By Any Other Name (26 page)

I
throw myself into revision like never before. Joe and I spend most of our free time with each other, but it’s all work. Katie’s
fretful because we’re not doing anything together and Dad’s trying to take her out of the house as much as possible, but he doesn’t have much time either. I feel like I’m
sleeping twice my normal amount, though my nightmares are worse. I’m perpetually tired and I’ve always got a slight headache lingering behind my eyes.

Katie wakes me up one morning by crawling into bed with me.

‘S’up, Pops?’ I mumble as I wrap my arms round her.

She snuggles against me. ‘I dreamed about the white car,’ she whispers into my shoulder.

I’m instantly awake at her words and my skin prickles with fear. I can smell the Cornish summer afternoon even though I’m tucked up here in bed, and in my mind’s eye I can see
the white car with the spoiler cruising down the lane.

‘Boo-Boo, car!’ Katie rushed to me and pointed. And yes, there was the car. It was back again. I squinted my eyes to see if it was the same driver – a young
man with close-cropped hair.

And it was. Why did he keep driving up and down our lane?

Katya waved to me. I waved back. I hadn’t noticed her there in the garden before. Her easel was out and she was painting. I wandered over to take a look – it was a picture of a child
fishing from a boat on a still, still ocean. I wondered what it meant. I guessed she wasn’t just painting a nice picture.

‘Is that how you feel?’

She smiled her serene smile. ‘Yes, it is today.’

‘That looks like it’s a better way to feel than last time.’

‘I think so.’

She touched some paint on to the water to show the reflection of the sunlight glinting off the ocean. I looked more closely at the child. It was a small girl with two black pigtails.

‘But why hasn’t my little friend come over to see me?’

‘Oh, she’s watching the road for that car.’

‘What car?’

‘There’s a white one that keeps driving past here a lot. Katie’s just seen it again. She notices things like that, things you and I wouldn’t.’

‘No, I haven’t noticed it.’ She put her brush down and I thought her eyes began to look worried.

‘I know, it’s a bit weird.’ I laughed. ‘Or maybe what’s more weird is that Katie has me looking out for the stupid car now too.’

I open my eyes and hold Katie tight, as if doing that now can stop what happened next. As if it can save Katya. And us.

She squeaks in protest but I don’t let her go for a long time.

I
don’t know how, but suddenly it’s our last day at school before the exams start. Apparently they always ship the whole of Year 11 off
to a theme park on this day. Dad went a bit mental when I told him and went off into another of his rants about state education, but Mum rolled her eyes and gave me the cheque for thirty pounds and
signed my permission slip.

Joe says it’s a bribe so we don’t trash the school with graffiti and eggs and flour. He laughed when he saw my expression. ‘Yeah, well, some people would.’

It isn’t even a good theme park we’re going to, like Alton Towers. It’s some rubbish place I’ve never heard of and it’s going to take nearly two hours to get there.
We’re not going to get that much time on the rides and everyone on the coach is complaining about that. Joe and I are sitting near the back sharing an earphone each from my iPod.

‘Have you got any decent music on here?’ Joe whines for about the tenth time, and we’ve not even got to the motorway yet.

‘Beyoncé is decent. Shut up. I’m not listening to depressed people wailing this early in the morning. We can have your stuff on the way home. That was the deal.’

‘This is causing me physical pain. It’s like torture. Actually you could use this against the Taliban. They’d quit Afghanistan in minutes if you blasted this out in the
mountains.’

‘I’m sure they’d rather have Beyoncé than your Emo rubbish.’

‘Nah, because she’d have to wear a burka, wouldn’t she? And Beyoncé in a burka is a waste.’

I poke my tongue out at him and look out of the window, ignoring his chuckle.

When we arrive at the park, the teachers dismiss us with the instruction to be back by three for the buses or be left behind. Nobody listens – they’re not allowed to leave us behind
so there’s really no point in saying that. Joe and I break off from the main group straight away. There are lots of other schools here, all milling around and shouting in loud, confident,
streetwise voices.

I hear accents from home and they make me smile. Not in a homesick way, but it’s good to hear them even so. Just listening feels a bit like putting on a warm coat on a cold day.

Joe and I go into a café to get breakfast – his second as he’s been up since five with the milking. I never eat before a coach journey otherwise I feel sick so I’m
starving now. I get two coffees and ham and cheese croissants. They’re ridiculously overpriced, but Dad relented last night and handed me a wodge of spending money for junk food and
fairground tat.

As I start eating my croissant, a terrible thought strikes me. I pause, with my croissant halfway to my mouth.

‘What’s up?’ Joe asks.

It’s ridiculous. There won’t be anyone here I know. London is vast and you can go into the city day after day after day and never see a single face you recognise. My old school
won’t be here for sure because they don’t do this kind of thing – and if they did, they wouldn’t bring us to this place. But now I’ve thought it I can’t stop
that whisper of panic in my ear: what if someone here recognises me?

‘Holly, what’s up?’

‘It’s stupid.’

He gives me that look. The ‘we’ve been through this before, now tell me anyway’ look.

‘Oh, OK, but I did tell you it’s dumb. I just crazily, madly thought that I could bump into someone who knew me from where I used to live.’

He looks at me steadily. ‘And would that be so very bad?’

‘It’s not going to happen. It’s just a stupid thought.’

He reaches across the table and takes hold of my hand. His is warm from the coffee mug. The contact of his fingers, the pressure of his palm, they make my breath catch in my throat.

They say in books when a boy touches you it feels like electricity. It doesn’t. It feels like every cell in your skin is more alive. You’re aware of your hand in a way you’ve
never been. It’s not just in your skin either, but deeper, through the tissues, into your very bones.

At least that’s how it is when Joe holds my hand. It’s never been that way before.

I can’t speak. I can only sit and stare back. That stupid thing in books about drowning in someone’s eyes – I think I understand what that means right now.

It feels frightening and wonderful and addictive all at once. I don’t want him to let go and I don’t want to tear my eyes away. I want it to go on forever. I don’t want more
because this feels like too much already. I’m afraid of how incredible it feels right now, how connected with him I am. Right now,
this
is exactly what I want. And right now, all my
other worries dissolve.

Too, too soon, he lets go of my hand and looks out of the window. I think his cheeks are pink, but I can’t be sure in the dim light. ‘Want to check out the rides?’ he says. I
get up because the moment is broken and there’s nothing more to say now.

We walk around and find some waltzers, but there isn’t anyone to spin us around like at the fair. Joe does quite a good job on his own though, throwing himself around to make the car
whirl. I don’t scream. But then I don’t any more.

After that we try a roller coaster, which is OK but nothing amazing, and then we go on a log flume where Joe attempts to souse me in water whenever we get to the slow parts. I get my own back on
the last turn before the big drop, scooping up enough water to soak his hair.

‘I want a smoke,’ he says when we get off. ‘Down there – avoid the teachers.’ He points to a bank covered in thick rhododendrons and we weave through a narrow path
to the centre. We sit there while he lights up.

‘Are you ever going to tell me about what gives you those nightmares?’ he asks, looking at me all serious-eyed, and I so wish I could tell him. I do wish a lot that I could tell
someone but most of all I’d like to be able to tell him because . . .

. . . because I know he’d understand.

‘I’m not supposed to tell anyone.’

‘Why?’

‘Because it could be dangerous if I did.’ I said could, not would. The police would have said it the other way round.

‘How could it be dangerous if I never told anybody?’

And how can I not believe eyes that serious? ‘I don’t know.’

‘Then it’s not dangerous to tell me. Unless you don’t trust me.’

But I do trust him. And I know I’m about to break the biggest rule the police gave me. And for what? Some bond between us that I can’t even explain. Just because it feels
right
.

‘I saw something happen to someone.’

His eyes widen as he realises I’m actually going to talk. But I’ll only tell him about Katya, not about the forest. Not yet, not out here in the sunshine. I’ll only be able to
share that one in a place where I feel safe and snug.

‘I was on holiday and I saw something bad happen to the girl who was in the cottage next door, and after that my life went crazy. You could say my life ended.’

He puts the cigarette out and turns to face me properly, skewing round on the bank, and he moves closer. ‘Go on.’

I tell him a little bit about Katya and how Katie liked her, and how mysterious she was about her dad and other parts of her life. And I tell him about the white car and he stiffens as if
he’s sensing what’s coming without really knowing what it is.

And then I tell him about what happened the night they came for Katya, and I feel myself go cold despite the sun.

‘T
he day after we saw the car come back, there was a quiz at the pub in a village about eight miles away. My mum and dad persuaded
Katya’s mum to go along with them. Mum told her it was a British cultural experience that she had to try out and practically dragged her with them. You could tell she wasn’t happy about
leaving Katya and she was trying to talk her into going round to ours and spending the night there, but Katya was painting and said she wanted to finish what she was working on. She told her mum
she’d stay in my place until the quiz was over, but she didn’t. After dinner, she went back home. She said the desire to finish the painting was like a burning inside and it got so bad
it actually hurt her not to do it. I had to stay at mine to look after Katie of course and I’d just put on
The Lion King
DVD so there was totally no way she would have moved.
She’s watched that at least a hundred times but it’s her favourite film ever.’

Joe nods at me and I go on.

‘Katya told me the painting was about her dad and painting it made her feel as if he was there with her, and I understood. Her eyes were like the definition of sadness again and I guess
painting that picture was the only way she could escape the pain of missing him. What I didn’t know at the time was how scared she was for him. I only found that out later. It turned out
she’d have been better off being scared for herself.’