Crossing the Line (7 page)

Mickey still gave Kev a whack now and again, to keep him on his toes, but I'd seen enough of the man's explosive rages to keep out of his way. I stayed out of the line of fire and I tried to make sure Kev did too, because Mickey could turn from cool charm to apocalyptic fury in the time it took to snap your fingers.

Mickey was the only father figure Kev had, but why would he have wanted another one? Fathers bitch about the neighbours' noise levels, lose the ensuing quarrel to the point of utter humiliation, then get mildly stunned before taking themselves off to bed. It's not as if a father would have controlled either of them. A father might have made things worse. After all, the Naughtons didn't get their violent genes from a fairy godmother.

Mickey wasn't a father figure to me. He wasn't. I wanted to impress him, that was all. That was
all.
I could never forget him dangling that iPod and saying
If it wis yours I'd give it back. You're the one that wis fighting for it. You're a good lad.
The memory could still make me
swagger. I wanted to hear it again, or something like it.

That bloody iPod. It was only an iPod: Calum never said a truer word. But
I wis the one that fought for it.

Must be why I took it back.

I took it back off Calum because, morally speaking, it was mine. If it hadn't been for me, Josh the Ape would have had it long ago, or Mickey would have kept it. Half the songs on it were mine anyway. Calum didn't care enough – about the iPod, about his pride, about anything – to fight for it. I did. I cared.

And you know,
you don't fight back.

He held out his hand and my fingers closed over it. It was late autumn and I could have waited for the day when I knew he had his after-school chess club. If I'd done that I could have got him alone, on his way home, when the shadows were thick between the pools of streetlight. That wasn't how I wanted to do it. For some reason I wanted him humiliated. I wanted to do this outside the school gates, just as the school disgorged a swarm of kids to see it all, while the teachers, distracted, tidied their desks or bolted for their cars, desperate to get out of there. I wanted to do it with my gang watching. I wanted Kev to tell Mickey all about it.

Maybe I didn't want to look in Calum's eyes all by myself.

Not that I felt guilty. Not that I was sorry for Calum. I felt nothing but contempt. He was resentful and hating
and afraid. He didn't even have the guts to say no, to say the iPod wasn't mine and I had no right to it. He didn't have the nerve to ask me what had happened to me, though he probably wanted to know. He just handed the frigging thing over, and I was so angry with him for not even trying to argue, I tossed the iPod into Kev's keeping and went for Calum. Big time.

Pure submission. He was a curled-up ball of fear and pain. The longer he refused to fight back, the angrier I got. What was wrong with him? I never thought to ask what was wrong with me, of course, though I was the one punching him to the ground and slamming my fists and feet into his soft stupid flesh. He had his hands over his eyes and I didn't want that. I'd seen fear in his face, and misery, but it wasn't enough, and I desperately wanted to see his eyes again. I lashed my foot into his hand and he snapped it away with a yelp of pain, but curled up again. I wanted his eyes, though, so I fell on him, flailing at his head. Where was that look he'd given Josh the Ape? I wanted that. I wanted to see my dad, hiding there in Calum's eyes.
Come out, come out, Dad, wherever you are…

There was a tight, closed circle of kids round us, and I realised I was loving it. I think I was. I do seem to remember loving it, loving it so much I couldn't stop. Sunil had to make me stop, tearing me off him because I'd been at this for long enough and there was a limit to what even we could get away with. I kicked Calum once more in the
balls for luck and staggered back, exhausted with joy.

There was a kid at the front, filming it all on his mobile. With a snarl Sunil ripped the phone out of his hands and stuffed it in his own pocket, and the kid didn't argue. That was because of me, I thought proudly. They were scared. We had the respect of the entire school, me and Kev and Sunil and the rest. I knew what my dazzled audience was thinking, and it made me light-headed. If I could do this to a guy who used to be my friend, they were wondering, what wouldn't I do? So watch out for that guy. Better take care around him. Don't mess with Nick Geddes, no way. No way, José. I swear to God, the voice in my head was slurring into a New Yoik accent.

‘Jesus Christ Almighty.'

It was the voice of a disgusted girl, and it cut through the silence, breaking my spell of terror. (I mean, who did I think I was? The Great Lord Sauron?)

Orla Mahon, brutally beautiful, half a dozen books in her arms and her black nails tapping against the covers. Her disdain punctured my swollen pride and drained all the adrenalin out of my body. My crazy high was gone, replaced by dizziness and the beginnings of embarrassment. Her black-edged eyes were locked on me as she chewed her gum, but though she glanced down at Calum with mild pity she made no move to help him. She turned on her heel and stalked away, her friends at her side.

Her younger brother Aidan was the next to leave, and his friends after him. And then they were all backing
away, some of them staring at me, some of them staring at Calum's curled body, some of them pretending they'd seen nothing at all. Was I missing something here? I wasn't seeing much admiration or respect. Not even hatred. Just dislike, that was all: dislike seriously muted by fear.

‘Not really supposed to kill the wee fecker,' said Sunil, ‘but he was asking for it.'

‘Yeah. Good man,' said Kev approvingly, tossing the iPod back to me.

Somehow Kev's approval didn't thrill me. I wondered if even Mickey's meant quite as much as this. I wasn't sure Calum had asked for it really. The boy was crawling to his feet and limping away while he thought he had the chance. I couldn't watch that, couldn't even look at him any more, so I turned away.

And saw Allie.

I thought I was hallucinating. At exactly the same instant I remembered her telling me that she wanted to meet me after school. She wanted to show me something. The memory kicked me in the stomach and I swore, out loud, but somehow didn't manage to make a sound.

She made no sound either. Her dark eyes found mine and wouldn't let go, but she didn't speak. She took one step back, and then another. She turned and walked straight into the road, making a Vauxhall brake and screech and blare its horn, but she didn't flinch. Only at the far side of the road did she start to run.

‘Allie!' I yelled.

Aye, like she was going to change her mind and come back. I ran after her, but she did not want to be caught, and she wasn't.

When I got home, exhausted and terrified, she wasn't there. Dad shouted after me as I pelted up the stairs. Something about, where was Allie and wasn't she supposed to be meeting me?

I couldn't even answer him. I ran to the upstairs bathroom, knelt on the lilac shagpile thing round the base of the toilet, gripped the matching lilac-shagpile-covered seat and threw up.

I wasn't Nick-shaped, I was Kev-shaped. I put my head in my hands and looked at the lilac shagpile and threw up again.

I thought Aidan's mum's visit might spark Allie's conscience, might at least shame her into being more discreet. Not a chance. Two days later it was Lola Nan's birthday weekend. Lola Nan's birthday at the beach was a family tradition. So naturally, bloody Aidan had to come too.

It was a stupid tradition to start with, and in the last few years it had become even stupider, even before Allie brought along her imaginary boyfriend. Lola Nan came from a generation that thought it was the best fun imaginable to sit on a bleak beach with sand whisking into your eyes, gulls mugging you for food and the wind-chill factor giving you the skin of a lizard. Dad prodded at the disposable barbecue, as if poking the sausages with a stick would make them cook faster and taste edible. His eyes kept drifting to the cool box, and eventually so did his
hand. Needless to say, the sausages got burnt.

Mum was buttering rolls. Shielding her eyes against nonexistent sunlight so she wouldn't quite have to look at me, she called brightly, ‘Nick, would you like to help Dad?'

I pretended I didn't hear her. So did Dad. He went on stabbing sausages, and I turned back to Lola Nan. The broad beach was almost deserted but I could get away with selective deafness because Lola Nan and I were higher up a dune, with forest at our back and the whole silky curve of the sea to admire in silence. Mum had wanted her closer to the barbecue, on the flat sand, but I'd insisted they put her here. Lola Nan and I had a nice view. It was only slightly marred by the figures of Mum and Dad and the drifting barbecue smoke.

I was sprawled next to Lola Nan's folding chair. It was one of those canvas jobs with little pockets in the side for your drink. I had a beer I'd filched from the cool box (not that Dad could have objected to me having alcohol, morally speaking, but he was kind of possessive with it). Lola Nan had orange juice, diluted, in a non-spill toddler cup.

I hated them for it.

She didn't seem to mind, though. In her floral dress and floppy white hat she looked vaguely happy, murmuring incoherently as she watched the waves tumble in, the gangster gulls squabble and dive. I suppose she was enjoying herself. Her right hand flapped above the chair's
canvas arm, patting her invisible pocket of air. After a while her head tipped back, her mouth fell open and she started to snore.

I was stuffing a folded towel behind her head, to stop it falling off its fragile wrinkled neck, when Allie ran up our dune and waved a sausage on a roll at me. As Lola Nan's head fell the other way, almost bouncing off her saggy chest, I gave up and took the roll.

Allie grinned. ‘I'm freezing. Bloody freezing. Why does Mum insist on doing this?'

As I sat in the sand, she flopped down beside me and wriggled under my arm. I pulled another towel round us both and ripped another bite of the roll. This was great. Just me and Allie and a comatose Lola Nan. No Mum, no Dad and no frigging Aidan.

‘I know,' I said. ‘And she'll insist on Lola Nan paddling. It'll take all day to get her down there.'

‘I'm going to tactfully wander off. No way am I putting my feet in that sea. How does Mum think we all enjoy this?'

‘Well, Lola Nan does,' I admitted.

‘Suppose.' Allie made a face. ‘And
allegedly
it's very bonding. Family-wise.'

‘Hah,' I said darkly, watching Dad crack open another bottle.

She spluttered a giggle, stuffed the last bit of roll and sausage into her mouth and dusted sand and crumbs off her hands. ‘We're off. Come on, then. See you, Nick.
Enjoy your paddle!'

We're off.
We're
off. See you, Nick.
Come on then.

Heidcase. Deluded wee cow. Abandoned for a phantom, I threw the rest of my roll towards the sea; a gull caught it in mid-air and was instantly mobbed by three more. Mum had to beat off a couple herself as she wobbled up the beach towards us in sequinned flip-flops.

‘Happy birthday, Lola Nan!' On her face was a professional warm smile; in her hands she bore a supermarket birthday cake. A cartoon ballerina in lilac icing. The birthday number had been picked off; you could see the pink-stained shape of
5
^th
in between
Happy
and
Birthday.

Well. It was a nice thought. Lola Nan wouldn't notice.

She jerked awake, mumbling.

‘Happy Birthday!' said Mum again, trying to maintain her cheery smile.

‘Where's the boy?' Lola Nan gripped the canvas chair arms. ‘WHERE'S THE BOY?'

Oh, hell's teeth. ‘I'm here, Lola Nan.' I scrambled to my feet and took the cake off Mum. ‘Here. Happy Birthday.'

‘Hmph.' Like a bumptious toddler she scowled at me, then her face broke open in a big smile. ‘Can I have some cake?'

‘Course you can. It's your birthday,' I said. Mum had forgotten the knife, of course. I dug my fingers into the cake and quarried out a big piece. Lola Nan grabbed it, delighted.

Out of the corner of my eye I saw Mum's face darken, but she bit her lip and made herself smile.

‘You're a good boy,' said Lola Nan through a mouthful of sponge and lilac icing.

Mum's face darkened even more.

‘You care about me, don't you?' mumbled Lola Nan. ‘Not like
her
. She can't even –'

‘Wonder where Allie is?' I yelled brightly. ‘She'd like some CAKE too!'

Mum's lower eyelids glittered, a row of tears along each. Shit. ‘Allie!' I shouted in desperation.

‘Where's the
BOY
?' shouted Lola Nan.

‘Here!' I turned back to her, and she gripped my hands like she was trying to pull them off at the wrists.

‘Sometimes I just can't …' began Mum tearfully.

‘ALLIE!' I yelled.

‘Coming! Hang on!' She was sprinting along the edge of the water, turning towards the dry sand. Then, just as I thought she was coming to my rescue, she stopped, spun on her heel, hooted with laughter. Crouching, she picked up a handful of sand and flung it.

‘Aidan!
Quit it!
'

Mum froze. I froze. Dad dropped the barbecue fork in the sand, and Lola Nan just smiled happily at nothing.

‘AiiiDAAAAAN!' shrieked Allie.

‘Cake,' said Mum brightly, blinking.

That was the moment I noticed two girls walking along the edge of the sea, and an ugly lurcher-like dog plunging
in and out of the waves. I knew that dog, I'd seen it before. Gina's dog. Which would explain why Gina, and the girl with her, had come to a stunned halt and were staring at Allie. The other girl was Orla. She stood there, rigid, as Allie threw sand at her invisible murdered brother, yelling his name and giggling.