Red Ink (25 page)

“Melon! Melon!”

I reach the main road. The dark looming mass of the sea is in front of me.

No. All lies.

I am the daughter of a liar. The daughter of a junkie. I am nothing but a joke.

I run, on past the junction. Dust covers my sandaled feet, turning them to stone. The insect buzz of a motorbike sends me onto the verge, backs me up against a tree. The burgundy dress snags on the bark and I lose my footing. I fall, yell out, then clamp a hand to my mouth. I don’t want anyone to hear me, to see me. But the motorbike has stopped, it is turning around. It pulls up close and I draw back from its thundering motor.

It is Haris. And he looks at me like he knows.

Did everyone know? Everyone except me?

I take his hand. I have no choice. It is just like he said it would be – I will scream and he will come rescue me. We stare at each other for a moment, until I feel too ashamed and have to look away. I wipe tears and snot from my face. He pulls me towards the bike.

“You want come with me?”

What else do I have? Nothing. Nothing.

I get on the bike behind Haris.

I am no one. No past. No truth. Now is all there is.

I grip Haris’s slim, hard waist, smell the leather of his jacket, the faint edge of cigarettes. The bike belches forwards and my heart jams in my throat. I hold on tight, as if my survival depends on the warmth coming from his body. We take off down the coast road, the air cold against my bare shins. Inside my stomach there’s a somersaulting beast. Trapped. We are going too fast and I am going to die.

“Where are we going?” I shout, but my words are stolen by the squeal of the bike. We lean sharp into a bend and I see the roadside fall away, see the car wrecks at the bottom on the scrubby rocks: a warning of what happens if you go too crazy. Then we are upright again, high above the harbour where the lights from the ships give the waves a petrol sheen. We speed, too fast, too fast, until the road becomes built-up again and we have to slow. But still we dash past blank-eyed shops and banks, dry cleaners and hardware stores. Cars line the streets and I tighten my thighs, scared that my knee will hit a wing mirror. Then there are no cars any more. The shopfronts lose their dowdiness. They grow shiny. Local faces are replaced by pink, peeling cheeks. Haris slows down again, the engine
phut-phut-phut
-ing. He navigates tight corner after tight corner. Tourists scatter like birds from a gun.

We are at the old harbour. I can see the restaurant where I ate with Paul just hours ago. But that was the old me, not the real me. Not the me who knows the truth. Haris ploughs forwards as if he’s going to drive us straight into the inky waters, end it all.

But he turns, swift, and we bounce across stones instead, the fairy illuminations of the harbour lighthouse behind us. We zip past fish restaurants that smell seaweed strong. Are we supposed to drive so close to the restaurant tables? Haris doesn’t care. I don’t care either. After all, what do right and wrong mean any more?

We swing round a corner, our shoulders dipping low to the road, past a playground with its swings sitting empty, past a fresh stretch of seafront cafes. Busy. Infested. Locals not tourists. We stick close to the sea wall, people skipping out of our path like they knew we were coming all along. The water below us is shallow with fish. They group, they swirl.

This is our destination – a bar with a terrace of stretched cream canopies. Clustered underneath are low white sofas, sophisticated, upmarket, with kids my age lounging across them. Are they minding the place until the adults show up? Haris lurches into high speed to make an impressive arrival. Faces swarm, sipping on straws. The music throb, throb, throbs. My heart joins in. I wasn’t expecting an audience for my tear-swollen face.

“Get off the bike.” Haris is enjoying the attention. I’m scared to let go.

The concrete sways beneath my feet after the thrill of the ride. I pull down my hem. A girl with dark eyeliner looks me up and down, gives me a gravelly “
yassou
”. Haris is still straddling the bike, gabbling to a boy in a red bodywarmer. He is smoothing the heel of his hand along the edge of his gelled fringe. Everyone is in trainers and sweaters and I am too dressed-up in the burgundy dress. I am a Guy Fawkes dummy of my unreliable mother.

“Give me your coat, Haris, I’m cold,” I lie, shouting it again a little louder to compete with the
dumf, dumf, dumf
of the music.“Your coat. I’m cold.”

He climbs off the bike, kicks the prop, hands me his leather jacket.

The boy in the red bodywarmer says, “
Anglidha
?”

She English?

And Haris nods. “
Né.
”

Another boy, in a checked shirt, pushes through the crowd to give Haris a high-five. The girl with the dark eyeliner smiles at me, half friendly, half sorry. I shouldn’t be here. But where should I be? Nowhere. I belong nowhere.

I let Haris sling his arm across my shoulders and move us over to a rectangle of sofas where a boy with a shaved head is flicking a cigarette lighter on and off in time to the dance track. A girl with a matted beehive watches us sit, popping gum against her cherry lips. I am special because I’m with Haris, I see that now. Is this the only way I’ll find my ‘something special’, via the glow of someone else?

The boy in the checked shirt hands me a tall glass of dark liquid. It looks like Coke but, when I drink, the taste is stinging, as if I’m downing nail varnish remover. I cough, splutter and the girl with the beehive laughs.

I lean close to Haris’s ear. “You get served?”

“Served?”

“They give you alcohol here?”

“Yes, why not they give me alcohol?”

“The police . . .”

“Police suck,” he says and I watch him tip back his head, screw up his eyes, take a long draw on his cigarette.

Then I watch him yabber, quick and confident, holding the attention of the table. I can barely hear over the
bam bam bam
of the bassline and even if I could I would not understand. Are they talking about me? I swig more of the drink and wonder what Paul is doing. Calling the police? A car swings past and I turn away. The guy and girl next to me start kissing, their faces suctioned together. I nod my head along to the music. I keep drinking. This is the only way I can join in. And when I empty my glass, the boy in the checked shirt hands me another full one.

“English,” he says. “You like drink. Too much you like drink.”

“I’m Greek,” I shoot back.

But then I think, am I? Am I?

I drink, faster, faster.

I watch the girl with the dark eyeliner tell off the boy she’s with. In any language, you know when you’re in trouble. She counts off the things he’s done wrong on her fingers.

Ena
– one – you did this,

dio
– two – you do that and

tria
– three – I will never ever forgive you.

“We go.”

Haris has hold of my hand and is pulling me away from the sofas, away from the soothing pulse of the music, towards the bike. When he lets go to swing himself into his seat, the seashore spins. I concentrate hard, really hard, on hitching up my dress and climbing onto the bike without falling over. I take hold of Haris’s waist, rest my face on his T-shirted back.

“I want to go home,” I think I say.

“I take you somewhere very pretty,” says Haris and he strikes the pedal. The bike comes to life. Vibrations roar up between my legs.

We are flying past the bay again with the sheer drop and the car wrecks and the sea and the ships and the lights and then, and then . . .

I fall asleep. I must have done. There is this gap. We are speeding fast through the night, speeding fast towards death and then I fall asleep.

I wake as we bump along a dirt track, still close to the coast. We are travelling across grass. Light from the bike’s headlamp bounces off shrubs and piles of rocks. Then I see it – the fortress at the edge of the cliff. Haris kills the engine. We freewheel as if we’re trying to catch the deserted building unawares. When he turns off the bike’s lights, my eyes take an age to adjust to the starlight.

“
Ela.
Come on.”

We go the rest of the way on foot, weaving through the rocks. Haris pulls me tight. It must be late. No, it must be early. I want to go home, but I have no clue where that is so I might as well be here. The fortress looks like something out of the Wild West, a movie set with its insides shot out. Haris walks us round the back wall. Bam – there is this amazing view.

Somewhere pretty. Somewhere really pretty.

The moonlight hits the sea. The military base below sulks on the coastline, winking its lights. It is stunning. Insects chirp in the undergrowth. The waves sigh and shush.

“Yes,” I say. “Really pretty.”

But Haris is not looking at the sea any more. I can feel it. His breath is near my ear, getting heavy, slowing down. This is when I’m supposed to kiss him but I’ve never . . . I don’t know how you . . . What do you . . .?

“Here.” Haris puts a small bottle in my hand and I swig from it, feel the blast of it in my throat. I could breath fire. I could . . . I could . . .

Haris puts a hand to my chin and pulls my face away from the view. I have no choice. He puts his mouth over mine. No. I choose this. My groin aches, my stomach pulls towards him. Haris is breathing fire too. His tongue is hot and tastes of ash. He winds it around my mouth. He clamps his hand over my backside and pushes my hips into his. I tense as his fingers squeeze into my flesh. I hear Lucy Bloss telling me that I am a fat bitch who no one would have sex with. But, oh God, this is it, I’m about to. And I don’t know what to do, I don’t . . .

I feel like I am going to explode. What do I do with all this fire?

Haris pulls away and for a moment I think that he has noticed his mistake in choosing me, the freak, the fat bitch, but he just says, “More,” and puts the bottle to my lips. I gulp some down. He does the same. He is in a hurry now. He needs to get somewhere fast.

“This way.” He grabs my hand and pulls me through one of the doorways of the fortress. Its roof is open to the stars. The gravel inside is spiked through with grass.

“This way.” We head towards a stone stairway. He knows where he’s going. He’s taken girls here before. Who cares, I think, who cares?

The stairs take us to a stone platform with battlements, to a better view of the sea, but we’re not here for that. Haris edges me back against the stone wall, fixes his mouth over mine, grabs at my chest.

“No!” I react lightning fast, pull away his hand.

“Is okay,” he murmurs and starts groping again. And I let him. I let him run his hand up the inside of my thigh, push up my dress. He clamps his hand over my pants and I jump like I’ve been given an electric shock.

I tell myself to relax. And he sees my body release. He works his hand inside my pants. And I listen to a breathy moan – a sound that is coming from my own mouth.

“Happy birthsdays,” Haris sighs.

And I let him push me down onto the floor, ignore the stones digging hard into my back, the smell of cigarette butts. I hear the click of his belt buckle, feel his hand fumbling in between us. He pulls hard at my pants and I feel cold air between my legs. I am wet and I’m worried this is not how I am supposed to be.

“You okay?” Haris asks, and I can feel him against my leg, hard, the hot, smooth skin.

“Yes,” I say, but I’m ready for pain. This is what Lucy Bloss says – it hurts, you bleed and you should close your eyes.

I keep my eyes wide open, just to spite her, look into Haris’s black pupils that have swelled, large and round, making him look possessed.

He pushes my thighs apart. My legs are shaking and I can do nothing to stop them.

“Relax,” he says and oh my God, oh my God . . .

A bird cries in the undergrowth and it’s a weird sound, like a cork being pulled from a bottle.

It hurts. God, it hurts. Why does everything have to hurt so much? It takes all my self-control not to push him off. But I do not move. I listen to Haris make low, horrible sounds, like he is being tortured, as if he doesn’t want to be doing what he’s doing. I suck in my breath, concentrate on the stars.

Haris pushes, pushes, pushes and kneads at my chest. The sharp pain inside of me turns into an aching roughness. I feel I should do something with my hands, but what? I don’t know. I wrap my arms around the back of his head, feel the spikes of short, oily hair. This is the right thing. He pushes his face closer to my ear. My cheek is sore from the brush of his stubble. His belt buckle
clank, clank, clanks
against the stone floor. The skin at the base of my back has grazed. It’s burning. Haris’s breath gets tighter, raspier. Something inside my belly wants to break free. I want to climb up a mountain and jump off the other side.

“
Né, né
,” Haris groans in my ear and it’s all so scary I just want to laugh. I screw up my eyes and see that picture from biology class – my pelvis cut in half and Haris inside. This is ridiculous and impossible and terrifying and oh God, oh God, oh God.