By Any Other Name (22 page)

W
hoever invented the concept of exams should have medieval torture techniques practised on them for the rest of eternity.

I google medieval torture techniques to choose one, and then change my mind.

‘Oh my God, that is so sick!’

Joe looks up from frowning at his maths textbook. ‘What is?’

‘I just googled medieval torture. I can’t believe people did that stuff to each other. What is wrong with humanity? Why? Just why?’

It reminds me of what they did to Katya. No reason for it but to make another human being suffer. Sick and evil.

He grabs the laptop from me. ‘Urgh! OK, that’s just wrong in the wrongest way possible. Hit close!’

I don’t have his concentration span for revision today. It’s exactly fifteen weeks to the beginning of the trial and that fact keeps going round and round in my head. I catch my
heart starting to beat faster without my permission, and adrenalin surging through me in response, and the panic trying to build already. And I can’t let it. I have to hold it together.

Today is no different to yesterday or tomorrow, I tell myself. It’s just a date. It doesn’t mean anything and flapping about it now isn’t going to help.

Joe watches me steadily. ‘What’s up?’

‘Noth–’

‘And don’t say nothing.’

I laugh despite the little panic flutters in my stomach. ‘OK, something then, but I’m not allowed to say what.’

He comes and flops next to me, leaning on one elbow. ‘You’re worried.’

‘Yes.’

‘But not about the exams.’

‘No. Well, yes, but no.’

He chuckles. ‘Very articulate, but I get you. Is it something you should be worried about? As in really worried because it’s something bad.’

I nod slowly. ‘It’s . . . pretty frightening.’

‘Is it something you can get out of
 
?’

I think of Katya the last time I saw her. ‘No.’

He looks at me for a moment longer and then pulls me into an unexpected hug. ‘I wish you could tell me because I can’t help otherwise.’

I’m startled into immobility. I don’t hug him back, I just let him keep hugging me for a second longer. And another second.

He smells good. Not of overpowering deodorant or aftershave like some boys, but a natural skin smell that’s spicy and has a kick like ginger. I breathe him in like a natural high.

But then I pull away because that’s too, too weird. I’m sniffing Joe. That’s so not right.

‘Thanks,’ I say and he’s looking at me as if he’s puzzled too. I wonder for a moment if he was breathing me in too, but that’s even freakier so I smile vaguely and
pick up my book again.

I feel him watch me for a little while longer, then he scoots off on to the floor to get on with his work.

I manage to hold my concentration just long enough for him to get lost in what he’s working on again, then I can’t keep my mind from drifting back to Katya. I keep seeing her face
that last time, as she lay there, so pale and still, so many tubes . . .

She was so gentle. But you can be as good as you like in this world – it doesn’t stop the bad things happening to you. They come for you anyway.

After Katie pointed out the white car passing the cottage, I looked for it whenever I passed a window or we were playing around outside. But for the next few days there was no
sign of it and I thought it must be someone who’d been renting a nearby cottage and had gone home again.

I called for Katya to go swimming one morning and we picked our way down the cliff path to the cove together. ‘Where’s my little namesake?’ she said.

‘In bed, still asleep. She had a difficult night. It happens sometimes.’

‘Is that part of her condition?’ Katya asked hesitantly. ‘Your mother told us that she has a medical problem . . . I am sorry, I cannot remember the name.’

‘Autism, and yes, it is. Or it seems to be. Some of her friends with autism have sleep problems too.’

Katya touched my arm. ‘It sounds very confusing for her. And she is such a sweet child.’

We arrived on the beach and began pulling off hoodies and jeans. ‘She is. She’s a poppet, but it must be horrible for her. Sometimes I wish I knew what it felt like to be inside her
head, and then other times I’m so glad I don’t.’

Katya nodded. I didn’t know what it was about her, but she oozed this air of quiet, calm compassion.

We slipped into the sea, gasping at the cold at first, though that was me more than her. She pointed to a rock ahead and looked at me questioningly. I nodded and we swam out together towards it.
Not a race, just a focus for some exercise. As we swam I wondered if Katya was popular at school. Her quiet manner could mean she was overlooked. Or dismissed as boring.

I thought of her painting. No, there was nothing boring about Katya. The surface waters might be still but currents ran beneath.

She touched the rock before I did, swimming with grace and ease, and she waited for me to catch up so we could swim back together. There was no splashing each other and playing in the water when
we reached the shore again. I couldn’t imagine Katya doing anything like that. Instead we floated for a while and then I suggested swimming out parallel to the shore to a cave just out of
sight around the bay. The sea was quiet today so there should be no danger from the rocks.

We set out and again she reached the cave before me. I had to shout to her or she would have passed it because it was hidden from view by a rocky outcrop. When the tide was out, you could walk
around to the cave on a narrow strip of sand that edged round the bay and out to the outer coastline, but as the tide was in we swam straight into the cave itself and hauled ourselves out of the
water to sit on a large flat rock.

‘This is like being a mermaid,’ Katya said, gazing around, entranced. ‘So beautiful.’ She turned the smile on me. ‘Thank you so much, Lou, for showing me this
place.’

I smiled back. ‘Mum showed me it when I was Katie’s age. She used to come here on holiday when she was small. It was her parents’ cottage. Dad bought it from them as an
anniversary present for her one year.’

‘That is an amazing present! I hope I’ll be lucky and find a husband thoughtful enough to buy me a present like that.’

I noticed she didn’t say rich enough. Her dad was probably rich enough to buy the whole of Treliske on a whim.

‘Do you think your dad will manage to get down here or is he still tied up at work?’

Her face clouded and I wished I hadn’t asked. ‘No, I think he is still very busy.’

Well, that killed the conversation. I didn’t know what to say to her and we stared at the sea for what seemed like ages before she spoke again.

‘Papa is often very busy. He has business interests all over the world.’ She shrugged. ‘I don’t really understand it. He does not talk about his work much except that it
is very stressful and sometimes difficult.’ She shook her head and changed the subject. ‘You live in Muswell Hill, yes?’

‘Yes.’

‘I thought it might be nice if we kept in touch once we go home?’ She played with the strap on her swimming costume as she spoke, flicking it nervously against her shoulder.

I smiled as wide as I could. ‘I’d like that. You’re right – it would be very nice.’

I was rewarded by a relieved smile in return. ‘Oh, I am so pleased you think so too!’

There was another awkward silence when we just smiled at each other, probably looking quite foolish. But at that moment I guess we bonded.

I realised I envied Katya her calm composure, that inner stillness she carried with her, even when she seemed worried. I wasn’t quite sure how to describe that envy . . . except . . . I
looked up to her, I supposed.

I
recognise Joe’s knock now, so when it sounds at half four in the afternoon, I go to open the front door totally puzzled. ‘Why
aren’t you milking?’

It’s the first Tuesday afternoon of the Easter break. He’s excused farm work for most of the day to revise, but he still has to be there for milking. In fact he only left here a
couple of hours ago, after revising all morning and staying for a toasted sandwich for lunch.

‘I got another text from Matt.’ He’s grinning from ear to ear. ‘They’re letting him come home for the whole of the Easter weekend.’

‘That’s brilliant!’ I hug him briefly and there’s that strange buzz of excitement again as I do.

‘We can collect him on Thursday afternoon and he doesn’t have to be back until Tuesday morning – he’s off to rehab then. Oh, but I can’t come round tonight because
I’ve got to help Dad move Matt’s bed downstairs into the dining room after milking.’ Joe can’t stop grinning. He looks so happy he could lift off into orbit. ‘I had to
come and tell someone to make it feel real. Gotta go now.’

He jogs off to the corner, then he stops and waves, before running back to the farm.

I go back inside laughing. I’m so happy for him that his brother’s coming home. I couldn’t not be happy seeing his face all lit up like that. I’ve never seen him look so
. . . joyous.

I watch TV with Katie for half an hour and then go to help Mum cook while Katie plays with her dolls. Dad’s due back from seeing a client at half five and we’re sitting down to
dinner as a family.

‘How’s the revision going?’ Mum asks while I wash salad.

‘Oh, OK. It’s better having someone to work with. Not as boring, plus Joe helps me out if I get stuck.’

‘He’s clever then?’

‘He is at maths and English. I’m a bit better than him at French, but probably only because we’ve been on holiday so often. He was going to come around later, but he’s
got to help his dad with something at home now.’

Mum opens the fridge and roots around at the back for the crème fraîche. ‘I’m glad you’ve made a friend. I know it hasn’t been easy for you and he seems
nice.’

‘He is.’

Mum looks at me. ‘Terrible hair though, darling. Can’t you persuade him to cut it?’

‘Mum! That’s Emo hair. It’s part of his identity.’ I grin at her.

‘And I’ve always felt someone should tell those boys that silly skinny jeans do absolutely nothing for them. But that’s what girlfriends are for. To sort out their fashion
mistakes.’

‘We’re not going out. We’re just friends.’

‘Oh.’ She smiles vaguely. ‘Of course. I didn’t mean to imply you were.’

I eyeball her so she knows I know she’s not got away with it.

I check my Facebook page before I start revising again and there’s a message from Tasha, full of gossip from home. Strangely I feel less interested in what the others are
doing than I thought I’d be. I mean, it’s still nice to know, but it’s as if part of me has really accepted now that I’m never going back and it matters less than it did
before. Tasha never fails to make me laugh though. She is just one mad ball of energy. It’s like she’s sitting on my bed beside me, waving her skinny arms about, her short, choppy,
elfin hair sticking out around her head like a jagged blonde halo while she chatters her message.

And I do miss
her
like I’ve been freshly wrenched away all over again.

I could message her back, but I need someone solid here now so I pick up my phone and text Joe to ask if he’s still busy or could he come round.

He shows up about fifteen minutes later, peeking round my bedroom door after Mum lets him in.

‘What’s up?’

‘Why should anything be up?’ I know I’m being perverse because he’s right, something is up, but I feel stupid admitting it.

‘You sounded fed up on the phone.’

‘
Pfff
, how can you sound fed up in a text?’

He comes in and sits on the bed. ‘You can and you did. So what’s up?’

I sigh and flop on to my back. ‘I’m just being dumb.’

‘Yes, you are but what’s up?’

I slap out at him, laughing. ‘How do you know I’m being dumb when you don’t know what’s wrong?’

He shrugs, completely poker-faced. ‘It’s not like your tractor’s broken down beyond repair or –’

‘I don’t have a tractor!’

‘Exactly! So it’s not a catastrophe, is it?’

And suddenly I can’t stop laughing. ‘OK,’ I splutter when I can speak again, ‘my tractor didn’t die and my cows didn’t escape so it’s not the end of the
world as we know it.’

‘That’s better,’ he agrees. ‘So what is up?’

It’s hard to explain without telling him I’ve contacted someone from home, and then how it all has to be secret, so how do I tell him what’s bothering me without including any
of that? ‘I just got fed up and missed home and my old friends,’ I say in the end. ‘So I wanted to see my new one.’

To my surprise, he flushes scarlet. I think he knows it too because he gets up and looks out of the window for a few moments before coming and sitting down again. ‘Thought I heard
something weird.’

But he doesn’t say what and I don’t ask as he’s still red. I know there was nothing there. It’s OK. It freaks me out too, this whatever it is between me and him. Like
with Katya, there’s some kind of bond there that makes no sense. We’ve nothing in common. He’s a sometimes morose Emo with an oddball sense of humour, living in Hicksville on a
farm with a family obsessed with looking after cows. I’m . . . or I was . . . a city girl and my idea of style is definitely not dyeing my hair black (although I think his is natural, not
dyed) and flopping it over my face and wearing too-tight clothes in different shades of miserable.