Precious Thing (6 page)

Somehow I knew it would be because it’s mine too.

At break time no one says, ‘Rachel, come with us,’ they just file out without looking my way. Novelties do that; they wear off quickly. I’m not bothered though. You look around to see if I’m next to you. I am and we slip into step with each other as if it has always been this way.

‘It was my mum’s idea,’ I say when we stop and sit down on the wall that separates the playing field from the playground, ‘to move here.’

‘Didn’t you miss the sea in London? I’d hate not to be able to walk to the beach and hear the waves.’ Your eyes are closed as if you are listening out for the roar and the crash of them. I hear the seagulls above and watch as they swoop down and poke at empty crisp packets and chocolate wrappers.

‘I’ve never lived by the sea so I’ve never thought about it. And my aunt lives here so we used to visit now and then.’ I think of the visits to see Laura, what they did to Niamh’s mood afterwards. I’d get the silent treatment, or worse, screamed at for nothing.

I tell you I have lived in a lot of places because Niamh is always craving ‘a change of scenery’, which is shorthand for running away from her mistakes. How long, I wonder, will it be before we’re packing up again? ‘She says we’re not moving again. She says we’re here for good,’ I tell you.

‘Do you believe her?’ You take a bag of prawn cocktail crisps from your pocket and put one into your mouth. ‘Help yourself,’ you say. So I do.

‘I’ve moved school five times and every time it’s the last. What do you think?’

‘I think your mum’s a liar.’ You laugh through a crunchy mouth and I am laughing too.

We sit there eating crisps in silence as the playground zooms around us. There’s a huddle of girls I recognise from class, all legs and short skirts, and a couple of boys, lanky and greasy. They look at you and then at me before whispering to each other.

‘Are they your friends?’ I say although I already know the answer.

‘Nah, not really,’ you tell me as one of the boys from the group swaggers over to you, chest all puffed out like he wants to impress.

‘Have you taken pity on the new girl then, Clara?’ he asks, ignoring the fact I am sitting right next to you. His tone tells me he is trying to play it cool but his reddening face is a giveaway. A screwed-up attempt at schoolboy flirting.

You give him a smile and I cringe. Have I misread your overtures at friendship? I’m expecting you to laugh along with him, readying myself to shrink away into the bustle of the playground and make myself invisible.

‘Her name is Rachel,’ you say, still smiling at him, ‘although now we’re friends I call her Rach.’ And you turn away from him to offer me another prawn cocktail crisp.

The boy’s face grows redder still. He hangs in front of us for a moment not knowing what to do. You’ve dismissed him so casually, any semblance of cool has been stripped from him.

‘You don’t look like you need any of those,’ he shouts, swiping the crisps out of my hands and sending them flying into the air in a pouf of prawn cocktail. He cackles as he runs back to join the rest. But even I can see it’s an empty victory.

You shrug your shoulders at me and shake your head, as if he’s a child to be pitied.

‘Who was that?’ I ask you.

‘James Redfern, class joker. Don’t worry about him.’ You put your hand on my knee and squeeze it softly.

It’s then that I understand the sniggers I provoked by choosing to sit next to you. I realise that everyone in that class would like to be your friend but you keep your distance. And there was me, the fat, ginger new girl, daring to try my luck. They were expecting you to ignore me and reject me. And me to fall flat on my face. But instead I have succeeded where they failed. I don’t know why that is, but I do know I can’t stop smiling.

A couple of days later you explain you are older than everyone in the class because you had to repeat a year. When I ask why you say, ‘Stuff.’ I don’t pry; I don’t want to upset you. I am happier than I have ever been. It’s as if someone has turned the colour on in my life. It’s hard to explain but I feel like you’ve been there waiting for me all along. Like we are meant to be. For the first time I have someone on my side who understands me, laughs with me. Protects me.

We’ve known each other for eight weeks. We both love Take That, though we fight over who will marry Robbie and you always win. We both hate macaroni cheese, especially the one they serve up in the school canteen which is grey and watery and looks like maggots. And we hate games; the trampoline where all the other girls have to stand around and make sure you don’t fall off but laugh at the thought of you smashing your head on the hard floor. Or netball because I always get pushed over. But most of all I hate getting changed in front of the girls in our class. The taunts at my pale skin and freckles and ginger pubes; my fat legs, the rolls of blubber on my stomach. And it’s no use forgetting your kit because then you have to wear some from the lost property which smells of mothballs and invites even more ridicule.

So when you call me on Sunday and say, ‘I’ve got the answer, Rach, we won’t be doing games for a while,’ I’m so happy I think I’m going to burst and I’m dying to know what plan you have concocted. But all you say is; ‘I will reveal it tomorrow, Rachel,’ in a funny voice like you’re pretending to be a magician.

At break time the next day we go and sit in the furthest corner of the field, leaving behind the smells of roasting meat in the playground. It is November and the ground is hard and cold but there’s still warmth in the sun when it escapes the clouds. I’ve been begging you to tell me all morning; I think you’re enjoying keeping me in suspense.

‘So come on, tell me the master plan,’ I say.

‘First of all you have to tell me how brave you think you are.’ You are unbuttoning your red peacoat and taking it off.

I don’t know what that’s got to do with missing games but I give you my answer anyway. ‘In the right circumstances, I think I could do anything,’ I say.

‘Good, you have passed “Go”, Rachel Walsh,’ you say and you push my elbow away from me so my body falls on the grass. Then you fling your coat at me. I sit up and watch you take off your shoe, a black patent pump with a small heel.

‘Oh my God, what’s this, a striptease?’ I ask.

‘Here. You’ll need this.’ You give your shoe to me.

‘You’ve totally lost me.’

‘Well, no gain without pain and all that. What we need to do is break something and the wrist is easiest, even a chip on it will do. Six weeks in a plaster. No PE.’

I think you have lost your mind and my face must tell you as much. ‘My dad’s a doctor, remember, he knows these things,’ you say as if that makes everything OK. I met your dad for the first time on Saturday. He opened the door to me, surfer T-shirt, jeans and flip-flops, tanned face and arms. I thought he was too young to be your father until he said, ‘You must be Rachel. I’m Simon, Clara’s dad,’ with the warmest Saturday-morning smile I’d ever seen. ‘Come in, come in, I’m just making brunch.’

I guessed brunch was something between breakfast and lunch, though I didn’t want to say I’d never had it before. Instead I followed him into the kitchen where you were sitting on a stool at an enormous breakfast bar, a glass of orange juice in front of you, swinging your legs and humming along to the radio. The picture of a perfect weekend. ‘She’s got terrible taste in music,’ he said with a wink, ‘I hope yours is better, Rachel.’ You picked up a satsuma from the fruit bowl and threw it in his direction. But he saw it coming and caught it with one hand. ‘Nice try, Clar,’ he teased and turned back to beating the eggs. ‘I hope you girls are hungry, I’m doing my special sweetcorn fritters,’ he said and I found myself thinking your dad was a revelation.

I can’t imagine he would tell you how to hurt yourself.

‘You mean he told you how to break your wrist so you can skip PE?’

‘No, but I’ve been asking a few questions here and there so he’s not suspicious.’ You take the shoe from me. ‘We need to hit it here.’ You bring the shoe down to your wrist gently. ‘Thing is, I’d be rubbish doing it myself. You can do it for me and I’ll do yours.’ You say it like you’re suggesting we do each other’s hair or make-up. Not taking a shoe to crack your friend’s wrist.

‘You don’t think it’s a bit extreme?’

‘It’s a bit of pain, Rachel, nothing more. I’ll do it on your left arm if it makes you feel better, then you can still write your English essays.’

You press the shoe back into my hand again. ‘I want to do it, even if you don’t so please, you have to do it for me. Think of it as a friendship initiation thing.’ You throw your head back and laugh. When you bring it up again I see your eyes are intense, fiery. ‘Go on, I’ll count to three.’

‘I … I don’t want …’

‘Come on, for me,’ you say, ‘do it for me.’ Then I hear the words, ‘One … two …’ Your eyes are watching me, willing me to do it, and I know I have to, otherwise it won’t be the same. ‘THREE.’ I bring the shoe up above my head and slice it through the air on to your wrist. I close my eyes as it hits but I feel it whack against your bone, like a piece of rock. You roll back and scream a scream that pierces the air. I throw the shoe down and find you writhing on the ground. ‘Are you OK, Clara, Jesus, we need to get you inside.’

‘Of course I’m not fucking OK, you’ve just broken my wrist,’ you say eventually. You are laughing and crying at the same time and your eyes look like they have sparks coming off them. I think the pain is making you manic. ‘Come on,’ I say, pulling you up.

‘It’s your turn.’ You pull me down with your good arm.

‘Clara, honestly, this was a bad idea, you can’t seriously …’

‘We made a deal, remember?’

I can’t remember shaking on any deal but when I see your face drained of colour and your teeth chattering but not from the cold, I know I owe it to you. I take my coat off and roll up the sleeves on my jumper and shirt. ‘Here,’ I say. I see the run of freckles up my arm. My wrist is thin compared with the rest of my body. I imagine it smashing under the force of your shoe.

You tell me I have to rest it on the grass because you can’t hold it still with your bad arm. I do as you say. The grass is cold and damp against my bare skin. You start your count. ONE. I turn away and close my eyes tight shut. TWO. My body tenses in expectation of the pain. THREE.

I hear it first, the crack of a hard object against the bone. Then the pain shoots up my arm like an electric shock. I scream. Your laugh is ringing through my ears. It is distorted, grotesque. I’m on my feet, twisting in agony, about to shout at you when I taste the acid in my mouth and I retch. I bend over and I’m sick all over my shoes. When I’m finished I wipe my mouth with my sleeve and see the ground spinning around me. I think I am going to faint but then I feel your hand on my shoulder, steadying me. It is the same hand that broke my wrist but this time it is gentle and soothing. I look up and see a flush of colour returning to your cheeks. You are still shaking but there is fire in your eyes, making them glisten and sparkle. Throwing my head back I emit a sound from deep in the pit of my stomach. It doesn’t sound like me, more like an animal howling, and I hear it echo through the trees. I could get lost in that roar, the way it reverberates through my body and reaches my nerve endings jolting them into life. I don’t think I have ever felt more alive. I could go on forever.

And I understand, Clara, it is all so clear to me now – the attraction of pain, how it can be delicious and warm. How it fills you with a power that makes you strong and invincible. How you have to push yourself to the edge to realise what you are capable of.

You have been watching me in silence. Your eyes are wide with surprise. I reach out to you with my good arm and we fall into each other, our laughs and tears mixing together. We don’t speak. We don’t have to. We know what we have done has set us apart from everyone else and joined us together with an irresistible magnetic force.

M
Y EYES WERE
half closed, heavy with sleep. A slice of sunlight warmed my face. There was a moment, between dreaming and wakefulness, when I could have been anywhere. On holiday perhaps, where a summer sky, a pool and a day of discovery lay beyond the windows. Then I stretched my leg and drew my foot over the empty side of the bed where the sheets were crisp and untouched and I remembered. There was no pool, no summer sky. There was only a face. A smile. The picture of you.

I reached for my phone. Desperate to see his name; a missed call, a text. And yours too, Clara, of course I wanted to see your name and number. But I needed to hear his voice more because he could make everything OK. The only person who ever could. But you’d guessed that much already, hadn’t you?

My inbox was empty. So I scrolled through my recent calls and found the number I was looking for. Her voice had none of the laughter of the other night.

‘We need to talk, Sarah,’ I said.

‘I know,’ she said in a way that sounded like she wasn’t convinced.

‘There’s a coffee shop just off Black Lion Street, on the corner, can we meet there?’ I asked.

‘I’ll be there by eleven,’ she said and the line went dead.

I was dressed in yesterday’s clothes so I left the hotel early to shop. I hadn’t felt warm since arriving at the police station the day before. I needed an extra layer of protection. As I turned off the seafront I saw the winter sun sitting low. Beneath it the sea was bleached so white I couldn’t tell where it stopped and the sky started. Sequins danced on the water. I blinked and shielded my eyes. After the gloom of the day before, the pier, the buildings, the hotels, the people that lined the seafront, they were all cleaner, brighter under this sun. But what had changed? Nothing had changed at all, Clara. It was a trick of the light. Everything is a trick of the light.

There were pastries and cupcakes laid out on the counter, the kind with more icing than sponge. I was hungry but I knew gorging myself on a muffin wouldn’t create the right impression. Maybe Sarah thought the same. Both of us cradled mugs of steaming coffee and shook our heads when the waitress suggested food. Sarah stared down into her mug, refusing to make eye contact with me. I had expected us to hug and hold each other, to show some solidarity in our loss. Sarah had other ideas.