Falling For You (27 page)

I stiffen, willing myself to be quiet, not move a muscle, not even take a breath, and I can’t hear a single thing. Nothing at all. There is no one coming up here to find you, Lawrence. It was crazy even to think it, I know. As I go to dig in the log pile for some more bits of wood we can use later, I take my phone out of my pocket, on the alert for it to ring. When it goes off, it’s going to sound very loud up here, I think. In the silence the sudden noise will rip through me. I set the ring tone to buzz. Even the noise of the buzzer can sometimes be too much. It shimmers in my hand like a tazer without the pain but my brain fills in all the gaps.

I clench my jaw.

I’ve got to think of Sunny, the reason why I’m here. Remember how important this mission is for him. Remember what impact this sacrifice is going to make on the rest of his life and
you’re the only one who can do it, Lawrence. The only guy who can make it happen for him
. You will, too. As long as you don’t get caught before you can sort it all. You’ve got to breathe. Deeply, and evenly. Don’t let yourself remember anything that you don’t want to remember and everything will go according to plan.

So I think of Sunny, waiting for me to make it all right like I promised. In Jaffna the rains will still be torrenting down. At night it’ll be hot, the mosquitoes, big as houses, will be circling round the net and he won’t dare put his foot out from under it. I let myself remember the heat, the uncomfortable itchiness of sweat on my skin because I was so hot and nothing could alleviate that, but nothing ever really bothered me out there. I knew I was safe, I suppose that was it. I didn’t feel like I feel here. Raw, turned inside out, as if I am waiting for the axe to fall even though we are alone up here, Rose and I.

No one to harm us.

I look around me warily. No. There is no one else up here. Except - I know that sometimes the worst blows come when you are least expecting them. Just when you think you might at last be home free and things might be about to go your way; they come when you let your guard down …

‘No sign of him yet?’

‘No sign of who?’ It’s Sunday, my one day off in the week and I’ve been out searching the lanes, putting up posters. Kahn’s been missing for five days now. He’s a huge dog. If some motorist had hit him there’s no way they would have missed it. There’s been no sign of any injured animals taken into the vets, I phoned them days ago, left them my number.  I stop as I come in through the kitchen door, take in properly what my Dad’s just asked me.

‘Who are you talking about?’

‘Your Kahn, of course.’ He used his name. As if he’d concern himself with anything so trivial as my dog going missing. The significance of him asking me this trickles through to my brain. He hates Kahn. He only tolerates him because he likes having animals everyone else is scared of, on the property.    

‘No sign.’ I mutter, pulling my muddied Wellington boots off, affecting nonchalance, but the feeling of unease that’s been growing all morning, the fear that something bad has happened to my friend, it won’t go away.

‘I can help you look, if you like.’

The band of iron that’s been forming around my chest pulls a little tighter. My father said something similar when I was on my way out to work two days ago I recall now. But I was late, I didn’t have time to take it on board, the fact that he was offering. I dismissed him at once, didn’t want his help anyway. I missed the important bit which was that Rob Macrae doesn’t offer to help his family out in domestic matters. He’s not that kind of man.

What’s his game?

‘Look where?’ I watch his eyes uneasily. ‘I’ve already looked everywhere.’

‘Not everywhere,’ he puts to me reasonably. ‘Since you haven’t found him yet.’ He knows something. Fuck. A sorrow and a rage
are
suddenly surging inside me like the swell of some deep underground river, threatening any moment now to break its banks.

No. Not my Kahn. My only friend in the world.

‘What have you done with him?’ I say slowly. My father looks deeply injured at the suggestion.

‘If that’s your tack son, let’s just forget it.’ I swallow, battening down my pride because my father knows where Kahn is, I’d swear it.

‘No. I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have said that.’ I think my voice is going to crack but I say the next words anyway. ‘I want - your help.’

‘I offered you my help Wednesday, as I recall.’

‘Yes. I’m sorry. I had to work. I thought he’d come back of his own accord.’

‘He didn’t though, did he?’ he says in a strange voice.’ I saw Summerson in Maidstone yesterday,’
h
e brings up now. My boss at the kennels? I shift uncomfortably in my chair.

‘And?’

‘And he’s got to let you go, he says.’

My eyes widen. Summerson never said anything about that to me.

‘Why would he do that? He told me I’m the best employee he ever had.’

‘Mebbe because he believes you should be putting those skills to use in your father’s employ?’  Fuck.

 Is that what this was really all about? My defying him and taking my labour elsewhere for the summer? Is that why Kahn has gone missing all of a sudden?       

‘I’ll work for you,’ I say slowly. ‘I just need you to … help me find him.’ The words rankle more than I’d ever care to admit.

‘That’s more like it.’ My father turns to look at me and in an instant the reasonable face he’s been wearing all week is replaced by a nasty smile of triumph.

‘Thought you’d see reason. I need you here. You should have asked me earlier, son.’ As he picks up his coat and car keys, motioning for me to put my boots back on quickly, he adds, his eyes narrowing significantly;  ‘I’m good at getting things back, see.’ 

When I look out over the battlements now, I see that the lights in my father’s study are all turned off, but his car is still there on the drive. I remember the reason why it is I don’t let my guard down too often.

Even so, when the sharp, icy blow comes to the back of my head it is shockingly painful. More so because I wasn’t expecting it. I didn’t hear it coming.

I didn’t suspect a thing.

 Okay I’m an idiot and I shouldn’t have made Lawrence come out here to wait for me. It’s got to be pushing minus four. Now that I’m out here again it’s so deathly quiet I can see why he’d think I was making a fuss over nothing. Round the corner - well out of sight of him - I wriggle my jogging bottoms down. As I wait for nature to take its course I go over this crazy situation again in my mind.

I only met Lawrence a bare twenty-four hours ago. Yesterday was Christmas day and we have known each other for ONE day that is all. That alone seems impossible; how can so much have happened in such a short space of time? How can I have developed such strong feelings towards someone who I barely even know? And I don’t know him. He was at pains to point that out, earlier. He as good as warned me off him, didn’t he? My stomach feels queasy with the emotions churning inside of me every time I think of what he said; and worse, what he left unsaid.

Oh Lawrence, what have you done? Why are you really up here?

I’ve seen the way you look at me,
he said.
You don’t want to know about me. I’m not the person you think I am.
His words have been going round and round in my head since then, trapped like a shoal of silver fish in a trawler’s net with nowhere to go because after he said all that, after he hinted that, whatever it was he’d done, it would matter to me - ‘a girl like you would care’ - he refused to say any more. I got the impression he regretted saying even as much as he did. But what is it I’d care so much about if only I knew it? How could he be so cruel as to leave so much to my imagination? It isn’t fair. I feel torn apart with it. Madly, stupidly, because this is all too quick to be feeling such strong emotions towards someone, I know it. I just can’t help it, that’s all. I’ve never before in my life felt anything like what I feel towards this man.

And he doesn’t want me to feel it. He doesn’t, he says. But then he looks at me with such tenderness, with such attentive loving care. He held the ends of my fingers before and just that one small touch sent a spark of electricity up through my arm, it was a feeling so strong I thought it would set light to my whole body. That’s how out of control it is. He cares about me, I know he does, though he tries to hide it. Even if it’s just a tiny bit, nothing like the extent of what I’m feeling for him I’m sure, but he does care.

I have proof. He confided in me about what happened to him up here didn’t he? Even though he was so reluctant to go there. He still told me. That means, even to some small degree, he must trust me. He must want me to know these things about him, to learn about where he’s come from. He wants to let me in.

I believe what he told me about Sunny, too. If he were lying about that I’d know it, I’d see it in his eyes. But I see it’s the truth every time he talks about the boy; how much he cares. So; he’s come back here because he wants to help out Sunny. I know that much. I don’t think he’s actually told me any lies. He’s just
left out
a whole load of stuff.

He didn’t much like the news that the local police had been warning people off approaching strangers, did he? That doesn’t inevitably mean he’s the guy they’re after. There could be a very good explanation for his reaction. He might just feel that we two would be vulnerable, stuck up here on our own, if this violent guy came sniffing around. Lawrence could just have been concerned about our welfare.

It’s not as if we haven’t got enough to worry about up here. Lack of food, for one. I’m starving. Lawrence has suggested that - to eke rations out - we should only have two meals a day. We’ll have some more crackers and tuna and a cup of soup this evening. Ha - maybe that’s what the queasy feeling in my stomach is all about and it’s not the pangs of unrequited love and the worry over Lawrence that I’m taking it to be? And I’m not even letting myself
think
about how Dad’s getting on.

I’m done here. Thank God for the miniature tissues in my coat pocket ... never thought I’d ever be so happy to find some of those!

I pull my jogging bottoms up, put my gloves back on and pray that it’s not going to take too long to find some of those smaller pieces of wood to burn. I hope he doesn’t say I told you so when he sees me now. He was right about there not being anyone else up here but he could have been wrong. I bet he’d have had a big surprise if he had heard something while he was waiting for me. That Dead Men’s Copse isn’t so far away, and I know there’s a bit of a stir every so often when some fool decides to go and hang themselves from one of the trees up there. They’re supposed to come haunting up here. That’s what people say, anyway. So he shouldn’t poke fun, even if I was being a bit edgy, earlier.

Lawrence
needs teaching a lesson, really.

I grin to myself, stooping to pick up a mound of soft, fresh snow and forming it into a large snowball in my hands as I make my way back to the courtyard. I’ll get him back for making out I was imagining ‘spooks and ghoulies’. He looks ridiculous, too. I lent him my hat earlier, and it’s not as if you can take anyone that seriously when they’re wearing a girlie pink beanie hat with long plaited earmuffs, I think wickedly. When I offered it to him - because my coat has a hood and his one doesn’t - he put it on quite unselfconsciously and I had to stifle a laugh. Admittedly, it also made him look cute. Like a little Dutch girl. Only a six-foot-something gorgeous male version of a little Dutch girl.

I round the corner, snowball in hand and I see that while he’s been waiting for me he’s been busy. There are three perfect-sized logs waiting on the side to be taken in. He doesn’t see me. He’s standing there right now completely wrapped in thought. What are you thinking so hard about, Lawrence? Could it be me?

He doesn’t even hear me coming. I slow my steps down, realising that I have the advantage of him. Some fine look-out you turned out to be! I raise the snowball, aim it directly towards the back of his head. Spooks and
g
houlies, eh, Lawrence?

I’ll show you.

‘
Argh
!’

Oh. Shit.

For a good minute, he doesn’t even move. I heard him gasp and then … he’s just standing there, looking at me as if seeing me in a tota
l
ly new light. I’ve got his attention now, all right.

‘You just surprised the hell out of me there, Rose. I had no idea you were such a good aim.’

‘That was a mistake,’ I begin, but there’s no mistaking the look on his face which has shifted rapidly from shock to something akin to
two can play at that game
… and there is no going back now. He glances warningly at the glistening snow at his feet. It seems I may have just declared open war.

‘And mistakes … must be paid for, no?’

Oh well, Here goes nothing. I aim a second shot before he can get one in himself, only this one is a little
too
well-aimed - just like the first.

The snow splatters onto his forehead and I watch in equal horror and mirth - it seems to take an age - as it slithers down his face, past the bridge of his nose and when the ice gets to his mouth at last, he puts out his tongue, tasting it.

‘Oh, Rose,’ he grins.

There’s nothing for it, is there? I swoop down for more ammunition and he abandons the log-gathering in a trice. He’s spotted the latest snowball I’ve made and he’s on me in an instant, wrestling it off me.

‘Hey - make your own!’ I protest, but he just laughs. ‘
Thief!
’   Right now he’s got my arms pinned in front of me, he’s pressing gently on my wrists to make me drop it but I won’t.
I won’t, but the sight of him standing there wearing my girlie hat cracks me up … 
I bend over double, laughing at him and that’s when he gets the advantage of me. The snowball drops to the floor, he yells out in triumph.

I don’t know why I even started this. I am going to get plastered. I am going to get soaked to the skin and with my jeans still wet the only thing I’ll have left to wear are my PJ bottoms but it is way, way too late for that.

He’s picked up the snowball I just dropped.

‘Do you yield?’ he says.

I’m not sure what yielding will mean. I get the feeling I am going to get clobbered with that snowball whatever I say. 

‘You win,’ I concede, wondering if I could wriggle past him, get away round the corner …

‘And thank you for not putting that snowball down my neck,’ I read the intention in his eyes as he moves in closer, grinning. I’ve got so cold now that my teeth are chattering and he takes pity, stops just short of doing it. 

‘I win?’He’s taken off my hat. His hair is covered in drops of snow, his cheeks and his nose are very red but he still,
damn it
, looks irresistibly gorgeous. I nod, slowly.
You win
. ‘You sure?’

‘I’m sure.’ He’s so close right now I can feel the heat of his breath on my face. He stands there for a moment looking at me in a way no boy has ever yet looked at me in my life and I get a sudden realisation; o
migod; it is going to happen, isn’t it?

He is going to kiss me.

Isn’t he?

‘Rose,’ he’s put his hand to my cheek now. I stop breathing, tilt my head back slightly waiting to feel his lips on mine, waiting for the moment to come while all the world fades to white, everything that mattered to me has ceased to matter, all the people and events from the past, present and future rolled into one all don’t matter anymore because there’s only one thing that matters right now and the miracle of it is, I know he’s feeling it too.

He’s smiling, now, so softly, gently, leaning his forehead closer in to mine.
I could stay here forever, I think, joyously. Just like this, so close to him.
God, he smells good. He feels warm. He knows he’s got me where he wants me, I can see it in his face. I can see it in the shimmer of laughter in his eyes, feel it in the slow movement of his hand up my back towards the nape of my neck but then, then … I sense - just one second too late - what’s coming next …

‘You … you complete and utter
sod!
’

His turn to shake with silent laughter now as I scoop the rapidly-melting ice away from the back of my neck. My surprise turns rapidly to disappointment.

‘You
absolute
…’ I have no words to aptly describe what I want to call him right now. Oh, God! Did he ever really mean to kiss me at all? He’s backing away, his face filled with delighted mischief. He knows I’m going to get him again and my aim is good!

Okay, touché, then. I asked for that, I know I did. But he hasn’t given up on getting his own back, yet. He’s already standing in front of me with a snowball in his hand that is somehow three times the size of my last one. I see his arm go back, taking aim. Not content with shoving my own snowball down my neck he’s going to clobber me with another one!

I shake my head, backing away.

‘Don’t,’ I warn, ‘Don’t!’

He stops, and I see him sucking in his lower lip. Does he accept that I’ve yielded or is he thinking of where to aim his next shot? I decide to strike first. I swoop down to gather up some more ice before he gets a chance to think. My aim is true, but this time he is ready. He ducks it and my snowball glances by the side of his head. There is clearly nothing else for it now but to run. Run where? I back away, laughing.