Crossing the Line (13 page)

Yes, there was Orla. How could my gaze go anywhere else? Aidan passed quite close to her posse and he must have said something cheeky, because she stepped smartly back, grabbed him by the lapel and mock-headbutted him. Grinning, he took her platinum forelock and tugged on it, so she slapped him on the stomach, then grabbed his head and kissed his nose.

That's your brother, I thought longingly. Don't waste all that aggressive affection on him. I can take it just as well as he can …

In a parallel world, one where Kev Naughton had been drowned at birth and I'd not sold my soul at the first opportune moment, I realised Aidan Mahon and I might have been friends. But as it was, that was the first time Aidan spoke to me. The day my life started to come back together, and the day it fell apart again. The last day of his life.

The last day of Aidan's life, Allie was on her own. I know what happened to her, though. Not that she told me all the details; I got those at the trial. I got the details while the jury discovered what an intimidating bruiser Aidan was, and what malicious revenge-seekers Allie and I were, and what a hard childhood Kev had had, and how much he loved his mother. Oh, don't get me started. I'll tell you what I found out, not what the jury thought.

Aidan was held up after school – not a detention, obviously, not Aidan Mahon; he'd stayed behind to discuss
something with a teacher. Kev was sitting in his car, on the other side of the road, opposite the school gates, and when he saw Allie come out on her own he must have practically hit the car roof with joy. So he got out of the car and slammed the door – she heard that – and he followed her.

He was between her and the school, so she couldn't go back. So first thing she did, she pulled out her mobile and punched the speed dial. Not my number, Aidan's number. Of course. She'd only got as far as the dank copse behind the computer store before Kev caught up with her.

Kev grabbed her by the arm and yanked her into the shadow of the Amenity Value trees. Shoved her against the third tree trunk on the left – it's the details that get jammed in your brain and won't come loose – and twisted her phone out of her hand. And she thought that was it, and she didn't care about the tree bark scraping her back or the fact that her wrist hurt so much he must have sprained it. She just wanted him to go away, because she had a terrible, terrible longing for Aidan not to arrive in time: she knew in that funny old way of hers she'd made the most dreadful mistake in calling him. She just stared levelly into Kev's eyes and willed him to go away, but she didn't say anything and she didn't cry; she just felt her heart banging her ribcage and wished more than anything she hadn't called Aidan.

Kev probably sensed her terror, though he'd never have understood what lay behind it. And he wouldn't have
liked her staring at him in that fearful intransigent way.

He looked left and right, gripping her phone in one hand. Then he shoved himself right against her and grabbed her breast hard with his other hand.

‘Hey, Allie,' he said, so close she could feel his breath on her cheek. He smelt of cheese-and-onion crisps, she said. ‘Give us a bit of what Mahon gets.' And he hit her on the cheek with her own phone, and started groping her.

He was grunting anyway, and she was frozen with horror, so she didn't realise at first when he gave a grunt of real astonishment. Somebody jerked him away from her, and he hit the ground hard.

That stunned him, but he wasn't hurt. Aidan did not hurt him. He probably thought about it, but he didn't, whatever Kev's QC said. Thinking about it isn't the same thing. Wanting to do it isn't the same thing. Wanting to kill someone isn't the same as doing it: ask my dad, who often says he'd like to kill me.

It's what you do that matters. All Aidan did was lunge for Allie's phone as Kev lay there in shock, and when he'd grabbed it he staggered back. He stared down at Kev for a few seconds, maybe not knowing what to do next, but by then Allie had had time to get her breath back and her head together, to seize his hand and tug him away. Aidan, after all, was a fifteen-year-old who'd just humiliated a sixteen-year-old, and even if he was easily as tall as Kev, he wasn't in the same psychopathic league. So after a
moment he clasped Allie's hand harder, and backed away from Kev, then let Allie pull him along the path back towards the road.

Allie remembers the looming figure at the end of the path. She knows Aidan saw him too because his fingers tightened round hers and she felt him take a breath and walk faster.

Mickey Naughton had left Kev only to go and buy fags, and now he'd come to look for his brother. What he found was Kev staggering to his feet, scarlet with fury and shame, and Aidan walking away with a dishevelled girl in one hand and an unthieved phone in the other. Maybe Mickey couldn't believe what he was seeing, because Aidan had enough impetus to shove past without being grabbed, but it didn't take Mickey long to reassemble his thoughts. Kev stumbled out of the lane and Allie heard Mickey give him his unedited opinion.

‘You stupit useless wee tosser! Gonnae let him get away with that?'

That's the edited version.

Allie glanced back over her shoulder to see Kev walking swiftly after them, head down, eyes up, teeth showing where they bit into his upper lip.

‘Mahon,' he shouted, ‘Mahon!'

Maybe Aidan thought he had to turn round or he'd be attacked from behind. So he came to a dead halt and spun on his heel.

He shouldn't have done that, but what else was he
going to do? I saw this part because by now I was running towards them, Shuggie panting at my heels. Somebody on the opposite side of the road had turned too, a tall middle-aged guy with a Jack Russell. A group of girls was walking behind me, and their laughter had faded, replaced with a bright callous curiosity, and they were striding faster towards the scrap. All I could hear in my head was the echo of my own unthinking voice:
She goes running to you now, she's your bloody responsibility.
And young Sir frigging Galahad going,
I'll look out for her, Nick. I promise.

No, you stupid git, no, I thought. You don't know what you're getting into. Leave this to me.

As I barged past Mickey, Aidan caught sight of me. He looked back at Kev and said, ‘Leave her alone.'

My words. My words exactly, give or take a gender pronoun. But this time Kev didn't take any notice; he just kept walking, head down, his whole body tight with fury, and Aidan stepped forward in front of him and the two boys collided.

I stopped. Everything stopped. I wanted to say or do something but I'd seen something for a fraction of an instant that my mind didn't want to register, a bright glint between the two of them, just before they slammed into each other. Aidan still had Allie's phone in one hand but his other arm was up to grab Kev, ready to stop him in his tracks. And he did stop him. Kev just stood, frozen to Aidan, while Aidan stared into his face, looking very
surprised. Then Aidan's eyes slewed across to me, full of a sort of hurt bewilderment.

He started to slide. He glanced down, then back up at Kev, trying to hold himself up, but Kev wasn't helping, he just stood there like a piece of meat. Aidan slid to his knees and let go of Kev.

I only knew about the silence when Mickey broke it.

‘That wis self-defence.' He strode up and grabbed Kev's arms, manhandling him away. ‘That wis fecking self-defence.'

I didn't care what it was. I was still trying to work out what had happened, while in another layer of my mind I knew fine. Also I was trying to keep hold of my phone, which had appeared in my palm somehow, but it kept slipping in my damp shaking hand while I tried to thumb buttons.

Allie was on the pavement now with Aidan in her arms. He'd slumped back into her lap and he was looking up at her, the bewilderment turned into terror, his knees drawn up, his hands clutched over a spot below his breastbone, blood pumping out between his fingers. He kept slumping sideways like he just couldn't stop himself, and Allie held on to him and stroked his hair and went, ‘Sh, sh.'

There was the slam of a car door, the phlegmy roar of a souped-up engine and the screech of departing tyres. Someone was nagging and badgering me through the phone that was stuck to my ear, but I couldn't make out
what they were saying, because someone else was shouting obscenities as she shoved through the gathering crowd. Orla bumped into me, knocking the phone out of my hand, but it was fine because there were plenty of people making calls. She fell silent, then she screamed.

Allie didn't scream and she didn't shout. She sat as Aidan's body jerked in her arms and his blood pooled around her legs, as his life soaked out of him and through her trousers and into her skin. Her eyes were the colour of night, and she was still hushing him softly. She cradled him like a baby, and until the sirens drowned her out, I heard her whispering that he wasn't going to die, because she wasn't going to let him.

And I suppose she never did.

Aloof, swotty, aggressive. What a combination. She didn't give a damn, did Orla. Those terrifying, black-rimmed eyes. Her strong defiant body with its eff-you language, her proud breasts, her barbaric nose ring. Orla, Orla. That flick of platinum hair falling across one eye like a cool blade. I could smell her gum across the chipped formica table in the Soda Fountain. I could smell the mint of it on her breath, mixed with cigarettes and espresso. I could eat her in one bite. Or die trying. More likely.

‘How come you get to climb over that fence lunchtimes?' I asked her.

‘McCluskey.'

‘McCluskey what?'

Shrugging, Orla stared over my shoulder at the window, as if she was less interested in me than in the backwards writing that said
Beppe's Soda Fountain
from the front.
‘Says I can go over there at the moment. Just at the moment, mind. If I want some privacy. 'Cause of …'

‘Yeah,' I said. ‘Just you, though? Not Gina or Kylie or that lot?'

She sniffed. ‘That crowd of losers? I'm sick of them.'

If they could hear her! ‘Do they know that?'

‘Nah. Back to normal next week, right?' She gazed at me, daring me ever to tell them what she'd said about her own hard glamorous gang.

As if I'd take my life in my hands like that.

‘McCluskey's OK for a fascist bastard,' I said.

‘Yeah.' She tugged out a cigarette.

If I was switched on – if I was a smoker – I'd have had a light ready for her. The Soda Fountain was the kind of place to play James Dean or John Travolta, a faux-fifties diner done up in pastel ice-cream colours and chrome. It was full of kitsch, like the straw dispenser and the bubblegum machine and the jukebox full of music we didn't like. There was a papier-mâché Chevrolet on the counter, Neapolitan pink, and black-and-white film stills on the walls. If I was playing my role, I'd lean forward and gaze into Orla's black-edged eyes as she bent her head low and touched her fag to my flame, then glanced up at me from beneath her thick lashes.

But I'm not switched on, I'm not cool, and unfortunately I'm not a smoker.

‘Can I have one of those?'

‘No.' She twirled her unlit cigarette between her
fingers, her stare full of pity and scorn. ‘Neither can I.'

Oh aye. Smoking ban. I felt like an idiot. Again.

‘Filthy stupid habit, anyway,' she said. ‘Looks stupid, is stupid. Can I have another coffee?'

Beneath the cover of the table I opened my fist and peered at what was left of my cash. Hell, it was an investment. ‘Yeah. OK. How do you sleep nights?'

‘How do you?'

The silence was as thick as Beppe's espresso, and just about as dark. I stood up and went to the counter and mumbled a new order. Beppe gave me a baleful look – he always looked Mafia-malevolent so nobody would take the mickey out of his wee fifties-diner busboy hat and stripey apron – and obliged.

It took all my nerve to sit back down opposite Orla, but I managed it, and even looked up at her. Her mouth was sullen but her eyes glittered with interest. OK.

‘You used to hang out with him.'

Him.
Kev Naughton. Well, that was getting to the point.

‘Yeah, well,' I said. ‘Not any more.'

‘Yeah, but you used to. I don't think much of your taste in friends.'

Like I needed to hear that again. Anger made me snap, ‘He used to fancy you.'

She didn't stop staring at me. ‘Yeah.' Her lips parted and her teeth sank into her lower lip. She bit it harder. I could see the mark she was making. ‘I told him I wasn't interested.'

‘You grabbed his nuts and twisted, Orla.'

I'd thought it was funny then and I thought it was funny now. Because I was trying not to smile too much I glanced over her shoulder at the sugar-pink Chevy. She didn't say anything though, and when I looked back at her I realised I'd never imagined Orla Mahon could cry.

Her eyes were very glittery and she put a black fingernail to the corner of each one, staring at the table. I realised the polish wasn't quite black: it was very, very dark red. I wished I hadn't made her cry. I couldn't look away from her fingernails.

‘I don't,' I said. ‘I don't… you don't need to …' My throat dried up.

‘I don't feel guilty,' she snapped, taking her fingers down so she could glare at me. Now she was angry enough not to cry.

‘I didn't say you –'

‘Even if Kev was getting his own back. Even if he started on Aidan 'cause … 'cause I did that to him. In front of everybody. I shouldn't've. Well, whether I should or not … it's no excuse for … It's no
excuse.
I didn't
make
him do it. Did I?
Did I?
'

‘No,' I said. ‘Course not. Kev did it. All by himself.'