. ‘It’s not a hangover,’ she slurs. ‘It’s a slow and horrible death.’ 273

Mum laughs. ‘I know it feels like that at the moment.’ ‘How would you know?’ Fern’s tongue has grown too big for her mouth. It’s hard to shape words. She wants Mum to go away. ‘You think I was never young?’ ‘You only ever drank fruit punch. Or champagne at weddings.’ ‘Ah – that’s the “now” me. The one with responsibilities.’ Fern shifts round slightly to look at Mum, the effort setting the whole room tilting again. ‘I don’t believe you.’ Mum is holding a glass, and she raises it slightly as Fern blinks and tries to focus on her. ‘You should drink this. Even if you only have tiny sips.’ ‘I’ll be sick.’ ‘Just try it. Honestly.’ Fern raises herself slowly onto one elbow, taking the glass, sipping the water. It is good in her mouth but the minute it hits her stomach she wants to retch. Handing it back, she collapses downwards again. She closes her eyes and the bed is liquid. Floating. She stares back up at the light shade. ‘What time is it?’ 274

‘Nearly twelve. I have to go and do the lunches in a minute, but once I’ve sorted the guests I’ll come up with some hot sweet tea. You’ll be ready for it then.’ ‘I’ll never be ready for anything, ever again.’ Fern feels the bed lighten as Mum gets up. She wonders if Dad knows about the state she’s in. She wonders if he’s ever been like it too. And as this thought swims through her, she wonders if Mum has only ever loved Dad. Does she feel about him, the way she feels about Aaron? Or is there a secret Aaron in her past? Are Aarons and hangovers and general stupidity all part of growing up? Her bedroom door clicks shut, and Mum is gone. Her eyes ache from still staring at the light shade. There is a pale trail of spider’s web caught up in the silky fringe, and she switches her focus to that. She hasn’t cleaned her room for ages. Not properly. Not the way she used to. Mum used to rant on about that too, but in the end she seemed to give up. Bits of last night – fragmented moments – move in and out of her memory. Drifting music. A gliding waiter. Strange glass lilies on 275

the pond. The pond – oh God. She remembers kneeling beside it, her stomach heaving. She squeezes her eyes shut at the thought, and realises that she must have fallen asleep – or passed out again, because suddenly Mum is there with the hot sweet tea. And this time, Fern finds she is right. She can manage to move, just about. And when she sits up and shakily takes the mug, the sharp sweet heat is beautiful. ‘It’s like drinking the first cup of tea in the whole world ever,’ she says. ‘I’ve brought paracetamol, too.’ Mum is pressing out tablets from a foil pack. ‘I thought you’d probably just bring it back up before. And I’ve made some soup – very thin – a chicken consommé. You’ll find that goes down well, with a bit of dry toast.’ Fern thinks about the consommé and the dry toast. Is she hungry? She isn’t sure. ‘I still don’t get why you’re being so nice,’ she says at last. ‘I told you . . . I’ve been there myself. Not often. And never deliberately. But I do know what it’s like. It’s not something I’m proud of though.’ Fern realises the hurrying wallpaper has 276

slowed. Almost stopped. The lilac elephant watches her with his glass-bead eyes. Her green crocodile seems to be smiling. It’s so safe here. The room is like a friend and she is tucked away inside it. She turns to look at Mum. ‘I love you.’ Mum’s face seems to move. A pained twist to it. She pushes her hand up and through her hair, holds it there, her eyes full of shadows. ‘I’ve been worried,’ she breathes out, her shoulders sagging forward and her hands dropping down into her lap. ‘All this time spent with Alix. It’s changed you. You’ve been like a stranger. I’ve – me and Dad both – we’ve missed you – I’ve tried not to interfere because it just seemed to make you worse . . . ’ She stops, as if the words have somehow stiffened in her mouth. ‘I love you, too,’ she says softly. ‘Both of us do. Very much.’ Fern sits still, her head bowed, not knowing how to answer. Mum stands, pats Fern’s shoulder, and then squeezes it gently. ‘I’ll go and get that soup started.’ Fern feels the warmth of the squeeze, and the strength of it. She listens as Mum’s 277

footsteps fade back downstairs, then sips the last dregs of the first tea in the whole world ever. She didn’t know Mum had noticed things about her. She didn’t know she’d been caring that much. She feels stunned by all the things that she’s been doing. Mum said she’s felt like a stranger, and it feels like that to her too. She’s been a stranger to herself. But she’s got to get out of it – Mum might know about hangovers, but her heart would break if she knew what else she’d been doing. There’s no way Mum would have been there herself. She leans and puts the empty mug on the floor, then sinks slowly down into the bed, pulling the duvet over her head. She’s feeling sick again, but it’s not the hangover. She’s sick of herself. With herself. Sorry, Mum. Sorry, Dad. Sorry sorry sorry. *** Alix drives round three times before she dredges up the courage to pull into his drive. 278

In her head she has played out all the scenes of things that might go wrong. Played them again and again, as if the repetition will somehow guard her against the reality. She has pictured the butler she didn’t give her pashmina to, handing it back. ‘Very good, madam.’ Her shawl returned, Hugh might never even know she came, and her flimsy excuse for coming here will be gone. Or – there is worse. Little Miss Lovely will answer the knock, skim her a look, and then shut the door again. And then – in some ways the worst scene of all – Hugh is the one who answers. He greets her politely, but with no interest. He finds the shawl that he hadn’t registered was hers, hands it back with a distant smile, and turns away. Switching off the ignition, she checks her face in the mirror, and gets out. Her mind runs a new scene where Hugh and Little Miss Lovely are watching her from a security camera video. They are cuddled together in the silksheeted bed, and laughing. She makes herself keep walking towards the door, only because the idea of not finishing this fantasy is worse than the idea of living with it and wondering what might have been. 279

The day is bitingly hot – the hottest so far this year. The air hangs sweet with the scents of blossom. Birds call lazily from the trees that edge the front lawn. A yellow butterfly flits past, fluttering like a tiny kite up into the burning blue. The Ferrari is there. Her stomach rolls, churning over and over. There is a knocker on the door – heavy brass. A lion’s head. Her hand hesitates over it for a moment, then she chooses the bell. It buzzes importantly, an interruption in the unhurried day. Nobody comes. She waits, shifts anxiously. Brushes an imaginary hair from her denim jacket. She has gone for casual. Careless. Just passing by. Maybe she should knock after all? She lifts her hand. ‘Hello?’ She jerks round, her hand still raised. He has surprised her again, appearing this time from round the side of the house. He is wearing a black shirt, open down the front, and jeans. She thinks, for the second time, that he looks attractive. He must be growing on her. His face and shoulders are freckled with a dusting of flaked white paint, and he is sweating. ‘You look busy.’ 280

He holds up a fan-shaped metal tool. ‘Scraping the window frames. The paint is dreadful. Centuries old.’ She nods, as if she is an expert on dreadful century-old paint. ‘I . . . I left my shawl.’ He smiles at her, his mouth curving upwards with an easy slowness. ‘You melted into the night like Cinderella. I’ve been searching for the shoe.’ ‘I’m sorry. Something . . . happened. My brother . . . ’ ‘No need.’ He reaches one hand out to her, then notices the dust that has peppered his fingers, and drops it away again. ‘Can you stop? For coffee? I can tidy myself up.’ ‘No need,’ she smiles at him. ‘No need for you to tidy up, I mean. And yes, please. I’d love a coffee.’ She follows him round the side of the house and in through the conservatory. ‘Sit here.’ He is watching her again, and she can feel the intensity of the look firing into her. ‘I’ll bring it through.’ She settles on a floral-cushioned chair, taking in everything she missed on Saturday 281

night. There are plants along the window ledge. A vine curving up one wall. A small pine table with a paper – the Guardian – lies open at the travel page. Everything has an easy grace. An elegance. As if the whole place is comfortable with itself. Hugh comes through with the coffee, all frothy and steaming in a fine china mug. She can see that he is newly washed and freshened up. ‘This has got caramel sauce with it,’ he says. ‘You’ll love it. I hope.’ She watches him walk to the windowsill, picking off dead flower heads. ‘I’d have thought you’d have had housekeepers. Gardeners. People to paint your windows for you.’ ‘Not me,’ he answers without looking round. ‘I like to be part of things. Properly involved. But aside from all that, I’m trying to get this place shaped up to sell.’ ‘Sell?’ The conservatory walls seem to sway, as if the ground has tilted. Somewhere beneath the layers of butlers, Little Miss Lovelies, and his just sending her away, she had played out scenes of being here. Visiting. Staying over. ‘I’m taking Zara round Europe for the summer. It seems crazy to have this place sitting 282

here crumbling away. Places need people. I’ll sell it on and get something else when I come back. If I come back.’ ‘Zara?’ Alix nods calmly, sipping the caramelsauce coffee without tasting it. The world inside her is crashing. ‘Is that the girl you were with on Saturday night?’ Her voice is hoarse, dust in her throat. He turns to look at her, his head slightly tilted, as if he is thinking something through. Then he laughs, a real lion’s roar of sound. ‘You mean Daisy? No, no. She’s a sweet girl but – no. Nothing going on with her. I met her at a boat show in Brighton – I think she was there with her father – and she must have got my email address from him, and plagued me for some invites. That happens sometimes. I’m not even sure where she went.’ He laughs again. ‘No doubt some young stud lured her away.’ His voice softens. ‘I’m sorry. I’m not laughing at you but – stand up a minute. Come over here.’ She stands, obedient, and walks across to him. ‘Look out there, down by the river.’ Alix can’t work out what he’s showing her. 283

From a gap in the bushes she can see the river winding along past the dipped edge of his garden. It sparkles up sapphire blue. A white yacht is moored a little way out from the shore, and two swans glide by, one behind the other. His idyllic world. Everything fantastic. She still doesn’t like the sound of this Zara woman. He puts his arm round her. She can smell him, freshly washed but still all male. She could definitely get to like him. He stands quietly for a moment, as if he is breathing her in. ‘Zara is my yacht. All eighty-five feet of her. Her name means “Princess” and she’s like a miniature palace inside.’ She puts her coffee down on the sill and lets him hold her properly. Zara’s a boat. A bloody boat! ‘I know so little about you,’ he murmurs. ‘But it doesn’t seem to matter. It feels like I know nothing, and everything. Does that make sense?’ She nods, not sure how to answer. She doesn’t want to break the moment, but there are things she wants him to get a proper picture of. ‘I live on my own. My mum lives in Italy.’ She hopes she isn’t gabbling. She hopes she’s saying what he might want to hear. 284

‘Italy? Lucky mum. I plan to cruise round Italy for a while. And your dad?’ She shrugs. ‘Who knows.’ The cut-off is deliberate. To make him think – and feel. He pulls her tighter. ‘So young. So young to live alone. It makes me . . . ’ ‘Makes you what?’ From deeper in the house, the phone rings. Above them a bird scuffles down onto the glass roof, then swoops away again. They stay very still. ‘. . . want to look after you,’ he says at last. ‘I’m not a child.’ She pulls back slightly, defensive. Does he think she’s too young? Maybe she’s pitched it wrong. That wasn’t what she was going for at all. He tightens his grip, not letting her go. ‘I don’t mean that,’ he says. ‘But there’s something about you. An innocence. Unsullied. I’d want to always keep you safe.’ She smiles. She doesn’t press against him. She will let him make all the moves. But she’s got a bit of time to work on him. Innocent. Unsullied. She can shape herself to be the way he wants her to be. *** 285

His bedsit is full of colour. Rugs and cushions. Pots and bowls and candles. Paintings on the wall. ‘Is this your work?’ Courtney stands in the centre of the L-shaped room, her fingers clasping and unclasping nervously. She plays for time, makes herself take in the strange, almost surreal, scenes of boats and beaches and figures standing watching the sea. ‘It’s a series I worked on at the end of last summer. D’you like it?’ Elroy asks the question as if her opinion matters – as if she is likely to have an informed view. She thinks the detail is amazing but she doesn’t understand it, and she struggles for something intelligent to say. ‘You’ve painted everyone from behind. So you can’t see their faces.’ He laughs. ‘With the way I earn my keep, I get sick of faces.’ She flicks a tight smile back at him. She watched him work yesterday – it was a hot afternoon and the promenade was buzzing with tourists. She sat with him while he worked on his soft-pastel portraits, and explained to her what he was doing. ‘I kind of measure things in my head,’ he said. ‘For instance, I 286

need to be spot on with the space between the eyes. The length of the nose. The distance from the ear lobe to the jaw.’ Courtney was surprised. She hadn’t realised how much maths might be part of art. She’d always thought artists started scribbling, and it just happened. A sort of magic. He laughed when she told him this. ‘I wish,’ he said. Later he took her for dinner in the cobbled lanes, spending everything he’d earned. ‘I made these, too – these pots and bowls. I did them at college but I had to drop out because I couldn’t keep up with the fees.’ ‘I’ve got a . . . a friend who makes pottery things.’ Courtney is surprised to find she has used the word ‘friend’ to describe Fern, but she realises, in the same moment, that she would much rather introduce Elroy to her, than to Alix. She hopes he’ll never have to meet Alix. She hopes none of that life ever brushes anywhere near him. ‘What sort of pottery things?’ Courtney shrugs. She hasn’t a clue really – apart from a few things she remembers from school. ‘Mermaids, I think. You’d probably hate them.’ 287

‘I’d never knock anything anyone else is working on – I know how tough it is when people try to rubbish what I do.’ Courtney nods. He is so full of the right thoughts. Because of him, she is already a better person. They fall silent, and in the silence she can feel her heart beating, a frantic panicked pulse she has been trying to ignore. She wanted to come – she had to come – but now she wishes she hadn’t. He stands in front of her, looking as nervous as she feels. ‘You’re not OK, are you?’ She screws up her eyes for a moment, and then shakes her head. ‘You don’t like it? My bedsit. I knew it would put you off.’ He sags as if he has been punched and she wants to reach out and hug him but she’s scared of the contact. ‘No – no – it’s not that. It’s just – you know. It’s weird – being on our own together like this.’ He takes her hand and she lets him, feeling him squeeze her fingers. ‘Do you want to sit down?’ he says. ‘Sorry about the lack of chairs – I usually just lounge on the bed. I’ll make us some coffee.’ She glances across at the bed with its 288

cheerful lime-green duvet, and her gut tightens. ‘I’ll sit on the floor.’ He goes to the sink and fills the kettle, then stands looking across at her while he waits for it to boil. She can’t look back at him, and her eyes search the room, trying to hunt down more objects that she might use as prattled conversation. He carries across two mugs, handing her the one without the crack. ‘Is it OK if I sit next to you?’ ‘Don’t be stupid.’ Her giggle is high and brittle. ‘You can sit anywhere you like.’ But as he settles beside her, she is thinking that it isn’t all right. What if he makes a grab for her? She wants to be with him so much that it hurts, but the wanting is in her heart. Her body is like a locked cage and she can’t let him in. The floor is hard and the metal frame of the bed presses into her back. This isn’t how she wanted it to be, but she doesn’t know what to do or say to put it right. ‘Courtney?’ he turns to her and his eyes are both gentle and sad. ‘What’s up?’ ‘I just – I’m sorry. It’s stupid – but I’m nervous.’ 289

‘What d’you think I’m going to do?’ She stares down at her knees, plucking at a stray thread on her jeans, and shrugs. ‘I won’t hurt you. I’d never hurt you. And I’d never do anything you didn’t want.’ ‘I know.’ She twists the stray thread, pulling at it so that the denim wrinkles and bunches together. ‘I need to ask you something – I hope it won’t upset you. But are you a virgin?’ She almost laughs then; the awful ugly irony of the question. ‘No.’ ‘It’s something bad then? Something that happened to you?’ She snaps the denim thread, realising she is hunched forward and rocking slightly. There is a roaring in her ears, and she has the sense of being dragged somewhere she doesn’t want to go. ‘Yes. Sort of.’ She feels a fraud saying this – it’s only part of it – it doesn’t excuse her time with Alix. And why can’t she treat him like a client? Just fake it for him? And then she thinks that she’d rather walk away and never see him again, than abuse him like that. He stands suddenly and the movement jolts 290

her out of her rocking. She looks up, expecting him to tell her she might as well go if she’s going to be such a drip, but his expression is preoccupied. Taking his sketch pad from where it is propped against the wall, he gets the wooden box he keeps his pastels in and walks back to her. ‘Stay still for me,’ he says gently. ‘Just look over to the left slightly – out towards the window.’ He sits in front of her, his legs crossed and the sketch pad propped up on his lap. She stares out to where the window lets in the heated afternoon light, feeling his eyes move over her. She panics for a moment, wondering what he’s looking at. Stealing a sideways glance she sees him focused on her right ear, probably trying to work out the distance from her lobe to her jaw. Outside, a motorbike backfires. Someone walks past the gate, whistling. She feels his gaze move to her eyes, her hair, her shoulders, and she realises she doesn’t mind. ‘It’s not that good.’ His voice breaks the quiet trance she seems to have slipped into. ‘It’s like that sometimes, with people I care about. I can do a brilliant job with strangers in the street.’ 291

She stares at him and she thinks that it is exactly the same for her. A different type of work. A different setting. But exactly the same. And then she registers the words ‘people I care about’ and she smiles – the first proper smile since she arrived. ‘Let’s see,’ she says. He turns the portrait round for her and his eyes are apologetic as he passes it across. She tilts her head, and then looks up at him. ‘Is this how you see me?’ ‘You hate it, don’t you? I knew you would. I’m . . . ’ ‘You’ve made me beautiful.’ He kneels beside her then, his arms round her, pulling her closer. She slides the portrait up onto the limegreen quilt so that it doesn’t crush. ‘Courtney, you are beautiful. People must have told you that before.’ ‘Yes,’ she answers carefully. ‘I suppose they have.’ But she has never felt it. Never cared. And as he holds her she thinks that if he wants more from her then maybe she will pretend for him – just as her way to say thank you. But he doesn’t seem to want it. He just strokes her hair, folding her in his 292

arms as if he will never let her go. She presses against him and they shift position, lying together on the hard floor. Still, all he does is hold her. All he does is care about her. He has made her beautiful. ***

293

A

LIX SITS ON HER OWN in the canteen, thinking how grubby it all is. How grubby students are. And how young. She’s supposed to go to business studies next but she can’t be bothered. She’s ahead of the work anyway. If she wanted to she could probably take her exam today, right this second, here in the canteen – and pass. She pushes her half-eaten pizza away. Sipping her cappuccino, she decides that she loathes drinking from a paper cup. She wants caramel coffee and fine china mugs. She wants everything made by Hugh. 294

She went out for a meal with him last night, and he drove her home in the Ferrari. People almost broke their necks looking round at them – other drivers, walkers, passengers on buses. It felt good. She didn’t invite him in, and he didn’t try to persuade her, and that felt good too. Everything’s going to plan. She wonders where the other two are. She knows Courtney hasn’t turned up at college at all, and neither has Fern, as far as Alix can tell. Fern usually sniffs her out at lunch time, if she doesn’t see her before. She ought to text them to check that they’re all right – particularly Fern, after Saturday night. But checking up on them isn’t the only thing she wants to do. She’s made a decision. She wants to finish it – the whole working together thing. In fact, she wants to do more than finish it – she wants to bury it somewhere – to make it impossible for anyone to ever find out. She gets a strange unconnected memory of Fern dropping a nugget of glass down onto the bit of muddy beach next to River’s View. Sinking and sinking and sinking, she’d said. All 295

the way to the middle of the earth. Alix would like to do that with all of the last six months – get it sucked down into some murky quagmire in a place where no one will ever dig it up. Whatever happens, she needs to reinvent herself. To be vulnerable. Unsullied. The way Hugh wants her to be. They’ve already got bookings this week. Most are ‘regs’, and one is new, so they’ll see them just because it’s impossible to cancel – she never stores numbers – and after that she’ll announce that it’s over. She won’t be doing any more sessions. She doesn’t think they’ll be too bothered anyway – Courtney’s drawing further and further away, and Fern will go with whatever she says. There won’t be any trouble from the clients either. She’s thought it all through. She won’t destroy the phone – not quite yet – because some idiot might show up on the doorstep. But whenever they ring to book a session, she’ll explain that there’s a problem and they can’t risk working for a while. The word ‘risk’ should do it. No one’s going to want to be around if there’s a paparazzo-style reporter lurking in the bushes. And pretty soon, if things work out for her the 296

way she wants them to, she won’t be available anyway. She might not even bother to do the exams. Who needs A grades in business studies when you’re drinking up the sun, turning golden on the deck of a luxury yacht called Zara? *** Fern wheels Dad’s chair out round to the front of the house, and sits on the wall next to him. The weather has turned muggy, the air churning with the threat of storms. The tide is unusually fast, pushing in towards the shore. She watches two swans waddle down the slipway onto the stringy slice of beach, and thinks how awkward they are out of water. So lumpy and clumsy. Turning to Dad, she takes her sketch book from him. ‘I’m going to do plants and creatures as well as people. I’ll glaze everything in shades of brown – make it all look really earthy and muddy.’ ‘It’s such an excellent idea.’ Dad smiles at her. ‘Just the sort of project the tourism committee is looking for.’ ‘Other artists much older than me will be 297

sending things in too, Dad.’ Fern doesn’t want him to be disappointed if she doesn’t get chosen, but he’s buzzing with enthusiasm for her. She hasn’t seen him like this for ages. It was magical, how it suddenly all came together in her head. It happened yesterday evening, while she was still in bed. Fragments from the party had somehow joined with fragments of ways to put her life the right way round again – and then she’d noticed the rolledup Long Cove Echo, still tucked behind Lily, the elephant, and the soft green crocodile. Dad’s Art and the Environment project. The council award thing that she had forgotten to let him show her. She fumbled her way out of bed and got it down, staring groggily at the entry form. The details kept swimming in and out of vision like something hypnotic. After a while she put it aside because her head was throbbing, leant back on the pillow, and closed her eyes. And it was then that the idea came. She’d work on something like the glass sculptures in the millionaire’s garden, only she’d do it with clay, and with her whole underworld fantasy. Once the idea started it rushed and tumbled, as if all her life it had somehow been gathering 298

secretly, and now it was ready to come pouring out. Forcing herself to get up, she staggered downstairs and babbled her thoughts out to Dad, while Mum brought more hot sweet tea and they all sat together and talked and talked, and it was just the way it always used to be. In front of her, the swans waddle on along the beach. Fern runs swift lines down the page, trying to capture the sense of their awkward lumbering. ‘I shouldn’t worry about older artists. Or any other artists. I can’t see they’d be offering anything as imaginative as the solution you’re putting forward. The whole underworld of the river hidden amongst the reeds and on the wreck, and caught up on the banks. I just can’t stop thinking about all the possibilities that could run alongside it. It could work like a treasure hunt for tourists – I could even draw up a map to go with it all. Kids could circle the spots where your sculptures are, and the council could run a prize draw for correct entries.’ Dad coughs and draws breath for a few moments before racing on. ‘Your idea isn’t just about art, sweetheart. It’s a whole concept. Interactive. And it’ll get everyone really 299

thinking and talking about the river, and the tides, and the way everything affects everything else. It’s exactly what they’re looking for.’ Fern sharpens her pencil and begins sketching a cluster of reeds. She needs to send in rough plans showing exactly where along the river walk each sculpture will go, and she needs to send in photographs of the sculptures – at least six. This is fine, because she’s got half of them done already. ‘It’s going to be something special, sweetheart. Different. Surreal.’ Fern squints round at him. Surreal. That’s a word Aaron used at the party. It still hurts a bit, thinking about him, but at least she didn’t do anything too stupid. He won’t have any idea of what was in her head. She didn’t make herself look too keen. ‘I’m going to sort the boathouse out for you too,’ Dad goes on. ‘Get the electricity working for a start. I’ll do it as soon as Mum and I get back from our break. You sure you’ll be all right for a few days? You’re welcome to invite friends round to stay, if you want.’ ‘I’ll be fine Dad. I don’t need friends round. All I want is for you and Mum to 300

have a really happy few days – for some other guesthouse to look after you two for a change.’ Fern has helped set this up – another idea they all agreed to yesterday – a chance they have to take while Dad’s in remission. She moves her attention from the reeds and on round to the jetty. She could sculpt some sort of mud-oozed birdlike creature to sit on the post. Or maybe a fish would work better? She likes the idea of a fish out of water. She can make it a strange flying fish. She could do lots of them, all shapes and sizes. Fish and eels – and why not flying crabs? It will be all the things from beneath the surface, learning to evolve and survive above it. ‘There’s no reason why I can’t do things like basic wiring.’ Dad coughs again, but his voice is sparky and determined. ‘My body might be caving in, but there’s nothing wrong with my brain. It’s about time I got myself a new attitude and started getting on with things.’ Fern watches the swans swagger closer to the edge, and then wade into the river. They push off, gliding towards the centre, a trail of ripples streaming out behind them. Fern thinks it’s like an enchantment. Beauty and the Beast. The Frog 301

Prince. Once they are in the water they are transformed, all grace and elegance. And watching them she feels moved with the magic of the moment. She’s been trying so hard to be someone else, but Alix’s world is all wrong for her. She’s been a swan on the shore. A fish out of water. Thank God she’s woken up, before Mum and Dad found out. She’s going to tell Alix. She might even pluck up the courage not to go over on Wednesday. She doesn’t have to get in the taxi, just because it’s there. She sketches on. Seagulls. A cormorant. The gliding swans. She has to focus on movement. Get a grasp on the way flying things work. The tide is slushing up against the bottom of the wall now, and the sky is darkening. The storm can’t be far away. She’ll have to move soon – but not yet. Not just yet. She wants to sit here with Dad, pinning her imagination down onto paper, and knowing that this, all of this, is where she is meant to be. *** 302

Courtney has filled the sink with hot, sudsy water. ‘It was a brilliant meal – but I don’t know how you can use so much stuff just cooking for the two of us,’ she laughs, taking the first saucepan from the mountain of pots and plates and dishes. The mountain wobbles. A stray spoon clatters down and slips into the soapy froth. Elroy comes up behind her, sliding his hands round her waist. ‘I’m just being fair to the pots. Making sure none of them are left out,’ he says. ‘You’re nuts,’ she giggles, twisting round slightly and flicking suds at him. ‘A crazed, tortured artist,’ he agrees, reaching past her and getting his own handful of suds. ‘So – beware the Bubble Maniac . . . ’ ‘You . . . ’ she splutters, scooping out more bubbles as he tosses the sparkling froth towards her hair. ‘This is war.’ He ducks as she hurls her next onslaught, stepping backwards and away from her. She advances, her hand raised, a fresh mound of suds all fizzing and blinking on her palm. ‘Mind my eyes – mind my eyes,’ he shouts. 303

‘A struggling artist is nothing if blinded by the scorched sting of suds. Mercy, oh mercy.’ She keeps coming for him and he reaches the bed as she does the flick. ‘You really do mean business, don’t you?’ he roars, grabbing her waist and tumbling her down with him. She rolls under him on the lime-green quilt and he stays on top, holding her arms and looking down at her. ‘You are a dangerous Fairy Liquid fiend.’ She giggles again, twisting to try and escape, but his grip is strong and she is trapped. She stares up at him, deciding to be strategic. She will pretend not to struggle and then suddenly wrench away as he loosens his grip. He is staring back down at her. His eyes are so lovely. So warm. So kind. He has a soft froth of suds caught on his left eyebrow. She becomes aware of the sweet familiar smell of him. The shape of his mouth. She wants to be perfect for him. She wants to be honest. She has to cut loose from Alix. ‘Let me go,’ she says softly. ‘Please.’ 304

He releases his grip immediately, his sowarm so-kind eyes suddenly anxious. ‘I’m sorry – I wasn’t trying . . . ’ ‘I know.’ She reaches up, clasping her hands behind his head, and pulls his face down to hers. The kiss soaks through her, long and rich and full. She feels as if she is somewhere inside it, spinning in a magic sparkling bubble. There is a soft sighing, and she knows it is coming from her. Her hands slide down the length of his body, exploring him. He squeezes her shoulders; runs his hands across her breasts. ‘Is this OK?’ he whispers. ‘Are you sure?’ She kisses him again, more softly now and it is as if she is flowing through him and he is flowing through her and she thinks this is it. This is it. This is how it should be. ‘I’m sure,’ she whispers back. ‘Honestly. I’m sure.’ ***

305

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UTSIDE, the thunder grumbles. Lying on the bed in the candlelit Love Nest, Fern folds her hands across her chest and rubs her arms. ‘A storm is spot on for our last working night together,’ Alix had laughed, rummaging in her kitchen drawer for extra candles. ‘You could say we’re going out with a bang. And the power cut will just add a bit of atmosphere.’ Fern wishes she didn’t have to do this one last ‘newie’. She wishes she wasn’t here, but Alix picked her up from college – had been there instead of a taxi in the car park – and persuaded her to do this one last time. 306

Although she’s been fine about Fern wanting to finish – she’s said it’s time they wound everything up anyway. ‘Time to move on,’ she’d said. ‘I’d already decided that myself.’ Fern thinks that Alix already deciding is a good thing – she hasn’t had to make her cross. The door knocks and she gets up off the bed, walking over to open it. ‘Hi.’ ‘Hello.’ He has a posh voice although she can’t see his face very well. Faceless Fred. She’s glad he is faceless. She won’t have to gaze into his eyes. Faint washes of lightning shudder in through the cracks in the curtain, and his shadow on the wall is very tall. ‘My name’s Honey,’ she says softly. ‘It’s lovely to see you. I just need to ask you to get washed – you know – properly washed – and then I’m all yours.’ All yours. Alix has taught her to say that. She says lots of clients like the idea of owning you, even when they’ve only bought you for half an hour. Fern has to lead him to the sink because it’s too dark to just point the way, and she stands quietly, waiting for him to finish. 307

Lightning shudders in through the cracks in the curtains. She flinches, but doesn’t mention it. He hasn’t exactly come to talk about the weather. ‘I’m ready,’ he says, his very tall shadow turning towards her. She moves closer, laying her head against his chest. He has kept his clothes on – done himself up again, which is a good sign. It probably means he’s shy. The ‘newies’ often are. He strokes her hair in the dark and she thinks how gentle he is. She’s dead lucky to get a gentle one on her last night. Maybe he won’t even want to do it properly. Not all of them do. Not all of then can manage it. ‘Let’s lie down for a while.’ She takes both his hands and leads him to the bed. ‘We can have a bit of a cuddle.’ He lies next to her, keeps stroking her back and her hair and all the time he is whispering to her, talking softly but urgently, although she’s not listening to what he’s saying. She’s thinking about her river figures. She’s started on the fish now, only giving them wings instead of fins. The first ones have gone in the 308

kiln and she hopes the fine feathers on the tips don’t snap, because it took her ages to get in all that detail. She feels his grip on her get stronger. The whispering goes on. She strains to hear what he’s telling her, thinking perhaps she needs to say something too. ‘Aren’t you? Aren’t you?’ he is saying, and his grip becomes pinching. Painful. She is used to this. She’ll ask him to stop in a minute. ‘Aren’t I what?’ she murmurs back in her best Alix voice. Beautiful? Sexy? Maybe both those things. She could be anything to him, in his paid-for-half-hour – especially in the dark. And then she hears him properly – and it’s not a whisper now. And she’s not beautiful or sexy either. ‘You’re a bitch, aren’t you? A slag. A dirty whore. Aren’t you? Aren’t you?’ He is tearing at her, wrestling with her clothes. She hears her shirt rip. His hands, now under her skirt, scratch and twist her thighs. ‘Aren’t you? Aren’t you?’ And he enters her and he has his hands over 309

her face now, crushing it, screwing up her skin and her nose is bent sideways and her eyes are being stretched out as if her face is a mask that can be wrenched off. Torn away like her clothes. ‘A bitch. A slag. A dirty whore.’ She tries to move with him. She mustn’t make him worse. Mustn’t make him worse. ‘Yes,’ she answers. ‘Yes.’ Outside the thunder smacks and smashes and the wind screams and she stretches out her hand to find the buzzer. And then she remembers the electricity is off. *** ‘Fern?’ Alix can see Fern’s bulk on the bed, lying diagonally. ‘Oh God – she’s asleep. I told you she would be.’ She steps into the Love Nest, holding the candle that she’s carried upstairs. ‘Fern – come on. Wake up. Me and Courtney have been waiting for you. We were busy talking and we didn’t hear your guy go, so we’ve come up to . . . oh – my God.’ ‘What’s happened?’ Courtney is pressing in behind her. ‘What’s happened?’ 310

Outside the storm has blown over but it’s raining now, pouring. Everything rattling. She holds the candle closer, flickered light wavering over the face she doesn’t want to look at too closely. She reaches down to touch the ripped sleeve of Fern’s blouse, and Fern winces, and groans. So she isn’t dead. ‘She looks rough,’ whispers Courtney behind her. ‘I’d better get an ambulance.’ ‘No – no!’ Alix’s response is jagged and high. She forces herself to sound calmer. ‘We can’t let an ambulance in here. It’ll mean the police. Loads of questions and everything.’ And everything. Alix know she doesn’t have to explain to Courtney what ‘and everything’ might mean. Shit shit shit. Why did this have to happen tonight – the last night. Her life has turned round and she’s got her new plan and a glittering future that Fern might just be about to give the kiss of death to. What would Hugh say if he knew? What would happen to her glittering future then? ‘But she needs help.’ Courtney’s voice is 311

panicked. ‘I’ll get a cloth. Clean her up a bit.’ ‘No! Not that either. Look . . . ’ Alix’s mind is racing, not sure what it is she is going to say. ‘. . . we’ll put her in my car and drive her home. Tell her mum that she turned up on my doorstep in this state, and we didn’t know what else to do. Help me carry her, will you?’ Between them, they get Fern downstairs. She moans softly, ‘No – no.’ ‘It’s all right.’ Alix takes her car keys from beside the front door. ‘We’re going to get you home.’ *** Courtney keeps twisting round in her seat, trying to check if Fern is all right. She doesn’t put her seat belt on. So what if the police stop them? Maybe it would be better if they did. She’s not sure why she wants this, because she knows it will mean the end of everything for all of them, but Fern beaten senseless is a weight too heavy for her to deal with. ‘She’s still breathing,’ she says to Alix. ‘I can definitely see she’s still breathing.’ ‘Shut up.’ Alix is speaking in a voice 312

Courtney has never heard. ‘I need to concentrate. I’ve got to find a way to get us through this. I’ve got to try and stop Fern from blabbing.’ The rain whips the windscreen, the night thick with grey clouds that roll on through the black. They reach the main road and pull onto it. There is no other traffic about. No one else desperate enough to be driving in this. Turning right, the Mini bumps along the unmade track that leads to River’s View. ‘No,’ pleads Fern. ‘No no no. Please, no.’ As they reach the guesthouse, Alix turns the corner, driving round the side. She stops, killing the engine, and the rain beats round them like a drummed warning. The headlights pour cold light on the black water that slops up against the slipway, creeping inland. ‘The tide’s really high.’ Courtney’s gut is churning and her hands are shaking. She hopes she’s not going to be sick. ‘I think it’ll probably flood. It did that this time last year. You’d better not stay parked for too long.’ ‘I won’t. Just go and tell them what’s 313

happened. And remember the story – the way we’ve agreed it.’ Courtney isn’t sure she’s agreed anything, but this isn’t the time for an argument. She squints out through the window. There are no lights on in Fern’s house, but they’ve probably had the power cut here too. She half opens the door, and then turns back to Alix. ‘I can’t see her mum’s car,’ she says. ‘I expect they’ve moved it. They’ll have seen there’s a flood coming.’ Alix cuts dead the headlights. ‘Try the front door. They’ll hear you better from there anyway.’ Courtney still hesitates. ‘But the house looks so dead – I don’t think there’s anyone in – we’d see a candlelight or something.’ ‘Just go.’ Alix’s voice is grit hard. ‘I’ll look after her here.’ From the back seat, Fern calls faintly, ‘No. Please no.’ ‘OK – but you’ve got to promise me – if nobody comes – we take her straight to hospital.’ Courtney leans on the handle. ‘I promise.’ Courtney’s eyes sting. The wind whirls against her as if it’s trying to force her to turn back. She 314

battles through the slugged mud, and heads round the corner to the front of the house. There is no sound from inside. No sense of life. She raises her hand and knocks. Waits. Knocks again. This is insane, wasting time like this. And then she remembers – Fern told Alix they were going away. She’d said it earlier in the evening, when she first arrived. Courtney hadn’t really been listening – she’d been trying to ‘think’ herself into being able to go through with it all for one final time – but now the memory washes in. She turns, struggling back down the path. Alix must have forgotten – but she’ll have to take Fern to hospital now. They can still tell the same story about her turning up on the doorstep, if that’s what Alix wants to do. Courtney isn’t sure if anyone will believe this, and even if they do, they still don’t know what Fern herself will say. How can Alix stop her ‘blabbing’ when she’s barely conscious? But that doesn’t matter. None of it matters. The only thing is to get her somewhere where they can make her all right. She is hating herself for all the ugly Fern thoughts she’s ever had. She’ll make it up to her – if Fern will let her. 315

She turns the corner, the wind screaming round her, and then stops. Everything seems set in slow motion, and for a moment she can’t work out what she’s seeing. The back door of the Mini gapes open, and Alix is walking with her arm around Fern’s shoulder, half dragging her towards the black water. They reach the edge and stop. Alix shifts position, and seems to struggle to alter her hold. For a moment it is hard to make out exactly who is who. Their bodies blend, merging together. One dark, strange, twoheaded beast. And then one part of the beast falls forward. There is a quiet splash that could almost be nothing. That could almost be forgotten. And Alix stands very still. Watching the silence. Her hair dancing like maddened snakes in the wind. ***

316

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HE STREETLAMPS blink back on as Alix drives down Norwood Avenue in the streaming rain. She is grateful for this weather. It’s on her side. And the flood is a gift. It will wash away the tyre tracks. Her footprints. And Fern’s. Tomorrow she’ll just have to hose the Mini down, and vacuum out the inside. Destroy all traces. Courtney ran off. Alix thinks that she’ll ring her mobile later, but she’s sure Courtney won’t do – or say – anything stupid. If they stick together, it’ll be all right. The engine ticks a restless rhythm that seems in tune with Alix’s heart. 317

She runs through what she’ll say to Courtney. They can hatch up an alibi. They can say Courtney came to see her. They listened to music. Chatted a bit. Then Alix drove her home. Neither of them saw Fern – and they didn’t expect to. They ought to drop in some comment about how she’d been behaving strangely lately. They can add that she’d become very secretive. They could press it home even further by saying they were worried she’d got herself in with ‘the wrong crowd’. But there’s other things to deal with first. There’s evidence to erase. Back home, the lights glare like accusations. The candles downstairs have all burnt low, some of them caving in on themselves. She hurries round, blowing out the flames and carrying the last one to the sink along with the pile of tonight’s earnings. The notes burn easily; soft ashes on cold silver. Alix runs the tap, stirring the grey sludge with the handle of a spoon, pushing the last stubborn lumps down through the plughole. She leaves the tap running – just to be sure of washing everything as far away as possible, and heads upstairs. 318

At the door to the Love Nest she hesitates. She’d like to burn the whole room. The whole house. But that would be stupid. As long as she gets this right, no one will be able to pin anything on her. But it feels strange inside. Eerie. The walls seem hung with a sense of menace, as if they have gathered a dark energy of their own. Don’t be stupid. Don’t be stupid. But she jumps – almost screams – when she falls over one of Fern’s cream silk shoes. And she draws shut the curtains because she can sense ghosted faces leering in. All Fern’s outfits from the wardrobe have to go, and also the day clothes she wore round this evening. Oxfam is the best bet. They’ll be really pleased. In fact, she’ll be doing them a favour. Shutting down the jittery paranoia, she works quickly, whipping off the bedding and bundling it into the washing machine downstairs. Then she makes herself go back up. Polishing. Vacuuming. Polishing again. The room feels full of eyes. As she pulls out the bed, the wardrobe door falls open and this time she does scream. Knife sharp. Shrill. A 319

sound she has never heard herself make before. Her hands tremble but she makes herself keep working, telling herself: ‘It’s all right’, ‘It’s all right’, ‘It’s all right’. It’s a relief when she’s finished. A relief when she can get out and shut the door. She does the same in her own room. Strips the bed. Polishes. Vacuums. Her house has never been this clean. She can’t think why the police would ever come here – why they’d ever suspect – but she’s seen enough crime drama to know how thorough they can be. There’s no point taking chances. From downstairs she hears the business mobile bleat out its ringtone. Shit – she’d forgotten about that. Racing to get it she cuts it dead, then stands wondering what do with it. Do mobiles hold traces of all their calls? Should she smash it? Bludgeon it into pieces? But the police might find the remains, and they’d sniff their way round those too. In the end she opens the back and prises out the Sim Card. She drops it in the sink, then boils the kettle. Next, her hand shaking, she pours the water down onto the card, drowning its damning secrets in a steaming stream. She’ll dump it in a bin 320

somewhere tomorrow. And she’ll dump the handset somewhere different. Is there anything else? Is there anything else? She searches. She checks. She runs through scenes in her head, trying to picture what the crime-drama police might want to poke around in. It’s all right for Fern to have been here in the past – it doesn’t matter if they find something of hers that Alix has forgotten about. It only matters if they find definite evidence that she was round tonight. Hopefully no one saw her drive up with Fern – she’d picked her up from college because she was late getting back from Hugh’s, and had forgotten to organise the usual taxi. And hopefully no one saw her being manoeuvred into the back of the Mini two hours later. The storm should have meant there was no one out and about, although Alix still thinks she messed up with that last bit. If she’d written this as a play, she’d have thought it through a bit more carefully. But it is the only weak link in the chain. That – and Courtney keeping her mouth shut. She’ll ring Courtney in a minute. Or better 321

still, she’ll go round there in the morning. She’ll be more convincing face to face. Once she’s persuaded her that there’s no way they’ll be traced – and that if they are, they’ll both end up in handcuffs – she’ll have covered every angle. With the house immaculate, the silence now screams. She turns the radio on in the kitchen. Goes through to do the TV. The CD player. The rooms all throb with sound and she thinks, if she keeps it all in the background, it could feel like a party. Her eighteenth all over again. She gets herself a Breezer from the fridge. If she’s at a party, she needs a drink. And another. And another. And as the drinks begin to blunt down the knife edges of the night, she thinks that this was how it all started. Her eighteenth. Mum. Tom and Dale. And Courtney finding that card in the phone box. The beginning was as simple as that. She drops her head forward onto her hands. It’s fascinating, how everything in life somehow pieces together. One thing driving into another. 322

Who the hell could have known it would all end like this? *** Courtney sinks down onto the bed, pulling on a too-huge T-shirt that she always uses as a nightgown. She’s just managed a shower, although for a long time she just stared at it, trying to remember how showers worked. And once she’d got it going, she couldn’t stand under it for long. The water scared her. The sound too much like rain falling. She panicked when the fierce spray touched her face. The journey back along the landing felt endless, her legs slow and weighted. It is as if they are forgetting how to walk. Sometimes, when she leaves her room, she is scared it won’t be there when she gets back. She doesn’t leave her room very often. Alix came round – just once – the day after it happened. Before the story broke. Before anybody knew. ‘Just keep your head down,’ she’d warned. ‘Think what might happen if you told anyone. Everything would come out. The police would leave no stone unturned. 323

Imagine your mum. Your dad. Or worse still – think of your poor brothers having to deal with something like that, at school. They’d be really, really damaged by it.’ The brothers bit had been the worst. The thought of hurting them. The thought of them hating her. Mum appears in the doorway, bustling in to pick up the wet towel that Courtney has left draped along the floor. ‘Does that feel better?’ ‘Suppose so.’ Courtney has been in bed for days. Weeks. She’s kept the curtains closed and shut herself away. Mum delivers trays of food that Courtney can barely eat. Tries to make conversation. Tries to keep the others out. Especially Dad. Mum doesn’t understand why, but Courtney won’t have Dad in the room. For now, at least, she seems to be going along with it. She’s not asking questions. Courtney thinks it is as if Mum has finally noticed her. Finally dragged herself away from making everything perfect for ‘him’. Maybe Mum has seen a different newspaper headline in her disinfected imagination. Maybe she has 324

replaced the name ‘Fern Douglas’ for ‘Courtney Benton-Gray’. ‘Shall I sit with you for a while?’ Mum is standing by the bed now, the towel over her arm. She does this a lot. Hovers. Hesitates. ‘I’m OK. There’s no need.’ ‘You’re not OK, Courtney. Of course you’re not. You’ve been away from college for three weeks. You’ve turned off your mobile. You don’t even take calls from Alix.’ Courtney pulls the quilt up to her chin. She wants Mum to go so she can hide again. The day outside can fade and there will be night and then day and night and then day on and on until she is wrinkled and old and she will never be part of the cruel real world again. ‘Dad thinks we should contact the doctor. I know it’s been a troubling time for you, but you have to keep going. You’re going to miss your exams next week, and if Fern does . . . ’ Mum pauses, the whole weight of possibilities hanging in the space. ‘. . . does come back, it will be so silly to have wasted everything.’ Courtney wants to scream at Mum that Fern won’t come back. Not in any form. Alix has been too clever for that. Somehow Alix – 325

who hasn’t even lived here for a year yet – had known about the undertow of the river. She knew exactly where to push. Alix has been a great help to the police too. She knew Fern had been meeting blokes off the internet. She even gave them the website address. She’d apparently ‘done things’ with strangers in cars. For money. Since then, the papers have been full of date.com-type dangers, and how innocent young girls get lured into meeting up with strangers. She remembers, suddenly, an old conversation with Alix – on the afternoon of her eighteenth birthday. Courtney had been pushing to find out how Fern got the money for that dress, and Alix had refused to tell her. ‘Maybe you’ll find out one day,’ she’d said. ‘Secrets always come out in the end.’ ‘Courtney – are you listening?’ Mum brings her back to the moment. ‘I don’t want to see a doctor. I don’t need to see a doctor.’ ‘But Dad says . . . ’ ‘Stuff Dad. Since when the hell has he cared how I am? If it wasn’t for him . . . ’ These words are out before she can stop them, their meaning 326

germ-ridden. An ugly truth virus that must be bleached away. ‘If it wasn’t for him, what?’ Courtney stares at Mum, and Mum stares at Courtney. They are like foreigners, struggling to make some sense of each other’s alien language. Courtney is the first to look away, staring down at her hands which are still gripping the edges of the quilt. Her fingernails are bitten to the skin, the tips of her fingers blistered and sore. ‘Courtney,’ Mum is speaking softly. ‘What did you mean? If it wasn’t for Dad . . . what?’ ‘Doesn’t matter. It’s nothing.’ ‘No, it’s not. It’s not nothing. Tell me.’ ‘You’d hate me.’ ‘Why would I hate you? You’re my beautiful daughter. I love you. And Daddy does too.’ Courtney presses her knuckles up to her forehead. ‘Stop it. Stop asking questions. Stop telling me effing “Daddy” loves me. Stop trying to make me tell you the truth.’ ‘The truth? What truth?’ Mum has her arm round Courtney now. She shakes her – not gently but hard. ‘Don’t play games with me like this.’ 327

Courtney thinks about games with ‘Daddy’. Secret games. Mummy mustn’t know games. My special girl games. She drops her hands down and looks up, a fierce hot anger pounding through her. ‘He used to make me play games.’ Mum is still watching her. Her eyes grow wide with a cold, slow horror. ‘No,’ she whispers. ‘No.’ ‘Yes, Mum.’ Courtney isn’t whispering. Her voice is firm and clear. ‘Yes.’ And Courtney can see that they are not foreigners to each other anymore. They understand each other’s language. Mum has caught the truth virus at last. * * *

328

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LIX NODS at the taxi driver, who is standing holding the door for her. ‘I won’t be long. I’ve just got a few things to get.’ She walks into The Dress Agency. She’s feeling strange – strung tight. She’s been holed up with Hugh for the last few weeks, staying in as much as possible. There have been a few interviews with the police, but the main thing has been to keep her head down. No contacts she hasn’t had to have. No questions she hasn’t had to answer. That’s been the safest thing. But Hugh has opened up an account for her. 329

‘Get something wonderful.’ And she’s only got a few hours to do it in. ‘Good morning, madam.’ The sales woman recognises her, of course. ‘How can I help you?’ ‘Bikinis,’ says Alix. ‘You had some with real silver sequins a little while ago, and I want to try one on.’ ‘Those have all gone – it’s this early summer we’re having. It feels like the tropics, doesn’t it? But I can order one in for you. It will be delivered within forty-eight hours.’ ‘That’s too long.’ Alix is razed with irritation. She had pictured herself in the sparkling black two-piece, sipping champagne while the sun dipped behind a silvered horizon. ‘I’m going away later today. I need it now.’ The sales woman glides across the sulked edge in Alix’s voice. ‘Going anywhere nice?’ ‘Yes, we’re . . . ’ Alix stops herself just in time. What the hell is she doing, telling this shop woman all her plans? Not even Aaron knows what she’s up to. ‘Well, no . . . just a weekend thing, actually. Can I have a look at those halterneck dresses instead? The yellow silk one in the window.’ ‘Certainly, madam, although that’s the last 330

one of those too. If you’ve got a moment, I’ll get it out for you.’ ‘Thanks.’ Alix sees her glance at the waiting taxi as she edges into the window. Hugh is already on Zara doing some last minute checks, making everything perfect. He keeps texting her, saying how much he’s missing her – even though she only left him an hour ago. She’s going straight to the jetty from here, but they’re not leaving until later in the afternoon, so she’s got a bit of time to play with. It’ll be good to make him wait around. If she strings it out for long enough, he might even start to worry that she’s changed her mind. It was easy to persuade him to speed up his plans for going away. She curled her arms round him, kissed his neck, and whispered promises about the time they could already be having – sailing towards paradise together. So their cars have both been sold, and his house is with an agent. Hers is pretty well empty. Mum will keep paying the mortgage, and maybe in a few months’ time Alix will own up to where she’s really phoning her from. Mobiles are fantastic for that. Mobiles are perfect for all sorts of secrets. 331

It’s been hard though. She’s slept at night with one ear strained for a knock on the door. She’s jumped at shadows. She’s weighed every word. She doesn’t think anyone will ever link her with Fern’s disappearance, but she’ll be safer out of the country. She’ll stay away all her life if she has to. It doesn’t bother her. She’s used to moving on. And once they get set up in Italy, she’ll be able to see Carla too. Everything’s coming together. Everything’s going the way she wants it to. ‘There we are, madam.’ The sales woman steps back from the window, the yellow silk dress over her arm. ‘Is there anything else you’d like to try?’ Alix scans the displays, narrowing her eyes. ‘Uh . . . yes. I think possibly there are a few things . . . ’ She’s making a new start with Hugh. A fresh beginning. She ought to celebrate that, by spending as much of his money as she can. *** ‘Mum.’ Courtney hears Jamie calling uncertainly from the hall downstairs. ‘There’s a funny man at the door.’ 332

‘All right, darling. Leave him to me. I’m on my way.’ This last week, Mum has been so different. Dad is gone – staying away while they ‘talk things through’. Courtney knows it could get horrible and she isn’t sure how she feels about this. Or even what she wants. ‘I need to get advice,’ Mum said. ‘Bear with me, darling. I want to get help for us all.’ But Courtney is afraid of help. And isn’t she just as bad as Dad? Dangerous, ugly secrets. She’s got plenty of her own. She edges down the bed, leaning her head back on the pillow and wondering vaguely if Jamie’s ‘funny man’ is a clown. Clowns are scary. Sinister. She has never understood why people laugh at them. She stares up at the artexed ceiling, counting the small crazed bobbles of emulsion. She counts them every day. It’s the best thing she can do to stop the memories coming. One, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight . . . It isn’t working. She can see the dark shape falling. Hear the splash. And after that, what drifts through isn’t a memory. It’s more a dream. A nightmare. The 333

body spinning slowly, sucked down in the underwater whirl. Did Fern know? This is the question that will always haunt her. Was Fern conscious when she died? . . . twenty-four, twenty-five, twenty-six . . . She has started to shake – or maybe she is just shaking more. She’s not sure that she ever really stops. ‘Courtney?’ . . . thirty-seven, thirty-eight, thirty-nine . . . She jerks her head round. Mum is standing in the doorway. ‘What?’ ‘It’s someone for you. He says it’s important.’ ‘Is it the police?’ Courtney freezes. She wants it to be the police. She wants them to have found some evidence. She wants them to have guessed. ‘I’m sorry, darling, no. There’s no new news. It’s something else – someone who says he’s called Elroy Franklin. Shall I get rid of him? He doesn’t look like the sort of boy you’d want to know.’ Courtney struggles to sit upright, hugging her knees. She never went back to Elroy. She made no contact with him. He’s better off 334

without her. She realises she must be staring at Mum with wide, strange eyes, but it is as if something has jarred her, seizing everything up. Mum’s voice grows higher, almost panicked. ‘Is he trouble? Do you think he’s one of these internet perverts? Should I dial 999?’ ‘How . . . how did he find me?’ ‘He said he’s been searching. Desperate, apparently. He tried the college first but they wouldn’t tell him anything, and he’s been doing a house to house search ever since. Courtney – tell me who he is. I really do think I should make that phone call.’ It has hurt, not seeing him. Knowing he’d be wondering what has happened. Some days she’s ached and ached, just to hear his voice. She has to make one final effort for him. At least she can tell him it’s not his fault, and make him see that he has to go away. She gets up slowly. It’s late morning but she never gets up until lunch time anymore. She’d stay in bed all day if Mum let her get away with it. Pulling her dressing gown from the door, she bunches the belt round her waist. She must look revolting, but that doesn’t matter. In fact, it’s probably better. 335

Lucas and Jamie are both outside her door, eyes boggling. ‘Courtney, he’s a bit weird,’ hisses Jamie, who has had the same ‘don’t dabble with strangers’ talk that all the local schools have launched themselves at in the last few weeks. ‘Don’t go.’ Courtney steps past them, walking carefully down the stairs, as if with any step she might fall. And fall and fall. Mum has closed the door on him. Her heart wrenches. Poor Elroy. He’ll guess what Mum is thinking, and it’ll hurt him. And then she tells herself he’s probably gone. It’ll be for the best. She doesn’t deserve him. He doesn’t deserve her. Except her heart feels wrenched and she wants to see him – just for one second. One last long look that she can hold onto forever. She opens the door slowly. He’s still there, the sunlight burning the air behind him. She blinks, shading her eyes. She isn’t used to light. ‘Oh God – I’ve found you. I thought you’d just disappeared. And with that other girl going missing, I’ve been frantic.’ He reaches for her but she shrinks back. ‘You mustn’t touch me.’ She stares down at her bare feet, a crazed purple varnish still 336

patterning her nails, left over from forever ago. That other life. ‘You mustn’t want to know me.’ He drops his hands down by his side. ‘Courtney – I’m so sorry. I know I pushed you too far that last time. I’ve loathed myself ever since.’ ‘Courtney.’ Mum’s voice is sharp behind her. ‘Shall I make that call?’ ‘No, Mum. No! Just – go away for a moment. Leave us alone.’ ‘I don’t think . . . ’ ‘Mum. Two minutes. Please.’ ‘Two minutes is all he’s getting.’ Courtney hears Mum back away, but knows she hasn’t gone far. Who cares? Let her listen. She’s got to get this over with. Elroy is spilling words. Spilling his heart. ‘I missed you so much. And I kept thinking something bad had happened. Your phone’s been off and I’ve been desperate. I even contacted the police, and they must have thought I was a nutter. A girl whose surname I didn’t know, and whose address I didn’t have a clue about – had stood me up. I didn’t stand much chance, did I?’ 337

He puts a light laugh into his voice but she can hear the pain in it. Feel the pain in it. ‘Hate me, Elroy,’ she whispers. ‘Please – hate me.’ ‘Not possible.’ He is speaking very gently. She stays staring at her toes. ‘Even if you won’t hate me, you still have to go. Please. It’s all finished for us.’ ‘Courtney – let me see your face. Tell me that while you’re looking at me.’ He cups his hand under her chin and tilts it upwards. Her eyes leak tears. She tries to pull away but he won’t let go. ‘Look at me.’ She looks at him. And all she can think is how beautiful he is, how beautiful. He is everything that is right and pure and honest and kind. If this had happened to him – if he was with Alix that night – what would he do? But she doesn’t need to answer her own question. She knows. She knows. ‘I’ve done something terrible,’ she says it out loud. Lets him hear it clearly. Lets the burning bright sky hear it. Lets Mum hear it from behind the door. ‘What sort of terrible?’ ‘I’ve been so stupid. I need to tell the police. They’ll lock me up, but I don’t care. It’s what I 338

deserve. But I didn’t want it to happen – I didn’t choose it. It wasn’t my idea.’ ‘If it was an accident, then the police will listen. As long as you’re honest with them, it’ll be OK.’ She is suddenly tired. She could drop to her knees. She could curl tight and sleep and sleep on the sunlit grass. And in that tiredness the worst fear seems to pass through her as if it is a wave she has had to walk into the centre of. A great tidal surge that has tried to sweep her away – and failed. Elroy is pulling her closer, helping her to stay standing. ‘I’m here for you. I’m here all the way through it. Whatever it is.’ She lets him fold his arms around her and she doesn’t know where any of it will lead, but she feels strangely washed clean. She’s going to lift the stone, and the police won’t even need to search underneath. She’ll tell them everything. Lay it out in front of them. Sorry, Jamie. Sorry, Lucas. She hopes they won’t be too hurt. Too damaged. But it’s better out now, than later. Secrets always come out in the end. *** 339

H

UGH COMES DOWN the jetty to greet her. ‘Do you have any more bags in the taxi?’ ‘Just a few.’ She smiles as she glances back, the driver pulling a stash of carrier bags from the boot. ‘I’m sorry I took longer than I said I would. I just got carried away. And I know you’ll think I’m very silly to buy so much, but I couldn’t make up my mind.’ He kisses her on the top of the head. ‘It looks as if you’ve bought enough to last a lifetime.’ Alix affects a giggle and leans against him. She wants to tell him that a lifetime is the plan, 340

but it’s too soon. It’s still early days, and it’s vital not to look too keen. ‘I had to have some special things.’ She makes her voice teasing and light. ‘I can’t spend the next six months in just a bikini. And then I got hungry so I grabbed a bit of lunch. Sorry I didn’t text you but I think my phone’s playing up.’ They reach Zara and Hugh holds out one hand to help her on. She hesitates, glancing down even though she has told herself she mustn’t. The water beneath her seems dark and brooding. She jumps quickly. She mustn’t think. She mustn’t think. There’s no point carrying around the baggage of the past. ‘Six months with you in just a bikini sounds like a dream come true for me.’ Hugh turns to take the bags from the driver. ‘Hang on a sec. I’ll pay off this chap, and then I’ll be with you. I want to crack open a bottle of champers before we head off.’ Alix stands on the deck, scanning the river. It’s busy, because of the heat. Luxury yachts and small wooden rowing boats. A line of canoes from some local youth activity centre. An old-fashioned schooner, its tall 341

masts looking like something from a fairy tale as it glides magically past. And then she looks behind her. She hadn’t wanted to do that. Hadn’t meant to. But what she sees almost stops her heart. Just near the bend, close to River’s View, is a police car heading towards the house. Why are they going there? She feels a chill of unease. Hugh appears beside her, watching it too. ‘Apparently they’re going to be dragging the riverbed later. I was speaking to a chap on the jetty before you arrived. There’s been police activity over there all afternoon.’ A shadow seems to move round her, a cloud crossing the sun. She shivers. ‘You poor darling.’ Hugh pulls her close. ‘I know you said you didn’t know her well, but it must be terrible to have known her at all. The whole story haunts me whenever I read about it, and I never even set eyes on her. I can’t imagine what her parents must be going through. They must still be hoping. Families always hope – if no body is ever found . . . ’ ‘I want to go.’ Alix presses against him. ‘I don’t really feel much like celebrating here.’ 342

He strokes her hair gently. ‘We’ll do whatever you want.’ She brightens her voice, moving away slightly. She doesn’t want to stand around having a cuddling session and wasting time. They need to get going. They have to get going. ‘Maybe we can have our champagne once we’re out in the channel. It’ll be more exciting then anyway.’ She curves a gentle smile at him, touching his arm, her voice huskily soft. ‘We can celebrate properly there, if you like.’ ‘I do like.’ Hugh pulls her close again, hugging her tightly. ‘You drive me wild, my beautiful Sea Princess. I’ll weigh the anchor and we’ll go go go.’ Minutes later Zara’s engine throbs into life, and they pull away. Alix stands beside Hugh, at the wheel. He is steering one-handed, his arm round her shoulder. ‘I can’t believe you’re with me. I must be the luckiest man in the world.’ ‘Me too,’ she murmurs. ‘The luckiest girl, I mean.’ But she isn’t looking at him. She is watching the jetty slipping from view. A dark blue car has arrived, and a man in a suit is talking to the taxi driver. How come he hasn’t 343

driven off yet? The man in the suit shades his eyes, looking out towards the water. Alix turns away quickly. ‘Can we go faster?’ she says. ‘Really race along. I want to feel as if we’re really steaming.’ ‘It’s illegal,’ laughs Hugh. ‘Rivers are like roads. They have speed limits. It’s only four knots along here – and it would be lethal to push it with all this traffic.’ She stands, silent, watching the water spray up from the bow. A rabble of seagulls circles round them, and then soars away. A couple in a passing rowing boat shout, ‘Ahoy there,’ and wave happily. ‘And there it is . . . up ahead . . . the open sea.’ Hugh takes his arm from Alix’s shoulder and puts both hands on the wheel. ‘We can speed things up a bit now.’ Alix smiles. Laughs. The open sea. The big wide world. The river has gone. The tacky tourist towns that run along the edge of the coast have become dots in the distance. Ahead, the sun sparks down on the endless water, its silk-bright surface flashing a 344

thousand silver sequins. She closes her eyes and a breeze skims her face. Hugh steps behind her. ‘You take the wheel, darling. We’ve got some space round us now, and I’ve steadied the course. Can you keep us going straight – just for a sec?’ He squeezes her shoulder. ‘I’ll just go and get that champagne.’ She takes hold of the wheel, and Hugh stays behind her, his hands over hers. She glances round at him. ‘What total trust, leaving me in charge of your wonderful Zara.’ She is still laughing, her insides soaring. She’s getting away. She’s getting away. ‘I’d trust you with anything.’ He kisses the back of her neck. ‘Oh hang on – perhaps I’d better stay at the helm, just for a moment longer. Looks like there’s a patrol boat over to the starboard side. We’re going to have to cut the engine for a moment. God knows what its problem is – but it seems to be flashing its lights at us . . . ’

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