Ostrich Boys (25 page)

“Why should I? I’ve got problems too, yeah?” He tried to wipe away his tears. “Why d’you think I have to copy Ross’s homework? Because I’m not as clever as you three, am I? I can’t do it by myself. Ever thought of that? D’you seriously think I’m gonna get into university like you?” He gulped down a hard lump of breath. “And look at my mum and dad, and the shithole I live in. My brother couldn’t wait to get out of the house, and now he doesn’t even come home anymore. Why d’you think that is?” His wet eyes bulged. “Why don’t I go and kill myself, yeah? I’ll tell you why. Because I’m not that
weak.”
He spat the final word.

Neither Kenny nor I knew what to say.

Sim glared at us both, daring either of us to challenge him. He rubbed hard at the tears on his cheeks. Kenny and I stood there, dumb. There were no words anyway. So he grabbed up his rucksack and, forcing me to step aside, he pushed through the gap in the hedge back onto the road.

We watched him go.

I was shaking. Sim had frightened me. I needed to get moving. I stood up and hoisted my rucksack as high on my shoulders as it would go. I grabbed Sim’s half-drunk juice off the ground.

“Where are you going?” Kenny asked. He was pale, bewildered.

“Where d’you think?”

He hurried to catch me up. “Are we really leaving Sim?”

“He left us, didn’t he?”

He turned back the way Sim had gone, but decided to follow me.

“Just leave the helmet, Kenny,” I told him.

We didn’t talk much as we walked. He stayed a few paces behind. I knew he was crying and didn’t want him to feel embarrassed about it. I found it easy enough to get lost in my own thoughts. I used the map to search for a route around Dalbeattie, not wanting to go through the town’s center and risk being recognized. I decided we should be okay sticking to the smaller roads now, like Kenny had done to get to find Sim and me. They were looking for three of us, after all. So maybe it was a good thing Sim had gone. But no, I didn’t believe that. I found a B road that would take us through a place called Gelston and then most of the way to Kirkcudbright. From Kirkcudbright it was still a fair distance to Ross, but it looked like a simple route with quiet roads all the way.

We kept walking. I was angry at Sim for leaving us. And I was angry at myself for ignoring what had been happening to Ross. A few cars shot by in both directions but we didn’t bother to hide anymore, it took too much energy. We plodded on. I wondered what it felt like to be so low, so miserable, so frightened and so lonely that you wanted to kill yourself. I kept remembering things about him. Ross sad; Ross moody; Ross secretive.

I didn’t notice Kenny starting to lag further and further behind. When he called out to me he was a good fifty meters or so back down the road. I waited for him to catch up. He was limping and sunburned, with the mop of his fringe hanging wet across his eyes.

“I’m not going either,” he said, as if Sim had walked away only five seconds before instead of well over an hour ago. “I can hardly walk with this massive blister anyway. I think I should go home.”

“But, Kenny—”

“I’m telling you, Blake! I want to go
home.”
He looked scared, like he’d seen something too big and confusing to be able to understand. Like his head had been forced open and too much stuff he didn’t want to know about had been tipped in. “Can I have some money?”

I gave him everything I had left. “You might be able to get a bus from that place we just passed.”

He nodded. Then without saying another word, he turned and hobbled back the way we’d come. I stood and
watched him for too long. It made me want to go home too. I hated being alone.

With a real effort I started walking toward Ross again. My head ached with the sun and I hoped it was going to get cooler now. My feet grew a whole bunch of blisters of their own. I wondered what you called a whole bunch of blisters.

I was sorry about lots of things. Most of all I was sorry that I hadn’t noticed what had been happening to Ross, that I hadn’t known. But that was a lie. Of course we’d known. We caused some of it. But ignored it—buried our heads in the sand. I wished so hard that he’d talked to me. Why hadn’t he talked to me? I could have helped—surely I could have done something? But then he might not have wanted to talk to the person who stole his girlfriend.

I made it to Kirkcudbright just before six. The road I was on took me right through the center. There was a lot of traffic, people milling about the few scattered shops. I kept my head down and didn’t take much notice of anything except the road signs pointing my way. I think I drew a few stares but pretended not to care. It was even smaller than Dumfries, but also had a bridge over a river on the far side of the town center.

There were yachts and fishing boats moored in a tiny marina. I hurried along, wincing a little at my blisters.

Out the other side and back on the country roads I felt safer again. I was tempted to take a break, sit on the wide grass verge and catch my breath. But I was worried that if I
sat down I might not be able to get up again. I refused to give in. I was going to do what we’d planned to do all along. My rucksack was rubbing my shoulders raw and my T-shirt was drenched in sweat but I wasn’t going to stop walking. My best friend was dead: how dare I complain about anything? The pain in my feet reminded me with every step that he was never coming back.

Never coming back. Never coming back. Never coming back.

And maybe I was part of the reason why.

The walking got harder as the evening lengthened. I was grateful for every puff of cool breeze. I’d run out of juice and wished I’d saved even a dribble. A little after seven I got a jolt of much-needed energy the first time I saw a sign saying ROSS. It didn’t last long. I wanted to give up. My legs were so tired. Every road got longer, every rise got steeper, every step got shorter. I was in a lot of pain—my feet, my head, my shoulders. But I refused to give up. Ross might have given up. It didn’t mean I had to.

I checked the map with every bend in the road. Surely it must be round the next one.

There was no sign telling me this was the place it had taken me two days to get to. The road narrowed and twisted between the trees. I passed the first house I’d seen in a good couple of miles. Then there was a tight bend, and as I rounded it the trees fell away to reveal a small bay that looked bleak even on a summer’s evening.

The map said this was Ross. It wasn’t even a village. I only counted six houses. And an untidy heap of farm buildings—corrugated and rusty. Part of me was worried that the police or my parents had got here first and were waiting for me, but there was no one to be seen. It looked like I’d won the race after all. The feeling of relief spurred me on.

The sea had taken a bite out of the land to make an indented bay. The tide was out. There wasn’t a proper beach, just mud and rocks. It was different to back home, but that
was good. A lonely rowing boat rode the gentle waves at the end of its rope. On the far side of the bay was a lumpy hill of headland that sheltered the bay but blocked the view of the open sea beyond. I decided I wanted to climb up to the top of that hill and look out at the sea. I thought that was what Ross would have done if he’d ever come here.

I followed the road until it stopped being a road. It became a rubble track that skirted around the water. There was a signpost saying the track led to the Bay House Hotel. I wondered who would want to come to this lonely place for a holiday. The bay funneled the wind and the cry of seagulls. I could smell the dank mud that had been exposed by the retreating tide. It felt empty and deserted enough now, in June. I didn’t like to think how it would feel in the middle of winter.

The track curved most of the way around the water like a backward C. I didn’t follow it as far as the hotel because I came to a metal gate with a stile, and a footpath that led up and over the headland. I stepped over the stile into a field full of cows. They kept a curious eye on me as I walked between them. It wasn’t a steep path but it made my tired legs ache even more as I climbed.

The view from the top was rewarding. The first thing I noticed was the lighthouse and I remembered Kayleigh telling me about it. This one was much closer than the one at Spurn Point that could be seen from Cleethorpes beach, and I liked the idea that I’d traveled from one to another. It
was a tall white tower on a tiny island the map called Little Ross, maybe a couple of hundred or so meters out into the sea. And even though the map also called this the Solway Firth, not the sea proper, it was bigger, wider and grayer than the Humber back home. It was more than good enough for me.

The footpath petered out as the lumpy hill of headland dipped down toward the water. I walked as far as I could. Again there was no beach, just a rough, bouldered edge about three or four meters high where I could sit and dangle my legs. I took my rucksack off and did just that.

I took Ross’s urn out and put it in the thick grass next to me. Now that I was here, now that I’d made it, I didn’t know what to do. This wasn’t going to bring him back, was it? Although maybe Sim had been right and it wasn’t really about Ross anyway. It was about me, and my guilt. Wasn’t that what Nina had been hinting at too? So what was I expecting? Forgiveness, redemption, understanding?

I wished Kenny and Sim were here.

There was a soft breeze that cooled my sweaty face. I looked out at the sea and the lighthouse for a while. Then I lay back in the grass and stared at the evening sky.

I let it get dark around me. The beam from the lighthouse swept across the water toward me, didn’t quite reach me, swept away again. The sky was cloudless and clear, and the moon and stars were bright. I pulled my jumper out of my rucksack and put it on. There was a moment of
panic when I couldn’t see the urn, but it had toppled to one side in the grass. I hadn’t spotted it in the dark, that was all. I set it up straight.

I took a deep breath, held it as long as I could. When I blew it out again I felt a lump rise in my throat. And at last I cried. But I was angry and the tears burned my cheeks. Was what had happened enough to make you want to kill yourself? Was it really?

I was sorry. But I was angry too. Didn’t he think about how many people he’d hurt? Didn’t he care? He’d made his sister cry. He’d made his father paranoid. He’d turned his mother into a living ghost.

And he’d destroyed a friendship. Was that what he’d wanted? What kind of selfish piece of shit would do that to his family and friends? There would always be a part of me that hated him for the pain he’d caused. It wasn’t fair to leave so much sorrow behind. Not on purpose.

I was ready to hurl the urn as far out over the sea as I could. What stopped me was a voice behind me, calling my name.

He was a short shadow at first, but I’d recognized Kenny’s voice anyway. He came over the top of the headland, calling me. I thought maybe Sim was …? But no, just Kenny. I stood up, brushed at my face to clear my tears. I waved to him, beckoned him over.

“You seem to be making a habit of this reappearing malarkey,” I said.

He bobbed his head, looked a little unsure, a little furtive.

“How’d you get here?”

“Kat’s stepdad.”

I didn’t understand.

He showed me the back of his hand where Kayleigh had written Kat’s phone number. “I
was
looking for a bus stop.” He shrugged. “Then I saw this phone box, and, you know … But I’ve had to tell her the truth. She knew most of it anyway—because of the telly?”

“Where is she now?”

He pointed back over the headland. “They’re waiting in their car by the road.”

“What made you change your mind? Why’d you come?” I saw the shadows across his face twitch and added, “I’m really glad you’re here—genuinely. I just wondered why. Because you could have called your mum.”

“I knew you’d come,” he said. “I hoped Sim would too. Is he …?”

I shook my head.

He shrugged. He saw I was holding the urn. “So what do we do now?”

“Honestly? I haven’t got a clue.”

“I think what you say’s true,” he told me. “I think Ross did, you know, do it on purpose. But then, I also can’t believe he really would do it either. I knew him the longest—I knew him forever—and it’s just not like the Ross I knew would ever do that. D’you think it’s our fault he did?”

“Some of it. But I don’t think we’d have been able to stop him either.”

“Maybe if he’d told us how he felt.”

“Maybe,” I said. “But he never would have, would he? He was one of those people who are good at hiding everything inside—everything that really mattered to him, anyway.”

“But why did he do it by getting run over?”

“Because he didn’t want anybody to know. I reckon that’s why he tried to cover up that he’d been to those Internet chat rooms. He was still trying to hide everything inside right up until the end.”

“Yeah, but doing that meant we couldn’t help him.”

“He didn’t think he wanted help. He just thought he wanted to die.”

Kenny coughed, tried to mask that he was crying. “I don’t want him gone. He was my best friend. I want him here. He should
still
be here.” He probably thought it was too dark for me to see, but the moonlight showed silver tears on his cheeks. He said, “You know, yesterday and today have been amazing. All the stuff we’ve been through? And it’s all been because of him. I’m telling you: we’ve got the best story ever. But he missed out. He’s never gonna be able to tell it.” His shoulders shook as he wept.

I watched the beam of the lighthouse sweep around.

At last he gave a big sniff. A real snorter that he had to swallow. He seemed to have got himself under control
again—pushed the secret Kenny who cried deep inside again. “D’you think Sim’s gonna come?”

“No. Not now.”

“Why not?”

I wasn’t sure how to explain it. “Don’t take this the wrong way, but I think Ross broke his heart. I think Sim looked up to Ross more than any of us. And I bet if Sim could’ve swapped lives with someone, he would’ve jumped at the chance of being Ross for a while. He can’t understand why Ross would want to throw everything away.”