Forbidden (18 page)

Nurse and teacher fade to the other side of the classroom, talking softly and rapidly between themselves. Maya puls up a chair and sits down opposite me, her knees touching mine. She is pale with shock, her eyes, sharp and questioning, boring into mine.

Elbows on thighs, I look up at her and manage an unsteady smile. I want to make some kind of joke but it’s too much effort to breathe and talk simultaneously. I try to stop shaking for Maya’s sake and press my right fist to my mouth to muffle the hiccupping sounds. My left hand grips hers with al my strength, afraid to let go.

Stroking my clammy cheek and taking my right hand in hers, she draws it gently away from my mouth.

‘Listen, you,’ she says, her voice ful of concern. ‘What brought al this on?’

I think back to Hamlet and my whole conspiracy theory and realize with a jolt how ridiculous I was being.

‘N-nothing.’ Breath. ‘Being stupid.’ I have to concentrate hard to get each word out between gasps, one cluster at a time. I feel my throat constrict so I shake my head with a wry smile. ‘So stupid. I’m sorry—’ I bite down hard on my lip.

‘Stop being sorry, you idiot.’ She gives me a reassuring smile and strokes the inside of my hand. I find myself involuntarily clutching at her sleeve, afraid she is a mirage and wil suddenly evaporate before my eyes.

The bel sounds, startling us both.

I feel my pulse start to race again. ‘Maya, d-don’t go! Don’t go just yet—’

‘Lochie, I’ve no intention of going anywhere.’

It’s the closest we’ve been al week, the first time she’s touched me since that terrible night in the cemetery. I swalow hard and gnaw at my lip, aware of the other two in the room, terrified I’m going to break down.

Maya notices. ‘Loch, it’s al right. This has happened before. When you first started at Belmont, just after Dad left, remember? You’re going to be fine . . .’

But I don’t want to be fine, not if it means she’s going to let go of my hand; not if it means we’re going to go back to being polite strangers.

After a while we go down to the nurse’s room. Mrs Shah checks my pulse and blood pressure, hands me a leaflet on panic attacks and mental health issues. Yet again there is talk of seeing the school counselor, mention of exam pressure, the danger of overwork, the importance of getting enough sleep . . . Somehow I make al the right noises, nod and smile as convincingly as I can, al the while holding myself tight like a coiled spring.

We walk home in silence. Maya offers me her hand but I decline – my legs are steadier now. She asks me if there was some trigger, but when I shake my head she takes the hint and backs off. At home I sit at the end of the couch. Right now, alone and uninterrupted, would be the perfect time for that conversation – the one where I apologize to her for what I said that night, explain again the reason for my crazy outburst, try to find out if she is stil angry with me, while somehow making it clear that this is in no way an attempt to coerce her back into any kind of abnormal relationship. But I can’t find the words, and I don’t trust myself to utter a single thing. The aftershocks of the panic attack coupled with Maya’s gentle concern have thrown me, and I feel as if I’m teetering on the edge of a precipice.

Being brought juice and a peeled apple cut into quarters like for Tiffin or Wila threatens to tip me over. Maya watches me from the doorway as I switch on and mute the TV, pick at my shirt cuff, pul at a loose button. I can tel how anxious she is from the way she fiddles with her earlobe, a characteristic sign of worry she shares with Wila.

‘How are you feeling?’

I attempt a bright, cheerful smile and the ache in my throat intensifies. ‘Fine! It was just a stupid panic attack.’

I want to make some kind of joke, but instead I feel a sudden tremor in my chin. I pul a face to disguise it.

Her smile fades. ‘Perhaps I should leave you in peace for a little while—’

‘No!’ The word comes out louder than I intended. Heat rushing to my face, I force a desperate smile. ‘I just mean, now that we’ve got some time off, perhaps we should – you know – hang out together, l-like old times. Unless of course you’ve got homework to do or something . . .’

A hint of amusement touches her lips. ‘Yeah, right. I’m not about to waste an afternoon off school on homework, Lochan James Whitely!’

Closing the door behind her, she curls up in the armchair. ‘So, what are we watching?’

I grab the remote and fumble with the buttons. ‘Uh – wel – surely there’s something other than CBeebies . . . How about this?’ I stop channel-flicking when I reach an old episode of Friends and look at Maya for approval.

She gives me another of her sad smiles. ‘Great.’

Canned laughter fils the room but neither of us seem able to join in. The episode drags on and on. I am painfuly aware that the two of us, alone together, have absolutely nothing to say to each other. Has our friendship been shattered too?

I want to ask her, beg her, to tel me what’s going on inside her head. I want to try and explain what was going on in my head that night, why I reacted like such a bastard. But I can’t even turn to look at her. I feel her eyes, ful of concern, on my face. And I’m sinking in a quicksand of despair.

‘D’you want to talk about it?’ Her voice, soft with concern, makes me start. Suddenly I’m aware of the pain from biting my lip, the weight of the tears that have slowly been accumulating in my eyes. With a panicked breath I quickly shake my head, raising a hand to my face. I press my fingers briefly against my eyes and shake my head dismissively. ‘I’m just feeling a bit weird from before.’

Straining to keep my voice steady, I can stil hear its jagged edge. Turning, I force myself to meet her stricken gaze with a desperate smile. ‘But I’m fine now. It’s nothing. Realy.’

After a moment’s hesitation she gets up and comes over to sit on the opposite end of the couch, one foot tucked beneath her, auburn wisps framing her pale face.

‘Come on, sily, it’s not nothing if it’s making you cry.’ The words hang in the air, her concern sweling the silence.

‘I’m not – it’s not—!’ I reply hotly, cheeks ablaze. ‘It’s just – I’m just—’ I take a deep breath, frantic to deflect her worry, to pul myself together. The last thing I want is for her to know how devastated I am at having lost her, for her to feel any pressure to resume a relationship that, in her mind, is fundamentaly wrong.

She hasn’t moved. ‘You’re just what?’ she asks gently.

I clear my throat and raise my eyes to the ceiling, forcing a short, painful laugh. I run my sleeve rapidly across my eyes as, to my horror, a tear glances off my cheek.

‘Do you want to try to go to sleep for a bit?’

The concern in her voice is kiling me. ‘No. I don’t know. I think – I think . . . Oh, for fuck sake—!’ Another tear fals down my cheek and I swipe at it furiously. ‘Shit! What is this?’

‘Lochie, tel me. What happened? What happened at school?’ Sounding aghast, she leans towards me, reaching out to touch me.

I immediately raise my arm to deflect her. ‘Just give me a minute!’ I can’t halt this – there’s nothing I can do. My chest shudders with repressed sobs. I cup my hands over my face and try holding my breath.

‘Lochie, it’s going to be al right. Please don’t . . .’ Her voice is softly imploring. The air bursts from my lungs. ‘Goddamnit, I’m trying, OK? I can’t – I j-just can’t seem able to—’

I’m out of control now and it terrifies me. I don’t want Maya to witness this. But neither do I want her to go. I need to get off this couch, out of this house, but my legs won’t obey me. I’m trapped. I can feel the blind panic descending again.

‘Hey, hey, hey.’ Maya firmly takes my hand in one of hers and cups my cheek with her other.

‘Shh. It’s OK, it’s OK. Just a build-up of stress, Lochie, that’s al. Look at me. Look at me. Was it the argument? Was it? Can we talk about that a little bit?’

I’m too tired to fight any more. I feel my torso crumple, slowly tilting towards her until the side of my head rests against hers, my hand covering my face. She strokes my hair and, reaching for my other hand, starts kissing my fingers.

‘In – in the cemetery,’ I choke, closing my eyes. ‘Please just tel me the truth. W-what you said, was it – was it true?’ I breathe deeply, hot tears escaping from beneath my lashes.

‘God, Lochie, no,’ she gasps. ‘Of course it wasn’t! I was just angry and upset!’

Relief floods through me, so strong it almost hurts. ‘Maya, Jesus, I thought it was al over. I thought I’d ruined everything.’ I straighten up, breathing hard, rubbing my face fiercely. ‘I’m so sorry!

Al that horrible stuff I said. I just totaly freaked out. I thought you wanted to – I thought you were going to—’

‘I just wanted to touch you,’ she says quietly. ‘I know we can never go al the way. I know it’s ilegal. I know the kids could be taken away if anyone found out. But I thought we could stil touch each other, stil love each other in other ways.’

I take a frantic breath. ‘I know. Me too. Me too! But we have to be so careful. We can’t get carried away. We can’t – we can’t risk . . . The kids . . .’

I see the sadness in her eyes. It makes me want to scream. It’s so unfair, so horribly unfair.

‘Maybe one day, hey?’ Maya says softly with a smile. ‘One day, when they’ve grown up, we can run away. Start anew. As a real couple. No longer brother and sister. Free from these awful ties.’

I nod, desperately trying to share in some of her hope for the future. ‘Maybe. Yes.’

She gives a tired smile and wraps her arms around my neck, resting her cheek against my shoulder.

‘And until then we can stil be together. We can hold each other and touch each other and kiss each other and be with each other in every other way.’

I nod and smile through the tears, suddenly realizing how much we do have. ‘As wel as the most important thing of al,’ I whisper.

The corner of her mouth twitches. ‘What’s that then?’

Stil smiling, I blink rapidly. ‘We can love each other.’ I swalow hard to ease the constriction in my throat. ‘There are no laws, no boundaries on feelings. We can love each other as much and as deeply as we want. No one, Maya, no one can ever take that away from us.’

‘How come it’s you today?’

‘Because Lochan’s not feeling very wel.’

‘Did he throw up?’ Wila 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 al the time.’

Ignoring this last comment, I turn my attention to her clothes. ‘Wila, wil you do up your coat? It’s freezing!’

‘Can’t. The buttons are gone.’

‘Al of them? You should have told me!’

‘I did. Miss Pierce says I’m not alowed selotape 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 footbal area, where Tiffin is tearing around half undressed with a dozen other boys. ‘And we’re not alowed holes in our tights. I got told off in front of the whole of assembly.’

‘Tiff! Time to go!’ I yel as soon as he shoots past us. The game pauses briefly for a free kick and I yel again.

He glances over angrily. ‘Five more minutes!’

‘No. We’re going now. It’s freezing, and you can play footbal 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, yeling boys, their cheeks ablaze, eyes fixed on the bal, shouts echoing across the darkening playground. As he races past, I make a valiant grab for Tiffin, missing by miles. Behind me, Wila 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 bal 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 bal skimming the inside edge of the goalpost.

‘Goal!’ His hands punch the air. Whoops and yels 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. Wila is freezing and you’ve both got homework to do.’

‘But we always have to go straight home! How come the others are alowed 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 Wila 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 painfuly. Four bloody hours till bedtime, I think ruefuly. Another hour before they are actually asleep. Five. My God, almost the length of a new school day. Al I want is to reach that moment when the house goes quiet, when Kit finaly turns down the rap and Tiffin and Wila 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,’ Wila finishes mournfuly, her icy hand buried in mine.

‘Mm, never mind, I’m sure Lucy wil change her mind tomorrow – she always does.’

The smal 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!’ Wila cries woefuly. ‘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, franticaly trying to recal 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 recal the saga of the missing pen, and fail.

‘Bet you don’t even know who’s my best friend now,’ Wila says, throwing down the gauntlet.

‘Course I do,’ I answer quickly. ‘It’s – it’s Georgia.’

Wila shakes her head at the pavement in a gesture of defeat. ‘Nope.’

‘Wel, then, it’s Lucy realy, because I’m sure once she gives you back your pen, the two of you wil—’

‘It’s no one!’ Wila 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. Wila has never shouted at me with such fury before. I try to put my arm around her. ‘Wila, come on, you’ve just had a bad day—’

She puls away. ‘No I haven’t! Miss Pierce gave me three gold stars and I got al my spelings right. I told you about it but al 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 stil. She sobs quietly, rubbing her face angrily with the palms of her hands.

‘Wila, I’m sorry – I’m sorry, my darling, I’m so sorry. You’re right. I haven’t been listening properly and that was realy 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 spil 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. ‘Wila, 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 al the household things. But that’s al 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. Stil he refuses to look up, no doubt hoping whoever it is wil 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 al 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 puls 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 til 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’l 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’l be questioned for leaving the building just before the bel. 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 colar against the cold and asks, ‘Now are you going to tel me what al 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 folow the wide central path towards the wooded area on the far side, the hum of the city gradualy 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 stil 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 smal wood, dried foliage and twigs crackling and crunching against the frozen earth beneath our feet. The uneven ground slopes gently downwards.

Lochan folows 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 falen log and then stop and smile. ‘This is it.’

We are standing in a smal holow. The shalow 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 stil 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 tel him.

He looks at me in astonishment. ‘You come here by yourself?’ He blinks in bewilderment, hands dug deep into his jacket pockets, stil gazing around. ‘Why?’

‘Because when Mum starts drinking at ten o’clock in the morning, when Tiffin and Wila 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, stil looking around, as if trying to imagine me here by myself. Then he turns back to me, the colar 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 puls 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 fils 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, al 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.