The Bone Dragon (24 page)

‘I’m fine,’ I snap, then sigh, pulling an apologetic face. I make an effort to straighten up as I reach for the teapot, but Paul tosses the paper aside to pour for me.

‘Honestly,’ I say, struggling for a joking tone. ‘I’m just a bit tired and . . . And I really don’t feel like five hours of soap operas today.’ I reach for a strand of hair and start chewing the ends. ‘I’m trying to be interested in the same stuff as Phee and Lynne, really I am, but I’m just not in the mood today.’ I look pleadingly up at them.

Paul smiles, though Amy sighs. ‘Well, if you’re sure you’re all right,’ she says. ‘That’s the important thing. You don’t have to do anything you don’t want.’

‘Just this once,’ I say. ‘I’ll go next time.’

‘Well, since Evie doesn’t need a lift, I think I might go over to your mum’s now,’ Amy says, absent-mindedly pulling the hair out of my mouth and tucking it behind my ear. ‘I’ve been promising to help with pruning that japonica and it would be good to make an early start before the rain they’ve been talking about arrives. Now, are you sure you’re OK for lunch?’

Paul rolls his eyes. ‘She thinks I’m completely useless,’ he tells the ceiling. ‘We all know I make a better omelette than you do, so scram.’

Amy smiles as she bends down to kiss him. ‘Evie will keep you in line and stop you destroying the house,’ she says.

As soon as we hear the front door close, Paul pulls a face at me.

I pull one back, but then the front door opens again. There’s rustling in the hall and Amy calls, ‘Paul, have you still not brought the camera back?’

‘Sorry, love!’ Paul shouts back. ‘I’m nearly done with it.’

We can hear Amy’s sigh from the kitchen. ‘And you’ve still got the torch too, I’ll bet, so what we’ll do if there’s a power cut I
don’t
know and for what? There’s not been a hint of trouble over Ben’s way for a month. Don’t you think it’s time the two of you packed it in with these night-time patrols?’

‘Just another week or so, love,’ Paul calls, rolling his eyes at me, ‘but I’ll get a spare torch in the meantime. Bound to come in handy and it won’t break the bank.’

Amy shuts the front door by way of reply.

‘Are you sure you should change the alarms without telling her when she’s in this sort of mood?’ I ask. ‘Can’t you call them and cancel?’

Paul sighs as he pushes himself to his feet, fetching himself a pop-tart from our secret stash behind the cereal boxes. ‘The condemned man needs junk food,’ he explains when I quirk an eyebrow at him. ‘Look, I had a nice long chat with the lads who’re doing the work. They’ve promised they’ll be very neat and they won’t muck up the plasterwork. It’ll all be done and dusted – literally – by the time Amy gets back.’

I curl a new strand of hair around my finger and grind the ends between my teeth.

‘Don’t look so worried, Evie love.’

‘I like the old alarms,’ I mumble.

‘You don’t care a hoot about the alarms,’ Paul says, coming around the table to loop an arm about my shoulders. ‘I don’t know what’s got you so worked up, but it’s not a big deal, OK? Just a nice little surprise for Amy to cheer her up.’

I shrug one shoulder. Paul squeezes tight then releases me. ‘What’s really bothering you?’ he asks, dropping into the chair next to mine. ‘I promise not to nag or tell Amy.’

I spit the hair out of my mouth, wrinkling up my nose. ‘Just out of sorts,’ I say. ‘Funny dreams. But I don’t really remember them,’ I add before he can ask. ‘It just made me worried, I guess.’

Paul gives me another hug, then fixes us both pop-tarts with squirty cream. I trail around after him, helping clear up breakfast then get out the hoover and cleaning supplies (just in case). The alarm people are on time and set to work with neat efficiency, even though I’m now trailing after
them
.

‘Can I pass this down to you, love?’ one of them asks as I hover by the stepladder.

I take the old alarm and stand staring blankly as the workman starts doing stuff with the wiring in the ceiling light.

‘Gonna use this to power up the new alarm, see?’ he explains, smiling kindly down at me as he tucks a screwdriver behind his ear. ‘That way we don’t need to poke any holes in your mum’s nice house or do nothing with the walls, like.’

I nod and turn my gaze to the alarm in my hands, picking at the catch until it pops open.

‘Come on a minute, Evie, and give them some room to work,’ Paul says as he comes upstairs to check on their progress. ‘I’ll make you some hot chocolate with marshmallows, huh?’ he offers, as he pulls the strand of hair I’ve been chewing yet again out of my mouth. ‘That’ll perk you up, won’t it?’

I nod, still looking at the alarm I’m holding, though I lean into him as he puts his arm around my shoulders. ‘Can I keep this?’ I ask, looking up at the line of his jaw and the tiny mole under his chin that is only visible up close, in a hug, by someone exactly my height.

Paul frowns down at me, bemused. ‘The old alarm? Evie love, why would you want that? You can’t be attached to it.’

I shrug, hooking my chin over the edge of his shoulder to meet his eyes. ‘I want to see how it works. Because it will still work, won’t it? It’s just battery-powered, right? It’s not plugged into anything in the ceiling, is it?’

‘No. That’s the whole point of the new system,’ Paul says dubiously, turning to the alarm man. ‘She can’t get a shock from it, can she?’

The alarm guy smiles indulgently at me. ‘Nah. ’S only nine volts that battery. Can’t get much of a spark from that. And she’s old enough to be trusted not to put it in water. Can’t do no harm to have a bit of a poke about. Be a good learning ’sperience.’

Paul looks down at me, his mouth all bunched up to one side. ‘Amy won’t like it, of course,’ he says, ‘nine volts or no.’ A sigh. ‘How about this goes in your brand-new, super-secret hiding place and we just don’t mention it to Amy?’

I beam at him.

Paul grins down at me. ‘Good to know that next time you’re feeling blue all I need to do is find some old bit of battery-powered junk to perk you up, though God help me if you end up a rocket scientist.’ He shudders. ‘Promise me you’ll stick with nice low-powered electronics, OK darling? No explosives or setting fire to things. And definitely no rocket fuel.’

I put my arm around his middle and squeeze. ‘No rocket fuel,’ I promise.

Paul and I are sitting cross-legged on the floor, laughing over the Scrabble board. Neither of us likes playing the traditional way so we’ve made up our own rules. It’s pretty much the same as normal Scrabble only you can’t spell any of the words right: you have to spell them like they sound. Or you have to make up words that everyone agrees should be real. Like moronity or cretination.

‘Now that’s a good sound to come home to,’ Amy says, as she comes into the kitchen and jangles her keys into the dish on the sideboard. ‘What have you two been up to that’s put you in such a good mood?’

I look at Paul and lift my eyebrows.

‘Show-time,’ he says, pushing himself to his feet. ‘We’ve been arranging a little surprise for you.’

‘A surprise for
me
?’ Amy says, smiling as Paul puts his arm about her waist.

‘Just something to stop you worrying. Have a look up there,’ he says, pointing to the new kitchen alarm.

Amy frowns in the direction of his finger. ‘You’ve changed the alarm,’ she says, puzzled.

‘We’ve got a whole new system with the latest whatchamacallits and they’re all hardwired into the mains electricity. No more batteries to check,’ he says proudly, beaming as he leans down to kiss her.

But Amy steps away from him, her frown turning into a glare as she continues to stare up at the new alarm.

‘They did a great job on them all, just like this one. No mess. Just a little wire between the light and the alarm,’ Paul explains hurriedly. ‘Nice and simple.’

But Amy is clenching her teeth together and she’s flicking her thumb against her ring so fast that it clicks, like she’s snapping her fingers, as she turns it and turns it and turns it.

‘I thought you’d be pleased,’ Paul says. I see his hand come up as if he wants to touch her, but he lets it fall and I realise that he’s not disappointed but hurt. ‘You’ve been fussing over those old alarms and . . .’

‘Fussing,’ Amy says quietly, but there’s something not at all nice in her tone. It makes me pull back a step because Amy’s voice isn’t like that and her face isn’t like that and I don’t like the way she’s snapping her thumb against her ring at all. ‘You think it’s
fussing
to want to be sure that my family is safe.’

‘I know you want us to be safe. That’s why I got you the new system,’ Paul protests quietly. I can see in his face that he knows he shouldn’t have said ‘fussing’. ‘This way the batteries can’t go dead and there’s nothing to worry about . . .’

‘And what if there’s a power cut?’ Amy interrupts. ‘Do they have a fail-safe? Do they beep like the old ones if there’s a problem?’

‘Amy . . .’

‘And what if there’s a power surge and they blow? That’s exactly when there
might
be a fire, but will we have a single alarm that works then?’

‘I’ll ring them up tomorrow and ask. We can call them together and if you think we need something upgraded, we’ll get it sorted, all right, darling?’

‘There was nothing
wrong
with the old system,’ Amy says in a voice choked with rage and the tears I can see in her eyes. ‘It was just fine . . .’

‘But you kept worrying about it, darling,’ Paul says, reaching out to her, but she steps back again, bringing her hand up to grip her locket.

It leaves her standing there with her arm across her body as if to hold him away. Her cheeks have gone a strange colour, mottled red and white. ‘Of course I worry,’ she grinds out. ‘And now I’ve got nothing I can
do
about it. I liked checking the stupid alarms. I liked checking that I was keeping my family safe. Why didn’t you ask me? Why did you have to go and change things without asking me?’

Paul draws in a breath so heavy it sounds as if he’s trying to do it underwater. ‘Amy,’ he says quietly. ‘Amy darling, nothing’s going to happen to us. We’re going to call the alarm people tomorrow and ask all sorts of questions. As many questions as it takes to make you feel better.’ He keeps his eyes locked with hers as he slowly, gently places his hands on her shoulders. She shudders, a full-bodied shiver as if his touch feels like ice even through her cardigan. ‘And we’ll take the car out to the garage and check the tyres and the oil and the water and everything we can possibly think of,’ Paul continues, stepping forwards and slowly, slowly drawing Amy to him. ‘And then we’ll go all round the house and check all the appliances: make sure the wiring is good and the plugs are OK.’

I watch Amy’s hands slowly come up to clutch at the back of Paul’s shirt. Her face is pressed against his neck so all I can see is the curve of her cheek, still blotched with patches of red.

‘We need to fix the gutter,’ Amy chokes out. ‘The gutter above Evie’s room. There’s water and mud all over the patio under there every time it rains and half the time when it doesn’t too.’

Paul kisses Amy’s hair. ‘We’ll fix it, sweetheart. I’ll even get Ben over to help so I’m nice and safe on the ladder. Then we can all go over to his house and check everything there too. We’ll all be fine, Amy. We’ll all be perfectly safe. You always do everything possible to keep us safe, right, Evie?’

I jump. Distracted by the whole gutter thing, I’d been making a mental note not to clean my shoes out of the window any more, then trying to figure out what to do instead. I’d just worked it out too: if I nick a roll of paper towels, Amy probably won’t notice and that will do for now. Then, next trip to the supermarket, I’ll ask for some wet wipes. Provided I put all the muddy stuff in a plastic bag rather than straight in my bin, I figure I’ll be set. I am just in the process of congratulating myself for this clever thinking when Paul’s voice jolts me back to the present.

I feel like cursing. Usually when Paul and Amy argue I wait until they’ve forgotten that I’m there and then slip quietly away. But it’s too late: Paul is craning over his shoulder to look at me and he’s taken one hand off Amy’s back to reach out to me. I stare at him just a moment too long, until there is hurt as well as sadness in his eyes and he moves his arm to put it back around Amy. But that isn’t fair because Paul and Amy have always, always looked after me.

I manage not to sigh as I get up and move around the table to put my arm cautiously, carefully around Amy on one side and Paul on the other. And when I look up at Paul, hoping that the hurt will be gone, I realise that his eyes are very red. But he looks almost happy too. He looks proud. And so I tighten my hand on his shirt and Amy’s cardigan, resting my head against Amy’s shoulder. Looking into Paul’s eyes, I smile at him until he smiles back. He presses a kiss to my hair and when he pulls back, he doesn’t look like he needs to cry any more.