Infinite Sky (15 page)

He was quiet as we floated away from the bank. We looked at the sky. There were no clouds anywhere. The moon reflected in the black surface of the lake. Trick trailed his hand in the water. The
oars splashed out a rhythm.

‘My go,’ he said after a while, but I didn’t want to stop. I liked the way it felt, how I had to focus all my attention on getting the rhythm right. My arms ached, and I worked
them harder.

‘Fine,’ he said.

He stood up, rocking the boat as much as he could. I tried to keep rowing, but it was impossible. I flicked water at him with an oar.

‘You’ll pay for that,’ he said.

He pulled his vest off, and I saw how thin he was. He didn’t even have to unbutton his jeans to take them off. He just slid them down. He smiled at me, and his wonky eyes flashed, and I
felt the need to examine a sycamore leaf floating by on the water.

‘Seeya!’ he said, and he half somersaulted off the boat.

He came up gasping and frantic.

‘Water’s lovely!’ he said. He did a thrashy front crawl, as fast as he could.

He came to the side of the boat and prepared to splash me, but I screwed up my face at him, and stood. Without taking anything off, I jumped.

It was as freezing as ever and we raced each other to keep warm. We tried to touch the bottom and floated on our backs. Trick tried to scare me, shouting that things were biting him, and I
pretended to be scare-proof which in the black water wasn’t easy, and then just before we dropped to the temperature of the lake, we climbed back into the boat. The summer air dried us off as
I headed to the island.

A family of ducks quacked a warning to each other as we approached, and we heard something drop into the black water. I used the oars to pull alongside the island. Willows made a sort of shelter
above our heads. Trick came to sit beside me.

He nudged me with his shoulder.

‘You know, you’re the best girl I’ve ever known, Iris. Hands down. You can do everything.’

My heart spun like a Catherine wheel, and I wanted to tell him he was the best boy I’d ever known, that I wished that he could stay in our paddock forever, and I was desperate to touch
him, just to put my arm around his back, but I couldn’t do it. I just sat there listening to my heart and the night, and waiting, until gradually, the air grew stiller, and it felt less like
bats swarming.

Blackbirds nested somewhere above us. I heard their warning call, and looked up to see if I could spot them.

‘What you thinking?’ Trick said, and his voice was very soft and very low.

‘Blackbird,’ I said, automatically. ‘Listen.’

I held a finger up, as if that’s what I’d been doing all along, as if that was what I was interested in. I thought of Dad at teatime, flicking through his book about wildflowers as
if there was nothing else important in the world, and Mum in her sky blue van driving away from everything that mattered, and it was like my body was daring me to do something that my mind
hadn’t agreed to yet.

I turned my head, and there he was waiting for me, his eyes still grey though I couldn’t tell it in the dark, his irises still odd, and he smelled of cigarettes and chewing gum and chips,
and it was lovely, and when I put my mouth against his and kissed him, it was as if I’d always known how to kiss, and how stupid it was, how unbelievably stupid that I could have worried
about
this
.

I went back into the house through the kitchen. Dad’s room was above mine, and I didn’t want him to hear me climbing through the window. It was darker inside than
out, but as soon as I crept in, I heard someone. I froze, widening my eyes to see better. Dad was sitting at the table. My heart ram-raided my chest.

But Dad would be standing up, switching the light on, shouting.

It was Sam. And he had his head in his hands.

‘What’s up?’ I whispered.

‘Piss off,’ he said, but he didn’t sound angry.

He sniffed, palms jammed into his eye sockets.

I sat in Dad’s chair, next to him.

‘What’s happened?’

He rubbed his eyes, and breathed in sharply. I switched on the lamp by the phone.

There was a thin trail of dappled black blood running from his nose to his top lip. Both nostrils were edged with it. His left eye was beginning to close.

I filled a mixing bowl with warm water and put it on the table. The tea towels were greasy and smelled bad, so I dunked the bottom of my T-shirt instead.

‘
Careful
,’ Sam said, as I dabbed his face.

‘Shhhh! Dad’ll be down.’ I wrung my T-shirt over the bowl, sending the water pink, and started again, gently as I could.

‘Who’ve you been fighting this time?’

He shook his head.

The room was quiet except for the trickling of water.

‘I nearly had them,’ Sam said, after a while.

‘Looks like it.’

‘You didn’t see. There were two of them. They were loads bigger than me.’

In the living room, Fiasco changed position and exhaled from her nose.

‘You don’t always have to fight, you know.’

‘That what your boyfriend says?’

I stared at him.

‘Cause he’s a liar if he does.’

I stopped cleaning his face, and took the bowl to the sink.

‘That where you’ve been?’ he said.

I poured the pink water down the plughole.

‘I know anyway,’ he said. ‘It’s obvious.’

‘Why ask then?’

‘You want to watch him, you know, Iris.’

My heart was beating fast, and I rinsed the bowl, so he couldn’t see my face.

‘Got chucked out his last school for battering someone, you know.’

I relaxed. ‘Oh, I know about that.’

‘He put them in hospital.’

‘It wasn’t his fault.’

Sam didn’t say anything, but I could tell what he was thinking: that I was a little idiot.

The clock ticked between us and the tap dripped.

‘You won’t say anything though, will you?’ I said.

He looked at his knuckles, which were swollen and raw, for so long I thought he’d forgotten I’d asked him a question.

‘Course I won’t,’ he said, and the way he said it made me feel bad for asking.

His skinhead was growing out, and it was at that fluffy stage, like a kitten’s fur, or a scuffed-up tennis ball, not the look he was going for at all.

‘Your head looks like an old tennis ball.’

‘You can talk. Do you even know you’ve got a stick in your hair?’

I glared at him, but his eyes were teasing.

‘Gypo,’ he said, and I threw the stick at his face.

‘They’re not even gypsies. You don’t know what you’re on about.’

‘Pikeys, then. Tinkers. Whatever.’

I rolled my eyes.

‘Whatever they are, they’d best be clearing off soon.’

He screwed his face up as he talked, all sign of teasing gone, and with his left eye almost shut and his lip swollen he looked like a stranger. He kept touching his face, as if it was unfamiliar
to him as well, and I felt like asking him who he was and what he was doing in our kitchen.

But I didn’t. Instead, I asked him again what had happened.

He looked at me, considering.

‘Hardly gonna tell, am I?’ I said.

He was nervous, but I could tell he was desperate to talk about it, so I just waited, like Trick would.

‘Promise you’ll keep your mouth shut, Eye. I mean it.’

‘When have I ever
not
kept my mouth shut?’

‘Yeah, but this is bad,’ he said.

His voice was the lowest whisper, and I leaned forward to hear him, pushing my hair behind my ears as if that would make a difference.

‘Punky cut someone,’ he said. ‘I knew summat was up soon as he came out. He didn’t even say hello, just had his head between his knees making a spit puddle. He gets like
that sometimes. He wouldn’t even talk to Leanne. She was sitting right next to him, kissing him and that, but he just ignored her.

‘Then the bus came and these lads got off, all dressed up from town, and he was like, “Nice shirts! You go shopping for them together?” Calling them gay and that, and they just
ignored him, but he wouldn’t leave it. He started calling them rude for not answering, and one of them near the back turned around, and Punky just headbutted him.’

I nodded my head for him to go on. His left foot juddered against the floor as he talked.

‘He’d only been out ten minutes and there was a rumble. It was five against three. People came out of the chippy, shouting that we’d best stop, that they’d called the
police, but nobody actually did owt. I got a couple of good hits in, but then another one started on me, and I ended up on the floor taking a right battering.

‘I couldn’t do anything, just had to lie there protecting my head. I thought I was never gonna get up, and I was so winded, I couldn’t get a breath, and I’d left my
inhaler at home, and then it finishes. Just like that. And I look up, through my fingers, thinking it’s the pigs, but it’s just Punky. He’s standing over me, and the townies are
silent because in his hand he’s got a knife.’

He looked at me, and I made my face blank because I didn’t want him to stop talking.

‘It was only a Stanley knife, but with the blade yoiked up it looked bad, and the townies start moving backwards. The people outside the chippy were still shouting about the police, but
Punky didn’t care.

‘He was grinning at them, daring them to kick me now, and I was on my feet. They couldn’t speak! And then for some reason, God knows why, the one who got headbutted in the first
place just lurched at the knife, and Punky lunged too, and it cut right through that bit of skin.’

He pulled at the bit of skin between his thumb and forefinger, and I shivered. I couldn’t help it.

I squeezed my eyes shut for a second.

‘Oh my God.’

‘I know. The weird thing was, the towny didn’t even shout. His face went green, and blood spurted out all over his chinos.’

There was a long silence where we looked at each other.

‘And
you’re
telling
me
to be careful?’ I said.

Sam tried to laugh, but he looked frightened. He looked excited too. His eyes flashed in the lamplight. ‘He’s never done it before. He couldn’t believe it. That’s all he
kept saying at the rec. “I cut someone. I can’t believe I actually cut someone.”’

We sat at the table for a long time after that, and Sam made us both Horlicks, but it wasn’t comforting at all.