Текст книги "Forbidden"
Автор книги: Табита Сузума
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CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
Maya
‘How come it’s you today?’
‘Because Lochan’s not feeling very well.’
‘Did he throw up?’ Willa flicks her long fair hair back behind her shoulders and the tiny gold studs in her ears sparkle in the fading afternoon sun. Remnants of custard dapple the front of her pinafore and she is without her cardigan again.
‘No, no. Nothing serious like that.’
‘Throwing up isn’t serious. Mummy does it all the time.’
Ignoring this last comment, I turn my attention to her clothes. ‘Willa, will you do up your coat? It’s freezing!’
‘Can’t. The buttons are gone.’
‘All of them? You should have told me!’
‘I did. Miss Pierce says I’m not allowed sellotape on my book bag too. She says I have to get a new one.’ She takes my hand and we cross the playground to the football area, where Tiffin is tearing around half undressed with a dozen other boys. ‘And we’re not allowed holes in our tights. I got told off in front of the whole of assembly.’
‘Tiff! Time to go!’ I yell as soon as he shoots past us. The game pauses briefly for a free kick and I yell again.
He glances over angrily. ‘Five more minutes!’
‘No. We’re going now. It’s freezing, and you can play football at home with Jamie.’
‘But we’re in the middle of a match!’
The game resumes and I try to get closer, nervously skirting the running, darting, yelling boys, their cheeks ablaze, eyes fixed on the ball, shouts echoing across the darkening playground. As he races past, I make a valiant grab for Tiffin, missing by miles. Behind me, Willa stands pressed up against the fence, coat flapping open, shivering hard.
‘Tiffin Whitely! Home, now!’ I shout at the top of my voice, hoping to embarrass him into submission. Instead, he dives into a tackle, wrong-footing his opponent and dribbling the ball towards the other side of the pitch at lightning speed. He pauses for a moment as a boy twice his size comes hurtling straight for him. Then he draws back his leg and shoots, the ball skimming the inside edge of the goalpost.
‘Goal!’ His hands punch the air. Whoops and yells join his own as his team-mates rush up to slap him on the back. I give him a moment before diving in and dragging him out by the arm.
‘I’m not going!’ he screams at me as the game resumes behind us. ‘My team was winning! I scored the first goal!’
‘I saw that and it was a great goal but it’s getting dark. Willa is freezing and you’ve both got homework to do.’
‘But we always have to go straight home! How come the others are allowed to play? I’m sick of stupid homework! I’m sick of always being at home!’
‘Tiffin, for God’s sake act your age and stop making a scene—’
‘It’s not fair!’ The tip of his shoe suddenly makes violent contact with my shin. ‘I never get to do anything fun. I hate you!’
By the time we locate Tiffin’s missing school bag and I get them both out of the playground, it’s almost dark and Willa is so cold her lips are purple. Tiffin stalks on ahead, his face puce, blond hair wild, deliberately trailing his coat on the ground to annoy me, kicking at the tyres of parked cars in rage. My leg throbs painfully. Four bloody hours till bedtime, I think ruefully. Another hour before they are actually asleep. Five. My God, almost the length of a new school day. All I want is to reach that moment when the house goes quiet, when Kit finally turns down the rap and Tiffin and Willa stop bombarding me with requests. That moment when rushed, half-finished homework is pushed aside and Lochan is there, his smile tentative, his eyes bright, and anything, almost anything seems possible . . .
‘. . . so I don’t think she wants to be my friend any more,’ Willa finishes mournfully, her icy hand buried in mine.
‘Mm, never mind, I’m sure Lucy will change her mind tomorrow – she always does.’
The small hand is suddenly wrenched from my own. ‘Maya, you’re not listening!’
‘I am, I am!’ I protest quickly. ‘You said that – uh – Lucy didn’t want to be your friend because—’
‘Not Lucy – Georgia!’ Willa cries woefully. ‘I told you yesterday that Lucy and me broke up because she stole my favourite purple pen, the one with the blue hearts on it, and she wouldn’t give it back even though Georgia saw her take it!’
‘Oh, that’s right,’ I fumble, frantically trying to recall the conversation. ‘Your pen.’
‘You always forget everything these days, just like Mum did when she used to live at home,’ she mutters.
We walk on for a few minutes in silence. Guilt coils itself around me, cold and unforgiving as a snake. I try in vain to recall the saga of the missing pen, and fail.
‘Bet you don’t even know who’s my best friend now,’ Willa says, throwing down the gauntlet.
‘Course I do,’ I answer quickly. ‘It’s – it’s Georgia.’
Willa shakes her head at the pavement in a gesture of defeat. ‘Nope.’
‘Well, then, it’s Lucy really, because I’m sure once she gives you back your pen, the two of you will—’
‘It’s no one!’ Willa shouts suddenly, her voice cutting through the sharp air. ‘I don’t even have a best friend!’
I stop and stare at her in astonishment. Willa has never shouted at me with such fury before.
I try to put my arm around her. ‘Willa, come on, you’ve just had a bad day—’
She pulls away. ‘No I haven’t! Miss Pierce gave me three gold stars and I got all my spellings right. I told you about it but all you said was Mm. You never listen to me any more!’
Wrenching herself away from me, she breaks into a run. I catch up with her just as she rounds the corner into our street. Forcing her round to face me, I squat down and try to hold her still. She sobs quietly, rubbing her face angrily with the palms of her hands.
‘Willa, I’m sorry – I’m sorry, my darling, I’m so sorry. You’re right. I haven’t been listening properly and that was really mean of me. It’s not that I’m not interested, it’s not that I don’t care. It’s just that I’ve been so busy revising for my exams and I’ve got so much work and I’ve been so tired—’
‘That’s not true!’ She gives a muffled sob and tears spill over her fingers, running down between the cracks. ‘You don’t . . . listen . . . or play with me . . . as much . . . as you did . . . before . . .’
I clutch at a nearby railing for support. ‘Willa, no – It’s not that – I d . . .’ But even fumbling for excuses, I’m forced to confront the truth behind her words.
‘Come here,’ I say at last, wrapping my arms tightly around her. ‘You’re my favourite girl in the whole world and I love you so, so much. You’re right. I haven’t been listening to you properly because Lochie and I are always trying to sort out all the household things. But that’s all boring stuff. From now on I’m going to start having fun with you again. OK?’
She nods and sniffs and wipes her hair away from her face. I pick her up and she wraps her arms and legs around me like a baby monkey. But through the warmth of her arms round my neck, the heat of her cheek against mine, I sense my words have left her unconvinced.
Despite the loud slap of shoes against the concrete steps, he does not lower his book. I stop halfway up the flight of steps and lean against the rail, waiting, the sounds of the playground rising up from below me. Still he refuses to look up, no doubt hoping whoever it is will ignore him and continue on their way. When it becomes clear that this is not going to happen, he glances briefly over the top of the paperback before almost dropping it in surprise. His face lights up with a slow smile. ‘Hey!’
‘Hey yourself!’
He closes his book and looks at me expectantly. I stand there watching him, fighting back a grin. He clears his throat, suddenly shy, a flush creeping into his cheeks.
‘What – um – what are you doing here?’
‘I came to say hi.’
He reaches for my hand and begins to get up, ready to move further up the staircase, out of sight of the pupils in the playground below.
‘It’s all right, I’m not staying,’ I inform him quickly.
He stops and the smile fades. Registering the school bag on my back, the PE kit slung over my shoulder, he looks concerned. ‘Where are you going?’
‘I’m taking the afternoon off.’
His eyes sharpen and his expression sobers. ‘Maya—’
‘It’s just one afternoon. I’ve only got art and crap.’
He gives a worried sigh, looking bothered. ‘Yeah, but if you get caught, you know there could be trouble. We can’t risk drawing any more attention to ourselves now that Mum’s never around.’
‘We won’t. Not if you come with me and use your Upper Sixth pass.’
He eyes me with a mixture of uncertainty and surprise. ‘You want me to come too?’
‘Yes please.’
‘I could just give you my pass,’ he points out.
‘But then I wouldn’t have the pleasure of your company.’
The flush rises again, but the corner of his mouth pulls upwards. ‘Mum said something about popping home today to pick up some clothes—’
‘I wasn’t thinking of going home.’
‘You want to walk the streets till three thirty? I haven’t got any money on me.’
‘No. I want to take you somewhere.’
‘Where?’
‘It’s a surprise. Not far.’
I can see his curiosity is roused. ‘O-OK—’
‘Great. Go get your stuff. I’ll meet you by the main entrance.’
I disappear back down into the playground before he has time to start worrying again and change his mind.
Lochan takes an age. By the time he arrives, break is almost over and I fear he’ll be questioned for leaving the building just before the bell. But the security guard barely glances at his pass as I slip unnoticed ahead of him through the glass doors.
Out on the street, Lochan turns up his jacket collar against the cold and asks, ‘Now are you going to tell me what all this is about?’
I smile and shrug. ‘It’s about having an afternoon off.’
‘We should have planned this. I’ve only got fifty pence on me.’
‘I’m not asking you to take me to the Ritz! We’re just going to the park.’
‘The park?’ He looks at me as if I’m crazy.
Ashmoore on a weekday in the middle of winter is predictably empty. The trees are mostly bare, their long spiked branches silhouetted against the pale sky, the large expanses of grass splashed with silver patches of ice. We follow the wide central path towards the wooded area on the far side, the hum of the city gradually fading behind us. A few damp benches dot the empty landscape, abandoned and redundant. In the distance, an old man is throwing sticks for his dog, the animal’s sharp yaps breaking the still air. The park feels vast and desolate: a cold, forgotten island in the middle of a big city. Curled sandpaper leaves skim across the path, carried by a whisper of wind. A scatter of pigeons dart excitedly around some crumbs, their heads bobbing up and down, pecking feverishly at the ground. As we approach the trees, squirrels dash out boldly in front of us, turning their heads this way and that to eye us with shiny big black beads, hoping for signs of food. High above us in an anaemic sky, the white orb of the sun, like a giant spotlight, fixes the park with its hard wintry rays. We abandon the path and enter the small wood, dried foliage and twigs crackling and crunching against the frozen earth beneath our feet. The uneven ground slopes gently downwards.
Lochan follows me silently. Neither of us have spoken since entering the park gates and abandoning the world behind us, as if we are trying to leave our daily selves behind in the noisy hubbub of dirty streets and jostling traffic. As the trees begin to thicken around us, I duck beneath a fallen log and then stop and smile. ‘This is it.’
We are standing in a small hollow. The shallow dip in the ground is carpeted with leaves and surrounded by a few remaining green ferns and winter shrubs, enclosed in a circle of bare trees. The ground beneath us is a tapestry of russet and gold. Even in the depths of winter, my little piece of paradise is still beautiful.
Lochan looks around in bewilderment. ‘Are we here to bury a body or dig one up?’
I give him a long-suffering look, but just then a sudden gust of wind causes the branches overhead to sway, scattering the sun’s icy rays like shards of glass into my corral, making it feel magical, mysterious.
‘This is where I come when things get too much at home. When I want to be alone for a while,’ I tell him.
He looks at me in astonishment. ‘You come here by yourself?’ He blinks in bewilderment, hands dug deep into his jacket pockets, still gazing around. ‘Why?’
‘Because when Mum starts drinking at ten o’clock in the morning, when Tiffin and Willa are tearing around the house screaming, when Kit is trying to pick a row with everyone who crosses his path, when I wish I didn’t have a family to look after, this place gives me peace. It gives me hope. In summer it’s lovely here. It silences the roar that’s constantly in my head . . .
‘Maybe, from time to time, this could be your place too,’ I suggest quietly. ‘Everyone needs time off, Lochan. Even you.’
He nods again, still looking around, as if trying to imagine me here by myself. Then he turns back to me, the collar of his black jacket flapping against his untucked white shirt, tie loosened, the bottoms of his grey trousers muddied by the soft earth. His cheeks are pink from the long cold walk, hair tousled by the wind. However, we are sheltered here, the sun warm on our faces. A sudden flurry of birds alight on the topmost branch of a tree, and as he raises his head, the light is reflected in his eyes, turning them translucent, the colour of green glass.
His gaze meets mine. ‘Thanks,’ he says.
We sit down in my grassy enclave and huddle together for warmth. Lochan wraps his arm around me and pulls me towards him, kissing the top of my head.
‘I love you, Maya Whitely,’ he says softly.
I smile and tilt my face to look up at him. ‘How much?’
He doesn’t answer, but I hear his breathing quicken: he lowers his mouth over mine and a strange hum fills the air.
We kiss for a long time, sliding our hands in between layers of clothing and absorbing each other’s heat until I am warm, hot even, my heart thumping hard, a sparkling, tingling feeling rushing through my veins. Birds continue to peck at the earth around us, somewhere in the distance a child’s whoop breaks the air. Here, we are truly alone. Truly free. If anyone happened to walk by, all they would see is a girl and her boyfriend kissing. I feel the pressure of Lochan’s lips strengthen as if he too realizes how priceless this little moment of freedom is. His hand slides beneath my school shirt and I press my hand up against his thigh.
Then, abruptly, he is pulling back, turning away, breathing hard. I look round in surprise, but only the trees surround us like silent witnesses, unchanged and unmoved and undisturbed. Beside me, Lochan sits with arms circling his drawn-up knees, face turned away. ‘Sorry . . .’ He gives a small, embarrassed laugh.
‘About what?’
His breathing is fast and shallow. ‘I needed to stop.’
Something tightens in my throat. ‘But that’s fine, Lochie. You don’t have to apologize.’
He doesn’t respond. There is something about his stillness that disturbs me.
I move over so that I’m pressed close to him and give him a gentle nudge. ‘Shall we go for a wander?’
He tilts away from me slightly. Raises a shoulder without turning. Doesn’t reply.
‘You OK?’ I ask lightly.
He gives a brief nod.
A flutter of worry rises in my chest. I stroke the back of his head. ‘You sure?’
No reply.
‘Perhaps we should set up camp here, away from the rest of the world,’ I tease, but he doesn’t respond. ‘I just thought it would be nice to have some time alone, just the two of us,’ I say softly. ‘Was it – was coming here a mistake?’
‘No!’
I cover his hand with mine and stroke the back of it with my thumb. ‘What then?’
‘Just—’ His voice quavers. ‘I’m afraid that all this will one day be nothing more than a distant memory.’
I swallow hard. ‘Don’t say that, Lochie. It doesn’t have to be.’
‘But us – this – it won’t last. It won’t, Maya, we both know that. At some point we’ll have to stop—’ He breaks off suddenly and holds his breath, shaking his head wordlessly.
‘Lochie, of course it’s going to last!’ I exclaim, aghast. ‘They can’t stop us. I won’t let anyone stop us . . .’
He takes my hand in his, starts to kiss it, his lips soft and warm. ‘But it’s the whole world,’ he says, his voice an anguished whisper. ‘How – how can we make it against the whole world?’
I want Lochan to say he’ll find a way. I need him to say we’ll both find a way. Together we’ll manage it. Together we’re so strong. Together we brought up a whole family.
‘People can’t separate us!’ I begin angrily. ‘They can’t, they can’t! Can they . . . ?’ And suddenly I realize I’ve no idea. However careful we are, there is always the chance we could get caught. Just as, however much we cover up for Mum, the threat of someone finding out and alerting the authorities gets stronger every day. We have to be so careful; everything has to be hidden, kept secret. One slip-up and the whole family could collapse like a house of cards. One slip-up and we could all be torn apart . . . Lochan’s defeatist attitude terrifies me. It’s as if he knows something I don’t. ‘Lochie, tell me we can stay together!’
He reaches out for me and I crumple against him with a sob. Wrapping his arms around me, he holds me tight. ‘I’ll do everything,’ he whispers into my hair. ‘I give you my word. I’ll do everything I can, Maya. We’ll find a way to stay together. I’ll figure it out, I will. OK?’
I look up at him and he blinks back tears, giving me a bright, reassuring, hopeful smile.
I nod, smiling in return. ‘Together we’re strong,’ I reply, my voice bolder than I feel.
He closes his eyes for a moment, as if in pain, then opens them again and lifts my face from his chest, kissing me gently. We hold each other tightly for a long, long time, warming each other, until the sun gradually begins to dip in the sky.
CHAPTER NINETEEN
Lochan
In the mornings I shower with the speed of lightning, throw on my clothes, and as soon as I’ve got Tiffin and Willa settled at the breakfast table I run back upstairs with the excuse of a forgotten blazer or watch or book to join Maya, who has the unenviable task of trying to get Kit out of bed in the mornings. She’s usually tying back her hair or buttoning her shirt cuffs or stuffing books into her bag, her bedroom door ajar, and pops out sporadically to shout up at Kit to hurry; but she stops when she sees me and, with a look of nervous excitement, takes my outstretched hand. My heart pounding in anticipation, we shut ourselves in my bedroom. With only a few precious minutes to spare, my foot pressed firmly against the bottom corner of the door, one hand gripping the handle, I pull her gently towards me. Her eyes light up with a smile, hands either reaching for my face, my hair, or sometimes even pressing up against my chest, fingertips scraping against the thin fabric of my shirt. We kiss shyly at first, half afraid. I can taste whether she has used Colgate or just grabbed the pink kiddie stuff while supervising brushing to save time.
It always gives me a jolt, that moment when our lips first meet, and I have to remind myself to breathe. Her lips are soft and warm and smooth; mine feel harsh and rough against them. At the sound of Kit’s slow, dragging footsteps just the other side of the thin wall, Maya tries to pull back. However, as soon as the bathroom door slams, she gives in and slides round so her back is pushed up against the door. I dig my nails into the wood on either side of her head in an attempt to keep my hands under control as our kisses grow increasingly frantic; the longing inside me quells any fear of being caught as I feel the last precious seconds of ecstasy run through my fingers like sand. A shout from downstairs, the sound of Kit re-emerging from the bathroom, feet pounding up the stairs – all signals that our time is up – and Maya pushes me firmly back, her cheeks aglow, mouth stained red with the flush of unfinished kisses. We stare at each other, our hot panting filling the air, but as I press in towards her again, my eyes begging for just one more second, she closes her eyes with a look of pain and turns her head away. She is usually the first to leave the bedroom, striding into the vacated bathroom to splash water on her face while I cross over to my bedroom window and throw it open, clutching at the edge of the sill and sucking in great lungfuls of cold air.
I don’t understand, I don’t understand. Surely this has happened before. Surely other brothers and sisters have fallen in love. Surely they have been allowed to express their love, physically as well as emotionally, without being vilified, ostracized, thrown into prison even. But incest is illegal. By loving each other physically as well as emotionally, we are committing a crime. And I’m terrified. It is one thing hiding from the world, another to be hiding from the law. So I keep repeating to myself – As long as we don’t go all the way, it will be all right. As long as we don’t actually have sex, we’re not technically having an incestuous relationship. As long as we don’t cross that final line, our family will be safe, the kids won’t be taken away, Maya and I won’t be forced apart. All we have to do is be patient, enjoy what we have, until perhaps one day, when the others are grown up, we can move away and forge new identities and love each other freely.
I have to force myself to stop thinking about it or I can’t get anything done – schoolwork, revision, making dinner, the weekly shop, fetching Tiffin and Willa from school, helping them with homework, making sure they have clean clothes for the following day, playing with them when they are bored. Keeping an eye on Kit – checking he does his schoolwork and makes the money he’s given last the week, cajoling him into having dinner with us instead of disappearing with his mates to McDonald’s, making sure he doesn’t skip school and comes home at night. And of course, arguing with Mum over money, always money, as less and less comes our way and more and more gets spent on alcohol and new outfits to impress Dave. Meanwhile Tiffin’s clothes get smaller, Willa’s uniform gets more ragged, Kit complains bitterly about the new gadgets his friends all have, and the bills keep flooding in . . .
Whenever I’m apart from Maya, I feel incomplete . . . less than incomplete. I feel like I’m nothing, like I don’t exist at all. I have no identity. I don’t speak, I don’t even look at people. Being around others is just as unbearable as ever – I am afraid that if they see me properly, they might guess my secret. I’m afraid that even if I do manage to speak or interact with people, I might give something away. At break times I watch Maya over the top of my book from my post on the staircase, willing her to come over to sit with me, to talk to me, to make me feel alive and real and loved, but even just talking is too risky. So she sits on the wall at the far end of the playground, chatting to Francie, careful not to glance up at me, as aware as I am of the danger of our situation.
In the evenings I seek her out as soon as Tiffin and Willa have been tucked in, too early for it to be safe. She turns from her desk, her hair skimming the page of her textbook, and points meaningfully at the door behind me to indicate that the little ones are not yet asleep. But by the time they are, Kit is roaming the house, looking for food or watching TV, and by the time he finally goes to bed Maya is passed out in hers.
Half-term brings little respite. It rains all week and, cooped up inside with no money for outings or even the cinema, Tiffin and Willa bicker constantly while Kit sleeps all day and then disappears with his friends until the small hours of the morning. Late one night, restless and burning with relentless agitation, I pull on my running shoes and leave the sleeping house, jogging all the way to Ashmoore Park, climbing the railings under the light of the stars, running across the moonlit grass. Stumbling through the darkened woods, I eventually find Maya’s oasis of peace, but it brings me none. I fall to my knees before the trunk of a huge oak tree and, making a fist, grate my knuckles up and down its harsh, jagged, unforgiving bark until they are bloody and raw.
‘Lochie needs a plaster,’ Willa announces the following evening to Maya, the family’s first-aider, as she comes through the door looking spent. ‘A big one.’
Maya drops her bag and blazer to the floor and gives a tired smile.
‘Rough day?’ I enquire.
‘Three tests.’ She rolls her eyes. ‘And PE in the hailstorm.’
‘I’m helping Lochie make dinner,’ Willa says proudly, kneeling on a kitchen stool and arranging frozen chips into patterns on the oven tray. ‘Wanna help, Maya?’
‘I think we’re doing pretty good just the two of us,’ I point out quickly as Maya flops into a chair, her tie askew, and pushes the straggly wisps of hair back from her face, blowing me a discreet kiss.
‘Maya, look! I made my name in capital chips!’ Willa pipes up, noting our exchanged looks, anxious to be included.
‘Very clever.’ Maya gets up and lifts Willa onto her lap before settling down with her and leaning over the tray to try and create her own name. I watch them for a moment. Maya’s long arms encircle Willa’s shorter ones. Willa is full of chatter about her day while Maya is the attentive listener, asking all the right questions. Heads bent close, their long straight hair mingles: Maya’s auburn against Willa’s gold. They both have the same delicate, pale skin, the same clear blue gaze, the same smile. On her lap, Willa is solid and alive, full of bubble and laughter. Maya somehow looks more delicate, more fragile, more ethereal. There is a sadness in her eyes, a weariness that never really leaves. For Maya, childhood ended years ago. As she sits with Willa on her lap, I think: Sister and sister. Mother and child.
‘You can do the M like this,’ Willa declares importantly.
‘You’re good at this, Willa,’ Maya tells her. ‘Now, what were you saying about Lochan needing a plaster?’
I realize I have been chopping up the same bunch of spring onions ever since Maya first came in. I have a board full of green and white confetti.
‘Lochie hurt his hand,’ Willa states matter-of-factly, her eyes still narrowed on the chips.
‘With a knife?’ Maya looks up at me sharply, her eyes registering alarm.
‘No, it’s just a graze,’ I reassure her with a dismissive shake of the head and an indulgent smile towards Willa.
Willa turns to look at Maya. ‘He’s lying,’ she stage-whispers conspiratorially.
‘Can I see?’ Maya asks.
I flash her the back of my hand.
She flinches at the sight and instantly moves to get up, but then, anchored to her seat by Willa, is forced to sit down again. She reaches out. ‘Come here.’
‘I don’t want to see it!’ Willa lowers her head towards the tray. ‘It’s all bleeding and sticky. Eek, yuck, gross!’
I let Maya take my hand in hers, just for the pleasure of touching her. ‘It’s nothing.’
She strokes the inside of my hand with her fingers. ‘Jesus, what happened? Surely not a fight—?’
‘Of course not. I just tripped and scraped it against the wall of the playground.’
She gives me a long disbelieving look. ‘We need to clean it properly,’ she insists.
‘I have.’
Ignoring my last comment, she gently slides Willa off her lap. ‘I’m going upstairs to sort Lochie’s hand out,’ she says. ‘I’ll be back in a minute.’
In the small confines of the bathroom, I rummage around in the medicine cupboard for the antiseptic. ‘I appreciate the concern, but don’t you think you girls are being a bit paranoid?’
Ignoring me, Maya perches on the edge of the bath and reaches out towards me. ‘It’s only because we love you so much. Come here.’
I oblige, leaning in and closing my eyes for a brief moment, savouring the touch, the taste of her soft lips against mine. Gently she pulls me closer and I turn away, waving the antiseptic bottle aloft. ‘I thought you wanted to play nurse!’
She looks at me with a mixture of uncertainty and surprise, as if trying to gauge whether I’m teasing.
‘Much as I love dabbing up blood, it doesn’t quite match up to grabbing a rare moment to kiss the guy I love.’
I force a laugh. ‘Are you saying you’d rather let me bleed to death?’
She pretends to consider this for a moment. ‘Ah, well, that’s a tough one.’
I start uncapping the bottle. ‘Come on. Let’s get this over and done with.’
Cuffing my wrist gently with her fingers, she draws my hand towards her, inspecting the raw, bloody knuckles, the skin grated back from the wound: a jagged white rectangle surrounding the wet, crimson lacerations. She winces. ‘Christ, Lochan. You did this falling against a wall? It looks like you took a grater to the back of your hand!’
She gently dabs at my savaged knuckles. I take a deep breath and watch her face: her eyes are narrowed in concentration, her touch very gentle. I swallow painfully.
After bandaging it with gauze and putting everything away, she returns to the side of the bath and kisses me again, and as I pull back, rubs my arm with an uncertain smile.
‘Is it really hurting?’
‘No, of course not!’ I exclaim truthfully. ‘I don’t know why you girls get into such a panic at the merest drop of blood. Anyway, thank you, Miss Nightingale.’ I give her a quick kiss on the head, stand up and reach for the door.
‘Hey!’ She reaches out a hand to stop me, a sparkle of mischief in her eyes. ‘Don’t you think I deserve a bit more than that for my efforts?’
I pull a face and motion awkwardly towards the door. ‘Willa . . .’
‘She’ll be spaced out in front of the TV now!’
I take a reluctant step forward. ‘OK . . .’
But she stops me before I have time to reach her, hand on my chest, gently holding me at arm’s length. Her expression is quizzical. ‘What’s up with you today?’
I shake my head with a wry smile. ‘I dunno. I think I’m just a bit tired.’
She gives me a long look, rubbing the tip of her tongue against her upper lip. ‘Loch, is everything OK?’
‘Of course!’ I smile brightly. ‘Now, shall we get out of here? This is not exactly the most romantic place!’
I can feel her bewilderment as strongly as if it were my own. Throughout dinner, I keep catching her watching me, her eyes rapidly flicking away as soon as they meet mine. She is distracted, that much is obvious, failing to notice Willa eating with her hands, or Kit openly winding up the little ones by ignoring his meal and eating the Jaffa Cakes meant for dessert. I sense it is better to let them just do what the hell they want rather than object – for fear that if I start, I won’t be able to stop and the cracks will begin to show. I just panicked in the bathroom. I was afraid, too afraid that if I let her get that close she would sense it, realize there was something wrong.
