Skin Deep (15 page)

But I couldn’t. She was too young and it’d mess with her head. That was the last thing she needed.
Pity though because
. . . I imagined her little fingers curling at the back of my neck.
No, not going there
. She’d had enough shit to deal with without me and all mine. I wanted to see her again though, to hang out with her and talk because it’d been good talking to someone who didn’t judge me. Someone who thought I was all right. Me. Not the act, but
me
.

It had definitely been the weirdest night.

Light filtered through the bedroom window and I rolled over and hugged my pillow.
Sunday morning, no need to get up.

I smiled at the black canvas coat lying over the back of my dressing-table chair, remembering why it was there. That was a good reason to get up: I had to return it. But I lay still a little longer, recalling snippets from the night before. Ryan drying my face with his sleeve . . . hitting Ed . . . his arm round me . . . his grin . . . his bum on the bike on the way home, which really was gorgeous enough to strike me dumb.

I bounced up out of bed.

When I got downstairs, Mum had made breakfast and we sat around the kitchen table, eating.

‘They have chocolate spread at Toby’s house,’ Charlie whined as he spread honey on his toast.

Dad turned over a page in The Times and fought to fold it so it didn’t take over the table. ‘Isn’t Toby the lucky one!’

Charlie gave the honey jar a hard shove to send it sliding over the table to me.

Mum groaned. ‘Charlie, pass it nicely.’

‘What? She didn’t drop it.’

Mum let it go and Charlie crunched through his toast as if he was racing to finish.

‘Can I go on the PlayStation now?’ he asked, already sliding off the chair. He got two luxurious hours of PlayStation time on Sundays. Mum nodded, seeming not to notice that he ran off upstairs with half a slice of toast still in his hand.

‘Trumpet practice later though, don’t forget!’ she called after him belatedly as we heard his door bang shut.

I sipped coffee and munched toast, staring out of the kitchen window at the leaves turning red on the maple by the hedge. Was Ryan up yet or lying in? It was his day off. Perhaps he’d been up for hours making the most of it. Or maybe he was still tucked under the duvet, lolling the morning away because he could.

Eventually the silence around the table attracted my attention. Dad had put his paper down and he and Mum exchanged a significant glance.

‘Did you have a good time last night?’ Mum’s forced cheeriness set me immediately on edge.

‘Yes, great.’

‘Did you meet any new people?’

‘Some, yes. Beth’s new boyfriend was there.’

Dad’s eyebrows shot up. ‘Beth has a boyfriend?’

‘Yes, Dad. Beth has a boyfriend. We are both fourteen, you know. It’s not unheard of.’

Mum interrupted before he could answer. ‘Is he nice?’

‘Yes, he’s nice. Very nice.’

Dad set his jaw to his ‘cutting to the chase’ expression. ‘Where did you get that coat you came home in?’

‘I walked into town to get a burger because the food at the party was rubbish. It was cold so I borrowed a coat.’

‘Whose is it?’

‘It
was
cold, Clive,’ Mum said.

‘It’s a boy’s, Tanya. I’m only asking her which boy.’

‘A friend’s. He’s a friend, that’s all!’ It wasn’t a lie. Ryan said we were friends.

‘So who is he?’

‘Clive, she needs to have friends . . .’

‘She needs to have friends we know about!’

‘You knew all of them last time,’ I couldn’t stop myself from shrieking. ‘What difference did it make? Do you think I’m stupid? Do you think I want to go through this again?’

‘I think you’re easily led,’ he snapped back.

Oh, that again. The easily led thing. I wasn’t. I never did anything I didn’t want to. Only sometimes I didn’t know whether I
did
want to do it unless I tried it. But that was my choice. I never told Dad that. We didn’t talk that way to each other. I didn’t talk that way to anyone now Lindz was gone.

Dad glared at me and I glared back until I threw my toast down on the plate and stormed upstairs. I sat on the bed and gathered Ryan’s jacket into my hands while I shook with suppressed rage. The fabric smelled of cocoa butter from the skin lotion I’d put on last night, but I could still smell him through that.

Slowly I calmed down. Dad was not going to wreck last night. He couldn’t take that away. Ryan wanted us to be friends. That was enough for me. Just being friends with someone who treated me as if I was normal again. Even if I did now have a Titanic sized crush on him. No need to be embarrassed about it so long as I kept it to myself. Perfectly normal. My own little secret.

I checked the clock. Time to get ready. I had a shower and went through my usual routine, except I paused once I was dressed to go through my make-up case. This was tricky – I didn’t want to look like I was trying too hard. In the end, I flicked my eyelashes up with the curlers, gave them a faint stroke of mascara and put some coloured lip balm on. That’d have to do. Any more would be overkill for a casual Sunday morning.

Mum was preparing the roast for Sunday lunch, with Raggs following her round the kitchen hopefully. Dad tippy-tapped away on the computer keyboard in the study, probably more work for his stupid campaign group. Charlie was upstairs with the PlayStation, so nobody saw me slip out of the front door with Ryan’s coat under my arm.

When I got to the boat I almost stopped and turned back – being here didn’t seem like such a good idea now. Smoke was puffing out of the flue on the roof so they must be up. But how did I knock on the door of a boat? Would it be rude to step on to the deck? Should I just wait on the canal bank?

The lace curtain twitched at one of the windows and my stomach churned. What if his mum came out? What would I say? But when the door opened, Ryan’s head popped out. ‘Hey, saw you through the window.’

I hadn’t expected the shiver that ran through me at the sight of him. ‘I brought your coat back.’

He came out. I shook my head and had to laugh even though my mouth went dry at the same time – he was shirtless again. He was wearing combat trousers low on his hips with a hint of the waistband of his jersey boxers jutting above. I had to force myself not to stare.

He looked down at himself and grinned. ‘Yeah, I know, I know. But it’s baking in there. Mum’s got the log burner on full blast. No dog?’

My eyes fixed on his stomach without my permission. I swallowed to try to find my voice. ‘He’s at home with Mum. She’s cooking and he’s doing cupboard love.’

He took the coat from me. ‘Thanks for bringing it back. Got time to come in for a drink? No coffee though. We only have herbal tea.’

It was on the tip of my tongue to make an excuse, until I realised that wasn’t an option. No matter how much I hated meeting strangers, I couldn’t duck out of meeting his mum, not after what he’d told me last night or he’d think I was avoiding her for entirely the wrong reason. ‘Have you got raspberry?’

‘Probably. We’ve got everything.’ He offered me his hand to help me on to the deck. His palm was rough against mine; I’d noticed that last night and realised now it must be from working at the boatyard.

His mum looked up in surprise as Ryan opened the door.

‘Mum, this is Jenna. She’s a friend from the village.’

I followed him down the steps into the boat. His mum jumped up, pushing away a table with piles of stones and crystals laid out in rows. Beads of sweat glinted on her forehead and upper lip.

‘Come in, come in, sit down. Ryan, move that gear off the chair.’ Her accent took me aback – it was one of those terribly posh, academic voices that women on TV arts shows have.

Ryan picked up an armful of small boxes and carried them off somewhere into the back of the boat. I perched on the edge of the wooden rocker he’d cleared. His mum didn’t look much like him. She was tiny and covered in jewellery – silver and beads everywhere. There were even a few in her cloud of dyed curly hair, which was an impossible red colour. She didn’t look like any mum I’d ever seen. None of my friends’ mothers wore multicoloured vests with a peace symbol in the middle. Or some sort of baggy trousers in an ethnic print. But the look suited her. Her face was free from make-up in that scrubbed, Sunday morning way and from the lack of lines on her skin, I guessed she was younger than my mum.

‘Take your coat off, poppet. It’s sweltering in here. I’m drying some lacquered work.’ She waved at some jewellery spread out on a rack beside the metal stove in the corner.

I slipped my jacket off and looked round. The boat was lined with pale wood planks. A small kitchen lay beyond the sitting area. I could see a washing machine and a fridge, which surprised me. The seats had bright patterned cushions and there were black curtains with gold stars hanging at the windows. A red, gold and green rag rug sat in the middle of the floor. It was so colourful compared to our house.

Ryan came back before his mum had a chance to say more. ‘I’m putting the kettle on. Want some tea, Mum? And have we got any raspberry for Jenna?’

‘Yes, in the blue toadstool tin. Nettle for me, please.’

He screwed his face up. Understandably, I thought.

‘Raspberry is good in pregnancy,’ his mum said to me. ‘I drank it by the gallon when I was having Ryan. It opens up the cervix and makes the birth easier.’

I didn’t know what to say. When I sneaked a look at Ryan, he was leaning his head on the kitchen cupboard, screwing his face up in a pained way. It made him look younger somehow, and crazy cute.

‘What’s nettle good for?’ I managed in the end.

‘Nettle is very cleansing and it’s an excellent diuretic.’ She paused, seeing I didn’t understand. ‘Makes you pee.’

A groan came from the kitchen.

Her hands fluttered as she talked and I wondered if this was normal for her or if she was ill at the moment. She reached out suddenly and touched my face. ‘I can give you some cream for that.’

‘
Mum!
’ Ryan was beside us before I knew he’d moved.

She waved her hand dismissively. ‘Go and make tea and let us talk.’

‘Mum, leave it!’

‘The kettle’s boiling,’ she said calmly and gave his leg a push.

‘I’m sorry,’ he mouthed, hovering beside us.

I smiled an ‘it’s OK’ smile at him. I wasn’t sure it was OK, but I didn’t want him getting upset. Then a funny thought struck me. What if he brought Sadie home? Would his mum offer her de-orange-ing cream? I swallowed a giggle.

‘This is better than you’ll get from any doctor,’ his mum said proudly. ‘I’ll fetch you some to take home. I make it myself.’

Ryan grabbed her arm as she passed the kitchen. ‘Mum, leave it, please,’ he growled.

She patted his hand. ‘What a lovely girl,’ she said, as she wandered off into the boat.

He brought the tea in and handed me a cheerful enamel mug with big painted flowers. ‘Watch it. The tin gets hot and burns your mouth. Let it cool.’ He cast a look behind. ‘I’m so, so sorry about her.’

‘Don’t be. She’s nice.’ Which was true. Yes, she was weird compared to my mum and all the other mums I knew, but she’d looked straight at me and hadn’t flinched, and I didn’t think she’d been pre-warned either. Yet not a flicker. No pity in her eyes when she looked at my scars, but something else instead. Something I thought was called empathy. Like she understood. Like she noticed things others didn’t.

She breezed back in with a glass jar. ‘Let’s try it.’

‘Oh, I’m supposed to be careful what I put on . . .’

‘Nothing here that’ll do any harm, poppet.’ She unscrewed the jar and Ryan jittered from foot to foot behind her. She scooped a blob of cream on to her middle finger. ‘Only good stuff in here and lots of it. The colour comes from carrots, but there’s land herbs and sea herbs in here too. This is a burn, isn’t it?’

‘Mum!’

‘Oh, Ryan, sit down!’ She smoothed the cream gently on to my cheek starting at the top of the scar tissue. ‘He’s such a fusser. This is grafted, yes? I expect the colour will fade with time. How does that feel?’

‘Good,’ I said, surprised because it really did.

She continued applying the cream down my face and neck. ‘Scars are beautiful too, you know. They’re a badge we wear for the world to show we’ve lived.’ She tipped a finger under my chin and lifted it. ‘And that we’ve survived. So they have a beauty all of their own.’ She screwed the top back on the jar and gave it to me. ‘Keep it.’

There were two possible options: she was crackers, or she had a point. It was certainly a different way of looking at things. Though there definitely wasn’t ever going to be a time when catwalk models would slap a warm iron on their skin to fake having ‘lived’.

Ryan had his eyes closed, like he wanted to sink through the floor and into the canal beneath. But I understood, because parents can be so
excruciating
. Mine certainly could.