Sworn Secret (41 page)

‘I’ll be there soon.’

Lizzie wiped her eyes with the back of her hand. Then she thought of Angela Howe. There was nobody in the world she hated more. ‘I don’t want to see your mum.’

‘No, OK.’

Lizzie chewed on her lip to stop from crying.

‘Lizzie?’ he said.

‘Yes?’

‘I love you.’

Lizzie hung up and then burst into wretched sobs.

‘Sweetheart?’ Her mum sat down beside her and rested a hand on her knee.

‘He’s leaving, Mum. She’s taking him away from me . . .’ She sniffed. ‘They’re going to Leeds . . . this afternoon.’

Her mum hugged her tightly, resting her chin on the top of Lizzie’s head.

‘He wants to say goodbye to me. Is that all right?’

‘Of course.’

‘I said I’d meet him at home. I don’t want to see her.’

Her mum let go of her and sat back. She carefully stroked her hair out of her face and tucked it behind her ears. ‘Do you want me to drive you?’

‘No, you finish with Granny. I’ll walk.’

‘OK,’ said her mum. ‘I won’t be long.’ Then she hesitated. ‘I won’t disturb you when I come in.’

Lizzie flushed red.

She ran most of the way home, stopping to walk a bit when the air in her lungs burned too much. She felt like the desperate heroine in a tragic love story, running through the streets to get to her lover, bumping shoulders with people, dodging dogs and bikes and bins. She half expected him to be waiting on the step when she got there, and when she saw he wasn’t she was a little disappointed. But then again, she was hot and sweaty, dirty from cleaning her grandmother’s house; it was probably better she cleaned herself up before he got there.

She flew up the stairs two at a time and flung herself under the shower, then got dressed and dried her hair. She smoothed the flyaway strands down and put some mascara on. Her stomach twisted with nerves and dread; she felt as if she were making herself pretty for her own funeral. When she was finished, he still hadn’t come. She looked at the clock. It was nearly three. If he was leaving that afternoon there was hardly any time left; he had to be here soon. Her tummy teemed with nerves.

Hurry up
, she thought,
where are you? We’ve so little time
.

She went into the living room to peer out of the window for the umpteenth time. She pressed her forehead against the glass and waited as time sloped past with hours for seconds. She remembered her grandparents’ shed. It was the last time they’d been together, not including when she was stung. She winced as she remembered her dad pulling her off him. She hoped she hadn’t made a mistake and tried not to think of her mother, who was surely worrying right now.

Please
, she thought,
please let everything be all right between us
.

She needn’t have worried. When he finally appeared, her heart leapt and she squealed with joy as she jumped up.

‘Haydn, Haydn, Haydn,’ she whispered, and ran to the front door. She flung it open and jumped into his arms, kissing him all over his face and neck.

He grinned and stroked her face with the back of his hand as he kissed the tip of her nose. She turned her head enough to kiss his wrist, but as she did, she tasted the metallic tang of blood. She took hold of his arm and looked at his wrist. A smattering of dried blood was visible below the line of his sleeve. He tried to pull away, but she held on and pushed his sleeve up his arm.

‘Haydn!’ she gasped. ‘What have you done?’

There were new cuts. Lots of them. Parallel lines of dried and drying blood doodled into his scarred skin, with the skin between inflamed and red. She touched her fingers over the cuts, then looked up at him and saw his eyes fill with tears. She lifted her hand and placed her palm on his cheek.

‘I thought you said you’d stopped doing that to yourself.’

‘I had,’ he said, pulling his sleeve down over his wrist to cover his arm. ‘It’s just, I don’t know, finding you on the floor like that, all blue, and you couldn’t breathe. I thought you were going to die.’ He took her hand and turned it over, then touched the small brown dot where the wasp had stung her. Her hand was still swollen, tight and red, and when he stroked her it tingled as if a thousand tiny needles pulsed against her. ‘If you’d died, Lizzie, my life would have been over. But you didn’t die. And I’ve never been so relieved and happy and, I don’t know, God, just so fucking grateful about anything ever.’ He reached for her hand and pulled it up to his mouth and kissed her.

They pressed their foreheads together. She closed her eyes and breathed in the delicious, sweet smell of cigarettes and chewing gum on his warm breath.

‘Don’t leave me,’ she whispered.

‘I have to.’ Haydn squeezed her hands. ‘She’s selling the house.’

‘But what about Manchester? We could still go.’

‘I can’t do that to her.’ He shook his head. ‘I can’t leave her. She needs me.’

Lizzie felt a smack to her gut. ‘But I need you too.’

They stared at each other, his eyes flicking over her face, taking her in.

The sound of a car horn made her jump.

‘That’s her,’ he said.

‘No,’ she breathed. ‘Not now.’ She glanced over his shoulder at their car, which had pulled up on the opposite side of the road, its roof rack piled high, the load covered by an electric-blue tarpaulin and lots of yellow bungee cords.

Her stomach clenched; this couldn’t be happening.

‘Oh, God,’ Lizzie whispered, tucking herself tighter into Haydn. ‘She’s got out of the car.’ She gripped his shirt with both fists.

‘Haydn!’ called Mrs Howe. ‘It’s time to get in the car.’

He turned and nodded at her. ‘Just a few minutes!’ he called.

Then Lizzie flung her arms around him. ‘When everything’s calmed down,’ she said, ‘when all this has gone away, we’ll be together, won’t we?’

He kissed the crook of her neck. ‘Yes.’

‘And you’ll phone me?’

He nodded.

‘And text?’

‘Every day.’

‘Haydn!’ his mother called. ‘Come on!’

‘I’m coming!’ he shouted back, without taking his eyes off Lizzie.

‘I can’t believe this is it.’ She felt as if her heart were being cut out of her chest. Then, from over his shoulder she saw Mrs Howe crossing the road and walking towards them. Her heart missed a beat and she pulled him close again.

‘Your mum’s coming,’ she whispered.

Mrs Howe was wearing jeans and trainers and a navy sweater. Lizzie had only ever seen her in knee-length skirts and stiff-collared shirts.

‘Please, Haydn!’ she said as she reached the gate. ‘You’ve had enough time.’

Lizzie started to cry. ‘Don’t go. You can’t,’ she said, stumbling over the words. ‘I can’t think what I’ll do.’

‘I’ll call you when we get to my nan’s.’ He touched her teary cheeks with his sandpaper fingers. Then he reached into his back jeans pocket, and with his other hand took hers. He leant in to kiss her, and as he did he closed her fingers around something. She knew without looking it was his iPod. ‘I’ve put songs on it for you. And our playlist, the one from our first time, it’s on there too.’

Lizzie sniffed and tried to smile through her tears.

‘And there’s something else.’ He handed her a folded piece of paper. She opened it. It was Anna’s drawing of the crouching caged angel. A lump formed in Lizzie’s throat. ‘You know, she talked about you all the time,’ he said. ‘When she gave me this drawing I remember what she said. She said she was jealous of how sorted you were, of how you knew exactly what you wanted and how you didn’t care what people said or thought, and how you knew who you were. She said you were truly free. She said you were amazing, and she was right. She loved you loads, Lizzie. Like I do.’

‘Haydn, we have to go.’ Mrs Howe was standing right next to them.

Lizzie turned her head to look at Mrs Howe. She hated her so much. She’d never known a feeling like it; it burnt inside her like caustic acid.

‘There’s no need to glare at me like that, Elizabeth,’ Mrs Howe said.

‘Why shouldn’t I?’ said Lizzie. ‘I hate you.’

‘Come on, Haydn.’ Mrs Howe jerked her head in the direction of her car. ‘We’ve got a long journey ahead of us.’

‘You know,’ said Lizzie. She stood as tall as she could and narrowed her eyes. ‘I know why you’re leaving.’

‘Lizzie, I’ve got to go,’ said Haydn, quickly. ‘I’ll text you on the way, OK?’

Lizzie ignored him. ‘You’re leaving because of Anna.’

‘Because she destroyed our lives, you mean? Yes, Elizabeth, you’re right. That’s exactly why we’re leaving.’

Lizzie balled her fists and needled her eyes into Mrs Howe. ‘She didn’t destroy
your
lives. You destroyed
hers
! And ours.’ Her voice quivered as she fought to keep her words steady. ‘I know what you did to her.’

Mrs Howe’s face darkened. Lizzie swallowed and stepped backwards a fraction. Mrs Howe crossed her arms and briefly allowed her eyes to leave Lizzie before fixing them on her again.

‘Oh really? And what exactly do you think I did?’

‘You pushed her.’ Lizzie’s heart thumped so hard it threatened to smash its way out of her body. Mrs Howe’s face fell. The anger slipped away, wrong-footed, it seemed, by the accusation. ‘Didn’t you, Mrs Howe? You pushed her off the roof and killed her. Rebecca told us what Anna wanted. I know you saw the film, and got so cross you told Rebecca you’d kill her. I know you screamed at Anna and she said stuff to you. And then Haydn called you and said they were on the roof. And it was just too tempting, wasn’t it?’

‘Lizzie, be quiet,’ said Haydn. ‘Please. Just leave it. You don’t know what you’re talking about.’

He grabbed at her, but she yanked her arm out of his grip and stepped up close to Mrs Howe. ‘You went up there and saw her on that wall and you pushed her, didn’t you?’

‘Lizzie, stop it! You’re wrong. I told you what happened. It had nothing to do with Mum. Anna fell. I saw her fall.’

‘No!’ screamed Lizzie. ‘She pushed her!’

‘Lizzie,’ said Mrs Howe, her voice suddenly gentle. ‘Please don’t do this. I didn’t hurt Anna. I didn’t—’

‘You couldn’t stand it, could you?’ Lizzie shouted then. ‘He loved Anna so much more than he loved you! You knew you could never compete with her, didn’t you? You knew that he’d always love her more—’

‘Lizzie!’ It was her mum. Kate shut the car door and marched up the path, pushing past Angela. When she reached Lizzie she put a hand on her shoulder. ‘What’s going on here?’ she asked firmly. Lizzie suddenly felt faint from all the adrenalin and emotion surging through her body. She grabbed her mum’s arm to steady herself.

‘Nothing,’ said Angela, flatly. ‘Nothing is going on. Haydn and I are just leaving.’

‘She did it, Mum. She killed Anna!’

Her mum sighed. ‘Darling, we spoke about this.’ She turned to Angela. ‘I’m sorry,’ she said, though her voice had hardened and Lizzie saw that she wasn’t looking Mrs Howe in the eye. ‘It’s all been very stressful for Lizzie. She’s had so much happen.’

‘But Mum—’

‘No buts, Lizzie. This is over.’

Lizzie felt as if she were dissolving. She looked at her mother, desperate to convince her of what she knew was the truth. ‘Mum,’ she begged. ‘Please listen to me.’

Her mum shook her head and pulled her into a tight embrace. She rested her chin on Lizzie’s head. ‘You know,’ she breathed, ‘I can see her right now. She’s dancing. Twirling around and around.’ Lizzie could see her too. Her shining hair was flying out behind her, her hands and arms outstretched, graceful like a ballerina’s, her fingers long and delicate and angled so that the moonlight in which she danced flowed over her and fell like raindrops off them. ‘Lizzie, sweetheart, we can’t do this any more,’ her mum whispered. ‘We have to let this go. We have to move on. It’s time, darling. It’s time for us all to move on.’

Lizzie knew she was right. Feeling her mother holding her, her arms wrapped around her, her smell so comforting and familiar, she knew she was right, but it meant that they would never know exactly what happened on that roof, and that was something they were all going to have to accept. If not, it would destroy them.

‘Lizzie, I have to go now,’ said Haydn from behind her.

Lizzie didn’t move. Instead, she clung to her mother even tighter and closed her eyes.

She listened to their footsteps move away; she heard them crossing the road, the car doors opening and shutting, and a few moments later, the car engine. Her stomach turned over.

‘No,’ she said, suddenly pushing away from her mum and running down the path. ‘Wait!’ she shouted. ‘Wait!’

But the laden car had already pulled out and was driving down the road. As she ran, she began to panic. She didn’t want to leave him like that. She didn’t want that to be their last memory. She stopped and watched the car driving away from her. Her heart sank and she dropped her head. When she looked up, however, she saw the car had stopped. She broke into a run. As she reached Haydn’s window, he lowered it. He was crying, his face blotched red. She reached through the window and wiped his tears with her hand and then she leant in to kiss him.

‘I will never forget you,’ she said. ‘I’ll never forget what you did for me, Haydn. I needed you and you came for me.’

Then she stepped away from the car and smiled at him, and though it felt like her insides were being ripped out of her as she watched his car turn off their street, she had a good feeling too, because she knew that somehow life was going to be a little bit better now.

Almost a Year After

‘When my dad suggested I read the eulogy today I told him I didn’t think I’d be able to. It wasn’t the thought of standing in front of you all in church that so terrified me, it was the daunting task of making sure I did justice to my grandmother’s life. She was a formidable lady, with tremendous traits and attributes, and to give her the credit she deserves is something I was unsure I’d be able to do. My dad told me not to think about it like that. He reminded me that everybody attending the service would have their own memories of my grandmother, and that if I spoke to you all about what she meant to me and expressed my love for her, then you would all be able to identify with my sentiments and share in my remembrance of her. He said this was all I needed to do.’