Wild (24 page)

“What do you have in mind?”

She paused, trying to think of a date activity that didn’t involve getting high and fighting. “How about the cinema?”

“Wanna go for something to eat first?”

She did. The double bacon burger already seemed a long time ago, and she wanted to keep the Other fed and quiet if she was going to spend the evening in the cinema. A dark, warm place, surrounded by other people who would probably all be gossiping and giggling over the film, wasn’t going to do her nerves any good. Maybe she should take a thermos full of ginseng tea with her? Or was that just a bit too paranoid?

Anyway, not important. She focused on the conversation again, telling Seth about her lunch with Tai.

“Do you want to invite her along?” Seth sounded dubious. “She’ll be up for it, but –”

“I’d rather it was just us,” she finished for him, glad that he wanted it to be just them too. The idea that he was jealous of their time together sent a pleasurable shiver through her, teasing awake her senses as she imagined being snuggled up with him in the cinema. A simple pleasure, yeah, but she was looking forward to it.

They arranged to meet at Valparaiso, a Chilean restaurant on Hardman Street. “To get you fired up for your trip to South America,” Seth teased. She was laughing as she said goodbye and hung up, trying to picture herself riding a llama round Santiago.

But then a sort of wistful longing came over her, and she abandoned her application forms to go online and investigate a trip to Chile. Of course it was wildly outside her budget of “utterly broke,” even more so than going back to university was. But a girl had to dream, right? Snow capped mountains and red deserts, tortillas and empanadas. Mango and papaya cocktails. Yeah, a girl had to dream.

Thinking about it roused vague memories of a childhood holiday to Cyprus when Lizzie was about eleven, her mother fussing over her and Piers with sunblock and floppy straw sunhats. The beach had been baked by the sun, too hot to walk on, and Lizzie and Piers had dared each other to race across the sand down to the turquoise ocean, while Mum cried to them to put their flip-flops on and stay where she could see them.

It was the last holiday they’d taken together, just the three of them. The next year Mum had married her second husband, Hugh, a man Lizzie tolerated more than anything else – resenting her mother’s replacement of Lizzie and Piers’ dad, even though she had no recollections of him whatsoever. After that, the holidays hadn’t been fun beach holidays, but serious arty ones to museums and galleries. Hugh managed a big art gallery in London, and had no interest in beaches or sandcastles.

Lizzie sighed, wondering if that was the start of the breakdown of her relationship with her mum. Of course, it would be several more years before she moved to Liverpool, determined to get as far away from Mum and London as she could. But maybe the seeds had been sown at Mum’s second marriage.

Lizzie glanced at her phone, contemplating calling her mother. It felt like a massive step, bigger and scarier than becoming a werewolf or killing her boyfriend. How ridiculous was that? How could she be afraid of anything anymore?

She grabbed the phone, tapping her nails on the screen. Her last conversation with Piers had been awkward at best, and she was on far better terms with him than her mother. What if Mum didn’t want to talk to her? She couldn’t take that, not now, not when she was trying so hard to be good, to be better. She scratched her arms, weighing it up. Rejection versus redemption.

She called home.

“Hello?” Melissa Creighton sounded like she always did, slightly out of breath, like she’d leapt out of the shower to pick up the phone or something.

“Hi, Mum,” Lizzie said carefully, gripping the phone so tightly she thought she might crack it. “It’s Lizzie.”

There was a quick, heavy silence on the line. Lizzie could almost see her mother’s eyes widen. “Lizzie,” she said politely, as if Lizzie was a double-glazing salesman to be fobbed off as quickly as possible. “This is a surprise.”

“I just thought … it’s been a while. I wanted to …” Lizzie struggled. She sort of wanted to apologise, but there was too much to apologise for and she wasn’t sure where to start. You couldn’t just pretend the past few months – hell, the past year – hadn’t happened and this was just a friendly mother-daughter catch-up, not when the last time they’d spoken there had been tears and accusations and shouting and venom.

“How are you?” Mum asked, cutting through Lizzie’s uncertainty. “What are you doing?”

Ah. Apparently her mother could pretend it hadn’t happened. Lizzie decided she had no choice but to go along with it. “I’m good, actually. Really good.” She plunged on before Mum could say anything else, eager to get all the good stuff out and skip past the bad stuff. “I’ve finished with Harris.” Literally. She winced. “And I’m seeing someone new, a really nice guy. You’d like him. And I’m thinking of going back to uni, if I can find the money. And I’m off the drugs, Mum, completely off.”

“Oh Lizzie!” Mum cried, voice catching. “Do you promise? You’ve stopped?”

“I promise.” Lizzie felt tears sting her eyes, not sure if they were triggered by joy at how happy her mother sounded, or a touch of shame at herself. “I’m sorting myself out, Mum. I’m going to get a job and move house –”

“Are you coming back to London?” Mum asked. “You should, you know. There’s too much temptation up there for you, all those friends of yours… If you’re serious about quitting you need to cut them out of your life completely.”

Lizzie winced. Already done. “I’m staying in Liverpool,” she said firmly. “I told you, I want to go back to uni, and there’s this lad…”

“Darling, you don’t want to go rushing into another relationship so soon after finishing the old one,” Mum said. “You need to stand on your own for a while if you’re making all these big changes.” She fell silent and Lizzie pictured her tapping her French-manicured nails on her glossed lips. “Perhaps Hugh and I should come up and visit,” she said finally. “We’ll help you find a new house. If you’re set on staying up there, you should be living somewhere nice.”

“I’d love to see you,” Lizzie said, laying a delicate emphasis on the last word. “I really want you to see that I’ve changed, that all the bad stuff is in the past.”

“I’ll have to see when Hugh’s free,” Mum said, apparently missing the hint that Hugh wasn’t required. “Oh darling, it will be so lovely to see you!” She was definitely crying now; Lizzie could hear the tell-tale sniffles. “I so want the family back together when Bernie gives birth. Did Piers tell you she was pregnant?”

“Yeah, when we last spoke.”

“It’s wonderful, it really is. I’ll have to send you the scan pictures.”

“Yeah. Great.” Lizzie couldn’t imagine anything she wanted to see less, but she let her mum ramble on, enjoying how happy she sounded. She couldn’t remember the last time they’d spoken properly, without arguing or bitching, even before Harris and the drugs.

Finally, and somewhat tearfully, they said their goodbyes, Mum explaining that she had a massage appointment in half an hour. She promised that she’d pay a visit soon though, and Lizzie hung up feeling like she’d achieved something tangible.

Satisfied and re-energised, she returned to her application forms with new vigour. When Mum did come up to visit, Lizzie wanted some solid evidence of her new life to present.

****

The rain had finally stopped by the time Lizzie got to Valparaiso, although the sky was still thick with rain clouds, the air chilled and damp. She shivered in her thin coat, wishing she’d worn the leather jacket, but that just didn’t feel right for a romantic night out.
If
it was going to be romantic. She thought it was. She hoped it was.

The scent of sizzling chorizo and chili wafted from the slightly open doorway of the restaurant, tantalizing her taste buds and intriguing the Other. The wolf savoured the exotic new smells and was shifting around inside Lizzie, despite all the bloody ginseng tea she’d drunk before coming out. Lizzie rocked from foot to foot, scanning Hardman Street for Seth’s car, hoping he’d get here before the heavens opened and washed off her carefully applied makeup.

After a few minutes, she saw him heading her away from across the road. It looked like he was on his phone; he was gesturing wildly with one hand. As he got closer, she heard him talking, making a visible effort to keep his voice down. The result was a low growl that intrigued Lizzie’s wolf even more than the smell of cooking meat.

“It’s none of your business,” he was saying as he reached Lizzie. “And I’m done talking about it, alright?” Without waiting for a reply from the other person, he hung up, shoving his phone into his pocket. With a sigh, he pulled Lizzie into his arms and kissed her forehead, nuzzling her hair. “Hey.”

“Hey,” she said into the curve of his neck. She shifted her position slightly so she could kiss him. “You okay?”

“Yeah, just… frustrated.” He shook his head, then squeezed her closer to him. “It’s Nuala’s eightieth birthday next weekend, and we’ve all been working like mad organising this surprise party. Probably pointless, because I’m sure she’s figured it out, but anyway.” He wrapped his arm round Lizzie’s shoulders, guiding her into Valparaiso. “Ingrid’s invited, obviously, because she’s still part of the Kurtadam, even if she can’t actually shift.” He shrugged.

“Was that her on the phone then?” Lizzie guessed. The restaurant was almost too warm, painted terracotta and decorated with South American art that you couldn’t look at too long without getting dizzy. Latin American music piped through the room, just the right volume to allow easy conversation.

“Yeah.” Seth’s scowl told the story. “She’s getting all bitchy about the guest list and for some reason she thought I might give a toss.”

Lizzie’s spine prickled as the waiter showed them to their table, a quiet corner booth near the kitchen. “What’s her problem with the guest list?”

Seth shot her a sheepish look. “She thinks I’m going to invite you.”

The prickle turned into a full-on case of daggers in her spine. She wasn’t sure if the sudden heat in her body was down to the temperature in the restaurant or the cocktail of excitement and worry swirling through her. “Are you?” she asked, studying her hands. She’d painted her nails red, since for the first time in ages they weren’t ragged or bitten. Shapeshifting her fingers to claws seemed to have made her nails stronger.

“Do you want to come?” he asked. He seemed as nervous as her, making a big show of studying the wine list.

She smiled to herself, stealing a quick look at him. His dark hair was messy, tousled by the wind, giving him the same rough and wild look he’d had that day in the park. “I don’t know,” she said casually. “Will Ingrid claw my eyes out if I show up with you?”

“I think you could take her,” Seth replied. “I mean, it’s not the kind of girl-on-girl action I usually enjoy, but –”

She plucked a sugar cube from the bowl between them and flicked it at him. “You should be so lucky.”

“So you’re coming then?”

“Are you asking?”

“I’m asking,” he confirmed.

“I’m coming.” She picked up the menu, a flare of happiness shooting through her. “So how’s the chili here?”

“Good with sweet white wine,” he said, studying the wine menu properly now. “Oh, sorry. I keep forgetting you don’t drink.” He peered at her over the top of the menu. “Does it help keep the wolf under control?”

Surprised, she shrugged. “I don’t know. I only quit a couple of days ago.”

“I was just thinking about what you said the other day to me and Nuala, about drug-use making it easier to shapeshift.” He drummed his fingers on the table, a look of intense concentration on his face. “I suppose alcohol might have the same effect, if you drink enough of it.”

She raised an eyebrow at him. “You’re telling me none of the Kurtadam have ever gone on a mad bender, stole a few traffic cones, and woken up the next morning surrounded by kebabs and street signs? Come on, Seth.”

He laughed. “I once woke up naked in the playground at Dingle. Does that count?”

“Only if you had at least one traffic cone with you.” She pondered the alcohol issue. Everyone had been drinking at Nuala’s the other night, but nobody had seemed particularly pissed. Maybe a little talkative, but nothing serious. Well, except Des and his World War Wolf crap. Were the Kurtadam just taught restraint? Was it part of their childhood education, along with “don’t take sweets from strangers” and “look both ways before you cross the street”?

And the Vargulfs, poor little mutts that they were, they got nothing. Just confusion and anguish, and if they were lucky a dead boyfriend and a treacherous bass guitar player stalker. Tai was right; the Kurtadam really did need to set up a helpline. Or at least distribute some pamphlets. They could hand them out on the street next to the guys who shrieked Bible quotes at passing goths.

“So do the Kurtadam promote clean living?” she asked Seth. “I mean, if it’s all about being a human first and a werewolf second, do you have to be all restrained and abstinent?”

He shook his head. “We’re brought up with the wolf, Lizzie. It’s part of us from day one, and we learn how to live with it. Basic stuff, like eating properly and exercising regularly will keep it calm and stop you changing by accident. It’s like … having a dog, except the dog lives inside you. You have to take care of it.”