The Outcast (6 page)

Kit’s throat burned. Her eyes were stinging, partly with sweat and partly with tears. She wished they’d all stop looking at her. She bit the side of her tongue to keep from crying properly, but her throat hurt. She stood on one leg and scratched the back of her calf with her sandal.

‘You’ll have to go back,’ said Tamsin.

‘Go back!’ said Ed, shooing her, like a dog.

Kit didn’t move. She stood and stared at them all.They were on a higher part of the road and their various poses of disap- proval and boredom were silhouetted against the white sky like a tableau of judgement.

‘Go back!’ said Tamsin,‘Go on, Kit!’

Kit thought she could trust her voice.‘What shall I do with my bike?’ she asked.

‘You’ll have to carry it,’ said Ed, but they all knew this was ridiculous.

‘Kit, you’re ruining everything!’ saidTamsin, her patience at an end.

Lewis saw Kit’s chin start to go; he hadn’t seen her cry before and he didn’t want to.

‘It’s all right,’ he said to them.‘Put your bike in the hedge, we’ll get it on the way back.You can go on my crossbar.’

Nobody questioned this; so long as Kit wasn’t their problem they didn’t care. One by one they started up the hill again.With no momentum, it took an effort to get going. Lewis laid his bike down and went over to Kit, picking up hers.

‘That looks pretty nearly bust up,’ he said.

He shoved it into the hedge. Kit wiped her face with dirty hands, and her eyes, and Lewis pretended not to notice.

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‘Come on, we’ll have to walk up to the top.’

They started to walk, and to begin with they weren’t slower than the wobbling bicycles. Kit twisted her arm around to look at her bleeding elbow and then wiped it on her shorts. At the top Lewis got on his bike.They looked down, letting the others get away from them with screams and yells.They could see the country spread out and the hill dropped away sharply. It was steep enough to be frightening, but not so steep you’d actually fall on your face, if you were careful. Tamsin and Ed had gone away immediately, followed by the others, and the shouts got quieter very quickly as they speeded up.

‘Sure you’ll manage?’ said Lewis, and Kit nodded. She was terrified of the hill. She’d been terrified of it all the way up, even on her own bike, and now the prospect of sitting sideways on Lewis Aldridge’s crossbar was the most horrible thing she could think of. She knew she would at least break her neck, but there was no way out of it at all.

‘Come on then,’ he said.

He seemed to be thinking about something else, so she just clambered on. Lewis was wondering how he’d explain to Mrs Carmichael that her younger daughter had died going a hundred miles an hour down New Hill on his bike. He had to hold the handlebars awkwardly with her in front of him.

‘You’ve got to balance and sit in the middle or we’ll both come off, all right?’

She nodded. Her mouth was so dry she couldn’t have spoken.

Ahead of them the others were nearly at the bottom.

Oh hell, Lewis thought, they’ll all watch.

He pushed off, and the first few feet they almost fell side- ways, first one side, then the other and again the first way; the steering wasn’t doing what it should and Lewis’s legs kept

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kicking into Kit. She fell backwards and sideways and then the bike was going fast enough to balance and seemed steadier.The steepness of the hill took them by surprise and they both went forward.

‘Lean back!’ he yelled.

They both leaned and they were going quite quickly now. Her plaits were knocking against his arm and he couldn’t be sure they were going straight. The wind made him close his eyes half-up. There was terror and excitement and, just in the middle, a moment of speed and balance where nothing else mattered at all. They weren’t going to fall and it was fast and perfect. Then the bottom came up too fast and stupid Tom Greene was in the way, and Lewis practically burned his feet off trying to slow down and they ended up on the verge and falling on their backs. Kit’s head bashed against Lewis’s lip and he had blood on the inside of his mouth. They got up. Kit was quivering all over like a little animal. Lewis put the back of his hand to his mouth and saw the blood. Joanna was inspecting a bee sting she’d sustained the day before. Tamsin stepped onto her bike again. No-one spoke for a bit.

‘Let’s go back the short way, over the fields.We can push the bikes and look in the river,’ said Ed and, after buying their sweets, they did.

When Kit got home she told her mother about the broken chain and where she had left her bike. Her mother said if she was careless enough to leave it there, she didn’t deserve a bicycle and she certainly wasn’t going to ask Preston to go and collect it. The bike had been Tamsin’s originally, but Kit loved it and didn’t have another, so she spent the next day walking out to New Hill and pushing it back. It was heavy and banged against her legs all the way. She asked Preston to mend it for

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her, but by the time he got round to it, it was almost time to go back to school.

Every few days Elizabeth kept Lewis at home and they took a picnic into the woods and down to the river. He liked being around her and they would read and swim. Sometimes she would fall asleep in the afternoon and, after watching her for a little, he would climb trees or swim on his own, but never too far away in case she woke and didn’t know where he was.

There was a buzzing of flies and bees and a whirring of crickets in the ferns and grass, and Lewis carried the blanket and towels for swimming. It was the woollen blanket from the car and it was itchy and crumbs got stuck in it. Elizabeth carried the basket with bread and a bottle of wine and some pork pies, which weren’t proper pork pies at all, but mostly salt and lard. They had strawberries from the garden for afterwards which were very sweet so it didn’t matter about no cream or sugar. The woods were dim around them and seemed to be sweating; the leaves were dark and still.There was the sound of a distant plane and Elizabeth thought immediately of the war and how much she hated the sound.

‘Mind out for the nettles,’ she said.

It was the time of year when the nettles are coarse and big and dark and don’t sting you too badly, but they had grown out over the path so Elizabeth and Lewis had to go in single file. One brushed Lewis’s leg, but it just itched a bit so he didn’t say anything.

‘Do you want to go further along, where it’s deeper?’ she asked him.

‘Yes, let’s go by where there’s that boat,’ he said.

It was nice of her to ask because it was quite a walk and they

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knew they’d be hot and sick of carrying the things when they got there, but it was the best part of the river to go to because of it being wide and deep there and more like an adventure.

‘I hate this weather,’ said Elizabeth and Lewis was surprised; it was summer and you could be out and he didn’t know what she meant.

The clearing by the wide part of the river was sandy with short grass in patches. The cow parsley and all the prettier things were over, but Lewis liked the longer grass now it had seeded itself. It was like pictures he’d seen of Africa and he thought if he’d been younger he would have played that there were lions. Sometimes he played that there were lions anyway, or at least imagined they were there, watching.

Elizabeth spread out the blanket and they flopped onto it. She was wearing a blue and white patterned dress; the blue was dark, and it had square shoulders and short sleeves and a straightish wrapover skirt. She had used to wear it for going out with smart shoes, but now she wore it just any time because it was old, but it still looked nice.They looked at the pork pies, which had gone shiny and soaked through the paper they were wrapped in, and she opened the bottle of wine. She had brought mugs for their drinks, because of not breaking glasses, and they laughed about her pouring her wine into one. ‘Taste?’ she offered and he sipped the wine and made a face.

The only nice thing about it was its connection with her. He ate the pork pies and she just drank, thinking perhaps they’d look better after more wine. Her dress was sticking to her, she could feel the sweat trickling down inside it, but she didn‘t want to swim yet – she knew once she did she would be cold and she put it off.

‘I’m going to swim. Are you coming in?’ ‘You go ahead, I’ll watch.’

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Lewis went behind a tree to change, which Elizabeth thought very funny and teased him about. He ran out quickly and did a running jump into the water with curled-up legs. The river hadn’t noticed it was summer, and had been for ages, and he swam up and down shouting until he got warmer and then floated and swam around the bend and back.

He inspected the wreck, which was a wooden boat about seven feet under the water, and tried to pull the rudder off.

‘I can’t get it,’ he said, coming up. He went down again and tried again and surfaced, breathing hard.

‘Come and have strawberries before I finish them. You’ll freeze,’ called Elizabeth and went back to her book. She’d nearly finished the wine and the pork pies didn’t look any better. He came out and rubbed himself dry on the towel and then sat down by her.

‘Cold?’

‘Not too bad.’ ‘Did you get it?’ ‘What?’

‘The rudder.’

‘No, I said I didn’t. It’s all dug into the bottom.’

She poured the last of the wine. He lay back and stared up at the white sky. She drank and then stood and walked towards the river and spread out her arms.

‘Oh, I do love it here.’ He didn’t look up, he was used to her loving things.‘We must make Daddy come here. He never has. He never does.Why are you laughing?’

‘Daddy swimming.’

‘Your father is an excellent swimmer. Ooh—’ she stumbled and steadied herself with one hand on the ground.‘I can stand on one leg,’ she said.

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‘Mummy, everyone can stand on one leg.’ ‘But look, I do it beautifully.’

He looked.

‘Right then!’ she said. ‘Right then?’

‘This dashed rudder. I’m going to get it.’ ‘You can’t get it.You’re only a girl.’

‘I say I can get it and I’ll wager fifty pounds.’ ‘Two hundred and fifty says you can’t.’

‘I bloody bloody can, Lewis Aldridge.’

She was excited and laughing, and pulled off her dress. She had her slip under it and walked straight into the water. She screamed a bit, but didn’t really feel the cold at all, it just seemed so lovely and strange to have the water creep up her body. She held her arms out and walked deeper and deeper, and forgot to swim until she had to and then the swimming felt very light and easy. She remembered the rudder and turned around in the water, fluttering her hands from side to side. She saw a dragonfly.

‘Where’s this wreck then?’

‘You know where it is.There.There.’

He stood up and pointed and she swam over to the place and tried to look down through the water, but put her face in it by mistake.

‘You won’t get it,’ he said and laughed at her with her wet hair.

‘You just watch me,’ she said and dived.

He saw the see-through cream silk of her back and the bottom of her slip and her white feet flick up into the air and then ripples. He could see her white shape under the water, but he couldn’t see what she was doing. He thought that it felt like

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he was alone when she was under the water even though she was so near. He looked around at the wood and the white sky. The wood was very quiet; it felt very quiet. He saw the dragon- fly.Then she was up and shaking hair out of her eyes.

‘You’re right. It’s silted up,’ she said and she was quite deter- mined.

She went down again. Lewis waited, smiling, but his smile going. He was hot. He felt something on his arm and he looked down. It was a splash of water. The brown skin was browner where the water was. It was rain. He looked up.The sky was still pale and very thick and you couldn’t tell how high it was. He looked back to the water for his mother. An internal clock told him she should come back up now. She hadn’t, but he could see the water moving. He wondered how long had gone by since he had thought it was time she should come up. He wondered if he had thought that she should come up at the time she should come up, or just after. He wondered if maybe he had been thinking about the rain longer than he thought. He walked forward into the water a little way. He thought perhaps the time wasn’t as long as it felt. Or perhaps it was longer. Two more fat raindrops fell on his arm and he heard thunder.

‘Mummy,’ he said and didn’t know he was going to say it.

He could still see her white shape and her legs moving, but only very vaguely; the water was brown and shining, and deeper in it was churned up and he couldn’t see anything very clearly. He walked in further. He thought, she’s not coming up, and knew he had to get her. He started towards the place and seemed to be going very slowly. He forgot to swim at first because he was just thinking about getting to her and then he swam the short distance very quickly. He thought she was about

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to come up and she’d laugh at him – but that was the last thought he had before fear came over him.

He couldn’t feel his body and his breath was very quick, but he didn’t know that it was. He dived down, without thinking and without taking a proper breath, and he couldn’t see anything because of the bubbles and had to come up again. He took a big breath this time, but his heart was going so fast it didn’t last like it normally did and he had no idea what to do, so he just swam down and stared through the water and he saw her. Her head was sideways and she opened her mouth and he thought she was trying to say something, but he didn’t know why she would do that. He couldn’t see properly because of the bottom being churned up. He had sand in his eyes. He looked again and it looked like she was lying there on her side like a mermaid relaxing and he couldn’t understand what he was seeing. His breath ran out and he surfaced. He should have waited, but he took another breath and went down again.

The water was dirtier and he couldn’t see and he just pulled at her, he didn’t know where, at her slip or her arm, and made no impression at all. Then he knew what it was, and why she was lying sideways like a mermaid – her leg was stuck under the boat. He started to shove against the boat, but that was hopeless and he’d run out of breath again. He came up and his head felt very light and strange. He had a moment of clarity and of strength and purpose. He thought, I have to get down there and hold her around the middle and push my legs against the boat. He dived down straight for her this time, not looking, but going for her so that his head hit the side of the boat. He didn’t feel his head hit the boat and he got both arms around her. He pulled and she moved, and he felt a jolt of joy and pushed off from the bottom, but then she moved suddenly too,