This Is Not Forgiveness (13 page)

We got him out of there and he lived. He lost one leg completely – the other off at the knee. Seemed all right last time I saw him – looking to the future. He’s coping better than me – ironic really. They gave me a medal for what I done – so I’m a genuine hero – but like someone said – medals cast deep shadows. I kept both my legs but I lost something else out there. When the thing went off right in front of us – the noise deafened me – I couldn’t hear. Couldn’t see. A kind of darkness came over me and everything seemed very far away – like I was in a tunnel so full of dust it’s like the light had gone out and I couldn’t breathe. When I dream about it that’s what wakes me. I snapped out of it then cos I had to help Mac but now it’s like the darkness is back – creeping over me a bit more every day. I don’t see a future – there
is
no future. I have no purpose – no reason to be. All I’m doing is marking time. I got no right to feel like this. I’m still here ain’t I – with two arms, two legs, tackle intact. I think about Johnny Boy – not coming back – and Mac and I feel shame for being the way I am. I don’t feel entitled to help of any kind. If I believed in that sort of thing – I’d say I was damned. As it is I might be all right on the outside but inside I’m broke beyond anybody’s fixing. There’s no help for me.

I don’t mean to tell her the last bit. It just comes out – she don’t act shocked or surprised. She don’t say anything. She gets out of bed and goes – not even a ‘See you’. Then after she’s gone I lie there and it’s like she’s opened a valve in my head that I can’t shut off. It’s like the nightmares I have but worse cos I’m awake. My ears are ringing like after the explosion and I ache – not just my leg but my back and my arms and my head. I wasn’t even wounded there but my head hurts worst of all.

Chapter 17

‘Protest is when I say this does not please me. Resistance is when I ensure what does not

please me occurs no more.’

Ulrike Meinhof (attrib.)

We tried protest. Now it is time for resistance. Time for action. The plan is coming together in my mind. At first, it seemed like a mad dream but now it seems eminently possible. I can see a way to achieve it. Everything is falling into place, like it has been preordained. They’ve gone to France. No idea when they are coming back. So I have the house to myself and can do exactly as I like. I can sleep all day, if I want to. Stay out all night. Go away without telling anybody where I’m going, without having to
explain
. I hate explaining. I can eat what I like, or not eat anything if I don’t want. Drink as much as I like and what I like. I’ve already started on the Moet.

I’ve got plenty of cash. She’s left me £300 guilt money and Trevor’s given me my very own credit card. He gave it to me on the quiet, imagining a public announcement wouldn’t go down too well. He imagined right there. She’d go apeshit. But she’s not going to know.

‘Our little secret.’

I will put this card to very good use.

‘I know I’m not your real dad,’ he says, but I think he wishes he was. He likes to spoil me. When we are out together, he looks proud, like he wants people to think that I belong to him. And he buys me things; he likes to spend ‘just us’ time without her. I make sure the things he buys are expensive, very expensive, and that the things we do together are things that
I
want to do.

He’s taught me to drive and he’s bought me a car, so I have independence. He’s also into shooting and he’s taught me. Useful things to know.

Back to the matter in hand:

PRAXIS

An interesting word.

Praxis: the process by which a theory, lesson, or skill is enacted or practised, embodied and/or realised.

I interpret this to mean that I need an expert, someone who has the skill to put theory into practice. I’ve got just the guy.

Chapter 18

At first I’m happy, really, really happy. Then I’m not. I go home in a daze, get through that day, just waiting for the night to come. But she doesn’t show that night, or the next, or the next. I go from euphoria to deep depression. I check my phone every five minutes. No messages and I don’t know her number. I look her up on Facebook. She’s not even on it. Everyone I
know
is on it. Everyone in the whole world is on it. I check all the other sites. Nothing. She doesn’t exist in cyberspace.

I mope about, Martha calls it sulking, but Mum doesn’t even notice. She’s stopped worrying about Rob for the time being. He went with her to see Grandpa and even thanked her for her latest food parcel. She came back beaming.

‘He seems different. More settled. He’s got Grandpa’s car back on the road and he’s been working the allotment. He seems much more focused, as though he’s gained a sense of purpose.’

‘Like what?’ Martha asks.

‘He didn’t say.’

‘Getting himself a job, by any chance? He’s perfectly capable.’

‘I dare say he will when the right opportunity comes along. He certainly seems to be steadying down. You know, I wouldn’t be surprised if he’d got a girlfriend.’

‘Girlfriend! Rob!’ Martha snorts her astonishment. ‘What makes you think that!’

‘Oh, I don’t know. Something. Call it mother’s intuition.’

‘Well, I’d get it checked if I was you. What girl would be mad enough to go out with him?’

‘You’d be surprised. He’s smartened himself up quite a bit. He can look very handsome and he can be charming when he makes the effort.’ Rob is Mum’s favourite, no doubt. ‘It’s about time he settled down. Started thinking about a family, even. Lots of boys his age do. Are you going out tonight?’ she asks. I shake my head. ‘It’s just me and Jack are going out to the Miller’s for a drink and a bite to eat. We won’t be late. You can come if you like.’

I shake my head again. I don’t go out at night, in case
she
turns up for me, or in case I see her out with somebody else. I fantasise about seeing her with the Art guy. I think about ripping his face off.

This goes on for a week. Two. I think she may turn up at the boats. I’m there early and leave late. Alan thinks it’s devotion to duty. It’s hardly that. I scrutinise the crowds who come down to the river, hoping to see her, my heart thumps hard in my chest every time I spot a girl who looks anything like her. When I get a fare, I sweep up and back, poling like a maniac, just in case she’s waiting for me back at the station.

‘Steady!’ Alan says as I bring the punt in too fast, jolting the elderly couple who stagger out, their clothes blotched with splashes. The man complains. Alan offers their money back. ‘What’s the matter with you? he says. ‘It’ll come out of your wages . . .’

He goes on, but I’m not listening. I’m scanning the crowds again. It’s August now. More tourists. More people down by the river. I make excuses about a wrist injury. He puts me on the station, taking the money. That suits me fine. From here, I can watch all the time.

Just when I’ve given up. There she is. I’m lying on my bed in my boxers, listening to music. I wouldn’t want anyone else hearing the mix – love songs on shuffle. I even raided Martha’s iTunes when she was out. I’ve got my earpieces in and I’m so deep in the songs that I don’t hear anything from the outside, even Martha hammering on the door. She comes in and touches my shoulder, making me jump a mile. She yanks my earpieces out.

‘Your girlfriend’s outside. Can’t you hear? She’ll have the whole street out!’

She’s standing arms folded, glaring down at me. She looks like Mum. Sounds like Mum, too.

I can hear the horn and I’m off the bed and at the window. There she is. She looks up at me and grins, beckoning me down to her. I grab some clothes, hopping round the room trying to ram my legs into jeans, pulling on a shirt, jamming my feet into trainers and I’m off down the stairs, through the door and down the path.

When I look up at my window, Martha is there, frowning down at us, arms tightly folded. I give her a wave. I’m happy. I want to share it. She’s not even looking at me.

Caro returns the stare, lowering her sunglasses, sketching a wave with a flip of her fingers. Martha’s frown deepens. I look from one to the other. It’s a hot night but I can feel the chill like a frost field between them.

‘What
is
it with you and Martha?’

‘What do you mean?’ She looks away then to start the car. ‘What makes you think there is anything between me and Martha?’

‘Just a feeling. Didn’t you used to be friends, or something?’

‘Or something.’ She repeats my words, says nothing more.

‘Yeah. You were.’ I go on, prompting her. ‘You must have been to be invited to her birthday. She doesn’t invite just anybody.’

‘Maybe I was. I don’t remember a thing about it,’ she says it like it’s too boring to even think about and stares straight ahead, cutting the conversation dead. It’s as if she has turned herself off.

I try a different tack, hoping to get her talking about something else.

‘How’s your day been?’
I ask, following up with a similar set of questions.

‘What have you been up to?’

‘Been anywhere?’

‘Done anything interesting?’

Things like that. The last one sounds pretty lame, the sort of thing your gran would ask you. Her answers are non-committal or non-existent. I shut up then and we lapse into silence. In my head I’m hearing a parallel set of questions.

Where have you been since I last saw you?

Why didn’t you call me?

Why didn’t you message me?

Are you seeing someone?

What did you do with them? The same as you did with me?

These questions are there in my mind all the time, like mosquitoes, whining and insistent, but I don’t ask them. There’s someone else. I know. I can feel it. But I don’t ask her. I don’t say anything because she wouldn’t tell me. I’m learning about her. Not much, but some. She operates on a strictly need to know basis. She lies and doesn’t care if you know it. She doesn’t gossip and chatter. She doesn’t say much at all as a general rule, so what she does say counts. So does what she doesn’t say, which might even be more important.

I sit back in the seat. Traffic is crawling through town. The temporary lights on the bridge slowing everything down. I wonder where we are going. She probably wouldn’t tell me, even if she knew. She’s not in the mood for talking, so while we are waiting, I let my mind drift back to the time she seems to be denying. The time when she and Martha were friends and she came to Martha’s birthday.

It must have been Martha’s fifteenth. There was a big rumpus because Mum said she was too young to go out with her mates, so she had to make do with a film and a pizza. I wasn’t invited, not that I was bothered. Rob was home on leave and we watched the Villa in his room. They were coming back for a sleepover – cue for us to keep well out of the way.

In the morning, I came down to find Mum talking to one of the collecting mothers.

‘Just went. Middle of the night. I was worried. You hear such awful stories.’

‘Is she all right?’

‘Apparently. I called her mother. She had to go home.’ She dropped her voice to a murmur. All I caught was
a bit of an accident
and e
mbarrassed
. They got in a huddle, talking low:
girls
,
that time
,
awkward
.

The other mother nodded as if she knew. I didn’t, so I sidled closer. Mum saw me and that stopped the conversation altogether. I got told to stop hovering and get my own breakfast. Mum spoke sharply, frowning at me as if I’d done something wrong. I was still wondering what kind of accident, when the penny dropped. This was some secret female thing that boys were not supposed to know about; that’s why they were whispering and glowering at me.

I coloured up at the thought of it and got busy with the cereal packets. I didn’t know much about periods but what I did know made me glad that I was a boy.

So she came to a sleepover and didn’t stay. Is that the source of the enmity between her and Martha? Could be. Martha can be very touchy. There has to be more to it. There always is. If there was a row, they were quiet about it. The girls round the table were as listless as revenants in the sunshine, not up to noticing anything much, but Caro’s departure was news to them. One of them asked ‘Isn’t she here?’ as if she might have crept under a piece of furniture or spent the night in the cupboard under the stairs. Girls are always falling out over something, the patterns of their friendships change, alliances shift. Friends are lost, new ones made, but usually not for ever, the kaleidoscope twists and before you know it, they’re back together. After that night she disappeared from Martha’s life altogether.

Something happened that night. Something Caro doesn’t want to talk about.

I expect her to drive out into the country. We are heading in that direction. Once she crosses the bridge, she takes one of the ribbon roads out of town. We’ve gone about a mile or so, when she suddenly turns the wheel and takes a left into an estate.