Never Ending (9 page)

“Something like that.”

“It’s tough, isn’t it, Talk?” When Shiv doesn’t reply, the young woman gestures at the chair where Lucy was sitting and says, “Shiv, it’s OK to laugh.”

“Yeah, I know.” Her counsellor told her something similar. “Your brother wouldn’t want you to be miserable for the rest of your life.”

“Loo break,” Sumner says, excusing herself. Maybe she’s just giving Shiv that
head space
. “Promise not to scrawl any rude words in the Write books.”

“I don’t know any rude words,” Shiv says. Sumner laughs.

Alone, Shiv picks up her exercise book. Blue, her name already printed on the front on a sticky label. The “b” and the “h” in Siobhan are the wrong way round. She sets the book back down.

It’s too warm in here. Too stuffy.

She goes to the window and jiggles it open to let in a wash of fresh air. Looking
out
of the window is a mistake. The lake. She should’ve anticipated that.

A figure near the lake snags her attention. A boy. Declan?

But she registers the yellow jumpsuit, the white dressing on his forehead. Mikey. He is standing by the fence, staring in the direction of the water, gripping the chain-link mesh as though trying to uproot the fence altogether.

They are in their circle again. Write is like Talk, only written down, and not to be shared. Just with Sumner, when she collects their books at the end.

As Sumner explains all this, Shiv’s attention drifts. The most disconcerting aspect of this room isn’t its oranges-and-lemons colour scheme but the faint echo of the young woman’s voice. Even though she’s stopped talking now and people have begun to write, the background murmur continues. It’s as though Sumner’s remarks have been taped then immediately played back at low volume.

Shiv shuts her eyes. Listens. Listens really hard.

“Shiv?”

“Sorry?” She opens her eyes.

“Are you all right?”

Assistant Sumner is standing up. Then Shiv realizes she is as well. The plastic water jug is in her hand; some of the contents have slopped onto the floor by her feet.

“Put the jug down, please.”

No, she won’t. Shiv swings her arm back, then forwards, flinging the jug at the window as hard as she can and sending an arc of water across the room. The jug narrowly misses Sumner and crashes against the windowsill before ricocheting away into a corner. Water streaks down the glass, dripping off the sill and onto the carpet in a dozen miniature waterfalls.

Silence. Everyone is staring at Shiv.

Sumner smiles her regular smile. One shoulder of her uniform is soaked. She flinched as the jug flew past but looks calm and collected again. Her eyes don’t leave Shiv’s. Her expression is one Shiv has observed before – in her counsellor, and other people; like they’re making notes about you without actually writing anything down.

“D’you need a time out?” She makes a “T” sign.

Shiv frowns. Her gaze settles on the jug and, for a moment, she can’t figure out how it came to be where it is. She starts to say something about the echoey voice but finds herself talking about Mikey instead. The lake. The fence.

Her words trail off. Sumner gives her time.

“I’m OK,” Shiv says, eventually. She sits down, as though to prove it. She picks up her pen, her blue exercise book. Turns to the first page. Writes.

“There you go,” Shiv says, sliding the book across the table to Sumner.

“Really, I’d like you to write a bit more th—”

“It’s all there. Go on, read it.”

Assistant Sumner looks at her for a moment then turns back the cover. Shiv has written:

I killed my brother
.

Kyritos

Nikos collected them in a battered blue Toyota pick-up, two windsurf boards in the back. Late, but nothing happened on time here. Mum and Dad were loading the car ahead of a kids-free trip to the island’s main town; Declan was repeatedly throwing the yellow tennis ball against the front wall of the villa. Shiv sat on the steps eating cornflakes. They heard the noise of the engine before the Toyota swung into view. Shiv set the cereal bowl down, suddenly unable to eat.

Nikos pulled up and killed the engine. “Hi.”

“Kalimera,”
Dad said.

Declan caught Shiv’s glance and rolled his eyes.

It had been Dad’s idea for Nikos to take Shiv and Declan windsurfing. At least, Nikos had made it seem like Dad’s idea. Just as Shiv suspected he had made it seem like he’d happened to bump into her brother in the minimart, en route to visit his grandmother. When Dec brought him down to the beach, Nikos stayed and chatted for a bit, addressing Mum or Dad and barely acknowledging Shiv.

Somehow, it had cropped up in conversation that he was going windsurfing the next day. “You could all come too, if you like. Free lessons.”

He’d made it sound like some crazy whim that he didn’t expect to be taken seriously. But Declan had jumped on it. “Can we? Please?” So Dad gestured at Shiv and Dec and suggested the
younger and more athletic half of the family
should go.

“If you’re sure you don’t mind, Nikos?”

Nikos didn’t mind at all. As he said his goodbyes, Shiv could’ve sworn he gave her the most fleeting of winks.

Nikos got out of the pick-up. Shook Dad’s hand. Mum fussed over them –
did they have their rucksacks?
(yes);
snacks and drinks?
(yes);
and did Shiv have her phone and was it fully charged and topped up with credit?
(yes, yes and yes) – and Dad failed to get Nikos to accept thirty euros towards their lessons.

“I always go windsurfing on my day off,” Nikos said. “It’s no big deal.”

Dad peeled off one of the tens and gave it to Shiv instead,
for ice creams
.

“Nikos, can you have them back by five?” Mum said. “Is that OK?”

It was OK by Nikos. And by Shiv.
Seven hours!
It was all she could do to keep a grin off her face as they slung their gear in the pick-up.

“Can I ride in the back?” Declan said.

Dad glared at him. “No, you bloody can’t.”

They’d unloaded the two boards and carried them down to the beach.

“Have either of you been surfing before?” Nikos said. “Actual surfing.”

They both said no.

“How about skateboarding or snowboarding?”

Declan said he’d done a bit of skateboarding; Shiv had tried snowboarding last year, at a dry-ski centre.
On a Year 9 trip
, she just stopped herself from saying.

Nikos was wearing a basketball vest again – green and gold stripes this time – and Shiv had to keep her gaze from straying to his bare arms and shoulders. “OK, forget everything you learned,” he said. “Surfing, skateboarding, snowboarding, it’s all about you and the board – about what you do with that board to control it, yeah?”

Shiv nodded, like this was exactly her experience of snowboarding; in fact, she’d had no control and spent most of her time falling off the board.

“This is different,” Nikos continued. “On one of these –” he gestured at the two sailboards lying beside them on the sand – “you’re not surfing, or boarding, you are
sailing
.” He looked at them in turn. “The wind moves the sail and the sail steers the board. Windsurfing isn’t about you and the board; it’s about you and the sail.”

“Don’t expect me to be any good,” Shiv said.

Nikos grinned, holding eye contact. “You’ll be fine.”

“Oh, no, she won’t,” Declan said. “She’s rubbish at anything like this.”

“Hey, show your sister some respect.”

“Actually, she’s not my real sister – Mum and Dad adopted her from a care home for kids who’ve been abandoned by their natural parents
because they’re
so humiliatingly crap at sport
.”

“Is he always this funny?” Nikos asked, laughing.

Dec looked pleased and embarrassed all at once.

Shiv had been worried that he’d cramp things, but she was more relaxed with him there, more able to be herself. It was nowhere near as intense as it would’ve been with just Nikos and her. If it wasn’t a
date
, she didn’t have to act like it was.

Nikos had brought them to a small bay at the top of the island, which he said was calmer and more sheltered than those on their stretch of coast – enough breeze to sail the boards, but not too tricky for a pair of beginners.

It seemed tricky enough to Shiv. But Nikos was patient and encouraging. To and fro he went between Shiv and Declan, wading or swimming to whichever of them needed help, or standing waist-deep in the sea, watching their efforts and calling out advice.

“Neutral position,” he kept reminding them, each time they had to remount.

“This is exhausting,” Shiv said, as Nikos helped her back on board for the fifth time in as many minutes. She’d long since lost all embarrassment at flapping around like a drunken seal while he manhandled her, or the sail, or both, out of the water.

Her brother, of course, was a natural. The only times he got dumped in the sea were when he tried to show off to Nikos.

After a bit, Shiv retreated to the beach for a breather. She’d hoped Nikos might take the hint and join her; but he stayed out on the water with Declan, mounting the other board and shadowing her brother in case he got into difficulty. Shiv watched them. They both looked so happy, so engrossed, she caught herself smiling too.

Nikos made windsurfing look easy.

He was the first to come in, hauling his sailboard clear of the waterline and flopping down beside Shiv on the beach mats. Water trickled from his skin in tiny rivulets as he lay on his back, hands behind his head, and made a show of regaining his breath. He was wearing swimming shorts, and nothing else. Shiv tried not to stare at the dark hairs in his armpits and the line of hair below his navel.

“That’s it, now,” Nikos said. “Your brother will sail all the way to Turkey.”

Shiv laughed. “I just
knew
he’d be better than me.”

He squinted up at her, raising a hand to shield his eyes from the sun. “With windsurfing you’re really competing with yourself, not anyone else.”

“That’s very philosophical,” Shiv said, teasing.

“I’m Greek,” Nikos said. “We
invented
philosophy.”

Shiv scattered a handful of sand across his belly, then immediately regretted something so immature, so obvious; but Nikos didn’t seem to mind.

“How come your English is so good?” she asked, to cover her awkwardness.

He’d grown up helping out with the boat trips, he explained, and picked up a lot of English from talking to the tourists. It was his best subject at school. “Now it’s my degree at uni,” he said. “In Thessaloníki.”

“What year are you in?”

“Second.”

That made him at least nineteen.
Jesus
.

“Usually, I don’t come home at Easter, but my big brother is getting married next week. So, really, you are incredibly lucky to have met me.”

“What did you say you’re studying? Advanced Arrogance?”

Nikos liked that. He sat up, brushed the sand from his stomach. “OK, you got me.” He pulled a mock-serious face. “I apologize for being arrogant.”

“You’re not arrogant. You were lovely to everyone on the boat.”

“But I’m not being lovely now?”

“Stop it,” she said, laughing along. She raked her fingertips through the sand. “Maybe you’re just nervous today.” Shiv shrugged. “I think we both are, a bit.”

She amazed herself, coming out with a line like that. She’d only had two boyfriends – both her own age, neither relationship lasting long. She was out of her league here. He simply nodded though; said she was probably right. And, just like that, they were talking about all sorts of things. Stuff she never knew she knew anything about. Nikos listened, asked questions. He paid her attention. Shiv’s breath burned in her chest and her mouth was dry, but she was being witty, bright – being the sort of girl, the sort of
young
woman
, she needed to be if she was going to hold the interest of a guy four years older than her.

She was keeping her balance a lot better than she’d done just now in the sea.

“How’s he doing?” Nikos said, shielding his eyes again to look for Dec.

“There.” Shiv pointed.

They watched Declan. It was impressive the way he stuck at it, even if he messed up. Falling off seemed like part of the fun for him. Her brother looked so slight out there, holding on to that boom, the sail straining against the breeze and dragging the board across the water at quite a clip.

“He’s a great kid,” Nikos said.

“Yeah. Yeah, he is.” Shiv smiled. “I hope you don’t mind being idolized.”

“That’s nice of you, Shiv. I think your brother quite likes me too.”

She let out a snort. “You really
are
arrogant, aren’t you?”

Somehow they were sitting a little closer. With her chin on her knees and arms clasped round her legs, Shiv was aware that her elbows were within nudging distance of his. She was glad she’d worn her one-piece, with its shorts-style bottom half, her shoulders and upper arms covered. She felt less exposed than she’d done on the boat, in her bikini.

She turned towards him. “You know when you bumped into Dec at the shop yesterday?” she said. “Did you sort of do that … deliberately?”

He smiled. “I called by your villa first. No one was in, but the car was outside, so I figured I’d head down to the local beach on the off-chance you’d be there.”

“Seriously?”

“I’d come to the villa the day before as well, actually – in the evening.” He shrugged. “But I chickened out.”

Shiv tried to keep her voice steady. “Am I so scary, then?”

“Not you. Your mother and father. I didn’t think they’d be so keen on some local guy hanging round their daughter. You know? And if I’d knocked on the door there’d have been the whole ‘How did you know where we were staying?’ thing, and I—”

“You didn’t want my parents to find out I was the type of girl who gave her address to some guy she’d only known for a few hours.”

“Yeah, I guess.”

“That’s quite sweet, actually,” Shiv said, after a moment. “I
think
.”