Infinite Sky (14 page)

I was right by the campfire when Nan appeared.

Her face was blank as she looked at me, and I worried what she’d think about me disobeying my dad like this, but then she smiled, and her brown eyes were more lovely than ever. The breeze
caught her long red hair as she walked, lifting it behind her, the sunlight turning it fiery.

Her nails were painted turquoise, and I could see the way her hair curled on the back of her neck, just like Mum’s did, and I knew exactly how it would feel if I touched it: warm and silky
and soft. I handed the water over, careful not to spill any. She smelled of raspberries, and washing powder and, ever so faintly, smoke.

My skeleton felt like chocolate mousse, and I hoped that she would say something quick because words had escaped me forever.

Gold bracelets on her arm jangled against her narrow wrist as she took the bucket. She cocked her head to one side.

‘You’re a kind girl,’ she said, and she put her empty hand out and squeezed my shoulder. ‘A good girl, I think. So don’t you be telling our Patrick I’ve been
up to see you. He won’t like that. Proud like his daddy that boy . . .’

I shook my head. I tried to think of something to say.

‘Come to think of it, you’d better be getting back before
any
body sees.’

She turned and carried the water towards her caravan, and I stood mute, my shoulder tingling where her hand had been.

The girls had come to the bottom of the steps at some point, and had their hands in front of their mouths, giggling, and the noise of their laughter snapped me out of it, and sent me running
back towards Silverweed.

Dad had gone back to playing Mum’s music. In the daytime, when he was working or doing stuff around the house, he had a lovely voice, but at night when he’d been
drinking it got all broken and raspy.

He sang ‘These Arms of Mine’ and ‘Stand By Me’ and I knew he was going through the CDs she’d left in a shoebox by the telly, the ones she used to play when he was
at the pub. I twisted loo roll into my ears, and put my head under the duvet, but the tissue fell out and under the covers got all hot and sweaty, and I couldn’t shake the feeling that I was
living in some kind of damaged animal shelter instead of a loving family home. It took a long time to get to sleep.

That night, Dad was watching nature programmes in the living room, making his way through a four-pack. This was his new habit. Instead of going to The Stag, he watched telly until he was drunk
enough to play Mum’s music. Sometimes I watched stuff with him, but mostly I read in my room. He looked too sad when he drank.

My eyes felt scratchy from lack of sleep as I made us both hot chocolate. Taking a mug, he almost smiled at me, then remembered how I’d disappointed him. I saw it on his face.

I drank my chocolate quickly, then took myself off to my room.

I lay on the bed with my book, but couldn’t concentrate on reading. I’d microwaved the hot chocolate too long, and it had burned my mouth. There was a mosquito in the room and it
kept shrieking past my ear. I was never going to get to sleep. My twisted toilet roll earplugs waited on my bedside table. I kept looking out the window. Was Trick in the corn den waiting for me
right now? My room was on the ground floor. It would be so easy to open the window and climb out.

The mosquito screeched by again, and I jumped up to hunt it, but it had disappeared. The opening bars of ‘Stand By Me’ came out of the living room, and I couldn’t take it. I
was on my desk, out the window and in the front garden before I’d even decided.

A breeze blew the rose bush outside my bedroom window as I crouched on the ground there, listening. It was almost eleven, and I was so glad I didn’t have to listen to Dad’s broken
singing, but guilt was like a little animal curled up in my stomach.

I couldn’t get to the paddock without passing the side of the house where Dad was, and the moon meant it wasn’t quite dark enough to make a run for it safely. If he stood up for any
reason or looked out the window, he’d see me in a second.

The grass was cool against my fingertips as I made my way along the front of the house, spider-like. It was about ten metres from the end of my window to the living room. Twelve of these strange
spindly steps should do it. I counted them to keep calm. The daisies had closed their heads for the night, and the air was sweet with grass and roses, but Dad was singing in the room just behind me
and it made my stomach ache. The living room windows were wide open, and I heard Dad crush an empty can and chuck it in the log box. I took a deep breath. I imagined Trick, in his red vest and
faded jeans, waiting for me, and I ran.

Wind filled my ears and my heart thumped away, and every second that passed I expected to hear Dad shouting from the window, but it didn’t come, and so I kept going, using my arms properly
the way I never bothered to in PE, no matter what Mr Limb said. I dodged potholes with man-sized strides, took balletic leaps, pointed my toes, and then I was at the pig farmer’s gate, up and
over, and running again, not needing to any more, but wanting to, because I’d done it! I had escaped from the house, and I was going to see Trick.

The corn den was empty.

I rested my hands on my thighs, tried to get my breath back. My legs were scratched from the corn and brambles and nettles I’d run through. I swore, and then something hit me on the
head.

‘Thought you were a goner.’

I spun round. Trick was in the oak tree. A baby acorn landed near my feet.

‘I am,’ I said, thinking what would happen if Dad checked my room.

I dug my foot into a hollow in the trunk, pulled myself up using the lowest branch.

‘Hey! I put a nail in for you.’

I looked down at the trunk. A shiny nail stuck out.

‘Bought it specially!’

‘I’m too good,’ I said, looping my arms around the next branch and heaving myself up.

‘Hammered my thumb and everything,’ he lied, holding up two perfect thumbs for examination. His hair fell across his eye, which was less swollen now. He wiped it back off his
forehead.

I stood in the tree’s fork, leaning against the trunk. He was wearing a white vest tonight, instead of his usual red one, and his jeans were long, and then I realised. He’d fitted a
pair of cinema seats into the place where the trunk split into three.

He laughed, and started talking really fast.

‘Got ’em from the tip! Me da said I could have ’em, I didn’t tell him what for, mind, or he’d have my head for a souvenir. I’ve been desperate for you to come
down and see. Look, brackets and everything.’

‘Brilliant,’ I said.

He patted the seat next to him. It was velvet. ‘Got another surprise for you as well. I’m so glad you’re here . . .’

He talked on about what else they’d found at the tip, and he was so excited, but I was finding it hard to listen.

Through the leaves of the oak tree, in the moonlight, I could see the wispy flowers waving above the maize crop, and the rows that it grew in, which were never clear when you were standing in
them. I could see the tall trees that edged the brook, and the travellers’ caravans, and the hawthorn hedge that surrounded the lane, and our yard, and the pick-up.

‘Where’ve you been?’ Trick asked, nudging my shoulder with his, and I made an exhausted sound with my mouth.

I told him all about it: that Matty had told on me, and Dad was hardly talking to me, that Sam was out all the time. It wasn’t until I got to the bit about his mum asking for water that he
spoke.

‘She came to the house? Christ! She makes things worse. What’d your da say?’

‘He didn’t believe her.’

Trick smiled grimly, looking down at our feet. ‘Who would? As if we’d leave her on her own, without any water.’

I thought of myself lugging the bucket of water down there, and wondered if it was possible for a human head to explode from embarrassment.

‘He’s not been to the pub since he found out. He stayed in all weekend. He’s keeping watch.’

‘Not very well,’ Trick said, but I couldn’t laugh.

Blue light came from our living room, and I thought of Dad inside, watching telly on his own. He was right. I was too soft. I was stupid to trust everybody.

‘Hey,’ he said. ‘I didn’t mean it.’

I held my breath, and tipped my head back, blinking at the branches above.

‘I shouldn’t have come out here. I didn’t mean to. I just wanted . . . I wanted to tell you . . . Oh, I don’t know.’

Trick put his arm round me. He used the crook of his finger to dry under my eyes. I wiped my nose on the bottom of my T-shirt.

He got up from his seat, and jumped into the cornfield.

‘Come on!’ he called, impatiently.

‘What? Where are we going?’

‘Exactly, Iris! Where
are
we going? It’s so mysterious. Let’s see.’

He held his hands out to help me down, and I ignored them as usual, jumping from the lowest branch to land knees bent on the tangle of weeds below.

He started running, and I thought back to the first time we’d met, when he showed me this place.

We ran all the way along the brook to the furthest edge of the cornfield, past the meadow and Drum Hill, into the Ashbourne Estate.

The lake was black and silver in the moonlight. The sky was so clear we could see the Milky Way.

Trick grabbed my hand, and pulled me along the water’s edge to the ancient oaks. He stopped at a mess of holly and brambles, and leaned into it, swearing as he got scratched. He dragged
out a wooden rowing boat.

In the daytime you could rent them. Families and couples rowed to the island in the middle of the lake. I’d never done it before because the park ranger had chased us so many times for
sneaking in that we had to stay out of his way.

‘I freed one for you,’ Trick said.

We took our flip-flops off, and Trick rolled up his jeans and we walked the little boat into the water.

It was cool and lovely, and the noise of it made me need a wee. Cold mud slipped between my toes.

‘Ladies first,’ he said, and I rolled my eyes at him, and climbed in. He jumped in after me, and the boat slapped against the water. I put the oars into the rowlocks and started
rowing.