Crossing the Line (9 page)

‘Your pal,' she said. ‘That Shuggie.'

‘He's not my pal,' I growled. ‘He's a tick I can't get rid of.'

‘Of course. You saved Shuggie's life and now you're responsible for him. His existence is down to you, so you owe it to him to look after him.'

‘Oh, aye?'

‘Aye,' she mimicked. ‘It's a tradition in more than one culture.'

How elegantly she patronised. She said ‘culture' as if she was trying to teach me a foreign language.

I thought about it for a moment. ‘Not that I saved his actual life or anything, but I'd have thought it'd be the other way round.'

‘Yes, but it isn't.'

‘Well. Ain't life strange.'

‘Ain't it.'

I thought for a minute that Orla Mahon was taking the mickey out of me, and that made me wildly, irrationally happy.

‘So. Shuggie was telling me stuff about you,' she said.

Oh, was he? ‘Such as?'

‘He says you're desperate to shag me.'

I glanced at my watch. It was twenty past one now. There was time. He'd be dead by quarter to two and I could still get my
Handmaid's Tale
essay in.

‘You're not getting to, of course.' Orla examined a polished black fingernail, smoothing down a peeling edge. ‘But you can take us out if you want.'

‘Yeah?'
Who says I want to do that?
was on the tip of my tongue, but fortunately I wasn't stupid enough to say
it. ‘Do you want to go to a movie?'

‘No,' she said.

‘Oh. Fine.'

‘I'll meet you in Beppe's tomorrow evening and you can buy me a coffee.'

Bugger. That meant I'd have to make intelligent conversation. What was wrong with a movie, for God's sake? I swallowed my deep sense of dread and said, ‘OK.'

She stood up, tucked Ian McEwan under her armpit (lucky, lucky Ian), and glared at me. ‘Seven o'clock. Don't be late.'

As if,
I wanted to scream. ‘OK.'

I gave her two minutes' head start, during which I bounced up and down on my heels and cackled silently, like a madman, at the burn. Then, as I followed her up the bank, I glanced up at the fence. Bespectacled eyes gazed at me through the wire. There was a Physics textbook clasped in Shuggie's arms, and an expression of intense scientific inquiry on his face, as if he'd mixed a couple of lethal chemicals and was waiting for the test tube to explode.

Allie had never lost that fey strangeness she'd had as a baby, that solemn indifference to reality. I knew very well that she'd be a target for bullies despite her connections to the underworld (me), and from the day she started at Craigmyle High I had every intention of keeping an eye on her.

Things never work out. I had my own priorities, and more importantly Kev's priorities, and I could hardly stalk my own little sister around the playground. I consoled myself with the knowledge that even Allie had to learn life's number one lesson: you have to look after yourself.

Anyway, she wouldn't let me look after her. I was no longer her big brother and guardian angel – good for lending Marvel comics, getting rid of the spooky dream-catchers Mum hung around Allie's bedroom, and creating
showjumping courses in the back garden for nonexistent ponies. Her shock must have killed that brother, but that was fine: he'd only ever existed in her head.

The parents had had complaints about me, of course, but Allie had simply had no idea. I'd led a double life without knowing I was doing it, without realising how much Allie's starry adoration meant to me. I stayed out late with my mates, but I never came home off my face or reeking of drink. After all, Dad was a hell of a role model in that respect. Anyway, when your pals are lashed it's easy enough to fool them into thinking you're drinking just as much as they are, but that drink only makes you surlier and sarkier.

No secrets now, though. Allie was on to me. She never did mention Calum's beating; she never referred to it, not once. Whatever she'd wanted so much to show me, I never did see it. It was probably something she'd made or painted at school, that was all, so I don't know why it bothered me so much. Allie turned her huge dark eyes from me and pretended I didn't exist, either at school or at home. Guilty and resentful, I started ignoring her, too.

That's why her swashbuckling saviour was not me, but studious, handsome, noble, sporty, sucky-up, clever-dick Aidan Mahon.

The twat.

It should never have happened. It
would
never have happened if I'd been there in time. The bit I missed, I soon caught up with: one more thing Dad wasn't going to let
me forget. His little goddess had been threatened, and Dad was as smitten as she was with the boy who rescued her.

Five hard-faced girls had cornered her at breaktime in her fourth week at school. They were after her lunch money, but what they were really hoping for was a fight. Her money clasped in her fist, Allie being Allie she hesitated, which was what they wanted. She was strange, she was silent, she stuck out: what she needed, clearly, was a good kicking.

I could have told her that, of course. I could have told her the facts of life if I'd been there, but I was on the other side of the science block when it started, and Kev was the one who told me what was going on, and he took his time about it.

‘Did you not do something?' I bellowed.

‘Nah,' said Kev, shrugging. ‘Thought I'd tell you instead.'

It struck me that Kev didn't like Allie that much.

I was anxious, but it seemed important to look cool about this, so I didn't run. I walked fast, hands in pockets, panicking only a little. I knew she couldn't come to too much harm before I got there. They were novice neds, and too stupid to know when they'd picked the wrong target.

A small crowd was gathering: you can always spot a scrap by the audience. The five girls hadn't noticed me. They were chanting their loathing, and the first girl was
swinging her bag at Allie's legs to tangle them and trip her, and I was thinking about starting to run, and wondering how that would look, when Aidan Mahon turned the corner.

He'd come upon them by accident, but he was a lot closer than I was. He was with some other handsome rugby-playing type (God, but they're irritating) but Aidan didn't even wait for his friend. Without so much as pausing for breath and a hasty risk-assessment, he waded in and ripped the bag from the little bitch's hands.

I came to a frozen halt. So what was the smooth thing to do in this unprecedented situation? She was my sister. I was too late. But I wasn't Aidan Mahon's sidekick and I didn't want to look like an afterthought.

My mind was such a chaos of shock I couldn't hear what Aidan said to the five girls. He had the advantage of surprise, of course, and he had Allie by the arm, and even I would have thought twice before tangling with somebody his size, even though he was a year younger than me. Whatever he snapped at them, it had an effect. They scowled, but they backed away pretty fast as he shoved past them, escorting Allie out of their circle. Humiliated, they slouched away, muttering. I don't think the wee gangsters even managed to swear at him, they were so stunned.

I hesitated. I should go up to her, I thought, and ask if she was OK. I should tell her I'd been on my way, she didn't have to worry, I wouldn't have let anything happen to her.

I'd have done all that if she'd looked at me once. She
didn't. She knew I was there, but she never even turned her head. She said something quietly to Aidan, and he smiled and flushed a little.

They walked within a few metres of me, but my sister still didn't look my way.

Allie was his shadow after that, and the annoying thing is, Aidan didn't seem to mind. He almost seemed to like her. Perhaps he was too tolerant and kind to tell her where to go.

The big frigging cowboy, what was he thinking of? He was two years older than her. He should have shrugged her off, told her he'd got her out of a tight spot but that didn't mean he wanted a stalker. No way should he have led my sister on. He should have treated her with amused condescension, accepted a certain degree of hero-worship but made it quite clear he didn't have a romantic interest.

That's how
I'd
have done it.

Aidan wasn't me, though. He wasn't anything like me. I wondered how his mind worked, and I developed a permanent sinking feeling.

You cannot cow little cows indefinitely, and it wasn't Allie's last brush with trouble. But that day her dark eyes grew shining stars in their depths that never went out again, ever glittering with the reflection of Aidan's glory. I had blown my chance to be my sister's hero but at least she'd found another one, and I hated and respected him for it.

Dad, of course, wouldn't hear a word against Aidan. One morning I tried to spin some negative propaganda in the shape of my suspicions about Aidan's intentions, but where Allie was concerned Dad had rose-tinted contact lenses (unless that was his morning-after eyeballs).

‘Of course Aidan likes her,' he told me. ‘Who wouldn't?' He was staring at his
Guardian
, badly folded with trembling hands, but I could tell he wasn't really reading it. He was too annoyed with me, and last night's empty bottle of red was parked beside the recycling bucket, and Lola Nan had been dawn-hoovering again.

‘He's older than Allie,' I said, being skilled in Stating the Bleeding Obvious.

‘So?'

I'd picked a bad time, but the phone had rung and Mum had disappeared to her under-stairs sanctum in a swish of skirt and hair and glitter. We were alone together unexpectedly. I said, ‘Don't want Mahon to think he can take advantage of Allie just 'cause she's younger.'

‘He's not like that. He's not that kind of boy.'

Not,
in other words,
like you, Nick.
I could hear that one vibrating telepathically in the air.

‘Anyhow,' I persisted, ‘he just lets her hang on his coattails. Likes her trailing him like a puppy.' That wasn't quite how it was, and there wasn't any actual romance going on, but I was pissed off with Dad, with Aidan, with Allie. ‘It's not like he ever takes her to films or anything. Not as if he makes any kind of an
effort.'

Dad stood up sharply, almost unbalanced, and grabbed dirty breakfast dishes off the table while he got his equilibrium back.

‘Make up your bloody mind, Nick,' he snapped.

Losing my temper, in a silent way, I walked out.

No change in that relationship then. Dad and I were not made for hearty man-to-man chats. Anyway, I'd already made up my mind.

I hated Aidan Mahon; I loved his big sister. I'd fallen like a stone, smitten, the day she watched me beat the crap out of Calum, the day she decided I was scum. That timing was bad enough.

But I loved her from the moment I saw her grab Kev's nuts and twist so hard she nearly had them off.

I remember the day Kev decided to have a go at Aidan. I remember very well that it was only a week after he tried it on with Orla – which was when she let him know, in words of no syllables at all, what she thought of that idea. Kev had screamed with flabbergasted pain and Sunil and I thought our heads were going to explode with the pressure of not laughing.

Orla had humiliated Kev big time, but Kev could hardly take it out on Orla, since Orla was tougher and harder than he was and there would be hell to pay later. Her brother Aidan, similarly aloof but a year younger and less well-connected, would have to pay for Kev's bruised genitals and his almost mortally wounded pride.

Less well-connected, my arse. All I'm doing is making excuses for myself. Aidan was perfectly popular and belonged to several clubs and got on fine with everybody
in them. All I'm saying in a mealy craven way is he didn't have a gang.

Perhaps I mean ‘less smart'. Or ‘less feral'. Or ‘not entirely familiar with the facts of life'. He was not, however, daft enough to argue with Kev.

That day Allie was hanging out with him as usual. I don't know what I'd expected: perhaps that Aidan had finally remembered she was two years younger, had done the decent thing and told her where to go. Or perhaps, miraculously, Allie would have fallen out of love, lust and hero-worship, found a new friend and forgotten Aidan.

The gods had not had a change of heart.

Still, I told myself, it would be good for Allie to see that her hero had feet of clay, that he wasn't Superman, he wasn't even Clark Kent. Maybe I thought she'd find new respect for me, that she'd notice Aidan wasn't the alpha male around here: I was.

What bizarre thought process convinced me that because I was only Kev's protector, because I'd shackled myself to him out of pity, self-preservation and respect for his brother, that I was somehow better than him? It was one of those subjective-viewpoint things. Kev was a gangster, Sunil was a henchman, I was a noble savage. Kev was a brutal dictator, Sunil was a thug, I was a foot-soldier.

I did not think things through.

I have to admit it: they were sweet together, Aidan and
Allie. My sister was not good at making friends, and when she did it was with other quiet studious girls who were no threat to her self-possession but would be no earthly use in a crisis either. None of them were going to turn into lifelong pals, but you could sort of tell that Aidan might. He treated her like an equal, age-wise. He consoled her when other harder girls got their barbs in. He told her bad jokes, warned her about teachers' foibles, helped her with her homework, covered for her when she needed covering. He looked out for her. Which was supposed to be my job.

I was more like my dad than I'd ever wanted to be. I was like a drinker who couldn't drag himself back to fresh air till he'd sunk to his lowest ebb. Like Dad was never going to do.